Chapter 26

 

An hour later found me stuck inside another building. This one was at 11 Wall Street and used to be known as the New York Stock Exchange. My guess had been horribly wrong. I ended up going in exactly the same direction that the Spider had gone. I know that because it was now sitting right outside the Exchange, along with a small pack of Wolves, a Leopard, and a horde of fliers.

 

I did do one thing right. Before I left the helipad terminal, I went back up on the roof to retrieve the ammo cans. No weapons and no ammo left behind, lest it be used against you or others. The unwritten rule of Zone Salvage.

 

While I was up there, I spotted the dead Berkut and grabbed it. Spare parts for Rikki. But Rikki had other ideas. As soon as I brought it down the ladder, he descended upon it and extruded a connection arm. Plugged right into the dead drone.

 

“Ajaya suggested identity swap successful. Rikki Tikki Tavi is now Berkut Unit A7-134. Unit reported active. Old identity, A9-125, reported terminated. Probability of assumed identity holding up to handshake interrogation is 87 percent.”

 

Suggested identity swap? Sure, we can go with that. Not that I thought it would be a good idea to have backup flight motors or anything. Of course I thought Rikki could change electronic identities with the dead flyer and plug back into the network… I mean, I’m brilliant, right? At least my drone thinks so.

 

So, sitting in the lobby of the Exchange, using a dental mirror from my pack to look out the window, I can stare at the Spider and not worry that it will detect Rikki and subvert him or attack us or what have you.

 

Instead, the Spider had already queried Rikki’s sensors to ensure the building was empty of humans, particularly one pesky human sniper. In fact, Rikki reported that the Spider specifically was looking for a human named Ajaya Gurung, matching my description, which it, according to my drone, obtained from the Internet.

 

“Tell me again what image it conveyed?” I whispered.

 

“Time mark 3.21 of Zone War Interview with Cade Kallow, dated—”

 

“It watched that damned TV show?” I interrupted.

 

“Correct.”

 

“Probability of other drones entering this building within the next two hours.”

 

“Estimated at seventeen percent chance.”

 

Good odds. I could live with that. Actually, I had to. That damned Spider was hunkered down, apparently directing the search for me.

 

“CThree unit designated Lotus is redirecting assets from FDR Drive toward 55 Broadway as a previously known location for target.”

 

“Its name is Lotus?”

 

“Correct.”

 

“What are the other two named?”

 

“Peony and Plum Blossom.”

 

“The Chinese military named their deadliest drones after flowers?”

 

“Unknown. CThree units in Zone are so designated.”

 

Must be some symbolic shit going on there. Maybe flowers are big in China. Not my thing.

 

“Well, they’re not going to find me on Broadway.”

 

“Aerial units have found equipment left in lobby. Contents of transport pack are consistent with operational methodology of target suspect. UGV Wolf unit dispatched to lowest levels of building to seek more data.”

 

The bastards found my pack, the part I left behind before climbing all those frigging stairs to get that damned Rocon laptop computer. I didn’t like that. Nevermind that I wasn’t using it and hadn’t been near it in at least a week. That level of forensic detection bothered me.

 

Here I was, less than half a kilometer from the Battery Park exit, and I was trapped by a deadly Chinese flower that knew my name and was now gathering information like some international assassin… or like those overly muscled killer robots in that old Terminator franchise. Actually, just like that movie.

 

Of course I’d seen all of them. Astrid and I watched them all one winter in sixth grade. They were funny. Who the hell would try to build the ultimate killing machine and pattern it after a human being?

 

Any of the machines out on the street was a more efficient design than a cybernetic copy of an Austrian bodybuilder. Four-legged machines were so much more stable than a bipedal design.

 

But it was the searching and researching that reminded me of the movie. Drone night was indiscriminate slaughter… horrifying, but not personal. The drones killed everyone and anyone, even their own programmers, at least those on the ship.

 

This was personal… Lotus knew my name. Lotus was targeting me specifically. I shuddered involuntarily. Then I shook it off. So be it. Hunt me all you want, here in the Zone. Once I was out, I was safe. It made entering the Zone more daunting, but I could deal. I had Rikki and he was back in the drone net, listening from within. Like every action movie ever, where the hero, who’s being hunted, gets a radio from one of the bad guys and then monitors their every move. Rikki was my radio… one with a gun of his own. So we’d keep moving, first through the Exchange, then out onto the streets beyond. Make it look like Rikki was sweeping first the building and then other areas where me, the hunted human, might be hiding.

 

I turned and moved deeper into the building, Rikki hovering along at my shoulder. We found the trading floor, empty and clean, as it had closed on the afternoon of Drone Night and never reopened. Smaller than it looked in the old news clips and photos. Certainly a lot less messy. All my trips into the Zone and this was my first into the Exchange. Not sure why. Maybe because the damage done to Wall Street and the whole US economy—hell, the whole world’s economy—was so great that it left a scar on America’s psyche second only to the actual loss of life. We circled the room, then headed toward the area that I think used to be called the Ramp. The IT area of the Exchange that fueled the massive exchange. I read once that it had been the largest exchange in the world by a massive measure—the capitalizations of its traded companies valued at over twenty-five trillion dollars at the time of Drone Night.

 

Not anymore. Three exchanges had replaced the one. The Hoboken Exchange in Jersey, the Connecticut Exchange, and the DC Exchange (nicknamed Dice). Each of the three was founded by the only people who came out of the Slump whole… more than whole… super wealthy, in fact. The only ones who were actively shorting the market at the time this entire Exchange rang its final closing bell. So weird. What were the odds of having the exact right bet in place at the exact wrong time for the rest of the country and the world?

 

A sound derailed my train of thought. Just a little scuff. Rikki didn’t even react, but I did. I turned and looked at the far wall, where a door stood open under a long-dark EXIT sign. It had been closed a second ago. My rifle, the .458 SOCOM, came up, almost on its own. Something moved in the darkness of the doorframe. Rikki still didn’t react.

 

A figure stepped out—a human figure. Feminine, small and curved, with long black hair and a silver shine on the side of her face.