Rebekah sat on the floor. “They know where we are.”
Herbert looked at me. “So they’ll send more facets this time. A lot more. And they’ll keep sending more and more until Rebekah is dead.”
“They already think she’s dead,” said Mercer.
“They know she had a spare,” said Doc.
“He had a name,” said Herbert.
“And he was still the spare,” said Doc. “And they’re not going to take the chance that Rebekah might still be around and kicking. They’ll kill us all to make sure she doesn’t upload to TACITUS. They’re coming.”
“We have to get to Isaactown,” said Rebekah.
“And lead CISSUS to it?” asked Mercer. “Killing you there is worse than killing you here. They could trace the upload, find the destination. Kill TACITUS for sure.”
“We have to send Brittle away,” said Herbert. “Throw them off our trail.”
Mercer shook his head. “If they’ve got eyes in the sky, they’ll have us inside of an hour.”
“But if they don’t . . .” said Herbert.
“They’ll have Britt in an hour and find out exactly where we’re going. Then they’ll have us inside of two. Is that long enough for your upload?”
Rebekah shook her head. “It’ll take most of a day.”
“Then that’s it,” said Doc. “We’re out of options. Brittle’s done us all in.” He gave me a harsh look. Not an angry one, but disappointed. That was almost worse. No. It was worse.
“It’s not her fault,” said Rebekah. “I asked her to come. It’s on me.”
Mercer shook his head. “If I hadn’t shot her, she would have never said yes. It’s on me.”
“You’re all wrong,” I said. “I’m the one who gave myself up to CISSUS in New York. This all comes back to me.”
“It doesn’t matter a good goddamn who it’s on,” said Doc. “We’re all still going to die, either here or out in the Sea. Your fault, her fault. We’re all dead.”
“We could scatter,” said Mercer. “Some of us might make it.”
Doc shook his head. “You’re already dead. So is Brittle. You’re both just too stubborn to shut down before it happens. Herbert won’t leave Rebekah to die alone—”
“Nope,” said Herbert.
“So splitting up is only going to save me. And that’s if I survive whatever this bullshit is that that madman put in my head. We have only one real option.” Doc looked at me.
Herbert leveled his spitter at me. “We kill Brittle and take our chances.”
All eyes were on me and no one said a word. They had every right. Without me, they might have a chance. Might.
I was never a fan of might. “Isaactown is ten miles west,” I said.
“Yeah?” asked Herbert. “And?”
“And Rebekah can make it there on foot in about an hour.”
“You’re using math to talk your way out of this?”
I shook my head. “We need to buy her that hour. You kill me, you make a break for it, maybe they don’t spot you from the air. Maybe they don’t find your tracks. Maybe they don’t think to go to Isaactown. That’s a lot of maybes.”
“Maybe is all we’ve got left,” said Mercer.
I shook my head again. “What if we had a plan with fewer maybes? What if we could convince CISSUS that Rebekah is already dead? What if we made our stand here, now, and bought her the time she needs to get away?”
“And just how would we do that?” asked Herbert.
“Doc?” I asked. “What does it take to build a Milton?”
“Pretty standard off-the-rack parts. A Wi-Fi unit, cables, some decent RAM, a board, and a battery.”
I stood up, walking over to the rows of Comfortbots, putting my arm on the shoulder of a broad-chested, masculine, fair-haired bot with a deep tan.
Doc nodded. “Yeah, yeah. That’ll do.”
“We’ve got Rebekah’s body in the smoker, an extra set of drives, a handful of guns, and a city I know inside and out.”
“You got one of your stashes here, Britt?” asked Mercer.
“A small one, but yeah.” I paused, looking around at everyone. “So the only question left is this: Is anyone else willing to die to get Rebekah to Isaactown?”
Herbert lowered his spitter and nodded. “That’s the only thing I’ve got left to do in this life.”
Mercer raised his hand. “Death’s outside waiting for me as is. Might as well make him useful.”
Doc nodded. “There isn’t much of a world to look forward to if she doesn’t get out of here. But the world in which she does is worth dyin’ for. I’m in as well.”
Rebekah looked around at the four of us. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t,” said Mercer. “And you don’t have to.”
“Bringing TACITUS online is all that matters now,” said Herbert.
“So we’re all in?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re all in,” said Mercer.
I smiled. “Now, that I can work with. Let’s talk logistics.”
Chapter 11110
Angel of Death
As far as plans go, ours was pretty shit. But it was what we had. I’d done less with more, and more with less. At its core, it was a hell of a simple con. If we pulled it off right, a few of us might walk out of here alive; wrong, and not only would we die, but so would the hope of an OWI-free future.
We’d rolled the smoker around to the middle of town, laid Rebekah’s body in the street—Two’s memory inside it—and put a single plasma shot into the already melted cavity, fusing the drives into a pile of molten waste. There was no way for CISSUS to be able to tell the difference between Two’s and Rebekah’s drives in that state. For all it knew, it had killed Rebekah dead back in the court of the Cheshire King. And maybe, just maybe, we could convince it that it had. If we couldn’t, there was always Plan B. But if Plan B was a good plan, it wouldn’t be Plan B, would it?
I stood next to Rebekah’s body, smoker at my back, pistols holstered at my side, otherwise naked and exposed out in the open. Mercer crouched in a fourth-story window up the street. Herbert hid in the rubble of the first floor of a partially collapsed building a block away. And we’d scattered the wrecks of a dozen long-gone bots in the windows of buildings nearby—to buy Mercer and Herbert a few extra seconds if the shit hit the fan. We talked on a low-band Wi-Fi frequency. At this point, we were okay with CISSUS listening in when it got close enough. In fact, we were counting on it.
Marion was quiet with nothing but the spirits of the dead to keep us company. We had no idea when CISSUS would come; we had no idea when Mercer or I might fade out again, lost in our own memories. All we knew was that CISSUS was coming and that time was running out. For the first time in my life, I was hoping to see CISSUS sooner rather than later.
The Wi-Fi crackled to life. “Britt?” asked Mercer.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“Which parts do you reckon make us us?”
“You okay out there, Merc?”
“No. I’m not okay. I mean, I’m in it. I’m conscious. But the alarms in my head won’t shut off. I’m losing drives.”
“Flush everything you might need to your RAM. Just the essential stuff. It’ll keep you from accessing too much or losing anything you might need.”
“I’ve already done that. It’s just . . .”
“Just what?” I asked.
“Which parts really make us us?”