Digital Plague

There was no moment of salvation, no feeling of disease evaporating. I felt as shitty as I had a second before. Whatever damage the nanobots had done to me had been done, and whether that was enough to kill me remained to be seen. A molten, distorted scream filled the room, and I felt Kev’s Push, harder than I’d ever felt before, crashing into my head like a boulder, flattening everything that was me. Before I could blink I’d bent my arm up and put my gun against my own forehead and pulled the trigger. Another dry click sounded like thunder in my ear. Behind me, I heard a volley of gunshots, and Kev’s Push vanished as suddenly as it had hit me, my arm dropping, the gun slipping from shaking, numb fingers. My legs disappeared and I hit the floor softly, just sort of sagging down onto it, feeling like every nerve ending I had left had been pulled to the surface through my pores, screaming and raw.

I heard a soft rustling behind me, and then Hense’s boots appeared near my head. She stood for a moment staring down at Ty, hands loose at her sides, one still gripping her automatic. Her hands were spotless: not a nick, cut, or bruise. I wondered if Colonel Hense was even human. I shifted my eyes and studied her upside-down face, and with a surge of adrenaline I remembered where I’d seen her before.

Hanging upside down from the ancient fire escape, guns still clutched in her hands. I’d killed her. Years ago. She hadn’t been a lofty colonel back then, and she’d shown up moonlighting as bodyguard for one of my jobs. I hadn’t expected a bodyguard, and I remembered barely surviving the encounter.

I never actually killed the target.

Without a sound she turned and disappeared from view, and then those perfect tiny hands were sliding under my arms and pushing me into a sitting position with my back against the examination table. I looked up at her as she knelt before me. She stared at me. She wasn’t sweating. She wasn’t breathing hard. Why would she? She was a ghost. Her face was cocked at me like a bird or a cat examining prey, just like Dick Marin, and I thought, Fuck me, she’s a fucking avatar.

If Marin had started making avatars out of the cops, we were all completely screwed. You’d never be able to stop someone who could just pull another body out of the fucking warehouse and return to kick you in the balls again and again.

She put one of her small hands on my cheek and looked at me, her face almost soft, a slight smile in place. A tiny flare of hope sparked inside me. I liked Hense, cop or no cop. “I am a woman who keeps her word,” she said softly. “Mr. Kieth is dead, and in your way you brought us here. I could quibble about details, but I see no reason to kill you, Avery.”

She wiped something off my face in a gentle, almost affectionate gesture. “Because the Monks will almost certainly do it for me,” she said quietly, patting my cheek and standing up. I watched her walk out of the room without another word as I struggled to suck air into my ruined lungs, too tired to even mind the pain.

For a moment Marko regarded me from the doorway, hands clenching and unclenching in indecision, and then he whirled to follow.

I heard the remnants of the cops pulling out, a few ragged shouts, Hense’s voice clear and unfatigued. A ghost. As they faded, silence crept in behind them, and for a while I just sat there, staring at Happling’s corpse. I thought of Gleason and tried to imagine what she’d say about this, what wise-ass remark, but I couldn’t think of anything. Then the distant sound of heavy boots ru

XXXIX

Day Ten: I Should Have Been Killing Monks

Right, I thought, that’s goddamn fair. For a few moments I sat and stared blearily at the door, happy to not move. This was fitting. After all that, I was going to be torn to pieces by the last of Kev’s Monks, fifty or so still in the complex. We’d slipped past them and they’d arrived too late to save their boss, but here I was, the consolation prize.

In a strange way, I thought it was only right that Kev have his revenge. I’d led him down into Westminster Abbey and he’d died sitting on a bare concrete floor, one of De

Doors were being slammed open, glass shattering.

My eyes found Happling. The big man was staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open, mouth drifting. Blood had pooled around him, black and shiny, like oil. His hands were still curled into loose fists-the motherfucker was pissed off even in death. I thought of Hense again, and wondered if Captain Happling would show up again someday, gri

I wondered if all the cops I’d killed were going to come back one day.

I could hear the Monks approaching. As I stared at Happling, my heart unexpectedly began to pound in terror. They were going to crowd into the room with their blank, white faces, put their plastic hands on me, and tear me apart in silence, in complete silence.

Glancing at the door, I lunged forward and started dragging myself toward Happling. Sputtering bloody spit onto the floor, I slapped my hands onto him, pushing into his clothes and prying his Roon from his lifeless fingers. I flinched, with every movement expecting him to surge up and grab me, laughing and gri

Time had stopped. I struggled to hold the gun up and stay ready while the echo of approaching steps seemed to get louder but never arrive. There was no talking, no shouting or other sounds. Just boots clicking on the hard floor, slowing as they got closer. I assumed they knew exactly where Kev was: his brain had been killed but his chassis still hummed with electronic life, sending out beacons, sca

Doors slammed in the distance, and then there was total silence. They were just feet away, creeping toward me, probably sca

I cleared my mind. I saw a line of trees at night, a dark wall of rustling leaves in the wind. I had no idea where I’d ever seen trees, but there they were. I felt everything drain away as I imagined it, just the soft sawing of the branches in the breeze, nothing else, no sound, no light, just me. My hands steadied, my breathing slowed, and my vision narrowed to the door, excluding Happling’s symmetric corpse and Gatz’s twisted form in a heap against the wall. Gatz’s white face was staring at me, and it took all my concentration to ignore it.