The Digital Plague (25 page)

Finally, I swallowed some of the shivering and looked around. “Ty!” I shouted. “Mr. Kieth, I assume you’ve been monitoring our activities, right, you smart little fuck? It’s all right. I think it’s time for a parley, Ty, so we can come to an understanding. We’ve taken Mr. Bendix down and we’re in control of the hover.”

Hense and I waited, staring around like morons. Happling and the Stormers were dragging Bendix back into the cabin. I was considering the effort involved in sucking in enough air to make another shout when there was a click and a blast of static, and then Kieth’s nasally voice in the air.

“No, Mr. Cates,” he said. “You’re not. Ty is.”

I smiled and slumped back down onto the floor. It felt fucking
good
to be right about something for a change.

Day Nine:
Invisible Things Inside Me
Starting to Swell and
Turn Black

Kieth spoke with confidence now that he was hidden. “Ty advises everyone to stay still. Ty has wired into the security systems on this hover and Ty will be
overzealous
about defending himself.”

Shit, I didn’t blame Ty for not trusting anyone. The hover was crowded with cops and a known killer, all of whom would solve half of their current problems if Ty Kieth were dead. If I were Kieth, I’d stay hidden, too.

I pushed myself up again, fighting against gravity that seemed to have become thicker and more insistent since last I checked. I looked around, trying to figure out where in hell Ty’d hidden himself. The hover was a big one, capable of transporting thirty or so people plus their gear, but where could a Techie—even a skinny piece of shit like Kieth—hide himself and still have access to the hover’s systems?

“Mr. Kieth,” Hense said loud and clear as she stood in the cockpit, looking at the bank of controls, “is Mr. Marko with you?”

There was no response. I chuckled a little and she gave me a sour look. “Of course he won’t tell you,” I said. “Ty’s
smart.
The more information you have, the more likely you’ll figure out where he
is.
”

“If I wanted to know where he
is,
” she snapped, “I’d order Captain Happling to tear this hover apart until he found him.”

Happling nodded. “And I
like
taking shit apart.”

Kiplinger, his face mask off again, was suddenly at my side, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He shook one out of his crumpled pack and I leaned forward to place it between my lips.

“You really Avery Cates?” he asked, flicking his lighter on, the soft orange glow giving his sweaty face an unattractive gleam. He had a way of smiling without looking at you, like he was shy. “
The
Avery Cates?”

I nodded, sucking in smoke. “The gweat and tewwible,” I advised.

He studied his hands for a moment, then smiled a little as he bent to light my smoke. “I was on a raid once, we were supposed to scoop you up. Some Gold Badge had a hard-on for you something serious, marching up and down in the hover, telling us what he was going to do to us if we missed you.” He smiled again, shaking his head. “We missed you all right. Shit, I’ll never forget the look on that asshole’s face.”

“Quit kissing his ass, trooper,” Happling bellowed from across the cockpit. “Last week that bastard would have shot you dead without hesitation.”

Kiplinger nodded, grinning at the floor as he stood up. Then he paused and looked at me long enough to wink. “That’s okay, sir. I would have shot
him,
huh?”

With that he stepped away, one of those eternally happy bastards. Hense looked from Happling to me as if she was waiting for us to cut out the grabass and get down to business. “Mr. Kieth,” she said clearly, her flat eyes on me. “Since you are in possession of this hover, I’d like to ask politely what you mean to do with it.”

After a moment’s pause there came the staticky click and then Ty’s voice. “Ty hadn’t gotten that far in his thinking, to be honest.”

“Heck, Ty,” I said, taking my time with the cigarette, “how in hell do you end up here? Who the hell
is
that Tin Man? I’m sick and tired of him calling me by my first name.”

Another long pause, but this time the buzzing static remained, the line held open. “Ty doesn’t know. He calls Ty by name, too. It was Belling, that cunt. Came around talking about brokering a big job, needing the best, throwing out round numbers.
Big
round numbers. Ty admits it: he got greedy. The cunt arranged a meeting, and next thing you know, lights out, and Ty wakes up on a hover headed for fucking
Paris
for fuck’s sake. Ty spent some time hiding in Paris when things got hot a few years back—right before you found Ty, in fact—and Ty was not happy to find himself here again. Ty was less happy when he found out what was expected of him here.”

“Very touching,” Happling muttered. “When they mark your tombstone, Mr. Kieth, it will say Murderer of the Human Race, Wasn’t Happy about It.”

“Ty had no choice!” Ty’s voice was warped with feedback. “Ty didn’t even realize what it was, at first. They compartmentalized it, gave it to Ty in pieces.”

“That’s a sad fucking story,” Happling said, leaning on his rifle. “You’re a real goddamn hero.”

“Ty,” I said, ignoring the cop. “Ty, you’re in charge here. What’s our next move? We should find that cocksucker. Neutralize him.” I was tired of being on the defensive, tired of being tied up and beaten up and talked to. I wanted to get on the offensive, be moving. Hense gestured at someone in the rear cabin and the round-faced female trooper came trotting in. Hense pointed at me without looking my way and the trooper nodded, unslinging her rifle and producing a small medical kit as she stepped over to kneel next to me. She smelled … good, considering she’d been simmering in her own juices for hours and hours. Her smell reminded me of Glee a little, that sort of naturally clean smell.

Without looking at me she grabbed my fractured leg roughly, making me bite my cheek to stop from crying out, and began cutting open my pant leg.

“Don’t be a baby,” she drawled, her vowels all stretched out. “You look like the dog’s been keepin’ you under the porch.”

I held my breath and resisted the urge to grab her nose and twist. Her face had a secret little smile on it, like she knew what I was thinking.

“Mr. Cates,” Ty replied. “Ty is of the opinion he should be brought to a secure lab facility in New York or someplace nearby and be allowed to develop a workaround for the plague.”

“Plague, huh?” I said, sucking in breath sharply as the Stormer ran her competent hands up and down my lower leg, feeling for the break. After the past few days, it felt like a hug. “Ty, why would we go to New York? Our Tin Man is here. And if we drag you someplace while he’s still prowling around, he’ll just come after us with his merry band of Monks.”

With a jerk the Stormer set my leg, and I passed out.

When I came to, everything was warm and numb and words were in the air, people talking, but nothing made sense for a moment. I silently thanked my new best friends the police for whatever synthetic narcotic I’d just been given and looked up lovingly at the brown-haired Stormer playing nurse to me. She gave me a flat, disinterested look back and dug into her little bag, bringing out a short stick; with a flick of her wrist it extended into a perfect splint. I wearily admired her compact, efficient movements—a girl who knew what the fuck she was doing. I felt sorry for anyone she’d start sleeping with—they wouldn’t have a chance.

“Mr. Cates,” Ty said, the words slowly taking on meaning again, as if it were being pumped up from a deep well inside me, “we
must
go to New York. That is certainly where the Monk is headed, and he expects to find you there. He did
instruct
you to go back, didn’t he?”

I nodded, feeling woozy. “Yes, Ty, he did. Which is why I shouldn’t do it. The Tin Man wanted me to go back so I could keep spreading this shit around. I guess it hasn’t reached critical mass for an unstoppable infection yet.”

“Mr. Cates, if the Monk expects you to go back, you have to go back. If you don’t your usefulness to him ends. And he will shut you down.”

I winced as the splint was expertly fastened in place, tight enough to restrict whatever blood was left inside me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Your suppression field, Mr. Cates. It’s remote controlled and can be disabled at any time, effectively turning
your
nanobots into the same deadly ones that are killing everyone else. You and everyone currently surviving in the waste of your suppression field will die, just like everyone else. The Monk is leaving it on because he wants you to keep spreading it—why, Ty doesn’t know, because there are a dozen more effective ways to reach a tipping point on this—but if you don’t do as it expects, what’s to stop it from simply flipping the switch?” There was a tinny sigh from the invisible speakers. “Mr. Cates, you
must
return to New York as instructed. You must appear to be following its orders while I work on a solution.”

The Stormer finished fixing up my leg. “No need to thank me, eh,” she said primly, gathering her equipment and exiting the cockpit. For a few seconds we all just sat there, silent. In the rear cabin there was a sudden commotion among the Stormers.

“Balls,” I muttered. I looked at Hense. “Any facilities in New York you think we could use?”

She looked back at me. We were all thinking the same thing: dragging Ty Kieth around the world so he could spend hours or days trying to hack his own creation was a waste of time when one bullet to the back of his head would solve the immediate problem nicely. I hated even thinking it—in a way, Ty was still part of my team. We’d parted on good terms; he’d always played fair. He’d gotten screwed, betrayed by Belling, and rewarding him with a bullet in the head because it was the easiest solution tasted like bullshit in my mouth. But I thought of Glee again, and millions of people—everyone I’d ever known—dying, and it was hard to argue with the cosmos on this one. While Ty was hidden away, we had to watch how we conversed, though.

“There is an emergency bunker in Manhattan,” Hense said slowly, staring off into the rear cabin. “But I can’t know if it’s still in use or in SSF hands, or if I’d even have access since …” She let that thought drift, frowning, then strode back into the cabin without another word.

“Mr. Cates,” Ty said quietly, “how does Ty know you won’t simply execute him when the opportunity comes? How does Ty know you won’t kill him?”

I bought some time by struggling to my feet, making it look harder than it was. The splint was excellent, and I found I could pretty much put weight on the leg with only a modest, throbbing pain for my troubles. I wouldn’t want to sprint anytime soon, but I figured I could clump about pretty effectively. I was still trying to lawyer up a noncommittal response when Hense stormed back into the cockpit.

“You mobile?” she snapped.

I nodded. “Not very graceful, but I was never much of a dancer anyway.”

She held up one of her own shiny Roons by the barrel and pointed the grip at me. “Take it. We’re going to need every bit of talent we can lay our hands on, I think. We’re under siege.”

I blinked, accepting the gun and several spare clips. “Siege? By whom?”

Her withering look indicated it was the dumbest question she’d heard in a long time. “Who the fuck else? The Monks. They’re back.”

The gun felt good in my hand, comfortable. Roons weren’t manufactured anymore, but they were still the best handguns in the world, barring a few ancient pre-Unification models. It fit perfectly. I dropped the clip and inspected the chamber, reloaded and snapped everything back, surprised at how much better I felt armed.

“Told you,” Ty said. “You’re supposed to be over the ocean by now. The Monk’s pissed.”

I grimaced. “Or they’re here for
you,
little man.”

A curious feeling stole over me, a creepy-crawly kind of sensation, as if I could
feel
all the tiny, invisible things inside me starting to swell and turn black, spikes sprouting from their delicate, molecule-thick skins. As if I could feel death polluting my blood, poking holes in my vessels. I tried to ignore it, swallowing hard.

“Let’s go,” Hense said, turning away. “Mr. Kieth, let’s get this brick in the air.”

She’d turned and made it to the hatchway before Kieth’s small voice stopped her. “That presents difficulties, uh, Colonel.”

Hense stopped but didn’t turn around. “Why is that, Mr. Kieth?” she said, cocking her head to the side.

“I am unfamiliar with the exact systems on this hover,” he confessed slowly. “In my haste to secure my position, some systems were offlined.”

“Systems,” she repeated, her little hands curling into fists, “were
offlined.
” I remained where I was, waiting, all of
my
systems up and sniffing the air, because the scent of violence was in the air. After a moment she relaxed. “I would suggest, in a purely advisory function, that you get them back
online
and get us into the air soon, Mr. Kieth, unless you want to end up back inside that box.”

She stepped through the hatchway. I started to follow, but before I’d gone two steps Ty’s voice crackled through the air, warping and melting.

“Mr. Cates!”

I stopped and closed my eyes. I saw the nanos, like tiny little spiky fish, floating in the darkness. “Yes, Ty?”