The Complete Karma Trilogy (48 page)

Decay 18

Cincinnatus

On the other
side of the door, his remaining ghosts had just been Evaporated. For the split second that he had the door open, he could see a lonely arm, hanging by a chain from the handrail across the room. He saw Will Spector, damaged beyond repair yet still standing, holding the Evaporation Pen that must have been the one Charles left by where Marcus had died. It was an oversight he had made, in his anger. He closed the door again, staying in the room with the former Karma.

He quickly glanced at a watch on his wrist, to see how much time he had left. In two minutes, his Order would attempt to blow up the building, if they were still alive on the ground floor. Charles was supposed to be on his way back up to a Helicar, where a pilot was waiting for him. But if he couldn’t get back out to the staircase, then he wouldn’t be going to the roof.

He had two options. He could go back out in to the room, and attempt to shoot Will before Will shot him. And then he would have to quickly find his way back up to the roof, and hope that he made it in time. His other option was a Grappling Chain that he had in his left pocket, and the sunlit aperture in front of him, where Karma had been. He would be out of the building in seconds. He imagined that the likelihood of success was about the same for either option. And if he waited any longer, Will would come to him instead.

“Come out and die, Charles,” Will shouted through the door.

“I think I’ll just stay in here instead,” Charles responded.

Will shot the door with his Evaporation Pen, and the barrier separating them turned to nothing. Charles pulled the Grappling Chain out of his pocket, and jumped out of the building. Two seconds later, he wished that he had practiced more with the thing, but he figured it out in time to shoot a link between him and a passing window, as he fell. When the Chain went taut, the window shattered and he had to retract and shoot it again, but it did slow his fall. He grazed the side of the building, shot again, and broke another window. The building was entirely windows.

It was only a matter of luck that Will had his Grappling Chain in his pocket, left there from when he decided it was helpful overcoming the short range of his stun gun. With one arm, he exchanged his Pen for the Chain, and jumped out the window after Charles.

Charles couldn’t look up well enough to see that Will was following him, but he did hear smashing glass above him, and knew that he was coming after him. The kid was crazy. Charles collided with the building much harder than he had intended, about halfway down, and he was only barely conscious as he shot again, swinging laterally across the building. He had to land somewhere else.

Will’s shoes had been shredded to nothing, exposing his robotic feet. He tried to use them to soften the impact of every time he ran into the side of the building, but with only one arm he was poorly coordinated, and hit his head a few times.

The wind became an ecstatic rush for a few seconds, and then the twang of the Chain going taut, then the shattering of glass, the impact, the building, then all over again. At no point did Will think he was going to survive—he just wouldn’t let Charles get away, no matter what happened to himself in the process. If he had a spare arm, he would have been shooting with his Evaporation Pen at the same time, but fate took his arm away. Distantly below him, he could see Charles making his way across the building, instead of falling straight down. Will couldn’t do the same thing, he was barely holding on as it was.

The ground came quickly, for Will. He shot his Grappling Chain, one last time, and when he hit the wall of the building, he tried to jump up, as hard as he could. His mechanical legs went through the glass, destroying his right foot, and he couldn’t have been more grateful for the complete absence of pain. When his feet reached the frame of the window, he found just enough leverage to jump, sending him flying away from the building.

He landed on a person that was standing on the sidewalk outside of the building, but he made it. He stood up as quickly as he could, and chased after Charles, limping on his broken foot.

Aaron was standing in amazement at the foot of Karma Tower, watching as two people fell down the side of the building, in a rain of glass. People around him were stopping to look up as well.

A woman next to him was saying to her husband, “My Karma Card isn’t working.”

Her husband didn’t want to be distracted from watching, so he answered irritably, “Have you been charging it?”

“The battery didn’t die,” she persisted. “It isn’t working.”

Another man, who had been listening to their conversation, added, “Hey, mine’s not working either.”

Aaron looked down at his own Card, only long enough to see that it wasn’t working either, before looking back up to watch. He smiled. Maybe he would be free from the tyranny of Karma after all, before it was too late for him.

More and more people stopped to watch, and quickly the crowd was huge. Aaron and the people around him realized, all of them too late, that one of the two people would land right where they were standing. They didn’t have time to react. A man landed directly on top of the woman that had spoken, sending her crashing to the ground. Her husband stared in dismay. The man that had been falling stood directly back up, and pushed his way out of the crowd, running to the other side of the building.

“My God,” her husband was saying over and over again, still stunned.

Aaron got to his knees, by the broken woman. She was bleeding profusely from her head and arm, but still breathing. Aaron took his shirt off, tore it into pieces, and tried binding it around the wounds, to apply pressure. While he was doing it, he shouted, “Someone, call an ambulance. She’s still alive.”

“Can’t,” a man said. “The Cards don’t work.”

“Well, help me anyway. She’s still alive. Where’s the nearest subway? And the nearest hospital? If we take her ourselves, we can make it.”

“Just stop,” the husband said.

“What, what do you mean stop? She’s still breathing,” Aaron said. He looked up, from where he was kneeling, into the blank expression of the husband, looking down.

“If we just wait, the Cards might turn back on.”

“If your Cards magically turned back on right now, and you immediately got an ambulance to come out here, chances are it would take just as long as if we took her ourselves. Except my way doesn’t rely entirely on stupid chance.” He had just finished fastening his compress around her head, and was getting frustrated with the people around him.

“I mean,” her husband continued, “I’m sure it would be worth a lot of money, if Karma saw us saving her. So if we just wait…”

“She’s your wife!” Aaron yelled, infuriated.

“We have bills,” he stammered. “She would understand.”

“I hate you, I hate all of you,” Aaron said, as he lifted the woman up alone. “I pray to God, I really do, that karma really exists. Not that piece of shit computer you all believe in, but the real thing. You’re all beautiful, well-adapted citizens now, but what then? I can only pray.”

“Even if you go to the hospital,” another man said, “if the Cards aren’t working, it’s pretty likely that people won’t be able to help you there either.”

“Won’t be able? Won’t be able? You’re all able, you’re just idiots. Against all odds, I might find another decent human being there. We’ll just see. But that’s not going to stop me now.” He pushed his way through the crowd, carrying a limp, dying life in his hands.

“Can one of you assholes at least tell me where the nearest subway is?”

Charles ran as fast as he could, through the streets of New York City. He was trying to make it to the City Park, the place that he knew best, in hopes of having an advantage there. He could hear Will running close behind him, although he didn’t dare turn around.

A red beam filled the space to the left of Charles’ head. He was going to die. If he survived, it was because Will was shooting left-handed.

A huge explosion erupted behind them. Charles turned his head only long enough to see what it was, but he kept running as he did. He could see Karma Tower, not too far in the distance, begin to topple over. His Order had managed to blow it up. From the corner of his eye, he could see Will stop to turn around and watch.

Charles couldn’t believe it. The young officer was entranced by the falling of the Tower. He thought about continuing to run, but if he did he left a witness to his crimes behind, and it was possible he would never have a chance to kill him again. It was also possible that Will would hear him running, and recover from his reverie. He felt insane as he did it, but he turned around and walked silently towards the man.

He didn’t have any weapons of his own. His Grappling Chain could never kill a person, and he had used all the energy of his Evaporation Pen to destroy Karma. He didn’t know what he would do. The closer to Will he got, the more nervous he became, but still the man didn’t turn around. Charles was directly behind him.

From behind, Charles grabbed Will by his remaining wrist and pulled the Evaporation Pen towards them. It was a subtle movement that he almost missed, but with one finger he turned the range of the Pen all the way down, as he pulled with the others. At the same time, he whispered, “Shouldn’t look back.” And he pushed the button.

Nothing remained but a pair of metal legs. Charles couldn’t help but breathe him in, since he was standing so close. He fainted.

A week later, Charles Darcy was standing on a podium, a microphone in front of him, addressing the entire world. Cameras surrounded him, broadcasting to televisions everywhere.

He said, “I know that I said I wanted to disappear from the public eye, the last time that I was on television. I said that I wanted to just be an ordinary citizen, doing what was in my power to serve the common good. But that was before the destruction of Karma, just one week ago. This last week has been a very hard week for everyone. Chaos everywhere. If nothing is done, and very soon, our entire society could unravel. I saw a great public need, so I came back.

“We need to decide how to move forward from this, as a people. We don’t have Karma to help us anymore. And there are a lot of things to decide. How do we re-establish a world economy, when it has fallen apart? What do we do with Mars, which, as we speak, is in a critical state of development? It’s not as simple as building another Karma. That could take years. And, from what the events of a week ago demonstrate, perhaps another Karma isn’t entirely safe anyway. The terrorist organization that destroyed it is still at large, since no measures are in place to combat them.

“In times of great emergency, what the Romans would do—and this is a very long time ago—was to elect one private citizen, called the Magister Populi. Like Cincinnatus. That one person would see the Roman Republic through its hardships, when a group of people, split by disagreements, would have failed. When the emergency was gone, the Magister Populi would give the power back to the people and become an ordinary citizen once more. And the Roman Empire became one of the strongest nations in history, they made it through those hardships.

“It’s far from modest, and I apologize for that, but what I ask is that you let me be your Magister Populi. Give me authority, I will see us through this hardship, and when we are through it I will give it back. I’m only saying this because I don’t see many other options. Many of the heroes that we knew have died, but I’m still here. And I won’t let you down.

“I’ll leave the choice to all of you. If I’ve convinced any of you, both in the past and right now, that I am the person that these times call for, then tell me. Consider your options. And I’ll be waiting.”

He stepped down from the podium, bowed modestly, and left the stage.

Ronin 15

Remnants of the Program

Mr. Laurel spoke
to Karma, at a new terminal that was set up on the top floor of the former Kenko building.

Karma said, “Mr. Perry is still out of commission?”

“He’s alive, and under constant supervision by trauma experts of all types, but all of them doubt that he will make much of a recovery at this point. He still can’t speak, can’t dress himself, can’t feed himself. If there was something you were hoping to talk to him about, I doubt you will ever be able to.”

“There’s no reason to doubt,” Karma responded. “Kaishin was very near complete, and it would have provided me with all I needed to find the answers I seek in his head. But Kaishin is exactly what I require his help with, so I’ve entered a loophole. Regardless, we should be able to proceed without him, even though his acquired expertise on the project would have been quite helpful. He was a very intelligent man, Mr. Laurel, quite capable of gathering data. From what I can make out from some of the final reports that he was sending me, he might have been able to build the prototype himself. And engineering was not even his expertise.”

Mr. Laurel did not want to acknowledge any praise for an insane man, so he typed nothing.

Karma continued. “You are a natural selection for the continued leadership of this project. None of the original employees were left alive, this is still correct? But they were using a newer Kaishin model, which has been successfully salvaged? This will be helpful, and I can add what knowledge I myself have on the project, from Mr. Perry’s reports, and it shouldn’t take long to repeat the former successes of the project.

“I saw what they were doing,” Karma said. “I looked inside of their minds, while they were doing it. It is exactly what I had hoped it would be. Perhaps a little too functional, as it turns out. I discovered, in their minds, the idea to make a transmitter-only model of Kaishin—this is exactly what I will require. The model that was salvaged shall be pared down, leaving only transmission capabilities. This should help to reduce costs. Also, some of the more expensive materials should also be replaced with cheaper, appropriate substitutes. Obviously the same quality cannot be expected after such substitutions, but as long as functionality is maintained, I will be satisfied. Is this clear?”

“Yes it is,” Mr. Laurel typed.

“And of course you have the resources of the entire American government at your disposal, which I make available to you for the completion of this project, but it is preferable that you continue to use personnel from World Health, those that have remained loyal. And I also ask that you refrain from the excesses of your predecessor. I will insist that you find an apartment in the city, and not inhabit this Ranch that I’ve heard so much about from the audio files.”

“I wouldn’t live there if you made me,” Mr. Laurel said.

“Very well. Until further notice, that is all I have to say. I expect thoroughness and success, is that understood?”

“Clearly.”

Mr. Laurel stood up and left the small room, with its single desk and computer. Outside of the door, a short, serious-looking young American was waiting for his turn to speak to the machine. Mr. Laurel held the door open for him, then proceeded down the hall.

“World Health,” Mr. Laurel said. As part of a gradual transition to an English-language world, businesses that were under American control were all being renamed, and Kenko was replaced with World Health.

He walked by a Japanese employee, who was walking in the opposite direction. The man stopped to form a polite bow, before continuing.

Mr. Laurel made him stop again. “What is your job?” he asked, in Japanese.

“I’m authorized to be here,” the man said, suddenly nervous.

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Mr. Laurel said. “I’m trying to put a group of people together.”