Digital Plague

Fucking hell, I thought. He didn’t know Happling was there-we had the fucking drop on the old man, and we’re still chasing our tails. I put myself in that situation-surprised by a second System Cop I hadn’t expected-and the result was easy enough to predict: me dead, three or four big holes in my back.

There was a noise behind me and I whirled, stopping myself just before I put a bullet in Happling’s huge forehead. The big cop was sweaty and flushed, his automatics like little black holes in his hands. We stared at each other, and his face crumpled into an expression of irritation.

“Well, fuck,” he hissed, and dived back into the shadows. A second later he was back. “Where the fuck is that old bastard?”

We were both sca

A crash and two muffled shots from the rear of the church, and Happling was on the move, two steps past me before I even turned. He pointed forcefully to our left, a fucking signal I could comprehend, so I took off at my top speed-currently a shambling shuffle-for the left corner. Before I’d covered half the distance, however, Belling burst from the darker shadows of the side aisle into the slightly brighter open area. For a second or two I had a good view of him as he ran, looking calm and energetic like one of the old duffers on the Vids selling ta

I shut everything out of my mind, picturing grass in the evening wind, swaying. I took a sighting on the space just in front of Wa as he ran and relaxed every muscle in my arm, squeezing the trigger as if it were made of glass.

The hammer dry-clicked.

Belling swung around at the slight noise, guns coming up, but kept moving. He tossed three or four quick rounds my way as I dropped hard to the floor, and then he was back in the shadows.

Cursing, I dropped the empty gun and took off, feet skidding on the smooth floor as I struggled to get traction. I had no weapon, but Wa didn’t know that, and if nothing else I might herd him back toward my new best friends the cops. As I tore up the middle aisle, I caught a glimpse of Belling as he flitted from the sides out the front. Body burning, I put everything I had into ru

I knew better than to burst out into the night; I veered for the door on my far left and put my back against the wall between it and the middle door. Trying to control my breathing, I listened for clues, wondering what I was going to do if Belling surprised me. Insult him cruelly, I supposed.

“Avery,” a new, strangely familiar voice called from outside. It sounded like someone was pushing molten metal through his voicebox instead of air. “Come on out, Avery. You’re not going anywhere.”

After a moment, I linked the voice with the memory-me, on my knees, in Newark. Just-what, a week ago? A shiver went through me. Slowly, I inched for the doorway and angled my head around the edge, peering into the square outside the church. I stared for a long time, frozen. The square was full of Monks.

XXII

Day Eight: A Few More Inches to the Wilderness

Dull rust spots were visible on the Monks’ faces, they were so close. The sound of a few dozen Monks being perfectly still in the midst of a dead city was complete silence. I remained hidden behind the doorway, peering carefully around its edge. I was shocked; I hadn’t seen this many Monks-this many fully operational Monks-in years. The ones you saw begging and stumping around Manhattan were sad, pathetic jalopies you didn’t think twice about shoving out of your way. These looked to be all original equipment, which maybe meant guns, but it also meant they were all a little rusted, a little banged up. I ran my eyes over them, counting the dents and tears in their white skin, the rips in their clothes. They all held themselves with that perfect, still confidence that hinted at hardwired reflexes and nuclear cores ticking away their half-lives, and they’d survived, but it obviously hadn’t been easy.

I hated them on sight.

Belling stood in front of them looking freshly pressed and relaxed, among friends, his arms at his side with gleaming Roons for hands.

“I’d like you to meet my benefactors, Mr. Cates,” he said. He wasn’t smiling.

A Monk stepped forward. This one looked so new I thought I could smell the fabric of its coat. In the darkness its face appeared to float above a faint outline of a body. For one horrible moment it smiled at me, a snapshot grin.

“Avery,” it said. “You are as fucking slippery as ever. I never would have imagined I’d run into you here, although He told me it would happen. Come on out. We can see you perfectly well. Perhaps,” it continued in a louder voice, “the System Security Force officers and their pet Techie would like to come out as well?”

I folded myself back against the wall, heart pounding. Fifty, sixty Monks. None of whom looked crazy. Digital sighting, laser guidance, reflexes by the fucking CPU clockspeed-and I had two unhappy System Pigs up my ass. And the one motherfucker I wanted to kill was locked inside a bulletproof cube. I thought I’d just stay pasted against the wall for a while, see what shook out. Let a few thousand more people die.

And then a slow lassitude stole over me, creeping down from my head through my whole body, a peaceful, easy feeling. What the fuck, I thought. I wasn’t about to fight off sixty goddamn Monks-and Wa Belling, and what was the point, anyway?

Feeling strangely happy-just letting everything slip away, as if I’d been hanging from a rope for days and finally just let go-I rolled right and stood in the doorway. The Monk gave me that bastard grin again.

“Thank you, Avery. Ah, the police. Thank you, officers.”

I was walking toward them, taking my time, all my worries distant memories. Turning my head, I was mildly surprised to see Happling and Hense emerging from the big middle doorway of the church. Hense was as tidy and tight-lipped as ever, guns held loosely by her side. Happling was soaked with sweat, his white shirt pasted against his huge chest, arms threatening to split the sleeves, the shredder still looped around him. His red hair looked black in the night, pasted against his forehead.

The Monk cocked its head at us. “Where is your Technical Assistant?”

Happling stumbled a little, a lopsided, stroked-out grin forming on his face. “Gone.” He winked then, a slow-motion crumpling of one side of his face. “Yours, too, fucking freak.”

The Monk stared, not moving, and for a moment anger swept through me, a flame of sulfur that singed me and was gone. It didn’t say anything, but five or six of the Monks silently broke away from the group, moving past us so close I could hear the heavy thud of their steps entering the church. One limped, with an off-center, rolling gait.

The gleaming new Monk stepped forward and intercepted me, putting an arm around me. A million screaming jeebies broke out like sweat on my skin, but I just let it happen. Its arm was heavy on my shoulders.

“Walk with me, Ave.”

It steered me away from the group, off toward the water. “It’s a fucked-up world, Avery, right?” Its voice was exactly the voice I’d heard in Newark, the same melted tone. It looked factory fresh, but it sounded like shit. “You know what? When I was flesh and bone, I was a fucking mess. I never realized it. Could never focus on anything. Always depressed. And the headaches. And then I’m Monked, you know? And I know you think that’s a terrible thing, but for me, it clarified everything. I was a hundred percent better after that. And He has helped me stay in good condition, you know. To make sure I don’t backslide.”