Metal Fatigue (25 page)

Raoul's face came unbidden to mind, and her fear doubled.

Then a muffled thump at the door made her jump again. Something slid damply along the thin wood veneer, and the handle turned.

Unconsciously deepening her voice, she called: "Who is it?"

The reply, when it came, was as unexpected as any she could have imagined:

"Open up, Barney — it's me. Phil."

She was halfway to the door before she stopped, struck by a sudden doubt. "How do I know it's really you?"

"How...
what
?"

"I need to know you're not the Mole before I let you in."

He uttered a sound that might have been a laugh, then said: "Ask me a question that only the Phil Roads you know could answer."

What had she told him and no-one else? Nothing sprang to mind immediately. Her real first name was on file, as was her birth-date.

"Barney, it's raining out here, for Christ's sake." He sounded as though he was leaning against the door.

"Okay." She held the gun in both hands, steeling herself to fire if she had to. "Tell me what the search found."

"The search?" At the tone of his voice, she took a deep breath and raised the gun. "Do you mean the search through O'Dell's datapool?"

"Yes." She gritted her teeth to keep her response level. "Tell me what it found, and I'll let you in."

A silence followed, then Roads said: "It found
me
, Barney. Now, are you going to open the door or not?"

She let free the breath she had been holding and unlocked the door. When she opened it, he fell forward and slid to the floor before she could catch him.

Lying on his back in a growing pool of pink-stained water, he managed a weak smile.

"Philip G. Roads ... reporting for duty," he said.

She didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, so she took his head in her hands and did both.

She helped him to the bathroom, trying all the while to avoid looking at his eyes. The one glimpse she'd had was more than enough to confirm her fears.

Roads' eyes were like perfectly transparent marbles filled with lenses: miniature glass onions, with layer upon layer of concentric skins that retreated or advanced as his gaze roved. When he looked at the light, half-seen processes occurred in each orb to focus and dim the glare; when he looked at her, they occurred again, but differently.

She was afraid that she would see the backs of his eye-sockets if she looked into them too closely, they were so amazingly clear. All she saw was darkness, however, like the heart of a zoom lens, and a faint hint of blue.

Roads was biomodified. He had broken the Humanity Laws. He was a criminal, and it was her duty to turn him in.

But he was still Phil Roads, and he needed her help. That more than anything convinced her to give him the chance to explain.

She turned on the shower, then peeled off his clothes layer by layer, exposing the wounds beneath. He shivered uncontrollably while she stripped him, but not from the cold.

"It's shock," he said, eyelids flickering closed. "Blood loss."

"I'm not surprised." The wound to his shoulder was viciously deep and had bled profusely. It would require stitches to heal cleanly. A variety of gashes and minor lacerations marred the skin of his face and hands; bruises scowled at her from the rest of his body. "What the hell happened to you?"

"They were waiting for me at my place, Chong and his buddies — "

"Waiting to kill you?"

"Yes. I was hoping to catch the assassin; instead, all I got was that bunch of goons."

"Don't be so quick to judge. They surprised you, didn't they?"

"No, I saw them before they saw me. I went in anyway."

"Typical."

"I had to get something." He opened his eyes and looked feverishly around. "The bag — I
was
carrying a bag, wasn't I?"

"It's inside, in the hall. Do you want me to get it?"

"No. Just so long as I haven't lost it."

She finished stripping him and tested the stream of water. Not too hot, and fairly clean; the rain of the last few days had flushed the city's reservoir of its recent brown colour. She stepped back and gestured.

"Get in."

"Why?"

"You're filthy, that's why."

He stepped naked into the cubicle, winced as the jet of hot water stung his wounds. The water ran down the drain in a swirl of deep red as it scoured away old, dried blood, then slowly lightened. He stuck his head under and rubbed at his face with his hands.

She stood outside with a towel, waiting for him to finish, studying him. He was even fitter than she had suspected; what he lacked in size he more than made up for in strength. His musculature was near-perfect: little excess body-fat, no lack of tone beneath it. From the neck down, at least, he might have been twenty-five, although his skin did have the minor blemishes of a man in his late forties.

But even so, she thought, he didn't look his age. Not his
true
age ...

He shut off the taps and stepped out of the cubicle. The shivering had stopped. As he patted himself dry, she noticed that he was more than simply favouring his right arm. The knife-wound in his shoulder had obviously touched muscle — or, worse, a tendon.

"We're going to have to get you to a hospital."

He shook his head. His eyes glittered in the bright overhead light. "Not necessary. All I need is food."

"Why?"

"I'm starving, that's why."

"At a time like this?"

He held out his left hand. "You wouldn't know I'd shot my thumb off in the War, would you?"

She checked automatically, even though she knew the hand was whole, no fingers missing. "No. And if you told me you had, I wouldn't believe you."

"Well, I did. And here it is, thanks to the wonders of tissue regeneration and micromachine technology. That's what keeps me looking so young. But you need to feed the process with raw materials, like carbohydrates, and fuel it with glucose. Do you have any chocolate?"

"No, I — " She stared at him. "Are you telling me you
grew
it back?"

"It took me a week or two but, yes, I did."

"That's impossible — isn't it?"

"No, but I'm not sure I can explain it properly. Maybe later." He handed her the blood-stained towel. "Do you have anything I can wear until I stop bleeding, or would you prefer me naked?"

"I'll get you something." She found an old cotton sheet that had narrowly escaped recycling and wrapped it around him. Directing him to the kitchen, she sat him on a stool and tore strips off another sheet to use as makeshift bandages. While she tended his injuries, he ate a plateful of soya-steak leftovers.

"You haven't finished telling me what happened," she prompted. Between mouthfuls of food, he filled her in on the rest.

He had only blacked out for a few minutes after the explosion, and had woken to find himself lying under one of the bodies. Disoriented by the shock, he had staggered from the scene and fled the approaching sirens. He had become lost and wandered for an indefinite time before recovering his senses to find himself near Barney's; part of him must have been keeping track of where he was, and looking for shelter. Although convinced he hadn't been followed, he had been cautious enough to check Barney's building before knocking on the door.

"You scared the living shit out of me," she said, the annoyance in her voice half genuine.

"I'm sorry, but I had to be sure you weren't staked-out as well."

"I know, I know." She sat in a chair opposite him. "So, let's see if I've got this straight. The Mole killed the assassins, right?"

"Danny Chong, at least. I assume the others as well."

"Why?"

He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "I think he was defending me."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I know."

"Did he survive the explosion?"

Roads thought about it briefly. "He might have."

"But you can't be certain?"

"No. I tried to tag the scene as it happened, but I didn't quite make it in time."

The reminder of his artificial eyes disturbed her. She had almost forgotten they were there. "That's how you took the picture of Cati, when you chased him from Old North Street?"

"Exactly. The old concealed-camera trick went out years ago."

"For you, maybe. Not for the rest of us mortals." She took away the plate and rinsed it, grateful for the chance to hide the flush she could feel creeping across her face. While at the sink, she poured them both a cup of coffee. "Let's go into the lounge."

He lay down on the sofa and rested while she set up her laptop on a coffee table in front of him. He was looking stronger than he had half an hour earlier; his skin had lost some of its deathly pallor.

"Just one more question," she said, sitting on the edge of the sofa with her back against his midriff. "Did you see Cati among the assassins?"

"No. Should I have?"

"I'd have bet money on it." She tapped at the keyboard.

"Why? What did the search find?"

"His name." She called up the file. "We didn't find it earlier because it's not really a name at all, or even a word. It's an abbreviation."

A single line of text appeared on the screen: "
Cybernetic Augmentation Technologies Inc
."

Roads leaned forward. "Of course. I knew I'd heard the word before." In response to Barney's look of inquiry, he explained: "CATI was a military off-shoot. They handled special projects, mainly developmental technology and so on. I don't remember them producing anything noteworthy, though. Did they modify Cati?"

"They
built
him." The next page was a long list of complicated scientific jargon. "As far as I can tell, they force-bred him from tailored genetic material and brought him to physical maturity in under twelve months. The genetic tailoring amplified his size, strength, stamina and speed, reduced his brain size by five percent, improved his senses of smell and touch, and raised his metabolic rate.

"Side-effects included abnormal skin-pigmentation, a slight lessening of intelligence, muteness and the inability to reproduce."

"He's sterile?"

"Worse than that. He's a metamale, Phil — a sexless drone based on the male form ... but
not
male." Again she thought of wasps, and shuddered.

"Go on," Roads encouraged.

She took a deep breath. "After his body matured, they modified it further. They reinforced his bones with carbon-fibre struts, and installed tylosine and acetylcholine dispensers to reduce his stress and boost his stamina. They took out his eyes and inner ears and replaced them with implants, installed a short-range microwave transmitter/receiver under his brain-stem so he could communicate by radio, and damaged the language-recognition centres in his cortex so he would have difficulty responding to normal speech. Then they conditioned him, took away what free will he might have retained, and linked him to a microwave command grid. He has a control code to ensure his obedience. Without it, he won't even respond to orders, but with it he will do literally anything."

Barney vividly remembered the contents of the file, and the horror she had felt upon reading it. Even before the turn of the twenty-first century, neuropsychologists had been aware of the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): by applying rapid magnetic pulses through the cortex, it was possible to reset or influence brain cells, thereby making limbs twitch involuntarily or emotions appear from nowhere. But it wasn't until the CATI project that such stimulation had been used to actively direct cognitive flow: specifically, the so-called syncritical path that Keith Morrow's scientists had studied in order to build a copy of his personality.

If the human brain was comprised of many parts acting more or less in sympathy, and was essentially a chaotic system, then by nudging one of those many parts in just the right way, it was possible to change the future outcome of the brain's overall activity with a fair degree of accuracy.

The process didn't allow direct mind control, but it was still persuasive. And it was this that made Barney feel ill. The technique could have been employed to unscramble damaged psyches; instead it had been used to damage those already working perfectly, to alter the standing waves of children whose minds had yet to find their own, natural equilibria.

TMS was, essentially, a mild dose of electro-convulsive therapy, and if applied over long periods could be just as dangerous. Symptoms of overuse included memory damage, hallucinations, altered states of consciousness and brain seizures. By repeatedly applying pressure to the parts of the cortex used to guide Cati's consciousness — to make it
obey
— there was a risk of fatigue stress on that part of his mind; flexure cycles, where force was applied in one direction then another, could cause his mind to snap at a crucial moment, depending on how "elastic" his mind was, or how strongly he resisted his orders.

In other words, the more Cati fought the magnets in his head, the more dangerous the magnets became to his sanity — and therefore the more dangerous
he
became to those around him.

Barney had needed time to think it through, and she paused to give Roads the same. It didn't take him half as long, perhaps because he was more used to the concept of biomodification than she was.

"Physically superior, perfectly obedient, unintelligent without being stupid ..." Roads half-laughed, bitterly. "He sounds like the perfect combat soldier."

"It's not funny, Phil. He's incredibly dangerous. Given the correct code he'll obey
any
order."

"Yes, I can see that. And, if the code existed, I would be worried. But he must have been a last-minute development, right before the end of the War; he might even have been a prototype, an experimental model. The code would have been lost along with everything else, wouldn't it?" Noticing her expression, he grimaced. "You're going to tell me it wasn't, aren't you?"

"CATI built sixty like him, all clones, all identical. With them, they formed C-Brigade. The existence of C-Brigade was a closely-guarded secret, which is why you never heard about it even though it was in operation for at least three years. In theory, it was designed for ground assaults, as a vanguard for 'normal' troops. In practice, it was used mainly on uprisings and for covert strikes.