Peace in an Age of Metal and Men (25 page)

And some that I could.

“That’s your arm,” said Zane, standing over a duplicate of my very own prosthetic.

From the thing’s shoulders snaked the half-dozen tendrils that I knew were identical to those rooted in my own body. They were like the tendrils on the earpiece Zane had given me. The strength from the arm needed to be supported throughout my entire body; otherwise lifting something might tear me apart. All of that was the reason my nannies had to work overtime to repair the damage that the machine constantly did to my body. They had told me that when I woke. They had told me again when it was clear that I didn’t understand. Still, looking at the arm made my stomach drop. How much of me was left?

Hair at the back of my neck stood up. Puffing the cigarette, I expanded slightly the ring of light around us. Abi gasped.

Dark forms surrounded us. They were human—or human shaped, anyway. Their dull eyes stared at us with a faint blue glow. There were dozens of them.

“We need to get out of here,” whispered Zane. He gripped my hand and we moved together, though I don’t know who was supporting whom.

We passed tables that held consoles like the one Abi had attached to my skidder. There were diagrams of how the tech attached to a person’s brain and nervous system. It made me sick to my stomach. There were other pieces that I couldn’t identify. Guns too. Heavy ones. Fancy ones. My prosthetic hand was a universal component that fit an enormous array of weaponry. They’d made me into a tool of war. Everything was polished and clean. Every table was arranged in perfect order, like pieces were being laid out on a buffet. Every so often we passed a work in progress, with parts of a device arranged in orderly rows along a table. More often the devices were fully intact.

“Wait,” I said.

Zane let go and glanced back nervously. Abi leaned against a table, breathing hard. Behind us, the figures were following.

“What do they want?” Abi whispered.

“They’re husks,” said Zane. “They’re probably running a default program and keeping an eye on us.”

“Why, though? Why aren’t they attacking us? It’s not like there aren’t enough weapons.”

“I don’t know,” said Zane.

Puffing the cigarette, I got a little closer to something that had caught my eye. It was big and heavy, but seemed useful. It was a weapon. Of course, it was a weapon. The expansion had thin plates of black metal flaring out around it in an apparently defensive shield. I slotted my arm in, feeling my power slide into its dormant form. My awareness expanded, sliding out into the black metal form. It felt good. It felt right.

I could feel the finely articulated plates moving at the slightest effort of my will. It was like my arm had grown into a brilliantly complicated piece of machinery and instinct told me how to use it. The plates slid closed at my command, and my new arm’s attachment condensed into a manageable size.

One of the husks stepped forward. It was a middle-aged man in a lab coat. He said, “The tech doesn’t make you bad, Sheriff. It makes you more efficient.”

“I’m not the sheriff anymore.”

The man’s eyes were blue embers in his skull. His face remained completely expressionless. “You’ll always be the sheriff to me.”

The phrase seemed oddly familiar. It was clear who was talking through this husk. “Francis?”

The man nodded stiffly. “You are getting better, Sheriff. Every piece of technology you incorporate into yourself makes you more like me. Stronger. Faster.”

“Like you?” It was odd having this conversation with an emptied-out husk of a man, but my hackles were raised. “The way you reject what happened to your mama and wreck other people’s lives? That’s not better, that’s just insane.”

Zane put a hand on my shoulder. “We have to go,” he whispered.

But I wasn’t done. I jammed a finger in the husk’s chest. “Tech doesn’t make anything better, boy. It didn’t make me better and it doesn’t make you better. It sure as hell doesn’t make Texas better.”

“No,” the man said. “No, it doesn’t, does it?” His eyes focused on my metal arm with its new attachment. “But we still upgrade.”

Far above, something exploded. The earth shook with a shock and dust rained down from the ceiling. Tucker.

“Time to go,” said Zane.

The door to the next stairwell was only a short distance away, just at the range of my ember light. I shoved the husk aside and covered the distance in a few steps, kicked open the door, and vaulted up the stairs. Zane and Abi were close at my heels.

The air was easier to breathe as soon as the door opened. Higher up, the heat hit again. There maybe wasn’t much oxygen down there, but up above, breathing seemed to cook the lungs. I tossed my cigarette aside. The stairwell continued upward, and by the artificial glow coming from the hallway I knew we must be in the right building. This was the building with the tower, and likely the one where Francis had holed up. This was the building heavily defended, with gun turrets and shielding. We had made it.

Now all we had to do was go up.

At first we sprinted up the stairs. This lasted most of a single flight. Almost. The outside wall was glass, and in many places the night air rushed in, mocking us with a dry wind that didn’t cool. Then, we jogged. Half a dozen stories passed at a decent pace. Once Zane started falling behind, Abi got an arm under him and helped him forward.

“This is the toughest thing I’ve done all week,” I said.

Zane gave a weak smile. His skin was pale and still pocked with angry sores from the bugs. “Once we get up there, it’s going to be a fight,” he said between gasping breaths. “Francis will have hell of an automated system.”

“Should we wait for Tuck?” Abi asked.

“No,” I said. “He’s taken out that battery. He’ll move to the next target rather than join up with us.”

Abi checked her rifle, then checked it again. “No matter what happens, keep them off of me and get me to the console.”

“You got it,” I said.

Then we were there. I flexed my shield, and articulated plating spread out into a diamond shape. The steel door might have been unlocked, but for the sake of simplicity, I gave it a quick bash with the shield.

The door flew ten meters before hitting a wall at the end of the corridor.

A hail of gunfire ricocheted off of my shield, jerking it around and forcing me to brace it. Zane shot twice, and the incoming fire eased a bit but didn’t stop.

Stepping forward, I pushed closer to the last turret and gave Zane the shot he needed.

“Seems he doesn’t want us here,” Zane said. He stepped into the slot, fired again with his rifle, reducing the turret to junk parts. “Or he’s even worse at social niceties than you thought.”

We were at the middle of a T intersection. Ahead was a short hallway at the end of which was the mangled door and another intersection. To the left and right, the corridor curved along the outer edge of the building. Windows lined the outer walls.

The floor shook in the thump-thump rhythm of heavy fire. Outside the window, the sky lit up in blaze of activity. Energy weapons and explosions alternated in the air. The flyers had arrived.

By the flashes of violence in the sky, I could see dozens of vehicles darting, attacking, and fleeing. It was a chaos that must have been Cinco Armas and maybe more.

The first Kiva rounded the corner at a jog. He wore a stark white full-length lab coat, and a pair of thick goggles adorned his forehead. He was an older man, with stringy gray hair falling to his shoulders. His blue eyes flashed as he saw us, his face expressionless as he raised a battered shotgun.

Zane dropped him with a punishing shot to his chest. Before that Kiva hit the floor, another rounded the corner.

Shield up, I distracted the new one—a young woman with chestnut hair and a vacant expression. She held a long black knife in one hand and a small one-shot pistol in the other. She fired her shot wide and charged with the knife raised.

She used to be a person. She used to be beautiful. Her neck was still adorned with a pearl necklace, and her wrists held matching bracelets. Her dress was old, threadbare, and obviously once quite extravagant. It’s all I could think of as she threw her body on the shield. The black-bladed knife whistled past my ear as I lifted her and tossed her backward. She used to be a person.

But she wasn’t anymore.

My Model 500 revolver slipped into my hand like it was meant to be. Three shots thundered in righteous mercy: one to her heart, one to her neck, and one to her head.

Zane had two more Kivas pinned behind a door. They were big ones, armed with shotguns. These were protecting themselves, showing significantly more self-preservation than the others. Zane moved forward to try to root them out.

“Look out!” Abi shouted.

Too late.

The air ionized. Crisp ozone.

Blue light—blinding—pierced the wall next to Zane and sliced through his chest. He fell back, screaming. Smoke filled the room.

I dove forward, hoping to guess where Zane had landed. The shield covered the two. Light where the beam hit my shield sent flickering shadows dancing along the darkened window. The glass glowed where the beam had hit, highlighting edges where it had cut clean through.

“You all right?” I asked.

He nodded but spit dust and blood. His skin, pale before, had gone white as clean sheets. I grabbed him with one hand and pulled him forward. The beam stopped.

I pounced up and fired two shots through the wooden door, dropping the two Kivas cowering behind it. A hulking husk stepped through the gap in the wall. He hefted an arm just like mine, slotted into an enormous cannon. He aimed and the cannon started to whir.

Abi fired two shots and the huge man dropped, his head a ruined mess. Holstering my revolver, I held out a hand to Zane.

Zane was in a bad way. He coughed up blood and favored one of his arms. He was able to get to his feet, but there was something wrong with his ankle. It was twisted at an odd angle and there was no way he’d be standing on it if not for the tech in his body. When he moved, he had to grasp the side of his torso with one hand. He must have been suppressing his pain. The welts on his skin seemed worse.

The hallway opened up into the room with the domed ceiling. Outside, a battle still raged. The makeshift army had taken down one of two huge energy cannons, but the other was still firing. It swiveled and fired in a rhythmic thump-thump that resonated in my chest. It didn’t hit often, but when it did, it hit hard. Smaller turrets were hitting more often, bullets piercing even the heavily armed vehicles.

Francis stood near a half-circle console in the center of the room. Wires were strewn everywhere, snaking across the floor and up to the antenna at the back of the building. The walls were lined with flickering displays. The effect reminded me of Court’s hideout, only bigger and in worse condition. There was even an Umbilical snaking from the console to something behind the back wall.

Francis looked up when I entered, his face an emotionless mask. He was a wreck. This was not the crisply dressed boy projected for communications. This was a kid ruined by neglect. His clothes hung from his bony body in rags, the white of his suit long since worn down to a rusty brown. His sunken eyes were set in a face sallow with hunger and aged by the elements. The boy’s white hair fell in long wisps of ghostly blond. His fingers frantically worked across a console.

“Stop,” I said. “This has gone far enough.”

He didn’t seem to hear, continuing his feverish activity. He was up to something, up to something bad, I’d bet. I pulled out the BB gun and pointed it at the boy.

A car crashed through the glass dome, bringing with it a shower of glass and the rush of clean night air. The deafening cacophony of combat roared through the room as her car skidded across the marble floor.

I raised my shield against the glass, and Abi ducked under its protection. Trish crouched in her crashing car, battered but still holding her twin pistols. She jumped and rolled as the car slammed into the console, and before I could recover, she stood up and trained both of her pistols at the boy.

“Sneak over there and plug in,” I whispered to Abi. “You have a shot at this. You can do it.”

She nodded and started making her way around behind Francis.

Then Francis jammed a bundle of cables into the back of his head and the world changed.

Trish fired as he moved, but he was too fast. She kept squeezing bullets, but the boy ran. At least, that’s how she probably saw it. In my modified eye, I could see the same thing. He was now the Francis I’d seen before. Healthy, clean, smug. He smiled a handsome smile and his eyes twinkled. In my other eye he ducked down behind the console and hid like the coward he was.

“Trish,” I shouted. “He’s still right in front of you!”

Trish blinked with confusion, turned to me, fired.

She didn’t hit me.

She wasn’t aiming at me.

Zane, behind me, staggered. A well of blood erupted from his shoulder. I raised my shield, protecting as much of his body as I could.

“Stop the weapons, Francis,” Trish said as she walked forward. “Call them off. It’s done.”

“That’s not Francis, Trish.” I stood up and walked forward to meet her.

The guns outside stopped. What was Francis playing at? A distraction?

“Quit protecting him, J.D.” Trish looked at me with her jaw set hard. I knew the look and no smart man wanted to be on the other end of it. “I’m going to bring him in.” Her cruiser drifted behind her, presumably following her mental commands. “I’ll bring you in too, if I need to.”

There was no use talking. The words would come out wrong, anyway.

“I’ll go,” said Zane. “I can distract her and you go for Francis.”

“No.” There was no way to know if he could hear me. “Too dangerous.” If Zane gave himself over to Trish, then Francis would have the upper hand.

I leapt at Trish and bashed hard, ramming her with all my strength. She was heavier than she looked, but I was damn strong. My legs pumped and kept pushing until the two of us toppled over right into her cruiser. I grabbed one of her pistols and tossed it aside.

Trish kicked me back, drawing her other pistol. As she raised it to fire, the cruiser began to drift upward.

Zane jumped into the fray, knocking Trish’s pistol away. Blood sprayed as he moved. The cruiser lurched under his weight and started to spin. The pistol clattered onto the hood.

“Go!” Zane said.

I didn’t go. I lunged forward, dipping out of the way.

Trish grabbed Zane’s leg and heaved, toppling him backward so he smashed his head against the plastic edge of the vehicle. With one leg, she swept my shield aside and kicked me hard in the face.

I staggered backward, nearly falling over the edge. She followed up with a punch to my gut that left me reeling. “Stay out of this,” she snarled.

She turned to Zane, who had managed to rise to one knee. She reached to draw her pistol and found it wasn’t there. The cruiser spun faster.

“Go,” Zane rasped. He was on his knees and didn’t look like he had the power to get up.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t leave you with her.”

Trish hopped onto the hood of the cruiser. The car dipped to one side and the gun slid closer to the edge.

“It’s too late for me,” said Zane. “My nannies are gone. The bugs got me.”

“No.”

“She’ll just take me away. She doesn’t see what’s real.”

“I’ll tell her.” I clenched my fist. “Hard.”

Trish grabbed the weapon, but I had my shield up between her and Zane.

“Don’t move,” she said.

I moved. Shield first, I rammed into Trish. She was ready. She took my momentum and sent me stumbling over the edge. My metal hand grabbed out and for a second I was dangling a few meters over the marble floor.

But it was too long.

“Don’t move.” Trish had her gun pressed against Zane’s forehead.

There’s no way he could move. Nobody was fast enough to get out of that. It would be suicide to twitch in that situation. It would be suicide to think about twitching. There was no way—absolutely no way—that Zane would move with that gun at his head.

The cruiser spun faster and faster, drifting out the window into the open sky. Skidders hung all around, their riders watching in a silent agony. What were they seeing?

Zane didn’t move. The fight was over. I pulled myself up onto the cruiser, careful not to make any quick movements.

“I’m sorry, J.D.,” Zane said. “You need to stop that boy.”

So long as Trish had her gun pressed against Zane’s head, Francis had the upper hand. All Francis needed to do was make her see something that would cause her to pull the trigger. A gun in his hand, or a knife. A look in his eyes. I couldn’t go after Francis without the risk that Francis would make her pull the trigger. Zane was a hostage.

“I love you, J.D.” Zane said. He flicked his wrist and a pistol snapped out of his sleeve. He met Trish’s eyes, raised the weapon, and—

Trish pulled the trigger.

The loss hit me harder than the gut punch. Rage boiled up in me as Trish turned my way. She’d killed him. Zane was dead.

She’d killed Zane.

I roared in fury and charged. With a backhand I sent her pistol flying off into the darkness. I punched with my right hand, not caring that it was a mistake, not caring that it hurt so bad as my fist slammed against her reinforced skeleton. Rage was all I had.

Trish was tougher than me. She took my punches, whether they came from the natural fist or the metal one. She rolled with the strong hits and stood against the weak ones.

Trish was stronger than me. I threw a sloppy haymaker with my metal fist and she caught it in her hands. I shoved hard and she shoved harder. She twisted against the joint and despite my strength I had no choice but to drop to one knee.

Trish was smarter than me. Hell, she’d always been smarter.

But I was bigger.

I reversed my effort and pulled, lifting her straight into the air. My reach was long enough that she couldn’t hit back. She couldn’t kick. My breath came in hard rasps. Rage was easy. I held Trish over the edge of the car. We spun fast now, high above the Quintech building.