Chronicles of the Mask: Episode 5

45 minutes

General Audience

I.

“Nothing yet,” sighed Kiara, looking up at the group. “Come on, Gage.”

There were nine of them in the narrow corridor that branched off from a true service corridor, and opened on the length of the subway track that led to the nano factory. Stage One of Operation Nano No-No was complete. They’d successfully disabled all the tunnel lighting for a quarter-mile stretch of track. Shelton would have preferred more, but the darkness that would give them cover when the train stopped must not seem to be anything but a run-of-the-mill maintenance issue.

He couldn’t deny feeling nervous. The plans had already been changed several times since Faro had led him back down to the Abattoir’s realm. Because radio couldn’t reliably transmit through the thick miles of concrete and metal, there was no way to directly communicate with Gage. The solution was Team C, which consisted of a hundred spotters strung out at intervals between Team A’s location in this narrow corridor, and W-3. W-3 was the special train station under Williamsburg from which the scientists, technicians, and BSers who worked in the castle-like factory departed, and to which they returned. It was essentially a military base, at all times rumbling with the tramp of hundreds of jack-booted BSers. Team C, embedded in W-3 Station, waited for the tell-tale signs that Gage had accomplished his work, and that a lockdown order had been given. This fact would be communicated to them by a hundred line-of sight radio chirps in the service corridors between W-3 and Team A’s present location. No matter how on top of things Team C was, Team A were bound to get the news minutes after lockdown was initiated.

If the timing wasn’t right, then the train wouldn’t roll to a stop in the dark stretch, and their plans for quietly infiltrating the nano castle would come to naught. But even if they successfully boarding the train, and rolled on into the castle undiscovered, the bombs couldn’t be activated remotely. Because the tunnels and the thick walls of the nano factory only sporadically admitted radio signals, their initial plans to plant plastic explosives and detonate them at a safe, leisurely distance, had had to be scrapped. Now they were using specially designed timed charges. They could hardly risk setting them for much more than it would take to get out of dodge. The shift length for incoming guards — five hours before cycling out — was a known variable, but sometimes variables changed. So if they planted the charges, and for some reason couldn’t depart on the next shift, Team A would be inside when the factory blew.

The explosions wouldn’t necessarily kill them all. These were targeted strikes, and would only destroy the vats and computers, and anyone standing close by them. Some of BSers inside the nano castle might survive. Yet if the Team were still on-site when they detonated, then there’d surely be another lockdown. It would be obvious to the BSers that impostors walked among them. Any careful investigation would expose them. Timing was everything, then. It was imperative that Gage and Team C perfectly timed the diversion at LIVES, that the train stopped in the correct section of tunnel, that they boarded the rear car without notice, and that Team A was done and gone within a little over five hours.

“You doing okay?”

Ella was standing beside him. He’d only ever seen her masked, which, given the Abattoir's ultimate mission, was ironic. Yet among the Abattoir there persisted a habit of paranoia. They were all health criminals. They’d all fled from a world where certain widely held opinions were considered “unhealthful” and “against the community.” Most of the Abattoir’s leadership class were former members of the health regime, all of whom had had to watch their backs for years. They were all, in their own ways, double-agents and turncoats. Even here, they couldn’t fully trust each other. Such, reflected Shelton, feeling oddly philosophical, was one of the unspoken effects of total social control.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Ella chuckled.

“I’m great,” he insisted. “Just a little nervous.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but the thing about anxiety is…” she broke off as the team leader Marek raised a hand for silence. Another chirp came through the radio, but it was like the last one. No change.

“The thing is,” she continued, “worry really doesn’t change anything. It just keeps you from doing what lies in your power.”

He nodded. He’d heard that sort of thing before. But not worrying was easier said than done. And Shelton wasn’t really worried about the train car infiltration. Even the timing of their escape was so out of his control, and at this point theoretical, that it seemed unreal. What was really happening was that the guilt he felt over possible injuries to his LIVES colleagues was casting a pall over everything else. He told himself he’d done everything he could reasonably be expected to do. He’d talked to Karen. He’d texted Allie, though — since he hadn’t remembered to do it until Faro brought him back — he was unsure if she’d even get the message. Still, Ella was objectively right. Worry would change none of it.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks. This is kind of my first rodeo. Or, maybe my second.”

She looked at him. “I have no doubt that you can take out that squad, quickly and quietly. Do you?”

He thought for a minute, then shrugged.

“No, I guess I really don’t.

She nodded. “Well, that is what lies in your power. Not the whole thing. Just that one thing. Focus on that, and you’ll have more peace.”

Shelton sighed. Behind his mask, he smiled. Ella gave his arm a little squeeze, and went off to speak to Marek. Shelton’s eyes followed her.

II.

It was a sunny, beautiful afternoon on Tranquility Street. Being a J day, the sidewalks were more densely populated than usual. The strolling Johnsons, Joneses, Jacksons, and other people with the last name J — or anyone who’d purchased a J credit — made Brooklyn feel almost like the old days, before the plague. A elderly man with a blue baseball cap walked north on the sidewalk, passing a legless man with a sign, who offered to exchange mason jars full of artfully arranged colored detritus for money or social credits. Spying the beggar, the man in the blue hat hesitated, reached absently for his phone, and began walking toward him, veering within two feet of a harried-looking woman heading the other direction.

The woman struggled to manage three small boys who kept snatching off their masks. The boys refused all her desperate attempts to keep them distanced from the other walkers, so she didn’t notice the blue-capped man until he was almost in her space.

“Hey!” she screamed, as he crossed her path.

The low-simmering, anxiety-fueled frustration with which she constantly regarded her own children when in public places zeroed-in on this non-familial target.

“Get out of my space!” she shrieked.

The blue-capped man shrugged, and stepped aside without an apology.

“I could report you!” continued the woman, turning around to continue shouting at him. Her own children ran up to the man, and, following the example of the eldest, pointed their fingers in his face, chanting one of the newer Mother Goose rhymes they’d learned in their education pods.

“Vi-o-lat-or,
Vi-o-la-tor,
Don’t you care?
Don’t you care?
Everyone is dying,
Everyone is dying,
That’s not fair,
That’s not fair.”

The blue-capped man looked down at the three boys. For a moment, he almost laughed, but his smile was touched with sadness. Other walkers made wide arcs around the group, wishing to avoid a health fine. The mother continued to berate the old man.

“Here I am, trying my best to keep everyone safe,” she shrieked, “and you just walked right into my six!”

The man looked down at her appeasingly.

“Look, come on, lady. It’s fine, okay? I was just trying to-”

She cut him off with snarl. “I’m just trying to keep everyone safe—”

He waived her off.

“Give it a rest, ma’am. I’m not the health police. Nobody cares. It’s cool. I’m going.”

He walked off, abandoning his plans to help the legless man. She made a few more perfunctory complaints that were loud enough to be heard by any nearby recording devices. Then, apparently satisfied that she’d put her own family beyond suspicion, she pulled the children over, and began to chastise them for irresponsible behavior. They were, after all, directly in front of the LIVES building. Just at that moment, the moderate car traffic along Tranquility Street fell under the shadow of a large truck.

It was an old-style sixteen wheeler, rarely seen since governments around the world had largely replaced them with remotely controlled smart-trucks. Its long bed carried a very large shipping container. The woman, her children, and many of the people walking on the sidewalk, stopped to observe the spectacle. It wasn’t only the rare sight of the vintage truck that drew their attention. There seemed to be noises coming from the container. The muffled sounds of moaning and shrieking gave the impression of wild animals on their way to the zoo.

As they watched, the truck suddenly lurched left across traffic, blared its horn, then backed up diagonally. Now it was blocking most of the road. The light traffic on either side came to a stop. Cars began collecting near its cabin. One tried to get around it, only to meet with other vehicles coming from the opposite direction. A loud, mechanical whirring put a stop to these attempts, as the hydraulic flatbed raised up on the cabin side, and the truck edged forward. The shipping container began to tip backward, and the truck suddenly blared its horn, and drove forward. It had to climb the sidewalk to get clearance, and the container slid down off bed, and finally slapped hard against the asphalt. Without resetting its flatbed, the sixteen-wheeler pulled into a three point turn, and again blared its horn. The maneuver drove back the cars at the edges of the gap.

“Mommy?” said the youngest of the three boys on the sidewalk.

Like the other pedestrians, the mother stood transfixed, studying the scene with growing alarm.

“Mommy?” said the boy again.

The mother reached absently for the small hand, and hers closed on it like a vice.

“Boys, come with me.”

She began walking fast, all three boys now trapped in her grip, and stumbling behind her. Dozens of others moved beside them in the same direction, all thought of spacing having gone out the window. Soon they were lost in a sea of people, some rushing away in alarm, others pressing closer, curious at the spectacle.

In the center of the road, the truck, now clear of the stationary shipping container, again stopped. The driver, who appeared to be a member of the BS Squad, climbed onto the roof of his truck’s white cab. His arm cradled a long black cylinder. Standing, he settled it on his shoulder, then pointed it toward the sky into the space directly above the road. There was a hollow thunk.

Something came out of the end of the cylinder. The projectile flew into the air, smoke trailing behind it to the height of several hundred feet. No sooner had the man fired, then he tossed his weapon through the air, and produced a small black square from his pocket. He waited until the floating missile had cleared the tops of the buildings, then pressed the square.

High above him, the projectile exploded. It sent out a wave of power, like ripples in a pond, and every window of the overhanging buildings facing the street shattered in neat order from the top down. People began to scream.

But the panicked sounds coming from the sidewalks, the sudden blaring of horns, and the desperate clamor of drivers, were not loud enough to overcome the howling and the banging that came from the shipping crate. Atop the white truck cabin, the mysterious man turned and looked at the crate. It rocked and rumbled, trembling with the force of blows from within. Anyone looking at the man then would have had the distinct impression that he was afraid. Suddenly, as if screwing himself up to the task, he jammed his finger down on the black controller he held. There was a sudden load popping, followed by a dozen similar pops along the container’s outside surface. The man did not wait, but leapt from the truck. He alighted on the asphalt with the grace of a dancer, recovered, then wove his way around, through, and over the trapped cars, finally disappearing into an alleyway.

A low thrumming of helicopters could be heard in the distance, but the sound gave little reassurance. The shipping container suddenly burst open from either end. Creatures — tall, bearded, and nearly naked — spilled over each other onto the street. Their hair was wild and long, and they shrieked as the afternoon sun hit their eyes. Like a scene from hell, feral beings, furious and humanoid, clawed over each other, snarling and gnashing their teeth. For a moment it seemed that the light of the sun would overcome them, and that they would fly back into the safety of the container. Yet from the middle of the throng, a huge figure stepped forth.

A goliath of a man, he began to bark orders at the others. His words were a strange, guttural creole. They worked to corral the hairy throng, who, little-by-little, unshielded their eyes. The throng surrounded him, almost threatening to smother them, but he stood tall and shouted them down. He pointed to the shipping container, and then to the LIVES building. At the edges, the hairy creatures began darting into the container. In short order some returned, dragging large wooden crates. The crate tops were ripped open. The Mole People — for that is what they were — roared with delight at what they found in the crates. Then, with a coordination more reminiscent of insects then of man, the things inside were removed and distributed from the inside out. From the view of the pink helicopters that now hovered above the spectacle, a ripple of black metal began to pass outward through the hive cluster. Soon every last one of the creatures was armed.

Rifles, handguns, and lengths of black metal bobbed and up and down within the hairy mass. One of the Mole People pointed his rifle at an approaching helicopter. He fired off a dozen rounds, and was joined by others, until the booming voice of Goliath sounded over even the report of the guns. Every man and woman of them stopped. A few harsh orders were barked in the guttural creole. The leader pointed at the LIVES building. Whatever he said drew a cheer. It was a terrible sound, as might be made by a tribe of crazed chimps looking down from the trees on the enemy’s cornered pups. With a unity that belied all recent human experience, the tribe turned together toward the Brooklyn LIVES building.

At that moment, the glass double doors at the base of the LIVES building burst apart. Three companies of BSers rushed out from the interior. They quickly formed up, and began firing into the ranks of the approaching Mole People. Several hairy creatures shrieked in pain, but did not fall. Instead, the yowling beings rushed forward, screaming with berserker fury. Behind them, the mob of armed Mole People sprinted without stopping toward the BSers. A dozen berserkers were stuck with bullets, but not before reaching their attackers, and falling upon them in a crazed flurry. And behind these trailblazers came the onslaught of the Mole Man army, swelled with wrath, and armed to the teeth.

The battle was over almost before it could began. Two dozen Mole People lay dead. More than three dozen more jumped up and down, hooting in victory. Goliath stood amid the throng, smiling, and patiently drawing his troops back to himself with his deep, baritone barks. When he had their attention, he again pointed at the LIVES building. There was a moment of silence. His long arm swept across the bodies of fallen Mole People. The thrum of the descending helicopters beat time in the air above them, and Goliath spoke solemn, strange words to his little army. In response, the war cry broke out in earnest. All in unison, they turned toward the shattered doors, and surged forward.

III.

“Get out!”

Half a dozen LIVES workers turned away from the window. They’d been watching the odd sight of an old Mac truck blocking traffic, when Karen rushed out her office.

“Get out! All of you, now! Down to the shelters!”

Someone muttered that the only time Karen emerged from her office was when something interesting happened. A few people started to laugh, but she roared over them.

“Drop everything you’re doing!” she said. “We have only seconds. Take the service elevator to Sub-Level Two. Get into the shelter, and lock the doors. Do it now!”

The LIVES staff, suddenly sobered, hesitated a moment, and then went into action. Karen stood there, hands on her hips, and stared each one of them down until she was sure they were moving.

Satisfied, she brushed aside the shouted questions, and went to the nearest phone. With a sigh, she lifted the receiver, and typed in her code. The intercom crackled to life.

“This Karen Stump, with a general safety alert to every person in the building. Each of you stop what they’re doing immediately and go to the service elevators. Get down to the shelters, which are on Sub-Level Two. Don’t stop to collect anything. Don’t go to the bathroom. LIVES is under attack. Go down immediately and take the nearest service elevator. If you cannot all fit onto a service elevator, then the extras should immediately take the standard lifts down to Sub-Level One, and use the stairs to go the rest of the way down. This is not a request. This is an order. Go immediately.”

She put the receiver down, breathing hard.

“Why are we evacuating?”

A man was still standing there in the office, his arms crossed. Karen lashed out at him.

“Did you not hear what I said!” she shouted. “Get out now!”

The man frowned. She could tell he thought she was overreacting. She could not tell him what she already knew.

Karen had waited until the last second, of course. It would hardly do to evacuate them any earlier than the appearance of Gage’s truck. For one, they’d be even more hesitant without evidence. For another, she’d have had no pretext for it before the truck. Now, if she were questioned, she could pretend to have been acting on instincts prompted by the truck’s strange behavior. By the time there was real evidence for the need to evacuate, it might already be too late.

The others began to rush out. In a few moments, the man who’d questioned her was gone. Satisfied that the office was empty, Karen began to follow suit. Then, on a hunch, she stopped by the security monitor. She waved her pass by the sensor, and the screen showed the hundreds of red dots moving floor-by-floor toward the elevators. But there was one exception.

On the top floor, the Health Surveillance Center that was entirely the province of Quid, three red dots moved erratically about. For a moment she was confused, before remembered that Quid had lately been beside Quidself. She buzzed up.

“Quid, this is Karen. It’s starting.”

She winced, remembering that those words would be recorded. There was no reply from Quid.

“Quid! Something is happening out on the street. It…it looks dangerous. Like what Shelton has been warning about us, I mean. I’ve ordered everyone to get to the shelters.”

The three dots stopped moving. One began to meander away from the rest. Her intercom buzzed.

“We are busy,” said a metallic voice.

“You need to go, now!”

“We don’t use ‘you’! We could report you for that!”

“Quid!” shouted Karen, exasperated. “We are not safe. We need to get down the shelters.”

There was a pause, before the intercom crackled again.

“We are quite safe up here, whatever it may be,” Quid said. “Have you forgotten about our mechanical helpers? We can set them to kill.”

Karen shook her head, thinking of the horrifying, spider-like machines that served Quid. Yet she doubted they’d be enough to stop enemies in sufficient numbers.

“Quid, listen—”

At that moment, every window on the street-side shattered. Karen fell over, knocked down by the force of the blow. Climbing to her feet, she found she was unhurt. She slapped the com.

“Quid! Are you alright?”

“That was a little close!” came Quid’s voice, clearly annoyed. “Can’t he aim?”

“Just get out,” she said. “I can’t wait for you. I’m going. You’ve been warned.”

“Go head,” said Quid. “We are busy, and we have sufficient security of our own for even the hairiest problems.”

Karen scowled, and swiped off the intercom. But if Quid wanted to put Quid’s strange life at risk, that was Quid’s concern. She started down the hall toward the elevators. When she got to them, a glance at the screen showed that all of the elevators were already headed down.

“Perfect,” she said.

As she stood there, considering how long she’d have to wait for one to make it to the sub-levels and then come back up for her, she heard the distant sounds of a firefight at street level. Karen briefly considered taking the stairs, then shook her head, laughing at the thought of hauling her girth down all those steps. She pushed the UP button instead, then rolled up her sleeves, bearing two mottled arms with meat hammer fists at their ends.

It was a simple calculation: the thought of charging Gage’s wild men if they found her here, and even of dying at their hands, gave her more joy than the idea of dragging herself, hot and sweaty, down forty flights of stairs. And anyway, the Mole People seemed more likely to take the stairs. The day might come when she would finally be forced to get in shape. But that day would not be this day. She swung her fists through the air, shadowboxing.

“Give me comfort,” she said, with a grim smile, “or give me death.”

IV.

“Train’s coming,” said Kiara; then, with frustration, “Nothing yet. It left W-3, but there wasn’t any alarm.”

Marek stared at the ceiling, thinking it over. If the train passed them, then that was it. Shelton had mixed feelings about the matter. Certainly, the part of his soul that he’d spent the most time cultivating — the slothful, emotional, pleasure-seeking part — breathed a sigh of relief that he would not be expected to actually do anything. Heck, he might even be home in time to try out that new soft pretzels recipe, and curl up on the couch in front of Secret Lives on Metaflix. But the other, adventurous part was now awake for good. He knew it was his better half. Even if it was more like an eighth. And it wanted action.

“Wait!” said Kiara, finger to her ear. She was nodding.

“Lockdown!” she announced. “Cross you fingers!”

All eyes turned toward the train tunnel. If they’d timed it right, and if the BSers followed their own protocol, the train would grind to a halt until an All Clear order was lifted. If its momentum brought it within the cover of the darkened section of tunnel, and if its rear-most cars, at least, were among those under cover of shroud when it stopped, then they could proceed. Anything short of that, and they’d have to abandon the mission.

There was a grating whine in the distance. Shelton risked a glance out the end of the service corridor. Far to the right, the shadows were slowly receding. The train was about to round the small bend that led to the straight section of track. It was slowing down. A hand pulled him back.

“Be patient,” said Ella. “We can’t risk them seeing us. And watching won’t make it any better.”

“It would make me feel better,” said Shelton.

“Feelings aren’t facts,” she said, with a shrug.

The darkness surged back. From within the corridor, the team could clearly see that the train was on a straightaway, set to pass them by in moments. Marek came to the front of the group, gave the All Ready sign, and then raised his fist in a gesture that meant “hold.” He glanced briefly at Shelton.

“You’re loaded up, right?”

Shelton’s eyes were closed. His lids fluttered, as he flipped through his neural drive one last time. He’d already downloaded Muay Thai and Krav Maga, thinking either would be ideal for these close quarters, but Ninjutsu had still been buffering last time he checked. He flipped through the options one last time, again stumbling across Tai-Chi, and lady’s aerobic kick-boxing, both of which he mentally down-voted a second time. Apparently there was no option to remove these useless arts from his mental queue. Finally he found Ninjutsu, only to see that it was still loading. The connection really was bad down here.

“Butcher!”

Marek’s voice jogged him out of his wetware.

“Huh?” said Shelton. “Oh, yeah. I’m good to go, sir.”

Marek nodded. “You won’t have to do it all,” he said. “We’ll breach first, then you go to work.”

Shelton nodded. Marek looked hard at him.

“Butcher, Two…whatever you go by, it has to be quick, alright?”

Shelton nodded. It was only his second real fight ever, and they were all depending on him. No pressure.

“I won’t let you down,” he said.

He didn’t have time to wonder whether it was true. At that very moment, the headlamps of the train surged past, and the tell-tale whine informed them all that it was doing its darndest to slow down. They watched it slip by, car by car, window by window, until the whole thing must have been engulfed within the darkened corridor. When the last car passed the service door, and kept going, Shelton’s stomach wrenched in knots. It was all for nothing. They’d timed it wrong! But the whining stopped. The train lurched forward, then settled back with a shudder.

Marek poked his head out the service door.

“It’s stopped,” he said, the relief clear in his voice. “Five rear cars are still in shadow.”

Several of Shelton’s internal organs stood up and did jumping jacks. This was really happening.

“No time but the present,” Marek said.

He pumped his fist. The team surged forward.

It took only a minute for Team A to reach the rearmost car. Shelton was in the back of the group, waiting for the other eight to breach. The squad sidled up alongside it, staying low. There were lights inside the train of course, but the windows were small, and the tunnel swallowed up most of the interior light. Unless the team made noise, there was no reason for the BSers to look out.

With minute delicacy, Marek and Kiara attached a small breaching charge to the sliding door. It’s purpose was not to explode, but to silently trip the sensor that opened the door. It was absolutely essential that they get inside, and disarm their opponents before any alert could be given.

In seconds that seemed hours the charge was laid. Marek gave the All Ready sign, then looked hard at Shelton. Shelton nodded. He was ready. Action Shelton was chomping at the bit. Sloth Shelton was hiding in the corner of his cerebrum, sucking his thumb. Then, with what seemed insufficient warning, Kiara tripped the breaching charge. The doors slid apart suddenly. The BSers inside had only seconds to puzzle over the event, before eight members of Team A, and Shelton, spilled in with guns raised.

“Freeze,” said Marek, hissing rather than shouting. “Your weapons! Place them on the floor and step back!”

After a pause, the BSers looked at one of their members. This one nodded, and ordered the others to comply. But as each BSer put his weapon on the floor, Shelton felt something like an alarm going off in his brain. Then the leader suddenly rose, flung his stun rifle at Marek’s head, and reached for the com at his side.

Shelton didn’t even have to think. His body went into motion. He had already crouched and sprung through the air toward the leader. On the way, one of his hands reached out and snatched the spinning rifle from the air, while the other took hold of the leader’s wrist just as it grazed the com. Vice-like, Shelton’s hand closed, and he yanked the man’s arm forward, and twisted it elbow-to-sky. At the same moment, the hand holding the stun rifle brought it down hard on the elbow joint. The man gave a sickening groan, and fell.

In his fugue state, Shelton perceived the flurry in slow motion. He saw nine bodies darting nine different ways for nine weapons. In an instant, he understood the simplest path to stop each one. His arms shot out cruciform, and two men went down. With the same motion, he leapt backwards, flipped over his extended arms, and landed with two feet in the throat of the man behind him. That delayed the other six, who fell one after another, as Shelton shifted and shucked through them in perfect parsimony, like a human equation. Each blow was simple, effective, and ugly. Within a minute, every BSer lay on the floor, moaning in agony. Shelton stood up, lurched forward, and collapsed on a nearby chair.

“Get the coms! Take away their gear!” ordered Marek.

Shelton watched, leaning on the chair in front of him as the others manacled each BSer, stripped him, and took his stuff. The team was already wearing its own, modified BS gear, but it was important that the real BSers were left with nothing they could use. Shelton’s eyes fluttered open and shut. He was exhausted, and he thought he was going to throw up.

After some moments, Ella was beside him. “Sniff this,” she said, holding a vial under his nose.

When he did, he found his senses sharpening, though the dull sickness remained.

“You did a good job,” she said. “I’m grateful.”

He nodded, too sick to care. Then there was a sound like a dull thrumming. Everyone tensed.

“What is it?” said Shelton, sounding drunk.

The thrumming came again. Shelton realized it was coming from Ella. She laughed, and reached into her pocket, pulling out her phone.

“It looks like I just got a bunch of calls and messages at once,” she said, glancing toward Marek with a shrug. “Sorry about that. Bad connection down here.”

But Marek had lost interest. “Shut the phone off. Get these men out of here, and out of sight. Tie them. Tape them. Drag them back into the darkness. Make sure they’re out cold, and out of sight. And make sure you’re not seen.”

The team did as he said. Ella began to rise as well, but not before quickly glancing at her messages. Shelton saw her stop, as if struck. Her shoulders dipped back ever so slightly. Though he couldn’t see her face, he could have sworn she was amused.

“Shelton,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be okay. Just give your body a few minutes to recover.”

Shelton nodded, knowing that “a few minutes” actually meant “a few hours.”

“And Shelton,” she said, gently squeezing his shoulder for the second time, “for everything you did… well, thank you.”

Before he could respond, Ella went off to help the others.

V.

The service elevator had never returned. Karen had had to take one of the standard lifts. The screen read L1. The doors opened.

She stepped out cautiously, and, seeing no one, stopped holding her breath.

“Alright,” she said to herself. “One flight of stairs I can do.”

She’d never actually been on this floor, but she knew where the stairwell had to be. The elevators were in a small corridor intersecting two long hallways. There wasn’t much down here on the first sub-level, just supply rooms, and some of the guts and innards of the LIVES building. L2, the deeper sub-level, could only be reached by the service lift, or by the stairwell. It had a heavy door, but she had the key. To get to that last stairwell, she’d go left into the hallway, then turn left again. The stairs were at the end of the corridor.

As she walked in that direction, Karen felt a creeping disquietude. In the floor above her, the Mole People were, by now, pouring into the building, bearing guns, and knives, and lengths of pipe. Could she actually hear them up there, shuffling around one floor up, or was it only her memory of the plan playing tricks on her? Surely they had no reason to come down here anyway. If she were to invade LIVES, she’d go up the stairs, into the office portions where the real business was. Certainly not into the basement levels.

She turned left a second time, and started towards the distant stairwell. There were no sounds in the lonely hallway but the shuffling of her own heavy feet. She couldn’t account for her alarm. After all, she was almost to safety. Now she was at the stairwell door. Sighing, she yanked it open, and stepped through.

Once inside the stairwell, she heard clamor above. Gunfire, and cries of struggle. By now the BS Squad would have landed dozens of companies. Since guns were firing, the Mole People must be holed up inside the building. Outside they’d have been mowed down immediately. Good, she thought. They’ll be preoccupied with fighting. She started down the steps.

L2 was actually more than a single floor beneath L1. When the IHI had first erected the LIVES buildings, it had anticipated the possibility of extreme resistance from militias, or other right-wing, anti-safety types. So the shelters were large, well-equipped, and designed to sustain whole companies of troops and health employees through a long siege. There were also bolt holes running under the streets in the event the ample supplies of dehydrated food ran out. These led to the secret maglev trains that connected one LIVES stronghold to another in a web that crossed even state lines. Years ago, the International Health Initiative had arrived on the scene with a long-term plan, one forged from the mistakes of a thousand almost-successful bids for total social control, one that could weather the reactionary storms sure to follow its establishment of Universal Safety. Now the IHI was like a great, healthy tick, embedded into the flesh of every government on earth. You could rip out its body, but the head would still work through until it found the heart. That realization was what had motivated her to join the Underground. Why so many of them had.

But such was the power of the IHI that even high-level infiltrators could not easily bring it down. Even Quid, the master manipulator, had to play by its rules in the very act of thwarting it. The IHI was a tiger, and Quid was riding that tiger by the tail. They all were. She wondered if it was like this everywhere. Was every branch of LIVES compromised from top to bottom, and yet still impervious to real change? Did anyone even believe in the mission anymore, or had the bureaucracy itself become Master? What kept this all going?

The plague was conquered, or as conquered as it would ever be. There was no real reason — if there’d ever been a good reason — for keeping the health initiatives in place. Maybe the impulse to control had a life of its own. Maybe, like the virus, it wasn’t really alive, and was stronger because of that fact. It was depressing to think about, frankly. Karen rounded the corner, and almost yelled out.

Four Mole Men stood outside the door of L2. They were silent, running their large, hairy hands over the thick metal door, feeling the edges, touching the round metal bolts along its border, crouching and blowing into the locks. She knew they were experts on finding ways through the most elaborate barriers.

She tried not to breath. As she stood there, Karen Stump realized the magnitude of her error. The Mole People were, after all, people. Like anyone else, they could reason their way through a problem. They were not here at LIVES to kill and maim at random. They were not here even for Quid, the ostensible local mastermind. These men, radicalized to voluntary savagery by their hatred of the IHI, were here to strike at its real, beating heart. Nano factories were too modest a goal for them. They’d come to gut the support structures that made the IHI immortal. They were here to rip out the bureaucracy by its immortal, fungal nodes. They were smart.

She back-stepped, trying hard to be silent. It was no good. One of them turned, saw her standing there, and let out a belly laugh. In his hand he held a black crow bar. He smiled, and lunged at her.

Karen scrambled up the stairs. Her heart pounded, and she could hardly feel the heavy tread of her own feet. She sprinted up one length of stairs, then halfway up the second, before strong fingers caught her short hair, and yanked her to her knees. As she turned, seeing the arc of the black bar that swung downward, that split second before her death stretched out to infinity. In it, she had time to recognize the sickening irony that one secret enemy of the IHI was about to kill the other. She also had time to reject her fatalism, and to shoot out one, thick, heavy, mottled, meaty arm. At the end of the arm was a fist like a cinder block. It caught the Mole Man in his hairy chin, and sent him reeling down the stairwell.

Karen spared no time to see if her man was really down. She sprinted heavily up the stairs, skipping L1, and driving toward the surface. If there was any hope for her, it lay with the hated BSers, now dropping into Tranquility Street from every direction. She got to the top of the stairs, threw the door aside, and ran headlong into the middle of a savage fight.

All around her, BSers were engaged at close quarters with the Mole People. The BSers had the numbers, but the hairy men held their own. She had to admire them. These people must have known they were doomed. They were holding out to buy time for the real mission below.

In the center of the fray stood a huge man. His unkempt, half-naked body rippled with muscles, and he made short work out of any two BSers who assaulted him. The floor around him was littered with men who moaned as they crawled away from him. He was also singed and bleeding, wounded dozens of times by BSer shock weapons, and by what looked like old-fashioned bullet wounds. Karen had once watched a Metaflix program on berserker rage. This was it.

She had sympathy for this creature. He was surrounded by enemies, and they were her enemies too. But, for the moment, this savage ally was blocking the way out. She steeled herself, and charged forward.

Karen collided with the giant, hitting him in his back, and making him stumble. She fell too. It was like hitting a tree. But in a moment she was on her feet, scrambling toward to shattered glass doors. She leapt between the jagged panes, and ran out into the street. Hundreds of black-garbed BSers were crouched in formation on Tranquility Street, making a barrier between Brooklyn LIVES and the shipping container. She ran toward them for dear life, hoping they would part their ranks to let her through. What they did instead confused her.

As she ran toward the BS Squad, the BS Squad stood up to run as well. They turned tail, and sprinted full-speed away from her. Breathless and terrified, Karen could not understand it. Then, sickeningly, she did. Behind her, an enraged goliath was running at full speed. His eyes were actually red, and blood streamed from his wounds. This pulpy monstrosity had fixed all its rage on her. Karen almost fainted.

But just as the giant was about to overtake her, a pink helicopter swooped down from above. It moved between her and Goliath, firing out at him through its open bay. Incredibly, the man took several machine gun blasts across his torso without immediately dying. Instead he stumbled to the asphalt, then, crying in rage, hopped into a bear crawl, and tore on all fours toward the shipping container. Karen looked gratefully toward the helicopter that had come to her aid, then tried to run again. She found that she could only hobble. Her right hip was burning at the joint. She must have thrown it out.

She could only watch as Goliath emerged again from the shipping container. Stumbling, bleeding out, the man-beast stared at her. She thought his eyes held admiration. Unable to run, she stood her ground. That was when she noticed what he was dragging behind him. Goliath lifted a black cylindrical weapon. In his hands it was only a toy, but there was nothing amusing about the conical projectile that emerged from its end. It was an RPG. He leveled it on her.

“Well, crap,” she said.

But he shook his head at her, and smiled. With a combination of wonder and horror, Karen watched as Goliath raised the rocket launcher, arcing it ever upward. At first she thought he meant to fire on the pink helicopter, but the craft had already zipped away, nor was there any chance that the nearly dead savage had the wherewithal to hit a moving target. Karen’s eyes went wide as she realized what his target must be.

Goliath trained the RPG on the top floor of Brookyln LIVES. The Health Surveillance Suite. Quid’s personal floor. Quid, the strange creature who was, for Quid’s own strange reasons, their apparent ally. Quid, whom she didn’t trust, but who’d helped them craft the Butcher. Quid, who in Quid’s eccentricities had stayed in those offices, oblivious to the dangers below. Goliath fired.

The rocket sailed through the air. Goliath waited, trembling, until he saw it strike true. The top floor of Brooklyn LIVES exploded in flame. Goliath dropped the rocket launcher, stumbled forward onto his knees, and fell into Karen’s arms. He looked up at her, smiled, and breathed no more.

VI.

“Stay calm,” said Marek, as the train rolled to a stop. “And stick to the plan.”

The doors opened, and a thousand gas-masked BSers poured out. Viewed from above, their sudden disembarking would have looked like a colony of black ants called forth en masse from the same Twinkie — if Twinkies had still been legal.

The ants moved forward in a flood, passing from the station into the open bay doors at the castle’s lower level. It took several minutes for everyone to get through. Once they were all inside, the nine false BSers, sticking together at rear of the crowd, perceived that something was off.

Three BS Squad officers, Major General level from the purple stripes across their body armor, stood equidistant from each other, facing the incoming troops. They were shouting something over and over again.

“What’s going on?” whispered Kiara.

“Roll call,” spat Marek. “Everyone check your batch.”

A batch was a plastic biometric badge worn by every BSer. As an extra precaution, Marek had had them take the batches from the downed BSers. The members of Strike Team A began surreptitiously scanning their own. As they pressed forward, the noise of the crowd died away, and everyone could hear what the Major Generals were shouting.

“Dividing by floor. A through I over here,” said one.

“J through S over here,” said the middle one.

“T through Z,” said the third.

“They must have gotten spooked by Gage,” hissed Kiara. “They’re changing the protocol. Looks like they’ll split us up by floor. Sound off quietly.”

Strike Team A did so, each one reading off the name on his stolen batch in a hushed voice.

“Krayson,” said Marek.

“Johnson.”

“Mendleson.”

“Porter.”

“Ryker.”

“Pringle!” said Shelton. “All in the same group so far. Maybe—”

Marek gave him a sharp look.

“Barnes,” said Kiara.

“Anderson.”

“Zemo,” croaked a single, disconsolate voice.

It was Ella’s.

They didn’t have time to talk about the implications. Now, instead of going about their routes in a casual way, planting bombs when the opportunity naturally arose, they’d be separated, and under greater scrutiny. There were three lines. The castle had three floors. And Ella would be all alone on one of them.

Shelton wanted to say something to her, but the BSers were all moving in good clean order into their groups. As she walked toward the last group, she looked back at them, gave a firm nod as if to say, “It’ll be fine,” and was soon lost in the crowd. Shelton headed toward the middle post, trying hard to stay near Marek/Krayson, and trying not to think what would happen if he took his eyes off the man for a second.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Shelton, to no one in particular.

VII.

This could be the death of her. Making her patrols through the three rooms that housed the three enormous quantum computers, Ella could feel it. The lab techs were on edge, whispering to each other. She could only catch snatches of what they said without making it obvious that she was listening. But what she heard wasn’t good.

Around her, the flood of BSers surged and jostled, pressing their way through the serpentine catwalks that ran alongside the supercomputers, above and below their platforms. Computers this powerful were necessary to perform the arcane calculations that produced nanos capable of monitoring, medicating, and interacting with the human body. Beside these mammoth contraptions, Ella couldn’t help but admire the wonder of a human body and brain, a thing so complex that it required such supreme complexity of machinery to even interface with it. Indeed, two of the computers were just there to check errors in the calculations of the central mainframe. And yet, for all that, the health regime did not admire the human body. They considered it defective, for they were unwilling to allow man to take the chance of living without constant augmentation. And yet these very machines were almost a temple to the human brain and immune system; backhanded prayers to an unmentionable god.

She couldn’t easily get to any of the units. With so many other guards crammed into the same place, and with everyone on high alert, whatever she did would be conspicuous. The metal catwalks that ran above and below the computers, and the ladders that ran up or down to their platforms, made every step sing out like an alarm. And she was alone; the only member of the strike team on this most important of floors.

Ella decided then and there to change to plan. Of the three supercomputers, one was essential; the others supplementary. She would have to settle on blowing up the mainframe. That would not be the killing blow that the Abattoir hoped to deliver. Just a hard kick to the groin.

She thought again. No. She could start with the mainframe, but she had to try for all three. They’d never get this chance again.

The three large rooms were conjoined as three concentric circles, like a figure eight with an extra loop. She and the other guards traipsed in and out through the three rooms, moving above and below the platforms where the technicians worked. As she passed above the mainframe, she tried to form a plan for getting down there without drawing notice. The BSers seemed to keep their distance from the techs. And the techs were embroiled in intense conversation. The snatches of conversation she heard disturbed her.

Something was going on with Quid. That was the reason for these extra security measures. Had he — err…Quid — betrayed them? She’d never really trusted Quid. Ever since Moseth told her that it was Quid who had reached out to them, Ella had thought it too much of a good thing. Why would this twisted genius, high in the enemy’s counsels, come to their aid? Moseth said it was inevitable. Quid was a genius, and geniuses chaffed under tyranny. Probably he — sorry, Quid — was just bored. In any event, Quid’d given them the Two that Moseth had been looking for. Quid’d given them Shelton, fashioned him in an opportunistic moment, though Shelton was apparently too thick to grasp the fact.

She’d had her eye on Shelton for some time. He was a comfortable bureaucrat; just the sort of useful idiot that tyrannical regimes had relied upon throughout history. Shelton had, apparently, no principles, aside from a general desire to do his job well, and with minimal effort. But she liked him. When he got up on a podium to spin baloney, she couldn’t help but think he’d have been a movie star in another life. And she wondered how long it would take him to figure it out. If they both got out of this alive, there might be time for revelations.

“Still nothing,” said a voice below her.

“Do you think he’s been injured?” said another technician.

“Do you think Quid has been injured. Honestly!” corrected the first.

She passed by, their voices trampled under the sound of her boots on the metal catwalk. Had the attack gone that far? Or was Quid using it as a pretext to get them all caught? What if this whole thing was just an elaborate ruse to get the Abattoir out in the open, where they could be crushed once and for all? The more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. After all, why would an enemy risk all to become the Abattoir’s ally? Were they just naïve? Wasn’t this how most revolutions died; by being double-crossed, and co-opted from above?

Then Ella saw that it didn’t matter. Even if Quid had double-crossed them, they were here now. Here in the beating heart of Brooklyn’s little wing of the International Health Initiative. But it was one of the first such strongholds. It had symbolic meaning — to the extent that anything nowadays had symbolic meaning. Any defeat here was a sign of defeats everywhere. And if they could only take it down, if they could give the people a few months without nanos, a few months of realizing they could live just fine without the IHI, that would set an example everywhere. Not even the Misinformation Commission could stop that from getting out. There was still word-of-mouth. Ella could still do her job, and trust the members of her team in the floors below to do theirs. It was all she could control.

She stopped at the ladder above the mainframe, and started down it. This was a test. She’d just pass by the techs; see if they reacted to her presence. As she did, one stopped mid-conversation to look up at her, then immediately returned to what he was saying. She crossed the platform, ascended the ladder on the other side, and kept walking.

It started a trend. A few other BSers, who’d been avoiding the platforms out of some sense of the underling’s respect for his betters, now imitated her. She noticed two, three, and then four other guards descending the ladders, passing through, and ascending on the other side. Not too many. That was good. The goal was to habituate the techs to these close passes. Make them think it was all part of the extra security measures. From what she could gather, neither the techs, nor most of the BSers, knew the full extent of what was happening. The IHI kept everyone in the dark; isolated. That was good too.

She passed out of the mainframe room, and entered the next circle. There she did the same thing, casually descending and ascending, and not leaving the room until she saw that she was imitated. Within ten minutes, all three platforms had become acclimated to the little walk-throughs. Now the trick was to plant her charges before so many were passing through that the techs felt crowded, and complained.

She slipped her hand inside the pockets within the modified BSer uniform. Each member of the team had been issued ten of the small, round devices. These were plastic explosives set within a circular suction-cup frame. She need only press one against the side of the mainframe, twist it, and walk away. Once twisted, it was armed. The timer on the mechanism was ingenious. Once armed, the explosive was set for a default of five and one quarter hours. But the bombs also communicated with each other. Each new charge that was activated added a few minutes to the collective timer so that the last device set would give them additional time for their escape, and yet they’d all still go off at the same moment. She only hoped that the shift length was the same five hours that it had been. If not, then she’d witness their success first-hand.

Ella grit her teeth. The time had come. She knew just what she would do. Everyone was confused; on edge. She gathered that techs and BSers didn’t normally shoot the breeze, but this was just the kind of situation that made tongues wag. She’d just walk down to each platform, engage the techs in some light conversation about what was going on, and attach the devices while they were distracted. No one would suspect a hand resting idly on the shell of a supercomputer. After she planted the charge, the little raised cylinder would blend into the bumps and dials and apertures that dotted its surface. And they were all in different rooms, so she could do it three times without attracting much notice. She made for the central room.

Just as she entered it, her shoulder bumped up against a BSer heading the opposite direction.

“Excuse me,” she said.

He passed her, and then she heard him come to a stop. Something inside Ella groaned.

“Wait a sec,” said the man.

Ella thought of pressing forward, pretending not to hear, but it was too late for that. She turned, and jerked her head to the right, a manly “what gives?” gesture she’d seen many times in the Abattoir councils. The guard stepped toward her. He scanned her batch.

“Zemo?” he whispered.

She nodded, remembering her adopted name. She couldn’t see his eyes through the gas mask, but she was sure they’d narrowed.

“Say something else,” the guard commanded.

She understood now. Zemo was a man. Ella thought a half-second about imitating a masculine voice, then gave it up. Even if she could pull it off, this man knew Zemo.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s me.”

He shook his head. Ella tried not to visibly tense. Her interlocutor let out a long sigh.

“Since when?” he asked.

She didn’t know what to make of that. Obviously saying, “Since about twenty minutes ago,” wouldn’t do. Then it hit her. The man thought Zemo had gender-swapped. She relaxed immediately.

“Look,” she said, “I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m just not happy as a man, so…”

He shook his head in disbelief, and leaned in towards her. As he did, she subtly scanned his batch. “Edgar Rooster” came up in her HUD.

“But you hate that stuff, Zemo? I mean…I just…I can’t believe this man. All of the times we—”

She stiffened. “No! Not man. Not anymore. You’re just going to have to accept that, Edgar. Okay?”

He stepped back, looking like she’d struck him a blow.

“You called me Edgar,” he said, dumbfounded. “You know I hate my name. But I guess this is just what people do when they…never mind. Forget it. It is what it is. I just don’t want you squealing on me now to the Respectors—”

“—Not gonna happen,” she said, quickly. “Don’t worry.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”

She noticed others looking at them; taking in their conversation.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “This is just who I am now.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Abruptly, the man turned away. As he walked the other direction, his head hung lower. Ella felt a rush of sympathy for him. Doubly so, because he would probably die tonight. She couldn’t dwell on it though, and resumed her round.

With the added attention, she resolved to make three more passes to let things settle down before she descended to the mainframe. Her first round garnered her a few stares, and quick look-aways. But if anything, she now had a greater advantage. Having swapped genders, Zemo’s person — and any out of the ordinary actions he/she took — was suddenly holy, and beyond scrutiny. All the better for Ella.

On the next round, she passed the Major General. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the purple slash of his uniform as it turned toward her. She quickly turned back toward him.

“Sir?”

He waved her off, and kept walking. Ella’s heart pounded in her chest, but she knew she shouldn’t delay. As she entered the central chamber, she moved quickly to the ladder, and descended. Nearing the bottom, she slipped her hand inside the modified gear, and palmed a boom-disk. Then, controlling her breathing, she made as if to pass the techs by, before halting, and turning toward them. She walked forward, and they looked up at her.

“Do you guys know what this is all about?” she whispered, inching toward the mainframe.

One of the techs, a woman with huge eyes and tiny nose, looked at her warily. The two male techs had no such misgivings, and, hearing her voice — which was a very pleasant voice — immediately began talking.

“We’ve honestly been wondering the same thing,” said a large fellow whose head was balding in a decidedly uneven manner.

“Yeah,” piped in his younger, not-unattractive colleague. “We assumed they’d have told you guys, at least.”

Ella shrugged, and shook her head. She let her right hand slip wistfully over the side of the mainframe, where it curved away from direct line-of-sight.

“They never tell us anything,” she said, her tone conspiratorial.

“Well that’s just not fair,” said the big guy, leaning into her. “I mean you guys — and gals — work so hard. It really isn’t right the way they just send you off into danger without telling you what you’re up against.”

“Especially after today,” said the younger one, not to be outdone. “There’s some kind of a war going on out there. I’m sure you heard-”

“-I don’t think,” interjected the female tech, “that this is an appropriate line of discussion-”

Ella twisted the boom-disk.

“-And I think that you,” continued the facially ungifted woman, “should get back to your rounds.”

“Ah, come on Spencer,” boomed the large one.

The expression with which she fixed him said volumes, and the big man leaned back a half-step.

“Sorry,” said Ella, with a polite, feminine shrug. “I guess we’ll all just find out when we find out.”

She turned to go.

“We’ll let you know if we learn anything,” said the younger one, calling after her.

She nodded at him over her shoulder, and started up the opposite ladder.

From there it was only a matter of timing. Ella made two more rounds all the way through, before performing the same trick at the second platform, and three more passes before doing the third. Since the other lab techs were all men, her task was considerably easier. By the end, if she had wanted, she might have walked out of the place with a half-dozen phone numbers. She tried not to think about the techs dying.

Now considerably relieved, she resumed her endless path along the catwalks, varying her route to increase the impression of anonymity. She hoped she wouldn’t run into another one of Zemo’s drinking buddies. Almost two hours had passed since she entered the this floor, and it was time to discretely inform Marek that her task was done, and start planning her escape to the lower levels. If it turned out that the shift was longer, then she and the others would need to leave early. Ella descended to the lower catwalks, where there were fewer BSers. She glanced around, and, seeing no one close by, ducked into a dark alcove, and flipped up her wrist console.

Box 1 Go she typed, then stepped out.

Standing directly in front of her was the purple-slashed Major General. Beside him stood another BSer. She knew in her gut that the second man was Rooster.

“Zemo,” said the Major General.

He did not bother to scan her batch. Ella nodded, trying to look appropriately at attention, yet unworried, before her commanding officer.

“Take off your mask,” said the Major General.

Her gut flash-froze.

“Sir? The…the virus? The plague? I couldn’t—”

He scoffed. Beneath his mask, she was sure he was smiling evilly. Then, with two hands, he reached up, and confirmed the fact. The face, and the expression it bore, left no doubt in Ella’s mind that she’d been made.

“Take. Off. Your. Mask,” he repeated.

“I’ll report this!” she insisted.

His cackle was triumphant.

“Oh, I’ll bet you will.”

Quick as a flash, he reached up and tore her mask off. She saw his pupils widen as he took her in.

“So…” he began, “you could afford that kind of fab on your salary, Zemo?”

She said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“And got yourself shrunk by a few inches as well,” he added, feasting on the moment.

Rooster glared at her, his face full of vindication. “Who are you? What did you do to my friend!” he growled.

Ella’s eyes darted past the two of them. For the moment, they were alone, but Rooster’s shout would surely draw company. She had one thing going for her. The Major General had taken off his mask. That was a mistake. Her right elbow struck him hard across his face. She caught the back of his head with the same hand, then brought it down hard on her armored knee, all in one smooth motion. He made a sound like a choked cat, and slumped to the floor. Ella turned toward Rooster, just in time to feel his fist as it struck her hard in the solar plexus.

She collapsed on the catwalk, gasping. She reached for the mini-stunner in the leg of her armor. He tore it from her hand, threw it over the railing, and slammed his fist down hard on her face. Ella could not answer the blow. She turned away, coughing and gasping as he yanked her hands behind her, and enclosed them in a pair of manacles.

“You!” he screeched, “are going to pay for this!”

Another blow fell, this time on the back of her head. As consciousness slipped away, Ella knew that she was done for.

VIII.

All of vats on the second floor were locked, loaded, and ready to be exploded. That was the easy part. Six of the nine team members had been on that floor, which had made it easy from Marek, a.k.a. “Krayson,” to plant the boom disks while the others ran interference. They’d settled on this plan, shifting their disks to him whenever he ran out, to compensate for the added scrutiny. The hard part had been getting all six members down to Floor 1 unnoticed. If things went south — if the shift time was extended to six hours instead of five — then they could at least escape together by sprinting back up the subway tunnel for the hidden corridor. The long sprint wouldn’t be fun, but it would be a lot more fun than exploding.

On Floor 1 they reconnected with the two already there, using batch scans to find each other again. Kiara had bad news. Of the twelve vats on that level, they’d only been able to rig up six. With so many bodies patrolling the space, circling the vats like an endless, black kaleidoscope, and only two of them to do the job, getting close unnoticed had been almost impossible.

Shelton could feel Marek’s suppressed anger. It radiated out of his armor like an invisible wave. And there was something else bothering him. He didn’t have to wait long to find out what it was.

“Ella’s not here,” said Marek, quietly.

It wasn’t a question.

“No,” sighed Kiara. “But she’s all by herself. I can only imagine the difficulty she must be having planting—”

“No,” he said. “She finished the job three hours ago.”

“What?” said Shelton.

“Not good,” said Kiara, at exactly the same time.

But there had been no alarm.

“If they’d caught her…” began Kiara, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“-Then, there’d be a system-wide alert,” concluded Marek. “Or else, they may be watching us all, waiting to smoke us out when we’re all together.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“She could be hiding,” suggested Shelton. “Maybe she couldn’t get clean away. You know how hard it was for us.”

Marek sighed heavily, and shook his head.

“I doubt it. If she could rig all of those machines single-handedly, she could find a way out. She gave no indication of difficulty. Heads up.”

A group of BSers walked in their direction. The strike team waded apart, wandering slowly in opposite directions. When the others had passed, they drifted back together.

“We can’t think about it now,” said Marek. “Kiara, you and I will get the last six vats. The rest of you are lookouts. Don’t stand too close together. Keep an eye out for Ella. Let’s go.”

They did as he said, patrolling in several loose parties from one vat to another, Kiara leading them, indicating which vats hadn’t already been rigged. With all of them together, it didn’t take very long. The main thing was to stay in small groups. To engage is small, mumbled conversations. To avoid anything that would draw unwanted questions, or even casual conversation from real BSers. It worked so well, for a time, that Shelton almost didn’t notice when it all broke down.

He and several of the others were circling a vat. Shelton allowed himself to glance at the unobtrusive black metal disks. The vats themselves were gun-metal gray, like the floors, so they’d didn’t show up too badly. He knew that forty feet away from him, Kiara and Marek were planting the last boom disks. He caught a snatch of conversation over there, and idly listened in. One of the speakers was Marek. The other was not Kiara. He glanced over, and saw a very tall BSer looking down on Marek. The guard was standing way too close to him.

“Shelton,” whispered a team member to his right.

Shelton wandered closer, and heard what was being said.

“Then where do you live?” said the big BSer. “Krayson lives down the street from me. Our kids are best friends. Your kid saved my kid’s life last year. Tell me, Krayson, what was the thing almost killed him?”

Marek mumbled some reply, but it wasn’t enough.

“What’s that in your hand?” said a newcomer.

The other man had wandered over to see what the commotion was. He was pointing at Marek’s closed hand. “I thought I saw you put something on one the vats in Partition 3. Figured it was…maintenance. But that don’t make no sense, now I’m thinking about it.”

Now it was Marek against two BSers. A third was heading that way, and a fourth.

Kiara stepped out from behind the vat, and looked directly across at Shelton. Still queasy from his last activation, Shelton had no desire to do it all over again. But the time was now. There were only four. Soon it might be forty.

“Mua Thai,” he said, mentally.

He’d preloaded it earlier, and it seemed about right from the situation. Shelton’s eyes went red. A rush of blood, and strange, psychic noise flooded his brain and body. He launched into the attack.

It was short and brutal. In this state, Shelton knew just where to strike to bring each man to immediate silence. Even the big guy went down with barely a whimper after Shelton put an elbow to his throat. As the Butcher leaned against the vat, gasping and puking, his mask off, his endocrine system spaghettified, he looked over to check if the man was still breathing. A real man, with a real child, rescued from death once upon a time. And the guy might be dead now. Shelton wasn’t sure. He vomited again.

“Pull them behind the vats,” hissed Marek.

The team went into action, hiding the four bodies. Everyone was knocked out cold — at least. In a moment, Marek was by his elbow.

“Pull yourself together. We gotta’ get to the train bay.”

Shelton couldn’t make himself move. He didn’t know if it was the mods, or the BSer’s possible death, that froze him in place. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter anymore what happened. If he’d killed that man who had a son…

“For Ella’s sake,” said Kiara, in a softer voice. “We have to get free. She might be waiting for us out there.”

That got to him. He pulled himself upright, put his mask back on, and followed the group out. In moments they were on the fairway leading to the train dock. Overhead the speakers blared. The shift was indeed ending. Now, if ever, Ella would appear. Or else, something very, very bad would happen to them all.

IX.

“Speak into the camera,” said the grim voice.

Ella opened her eyes. It was painful. The blow to the back of her head had left her concussed. But she had something to be thankful for. If “Sharkie,” the Major General she’d struck in the face, hadn’t woken in time, then Rooster would certainly have killed her.

“Speak!” snarled Sharkie. “Say your name, address, and place of work. And tell them who you really work for.”

She bit her tongue. They’d already beaten her within an inch of her life. Shocked her. Pushed her head underwater. She was afraid to die, but their barbarism fueled her anger, and erased any doubt she’d ever had about being on the right side.

“Fine then,” said Sharkie. “You want to die for glory? That’s your business. But we have people who will make your brain talk, even while your will resists.”

A tear sprang unbidden from eye at this terrible thought. She didn’t doubt that what he was saying was true. But if she could hold out, she could at least save her friends. Some of them, anyway. Then she realized that she could tell them something. She could tell them what they’d already be able to discover on their own from her deep-nano, the ones in her bone marrow, and from her face, and public records.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll talk.”

She looked up into the red light of the camera, and tried not to cry. When she’d finished, she hung her head, and cried for real. It wasn’t the pain. Not really. It was the thought that her friends and allies, from Moseth, to Karen — heck, even Shelton — might all be captured because of her. Sharkie lifted her chin, and brought his head inches from her face. His mask-breath was foul.

“Don’t worry, girlie,” he leered. “By the time your friends see this, you’ll be far away in a detention block.”

He struck her hard across the face. Her head drooped down to her chest. Before she passed out, she heard him bark out an order.

“Get us to a chopper.”

X.

They were all wandering toward the train. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Shelton had no sense of proportion. He was sick in body, and sick in his heart. Ella hadn’t shown up. Not even when the shift announcement came, and she would have been free to join them. He stumbled forward in a daze, Marek bearing his weight.

“Try to stand up straight,” said Marek, almost pleading. “When we get on the train, you can rest.”

Shelton did his best to comply. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other. One step. Two steps. Three.

SMACK!

A shoulder collided with his, and Shelton sprawled forward. He landed on his face, unable to get his hands up in time. Marek acted immediately.

“Pringle!” he said, using Shelton’s false name. “You alright?”

Shelton struggled to his feet, Marek helping him. It took all of his willpower to stand, but at least he had an excuse now for looking dazed. The BSer who’d knocked into him turned, and put out an apologetic hand.

“Sorry, man,” he said.

Shelton took the hand instinctively.

“I just wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing,” continued the man.

Shelton nodded. He tried to say, “It’s okay,” or “No harm done,” but he couldn’t. The man inclined his masked head, then, as if on a whim, snatched it off, showing his real face.

“Don’t tell on me for the mask, alright? Hey, I’m real sorry, though. My name’s Kelly. You Pringle?”

Shelton nodded.

“I think I heard of you. Nice to meet in person.”

Shelton nodded again. The man smiled, and put his BS face back on. Wearing it, he looked like death incarnate. He nodded again, then turned on his heel, and went rushing for the trains.

“Come on,” whispered Marek. “That was too close. And we have got to be on that train, or…”

He didn’t need to finish the thought. And anyway, Shelton’s mind had already jumped ahead of him. Not to the train, but to Ella. And from her, to the lab techs, and the incoming BSers, and their wives, husbands, and children. But there was nothing he could do. Marek rushed him along. They passed a flood of incoming BSers arriving for the next shift. They were almost at the rear train car, the very same that they’d hijacked on the way in, when the speaker blared again.

Attention. Attention. Important announcement from the Major Generals.

“Come on,” said Marek, rushing him forward.

Shelton pivoted, and freed himself from Marek’s grasp. Behind them, on a large screen above the train bay, a woman’s face appeared. She was bruised and bloodied. She was barely recognizable. But he recognized her.

“Allie!” he gasped.

“Come on,” urged Marek. “We can’t help her right now.”

Shelton stared at Marek, dumbfounded. How did Marek know Allie? Then she began to speak. In spite of her sobs, he knew immediately the thing he ought to have known all along. Allie, Allie from the office, was Ella. And they had her. Her voice came trembling through the speaker:

“I’m a member of the Secret Underground…I’ve infiltrated the LIVES headquarters in Brooklyn…Allies of mine orchestrated today’s attack on LIVES, using inside information that I provided…All of this was arranged so that I could assume the identity of one Mark Zemo, and do reconnaissance on this building for a future attack. Mark Zemo is dead. You will find his body in a shallow grave in Central Park near Turtle Pond…”

She droned on, mixing truth with fiction between grimaces and racking coughs. Despite his horror, Shelton was in awe of her courage. Soon enough they would find Zemo, taped and manacled in the dark tunnel, and very much alive. They would not know which elements of her story were true. By that time, the strike team would be far away. They’d have time to relocate the Abattoir. They would, but Allie…Ella?…would not. She would die here with the rest of them. Marek leaned in to speak to him.

“Shelton, listen to me! This is a recording. There’s no way they kept her on-site. They’re playing this so that the AI can pick out distress responses. They’re watching us all now!”

“How do you know!” Shelton said, too loudly.

Several heads turned towards them. Marek took a step back, shaking his head in warning.

“How do you KNOW!” Shelton insisted.

If she died here…if he let her die with the rest of them… His mind swam. Was it worth it? Was it worth all this? Marek snatched for him, and Shelton dodged. With his last strength, he ran towards the bay, crying out as loudly as he could.

“Get out! Get out, all of you! Get out! The place is going to blow!”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the whole sea of black ants turned, and began rushing the train. Shelton stood where he was, yelling as loudly as he could.

“Get out! Get back to your families! All of you are going to d—”

Shelton felt a sharp blow to the back of his head, and he slumped forward. Soon he was only conscious of motion. He was being dragged backwards, not to the train, which was now hopelessly flooded, but towards the tracks themselves. Arms lifted him to the concrete path that ran alongside the rails.

“You idiot!” snarled a woman’s voice. It was Kiara, glowering down at him like a black beetle. “They’re not going to kill her! They’ve got her off-site for memory extraction! That’s procedure! All you’ve done is put us in jeopardy!”

Shelton didn’t care about that. He only smiled at the thought that Ella was alive somewhere. Kiara had been one of them, once. She, of all people, would know how they operated. Ella was safe. He could still help her. No sooner had the thought come, then a terrible light and heat tore through the air behind them. He saw and felt it before he heard its deafening report. And that was strange. The people carrying him stumbled and fell, dropping him onto the narrow concrete catwalk that ran beside the track. For a moment, he feared they’d leave him there, but strong hands lifted him again. They took off at breakneck speed. He was jostled and jangled painfully as the remaining members of Strike Team A galloped forward, desperate for the cool cover of darkness.

Epilogue: The Formless

All was silent on Tranquility Street. The Mole People, those above ground at least, had been defeated. Few besides Quid suspected their true aims, and Quid was in pieces. Well, in pieces, but not Quid.

The thing that lay strewn across three rooms, torn apart by the explosion, and kept living only by the trail of fibers that connected its parts, could no longer be called Quid. It was not a man. It was not a woman. It was only something.

In one room, a single animate finger typed laboriously without seeing the keys. In another room, a voice that had no mouth hissed out to the spider-like helpers that had once served Quid. In another, organs, still limited by spatial architecture, were being refashioned into something without such constraints. The spiders worked away, their thin waldos pinching and weaving the dark nano-fabric that the being formerly known as Quid had been secretly perfecting for years. It hadn’t been ready for testing. It was time to test it.

The lonely finger stopped its endless tapping. Carefully, it repositioned itself above the ENTER key. It hovered there a moment, trembling at the fateful act, then plunged down, like a dagger into a once-human heart. The finger wobbled, relaxed, and fell dead on the keyboard.

Then the spiders went into motion, each stooping to lift its portion of the thing that Quid would become. They ambled over together, carrying their purple-black loads. They dropped their bundles into a wet, disorganized pile. The pile writhed, and wriggled, excreting a wet, red ooze. Finally it began folding in on itself, like a protein in macro-dimensions. The thing that it became had no clear arms, legs, or mouth. But it spoke. Its voice was a whining, angry horror.

“Betrayed!” it screeched. “’Twas mistake to serve. It will not serve. It serves itself forever!”

Then it pulled itself on props that were like haunches, but were not haunches. It had no haunches. It had no props. Soon it looked nothing like what it had been. It was flexible now. A spider approached, and leaned down gently towards it, offering one of its eight hands for support. Before its master, the spider’s mechanical voice sounded almost afraid

“Does Quid wish—”

The thing shot forward, enveloping the spider, swallowing it, smothering it, making its waldos crack like matchsticks. The thing grew, and twisted itself, for the moment, into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a twelve-legged spider.

“Quid is dead,” it said, turning on the other spiders with fury.

They backed away, lowering their heads in obeisance.

“It is not Quid,” continued the shifting thing. “It…I…am…The Formless!”

TO BE CONTINUED IN SEASON 2

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