Bzrk Apocalypse (12 page)

and was solemnly warned that he would go to a federal prison if he

revealed the existence of this second report.

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NINE

The Twins arrived back in New York with no more fanfare than Plath

and Keats. It had been expensive, but crossing into the U.S. without a

passport was possible. Not impossible. Not with enough ready cash.

They had been helped into their specially built shower, then slept

for many hours until Jindal had them awakened as per their orders.

Cranky, but relieved to be home again where the environment

had been shaped to their needs, they drank coffee, ate pastries, and

sat in their tent-size bathrobe while Jindal gave them the rundown.

This program and that business.

“We don’t care about the P and Ls,” Benjamin snarled after a few

minutes of spreadsheets. “Do you think we give a damn about long-

term profits? Have you found BZRK?”

Jindal licked his lips and rocked back on his heels. He always

stood in their presence. “No, sir. Thrum’s lead took us up a dead alley.

She’s beginning to suggest that she’s being played.”

“Played? Hannah Thrum?” Charles made a dubious face.

“She thinks, and sirs, I agree, maybe, that Sadie McLure and the

McLure chief of security are laying a false trail to—”

“We’re being played by a
teenager
?” Charles was usually the

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MICHAEL GRANT

calmer brother, but this insulted his intelligence.

Benjamin slapped the table with his palm. “If we can’t find them,

we can still go after their allies. This chief of security. His whole

department.”

Jindal started to smile, almost as if he thought it was a joke. Then

his smile faded. “Sir?”

Benjamin glared at him. “Never mind. Not your sort of work. No.

No, get Burnofsky in here.”

Jindal stiffened. He had kept Burnofsky at arm’s length, sus-

pecting, suspecting very damned strongly that the genius had been

compromised by BZRK.

“Are you sure you want—”

“Get him. And get out.”

Benjamin remained silent a while, judging his brother’s mood.

Charles, he concluded, was frustrated, but not yet ready to accept that

they were entering a new phase. Charles did not yet understand that

they were
losing
. In fact may already have lost.

Charles still half believed the silly cult they’d financed, Nexus

Humanus, was of some use. He still seemed to think that the work

of their remaining twitchers—no great prodigies among them—was

just marking time, doing damage control.

“You’re still trying to hide,” Benjamin said aloud at last. “Our

whole life, you always wanted to find a way to hide what we are.”

“What we are?” Charles said a bit pompously. “What we are is

two great men, who have—”

“We are freaks,” Benjamin said, but not angrily. “Everywhere

except on the
Doll Ship
. They’ve taken that from us. BZRK, the

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BZRK APOCALYPSE

intelligence people, the police, all of them, all the forces of
the normal
.

They’ve destroyed the one, small place where we could be. Just . . . be.”

“We have this place, still,” Charles said.

“Our cage. Our gilded cage.”

“Yes,” Charles admitted. Then he heaved a sigh. “The tide has

turned, has it not, brother?”

“Yes,” Benjamin said. He reached awkwardly across their body to

pat his brother’s chest. It was as much physical affection as they could

deploy. You could not hug a man who was attached to you. “The tide

has turned. The governments have become aware. In secret we had

a chance. But secrecy is impossible now. They will come for us, and

they will take us. They’ll put us on display. They’ll call it a trial, but

it will be a carnival freak show. And then they’ll put us in a cell until

we die.”

The angled mirror that let them look in each other’s eye revealed

that Charles was crying.

So
, Benjamin thought.
Perhaps he sees at last.

“You were too softhearted, Charles. Always. You thought you

could improve them, as we did on the
Doll Ship
, and yes, it was a

magnificent dream, brother. But we now face Sodom and Gomorrah,

and no righteous man is to be found to justify their salvation.”

The silence that followed was long.

“What,” Charles asked finally, sounding exhausted, “would you

have us do?”

“We tried to gently show the world the error of its ways,” Ben-

jamin said. “We tried the carrot. Now comes the stick. Now comes

judgment. Now comes righteous wrath, brother. Or do we wait for

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our chance to star in their freak show?”

“No,” Charles whispered. Then louder. “No, by God. Now comes

Judgment Day. We hit them. We hit them so hard they can’t stand up.

And then we show them that we have worse still in store unless they

submit.”

Benjamin smiled. The doorbell sounded. “That would be the

good Dr. Burnofsky.”

In Rome, the Pope was working his way methodically through his

daily audiences. He was a humble man despite the pomp of his ancient

office, and he still, after many years in the job, felt a bit put off by the

need to play the kingly role.

First up there was the priest who had defied death threats to

keep an inoculation program going in narco country. The priest was

young and cocky and brave and offered to shake the Holy Father’s

hand rather than kiss his ring.

Then the two Little Sisters of the Poor, one of whom had been

attacked on a mission in Burma. The Pope rose from his seat to

embrace them each in turn and to whisper words of encouragement.

They left with tears streaming down their faces.

Then the usual collection of businesspeople and media people,

all of which would culminate in the Pope getting to meet a famously

good-looking actor to thank him for his charitable work. As far as the

Holy Father knew the actor was not a Catholic, but he was still a great

talent and this Pope rather liked the conversation of talented people.

A banker, a reporter, a union boss, an Argentinean politician

(the Pope was not fond of politicians as a rule), a scientist who had

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BZRK APOCALYPSE

discovered a way to raise sorghum crop yields dramatically, and last,

before the actor, Lystra Reid, a youngish woman with tattoos peeking

out from beneath her expensive clothing.

“Your Holiness,” Lystra Reid said, and knelt, and kissed his ring.

And at that moment four of Bug Man’s nanobots leapt from her

lips, slick with lipstick, to the cold metal of what was known as the

Fisherman’s Ring.

A quarter mile away, Bug Man said, “And that’s how the pros do

it,” and did a little fist pump.

The Pope’s audience was broadcast via a closed-circuit station

from the Vatican, and of course streamed, so Bug Man could see it

all play out in the macro even as he was marveling at the unusual

smoothness of the ring’s gold surface.

“You’re back,” Burnofsky said. “I mean, welcome back.”

They stared at him, unnerving him as they often did. Were they

going to kill him right here, right now? Surely they must suspect that

he had been wired. Maybe he should just put it out there; maybe he

should just blurt it out.

Are you watching all this, Nijinsky? Or are you in my ear listen-

ing? Or are you drunk and passed out, you sad degenerate?

Burnofsky was pleased to realize that he was not afraid to die.

Yet, he was afraid to die too soon. BZRK had reprogrammed him,

brutally shifted his emotions, but it was crude work. Typical of the

lesser BZRKers. Vincent would have done a better job. Vincent would

have found a way to wire him for true loyalty. All Nijinsky had accom-

plished was to turn Burnofsky—for now at least—away from the bottle

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and the pipe. He had implanted very strong inhibitions against telling

the Twins all he knew. He had turned Burnofsky’s most terrible secret

into a source of sickening pleasure, and oh, that had been cruel work.

But still: crude and ham-fisted. Burnofsky could no longer be

said to be working for the Twins, true, but he was still working for

himself, still pursuing his own agenda. Nijinsky thought his watch-

ful biot would allow him to see and understand what Burnofsky was

doing.

Foolish boy. Male model. I’m one of the great minds of the cen-

tury, and you think I can’t carry out my work right under your nose?

“Karl, it’s good to see you,” Charles lied.

Benjamin’s one-eyed stare would freeze lava.

“It’s good to have you gentlemen back,” Burnofsky said. “I’m, um,

well, sorry for your . . .”

“Defeat?” snarled Benjamin. “Are you sorry for our
defeat
?”

“Your loss,” Burnofsky said, finding the right word. “I’m sorry

for your loss.”

“Fuck your sympathy,” Benjamin snapped.

Charles intervened smoothly. “My brother and I are both griev-

ing. You can understand our . . . impatience.”

“What can I do for you?” Burnofsky asked. Benjamin’s anger had

sent him back in his mind to Carla. To his daughter. It had been in

this room, just over there, closer to the desk. That’s where he had

come to them—drunk, stoned, filled with sorrow so deep and shame

so dark that it would poison him as surely as a dose of strychnine.

There, yes, right there he had reported to them that the deed was done

and his daughter was dead.

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BZRK APOCALYPSE

They had said then that they were sorry for
his
loss.

He swallowed hard, trying to avoid the terrible rush of pleasure

that flowed each time he recalled the murder, each time, oh, God, to

enjoy it, to be excited by it . . .

For a moment he thought he might vomit. Or actually become

physically aroused. Or both at once.

I will kill you, Nijinsky. I don’t know how, but I will kill you.

“Massed preprogrammed attack,” Charles said, trying to take

control of the conversation to forestall more rage from his brother.

They could still use Burnofsky, so long as they were careful. Let him

reveal all to BZRK: without details it would mean nothing.

“What about preprogrammed attack?” Burnofsky asked cau-

tiously.

Charles smiled. “It’s time we learned more about some of our . . .

toys.” He nodded. “Yes, Karl, we want to learn how to do it.”

“You mean, how to program an attack using self-replicating

nanobots? Yourselves?”

“Are we too stupid?” Benjamin demanded. “Is that what you

think? Do you think we rose from where we began to all of this by

being stupid?” He waved his hand to encompass all of what he’d ear-

lier called his gilded cage.

No, by being rage-filled lunatics
, Burnofsky thought.
And by hav-

ing a very rich grandfather.

“I am very well aware of your intellect,” Burnofsky soothed.

“Perhaps not quite on your level, Karl,” Charles said. “But as I

understand it, there’s an app for this.”

Burnofsky’s first thought was that they meant to use it against

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MICHAEL GRANT

him. But no, there were so many ways they could kill him, they

wouldn’t be cute about it.

“Gentlemen,” Burnofsky said, “if you have thirty minutes, I can

teach you to use the app.”

“Wake up, Anthony. You have a visitor.”

Bug Man sat up fast. The lights were on. But it must still be night

out beyond the shuttered windows.

George III had a cup of coffee in his hand. He gave it to Bug Man.

“What?” Bug Man said.

“Someone wants to meet you.”

Bug Man was not yet fully awake, but he was getting there fast.

“No one knows I’m here.” Awful suspicion blossomed. “You sold me

out! You mother—”

“Drink your coffee,” George said, and sighed. “If I was selling you

out, would I start by bringing you a cappuccino? It’s full-fat milk—

you’re not watching your cholesterol, I hope.”

Bug Man took a sip. George was trying to act cool, but he was

upset. Something had disturbed his typical sangfroid.

“Put on some clothing. It’s just one of my compatriots here to brief

you on next steps.” He was lying. He was lying and he was jumpy, very

unlike his usual self.

“In the middle of the night?”

“She has an early flight.” George left the room. Bug Man took

another sip of coffee. A soft knock at the door.

“Yeah, George,” Bug Man yelled, “I’m getting up. Damn, give a

brother a few minutes to—”

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BZRK APOCALYPSE

The door opened. It was not George, but a white woman. Medium-

tall, slender, good-looking but sharp edged. Brunette.

“Hello, Anthony. I’m sorry to barge in on you. But I have to get

back to New York, so I don’t have a lot of time.”

She sat down on the foot of the bed, a position that made Bug

Man quite uncomfortable since under the blankets he wasn’t wearing

anything. He was very conscious of his skinny chest and well-formed

but not exactly muscular shoulders.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Lystra.”