Demon Accords 05.5: Executable (22 page)

They came for me later.  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it felt like only a few hours.  The door slid open suddenly, interrupting my introspection.  I was lying flat on my back, hands behind my head, ankles crossed, deep in thought.  Almost a meditation, as it were, my tongue still tasting the metal flavor, my thoughts on computer programs.

Krista stood in the doorway, looking a little
weary.  Behind her, three big guards stood in military black, wearing armor and faceguards.  The girl threw a pair of handcuffs onto my platform.

“Put those on,” she said.

Surprised, I studied the cuffs.  Smith & Wesson brand, but I didn’t think they had come from the factory with runes and glyphs carved into them.  A few of the runes were recognizable, but many were in alphabets and patterns that I knew of but didn’t really know.

The metal was cold when I ratcheted them shut over my own wrists.  Immediately, I felt a kind of numbness.  A puffy feeling in my arms, chest, and back, a little like the dribble-mouthed thing that happens when the dentist gives me novocaine.

Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she motioned to one of the guards, who dragged my platform over to the doorway   She stepped onto the plastic and placed three necklaces over my head.  A muffled feeling, like blankets covering my head, came with each necklace, the effect building in weight.

“Okay, he’s ready,” she said to the guards.  Two of them grabbed my arms, and my feet left the ground.   Bigger, stronger, faster—boy and how! These guys each made two of me, and they didn’t appear to be laboring very hard to whisk me into the hallway outside my cell and into a bee’s nest of activity.  Workers were installing sheets of some grayish metal on the walls and ceiling.  The fact that they were wearing what looked like radiation suits and air filters made me wonder just what kind of metal it was.  Whatever it was, it seemed to be very heavy, based on the massive noise one sheet made when a worker dropped it.  All of this took place in a few seconds as I was hauled down the hall and through a massive metal door that was also receiving a gray metal makeover.  Down industrial stairs, into a massive underground room whose corners had the biggest shock absorbers I’d ever seen.  The ceiling was two stories overhead and the passageway we entered was made of cinderblocks walls only one story tall, leaving me in mind of a rat’s maze. 

“It’s a defunct missile silo.  The big springs were to help absorb an attack, supposedly even a nuclear one,” Krista said, smirking at my shocked expression. “Welcome to ground floor and your new abode.”

A thick steel door led into a set of cells with heavy metal bars and a ceiling that looked like it was made from the same slabs of concrete that parking garages are built with. A camera hung from the ceiling, a built-in microphone next to the gleaming red light.  The handcuffs and necklaces held me to almost nothing, but a mental burst of almost nothing was enough to cause the microphone to smoke a bit.  The red camera light stayed on, though.

There was a long row of cells, the visible ones all empty except one, the third from the right.  My cell was furthest on the right, at least I assumed it was my cell by the florescent orange circle spray-painted onto the floor and the copious amount of sigils and runes drawn around it and even on the ceiling above it.  The two thugs holding my arms launched me through the open cell door and into the circle, leaving me in a painful heap.  Yup, my cell all right.

“Easy there. Don’t hurt the merchandise!” Krista admonished the two.  They appeared unfazed by her comment, looming in the corners of the cell while she knelt down and touched one black polished nail to the edge of the circle.  A silent thrum of power arced around me as the barrier was closed.

“Okay, well, that should do it.  Not as fancy as your other digs, but they needed the space and these accommodations come with a friendly face… ere… a face, anyway,” Krista said, waving one hand at the other cell, where Caeco watched us with a flinty expression.

One by one, the guards left the cell as Krista checked over the wards one last time.  Then she left, too, and the guard by the door slammed it shut, the lock clicking into place.

“Miss me while I’m gone?” the Goth witch asked sweetly as I rolled upright and dusted off my face.  “You know you will,” she added as she exited the cell block through the main door.  It, too, clanged shut with an ominous bong.

“Hey, you all right?” I asked Caeco in a whisper.  She ignored me.  “I said… are you all right?”

Her head swiveled to look at me.  “Why are you whispering?” she asked in a normal voice.

“Ah, it just seemed to fit the mood.  So, are you going to answer or are you not speaking to me for some reason?”

“
I
am almost without injury.  Nothing but a scratch,” she said, sounding a touch regretful.  The mental image I had seen her in back in my old cell exactly matched her real cell, which gave me some food for thought.

“Listen, they obviously implanted your nannites with some kind of command,” I started.

The look she gave me was cold as ice.  “You think?”  Her tone was just as frosty.

“Oh!  So that’s how it is?  Gonna be
that
girl, are you?” I said as I surveyed my own customized dwelling space.  Closing my eyes, I used other senses to feel out the containment spells as I turned in place.

Behind me, I could almost feel the glare of Caeco’s eyes.  Reminded me of when I first met her.  Good times.

The spellcraft was pretty solid; really solid, actually.  A strong barrier for a fire witch or warlock.  It was tightly woven, which spoke highly of Krista’s abilities, as it was obviously done at the last minute.  I found some gaps, tiny really, but gaps nonetheless.  Little weaknesses that I could, given time, wear away.

“What girl?” came the voice behind me.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“You said I was being
that
girl.  I want to know what girl that is?” she asked, exasperated that I didn’t understand.  I did actually, but it was all part of my master plan at drawing her out of her self-inflicted mental beatdown.

“Oh.  The girl who blames herself for things she can’t control.”

“What the fuck would
you
know about that, Mr. Oh-so-Perfect warlock?”

“Easy.  I spent a good three or four years blaming myself for my mom’s death.  All my fault, you know.”

“Give me a break, you were what?  Eight?”

“Six.  It didn’t have to make sense, just as it makes no sense for you to beat yourself up along with
anyone
who tries to make you see reason.  Kids are self-centered.  I assumed it had to be my fault.”

“Oh, so now I’m self-centered, too?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

Okay, so my master plan sucked.  “Go ahead.  Lash out.  Maybe it’ll make you feel better.  Then, when you get past it, you’ll maybe realize that maybe it’s not your fault that they put a shock collar in your little electronic hitchhikers. 
Then
maybe we can do something about it.”

“As fascinating as this discussion is, could you kids keep your lover’s quarrel to a dull roar?” a male voice suddenly requested from much further down the row of cells.

I raised my eyebrows silently at Caeco.

“Some more cells. A couple of prisoners,” she said, something in her tone of voice making my ears perk up. 

“Yeah?  Like us kind of prisoners?”

She considered for a moment, then shook her head.  “No, a hemivore and a lycanthrope.”

I looked at her blankly.

“A vampire and a werewolf.”

“You’re shitting me?” I asked.  Her eyes narrowed.  “You’re not shitting me?  Really?”

“You are a warlock and you’re shocked at the presence of a vampire and a werewolf?”

“I’m aware they exist, but I’ve never met any.  Led sort of a sheltered life, ya know.”

“You know we can hear every word you say, right?” the male voice asked.

“That’s Frank; he’s the furry one.  The other is Charles,” Caeco said.

“I’ll show you furry, little girl!” he muttered.  The other one never said a word.

Caeco was still staring at me, making me a little glad the bars were solid steel.  I probed the unseen etheric walls around me with my Crafting senses, looking for more little cracks and chinks.  Not many, but a few.

“What could
we
possibly do about command files in technology as advanced as this?” she asked, interested despite her self-loathing.

“Well, seeing as you bled into my mouth and gave me a complete and really gross sample of your little micro buddies, and seeing as I’m a genius with all things tech and code, then the possibility of me rewriting the executable file jumps to a really high probability.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”  she asked although her tone had changed. Something new had popped in between the sarcasm and the self-doubt… hope.

“See, my mouth tastes like ass.  Part of that is a serious lack of hygiene due to the circumstances, but a bit of my dragon breath is blood—your blood.  And so some of the nannites that were in you are now in me… and we’ve been chatting.  Getting to know each other.  I’ve worked out a bunch of stuff and I think I almost have the executable file rewritten.  Did you know there is one that stops your heart as well?  Took care of that one first.”

“You
re-wrote
them?  How?  To do what?”

“You really got to ask how?  What do you think I do when I commune with the machines?  I’ve been speaking to machines since I could touch them.”

“What did you rewrite them to do?” she asked a second time.

“Well, the one that stops your heart will now give you a jolt of adrenaline and the one that freezes you up… well, from now on, you take your clothes off instead.”

She stared at me for a second, conflicting emotions making her face twitch.  I’m not sure, but I think I saw some more hope mixed with exasperation with a dash of embarrassment thrown in.

“You ass,” she said finally.  I laughed, which made her smile, just a little.

“How are you supposed to change the rest of my nannites?” she asked.

“That’s easy.  We just have to kiss.  Just a short makeout session should do it.  Five minutes, tops,” I said, hands on hips and resurveying Krista’s spell work.  I looked back at Caeco after a moment to see something I’d never expected… panic.

“I’m joking.  I just have to touch you and I can change the rest.  Or rub some of my saliva on your skin and the ones you left with me will rewrite the others,” I said, letting her off the hook.  Jeeze, it was just a joke.  She looked like kissing me would end the world.  Fantastic.

Brushing aside the sudden hurt I felt, I reached out to the invisible circle in front of me.  A field of blue began to form, an arc that was just the idea of color that darkened to become almost solid blue as my fingers got closer.  When I touched it, it was like fire and ice, electric shock and raw pain.  I snapped my hand away, the instant reflex of touching a hot stove.  Then I touched it again.  I lasted longer the second time but ultimately pulled away. 
Third time’s the charm.
And it was, as by now I had grown, not accustomed exactly, but at least prepared for the sensation.  My palm flat on the circle’s surface, I pressed.  It pressed back.  I pressed again and held it for a few heartbeats.  Then I pulled away.

“Didn’t work?” she asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that exactly,” I replied.  What she hadn’t seen, what I had even hidden from the ceiling-mounted camera at the doorway was that my index finger had made it through.  Just the tip, maybe a few millimeters of skin.  But that was enough—or at least, it would be.