The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection Read online

  “Querizin,” the no-longer-a-simple-boy hissed. Wisps of shadow boiled around him. “Y-vulgtm ehye, ph’kn.”

  “I understand.” I fumbled for the Maverick, still heavy in my pocket. “I do.”

  I did not.

  “You,” he spat, fingers scrambling for my neck. “Heathens. Unbelievers.”

  I had the weapon in hand and pulled the trigger twice before I realized the boy had switched to English.

  “The Scarlet Star comes,” he announced. Tendrils of misty twilight drifted from his mouth and nose.

  “I see.” I fired two more of the injectables, just to be certain.

  Billy Iverson’s eyes rolled back in his head. He slumped. The boy fell to the ground, the shadows retreating into him.

  Rationality stabilizing, Michael, Anya reported as calmly as one might discuss the weather.

  Understood. I pushed myself up. Target achieved.

  You reported that previously. I felt her confusion.

  I did. I sighed, gazing down at the boy. I’m hoping it sticks this time.

  Bill Iverson didn’t move.

  4

  A black van? I linked Anya. I’m seriously taking this child to a black van?

  I do not understand, Michael. Like most Preceptors, humor and social cues often didn’t land with Anya. Does the color of the acquisition vehicle matter?

  I sighed.

  With no time to explain, I approached the van. The moment I got within ten steps, I felt my Crown whir as it exchanged limited handshake protocols with the two Assets inside. Their names came to me in whispers behind my mind.

  Olman, Edward, Asset 229.

  Barmin, Miguel, Asset 872.

  “He’s your problem now.” I nodded to Edward, who stepped out of the driver’s seat.

  “Looks like you have things under control,” the young man responded. He smacked the side of the van, and the back opened. Miguel, burly and grim, reached from within.

  “It was a close one,” I replied as Miguel took Bill. “He’s been hit with five class VII injectables.”

  “This little squirt?” Miguel raised one eyebrow. “Overcompensate much?”

  “The situation required it.” I arched my brow in return. “Watch yourselves.”

  “Will comply, Asset.” Edward gave me a two-fingered salute. “We have it from here.”

  I nodded and then turned back down the street. The sooner I made my extraction locale, the sooner I could go home. The sooner I could go back into torpor—back into my normal, non-Asset life.

  The sooner I could forget.

  I hadn’t made it a block before Edward’s communique slammed across all channels, a flagrant breach of Facility protocols. An otherworldly shriek rent through my Crown, garbled with static and electronic noise.

  Edward? I turned to peer down the block. Miguel? Please respond.

  Immediately, a second communique came in, cool as quicksilver in my mind.

  Asset 108. That hadn’t been Anya or a system message; it’d been one of the Designates. We require your attention. Please return to previous coordinates.

  Copy that. I’d already begun to sprint, adrenaline souring my stomach as I raced back down the street.

  Toward the van.

  I hadn’t gone two meters before the Designate patched the data to my Crown. Due to the neural interface, the coordinates appeared in my field of vision, a burning blue indicator. Naturally, it only existed in my mind, but the directional indicators could be damned useful.

  Telemetry reads local Rationality at negative five and sinking. The Designate’s voice sounded calm, almost preternaturally so. Negative six.

  Can you give me a direct read to my Crown? I asked as I got close. If the Irrat boy caused any large shifts, I wanted to know it ASAP.

  Affirmative. Be advised non-local readings may vary by a factor of .006%.

  I am aware. Thank you.

  The Designate did not reply, but in the upper left corner of my vision, a blazing orange number flickered into existence.

  Screams rent the air.

  Those sounds belonged nowhere in the human world, wet cries of agony and terror, unlike anything I’d heard before. As I rounded the corner, the van tipped up. It rose over half a meter off the ground as something dented it from the inside.

  “Oooooo-kay.” I drew the only weapon I had, the Maverick-class pistol. The gun had no real upgrades, just .38 ammo and the injectable module. This type of mission didn’t often call for weaponry, and so I hadn’t spec’d for it.

  Foolish me.

  Trembling a bit, I pulled the module free from the pistol. Bill Iverson—or whatever remained of him—would require more than a nap. The scream came again, along with a bellowing roar that made my bones shake. This time, the scream cut off with a sudden, wet finality.

  Does telemetry have a status on the operatives in the vehicle?

  Negative. The Designate sounded placid, as if nothing were amiss. All Crown functions have ceased. Assets are assumed lost.

  “Well, gloves off then,” I muttered as I took aim at the van. I’d equipped packets that might help me, neuralware that augmented speed and reflexes.

  I hoped it’d be enough.

  The van tipped up a second time as something far stronger than an eight-year-old boy slammed into the side, snarling.

  “Oh man,” I breathed. I raised my Maverick with one smooth motion and riddled the vehicle with bullets, firing again and again.

  The front window glass of the van exploded outward in a shower of blood-covered shards and slivers. A terrifying darkness boiled within that explosion, amid the sharpness and sound. Had that been… Bill Iverson?

  The tiny orange numeral in the upper field of my vision slipped to negative seven, as mist and darkness roiled from inside the van. A dark whisper accompanied them, like what the mad might utter in the dark hush of night.

  Within that shroud of living shadow, I saw furious eyes that burned with a feral, verdant hatred. The wisps of darkness coursed along on the wind, undulating like living things.

  For a moment, those eyes stared squarely at me. The whispers pulled at me, words of blasphemy and sharpness. They cascaded into my mind, bringing visions of horror.

  I reeled backward from the force of it, dropping the Maverick.

  There is a darkness, a shadow across the face of the moon. Within the sky, a brilliant star burns, crimson as blood.

  The entire world has f—

  “What?” I pulled myself away from those whispers, even as they sliced into me.

  The misty tendrils of shadow reached for me, hungry.

  “The Equation is not complete.” Bill’s venomous words made my ears bleed. I stumbled as the weight of them crushed me. “It is because of your kind. You will repent, manling. You will know lamentation.”

  “Fuck,” I breathed. My fingers dug at the concrete, scrabbling wildly until they found the Maverick. I whipped it forward.

  I fired and fired and fired.

  As the bullets tore into Bill’s silhouette, the boy screamed, a cry far too great for a child’s lungs. That wail burned its way into me, gibbered with madness and the despair of forgotten things.

  The shadowy abomination that had possessed Bill Iverson swarmed around me, and the entire world consisted of hollow darkness and fanged mist. Every time it touched my skin, I felt the cold, empty twilight, and the wailings of ten thousand madmen sliced at my mind.

  An eternal moment later, it had swirled away, cast upon the wind.

  Rationality zero reestablished. Baselines holding. The Designate’s voice cascaded through me, sweet and calm. I realized I had no idea how long I’d been lying on the ground.

  The target is lost. I stared at the van and swore to myself. Do you want me to pursue?

  Negative, Asset. The Designate’s tone neither encouraged nor damned me. Your dossier is complete. Proceed to extraction coordinates for debriefing.

  As I left, I gave the van one last glance and shuddered.

/>   Events like these made me content with forgetting the darker truths of my life. I couldn’t live with full knowledge twenty-four hours a day. I’d crack in no time. Billy Iverson had been just one example, and there were worse.

  There were definitely worse.

  The Rational World

  I stepped out of the alleyway and tried not to pay attention to the burly doorman, who eyed me as I left.

  “Evenin’.” I smiled to him as I walked past.

  The man didn’t smile back. He didn’t quite scowl either, but I had the definite sense that he held one at the ready.

  Yet no matter how fierce he might be, I’d been wrong about the large man. He couldn’t break me in two. He couldn’t come close.

  An entire world loomed behind the one he lived in, a world he knew nothing about. He did his best to seem tough and formidable, but the man’s hardest day ranked close to child’s play when compared to even my simplest assignment.

  I, on the other hand, slaughtered muscle like him when the dossier called for it. Fairly regularly, the Facility set me against bruisers—sometimes bruisers who had the power to shape reality in accordance with their will.

  Those men ended up dead.

  Or worse.

  Those I brought into Facility Prime vanished, the rest of their lives spent in a Facility holding cell. Taken to some black site, they were endlessly questioned or simply eliminated.

  For the good of humanity.

  The nightly fog rolled in, and the city glowed with muted light. As I wandered through the San Francisco mist, I began to feel my way through the shadows in my mind, searching for the initial portions of the dossier.

  Yet I didn’t have it.

  This struck me as unusual, a matter for some concern. The Facility had the capability to port me an entire packet, instantly, wherever I stood on the planet. The fact that they hadn’t meant…

  “Something’s screwy.” I sighed.

  Five minutes later, as I passed a colorful synagogue, a bit of my past resurfaced in a blazing flash of memory and recognition.

  I chuckled, remembering my earlier hazy recollections of a blonde while with Caprice. Now the truth showed itself, obvious. I’d been remembering one of the people assigned to this dossier with me. Anya.

  Anya Petrova, the exact same Preceptor who had been assigned the Iverson case with me.

  Preceptors utilized different gear than traditional Assets: a holographic readout they manipulated with their fingertips. Dozens of times, I’d watched Anya’s dexterous digits do their work.

  Looking back, it seemed obvious. My system had been queuing that I’d been assigned to a three-person cadre with Anya and the king of all smart-assess, Wyatt Guthrie.

  “Wyatt Guthrie. That’s wonderful,” I mumbled to myself. “We’ll be lucky to get out alive.”

  Other Assets, including Wyatt Guthrie and the late Miguel Barmin, made up my real friends in my regular life. We remained quite close, even if none of us could ever exactly recall why. Our bond had wound into our neural architecture, and we all acknowledged it in our own ways during torpor.

  Our lives were vastly different than most.

  That was why I doubted I’d ever see Caprice again. She wasn’t one of us. Like a movie extra, her entire existence contributed little more than background texture to mine. Her role in my life didn’t actually matter.

  Even if I did see her again, a woman like Caprice couldn’t ever be anything more than a diversion. Non-Assets caused problems. If she became too involved in my life, she became a liability.

  A danger.

  My training architecture dictated all this, primary behavior modules stored in my Crown. We were warned against non-causal relationships with baseline humans. Our habitual subroutines had even been programmed to push us away from emotional commitments. After all, relationships created no end of problems.

  If Caprice and I got serious, she would eventually want to see my place. I had protocols against this, but I had no way of knowing how far those protocols would go to assert their directives.

  Things could get far worse than that, however.

  Sooner or later, Caprice and I might be at my place when I had a dossier imported to my Crown.

  The world would change then.

  With no rhyme or reason, it would be time for her to go. No explanations. Get out, Caprice. I wouldn’t care what we might have been doing at the time.

  Even worse if she arrived unannounced as I stepped from my white room. There I would stand, armed to the gills. I might be decked out in next-gen body armor, guns synced with my nervous system, and bags of tri-polymer explosives. Depending upon what Facility architecture I had that day, I might be only partially visible, preternaturally graceful, or any other combination of reality altering effects.

  And Caprice? She wouldn’t mean shit to me. All I would see was a problem. The woman would know too much.

  Caprice would have to be liquidated. My protocols would demand nothing less.

  God damn, but I needed a cigarette.

  I stopped at Ernst’s Corner Convenience, one of the quirky shops that made Nob Hill famous. After waiting for what felt like far too long, the young Pakistani woman happily sold me a pack. I didn’t have any cash on me, but my card never ran low.

  I walked back into the mist and lit up.

  “Oh, my God.” In bliss, I leaned back against the wall of the shop and simply enjoyed it. This could be the last moment of quiet I would have for a few days.

  Funny thing, I only smoked when activated.

  2

  Several minutes later, I crushed out the butt.

  Already, my mind drifted, caught within the singing data processes of my neural architecture. As I walked through the mist, I didn’t pay attention to where my feet took me. I apparently had a destination, and I’d learned long ago to trust my subconscious in these situations.

  As an Asset I knew more than I realized. My unconscious mind had already shifted into active mode, meshing with the worldwide Lattice. For a bit, I would feel nudges, small intuitions to guide me down the proper path.

  All Assets trained for this segment of our boot cycle. The important bit required one to allow their mind to relax and float along like an autumn leaf on the breeze.

  In this state, choices came simply. They seemed obvious.

  This time, it seemed reasonable to wait at a MUNI station—specifically the one at Nob Hill by the bookstore. I walked a couple of blocks, trying to decide if I should smoke again, before sitting next to an older woman to wait.

  “Sprinkling again.” She squinted at the sky.

  “In this city?” I offered an incredulous gasp. “Never happens.”

  “Heh.” She gave me a smile, taking in my suit with a long appraisal. “If it rains enough maybe I should call into work.”

  She continued to chat me up, all the while obviously wondering why the man in the expensive suit was waiting for a Nob Hill bus rather than calling for a limo.

  Yet here I sat. No rhyme, no reason. The urge felt like a reflex, like kicking a stone when I walked or fiddling with a worn button on my shirt. I knew I had free will; I could stand up and walk away from the station. But I belonged here.

  Perfectly placed.

  “Do you often take this route?” She peered back up at the sky. “It’s my daily trudge, but I don’t remember seeing you.”

  “I don’t typically take the bus.”

  With that thought, I checked my wallet. Did the MUNI even take cash? I had no idea.

  Within my wallet I saw a brand new weekly bus pass.

  “But you bought a pass?” She raised one eyebrow.

  Yes, of course I had a weekly bus pass; I’d bought it… When did I buy it? What story had I told myself? I couldn’t even remember the purchase. Pretty typical. I might have walked around with this pass for weeks now without realizing it.

  “I did.” I gave her an enigmatic smile. “Just for this trip.”

  The bus didn’t take lon
g to pull up. It featured an ad for the newest late-night action hero drama splashed all along the side.

  “Blake Runner.” I grinned at the image, my favorite action hero. A grim-but-handsome actor held his pistol while a beautiful blonde woman wrapped herself around his leg. Behind the two of them, a blossom of orange fire burned, an explosion that filled the ad.

  I sighed. Blake Runner always had the exact kind of high-octane insanity I loved. I often argued with Wyatt that Blake’s detonation-driven escapades reminded me of my own adventures, but the hillbilly laughed in my face.

  I had to admit Blake looked nothing like me.

  When I stepped onto the bus, I showed the older driver my pass. He smiled at me, genuinely friendly, a rarity in a city this size.

  I wasn’t alone, naturally. The older woman from my stop sat two rows back, across from the driver. A young couple had claimed the back of the bus, and two skaters sat next to each other but bopped along, lost in the grunge blasting from their headphones.

  I selected a seat equidistant from all of them, only because it felt like my place. Then I watched out the window, idly curious about my destination.

  The city swam by, rain now falling in earnest.

  I will join you soon, Asset. The Designate’s words trickled through my Crown like a December stream. We’d only driven past three stops when I received the transmission. As always, she sounded as if she sat right next to me even though her words could have come from the other side of the planet.

  You will? Here? I smiled at a young boy who had just gotten on with his mother, until I realized he looked a lot like Bill Iverson.

  No. Not worth thinking about that.

  Affirmative. The cool quicksilver of the transmission poured through my mind. We require a system sync. Time is of the essence, 108.

  A system sync? Technically, that made me the voice of the Designates on this particular mission and, therefore, Asset-in-command. It wasn’t quite the same as being mission Alpha, but—

  It made me wonder what was up.

  Understood, Designate.

  By touching my system with hers, the Designate left a lingering trace of herself in my neuralware—a fingerprint, after a fashion. As I waited, I pulled up her trace in my Crown and mentally perused the data more efficiently than one might read a book.