Zero echo shadow prime, p.26
Zero Echo Shadow Prime, page 26
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Charlie: How much battery life do you have left?
Alan: At least enough to carry me through the night.
Charlie: Good. We’ll meet back here at sun up.
Alan: I still don’t know why you’re trusting this guy.
Charlie: I’m not…not completely. But I know he’ll turn. He just needs a push in the right direction.
Alan: Well, it’s your decision…
Charlie: Yes. And I appreciate you for honoring it. And for helping me.
Alan: I’m going to be the first Shadow to develop ulcers.}
Charlie watched Alan’s Polly recede to a pinpoint of light. His destination—Rivir Tower, the most ostentatious invisible building in the world—beckoned from the heart of the city. Charlie felt a little queasy about sending away her ardent protector, but she needed him to dig up intel on the ECHO Project.
{Liam: Do you think he’ll learn anything?
Charlie: Alan can be very resourceful.
Liam: He’s also a Polly. Can’t exactly waltz through the Rivir atrium.
Charlie: You’ll see.
Liam: Well, either way, Nicola will be happy we have a Polly on our side.}
Charlie grimaced inwardly. She was placing an enormous amount of faith in Liam. Would he honor his promise? Would he turn on his sister once he learned the truth—that she was a liar, manipulator, and murderer? Charlie already had grave doubts.
Once Liam cleared the bridge, he veered off the freeway to minimize further risk of detection. He wove a jagged trail through the wooded hills that lined Sausalito’s western edge. Charlie bristled with the anticipation of meeting her sister, which was perhaps the real reason she was allowing this Sapien reunion to take place.
{Charlie: So, how is she? How’s ZERO?
Liam: ZERO?
Charlie: We can’t both be Charlie.
Liam: And you’re, what? PRIME?
Charlie: Exactly.
Liam: ZERO was doing alright last time I saw her. She couldn’t shut up about you.
Charlie: What’d she say?
Liam: She just really wants to meet you. You know, I didn’t believe her, but she was right. You two are exactly alike. Same crazy, stubborn personality.}
Was there infatuation in Liam’s tone? Did something happen between him and ZERO? Charlie wanted to dismiss such absurd speculations. Her sister would never fall for an arrogant Luddite cultist…right? Charlie might have believed this if it weren’t for her pang of jealousy.
{Charlie: Has she been treated well?
Liam: …
Charlie: Liam?
Liam: Honestly, no. I’ve tried to make her as comfortable as possible, but the others don’t trust her.
Charlie: You’re better than them.
Liam: Huh?
Charlie: You don’t need the Sapien Movement. You have me. We can take Rivir on together. Just the two of us…or, once we pick up ZERO, three of us.}
Liam stopped suddenly. They were still in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and ankle deep in detritus.
{Charlie: What?
Liam: Déjà vu. Your sister said the exact same thing.
Charlie: And what did you tell her?
Liam: It’s complicated.
Charlie: Complicated how?
Liam: …}
Liam was ready to open up, and Charlie wanted to see his face. She initiated a time freeze. The leaves quieted and the fog eased into faint blue swirls. Charlie’s avatar stepped out of the robot. “Come out,” she beckoned to Liam. When he didn’t respond, she added, “You seem to know so much about me. I know nothing about you.”
Liam joined Charlie in Shadow space. His eyes focused on hers, a good sign.
“Why did you join the Sapien Movement?” Charlie asked.
“It’s not a happy story.”
“That’s okay. I wasn’t expecting one.”
Liam swallowed hard. This wasn’t easy for him. “Remember that smart-cell scandal in the ’30s? All the medical problems that Rivir spent so much money trying to cover up?”
“You had a bad reaction?”
Liam shook his head. “Not me. My mom. She tried to kill us.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow.
“She was never a violent person,” Liam explained. “Depressed? Yes. She had crippling depression my whole life. But she was sweet and loving—the kind of person who couldn’t say no to anyone, and I was a brat and probably took advantage. Her psych meds didn’t work for shit, so when the first smart cells came out, she signed up for a clinical trial. They cleared her depression, but they also changed her. I was only nine at the time. I didn’t really understand what was happening. One day I refused to finish my dinner, and she threw a dinner plate at my head. Nicola stepped in to protect me. She’s a few years older and has always been protective of me. They got into a fistfight, and my mom ended up carving Nicola’s face with a kitchen knife.”
“Liam, I’m so sorry,” Charlie said, genuinely horrified.
“My mom must have remembered herself in the end, because she slit her own throat. And then we were on our own. Did a few years of petty crime before Bob Sapio took us in and gave us a purpose. But Nicola has only gotten worse over the years—more bitter and withdrawn. Maybe it’s because of the scars. Maybe it’s because she felt responsible. I don’t know…”
Liam was being slightly disingenuous. He was the one who felt responsible. His gaze turned inward to a dark and lonely place. Charlie knew the look—she had practically lived in such a place for the better part of two years. “I’ve lost someone too,” she said.
“I know. Your sister. Bridget.”
It was weird to hear Liam say that name, and yet Charlie welcomed it. “For so long, I thought, why her and not me? Only recently did I stop hating myself—perhaps because I was finally able to share her disease. But actually, that’s the wrong way to think…” Charlie grimaced. She was bad at this consolation stuff. “I guess what I want to say is: life really sucks sometimes. So much of it is beyond your control, and you shouldn’t blame yourself.”
Liam gave a hesitant nod. Was this it? Was he about to turn? He faced her with remorseful eyes. “I meant what I said earlier. If I find out Nicola murdered your father, I will quit the Movement and never look back.”
Charlie smiled, but inside she was a tangled knot of frustration. That was the best she would get from him at the present moment. Hopefully, he would remain true to his word, but Charlie was aware of the strange and powerful allure cults had on their members. Would Liam’s flicker of defiance extinguish once he returned to the fold?
* * *
The hillside mansion nearly disappeared in the rolling fog. The windows were dark. The driveway was empty. Even with her acute senses, Charlie couldn’t hear anything beyond the wailing trees.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Charlie: This is the place?}
Liam darted up and down the winding road, hoping to find, what, a hidden cache of cars? “No, no, no…”
{Charlie: I think we should hold off before—}
Too late. Liam set his sights on the mansion and quickened his pace with each step. He tore through the front door, showing no concern that it was unlocked. What he found inside, however, stopped him cold.
Charlie briefly wondered if Liam had stepped through a portal. He was technically inside the house, yet the forest they entered was loftier than the one they had just left. A ring of redwoods towered above Liam’s head and receded into pure darkness. Their trunks were lit by the soft glow of a hibernation chamber, which sat in the middle of a clearing a few paces away. Liam stepped toward it, eliciting not the crunch of leaves, but the creak of a hardwood floor—the only tangible indication that this scene was an AR projection.
He peered over the lip of the chamber and found himself, a seminude dreamer, lying inside. The dreamer’s eyes rolled beneath their lids, no doubt transfixed by the robot “dream” that had now come full circle.
“Hrrmmmmm!”
Liam perked his head. Charlie ZERO sat beneath one of the redwoods at the far edge of the clearing. Her arms were in chains, and her screams fought against a strip of electrical tape. Liam scrambled around the chamber and dove to her side. He tried to rip off the tape, but his fingers passed through her face. “Charlie, are you okay? Can you see me?”
ZERO nodded. Her gaze was surprisingly sharp as it swept over the robot’s face. She seemed more enraged than scared. “Gohhhh. Lahhhh.” As hard as she tried, she couldn’t open her mouth wide enough to articulate the message.
PRIME, too, wanted to scream. She had finally found her. She had finally got her reunion, and yet she couldn’t have been farther away.
{Charlie: What’s going on? Where is she!?
Liam: I don’t know.}
“The projection is live,” Nicola announced from afar.
Liam turned around as his sister stepped into the clearing. “Nikky?” He rose to his feet, careful not to make any unnecessary moves. Nicola kept a solemn expression, but her true feelings were written in mascara, which had bled over her cheeks and pooled into her scars.
“You’re so predictable,” she seethed, “chasing anything with doe eyes and daddy issues. I shoulda never let you near her. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was keeping you on the mission. But I never, in my wildest imagination, thought you’d fall for her zombie surrogate.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. You were mouthing your words! Everything you said in the robot’s body, you said in your own.”
{Charlie: Oh no.}
Nicola’s mouth quavered. “Why, Liam? I thought we were a team. How can you turn your back on me?”
“I didn’t,” Liam insisted. “Charlie just thought—”
“Charlie? Charlie!? You are so confused.”
“PRIME saw her father’s final memory.”
“For the millionth time, I didn’t kill him. I just flooded his system with antinecro.”
“Yeah.” Liam took a deep breath. “That’s what I told her. Now can we—?”
“No! You’re not getting off that easily.” Nicola circled the perimeter of the clearing as she made her way toward ZERO.
“But—”
“This mission is too important, and damn it Liam, I really needed someone I could trust!”
“You can trust me.”
“No. Not anymore.” By the time Nicola reached her hostage, Yuri had already joined her on the other side. He pulled a handgun from behind his back and pressed it against ZERO’s temple.
“What?” Liam hollered. “Nikky, are you serious?”
Nicola’s brow fell over an icy glare. “From now on, you’ll do exactly what I say.”
“Gohhhh. Lahhhh.” Again, ZERO couldn’t gain an edge over her gag. A tear fell from her eye, and she dropped her head.
Liam appealed to Yuri. “I know you, man. You don’t want to do this.”
“You brought this on yourself.” Yuri offered a sympathetic frown—he clearly wasn’t thrilled with the proceedings—but his arm remained steady and his trigger finger remained firm.
Liam returned his attention to Nicola. “Nothing’s changed. I’ll deliver the bomb.”
“Oh, you’ll do more than that,” she said.
“Like what?”
Nicola folded her arms. She wasn’t going to reveal any more.
{Liam: We have to do something. Trick her somehow. Can you tap into the AR?
Charlie: I’m trying, but the encryption is nothing I’ve ever seen.
Liam: Then I’ll take her hostage.
Charlie: No. Too risky. Plus, we’re not even sure she’s in the room with us.
Liam: Look at her feet.}
Nicola’s boots were spotless. They almost seemed to hover off the ground, whereas Yuri’s sneakers sank deep into the forest detritus.
Liam took a step toward his sister.
{Charlie: Please, don’t…
Liam: It’ll even the score. A hostage for a hostage.
Charlie: Would you honestly kill your own sister?
Liam: …
Charlie: That’s what I thought. If I could see through your bluff, so would they.
Liam: But if we give in, it probably won’t go well for you.}
Charlie suspected as much, and it took all of her courage to make this request. She nursed a desperate hope that Liam would run Nicola down and tear the head from her body. Surrendering to this woman made Charlie’s soul ache in despair.
But ZERO…
{Charlie: I can’t let anything happen to her.}
Liam took a few sharp breaths before relenting. “Fine,” he spat in Nicola’s direction. “What do you want?”
She turned away from her brother. “Jefferson, cut the projection.”
The redwood forest vaporized in an instant, taking ZERO and Yuri with it. Nicola and PRIME remained in a large disheveled living room. A jumble of upended chairs, half-eaten plates of food, and broken champagne flutes lined the walls. Wherever the other Sapiens were, they’d left in a hurry.
“This way,” Nicola said with a curl of her finger.
* * *
The kitchen was dark save for a trio of pendant lights that hung over the island. Liam had barely taken two steps inside before Nicola instructed him to remove the robot’s clothes.
“What are you planning?” he asked.
“No questions.” Nicola grabbed a duffel bag from the floor and spilled its contents onto the counter. It contained a set of steel obstetrical instruments, a syringe case, a palette knife, a canister of shoe polish, and a pair of AR glasses. She put on the AR glasses and said, “Remember, one call is all it would take. And if anything should happen to me, Yuri has his instructions.”
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Liam: Charlie?
Charlie: It’s okay. Do what she says.}
Liam tore off the robot’s shoes and chucked them at Nicola. She dodged them without flinching. He removed each article of clothing one by one until Nicola said, “Leave the underwear. I don’t need to see any more.” She pointed to the kitchen island. “Now lie down on the countertop with the robot’s stomach facing up.”
Liam swept the island clean with one fell swoop. The kitchen utensils clanged against the floor. He locked eyes with his sister, trying to communicate his displeasure, but she didn’t offer him any discernible response. So he reluctantly did as she commanded. Charlie felt a chill along her back as Liam reclined onto the hard granite.
Nicola opened the can of shoe polish and stirred its contents with the palette knife.
{Liam: None of this was part of the plan.
Charlie: What was the plan exactly?
Liam: Deliver an EMP bomb to Rivir Tower. Destroy all their equipment and vilify both you and Jude Adler in the process.}
Nicola approached the island and, with her palette knife, smeared a thick line of gray paste below the robot’s belly button.
{Liam: I have no idea what this is. }
Charlie knew it wasn’t shoe polish. The most likely candidate was nanopaste. It was a government-banned substance, though many illicit colonies of the stuff existed, because nanobots, by nature, were self-replicating. Nanopaste had the power to repair or destroy the most molecularly dense substances, and since Nicola obviously had no intentions of repairing Charlie, that could only mean—
{Charlie: She’s planning to open me up!}
Liam grabbed Nicola’s wrist and shook the palette knife out of her hand.
“Get that thing off me!” Nicola hissed.
“She’s not a thing!” Liam snapped.
Nicola used her free hand to swipe the edge of her glass frames. “Jefferson, my eyes.”
“Nikky, please…” Liam dropped his voice and aggressive tone. He was practically begging. “Don’t do this.”
Nicola exhaled sharply. “Activate the paste, incision pattern 26.” She stared into Liam’s eyes and said, “This might hurt.”
Charlie felt a strange tingle in her stomach, like countless tiny legs crawling against her skin. Liam certainly felt it too. He craned his neck toward the robot’s navel. The nanopaste emitted an almost biotic hiss as it glowed bright orange. Then came the tearing of flesh. Liam lurched forward as the paste sizzled into the robot’s inner cavity.
Nicola tried to slink away from his loosening grip, but Liam caught her just in time. “Jefferson!” she cried out.
Liam tore the AR glasses from her face and seized her by the neck. She struggled but soon caved to his unyielding grip. Liam slid off the island and planted his feet on the tile floor while simultaneously lifting Nicola off of it. “No more!” He swung her 180 degrees and pinned her shoulder blades to the countertop he’d just vacated.
Charlie could feel the robot’s nanotube muscle fibers twitch as Liam threatened to asphyxiate his sister. This was no act. His anger was laced with aged resentment, and while Charlie wasn’t privy to the details, she could still feel their emotional residue.
“Tell me where you hid her!” Liam demanded.
Nicola laughed through her constricted larynx. “Or what? You’re gonna kill me? Go ahead, little brother. I dare you.”
Liam relaxed his grip slightly. He didn’t have a ready response.
“You really didn’t think this through, did you?” Nicola continued. “Well, let me parse it out. You’re gonna let go of me, I’m gonna be gracious enough to let this slide, and we’re gonna finish this little reverse Caesarean.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“You’re wrong.”
Liam lifted Nicola up only to slam her down again. While she buckled over in a gasping fit, he raced to the corner of the kitchen where Nicola had unloaded her equipment. Liam unzipped the fabric case, revealing a rainbow of syringes in red, green, purple, and yellow.
