Upgrade (87 page)

The thing living in her eyes wasn’t her, and he felt afraid.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

Her fingers were hooked like claws, and he could feel it, really
feel
it as the blood inside him was grabbed by something alien and powerful.
 
He —

The sky crackled and roared, a sphere opening above them.
 
The edges of it arced energy, scarring the sky.
 
Through the gate in the sky, Mason Floyd fell into the Reed tower.
 
He landed easy, took a look around, then turned away from Mike and started walking towards Prophet.

The feeling of his blood being pulled left, his heart stuttering in his chest.
 
Mike looked up at Mason’s back.

Angel, huh?
 
Well I’ll be.

Mason walked towards the man at the front of the room.
 
He took in Haraway, the dreamy expression on her face, and the dais held up by people.

“You,” he said, “have some serious issues.”

Prophet turned to look down at him.
 
“You’d kill them all?”

Mason paused.
 
“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Because,” said Prophet, “make no mistake.
 
Every one of them will burn their life out defending me from you.”

“I see,” said Mason.
 
“It’s how you cunts work, isn’t it?
 
It’s hard to kill your enemy when it’s a sock puppet that used to be a friend.
 
Or a lover.”

“Or family,” said Prophet.
 
He smiled without humor.
 
“So keep coming.
 
It makes no difference to me.
 
There are always more
families
.
 
They’ll all die in front of you.
 
Starting with—”

He raised a hand, and Mason felt a motion through the lattice.
 
Zacharies’ eyes were blank as he lifted both arms, and Laia screamed as she was tossed through the air to land at Prophet’s feet.

“—her.”
 
Prophet smiled again.
 
“You know, she thinks you are an angel.”

“Yeah,” said Mason.

“You’re not an angel.”

“No,” said Mason.
 
“No, I’m not.”

“Then what can you do?”
 
Prophet laughed, the sound a bark of incredulity.
 
“I know the shape of your world.
 
I have seen it in the weak minds of the simple fools you let rule you.
 
I know you’re just a man.
 
You have machines that work for you, but for all that you’re small, greedy, base.
 
Easy
.”

“Right,” said Mason, starting to walk forward.
 
“I’m only human.”

“Stop,” said Prophet, and Laia jerked upright, a puppet on strings.
 
“Stop, or I kill her.
 
Or…
 
I get her to kill you.”

The gate behind Prophet snapped and trembled, and Mason felt his ears pop as the pressure changed.
 
He could see a night sky through the gate behind him, sand, figures standing, blurred to obscurity by the haze of energy.
 
Mason lifted the sword, holding it point first at Prophet.
 
The edge was red and wet.
 
“If you think you can,” he said.

Prophet closed his eyes slightly.
 
“Ah,” he said.
 
“You think that you can make it to me.
 
Cut me down as she kills you.”

“Something like that.”

Laia rounded on Mason.
 
When she spoke, her voice was all hard edges, malice wrapped in hate.
 
“Then you will
fall
, angel.”

Mason kept walking towards her.
 
“Laia?”

She answered with a sneer.

“Laia, it’s ok.”
 
Mason looked down at the sword.
 
“I don’t know if you can hear me.
 
Just…
 
It’s not your fault.”

Something flickered across her face.
 
“Mason?”

“Yeah.
 
It’s me.”
 
Mason looked into her face, still a few steps away.

“You’re not an angel.”
 
The hard edge was back in her voice.

“No,” he said.
 
“I’m something else.”

“What are you?”
 
Her lips were curled in a sneer.

“I’m the only guy who’ll never ask you for anything you don’t want to give.”
 
Mason smiled at her.
 
“I’m your friend, Laia.”

Prophet’s grip on her broke and he stumbled back.
 
Laia’s face cleared like the dawn, and she whirled on her old master.

“If not this way,” said Prophet, gasping, “then the other.
 
You
can kill
her
.”

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

He’d felt it before, the crushing vice on his mind.
 
He cried out, almost stopped.

“You aren’t ready for this,” said Prophet’s voice in his mind.
 
Every word cut, the pain stabbing into his mind.
 
“Your world is weak.
 
You
are weak.”

Mason fell to one knee, then pushed himself back up.
 
Yeah, asshole?

The voice returned, twice as strong.
 
Twice as much pain.
 
Mason screamed as the voice spoke.
 
“You will do what I want.
 
You’ll want to serve me.
 
After you’ve killed her, you’ll bathe in her blood.”

The sword in his hand trembled and he almost dropped it.
 
Then he thought of black lipstick and promises.

I don’t need you to say anything.
 
I’m just telling you how it is.

No one will touch her because I
owe
her.

The memory hit him hard, jerking him back to his feet.
 
No one
included him — Mason Floyd.
 
He
wouldn’t touch her.

The lattice snarled at Prophet, and the other man’s eyes went wide, before narrowing again.
 
The voice spoke in his mind again.
 
“You think motivated people haven’t stood before me?”
 
Mason could almost hear the laugh.
 
“It’s why we have tools.”

The man lifted his arms, and it felt like the air was rushing towards him.
 
Pulling up from outside the building, clouds and rain being pulled inside.

“The tools we use are spirits.
 
Demons, if you like,” said Prophet.
 
“This one is
mine
, and its will is infinite.”

Something curled around the man’s body, a soft fog, a gentle glow, then the hammer hit Mason’s mind and he screamed and screamed and screa—

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

The pain was the world.
 
A single promise dangled.
 
The pain could stop, if he picked up his sword and ran the girl through.

It’d be easy.
 
Then he’d stop hurting.
 
The world would keep spinning, no real difference.
 
One life more or less hardly shifted the scales.
 
It wasn’t a balancing act.
 
It was pragmatism.

Hell
, the promise said.
 
There’ll be a bonus in it.
 
Just do this one little thing
.

And the pain went on, and on, and on.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

We’re here, you and I
, said the promise.

We’ll be here a long, long time.
 
This moment is caught, a fly in amber, and you’re never getting out.
 
Not until we’re done.

Just kill the girl.
 
You’ve done worse things.
 
What about that family from Queens?
 
Intellectual property squatters, and you finished them off.

That was easy.
 
This will be easier
.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

Give it up
, said the promise.
 
Just use the sword
.

Mason could feel it in his hand, the edge of the blade stretching away.
 
His hand wanted to swing it, to stab it through the girl.
 
She was in his
way
, God damn it, in his way, and if he pushed her aside —

I fixed you
.

He could hear Carter’s voice, lost code in the lattice.

They didn’t think about how beautiful you are, Mason.

But he’d killed that family in Queens.
 
And so many others.
 
There was the man who was trying to start a business in bio diesel.
 
He’d been too quick to laugh.
 
He’d died.
 
Mason had made it look like a gang shooting, the Federate hidden with an easy lie.

I’m not beautiful, Carter.

The promise nodded and smiled.
 
It knew.
 
It
knew
.
 
It saw the ugly of him.

I saw it.
 
And you’re so damn beautiful.
 

What about the woman who had run into coffee shop to get away from him?
 
She’d been sprinting down the street, things from her handbag — purse, lipstick, an old phone — scattering behind her as she’d run.
 
Christ, he couldn’t remember her name.
 
He’d left her lying there when he’d recovered the package from her body, bright red smears on the outside of the box.

It made me weep.

The pain went on, and on, and the promise tugged at him, savage now.
 
You think this will
end
, company man?
 
This
never
ends.
 
Not until the girl is dead.

The lattice is in you now, it’s a part of you.
 
It’ll be faster and smoother and cleaner.
 
It won’t fight you.
 
It’ll do what you want, when you want it to.
 
You want to pull Harry out of another fire?
 
You won’t have to make it do that.

Mason held onto the lattice.
 
Carter’s last, greatest gift.
 
He asked it to reach into the fire.

It nodded back at him, and stood up.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

“No,” said Prophet.
 
“It’s not possible.”

Mason spat the taste of bile from his mouth, and stepped forward.
 
The lattice held him up, held him apart from the pain.
 
He felt it walk his feet forward.
 
It was slow, cumbersome, his feet feeling bigger and heavier than they should.

The other man screamed at him, then grabbed Laia by the back of her jacket.
 
He spared one more glance for the room then stepped through the gate.

Mason looked around him.
 
The other gate from the Federate tower still stood in the sky above, and he saw a shape —
Sadie
— fall through it, her arms windmilling before Mike caught her from below.

He saw Zacharies, the kid’s eyes wide.
 
He started towards the dais.

Mason held up a hand.
 
“I got this one, kid.”

“He’s going to—”

“I got it.”
 
Mason looked around the room, the lattice steady.

His eyes locked with Sadie’s, saw her realize it just as he knew himself.

“Mason,” she said.
 
“Mason, don’t—”

“Don’t forget me,” he said, and stepped through the gate to a another world.
 
Once he was through, he turned back, lifted the Tenko-Senshin, and fired it into the machinery on the other side of the gate.

The light stuttered and failed, the gate snapping shut behind him.
 
He looked about him.
 
Red dust and sand stretched around him, and two moons watched from the sky above him.

He stood on the face of a dying planet and looked at the five men standing in front of them, a teenage girl at their feet.

Then he smiled.
 
“Nice night, fellas?”

Prophet spoke first.
 
“Why are you smiling?”

Mason’s smile broke into a laugh.
 
“You haven’t worked it out?”

“Worked what out?”

“Gate’s gone.
 
No way out.
 
You’re trapped here,” said Mason.
 
Then, after a moment, “With me.”

He lifted his sword, the edge already red and wet.
 
He only needed to take six perfect steps.
 
The lattice sang around him until it was done.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

He held his hand out to her.
 
“C’mon.”

“Where are we going?”
 
She was uncertain, her eyes shying away from the bodies.

Mason shrugged.
 
“Wherever you need to go.”

Laia frowned.
 
“I don’t know where to start.”

“Why?”

“There’s so much to be done.”

“Ok,” said Mason.
 
“That’s fine.
 
We’ve got a little time.”
 
He flicked blood from the edge of the sword, then slipped the Tenko-Senshin into its holster.

“I want to save the world.”
 
She pointed out across the sand.
 
“Over there.
 
We start there.”

“Why that spot of sand in particular?”

“It’s where my family died.”

Mason nodded, the lattice agreeing.
 
“Let’s get started, then.”

She took his hand, and they started off into the desert, the red sand dry and cool under the light of two moons.