Finn's Golem (15 page)

Bump Boy confirmed this suspicion when he immediately hurled himself towards me, blood streaming down his misshapen face and something akin to murder in his eyes. He hadn’t taken two steps before I had the GAT out of its holster and shot him in the face.

I was a great advocate of the high-percentage shot. Center mass. Don’t take chances, don’t get fancy. But I was two steps higher than the kid
,
and in a hurry. The bolt took him high on the forehead, which turned out to be a pretty good thing, as the whole skull seemed to lose its structural integrity and the resulting spray covered the eight or ten punks closest to him.

The key to a situation like this is to take control, not just respond. There was a chance that the crowd would have broken and run, but it wasn’t much of a chance. They’d still have me surrounded and if anyone did have a piece it would be coming out now. I shot three more of them, more or less at random. I took one close to me in the kneecap, because the shrieks were always disheartening to anyone with fight left in them. I shot the second one in the groin as the worst thing any young punk can think of is going through life as a gelding. The third one I killed in no uncertain terms just in case anyone thought I was showing mercy or restraint.

They backed up, and an array of knives, blunt implements, chains and a couple of machetes that looked like they’d seen some use today were thrust towards me by trembling hands. But no one ran, which meant I was still penned in. What in the hell were they waiting for? A clever and cinematic speech? Were they just afraid that if they ran I would shoot them in the back? Or were they just scared out of their minds and waiting to hear what I wanted them to do? This seemed like a solid possibility. Personally, I considered my position pretty damned clear.

I shot another one of them because he looked like he was about to say something.

Four seconds later I shot another one without looking directly at him. For some reason this seemed to have more of an impact and a couple of the ones near the back turned and ran. That was six of them dead or crippled and two of them turned tail. There looked to be about fifteen left, maybe less. I wonder
ed
if they knew how many shots a GAT Double-Z got to a rod. I tried to recall how many I’d used since I’d woken up in Drake Finn’s office with three charges gone. It really all depended on how many bolts I’d thrown at breakfast, and I just wasn’t sure. I couldn’t have more than a few left, and if I pulled the trigger and came up dry they’d kill me twice in half the t
ime it would take me to reload.

We all stood in silence for about ten seconds while they stared at me. Finally I looked at them like they were all idiots.

“Shog off
,”
I said
,
as much as possible like only an idiot would need to be told.

As a man
,
they turned and ran in the direction that I had come from. Their whoops and shouts were gone. They ran hard and ran fast.

I flipped the GAT over and looked at the meter. One shot left. I snorted and fired it in their general direction to make sure they kept running. The sound told me I had hit something, and as I turned to look I could see them jumping over another fallen form. I flipped the safety on, took the spend charge rod out and replaced it. I holstered the GAT and looked around me.

This is what I was. I knew what every moment meant. How long a pause to take. Who to shoot just exactly where and why. I was a stone cold killer. If I went back to the Locust I could never be anything else, even if he let me live.

Did I even have it in me to be anything more than that?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I ran the rest of the way out of Freeville without incident.

I was about sixteen steps into Grid 1 when I hit the wall of cops. They were starting to pack up by now, and no one seemed to be moving with the same
kill ‘em all
intensity that they had raced to the scene with. I was soaking wet, breathless and coming right out of Freeville, so I should have expected a hard time.

“Hold it
,
pal,” a
grunt in hea
vy armor said, his hand raised.
I pulled my coat close to me and tried to look wet and cold, which shouldn’t have been much of an illusion. I just didn’t want him to see the gun, and I hoped he didn’t notice that I reeked of ozone.

“Please,” I said, trying to sound desperate
,
“my wife is in there.”

“Just hang on. The whole Acre is locked down.”

Two heavy transports roared to life near us, loaded to the brim with armed assault teams.

“Please, you have to let me pass
,”
I said, knowing that the engines would drown me out, but also knowing that panicky husbands ten
ded to forget things like that.

“Hang on, I can’t hear you.” The cop’s lips moved as the transports lifted into the air and roared back towards Freeville.

“Are they leaving?” I asked
.
“Where are they going?”

“What’s going on here?”
It
was a more senior officer. Probably the unit commander, but it was hard to tell under all that equipment.

“He’s trying to get in to see his wife
,” the
junior man replied
.

“How’d he get this far?” the commander seemed annoyed. “Hov traffic is supposed to be rerouted.”

“He was on foot
,”
the first cop replied.

“On foot? Where are you coming from
,
sir?”

“Please... my wife called, she said there were police everywhere. Someone said something about a Synth attack-”

The commander cut me off. “There was no attack. We haven’t even been able to find any Syths except for a couple working without papers. How did you get here?”

“My taxi driver wouldn’t come through Freeville. He said there was some trouble.”

“That’s putting it mildly
,” the
officer said
.
“They’re burning it down. We’re on our way there now.” He looked at me and then at the road I must have come in on. “How did you get here?” he asked again.

“I ran.” That much was true anyway, so I didn’t bother to embellish.

“You ran? Through Freeville?”

I nodded.

“She must be a hell of a woman.” He smiled like he had one himself at home.

I said nothing. I tried to look cold and mildly traumatized.

“Where does your wife work?” he asked.

“
23910... Grid 4... South Key Shipping.” I rattled off. The commander punched the numbers into his Omnilink and nodded. “Issue this man a pass and let’s get going.” He gave me a manly chuck on the shoulder and moved on.

“If there are still units conducting a search
,” the
junior man had taken over again
,
“
j
ust show them this.” And with that he took a yellow citation book from his belt and wrote
Cleared. 145-11A882
in thick black printing as large as he could. “That’s my unit and badge number. If they ask where I went, tell them I’m bashing heads in Freeville.” He followed his commander’s suit with another chuck on the shoulder. The testosterone seemed to be flowing fast and freely.

I held the slip of paper above my head as I waded through the troops. It got a fair amount of scrutiny for the first couple of blocks, after that the logic seemed to be that if I didn’t belong there, I’d never have made it this far. Besides, they were pulling out
en masse
, and Freeville was about to be hit by more heavy equipment than would ever have bothered with one of their semi-annual riots. The NewsNets would say nothing about the Synthetic scare. There would be no calls for an investigation, no advocates arguing for equal treatment for Artificials. But there would be plenty of footage of “heroic young officers keeping the honest citizens of Freeville safe from a few malcontents”. I was in no position to decry the bloodbath that was likely about to occur, since at the end of the day I was almost certain to have been the la
rgest single contributor to it.

By the time I hit Grid 4, I almost had the streets to myself, and that had my heart racing. At last I could see the crumbling red brick of the South Key Shipping Company approaching at a distance. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but everything was sopping wet already. I looked around. No cops. I took the GAT from its holster and let it hang by my side, my thumb on the safety. The warehouses of the Access Acre were old, dirty and sat nearly one on top of the other. The fact that nearly everything that came into or out of Bountiful made its way through one of these buildings didn’t seem to make
any of them worth cleaning up.

Two doors down was a crumbling and empty complex. The walls were coming down in places, and the weeds were forcing their way through cracks in the concrete out front. One of the big doors that had housed the loading dock was wide open, and as I approached I could see that it had been stripped, probably for scrap metal.

I stuck my head in the loading bay and nearly jumped out of my skin. The building was wreathed in darkness and decay, with piles of abandoned materials lying in corners where the light streamed in and fought a losing battle to illuminate a tiny patch. It seemed to go on forever, with nothing of value on display except a very big, very black Hov, pulled just out of view from the street. I threw myself back and waited. Nothing. I approached as quickly and quietly as I could manage. The Hov was deserted. Which meant the Locust didn’t have what he wanted yet.

I moved back towards the opening in the wall when I heard footsteps approaching. More than two sets. I slipped the safety off the GAT and stepped backwards into the darkness as silently as I could. If my foot had found a stray piece of rubble or any of the loose piping that seemed to be lying around, I was done.

Nothing. I was fairly sure that I couldn’t be seen, but I found a brick column and huddled beside it, just to be sure. The footsteps were getting closer. Four sets. I was sure of it now. Four sets, and one of them a woman. That meant they had Claire with them. It made sense, the district had been teeming with cops just a few minutes earlier, no sense taking chances doing anything too public. Not when he was this close to victory.

Suddenly, there they were. First a man with a ponytail in a long coat. He looked around as best he could and nodded his approval, moving towards the back of the Hov as the others entered behind him. Claire, walking smoothly but with her arms huddled into her core, then Carter, all three hundred pounds of him moving with astonishing grace, and finally a prick with a little soul patch of a beard. Soul Patch kept watch at street level. He would be the last to move to the car. He was looking for two things
: cops
, who had already left the party
,
and yours truly, who was already nestled in behind him. That was Ponytail’s fault though, and I resolved to kill him first if it was at all possible.

Claire looked over her shoulder at the dim daylight she had just left for what she must have believed to be the last time. Carter placed a great ham of a hand on her shoulder and guided her deeper into the alcove.

“Please don’t do anything foolish, my dear.” Carter’s voice rolled like thunder through the echo chamber of the empty building. “It wouldn’t help you, and I promise you it would make things a great deal worse.”

Claire snorted
.
“How could it possibly be
worse
?” she asked.

Carter walked her towards the trunk where Ponytail was waiting. He had a large, padded manila envelope under his arm. It was labeled and bar-coded. There was no mistaking what it was. “There is no darkness so complete that I could not make it darker still, young lady.” He smiled
.
“Don’t you see? I now have all things in my power. I could give you your life back, if I chose. I won’t, but I could. Forgive me, there is no profit in it, and the chance of considerable inconvenience. I could even let you continue as you are, but I cannot take the chance.”

“Just do it and be on your way
,”
Claire said, resigned.

“Yes. The old ways are best, aren’t they? Shoot you in the head, bundle you into the trunk and dispose of you properly when convenient.” Claire shuddered and hung her head. Carter continued to speak his own gospel
.
“But I want you to understand what a blessing that is, my child. Why with this
,
” and here he raised the package as one would a powerful totem
,
“I can remove any trace of you, of anyone you ever were, and leave no iota behind. Even the worm virus used to create a Shade leaves traces if you know where to look for them. But this... this allows me to offer you a
living
death. If you choose it, I can plug into the Omnilink in the Hov and simply erase you from existence.”

Claire looked up hopefully for a moment. Carter ran his fingers along her cheek tenderly. “Understand what I am offering you. You will have nothing but what you carry. No identity. No existence. No money. You would have one... commodity to sell. But the Guilds do not take non-persons, and you could not accept anything but paper money. What degradations would you need to perform endlessly just to feed yourself? How long would anyone pay? It does make the bolt to the head seem like a mercy, does it not?”

Claire hung her head again and wept quietly.

“You were a fool
,” he
said
.
“You crossed me as no one may expect to and live. You sought not merely to block my path to glory, but to supplant me. And in the end, you ran straight to the one place on Earth where you could never go. And now you will thank me for a clean death, or I promise you... you will not get it.”

I’d had enough. I fragged Ponytail with one shot, but I let him have two more as I walked in, just to keep him dancing. Soul Patch ducked behind the Hov. I froze him with a shout.

“Stay down! I see that little beardlet of yours and the Locust dies.”

“Drake!” Claire breathed and almost made the mistake of coming between Carter and the gun. She caught herself at the last instant and pulled back sharply.

Cyrus wasn’t angry. Not yet. He was disgusted though, and it showed.

“Monarch
,” he
said, shaking his head
.
“That it should come to this. For a woman. I always thought better of you. You cannot imagine that I can let you live.”

“All I want is the girl, Carter
,”
I said, the GAT leveled straight at him. Claire snatched the parcel from his grasp and ran behind me.

“It seems... the girl... has other ideas.” The Locust smiled.

“Drake, you must have heard him... what he can do to me, what he can do to us...”
  I noticed I was Drake again.

“He can’t do anything to me, except kill me
,”
I said
.
“And he isn’t going to get the chance to do that.”

I tried. I really did. My hand shook at the effort. Carter laughed. I’d lost count of the number of people I’d killed in the last day, but I couldn’t end it all by throwing a bolt into this fat bastard. From behind the Hov I could hear footsteps and I pumped two fast shots towards the car to keep Soul Patch where he was.

“You know you can’t kill me, Monarch. None of you can. You were given a neural block. I cannot operate if I cannot trust my own guards implicitly.” Carter’s eyebrows knit in confusion
.
“You know this. It was your idea.”

I used my left arm to guide Claire back into the darkness. “I don’t know why I can’t shoot you. But I can wipe your Empire clean off the Omniframe if you don’t leave Claire alone.” We were retreating further into the darkness. I couldn’t see Soul Patch, but Carter held his ground. “I can make you a dishwasher with a grade four education. Just leave Claire out of this.”

“Claire? She is no more Claire Marsland than you are Drake Finn.” I almost couldn’t see him now, framed only in silhouette. Claire’s arm reached for me, tr
ying
to pull me away, as if that could stop me from hearing Carter’s taunting roar.

“There is no Claire Marsland and there never was
,” he
cried
.
“She’s a
’
Frame Operative gone wrong. She used Marsland’s test copy to make herself into the elder daughter he never had.”

For a moment I almost couldn’t walk. But it had to be true. It was so obvious.

“She made herself Marsland’s heir to try and get the program for herself. She betrayed Omniframe, she crossed Cyrus Carter and everything that has happened since is her fault!” Carter bellowed. He was finally angry and there was no mistake. It wasn’t a pretty thing to see. We both turned and ran into the pitch darkness. I could hear Carter’s furious wail behind me as he set his massive form into pursuit.