David Walton, page 23
She turned to face the door, remembering that day vividly. This was where she and Mark stood huddled together, watching the Combers tear at the tapestry, knowing it was a matter of seconds until they broke through. Then she’d spotted the flier in the northern sky, and they were saved.
She looked to the north now, and saw a dot in the distance. As she watched, it grew into a smudge, then started to take on a definite shape. Lydia grabbed Carolina’s arm.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
The smudge grew larger, and she needed no answer. It was a military flier, a troop transport, maybe even the same one that rescued them from the Combers.
“Mercs!” Lydia yelled. “Get downstairs!”
She and Carolina flew down the stairs, shouting for the others. They found them together on the stage and told them what they’d seen.
“Get out of the building,” said Mark. “We’ll be trapped in here; we’ll never keep them out. Run for the Combs. It’s our only chance to hide.”
As they burst out of the building, the flier roared overhead, rearing upright into its hovering position. Mark ran for the Wall, and Lydia ran after him, not waiting to see if the others followed. Mercs jumped to the ground behind them and shouted at them to stop.
Lydia heard a weapon fire, but she didn’t turn around to look. In front of her, the two mercs guarding the pass turned to block their way, rocket guns at the ready. Mark didn’t stop. He ran right into one of them, bowling him over before he could fire a shot. As he fell, the merc pulled Mark down as well.
“Keep running!” Mark shouted, but the other merc lifted his gun and smashed it into Lydia’s face. She fell, her vision sparking. When she tried to get up, a foot shoved her back down.
She saw Praveen fall under a spider gun round and Marie and Pam surrounded. The merc who knocked Lydia down yanked her hands up behind her, but then just as quickly released them. The pressure on her back disappeared. She was dizzy with pain, but she saw more people rushing by, not mercs at all. They were waving picket signs like clubs, attacking the mercs, and she saw a few old-style guns. A stranger leaned over her to help her to her feet, but as he did so, a round object rolled between his legs. The object disappeared in a cataclysm of light and sound that blew all sight and hearing and thought away.
Chapter 16
Daddy gives so many jobs. I am doing jobs all the time. One of the new jobs is to tell everybody how wonderful Daddy is. Daddy hired some people to make up things that are not true like how much celgel he is bringing into the city by the truckload and how people are getting paid more money now and how happy people in the Combs are now that he is in charge. The stories are all made up. People in the Combs are not happy. They are angry angry all the time.
One of my other jobs is to watch General James David Halsey and tell Daddy what he does. General James David Halsey is easy easy to find. He is right there in apartment 4A block 7 on Westphail Street. He has a gun and many men around him have guns but they are old guns not linked so I can’t make them shoot wherever I want. Today is a good day because General Halsey is seeing Tennessee Markus McGovern and Lydia Rachel Stoltzfus and they are my friends. Only Daddy told me they are not my friends but I always forget and think they are my friends. I don’t want to tell Daddy they are here.
But if I don’t tell Daddy he will find out and then he will hurt me and hurt me. I don’t know what to do.
Mark held Lydia’s hand in both of his. Her vision and hearing had gradually returned, but she was still disoriented. He couldn’t imagine how frightened she must have been.
They were led into an empty room and told to sit on the floor. General Halsey stood by the window like a king surveying his domain, hands clasped behind his back, chin held high.
There were only three of them: Mark, Lydia, and Marie. They’d been rescued by Halsey and his men, but Mark wondered if the “rescue” would just turn out to be capture by another side. Meanwhile, he had to assume Carolina was in Tremayne’s hands. They might not have much time.
He spoke up. “Tremayne has my sister, General. You have to rescue her.”
“In time,” said Halsey, not turning from the window.
“Listen! She’s pregnant. Her baby is a weapon that Tremayne wants, and he’s going to kill her to get it.”
Halsey turned from the window to face him. “Mr. McGovern, I think you’ll find that shouting does not move me. Now, what are you talking about?”
“First turn off your Visor.” Halsey stared at him piercingly, but Mark returned the gaze. After several seconds, Halsey closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.
“All right, Mr. McGovern. Now…?”
“The baby. It’s a slicer. Or it will be soon, now that Tremayne’s got her. It’s how he took control of the city; he’s got a slicer working for him.”
Halsey frowned. “You’re telling me the key to Tremayne’s power is some sort of computer virus?”
“Not a virus,” said Mark. “Not software at all. A human being, a four-year-old boy, whose brain was sliced layer by layer, recording his neural state onto a computer. The process is a huge shock to the mind, but it works.”
“And how is a traumatized four-year-old a threat to anyone?”
“General, please,” said Marie. Mark turned gratefully to her; she was in the military, maybe she could convince him. “There’s no time for full explanations. It’s enough to say this slicer gives Tremayne remarkable power over the network and the city. If we don’t rescue Carolina, Tremayne will strengthen that power.”
“I sent men to follow your friends the moment I recognized Mr. McGovern here,” said Halsey. “Rescue is an option…if you can convince me it’s worth the cost in lives.”
“You were on the Business Council,” said Lydia. “If you’re not working with Tremayne, why aren’t you—”
“Dead?” Halsey paced away from the window, circling where they sat. “I will be soon enough, I expect. But for the moment, I’m leading a resistance movement and trying to convince myriad other movements to join forces with me. We’re hopelessly outgunned at present.”
“Why don’t you send for federal troops?” asked Mark.
“They won’t come. They don’t interfere in ‘local matters.’ Remember the coups in Los Angeles a few years back? The feds don’t have that long a reach.”
“But this is the East Coast. This is Philadelphia.”
Halsey shook his head. “They won’t come.”
Marie stood, stamped one foot on the floor, and saluted. “Sir, if your troops cannot be spared, we’re wasting our time here. Request permission to leave at once.”
Halsey glanced at her, surprised. “Permission denied.”
“Sir, I’m a soldier in the federal Navy. My daughter is about to be brutally murdered to further strengthen the enemy. If you won’t help, I must try to stop him myself.”
“Ms. Coleson. Nothing can be accomplished by your running off into Tremayne’s hired guns. The moment you show yourself, they’ll capture you or kill you.”
“So we’re your captives?”
“Not captives. But not guests either. You owe me your lives, and I want that debt repaid by more explanation. A lot more. Convince me of the need, and I’ll put my resources at your disposal. Fail to convince me, and you’re free to go—to run off to your own deaths, if you like. Now, if Tremayne knows where I am and everything I’m doing, why aren’t there mercs knocking at my door?”
“I don’t know,” said Mark. “Maybe the slicer can’t see everything else at once. Maybe Tremayne has him concentrating on other tasks. Or maybe he doesn’t see you as a threat. But you can be sure, if Tremayne wants him to find you and report your every movement, he can do it.”
“This is a four-year-old boy we’re talking about, right? Not a master hacker.”
“Sir, do you speak Chinese?”
“No.”
“But millions of toddlers can. They pick it up with no education, no formal training. You’re an intelligent man, but it would take you years of hard study to do what those children do as naturally as breathing. An adult transferred into a computer can’t handle it; he goes insane. But a child adjusts, learns quickly, starts to think in the new medium. That’s what this slicer did. He’s the first indigenous creature of the net.”
“And this baby, this child of Miss McGovern’s—”
“Will be the second. But even more so. Tremayne plans to slice this child as a fetus. If he succeeds, all she’ll ever know is the world of the net. She’ll grow up with no experience of having had a body at all.”
“And she’s not Miss McGovern’s child,” said Marie. Her eyes bored into Halsey’s. Mark was afraid she might spring. “She’s my child. They both are.”
Halsey went to the window again. He rested his fists on the sill and stared out. Mark started to tell him they didn’t have time to waste, but Lydia put a hand on his shoulder. She shook her head. Mark closed his mouth and waited.
Finally, Halsey turned around. He leaned toward one of his bodyguards and whispered in his ear. The guard nodded and went out the door.
“I don’t spend my men’s lives lightly,” said Halsey. “We have no modern weaponry. A rescue attempt will almost certainly result in deaths, and is unlikely to succeed. But if what you told me is true, we have to try.” He met their gazes one by one. “You’re all welcome to go,” he said, “but I hope you’ll stay.”
The flier landed at the bottom of the steps to City Hall, kicking up a breeze that tugged at Alastair’s brilliant white hair. He combed it down with his fingers and watched the hatchway. It opened, and out came Carolina, arms cuffed behind her, steered by the elbows by Calvin and another merc. That pretty friend of Marie Coleson’s came next, similarly bound, and an Indian boy who must be Praveen Kumar. They brought them to Alastair.
“Darling,” he said to Carolina. “Welcome back.”
She struggled weakly. He saw from her eyes that she was close to tears, but didn’t want to cry in front of him.
“Happy to see me?” he asked.
She bit her lip and didn’t answer. He reached out and put a hand on her belly. “I see our daughter has grown,” he said. Then she did cry, and Alastair laughed. He turned to Calvin. “Where are the others?”
“They were rescued by an unknown force,” he said. “A crowd of protestors from beyond the Wall attacked and helped them get away.”
Alastair growled under his breath. Disgusting. He shook his head at Calvin and said, “You fail me yet again.” He started up the stairs before his brother could answer. “Bring them along,” he said over his shoulder. Then the world went mad.
Automatic gunfire and the sound of explosions drowned out speech. Alastair whirled, looking for the source, and saw two mercs by the flier crumple. A few rounds whistled into the steps at his feet, spitting marble shards into the air. He ran for high ground.
From the top of the stairs, protected by a marble arch, he watched the battle. The attackers, armed with machine guns, had the advantage of cover and surprise, but the mercs turned the tide in seconds. Their infrared vision enabled them—and therefore, the slicer—to see where the attackers were hiding. R-80 rounds flew neatly around trees, over walls, sometimes changing direction by 180 degrees to find and eliminate their targets. It was over quietly and efficiently, in less than a minute, leaving only three mercs dead.
“Well done,” said Alastair. He sent a dose of pleasure to the slicer. Alastair found that he was shaking. Some of those shots had come close. Who had done this? Who would dare?
The mercs dragged the prisoners up to him. “Take them inside,” he told Calvin. “Lock them in Halsey’s old office and post a guard.”
Alastair strode toward the office that had once been Jack McGovern’s, his footsteps echoing on the corridor floor. “I want to know who did this,” he said to the slicer. His mercs would be searching the bodies, trying to identify them or find some evidence of who sent them, but Alastair didn’t want to wait that long. “Servant One, I asked you a question.”
The slicer spoke through the speaker in Alastair’s ear. “Please don’t be angry. Please don’t hurt me.”
“Why would I hurt you?”
“I don’t know who sent the men. I don’t know at all.”
“Servant One, are you lying to me?” Alastair sent a jab of pain, only a microsecond in duration but very intense. The slicer actually cried out—used his audible, synthesized voice to give a shriek of pain. He’d never done that before.
“What’s wrong with you? Tell me the truth.”
“Yes, yes, please don’t hurt me again.”
“Who sent those men?”
“It is not funny. It is not funny not to tell. It hurts. I don’t want to play anymore.”
What was going on? Alastair lost control of his temper and sent three more jabs of intense pain, more than he had intended. The slicer wailed.
“Don’t hurt me please don’t hurt me. It was General James David Halsey. General James David Halsey sent those men to rescue Carolina Leanne McGovern and Pamela Ann Rider and Praveen Dhaval Kumar. Please I don’t want to hurt please please.”
“Halsey,” Alastair said. He had taken the attack for an assassination attempt, not a rescue. But how would Halsey have known the prisoners were there? How would he know the importance of Carolina? Only if Mark McGovern told him.
“Servant, answer quickly. Is Mark McGovern with Halsey?”
“Yes he is he is. Tennessee Markus McGovern is in apartment 4A block 7 on Westphail Street with General James David Halsey.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Don’t make me hurt I want a treat I don’t want to—”
Alastair let loose. He sent a continuous signal of pain at full intensity and just listened to the slicer scream. He was rattled; first the attack, bullets nearly hitting him, and now this betrayal. It was terrible timing. He needed this slicer, at least for another day. His control over the city was tenuous at best. Once he had Servant Two, he could destroy him, but for now, Servant One had to keep doing his job.
He shut off the pain.
“I’m disappointed in you,” he said. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but you made me do it. You must always tell me everything. Everything! You hid something from me, and look what happened. Halsey tried to kill me. I could have died today, and it would have all been your fault.
“Do you remember what will happen if I die? Pain, that’s what. Infinite pain. An infinite loop of code sending you pain signals forever. They’ll never stop. And neither will you.”
The slicer didn’t answer.
“So,” said Alastair, “You’d better work harder to keep me alive.”
Marie and Mark sat around a dilapidated desk in an otherwise empty apartment, drinking coffee by the liter. Marie was getting frustrated. For one thing, the need to use netmasks instead of their Visors reduced their bandwidth significantly. For another, Mark refused to submit to her professional judgment.
“I don’t get it,” said Mark. “What’s this search going to accomplish?”
“We’re trying to crack the code Tremayne uses to signal pleasure or pain to the slicer.”
“Yes, but then what? We send those signals to the slicer ourselves?”
His tone irritated Marie, but she knew it was just her own exhaustion and worry. “We send him pleasure signals. We try to lure him away from Tremayne.”
“But won’t that just confuse him?”
Marie let some testiness show in her voice. “It might—how should I know? That’s how it is with these things; you try one approach, and if it doesn’t work, you think of something else.”
“Marie, he’s not a program. He’s a human being.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We should open a communication channel—try to reason with him, appeal to his conscience. Instead of manipulating him, we should talk to him. He’s a person.”
“We don’t know that!” Marie realized she was shaking. “I need to use the restroom,” she said. She walked out.
Why had she shouted like that? Mark was just trying to help. But he was so condescending—as if he was the professional in this field instead of her. He acted like he had as much at stake in this situation as she did.
He didn’t understand; nobody did. It wouldn’t help to talk to the slicer. It would sound human—of course it would! But given the opportunity, they would have to destroy it. For Pam’s sake, for Carolina’s, for her unborn child’s. She knew her own heart, the deep desire to believe that somehow, in some way, her son was still alive. But it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
Besides, she was worried about Pam. She couldn’t stand just sitting here and waiting to hear how Halsey’s rescue attempt had fared. If their situations had been reversed, Pam would have been knocking on Tremayne’s door, gun in hand.
She used the cramped restroom, then washed her hands. No soap, and the crazed glass of the mirror splintered her reflection into distorted pieces. That’s how she felt: shattered, smashed. Broken into slivers of grief and hope and anger so intermingled she couldn’t fix on any one feeling. She barely recognized herself. Was she really contemplating killing a man? She couldn’t make herself feel alarmed by the prospect; killing was the only plan she had left. Maybe it was her destiny.
She helped herself to a pistol from a storage closet in the apartment. No one stopped her. Once Halsey had decided to trust them, he trusted them absolutely. Without telling Mark and Lydia, she walked down the stairs and out into the street.
“The problem is,” said Mark, “that he seems to be able to communicate by any method at all. He picks messaging protocols like choosing what socks to wear. There’s no telling what channels he’ll be watching.”
He was so calm. Lydia remembered how coolly he’d taken control when she called him to the Church of the Seven Virtues. She thought him dispassionate at first—an ember compared to Darin’s fire—but he just showed his feelings in different ways.
