Jeff Somers - Digital Plague

I nodded. I had a suspicion this would turn out to be System Pigs no matter what the shell announcement said, and if I was right that meant they were coming for me. “If I twist your nose, Reggie, I will break it. I won’t really mean to, but it’ll happen. You’ll stain your shirt and, knowing you, probably piss your pants. And then you’re going to hit the panic button wired into the door and let us out anyway. So save yourself the trouble.”

Reggie looked at Glee, but didn’t seem to like the blank expression on her face. I snapped my fingers under his nose, making him jump. “Damn, Reggie, you take your Health Department actions pretty fucking seriously, huh?”

He wiped a hand over his face. “You don’t-”

I made a feint at his nose, and he slammed back against the strangling wall of his office.

“Tell me I don’t understand again.”

Keeping his eyes on me, he reached forward and gestured, fat hands moving with surprising delicacy through a complex series of positions. Behind us, the door opened with a snick. I scooped my portable shell from its dock and dropped it into my coat. “Good luck with the folks from Public Health, Reg,” I said, turning. Glee spun with me and let me move ahead of her.

None of the other doors were open. I imagined people in each one, in their tiny offices, like beetles tied to pins. In the entryway, the Droid spun its blank oval head toward us in a creepy, doomed attempt to appear human.

“For your safety, please return to your office,” it said, projecting its voice over the building shell. “Your face has been scanned and transmitted to the System Security Force for reference. One citizen and one unknown. For your safety, please return to your office.”

Glee strode forward toward the entry door, but it didn’t budge for her. “Don’t bother,” I said. “You’ve got to release each one separately.” I started trying to replicate the gesture Reggie had made in his office. As I tried to will my hand into the right series of positions, I glanced up at Glee, who’d flashed out her blade again and stood ready, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. She looked incredibly young, but then I’d been doing shank jobs in the street for food money when I’d been fifteen.

My third guess at the gesture snapped the office door open. Glee poked her head out into the hall and nodded, glancing back at me. “All clear.” She looked pink and shiny, like something very hot was inside her, melting.

“Attention, HD lockdown violation on seventy-fifth floor, ” the building shell announced immediately. I pushed myself toward the door.

“Get back!” I shouted.

She spun to face me, walking backward into the hall, flipping the blade over her knuckles and back again. “Ooh, Avery is protective. Avery is a father figure, ” she said, grinning. I lumbered as fast as I could at the doorway and slammed into her, knocking her down onto the floor and pinning her blade arm under one elbow. I looked up, panting, as she squirmed beneath me.

“Avery, what the fuck? ”

The hallway was empty. Glee was frowning up at me, her face flushed, her hair matted damply to her forehead. I lifted my arm and thrust a finger under her nose.

“What the fuck, kid, is-”

A loud crash made us both whip our heads around in time to see ceiling panels drop to the floor as two plump spheres appeared from above.

“-Security Droids,” I finished. “Get up slow and stay behind me.”

“Citizen,” the building shell boomed through the hallway, “please lie facedown on the floor and await security personnel.”

I held a finger against my lips without looking away. “Pretty harmless. They just herd the taxpayers as long as the taxpayers don’t do anything wonky. But you were never registered, kid-you’re a blank, and they don’t like blanks, okay? They will fire on you. And your blade won’t do anything against them.” I patted her cheek. “So stay behind me, okay?”

She nodded, nose runny, eyes wide. “Okay.” She looked fifteen again.

“Citizen, please lie facedown on the floor and await security personnel.”

I knew the Droids wouldn’t fire on a citizen; they’d just browbeat me to death. I stood up and made sure I was between them and Glee. The Droids just floated, two gleaming black balls, emitting a soft, deep hum I could feel in my chest.

“The elevators,” I said. “Slow. Stay behind me.”

We scuttled awkwardly backward.

“Citizen, please lie facedown on the floor and await security personnel.”

“Where do we go?” Glee whispered. “If the System Pigs are coming, they’re coming down the elevators, right?”

I nodded. “Eleven eighty-five Sixth Avenue,” I said over my shoulder, eyes on the humming Droids as they herded us, “is an old building, Glee. Built before fireproof materials.”

I bumped into her and stopped. “Elevator,” she said.

I grinned at the Droids. “And thus it has a standard public-access fire alarm system,” I said, and gestured.

Immediately, a piercing alarm erupted like a solid thing all around us, and the building shell started talking over itself, first telling me to get on the floor and then announcing a fire emergency. Behind me, I heard the whoosh of the elevator doors as they opened, and every door in the hall snapped open at the same time.

“Fucking chaos,” Glee said. “I fucking love it. Avery’s a fucking genius. ”

I was loved and adored by adolescent girls everywhere.

I backed my way into the cab, the Droids following just a foot away. When I was barely inside I reached over and gestured, and the doors shut. The cab immediately started heading down.

“Where are we going?” Glee asked, grinning at me. I tried to keep my face straight, but I smiled back, feeling an unfamiliar and not unwelcome energy bristling inside me. I peered at the kid-she was so flushed and sweaty I worried for a moment that I’d missed something, that she’d gotten tagged somehow.

“In these old pre-Uni buildings,” I said, “in event of a fire they can’t very well send you up to the roof to watch in horror while the building burns, kiddo. So they send you down to a bunker below street level.” I’d gotten so used to giving Glee these little lessons I almost didn’t notice I was doing it anymore. I got down on one knee and laced my hands together. “Come on, I’ll give you a boost.”

She squinted at me. “Where am I going? Why not just walk out of the bunker?”

I nodded. “Sure, if you want to get killed. Kid, they can see this elevator moving right now. If they’re of a mind to intercept us, all they have to do is wait downstairs for us. So, we’re going up.”

She nodded dubiously, putting one old cracked boot into my hands and grabbing onto my shoulders for balance. I took a deep breath and hauled her up toward the maintenance hatch of the cab. “Up?” she said as she traced its lines with her fingers. “How far up? They invented elevators so we didn’t have to, you know, climb and shit.”

“Just the second floor,” I said. “You lazy kid. We’ll be able to make a jump from there.”

With a soft ooh, she found the latch and the maintenance hatch released, hanging down and instantly forming a little ladder for us. A breeze rushed into the cab, making the stray strands of Glee’s red hair whip around. She reached forward and pulled herself onto the ladder without waiting, and in a second had disappeared above me. I took a breath and followed her, emerging onto the top of the elevator just as it coasted to a stop, making us both dance a little to keep our balance. I looked around, squinting, and spied the maintenance ladder clinging precariously to the shaft wall behind Glee. I nodded at it, and she turned to examine it.