Hense nodded. “It’s been an irregular couple of days, Mr. Marko. We need to get out of the city before this situation explodes.”

Marko opened his unhappy mouth to reply just as a shrieking alarm split the air, honking urgently. It repeated three times and then a neutral, artificial voice boomed out of nowhere. I was getting sick and tired of shells making announcements.

“Attention, all SSF Personnel. By order of DIA Marin, Autho-rization Code One-Niner-Charlie-Alpha, this facility has been placed in lockdown. All personnel are ordered to remain where they are until further notice. All air traffic has been restricted and must be passed personally through DIA Marin’s office. Please contact your COs for further information. Attention…”

As the message repeated, its volume slowly decreased. Marko looked around from under his thick eyebrows. “Looks like it’s too late,” he said.

XV

Day Six: Pumping Out Death From My Pores, and Things were Starting to Look Up

“Oh, fuck,” Hense muttered, cocking her head a little. It was the first time I’d seen her even mildly irritated, and I found it strangely disconcerting. System Cops were not supposed to get fucking stymied. Doors opened magically for them; hovers appeared out of the ether to pick them up; scores of Stormers in their headachy Obfuscation Kit that mirrored their surroundings on the fly and made them almost invisible to the naked eye rained down at their command. System Cops did not mutter fuck like other jackasses who got themselves into a scrape.

She glanced at Marko. “Keep packing. We’re moving in one minute. Happ,” she said, glancing at him. “Guns.”

His eyes bright sparks of unhappiness in his hairy face, Marko nodded and turned immediately, stepping past me without a glance. I leaned back against the nearest pile of equipment and looked at the colonel. “Got a cigarette?” I said. I’d been able to afford them over the last few years and I’d gotten used to it. The alarm was now just a persistent whisper in the background-you could tune it in if you wanted, or ignore it.

Hense didn’t look at me. She reached into one pocket and produced a dented tin holder, tossing it at me in a perfect little arc. I popped it open and found a small silver lighter and, to my delight, ten perfect little pre-Unification cancer sticks, thirty fucking years old but preserved somewhere by some wonderful genius, then sold on the black market for five thousand yen apiece. I took out three, stuck one in my mouth and two in my pocket. I lit up and snapped the tin shut, tossing it back to her without saying a word. She didn’t look up as she snatched it from the air and stuffed it back into her pocket.

“Mr. Marko?” she snapped.

“One minute,” he called back, and I gave the kid some credit. He’d just seen his fellow Techie get shot in the face. Now he was giving her attitude. He was either one of those brain-damaged geniuses who could decode algorithms in his head but didn’t understand how to breathe without coaching, or he had bigger balls than I’d imagined. Either way, I downgraded his survival chances from possible to doomed. One of the System Pigs was going to end up strangling him.

He came bustling back from the depths of his lab, dragging the bulging duffel behind him. “You expect me to head into the field without H-cells? Like we’re going to run shit off static electricity by rubbing our goddamn hands together?”

Hense swept out her arm. “After you, Mr. Marko,” she said with exaggerated politeness that should have scared the hell out of him.

I inhaled smoke as the kid walked past me, glaring. I toyed with the idea of making a sudden move to see how he’d react, but I was too old and too tired for stuff like that. Besides, the first rule of bullshit like this was get on the Techie’s good side. Happling was the man to cower behind when things got thick, but more often than not things got thick while you were standing on the wrong side of a door you couldn’t open, or a system that was tracking you. The Techies always saved your ass.

I glanced after Marko. If they wanted to, I thought, moving a molar around with my tongue.

The colonel was staring at me. “Anytime, Mr. Cates.”

I exhaled, the smoke almost blue and so thick it seemed to cling to the air, like a film. I wondered if my little microbots liked it or if it irritated them, if they were beaming home for permission to kill their host.

Hense launched herself toward the door. I fell in behind her tiny frame, burning my cigarette as fast as I could, filling myself with poison and smiling. Everything hurt, but it was a good hurt-it hurt because I was moving again.

Outside the lab, the corridor was deserted, hidden strobes flashing in perfect rhythm. Happling was stomping back down the hall toward us. “Fucking closets have all been sealed. My clearance is no good.”

Hense just breezed past him, and we fell in behind her. Happling’s huge form radiated frustration and unhappiness. All the doors were perfectly hidden, disappeared into the walls and giving the illusion that the hall, white and unmarked, was perpetual and perfect. After the bedlam of cops on our way down to the lab, the emptiness was eerie.

Hense led us around a corner to a spot on the wall outlined in red paint, without any identifying signage or other indication what it represented. She stepped close to the wall and paused.

“Fuck,” she hissed. “Mine, too.”

We stood there for a moment. “I don’t want to know,” Happling said slowly, “what kind of emergency restricts access to fucking majors and higher. There are what, three hundred majors in the whole goddamn System?”

“Mr. Marko,” I said, burning my fingers as I dragged on the cigarette, burning it down to a nub. “Your turn to shine.”

Hense ticked her head toward me but didn’t look at me. “Mr. Marko,” she said in a steady voice, “can you open this?”

Marko looked from her to Happling and then, in a moment of desperation, at me. I just flicked my cigarette at the floor and shrugged. “Colonel,” he said, “do I have it right that you want me to vandalize SSF property?”

I expected an explosion. Happling did, too, the way he rocked forward on his feet. But the tiny black woman remained perfectly still. “Mr. Marko, we have to get out of this building. The longer we remain here, the better the chances that Mr. Cates’s presence will be discovered. Once that happens, they will remove him from our control. Once that happens, you, Captain Happling, and I will die. Do you understand that?”

Marko swallowed and glanced at me. “Yes.”

Happling reached out lazily and smacked the Techie on the back of the head. “Then open the fucking locker, asshole, and stop wasting time.”

Marko glared at Happling and rubbed his head but dragged his duffel toward the wall. “That is not necessary, Captain,” he complained, dropping the bag and kneeling down to unzip it. He rummaged inside it for a bit, finally pulling out a slender silver tool. He stood up and ran his fingers-long, thin fingers-against the wall, grunting when he found some invisible seam. He stepped back and brought the tool up, jamming it forward and into the wall with another grunt. There was a brief bluish spark and the wall opened like a flower, two panels swinging open in slow motion, revealing a surprisingly deep locker filled with weapons and ammunition-handguns, shotguns, shredding rifles, and grenades. He turned back to us, flipping the tool into the air and catching it. I gave him a grin. The fucking Techies ran the System. We were all there on sufferance.

Happling reached in and pulled two shredders off the rack and tossed one to Hense. Shredding rifles were serious shit-big and heavy, they fired huge fragmenting rounds, thousands per minute, making a whining, keening noise that made you want to cover your ears and shake your head until it stopped. They cut people into neat little pieces but were a bear to control. Even the Stormers rarely carried them. Hense hefted hers in her hands for a moment.