Cates 04 - The Terminal State (28 page)

Then he was right behind me, and I cleared my mind, imagining the old glass sphere I used to hide in when my mind had been filled with ghosts, right after my half-processing into an avatar. I pushed all thoughts outside and closed my eyes, ready, listening. Remy was on my list, but I wasn’t going to die in this shithole tunnel. I wasn’t going to die with Michaleen Garda still out there, laughing at me.

Remy was right behind me. “On your knees, then.”

“I said, on your knees.”

I didn’t move. “Remy, if you’re going to kill me, just fucking
do
it.”

I listened. My augmented hearing brought me every tiny scrape and every hitch in his breathing, which was short and labored like he had a cough he was suppressing. I knew what kind of training the military gave its pressers—assuming augments surgeried in counted as training—and was ready for him when he put the barrel of the shredder against the back of my head, like somehow its presence there would hold me in place. My HUD clarified as a surge of calm and energy swept through me like cool fire, briefly masking my exhaustion and pain, slowing things down and steadying me.

I took a deep breath, flopped down onto my belly in one sudden swoon, scissored my legs around his, and rolled, jerking the lower half of my body with as much force as I could. He lost his balance and fell backward onto his ass, sending a quick burst of shredder fire up into the air, a rain of broken tile and concrete drifting down onto us.

I leaped up and dived, letting gravity pull me down onto him hard enough to crack a few ribs, the shredder pinned between us. He still had his cowl on, his face a blank swatch of hardened plastic. I raised up a little to get some leverage and he jerked his knee up into my balls about as hard as I’d ever had it done to me, and stars burst into my sight, everything going fuzzy and loose. The kid brought the shredder up and smacked me in the chin with it, snapping my head back and cracking my teeth against each other. I lashed out one hand and took hold of the hot barrel of his gun and held on for all I was worth, hanging from it and letting my weight make control of it impossible.

“Let
go
!” he snarled, his voice going pitchy.

The low, nauseous ball in my belly faded as my strained augments kicked in, smothering it, and I yanked hard on the shredder, using my dead weight to overbalance him—he was still thin, barely there, and in a second he had a choice to make—either let go of the gun or let me pull him back down on top of me.

He didn’t let go, and he crashed down on me with a growl of pure frustration. I was ready and rolled immediately, pushing him over before he could settle in and get his weight spread. Slamming him onto his back again, I pushed the shredder down onto his neck, making sure to lock his legs under me to stop him from kneeing me again. I gave it what I had, leaning down and pushing the gun onto his throat, my sweat dripping down onto his cowl in a steady stream of fat drops.

In the distance back the way I’d come, three quick explosions shook the tunnel around us. I looked up; I could feel the vibration in the tracks beneath us; my other friends tripping the mines. With any luck, they’d caved in the stairwell, but I wasn’t sure I was that blessed. If not, it wouldn’t be long before their next wave crept down. My HUD was creeping into red, all my status bars getting a bleary, dangerous look to them, and I wondered, for a second, if this is what it looked like to die. If these were the visuals.

“I fucking
hate
you!”

Remy surged beneath me and with surprising strength flung me off to the right; I kept my death-clutch on the shredder and tore it from his hands as I sailed a few feet, landing on my back on the tracks, the wide rail trying its best to snap me in two. My HUD flashed again, and then normalized. I didn’t wait to interpret it; I got my hands and feet under me and scrabbled backward as fast as I could manage, then rolled myself to the left, tucking my legs under and pushing myself up into a stumbling run that smoothed out after the first few steps. I sprinted, marveling at the effortlessness of it, the way my wired-up body just pulled the necessary resources, dumped the necessary chemicals, and pushed my limbs into motion. On one level, I
knew
I was exhausted, too tired to stay alive, but on another, I was removed from it, cushioned, and I knew I could run full tilt until I dropped dead, with no warning in between, aside from the light show in my head.

As I ran, a new icon faded in on my HUD, blinking a dull orange: four military pips surrounding a distance meter. Mara, my nominal commanding officer, was closing in on the range that would define me as a deserter. When she crossed that invisible barrier, I’d be dead.

Just as this new anxiety splashed itself across my thoughts, Remy slammed into me from behind, like a bag of wet cement, knocking me down and slamming me back onto the gritty tracks. I held onto his shredder, letting my nose take one track straight on and crunching into mulch with the ease of the frequently broken. Remy was younger, in better condition, and wired up just like me. I wasn’t going to get past him one on one.

He didn’t weigh anything, though, and I rolled us over halfway, shifted my hands on the rifle, and pushed the firing toggle for all it was worth. The high-pitched whine of the shredder sent my audio status into the dark angry red for fifteen seconds as thousands of rounds spat up into the air as I waved the rifle around, aiming at nothing. Remy scrabbled back, startled, moving awkwardly on his hands behind him, and I swung myself up onto my knees and took hold of the shredder’s sizzling barrel again, ignoring the searing pain as my hands burned, and swung it down at him like a club.

He dodged with sudden speed and shot up, taking hold of the shredder and yanking it toward him violently; I angled one arm down and sent the stock into his face using his own force, giving him a good crack against the side of his head that splintered his visor and sent him staggering backward. I didn’t hesitate. I’d had enough people want to kill me to know the one lesson they taught you: They never gave up. Even if you half killed them, they rested, they planned, and they came back.

I lunged forward and used the rifle as a lance, driving it into his belly and knocking him backward. There was no time for anything fancy; our new friends from up above might already be picking their way down into the murk. I ran him down until he finally overbalanced and I knocked him back onto his ass. Raising the shredder over my head, I steadied myself for a second and brought it down on his skull with every bit of strength I had. He twitched once and went limp.

I stood over him for a moment, panting. I was swimming in my own sweat. I struggled to stay alert and ready, watching the kid closely for signs of playing possum, and when I was certain he was down I dropped the shredder, fell to my knees, and reached for his cowl as I pulled my Roon. With a jerk, I tore it off of him, ready to put two in his face, something I’d done a hundred times before with no hesitation.

He stared back at me, conscious, eyes bloodshot a deep red, like a vessel had exploded in his head, filling him with his own blood like pus, looking confused and demanding. He was a fucking
kid
. No older than I’d left him, fifteen, maybe, and a soft fifteen. He was
crying
, silent tears just streaming down the sides of his shaved head.

“You
left
me,” he said. “You fucking
left
me.”

I flinched, and racked a shell into the chamber.

“I told everyone you were coming back for me.” He coughed. “You never came back.”

I pinned his arms with my knees and put the gun against his forehead. He shut his eyes and just lay there, breathing, his flushed face twisting and untwisting as he waited. I’d had this kid following me around for months, fetching me things, cleaning my boots at night, king of all his friends because he was with me. Slept on the floor of my room above Bixon’s half the time, scrambling up when I woke to get me whatever warm shit they were calling coffee that day. And here he was, wired up and ten minutes from a summary execution delivered via subroutine and wireless link, with no judge or jury.

I eased the Roon off his forehead and leaned back, keeping my weight on his arms.

“You know who protected me when I was your age? ” I hissed. “When I was fucking
younger
than you? No one. Not a fucking soul.”

He just stared back at me, chest heaving.

I couldn’t hear anything. The new symbol in my HUD had swollen up to a size impossible to ignore, the countdown within it small and shrinking. I was going to be buzzed by God’s Middle Finger soon enough myself. I jumped back and let my augments steady me, then quickly retrieved both shredders and the duffel from the ground, along with Remy’s handgun. I didn’t doubt he had other weapons hidden away, but he was content to just lie on his back and say nothing while I huffed around. I didn’t know if I’d broken something, or if he’d just expended his hate for me for the moment.

“Don’t follow me,” I said, turning away.

“Mr. Cates.”

I stopped and shut my eyes. I was always telling myself about my fucking list, what I owed, and I should have known the cosmos would wait until the worst possible fucking moment to make me eat my words.

“I can’t go back,” he said quietly, a kid again. “I want to come with you. I can’t go
back
.”

I swallowed hard. “You don’t have a choice. I can’t save you—even if you could come with me, you’d just get killed. Trust me on that. Everyone who comes with me dies.” I shook my head, keeping my eyes closed. “Go back to your unit. Survive. That’s what your skill set should be. Don’t follow me.”

I jogged away. After the first turn I couldn’t hear the kid snuffling anymore. The silence was disturbing; I knew they’d blown my mines at the entrance and I didn’t doubt they’d be after me, but I should have heard
something
. But the subway was big and dark. A fucking army could have wandered around in the tunnels and not be noticed.

I moved easily down the tunnel, the blinking icon showing how dangerously far away Mara had gotten from the tiny bomb in my head slowly shrinking as I moved. She stood still, at least, for the time being. For several minutes I jogged in silence, the flashing number in the corner of my HUD shrinking and then suddenly fading out completely, the darkness and density of the atmosphere almost total. As I ran, I pulled the tiny disc from my pocket and snapped it open in my palm again, the glowing red map of Hong Kong blooming. With a twitch of my hand, I tunneled down into the subways and scoped to my present location; I was just a few minutes’ jog away from the Shannara Hotel.

Something pinged my senses from the darkness up above. Crouching low, I holstered the auto and unslung one of the shredders, slowing to a walk. A haze of slightly brighter tunnel was swelling up in front of me, the wall to my right ending as another platform rose up on my right. It was in slightly better shape and still had most of its wall tiles, and a single poster still clung to the wall, tattered and rusted. The stairs were wider and steeper, rising into a vague haze of twilight above me, its concrete steps chipped and crumbling. I pulled myself up onto the platform and crept toward the stairs, shredder ready, duckwalking my way to the very bottom.

The Poet was standing at the top, smoking a cigarette. He waved.

“We did not get far,” he said, giving me a humorless smile. “You might as well come on up. We have been delayed.”

I squinted up at the Poet, studying his body language. It was in between alarmed and batshit agitated, so I tightened my grip on the shredder and stayed right where I was.

“Too bright up there,” I said, loud. “Rats like me like the dark.”

He smiled. “Everyone likes dark—”

The Poet broke off. I sensed them behind me.

“Don’t move,” said a civil, calm, male voice. “Please relax. We are under parley, and you will not be hurt. We are going to let you keep your weapons, because you are a reasonable man. Please walk up the stairs.”

I didn’t move. My hands were on the shredder and my eyes were on the Poet. I cursed myself for letting someone sneak up behind me, but I was exhausted and my augments weren’t running at full capacity. I was in a strange tunnel and I was, I was increasingly aware, a fucking idiot.

Keeping my eyes on the Poet, I shrugged my eyebrows at him. He shook his head slightly, a bare tick of his head, and I loosened my grip on the gun.

“I’m gonna assume you’ve got guns back there,” I said, pushing a smile onto my face. “So when people ask you about this, make sure they understand I didn’t roll over and show you my belly because you called me ‘reasonable.’”

There was a deep peal of laughter disturbingly close to my ear. “We will tell the Vids that it took dozens to make you see reason. Now, ascend, please.”

I slung the shredder back onto my shoulder to join Remy’s and climbed the crumbling stairs, keeping my eyes on the Poet’s face for any signs or hints. He just stared back, smoking. I emerged into another stuffy, shuttered-in lobby, dark and dusty. This one had once been something—we’d moved up in the world of old Hong Kong. The floor was smooth marble polished by a billion long-dead feet, with thick columns soaring up to an impossibly high ceiling. The columns were sheathed in marble too, white and veiny, but some of the huge slabs had lost their grip and smashed onto the floor.

In the center of the lobby was a big hunk of metal, a sculpture of some sort, vaguely cube shaped, made from thick strands of twisted metal. It had fallen off its squat stone base and lay on the cracked floor oddly balanced, as if it had been frozen in the act of rolling over. Whatever it had meant was lost, and I had the immediate impression that if you made any sudden movements, it would animate and finish its endless fall.