Upgrade (82 page)

“Pussy.”

Harry shuffled the chassis’ feet.
 
“Say.”

“What?”

“There was a big APC upstairs, wasn’t there?”

“Think so.”

“We could blow that up.”
 
Harry thought for a moment.
 
“We could blow that up
down here
.”

“Now you’re thinking,” she said.
 
“Let’s do
that
.”

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

The hardest part about running for your life was when you really didn’t care, but you still went through the motions.
 
Harry stood, still as a stone, as the elevator rose back up the shaft.
 
“You hacked the APC?”
 
The plan was simple — they’d put the APC in place, jacked its smaller reactor, and got out of Dodge before they blew the core.

“I hacked the APC, Harry.”
 
Lace was still typing something on her deck.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Something’s wrong,” she said.
 
“We’ve hacked the APC, but I want to be in charge of…
 
Oh.
 
Oh shit.”

“What?”

“Hold on,” she said.

“To what?
 
What do I hold on to?”
 
His optics scanned the side of the elevator shaft as the car rose.

“I…
 
It’s got some kind of—”
 
Whatever else Lace was going to say was lost as the explosion rocked the shaft beneath them, the fireball starting to rise from the shaft below.
 
Harry could see the light of the firestorm as it started to rise up the shaft, then —

“GO!”
 
Lace was screaming at him, and he tore the door from the elevator car, tossed it aside like tissue paper.
 
He pushed the overtime hard, the reactor on his back peaking into the red as the metal of his feet dug into the hard concrete floor, cracking it.
 
It was a sprinter’s crouch, the big chassis roaring as it leapt forward.

Harry reached up his hand, snagging Lace from behind him.
 
Her face was frozen in a scream through overtime, and he could see how her body was pulled about like a rag doll.
 
He pushed her into the digger’s bucket, then cupped it to the front of the chassis.
 
There wasn’t time to be gentle.
 
There wasn’t time —

The fireball blasted up and around them, heaven’s fury unleashed.

The vaulted door reached up into the black, tall metal stretching fingers towards the roof.
 
Mason stopped, reached a gloved hand to touch the surface.
 
His gloves said it was cool, but a jagged hole with soft edges showed where a laser had cut through the mechanism to open it.
 
“I’m here,” he said.
 
“Carter, I’m here.”

“Go away,” she said.
 
“Aster’s already inside.
 
He’s got about a hundred guys.”

“I can take Aster,” he said.

“I know,” she said.
 
“But he can take you too.
 
It’s the math, you know?
 
I can’t stop running the numbers.”

Mason put the case down, the tips of the gloves touching against the clasp.
 
“Are you…
 
Are you with me?
 
Can you see this?”

“I’ve never left you,” she said.

He clicked the clasp open, then put a hand on the lid.
 
“Have you heard about overhyping something?”

“Just open it,” she said.

He flipped the lid open, the old dress nestled inside.
 
He reached a hand in, holding it up.
 
He let the light of the Tenko-Senshin play over it.
 
“I’m sorry it’s…
 
It’s a ball gown.
 
I thought you might want to go dancing.”

The link was quiet, the hiss and pop of static the only noise.

“Carter?
 
Are you—”

“I’m here,” she said.
 
“Don’t see me, Mason.
 
I don’t want you look at me.”

Mason let the dress fall.
 
“I’m coming in, Carter.
 
I’ve made it in time.
 
I’m going to get you out, then we’re going dancing.”

“You’re going to die,” she said.
 
Her voice was flat, resigned.
 
“After all I’ve…
 
Look.
 
See.”
 
The overlay chattered, markers showing —

Two men, standing guard.
 
Their rifles were pointed at the door.
 
Zane Aster, standing by another vaulted door, the long room full of computer servers, racks of them stretching long in the dark quiet of the basement.
 
A large laser cutter working on boring a hole in that farther door, the circle of melted metal almost complete.
 
A woman was operating it.
 
Auto turrets hung dead and lifeless from the ceiling, cores blown.
 
Shattered pieces of metal mixed among the bodies of the fallen.
 
The overlay picked out one form, different, the Reed man’s synthetic body lying with a sword.
 
It was by the door, riddled with holes.
 
A further ten men and women in white Apsel tactical armor were spaced through the room, pale ghosts in cover, hiding, waiting.
 
Ready to kill.

“Huh,” he said.
 
“Best get started.”

“Mason,” said Carter.
 
“Mason, I’ve got something for you as well.”

He looked around the entrance chamber.
 
“What?
 
There’s nothing here.”

“Do you trust me?”

He hung his head, then ran his hand through his hair.
 
“Always,” he said.

“I’m not sure if this is going to work,” she said.
 
“It might kill you.”

“Always,” he said again.

“Ok,” she said.
 
“Before we start, I just wanted to say.
 
Of all the people in this world, I’m glad to have known you, Mason Floyd.
 
You are my best friend.
 
You made it all worthwhile.
 
You are the best part of me.
 
I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” he said.
 
“About wh—”
 

The link flared bright, hard, hot, too much, it was burning in his mind, pain like a star, the noise louder than anyth—

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

He opened his eyes.
 
His face was against the cool of the concrete floor.
 
He lifted his head, a line of drool stretching to the floor, and he wiped his mouth on the back of a glove, leaving a glistening trail.

What…
 
Something was different.
 
He could feel the teeth in his head, his toenails hurt.
 
His skin was alive.
 
He was —

A clank of metal sounded from the other room.
 
He kicked upright, the movement sure and simple, then reached a hand for the door.

“Mason—”
 
Carter’s voice was stretched thin as he let the overtime fall around him, but he was already moving, ducking behind a piece of shattered machinery as rounds from the men fired.
 
They were too slow, too sloppy, and the rounds punched at empty air.

“Excellent!”
 
It was Aster over the local link, his voice clear through the overtime.
 
“I thought…
 
I’d hoped to get you both, a sort of two-for-one deal.”

Mason could see the Reed man’s synthetic body.
 
It started to move, struggling to rise.
 
His overlay marked the Apsel men and women in the room converging on his position.

“It’s…
 
It’s hard,” said Carter.
 
“I tried to fight like you, but I never learned to dance.
 
It’s so badly damaged, but…”
 
The body struggled to a kneeling position, the ruined face trying to form words.
 
It held the sword upright in one hand.
 
“Take your sword,
kensei
,” she said.

Ok.
 
Ok then
.
 
Mason moved out from cover, the little pistol in his hand held low.
 
He shifted from one position to the next, ducking through the racks of servers.
 
Small arms fire shattered machines around him, plastic and metal falling as a dark rain.
 
It felt slow, easy, and he pulled the Tenko-Senshin up.
 
The little gun growled and chattered across the hard link, then screamed its rain of fire across the room.
 
A man’s body was pulled apart, flakes of white armor and burned meat spraying in a wet silhouette across the ground behind him.
 
Mason rolled forward, looked into the eyes of the synthetic body in front of him as he snagged the sword’s grip from the Reed man’s hand, then —

The lattice pushed him up, turned him around away from the bright light of a laser as it touched the air where he’d stood.
 
Mason held the sword low, blade a centimeter from the ground, felt the lattice pull his neck to the side.
 
His spine popped and cracked.
 
“Ok,” he said.
 
“Let’s play.”
 
The sword rose up in a salute in front of his eyes, then he whipped it down and broke into a sprint.

Gunfire tracked him as he moved from cover to cover.
 
The lattice was alive, and he could feel the bright life of the reactor in his chest.
 
The overlay marked a woman with a rifle behind a row of servers, and Mason slashed the sword through the machines separating them.
 
The blade cut through her rifle, her hands, pieces of metal and flesh falling to the ground.
 
He spun around the edge of the racks, the sword slashing a horizontal line, and the woman’s head bounced off into the dark as her body slumped.

The blade he carried was light, the edge of it old steel and kept promises.
 
A man drew a line on him, the rifle barking rounds at him.
 
The lattice laughed and shivered as it pulled him aside, his feet hitting the rack of servers to his left, pushing him off and spinning him through the air.
 
He landed, took a crouch down to one knee, the sword falling straight and true.
 
The man’s body slid open down the middle, the two halves falling away.

“Oh, Carter,” he said.
 
“What have you done?”

“I fixed you,” she said.
 
Her voice was tight, and something else —
fear.
 
She’s afraid.
 
Something almost like panic crept into her voice.
 
“Stop fucking around.
 
Remember.
 
He’s milspec.
 
He’s almost
here
Mason, God, help me, he’s almost here—”

Mason saw it as she said it, Aster’s hands on the big door at the end, something held in his hand.
 
Mason pushed himself into a sprint, the Tenko-Senshin held in front of him as it fired on Aster.
 
The other man moved like silk and water, lifting the woman at the cutting laser in front of him, and her body was torn to shreds.
 
Aster tossed the thing he held through the door, then ducked to the side in a smooth motion as he pulled two long knives out.

“Great,” he said.
 
“It’s—”

Mason’s rush hit him and the two men tangled, Mason’s sword cutting up and out.
 
Aster’s blades flashed and stabbed.

The sprint took Mason two or three steps past Aster, and he looked down at the blood coming from his chest.
 
The knives had cut hard and deep, pushing through gaps and joins in the Metatech armor.
 
He slowed, coughed blood, the lattice bunching and churning, before he fell to his knees.

Aster stood behind him, a smile on his face.
 
His mouth started to open, a faint look of surprise on his face as his head fell from his shoulders.
 
His body toppled, metal and blood visible in the stump of his neck.

“Goodbye, Mason,” said Carter, and then the explosion went off behind the vaulted door.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

The EMP hit hard, his lattice struggling for a second before pushing him up.
 
An Apsel man rounded a line of servers and the sword snaked out and cut him down.
 
Mason didn’t even feel himself do it, his hand reaching for the door.
 
He pulled it open, and saw —

The room wasn’t big, a structure in the middle of it.
 
It was made of glass and wires, a thing of diamonds stretching up the entire two-story height of the room.
 
A light inside it had burned out, leaving it dark, empty, the essence gone.

The room was empty, Mason stepping over the discharged EMP.
 
He looked around.
 
“Carter?”

The link was cold and silent.
 
Empty.

His eyes were pulled up to the wall at the back of the room, big black letters stenciled against the whitewashed concrete walls.

“No,” he said.
 
“
No
.”

The letters were tall, uncompromising.
 
They left no argument.

COMPUTER ADVISOR: TACTICS AND RESEARCH.

CARTR.
 
No, not Cartr.

Carter
.

Sweet baby Jesus
.

Mike watched as the kid tore up through the building, shrugging concrete and rebar and metal aside like paper.
 
Like…
 
Jesus, it was like watching a cyclone, except cyclones were a lot slower.