Digital Plague

XXXV Day Ten: Like Breathing Death Itself

“Explain it to me,” I snapped as I followed Belling into the hall. I was getting sick and tired of mysteries.

“It takes a bit of time,” he said conversationally, as if discussing the action on his gun or the juice rates on illegal loans off the Bowery. “First they have to die-that varies, as you’ve no doubt noticed. Some go right away, some linger for days while their chests collapse and they cough blood. Once they’re dead, there’s that marinating. They look dead. They are dead. But those tiny little buggers inside them are doing something.”

“Repairing damage,” Marko said without looking up from his handheld. “Bringing the physical shell of the body back into basic operating shape. Sealing off and rebuilding broken vessels. Taking cellular material from the portion of the body they won’t need anymore-the brain-and modifying it to create stem cells, which are used to repair arteries and destroyed organs.”

“Thank you, Zeke,” Belling rumbled, stopping outside a pair of swinging doors and turning back to us. The square panes of glass set into the doors showed a darkened room beyond lit only by a scattering of signs suspended from the ceiling, a rainbow of cheery colors in the gloom. “Whatever it is, people pop up after a period of time-hours sometimes, days mostly. They come back, Avery. They’re not who they were. They’re not even human anymore. They’ve got blood pumping through their veins, they’re breathing, but the nanobots are directing things. They’re like biological robots.” He looked at me. “Your people, Avery, were the first ones to go down with this. They’re the first ones to come back.” He jerked his head over his shoulder. “Kev’s got himself a couple of bodyguards. And more on the vine.”

I stared over his shoulder at the doors, feeling a slow anger filling me like syrup, steady and thick. I’d spent my whole life trying to walk the line-for this bullshit? This was my reward? I didn’t have people anymore; they’d been stolen from me. My city was gone, a shell filled with corpses, corpses that would, it seemed, soon be up and dancing to Dennis Squalor’s tune. I’d played by the rules for years, and I’d been beaten and shot at and thrown around like a fucking rag doll. I was sick and fucking tired of waiting for my reward.

“More on the vine,” I said dully.

Belling raised his eyebrow again, and I thought that one of these days I would hold the old man down and shave that fucking eyebrow off. “A few days ago, Mr. Cates, New York reached a tipping point. Most of the population was sick or dead, our friends the System Pigs, like the useless tubs of shit they are, were getting scarce-no offense, my dear-and things were going haywire everywhere. People had even stopped looting, Mr. Cates, if you can imagine it, because there was no longer any point. Thousands, packed into the hospital like logs. Five days ago they started accepting patients without Health Department Underskin Chips, and about three days ago there wasn’t any staff left to stop people. People just kept coming. Didn’t know what else to do, I suppose. Most are dead now, of course… for the moment.”

“For the moment,” I repeated. I felt like my latent psionic powers were bubbling up. If I just waited a moment or two, I’d be able to set people on fire with my fucking thoughts. This shit was unfair, and I wasn’t going to play along anymore.

“Last I checked, there were three operational in there,” Belling said. “I’m not sure if any others have come online. Avery,” he looked down and made a show of checking his gun as he spoke, “they’re not who they were, anymore. They’re robots, really. Just biological robots. Don’t forget that.”

I looked at him, suddenly feeling burned out, emotionless. I was just feet from putting an end to this, and I was ready to get it done, one way or another. “Monks?” I asked. “Old-school Monks?”

“On the roof, guarding the perimeter,” Belling said immediately. “Kev knows the cops are still out there.”

“Spooks, too,” Lukens drawled.

I looked at her, feeling cold, calm. “What?”

She tapped her ear. “Command’s shifted to Mr. Bendix again,” she said flatly, with her long vowels. “A government hover found our team. Colonel Hense is still field commander, though.” She looked at me for a moment, her round face pink and damp. “No one’s bothered to issue me any new orders, though, so I’m here, ain’t I?”

I nodded, looking back at the doors. “Let’s go.”

As he snapped his gun closed again Belling studied me for a moment before nodding and looking at Marko and Lukens.

“Zeke, keep that hand cannon pointed away from me. Dear, how many rounds do you have for that shredder?”

“Thousand, Grandpa,” Lukens said in her lazy tone, blinking her eyes like a cow, “plus fifty in the deck.”

Belling considered. “Not much. But I assume you’re trained on the weapon and will not waste ammunition. Three reconstitutes in there, guarding the way to our quarry. There were a few dozen incubating corpses, however, and some of them may have ripened.”

I grimaced at the word.

“So there may be several people to get through. These are human bodies. They will bleed and can be crippled, but I don’t think they feel pain, except as a data stream, and from what I’ve seen they have taken human reflexes to the limit of their capabilities.” He paused. “I have seen them do… amazing things.”

Belling looked serious and grim-all bullshit, though; Belling would look however he thought we expected him to look. I could see now why he’d come down to meet me. Cut loose by Kev, he saw his fate in the next room: an animated corpse. And while I had no doubt Wa would be able to handle three or even five of these things in time, time was exactly what he didn’t have, and when he fought his way through he’d still have Kev’s Push to deal with. Belling needed a distraction for Kev. I shrugged and twisted my neck until I was rewarded with a satisfying pop. The old man and I each reached forward and pulled the doors open, stepping aside as Lukens smashed a nova lamp against her thigh and tossed it inside. It skidded along the floor and stopped near the center of the room, its clear white light bringing the whole room into being. It was a big, square room, and looked like a little riot had passed through not too long ago. The ceiling was high, the walls rising up to tall windows that let in light, pipes and ducts snaking around in a complex pattern. It had once been filled with rows of plastic seats bolted into the floor, but most of these had been torn up and strewn about, some still attached to their metal brackets and intact, some broken up into chunks of brightly colored plastic. The Vid screens that had been bolted onto the walls had all been torn down and smashed on the floor, along with big chunks of drywall.

In just about every intact chair sat a corpse. It might have been a goddamn town hall meeting, except for the blood and the huge, concave wounds on people’s chests and necks. Bodies were scattered around the floor, too, some leaning against the walls. All looked as if a huge blood-filled pustule had formed and burst on their chests; some with the perma-grin of a lost lower jaw. Across the room stood a high counter where the staff had once lorded it over the patients, with a solid-looking security door to the left. It was through the door or over the counter. As I stared into the room, trying to memorize the layout and regulate my pained breathing, the nova lamp brightened sharply and then began to flicker on and off rhythmically, throwing the mausoleum into gloom and then painfully bright light. I looked back at Lukens, who blew the loose strand of hair out of her face and spread her hands. No more lamps.

“Well,” Belling said after a moment, “let’s get moving. We should split into two groups.”

I nodded. Two groups, creep along the perimeter, keep a wall on one side. Assholes burst into a room and let space build up around them-you could get sniped, you could be attacked from any direction. If you had a fucking wall, you used it.

“I stay with Cates,” Lukens drawled. “He’s my asset.”

“Your asset is going to break one of your thumbs soon,” I muttered, shaking my head. Belling would throw Marko on the fire the moment it was convenient. “You go with Methuselah here.” She began to protest and I put my open hand over her mouth. “I am not your asset,” I said. “Unless you’re prepared to shoot me, go with Belling.”

I took my hand off her mouth and reached behind me, pulling Marko forward roughly. He let out a soft squawking sound. “You, on the other hand,” I said, “are my asset.” I leaned in close to his ear. “Stay between me and the wall. Keep that cannon Belling gave you in your hand, but keep your fucking finger off the trigger unless you’re so desperate you’re not afraid of me anymore, okay?”

He stared a moment, then fished the gun out of his pocket and held it awkwardly, his finger along the barrel. “Okay,” he said, trembling. I felt sorry for him then. He’d spent his life in a lab and never looked for this. This was the universe being unfair to him, too. I patted him on the shoulder. “Look, I need you. I’m going to try to keep you alive.”

It was as honest as I could be, and he seemed to appreciate it. It didn’t matter, of course, if one more person died because of me; the list had gotten endless. But I didn’t have to sit back and let the fucking world shit on me, shit on everybody. Something had to start making sense again, and soon.

Wordlessly we all crept forward into the room. Belling and Lukens hugged the wall to the left, and I put Marko between me and the wall on the right, my gun in hand, eyes everywhere.

The smell crept up on you. The first few steps I was concentrating on the first row of seats still bolted into the floor, each one filled with a half-eaten corpse. In the flashes of light from the broken lamp, I could see they weren’t in as bad shape as I’d thought. A lot of their chest wounds had skinned over with puckered, pink flesh that looked healthy and new. I couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked as if a few of them were breathing in slow, unhurried movements. A skinny blond girl had been so eaten away her head had sagged over the back of the chair at an unnatural angle, and the huge wound had skinned over to hold her head permanently upside down against her back. As we moved along the wall it was as if I’d crossed an invisible line, and the smell was all over me like oil. It was something I couldn’t identify, something my whole body instinctively wanted to crawl away from. It was like breathing death itself.

We made our way toward the corner. I kept one hand on Marko’s sweaty back, urging him forward, and my eyes on the bodies we passed. Ripening, I thought. One moment we’d be lit up bright as day, everything sharp edges and deep shadows, the next we’d be in darkness, only the cheerfully colored signs suspended from the ceiling casting a ghoulish watery light. I could hear my own loud wheezing and Marko’s frightened panting next to me.

“Do you still need me, Cates?” he gasped in a stage whisper.

I kept my eyes on the bodies we passed. Their seats had dissolved into wreckage and they were sprawled in a pile on the floor, limbs entwined, crusty gore everywhere. “Every time you speak,” I replied, “I reevaluate.”

I knew how it would come. If I were ambushing someone in a darkened room filled with decoys I’d be in among the bodies, lying still, picking my moment. I’d be positioned far enough in to draw my quarry away from the doors, and I’d create a bottleneck to make them change course or slow them down. In one of the lamp’s flashes I saw a spot just beyond the corner where a trash can and a pile of intact chairs appeared to have been tossed together haphazardly, and I thought, There. That’s where I’d be waiting.

Tensing, I forced myself to keep moving at the same pace, raking my watery eyes over the jumble of bodies around this spot as they vanished and reappeared in the flickering of the lamp. They all looked dead to me. I was vibrating with adrenaline and wanted to breathe, really breathe, so much I thought it might be worth it just to let the whole fucking world die so I could get some air.

As we drew close to the trash can, past a jumble of moist-looking bodies, there came the tearing snarl of the shredder followed by half a dozen shots from one of Belling’s pistols, an extra flash twenty feet away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of movement and then a hand was on my ankle, the grip strong, painful. With a jerk it pulled me off-balance, and I had to take a handful of Marko’s shirt to keep myself from being flipped onto the floor. I fired twice into the mass of bodies and then a figure was rolling away, jumping to its feet with eerie grace and in silence as the nova lamp flickered off. I fired twice more where it had been, but light, slapping steps told me my attacker was barefoot. I shoved Marko behind me and put every neuron I had left into my ears, listening, but another burst of fire across the room briefly muscled all the other noise out of the way for a moment. When it faded I held my breath and heard two soft slapping noises right in front of me as the lamp flickered back on.

I swung my arm up and froze, squeezing the trigger out of reflex and shooting her in the shoulder almost by accident. She was just a foot away, her shoulder a sticky mess of blood and bone, her neck and chest just a fused wrinkled mass of new pink flesh. For one second her blue eyes-perfect, preserved, and every bit as flat as when I’d last seen them-stared into mine.

“I told them,” I whispered hoarsely, “to fucking burn you.”

Without expression Glee spun around, shot her arm out, and sliced a deep gash down my face.