Jeff Somers - Digital Plague

I considered this, fighting the urge to start coughing again. “Then why isn’t he down here?”

Belling looked at me, a hint of the old bravado smile on his face. “Because, Avery, the Freak doesn’t consider you a threat. What with his Wonder Boy brain and all, you see. Also,” he continued, looking away and making a show of examining his surroundings, “I have gotten the impression he wants you to die of this plague, slowly. He wants you to suffer. Or rather, the voice in his head does.”

When it is over, you will be punished again, I heard Kev saying not so long ago. I gave Belling my best hardassed stare: emotionless, cold. I was a little surprised how easily it came back to me. “So what’s changed, Wallace? What’s happened in the past two days that brings you to me? ”

Belling’s expression changed, all the humor going out of it, rage lighting him up and filling him, peeling back a few dozen years instantly. “Avery, I made a deal-you can cry about it if you want, but you and I, we didn’t have a deal. We had an informal arrangement.”

I almost pulled the trigger right then and there, the words informal arrangement like acid in my ear. The gun shook in my hand, and I told myself it was pure, corrosive anger. I wanted to shove our informal arrangement up his ancient ass.

“I made a deal with the Freak. A deal,” he added, “that no longer exists.” He looked away, finding something over my shoulder to study. “He fucking reneged. On me. On Wa Belling.”

A smile flashed onto my face. I almost felt good. “You got fucked in return,” I said, feeling some small part of the universe click back into alignment.

The old man’s eyes latched onto me. “You can be amused, Avery,” he said icily, “at least for the remaining few hours of your life. As for me, I am not happy. I was going to be immortal, Avery. And now I am dying. ”

I squinted at him. “So? Just kill Kieth. Kill Kieth and the whole nano network crashes, right? They’ll just become bits of silicone and alloy in our bloodstream, and we’ll piss ’em out.”

He nodded. “That asshole Kieth is a clever asshole, yes-his little back door in the nano design is the only reason he’s still alive. But Avery, it isn’t that simple. Every time I do something Kev doesn’t like the look of, he tells me to stop, and I stop, yes? And he is under… guard. ” He shrugged, suddenly looking small. “And I’ve grown old, Avery. I need your help.”

I snorted at this ridiculous situation, which set off a chain reaction of coughing I couldn’t stop. I was laughing and hacking my lungs up simultaneously, face going red, sweat pouring down my back. I bent over, putting the gun flat against my knee, trying to suck in enough breath to respond.

“Where the fuck were you a day ago?” I gasped. “I’m fucking dying now. ”

Belling had recovered some of his old fire and was grinning at me as if we were all sharing a little joke. “So am I! The metal fucker put me on the list. I’ve never been so fucking screwed in my life. ” Then he sobered. “I don’t wish to die, Avery, but I want to make that Freak hurt. ” He cocked his head at me. “You and I come from the same place, in some ways. You know what happens when someone screws you out of a deal.” He nodded as if that was all that needed to be said. “We were an excellent murder team, Avery. Excellent. ”

I spat a glob of red phlegm onto the floor and stared down at it, still doubled over, gasping shallowly. I was slowly getting myself back under control. I put my gun on him again. “You can say what you want, Wa, but we had a deal, you and me. I should shoot you in the belly. Shoot you in the fucking belly and leave you here to bleed and be eaten. To feel what she felt. And you want me to trust you?”

“You have a choice?” He laughed, lowering his hands with a glance at Lukens. “My dear, feel free to shoot me if I make any false moves. That will be our deal.”

She nodded and spat on the floor as if chewing an invisible wad of smoke. “All right.”

He looked back at me. “You’re half the man you were yesterday, Avery, and sledding downhill. You have one System Pig here who is not taking your orders, but we’ll list her as an asset on the assumption that since she hasn’t killed you yet, she probably won’t, and may even kill your enemies in the meantime. You-what the hell is your name?”

Marko blinked. “Ezekiel Marko,” he said, sounding confused.

“ Ezekiel? ” Belling repeated wonderingly. “Well, Zeke, my friend, what are you bringing to the operation?”

“Uh,” Marko frowned in thought for a second, then held up his little device. “Uh, this.”

“Ah,” Belling said with a sour twist of distaste. “A Techie. My favorite people. Very well; I assume you are skilled?”

Marko nodded slowly. “Uh, according to my OFS of you, you’re fucking Cainnic Orel.”

Belling waved him aside. “Optical facial scans are notoriously unreliable,” he said, “and the database you are pulling from is an official SSF one, yes? Years out of date, I assure you.” He looked back at me. Somehow he’d filled up again, swelling until he was Wa Belling again, bouncing on his feet and speaking in that subtle brogue I knew so well, maybe the last living member of Canny Orel’s old Murder Incorporated. “You have no choice, Avery. You and I, even at half speed, can take down any mark, I think. And we have more resources here than we’ve had at low times in both our careers.”

This was true. When I was young, I’d pulled off some high-profile hits, just me and my gun. It took years of crawling the streets to develop contacts, to get in with someone like Pickering for information, to cultivate the reputation that got you loans, information, extra hands when needed. I pulled myself upright and pushed my gun into my pocket. “All right, Belling. You’re right: no choice.” I needed his gun, and I wasn’t sure I’d succeed if I tried to kill him. If I put him on the run-well, fuck, I didn’t need Wa Belling in the fucking shadows in addition to all my other woes. I held out my hand. “We have a deal. But only until Kieth is dead. After that I plan to make you suffer.”

He eyed my hand warily. “You’re a man of your word, Avery,” he said, stepping forward, “and I am not. But for what it’s worth, I promise this: until we’re done here, you can trust me absolutely. As for suffering, I expected nothing less. We’re each making deals with the devil.”

I almost believed him. You’re a man of your word, I repeated to myself and thought of Kieth, upstairs. Shit, I thought, you’re thinking of last week’s Avery Cates. Hating him, I pumped his hand.

I took a slow, deeper breath, taking my time with it in order to avoid triggering more coughing. “All right, what intel do you have?”

“Little man,” Belling said over his shoulder to Marko, “do you have floor plans of this complex on that delightful little device?”

Marko nodded, rushing forward. “I do!” he said briskly, thrusting the screen toward Belling. “I have floor plans, wiring networks, plumbing, air ducts-none big enough for a person to crawl through, however.” He was sweating lightly, whether from excitement or the first stages of his own nano invasion it was hard to tell. Based on the way he was looking up at Belling, as if he’d found god, I decided it was excitement.

Belling nodded, turning to me. “I know where they’re holding Kieth, and I know the basic deployment of the Mutant Freak’s fellow Monks. We know their strength and resources, Avery.”