Escapology (36 page)

Breaker’s avi billows, thins out, and ripples back.

“I’m not talking about saving you, I have no idea if that’s possible, but as long as Emblem is contained in your drive, I
can
take it out, and we need to. It was never supposed to do any of this; it was supposed to become a deadlock. Permanent. Trap the Queens in Hive for good.”

“It’s bio-ware. You can’t predict bio-ware responses out of their virtual environment. Any idiot knows that.” And any idiot knows the courier always gets fried in these situations. Thing is, if it had fucking worked, Shock’s not sure he’d have minded.

“Nonetheless we tried. We had no option, you understand? The Queens were not about to stop trying for Emblem and they had help. We didn’t have time to ponder consequences. All we can do now is try and limit the damage, and if we leave Emblem in your drive, using your biology to evolve, the result could be catastrophic.”

Well okay, that’s on the level, it’s too much fucking horror to be otherwise. What Breaker’s asking though, that’s not. Makes a shot in the dark look like a safe bet.

“What if removing it from my head doesn’t stop it? What if by coming there I end up handing it to them? Make a bad situation worse.”

“Refusing to come won’t stop them. They want out and they don’t care what gets destroyed in the process. You can face them and fight them, or sit around waiting for them to destroy everyone around you until their drones can pluck you up—if Emblem doesn’t leak before then.”

“You haven’t answered my first question.”

“I don’t know if removing it will stop it, or just kill you. I’m not certain I can stop the process, but I have to try. You have to let me try. Doing nothing is simply not an option. You’re a smart kid, do me a favour and extrapolate the possible outcomes of what that thing in your head could do left to its own devices.”

Shock extrapolates. The results scare the crap out of him. If he hadn’t been cold cured he’d run far and fast, straight into the arms of a butt-load of drugs. But what would that solve? Emblem would evolve or the Queens would escape, and it’d be his fault. He couldn’t live with that. Not even gorked off his skull.

The Gung’s thrived on misery for too long, on people being punished for daring to have their own minds. He can listen to his fear and end up aiding and abetting the replacement of that horror with one far worse, or he can turn and fight. Try and put a stop to it all. Maybe find a reason to like himself, to be able to look in a mirror and not feel sickened by the stinking mess staring back at him.

“Fine. I’ll come. Even if I have to come alone.”

“You won’t need to. Help is coming. Be quick, Shock Pao. Time is ru…”

Breaker’s gone. Snapped away like elastic. Only an echo remains, an emanation of pain. From the direction in which he disappeared, something massive shifts. A shadow of a limb, Queen-sized.

Quick as he can, Shock reaches back to his connection with Puss and Shark and lets them pull him out, burning the path between himself and Breaker as he goes so he can’t be followed. He wakes to find Ravi bent over him, giving CPR, his moustaches tickling Shock’s cheeks. Shock half pushes him away, trying to catch breath that keeps running away from him, jumping rebelliously out of his lungs as soon as he’s hauled it in. He blinks stupidly at Ravi, who looks exhausted.

“How long?” he forces out between breaths.

Ravi’s mouth hits a straight line. Serious as all shit.

“A while, man,” he says without any of his former cheer.

“Ah.”

“We’re here, by the way. Arrived during my mega session of trying to keep you alive. What the fuck happened?”

Shock huffs out a laugh. His lungs are finally beginning to cooperate. He wants to hug them. Not being able to breathe sucks arse.

“Got pulled away unexpectedly.”

“Well that just explains everything.” Ravi shakes his head, obviously irritated with Shock. “Whatever. You can explain later, and by that I mean you
will
. Now I know I told you not to move, but we’re sitting ducks and I don’t know who’s still after us, or how quick they can get here.”

“What about your friends? Amiga?”

Ravi makes a “dunno” face.

“Sent an SOS flare via IM when you tapped out, but I haven’t heard from them. Have to assume they’re not coming.”

Shock’s not really surprised by how much that upsets him. No one should die on his behalf. Even with Emblem in his head, he’s not worth any sort of sacrifice. If he hadn’t already decided to go to the Heights somehow, and help Breaker to end this, he’d go just for them, for the sacrifice they may have made. Puss tightens her grip on his torso. She’s there with him. So is Shark.

It makes all the difference.

Shin District is scary quiet. Apocalypse quiet. Not many DethRok folk traipse the squares during daylight hours, it’s not the done thing. Vampire hair; vampire rules. Shock’s never been much for DethRok but he can dig the lifestyle. He prefers the night too. Deserted streets and darkness. No chance of running into anyone you might know. No chance of running into anyone. That there is bliss. Probably the only bliss he’ll ever get now he’s been scrubbed squeaky clean.

The club Ravi says they have to get into, Mollie’s, seems deserted too as they make slow progress across the square, Shock clinging to Ravi, Puss clinging to Shock and Shark cruising behind, on alert for trouble. Shock wonders what the fuck they must look like. Thank fuck no one’s around to see. He’s been the centre of attention enough today; he can do without another moment in the spotlight.

At Mollie’s Ravi peers up, trying to see in through shaded porthole windows.

“Don’t think Amiga was expecting this,” he mutters, and bashes on the door.

They wait as the sound evaporates.

Two minutes.

Three.

Five.

Ravi’s getting anxious, scanning the square. Still empty as far as the eyes can see, but they’re both expecting trouble and Shark’s circling with intent, rippling the air with savage tail flicks.

Ravi knocks again. This time, seconds after the sound dies, they hear heels clacking across woodwork, the whir of electronic locks, and the door cracks open.

“Maggie Joust?” Ravi asks the shadowed figure hiding behind.

Leaning in to the light and revealing huge green eyes in a face made for jaunty make-up, the woman nods, smiles. Putting a finger on her lips, she hurries them in, fussing like a mother, albeit a mother attired like a grease-punk mermaid, all sooty grey, spiked fabrics and shimmering metal scales on trousers so tight it looks like she’s wearing an oil-slick. Sexy. Unfazed by the golden octopus on Shock’s chest, she doesn’t seem to mind Shark either, pointing him imperiously into a corner so she can close the door without standing near his jaws.

“Sorry to be so long,” she says as soon as the door closes and locks. “I was downstairs.”

“Downstairs?” Ravi looks around, frowning confusion.

Maggie smiles. “Later. For now let’s get this Haunt of yours settled before he comes apart at the seams. He looks a trifle roughly patched.”

Shock’s installed somewhat shambolically on a frilled candy-striped chaise with feet so ornate he’s concerned they’re more for show than holding up furniture. Catching his sideways glances at them, Maggie pats his head reassuringly.

“Don’t worry about the chaise,” she says with a wink. “It’s made for action.”

“This a cathouse then?”

A thoroughly filthy grin takes ownership of her face.

“Not by license, no. Nor by intent. But after two A.M., when everybody is fully lubricated, they tend to lubricate each another.”

“Sounds like my kinda place,” Ravi says.

“Indeed. Not yours though, is it?” she says to Shock knowingly.

“I don’t really have a kind of place,” he says, speaking before he can stop himself yet
again
. He’s not normally so candid with strangers. This woman is obviously some kind of wizard. Freaking out, he zips it, then feels angry when she looks all knowing again and, giving him another pat on the head, goes to fetch Ravi some better medical equipment “to cement the Haunt together a little more firmly”.

“I like her,” says Ravi, watching her arse leave the room.

“You’re not her type,” Shock replies, trying not to laugh.

“No. And it’s a damn shame, man,” Ravi responds with a grin.

Armed with good quality C-Gen from Maggie’s med-kit, Ravi carefully peels apart and re-seals every cut and slice he glued. It’s like being back with Pill, and without Puss by his side, a coiled comfort about arm and neck, Shock couldn’t cope. Proper clean is about as bad as he imagined it might be, and worse than clean, worse than re-living Pill’s fun clean, is being this aware of Emblem, acutely in tune with the interactions it has with his drive. It’s getting to be all he can think about, mingling uneasily alongside how far away the Heights are and how in hell he’s going to get there.

Ravi’s almost done with the C-Gen retouch torture when there’s a knock at the door. Maggie runs over, her delight a sign written in ten-foot-high neon. She ushers in a skinny, weird-looking woman, grabbing her into a tight hug. There might even be tears. Behind them, an absolute shit-ton of people stream into the room, some carrying injured or dead bodies. Cue insta-anxiety overload. Shock’s simultaneously claustrophobic and panic-stricken, on the verge of hyperventilation. Shit but he forgot how bad it is to be around people unmedicated. Then Amiga’s face is in his, nose to goddamn nose, and he feels okay. What? That’s new.

“Hey, Haunt. Looking better.”

He snorts. “Your sawbones here scrubbed my brain clean. Better is not currently a word in my vox. Have to say you’re looking rough as fuck.”

She plucks ruefully at the foam poking out of the wound on her thigh.

“Yeah. You should see my ex.”

“Shut up, Amiga.” Comes from the chaise next to his.

Shock cranes his head. Ex is a half-Asian giant and a walking K-Rock ad, made serious by dark-matter eyes. Ex is also shot half to fuck, bullet holes ranged up his left leg, and there’s some serious grazing on face and arms, one of which is in a printed splint. Shock would commiserate, but he’s currently a human colander carrying apocalyptic code in his skull, so figures he gets to be the sorry bastard here. The guy nods, equal to equal. Hack then. Figures.

“Deuce.”

Shock nods back. “Shock.” It doesn’t need saying, Deuce is wise to who he is, but there are ways to do things amongst hacks, and Shock isn’t about to drop his manners. These guys just saved his life.

“Shock?” The weird-looking woman Maggie hugged, who’s been engaged in an intense whispered conference with Maggie and some massive bald guy with muscles on his muscles and the most goddamn ugly mug Shock’s ever seen, turns to stare at him. Fuck but her eyes are creepy. She turns to Maggie. “That’s the Haunt? His hair wasn’t red.”

“That’s blood, and I’m right fucking here, by the way.” he snaps, just about done with being invisible, even with this many people in the room.

She grabs a chair and drags it over, making a state of the floor, and his ears. Sits right in front of him, as close as Amiga was, but Amiga she is
not
. Personal space much. And every fucker in the room is staring right at him now. Too many eyes. Man he thought he was through with invisible but this visible shit is worse than being flayed alive, and he knows how that feels. Sort of. He wants to get up and run the fuck out, but his legs feel like used cotton buds, so he sucks it up and gives the woman invading his personal space the attention she’s obviously gunning for.

“Yes?”

“Volk,” she replies, staring at him intently.

He’s about to complain, then realizes she’s not actually
looking
at him. More like through him. He takes a closer look at her eyes. Yup. Mods. She’s basically a human computer, chock-full of extras, which makes sense of the weirdness and the freaky eyes, and she’s currently scrutinizing the inside of his skull. Oh the sights she’s seeing. It’s Hiroshima in there.

“Well,” she says after a moment, “the inside matches the outside.” She exchanges a look with Maggie, one of those deep-ass worried looks parents get about kids going out to do seriously questionable acts of drunken stupidity. The kind never aimed at him before. Another first. “We have to take him to the Heights, to Breaker. Right now.”

The sound of a gun cocking punctuates Volk’s last sentence. Then it’s pressed against Volk’s nose.

“Oh no you fucking don’t. He’s not going anywhere.” Amiga, soft spoken and deadly. “He’s been through enough. Right now we protect him here until Deuce there can figure out a way to get that crap out of his skull.”

Shock can count on his missing fingers-tips the amount of people who’ve ever stood up for him, so this is a first too. The clincher is she’s not doing it out of duty. She’s doing it because she genuinely gives a shit. How the hell did he manage to deserve having her in his corner? It doesn’t seem fair. Fair or not though, he’s going to take it. You don’t say no to that sort of luck.

“You spoke to Breaker?” he asks Volk.

Volk’s gaze, casually rested on the gun at her nose, rises to his face.

“No,” she says. Her voice is calm. Even. Nope, she’s not even a little bit freaked out. Talk about fried. “But I know he’s being held at the Heights and I know he’s the only chance we’ve got to get that out of your head.”

“The Queens are there,” says Amiga, her gun unwavering. “Shock can’t go.”

“I can,” Shock says.

She stares at him.

“Why? What earthly reason would persuade you to go to them?”

“I spoke to Breaker, which was fun.” He gives her the full benefit of his sarcasm, but it’s unnecessary, looks like she knows.

“Been there. So what did he say?”

“Emblem is fucking dangerous. When it grows beyond my drive, and that’s
soon
, we are well and truly screwed. He has no idea if getting it out will stop it, but he needs to try. So I have to go to Heights. I told him I’d go.”

“Hold on,” says Deuce. “I’m missing something. Emblem in a neural drive is bad news, yes, but for that drive in particular. What exactly did Breaker do to it?”