Chapter 7

Waiting sucks.

It’s bad enough when you’re waiting for something that you have to do. It’s worse when you’re waiting on others to do something. And when those others are your friends, and they’ve gone into danger, it’s pretty much unbearable.

I spent the next two days trying to keep myself occupied. Silas had gotten me a new screen, and I’d wasted a few hours setting up my personal filters. Once I’d finished that, I’d flipped it on to get my first real glimpse of the outside world since Silas had launched his campaign.

It wasn’t pretty.

The news anchors looked just as put together and impeccable as ever as I started to play back the stories my queries delivered. But the content… “Riots continue to rage throughout the city,” the male anchor said, the screen cutting to a video of a mob of people—most with their faces covered in makeshift balaclavas or tee shirts tied around their noses and mouths—running through the streets, throwing bottles and rocks at store fronts, jumping on cars, and generally making a mess of things. “The riots are in response to a massive release of evidence lending more credence to the notion that synthetics are, in fact, thinking beings capable of the same thoughts and emotions as people. Other files, released at the same time, implicated politicians across all fifty-three states in crimes ranging from simple corruption to—in one case—murder. Those investigations are ongoing and have added fuel to the fires spawning the protests. The information was released by the group fronted by former New Lyons Police Department Detective Jason Campbell.” The screen cut to an image of me. I winced a bit. Did they have to use the mugshot? No one looked good in a mug shot, and I had enough problems in that department already. And when had I become the “front man” for Silas’s organization? I guess when I had opened my big fat mouth on New Year’s Eve. But still…

The screen cut back to the female anchor. “We’re joined now with Roberto Stringer, attorney for the group SynthFirst. Mr. Stringer, what’s your take on all of this?”

The screen focused on a middle-aged man of Hispanic descent. “What we’re seeing now is the inevitable conclusion of decades of oppression,” Stringer said, his tone serious despite the million-dollar smile he flashed at the camera. “At SynthFirst, we’ve been saying for years that so-called synthetics are, in fact, people, and people who should have all the same rights as the rest of us. The people of this great country have been lied to by corporations and politicians, and they’re tired of it.”

The screen split to show Mr. Stringer on one side and the anchors on the other. The male anchor spoke, “But what about the violence, Mr. Stringer? Surely, those of you at SynthFirst don’t condone the violence that we’re seeing in the streets.”

“Of course we don’t,” Stringer replied. “But the information released shows us that we can’t trust the government in this matter, and illustrates the corruption that we have collectively ignored for generations. I ask you, what are the people to do? If they feel they can’t find redress for these wrongs among the corrupt politicians, and they can’t turn to the corporations that have pulled the wool over their eyes for decades in pursuit of profit, what avenues are left to them? Civil disobedience is a long-standing tradition in this country, and one of the few ways the populace at large has ever managed to create direct change. That goes all the way back to Boston Harbor.”

I swiped to a different channel. I didn’t need a history lesson, and I wasn’t sure the analogy really fit in this case anyway. I kept swiping across my screen, not really paying attention, until the image flashed into the greasy, piggish face of Francois Fortier.

I stopped swiping and the sound kicked in. “Jason Campbell is a criminal, pure and simple,” Fortier was saying. The camera panned, showing that the man was conducting another press conference on the steps of police headquarters. The same place he’d taken me into custody. “Look around you people. He’s the one responsible for the chaos in the streets.”

“But what about his escape?” a reporter shouted over the general tumult.

“It’s pretty clear he had help. Probably an inside job. Look, we’ve got the city locked down. He can’t stay hidden forever. And when we find him, we’ll throw his ass right back in jail where it belongs.” The camera seemed to linger on the beads of sweat forming on Fortier’s brow and upper lip. That brought a nasty smile to my lips. I was making him sweat. And if they were trying to find out who had helped me from inside the prison, they were on the wrong path. That would buy a little time.

I flipped the screen off. I was restless, and watching the city I loved fall apart on live video wasn’t going to help. Neither was trying to keep tabs on the manhunt. It wasn’t like they were going to tell the press anything that could help me. And if I had to watch Francois-fucking-Fortier for one more minute, I would probably punch something. I needed to burn off some energy.

There wasn’t a gym in the Ballasts, of course. But there were a lot of ladders. Climbing up and down a few dozen stories sounded like as good a plan as any. And if that didn’t work, I could always find Al. Not that getting my ass kicked seemed like the best of ideas, but it would tire me out. I looked down at my wardrobe—Silas and company had a scavenged collection of castoffs from God alone knew where. The good news was, I’d been able to get rid of the orange prison jumpsuit. The only things that had come close to fitting were a pair of ratty khakis and a bright pink tee shirt. Not the ideal workout clothes, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Time to get to work.

* * * *

I leaned both hands against the wall of the makeshift shower, head down, letting the thin stream of water wash away the sweat of the latest match with Al’awwal. There were, for whatever reason, a couple of working actual bathrooms in the Ballasts, but they didn’t have showers. They were probably for maintenance workers or whoever else had need to come down here to work. Thank God we hadn’t seen anyone yet, but it did make me nervous. Bathrooms meant there was at least the potential of people, and whatever else they offered, the Ballasts weren’t a place we could clear out of quickly.

The enterprising synthetics had managed to tap in to a couple of exposed water pipes and install showerheads in one of the unused chambers. The setup reminded me of boot—just bare showerheads sticking out of the wall without any kind of dividers for privacy. I supposed that synthetics lost anything resembling body modesty, or anything resembling an expectation of privacy for that matter, at a young age. It did make me wonder what Tia had done those nights she’d stayed here and not returned to her own apartment. She didn’t strike me as the type to casually shower in a room full of other people. Though the thought of walking in on her…

That really wasn’t a good path to go down, not standing naked in a room that any of the synthetics could walk into at any moment. At least the water trickling down onto my head was cold, putting a dampener on any amorous thoughts I might be having. I forced my mind back to the shower itself. While the ingenuity of the synthetics had allowed for a place to shower, the Ballasts weren’t built to provide drainage. That was why the water was barely a trickle, and why I had no intention of standing here very long. The water had to be cleaned up and disposed of. There were mops and buckets and squeegees waiting for me when the shower was done.

I was contemplating the irony of that—take a shower to get cleaned up after sweating only to have to clean up the aftermath of the shower which would involve, wait for it…sweating…when the door swung open. A synthetic I didn’t recognize—young, female, beautiful—stuck her head in the door. “Silas wanted you to know that Ms. Morita and Ms. Hernandez are back,” she said. She regarded me with a frank look, making no attempt to conceal her appraisal. I, in turn, tried not to jump and squeal and cover my important bits like I was in a bad ’net prank vid.

“Thanks,” I managed. “I’ll be along in just a moment. Just need to finish, and clean up the mess.”

For a moment, she looked like she might offer to do the cleanup for me, but then something—a hardness, an edge—flashed across her face. She nodded instead, and left, pulling the door shut behind her. I wondered about that look as I finished up, all thoughts of Tia or the discomfort of the appraising stare lost in that one, hard-edged flash of emotion. I got the impression that, had I been a synthetic, she would have gladly assisted. But since I was a human, a nominal oppressor even if I had shown myself to be on the side of the angels, there was no way she was going to spend her sweat to help me. I couldn’t exactly blame her, and yet…

And yet, I was left to wonder, once again, what kind of world would emerge if we managed to achieve all our goals. As I toweled off, dressed, and started to push the mop around the metal floor, I realized that my commitment hadn’t waned. The synthetics deserved to be free. There was no question that they had been mistreated and misused to the detriment not just of them, but also to the very soul of humanity. But I couldn’t help the slight quaver of… I don’t think it was fear. Uncertainty? Cognitive dissonance? Whatever it was, that hard look, that hatred that I sensed burning just beneath the skin of so many of the synthetics, worried me.

As much as I wanted our little war to be won, the possibilities of victory scared me almost as much as the possibilities of defeat.

I cleaned up the floor, a simple task that, for many humans, had been relegated to synthetics long since, and wondered what the future held.

* * * *

My mood brightened immediately when I walked into our makeshift conference room and saw Tia Morita standing there. I surprised us both by striding over and giving her a quick hug. “I’m glad you made it back,” I whispered, then stepped away.

Hernandez, also in the room, arched an eyebrow at me and her lips quirked in a smile, but I ignored her. I then realized that the rest of the usual suspects had gathered as well; Silas, Al’awwal, LaSorte, and Danielle all sat at their places around the table.

“Glad you could join us, hermano,” Hernandez said as I took my seat.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Had to clean up the shower.” I didn’t want to get into the unexpected mental complexities that task had given birth to, so I continued. “What did we find?”

All eyes went to Tia.

She drew a steadying breath, and, despite a slight flush suffusing her cheeks, spoke firmly. “I ran the bloodwork, from the sick and the healthy. And I ran my own, too, just in case.”

“Smart,” Danielle muttered.

“Why?” Hernandez asked. “If it’s something that Walton did, you don’t think they’d have made it catching to humans, too? Not if it was their lethal omega protocol or whatever.” Her voice was part cop-worry, concern for the safety of the citizens, but a much deeper mom-worry, with concern for her daughter. The tough-as-nails, all-business face she presented to the world made it easy to forget she had a burgeoning teenager at home.

“No,” Tia said. “But you can be a carrier for something and not subject to its effects. We know that it’s not super common for different circles of synthetics to interact with one another, not closely enough to facilitate the exchanges needed to transfer a virus, anyway. But they interact with us all the time.”

“So they make us the carrier, and Walton gets to have humanity fuck over the synthetics one last time,” Hernandez grunted. “Sick fuckers, aren’t they?”

“Are they?” I asked, looking at Tia. “I mean, did they? Shit. What did you find, Tia?”

“Something,” she said. Her lips tightened a bit and her eyebrows drew down in a frown of frustration. “I honestly don’t know what I found, except that there was definitely something. My guess would be that it was viral in nature, but it’s not something I can identify.”

“No,” Silas interjected. “Of course not. If it is something that Walton has done, then it would be new. Even if you had the appropriate training and knowledge, you still would likely not be able to identify it, Ms. Morita.”

“I have the samples,” she said, pulling a data cube from her pocket. “And the test results. All of it. But we’re going to need someone with a lot more specialized knowledge…and maybe equipment, too.” She hesitated, and I could tell that whatever was coming next wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“And…and it’s in my blood,” she said, voice falling to barely a whisper. “Whatever this thing is, it was in the blood I tested of the sick synthetics, not present in the healthy ones, and…and present in me.” She drew a breath, let it out as a shallow sigh. “I thought about not coming back… I think I’m a carrier. But…”

“But if you are,” I said, “then so am I. So is Hernandez. And God alone knows how many other people.”

“And how many other synthetics,” Danielle interjected. “The healthy synthetic blood Tia tested showed negative, but she didn’t test everyone. We’ve all been around the sick, and while we’ve taken some small measure of precautions, we certainly haven’t exercised any real quarantine procedures.”

The table was quiet as that fact settled in.

“So we have no idea who might be sick, no idea what we’re up against, and no idea what to do about it,” I said. “That about sum it up?”

There were a few desultory nods around the table.

“Well, too fucking bad,” I growled. “We didn’t come this far to give up. I didn’t get thrown into, and then break out of, jail just to watch this whole thing fall apart. So, what can we fucking do about it?”

“Tell the people,” Silas said at once. “They are starting to believe, to truly believe, that we are what we say. I do not think they will stand for genocide.”

I wasn’t so certain. A lot of people might wring their hands and weep, but if the synthetics went away, then so, too, did the problem. I’d been a soldier and a cop far too long to have the kind of faith in my fellow man to think they wouldn’t be happier just sweeping problems under the nearest available rug.

I shrugged. “That might get us some sympathy, and might get other eyes looking at the problem. Hell, if we get lucky, maybe that even gets someone with the medical and scientific know-how and equipment on the job. But what if it doesn’t? What else can we do?”

Danielle spoke, her voice heavy with an emotion that I don’t think I’d ever heard in a synthetic, though I’d glimpsed it, ever so briefly, on Annabelle’s face. It held sadness, yes, but also the edge of shame. “We have to monitor the sick. Track the progress of the disease. We don’t know that it’s lethal yet.” Hernandez choked off an incredulous snort at that, and I couldn’t help but agree. No one had died from it, not so far, but it would be the kind of miracle to restore humanity’s declining faith in all things divine for this not to end in death. Danielle, to her credit, ignored our cynicism. “But we must be meticulous, gather every data point that we can, even if we can’t yet analyze it properly. We must be ready to give over as much information as possible. We can’t…we can’t afford to waste any time.”

At first, I didn’t understand her shame. Her words made perfect sense. Anything we could learn could only help. It dawned on me, though, that synthetics, while used to watching humans inflicting pain on them, and maybe even on other humans, had no capacity to do the same. They underwent intense conditioning against harming humans and, presumably, each other, or I’m sure we would have seen synthetic fights to the death as prime entertainment long since, and coldly recording the pain and probable deaths of their fellows must have been a concept foreign to them. It had been standard procedure in humanity’s medical system—while trying to administer compassionate care, of course—for so long, that I didn’t bat an eye at it, but from the outside, how must it seem? That we measured and weighed and calculated every aspect of encroaching death so effectively and efficiently?

I shook that thought from my head. “Right. We monitor the progress. Danielle, I assume you and Tia can take care of that?” Danielle nodded, but Tia gave me a frown.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jason. We know I’m carrying whatever this is. I think I need to go to the hospital. I can fake the symptoms we’ve seen among the synthetics. If I can get them to do bloodwork, maybe they’ll be able to do something. Identify it or get some sort of treatment plan. It’s a long shot, but if something as simple as robust antibiotics can help, we should try. They’ll probably only give me a few weeks’ worth for my use, but we can spread that around a few test patients and see if there’s any improvement in the short term.”

That sparked an entirely new larcenous chain of thought. “What are you giving the synthetics now?”

It was Danielle who answered. “Just the basics, really. Fever reducers. Cough suppressants. Without UniCare cards, we don’t really have access to antibiotics.” That sadness and shame filled her eyes again. “If things progress to the point where there is significant pain, we can acquire some of the harder recreational drugs.”

That was true enough, and easy enough. The war on drugs had ended long ago, in a rousing defeat. Opiates would be the easiest and most effective to procure. Easier than getting antibiotics. It had something to do with not overusing the drugs and breeding super-viruses immune to anything we could throw at them. Which, under the circumstances, seemed pretty fucking laughable. Why worry about viruses evolving, when your friendly local biogenics company was cooking them up in the lab?

Still it prompted a larcenous thought. “Would antibiotics help?” I asked.

My question was met with general shrugs. “We don’t know enough to know,” Tia replied. “If it’s truly viral, then no. If it’s bacterial, maybe. But at this point, they probably can’t hurt.”

“So, why don’t we get some?”

Hernandez cut in, “Are you suggesting we…what…go rob a pharmacy?”

A chuckle escaped me. “You broke me out of a fucking prison, Mel. Are you going to balk at liberating a few antibiotics?”

“Dios mio. What have you gotten me into?” There was no heat in the words, just a sort of bemused resignation.

“There is one other thing we might want to consider,” Silas interjected.

“Yeah?” I asked, mind already skipping ahead to planning how to knock over a pharmacy.

“Do you recall the raid we executed to retrieve the information Dr. Kaphiri had gathered?” Of course I remembered. It had only been a couple of weeks ago. Oh, and it had ended up with me in prison.

“Yeah. It kinda sticks out,” I replied.

“I am certain it does,” Silas conceded. “But do you recall how we escaped?”

“Walked out the front door,” Al’awwal said, chiming in for the first time. I swear to God, the grin he gave me was one of pure fucking delight. Right before walking out the front door, we’d gone through a half-dozen cops like a pair of blenders. I think Al—the only synthetic I knew of to not have the conditioning that prevented his fellows from harming humans—had enjoyed getting back a little of his own. I had another flash, or maybe premonition was the right word, of ambivalence at the thought of what we might be unleashing.

“We did. But in order to facilitate that egress, I triggered a certain alarm,” Silas said.

Everything had been happening so fast—and I’d been suffering from a few hard blows to the head—that I hadn’t really been paying too much attention to the details of what Silas had done during our escape. But something started to come back to me. “You said something about a biological hazard, or bio labs or something.”

“Correct, Jason,” the big albino said with a slight smile. “When we were in their systems, I found a node governing alarms for labs with bio-safety levels. Not unusual for a bio-genetics company, I will grant you. But one of those labs was designated as BSL-4. That is a level of quarantine procedure reserved for the deadliest contaminants and biological agents. Why would a company like Walton Biogenics need such a secure laboratory?”

It was Tia who answered. “To develop biological weapons.”

“Shit,” Hernandez muttered, and it summed up my feeling exactly. “Are you telling me these assholes are building doomsday devices in the heart of fucking New Lyons?”

“A suspicion, only, Detective Hernandez,” Silas said. “We have no proof. But I thought it odd at the time that such labs would be present, given the stated scope of Walton Biogenics’ work.”

I drew a deep breath as all that sank in. “Okay. We’ve got a lot to do, people. And maybe not a lot of time to do it. Tia—you’re right. You should go to the hospital. Let them run tests. But watch your ass, okay? If anything feels off or wrong, even a little… Listen to your instincts. Walton’s smart. I’m sure they’re going to be monitoring their little superbug and listening for where it shows up. And we know they don’t mind doing a little wetwork to keep the populace quiet. You can’t bring a gun into your doctor’s office or the hospital or whatever, but you ran that shotgun well. Keep it in your car. And keep it loaded.” She didn’t look particularly comfortable with that thought, but she seemed to understand the need, and reluctantly nodded.

“Good. What about the rest of us?”

“I think I can handle acquiring antibiotics,” Al’awwal offered. “We may not need to resort to strongarm robbery on that front. I’ve got a few doctor friends. If I spread a little cash around, I might be able to get a supply big enough for those here.” He hesitated.

“What?” I asked.

“If this spreads… Well, we’re never going to be able to get a big enough supply. Not without tapping government resources.”

“I know,” I admitted, “which is why we need another approach.”

“We need,” Silas interjected, “to acquire some additional intelligence from someone who works at Walton Biogenics. Preferably, someone who works at the specific lab Dr. Kaphiri once called home. I suppose LaSorte and I could try to find someone who fits the profile.”

I thought about that. The pair of them—the best of the best among the tech-savvy synthetics—would be better off getting the word out about the potential dangers. Silas, in particular, still had a network to run and I’m sure he had channels by which he could communicate with other synthetics. We’d never discussed it, never dragged his methods out into the light of day, but the entire revolution would have been swept under the rug in a matter of weeks if he didn’t have some kind of organization in place. That single point of failure bothered me—but at the same time, I couldn’t begrudge him the lack of trust he must feel toward… Well, everybody.

Fortunately, as I thought of our last little trip to Walton, I realized that we really didn’t need to turn Silas and LaSorte loose on tracking down lab employees. We already knew one.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “We already know the name of at least one person on the payroll there, and a doctor to boot. I’m not sure what type of doctor, medical or philosophical, but in the end, it probably doesn’t matter. She has access, and that’s what we’re going to need right now.”

“Larkin?” Al asked, an incredulous note in his voice.

“Larkin,” I agreed.

“And this Larkin is going to what… Help us out of the goodness of her heart?” Hernandez asked.

“Not bloody likely,” Al replied. “Last time we talked, we sort of tied her up, robbed her office, and threatened to kill her. A little.”

Tia gave me a bit of a glare at that. “You threatened to kill her? And how do you just do that ‘a little?’”

I opened my mouth to launch into an explanation. But I was cut short when Silas coughed.

Silas.

Coughed.