Then I was yanked backward, landing hard on my ass and skidding a few extra feet while Glee belly flopped onto the floor. Hands gripped my shoulders, and for a second I was floating back, staring at Glee’s red hair, my gun pointed at the center of her head out of habit, my finger on the trigger. A tiny bit of pressure and that would be it, but still I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her again.
Marko was looming over me, a trickle of blood leaking out of his nose. He looked used up and shiny. “You’re the most wanted Gunner in New York?” he asked, panting. “You’re getting your ass kicked by a kid!”
“You touch her,” I hissed back, “I’ll kill you.” I pushed him away and climbed to my feet-slow, too fucking slow. I felt like I’d aged a thousand years, my insides cheesed out, my blood poisoned. I saw myself dying, eaten away, and then getting up again a few days later, repaired, my eyes flat, my brain consumed and used as spackle for the rest of me.
And then Glee was crashing into me again and slicing three times deep across my belly as I stumbled back toward the counter. Entirely on instinct I shoved my gun into her stomach and fired twice, knocking her little body back onto the floor just as the lamp flickered off again.
I stared into the darkness where she’d been a second before. From my right I could see flashes of light as Belling and Lukens handled their own problems, but I tuned out the gunfire. I’d killed her again. Just like I’d killed everyone. Everyone I’d ever known was dead, or would be soon. Except Dick Marin, the eternal, smiling Richard Marin, Director, SSF Internal Affairs. And, it seemed, Dennis Squalor, the ever-fucking living. Those two roaches were going to kick each other around the dead world when it was all said and done.
It was always the big shots who started this shit up. I’d been on a fucking rail for the past week, going from point A to point B, a fucking puppet. I get pinched and dragged here, I get plucked into the air by a fucking Spook and dragged there. I’m pushed into a room and there’s Glee, and I have to kill her because that’s what the fucking universe dictates. Then I have to go into another room and kill Ty Kieth-betray Ty Kieth-because that’s the next thing the universe wants. I’m on a rail. I’d been on a rail my whole life.
The lamp flickered back on. When I saw her there, gasping like a beached fish, dead eyes locked on me, I was almost surprised. She was bleeding heavily and obviously couldn’t breathe, but there was no writhing, no sign of pain-just those eyes, staring at me. I ran my eye over her wound and figured I’d hit an artery, and estimated she’d be dead… again… in about five minutes. Her chest spasmed, her hands clenched and unclenched, her mouth was working, but she just stared at me. I forced myself to meet her eyes and watch. I felt like I had to watch.
Dimly, I could hear gunfire. I felt Marko tugging at my coat. I ignored it all and just watched her die, the rhythmic fountains of blood getting weaker and more random, her spasms subsiding. I watched as her hands went still. I watched as her chest shuddered and stopped twitching. Her eyes didn’t change. I knew she had to be dead but her eyes remained open and on me, just as flat and empty as before. Marko’s tugging became insistent, and the gunfire came rushing back into my ears. As I stared at her, she twitched and made a horrible sucking noise. I blinked as she started to breathe again, horrible shuddering gasps as if an invisible fist were pumping her chest up and down.
The nanos were repairing her again.
I rushed forward and stood over her, pointing my gun at her head, hand trembling. But it wouldn’t do any good. A head shot wouldn’t kill her, and how many bullets would it take to damage her so much the fucking nanos couldn’t fix her? I stood there trembling-it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair, and I wanted off the rail.
Then Marko was in my ear, pulling me away.
“Goddamn it, Mr. Cates, there’s no fucking time!” he shouted, his voice warped.
I jerked around and then froze. Behind Marko a trio of corpses had opened their eyes and were looking at me. I spun and saw that all over the room bodies were twitching, coming to life. I turned to Marko, opened my mouth, and the lamp died again.
For a second, there was complete silence. Then, a crash of shattering glass and shouts, crash after crash, light stabbing into the room in weak, watery shafts that outlined Stormers, their tether lines like spidery tails. I closed my eyes and thought it was probably the first time in my life I was happy to see the fucking System Pigs.
XXXVII
Day Ten: Calm, Serene Happiness
I opened my eyes and looked around. With deadly speed the Stormers, still hanging from their tether lines, scrambled up to stand in the smashed window frames, rifles hooked into belt straps, efficiently leveling their weapons and running a fast check. Painful, flesh-ripping coughs tore through me, my eyes lighting up red with each twitch as I envisioned delicate tissues ripping silently apart, bloody clouds filling the spaces between my organs.
The bodies around us were moving, slowly, like they were learning to move each muscle individually. I saw Lukens looking almost relaxed as she lay against the far wall staring up at the ceiling, her belly torn open, her intestines leaking out in loose coils. I started to look for Belling when a familiar booming voice filled the cavernous room.
“Cates, you piece of shit,” Happling shouted from above. Framed in shattered glass, he looked a little rougher than I remembered, with some new scratches bleeding on his face. He held on to a duct for balance with one hand, his other hoisting his ancient gun. “Did you really think you were going to betray us and get away with it? We knew where you were going, you asshole. You’re a walking transmitter. How stupid are you, exactly? Don’t answer.” The big cop stepped into the air and leaped down, crashing into the cracked tile of the floor with a grunt, bending his knees and putting his free hand out to steady himself as if he’d been practicing jumps like that for years. Standing, he cocked his gun and trained it on me as he stalked through the room, ignoring the twitching, stretching bodies piled up haphazardly around him.
I still had my gun in my hand, but it seemed impossible to lift, as I watched the gorilla come closer.
“I’ve never had to wait this fucking long to execute a shithead before,” Happling shouted, grinning. “The Spooks have taken back command-a fucking hoverful of the freaks showed up and were kind of irritated to find our Mr. Bendix leashed like a dog-and they’d probably order me to leave you alone, because you’re on the fucking Person of Interest list, but fuck ’em. They’re not here; hanging back like pussies until we clear the area. Looks like we don’t need you anymore, Mr. Cates.”
I just watched him, a bubble of reddish mucus expanding and shrinking at the end of my nose, my stomach tightening in expectation. When the big man was just a foot or two away his eyes suddenly flicked over me and he dived, fast, to one side as shots boomed from behind. Right where the cop had been the floor exploded into little plumes of dust. I twisted around to stare back at Belling, who stood pristine and ageless in front of the low counter that separated the waiting area from the offices, his custom Roons in each hand. The familiar smile on his face was like the universe clicking back into shape.