Blood spurting from the wound alarmingly, I wondered if I’d outsmarted myself by nicking an artery, and feebly raised my gun again, squinting through a strange yellowish haze that had inserted itself between me and the rest of the world. As I searched for Kev again, lead seeped into my arms and they became incredibly heavy.
“Avery, stop.”
I froze, arm shaking. The familiar feeling of peace sank into me, and I was happy and thoughtless. A Monk resolved out of the haze around me, one I thought I recognized as Kev because it was so new and clean. The Monk crouched down in front of me; my gun was almost thrust into its abdomen. I stared into its expressionless white face without feeling, without thought.
“Avery, you were always persistent. Did you think I wouldn’t expect you here? I forgot, you think I’m stupid. Always have. He told me you were coming. When I woke in this fucking Monk costume, Ave, it hurt so bad, I just howled and howled and prayed. I fucking prayed, Avery. And then I heard His voice. In my head. He said He’d created me, and that I was His son, and told me what to do.” His creepy plastic face settled into a smile that made my skin crawl.
It was still fascinating to watch a Monk talk-the fluid movement of its artificial face, the modulated, pleasant sound of its voice. If you paid attention it had a limited array of expressions, and it got boring-and creepy-when you’d seen them all. But it was still amazing.
“I didn’t expect the two-pronged invasion, actually,” he continued. “You caught me a little off guard there.” His face split into a wide smile. “Do you remember, Avery, that time you needed me to help you with those fucking kids? The ones kept nicking your credit dongle from your pocket while you were mapping sightlines for the- the- whatever job you had. You sat there on that wall taking sightings to make sure you could hit everyone you’d been hired to do, and the fucking kids would sneak up on you and lift your dongle. They did it, what, like four times? You asked me to Push them a little.” The smile snapped off. “You didn’t ask. You pushed me around and ordered me to. You always pushed me around.”
I remembered. I nailed four people in less than thirty seconds, earned one hundred and forty-five thousand yen. Took me five days to get the sightings mapped. When you worked out the hours, I got paid shit.
The smile popped back. “It’s good to see you, Avery. I don’t have any friends.”
Closing my eyes, I thought, Kev’s gone crackers. Sadly, this probably increased my chances of being killed within the next few minutes, a possibility I observed with clinical detachment. There had to be a way off the rail. There had to be. The universe could not be this fucking unfair. I felt weak. The only thing keeping my arm up and the gun jabbed into his gut was Kev’s Push. I opened my eyes with some effort, and Kev’s face had transformed again, glowering at me, a ridiculous mask of hatred.
“Avery,” he said.
I looked down and there was a gun in Kev’s white plastic hand. It was black and charred looking, original Monk issue. He turned it toward me, the barrel a black hole, like death itself. I stared at it and wondered if my calm was because I was such a hardcore bastard, or because of Kev’s Push. “He says your usefulness has passed.”
The door to the room exploded inward, slamming against me with concussive force that knocked me onto my side. Two gunshots knocked Kev off his feet and he went sliding, face twisted into something that wasn’t even a coherent expression, pursued by a blurred figure. I saw Kev raise one hand, an old legacy gesture still stored in his rotting brain.
“Stop,” he commanded.
She didn’t stop. She leaped on top of the Monk, swinging her gun down in a wide, sloppy arc I attributed to excitement-the Colonel Hense I knew would never pull such a shitty, sloppy move out of her ass-which gave Kev plenty of time to shove her off with some force, spraying white coolant everywhere as he did so. Hense’s little body went flying, her shot barking into the ceiling, and before I could wonder why Kev’s Push wasn’t working on her, Happling roared into the room. I could have sworn he was grinning as he ran, pumping shells at Kev. The Monk flipped onto its feet and dodged, moving too fast to keep track of. Happling continued to chase Kev with his gun, emptying a clip while trying to catch him. Then Kev twisted around and made the same bizarre gesture.
“Stop!” he shouted.
Happling froze, and the Monk immediately shot the big man twice in the chest, dead center. Happling tottered a second before crashing down. I was suddenly released, my arm going limp, my gun slipping from slack fingers. I remembered when he’d been human, Kev always had trouble with the Push, trouble having more than one person under his control or keeping people Pushed for long periods. Clarity of mind hadn’t broadened his range much, I supposed.
More gunshots, and Hense rolled out of my view. Kev was a whirlwind, scampering up the walls and back onto the floor in a blur, then leaping into the air as Hense scrambled past me, dropping an empty clip. Before she could reload the Monk crashed into her, knocking her into the wall a foot or two away from me, the whole room shaking with the impact.
“Stop!” Kev screeched, his modulated voice distorted as the circuits tried to compensate for an emotion they’d never been programmed to run. Hense didn’t hesitate, smashing one fist into Gatz’s face hard enough to jerk his head around. For a second we were staring at each other. Then Kev looked back at the colonel and started to swing his gun on her. Hense reached up and grabbed his wrist in her tiny dark hand, and they sawed back and forth, the gun veering this way and that.
Hense wasn’t sweating. I squinted at her to be sure. Then, feeling empty, I turned my head to focus on Ty Kieth. The Techie was right where he’d been left, tied down to the examination table, his gag slick with spittle and pushed partly off his mouth, his tongue working free. Our eyes met, and he froze.
Taking a deep, agonizing breath, I hacked up bloody phlegm, spat it out onto the floor, and pushed myself back into a sitting position. Kieth continued to stare at me, eyes wide, nose still for what I imagined was the first time in his life. I got one foot under me and slowly climbed to my feet while the Techie watched, and stood there swaying while my vision swam again, everything going hazy and then gradually clarifying. I blinked as Hense went hurtling through the air in front of me, smashing into the far wall and leaving an impact crater in the drywall as she bounced back onto the floor. A second later she was up on her feet again, bounding behind Kieth as Kev splashed bullets after her. The colonel wasn’t even breathing hard as she hovered there with the Techie between her and the Monk, sliding a fresh clip into place while Kev considered how to shoot her without accidentally hitting his prized Techie. I stared dully, wondering how it was that Hense could go through this, could fight a Monk hand to hand and be bounced around the room like a fucking rag doll and just stand there looking as fresh as the day I’d met her. I knew System Pigs were hard-core, but this was ridiculous.
As I stared at the colonel, Kev flashed through the air, coat fluttering behind him like the dirty tail of a comet. Hense ducked at the last moment, firing almost directly into the Monk as he sailed over her. A white hand snaked out and grabbed her shoulder with hydraulic strength, tearing the cop from the floor and dragging her with him as they crashed into a bank of medical instruments piled up against one wall.