43 – Favors

  Addie didn’t know Smokey’s long history—not beyond the basics. He was a pre-war personal AI, a genuine intelligence with complex algorithms that simulated his personality in a way that he could not control. What he went through in the war, or what he did afterwards, were mysteries to her, though she imagined Glitch had a better idea. Whatever that history might have entailed, however, probably saved Addie’s life when Jen unleashed her toxic gas attack.

  What the Cross executive didn’t realize was that Humpty was lurking out in the hallway, his powerful scanner array aimed through the doorway, and Smokey was reading all that data in real time. When Jen exhaled her toxic breath, Smokey immediately warned Addie, and the urgency in his tone spurred her to do something she’d been dreading but also fully prepared for: she faded.

  As soon as the bright lights of the office were replaced by the strange, muted grays of the veil, Addie spun, her pent-up fears and paranoia surfacing as she scanned the area, some part of her certain that the things that had chased her would be waiting. Nothing came racing out of the shadows, though, and when she heard Jen’s muted voice calling for her, taunting, she turned back to regard the strange, colorless version of the woman.

  Jen was peering around the office as though she could spot Addie lurking under a chair—or maybe fallen to the carpet like Beef. After a moment, her voice came to Addie, echoing and delayed from the movements of her lips: “You can run, but you messed up tonight, sweetheart. I’ll find you.” Then she turned, the tails of her elegant cream-colored corpo suit-jacket swishing with the movement. “I’m sure you’ve got some answers for me, don’t you, big guy?”

  Addie growled when she saw Beef’s motionless form—a big dark lump on the carpet in the washed-out colors of the fade. “I don’t get it,” she said, knowing JJ was the only one who could hear her. “How did her gas get to him? His helmet is filtered.”

  “Smokey called it a neuro-toxin. It’s likely that it permeated his flesh.”

  Despite her being in the veil, Addie felt her blood drain. It seemed like every day she was learning about some new terrible method operators and mercs had for killing each other. “Will he die?”

  “I don’t know, Addie. I’m unable to contact Smokey from this…location.” It almost sounded like JJ was frustrated by the situation, but Addie knew he was just performing for her benefit; that was the big difference between him and a true AI like Smokey.

  Addie watched as Jen walked past Beef to Eric’s fallen figure. She knelt beside him, and Addie moved through the veil to get a better look at what she was doing. Jen’s lips moved and then, a second later, her voice drifted through the still air of the veil: “Looks like your nanites stopped the bleeding. You’re lucky.” She pressed her fingertips to Eric’s neck and then, a second later, the man jerked as his chest heaved for breath. He was still out of it, his eyes still closed, but Jen stood and approached Beef.

  Addie’s instinct was to do something—to use her hands-up to secure Jen or, maybe, drop out of the veil and blast her with lightning. The thing was, she didn’t know how long the neurotoxin would be in the air out there. She also wanted to give the woman a chance to administer the antidote to Beef—assuming that was what she’d done to Eric. So, she watched as Jen disarmed her partner, taking the smart rifle off his shoulder and, straining against their weight and Beef’s bulk, pulling his huge knife from its sheath and his pistol from its holster.

  Meanwhile, Eric groaned and flopped onto his side. “Oh, God. What the hell hit me? Everything’s fucking dim. I’ve got a metal band rehearsing in my skull!”

  “You probably have some nerve damage.” Jen grunted as she used two hands to heave Beef’s outstretched arm to his side. “Help me! He has cords in his coat pocket.”

  “Jesus, Jen! I can barely fucking see.” Eric flopped onto his stomach and tried to push himself to his knees, only to collapse with a scream. “My fuckin’ knees!”

  Addie would have smiled if she weren’t terrified about Beef’s situation. Her Dust abilities were strange in the veil. She’d done a lot of practice back before she’d run into the fade—if that was what had chased her. She’d learned with Cold Mary that her lightning attack wouldn’t pass through the veil; it would hit other things in the veil, though, just as it had Cold Mary. Pure Dust, though? She could use that to manipulate the real world, ala her hands-up technique. Still, what good would that do if she couldn’t drop out of the veil?

  “JJ, how long will that neurotoxin linger?”

  “It’s hard to provide an exact answer,” JJ replied. “With the door open and air treatment systems cycling, the bulk of the airborne concentration should disperse quickly—a few minutes. That said, trace amounts will linger longer. Aerosolized compounds will settle onto surfaces and could be stirred by movement. I’d give it five to ten minutes.”

  Addie looked down at her bare hands and forearms. JJ’s response dashed her idea of just un-fading her hand and needler. She had to give the stuff a chance to at least clear out of the air. As she considered her options, Jen bound Beef’s hands behind his back. It took her a long time—a minute, at least with lots of straining and grunting—to get his thick, stiff arms bent into compliance. All the while, she cursed at Eric as the other man whimpered and ineffectually attempted to crawl toward her.

  Addie could only think of how long they were taking and the damage the toxin was doing to her friend. “Hurry up, you damn idiots!” She clenched her fists and paced back and forth in the veil, her thoughts growing ever darker with her hatred for the woman before her.

  At last, Jen was satisfied with her work and, leaning her elbow on Beef’s enormous shoulder, she worked the release switch for his helmet. It hissed as it decompressed, and then, with another grunt and curse, she yanked it off his big, clean-shaven head. To Addie’s horror, his skull was dappled with red-tinted sweat. He was bleeding through his pores! She gripped her needler until her fist trembled with the strain.

  Jen pressed her fingertips to the back of Beef’s skull and, a few seconds later, he began to convulse. Jen jumped up, backing away from his enormous, thrashing body. “There.” She glared at Eric. “No thanks to you. Hope he’s not too brain-damaged to speak.”

  The rage that ignited in Addie’s chest at her callous words turned the gray-tinted world black as tunnels closed in on her vision. She stared at Jen with such fury that anyone would have seen the murder in her eyes. Perhaps it was her earlier thoughts about Cold Mary, or perhaps the idea had always been gestating in the back of Addie’s mind; whatever the case, something made her step forward and thrust her hand right into the other woman’s chest.

  Jen went stiff. She gasped and clutched at her chest and neck, and Addie squeezed her hand into a fist, right where she knew the other woman’s heart would be. She couldn’t feel her flesh, but she felt the warmth of it. As Jen continued to gasp and twitch, Addie bared her teeth in a rictus grin as she watched the life fade from the other woman’s eyes. A small voice screamed at her to stop, but it was thin and weak, and she ignored it.

  Another voice, barely a whisper, asked if Tony would be happy if she killed Jen, but she ignored that one too, this time for another reason: Addie didn’t want Tony to have to face Jen. She didn’t want him to have to decide what to do with her. Tony was trying to be good, and maybe it was selfish and a little condescending, but Addie didn’t think giving him the chance to commit murder in cold blood would benefit him. No, let her do it while her blood was good and damn hot.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  When Jen ceased her thrashing and fell limply to the floor, Addie turned her attention to Eric. He’d given up trying to help with Beef and was lying face down on the carpet, his eyes closed. He didn’t even realize Jen was dead.

  “Do you think it’s safe?” she asked JJ.

  “I’d give it a few more minutes, Addie.”

  Addie nodded, looking at Beef. He’d stopped seizing, and his chest was heaving up and down as he took ragged breaths, but his eyes were still closed, and bloody foam was dripping out of his partially open mouth. Addie holstered her needler and patted at her coat pocket, confirming the trauma auto-injector was still there. “This will help him, right?” she asked, taking it out.

  “It should; it’s designed to address a wide range of medical emergencies.”

  Addie watched Beef’s ragged, strained breathing for another few seconds, then shook her head. “I can’t take it. I’m going back through—”

  Before she could finish the statement, JJ interrupted her: “Addie, something very strange is happening. I’m receiving a signal.”

  Addie narrowed her eyes in confusion. No comms could pass through the veil. “What is it?”

  “I don’t fully understand it,” he replied, his words coming quickly, rushed almost. “But I recognize the structure. This isn’t human encryption, Addie; it’s the symbolic language AIs used before the war. It’s just…different. The encoding is wrong. The old AI language has been public for decades; I know how to translate, but this isn’t quite right.”

  “JJ, I need to get back to Beef—” Just then, in the still, temperature-less air of the veil, a draft of something cold tickled the back of Addie’s neck. She spun, eyes wide behind the transparent shield of her helmet’s visor.

  Oblivious to her panic, JJ said, “The signal is repeating, but each pass is slightly different—some kind of interference. I need to record more data if we want to crack this message.”

  Addie lifted her free hand, looking around her, irritated by her trembling as much as she was scared. The temperature had noticeably dropped. “I think something’s here,” she whispered.

  “Of course, if you need to leave for your safety, I understand.”

  “But what if we can’t get that signal again? Have you ever noticed anything like it?” Addie knew the answer.

  “Never.”

  Addie was tempted to put her back to a wall, but she knew that wouldn’t help; if the things in the veil were fades, they could pass through any structure just as she could. Instead, she primed her matrix with Dust, ready to unleash lightning as she continued to scan the room. “Hurry, JJ. Just tell me when you have the absolute minimum data you think you’ll need. Remember, we can ask Smokey for help.”

  “Excellent point, Addie! Smokey could have insights I lack. One or two more cycles of the message should be enough.”

  Addie continued to spin in a slow circle. When Eric, Beef, and Jen’s body filled her view, she studied each for any alarming changes. Jen still appeared to be lifeless, Eric was apparently unconscious, and Beef was breathing raggedly. “Just hold on,” she whispered. She didn’t think she’d risk Beef’s life just to get a mysterious message, but she also knew the longer she waited, the less risk she’d face of exposing herself to the neurotoxin. She couldn’t exactly help Beef if she succumbed to it.

  Another waft of chilly air hit the back of her neck, and Addie spun to the open doorway where, to her horror, a pale, dead-eyed woman in a washed-out maroon business suit drifted toward her. Her face was a rictus of agony, and as she drew near, she extended a skeletal pale hand and wailed, “Warm!”

  The memory of something ice-cold clawing her shoulder must have been nearer the surface than Addie realized, because that pale hand triggered a psychosomatic response. Her shoulder lanced with renewed agony, and Addie instinctively released her hold on the Dust she’d gathered in her matrix. Purple lightning arced from her hand, lancing out to strike the drifting fade.

  The poor thing gyrated in a paroxysm of agony, and Addie forced herself to look away, rapidly blinking to clear the afterimage of the brilliant jolt of energy from her eyes. When her vision cleared, she looked back into the hallway—empty.

  “Addie,” JJ said, “I think I have enough data. Also, you should take note of your Dust levels.”

  Fresh panic sent Addie’s heart reeling, and she turned her attention to her pale, flickering AUI.

  Dust Purity: Refined – 4.38 LIR

  Dust Capacity: 774/5000

  “H-how?” Had she lost time? Had she fired more lightning than she’d thought? Her Dust was refined—it should have lasted a long time!

  “Addie?” JJ asked, oblivious to the thoughts racing through her mind.

  “Never mind.” Addie gripped the autoinjector and moved closer to Beef. When she was right beside him, she took a deep breath and then drew the Dust back from her fade pattern, throwing herself into the light, noise, and heat of the physical world. Addie didn’t hesitate; fearing she might still be affected by the neurotoxin in the air, she reached forward with the autoinjector. She had to press the needle firmly into the skin at the base of his skull, where the dermal armor ended. She feared she’d hit the bone, but Beef had a nice roll of thick skin there, and the injector hissed, delivering two loads of emergency nanites and trauma meds.

  When Addie realized the stuff Jen had released wouldn’t take her out, at least not immediately, she stood, careful not to move too much, lest she stir up any toxin that had settled on the ground. “Glitch? Smokey?”

  “Ads!” Glitch cried. “I’ve been calling and calling!”

  “It’s a long story. I need help with Beef, I think—” A sob choked her words, and she barely got the next words out. “He’s hurt, Glitch.”

  “Bad?” Her voice was small. Before Addie could find her voice, Glitch added, “Smokey’s cracking the lockdown on the elevator. T will be en route soon. He stole some pants off one of the goons he killed so he wouldn’t look like he just survived a bomb blast.” After a pause, she asked, “Ads, seriously—how bad?”

  “Um, it’s a neurotoxin, but he got the antidote. I just hit him with trauma meds, so—”

  “Quit talking ’bout me.” Beef’s deep voice rumbled, his voice thick with phlegm and his words slurred.

  Tears sprang from Addie’s eyes as she squatted by his side. “You big dummy. Don’t move, okay? I can’t touch you, or you’d be getting a bunch of kisses.” Then she remembered Glitch and said through comms, “He’s conscious, Glitch. He’s gonna be okay, I think. We’ll make sure of it.”

  Beef grunted, but didn’t move.

  “Oh, thank God!” Glitch’s voice was a breathy whisper. Addie had never heard her invoke God before, and it reminded her that there were layers to them all that the others didn’t know about.

  “I wish I could touch him. I have to do something about Eric, too. Jen’s dead, by the way.” Addie scanned the room, looking for ideas, but then Beef surprised her with an idea:

  “Pop one of the BEEB canisters.” BEEB was a fancy, high-tech version of the fog they’d used to erase their presence in earlier jobs. It stood for Biomass Editing and Eradicating Bacteria. It would destroy any DNA traces they might leave behind—among other things.

  “Would that work?”

  “Sec,” Glitch said, “asking Smokey.” A moment later: “He says it’ll denature most organics. Most. He says it’ll also clump up particulates so you can move around a little more safely. He wants me to stress that it’s not safe in there.”

  “Ads,” Beef said, grinding the words out through clenched teeth, “just get out. I’ll handle this.”

  Addie started to object, but the big man was slowly pushing himself into a sitting position, from which he reached into his vest for a bright red inhaler—a combat stim. “Beef, I can pop a BEEB and—”

  He shook his head, and Addie got a good look at his eyes; the whites were bright red, and bloody tracks ran down his cheeks. Could he even see? “Come on, Ads. Get out. We don’t have any more of that bitch’s antidote.”

  “Addie, what’s happening?” Glitch asked. “I can see you through Humpty’s feed. I don’t see Beef.”

  “Beef’s trying to be a hero—”

  “Ads!” the big man growled, surprising her with the force of his basso voice. “Get out!” With that, he stuck the end of the inhaler between his bloodied lips and squeezed.

  Addie backed away, moving toward the door, trying to be careful about stirring up any of the toxin in the carpet. “Beef, just drag him clear. Don’t do anything crazy.”

  Beef violently exhaled a pink chemical cloud, and a wet chuckle shook his chest. “Right, Doll.” He picked up his pistol and knife and then grunted as he got his hands and knees under him. By then, Addie was in the doorway, and she backed out into the dimly lit hallway. When she was a couple of steps away from the door, Beef stepped into view—huge, looming, and bloody—a revenant fresh from the grave. He glanced at Addie, then his voice came through comms. “We need this guy for anything? I mean, really?”

  “No,” Glitch replied immediately.

  “Beef, Tony wants—” Addie’s words were drowned out by the thunder of Beef’s massive pistol. He fired it four more times, and then he turned and stumbled toward the hallway.

  “Don’t be pissed,” he said as he turned and tossed a hissing canister into the office. “You might not see it right now, but I just did T a big favor.”

  “No,” Addie said, clenching her fist, remembering the feeling of her hand inside Jen’s heart. “I see it, Beef. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

  He nodded, squinting his ruined eyes, trying to focus on her. “Good. Now, come on; that shit’s not healthy for anyone to breathe.”