In the back of the helicopter, fifty miles offshore, the Coast Guard Maritime Safety and Security Team looked at ease in spite of the extreme turbulence. They stared straight ahead as their team leader addressed me.
We’ll be touching down shortly. The helipad will put you close to the entrance here:
A map of the ship appeared in my HUD, where the location was marked.
You know where you’re going after that?
My target came into communications range when we approached the ship. She’s located a ship-to-shore vessel; that’s how we’ll leave if we can. Right now she’s headed to the medical bay in case I need to physically remove the bomb.
Understood. The software package we provided should allow you to pull the specs from the device. The virus contained in the package will shut the device down once it has the specs.
Got it.
Connect to the device, pull the specs, drop the virus. You’ll know if it worked in less than a minute.
Understood.
If it doesn’t, you’ve got to leave her there. If you try and remove the bomb it could detonate.
The team leader stopped for a minute, orange light flickering in his pupils.
Satellite data confirms well over a thousand revivors active on board the ship, but they’re grouped down in the hold. You’re going to have to be fast. If you can’t disarm the bomb, we have to leave it to blow. If you do, we have orders to sink the ship. Either way, it never gets to shore. Understand?
I understand.
The helicopter dipped suddenly as the wind sheared. The pilot adjusted while rain streaked across the windshield. The team leader signaled, pointing down at the deck.
The helipad’s below us. We’re going in.
Understood.
He heaved open the door. Cold mist sprayed in as we descended. A bright floodlight aimed down through the rain, lighting up the helipad on the deck. Something moved down there.
Hostiles on deck. Computer’s picking up SAM targeting laser.
We banked sharply. A heavy grinding noise started, shaking the floor as a gun turret moved into view through the open door. It angled down toward the ship.
Hold on, Agent.
The chain gun let loose. The muzzle flared up as tracers spit down toward the deck of the ship.
“The laser’s down! I’m coming around!” the pilot yelled.
“Okay, we’re going down!” the team leader shouted, clapping my shoulder. “Don’t get out until I say you’re clear! Got it?”
“Got it!”
Another blast of wind hit, and my stomach flipped as we dropped down. I could barely see the deck until we were on top of it. A spray of foam crashed up along the side of the ship.
“Hold on!”
The radio crackled as we banked around. The chopper bucked hard enough to rattle my jaw.
Agent Wachalowski. The message wasn’t from anyone on the team, and it wasn’t from Cal. It originated back on shore.
Who is this?
I’m contacting you on Ai’s behalf. Why are you approaching the tanker?
Whoever you are, I work for the FBI, not Motoko Ai.
It’s not safe to board the ship.
She made that clear before I left.
The deck was coming up fast. Down below, I saw it tilt as another wave crashed into the hull. The floodlight stayed on the helipad as we hovered sixty feet above it.
You’re going to get killed. We need you alive.
I cut the connection as the pilot signaled to me.
“We’re gonna go in fa—”
There was a huge explosion from the other side of the ship, and a cloud of fire lit up the water around it. Pieces of debris were silhouetted against the flames before spinning down into the water.
What the hell was that? I asked.
There goes your ship-to-shore vessel, the team leader said. Looks like they don’t want anyone getting off. We’re sticking close in case we need to sink her. If you can find your civilian and make it back to the deck, we’ll extract you. Got it?
Got it.
The deck stabilized and the pilot brought us in. It was a rough landing, but he put us down on the pad. I felt the motion of the sea under me as the team leader signaled.
You’re clear.
Roger that. Thanks.
Good luck.
I jumped out, and as soon as my boots clanged down on the metal plating, I felt it move underneath me. Sea spray crashed up the far side of the ship. Behind me, the helicopter lifted off and ascended into the rain.
I made my way across the deck, debris sliding past as the ship rocked. My foot slipped and I went down on one knee just as the head and torso of a revivor rolled by.
Zooming in on the blueprint of the ship, I laid it over my main field of vision.
Cal, I’ve touched down. Where are you?
I’m on my way to the med ward like you said. Where are you?
On deck. I’m coming in now.
I’m telling you, I can get to the ship—
They just blew the ship-to-shore boat, Cal, and you’re rigged with a bomb. I can stop it and get you off the ship, but you have to do as I say.
The chain gun went off from up above. Off on the other side of the ship, it was chewing up the deck.
Cal?
She didn’t answer. Through the wind and the rain, I could see the metal hatch up ahead that led inside. I drew my gun and made a run for it.
The whole thing had scared me, at least at first. One minute everyone was just talking; then the next three guys came in, one of them grabbed Nico, and everything just exploded. I’d never seen him do anything like that before; it was like he was some kind of crazed animal or something. Some other guys had come and helped the security men away, but the floor was still covered in blood and broken glass.
“Don’t worry about the mess,” Penny said. “We’ll get the floor refinished.”
My heart had been beating really fast until Penny put her hand on one of my shoulders. Then a weird calm came over me, and the fear just kind of drifted away.
“He won’t make it,” she said. She’d found the gun in the water and held it up before putting it on a towel. “That was a pretty good fight, huh?”
I nodded.
“He’ll be fine,” she said. “He won’t get there in time.”
I nodded again, then drained the smoked-crystal glass and eased back, letting the hot water bubble around me. Being in that tub was the most relaxing thing I’d ever done. I couldn’t believe I’d waited half my life to try it. Penny sat on the other side of the tub with a bottle of something called grappa, which was clear, came in a tall bottle, and tasted horrible.
“I totally needed this,” Penny said, cracking her neck and leaning back. “I’ve been cooped up in that hellhole for days.”
“Hellhole?”
“Yeah, that man-girl they assigned me to,” she said. “That’s where I’ve been. I had to camp out there until we got her set up. I’ve been sleeping on a secondhand couch.”
“She let you stay there?” Penny laughed.
“Hell no. She didn’t know I was there. It was three days of babysitting and memory manipulation. It gets exhausting after a while.”
“Oh.” I wanted to ask her if she wasn’t afraid of getting beaten up or worse, but it was obvious that she wasn’t, and I was kind of embarrassed to admit that I would have been. I’d seen Calliope up close, and she scared me more than most guys.
“Fortunately, she’s as stupid as they come,” Penny said. “It’s like using a sledgehammer on a nail, with her. Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been around much.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. You’ve been through some major stuff lately. I wanted to be here.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just didn’t say anything. The truth, though, was that I was really glad she showed up.
“That thing with Ted …is that what you meant to happen?” I asked.
“It was all you. Nothing was planned.”
“What did happen?”
“You shut him off.”
“Like a machine?”
“Kind of.”
She took another drink and looked me in the eye through the steam.
“You’ve got a particular little talent there,” she said.
“I killed him.”
“Are you sorry you did?”
“No.” In the back of my mind, I had this feeling that Karen would have been upset if she was alive to know what I’d done. But she wasn’t, thanks to him. “I should have done it sooner.”
Penny nodded and smiled. She took a swig off of her long-necked bottle.
“I’m really sorry it happened,” she said, “but at least you get it. Not everyone does, but you get it.”
“Get what?”
“That there are people like Karen and people like Ted. People like your friend; they want to make things better. It’s good that they do, but the problem is that people like Ted won’t ever change on their own. You saw it when you looked inside him. People like him get in the way. Someone’s got to make the hard decisions. You get that.”
“If I’d done it sooner …”
“You can’t change it now. Next time you won’t wait. You can honor her that way. I’m sorry, but it’s the best you can do.”
I was starting to like Penny a lot. I worried at first about hanging out with someone like me, but it turned out to be really great. I could actually talk about the things I did and saw, and she understood. She’d been through it too.
More than that, though, she made me feel included. I’d been on the outside my whole life. It was nice to be on the inside, for once.
“Nicely done with that revivor in the alley, by the way.”
“Thanks.” I was so drunk that the thing in the alley felt like a dream. Had I told her about that?
“Gun work out okay for you?”
“Yeah.” I thought it would have a big kick, but it didn’t. It was light and easy to use.
“I picked it myself. Top-of-the-line.”
I thought it might be too small to do much good, but it stopped the dead woman cold. It made me think back to that time the revivor got into my apartment and grabbed me. It was so strong, I couldn’t do anything to stop it. It killed my neighbor, almost killed Karen, and took me away. I was totally helpless. There was nothing I could do. It was different in the alley. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t control the revivor. The gun changed everything.
“Is it really okay to just kill that woman?”
“Who, Calliope?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me tell you something about her,” Penny said. “We looked into her background, and you know what we found? She was raised in a state-run orphanage, but her mother didn’t drop her off there; she sold the fetus off to one of those church-run facilities, where they grew her to term in a jar. That name of hers was randomly generated by a computer. How do you like that?”
“Really?”
“Those places don’t have the room for all the ones that come in. The computer runs a lotto to weed them out when space gets tight. It’s all based on genetic profiles and all automatic, so no one has to feel guilty. You know how many times she got passed over while she was there?”
“No.”
“Thirteen times. Thirteen! That’s beyond luck. She shouldn’t even be alive. She was born to do this.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure.
“Look, if it bothers you, think of it this way—she’s going to save a lot of people. Doesn’t that make it worth it?”
“Is she really going to stop it from happening?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Will it work?”
“There’s a chance that it will.”
“So it might not.”
“It beats doing nothing,” she said. “Anyway, it’s not even just about this one incident. Even if the city survives, look around it. It’s rotting from the inside. The people who live in it are sheep who sell themselves to their government, literally. Their votes haven’t meant anything for years. We didn’t make it that way; they were living under the illusion they had any say in what went on for as far back as anyone can remember. Things were never going to change, not until we came along, not until we got organized. All Fawkes and his people can think about is their precious freedom. It’s ridiculous. They’re not free. They never were.”
“I guess.”
“People like Fawkes, they need to be removed. With them out of the way, things will start to get better. We won’t get credit for it and we’ll never get thanked, but things will get better.”
The bubbles and the heat had me sleepy and kind of giddy.
“Anyway, you’d be crazy not to love the perks,” Penny said. “The living arrangements, the clothes, the cars, the food, booze—everything. It beats scraping by.”
“…and you really think I might be this person?” I asked. “You really think I might be the one Ai is looking for?”
“I really think so.”
She grinned, nudging me with her foot under the water.
“You’re like me,” she said. “We’re not just one of them. We’ve got something even a lot of our own kind doesn’t have.”
“We do?”
“It’s like anything else; some people are better at things than others. Not everyone can do what you did to Ted. We’re a cut above, you and me. We’re elite.”
Elite.
It sank in for the first time then. I wasn’t sure if it was the heat or the booze, or if I was just finally coming to terms with it, but right then at that moment, I felt it. I could see it. That woman I saw in the green room all those years ago, the one that looked rich and strong and together …that woman was me. I could see it. It could be my life. I didn’t have to be a pathetic shut-in, and I didn’t have to be a lackey either, getting used while I waited and hoped for a scrap of approval. I could be something bigger.
…but what about the first one? A nagging voice said. What about Noelle? What made her betray them? If Penny’s right about everything, what made her leave?
She messed up. Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind. She was a junkie. I didn’t have to end up like her.
Don’t cross Ai. That was what Penny said. It was one simple rule. Even I could handle that.
Footsteps came from the right up ahead. As soon as we hit the bend, something grabbed my number one. A shot went off and it got pulled around the corner, while my second took the lead. Shots boomed down the hall.
They kept them busy to the right. I went left. In the feed, I saw number one facing off with four jacks. The view pitched as it took a few hits, but one of its targets went down.
Two, stay with me; cover the rear. One, keep them under fire. If they get past you, detonate.
I slipped past and kept my head low. A shot clipped my boot and another hit the wall next to me as I banked left and covered the ground to the hatch up ahead. I spun the wheel and opened it, then ducked through. As the jack followed me in, I watched over the feed while the one I left behind took a volley that put it down. One arm ripped free at the elbow and spun to the floor. When it hit, it snapped open and the blade shot out.
I shoved the hatch shut as I looked back and saw its head get blown open, painting the deck behind it black. The feed went out. I locked the door and made for the next one, across the room.
Through here.
I was already down to my last jack. There were more out there, but they were on to me. I was locked out of their network. It was going to have to be enough.
The hatch opened into a big room full of bunks. No one was in them.
Watch the door.
I checked the place out. It was empty. I saw a set of clothes on the deck, shirt still tucked in the pants. They were shot through with holes. Down the rows of bunks, there were more of them.
Some of the crew got caught sleeping, it looked like. There was dried blood on the bedding. One pillow still had the dent from a head in it. A fucking JZI sat in the dent like a big, fat bug.
The lockers hung open. If any of them had guns or ammo, it was gone now.
I checked my route to the med wing; I was close. Bomb or no bomb, I could use the backup. That’s if Wachalowski made it there.
The pain hit again, and I grabbed the bunk frame to keep from going down.
They rigged you with a bomb.
I peeled up my shirt and looked at my belly. Tucked in the crease of my abs were four red dots. I ran my fingers over them. They were sore and scabbed over.
Shit …
I leaned in and used the backscatter. Inside I could see the bottom of my ribs. Lower, under the scabs, something stood out. It looked like wires under the skin.
I followed them under my belt line. There was something down there, down in the bones of my pelvis.
Cal, how long?
Almost there. I was still staring at it. It was just like we used to do with the jacks back in the grind. It was in me. The fucking thing was inside me.
You don’t have much time. Hurry.
Someone knocked me out and wired me up. How long had it been there?
“Goddamn it …” I knew what those things could do. I’d seen them go off. I’d set them off myself.
There was no way for me to shut down a bomb like that, and I knew it. If Wachalowski had a plan, it was my best bet—maybe my only one.
I pushed myself off the bunk frame and ran for the hatch on the far side of the room.
The entry point into the ship put me in a stairwell where a major firefight had taken place; the walls were scarred with gunfire, and blood spatter that was equal parts red and black. Two sets of clothing were draped down the steps. Another set was crumpled on the landing. The revivors made their entry there. The crew made a stand, but from the look of it, they weren’t successful.
I headed down the steps and passed two more sets of clothes on the landing. Shell casings littered the floor. The air in the stairwell smelled of decomposition, but it was faint. Whatever happened there happened a long time ago.
I found the med ward on the blueprint and sprinted down the hall alongside an old blood trail. At the junction, they’d piled up metal cabinets that were crimped and bored through with holes. More remains were piled behind them.
The route took me through a hatch, past the barricade, where I passed different sets of clothing bundled in rough rows. Tied plastic bands lay on the floor near each one.
Wrist ties. They lined them up here.
I saw shorts, tank tops, and brightly colored shirts. They probably didn’t belong to the crew …pirates, maybe, or local mercenaries. If they used hired guns, then they must not have had the numbers to take the ship alone. Either way, no one got off the ship alive. The weapons and ammo were gathered up. The corpses were dissolved, eaten, or went over the side.
The deck drummed faintly under my boots. Over the sound of the engine, I could hear movement in the halls of the ship below me, a lot of movement. I couldn’t pinpoint locations, but the number of signatures I was picking up was off the chart.
In the corridor past the hatchway, moving walkways hummed along in opposite directions.
They’ve diverted power. They’re on the move.
Roger that. Wachalowski, we’re picking up signatures approaching from belowdecks.
I checked the blueprint again. The signatures were jumbled, but it looked like most originated from the hold and were spreading out from there. I stepped onto the walkway to the right and crouched. As it sped me down a long corridor, I heard a burst of gunfire coming from another part of the ship.
A revivor signature came up suddenly on the display, with a second one right behind it. Up ahead, two sets of eyes flashed in the dark.
We’ve got contact, one of the team called in. Surface-to-air missile teams spotted on deck at points B and C.
Roger that. Locking on.
A big boom shook the floor underneath me, and the emergency lights flickered. One of the revivors up ahead fired, and a bullet glanced off the deck next to me. I targeted the first one and fired a burst. Its left knee exploded and as its leg went out from under it, it went facedown on the walk. The conveyor jerked it back and it bowled over the one behind it. I caught the second one in the forehead as it tried to get up, and its gun clattered across the deck.
The revivor with the ruptured knee pushed itself off the walk and took aim down the hall. I fired three shots. It squeezed off a round before my third shot took it down. The bullet caught me in my left shoulder, and I staggered. Blood seeped into my shirt, and when I moved my arm, pain bored into my chest.
The floor shook again as the sound of explosions boomed through the corridors. They were firing missiles onto the deck of the tanker in response to the stingers.
Wachalowski, we’re getting swarmed. What’s your status down there?
I released a painkiller into my bloodstream, followed by one of the stim packs. Right away, the pain began to dull and the corridor seemed to get brighter. I moved close to the fallen revivor being carried on the belt along with me, and scanned for its signature. It was weak, but hadn’t cut out yet. I used the modification I’d installed in the grind to sample the wave.
I’m getting close.
Is the bomb still in play?
Yes.
The bulk of the revivor signatures were coming in fast. They’d be on me any minute. I recorded a full loop of the revivor’s signature and began to transmit it. Feedback spiked until I put a single round in the fallen revivor and the redundant signature cut out. It wouldn’t be perfect, but in the dark and the confusion, it would keep them off me long enough.
The walkway carried me along as a trickle of sweat rolled down my back. Adrenaline and oxygen flooded my system, keeping me alert. I fumbled a dose of blood-clotting serum out of my pack. Pressing the end to the wound, I pushed the plunger, and pain shot down my arm. The spent cartridge dropped from my hand and rolled off, trailing smoke. The tissue around the wound puckered as the blood hardened into a plug.
The hatch I was looking for was up ahead. I jumped off the walk and a wave of nausea hit. I clenched my throat, tasting vomit as I went through the opening and came out on a walkway above the cargo hold. I slipped, catching the railing, then made a sprint for the doorway on the opposite side.
Cal, where are you?
I made it. I’m in the med ward.
On the map, I saw several signatures headed her way. They’d picked up her heartbeat and her body heat.
Give me full access to your JZI. I’m going to try to connect to the device.
It’s in me.
I know.
Down in the hold, I saw stacks of stasis crates. There were hundreds of them. They cast shadows that flickered in the light of thousands of revivor optical cells. They were moving, flowing in the dark like traffic through a city street at night. They sensed a warm body on the walk above them, but the signature I transmitted had confused them. Several looked up, not sure what they were seeing.
“Stop!”
At the end of the walkway, I caught a glimpse of Faye standing below. She was with three other revivors. Our eyes met for just a second; then I was through the hatch and into the dark corridor behind it.
Cal opened her JZI and I used the package the MSST gave me with to try to connect to the bomb. After a few seconds, it managed to establish a link.
I’m pulling the stats from the device. Hold on.
Information came streaming in. It was true; the payload was nuclear. It was wired to her, but the trigger itself was on a timer that started when she passed a certain distance from shore.
Hold on.
The corridor ahead was filled with debris, and soot had formed on the walls. The hatch at the end had been blown from its hinges and pushed out of the way. I squeezed through into a room where several bodies lay, dead from thirst.
I pulled the information for the timer from the device. She didn’t have much time. Once the virus was injected, it could take up to several minutes for it to break through and disarm the device. That was assuming it could do it at all.
Cal, do you see a bed there?
Yeah.
The med facility has auxiliary power. Find a bed near a power source and get in it. We won’t have much time.
Roger that.
I ran through the hatch on the opposite side of the room, down a hallway filled with human remains. She was close. There wasn’t time to take in the bones and the bloated revivors lying among them. There was only time to run, and I could feel my strength fading.
Give me something …Give me anything …anything to buy me some time.
I planted the virus and it began to drill into the bomb’s systems. As I ran, I saw warning lights flash up red as it tried one deactivation failsafe after the next, and failed.
Nico, it’s not working….
I ran through a set of quarters where the crew had slept, through the door on the other side and down the corridor. The medical ward was through the hatch just up ahead. I saw movement down the hall to my right, where at least twenty revivors were thundering toward us, their eyes bobbing in the dark as they ran.
Cal, hold on …
More warning lights turned red. The virus had nearly exhausted its options and still hadn’t gotten through. Countermeasures added to the device had detected it and were shutting it out. It wasn’t going to work.
There were less than ten minutes left on the timer. The virus was being dismantled and the bomb was still active. It would take hours to get her back to shore and to a facility where they might be able to shut it down. I wasn’t going to make it. I needed more time.
Wachalowski.
Cal.
It’s getting hot. I can feel it.
I shoved the door open and staggered inside. Calliope was lying on one of the hospital beds, waiting. When she looked up at me, her eyes were full of tears and her face was red. Veins stood out in her face and neck. I was too late. She knew it.
I need more time….
“Nico,” she said.
“I’m here. Hold on. We’re about to get company. Do you have an Eckles Transponder? Can you spoof a revivor signature?”
She shook her head, but I’d already scanned her systems. She didn’t; the transponder wasn’t standard issue. I might sneak through that many revivors undetected, but she wouldn’t. They’d tear her apart.
“It didn’t work,” she said.
“I know.”
“You did what you could. Get the fuck—”
“Shut up.”
There was only one thing I could think to do. I hauled the stasis emitter on its track until it was right over the bed. I turned it on and guided it down over her torso. I pointed the lens at the middle of her chest.
“We’re going to die,” she said.
I flipped the switch. The stasis field was focused in a six-inch beam. It radiated through her breastbone and engulfed her heart, stopping it instantly.
The timer ticked down as her muscles relaxed, then went still. The pulsing under her jaw stopped. The light went out of her eyes.
I heard movement behind me and glanced back to see many eyes staring back from the shadows. They’d lost the vitals they’d been tracking, and were scanning around the room, trying to relocate them.
I turned back to Cal and drew my field knife. Looking through the muscle wall of her abdomen, I could see the device nestled in there.
Wachalowski, there are too many of them. We have to sink it. Report for immediate extraction.
I was no surgeon, but it was the only chance she had. I eased the tip of the knife through the skin beneath her belly button and the hard muscle underneath.
Wachalowski, do you copy?
Blood was running out of the wound. I focused, keeping the knife clear of the dark artery that showed up on the backscatter. I felt the tip touch the shell of the device, and saw it move inside of her.
The virus failed, I said. I can’t stop the bomb. I’m coming up.
How long before detonation?
Eight minutes.
Understood. We’ll wait as long as we can.
The revivors had begun moving through the room, not sure what to do. Several focused on me, trying to resolve the signature with the body heat they detected. If one of them grabbed me, that might be all it would take to set them off.
How many to be extracted, Wachalowski?
I grabbed a set of glorified pliers from a rack of surgical tools and held the tip above the wound. As soon as I pulled the knife free, more blood pumped out, and I jammed the pliers into the hole. As the warmth rushed over my fist, I found the edge of the device and grabbed it.
It didn’t want to come. I winced as I pulled it free anyway and dropped the small, sticky brick and its trailing wires into a bedside pan. I injected blood clotter into the wound and watched it harden. Calliope’s face was gray, the color fading from her lips.
Wachalowski, come back. What about your civilian?
I cut the connection.