The Digital Plague (3 page)

“Ear to ear, fat man,” she said, coughing wetly. “If Avery says so.”

Reggie quivered, his loose skin rippling unnaturally as a tiny drop of bright red blood formed on his nose. His eyes moved from me to her and back again. Licking his lips, he squinted at me. “What, you’re going to murder a government official in his fucking
office,
Avery?” He shook his head. “Never gonna happen.”

I shrugged. “You’ve got ten seconds, Reggie, and we’re gonna find out.”

Next to me, Glee sighed softly, an excited, feminine sound. Reggie stared at her for a moment and then seemed to deflate like he was undergoing his fat-sucking process as we watched. “Fucking hell. You’re still gonna pay me, right?”

“Reggie,” I said, leaning forward and pulling my portable shell cube from one pocket, “we’re just going to have to think on that.”

Glum now, he accepted the cube and slid it into his desk unit, hands working deftly. Glee stepped back and leaned against the wall, a coughing fit racking her.

“Okay, okay,” Reggie muttered, all business now, his thick-fingered hands moving quickly, his screen flashing through records. “Newark. Nothing officially in Newark, of course, so there won’t be any front-line records—nothing so easy, eh?” He grinned at me in a flash, trying to be my friend again. “But there’s always a record.” Ash finally fell off his cigarette, leaving him with a burning stub in his mouth and a pile of soot on his belly. “If they’re moving anything substantial to and from Newark, someone’s got a record. You got a time frame? Any other parameters I can search on? If it’s just WD records it’d be a few seconds, but if you want me to cross-check data points on the entire NE Department, it’ll take a while.”

I shrugged. “I’ve got time.”

He nodded, sweat appearing on his brow. Behind me, Gleason had recovered and was completely silent, chewing her hair like she was ten again. For a few seconds there was no sound whatsoever, and I watched the smoke from Reggie’s cigarette rising thinly from his mouth. When the red box appeared in the lower corner of his screen, I saw it immediately and tried to read the backwards text printed in it.

“Oh, shit,” Reggie said just before the building shell cut in around us, a ridiculously soft-spoken artificial voice.

“Attention: By order of the Department of Public Health, New York Department, under Joint Council Resolution Eight-eight-nine-a, this building has been sealed. Please remain in your current location. Attention …”

It was strange to hear
Joint Council
in every announcement, since the JC was a bunch of mummified old corpses beneath London, their Undersecretaries the only legally incorporated government left in the System. Most of them had been appointed almost thirty years ago and had been running things since the council had tried for immortality and ended up crazy instead. Until Dick Marin had muscled in. Every time I heard the words
Joint Council
I thought of those dusty old men under Westminster Abbey and shooting Dick Marin in the face, knowing there were dozens of him waiting to step into the vacuum.

I glanced back at Glee, who had gone still, one end of her hair still in her mouth, her off-white blade perched under one fingernail. Her nose was running, and her expression had suddenly lost the cocky assurance of a moment ago. I winked. “Cops,” I said, simply. I turned to smile down at Reggie. “Reg, I hope for your sake you didn’t just sell me out.” I leaned down to put my knuckles on his desk. “Because it will not go well for you.”

He smiled at me, but it was such a cadaverous and hollow grin I chose not to be offended. “Shit, Avery,” he said, sagging in his chair. “We’re going to wish it was fucking
cops.
”

Day Three:
Good Luck with the Folks
from Public Health

Making an effort to keep my adrenaline under control, I studied Reggie’s face for a second or two and concluded that I saw real fear there, but whether it was because he was caught breaking some laws or because he was afraid I was about to have Gleason slit his throat, I couldn’t tell. “Who’s coming, then?”

“Aren’t you listening? Public Health.” His piggy little eyes danced on me and he reached up to take the last stub of cigarette from his mouth and toss it onto the floor. “But it doesn’t matter what fucking
department.
It means Spooks, Avery. Psionics. The fucking Spooks have sealed the building. Oh, fuck
me.
”

I turned and nodded at Glee. She turned and tried the door, but it didn’t respond.

“It won’t open,” Reggie almost wailed. “The building’s been
sealed.
Oh, fuck you, you fucking piece of trash. I’m fucking ruined.”

I turned back to Reggie and pointed at the door.

“Open it up, Reg,” I said.

He shrugged, a massive fleshquake that went on and on. “I can’t, Avery—the building’s
sealed.
”

I nodded. I had a suspicion this would turn out to be System Pigs no matter what the shell announcement said, and if I was right that meant they were coming for
me.
“If I twist your nose, Reggie, I will break it. I won’t really mean to, but it’ll happen. You’ll stain your shirt and, knowing you, probably piss your pants. And then you’re going to hit the panic button wired into the door and let us out
anyway.
So save yourself the trouble.”

Reggie looked at Glee, but didn’t seem to like the blank expression on her face. I snapped my fingers under his nose, making him jump. “Damn, Reggie, you take your Health Department actions pretty fucking seriously, huh?”

He wiped a hand over his face. “You don’t—”

I made a feint at his nose, and he slammed back against the strangling wall of his office.

“Tell me I don’t understand again.”

Keeping his eyes on me, he reached forward and gestured, fat hands moving with surprising delicacy through a complex series of positions. Behind us, the door opened with a
snick.
I scooped my portable shell from its dock and dropped it into my coat. “Good luck with the folks from Public Health, Reg,” I said, turning. Glee spun with me and let me move ahead of her.

None of the other doors were open. I imagined people in each one, in their tiny offices, like beetles tied to pins. In the entryway, the Droid spun its blank oval head toward us in a creepy, doomed attempt to appear human.

“For your safety, please return to your office,”
it said, projecting its voice over the building shell.
“Your face has been scanned and transmitted to the System Security Force for reference. One citizen and one unknown. For your safety, please return to your office.”

Glee strode forward toward the entry door, but it didn’t budge for her. “Don’t bother,” I said. “You’ve got to release each one separately.” I started trying to replicate the gesture Reggie had made in his office. As I tried to will my hand into the right series of positions, I glanced up at Glee, who’d flashed out her blade again and stood ready, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. She looked incredibly young, but then I’d been doing shank jobs in the street for food money when I’d been fifteen.

My third guess at the gesture snapped the office door open. Glee poked her head out into the hall and nodded, glancing back at me. “All clear.” She looked pink and shiny, like something very hot was inside her, melting.

“Attention, HD lockdown violation on seventy-fifth floor,
” the building shell announced immediately. I pushed myself toward the door.

“Get back!” I shouted.

She spun to face me, walking backward into the hall, flipping the blade over her knuckles and back again. “Ooh, Avery is protective. Avery is a
father figure,
” she said, grinning. I lumbered as fast as I could at the doorway and slammed into her, knocking her down onto the floor and pinning her blade arm under one elbow. I looked up, panting, as she squirmed beneath me.

“Avery, what the
fuck?
”

The hallway was empty. Glee was frowning up at me, her face flushed, her hair matted damply to her forehead. I lifted my arm and thrust a finger under her nose.

“What the
fuck,
kid, is—”

A loud crash made us both whip our heads around in time to see ceiling panels drop to the floor as two plump spheres appeared from above.

“—Security Droids,” I finished. “Get up slow and stay behind me.”

“Citizen,”
the building shell boomed through the hallway,
“please lie facedown on the floor and await security personnel.”

I held a finger against my lips without looking away. “Pretty harmless. They just herd the taxpayers as long as the taxpayers don’t do anything wonky. But you were never registered, kid—you’re a blank, and they don’t like blanks, okay? They will fire on you. And your blade won’t do anything against them.” I patted her cheek. “So stay behind me, okay?”

She nodded, nose runny, eyes wide. “Okay.” She looked fifteen again.

“Citizen, please lie facedown on the floor and await security personnel.”

I knew the Droids wouldn’t fire on a citizen; they’d just browbeat me to death. I stood up and made sure I was between them and Glee. The Droids just floated, two gleaming black balls, emitting a soft, deep hum I could feel in my chest.

“The elevators,” I said. “Slow. Stay behind me.”

We scuttled awkwardly backward.

“Citizen, please lie facedown on the floor and await security personnel.”

“Where do we go?” Glee whispered. “If the System Pigs are coming, they’re coming down the elevators, right?”

I nodded. “Eleven eighty-five Sixth Avenue,” I said over my shoulder, eyes on the humming Droids as they herded us, “is an old building, Glee. Built before fireproof materials.”

I bumped into her and stopped. “Elevator,” she said.

I grinned at the Droids. “And thus it has a standard public-access fire alarm system,” I said, and gestured.

Immediately, a piercing alarm erupted like a solid thing all around us, and the building shell started talking over itself, first telling me to get on the floor and then announcing a fire emergency. Behind me, I heard the
whoosh
of the elevator doors as they opened, and every door in the hall snapped open at the same time.

“Fucking chaos,” Glee said. “I fucking
love
it. Avery’s a fucking
genius.
”

I was loved and adored by adolescent girls everywhere.

I backed my way into the cab, the Droids following just a foot away. When I was barely inside I reached over and gestured, and the doors shut. The cab immediately started heading down.

“Where are we going?” Glee asked, grinning at me. I tried to keep my face straight, but I smiled back, feeling an unfamiliar and not unwelcome energy bristling inside me. I peered at the kid—she was so flushed and sweaty I worried for a moment that I’d missed something, that she’d gotten tagged somehow.

“In these old pre-Uni buildings,” I said, “in event of a fire they can’t very well send you up to the roof to watch in horror while the building burns, kiddo. So they send you down to a bunker below street level.” I’d gotten so used to giving Glee these little lessons I almost didn’t notice I was doing it anymore. I got down on one knee and laced my hands together. “Come on, I’ll give you a boost.”

She squinted at me. “Where am I going? Why not just walk out of the bunker?”

I nodded. “Sure, if you want to get killed. Kid, they can see this elevator moving right now. If they’re of a mind to intercept us, all they have to do is wait downstairs for us. So, we’re going up.”

She nodded dubiously, putting one old cracked boot into my hands and grabbing onto my shoulders for balance. I took a deep breath and hauled her up toward the maintenance hatch of the cab. “Up?” she said as she traced its lines with her fingers. “How far
up?
They invented elevators so we didn’t have to, you know,
climb
and shit.”

“Just the second floor,” I said. “You lazy kid. We’ll be able to make a jump from there.”

With a soft
ooh,
she found the latch and the maintenance hatch released, hanging down and instantly forming a little ladder for us. A breeze rushed into the cab, making the stray strands of Glee’s red hair whip around. She reached forward and pulled herself onto the ladder without waiting, and in a second had disappeared above me. I took a breath and followed her, emerging onto the top of the elevator just as it coasted to a stop, making us both dance a little to keep our balance. I looked around, squinting, and spied the maintenance ladder clinging precariously to the shaft wall behind Glee. I nodded at it, and she turned to examine it.

“This? You want us to climb
this?
” She looked back at me over her shoulder. “It’s rusted. It looks like it’s a hundred years old.”

“It might be,” I said. “Ladies first.”

She made a face and I grinned. I was getting soft in my old age. This shit was almost fun. I knew I should be worried—I’d been betrayed, fucked with, and now might end my day with a bullet in the ear. I should be in a bad mood, but instead I was feeling … good.

Glee took hold of the ladder and started pulling herself up. I jumped up right behind her and followed to the next elevator bay.

“Pull this manual release lever?” she called down, and then pulled it without waiting. The outer elevator doors split open with a rusty scrape. Light and music and the hum of a crowd sifted into the shaft and fell on me like dust, weightless. She pulled herself across and up through the doors. I followed as quickly as I could, panting a little as I stretched myself, reaching for the handholds embedded in the ancient concrete.