Originator (34 page)

“No. Because if you serve something that bad, I couldn't care less.”

“Ah,” said Jane with a dry smile. “Some deaths good, other deaths bad. Got it.”

“We do the best we can,” Sandy said coldly. “At least some of us make an effort.”

“I make an effort.”

“At what, exactly?”

Jane sighed and got to her feet. “You want to know why I came?” she said. “I made a promise to someone. And I couldn't let him down.”

“Yeah, well, your master's now dead,” said Sandy. “Time to find a new one.”

“I told you,” said Jane, “I don't serve him.” Sandy frowned at her. “Lā 'ilāha 'illā-llāh, muḥammadun rasÅ«lu-llāh,” Jane explained.

There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet
. Sandy stared, mouth dropping slowly open. Jane nodded and walked away.

Danya awoke. He felt like he'd never really been asleep, waking fitfully, listening to noises in the night. Time and again he rolled to check the bags between the two beds—they were backpacks they'd bought with Cai and Poole yesterday, on Danya's insistence. He'd filled them with things too, water bottles, cutters, some rope. It wasn't nearly enough. Twice he got up to wander the house in search of extra things to bag, only to be intercepted by Sandy and sent sternly back to bed.

He didn't like this bedroom with no windows. Of course, windows were even worse, given what was hunting them. But he worried about line of sight, and escape routes, and warning times . . . silly to worry about, given they were guarded by a house full of high-des GIs, all of whom would know when it was time to go better than he would. But the old habits were back, a bit faded but never forgotten. Svetlana and Kiril slept together on the other bed, the exhausted sleep of younger children who had always had an older brother to look after them. He worried what would happen to them if he wasn't there.

Now he woke and rolled to find Poole sitting between the beds, back propped to the wall. Eyes closed, chin rough with stubble. The eyes opened a little, and looked at him.

“Can they hack you here?” Danya murmured.

“Don't see how,” said Poole. “But that's the point of advanced tech, I guess. The less advanced can't see how.”

“It works off the local network, doesn't it?”

Poole nodded. “Cai says they don't have transmitters in their heads. They just lock into the local network and take it over. So if we go somewhere where there's no network, we should be safe from it.”

“We should go,” Danya muttered. “Into the jungle. There's no network reception there. No high bandwidth, anyway.”

“Nothing to eat either.”

“Plenty to eat,” said Danya. “You've just gotta kill it.”

“You have jungle survival training?” Danya shook his head reluctantly. “It's not a dustbowl like Droze. There might be food and water, but there's a lot poisonous.”

“Better than here.” Uplinks had seemed like more of a liability to him for a long time. Now that they were definitely a liability, he wondered if he, Svet, and Kiril wouldn't be safer without any GIs at all. They were protection, yes, but they also attracted attention. And they kept insisting they could keep the Talee out of their heads, but the Talee always got in anyway.

“Danya?” said Svetlana. She was looking at him. “Should we go?”

“I think so.” He gnawed his lip. “Anywhere with uplinks and networks is dangerous. But Sandy . . .”

“Sandy thinks we should rest first,” said Svetlana, troubled. “Danya, I think she tries to protect us too much. We're tougher than she thinks.”

Danya nodded and got up. Svetlana came too, careful not to wake Kiril. Poole stayed behind. In the living room, Ragi dozed on the sofa, while Sandy and Cai spoke in the adjoining kitchen. Sandy gave them a displeased look.

“Guys, you need to sleep.”

“We need to leave!” Svetlana retorted. “There are too many networks, the Talee will find us!” Sandy and Cai exchanged glances. It looked to Danya as though they'd been planning something.

“What are you planning?” Danya asked cautiously.

“Best not discuss it further,” said Cai. “Just in case.” And frowned as the asura, which had been resting on a rug by the windows, trotted past him and headed for the kids' bedroom. Kiril, Danya thought, and followed. The animal turned into the bedroom and paused, staring at Kiril.

Poole considered it with a deadly stare. No one entirely trusted the animal, whatever good it had done at the beach house. It was FedInt trained, for one thing. And now, its muzzle pointed unerringly at Kiril's sleeping face. It moved forward, slowly, as though sniffing.

“Poole!” Svetlana hissed. But Poole barely glanced at her, one hand ready in case the asura had something else in mind. One-handed, Poole could take its head off without effort. Yet he watched, ready but curious. Cai and Sandy pressed in behind Danya and Svetlana to watch. The asura's radar-like ears pricked, and from deep in its chest came a low, thrumming whine.

“His uplinks,” Sandy murmured. “What's it sensing?”

“I can't access myself without giving us away,” Cai replied. “I'd guess Kiril's uplinks are active, but there's no telling whether it's passive or active.”

“You mean he might be giving away our location?” Danya asked.

“Or he might be responding to an active incoming scan,” said Cai. “Either way . . .” But Danya was already moving, grabbing his and Svetlana's backpacks, as Sandy told Ragi and Jane to move. Danya ran to the kitchen and stuffed some last cans of soft drink from the refrigerator into his pack and some eggs left by a previous occupant that he'd taken the time to boil so they wouldn't break in his bag.

“Cai,” Sandy snapped as they collected final things and made ready, “as we said, you take Ragi and Poole, and . . .”

“Multiple incoming!” Jane yelled. “Move now!” Pulling a pistol and blasting out a riverfront window. Crash, as someone went through a neigh-bouring window, and suddenly Danya heard it, a whistle-and-whoosh from somewhere above, then a boom! that he felt in his ribs. . . .

“Go!” Sandy shouted, running from the hall with the bewildered Kiril in her arms, and Svetlana was already flinging herself shoulder-first through what remained of the windows. Danya ran to follow, was grabbed halfway out by Sandy and thrown farther. A brief moment of flying, then crash as the water hit him and obliterated sound . . . and a shockwave like a giant fist. Then upside down underwater, flailing as though he'd forgotten how to swim, until he broke the surface and gasped, the water bright with flames and pelted with falling debris. Something hit him on the head, hard, and he dove back underwater, watching heavy objects splashing down above, against a backdrop of flames. Bits of house, he realised.

Svetlana! She'd gone first, Sandy hadn't given her the extra push, she'd have been closest when it blew. He splashed in that direction . . . and heard his name shouted, from off to the left. And there by the neighbouring cruiser port, on a paved section of riverbank, were figures crawling on the riverbank, silhouettes against flames . . . two adults, two children. One of them must have grabbed Svetlana, and damn they were fast to swim over there already.

He struck out that way, swimming around floating, burning debris . . . and noticed that the upstream house was gone too, two walls still upright, but all aflame and shedding pieces into the river. When he reached the bank, Svetlana was there to help him ashore, and Sandy was crouched by a tree across the riverside path, pistol ready, Kiril already well hidden behind.

He joined them, and Kiril protested being picked up again, but Sandy ignored him and then they were running through trees, soaking wet. And
immediately up against a perimeter fence, plastic wire and three-meter-high wall, but Sandy kicked one of the posts out of the ground, and the whole thing went down sideways like some bouncy obstacle in a kids playground for them to climb across. Then clambering up a short hill, and finally they paused, Danya and Svetlana gasping, Sandy and Kiril not. Again Sandy took a covering position, which they instinctively copied, and looked back down the hill.

Danya saw through the trees that every house along the riverbank had been hit, at least seven, each now a bonfire on the water. “Fuck,” he said succinctly.

“Sandy, how many people are living here?” Svetlana asked.

“It's mostly empty,” said Sandy. “Tanusha doesn't like people living outside city limits and commuting, the city would hollow out and the forest would be clear-felled for suburbs. These are mostly holiday homes. Danya, you're bleeding. Svet, check him.”

It was brusque and unmotherly, but Svetlana remembered her earlier warning about combat reflex and emotions, and checked Danya's head without complaint.

“There had to be someone home in there,” Danya muttered.

“Probably,” Sandy agreed. “Could have come from anywhere. FSA and CSA have enough weapons systems that could be commandeered. They didn't have a direct fix on us, so they took out every house on the stretch.”

“Sloppy,” said Danya. “They gave us time to get out.”

“Maybe they're flushing us out,” Sandy replied. “Jane's scouting ahead. We stay here until she's back.”

“She dragged me out,” Svetlana said breathlessly. Her hands trembled as she searched in Danya's hair for the source of the blood. “Jane dragged me underwater, I thought she was trying to drown me, but then the house blew up, she was keeping me out of the explosion. Then she just shot through the water and the next thing I was on the bank, and she was gone into the trees.”

“I'm thirsty,” said Kiril. Danya glanced at Svetlana and saw her struggling not to laugh. He bit his lip.

“Yes, what time is it on Planet Kiril?” she asked.

“I'm not a planet,” came Kiril's well-rehearsed retort. “I'm a star. Danya, can I have my water bottle?”

“You'll drop it,” said Danya, rummaging in his bag. “Have a drink and give it back.”

“Doesn't look bad,” said Svetlana, giving up on Danya's cut. “It's just a scalp wound, they bleed a lot.” Danya handed Kiril his bottle and realised the wetness on the left side of his jaw wasn't water but blood. Damn, that was going to get sticky when it dried.

“Where's Dodger?” Kiril asked.

“Dodger?” said Sandy.

“The asura. You know, because he keeps dodging every attack.”

“I don't know if he dodged this one,” said Svetlana, looking back down on the river. “Maybe he went with Cai. . . . Sandy, did Cai, Poole, and Ragi get out? I saw someone else jump, but I didn't see who.”

“I saw them out,” said Sandy. She was turning her head slowly, Danya saw. Taking in the dark forest, the undergrowth.

“Where are they going?” asked Danya.

“We've got a plan. Talee can dominate the city network, anyone trying to help us will be hacked, probably put into VR. Cai says he can stop it. He's going to set up a trap for them, Ragi and Poole will help.”

“But how do . . . ?”

“Get down,” Sandy told them, and they flattened to the dirt and dead leaves. For a moment they heard nothing. Then Sandy let out a small, low whistle. “Kiril, I think your animal's looking for you.”

It came bounding through the undergrowth. “Dodger!” said Kiril, and patted the wet asura as it sniffed at him with whatever passed as “joy” in an asura's mind. Danya thought it looked happy, just restrained about it. Like GIs, maybe.

“Did save our lives twice,” Danya offered.

“Yes,” Sandy said shortly. “Useful.” In a tone that suggested that however much Kiril liked his new pet, she wasn't about to risk any human lives to keep it alive. Danya agreed completely. She glanced back. “Here's Jane. Let's go.”

They moved, and Danya didn't see Jane at all, just followed Sandy's lead, second behind Sandy as Kiril followed and Svetlana watched their backs. But it was comforting to know that Sandy's senses were so good that she could hear/see Jane well beyond anyone else's range. Now the two GIs used it to pass signals that unaugmented kids would miss entirely.

Downslope to the right were houses, lights blocked by foliage, appearing and disappearing as they moved. “Sandy!” Danya hissed as something occurred to him,
heart suddenly thumping with fear. She stopped and crouched, not even looking at him. “What about aerial surveillance? If they can target those missiles, they'll be watching us from orbit or altitude! We'll be on IR right now, and . . .”

“Cai said he can block it,” Sandy assured him. “Sorry, should have said. He said he knows what they're using to control the city networks, but they don't know he's against them yet, so they don't suspect.”

“He'll feed them a false image?” Sandy nodded. Danya's heart restarted, realising they weren't just about to get blown to bits by incoming artillery. “Good. Then we'll need some more food, if we have to stay in the forest while Cai does his trap. Like that house there.”

Sandy considered for a moment, then nodded. “Let's go.” She gave a faint signal to Jane, who must have been wondering why they'd stopped, and moved downslope. A fast scout of the house wall showed a secure perimeter, and evidently no one home, given the explosions nearby yet no sign of activity within. Sandy wanted to jump the wall, but Svetlana stopped her.

“Can you get past security systems without your uplinks?” she pressed.

“No, but I can break something.”

“And raise an alarm,” said Svetlana. “This house is all uplinked. You raise an alarm, they'll drop a missile on it.” She rummaged around in her dripping backpack.

“And you can get past it?”

“Sure.” She pulled out a little black unit with wires and a couple of small pins, activated and touched the pins together. “Yep, still works. Danya, I need another conductor, you got a pen or something?”