15

A marketplace

The doctor was right there in front of Sato. Memories from the other man—Brian—suggested that the oddly top-knotted one who stood alongside was friendly. He must act now. There might never be another opportunity to speak to the doctor and reunite with the General.

Sato stood, striding quickly toward the two, with merchants, peasant shoppers, and other inferiors gasping and scurrying to get out of his way. It was natural that they did this, and natural also that they relaxed somewhat when he had passed. He was samurai. The few cries he heard—things like “Fiends” and “Fiend raid”—indicated that his new status inspired more fear than his old. It did not matter.

As he approached, the young one spun toward him, wielding a strange flexible weapon with sharpened bits of metal. He had the reflexes, but certainly none of the decorum, of a samurai. Perhaps he was the doctor’s bodyguard.

“Brian!” the young one said. The weapon disappeared.

“Brian!” the doctor repeated. “I’ve been worried about you. How are you feeling? Let me take a look, see how you’re healing.” The man’s hand reached for Sato’s shoulder. Sato shifted his weight and gently blocked it. The doctor reeled two steps sideways before recovering and standing straight again.

The younger one—Kel, Brian’s memories said—was talking at the same time. “ … whole fucking building went up—saved your pipe, though. Got your shit over where we’re staying. C’mon, we’ll get it back to you.”

“I am here with my men and I cannot leave them behind,” Sato said. “They will not walk with you. I will meet you at your clinic, doctor.”

“Well, I don’t actually have a clinic anymore. But why don’t you come back with us—”

“I will bring my men and follow you.”

“Brian, are you feeling all right?” the doctor asked. “You seem strange. You may be a little confused right now. There’s nobody with you, Brian. I think you should come along and—”

“Yeah,” Kel said. “Since when you got men? Where they at? You got invisible men, Brian?”

“Yes.” Sato locked eyes with the doctor. “I will follow you.” He moved away again. The doctor called after him, but Sato was already too far away to make out the words.

Outside New Union territory, near an open market, viewing from deep fade positions

“What was that?” Coiner hissed. He forced himself to settle back down behind the brown brick parapet at the edge of the roof they had faded upon. “What the fuck was that? He unfades right in the middle of a fucking open market and walks off to chat? And now look! He’s taking the whole Round with him, following those two! I’m tempted to send him to Unity right here, right now.”

“It could just be one hell of a training exercise,” Lux said. “And you’ve only brought one Round with us today. Our twelve to his six, but you gave him some damned fine Elements. We’re at your service, Patrol Leader, but that won’t be an easy kill there.”

Coiner exhaled through his teeth. “What idiot takes six Elements into a crowd this size? And while it’s still daylight! This is exactly the type of crazy shit I don’t want him doing with a Round in my Patrol.”

Lux said nothing. They both watched as the samurai guided his Round out of the marketplace. “Let’s follow for now. We’ll deal with him once we’re away from the crowd.”

Inside Agent Hawkins’ brain

“Agent Hawkins? This is Agent Robinson from Central Information. We’ve probed the father’s memories as best we can. Nothing useful came up. She was five years old when he went into public trust; all we know is that she used to play on the floor of some rental property they owned and she liked the color green. Sorry we couldn’t be of more assistance.”

Rooftops

“Sure looked like we had a Fiend raid there for a minute. I could have sworn … guy popped up out of nowhere, just like a Fiend. Now it’s only the dark one and the kid with the hair. They’re heading back your way carrying stuff from the market.”

“Too bad, sir. Fiend raid would’ve been fun, especially with two teams here now. It would’ve given us a chance to try out the new equipment.”

“We’ll get that chance soon enough. Don’t lose sight of the Negro. When he gets back to the hotel we’ll nab him inside.”

The hotel

The door swung open. Eadie snatched up the stick and leaped to her feet.

Arrulfo and Ernesto reentered the room. Arrulfo grinned at her over Ernesto’s head. “I see you are prepared,” he said. “But you know we just go to the bathroom.”

She set the stick down as he worked the steel reinforcement rod back through the four metal loops that held it across the door. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m too keyed up. Gotta get better control.”

“You got a lot going on.”

“I know. But I can’t go flying into attack mode every time a door opens. What if I’d caved in your skull when you opened the door?”

He raised his eyebrows, cocking his head. “I don’t think so.” He smiled.

“You know what I mean. Were you able to collect some gas?”

“Like you said, the drain is blocked by the hotel. Only a tiny bit was trapped close in the pipe. But maybe it’s enough to test—maybe for one light. Ernesto, he wants to save for Kel, surprise him.”

Ernesto held up Kel’s lighter, perfectly restored. He had even polished each piece with some grit from the floor in a wet, rough cloth, so the whole thing shined like new. Eadie smiled at him, her eyes involuntarily drawn to the poor kid’s bloody eyeball. “I’m sure he’ll love it.”

Ernesto said something in Spanish. Arrulfo translated. “You can tell Kel it is from Ernesto, you tell the story of fixing better. Ernesto, he want you to keep it for Kel.”

In the last functioning Williams Gypsum mine

“I’d like to thank you boys for meeting with me today,” said Chairman Lawrence Williams VI, as he addressed his son’s two friends. He had to strain his voice a little to make his words clear as they disseminated through the immense space. Deeper vowel sounds echoed back from smaller chambers of the mine. This was the entry area, a room as big as a Traverball field with a rock ceiling several stories high and multiple tunnels leading off in various directions—each large enough for three trucks to drive side by side. Even a quick glance at the daylight shining through the entryway left blinding afterimages when one turned back to the rest of the cavern.

“Yes, sir,” the more normal-looking one—Jack—said. “When we heard it was about Sett, we couldn’t refuse.” Jack’s face and the wall behind him were illuminated by a circle of light that shone from a source on the other side of the cavern. The rest of the wall was inky black.

Chairman Williams laughed. “Excellent! That’s the spirit. We both know that you were brought here at the point of a gun. But I acted as if you’d had a choice, and you followed my lead and let me frame the situation as it suited me. You would have been a fine executive.”

Jack’s expression was blank. “I’ll still be a fine executive someday, sir.”

Williams sat on the corner of his desk, which had been placed against a wall here until a more suitable place could be found. He chuckled to himself. “Really? You think so?” They looked at each other, then at Chairman Williams. “How’s school these days? How are things going with your fellow students? Your professors?”

Their shoulders slumped as they exchanged glances. “All right, sir.”

Williams raised his eyebrows, pressing his lips together. “Mmm. Really? Well, that’s great. And here I was worried about you being ostracized because you were my son’s friends. I thought your classmates, maybe even your instructors, might’ve shunned you for your association with a bad kid.” He shrugged. “Because that makes you bad kids, yourselves, and they don’t want to be seen associating with you. It seems to me that they’d want as much distance from you as possible, which could make it pretty hard to work in groups like you’re supposed to. But if you tell me I’m wrong, if things are going along fine … Well! I’ll apologize for this whole misunderstanding and take you back where you came from.” He stood, extending an arm toward the opening at the other end of the cavern.

They hesitated. The sleepy-looking one they called Li’l Ed brushed his platinum hair away from his eyes. “Actually, sir, it’s hell. Even students from our own class harass us these days, sir. Nobody will defend us, because defending us means sympathizing with us. The professors don’t even pretend to be fair in grading us.”

Chairman Williams nodded. “They want the other students to see what happens to nonconformers.”

“But we’re not nonconformers, sir,” Jack said. “We’ve done everything we could possibly have done. We only met Sett a couple of months ago, he went crazy about some waitress and now our lives are ruined.” Jack flushed, looking at his shoes. “I’m sorry, sir. I know he’s your son and all. But it was his mistake. He made it, not us, and we’re made to suffer.”

“The company is using you to teach an important lesson to the others,” Williams said. “A company cannot be united without conformity. I know you’ve heard it a thousand times growing up, but now you’re starting to see what it’s really about. They want all those other students terrified that they might end up like you.” He shook his head.

He lowered his voice. “Your executive careers—at least in the traditional sense—are over.” He grinned. “Oh, they’ll let you beg for reconditioning—which is funny, when you think of it, because as students you’re not really even fully conditioned in the first place. They’ll recondition you. Then they’ll stick you in some rathole job, and that’s where you’ll stay for the rest of your lives. You’ll always be examples of what happens when one chooses the wrong kinds of friends.”

He paused. His last sentence seemed to sink into the limestone. He lowered his voice. “It’s time for you to figure out what you’ll do with your futures.” He locked his face in an expression of curious complacency, his chin and eyebrows up, and gave them a little shrug. “Any ideas?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Li’l Ed said. “That isn’t supposed to be how it works. The company helps those who help themselves, and the only thing reconditioning can’t fix is the failure to ask for reconditioning.”

Chairman Williams nodded. “Of course, of course. That’s the rhetoric. And it’s true—at least, it’s true when you fuck up some numbers on an accounting entry and cost the company money. Reconditioning can make all that go away. Heck, I’m all for reconditioning. My father had me reconditioned when I was starting to turn into a spoiled little brat like Matt Ricker—best thing that ever happened to me. It taught me to appreciate God’s wisdom, God’s gifts. Taught me what was really important.” He stroked his chin. “But you two were involved in an incident where one of your superiors was killed.” He paused, turning to stare each of them in the eye. “Not really the same thing, is it?”

They both shook their heads and shifted uncomfortably.

“But I know you didn’t do anything wrong,” Williams said.

They looked at each other. “What does that mean, exactly, sir?” Jack asked.

“There might be room for you here,” Williams said. He sat back down on the corner of the desk. “In all business—but especially in my new line of work—loyalty is key.” He raised his palms toward them. “Now, aptitudes are fine—knowledge is great. But those are qualities that can be measured, and what can be measured can be reliably trained and developed. Loyalty, on the other hand, is not quantifiable. It’s much harder to find, and harder to believe in once you think you’ve found it. But I know you two will be loyal.”

“Because we were Sett’s friends, sir?” The sleepy one asked.

“Ha. No. I know you’ll be loyal because if you come work for me, it means you understand how utterly ruined your careers are without me.” He stared at them a moment, giving his best fatherly smile. “You need the sense of community that your school was supposed to provide you. The feeling that you belong. At that school, and at the company that runs it, you’ll always be outsiders.”

They sat still, their confused faces blinking back at him. “Let me ask you this,” he said. “Do you ever notice any other reaction from your classmates or professors? I mean, certainly, they’ve got to do their part to punish you for being different. But have you ever caught them peeking at you sideways, like they didn’t want you to know they were looking? Have they ever appeared to be in awe of you?”

The giant room went silent, except for a few echoing sounds from workers rearranging things in one of the tunnels.

Li’l Ed glanced at Jack and nodded. “They make fun of us sometimes when they’re in groups—big groups. But not when they’re alone. They let me cut in line sometimes; they don’t say that’s what they’re doing, but they just sort of … let there be a place for me.”

They fell silent again. Jack cleared his throat.

“Once in the student lounge I passed a table with three Secondyears at it,” Jack said quietly. “Right after the incident. They knew I was Sett’s friend, and that I was there when it happened. But instead of being nasty they just stared. Not even angry stares, more like when little kids watch the Traverball stars go by.”

Chairman Williams nodded. “I thought so.”

Both boys wore a look of uncertainty. Chairman Williams stood up from the desk, staring into one pair of eyes and then the other. “You can fit into our structure, boys. You can belong here. You’ll be welcome among us and inspire awe everywhere you go.”

Some Zone hotel, viewed from deep fade

“Did you see that?” Coiner said. “He did it again. Samurai unfaded and walked into that hotel! I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sending him to Unity. I’m capturing him and turning him over to the Divinators. That fucking—”

“Look, sir!” Lux said.

Four men in black suits walked side by side up to the hotel’s front door. Two stopped outside, and two marched on through the entrance.

Entering the hotel

Dok struggled up the stairs with the supplies, listening to Kel’s attempt at conversing with Brian.

“Wish I coulda saved more of your shit from that fire,” Kel said. “I thought you were dead, man. Seriously, fuckin’ dead.”

“Not important,” Brian said. There was an edge to his voice, a combination of desperation and authority that made Dok’s spine go numb. “Only the General matters. I must find her. Do you know where she is?”

Dok stopped and turned around, facing Brian and effectively blocking his passage through the narrow hallway. “Not you, too, Brian,” Dok said. “How did you get mixed up with that bunch looking for her? She doesn’t deserve whatever mayhem you’d bring her.”

Brian’s jaw thrust forward as his eyes widened. “I would sooner die than let harm come to the General.”

Dok looked over Brian’s shoulder at Kel, who shrugged. Behind Kel, two men in black suits appeared at the top of the stairs and immediately honed in on Dok. He sprinted to the room door. “It’s Dok! I’m coming in!”

He heard the re-bar sliding out through its loops. The door opened a crack and Dok pushed his way in, with Brian and Kel close behind. All three leaned against it as the huge Unnamed Executives kicked. Lawrence came to help hold the door as Rosa struggled to fit the bar through the loops. Dok got crowded away from the door by the younger men, so he tried to help by pushing Lawrence’s back.

Rosa got the bar through the loops on the opening side of the door.

For a moment the hall was quiet. Then came the thunderous report of a weapon fired at close range. Lawrence pulled his hand away from the door, revealing three holes in the wood. Lawrence’s left forearm dripped blood.

Everyone backed away from the door, all crouching toward the floor except for Brian. Mari cried in the corner and Rosa whispered to her. Out in the street another full-auto weapon fired, but it kept going after the first three shots. More guns went off, the reports overlapping.

Brian gestured toward the little window with his thumb, fumbling in a shirt pocket with his other hand. “My men,” he said. He took out a small bottle of amber liquid and drank it all down.

In the hotel room

The pain from Lawrence’s shredded left arm radiated through his chest and back. Dok snatched Lawrence’s uniform jacket and the knife next to it on the floor, cutting the jacket into strips as he came running, hunched over. He gently took Lawrence’s arm in his hands, examining the craterous exit holes and the much smaller entry points on the other side.

“Just two,” Dok said. “That’s good. Two in, two out. They could’ve left all kinds of nasty stuff in there.” He tied a piece of cloth around one of the wounds, just tight enough to hold the flesh together. It felt slightly better.

Another kick at the door shook the room. Gunfire sounded down the hallway in the direction of the stairs. Then more of the three-shot bursts on the other side of the door, increasing in frequency until they blurred together into a deafening roar of sustained barrage up and down the corridor. When it ended, finally, there was only silence.

The Fiend they called Brian strode to the door, freeing the steel rod from its loops and swinging the splintered wood out of the way. His bottom eyelids were unnaturally tight and his eyes panned the room hungrily as he ran his splinted hand along the rod. His touch was light, his motions gentle, as if he were polishing the coarse, pockmarked metal. His breathing was strange; it seemed he exhaled much too forcefully and for too long.

Two other Fiends came down the hall, with the same crazed look and the same unsettling pattern to their breathing. One took the weapons from the dead men outside the door. The other leveled his battered assault rifle at Lawrence.

Brian casually extended the steel rod, angling the rifle up toward the ceiling. His long exhalations made his words sound haunting and surreal. “Staaand down, Eeelement. I claim theeese.”

The Fiend locked eyes with Brian, his face twisting with the most hateful look Lawrence had ever seen. “Theeere will beee moore kills, Eeelement,” Brian said, gesturing at the black-suited bodies outside the door. “These meeeerchant soholdiers taaalk to each ooother, yes? Mooore will come.” He swept the rod broadly across the room. “But not theeese. Go downstairs. Cleeear the way. We will leeeave this place.”

They disappeared. Brian turned to Eadie and bowed. “I am Saato Motomiiichi, samuraaai, and your servant, General. I pledge my loooyalty to you, as I know that you serve the sooource of life itself—”

A long burst of gunfire sounded outside, different weapons in different locations all shooting simultaneously. Brian glanced into the hallway, then focused on Eadie again. “I recommehend leaving this place, General. These merrrchants can bring moooore men. I cannot.”

Eadie stared at him for a moment, then nodded. Everyone snatched up whatever they could but nobody moved toward the door. Kel came up to Brian, dropping the wide metal pipe into his hands. “I know yer crazy as fuck now,” Kel said. “But this shit’s yers. I saved it for you.”

Brian unscrewed the cap, removing the bag of powder and the gun. He tucked the powder into some internal pocket. His splinted fingers could not wrap around the gun’s grips. He turned to Eadie. “Let this weeeapon be my gift to you, Geeeeneral. We must huuurry.” He handed her the gun.

Eadie nodded and motioned toward the door. Brian disappeared through it. Everyone stayed frozen, their eyes locked on Eadie. She shoved the gun into the bag she’d taken from Mrs. Klaussen’s place and followed Brian. The others filed out behind her. Lawrence pushed past Dok and Rosa to reach Eadie’s side.

“Eadie? Do you hear the shots? They’re coming from every side of the building,” Lawrence pointed out, struggling to sound less anxious than he felt. “We can’t just run downstairs and out the door!”

She paused a moment, looking at him. Then she cupped one hand to her mouth and yelled frantically down the hall. “Fire! Get out of the hotel! It’s all going up in flames! Fire! Fire!”

Doors opened up and down the hall. Heads poked out. People hastily left their rooms, many of them nearly naked and clutching belongings as they ran toward the stairwell. Eadie cocked her head to one side, shrugging at Lawrence. “That ought to provide a little distraction as we move out.” Then she was gone, the others following her down the hall.

Lawrence turned back to the dead bodies, removing the double gold rings and taking the jacket that was the least bloody. That would show Eadie and Old Fart he could be just as resourceful in a crisis as Kel was. The camera from the dead man’s sunglasses was pointed right at him. He slipped double rings onto the smallest two fingers of each hand, displaying them for the camera and showing it both his middle fingers. He slipped on the jacket, covering up the makeshift bandage that was already soaked through. Eadie’s voice called from the floor below. “Fire! Fire!”

The stairway was packed with frightened people now, a mix of weathered prostitutes and Golden salarymen and salarywomen. Lawrence tried to push his way through but it was impossible. He moved at the crowd’s pace, all the way to the ground floor. The double ring on his right hand felt heavy and reassuring as he caressed it with his thumb.

Emerging from the stairwell, the crowd spread out, running for the doors. Several of their heads split open as a blast of machinegun fire shattered the window. The survivors panicked. A few tried to go back upstairs, but most ended up in a desperate mass surging toward the door. They trampled over the bodies, leaving bloody, slipping footprints on the aged linoleum. A few stray shots slammed into the walls behind them. Brian had made his way over to Eadie. Two other Fiends were crouched behind furniture, taking select shots out the window at random intervals. The crowd Eadie had stirred up had only ventured a few steps beyond the doorway before diving to the ground, where they now huddled together in a shuddering heap.

The shooting stopped. A Fiend appeared outside, framed by the shattered glass at the edges of the window frame. “The first fooour have met Uuunity, Rounder Samurai,” he said. “Our half-Round is intaact. We belieeeve another team of Unnamed is on its way and have placed three Elements in fade positions to wait.”

Brian stood. “Very good, Eeelement.” He gestured at Eadie’s group with his steel rod, which he held like a sword. “I claim theeese. The Round can take spoooils from the ooothers.”

A three-shot burst sounded from somewhere. The Fiend in the window collapsed, falling onto the jagged glass at the bottom of the frame. A few shots sounded return fire, followed by another three-shot burst from a different location. Lawrence crouched behind a chair.

Ground floor of the building where Sato was reunited with the General

Sato pulled the body of a dead merchant toward him, tearing the bloody white shirt away and wrapping it around the end of the steel rod he had taken from the room. The added bulk would give his broken hands something larger to hold. He experienced every detail of the fabric, the way the fine crisscross of its weave stretched and distorted as he wrapped it around the metal, the tiny stresses in the threads, even the minute particles of lint, dust, and blood that dotted it. The knots he tied appeared the size of doorways as he focused on them.

This sword was not yet sharp, but its blunt edge might give more satisfaction in the kill, anyway.

Kill. The word hung in his mind, stuck in the Juice that flowed thickly through him. Kiiill. The sword shook in his hands but he was satisfied with his grip in spite of his four splinted fingers. Out the window, two of the despicable black-suited merchants appeared.

He leaped forward, swinging as he flew through the window frame, directing his focus to the closest merchant’s throat. The world froze, silent. The sword sliced through the air, the target throat consuming his thoughts, looming large as a melon, then wrapping around the blunt rod. The head rolled forward but did not detach. The rod stuck, momentarily bound by the loose skin it was unable to cut.

The kill was certain. Sato filled with energy, as if the dead man’s Life Force was flooding in through his sword grip. Sato landed lightly on his toes, palming the dead face backward to free his sword and snapping his head toward the other merchant. His blade knocked the man’s gun away and Sato stepped in, closing the distance and slamming the sword handle into the man’s forehead, where it embedded and stuck with a wet cracking sound. He had to follow the man to the ground to recover it, yanking it out with a twist and a rough jerk. His flesh prickled with energy, his muscles writhing against his bones in celebratory ecstasy.

Standing over the two black-suited corpses, Sato let child-like glee take over his senses. Each breath he took seemed to scream out to his kills, following them as they rejoined the Life Force, taunting them with the life he still lived. The blood slicking the floor filled the room with its dense coppery smell and Sato had a fleeting desire to cover himself with it, wrapping himself in its delicious power. Around his feet, aged, terrified merchants and prostitutes writhed and crawled away. He raised his sword to strike the closest one—a bald merchant wearing some sort of robe.

“Rounder Saamurai!”

It was Coiner, standing before him now with a Frontman and a single Round. Sato fought down the need to kill the merchant, forced his sword tip to the ground, and bowed. Coiner turned to the Round, waving them in the direction of the crowd that had earlier fled the hotel.

The hotel lobby

Eadie clutched the old revolver in one hand, the stick in the other, peering cautiously around the side of the overturned table. Old Fart had said there might be a couple of shots left if the bullets were still functional.

Outside, the Fiend Brian Samurai had killed two men with the steel rod. Then suddenly more Fiends had appeared, and now they were mixed in with the crowd from the hotel, jumping around—celebrating?

No, not celebrating. Not jumping around. Fighting!

 … No. Not fighting, either.

Slaughtering.

People in the crowd dropped like bloody rag dolls as the Fiends whirled between them, killing with knives and clubs, their guns slung over their shoulders and their feet making splashing and splattering noises as they traipsed through the carnal mess on the concrete. They stripped valuables from the bodies before they hit the ground.

The one Brian had bowed to was taking small things from his pocket—coins?—and dropping them on some of the corpses. He turned again to Brian. “Leading your own raid on a praaactice exercise was very impreessive. Your Round handled every Unnamed before mine could aaact. But moooore will come. Unnaaaamed, and maaybe Feds. We have insuffiiiicient numbers to deal with that leeeevel of threat. We must go now.”

Brian’s eyes flicked toward Eadie, widening as if asking for orders. Eadie shoved her palms at him as if pushing him away. He bowed to the man in front of him. “Yes, Paatrol Leeeader.”

The crowd of Fiends thinned and disappeared.