Authors: Charles Stross
BING!
Someone booms back. My senses are wound so tight I nearly levitate. "Who's there?" they call quietly.
I steel myself to reply, find my teeth chattering and my tongue numb in my mouth: "free-lance," I hiss at the darkness.
"Shit! Over here. What happened?" A darting presence -- I risk a peek -- someone half-familiar, shrouded in greatcoat and hood -- "Oshi!"
"I was jumped on the way in. No follow-up. Help me -- " I stand up. The woman leans against me, supporting: she's got muscles like steel under all that clothing. I sag.
"What happened?" she demands tensely.
Eri
, I realise.
"Two men. Jumped me. Dead. I was too slow. Get me --"
"This way." And we're moving, and then there's a vehicle with canvas sides and I'm lying on the floor and it's shaking and rattling and everything is very confused because my endocrine boosters just shut down and I've been running on raw overload for hours. "Injured?" she asks.
"No. Oh -- shit." She's holding my hand. A light gleams down at me. "
Holy fuck!
Is that --"
I try to smile but my face is frozen in a grimace. "Theirs," I say. Then I close my eyes and drift away to a place where there are no mad rapists lurking in the rubble and everything is nice and friendly. Until morning.
The debriefing; the inevitable humiliating offer. I'm staring at the wall like it's a firing squad, sitting with my hands in my lap and shaking. "Just say if you want us to aerovac you," diMichaelis offers. (diMichaelis is the dispatcher, point officer at our field headquarters. A dangerous place to stay.) My teeth are chattering behind sealed lips. "You earned it. You won't be the first. But if you're not okay for action I don't want you holding us up, you got that? Only you can say, though, so if you want to go back up, just say ..."
I nearly say
yes
there and then but something holds me back. I can smell some kind of acrid disinfectant around the house. We're in a basement; naked incandescent bulbs dangle on wires in front of a peeling paper map. They took my dress and burned it or something, I'm wearing an urban camouflage skinsuit and I sponged myself down, and if there was any hot water about I'd have had a bath. "I feel okay," I say, letting my lips deal with the words automatically. "It's no big deal."
Oh yes it is. You've never killed anyone before, have you? Not for real. And you never thought that when it happened you'd
enjoy
letting the rats have it
...
at least, not quite so much
... "I'll be okay. I'm just a bit shaken. Do we know who they were?"
diMichaelis purses his lips and squints at the map. I can't figure why he doesn't use wisdom, like anyone else would. "They were here -- " he points. "That's a Revenant area. Yeah, I think you got bounced by zombies. Out for blood."
"Our
allies
..?"
I must look startled because he frowns and shakes his head. "They're not friendlies; we just have a common enemy. Don't forget that; you were lucky. Rev's don't rape; they like their meat warm." His expression goes ugly. "Still and all, they're light compared to Stasi. It's their organisation that's the problem, or their lack of it. Which the Stasi make up for. Anyway. How're you feeling?"
I stretch. My right temple throbs and my left arm feels strained. "Like shit, but I'll do. What's my case, then?"
"Pushing ears. Your cell is Eris, Ivan and Ton Ang. Ivan is team leader. You won't see me any more ... term is four weeks clear, got that? You're going to have to pass for locals at a distance. We've got a concealed base setup in Dragulic. You've seen the heavy shit at a distance, now's your chance to get down and dirty. You pass for citizens, a Party couple and their body-servants. There's a town house we've set up and fortified for point-led ops. You get to set up the construction then wait it out until we're nice and ready, then come out and mop up to order. How's that?"
Like shit warmed over for lunch
. "Great."
Why am I doing this? Do I
hate
myself or something?
I stand up. "Where are the others? I want to say hello."
diMichaelis grins. "They're upstairs. Hey, take it easy. You're going to have a week with nothing to do but look like a native ... you're not on your own any more."
"How many of us are there dirtside?" I blurt out, unable to stop myself.
He looks at me oddly for a moment. "You don't need to know. If they catch you ..."
"Ack. Sorry, shouldn't have asked --"
diMichaelis stands up and walks over to the door, yanks it open. Wood scrapes a tearing protest against concrete. "Enough," he says, still smiling. "Go find your team. You're moving out after lunch."
I go upstairs and it's peeling paper dripping off damp walls, plaster mouldering away from lathwork and bricks. No carpet, half the stairguards stripped for tinder long ago ... depressing. The RZ HQ is the shell of a mansion home, probably used as a billet some time after the revolution. Then it was ransacked and abandoned during the bombings. They only used conventional weapons, else there'd be nothing left. The electromagnetic pulse from nukes has funny effects on upload nanosystems; as this war is literally all about hearts and minds I guess that's why they refrained. I pass a man on the stairs in local drag and flinch until he smiles and points out a door on the landing above me: "you want Ivan and Eri, right? I heard about last night! Stay live."
I hurry past him to the door and I go in. It's bare, furnished with a yellowing air mattress and an assortment of compact lethals. Ivan rises to meet me, arms wide, and I fall against him, trying not to sob. "Missed you," he whispers in my ear. "I was really pissed when I heard about what happened. Are you alright?" I nod. "We're all ready when you are. How about it?"
I let go of him and step back, only to find Eri and Ton Ang hugging me. "Hey! What's up?" I ask.
"You made it," Ton says simply. "Some have no trouble, and some are never seen again. But you made it." Eri just hugs me, closer than is strictly necessary.
Ivan clears his throat. "We're moving after lunch. You want to crash out first -- " his gesture takes in the mattress. "Or check out the cache? It's all we get, apart from the main installation. The Bosses aren't allowing us to carry any real heavy shit around for fear the Stasis will figure out how to clone it."
"Fine." They let go of me and I flop down in a squat on the bed. "What we got?"
He points. "Bullet guns. caseless ammo, flechettes, grenades, smart sights. GP knives. Our camo suits. More microsensors than you can wave a stick at, but no heavy shit for now." He shrugs. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Dunno about you, but I don't like the idea of going into a city we're meant to be reclaiming with a full war load. At least not until we've prepared it for mopping up."
I shiver.
After last night
... "the animals deserve it," I say. "Just show me the trigger!"
"Exactly." He looks at me oddly, just like diMichaelis did, and I chill out, uneasy, feeling distinctly strange. Like maybe he figures there's something wrong with me?
Shit!
Two crazed necrophiliacs tried to rape and murder me in no particular order and there's something wrong with
me
for getting angry? I smile sharply and he looks away.
Maybe there is
, I think.
"What's our cover?" asks Ton Ang. He scratches behind one ear, idling too close to the window for comfort.
"Um. Names are okay ... I've got ID's in the pipeline. You want me to dump wisdom to you?"
"That would be great!" says Eri. Her eyes sparkle. She's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; nobody tried to kill her on her way to the RDV. I nod and wonder if she'll freeze when the crap hits the fan. Overt enthusiasm is not a noted survival trait in this vocation.
"Check. Dumping my wisdom --" A glissade of soundless light drifts down across my ears, behind my eyes, sheets and trails and flaring runes that tell me nothing until I try to make sense of it. "Oshi?"
"I'm cool," I say. Waving a hand, palm-down: "Right. So I'm ... your
wife?
" I blink at him. He looks pained. "So?"
"What kind of thing is this? Chattel-slavery or something?"
Eri glances up at the ceiling, pointedly whistles between her teeth. "Watcha, Oshi. You
trying
to spoof our cover or what?"
"No. Why?"
She rolls her eyes. "Their eugenics program is fucked, that's for starters. There are three men for every two women and the ratio would be worse if sex determination was legal instead of only a black market. This is the safest squad-sized cover story Intelligence could figure --"
"Shit --"
" -- like we go in as a 'respectable' administrator, his chattel, and two indentured servants."
I stand up: "where does this shit come from? I demand to know!"
Eri walks up behind me, puts her arms round my waist, and leans her chin on my shoulder. "What was it like where you grew up?" she asks quietly.
"I don't know! I was a blind beggar -- " I stop. They're looking at me oddly. I can feel Eri's hips poking into my buttocks, closer than I'm comfortable with. Ivan looks miserable, Ton Ang looks as if he doesn't want to know.
So I never got to worry about it
, I don't bother finishing.
"So it's a shitty situation," I say, shrugging. "Tell me something new."
The atmosphere loosens up a little. "We dress up and move out in an hour. There's a freighter, then we take the train to Dragulic. Get a cab to the house, sweep for squealers, and hole up. Our outside exposure is about four hours total, got that? After which we do whatever comes naturally."
"Fine." Ang is rummaging in a sack of props from Stuff Central. He pulls out clothing, boots, headgear, all kinds of shit. "Hey, dig this ... "
He begins to strip and we follow suit, rummaging for appropriate gear. I make damned sure that I have a powerknife stashed in the top of one stocking and a plastic machine pistol in my bag. When we finish, I have the small consolation of seeing that the others look just as uncomfortable as I am. "Ready?" asks Ivan. We nod. Ivan sidles up beside me and wraps an arm round my waist, tries to kiss me: I turn my cheek and he backs off. The whole deal is weird: I don't like it and I don't feel like letting it get to me either.
"Let's go," says Eri, looking uncomfortable.
"Yo!" agrees Ton.
Ivan lets me go, looks at me strangely. I shrug back at him: "Lead off, boss," I say. We troop downstairs and out to the waiting truck that will take us to the monorail station. It's a cold morning, and the leaves lie in brown heaps on the ground. The clouds overhead are grey and dismal. Just right for battle.
I don't see much of Dragulic on the way in -- or of Vladigrad on the way out. I'm under cover, my hackles raised, just concentrating on not freaking when we drive past checkpoints. The guard wear grey uniforms and hold bullet guns with the nervous readiness of men who have seen too many of their colleagues shot. Our vehicle is a groundcar powered by a steam engine, dull green paint peeling from dented metal slab sides. The railway station is a looming stone edifice, fylfot banners dangling listlessly above the platforms. We make our way through on foot, Ton Ang and Eri carrying our luggage, Ivan leading. I guess my tension is totally in keeping with the environment, a loud, jabbering space crammed with stinking life and unhealthy clattering machinery. Soot drifts down from the roof like black snow as we make our way to the carriage.
Three hours later we clatter into Dragulic. Blinds cover the windows, because dusk settles early and the city is blacked out -- an optical curfew against marauding light-seekers. We don't talk much during the journey. Ivan is reading a newspaper, which is something new to me: I try not to gape at it as he blips out a steady trickle of wisdom bulletins, articles, enemy propaganda. They call us aliens and claim to be winning the valiant struggle to free the hero-race from the agents of interstellar imperialism and digital necrophilia, the usual tired litany of implausible bullshit. The rest of the news is about battles won and spies executed, factories built and nations enslaved. It's a glimpse into a repugnant view of reality: fascism has its own warped logic. I just hope I never learn to understand it from the inside.
When we leave the train we bundle straightaway into another steam carriage, this time a dull black vehicle with comfortable seats and an obsequious driver. We rumble through the twisting streets until we arrive at a big house in a residential area. We've arrived.
The building is concrete with big floor and ceiling spaces, constructed to accommodate peacetime subsystems which this culture never quite developed. Razorwire threads the hedge like glittering dew, and my head comes alive with the mindless hum of perimeter sensors as we go inside. Stasi have no wisdom, barely got computers -- big steaming edifices of sintered glass and copper, the most advanced tools they'll allow themselves -- but can check out radiation emissions. Once the front door shuts and the car drives off Ivan gestures; we dump kit and roll through every room in regular search mode, nerves on fire and guns in hand. But there are no surprises and the microsensors Intelligence primed the place with say it's clear ... we're safe.
An hour later I'm lying in a hot tub of water on the first floor. The room's tiled with baked clay and the bath is made of tinned metal, but so what! There's a boiler to heat the water, and a flush lavatory -- luxury by local standards. I feel that if I lie in it for long enough I might make myself clean again. My gun's near enough to grab and I make a splash getting it when the door slides open and Ivan comes in. "How are you feeling?" he asks.
I don't even think about it. "Dirty. Raw. Getting better. How would you feel?"
He squats down next to the tub, avoiding the puddle on the floor, crosses his legs. He's wearing a camo suit, I realise. I put the gun down carefully. "I don't know," he says. "Nobody ever tried to rape me. Death, I guess, I've seen, but --"
It's the way he says it. I think I can forgive him now, whatever I thought five minutes ago. He doesn't understand, probably never will, but that's not his fault. "I'm sorry. I was way spooked by it. The way they didn't even wait for me to say something --"