Doomware (36 page)

“So what you’re saying is, if Holohive’s plan had succeeded, every zombie out there now would be a clone of him?” asked Tarot.

“Not exactly. You see, Holohive cannot transfer himself via data stream. A direct, physical connection is required for transferral. In time, he would’ve multiplied that way. It’s also possible he would’ve worked on a way of taking over these dormant brains without the need for physical contact.”

“But how could he if you deactivated him?”

“Shortly before the virus was released, he copied himself into the brain of a cybernetic accomplice and escaped. The Holohive we shut down was only the original version.”

“What a fucking mess,” David said gruffly. His cheekbone was throbbing with pain and he felt feverish.

Lorch peered at him over the rim of his glasses. “That’s rather foul language to be using in front of your son, don’t you think?”

“This boy’s had to cope with a lot more than just bad language thanks to you.”

Resting his elbows on the desk, Lorch pressed his fingertips together, forming a pyramid he touched to his chin. “I’ll bet he has,” he said. He took a deep breath before continuing. “The so-called zombies are too corrupted to be of any use to Holohive for the purposes of replicating himself, though he does have rudimentary control over them. He may have teamed up with a posse of offliners; we have no information about that. What we do know is that he’s searching for cybernetics who escaped the virus’s effects … people who are, for some unknown reason, immune to it naturally.”

Lorch paused, letting his words hang in the air. David felt his throat constrict and his pulse quicken.

“You see,” Lorch went on, “instead of the abundance of cybernetic brains Holohive thought he would have at his disposal, he has nothing. People such as these natural resisters are the only ones he could possibly use to replicate himself; therefore, they are incredibly valuable to him. Particularly those of the male sex, since Holohive regards himself as being male, and the accomplice who enabled his escape was – unfortunately for him – very much female. As you can see.”

Lorch hit a key on his computer and an image of a woman’s face appeared on the screen. The picture looked to have been culled from a surveillance camera, or perhaps it had been taken from a long way off, the subsequent magnification of it rendering the resolution poor, but this still couldn’t hide the woman’s attractiveness. She had long blonde hair, prominent cheekbones and pale blue eyes.

“Holohive had appeared to this woman on the Cybernet as a heartbreakingly beautiful man. Over a period of time – precisely how long we don’t know – she fell in love with him, and went on to sacrifice herself so that he might live. Not unlike somebody who professes to be in love with a convicted criminal, no matter how heinous their crimes, this woman was an imbecile of the highest order. But now, of course, Holohive finds himself a male entity inside a woman’s body. His maleness is so integral to his identity it cannot be altered, and neither would he wish to alter it even if he could. What he’s searching for are cybernetic brains that are immune to the virus, but especially those that are in the bodies of males, whether they be man or boy.”

Lorch’s voice was the same as it had been all through his discourse about the origin of the virus, but to David it had taken on a sly, knowing aspect, causing his heart to sink in his chest. Yet still he clung to hope, the way a drowning man might have clung to a lone buoy. Maybe they didn’t know about Shawn. Maybe this part of the story was based more on supposition than first-hand knowledge on the part of the Initiative.

“Which brings us rather neatly to this,” Lorch said. He hit another key and the picture of the woman was replaced by six words.

Give us the boy or die
.

David’s buoy crumbled to dust, leaving him foundering in a sea of despair.

“This message – along with other telltale signs – confirmed to us that Holohive was on the trail of one of these elusive resisters,” Lorch declared, before his eyes shifted to Shawn. “And here we have the charming little aberration, don’t we?”

Every one of David’s muscles contracted with a burst of panic. He wrapped his arms around the boy, holding him tight, uniting the beat of their hearts.

Lorch looked coolly at Tarot. “I’m telling you all of this out of respect for our history, Tarot. You may not believe this, but I’ve always had respect for you. You are a man of faith, a man of integrity. I always thought it regrettable that our views never converged. You and your anonymous friend here may visit the ship’s doctor, and then you are free to leave the ship. In fact, your departure is required unless you are prepared to swear oaths of allegiance to the Initiative.”

“We’ll never do that,” Tarot said.

“I thought as much. The helicopter will take you wherever you wish to go, within reason.”

“What about my son?” David said.

“I don’t believe this creature is actually your son, is he? I’m very sorry – for your sake – if you’ve come to regard him as such. You see, he may be immune to the airborne virus, but even he will be quite incapable of resisting the same virus applied directly to his brain.”

“
No!
” David hollered, clutching the boy. “You can’t do that!”

“I can assure you he won’t feel a thing,” Lorch said, before glancing at the shaven-headed man. “Take him to the lab.”

“You
monster!
” David roared as the man stepped towards them, hot tears of rage filling his eyes. “You’re a fucking monster!”

“Please!” Lorch said irritably. “There’s no need for hysterics, nor bad language.”

The shaven-headed man made a grab for the boy, but David parried him, pulling the boy so close it would have hurt him had he been able to feel pain.

“Let him go,” the man said coldly.

“I won’t let you do this,” David shouted. “He’s an innocent!”

The man pulled his pistol from its holster and pressed its muzzle against David’s head. “Let him go,” he said again, more slowly and firmly this time, and just as coldly.

The room became an uproar. A cacophony of raised voices made David’s already tired and battered head swim. He could tell that Tarot was engaged in a struggle with the fair-haired man, although the sight of them was blocked by the shaven-headed man’s body. He looked up into the man’s face, and his anger-filled eyes were reflected in the convex darkness – insectile, emotionless – of the man’s sunglasses. He had to fight hard to think past the gun being pressed to his head; his entire being felt paralysed by its presence.

I won’t let go, he thought. I won’t stand by and let them murder a boy so sweet and pure and full of hope. Even if it means my death. If a bullet should enter my brain, let it show the boy I was willing to die for him, that my words weren’t just empty promises. Let it take away awareness of the boy’s fate, and the knowledge of my failure to protect him. Let it spare me the sight of his beautiful blue eyes transformed into the lifeless eyes of a zombie. Spare me the horror.

Oh God! The horror, the horror!

“You’ll have to shoot me,” David said, his voice steely and brittle at the same time. “You’ll have to. It’s the only way.”

The man pressed the gun harder against his skull and growled, “Don’t think I won’t.”

David heard Tarot’s and Lorch’s voices – Lorch was saying something about “true people” – but neither he nor the shaven-headed man was listening. This was personal now, just the two of them. They were in a stand-off, each of them challenging the other, joined together like two stags with locked antlers.

“Go ahead. Do it,” David said, then his voice rose. “Do it, you bastard! Do it, for Christ’s sake!
Kill me!
”

David closed his eyes. A pistol shot rang out.

And a bullet entered his brain.

Darkness took him. A silence so profound it was miraculous surrounded him. Despite the darkness, he felt as if he were floating in the midst of an endless expanse of space, a space filled with nothing but pure white light. So this is what death feels like, he thought. But why should it feel of anything? How was his brain still functioning?

He opened his eyes. A bullet clearly hadn’t entered his brain at all. The shaven-headed man had moved away from them. He was stood looking down at his own body, a look of amazement on his face. A pistol was hovering in front of David; a moment passed before he realised the hand holding it belonged to the boy. His mind struggled to understand how the boy had managed to get hold of the shaven-head man’s gun. Then he saw that the man still had his pistol in his hand. Everyone in the room was too stunned to move or speak. The shaven-headed man clutched at his stomach. David saw blood spill over his hand before he collapsed, slowly and soundlessly, as if the air were being sucked out of him.

Tarot was the first to recover: he delivered a punch to the fair-haired man’s head that might have felled a heavyweight boxer. The man went down hard, unconscious before he hit the floor, his glasses and his nose broken. Shaken from his shock, David grabbed the gun from the boy and pointed it at Lorch.

“Don’t fucking move,” he said. He wanted desperately to shoot the man in front of him, but something stayed his hand. It took every ounce of strength he had not to pull the trigger.

Lorch made no attempt to move. He’d removed his glasses and was sitting there with a curious mixture of vexation and disgust on his face. Tarot busied himself disarming the fair-haired man.

“I don’t know how you expect to get away with this,” Lorch said evenly, exhibiting admirable control of himself given the circumstances.

“Let us worry about that,” David said.

The boy’s expression was utterly blank. David didn’t know how he’d come to have a gun on him. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He kissed his forehead, feeling love for the child flood anew into his heart.
 

Tarot finished taking the fair-haired man’s weapons, stood and pointed a pistol at Lorch’s head. “How many people like the boy are there?”

Lorch eased himself back into his chair. “Why are you doing this?” he said, self-assured even now. “Think about it for a moment. Why are you risking your lives for this creature, this abomination?”

“How many? How many resisters?” Tarot said.

“He is among the last of a bastard race. Even if you should escape from this ship – which you will not – we will hunt you down. Holohive cannot be permitted to increase his number.”

“Why won’t you answer the question?”

“I, sir? May I say nothing?”

“He’s just dicking us around,” David said.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull this trigger right now?” said Tarot.

Lorch showed no fear. “You’re no killer, Tarot … at least, not a cold-blooded one. You know I’m a true person. Like you. With different views maybe, but still kindred. And this is a changed world we’re living in, a world that needs as many true people as possible. Plus, I have a wife … and a son.”

“So did I.”

A flicker of fear showed in Lorch’s eyes for the first time. He hadn’t known about Tarot’s family, David realised. Lorch tried to mask the fear by studiously cleaning his spectacles and putting them back on, taking the time to curl each arm around the back of each ear in turn.

“If you kill me you’ll be a traitor to your own kind,” Lorch said, his voice faltering only a fraction.

Tarot stared, sweat running down his face, the gun in his hand not straying from its target. “No, that’s precisely what you are.”

There was an uneasy silence. Lorch looked at each of them in turn before his gaze returned to Tarot. David knew only too well how it felt to be staring down the barrel of a gun, but he felt no sympathy for Lorch. He pulled the boy to him until his head was pressed against his body. Then he did an about-turn, turning his back on Lorch, shielding the boy. Now he understood why he hadn’t pulled his own trigger.

“Tarot–”

It was the last thing Lorch ever said.

David peered over the side of the ship. Everything was as the fair-haired man had said it would be: a short rope ladder led down to a gas-powered speedboat, Lorch’s personal escape craft. Before either of them could stop him, the boy clambered onto the ladder and started descending.

“Hey!” David hissed. “Be careful.”

“It’s okay,” the boy reassured him. “It’s easy.”

The boy scooted down the ladder as if he did such a thing every day. Within seconds, he was standing safely on the speedboat’s deck. David paused at the top of the ladder and looked up at the ship. There was no one in sight. Then his eyes settled on Tarot and he knew. They talked in lowered voices.

“You’re not coming, are you?” David said in disbelief.

Tarot shook his head.

“We can’t split up now.”

“There’s no choice,” Tarot said. “I have to put this ship out of commission.”

“How’re you gonna do that?”

“They didn’t take my thermite grenades; they’ll burn straight through the hull. If I can’t do that I can take out the helicopter at least.”

“But they’ll kill you!”

“I’ll blend right in with them. I can do it. If I don’t they’ll only come after us.”

“We’ll take our chances, like we always have. We’ll keep running.”

Tarot was placid, resolute. “You have to let me do this, David. You have to let me finish what I helped to start. Don’t you see? This is why I’m here. This is why we met. I’ll get off this ship somehow. I’ll find you. Now go – save the boy.”

David knew there was no point in arguing. They clasped hands and stared into each other’s eyes. There was a limpidity in Tarot’s eyes, a contentment, so different to the confusion that had been haunting them only last night, making it seem as if an infinitely greater length of time had passed than the mere hours it had actually been. He also saw, for the first time in true totality, Tarot’s age reflected in his eyes. He saw century after century of work and woe, of pleasure and pain, of disappointment and joy. He saw the weight of it, the weariness of it, in eyes that were still so full of life despite all the death they’d seen, as hard and immutable as stone, unmistakable and glorious like twin memorials to it all.