Digital Plague

XL Epilogue: The Moment When I Almost Shot You in the Head as a High Point

Enduring the ache in my leg that never left me these days, I sat at the bar in silence. I pushed some of the trash onto the floor with one hand; the place had been ransacked at some point, like every other place in Manhattan. The doors had been torn from their hinges, the windows smashed, and just about everything carted off. I imagined the thieves enjoying their booty for all of three days, days in which they coughed blood and spat out their own lungs, days in which the city fell apart around them. I sat on the last stool left intact in Pickering’s and felt the heavy dust I’d disturbed settling on me, seeking to reclaim the surfaces it had come to think of as its own.

Outside, the constant blaring of SSF loudspeakers was distant and tinny, official voices stepping over each other. New York was sick with cops and government-there were more Pigs and kids in suits crawling around the wreckage than citizens. People had survived, and more were arriving every day to pick over the carcass of the city. The city was dead. I’d lived in it my whole life, and I could smell it decomposing around me. The new people were maggots who’d infest it, tunnel into it, make it into something new. It would still be here, but it wouldn’t be my city anymore.

I was thirty-six. I had nothing.

Scratching at my beard, which I’d let grow into an unruly, tangled mess of gray and black, I stood up and stumped down the familiar length of the bar, my bad leg stiff and painful. It might still heal some and get some movement back, but I’d never dance again. It didn’t matter.

I paused by the door where, years before, I’d sat with Kev Gatz and Nad Muller, drinking Pick’s gin and plotting grand things. All of them worm food, the schemes only the dust they were buried in.

Somewhere outside there was an explosion and a jumble of shouts.

The SSF and the government were at each other’s throats, Undersecretaries claiming authority over the cops, Dick Marin telling them to shove their authority up their pencil-thin assholes. Word was the government was pouring yen and matйriel into the new Army, and that the System Pigs would have bigger worries very soon. I believed it. The Pigs were, in the meantime, chasing down every last motherfucker they saw as a possible threat or a possible resource. I’d heard rumors from all over the world-Mexico City, Vancouver, Kinshasa-that people were being rounded up and shot in the head in record numbers, the fucking cops just hammering and hammering without any of the old rules or traditions. Rumor was you couldn’t even bribe them anymore, not that yen was worth shit anymore anyway. They came with high-end brass running the show, fucking colonels and up, kicking their own troops in the balls, fucking famous criminals, good people lined up in alleys and shot in broad daylight, and screw the citizen who saw something and complained. The cops weren’t even hiding you in the shadows when they executed you these days.

I’d seen it in Manhattan, too. I’d heard Marcel had been taken away from his little throne room and left alive-rumor was the fat fuck had walked on his own dwindling legs for the first time in five years, weeping. I’d been by his little hotel the other week, just out of curiosity, and it had been a morgue, the rotting bodies of Marcel’s little court all dead with their SSF straps still around their wrists, the Stormer cables still coiled up where the troops had hit the ground. There was no sign of Marcel, and he would rot for goddamn weeks before he disappeared, so it might even be true.

My days were numbered, and I didn’t care. If Marcel was on their list, so was I, and I had a feeling that even if I’d somehow been left off-maybe a remnant of my old deal with Marin, which had cleared my old record-there were a few cops who’d be happy to put my name back on it. A couple of weeks ago I’d seen Hense busting out an old apartment building on Jane Street, standing there impassive and shiny, her dark hair tied back in a tight bun, her skin perfect, eyes hidden behind pitch-black glasses. The lower floor had blown up, fire and brick blasting out into the street, and she’d just stood there, unconcerned. I’d ducked into a doorway and limped through the building, keeping my head down, and never looked back.

I didn’t hide, though. My leg had healed crooked over the weeks and I had headaches all the time, but I hadn’t died, and I could breathe normally again. I’d been forced to kill four people over the past few weeks, all punks. Two who’d recognized me and wanted to be the ones who took out Avery Cates, two fucking infants who didn’t know me from any other old man tottering around with worthless yen in his pocket. I’d taught them a lesson, but it had been rote, mechanical. Put a gun on me and I’ll put a gun on you, but I didn’t take any joy in it. If I’d had his address I would have gladly pointed them at Wa Belling if they were looking for reputations, but Belling had faded away. The Old Man wasn’t going to live forever, maybe, but he’d been breathing last time I saw him and was one person I’d gladly kill with my bare hands, on sight.

I stared at my hands. Two fingers were bent in unexpected ways and ached on cold nights.

Swinging around, I limped behind the bar, kicking chunks of the wall out of the way. I crouched down and searched the floor, smiling faintly when I found the hidden trigger, a secret panel popping up smooth as silk. Stupid fucks hadn’t done a very thorough job of searching the place, but then it was probably hard to concentrate when you were coughing blood and fighting off a million other looters.

Two dusty bottles of cloudy liquor greeted me, along with two gleaming handguns-cheap pieces of shit, meant for emergencies-and a scattering of credit dongles and health chips. Looking at the chips, I reached up and fingered the deep, pus-filled scab on my hand where I’d gouged out my tracking chip. Why I’d done that if I didn’t care if I lived or not, I wasn’t sure.

I picked up one of the bottles and slumped down onto the junk-strewn floor. I held it up to the weak daylight streaming in and squinted at it. It looked deadly, but I was going to drink it anyway. I twisted off the cap and smelled the old, familiar reek of homemade gin.

Outside, I heard hover displacement approaching. I paused with the bottle halfway to my mouth and then put it down. I shifted my weight and reached into my coat, pulling my gun and tossing it onto the floor with a thunderous crash. I was ready. If they were finally coming for me, I decided I would be drunk. Thirty-six was old enough. Too old. I tipped the bottle and took a long swig of the burning liquid, feeling it edge its way down, turning from knife blade to warm ball in my stomach. For a few moments I sat in relative silence and peace, sipping from the bottle and not thinking about anything. It was just me and the booze and my aching bones.

When they came, it was almost funny, Stormers crashing in, shouts and smoke, a fucking army invading the empty shell of Pick’s until it was crowded with cops. They found me immediately, of course, kicking my gun away, slapping the bottle onto the floor where it shattered in a spray of booze, and jerking me to my feet.

“Sulle vostre ginocchia!” one of them shouted. I laughed. They were pulling cops from all over the System, trying to man up New York again.

“Fuck,” he muttered in a heavy accent. Hands took hold of me and I was flipped around and shoved to my knees, my bad leg barking with a shaft of white-hot pain. A silicone strap was looped around my wrists and pulled achingly tight. As my hands went numb I was thoroughly frisked, but I had nothing else, and they came up empty. My head was pushed down until I was staring down at the dirty floor, and a gun barrel was positioned against the back of my head. It was a familiar feeling.

“Belay that!” someone shouted, and the whole room went still. The gun was immediately gone.

“Flip him around. We need an OFR scan.”

I was pulled up roughly and spun around, two Stormers holding me in place. Two officers had entered the bar. One was a tall, skinny man in a ridiculously pristine black leather overcoat that gleamed in the dim light. He was tanned and shaved close, his dark hair combed back and perfectly barbered. The other was short and my age, maybe even a little older. He looked out of shape, with a belly not quite hidden by his long overcoat and his hair a thin ring around the edge of his skull. He had a long, ugly nose that had frequently been broken, and carried a digital clipboard that reflected a ghoulish green glow onto his chubby face.

The tall one stepped close to me with sinuous grace, giving the impression of having choreographed the movement the night before, and thrust a small black box into my face. I was partially blinded by a bright red flash, and he snatched the box back, peering down at a tiny Vid screen.

“Cates, Avery,” he announced. Looking up at me, he grinned. “Well, shit, Mr. Cates, it’s a fucking honor to execute you!”

I grinned back. “You’re not executing me. I’m committing suicide by cop.”

He winked, drawing an impressive-looking chrome-plated automatic and cocking the hammer back jauntily. “Happy to be-”

“Wait,” the bald guy said quietly, and the Grinner stopped, glancing over at him. Baldy looked up at me, face blank and his eyes empty pools. This was the guy to worry about in the room, I realized. The Grinner was more concerned with the cut of his coat than anything else. Baldy would cut your balls off. Baldy didn’t look at the Grinner, just tilted the clipboard at him. “He’s on the list.”

“Ah, fuck,” the Grinner moaned, glancing down at the clipboard. “So you are, Mr. Cates. Fuck, that’s Marin’s fucking sig block.” He looked at Baldy, face flushing red. “Do you know how many cops this piece of shit has killed?”

Baldy looked back down at his clipboard. “Doesn’t matter. He’s POI, and if you kill him I will make you a personal project, understood?”

The Grinner’s face drained of color as quickly as it had reddened. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I didn’t mean-”

“Fuck what you meant, Colonel,” Baldy said, turning away and gesturing delicately at his clipboard. “Get him loaded up and let’s clear this building for demo.”

Baldy stalked out of Pick’s, and we both watched him go. Then the Grinner turned back and looked around, flushing again as he stuffed his piece back into its holster. He stepped up to me and ran his blue eyes up and down my body.

“All right, shithead,” he said, finding his grin again. “Chengara it is for you, you lucky, lucky bastard. Give it a few weeks. You’ll think back on the moment when I almost shot you in the head as a high point in your life.” He paused to study me again, his mouth smirking. “Shit, you don’t look like much, Cates,” he said.

Avery Cates, the gweat and tewwible, I thought. Avery Cates, Destroyer of Worlds. And I started to laugh.