The Digital Plague (33 page)

“Of course not,” Belling said, smiling. “I’ve come to sur-render.”

“Fuck you, surrender,” I barked, coughing. “You did this to me. You fucked me, Wa. You fucked everyone.” I staggered forward, pushing my gun at him and making him retreat, raising his hands higher. A part of me thrilled at making Wa Belling retreat. “You killed Glee, Wa,” I hissed, my whole body shaking. “You had her chewed up and fucking
digested.
” I knew that if he’d come here to kill me, he’d have an excellent chance of doing so. One Stormer and a rusted-out Avery Cates wasn’t a match for the man who’d successfully posed as Canny Orel for years. I felt like I’d turn to dust if someone so much as used harsh language on me.

“I fucked everyone,” he admitted, his hands still up in the air. “And I got fucked in return.”

I struggled for control. I wanted to make him suffer. I wanted to
hurt
him. But I had a job to do, and Belling could help. “How’d you locate us?”

He waggled his bushy white eyebrows. “I tracked your nanos, Avery. They
all
know you’re here. You’re filled with transmitters. You can’t take a piss, the Freak up there doesn’t know about it.”

I considered this, fighting the urge to start coughing again. “Then why isn’t he down here?”

Belling looked at me, a hint of the old bravado smile on his face. “Because, Avery, the Freak doesn’t consider you a threat. What with his Wonder Boy brain and all, you see. Also,” he continued, looking away and making a show of examining his surroundings, “I have gotten the impression he wants you to die of this plague, slowly. He wants you to suffer. Or rather, the voice in his head does.”

When it is over, you will be punished again,
I heard Kev saying not so long ago. I gave Belling my best hardassed stare: emotionless, cold. I was a little surprised how easily it came back to me. “So what’s changed, Wallace? What’s happened in the past two days that brings you to
me?
”

Belling’s expression changed, all the humor going out of it, rage lighting him up and filling him, peeling back a few dozen years instantly. “Avery, I made a deal—you can cry about it if you want, but you and I, we didn’t have a
deal.
We had an informal arrangement.”

I almost pulled the trigger right then and there, the words
informal arrangement
like acid in my ear. The gun shook in my hand, and I told myself it was pure, corrosive anger. I wanted to shove our
informal arrangement
up his ancient ass.

“I made a
deal
with the Freak. A deal,” he added, “that no longer exists.” He looked away, finding something over my shoulder to study. “He fucking
reneged.
On
me.
On Wa Belling.”

A smile flashed onto my face. I almost felt good. “You got fucked in return,” I said, feeling some small part of the universe click back into alignment.

The old man’s eyes latched onto me. “You can be amused, Avery,” he said icily, “at least for the remaining few hours of your life. As for me, I am not happy. I was going to be immortal, Avery. And now I am
dying.
”

I squinted at him. “So? Just kill Kieth. Kill Kieth and the whole nano network crashes, right? They’ll just become bits of silicone and alloy in our bloodstream, and we’ll piss ’em out.”

He nodded. “That asshole Kieth is a
clever
asshole, yes—his little back door in the nano design is the only reason he’s still alive. But Avery, it isn’t that simple. Every time I do something Kev doesn’t like the look of, he
tells
me to stop, and I stop, yes? And he is under …
guard.
” He shrugged, suddenly looking small. “And I’ve grown old, Avery. I need your help.”

I snorted at this ridiculous situation, which set off a chain reaction of coughing I couldn’t stop. I was laughing and hacking my lungs up simultaneously, face going red, sweat pouring down my back. I bent over, putting the gun flat against my knee, trying to suck in enough breath to respond.

“Where the fuck were you a day ago?” I gasped. “I’m fucking dying
now.
”

Belling had recovered some of his old fire and was grinning at me as if we were all sharing a little joke. “So am I! The metal fucker put me on the list. I’ve never been so fucking screwed in my
life.
” Then he sobered. “I don’t wish to die, Avery, but I want to make that Freak
hurt.
” He cocked his head at me. “You and I come from the same place, in some ways. You know what happens when someone screws you out of a deal.” He nodded as if that was all that needed to be said. “We were an excellent murder team, Avery.
Excellent.
”

I spat a glob of red phlegm onto the floor and stared down at it, still doubled over, gasping shallowly. I was slowly getting myself back under control. I put my gun on him again. “You can say what you want, Wa, but
we
had a deal, you and me. I should shoot you in the belly. Shoot you in the fucking belly and leave you here to bleed and be
eaten.
To feel what she felt. And you want me to
trust
you?”

“You have a choice?” He laughed, lowering his hands with a glance at Lukens. “My dear, feel free to shoot me if I make any false moves. That will be
our
deal.”

She nodded and spat on the floor as if chewing an invisible wad of smoke. “All right.”

He looked back at me. “You’re half the man you were yesterday, Avery, and sledding downhill. You have one System Pig here who is
not
taking
your
orders, but we’ll list her as an asset on the assumption that since she hasn’t killed you yet, she probably won’t, and may even kill your enemies in the meantime. You—what the hell is your name?”

Marko blinked. “Ezekiel Marko,” he said, sounding confused.

“
Ezekiel?
” Belling repeated wonderingly. “Well, Zeke, my friend, what are you bringing to the operation?”

“Uh,” Marko frowned in thought for a second, then held up his little device. “Uh, this.”

“Ah,” Belling said with a sour twist of distaste. “A Techie. My favorite people. Very well; I assume you are skilled?”

Marko nodded slowly. “Uh, according to my OFS of you, you’re fucking Cainnic Orel.”

Belling waved him aside. “Optical facial scans are notoriously unreliable,” he said, “and the database you are pulling from is an official SSF one, yes? Years out of date, I assure you.” He looked back at me. Somehow he’d filled up again, swelling until he was Wa Belling again, bouncing on his feet and speaking in that subtle brogue I knew so well, maybe the last living member of Canny Orel’s old Murder Incorporated. “You have no
choice,
Avery. You and I, even at half speed, can take down any mark, I think. And we have more resources here than we’ve had at low times in both our careers.”

This was true. When I was young, I’d pulled off some high-profile hits, just me and my gun. It took years of crawling the streets to develop contacts, to get in with someone like Pickering for information, to cultivate the reputation that got you loans, information, extra hands when needed. I pulled myself upright and pushed my gun into my pocket. “All right, Belling. You’re right: no choice.” I needed his gun, and I wasn’t sure I’d succeed if I tried to kill him. If I put him on the run—well, fuck, I didn’t need Wa Belling in the fucking shadows in addition to all my other woes. I held out my hand. “We have a deal. But only until Kieth is dead. After that I plan to make you suffer.”

He eyed my hand warily. “You’re a man of your word, Avery,” he said, stepping forward, “and I am not. But for what it’s worth, I promise this: until we’re done here, you can trust me absolutely. As for suffering, I expected nothing less. We’re each making deals with the devil.”

I almost believed him.
You’re a man of your word,
I repeated to myself and thought of Kieth, upstairs.
Shit,
I thought,
you’re thinking of last week’s Avery Cates.
Hating him, I pumped his hand.

I took a slow, deeper breath, taking my time with it in order to avoid triggering more coughing. “All right, what intel do you have?”

“Little man,” Belling said over his shoulder to Marko, “do you have floor plans of this complex on that delightful little device?”

Marko nodded, rushing forward. “I do!” he said briskly, thrusting the screen toward Belling. “I have floor plans, wiring networks, plumbing, air ducts—none big enough for a person to crawl through, however.” He was sweating lightly, whether from excitement or the first stages of his own nano invasion it was hard to tell. Based on the way he was looking up at Belling, as if he’d found god, I decided it was excitement.

Belling nodded, turning to me. “I know where they’re holding Kieth, and I know the basic deployment of the Mutant Freak’s fellow Monks. We know their strength and resources, Avery.”

“Do we know their strength? Isn’t Kev up there making new Monks right now?”

Belling blinked. “Making
Monks?
No, not exactly.”

I frowned. “Then why a hospital complex? He wants Monks to take over once we’re all dead, Belling. That’s the whole idea.”

Belling shook his head. “You’re behind the curve as usual, Avery,” he said in a fatherly tone that made me want to split his lip. “Monks were five years ago. You think that was Kev Gatz designing this nanotechnology? Kev
Gatz?
I’ve seen melons with more mental energy than that asshole. This kind of tech comes from a genius, Avery. Someone with a pre-Unification degree.” He raised an eyebrow. “You must have heard Mr. Gatz talk about
Him,
yes? The voice in his head? Didn’t you wonder who that
was?
”

“Holy fucking shit,” Marko said suddenly, sucking in breath. “You’re talking about Squalor. You’re talking about
Dennis Squalor.
”

Belling’s eyes stayed on me, but he nodded. “Avery, Kev’s got Squalor in his ear, telling him what to do,
how
to do it. Monks? Squalor’s lost his manufacturing base. His corporeal body. His political clout. He’s
personally
keeping Kev Gatz from flying apart at the seams, from what I can tell. The rest of the Monks, Kev’s followers, look like the rarities who survived the destruction of the suppression signal—strong minds, I’d guess. Crazy, sure, but crazy in a focused way.”

I shook my head. Something was roaring inside it, making it hard to think. This shit wasn’t
fair.
“I
destroyed
Squalor,” I said slowly.

“Avery,” Belling replied, “Squalor was a digitized intelligence. You destroyed his
server.
” He fluttered his smooth, un-scarred hands in the air. “He’s in the air. And he’s looking for a way to rebuild. Monks were yesterday’s tech. The way Mr. Kieth tells it, what Squalor’s doing now is, in Techiespeak,
utilizing the available resources.
”

I turned, keeping my eyes on Belling, and grabbed Marko by the collar, pulling him in close. “What the fuck,” I said slowly, “does that mean?”

Marko swallowed, his wide eyes on me, hands limp at his sides. I felt I could have lifted him off the floor. “I think it means all these dead people aren’t going to
stay
dead.”

Belling smiled and shaped one hand into a gun, poking it at us. “Bingo.”

Day Ten:
I am Very Impressed,
Mr. Belling

I followed Belling as he enjoyed his voice some more. “Come along, Americans, we’ve got some deep shit to wade through before we even get to kill the incredibly annoying Mr. Kieth.” He whirled and walked backward a few steps, looking almost fucking ebullient. Americans—Belling was old, and he remembered the world before Unification. Who knew where the fuck he’d been born, but I hated that he knew more than me, that he’d known the world before Unification. I hated Wa Belling. I’d never liked the man but I’d respected him. Now I could hardly wait to kill him, the one person, maybe, in this whole mess who fucking deserved it.

Deserved. I pictured Kieth, just trying like hell to stay alive. I didn’t doubt he’d work like a demon to reverse all this if given half the chance, but there didn’t seem any choice: if it took him a week to do it, there might not be anyone left to
save.
It wasn’t fucking fair, and it was making me angrier every time I thought about it. I’d never liked Kieth, either, but we’d worked together for years, and I knew the Techie had never screwed me on purpose. He didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve to have to
do
this.

“Are you serious?” I asked, staring into the rusty interior of the elevator cab, my mind still trying to process what I’d just been told. “You came all this way to commit suicide by elevator?”

“As I may have mentioned when you were perhaps light-headed from coughing up your innards, Avery, your presence here is no secret, and trying to skulk about when your old friend can scan your location anytime he pleases—can have your location beamed into his brain at will, in fact—is just human folly. Gunners avoid folly, or so I’ve always believed. We are a hard-bitten, realistic breed, although you’ve always been a sensitive type, apt to go blubbery at the sight of sunsets and butterflies and good-looking women.”

We stared at each other, and he grinned.

“The elevator got me down here. It will get us back up. Stealth is wasted effort at this point. Go straight at them, Mr. Cates, and never mind the maneuvers.”

He was right. We might waste hours creeping around looking for a secret way up, only to find Kev waiting for us. If our arrival was news, well, at least we knew the odds: fifty-four against four, although I wasn’t sure I should count Marko as a whole person.