Hammerjack Read online

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Part One

  THE THOUSAND-YEAR FLOOD

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two

  COHERENT LIGHT

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Preview of Prodigal

  Copyright Page

  For Three Generations:

  Daniel and Ursula Giller,

  who gave me life

  Ildi Giller,

  who showed me love

  Alexandra and Christian Giller,

  who taught me what life is about

  Aspiring writers have a vivid fantasy life, a lot of which doesn’t end up on paper. Much of it revolves around the Lucky Break: that day you finally get the call that your book sold, and your life changes forever. For me, that day came less than a week after my son was born. I’d spent the morning mowing the lawn, and was just getting out of the shower when my agent called with the news. Dripping wet, I tore through the house in my boxers to tell my wife what happened, while my daughter looked on like I was nuts. Not exactly the magic moment I’d always pictured—but fate has a sense of humor, and rarely delivers what you’d expect.

  Case in point: I recently found myself at the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, standing in front of a bunch of people who were asking me how to get a novel published. It felt strange giving advice on the subject, as I had spent more than a few years trying to cross that finish line myself. I started thinking about all the people who had helped me during that time—the friends and family who patiently read my stuff, offering advice and honesty; the teachers and professors who showed me how (and sometimes how not) to write; and those brave few literary professionals who actually listened, giving me just enough encouragement to keep working at it. Without them, this book would have never seen the light of day.

  To Kimberley Cameron, my agent and miracle worker: it can’t be easy to turn a wannabe into a professional writer, but somehow you made it all happen. Your enthusiasm and faith in this project never wavered, and for that I owe you a tremendous debt. Thanks for all the hard work and inspiration—and for making the dream a reality.

  To Juliet Ulman, the hardest-working woman in the publishing business: you’re everything I could have hoped for in an editor—sharp, literate, with a keen eye for what works and what doesn’t (and an impressive knowledge of 1970s low-budget cinema). Thanks for plucking my manuscript from the pile and turning it into a real novel, and me into a real author.

  Also, props go out to Todd Keithley, who helped coax this novel from its infancy (he’s now studying to be a lawyer, but don’t hold that against him); Adam Marsh, whose line-editing skills are second to none; Payne Harrison, fellow author and fellow Aggie, who shared his wisdom and experience; Steve Fennell and John Kerwin, who read the first draft and provided me the sage counsel that only science-fiction fanboys can provide; Jeff Bell, for being a friend and not showing anyone my old vampire novel (although he’s threatened to eBay the manuscript someday); Don Atkinson, J. D. Bondy, Barry Carmody, Mark Dye, Valerie Fennell, Joe Kucewicz, and Mary Helen Uusimaki, for reading my earlier work with compassion and interest; Zala and Linnea Forizs, who believed in me enough to let me marry their daughter; Claudia Atkinson, who inspired me to write when we were kids by starting a novel of her own; Mary Jo Edwards and Jane Pruitt, who nurtured that creative spark at the beginning; the late Charles Gordone, for all the weird and wacky times in playwriting; and to Bill Linkenhoker, Simon Morgan, and Curtis Pope, for your friendship and poker-playing skills.

  It’s been a wild ride so far. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

  Marc D. Giller

  Tampa, Florida

  Seven minutes had passed since the disturbance began, but by the time Caleb got word over the fiber link it was already old news. It was no secret that police communications were far from secure: hammerjacks had seen to that, carving so many holes in the backbone that anybody with a homemade face kit could plug in and listen to whatever he damn well pleased. Not that it mattered. Being a cop wasn’t that kind of job anymore—nor had it ever been in Caleb’s lifetime.

  Still, there were things that the Corporate Special Services wouldn’t touch—and the illusion of a civilian police department had its advantages. So over the course of the six months, when the party had started spilling out of the rave clubs of Chelsea and into the streets of Manhattan, the job of cleaning up the mess fell on Caleb’s desk. At first he had thought it was just another phase in the tec culture—some mass hallucinatory trip fueled by synthesized adrenal-opiates, maybe some new thing smuggled in from the Zone that nobody knew about. But Caleb knew his streets, and his instincts—obsolete or not—soon told him that there was something else at work here. He could see it in their pasty faces and rapturous eyes: the way they all seemed to know when to come together. The word moved through the dark undercurrent that ran beneath the city, a hard link wired into each and every one of their heads.

  What it all meant was the thing Caleb didn’t know. Reliable snitches were hard to find in the subculture, and the intel brokers didn’t come cheap enough for the department to buy them. The only information Caleb had was what he had seen for himself—and that, he didn’t begin to understand.

  It wasn’t the street species; Caleb had been on the job long enough to recognize them all—the Crowleys, the Teslas, the Urban Goths—Zone rangers so wasted they wandered around like zombies, eating and fucking out of pure reflex. He recognized the order that existed between them, the barriers they put between themselves. So long as that balance was maintained, he never worried. But when they were around each other and there wasn’t a fight, Caleb became concerned. It felt too much like prophecy—too much like the end of the world.

  Maybe it’s true. If the end doesn’t come soon, people might get tired of waiting.

  Caleb allowed the notion to hover in front of him for a few moments, until it dissipated into the cloud of cigarette smoke that swirled around his head. It was a small cabin, and the pilot of the hovercraft made no attempt to conceal his disgust at the acrid intrusion. Caleb didn’t care. He knew the smell was horrible, but at least it was real tobacco, with all of the old stimulants and carcinogens added for just the right kick. It was his one expensive habit, an unusual one in an age when most designer drugs were genetically engineered and readily accessible—not to mention legal. He smoked it down to the last possible ember, taking one last mournful drag off the wasted stick before stubbing the remains out on the floor.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  “Coming up to the starboard,” the pilot replied. “You know about this place?”

  Caleb grunted affirmatively as he slid over to the other side of the cabin. He wiped the fog from the glass and peered through a light mist at the passing city outside. A hundred meters below was Church Street, while on both sides the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan rose another two thousand meters to punch a hole in the night. The structures were so massive they could be seen from low orbit—but from his vantage point, Caleb also saw the people inside, scurrying past the windows and conducting their business. Even at this hour deals were being closed—a never-ending tide of commerce, the pulse that made the city c
ome alive.

  The pilot carved out a glide path that took them in a tight arc around the Volksgott Tower. Caleb kept his eyes fixed on the huge, glowing letters that marked the eight-hundred-floor building, trying to fight off the inevitable sensation of vertigo. Slowly at first, then accelerating, the letters peeled away from his sight, opening up the vastness of the plaza beneath him. The effect was dramatic—not for the architectural marvel that the Collective had dedicated to itself, but for the audience that had gathered there to watch the show.

  Caleb sensed his pilot growing anxious as they prepared to set down.

  “They ever done this before?”

  Caleb had to take it all in before he could answer: “No.”

  Faces turned upward toward the sky, reacting to the roar of the approaching hovercraft. Hundreds of them, spread out across the grounds outside the Works. All had heard the word, and all had responded.

  Is this what they’ve been waiting for? Caleb wondered.

  From Abby Silva’s vantage point, it was easy to see why the street species had ended up there. They had been working their way to it from the start, the genetically engineered drugs in their veins driving them home. They were, after all, children of the technology developed at the Works. If there was ever a place for them to make a pilgrimage, this would be it.

  The Collective erected the building over a century ago, to be their Combined Centers for Scientific Research and Development—the best minds from all of the major corporations coming together to see what kind of hell they could unleash on Earth. A dwarf among the other towers that surrounded it, the Works rose a scant two hundred stories into the sky—but the place had a presence that few other buildings in the world could match. A perfect four-sided obelisk—walls gradually tapered to form a pyramid apex at the very top—projected the epic and intimidating feel of a place of worship. A temple for those who would lay themselves down as offerings on the altar of technology. A mystical home for secrets known only by the few who were allowed to enter.

  And this bunch only puts the icing on the cake, Abby thought.

  She noticed a couple of Urban Goths hanging out next to the plaza fountain and went over to have a look. She was actually surprised to see them. Unlike most of the species out there, Goths weren’t into accelerated reality. Deathplay was their thing—which was why the rest of the subculture left them alone. Freaks among the freaks, Abby thought. If they were invited to the party, the boundaries were starting to crumble.

  The Goths were deep in play when Abby approached them, darting eyes hidden beneath closed lids. Both were better than seven feet tall, a genetic anomaly caused by inbreeding among their sect. Their pale, gaunt faces were pocked with scars from cheap electrodes. From the fiber protruding out of the backs of their skulls, Abby saw they had graduated to permanent implants.

  “Anything good on?” she asked.

  The taller of the two opened his eyes and looked down at her. The sclera were as black as the pupils, a result of the implant surgery. “Take this trip and you won’t want to come back,” he said, unplugging a fiber from behind his left ear. “If you like, I can arrange an exchange. I know people who pay top dollar for a cop’s death.”

  “I had no idea we were so popular.”

  The Goth smiled. His teeth were filed down to points. “You’re not. But corporate security don’t like to mix it up with us like you do.”

  Abby returned the smile, acknowledging the joke. The only time CSS worked street species was to bust their balls. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, motioning toward his friend, who was still down in it. “Must be some good shit for him to be this tuned out. You sure he ain’t poaching illegal?”

  This time the Goth laughed. “Snuff stuff is just a big lie. What I make, even better than the real thing.”

  Abby believed him. Deathplay was recorded from tec-induced hallucinations, uploaded from junkies so desperate for money they let the Goths steal their nightmares. It was cheaper and less complicated than actual murder. But it still gave Abby the chills.

  “So what are you fellas doing here?” she asked, changing the subject. “This usually isn’t your kind of scene.”

  “Say the same about you,” the Goth replied, plugging back in. “You come looking for answers. We come for the same thing. Been waiting a long time.”

  “For what?”

  The Goth spasmed for a moment while the latest death simulation filled his cerebral cortex. It was supposedly more intense than an orgasm, though Abby was never curious enough to give it a go. Mortality was enough of a drag when you only did it once.

  “For the word,” the Goth breathed, sinking into his fantasy. “It coming down. We all been listening.”

  “Don’t suppose you’d share the word with a cop.”

  “The word for everyone, mon amour. Besides, we all find out sooner or later. Evolution don’t leave nobody behind. That’s what they tell us.”

  “Who tells you?”

  “Inru,” the Goth said, and phased out of the world again.

  Abby had no idea what that meant—although the word Inru had been making the rounds through the subculture for a while. Before now, Abby had thought it was the lingo for some new brand of stim. But Goths didn’t get their kicks from that sort of thing. Inru had to be something different.

  Maybe something right here . . .

  Abby headed back toward the police line when the whine of the hovercraft’s engines passed overhead. She emerged from the crowd just as it was descending on the plaza, and had to marvel at the lieutenant’s bravery for going near that heap. An ugly relic of a previous time, the vehicle would have been equally at home in a transportation museum or a junkyard. Abby hoped that the screeching turbofans held together long enough to get her boss on the ground.

  The landing gear engaged with a shrill, metallic grind—but the pilot managed to bring his craft down softly, almost gracefully. The old mechanical beast seemed to exude relief as the engines cut off, belching one last cloud of smoke before spinning into silence. Shortly after, the passenger hatch opened and Caleb appeared. He was obviously shaken, but alert. Abby smiled, admiring his resolve.

  “I won’t hold it against you if you kiss the ground.”

  “I won’t hold it against you if you kiss something else,” he shot back, walking over to her. “You’re supposed to keep me informed, Abby. How come I wasn’t invited to the party?”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant. You know the species. We couldn’t keep a pulse on them even before this stuff was going down.”

  Caleb quickly scanned the line of officers doing the crowd control, a dozen cops holding back ten times their own number. Any appearance of control was just that—an appearance. The species could overrun them in two seconds if somebody made the call.

  “I don’t like these odds, Abby.”

  “I wouldn’t worry. They haven’t been violent.”

  “Doesn’t mean they can’t start,” Caleb said, and started walking toward the building. Abby quickly fell in step beside him. “We don’t even know what set them off.”

  “You ever hear of something called Inru?”

  “You’re the one dialed into the culture, Abby. If you don’t know what it is, I sure as hell don’t. Why? Did you get anything out of these people?”

  “Just a couple of Goths talking trash.”

  Caleb smiled knowingly. “Too bad the Collective doesn’t consider this bunch a threat. So what’s with CSS, anyway? I thought they had a frigging army in this place.”

  “They do—but they haven’t shown their faces yet.”

  That in itself was odd. Even if the Collective didn’t give a shit, Corporate Special Services still had an image to maintain. They should have been out here breaking up what was, in effect, an illegal assembly. Cops weren’t usually called until after, when it was time to bag the corpses and haul them away.

  So where were they?

  “Dispatch got the call telling us about the freak show,” Abby explained. “For some r
eason they couldn’t get a trap, so we don’t know who phoned it in. All we know is that it didn’t come from here.”

  “Have you talked with anyone inside the building yet?”

  Abby shook her head. “No one is answering any calls. And we don’t have the equipment to do a remote link and see if their communications are still active.”

  “Up to our usual standards of efficiency,” Caleb muttered. “Damn.”

  They stopped at the base of the stairway that led to the main entrance. Abby lifted her eyes skyward, taking in the whole of the tower a little bit at a time. Up above the pyramid, she could see the strands of laser light that marked the pulser grid that stretched over the city. It was hard for her to get a sense of why they were here—but underneath that, the certainty that they were supposed to be.

  “Any ideas?” she asked Caleb.

  “That depends on how much you trust me.”

  Abby heard the intent in his voice, and she knew where it was leading. “You got some kind of death wish, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t think about it, Abby,” Caleb said, motioning back toward the crowd. Abby turned to see it for herself, and it was only then she noticed how silent they had become. Everyone was fixated on the two of them, waiting to see what they would do next. And it was then she remembered very clearly what the Goth had told her.

  Evolution don’t leave nobody behind.

  “We can do this ourselves,” Caleb told her. “It’s the only way we’re going to find out for sure.”

  Abby couldn’t deny she was tempted. If they contacted the Collective directly, a CSS unit would be there in fifteen minutes. In twenty minutes, the cleanup would begin. And in an hour, both she and Caleb would be in an interrogation room being attacked with questions they couldn’t begin to answer.

  But she was still scared.

  “What’s going to happen to us if we go up there?” she asked.

  “Damned if I know,” Caleb said.

  They headed upstairs.