Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity (38 page)

“What?” James suddenly sputtered into life, “what was that? No hard feelings?”

“Absolutely. No matter what those trashy little feeds so popular in the Blackouts say, there is no great and murderous machine toiling above the people. Even the Penthouses are staffed by businessmen, workers, and fellow human beings. I see this has been a misunderstanding, and concede that you may not have intentionally stolen my product. Since there has been no damage done, I see no reason to start causing it now. I thank you for returning my son safely to me, and I wish you all the best. My personal lift terminates in Middle Industry, but I’ll leave your AuthPass valid for the rest of the day as you make your various ways home. Red, you’re going to need to get to an extraction machine. I’m messaging you the coordinates now. It’s my own personal medical wing, nine floors below. If you hit the water gardens, you’ve gone too far.”

“No damage done,” James repeated dully, “no damage? There was a very pretty girl who could kick like bad whiskey, and your girl --
your bloody A-Gent cunt
-- she came along and killed my girl. That is damage, mate. Damage that has been well and truly done.”

“You’ll be compensated for the estimated lifetime earnings of any lives lost in the operation, I assure you,” the ageless man answered pleasantly, “Hockner Industry abides by all citywide Terms of Use.”

“Zippy’s dead?” Red asked.

“Don’t worry, mate. They’ll pay for it,” James said, and raised his hand, still holding the squat metal tab.

Byron flinched and began to keen expectantly.

A spot of uncut blue just behind and to the left of Hockner shimmered, and a woman walked out of it. Her gold and blue suit was torn and ragged. She was bleeding profusely, missing one eye, and holding her side with one arm. The other held a gigantic silver pistol.

“Stop,” Victoria said simply.

“Sure thing,” James replied, tossing the little metal tab to her. She caught it with her free hand, and winced. “All it did was turn on my bloody coffeemaker anyway. Just wanted to see where you were hiding. Real nice piece you got there. A friend of mine once asked me for one just like it. Got a mind to give it to her.”

“Come take it,” she growled.

“You’re going to burn for this,” Red spoke in a quiet and even voice, “you thought it was all so funny. A joke you can tell your friends. But you don’t know the punchline yet.”

Thin trickles of blood ran from the meat of Red’s clenched fists.

“I am an immensely busy man,” Hockner replied wearily, “either leave now or do something that gives Victoria here cause to murder you, please.”

“You thought I rushed right up here to confront you?” Red said, his voice barely louder than the distant pressurizing fans.” You thought I figured out your little game, and what? Just ran into your office to yell at you? You honestly thought I was that stupid. That’s the punchline: You think you’re some genius manipulator in your arrogant castle, high above all the stupid peons, and it never once occurred to you that I’d do something about it.”

“We’ve covered this,” Hockner waved dismissively, “tell everybody you’d like about the beta. Scream it from the rooftops. It makes no difference.”

“Nah,” Red replied, “I thought I’d show them instead. I put out a Contra.Act a few hours ago. It was some risky code, but an easy enough job for somebody who knows what they’re doing: Making a few tiny modifications on an Rx Feed Distribution plant down in Lower Industry. It was supposed to be shipping some Presence for the 6PM American Revolution Trip that gets dispensed, free of charge, to all 4
^th
Tier Hockner engineers on every Tuesday. Oh don’t worry, it’ll still be distributed. You won’t miss your quota: What made the job so easy is that I didn’t even request a change in production. The plant is still churning out Presence. The same destination, the same duration, the same everything. I only asked that the Contra.Actor slip in one harmless polymer chain. Doubt anybody will mind. They’ll just get to spend a few more hours at the Battle of Amsterdam…”

Hockner started to stand, but lost his legs halfway through.

“You can’t do that!” the ageless man pleaded, “I don’t think you realize the ramifications here. We saw it in the samples Deng sent up: The prototype is flawed! It rebuilds again with every new dose of any Gas, until the user is eventually lost to that timeline completely.”

“So what’ve I got to lose? I’m toast anyway, right?” Red laughed. “Hell, at least I’ve already got internet access set up at the place I’m going. Maybe I’ll like it. Get me a flashy new rave penis and start merging my neuroprofile with the Bear God on weekends.”

“No, we can stop it,” Hockner was panicking, “We’ll get you out of the Four Posts. Presence is illegal outside of the city. We don’t even export it! It won’t build any farther, I promise you. You’ll still have the occasional unplanned trip: We can’t reverse what’s done already, but you can manage. I have contacts on the outside; it’s beautiful out there, Red. They still have forests.”

“Oh, I’ll see plenty of forests, thanks.”

“Let’s make it very simple: If you do this, I will shoot you in the face immediately after,” Victoria spoke, but her voice was thick and wet, and her hands were shaking.

“The Revolution is a small demographic…” Hockner tried a new tack.

“It’s big enough. Forty thousand? Fifty?”

“Mate, think this through,” James gave Red a sympathetic look, but he couldn’t mask the horror. “We’re all pretty broken up here. But listen: I can take the bitch. She can barely hold that cannon and she’s only got the one eye to put on me, anyway. Let’s just peel this guy’s skin off for a few hours and go grab a pint, yeah? This isn’t the way…”

“Absolutely not!” Byron spoke up, “Your misgivings lie solely with that rather terrifying lady over there. I did not bring you here to torture my own father, regardless of his obstinance! And Red, I’ve always thought of you as a brother or a…a dangerously irresponsible father figure. I look to you with both admiration and deference. I know that you cannot do a thing like this. Ask yourself: What Would Lord Byron Do?”

“Are you serious?” Red took a step away from the pair. “After everything Hockner’s put us through? He killed Sera, James. And Byron, he’s treated you like crap your whole life-“

“Actually, he’s always been quit fair with me,” Byron said.

“He called you a continually evolving mess!” Red countered.

Byron shrugged and gestured down at his own pallid, wasting body.

Red whirled on James: “Zippy would…”

“Don’t do that. She wouldn’t want a bunch of working stiffs to suffer for the sins of a corporate wanker, and you know it. Revenge is fantastic, Red. Don’t get me wrong: We’re not leaving here until I kill both of these bastards for a good solid week, but what you’re talking about? It’s just plain wrong.”

“You’re wrong!” Red screeched, his calm monotone calm lost: “This is about
the truth
. People have to know that they’re destroying whole worlds, every hour of every day! Who cares if those worlds aren’t ours?! They’re someone’s! Somebody out there is paying for every harmless prank on history; every consequence-free rape and casual murder; every Sunday Night Robot Fight wrecks an entire universe! I’ve seen it!”

QC felt a brief but powerful surge of anger -- at Red for bringing her here, at Hockner for creating such a fucked up, godawful place, at all of them for ignoring her helpless terror in favor of their little melodrama. She sobbed her guts out on the floor. She begged them to drag her away. QC cried and wailed like a little fucking girl, shedding all of the quiet dignity she’d fought her entire life to maintain, and they ignored her. But her anger receded like the tide, and left behind only numbness. It was only air out there, she realized. Only air. The same as she was breathing right now.

And there wasn’t enough of it in here. Her chest felt tight. She was getting a little woozy. She just needed to breathe.

QC tongued the pads in her mouth to kick on her disassemblers, but the cartoon penguin of her BioOS merely frowned at her.

SUPPRESSION, it read, in bulbous, balloon-like letters.

That’s okay. She kept the strictest firewalls available on her black market control panel. She had to keep the unsanctioned nanotech concealed from the fight labs, after all, or they’d terminate her. It should still be working. QC pressed a sequence of symbols into her leg, and felt her skin flush as the requested nano-strain rose to the surface. She withdrew her needle, pierced the white flesh of her inner thigh, and flattened her palm against the upwelling of blood there. Bright red, in stark contrast to the cerulean sky. She slapped her hand down, and rubbed it against the glass between her feet.

Nobody spared her a glance.

Red chuckled disbelievingly to himself, ran a hand through his hair, and bounced lightly on his heels. Hockner started to speak, but Red threw a hand up and the ageless man lapsed into obedient silence.

“Nobody? Really, nobody?” Red looked around at each of their faces, searching for approval, or at least understanding.

James’ visage was pale and freckled. There was a look of barely contained fury beneath his messy red part. QC’s default churlish sneer was gone. Her whole face had gone slack from hypnotic terror. She wasn’t even looking at him. She was just pawing at the glass. Byron’s hawkish nose, narrow chin, and high, thin eyebrows all twitched and jumped in different directions. He was trying to say something without speaking, but was too unfamiliar with his own body to accomplish it.

“Somebody’s got to do the right thing,” Red finally spoke, and flicked his eyes upward. He thought of a circle contracting.

Somebody laughed. Somebody shouted ‘no,’ and somebody just shouted. Somebody pulled a trigger, and somebody closed a pair of strong, wiry hands around a tender, feminine throat. Somebody stared blankly down into a swatch of clear and freezing blue through a prismatic smear of red, and smiled when it began to bubble.

THE END.