Hammerjack Read online

  Through evolution.

  The pulser slowed as it flew over the landing pad, coming to a hover. Grapple beams fired from the emitters on the roof, disengaging the conductor and bringing the vehicle down to a landing so precise and soft it barely made a sound.

  A uniformed CSS detail was already on the roof, awaiting the pulser’s arrival. They marched over as the canopy opened, snapping to attention when they saw Avalon climbing out. Cray noticed that all of them were visibly armed, dressed in the kind of combat gear he would have expected at a riot. There was only one exception—a civilian who stood at the front of the formation, his gray hair and long overcoat fluttering in the strong wind. His expression was serious, but cordial; and unlike the others, he looked right past the free agent and directly toward Cray.

  “Good evening, Dr. Alden,” the man shouted above the wind, striding up the landing ramp to greet them. “My name is Trevor Bostic, district security counsel. Welcome to New York. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Thanks,” Cray replied, shaking Bostic’s hand. He motioned toward Avalon, the ever-present shadow standing at his side. “Hope you don’t mind me bringing a date to the party.”

  “Not at all,” Bostic said. “Nice to have you back, Avalon.”

  She acknowledged him with a single nod.

  “CSS has been trying to get a rope around her for years,” the counselor explained, sounding way too chummy for Cray’s taste. “As well as you, Dr. Alden—but I’m told GenTec values your services too highly to let us have a crack at you.”

  Cray tossed a dubious glance Avalon’s way. “That’s news to me.”

  Bostic smiled. “Please,” he offered them, sweeping his arm out toward the landing ramp in a welcoming gesture. The security detail treated it like a command, parting on either side so they could pass. “If you’ll accompany me, I’m sure you have many questions regarding your mission here. Time is of the essence, so we should get started right away.”

  They followed Bostic into the building, boarding a magnetic lift that took them down twenty floors and deposited them on one of the office levels. Stepping out into the corridor, Cray saw the security there was also very tight. Outside of every elevator and stairwell stood two guards—faces concealed beneath helmets, bodies decked out in the same kind of armor as the roof detail. They stood perfectly still, hands within easy reach of their sidearms.

  “It’s company orders,” Bostic said, reading Cray’s observations as they walked down the hall together. “All Collective installations are on the highest state of alert. I don’t care for it much, but what can I say? Some crazy things have been happening lately.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Not too much, I hope,” the counselor added. “We’ve been trying to keep our problems under wraps.”

  “No need to worry,” Cray assured him. “The Assembly was as vague as it could be.”

  Bostic chuckled knowingly. “Around here, that’s just standard operating procedure.” They arrived at the floor’s main conference room, the entrance secured by a pair of brushed-steel doors and two more guards. Bostic flashed them an ID badge, waving them aside and placing his palm on an access panel to verify his identity. The doors opened automatically, and Bostic showed his two guests inside.

  The lights only came up slightly as they entered, lending a reverent and somewhat sinister atmosphere to the chamber. Most impressive was an oval table that dominated the center of the room, a magnificent piece hewn from a gigantic slab of petrified wood. The center had been hollowed out to make room for a virtual imaging disk, which was already active and pulsating with a pale blue radiance. Completing the modernist perfection was a long bank of windows along the far wall, through which downtown Manhattan put on a brilliant display.

  Bostic took a seat at the head of the table, inviting Cray and Avalon to join him. The free agent elected to stand, but Cray didn’t even pretend to be that strong. He deposited himself into one of the wraparound chairs, feeling the contours as they molded themselves to the shape of his body. The opulence on display would have been appalling, had it not been so comfortable.

  “First of all,” Bostic announced, “I cannot overemphasize the sensitive nature of what you are about to see. Outside the Assembly, only a few key people in CSS know the full extent of what has happened. It is vital that you not discuss this matter with each other outside the confines of a secured facility. Any kind of a leak could be devastating to the future of Collective operations.”

  Cray thought of Heretic, of how much the hammerjack already knew. That was why he left his infected MFI with his bags back on the pulser. Whatever his doubts about the Assembly’s motives, Cray couldn’t risk Heretic learning more—not until he was sure of what he was dealing with.

  Bostic continued by punching up a high-res simulacrum on the imaging disk. Floating above the center of the conference room table, rising up to the ceiling, was a photorealistic model of the Works building. It rotated to provide a view of all sides, responding to the commands Bostic delivered via his control panel.

  “Five days ago,” the counselor explained, “we suffered what appeared to be a critical malfunction at the Combined Centers for Scientific Research and Development. At precisely 0115 hours EST, security monitors detected an intrusion of unknown origin—automatically initiating a series of countermeasures that included sealing off all entry and exit points in the building.” Bostic illustrated his presentation by rendering the image of the building transparent, then zooming in and highlighting the areas he was talking about. “A thorough search was initiated, but failed to turn up evidence of a penetration. Assuming it was a false alarm, the security staff then attempted to reset the system and open up the doors. Their efforts, however, were unsuccessful. All the access codes had been nullified, blocking all users from the system. When they attempted a manual override,” he said, trailing off into a long silence before picking up again, “it triggered what we thought was impossible.”

  A red zone appeared on one of the floors. “Fire alarms sounded on one hundred,” Bostic said, as the color spread throughout the rest of the building. “From there, alarms started going off throughout the facility. Thermal sensors tracked a massive inferno, even though the cameras couldn’t see a single puff of smoke. As far as the automated systems were concerned, the Works was burning to the ground.”

  Cray winced, knowing what was coming.

  “The evacuation fail-safe should have overridden security at that point and opened all the doors,” Bostic went on. “But it didn’t. All the exits remained sealed—trapping everyone inside the building when the fire control systems engaged.”

  “Krylon mist?”

  It was Avalon who asked, her tone even more clinical than Bostic’s.

  The counselor nodded. “Consumes all available oxygen to smother a fire,” he said. “Since every floor was saturated at the same time, nobody could hide. They asphyxiated inside of two minutes—all except for two survivors. One was Joshua Holcomb, who died trying to crawl his way out.” Bostic punched up a recorded video feed of a man in a white coat, pacing back and forth across what appeared to be a computer lab. There was no audio with the feed, but the picture clearly showed he was talking—to himself, or to someone beyond the range of the camera. “The other was Daryl Venture, chief software engineer on the bionucleics project. He was in the Tank when it happened.”

  Cray frowned curiously. “The Tank?”

  “It’s what the designers call the area where the bionucleic unit is housed.”

  “You mean Lyssa.”

  Bostic seemed uncomfortable with the use of that word. “That’s how the unit refers to itself,” he said, without elaborating further. “For whatever reason, the fire control system didn’t come on in there. It saved Venture’s life—at least for the time being.”

  The feed continued for a while longer. Venture became more and more agitated as the seconds passed, pulling at his hair and lashing out against thin air, rea
cting to some unseen torment—but never was there any sign of panic. No pounding on the doors, no expressions of mortal fear—only anger, building frustration. When Venture turned toward the camera, Cray could see it in the man’s eyes. The man was quite insane, capable of anything.

  And he was speaking, the same thing over and over again.

  “What’s he saying?” Cray asked.

  Bostic shrugged. “‘Thy will be done,’ or something to that effect. It’s gibberish—crazy talk.”

  Lyssa, Cray thought. Thy will be done . . .

  “What happened?”

  “That’s where things get a little fuzzy,” the counselor said. “Venture destroyed all the cameras on that level, so we lost video right after this was shot. What we do know is that the intruder countermeasures deactivated themselves after everyone was dead. This is what happened.”

  The imaging disk displayed another video feed, this one from the building exterior. It showed two figures, a man and a woman, ascending the stairs that led to the main entrance. Way out in the background, slightly out of focus, Cray could also see the large crowd that had gathered outside the Works that night.

  Just like the Goth said . . .

  Avalon spoke up again. “Who are those two?”

  “NYPD,” Bostic answered. “They were called in to check out a disturbance in the plaza outside the building. CSS doesn’t handle crowd control, which is why cops were first on scene. At that point, we weren’t even aware of what was going on inside. But somehow, these two were allowed to stroll right through the front door.”

  “Like they were invited in,” Cray finished for him.

  “Something like that,” Bostic said, taken aback a bit. It was almost as if Cray had mentioned something he wasn’t supposed to know. “We don’t know of any malfunction that would have allowed that kind of breach. When you put it together with everything else, there’s only one reasonable conclusion.”

  Cray was dubious. “You’re saying it was sabotage?”

  “It fits the profile.”

  “You got any proof?”

  The counselor shifted in his seat just slightly. “The nature of the penetration doesn’t easily lend itself to analysis.” It was the standard company answer for anybody trying to save his ass. “We believe that the intruder bypassed our proprietary network interface and utilized a method that would have been untraceable.”

  “Using what gateway?”

  “The bionucleic unit.”

  Bostic might as well have thrown a bomb into the room.

  “Wait a second,” Cray snapped—mostly out of disbelief, but partly out of fear. “You’re talking about an experimental SI prototype. Test conditions prohibit the unit from having contact with any outside networks—you know that.” He sank back into his chair and scoffed. “What you’re saying is impossible.”

  “The logs suggest otherwise,” the counselor said. “According to the active telemetry from that night, it was the bionucleic unit that hijacked the security systems and locked the building down. It was the bionucleic unit that set off the fire controls that killed everybody. And it was the bionucleic unit that allowed the police to storm the building afterward.” He turned off the projector disk. The contrast of the shadows falling across Bostic’s face only underscored his urgency—as well as his latent anger.

  “What happened was no accident, Dr. Alden,” he said. “It was a terrorist act.”

  “For which you hold the Inru responsible.”

  “Historically, they’ve always been our enemies.” It sounded so reasonable when Bostic said it. “They also command the loyalty of a great many hammerjacks. Our position is that they found a way to tunnel into the core module of the bionucleic unit—perhaps implanting a virus that caused the unit to behave the way it did.”

  The counselor was in sales mode now, and with good reason. His account was sheer speculation. Yet the Assembly had taken considerable pains to act on that speculation by bringing in Cray, and he still didn’t have the first clue as to why.

  He took a few seconds to clear his head, then asked: “The nanopsychologists don’t believe this was a spontaneous act?”

  “All the ones we had working on the project are dead.”

  “What about Lyssa?” Cray suggested. “Did anybody ask her?”

  “The unit has been unresponsive since the incident.”

  “So your theory has no facts to back it up,” Cray said, letting his contempt for CSS methods slip. “Is that about right?”

  “We have the disturbance outside,” Bostic replied, on the defensive. “Those people didn’t show up at the same time by chance.”

  “You’re talking about the party in the plaza that night?” It was a direction Cray knew he shouldn’t go, but at that point he had to take the shot. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, counselor. What happened to those people, anyway?”

  The question was loaded, the reply ominous.

  “They were detained and questioned.”

  “What about the two police officers?”

  More leaden moments passed. Bostic cleared his throat.

  “One of them was killed,” he admitted. “The other—the woman—is being debriefed as we speak.”

  Cray stifled his disgust. Bostic should have just come out and said the cop was being tortured—a fate probably shared by all the street species who had come out to the Works that night. Torture, with death the desirable result. The techniques employed by Special Services made any alternative worse.

  “I’ll need to speak with the cop,” he said.

  Bostic turned to stone. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “The police officer already revealed to us anything that might have been useful,” the counselor replied evasively. “That matter is no longer of any concern.”

  “Because she’s done talking, or because she’s brain-dead?”

  Bostic started losing his patience. He shot an angry glace toward Avalon, looking for some support, but she only held up her hand, signaling for him to back off. Flustered, the counselor busied himself by shuffling some notes, then stood to regain some of his composure. He straightened his tie and jacket, and only then did he address Cray again.

  “I’ll see to it that a detailed interface of all these events is made available to both of you,” the counselor told them. “My assistant will take care of all the arrangements.”

  “I don’t interface,” Cray said.

  “Of course,” Bostic replied stiffly, as if this was something he should have known. “In that case, my office will be made available to you should you require any more information. Will that suffice?”

  Cray wasn’t about to let him have anything for free.

  “For now,” he said.

  “Good.” Bostic opened the conference room doors and offered his guests the exit. “In the meanwhile, both of you must be tired from your journey. The pulser will take you back to your hotel. I’ve booked each of you a suite at the Waldorf Astoria. The accommodations are the finest in the city.”

  “No doubt,” Cray said, coming to his feet and fixing Bostic with a sly glance. “You mind if I ask you one more question?”

  Bostic prepared himself. “Go ahead.”

  “Why me?”

  “I’m told you’re the best,” Bostic explained. “If anyone can track down who did this, the Assembly says it’s you.”

  “But I’m no expert on bionucleics,” Cray told him. “What makes the Assembly think I can get Lyssa to talk if nobody else can?”

  Bostic seemed to sense his eagerness for an answer. He held it back for as long as possible, enjoying his mastery of the moment. Cray let him have his morsel of revenge, steeling himself for the big lie he was certain was coming.

  “Because,” the counselor said, “Lyssa asked for you.”

  Cray Alden ascended the stairway in front of the Works. Dirty sunshine filtered through permahaze glinted meekly off the surrounding towers, a breath of half-l
ife that made the open air feel that much more confining. Down at the fountain, especially, where the street species had gathered to await their collective hallucination, the plaza felt haunted by their absence—its emptiness implying far more than spilled blood ever could.

  “How could CSS make all those people disappear?”

  “It was easy,” Avalon said. She had assumed a position behind him—as always, the dutiful stalker, not losing a fragment of her composure. “Street species are like that. Alone, they might put up a fight. Together, they’re like sheep.”

  Cray tossed a glance back her way. In the dark she moved like a ghost, between the spaces, visible only in hints and flashes. But in the light, she was pallid and severe—flesh and bone, but far removed from a state of living.

  “Free agents and Special Services?” he asked. “Sounds like a strange arrangement.”

  “We only trained their personnel,” she explained. “Their chain of command is completely outside ours.”

  “You sound almost proud.”

  “I’m not proud of anything, Dr. Alden,” Avalon said, heading for the entrance. “I merely exist to serve a purpose.”

  Cray followed. He had insisted on taking a cab from the hotel because he wanted to see what the cops had seen when they arrived at the Works that night. There would have been such a synchronicity present—a common pulse flooding the streets uniting both cops and species, drawing each toward something they had no hope of understanding. What was manufactured there was the stuff of myth, not the spawn of logic.