The Burn Zone (20 page)

“
He didn
’
t do what they said.
”

“
Sure, kid. Okay.
”
He wiped his brow and sighed.
“
Look, it
’
s all over the feed—whatever he brought back with him is still out there, and the rumor is it
’
s something bad this time, something biological. I
’
m on the first transport to Duongroi until this blows over. If you
’
re smart, you
’
ll come with me.
”

“
Come with you?
”

“
I still got your passport and ticket. I
’
ll take you, if you want.
”

“
You
’
ve got to be out of your mind.
”

He shrugged.

“
Suit
yourself
,
”
he said.
“
The wet drive stays with me, though.
”

“
I
’
m taking it.
”

“
No way, it
’
s too valuable. Besides, you want those people coming after you next?
”

“
I said I
’
m taking it....
”

I sensed her before I saw her. The mite cluster lit up suddenly and sent an ugly vibe deep into my head. The
intensity of it triggered an adrenaline surge, anger and aggression building up in response.

Eng frowned.
“
What the fuck is wrong with you?
”

Something moved behind him, up near the ceiling. Something big that had somehow remained hidden even while I
’
d passed through the room just moments before. His face changed as he watched my attention turn away from him, instincts warning him that there was trouble before I even knew what I was seeing.

He turned in time to see a female form decked out in full combat armor unfold from the shadows of the corner ceiling behind him, a few feet from the open window behind her. Her long legs swung down and she dropped with a thud and then lashed out and clamped one gloved hand down on his throat.

“
What the fu—
”
he managed before the armor whined and his voice was cut off. She swung him around, then let go, shoving him back against the closet door so hard that a framed picture above the bed dropped to the floor. When she stepped into the light, I could see the red stamp on the armor
’
s shoulder plate.

Eng didn
’
t hesitate as he pulled open the closet door and reached
inside,
hauling a shotgun out from where he
’
d had it propped. His eyes flashed surprise for just a second when he spotted a woman who was sitting on the floor there, pressed back into the hanging shirts and pants with a zombielike stare stuck on her bruised and battered face.

He swung the shotgun around and fired at Red-stamp almost point-blank, the boom thumping through my chest as my face caught a blast of heat and burned powder smell. Red-stamp staggered, but the armor absorbed the pellets and she swung back around to clamp her fist down around the barrel, pushing it away as he fired again.

The wall next to her exploded in a shower of wood
splinters and drywall powder, and that seemed to wake the girl stuck in the closet. Her eyes snapped fully open and she backed farther into the hanging clothes, pushing with her feet.

Red-stamp wrenched the gun out of Eng
’
s hands and threw it away behind her as she closed in on him again and grabbed his wrist. When they moved out from in front of the closet, I caught the woman
’
s attention and reached out one hand to her.

“
Come on,
”
I hissed.

She kept her eyes on the two struggling outside the door as she stumbled out. A blond wig had slipped halfway off to reveal a black pixie cut underneath, and mascara had run down both cheeks. She wore a fake leather mini and a half shirt that was a size too small, sporting a silvery iron-on decal that said Fun Girl.

“
Hand over the wet drive,
”
Red-stamp
said,
moving the empty shell of her hidden face close to his while he struggled futilely to twist out of her grip.

“
Fuck you,
”
he grunted.

She squeezed and I heard the bone crack. Eng
’
s mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged as his hand jutted off at an odd angle. She stifled his scream by grabbing his throat with her other hand.

“
One more word,
”
she said in a low voice,
“
and I
’
ll eat you right here. Alive.
”

Fun Girl lunged toward me, her stiff legs giving out at the halfway point and causing her to fall forward into my arms. While the struggle continued by the doorway, she began to sob.

“
You
’
re okay,
”
I said in her ear, pulling her back away from the other two.
“
Take it easy.
”

I heard another crack of bone and Eng
gasped,
his face dark. He didn
’
t dare speak again, but his bulging eyes moved toward me and stared as he raised one shaking finger to point.

Red-stamp let go of his wrist, then shoved him back against the wall with a crash that knocked a picture frame down onto the floor. She grabbed his head in both her hands and wrenched it around with a meaty pop that left his chin pointing down at the small of his back.

Fun Girl shrieked as his arms fell to his sides like deadweight and he crumpled to the floor. Red-Stamp turned toward us, and her head cocked barely little as she focused on me. A low buzz whined as a big scalefly flew around her head like a halo,
then
lit down on her chest plate.

“
You,
”
she said.
“
You
’
re alive.
”

There wasn
’
t any time to think. As she closed the distance I reached into my backpack and pulled out the stun gun, fumbling the business end around just as she reached to grab me. Electric blue light flashed as the prongs snapped and she jerked back, crashing into the wall.

She recovered almost right away and came at me again, so I cranked the voltage up to maximum and jabbed her ribs a second time.

The bang sounded like a gunshot, and I actually saw light flash under the combat armor as she flew back into the wall again, this time hard enough to crack it. An end table collapsed under her as she fell, then went facedown onto the floor in front of me. Her scaly, gloved hand groped for me feebly and then went still.

I scrambled over and heaved her onto her back. I patted her down, looking for anything that might be useful, anything that might tell me who she was.

“
What are you doing?
”
Fun Girl mumbled woozily.
“
Is she dead?
”

“
I don
’
t know,
”
I said.
“
Just take off. Get going.
”

A little dark shape flitted toward me and I slapped down hard on the side of my neck as a sharp pain jabbed it.

“
Ow
!
”

I looked at my hand and saw the mangled body of a scalefly, its hooked forelegs broken and plaque-colored guts poking out of its cracked body.

“
Stupid thing ...
”

The word fizzled out as a strange sensation overcame me. It started like a bad head rush, but three heartbeats later it was if I
’
d just OD
’
d on Zen oil. Darkness rushed in like the cold black of the ocean bottom, and my legs buckled. I felt myself fall, crashing into a table and knocking over the lamp there. It shattered, sounding far away.

A signal surged through the mites and caused a flicker in the darkness. It flashed brighter and then an image formed around me all at once like a
waking dream that shunted out everything else. In an instant I was somewhere else, and everything I saw had a ghostly, washed-out quality to it. I was in a room that had partly collapsed, where steam drifted from sheared pipes that stuck from a ruined wall. My field of view turned, and I realized that I could see through the concrete rubble to where the pipes extended into blackness. The tiled floor was buckled and covered with a film of greasy black powder, but I could spot movement underneath, blobs of heat and the tiny skeletons of several small creatures. An array of computer consoles stood on the edge of a huge hole in the middle of the floor, thick bundles of wire trailing down into the pit. I could see flickers and pulses of light as power and data traveled along the wires.

It
’
s coming from her,
I realized.
The haan.
It
’
s a dream, or a memory.
I
’
d get the occasional flash from a surrogate, a stray image here and there that were sometimes strung together, but nothing like this. It felt completely real.

She moved to the edge of the hole and looked down into what looked like the mouth of a huge fluke, but as I stared I realized that the inward-pointing teeth were actually rings of beds bolted around the inner wall of the pit. Lying motionless in each bed was a person. They appeared as skeletons surrounded by the phantom gauze of soft tissue. I could see their hearts pulsing behind rows of ribs, and their brains resting behind their translucent skulls. Specks, tiny electric impulses darted through, making the brains appear to shift behind the staring white orbs of their unblinking eyes.

We look a little like haan to them.
The thought popped into my head as I watched them through her eyes. She leaned forward to peer down on one of the men, and when she did I saw a bulbous shape on his chest come into focus. It looked like a huge, fat tick perched there, legs spread around it and its swollen abdomen sticking up in the air. Its insides were throbbing, and she watched as little blobs of fluid traveled through a tube that connected it to its host. It wasn
’
t sucking blood out, though. The little pulses were traveling in the other direction, into the man.

She turned her gaze to the others. Everyone there had one of the strange constructs sitting on them, pulsing, and inside the bodies below them was something else. Something else was in there, something moving, but I didn
’
t get a good look before she moved away.

She crossed to some kind of console, electric impulses coursing through its guts, and opened a panel there to reveal rows of glass jars sealed at both ends with swarms of little specks buzzing around inside. What looked like two long tentacles moved into view, placing a new one at the end of the bottom row, while scaleflies flitted past, and crawled down the length of each wormlike appendage, crawling in and out of deep, black
pores ...

The images snapped away, and I found myself back on the hotel floor surrounded by broken plastic and fluorescent bulb powder. Red-stamp sat up on the floor as I shook my head, trying to shake it off so I could shock her
again, but before I could she swatted the stun gun out of my hand. I hadn
’
t even seen her move.

“
You should have run,
”
she said.

I backed away, waving at Fun Girl.
“
Go!
”

Another fly flew over and landed right on her face, causing her to wipe at it with both hands as Red-stamp thumped one hand down onto my chest and shoved me back like a rag doll. I crashed into the wall, and then fell down hard onto my butt. She rose one foot over my right leg, and I managed to roll away just as I heard the suit
’
s pneumatic pop. Her heel crashed down onto the floor where my knee had been a second before, crunching through the wood beneath the carpet.