Subterrene War 03: Chimera (9 page)

The rain came down heavier than it had before, and even at full power the taxi’s wipers couldn’t keep up with it, and sheets of the stuff fell outside my window, turning the sidewalks into a distorted fantasy where yellow lights and shopwindows looked like molten steel. These were the moments that meant everything. They proved I was alive. The important thing about adrenaline, I recalled, was that for me it made time slow to the point where I appreciated a view from a taxi and marveled at the beauty of situations and surroundings. Our vehicle crept forward a car length at a time until they were in sight: the Guardia Civil. Ten of them clustered around a checkpoint where traffic had been stopped in each direction, and two APCs stood guard, their turrets open and their commanders holding rain ponchos over their heads while they smoked. The rain had been fortunate. None of the men wanted to be out in this weather, and they performed the scans as quickly as possible.

When it was our turn, the taxi stopped and someone tapped on the windows. I rolled mine down to see a young soldier, eighteen or nineteen, a stubby Maxwell carbine strapped to his chest, its banana clip pressing up into his cheek.

“You speak English?” I asked.

The taxi driver had already finished with his tests and explained what the soldier wanted. “He wants your passport and a finger—for DNA.”

I nodded and handed the soldier my chit. He scanned it, then motioned for me to place my finger in the analyzer, which I did until it flashed green.

“Now a retina scan,” the driver said, so I leaned forward, staring into the optics of a handheld unit. A moment later, we had been waved on, my passport returned.

“See, that was easy.”

“Who are they looking for?” I asked.

The man shook his head. “A bad one, this man. He killed seven people in a club in the old section of the city and one more not too far from here, where they recovered a sample of his DNA. Stan Resnick. The Guardia think he’s still nearby.”

“He acted alone?”

“
Sí
. I think so. That’s the word I hear, but who knows for sure?”

A few minutes later we pulled up to Atocha Station, and I paid the driver, along with a good tip. He handed the extra money back.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This is España,” the man explained. “I get paid well for my job, do I look poor?”

I was about to say yes when he sped off.

They had isolated my DNA—or Jihoon’s.
It was worse than I’d realized, and I moved through the station on autopilot, my feet feeling as though they were detached from my body, my brain floating in a cloud of fear. There was one good thing about them having one or both of our DNA sequences: it meant that they would rely on scans more than visual checks, that my picture wouldn’t be the main focus, which was fortunate because once my hair dried I’d start looking more like their holo still. So far
luck had been with me, but there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t have to go through the whole process again; even if the train left the station on time, there was still the border crossing to worry about.

At La Jonquera.

The train slowed, and I woke with a start, glancing at my watch to find that I had slept for four hours, but it shouldn’t have surprised me; I’d gotten no sleep for the previous two days. Until I had passed out, the ride had been uneventful, and my car was empty with the exception of an older couple who sat near the front, but I still shouldn’t have slept. Anything could’ve happened at the stops between Madrid and the Pyrenees. Once more the question of my age crept in, made me wonder if it was time to call it quits before I got myself or anyone else killed, and I struggled to recall what Bea looked like so it would calm me down. I knew her eye color, hair color, everything. But that differed from being able to picture her in my mind, which had dumped any recollection of her appearance and which refused, no matter how much I willed it, to reboot. Phillip.
Him
I recalled, and with that came the memory of Bea, bright and in focus, but rather than reassure me, the fact that I needed Phillip to remember her was a jolt and sent a tremor through my spine. My mind had begun to slip, and sooner or later it could get me killed.

A voice came over the loudspeaker and said something in Spanish, then followed in accented English.

“La Jonquera; last stop before France. Prepare for passport and visa inspection.”

I got mine ready and waited, expecting armed Guardia Civil to burst in through one of the compartment doors, but nothing happened. The minutes slid into half an hour. I risked opening the shades to peek out and what I saw made me grab my duffel to lift it from the floor and slam it onto the empty seat beside me; the Guardia was there. Six APCs and about a company of soldiers had arranged themselves on my side of the train, and I knew without looking that it would be the same on the other side, that something had brought them in force, and as far as I knew, I was the one thing that could attract so much attention. My fléchette pistol, when disassembled, looked just like things one would take on travel—a flexi-tablet that wrapped to form the barrel’s electromagnetic coil, a pen that was the barrel, batteries, and several other things. I had started to gather them when it hit me: What was I doing? A
pistol
? I dropped the gear back into the bag, fished out the bourbon I had bought at Atocha, and decided to hell with it; now was as good a time as any to get drunk. The first swallow stung on the way down, and my already tender eyes watered more than they should have, but that wasn’t any reason to stop drinking. It would be my last one. When the Guardia came for me, I’d make sure that they took me smiling, and the second hit was a prolonged chug, where I swallowed a quarter of the bottle, coughing uncontrollably. Once the fit passed, the third pull went in smoothly.

Phillip isn’t really my son.
I saw him now, just as clearly as before, and still there was nothing except the warmth that had begun to spread throughout my chest from the alcohol.
He will be fine,
I decided. I couldn’t invent love any more than I could assemble my pistol and
hold off a company of armed men with APCs, no matter how much training I had, no matter how long I tried. Phillip was left with the lot he’d drawn, same as I’d been, because it was a Resnick family tradition, and maybe someday we’d get together at a reunion and compare notes on how difficult we’d all had it and get drunk together so that once the fists flew none of it would hurt too much, but—

The door in front of me flew open, interrupting my thoughts, and two men in combat suits entered, heading past the older couple and moving in my direction. I stood. I raised both hands in the air and saw that behind the two soldiers, an officer in normal uniform followed, staring at me with a confused look.

The armored men passed, pushing through the car’s rear door, and the officer drew even with my seat. I still had my hands up.

“I’ll go quietly,” I said.

The man looked even more confused. “Sit down. You’re American?”

I nodded.

“And you thought we had come for you?”

I nodded again. The man broke into laughter then, which he tried to control and keep quiet but couldn’t.

“Why?” he asked, smiling broadly.

I realized that the officer was doing his best to keep his eye on the door through which his men had gone, and it came to me: they hadn’t been looking for me at all.
What the fuck answer could I give now?

I held up my half-empty bottle and tried to smile back at him. “I’ve had a little to drink.”

“Well, we’re not here for that. There’s a drug gang on board, two cars down, so have another for me,” he said.
Once he had disappeared, I collapsed back into my seat, shaking, and finished the bottle.

An hour later, and after an abbreviated firefight, it was over. Compared to that, the standard passport and ID scan was anticlimactic, and although we were so far behind schedule it could have presented a problem for me in catching my flight from Paris, it didn’t matter. The train sped through the tunnel and across the French border, leaving Spain behind. I didn’t care if I never saw Madrid again. Madrid was where something terrible had happened, an awakening in my soul that I’d always suspected would come but which I’d always prayed would somehow be delayed until later: a self-doubt born from aging. Young men knew everything and never questioned an order, but not me, not anymore. Even the aches in my muscles stayed with me a little longer than normal, and in more lucid moments I noticed the face in the mirror had picked up thousands of lines that hadn’t been there the day before. Madrid had been the birthplace of questions and a fear of death, and now that it was receding behind me, now that I was well on my way to getting drunk, I swore that I’d never go back. From here it was Paris, then on to the States, where I’d detour to fulfill an obligation—one that I dreaded—and then Bangkok.

Sunshine, I had already decided, would be my last operation. I’d never take another.

A
thens, Georgia, was one of those miracle towns that had avoided change during the war years and had even escaped the gristmill of progress for most of its existence so that the summer heat gave its million trees a buzz, the sounds of countless cicadas, their whine and hum ebbing and flowing. There used to be a civilian university there. In its place the walls of a state academy had been erected, and at each entry Marines stood in dress blues with loaded Maxwells, Athens’s streets now drained of cadets who would be away for vacation. A few lingered, though. Their heads had been shaved, and white plastic interfaces jutted from just above their left ear, a port where the kids could plug in, tune up, and dial through to the latest military tactics or von Clausewitz in simulation. They looked like the walking dead. The technique had been perfected on the satos, and it made me shiver with gratitude that I had learned the old-fashioned way, in a classroom and on obstacle courses. Our military had used these boys’ minds as a dumping ground, and the subjects shuffled down the sidewalk drained of energy, oblivious to anything except
the need to salute any officer they passed. Things were gearing up. It was in the air. No news holo needed to report it to me, and none of the press would have noticed anyway because the smell of prewar was something I had learned to identify through decades of having wrapped myself in its sticky blanket. We’d just gotten
out
of the Subterrene War; would the military try it again this soon?

Wheezer’s wife, Michelle, lived in a centuries-old house on Boulevard and a sign marked it as historic, having belonged to someone named Cobb. Now it was for bereaved families—a halfway house, in which wives of the dead were given three years to adjust and remarry, find a job, or take the ultimate path of the state: breeding. I’d walked up and down outside the place all morning, smoking, drinking from a flask, just trying to find enough courage to approach the door and ignore the cameras attached to every lightpost in the area. But I didn’t have to go in; Michelle saw me and came out to the sidewalk, smiling.

“I was wondering if you’d ever show.”

“Nice place,” I said.

She took a cigarette and waited for me to light it, drawing in a deep breath. “They told me you got discharged. Medical. I figured they booted you because you finally did something wrong.”

“Yeah. I’m out. I have a plane to catch tomorrow from Atlanta, so I thought I’d stop by.”

“Were you discharged because of Wheezer?” she asked. “Or did you fuck up and get him killed?”

She was cold now, and her stare felt like twin ice picks jabbed into my throat, rendering me voiceless. What had the military claimed? I didn’t know how to convince her that it had nothing to do with me and decided it would
have required me to tell her
how
he bought it—through his own stupidity by not listening.

“I didn’t get him killed, Michelle.”

“So it was just another training accident and you stick to the bullshit, just like he used to. You’re still in the Army, Bug; it’s all over your face and you and Wheezer were the worst liars ever.”

She was crying but with no noise. Tears streamed, and I wanted to rip the cameras from their brackets, stomp on them for preventing me from telling the truth.

“Yeah. Training accident.”

“Fuck you, Bug. And him too. Both of you, with your code of silence and dreams of being supersoldiers while we stay behind and make babies. They used to have women in the service, you know. Soldiers. But I’ve spent the last months trying to figure out what kind of woman would want that duty, and I can’t come up with anything because none of this makes sense; we go to war, win or get our asses kicked, grab as much metal from the ground as possible, regroup and repopulate, then do it again. We were going to have a kid, you know?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he told me.”

Michelle sighed and took another drag, then kicked a pebble from the sidewalk. “It’s too hot here. Ninety-seven in the shade, no breeze, and a hundred percent humidity. It’s like Thailand.”

“You ever been to Thailand?” I asked. Her observation stuck the jitters to me, like it had been some kind of portent; what reason did she even have to mention the place?

“No. Why would I go
there
when I’ve been
here
?”

“No reason. But this place isn’t so bad, Michelle, compared to some I’ve seen.”