Necrotech (20 page)

“Not surprising,” Malik said. “They gave up on pretense yesterday, strangled the feeds.”

“Hey,” I said sharply. “You want to share, or is this a boys only club?”

I expected Malik to answer. Instead, Indigo shrugged, folding his hands over his belly as he kicked his feet out in a long line. Yeah. Totally a boys' club. Jackwagons, the both of them. “Something closed communication in a four-block radius, smack in the Vid Zone.”

As if it was nothing.

It wasn't
nothing.
“You mean,” I asked slowly, my irritation unfolding like a slow tide, “the same Vid Zone that chopshop is listed in? The one you
know
is our only link? That one?”

He shot me a look no less irritated. “Yeah. That one.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“Riko,” Indigo replied with a total lack of patience, “stow it.”
Shut up and play the game.
In fewer words.

The fact I was too busy throwing a tantrum instead of paying attention to the details said a lot about my state of mind.

I'd never grilled Indigo for every last fact before. I didn't like knowing too much – I found it complicated. I couldn't be upset now that Digo hadn't fed me this data on a plate.

Except I was.

Which wasn't fucking fair, and that about summed up my entire existence at the moment.

I set my jaw.

“There's only three reasons a communications gag would happen,” Digo pointed out when I didn't say anything.

“A power short,” I said, aware of one. “Or rolling blackouts.”

“Yeah, but that's not the case.” Indigo squinted into the bright, airy office. “The second is an official gag order, which is a political move that would be heavily covered by the rest of the surrounding feeds and talked to death on every daytime newsline from here to Northside Commons. There's no civic unrest in that area to warrant it.”

Malik was silent, letting Indigo carry the educational part of this show. He watched me with a cool intensity that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck lift in wary acknowledgment.

I was being judged. I did not like being judged.

I glowered at him. “What?”

“Take your sunglasses off.”

The order felt like a verbal slap. My fingers clenched on the chair. “Why?”

“Because it's rude,” he said, holding my gaze through the dark lenses as if he knew I was watching him. “Take them off.”

“Oh, for–” I snatched the sunglasses off my head, throwing them on his desk in a fit of impatient temper. “What's the third reason to cut communications?”

Malik didn't seem impressed with his victory, small as it was. A muscle ticked over the sharp angle of his wide jaw. “Necrotech activity detected.”

My irritation vanished under a pitched slam of cold comprehension.

An image of Nanji, tech sprouting from her back and her limbs splayed, filled my head. Slowly, I straightened from the back of the chair, absently cradled my arm as the motion pulled at muscles too hooked on pain to take it with grace. “You're shitting me. A blackout?”

Malik met my eyes with level intensity. “That's right. A blackout. Which means your so-called lead is dead in the center of a necro quarantine.”

T
he computer-controlled windows darkened
, filtering the sunlight enough that the map Malik called up on his computer shone stark green on the wide, wired glass behind him.

I circled the desk, studying the layout of the Vid Zone. “Each block is about six miles in diameter, right?”

“Correct.”

A thick red border outlined a four-block radius, a sharp contrast to the shimmering green outlining the rest of the zone. What the map didn't show was the rat runs – the alleys and walkways that made for prime hunting ground top to bottom.

Not ideal. But not insurmountable.

Scary as hell, fucked six ways to sideways, but definitely not insurmountable.

Repeating it to myself didn't help. I was so not zenning it.

“According to this information,” Malik said, tapping in a few commands to a handheld, “the site you want is here.” A blue dot appeared almost in the exact center of the red square. “Middle of the quarantine.”

“Easy,” I said, shrugging. I lied. “Get me the right team and I'll be in and out.”

His gaze was cool as it flicked to me. “Have you ever seen a necro blackout?” When I shook my head, the dark line of his lashes narrowed a fraction.

“Chunk off.” I folded my arms. “Necros aren't my specialty.”

Necros weren't anyone's specialty.

As aware of conversion as we all were, necro infestation was rare as hell. I'd only ever heard of three in my lifetime and each one was burned out before it spread farther than the faulty chopshop failsafe it came from.

Malik's hip angled against the desk, a casual perch that still somehow failed at nonchalant. He was too neat for it. Too smooth. “You seem very confident.”

Indigo snorted.

I shot him a sidelong glare. “I know what I'm doing.”

Malik seemed less than convinced. “How knowledgeable are you on the subject of conversion sciences?”

That was a fancy way of asking how much I knew about the process. Fucking educated people.

I eyed him, briefly considering calling him on the aggravatingly obvious command in the question. I didn't answer to him. Malik Reed seemed to have a bad habit of assuming everyone around him did.

Instead, I opted for professional courtesy. “No more or less than what's usually out there,” I said, tipping my head. “If you're unlucky enough to hit your tech threshold, the tech infiltrates the human nervous system, scrapes out anything that isn't its own signal, and converts the brain. When it turns on autopilot, it does what it does best.” Problem is, for a lot of SINless, what tech does best is kill.

That doesn't mean that Susie Housewife with her cosmetic enhancements can't convert. It's a lot rarer, and her brand of going apeshit is a lot less initially lethal than mine or Boone's would be. Tech is a tool. You can kill someone with a showerhead, given enough time and effort, but someone with a chainsaw would kill faster.

It's a numbers game. Most SINless are illegal because we choose to be. That kind of life comes with strings. Saints tend to be mercs, and runner tech tends to be deadly.

Just adds to the bad rap propagandists like to spew. Go SINless and convert. Whoo.

“If,” I added, “the necrotech is wired into something, it spreads like a computer virus, overwhelming the systems it's wired into.” This was one of the reasons projectors were shoot-on-sight. A 'jector that corrupts while jacked corrupts the system in seconds.

Fortunately, Nanji wasn't plugged in when I saw her last. Not for lack of them trying.

My hands fisted.

“Statistically,” Malik said, inclining his head like I'd scored a point – fuck him – “necrotechs operate individually.”

“Obviously. People are individual units.”

Malik's eyes glinted. “Which clearly outlines the current question.”

I glanced at Indigo.

He shrugged.

“What?” I asked, feeling baited.

He tapped at the window, toggling something I couldn't see.

A dozen red blips flashed into place, staggered across the quarantine zone.

I stared at it. “Hold up.” I pointed at the map. “You're saying there's more than one necrotech in there?”

Malik answered with the same patient voice – hella impatient words. “Twelve known hits on the feeds before the signal was cut.”

“What are they doing in there?”

One thick eyebrow arched. “I'll send you in with a census board and you can ask them.”

“How's that fuck-yourself tech acquisition coming?” I replied with saccharine interest.

A corner of his full mouth twitched.

I
ndigo shifted in his chair
. “Given the, uh, reproduction going on in there,” he said slowly, “how do we feel about the theory that necros are a few short hops away from legit AI?”

Whatever smile he didn't seem inclined to give in to, Malik's lip curled into sheer irritation. “That's a romanticized notion.” He may as well have called bullshit for all the disgust his civilized opinion framed.

“Gee, Malik,” I said. “You sound almost human.”

“Trust me.” His deep voice dropped into a low growl. “Compared to the economic and evolutionary destruction an AGI would cause, I'm a bargain.”

I cupped my elbow with the other hand, an idle gesture that let me dig my thumb into the synthetic arm's elbow joint. It didn't help anything, but at least I'd managed to tamp the pain down to a low, chronic hum. “Now you sound bitter.”

“Do I?” He looked at the map. “Tech operating on its own, and that's what you get.”

As arguments went, I couldn't disagree. Everybody knew that some of the corps had seriously considered AI technology along the way. The government rhetoric was largely silent on the matter; that happened when all the conglomerates threatened to stop funneling creds towards a civic service that had long ago become little more than a pretense to keep the drones happy.

I had no doubt there were labs somewhere devoted to exploring the possibility, and some conspiracy theorists even whispered that necros were the result of early attempts to force the issue of artificial general intelligence. We'd never made it past ANI – artificial narrow intelligence. That was an intelligence so rigorously defined that computers never went any farther than what they were programmed to be good at.

We had programmed robots, self-maintaining nanos, tech that operated in tandem with the human body and with human needs, but no recursive self-improvement. AGI and its big brother ASI were, apparently, the nuclear option when it came to tech. If anybody was dabbling, nobody was dumb enough to hit the big red button. Yet.

I didn't bother with the conspiracy theories. I wasn't into what-ifs and far-reaching hypotheses. What I liked were goals right in front of me, and right now that big, thick red line and the necro obstacles behind it were in front of me.

“Purism aside,” I began.

“I'm not a purist.”

I grimaced at Malik. “Does it matter?”

“I'm a lot of things,” he assured me, his gaze unreadable in the dark. Not that I expected light to help much. The man played his cards too close to the vest to figure him out. “You can call me any of them, but I'd prefer you didn't make them up.”

“Balls, you're annoying.”

One side of his mouth quirked. Finally. “I'll accept that.”

“Damn right. Can we get back to the point?” I gestured at the window's glimmering map. “That chopshop is smack in the middle of a quarantine that you're telling me is dotted with necro activity. Are they all the same necro?”

“The frequencies were different in all logged cases.”

I nodded, like it was no big deal.

It was a shitstorm of a big deal. “I need inside,” I said. “The rest we can chunk as we go.”

“Based on the information, it's obvious that Jim was dealing there,” Indigo pointed out.

“Nanjali Koupra was sold off there,” I said flatly, as if reminding him – reminding them both, and myself too – why it mattered. “I walked out from there.”

“But your name is not on this list,” Malik noted.

Figures he'd caught that. “So somebody's a sloppy record keeper.”

He waited me out. Still.
Again.
I hated that he could.

I glared at him. “After I escaped, I hitched out of the Third Junction.”

Malik didn't blink. “The Third Junction isn't the Vid Zone.”

“It's south, genius. And I wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind when I escaped, so let's extrapolate from there, okay?”

“You're saying you walked without memory of it?”

“I'm saying I'm right,” I shot back.

Malik didn't sigh. I expected him to, a lot like Indigo sighed when I locked down into stubborn, but he only studied my features.

I wasn't a diplomat for a reason. I'd go with him, or I'd go through him, but I was getting inside that shop.

Maybe he got it. He gave in with surprising ease. “Let's hope you're right.” He reached over, a touch of a button somewhere on his desk, and the map faded, windows losing their tint. Sunlight streamed through the glass again, forcing me to flatten a hand visor-like over my eyes. “Standard operating procedure demands a burn team go in and raze a quarantine down to the last foundation. It takes roughly an hour to mobilize all the protocols. I can extend that time, but you need a team before the borrowed time runs out.”

Which I knew. I knew because my team wouldn't work with me, and I didn't dare bring them in. One necro was bad. More was suicide, and I wasn't even pretending not to know that.

But I wasn't ready for the hollow feeling it left in my chest.

I knew that team. They knew me. We worked well together, had been on more successful runs than not. Hell, Boone and Tashi had been on that MetaCore run that landed me on Lucky's table.

Objectively speaking, I couldn't blame them. I'd vanished, taken Nanjali with me, and for all they'd known, she was dead and I was a traitor.

That's why I needed to do this.

“Then get me a team,” I began, only to jerk in surprise as Indigo said, “I'll go.”

“No,” I said flatly. I didn't even look at him.

If I went, maybe I died. For real. Fine. I could live with that, in a manner of speaking. If he went and he died?

No. No way. Things were rough, but I wasn't going to be the cunt that dragged her best team into hell with no hope of actually making it.

“Don't even try it, Riko.”

I turned to face him, arms tight around my ribs. “Shut up,” I said, one cracking syllable away from boiling over. “I don't care where we are, I will break your fucking face if you think–”

“Yeah?” He shot to his feet. “Bring it on,” he snarled. “What the hell else could you do to me? You're a smegging nutcase.”

The fact I wanted to step back, recoil like he slapped me, infuriated me.

“You've
changed
,” Indigo said grimly, “and we all know it.”

My shoulders tightened. “I'm doing whatever it takes to get the information about your sister's death. It doesn't mean
you
have to go on a suicide run.”

“My sister?” His laugh bit, not a trace of humor in Indigo's sharp-featured derision. “You mean your girlfriend? The girl you were supposed to love and protect, not escort
in
to that hellhole.”

“Chum off, I never said I was marrying her!”

Indigo froze.

Oh, fuck me. Fuck fucking
fuck
.

With the words out, it didn't matter that I spat them on a tide of mounting frustration. It didn't matter that I'd only thrown them between us as a way to make him pause, to hurt him the way he was hurting me – tearing open the fragile scab of my guilt and jamming his fingers into the seeping wound.

They were out, and they reeked of truth.

His face pale, Indigo drew himself up, his hands fisted tightly by his side. “Thanks,” he said, so evenly, so detached it was as if I was talking to a stranger. “At least you're finally honest about it.”

“Digo–”

“No.” He turned his back, his long braid swinging at his rigid shoulders. “Just admit for once that you're only here for your own selfish ends and stop hiding behind Nanji.”

Silence fell, thick and angry between us. I struggled to find the words, any words – something to mend this rift.

Nothing came. I had nothing to give him but empty promises – the data, maybe. Whatever it said, I was betting everything on that intel.

And what if it burned me?

Indigo was right. I didn't really play well with others; not like the Koupras had. It wasn't about Nanji, and now I'd leave Digo up here in a heartbeat if it meant I could be rid of his baggage, too.

But I swear, it was only because I expected that baggage to be dead weight. And I didn't want to risk anymore dead anything.

I couldn't carry that.

“This is a suicide run,” I began, voice low.

He cut me off. “As I said,” Indigo said, tone cracked down to level, “I'm going. If that intel exists, I'll be the one securing it.”

The whiplash was enough to give a girl vertigo. My heart kicked up in a sudden surge of adrenaline I couldn't lock down in time.

It irritated me.

I forced my face into tight lines. “You
really
don't trust me, do you?”

“Seriously?” He looked at me, and there was
nothing
friendly about it. His blue eyes practically spat venom at me. “What's the problem, Ree? You hoping to shake me so you can cover your shit up? Not happening.”

I took one step in his direction.

Malik's hand flattened over my chest. It wasn't much by way of a wall, but the feel of it – warm and firm and steady when I felt like a freaking yo-yo – yanked me back into line better than any order. “You both sign on,” he said with all of that so easy authority, “and I supply you a team.”