Digital Plague

“Squalor’s not dead, you know,” Marko said suddenly.

Hense glanced back at us but didn’t say anything. “Sure he is,” I said. “I fucking killed him.”

Marko shook his head. “Squalor’s brilliant, man. Squalor could hack anything. You killed a De

I looked around. “Is he here with us, right now? Can only you see him?”

Marko looked at me as if he wanted to say fuck you, but thought better of it. I went back to sweating and aching and taking in the breathtaking scenery of broken buildings and melted asphalt. The city was firming up as we got closer to its core, old even before Unification came along to ruin everything. It had been the outer areas and suburbs that had flared up; the city core had seen little trouble, at least until all the Monks fleeing London had arrived and made Paris theirs.

We’d fought our way through new undergrowth to a roadway ru

The silence continued to make me queasy, and the air didn’t smell like anything, a sterile kind of wind. There was no distant scent of smoke, or the close-up smell of terror, or even the acidic urine aroma of irritated people. It felt like we were walking through a void.

Hense marched without a moment’s hesitation, directed from time to time by a word from Marko, who was tracing the nanobot signals beaming out from all of us every second, assuring themselves. She didn’t look back at us, didn’t nervously touch her gun or even seem to be sweating.

As the river curved slightly to the west, I could see a large building looming up in front of us. The road started to rise and curve into a rat’s nest of half-collapsed thoroughfares, and we had to climb up then drop down a few levels to get back onto the riverbank, which Marko insisted was our best bet. Hense just kept going, confident, I supposed, that Happling-gri

The building in the distance resolved itself into a jumble of stone with spidery arms sprouting out of the sides as if holding up the walls. A tall, thin spire jutted out from the middle, and two squarish towers rose up on either side. As we got closer it became clear that it occupied an island separate from the east bank that had once been reachable by bridges now just stubs of stone and twisted metal. Around it, Paris consisted of short, square buildings, many blasted away yet some remarkably preserved. Still, nothing on the horizon was as tall or imposing as this thing.

I knew the answer before asking. “Hey, Marko,” I said. “Where we headed?”

He pushed his chin at the island. “The church. There’s a fucking storm of traffic coming from that church.”

We made our way down to the river and stopped amid the ruins of one of the bridges, the old pylons jutting out of the water like teeth. A crumbling wall ringed the island, and we all stared at it for a moment, contemplating how hard it was going to be to swim across and clamber up, all without knowing what we were going to find there.

“Mr. Marko?” Hense said, squatting down and sounding just slightly out of breath. “See anything?”

Marko was already wandering the broken rubble at the river’s edge with his eyes glued to his screen. “Aside from the digital traffic, I’ve got one heat signature that’s in the right range for a human. I wouldn’t see any Monks that way, though.”

“Fuck the Tin Men,” Happling growled, crumbling a cigarette in his hands and jamming the tobacco into his cheek. “The ones swam over here ain’t going to give us any problems. That’s why they’re still here, in the shithole of the universe.”

Hense rocked on her heels, staring across the water. “No one knows we’re here. No one could be expecting us.”

“Sure,” Happling drawled, spitting brown juice onto the ground. “Because smacking a hover into the ground just a few miles away wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone.”

She cocked her head slightly back toward him but didn’t say anything. For a moment she just stared off into the distance, the sun hidden behind scummy clouds. “Wait for night.” She stood up and turned to face us, five feet and a hundred pounds, and I was pretty sure she’d make me hurt plenty if I ever tried to lay hands on her. “Mr. Marko, see what you can see, and find out what you can about that building. Nobody go more than a few feet from Mr. Cates.”

Marko sat down where he’d been standing, staring at the screen and moving his slender fingers. “There’s nothing there, Colonel. A minor heat sig, all the air traffic we’ve been tracking between it and the nanos, and nothing else. No hot wire, no cavities-just old stone and empty air.” He snapped his little device shut and peered at us with squinty, screen-blinded eyes. “If there’s anything over there, Colonel, it’s one person.”

I reached down and picked up a rock, chucking it into the water just to watch it be swallowed, the water like heavy oil, barely rippling. “All right,” I said, heart pounding. “Let’s go, then.”

“Wait for night,” Hense said from behind me. I could picture the tight shake of her head.

“No,” I said. “What, you think night’s going to make a difference? Anyone over there expecting us is expecting us. If Marko can’t see them, then either they can’t be seen or they aren’t there. Either way, waiting doesn’t accomplish anything.” I shrugged off my coat and started going through the pockets, transferring anything useful to my pants. “I’m diving in three minutes, Colonel. What are you going to do? Shoot me?”

I dropped the coat to the ground and slid my gun securely into a front hip pocket. My arms were mottled blue and gray, but I felt better than I had in days, adrenaline coursing through me, the pain receding. I thought I might actually get to kill someone responsible for this, for Glee, for New York, and everyone else I’d just murdered without meaning to. I was almost cheerful as I picked my way to the water’s edge and started taking deep breaths, my cracked ribs poking me with each inhalation.

“Fuck it,” Hense said from behind me. “Lead on, Cates.” She sounded amused.

I wasn’t paying any attention anymore. I took three terrible, ragged breaths and then threw myself into the water. It was cold-surprisingly cold, a slap of freezing liquid against my body. My clothes soaked it up and got heavy, and after just a minute or so I was panting. Behind me, I heard them slip into the water, and pretty soon we were all making a lot of noise as we swam to the island. About halfway down the west side the retaining wall had been smashed up a little, and we were able to pull ourselves out of the evil river to stand dripping beside the massive building. I stood breathing hard and suppressing coughs, examining the structure. A grayish white, it was eerily preserved. I thought of the church in Newark and marveled at whatever ancient instinct people’d had to leave the fucking churches alone while they burned down the rest of the world.