The Machine Awakes (9 page)

What would they do to her? To her brother?

“Fuck,” said Cait, then she said it again, and again, standing and kicking the alley wall with her toe until it hurt.

Then she turned and pressed her back against the wall. She tilted her head up, allowing the rain to patter on her face.

She needed answers. She needed a plan of her own.

Cait checked the street from the alley. It was quiet except for the steady hiss of rain. She was pretty close to the rendezvous. She could still make it in time.

But was that the right thing to do? The
safe
thing to do? Possibilities, scenarios ran through Cait's mind. Maybe they had changed their minds. Maybe they didn't trust her, had sent someone else in to carry out the mission. So, did that make her disposable? She was part of a plot. They hadn't told her much, but probably enough for her to be a threat to them now, to make her a liability. If she made it to the rendezvous was she just walking into a trap?

Or had some other group moved in—not just taking out the Admiral, but taking out Cait's employers? She'd had no contact with them in several days, which
was
part of the plan … but maybe it wouldn't be her contacts waiting for her. And chances were they—whoever “they” were—would be just as likely to want to clean house as well.

Cait's fingers pulled at her hair under the hood. There was only one thing she was sure of: the Fleet Admiral was dead. That had been the primary mission goal—maybe something she could use to her advantage.

And … if she was honest with herself, she was relieved. Could she have pulled the trigger? She told herself she could have. She'd been telling herself she could for weeks. She was a warrior, a psi-marine in all but name. But, as she remembered crouching by the tree, it all seemed hazy, like a dream.

Could she have done it?
Would
she have? Now she wasn't so sure.

She rolled her neck, took deep, controlled breaths.

She needed
answers.
She needed to see her brother. She needed her employers, if they were still around, to keep their part of the bargain.

Which meant continuing to the rendezvous. Which meant facing whatever dangers lay ahead. She was a fighter, she told herself. She could handle it, she told herself.

She was strong.

Wasn't she?

And if anything, she would get those answers. Whatever they meant for her, now that everything had gone to shit.

Cait pulled herself up and stepped back out into the street, keeping her head down as she walked through puddles, splashing her legs with black, dirty water as she headed deeper into Salt City. She'd picked the route deliberately, skirting the busy central thoroughfares of the slum and instead tracking along a strip of abandoned industrial buildings. She was alone, and that was the point. If anyone approached her, from any direction, she would know it.

She walked on, lost in thought.

Salt City wasn't a city at all. It didn't even have a real name. It abutted the Fleet capital, New Orem, with no border or barrier, just a steadily crumbling zone of half-finished construction, relics from when someone had tried—and failed—to spread the prosperity of the capital northwest, absorbing the slum that occupied the bed of the great salt lake that had once made the region famous. Salt City was a mid-sized patch of nothing in the heart of the Fleet, an expected side effect of the Fleet being the planet's primary employer. The conglomeration of humanity that stretched from one side of the Confederated Utah Territory to the other was a near unbroken metropolis home to thirty million people; as the Fleet capital, New Orem had more gravity than a supermassive black hole for those looking for work.

Salt City was a refuge for those drawn to the promise of a dream-like career in Fleet service—most from South America, having crawled up into the northern continent after most of the land masses south of the equator had been eaten by a Mother Spider—only to find that, really, the Fleet didn't want them. So, with their homelands now a smoking, radioactive wasteland, they had no choice but to stay, camping out on the salt plain.

Salt City was born, and the Fleet didn't care. There were more important things to worry about. Things like Spiders. Things like war.

So Salt City grew alongside New Orem, a virtually independent state: unrecognized, disorganized, but autonomous. It developed its own economy. It was a place Cait had grown to know these past few months, ever since she had left the Academy, ever since she had been contacted by a group that told her that everything she knew about the Fleet, about the war itself, was a lie.

That everything she knew about what had happened to her brother was a lie too.

The group that had entrusted her with a very special mission, one requiring her specialized skills, one that would start a chain reaction that would reveal everything—
everything—
about what the Fleet was really doing.

Cait slowed, looking up from under her hood. She tracked toward the flat, featureless wall of a factory, then slid into another alley, diving into the deep shadows. She held herself against the damp wall, and she waited.

She was being followed. It hadn't required psychic powers to sense the presence that had been trailing her through the last few empty blocks of the industrial zone.

This was
not
part of the plan. The plan was to head to a prearranged place, the rendezvous, where she would be met. Then they would take her to her brother.

But now she was being followed.

Shit.
It was them, wasn't it? They knew she had failed—no, no, that wasn't it. They had sent the other shooter, because they had lost their trust in her. And now she was being stalked. They were going to take her out, before she reached the rendezvous.

Cait cursed inwardly. Of course. The route she had chosen through the backwater industrial zones. The perfect place for an ambush. Nobody would see. Nobody would hear.

Oh, God. This was it.

Her tail was getting closer and the world buzzed in Cait's ears as she crouched down in the darkness.

Across from her in the alley was a pile of rubble. There was a clicking sound, a ceramic tap; Cait jerked her head up at the sound and, almost without thinking, reached out her arm to receive the triangular shard of concrete that lifted itself off the top of the pile and flew toward her. The block was heavier than she had expected, jarring her arm as she caught it. She looked at it in her hand, trying to focus on the here and now while her vision clouded with spinning stars. She hefted the block. Heavy, awkward, but she would still be able to get a good swing with it.

Or maybe she wouldn't need to swing it at all. The block was suddenly lighter; Cait opened her fingers and watched as the shard floated a centimeter in the air over her open palm.

Out on the street, the tail had slowed, perhaps realizing they'd lost their mark. Hard footsteps sloshing through puddles stopped, shuffled, stopped. Boots turned on the rough road; then the person headed off toward a dark street directly across from Cait's alley. She peered out from the shadows, watching the man's receding back. He was wearing a long pale coat that trailed out behind him as he walked. It wasn't very discreet, not for a tail, not for an assassin sent to kill her. Maybe he was the one who had shot the Fleet Admiral.

Cait wobbled on her haunches as a dizzy spell hit. The man was gone. Maybe … maybe he
hadn't
been following her. Maybe he was up to crimes and conspiracies of his own. This was Salt City, after all.

The concrete shard dropped to the ground, the clinking sound it made helping Cait to snap out of it. She sighed. She felt ill. She slid down the wall a little more and sat on the damp ground as she waited a few moments, counting time, eyes scanning the street, waiting for the sick feeling to pass. The rain eased, leaving behind huge, still puddles in the rutted pavement, the pools reflecting the underpowered street lighting.

Cait licked her lips. Her mouth was dry. That power, that
talent …
it took it out of her. But, she thought, that was what it was. A
power.
She might not have been able to control it, but she took strength from what had just happened.

She was a warrior. She was on a mission. She had to see her brother again and maybe, just maybe, she was strong enough to survive whatever was coming next.

Cait counted in her head again, then, satisfied that she was alone once more, stepped out of the alley to continue her journey.

 

9

“Rise and shine, sweetheart.”

Kodiak opened his eyes and saw a dark shape looming over him. The world was nothing but fuzzy shades of gray. Something moved in front of his face. Another face, just a dark oval. He blinked and coughed and tried to speak, but his mouth and throat were dry. He felt like death.

And then he remembered.

“Here.” A familiar voice. Braben. The dick who shot him. Kodiak tried to sit up, to get into a better position to throttle the Bureau agent, but his limbs refused to move. He could feel them all right. They were all there, apparently intact, but they were immobile. He was lying on a hard surface, completely paralyzed.

Something warm and clammy touched his lips—the lip of a plastic bottle—and although his mouth didn't open as much as he really wanted it to, the cool water that filled it was
glorious.
He took four sips, each increasing in size as Braben held the bottle. Then he sighed and slumped back, realizing that he'd managed to lift his head a little. After a few moments, he felt better—
much
better—although as his heart rate kicked up it banged a matching rhythm inside his skull. Kodiak sighed and winced as the headache took hold.

“Yeah, you'll feel lousy awhile.” The shadow that was Braben appeared to shrug. “Side effects I guess. What do I know?”

Kodiak coughed. “You shot me,” was all he could croak out before he let his head rest against the table again.

Braben laughed. “Drink some more,” he said, this time offering the bottle to Kodiak instead of feeding it to him. Kodiak let his head roll to the side to see, and then he lifted his arm and grabbed hold of the drink. The bottle felt like it weighed a ton. Kodiak quickly rested it on his chest, then craned his neck up to drink. He coughed, mid-gulp, and turned his head to cough up a mouthful of water.

Braben's shape took a step back, and it seemed like he was looking down at his shoes.

“You're doing this deliberately,” he said.

Kodiak smiled and drank again, this time taking big, clean swallows. Then he pushed himself up on his elbows. The thump in his head reached a crescendo and he gasped in pain, but then the feeling subsided. He shifted on the table, taking stock of his situation.

He was still wearing the scarlet evening suit from the casino, although it was creased to hell, the bright fabric dirty, smudged. He was lying on something black on the hard table. The material was stiff plastic, almost waxy to the touch. There was a zipper near his feet.

He was lying in a body bag.

The realization sent Kodiak into a coughing fit. He held the drink bottle out and Braben took it from him. Then Kodiak leaned forward, trying to control the cough, pushing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. His eyes were sore and filled with tears. For a moment he reveled in the darkness behind his hands; then he dropped them and turned to Braben.

Special Agent
Braben. His former partner stood beside the table, looking like he'd just come from a relaxing weekend away. He was wearing the same suit as on Helprin's Gambit, but the shirt had switched to brown and the tie to metallic silver.

Kodiak looked around the room. It was well lit but somehow remained dingy, all concrete and steel. Cold too, although Kodiak wondered if that was just him. He pulled the edge of the body bag away from the table, the stiff plastic rustling. Underneath was chrome steel.

They were in a morgue.

He looked up at Braben. “How long have I been out?” he asked, reaching for the water bottle again. Braben handed it over, then he stuck his thumbs around the top of his belt and swayed back and forth on his feet.

“About ten hours.”

Kodiak shook his head and drained the bottle. “No wonder I feel like shit. What the hell did you drug me with?”

“No drugs.”

Kodiak wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and raised an eyebrow. Braben grinned and flicked the edge of his fancy jacket to one side. The lining was red, the same color as Kodiak's crumpled suit. The same strange-looking weapon Braben had drawn at the station now hung on a belt holster instead of one concealed against the agent's side.

“Took us that long to get back to Earth, and we couldn't risk anyone finding out you weren't dead,” said the agent. “Helprin's men were watching us from the moment we entered his domain, and he had scanners on us for a long time after we left. Business like his, I guess he likes to keep an eye on people coming
and
going. So anyway, I just kept shooting you every now and again to keep you under.”

Kodiak blinked in disbelief. “You just kept shooting me?”

“Yeah, every now and again,” said Braben. He looked down at the gun on his hip. “Staser, new thing.” He let his jacket fall back into place. “Think they were rolled out just after you left. Got a great stun setting on them.”

Kodiak pulled his feet out of the bottom of the body bag and swung his legs over the table. Braben stepped forward, ready to help, but Kodiak brushed him off. “I can manage, you trigger-happy asshole.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as the world went gray and wobbly. Some extraction plan. Who knew being executed for treason would hurt so much? Then he opened his eyes, glanced around the morgue at the other tables. They were occupied. With a frown he quickly slipped off his table and rubbed his face. He was annoyed at the interruption of his grand plan, his one chance at hurting Helprin. But they wouldn't have pulled him out without good reason. He felt his natural curiosity piqued.