Oh, fuck you,
I thought, jumping down from the desk and looking around the office, which now appeared barren, the walls scuffed and pitted with impact craters. There was nothing in it besides Rubertos desk, two corpses, and us.
Can you get us out of this room?
No. Im sorry, Avery. In an emergency like this the security status of administrative offices change, and all gestures and codes are wiped clean.
I nodded.
Then shut the fuck up and leave me alone until you can offer me something useful,
I thought. I started walking toward the avatar. No Mr. Wizard, Grisha, I shouted over the alarm, which was like a solid wall of sound, irritating my ear nerves directly. Can you and Mr. Marko try your hand at opening the doors?
I am not his fucking sidekick, Marko shouted. I scored over six hundred on my T6, dammit.
I barely picked out Grishas response: Yes? Very good, Ezekiel. I scored a seven hundred and twenty-five myself.
I ignored the sudden cotton ball of awkward silence behind me as I stopped at Neelys body. Dont move, Mr. Smith, I instructed the avatar and put my gun against its head.
Avery, Grisha shouted immediately. We may yet need the extra resources that unit represents.
The avatar remained kneeling over the Spook. Dont, it said, so low I almost couldnt make it out over the alarm. Im
you,
you jackass. I dont want to die.
I laid my finger across the trigger. I
hated
this thing. It had my memories, my mannerisms, my secretsand it was just a mass of wires and boxes, cobbled-together tech from the research of two or three geniuses. I hated it and wanted it gone, erased from the cosmos, like I thought it had been weeks ago. I didnt care if there were other copies of me out there, digital or avatar. I didnt care that Marin might wave his hands at any moment and make a chorus line of me appear, singing and dancing. I wanted
this one
gone.
My hand shook.
I might still be useful, jackass, it said without moving its head. Hes not the only Pusher in this burg, right? And I look like the King Worm. That could come in handy, too. Dont be an idiot.
Avery, Grisha said from the door behind me. Listen to it. Destroy it later. There will be time.
I swallowed something hard and jagged, felt it travel all the way down into my gut, and slowly lowered the gun. Fine, I said. I hated that the avatar
felt
something. That it wanted to continue to exist.
Good, Grisha shouted, sounding out of breath. You do not seem concerned about our situation, Avery.
I shrugged, sitting down on the floor with the avatar. Youll either get the door open or you wont, I said. Turning, I saw the two Techies standing in front of the door with their arms hanging down loosely at their sides, studying the door as if they expected invisible ink to start fading in, reacting to the powerful radiation of their thoughts. What the fuck, I said tiredly, extracting one of Rubertos cigarettes and tapping it against the fancy case, are you two
doing?
We have no tools, Cates, Marko snapped without turning around. We have
nothing.
You think we can just stand here guessing at all-clear gestures?
Hell, I said, struggling to my feet with the cigarette clenched between my teeth. Leg aching and lungs suddenly burning, I stumped over to the desk and kicked it over, stumbling backward and almost falling onto my ass. I walked over to it and bent down, taking two of the drawers in hand and lifting them up and out, tossing them aside and letting their contents spill everywhere. I repeated the process three times, dumping out the drawers, and then bent down and lifted the desk back into position. Its surface was one large screen, gesture controlled and currently a deep, angry red to reflect the alarm state of the facility.
I looked back at the Techies. See if there are any
tools
in this shit, and I know Im just the fucking trigger squeezer here, but maybe you should be trying to hack this terminal as well. There are
two
of you.
They looked at each other for a second.
Fuck me, Marko growled as they both spun and trotted over to the desk. Grisha dropped to the floor and began sorting through the junk. Try a Poison Push, the Russian said. If the terminal is connected to standard SSF shadow net, it might catch an unsecured node you can drill through.
We locked down that exploit three months ago, Marko muttered, shaking his head. It was a fucking superhighway for Black Box Techies. Ive got a dirty trick
Try a flood attack to gain physical control of this terminal, Grisha shouted. I dont think the systems in this prison have been updated in several months.
Marko shook his head. Physical control, yes, but Ive got a better way. He dropped to his knees and reached an arm into the desk itself, grunting as he suddenly tore a fistful of wires free, their plastic connectors empty and dangling. The desk went black with a flash. He pushed the ball of wires back in, his cheek pressed against the side of the desk as he strained to reach back inside its guts. Fucking ports. Theyre pouring human brains into fucking Droids, but Im still on the floor shoving jacks into fucking ports.
Grisha paused to look up at him. Cold case attack, he said, sounding impressed.
Ive got it down to a science, my friend. Fifteen seconds and Ill be tunneling anywhere in the System.
Grisha sat up and wiped his brow. Stop talking then, and do it.
Marko devolved into mumbling, straining with his head mashed up against the desk until he suddenly grunted a higher note and slumped back, his face ruddy and damp.
Fucking ports, he repeated and then leaped up, studying the desks surface and moving one hand in tiny, complex patterns. I could see the solid black had been replaced with what appeared to be solid red, but Marko seemed excited by this turn of events.
So let me get this straight, I said, watching him. Youre going to open that door
there
with that terminal
here.
Marko shook his shaved head, which sported a bald spot at the very top, usually hidden by his diffuse cloud of hair. Im going to open that door over
there,
he said with raised eyebrows, his eyes locked on the screen, from a terminal in
Havana, it looks like. The boards in these dummies are all pulled from the same inventory, and most of them blank out their security pins when the juice gets yanked directly, and you usually have a few seconds to enter some root commands before the pins reload and go live again. If you manage that, you can start routing packets anywhere you want. So Im going around the fucking world to reach that door right there.
I nodded. I didnt ask for an explanation. I asked a question. The answer to which is, I guess,
yes?
He didnt answer, preferring to just frown at the screen and wave his hands.
I looked at Grisha. You find a lighter in that mess?
He spread his hands with a weak smile. Sorry, Avery.
Cock
sucker,
Marko suddenly hissed, snapping one hand up from the desks surface screen as if hed been burned. Changed out the tables. Never mind.
Avery, Grisha said, standing up slowly. What are the chances, I wonder, that a dozen avatars will rush into this room if and when we open that door? Assuming they do not open it for us once they are in position?
Could happen,
Marin whispered.
I do not know the current head count on duty at this facility. Certainly there must be
some
excess capacity in the staff, and they are almost certainly being routed here as we speak.
Mr. Smith here, I said, gesturing at the avatar, is going to be ready for that. You, on the door. Be ready for anything that comes through.
The avatar didnt move for a second and then hung its head and pushed up onto its feet, checking the gun with precise, memorized movements of its plastic hands. Youre just going to keep throwing me in front of the fucking train, arent you? it muttered, voice low and steady. Without looking at me, it turned away and stepped in front of the door, holding the gun loosely down in front of itself, as if it didnt care much if it managed to get it up in time or not. As if it was considering suicide. I stared at its back for a moment, remembering the weeks just after the Plague when I wandered New York in a fog, half expecting to be killed at any moment and not particularly caring. I remembered when the System Pigs finally came for me, their lists in hand, and how I just sat on the floor of Picks old place, unconcerned about my fate.
Im in the node, Marko announced. Trying an old backbone password Ive had in my back pocket for fucking
years
okay, Ive got a low-level pathway in, trying to leap permissions
Try spoofing the packet, Grisha suggested, sounding like he was ordering a cup of coffee.
Marko waved one hand behind him in irritation. I know how to leap perms, goddammit, he muttered, his other hand moving independently, fingers and wrist in constant motion.
The alarm seemed to be speeding up, getting louder. We had a chancewith a skeleton crew of guards and Little Dick whispering in my ear, we had a real chance of getting to the surfacebut with every second spent trapped in this fucking office with the cooling corpses of Cal Ruberto and his flunky our odds were dwindling. To keep myself from urging Marko on the only way I knew how, I clasped my hands behind my back.
Perhaps Grisha started to say, and the alarm suddenly stopped.
And
thats
how its done! Marko shouted in the sudden vacuum.
I looked up just as the door slid open, a shadowed figure framed against the corridor beyond, where emergency lights were flashing in a slow, steady rhythm. The avatar and I both snapped our guns up at the same time, as if wed practiced it.
The avatar was blocking my line of sight, though, and dumb instinct made me hesitate, my finger slack on the trigger, while it fired twice.
The figure framed in the doorway dropped to the floor, was still for a moment, and then began flailing, a hoarse scream hitching out of it in unsteady breaths. The avatar stepped forward immediately and knelt next to the twitching form, starting to reach out a hand and then pausing. After a moment Dick Marins face looked back at me, blank, mouth open.
Its Marlena, it said.
XLII
BECAUSE YOURE A MISERABLE BASTARD
For a moment I just stood there, gun still up in front of me, the alarm still ringing in my ears like a phantom noise. It transformed, mutated, and became the hacking, dry-throat screech of the figure on the floor just outside the office. The avatar continued to stare at me slack faced, frozen between us, as if a fatal error inside its wiring had bricked it.
I walked slowly over to the door. I wanted to move faster, push myself into my patented unsteady lurch, but my body wasnt responding. She was screaming, kicking at the floor and flopping this way and that, her hands pressed against her belly, dark, rich blood bubbling through the laced fingers.
You fucking shot me! she screamed. You fucking
shot
me! Im shot!
She looked angry. Her skinny, leathery body was all sinews and tendons pulled tight, ropes under her inked skin. She was pale, and her whole face was shadowed, making her look dead.
I stepped around the avatar, which was still kneeling there immobile, and realized I still had the gun in one hand. I let it drop slackly into my pocket, and she looked up at me, suddenly going limp as a fresh river of blood seeped up between her fingers. She squinted up at me, her face tight.
What the fuck are you
doing
here? I asked, pushing the words out with difficulty.
Had to
was calling it a day
getting paid
came down to see the boss
. She swallowed with obvious difficulty, twitching. Are youshit, Avery, I She closed her eyes. I fucking left you
twice.
I turned. Grisha and Marko were crowding the door along with the avatar. Grisha nodded at me. Avery, he said. We must be moving. He looked past me, down at Marlena. I am sorry, Lena.
Ah, fuck it, she whispered, voice shaking. I fucking always knew Id go this way.
I nodded again, looking around at each of them, my head picking up its own strange momentum and just moving up and down, up and down. I saw her face peeking over the edge of the hover, felt her weight against me in the cot at night, heard her soft snore. Right, I said. Grab her. Were taking her with us.
What! Grisha barked suddenly.
