Jeff Somers - Digital Plague

But when I’d killed Squalor-when Marin had manipulated me into killing Squalor-he’d been able to declare a State of Emergency, and under his own obscure rules that had given him a much wider portfolio to work with. Officially, the Emergency continued, though you didn’t hear about it much anymore. It bubbled in the background and allowed Marin to basically run the whole fucking System. A shadow emperor. He’d been closing his fist around everything ever since, and I was getting sick of it.

From what I’d heard, so were the Joint Council Undersecretaries, who should have benefited from events, too. Marin had had a free hand for years, but I’d heard rumors that the Undersecretaries were getting their shit together, and it promised to be an interesting time, assuming any of us survived.

One thing hadn’t changed, though: yen ran the world and guys like Stanley had to grift a bit just to survive. “Double plus a bonus,” I said, “for being flexible. We let it drift for now, and you touch me for it anytime you like. You know I’m good for it.”

I had a reputation, and it came in handy sometimes.

“Fuck,” he muttered, spinning around to see who was watching. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. ” He looked at me again and pulled on his little beard. “All right,” he finally said, stepping aside and gesturing at Moon-man. “Open ’er up. Wait, wait a fucking sec,” he muttered, pulling me close and miming examining me. “Just in case, let’s at least look like you have a pass.” I let him shove me around a bit, amused, because if any of the System Pigs were watching, he was pretty much going to get the shit beat out of him, or worse, no matter what kind of dumb show he put on. Finally, he patted me down and pushed me to the other side, grabbing Jabali by the lapels. Jabali didn’t like it, but he took it. He was the sort of lifetime soldier who could hold his temper, and think twice-useful.

“All right, move,” he growled, turning away. “Don’t fucking dawdle.”

I didn’t pause for more conversation; Jabali and I stepped quickly through the barricade and kept walking, turning onto a side street as soon as we could. When the checkpoint had disappeared around the corner, Jabali cursed softly.

“Fucking hate sucking their dicks,” he muttered. “Those assholes aren’t worth shit.”

I didn’t say anything. Jabali was a Taker, and a good one; he’d tracked down Dr. Daniel Terries for me in just a few hours. But I’d been unable to discourage his tendency to think I gave a shit about what he thought.

While we walked, trying to approximate the alien gait of men without worries, I studied him, looking for any sign that he was sick or impaired in some way. The math was easy: Gleason had been sick a day and a half after we came back from Newark and dead in three. This shit didn’t take time. He looked okay, though.

As we made our way uptown, the streets started to fill up a little, people better dressed and a little cheerier than I was used to, but not so different. The whole world was a fucking shit pyramid. Shit ran downhill and turned the wheel, kept things burning, but you had to have a lot of people trying to get out of the way of the shit or nothing much happened. These people were a little higher on the pyramid, maybe, but they were running for shelter just like the rest of us. They sure smelled better, although the mix of colognes and perfumes in the air made my head ache.

Jabali lumbered along next to me, looking like a hood. It was in his walk-you could put him in a decent suit, but the bastard still walked like a criminal-half cocky strut, half paranoid scuttle. But he looked healthy, normal. I had the strange feeling of everything being on pause, like that moment before a storm when you can feel the electricity in the air but nothing’s started yet, and kept stealing glances at him, expecting to see a sudden bruise on his neck like I’d seen downtown.

He caught me looking at him and smiled nervously, his hair flopping about. “Feel like ev’ryone is staring at me, boss,” he said, shrugging his coat on.

I nodded. A lot of people couldn’t handle being uptown-you learned how to live a certain way, you learned to never take shit and never back off, to do your little dance every day, the toughest bastard in the room, any room, no matter what-and it was hard to try and act like a civilian. Some of us just couldn’t do it. I knew real killers who wouldn’t go past Twenty-third Street for anything because they couldn’t stand the looks they got.

Terries lived around Fiftieth Street, real posh. As we humped up and across town, my skin started to crawl: everyone was clean, and styled, and the weirdest part was the fucking hum of conversation. Everyone was talking and making no effort to hide the fact, laughing, shouting. I’d never thought of downtown as quiet before. As we walked, it was like everyone was fucking shouting, and I was sweating, my hair standing on end. I made my living being fucking quiet. Noise equaled death, where I came from.

“Spare some yen?”

I started, one hand reaching for my piece before I caught myself. The Monk danced in front of me, limping on a damaged leg that had been repaired with a lead pipe welded at the knee. It wore a ragged suit of clothes, but its white plastic face was still perfect, clean and unmarred, floating like a moon in front of me. We were in an open area, the street widening out and making me dizzy with so much space. A church loomed up on our right, two sharp little spiky towers reaching for the sky, the three huge doors capped by triangular masonry. It was impossibly big, ancient stone wearing away under the weather, covered in bird shit and chipped to hell. I blinked stupidly as we walked past, herding the Tin Man ahead of us. Five or six other Monks sat on the church’s steps, crouching, like birds.

I hadn’t been this close to a Monk in years. It had put on the best smile it could manage, which wasn’t much, and kept its balance magically as it hopped backward on its ruined leg. It looked from me to Jabali and back again, and I tensed up; the Monks were equipped with Optical Facial Recognition circuits, and back when they’d been hooked up to the Electric Church’s net they’d been able to scan your face and come up with your name and any public information on you that was out there. The Electric Church was gone, but if they’d scanned you years ago, they still had the info, and sometimes a Monk would call you by name.

I looked past it at the wide, dizzying expanse of street ahead of us. “Get the fuck out of my way,” I growled. I was still acting my part. You never knew who might be paying attention.

It scuttled away and accosted someone behind us. I turned my head left and stared into the SSF hover yard, a big empty lot a block from The Rock where the cops kept a fleet of your standard hovers-small, two-or three-man units, not the big fat ones that could be stuffed with Stormers. A bunch of Crushers and officers were hanging around outside it, and some stared back at me as I walked. It was always bad to stare at the System Pigs. They didn’t care for it and liked to teach lessons, but I couldn’t make my head turn back. The hovers all looked scruffy and beat-up, sporting unmatched armor plating and evidence of rough handling. Not a single one looked new.

“Down here,” Jabali said, gesturing to the right. I turned with him and we headed down the side street, away from The Rock, otherwise known as Cop fucking Central. Cop Central was a goddamn planet unto itself, four square city blocks of everything cop. It had its own gravity, and people like me wound up breaking up in its atmosphere if we got too close. The main tower was ancient and soared up above us, the tallest building in New York, with hovers landing and taking off from the roof all day long.