Digital Plague

XXXIII Day Ten: It was Like Living Underwater

Screaming rust, the elevator doors split open in response to some not so gentle pressure, revealing an empty, shadowed shaft, a damp-smelling breeze blowing gently against us. I leaned in and peered down into almost total blackness and then up, where enough light was filtering in from various sources to outline the dim shape of the elevator car hanging several floors above us. Realizing I was sweating freely, I pulled myself back and looked at Marko.

“Any juice in there?”

He leaned into the shaft with his handheld and stared around for a few seconds, then pulled back and nodded. “Yep. Either they’re using this elevator-which would be insane, considering the last time anyone serviced it-or they didn’t have the time or knowledge to route the power selectively and just juiced the whole place. But that shaft is hot.” He frowned. “I’ve also got a lot of nano traffic… but nothing like what I was seeing before. There’s been a-”

He trailed off to a low mumble, talking to himself, and I stopped listening. I considered, taking quick, shallow breaths. I’d identified the threshold where my lungs rebelled and spasmed, sending up chunks of myself in bloody packets, and if I stayed just shy of that point I could control the urge to cough. It was like living underwater. “I don’t suppose you could get that elevator to come down here?”

The Techie cocked his head. “I might, Mr. Cates, but I’m not sure that would be such a good idea, actually. It’d be noisy and would probably attract attention, and as I thought I just pointed out, that car has been hanging there for decades at best. The chances that it would drop us to our deaths are pretty even.”

I nodded, swallowing blood back into myself, a light fever film all over me. “Excellent.” It was always the fucking Hard Way. Even when I’d just been a street-level Gunner, popping shitheads in a crowd for five hundred yen at a time, it had always been the hard way. Too many people, too many bodyguards. A mark who traveled underground all the time. A mark who wore body armor head to toe. A mark buried inside Westminster Abbey. A mark guarded by a System Pig on the take.

I paused, something tickling my brain again, a memory. Before I could pursue it, a horrible grinding noise came from the opened shaft and a shower of quickly fading sparks danced downward inside it. Before I could form a question for Marko, I watched in curiously delighted horror as the ancient lights inside the shaft banged on one after the other, most of the bulbs immediately exploding in a flash of soured light. The ones that survived gave the shaft a sickly yellowish glow.

The slow screeching began descending. Kev knows we’re here, I thought. I didn’t feel him on me, no Push that I could detect, but I was disinclined to move. Kev was coming, or Kev had sent some of his minions to finally kill me off, and I was relieved. I was tired. Exhausted. I turned to spit blood onto the ground while Lukens circled behind me, the climbing whine of her shredder filling the air, to cover the elevator doors when it arrived.

The car made terrible noises as it lowered itself, rust on rust. Dust shook down the shaft in front of us, and when the cab finally came into view it did so slowly, hitching and shaking like a square box being rammed down a round hole. It sank a few feet past the floor before shuddering to a stop, and then-silence. I could hear the rainlike sound of sprinkling dust and then the low, keening sound of complaining metal filling the cavernous space around us.

After a moment a booming noise came from within the elevator cab. Marko jumped and quietly moved farther back, his eyes locked on his little device. The Stormer didn’t flinch. She just stared at the elevator doors, one short finger resting lightly on the trigger of her rifle. The booming repeated twice, and then the cab’s doors parted about half an inch as the tip of a pry bar appeared between them. With a warping, grinding noise the doors were slowly forced open, centimeters at a time, with a jerking motion that hinted at great effort. One more inch, two inches, and I could see movement. Three more, and I could see hands. As the doors split open enough for someone to shoulder through, I finally raised my gun, which shook in front of me embarrassingly.

With a final wrench the doors slid all the way open as smoothly as they’d been designed to. A single figure stood in the shadows within. He dropped the pry bar, which made a metallic rattle, and put up his hands.

“Don’t shoot. I’m an old man.”

“Fucking hell,” I spat out, keeping my gun trained on him. “Wa, you’re a goddamn virus.”

He stepped slowly from the elevator, hands up, looking a little less pressed and neat than I was used to. Even his motion was less fluid, a little more brittle, as if Wa Belling had grown old over the past few days, a lifetime catching up with the old man. “From what I hear, Avery, you’re the virus, yes?” He gave me a raised eyebrow, an expression that used to convey endless disdain and amusement. It looked tired and forced now. “At any rate, I’ve come to throw myself on your tender mercy.”

“He’s not emitting any signals,” Marko announced. “He’s not carrying any devices, aside from four guns and some ammunition.”

“Of course not,” Belling said, smiling. “I’ve come to sur-render.”

“Fuck you, surrender,” I barked, coughing. “You did this to me. You fucked me, Wa. You fucked everyone.” I staggered forward, pushing my gun at him and making him retreat, raising his hands higher. A part of me thrilled at making Wa Belling retreat. “You killed Glee, Wa,” I hissed, my whole body shaking. “You had her chewed up and fucking digested.” I knew that if he’d come here to kill me, he’d have an excellent chance of doing so. One Stormer and a rusted-out Avery Cates wasn’t a match for the man who’d successfully posed as Canny Orel for years. I felt like I’d turn to dust if someone so much as used harsh language on me.

“I fucked everyone,” he admitted, his hands still up in the air. “And I got fucked in return.”

I struggled for control. I wanted to make him suffer. I wanted to hurt him. But I had a job to do, and Belling could help. “How’d you locate us?”

He waggled his bushy white eyebrows. “I tracked your nanos, Avery. They all know you’re here. You’re filled with transmitters. You can’t take a piss, the Freak up there doesn’t know about it.”

I considered this, fighting the urge to start coughing again. “Then why isn’t he down here?”

Belling looked at me, a hint of the old bravado smile on his face. “Because, Avery, the Freak doesn’t consider you a threat. What with his Wonder Boy brain and all, you see. Also,” he continued, looking away and making a show of examining his surroundings, “I have gotten the impression he wants you to die of this plague, slowly. He wants you to suffer. Or rather, the voice in his head does.”

When it is over, you will be punished again, I heard Kev saying not so long ago. I gave Belling my best hardassed stare: emotionless, cold. I was a little surprised how easily it came back to me. “So what’s changed, Wallace? What’s happened in the past two days that brings you to me?”

Belling’s expression changed, all the humor going out of it, rage lighting him up and filling him, peeling back a few dozen years instantly. “Avery, I made a deal-you can cry about it if you want, but you and I, we didn’t have a deal. We had an informal arrangement.”

I almost pulled the trigger right then and there, the words informal arrangement like acid in my ear. The gun shook in my hand, and I told myself it was pure, corrosive anger. I wanted to shove our informal arrangement up his ancient ass.

“I made a deal with the Freak. A deal,” he added, “that no longer exists.” He looked away, finding something over my shoulder to study. “He fucking reneged. On me. On Wa Belling.”

A smile flashed onto my face. I almost felt good. “You got fucked in return,” I said, feeling some small part of the universe click back into alignment.

The old man’s eyes latched onto me. “You can be amused, Avery,” he said icily, “at least for the remaining few hours of your life. As for me, I am not happy. I was going to be immortal, Avery. And now I am dying.”

I squinted at him. “So? Just kill Kieth. Kill Kieth and the whole nano network crashes, right? They’ll just become bits of silicone and alloy in our bloodstream, and we’ll piss ’em out.”

He nodded. “That asshole Kieth is a clever asshole, yes-his little back door in the nano design is the only reason he’s still alive. But Avery, it isn’t that simple. Every time I do something Kev doesn’t like the look of, he tells me to stop, and I stop, yes? And he is under… guard.” He shrugged, suddenly looking small. “And I’ve grown old, Avery. I need your help.”

I snorted at this ridiculous situation, which set off a chain reaction of coughing I couldn’t stop. I was laughing and hacking my lungs up simultaneously, face going red, sweat pouring down my back. I bent over, putting the gun flat against my knee, trying to suck in enough breath to respond.

“Where the fuck were you a day ago?” I gasped. “I’m fucking dying now.”

Belling had recovered some of his old fire and was grinning at me as if we were all sharing a little joke. “So am I! The metal fucker put me on the list. I’ve never been so fucking screwed in my life.” Then he sobered. “I don’t wish to die, Avery, but I want to make that Freak hurt.” He cocked his head at me. “You and I come from the same place, in some ways. You know what happens when someone screws you out of a deal.” He nodded as if that was all that needed to be said. “We were an excellent murder team, Avery. Excellent.”

I spat a glob of red phlegm onto the floor and stared down at it, still doubled over, gasping shallowly. I was slowly getting myself back under control. I put my gun on him again. “You can say what you want, Wa, but we had a deal, you and me. I should shoot you in the belly. Shoot you in the fucking belly and leave you here to bleed and be eaten. To feel what she felt. And you want me to trust you?”

“You have a choice?” He laughed, lowering his hands with a glance at Lukens. “My dear, feel free to shoot me if I make any false moves. That will be our deal.”

She nodded and spat on the floor as if chewing an invisible wad of smoke. “All right.”

He looked back at me. “You’re half the man you were yesterday, Avery, and sledding downhill. You have one System Pig here who is not taking your orders, but we’ll list her as an asset on the assumption that since she hasn’t killed you yet, she probably won’t, and may even kill your enemies in the meantime. You-what the hell is your name?”

Marko blinked. “Ezekiel Marko,” he said, sounding confused.

“Ezekiel?” Belling repeated wonderingly. “Well, Zeke, my friend, what are you bringing to the operation?”

“Uh,” Marko frowned in thought for a second, then held up his little device. “Uh, this.”

“Ah,” Belling said with a sour twist of distaste. “A Techie. My favorite people. Very well; I assume you are skilled?”

Marko nodded slowly. “Uh, according to my OFS of you, you’re fucking Cainnic Orel.”

Belling waved him aside. “Optical facial scans are notoriously unreliable,” he said, “and the database you are pulling from is an official SSF one, yes? Years out of date, I assure you.” He looked back at me. Somehow he’d filled up again, swelling until he was Wa Belling again, bouncing on his feet and speaking in that subtle brogue I knew so well, maybe the last living member of Canny Orel’s old Murder Incorporated. “You have no choice, Avery. You and I, even at half speed, can take down any mark, I think. And we have more resources here than we’ve had at low times in both our careers.”

This was true. When I was young, I’d pulled off some high-profile hits, just me and my gun. It took years of crawling the streets to develop contacts, to get in with someone like Pickering for information, to cultivate the reputation that got you loans, information, extra hands when needed. I pulled myself upright and pushed my gun into my pocket. “All right, Belling. You’re right: no choice.” I needed his gun, and I wasn’t sure I’d succeed if I tried to kill him. If I put him on the run-well, fuck, I didn’t need Wa Belling in the fucking shadows in addition to all my other woes. I held out my hand. “We have a deal. But only until Kieth is dead. After that I plan to make you suffer.”

He eyed my hand warily. “You’re a man of your word, Avery,” he said, stepping forward, “and I am not. But for what it’s worth, I promise this: until we’re done here, you can trust me absolutely. As for suffering, I expected nothing less. We’re each making deals with the devil.”

I almost believed him. You’re a man of your word, I repeated to myself and thought of Kieth, upstairs. Shit, I thought, you’re thinking of last week’s Avery Cates. Hating him, I pumped his hand.

I took a slow, deeper breath, taking my time with it in order to avoid triggering more coughing. “All right, what intel do you have?”

“Little man,” Belling said over his shoulder to Marko, “do you have floor plans of this complex on that delightful little device?”

Marko nodded, rushing forward. “I do!” he said briskly, thrusting the screen toward Belling. “I have floor plans, wiring networks, plumbing, air ducts-none big enough for a person to crawl through, however.” He was sweating lightly, whether from excitement or the first stages of his own nano invasion it was hard to tell. Based on the way he was looking up at Belling, as if he’d found god, I decided it was excitement.

Belling nodded, turning to me. “I know where they’re holding Kieth, and I know the basic deployment of the Mutant Freak’s fellow Monks. We know their strength and resources, Avery.”

“Do we know their strength? Isn’t Kev up there making new Monks right now?”

Belling blinked. “Making Monks? No, not exactly.”

I frowned. “Then why a hospital complex? He wants Monks to take over once we’re all dead, Belling. That’s the whole idea.”

Belling shook his head. “You’re behind the curve as usual, Avery,” he said in a fatherly tone that made me want to split his lip. “Monks were five years ago. You think that was Kev Gatz designing this nanotechnology? Kev Gatz? I’ve seen melons with more mental energy than that asshole. This kind of tech comes from a genius, Avery. Someone with a pre-Unification degree.” He raised an eyebrow. “You must have heard Mr. Gatz talk about Him, yes? The voice in his head? Didn’t you wonder who that was?”

“Holy fucking shit,” Marko said suddenly, sucking in breath. “You’re talking about Squalor. You’re talking about Dennis Squalor.”

Belling’s eyes stayed on me, but he nodded. “Avery, Kev’s got Squalor in his ear, telling him what to do, how to do it. Monks? Squalor’s lost his manufacturing base. His corporeal body. His political clout. He’s personally keeping Kev Gatz from flying apart at the seams, from what I can tell. The rest of the Monks, Kev’s followers, look like the rarities who survived the destruction of the suppression signal-strong minds, I’d guess. Crazy, sure, but crazy in a focused way.”

I shook my head. Something was roaring inside it, making it hard to think. This shit wasn’t fair. “I destroyed Squalor,” I said slowly.

“Avery,” Belling replied, “Squalor was a digitized intelligence. You destroyed his server.” He fluttered his smooth, un-scarred hands in the air. “He’s in the air. And he’s looking for a way to rebuild. Monks were yesterday’s tech. The way Mr. Kieth tells it, what Squalor’s doing now is, in Techiespeak, utilizing the available resources.”

I turned, keeping my eyes on Belling, and grabbed Marko by the collar, pulling him in close. “What the fuck,” I said slowly, “does that mean?”

Marko swallowed, his wide eyes on me, hands limp at his sides. I felt I could have lifted him off the floor. “I think it means all these dead people aren’t going to stay dead.”

Belling smiled and shaped one hand into a gun, poking it at us. “Bingo.”