by Dan Wells
“How about we stop talking and read the damn email,” said Renata. “Does that seem like a good way to maybe answer some of these questions?”
Marisa swallowed. “Virus scan came up clean. It’s safe to open.”
Sahara nodded. “Do it.”
Marisa took a breath, looked at her friends, and opened the email.
I can’t save her. You can.
It had four attachments.
“Santa vaca,” Marisa breathed.
Omar put a hand on her arm. “What is it?”
“All three videos,” said Marisa, “and another video that seems to be patched together from their background data.”
“Scheiss,” said Anja.
“I take it all back,” said Sahara. “You are one hundred percent being haunted.”
“How did he know?” Marisa demanded. She blinked to open the first video and saw that it had already been broken down and analyzed, just like Renata proposed. “Did he hear us? Was he listening? And how did he know I needed them—is he still listening now?”
“My camera nulis have been with us all day,” said Sahara. “Even with the mics turned off, he surely has programs that could figure out what we were saying.”
“Then how did he get the videos?” asked Renata. “Even if he knew about them, he couldn’t just find them and decrypt them in an hour.”
“Yes he could,” said Marisa. It all made so much sense now. “Grendel can find anything, and know anything, but he can’t save Zenaida. He said it himself. So who cares this much about Zenaida de Maldonado, and had access to the videos, and is a frakking wizard with computers . . . but can’t do anything in the real world?”
“Holy crap,” said Omar. “It’s Jacinto.”
Another email appeared in Marisa’s vision, from another fake address, with a simple subject line:
You’re wasting time.
“Right,” said Marisa. “We’ll deal with this later. However Grendel got this data, and whoever he really is, we have it now, and we can use it to find Zenaida and save my dad.” She looked at Omar’s face, and saw empathy there for the first time ever.
“Okay then,” said Sahara. She nodded, thinking, the gears of a strategist already turning in her head. She pointed to one of the wall screens; normally they cycled ads for daily restaurant specials, but now they were newly rebooted from the power failure, and played a screensaver slideshow of Mexican landscape photos. “Play the video.”
Marisa smiled, tight-lipped, and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Thank you. Thanks to all of you.”
“Cherry Dogs forever,” said Anja. “Plus . . .” She waved at Omar and Renata. “. . . assorted others.”
Marisa blinked, connecting to the San Juanito computer network, and synced the nearest wall screen to her video player. She loaded the fourth video from Grendel, the one marked “reconstructed data,” and played it.
The screen was black, followed almost immediately by a short paragraph of small white words: The files from Zenaida de Maldonado were full 3D video, filmed on an Arora Huntress 559 guardian nuli. She scrubbed out all visual data other than herself when she created the malware. Approximately 62 percent of that data was recoverable.
After a moment those words faded, and the first video appeared: Zenaida, terrified, looking over her shoulder and running away. She was on a street somewhere—black patches where the data was corrupted left holes in the picture, but it was on some innate level recognizably Los Angeles. Rolling hills, with crumbling brick houses. Marisa had seen streets like it in old San Diego, but she wasn’t completely certain that this was there. The video ended, cutting to black, and moments later the second video appeared: Zenaida, her jaw firm, her eyes alive with hatred, advancing toward the camera and firing.
“Demonios,” muttered Renata. “I paid a lot for that nuli.”
The street in this video was different, though similar, and Zenaida was wearing the same clothes so it was probably the same day. The end of the same long chase, Marisa supposed.
The screen cut to black, and then the third video appeared. Zenaida was dressed in a black shirt and pants and an olive-green military vest, her hair tied back, all business. She sat in a small room, the walls some kind of corrugated orange metal; behind her was a small cot, a backpack, and a low table covered with equipment.
“Engineering tools?” asked Anja.
“Medical,” said Renata. “That’s a field kit for a combat medic.”
“Is she in a war zone?” asked Omar.
“I am not yours,” said Zenaida. “I used to be, though that was more from my own weakness than from any success or skill on your part.” The background, like in the other reconstructed videos, was patchy and full of black holes, but even then it was easy to tell that the room she was in was small and cramped. The nuli was up high, almost at head level, and Marisa thought it must be sitting on top of something—or more likely, she realized, hanging from a hook on the wall. “You can’t have me,” Zenaida continued, “and you can never have me, and you’re going to stop looking. Or next time I’ll do a lot worse than plant some malware in your brain.” The video froze and rewound slightly, and some more words appeared in the corner:
Audio enhanced to amplify background noise.
The video started playing again, and weird bass clicks and rumbles covered Zenaida’s voice while she spoke: “—a lot worse than plant some—” On the word some, as clear as day, a horn sounded, deep and distant. It boomed again on the word brain, and then a third time while Zenaida simply stared at the camera.
And that was it.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” said Renata. “That didn’t tell us anything.”
“It told us she’s in a shipping container,” said Sahara. “Did you see what those walls were made of, and how long and narrow the room was?”
“She must be . . . living there,” said Omar.
“I’ve heard about this,” said Marisa. “It’s a shantytown by the coast—La Huerta. An old dock that was abandoned when the company that owned it went under. Most of the shipping containers were still there, so people just . . . moved in.” She looked at Renata. “So you were right—she’s near the docks.”
“But where?” asked Renata. “We don’t have time to turn over an entire shantytown.”
“I can borrow my brother’s nuli,” said Marisa. “We can give it Zenaida’s DNA template and let it go to work.”
“I still have the data,” said Renata. “All we have to do is plug it in.”
Marisa sent Sahara a private message: She’s going to betray us. You know she is.
I told you, Sahara sent back, I have a plan. Two wrongs are going to make a right.
Two wrongs? sent Marisa.
Sahara smiled and sent another message: Who do we know who hates Don Francisco more than anything in the world?
Before Marisa could think of an answer, a small bell chimed in the corner—someone had opened the front door. The group fell silent, and Omar and Renata pulled their guns out. Marisa crept to the kitchen door, listening to the footsteps in the other room. One person? She couldn’t tell. Whoever it was wasn’t trying to hide; she could hear a voice muttering softly, and then suddenly it swore loudly in Chinese.
“Mari!” said the voice. “Where are you?”
“Bao!” She opened the door and saw him standing white-faced, staring at the blood.
“What happened?” he asked
“The Mantissassin came back,” she said. “She has my dad’s liver, and we’re going to go get it back, but first we have to find Zenaida in an abandoned dockyard.”
Bao looked at her, and at the other friends filing out of the kitchen, and did a double take. “What the hell? It’s Traitor Hot Girl!”
“Her name’s Renata,” said Marisa, pulling away from him. “She’s helping us again. I forgot to mention that part.”
“I can see why,” said Bao. “It was weird enough already before the Great Betrayer showed up.”
“Hey
, Bao,” said Renata, and Marisa glanced over to see that the girl had somehow pulled her neckline lower. “How you been?”
Bao looked at her, then back at Marisa. “None of this makes any sense.”
Memo’s djinni was still on the bloody table, where Bennett had dropped it; Marisa picked it up and put it in her pocket. “I know,” she said, and grinned. “Are you in?”
“For you?” Bao shrugged. “Always.”
TWENTY-TWO
Anja called an autocab, and Bao described the container village as they rode through the city.
“It’s a shantytown,” he said, “like the building I live in except it’s an entire city. The Rodolfo Guzman Huerta Dockyard was built to be the biggest in LA, and missed the rise of nuli labor by about a year—it was obsolete almost immediately. The company couldn’t even afford to pull out the goods that were already there, so they just abandoned it, and looters showed up. It became a criminal market, and by the time they sold off everything in the containers it was already pretty established, so they stayed. La Huerta is still a market, plus now it’s a neighborhood, and a maze, and everyone there is a criminal and it’s super dangerous.”
Sahara raised her eyebrow. “This is usually the part where you tell us it’s too dangerous, and we shouldn’t go.”
“You’re not dragging my sisters into it this time,” said Bao. “Knock yourselves out.”
“Good,” said Sahara. Her nulis clung to the roof above her, watching everything. “Here’s my plan—”
“Just don’t literally knock yourselves out,” said Bao. “They will straight up steal everything you own.”
“Thanks,” said Sahara. “Now—”
“Including your kidneys,” said Bao, interrupting again. “You’ll wake up naked and burglarized in a tub full of ice, possibly also missing an eye.”
“Naked and robbed,” said Renata. “Burglary is when you break into a building, not a human body, and the police are very specific about the difference.” She looked around at their surprised faces. “What?”
“Can I say my plan now?” asked Sahara.
“Can I give some more advice first?” asked Bao.
“Why not?” said Sahara, falling back into her seat and folding her arms.
“Get your djinnis locked down,” said Bao. “Like, crazy locked down. La Huerta is riddled with coral rigs and spyware and every nasty thing you can imagine. They’ll strip your ID and your credit numbers and everything else they can find.”
“Come on,” said Anja smugly, “who do you think you’re talking to? We’ve got firewalls on our firewalls here.”
“Is that really a thing?” asked Omar. “Can you double up a firewall—”
“Heiliges Schwein!” shouted Anja, and looked at Marisa with wide eyes. “Do we have to bring the four-year-old?”
“I can spoof him again,” said Marisa, and pulled out her headjack cable. “Turn around.”
Omar did so, reluctantly. “This is getting kind of emasculating.”
“Maybe try not being a useless idiot,” said Anja. “Just a thought.”
The autocab stopped at Marisa’s house, and she looked up from Omar’s djinni settings. “Crap, I forgot.” She held up the cable. “Sahara, can you finish this?”
“Fine,” Sahara groaned. “Be quick.”
Marisa nodded and jumped out of the cab. Olaya, the house computer, recognized her immediately, and unlocked the door as she ran toward it.
“Welcome home, Marisa,” said Olaya. “Your calendar has three items today—”
“Cancel them all,” said Marisa, running for the stairs. She stopped suddenly. “Where’re the rest of the kids?”
“Pati is at Isa’s house,” said Olaya. “Sandro and Gabriela are in their bedrooms.”
“Thanks,” said Marisa, and continued up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She ran past Gabi’s door and knocked on Sandro’s.
“Gabi?”
“Mari,” said Marisa. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” said Sandro. She opened the door to find him working at his desk, tinkering with his seeker nuli. “So what’s going on with the restaurant?” he asked without looking up. “Olaya told me it was closed?”
“Dad was attacked,” said Marisa. Sandro set down his tools and stood up immediately.
“Bad?”
“Yeah.” She licked her lips, trying to think of what to say. “He’s in the hospital. Mom’s with him. They told me not to tell you, but . . . it was pretty bad.”
“He’s alive?”
“For now,” said Marisa. “He . . .” She stopped. “Do you want short or long?”
“Long,” he said, but blinked, and after a moment he shook his head. “Olaya says Sahara and Anja are outside, plus two IDs it doesn’t recognize. You’re going somewhere.”
“I promise I’ll give you the long version later,” said Marisa. “Here’s the short one, and I know it doesn’t make sense, but if you’ve ever trusted me on anything, trust me on this: Omar Maldonado’s mom is alive, and an assassin is chasing her, but first that assassin stopped by the restaurant to steal Papi’s liver.”
“What?”
“I know it doesn’t make sense—”
“Why does an assassin need Dad’s liver?”
“That’s part of the long version,” said Marisa. “For now, just . . . She has the liver, in a stasis bag, and we need to find Omar’s mom so we can head off the assassin and get the liver back. So I need your seeker nuli.”
“You’d also need her DNA template,” said Sandro.
“Got it,” said Marisa, and pointed toward the street with her thumb. “One of the unidentified IDs in the cab.”
Sandro stared at her, and she braced herself for one of his lectures on reckless endangerment, but instead he simply sat down, screwed a panel back onto the nuli, then stood up again and handed it to her. “Here.” He blinked, and a message popped up in Marisa’s djinni. “That’s the access code,” said Sandro. “It should give you total control.”
“I’m going to be straight with you,” said Marisa, “the nuli might not make it through this.”
“As long as Dad does,” said Sandro, and shook the nuli a bit. “Take it.”
“Thanks. You’ll talk to the girls?”
“Just come back alive,” said Sandro. “I love you.”
Marisa felt her eyes grow hot. “I love you too.” A tear rolled down her face. “Lechuga.”
“Now you ruined it,” said Sandro, and pointed to the door with a smile. “Go.”
“Thanks,” said Marisa, and ran back down the stairs.
“Good-bye, Marisa,” said Olaya. “Make good choices.”
Marisa almost tripped in surprise. She looked up at the nearest speaker in the wall, the source of Olaya’s voice. “Did my parents tell you to say that?”
Olaya said nothing, and Marisa paused for only a moment before running outside, closing the door behind her, and jumping into the cab.
“Got the nuli.”
“And my djinni’s all set,” said Omar.
“I uploaded Renata’s laptop for Fang and Jaya,” said Sahara. “She’ll break into ZooMorrow and cover Zenaida’s tracks.”
“Now,” said Renata, “all we need are my guns.”
Sahara shot her a look from the side of her eye. “I’m disturbed by how plural that word was.”
“I’m not,” said Bao. “As long as she’s on our side, I want her to have every gun she can carry.”
“You’re my favorite,” said Renata, blowing him a kiss.
“How can we be sure she stays on our side?” asked Anja.
“Just make sure you stay on Bao’s side,” said Renata. “I’m his till I find someone cuter.”
“Then I guess we know what Bao’s job is,” said Marisa, and gave him a helpless smirk. “Stay cute.”
La Huerta, when they arrived, felt to Marisa as if it was almost as large as Mirador: giant, rusting cranes stretched over dark green canals; old derelict ships hidi
ng small, illicit new ones; and endless rows of shipping containers, each the size of an autohauler truck: twelve meters long, and two and a half meters both wide and tall. Some were rusting, some were toppled, and some were stacked seven or even ten levels high. The makeshift streets between them were filled with people of every variety, and none of them looked friendly.
“This looks terrifying,” said Marisa.
“Good,” said Bao. “That means you’re appraising it correctly.”
Even the cab was nervous: “It may be difficult to find another taxi quickly in this area,” it said. “Would you like me to stay nearby?”
“Nein,” said Anja, and thumped it on the roof. “Hit the road, buddy.”
Renata surveyed the container village, blowing a puff of hair out of her eyes. “If it tried to hang around, we’d find it up on blocks with its tires stripped.”
“Now I’m wishing we all had guns,” said Sahara.
“I’ve got a gun,” said Omar, “but I’m starting to think there’s no way I have enough bullets.”
“How many you packing?” asked Renata. She was armed with a long rifle, tipped with a thick black suppressor, and at least one handgun that Marisa could see; she also wore a rubberized backpack, which might have been carrying several more, though Marisa didn’t know for sure what was in it. For all she knew it was full of replacement explosive hands.
“Eight in the gun,” said Omar. “Spare mag with eight more.”
“Well then,” said Renata. She propped her rifle against her shoulder. “Try to only piss off sixteen people at the most.”
“And don’t miss,” said Sahara.
Anja raised her eyebrow at Renata’s armory. “You’re just going to walk around like that?”
“Trust me,” said Bao. “She’ll fit right in.”
“The DNA template is loaded in the nuli,” said Marisa. “Ready to launch.”
“Wait,” said Sahara, putting her hand on Marisa’s. “We gotta name it.”
“Never launch a nuli without a name,” said Anja.
“Guess that’s what I was doing wrong,” said Renata.
“I want to name it Pancho,” said Omar.
Marisa looked at him, then back at Sahara. “That’s the short version of Francisco.”