Finn's Golem (16 page)

“Monarch!” he cried as the valiant Soul Patch stood at last and filled the air with crackling plasma bolts as we ran.

“Monarch!”

I should have been angry with her. Maybe I would be later when time was convenient. She
’
d lied to me, and even when she
’
d confessed, it was barely for a handful of the lies she had told. There was no noble sacrifice here, no plucky girl trying to do what was right one last time for the father she loved. There was only greed.

If Carter was right, and it seemed certain that he was, she must have been on the team that had studied Marsland
’
s Golem Protocol for
’Frame Internal. She’
d realized what E2-476 was capable of, knew as few others could how impossible it would be to trace or defend against if it ever made it out of the lab. And then suddenly her Civil Service paycheque and
’
Frame pension didn
’
t look so hot. So she wrote herself into a tragedy already in motion and stole away the leading role.

I should have been angry with her.

We stumbled on into the pitch blackness of the abandoned building. Soul Patch had fired four bolts before he stopped, probably at Carter
’
s orders. Carter was slick, and he could see what I could see. The plasma charges threw enough light to give me a sketchy route map for what lay ahead. For those first crucial minutes, while our eyes adjusted to the darkness, I ran full-out, following a route I had learned during flashes like lightning, Claire Marsland hanging on to my hand for dear life.

Claire Marsland was not her real name. I wondered what it could be. Would she go back to it if we got away with the Golem Protocol, or would she become yet another new person, richer and more ruthless than even the giant man hunting us in the shadows?

I pulled her hard to the left, away from staircase I had seen going down. The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was get cornered in a basement. We ran on into the blackness and towards the furthest extent of what I had been able to see by the light of Soul Patch
’
s GAT. Soon we would reach the part of the map that said
,
“here be dragons”
. I could hear a sharp sound behind us, as if someone had stumbled in the darkness. We pressed on.

She’
d bee
n ruthless, in her own way. She’
d done everything she could to keep me in the dark and on her side, including giving me her body. But it was hard to fault her too much. She was being hunted by a top-level predator like Carter and a bottom feeder like Felco and who knows who else along the way. Even Drake Finn had been willing, if not eager
,
to se
ll her out. The only person she’
d even remotely been able to trust should have been her killer, if a
ll had gone as nature intended.

We moved into a narrow passageway. I had no idea where it led, apart from the fact that it moved more or less in the opposite direction
from
our sta
r
ting point. This I found good. The narrow walls were a help too... they kept us penned in, it was true, but they let us move more quickly, and my eyes were starting to adjust. The hard concrete of the floor and the deep echoes that carried along the passage as we ran were less good. I tried to strike a balance between quickly and quietly but, as with most compromises, it was probably not enough of either.

I should have been angry with her. For no other reason than dragging me in this far, making me care what happened to her when I was obviously better suited to not giving a good goddamn what happened to anyone. But all I could think of as we ran deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ruin likely to become our grave was somehow winning this race. Taking her from the darkness to the light. It wasn
’
t a metaphor, I was setting achievable goals. This was no time for questions like
who are you really
or
where will you go now
or the ever-popular
what about us
. See the sun one more time, then worry about what comes next.

Suddenly the passageway came to an abrupt end. I hadn
’
t seen it coming, racing on into the darkness with my hand stretched out before me. It wasn
’
t until my arm slammed into what seemed to be a solid metal wall that I realized how badly we were screwed. I listened for motion behind us, but Claire
’
s breathing had grown heavy with panic and I couldn
’
t hear a thing. I felt around the end of the passage around waist level, and sure enough, there was a handle. It wasn
’
t a wall, it was a door. Not a doorknob though, it felt like the door was meant to slide. The handle was on the left, so I pulled hard to the right.

Nothing. Just a metal clunk that left no doubt which direction we might be found in, should anyone happen to be hunting us in the darkness.

“What is it?” Claire hissed
.

“Quiet
,”
I said and felt around the handle. Nothing. I could hear footsteps along the passage behind us now. They were running hard. I moved my hand up the door frame until I ca
me
to a hard metal obstruction. It felt like a padlock, and for an instant I thought we were done. But as I ran my fingers along its length I realized the lock was through the metal rings on the door and the frame, but it wasn
’
t closed. It felt like a flight of angels sang as I slipped the lock free and
threw
the door open.

There wasn
’
t much light in the space beyond the door, but it was enough. Claire and I were suddenly
in
silhouette before the open door. There were shouts from a distance down the passageway, and a rain of plasma bolts began to hit the walls nearby. They were too far away and running too fast to be accurate, but we couldn
’
t stay here.

I pushed Claire through the doorway and followed her, pulling it shut behind as the first of the charges started to hit it. There were metal gromits to feed a lock through on this side as well. I fumbled with the padlock still in my hand and fed it through. I didn
’
t close it, since doing so wouldn
’
t slow them down any more, and I hadn
’
t determined if there was a way out of here yet.

“What are you doing?” she called, a short distance away.

“A dramatic rescue
,”
I said
.
“Haven
’
t you been paying attention?”

I took he
r hand and we ran a few steps fa
rther, coming to the end of the narrow passage at last and stepping into the room beyond.

The room was enormous. Sunlight trickled through five or six boarded up windows, enough to get your bearings by, but not much more. The windows were at least forty feet above the floor level.

From behind us, the plasma charges could be heard tearing into the door.

“That
’
s not going to hold them
,”
she said.

“Come on.” I pulled her into the space and saw what I hoped for. At the other end of the giant room was a loading dock, with light just sneaking in around the huge metal doors. They seemed to glow like the gates of heaven. We ran for them like hell.

The maze of high shelves that seemed to fill the room had been looted, long ago by the look of them. The deep shadows on every side were filled with misshapen artifacts of a more prosperous time, now lying in the semi-darkness like broken statues of fallen Gods. We took the one clear path through this graveyard of capitalist dreams – straight up the middle.

Behind us I could hear the metal door finally shred beneath the po
unding of plasma and heat. They’
d
be through in a minute, but we’d already be gone. We’d hit the light, and then I’
d try and figure out what happened next.

We wouldn’
t have to go far, and if we could get far enough ahead to get out of sight, the Locust would never find us in time. If they were right about what this Golem Protocol could do, all we would need to do is find an Omnilink station, and they were everywhere. In every direction. If it took Carter more than twenty m
inutes to find us, there wouldn’
t be a Cyrus Carter any more; there would never have been a Cyrus Carter, and a man bearing a striking resemblance to him would have a dozen warrants out for him. Let the cops take him down.

In the end, I was lucky that I saw what I did at that very mo
ment. Another few seconds and I’
d have started constructing happily ever after scenarios with the beautifu
l blonde I had in tow. I wouldn’t have meant to, but I couldn’
t have helped myself. I was sure I was
n’
t the first guy to play the sap for her, but I was prepared to lay odds on being the last, one way or another.

But then I saw it. We were only twenty, maybe thirty feet away when I could finally see well enough to be sure. I ground to a halt and stared.

“What is it?” Claire hissed, trying to pull me on towards the loading bay doors.

“The stairs
,”
I said
.
“They’
re gone.”

“What?”
She
didn’
t seem to understand.

“They’
ve been stripped. They were probably metal.”

Claire let my
hand go and ran on. I ran after her.

“No
,”
she whispered
a
s she reached the concrete wall below the loading dock. She rested her hand against the cold cement. “No.”

The wall was smooth, sheer and fifteen feet high. Without those stairs, there was no way we could get to the doors. The fittings were stil
l in place. It looked like they’
d been cut away with a blowtorch. How someone had managed to strip a couple of thousand p
ounds of metal stairs, I couldn’
t say. Of course there was heavy equipment in every other building in the Acre, so maybe
it wasn’
t such a mystery.

Claire began to l
ook around frantically. It wasn’t a bad impulse, but there wasn’
t time.

“Claire! Come on!” I hissed. She pulled away from me.

“There’
s got to be a way... something we can use... help me!” she barked.

The concrete wall was suddenly ablaze as a plasma bolt str
uck it not two feet from Claire’
s head. She screamed. I threw my arm over her head and ran her into the shadows, into the maze to our left, firing blindly as I did so.

We ran to the end of the first aisle, then turned left again
and
ran halfway up
,
turning
at the first juncture. The shelves that made up that high wall were built from a wo
oden frame, not metal, and they’
d held up better than most. I started to shimmy up the suppo
rts to the second level. Claire’
s eyes were panicked, as if I might just leave her down there t
o take the fall alone. And if I’
d been thinking straight, maybe I would have. I pulled her up and rushed her towards the back of the unit. I thought of trying for
the third level, but we couldn’
t risk the noise. There was something like a lean-to up there, made out of a couple of old pallets. It stunk to hell. At one point it had either been a shelter for some homeless piece of crap or a raccoon with a serious internal disorder. But it was something approaching cover anyway, so I pushed her as far into it as I could and followed her in, to wait in the darkness for the inevitable.

“Monarch!” the Locust’
s voice boomed through the great open space like he was calling a dog. “Monarch!”

“What is he trying to do?” Claire whispered, too loud. I held my hand up in the semi-darkness as a plea for silence.

“I don’t know what you think you’
re doing, Monarch, but no one betrays me and lives.”
The
echo of his calls were like a far-off peal of thunder. Like a sto
rm rolling in off an open lake.

Beside me, I could feel Claire’
s heartb
eat racing. We were in the lion’
s den and there was no mistake. At the end of the trail, all the
truth was on the table... wasn’
t someone supposed to break down in a dramat
ic confession? Wasn’
t I supposed to hand someone over to the law and bill someone else tw
enty-five dollars a day? I hadn’
t finished it yet, but I was sure that was how
Murder, Sweet Murder
was going to end.

“You can’
t hide from me
,” the
great wall of sound came again
.
“You have been the instrument of my righteous vengeance often enough to know that. My will is a force of nature, Monar
ch. As inevitable as the tide.”

And this was the problem. I was not
a detective. Not really. I hadn’
t done that badly, all things considered, but however much I had tried to be Drake Finn, Private Investigator, gathering the
suspects in the lobby just didn’
t seem to be my thing. I might never be the Monarch again, but I was a predator, not prey, and hiding in the darkness hoping for the best was not playing to my strengths.

“You can’t sell the P
rotocol yourself,” Locust cried
,
“you’
re a Shade! You have no profile, no ex
istence. Omniframe says you don’
t exist and Omniframe is always right!”

I checked the charge meter on the GAT out of habit and gave my neck a
stretch to either side. It didn’
t crack, which was probably for the best, but I felt loose. Claire must have sensed what I was about to do, because she caught my arm and held it hard. That was nice. Like the sound of a wailing woman over your grave, it was something not to be missed. I pulled my arm free from her grip and kissed her. She kissed back frantically, but did not try and stop me ag
ain. She either knew she couldn’
t or didn
’
t want to overplay her hand and actually convince me not to go. It occurred to me that I needed to do something about this cynicism thing.

I moved silently towards the post I had climbed and lowered myself to the ground. That was the worst part
–
letting myself down slowly, knowing that I was exposing myself, leaving myself helpless in the name of silence. I expected a plasma bolt to cut me in half at any moment but I held my nerve. Rushing would betray our position, which is exactly what he was trying to force me to do.

You had to hand it to Carter, he was
a very cool customer. He couldn’
t possibly put himself in the line of fire often, why
on Earth would he? But he didn’
t have his small army of un-persons anymore. It was just him and some plug with a soul-patch, so he was here, taunting me, trying to draw me out. He must have had a hell o
f a lot of faith in whatever he’
d done to me to keep me from tur
ning on him. Of course, since I’
d had him dead to rights twice and failed to pull the trigger, he might have a point.

While he
was
call
ing
out to me, he
couldn’
t hear me coming. But Soul Patch could. He was out there somewhere, hunting us. Hunting me, if he had any sense of priority. I had one thing going for me
–
my relative certain
t
y that if he was better than me, he would have been the one in charge. I
t wasn’
t much, but when you have no reason for confidence, bravado wasn
’
t a bad substitute.

Of course, the speed at which the bolts had
been
thrown back in the hallway suggested there were two guns at play, which means Ca
rter was armed too. Probably he’
d p
icked up the GAT when I’
d taken Ponytail
out. If I was lucky, he wouldn’
t re
ally know how to use it. I hadn’
t been lucky a great deal lately, but I figured I was due.

On the other hand, a hand canon was about as subtle as a brick through your windshield, so how good did he really have to be? Especially since I seemed to be incapable of firing back. First things
first. Time to find Soul Patch.

“Do you really think you can cross Cyrus Carter and live, Monarch? After all that I have done for you, all that I have given you?”

I moved to the end of the aisle and up the far wall, in as much darkness as I could find. Carter was that way, with his little
friend somewhere in the darkness
waiting for me. Which meant if I wanted to take Soul Patch out, I had to stick my head into the trap and come up shooting first. The GAT hung by my side, my gun arm straight down
to
the floor, the side of the pistol pressed against my leg to conceal the whir of the plasma generators, or at least muf
fle it in the folds of my coat.

Carter seemed to be getting more involved in the sound of his own voice, and less concerned with the little two-handed melodrama Soul Patch and I were about to enact all around him. It must be wonderful to be absolutely certain that you are the reason for all of creation and everything in it.

“That’
s it, isn
’
t it?” he boomed, almost amused. As if he understood the dog now. “The money wasn
’
t enough, was it? You want
ed
your life back.” He seemed ge
nuinely tickled at the thought.

My cheeks flushed in rage that
I did not have time for. I didn’
t remember my life as Mo
narch, much less the one that I’
d given up to become him, but something deep within me hated Carter for his scorn. Somewhere in the d
arkness he must have known this
because he continued with new gust
o.

“Or better yet, someone else’
s life, someone quite fictional, with all the credits you can use. It can be yours
,
Monarch.”
His
voice was smoother now, softer in a way. He was prepared to forgive the dog its muddy paws and even to reward it, if only it would come when it was called. “Everything this world has to offer can be yours at the push of a button. You can live again, Monarch. Bring me the girl and it can all be yours.”

His song was full of promise, full of hope. He sang it like a poem and I almost believed him, but only because I wanted to so badly. I turned to the right and moved in a fast crouch-walk through a narrow space left when one of the tall shelves had rotted away and fallen against the next
.
It was near pitch-black in there
, and the best piece of cover I’
d seen. Five to ten Soul Patch was already in here, waiting.

I moved slowly, silently, searching the darkness for any sound, any sign of movement. If Soul Patch was expecting me to hunt Carter, this would be the perfect tall grass for
him to lay in and wait. Carter’
s voice was coming from the centre aisle, maybe thirty feet from the end of this passage. If he was
expecting me to hunt Carter, I’
d come up behind him as he watched and waited.

But if he knew
that I would hunt him first, he’
d be facing the direction I was sure
to come from to take him out. I’
d walk right up to
him and if I was very lucky, he’
d pause just long enough to let me see him smile.

There didn’
t seem to be much I could do about
it either way. This one wasn’
t on me, it was on Soul Patch. If he were good, he was mine. If he was very, very good, I was dead.

Something long and nameless brushed
past me in the darkness. I didn’t so much as flinch. I didn’
t dare. Carter had fallen silent, but I thought I could hear him breathing heavily. He was a powerful man, but not at all built for physical displays like this, much less the oratory that had followed. He sounded exasperated to me. Furious at my failure to come slinking from the shadows with my tail between my leg
s and my GAT at Claire Marsland’
s temple.

Or whatever the hel
l her name was. I wondered if I’d ever know. I wondered if she’
d
made a break for it. It wouldn’
t have been a bad play – if the roles were reversed I might have tried it myself.
Except they had been and I hadn’t. But even that wasn’
t fair
.
I’
d love to congratulate myself on what a good person I turned out to be after all, b
ut the truth of the matter is I’d had nowhere else to go when I came
riding to her rescue, and she had the ultimate prize in a bubble envelope under her arm.

Of course, she
’
d have to make it up the aisle past the Locust and find her way back the way we came, so I thought it more than likely she was still behind the stinking lean-to on the shelf. I hoped so, and hated myself for hoping it.

Suddenly, the darkness before me shifted and I could
see
traces of light beyond. I realized that I was nearly at the end of the aisle, and that the blackness before me was nothing less than my friend with the Soul Patch. I froze. I couldn
’
t tell at first, but then...

He was facing the other way.

I crept closer, as slowly as I could. A nice, commanding view of the middle of the room, good cover. It had everything you could want. Except it also had a back door, and I had found it.

I paused a moment. From here I would have a decent chance at pulling the trigger on Carter, except I still wasn
’
t sure that I
’
d be able to
take the shot, and I still wasn’
t sure how to deal with that. So it would be best if Mister Carter did not hear the roar of a GAT just now. I slid the double-Z into its holster and readied myself.

“Monarch!” Carter suddenly cried in rage. Before the echo had died I had thrust my right fist forward in a har
d jab to the base of Soul Patch’
s skull, grabbed him by the head and forced him to the ground. I put as much weight behind the next two punches as I could, desperately trying to punch clean through his cranium. It wasn
’
t possible, of course, but the satisfying crunch of bone against concrete told me that he wouldn
’t be getting up any time soon.

I
’
d have made sure of him, but I didn
’
t have a blade. Besides, if I was ever going to be more than this, I should try and cut down on how
many people I killed. A little.

Soul Patch
’
s gun was an M Series. It had some decent heft, dual projector arrays and a hand grip that felt customized. I slipped it into my pocket, just in case
,
and peered out to see if I could spy my master.

The bad dog was ready to come home.