Up The Tower (22 page)

He sat down and hugged the support. His body slid, the angle of the tower steadily more severe, and he stared down out at the flood below.

“I won’t have any.”

Like a message from above. Like the brush of an archeologist, pushing away dust to something old and true.

“I tried to kill you,” he said, looking back to the copbot. “I was going to do it, and then the earthquake hit.”

Something far away exploded. All that Samson could see was the ball of fire erupting. It was still the day, outside, but the sky  was dark, all choked on smoke.

You want his sister?

Partner stepped forward to the edge, its hand on Samson’s shoulder.

“Attempts of crime are difficult to record in the database in such cases. Almost and maybes are no way to judge anything.”

“That sounds very nice.”

He laughed and spat into the abyss, watched the wind carry his spit down and back around the building's edge. Sirens blared in the distance. Rescue lights flaring. Every few seconds a flare would go up, or gunshots would fire. Millions of people out there, dying and hoping.

“Samson.” The copbot took him by the waist and lifted him away from the dangerous edge. “I do not know about any of that. I know that where you go, I will go. That is what I know. So. Where do we go now?”

Go get her.

Okay.

“Don’t you copbots all have a way for hacks to wear you?”

From the big gape-mouth grin Partner gave him, this was a question, it seemed, that the copbot had been waiting for Samson to ask.

* * * * *

O
re woke to a hard thunking sound.

She had thought the quakes were all over—and they were on the top floor. Would there be more quakes? Would she end up as nothing else than the highest person to die in a terrible disaster?

That would be fine. So long as Wallop died too.

She stood up, looking around, dusting herself off. The Tower was in disarray around her, sparks flying down from lights, walls tumbled down, floors crashed through, and ceilings broken open. Everything that had been chrome and lined with tech spilled over with concrete and angry lines of piping and tubes. There was smoke and dust—more dust than smoke, all that rubble—and it was hard to see where everything was. She followed the sound of the thunking. It was joined, as she listened, by Ana grunting primal sounds.

They were in some kind of game room. Broken screens sat at angles to the walls. Bowling pins and balls all piled in one corner.

What she found surprised her. Next to a demolished bar, alcohol dripping down, Ana stood over the rapidly decomposing body of Victor. Her hair a mess. She slammed his head against a jagged, broken piece of wall. He was clearly dead. Had been for a while. His skin was eating itself up, sort of like a rockslide in reverse. There was a lot of blood but it was turning into dust as Ana worked, filling the air around her with a red tinge. The skull wasn't breaking—metal. Lots of metal—his ribs, his breastbone.

Ana was worn out. Ore almost put a hand on her, but stopped. Her pretty face all deranged, twisted up like a sheet left too long in the wash.

“I think you can stop,” Ore said loudly.

A few more thunks and then some heavy breathing. “What?”

Ana's voice floated with rage. The question, coated through Ana's veil, seemed like an attack now.

“I think he's dead, is all. His body is all gone.”

Parts of the metal leg bones lay on the floor. The skull, or what bit of it was left, connected only to three-fourths of the torso and a few loose circuited ligaments attached to steel vertebrae. Looking down at it, Ana dropped the remains of the skull.

“I guess you're right.”

Ana stood up. There was blood on her legs, up and around her thighs and crotch. It was unfortunate placement.

There was a bar towel on the floor. Ore tossed it to Ana. She looked down at all the blood and then let the towel drop.

“Victor? Victor, are you there?”

They both jumped. The voice came from Victor’s skull.

“Victor, we tried rebooting you again and there's no response. Are you all right? Is the data all right?”

The data was all right. Ore had it still, completely intact in the bag on her back.

Some things started to fall into place for Ore. She didn’t know what Victor was. A cyborg seemed wrong. Cyborgs didn’t dissolve. So maybe something else, maybe something expensive. Not so long ago she had heard that Jackson Crash had wanted a clone. But he hadn’t been able to work it—or rather, the scientists he hired weren’t able to make it work. Horror stories floated out from the Tower about a floor filled with half-formed bodies. Bodies that only had so many of the right organs, or had too many, or just couldn’t stay together. Bodies that dissolved.

“A clone,” said Ore.

“What?”

“The way he fell apart. I think he was a clone. I don't think he was ever human.”

Ana picked up Victor’s skull. The ribcage dangled down and bounced off her arm.

She spoke into the skull. “Was he a clone?”

“Who is that?” asked Mike. “Is that the gangster? Or is that the pretty girl?”

“Never mind who it is. Was he a clone? He’s nothing now. Just bits of a messed-up metal skeleton.”

The voice sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, he was a clone.”

“You’re Mike, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, Mike. Screw Citizenship, okay?”

“What are you doing?” asked Ore.

Ana grabbed her. “This whole damn world is trying to kill us, and if it's not trying to kill us, then it wants to rape us into being mothers. I'm supposed to struggle for a vote? For a voice? Screw you. I want my piece of the pie.”

Ore pushed her away, wiping the spittle of her face. “Go on, then.”

Let the woman do what she wanted. Ore just wanted her brother.

“What are you saying?” asked Mike. “Did you lose the data? Did it get lost in the aftershock?”

“No, the data’s fine. It’s all fine. But we have been through the grinder and back, and
I deserve better.
If you want to have what I have, then you will give us a share, dammit.”

There was silence. Ana started stomping at the skeleton. The delicate circuit-rubber meshes of the ligaments broke apart, and she ripped off a metal vertebrae. She walked over to the window, sliding and slanting through glass and rubble.

“I bet this whole skeleton is valuable, huh? You want it back? Give us a share.”

She tossed the vertebrae out the window.

“You see that? Did you see that piece of spine? You have eyes everywhere, I bet.”

“I saw it.”

“You want the rest of it gone? You want me to toss the data? Give us a share.”

“If you don’t give us that data, you don’t have anything to bargain with. You’ll die on that tower.”

“Hey. Hey!” Ana was screaming now, throttling the skeletal remains. “I have been dying my
whole life
. Do you know what's been in my way? Do you know who's been standing on me? There's isn't time left in a
good day
to tell you all the ways that I've been screwed. So this
is
the bargain. I will string it out from you in every way I can, and I will make you sorry you didn't offer it to me earlier. So you tell me what I want to hear or I will toss out everything you care about.”

“...All right.”

Laughing, Ore clapped Ana on the back. It was good news for both of them.

“All right,” said Mike again. “But you’re only getting a small one. A nanoshare. A percent of a percent of a percent of a percent, all right? One each for both of you.”

That was more than enough to set them up for the rest of their lives.

“Good enough,” said Ana. “For now.”

“What, no 'thank you'?”

“Thank you, all right. Send that chopper up. We're at the top.”

“I'm already on it.”

“You sure got a way,” said Ore.

Ana wasn't listening. She had started prying at the skeleton’s ribs.

“You said those gangsters, the Faces, they would be here on the top, right?”

“Yeah.”

Banging and pulling, Ana tugged one rib off. It was like a long, curved knife in her hands.

“Well. That chopper isn't here yet. So, I want a weapon.”

Ore nodded.

There wasn't all that much to the floor. It was small. Opposite the elevator were a series of closed-off rooms. One set of bathrooms. Then a few offices. Up ahead was the staircase to the roof. The door was open. Sunlight spilled in.

Check the offices, she decided. Look for Samson. And then run down the stairs, looking and looking.

“You're gonna have my share,” she told Ana. “I'm gonna...I have to find my brother.”

Ana raised an eyebrow. “You'll die down there.”

“Yeah. So you're gonna have my share. Okay? You hear that, Mike? Give her mine.”

Mike didn't answer, though.

Time started to slow down. Sensations struck out at Ore, as if captured from a dream. First, a long breeze looped through the floor, filling her nostrils with the scent—weirdly—of hamburgers and ketchup. Like the many quakes had catapulted a barbecue into the air. Like there was someone cooking out in the clouds.

Then, one of the office doors door dinged open. Out stepped Max Bones, drugged out of his mind. Eyes wild and dim. He saw Ore; he saw Ana. For a few moments, he put his face in one hand, rubbing intently with his palm. There was a gun in his hand, held lazily—like a sandwich carried around a festival.

“Go away,” he moaned, banging the top of his gun on the nearby wall. “Go away, come on.”

He looked up again, still seeing them there. He sighed, raised his gun, put it down again.

Roaring, Ana rushed him. Victor's rib glinted and shined. She jammed the sharp metal into Max's throat. His gun popped off, harmlessly, the shot bouncing through the walls. Max fell, clutching his throat, blood spurting out silently. He didn't look angry or sad; he didn't even look surprised. He was just existing, and then he fell over and he wasn't anymore.

Ana pulled the rib from the dead man’s throat and shoved it into his back and then his sides. Ore approached, backed up. She wanted to grab the gun, get into the other offices, but Ana had clearly gone mad. Stabbing, stabbing again. The gun too close to her. If Bones was there, that could mean that the other Faces were close. It could mean...

Another office door opened.

“The hell is going on out there, baby? Storey, you find him?”

Three men walked into the hall, cutting off Ore from Ana, from the gun. One in the middle, so much tech it appeared like a suit, shifting and closing and flapping around his body. Then another man, shorter, skinnier, his face covered over with a mask, holding a stack of data slabs. And then the last one—enormous, huge arms wrapped in tech, all of him built for breaking.

Crash. Petrov. And Wallop.

Of course it was Wallop.

* * * * *

I
nside Partner’s clanking confines, Samson scaled the Tower from the outside. Like walking up a hill, the way the structure leaned. Partner had thick truncheons that erupted from its feet, sticking into the concrete, and strong hands to steady their ascent.

There were no life forms below them in the Tower—Partner's sensors told them that. There were, however, five human heartbeats on the top floor. Samson didn't know who they were—but probably Crash was one of them. Probably Petrov too. Best to have armor on. Best to come in through the window.

Partner clung to Samson's body as best it could, but Samson was small. Samson was skinny. The copbot’s armor was made for full-grown men. Partner and Samson lunged up, trying to beat the failing architecture of The Tower, and as they did, Samson's body banged on the armor and bruised.

They swung up next to a large window opening into a wide game room, where bolted-in furniture and billiards tables had kept their place. Petrov carried a number of data slabs in his hands, struggling to balance them all. He and Crash stood next to a large twisting series of spheres, some kind of art. There were portraits of all the Five Faces, past and present, along the walls. Twenty in all.

Punchee Wallop stood in front of the two young women. Power tubes pulsing orange across his shoulders. One girl was blond and pretty. The other must have been Ore.

The years had mutilated his sister. Even from a distance, Samson could see that the tech of her hand was crude work. Half her head scarred and bald, one eye gone. She spit Wallop in the face. Wallop grinned, spittle dripping down his chin, and punched her in the chest. She fell to the ground, gasping.

Samson's tech on Wallop's fist. Premium stuff. Enough to break a copbot's skin.

There was agility in this armored state. Samson powered through the window and rolled forward twenty yards, kicking Wallop in the chest. The gangster whumped into the wall and slid down slow.

Something stuck through Partner's arm, gashing Samson. Samson rolled into the blade, breaking it off. The shard squirmed and wiggled away. Petrov clattered his data slabs to the floor and fired his gun, force pops thupping into Partner’s armor, denting it on the inside.

On the ground, the blonde grabbed a long, curved metal shank. It looked like a rib. She brought it up into Petrov’s back. He twisted, hands out. Roaring, she wrapped her arms around Petrov's neck and hip-tossed him into the window. Already fractured, it did not hold up to his weight. His body cracked into a passing drone and then twisted down to the flood.

Wallop went after Ore, smashing his fists down, fracturing concrete on the floor and walls. Ore, nimble, slipped up around him. Bright neon cords extended from Wallop’s back to his tech arms, and Ore tugged them off. Sparks flew out from the broken connections. Wallop smacked her again, but she rolled with the blow. They barreled into each other again and fell to the floor.

Samson rushed at Crash, punching him, headlocking him like they were schoolboys. He knuckled Partner's fists into Crash’s skull. The suit lashed out with its blades, searching and searching for an opening. Cuts all over Samson's body, puncturing through Partner. Finally Crash tossed him into the wall. Another blade flew at Samson’s head—and he was on the floor, no longer in Partner.