Chương 63: The Work Before War

Kelly woke in a warm bed in a cold room on a new day. The alarm had not gone off, which gave her a brief head start on a day that was already planning to upset a significant number of people. She sat up, swung her legs to the floor, and stood. The room held two desks, two nightstands, too many lamps, and a fuzzy carpet thrifted from a small store on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. One door led to a short hallway.

She walked to the kitchen, pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and drank half of it while the floor warmed her feet. A screen on a desk glowed with the building feed. Evacuation guidance crawled along the bottom while a voice listed shelter protocols. The voice had clearly never been outside. Kelly set the bottle down, showered, dried off, and pulled on clothes she could run in and bleed on without taking it personally. She did not linger.

She ordered two spider droids because those had already proven they could handle the problem that came through an apartment door when the city stopped pretending to be safe. She set the delivery for forty minutes to the service entrance and approved the charge without reading the fee. Her savings dried up, but she would make the money back by noon if today's deal went well. Her home lab sat at the end of the hallway, where a printer stood against one wall and a workbench ran beneath a row of hooks.

Kelly walked in and queued a threshold-level sidearm with a ten-round flechette magazine and a grip that only opened for her. The printer began its work, and she left it to earn its keep. Ammunition went to a second unit, and a full magazine began filling. On the bench terminal, she adjusted the monomolecular blade blueprints. She re-beveled the edge to a ridiculous degree, and typed in four new, exceptionally deadly forms. She saved the changes and sent them to a third unit. She opened a field notes file.

The header read: EAST GRID: - GOD-KILLING UPGRADES - A TEN-STEP PLAN She wrote the plan. Upgrade Titles. Upgrade Traits. Mana Vacuum would be key. She needed to maybe get her hands on tech that worked on the Planck scale. Quantum tech—the real theoretical stuff nobody had even tried to build yet. GeneCorp had said that the only way to break down and rebuild traits was with quantum tech, scales so small they were beyond humanity. She had to make that, somehow. Then build her own traits.

Maybe strip out what she had and put something else in its place. But humanity didn't have tech that worked at the scale of gods, not yet anyway. So maybe she needed to take something from Freya and Cain, or from Jennie, once she found her. She really wanted to rob the god and put him in a petri dish. Preferably in the same day. She texted Dr. Haider: Portal in the apartment. I need guns inside. A lot of them. Send whatever you can, please. I won't be here long.

Xoxo As the map flashed, she thought about the east-grid. The botanical lab sat under a collapsed overpass. That was her next target. Vaughn studied portal energy. GeneCorp studied genetics. The botanical lab studied the field the other two ignored. She needed to get inside, cut the time short, and teach a god and its emissary a lesson it would never forget. She was nowhere near 100 EQ or Rank A, the minimum anyone needed to trade blows with a god or its avatar, so picking that fight made no sense on paper.

That had never slowed her down before. She wanted payback: a sample, a trait, a title, maybe five traits and eleven titles, and a way to spit in the god's face so it knew it was her. Killing and dissecting the god could wait until she hit 100 EQ, but she was impatient. The lab was the shortcut. The immediate goal was to steal the god's shoes. The sidearm finished printing first. Kelly lifted it, cycled the action, and dry-fired at the wall. Rounds clicked into the magazine.

She loaded the weapon and checked the blade while it printed. Then she sat on a stool and turned to the bone.

"We're gonna steal a god's shoes," she said. But first, she needed to make some changes. Killing and dissecting the god was at the forefront of her mind. Until 100 EQ, it should have been a pipe dream. But Kelly was pretty good at turning dreams to reality, and pipes into bombs. Plus, impatience was her best trait. She closed the file.

"Shoes first, dignity later," she said to the open air. Kelly walked back to the living room, opened her phone, and called Rook.

"This is Rook speaking," he said.

"Hey, it's Kelly calling." He paused.

"Are you that girl who is always late to work?"

"Early today, whole new me."

"How did you get my number?"

"I pulled it from the Vaughn directory." Another silence followed.

"That listing isn't public, and accessing it is a privacy violation." Kelly leaned back against the kitchen counter and watched the building feed.

"Check my public record if you want." Rook made a low sound.

"Public records have you as a research intern with a doctorate and an... impressive thesis." The line went silent.

"Wow. You never really know people, do you?"

"Hey, what is that supposed to mean?"

"You do not read as an intern."

"I get that a lot."

"I'm sure you do." Kelly walked to the window. The sky outside had turned red.

"Hey, Rook. Do you know Obsidian?" Rook's tone shifted.

"Sure. The new crew. I've heard of them." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"What have you heard about them?"

"Insider trading, air filtering contracts, a few hostile takeovers—""—and threatening grandmothers in the outskirts for their bakery space. Yeah, them. That's the group I am talking about." Kelly cut him off as interlocking chains of bone slid from her palm, pale and dense, shaped with industrial links with a flex of her will. She continued shaping it into different forms as she spoke, practicing.

"They've been making a name for themselves. Why'd you bring them up?"

"I have insider information from up top. Vaughn private grid. Obsidian are planning to smuggle live invaders into the hyperloop on your shift." Rook did not answer right away. The station noise behind him dimmed. Rook's voice came back with an edge.

"That is a very serious claim to make."

"The whole morning has been serious."

"Where did you get this information?"

"I told you. From Vaughn internal. Logistics," she lied.

"Vaughn logistics don't speak through research interns."

"I have access. Special clearance," Kelly lied harder. Although... that one was less of a lie. She was special, after all, so her clearance, naturally, was special too.

"What clearance permits that?" Kelly said, "God. Rook, I'm trying to help you. The same clearance that got me the directory. Do you want the details, or should we spend ten minutes on how I do my job?"

"I want proof you aren't wasting my time."

"You will know in thirty seconds." She sent him the whole file. It showed eight Obsidian operatives, two unmarked service vans, freight loading dock seven, and fake BlueMark Air Filtration badges. Six baseline enforcers brought suppressed coilguns and chemical grenades. One overclocked brought a plasma cutter and subdermal armor and a chest that could turn a street into a mincemeat festival. One merc brought cargo and getaway vehicles armed with rockets.

Three live anomalous species rode in armored crates, with a fourth still conscious, and one crate had failing seals. She even had their names, faces, favourite colors and birthdays. Rook's breathing changed.

"The data matches public records and geolocation; they are on their way. But it could still be faked."

"The signer ID is internal."

"I see that."

"Check the timestamp." Another pause followed.

"How did you get an internal ID?"

"Told you. I got it from Vaughn. It's because I care about you. But not in a special way. Don't think too much about it, you're like my seventeenth best friend in immortality. Just appreciate me and owe me favors." Rook didn't respond.

"You are something."

"Yes, I am." On the screen, Dr. Haider replied: Perimeter drones approved. Keep your head down. Kelly swiped the message away. The blade printer chimed as it finally finished its job. Kelly lifted the upgraded monomolecular blade, ran her thumb above the fuller without touching it, snapped it into the sheathed form, and set it down. Kelly leaned forward.

"Here is the play. Through Vaughn, you stop the shipment, you look good to your bosses and to Vaughn's upper management. I will look after Buster while you stop a little domestic terrorism and be a local hero during a crisis. Also, I can look after your dog while you take care of it all and get promoted. Make sure nothing bad and glowing hurts him. My apartment has security drones. It's a win-win." Rook went quiet. Kelly waited.

"Okay. The key is under the welcome mat. Send me your biometrics and I will approve them. Barry in 2-C will let you in."

"I just sent the biometric file."

"I have it. Buster is in the living room. Do not let him eat anything off the floor."

"I will not."

"And keep him out of the trash."

"I am not going to poison your dog."

"He will beg. Do not fall for it."

"I think I can out-beg a dog."

"Just keep him safe. Thanks." The call ended. Kelly stood with the phone still warm. Sirens were closer, and the screen said to remain indoors unless cleared for extraction. Kelly packed the printed sidearm, monomolecular blade, and spare components into a hard case. Then she carried the case out of the apartment and walked to the truck parked in a side alley. The case went behind the driver's seat, and the engine started. The drive to Rook's building took longer than she wanted.

Stalled cabs blocked one street, a broken hydrant flooded another, an overturned sanitation truck lay across a third, and a police line let residents out but not in. Kelly circled back and approached from the opposite side. The city had not improved while she was inside. It had gotten worse in several creative ways, and she handled each obstacle with the patience of someone who had already died twice before breakfast on other loops. A detour was an improvement.

She parked two blocks away, grabbed the case, locked the truck, and walked. Rook's building was a squat residential block with a call box by the front door. Kelly pressed Barry, 2-C.

"Who is calling at my door?" a voice asked through the speaker.

"Rook sent me. I'm here for Buster."

"Send your biometrics to the panel." She pressed her thumb to the plate, and the lock clicked open. She took the stairs. A teenager leaned out of a doorway, wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

"Rook said you'd come. Buster's been watching the door since the first broadcast." Kelly stepped inside. The same tan, flop-eared mutt with a gray muzzle stood in the hallway, tail level, watching her. The temperature in the room shifted. She knelt and offered the back of her hand. The dog sniffed once, then stepped forward and put his front paws on her thighs.

"Wow. He likes you. He didn't do that to me the first time. He only does that with people who stay calm," the teenager said. Buster circled once, picked up a rope toy, and dropped it at Kelly's foot. She threw it once, soft. He brought it back and stood with it hanging from his mouth.

"He will want to keep doing that. We should get going." Kelly attached a harness and leash. The teenager handed her a travel bag with a water bottle, bowl, poop bags, and a vet card.

"He gets water every two hours, no people food, and he will not take the elevator."

"I'll take the stairs," Kelly said. She wrapped the leash around her wrist and kept Buster close to her left leg. He walked without pulling. Kelly walked Buster down the stairwell and out the front door. She opened the back of the truck and lifted him into a crash harness. He sat once, then lay down with a full-body sigh. She poured water into the bowl and held it for him. He drank once and rested his head on his paws. Kelly texted Rook: Buster secured. Good hunting.

Rook's reply came a few seconds later: Don't let him eat anything off the ground. I won't, but not because you told me, but because Buster is great. And the ground is superior. Kelly put the phone down, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb. She took the truck off the main roads and into the outskirts where the filtering ended and the streets greyed with air that also doubled as a slow chemical haze. Buster sat up in the back seat, ears flat, and pressed his nose to the window.

A low growl rolled through his chest before she saw several massive mounted turrets tracking the vehicle from a distant tower. Each barrel had to be the length of a city bus, and every one of them was already swinging toward the truck. Red targeting lasers crawled over the hood, climbed the windshield, and settled in a neat line across Kelly's chest.

"Easy, boy." Kelly kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift.

"They're just local infrastructure. Pointy, underfunded, local infrastructure." Buster didn't get the memo. He kept growling. His teeth showed, and the fur along his back stood straight as a wire brush. The truck's collision warning began to chirp as the nearest turret locked on. Kelly glanced at the dog in the rearview.

"You too? I was already planning on disliking it." The barrels followed the truck in perfect sync. Kelly pressed the accelerator a little harder. The road ahead passed under a raised maintenance bridge, and beyond it, the botanical lab sat under its collapsed overpass. The turret on the left fired a short burst into an abandoned car two hundred meters ahead. The car flipped onto its roof and skidded across both lanes. Kelly corrected, eased around it, and kept her eyes on the place.

"Now that's just rude. Everyone's so touchy about parking these days." She reached back and gave Buster a quick scratch behind one flat ear.

"Do these guys know we're local, or do they just not care?" Buster huffed and dropped back onto the seat, still watching the towers through the window. His growl had softened to a low, continuous vibration. Then the turret on the right adjusted its aim to the truck's windshield.