Perion Synthetics (53 page)

Cam watched Gil turn the corner. “How many
deals did Perion have going?”

“There was no deal,” said Sava, continuing
on. “He was here undercover. Roberta helped us figure it out. Transitioning him
to a synthetic chassis was the only way to get leverage.”

Outside, a Nissan sedan pulled up in the
circular driveway. Its driver got out and stood near the rear passenger door.
When he saw Sava coming, he opened the door for her.

“So we’re taking two synthetics with us?”
asked Cam. “How’d you swing that?”

“What are you doing?” asked the driver.

Sava watched as Gil carefully maneuvered
Roberta through the rear door and set her upright. After securing her seatbelt,
he stepped back and closed the door.

“I can’t take a synthetic to Perion
Terminus.” The driver motioned to the AGs. “Will you two please remove this
thing?”

Sava rubbed her neck. “Well, Gil. I think
it’s time to begin your interview. You think you can defuse this situation?”

“Shit,” muttered Cam.

“Of course I can,” said Gil. He flexed an
arm. “You have no idea what this body is capable of.”

Sava leaned forward and smiled. “Let’s see
it.”

Gil’s hand shot out and grabbed hold of
Sava’s waistband. He tugged sharply, pulling her towards the car. He slipped to
her right and threw out an oblique kick, catching one of the AGs in the knee.
It stumbled backwards a few steps. Gil changed direction and went after the
other synthetic, stopping its hand before it could fully remove its sidearm
from the holster. At such close range, Gil used elbows and knees to inflict
most of the damage. When the synthetic was thoroughly disoriented, Gil used a
palm strike to free its gun. The weapon rotated in the space between them
before Gil grabbed hold of it and dug it into the AG’s jaw.

Sava turned her head as he fired, coating
the other Scorpio in oil. It wiped at its eyes as Gil spun around. He held down
the trigger and put five bullets into the synthetic. It fell to the pavement
with a thud.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

“Defused,” said Gil, tossing the gun onto
the fallen AG.

The driver took two steps backwards and then
broke into a run.

“Ask him where he sees himself in five
years,” said Cam.

“No need,” replied Sava, stepping closer to
Gil. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I know where you’ll be: with me, and
Jackie, and Calle Cinco. One big happy family.”

“If you guys are done making out, we should
probably go,” said Cam, walking around to the driver’s side. The car rumbled to
life a second later.

“Welcome to the revolution,” said Sava. She
gestured to the car with her thumb. “Shall we go?”

“I hated this place anyway,” said Gil.

“It had its moments,” said Sava, taking one
last look at the Spire, wondering if Chuck Huber were in there somewhere
walking one of the hundreds of floors. How long would it be before he noticed
she was gone?

Cam honked the horn.

Sava climbed into the passenger seat and
buckled herself in.

“Where to?” asked Cam.

“Perion Terminus, then hang a right towards
the coast.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sava saw half
a dozen Automated Guards pushing through the crowd. They were already holding
their rifles at the ready.

“Drive,” said Sava, extending her arm
outside the window.

She smiled as the breeze rushed over her
extended middle finger.

“There’s no fluctuation,” said Gil.

Cam had been trying for the last half hour
to engage him in conversation, but it was only after they had passed The Fringe
that Gil could tear his attention away from Roberta. The line of questioning
was centered on what it was like to be a synthetic, a topic just interesting
enough to keep Sava from nodding off.

Besides, there was nothing worth seeing on
the other side of sleep, just a construct full of the charred remains of slagged
synthetics. And walking amongst the smoking limbs and hollow faces was Anela
Zabora, a projection of a ghost of a memory, no more real than the demon
obscuring half of the sky.

“I remember eating too much for lunch and it
ruining the day,” said Gil. “Then you’ve got caffeine and pain pills and a
thousand flavors of synth. Your body goes up and down all day. But now… now
it’s all baseline, exactly the same from one second to the next. It’s like they
built a car but never asked how it drove. Now there’s someone behind the wheel
who doesn’t feel tired or hungry or horny.”

Sava chuckled in her half-sleep.

Cam looked at Gil in the rearview mirror.
“You uh… you think it still works?”

“It works,” said Sava. “You think Perion
wanted to live out the rest of eternity without a fully furnished basement?
Roberta’s the same way, but you knew that, didn’t you, Cam?”

“What’s she talking about?” asked Gil.

Cam waved the question away.

“It’s not his fault,” said Sava. “I ordered
Roberta to charm the panties off of Cam. And judging by the complaints from the
other hotel guests, she succeeded.”

Cam blushed. “Like it’s some kind of huge
accomplishment to get my panties off. Shit, I’d drop them for Sava if she’d
smile every once in a while.”

“I smile plenty,” she replied, striking him
in the chest.

Cam rubbed himself and looked in the mirror
again. “You know that was before we met at the warehouse, right? If I had
known…”

“I know,” said Gil. “It’s different now. I
should be jealous you were with her and I should be pissed you’re making jokes
about it, but I don’t really feel it deep down. I feel…”

“Untouchable,” said Sava. “Perion said that
to me a few days ago. Said there wasn’t a human on the planet who could even
reach him, let alone hurt him. Said he existed on another plane.”

“A transcendental toaster,” said Cam.
“That’s a first.”

“He wasn’t trying to be deep. He just
recognized a flaw in his plan. Humans aren’t immortal. If a human becomes
immortal by imprinting on a synthetic sleeve, then they immediately forfeit any
ties with the rest of humanity. Maybe Perion didn’t know that going in, but he
realized his place eventually.”

“What place?” asked Gil.

“Your place as outcasts, part of a new
evolutionary leap. It’s the reason I fully expect you to jump ship the second
Rob—Jackie—is repaired. Once you have her, you won’t need me anymore. You won’t
feel any sort of obligation to me whatsoever, not like a human would.”

“I meant to ask about that,” said Cam. “Why
does Sava Kessler need a bodyguard?”

“She’s leaving Perion Synthetics,” said Gil.
“Think of how much she knows about the inner workings. Any company in the world
would want that intel. If Vinestead gets wind of it, they’ll literally break
down her door to get it.”

“Vinestead, Vinestead, Vinestead. That’s all
you people ever talk about here. Maybe they should call this place Vinestead
City instead, maybe have Arthur Sedivy’s hand fisting the Great Spire. I don’t
see what the big deal is.”

“And you never will,” said Sava.

She turned her head to the window and
watched the desert scroll by. Much of The Fringe had looked like this when she
first started at Perion Synthetics. Over the years, the city had expanded,
churning up the faded and cracked earth to make way for another factory that
would turn out a more specialized hand or eye or penis capable of four hour
erections.

Sava shook the image out of her head.

The expansion would continue, no doubt,
whether or not James Perion stood at the helm. The machine was in motion,
hurtling down the highway at a hundred miles per hour, heading for a collision
with the immovable Vinestead boulder sitting squarely in the middle of the road.
Though Sava wasn’t on board, at least she was able to watch the scene from a
safe distance where the impact wouldn’t kill her but rather provide a
spectacular show of flames and carnage.

Perion Synthetics was on its own now.

Fire and forget, thought Sava, as she closed
her eyes.

The construct reorganized itself into a
massive arena with two levels of stadium seating surrounding a dirt oval. At
one end, the demon stood with its arms raised to the open roof, the flames on
its horns licking at the stars. Around one of its massive legs, a chain of
black steel secured the beast to the wall. Sava turned her mind’s eye to the
left and saw the Perion army amassed in total for the first time. Row after row
of identical synthetics marched forward, their unnecessary fleshy veneers
ripped from their chassis, replaced by charcoal sinew that disappeared into
desert-camo pants. Their boots kicked up dirt as they pressed forward, closing
the distance between Perion Synthetics and Vinestead International once and for
all.

Sava floated into the stands and sat down
next to her sister.

“This is the catalyst, you know,” said
Anela. “After this comes the war. Vinestead will feel threatened for the first
time in its existence, and that means they will lash out harder and faster than
ever before. Standing against them will be more dangerous, and it will only get
worse as we get closer to the end.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Courage will not be enough, Kai. You will
have Gil by your side, but this war will be fought in virtuality as much as it
will be fought out there. You should start gathering more ciphers to the den.
We will need to be ready when the time comes.” Anela placed her hand on Sava’s
knee. “You can do this, Kai.”

At ground level, the army came within twenty
yards of the demon. It paced in the small circle allowed by the chain, stomping
its hooves in the dirt. As the synthetics approached, the demon retreated to
the wall and gave a massive roar.

Sava winced as the dome glowed and cracked;
it was poor protection against the sudden fire flaring in the infinite ether
around the arena.

The hoof prints left behind by the demon
turned black and reflective, and through them pushed the heads of ten smaller
beasts, each one crying out in a high-pitched whine. As they found their
footing, they turned their attention to the synthetics. In unison, they opened
their elongated jaws and spewed flames across the distance, charring the dirt
of the battlefield. The first row of synthetics melted mid-step and collapsed
into a heap. Soldiers behind them crushed their remains with their boots as
they passed over them.

“An ambush,” said Anela. “We should have
anticipated that.”

Something blurry danced in Sava’s periphery.
She turned to look at it, swirling the construct around her. The bottom dropped
out and she felt herself falling, chasing after some elusive piece of
information stinging at her from the edges of her awareness. She pursued it
deep into the black of the construct until the arena was but a speck overhead.
Through this singularity, she could hear a voice calling to her.

“Kai. Kai! KAI!”

Sava jerked awake, slamming her knee into
the glove box.

“Easy there,” said Cam. “The bad man can’t
hurt you anymore.”

In the distance, the brown hulk of Outpost
Alpha pushed through a hazy mirage. There was no traffic on the PE, nor any
obstacles to slow them down, yet Sava couldn’t stop herself from imagining a
line of demons stretching across the blacktop, their mouths open and ready to
spew napalm.

No. Not demons…

To the right of the road, the last of the
turnarounds flew by. In another hundred yards or so, the outer barriers would
start to build up; they were designed to keep traffic from veering off the road
as they approached the outpost, which was exactly what Sava needed Cam to do.

“You alright?” asked Gil.

Sava reached out and yanked the steering
wheel towards her, pulling the car off the road and onto the uneven dirt. The
vibrations made every muscle in Sava’s body ache, but she held tight even as
Cam wrestled for control.

“Stay off the road! And don’t slow down.”

Cam let the car drift a few more degrees to
the right and then held a steady course.

“What’s your problem?” he asked.

“Ferko.” Sava took a breath to steady
herself. “We need to go around the outpost. I gave a kill order to shoot any
synthetic on sight. And after how we left things at the Spire, I’m sure they’ll
be expecting us.”

“Yeah, but isn’t there some kind of fence or
something?” asked Cam.

“On the border, yes,” said Sava, “but not
here at the PNR. It’s just stakes set in the ground. Pick two and drive between
them.”

“If the car holds up,” he replied.

Gil leaned forward and stuck his head
between them. “What the hell is that?”

Sava followed his gaze. A blur moved on the
horizon, kicking up dust as it ran parallel to a line of metal poles jutting up
from the dirt.

“Is that one of your AutoGuards?” asked Cam.

It was moving too fast over uneven terrain
to be a Scorpio. It could have been something new, some special toy in Javier’s
arsenal he had been saving for a special occasion.

“Stay away from it,” said Sava, “whatever it
is.”

Cam let the car drift to the right, only to
see another blur pop out from behind a low ridge of rocks.

“Aw shit,” said Cam.

“They’re wearing AG uniforms,” said Gil,
“and they are really hauling.”

“Step on it, Cam. They won’t follow us past
the PNR.”

In the construct, Sava shot a glance at
Anela, who shrugged in return.

The engine growled as Cam floored the
accelerator.

“Not gonna make it,” said Gil, sitting back
in his seat.

“We’ll make it,” replied Cam. He squeezed
the steering wheel, muttering
come on, come on
under his breath.

Sava looked back and forth between the blurs
and tried to do the calculations. By the looks of it, Gil was right. Even if
Cam could get the car’s speed into the triple digits, the Scorpios were
converging too fast.