Emergence (A DRMR Novel Book 2) Read online

  “Anything useful?” Jade asked.

  “We’ve got a lot to sort through. There’s a lot of data coming in through the sats,” Doris said.

  “Two were plugged in at the time of their death. They were actively transmitting.”

  “Oh, shit!” Mesa closed her eyes.

  “Those snuffs are going to be everywhere,” Kaizhou said. His face blanched, his features turning into a sour scowl.

  The coffee in Mesa’s stomach suddenly turned against her, sending bile up in a thick gorge. She clamped her mouth shut and forced it down.

  “I don’t want any part of that,” Jade said.

  “No, but somebody needs to,” Ashita said. Her hair was cut into a cute bob and dyed a dark purple. She wore ties with men’s button-down dress shirts along with hoop skirts. Nobody ever mistook her for a death fiend.

  “You volunteering?”

  She crossed her arms, her hands squeezing the opposite biceps. “I was just saying,” she said lamely. “I mean, there could be evidence on there.”

  “It’s a good point,” Rameez said hollowly.

  “What about all their data?” Sri asked from her rear-corner table.

  “It’s pouring in,” Jade said, a blank glaze on her pale features. “Our hacktivists are raiding their servers, doing a massive, rapid backup and purge. Somnambulist is getting flooded hardcore.”

  “This is insane,” Doris said.

  “This is why we have backups and protocols,” Sri said. Her eyes flickered across the retinal display that only she could see.

  “The work will continue,” Kaizhou said. “But we lost seven people here.”

  “This is crazy,” Doris said.

  “We heard you the first time, dude,” Jade said, then muttered, “Fucking broken record.”

  “Other sects are pinging in,” Rameez said, “taking work orders.”

  “We raffling it?” Ashita asked.

  “I’m getting reports that twelve people were in that cell. We’ve got five unaccounted for.”

  “We’ll handle the outreach,” Mesa said. All eyes turned to her. She shrugged. “The Frenchies can’t handle it alone.”

  “Raffle it,” Kaizhou said. “Put in some dibs for the snuffs. The more eyes working on this, the better.”

  “We’ve got support on the outreach,” Jade said.

  “Snuffs are rolling in,” Rameez said. “Swiping ’em over to you, Ashita.”

  “Keep the safety filters on,” Kaizhou said. His gaze went blank as he turned inward to his retinal display. His head bounced a bit, in tune with music Mesa knew he had playing in his skull. Kaizhou loved rhythm and pulsing beats, and he tapped his foot in time with what was no doubt an Aki album.

  “We’ve got six sects on seven snuffs,” Rameez said. “We’ll cross-reference the convergence.”

  “Their data history is being redeployed across the satband.”

  “We’ll slot it in where we can,” Kaizhou said.

  “This is—“ Doris began.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jade said, cutting him off. He gave her the finger. She gave him a raspberry.

  “Send me profiles on the missing five,” Mesa said. “I’ve got the wide-band assist notice out there.” She gulped coffee, careless of the heat. She was too focused on the data to even notice.

  “Let’s hope they see it,” Sri said. She and Mesa locked eyes and nodded, being strong for one another. We can do this, their eyes said. Mesa squeezed her hand, waiting for the profile to collate.

  Five faces hung in the air before her, floating above the table on her retinal display. The data was for her eyes only, leaving only dead space between her and the group in the physical world. She quickly reviewed their bios as the pertinent details crossed the right side of her vision.

  Jacob Kessler, a 22-year-old high school dropout.

  Lisa Kessler, 25, Jacob’s sister. An undergraduate at UCLA.

  Chenfang Liu. 19. PRC-born immigrant. UCLA freshman.

  Matthew Ritz. 33. The oldest member of the sect. Divorced.

  Mariann Korgan. 24. Waitress. Red hair and freckles.

  They were out there somewhere, and their lives were likely in danger. They might not even know what had happened. The massacre could have been a one-off, or the killers might be hunting them at that very moment.

  She pinged the five of them, sent them a brief summary of events, and let them know her sect was ready to support them however necessary. The ball was in their court. All Mesa could do was wait for them to make contact.

  “The data’s gone loose,” Sergeant Samuel Kaften said.

  Wind beat against the tent, and the unzippered entry flapped against the interior. He closed his eyes, enjoying the sudden cool of the draft, despite the dust that blew in from the middle of nowhere. Another six hours, and sats in orbit overhead would start moving. He planned to be gone long before then.

  “We knew that was a viable risk.” The disembodied voice came through the commNet, rattling around the inside of Kaften’s skull. He hated the prissy tone of the suit. Fucking Schaeffer. “Probability estimates expect the potential damage to be inconsequential the further removed it becomes.”

  “Meaning what?” Kaften asked. He broke down and cleaned his semiautomatic H&K handgun while they spoke, needing to give hardly any attention to the maintenance of the recently used firearm. He could perform the simple process in his sleep, so Kaften was still able to give Schaeffer the undivided attention he expected.

  “Meaning, by the time anybody figures it out, you’ll have the op wrapped up, and our IP will be secured. Meaning no more fuck-ups on your end.”

  “We’ve got five in the wind.”

  The sigh shook through the connection, loudly. Kaften grew more irritated. “Identities?”

  “Patching them out to you now,” Kaften said, popping loose the data packet.

  “We’ll run it through local resources. I want your team to move north and engage phase two.”

  “Copy that.” He disconnected the transmission.

  He hated cleanup details. The operation was three years late—something about proof of concept and cohesion rates. Whatever, the reason didn’t matter. The job was far above his pay rate. Naturally, it had gone sloppy because the suits and geeks were involved. They were so far removed from ground operations as to be utterly clueless, but orders were orders. And money was money. His team hadn’t been able to purge the data, and some of the memorialists had been live-transmitting, which made for even further complications. But if Schaeffer didn’t care, neither did Kaften. The higher-ups weren’t making it a problem for him, so it was time to move on.

  “Boyd, Crassen, prep for a rapid exfil and redeployment. We’re moving out.”

  They set about breaking down their camp and packing away equipment. In half an hour, they would be on the road. Two hours after that, they would be across the border and on a flight north.

  Kaften hoped he never set foot in California again.

  Three men clad in black stood before Mesa, guns raised. Darkness surrounded them, a tunneled void of empty pitch.

  Mesa stared down the barrel of a gun, her eyes wide. She tried to plead, but the eyes that glowered down upon her were blank and uncaring.

  She raised her arms before her, fingers outstretched. “No, please, wait a minute—“

  A flash of bright light and heat blasted against her face. The skin around her eyes billowed out from the concussive wave, bursting open flesh, crunching and cracking bone. The high-velocity frag bullet shredded her face and splattered the wall with the back of her skull. Tiny chunks of meat and flecks of red splashed against the desk.

  As she lay there dying, the final spark of brain activity flickering away, a hand reached for her. She saw whiteness
, and beyond the reaching fingers, long black hair. The fingers reached ever closer as the world faded to gray then darker and darker.

  Mesa shot up, her eyes springing open. One hand went to her chest, trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart. She flung the bedsheets away, too hot. Beads of sweat peppered her forehead.

  “Jesus,” she said, breathless.

  Rain tapped at her bedroom window. She flicked on the small nightstand lamp, unsurprised by the knock at her door.

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  Jonah pushed open the door, his eyes puffy from sleep. “You OK?”

  She shrugged, pulling the blanket tighter against her. “Bad dreams,” she said. “That’s all.”

  He came into the room and sat beside her. “You screamed.”

  “Did I?” She watched him studying her then said, “I don’t remember.”

  Jonah swept back her sweaty bangs. “Want to talk about it?”

  She closed her eyes and turned her face into his palm, enjoying the roughness of his hand against her smooth cheeks. “Nah. I’ll be all right. The dream’s already fading.”

  He watched her closely for a moment then nodded. He leaned in to kiss her forehead and said goodnight. “Love you, kid.”

  She smiled. “Love you, too, Dad.”

  With her eyes closed, she listened to the click of the door shutting and his soft footsteps down the hall. She knew sleep would be hard to get back to, and feeling too hot, she kicked free of the covers and padded into the bathroom.

  The T-shirt she’d slept in was ringed with dark stains of sweat. Her whole body felt wrung out and exhausted, as if she’d endured a marathon workout. She ran the cold water and washed her face, slicking the water back through her hair. The red highlights stood out against her natural black, but they would need freshening up soon. Maybe she would get purple streaks, but not nearly as extreme as Ashita’s. That woman didn’t dare sport a single strand of natural color.

  Mesa brushed her teeth, trying to clean out the funky taste the nightmare had left behind.

  Never should have watched that fucking snuff, she chided herself. Too late now. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her. The mem was horrifying and powerful, and she was grateful to have at least had the foresight to keep the safety filters on. She didn’t think she would have been able to handle the pain or the chemical overload as her brain reproduced the narcotic trip of death and the psychedelic rush of DMT into her system.

  She hoped Ashita was being responsible and that she wasn’t having similar nightmares. The smart-mirror said her heart rate was normal, but she still felt off. Shaken.

  She spit, rinsed, and spit again. She tried to meet her eyes in the mirror but gave up after seeing the dark bags racooning against her pale skin.

  The pillow and sheets were sodden. She decided to sleep on the couch, if she could even go to sleep again that night.

  Normally, she focused on the REMINDER studies until the dataloads lulled her back to sleep. All she could see were dark, compassionless eyes staring down at her and the large black barrel of a gun being leveled upon her. She wouldn’t be getting any work done.

  She stripped off her panties and T-shirt, stepped into the shower, and let the hot water wash over her. She closed her eyes, waiting for the steam and pelting blasts to relax her. Standing under the showerhead, she opened the Sheffield program, her psychiatric AI.

  “Hello, Mesa,” Dr. Sheffield said. “Are you OK?”

  “Bad dreams,” she answered.

  Sheffield’s face was blank, but he had an underlying note of warmth and compassion. Mesa preferred running the program with her eyes shut while her mind’s eye broadcasted his face against the dark emptiness inside her closed eyelids. He was a surprisingly pretty man, and she wondered, not for the first time, whether a real Dr. Sheffield existed or if he was simply a programmer’s fantasy.

  She gave him a brief rundown of her day and what she remembered of the nightmare. “I saw her again.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yeah,” Mesa said. “I mean, at least I think so. I never really ‘see her’ see her. You know?”

  “But you think about her. You’ve been trying to find out as much as you can about her. I know she’s important to you.”

  “Well, yeah. Of course.”

  “It’s natural you would dream of her. She’s at the forefront of your mind. That’s bound to carry over.”

  “I guess, but…”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I know what she looks like, right? How come I never see her in my dreams? I can never make her out. Like, tonight. She was disembodied. Her hands were reaching for me, and I saw her hair, but that was it. Where was her face? It’s weird. I can never see her face.”

  “Dream interpretation isn’t really my specialty. Sometimes they mean something; sometimes they don’t. What do you think it means?”

  “You’re the AI, doc. How the fuck should I know?”

  He smiled, a clearly artificial tic. “You never knew your mother. Or at least, you don’t have memories of her, would be more accurate, yes? Maybe you never see her in your dreams because it represents that you’re afraid of what you might learn about her.”

  Mesa rolled her eyes. “Real profound, doc.”

  “Well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

  “Now what the fuck does that mean?” she asked.

  They both laughed.

  “I’m signing off doc. Thanks for the chat.”

  “Mesa, would you send me tonight’s dream?”

  She spliced together a memory file and sent it off. He thanked her and said goodnight. Enveloped by the steam, she felt marginally better.

  “I’ve got eyes on subject,” Crassen said. The apartment’s window shades were drawn, but thermal vision broadcast the occupants clearly.

  “Clear shot?” Kaften asked.

  “Negative.”

  Kaften was craving nicotine. Two ops in one day, nearly twelve hours apart. He was drained.

  He and Boyd climbed the stairs, guns drawn and at the ready. Tactical masks woven from spider silk covered their faces. The fabric was stronger than the black Kevlar shirts and cargo pants they wore.

  Four flights up, they crossed the landing and moved down the hall swiftly and silently.

  “Status?” Kaften asked.

  “Still stationary. No shot.”

  Once it became clear that the subject was up and moving about, they deployed quickly. They’d been observing from an apartment directly across the street. The renters hadn’t objected to his team’s use of the space at all, not after two silenced rounds punched through their foreheads.

  A lit display identified apartment 456. Boyd and Kaften took up positions on either side of the door and readied for breach. If Crassen had a clear bead on her, then he could take her out silently. That left one other target, who, according to the thermals, had been asleep and stationary for several hours.

  Boyd hacked the door locks with an illegal master override. Police, fire, and rescue had a universal electronic skeleton key for emergencies. Boyd had dummied up the software, and after a few seconds, the locks disengaged with a quiet snap.

  “She’s moving,” Crassen said. “Coming out of the bathroom now.”

  Kaften waited.

  “I have the shot,” Crassen said.

  Hand on the doorknob, Kaften said, “Take it.” Then he flung the door wide and led the way inside, gun at the ready.

  Chapter 3

  Her underwear missed the hamper. Mesa bent down to pick them up, heard the glassine pop, and felt plaster fall against her wet hair. She dropped flat to the floor, quickly crawling away from the point of attack. She glanced up and saw the bullet hole in the wall, exactly where she would have been standin
g if she hadn’t gotten clumsy.

  Soft thumping noises peppered the mattress, sending puffs of foam into the air. They were trying to draw her out, get her to panic and run.

  She cursed Jonah’s paranoia—only because he’d been right.

  She reached for the go bag beneath the bedframe, snagged the loop across the top of the shoulder pack, and dragged it to her. She unzipped it and pulled out a pair of clothes that had been packed away for years. The jeans were snug but good enough. The top, too. She half-rolled onto her side to lace up her sneakers quickly, making sure she didn’t rise above the mattress and provide an easy target.

  Inside the bag were a knife and gun. She’d been trained to use both, hoping that she would never need them. Her tutoring hadn’t been limited to math, science, and literature. She’d been drilled to fire everything from the Heckler & Koch HK4 that was in her bag and cleaned weekly to an AR-15 assault rifle. She could break down, clean, and reassemble firearms blindfolded. All because of Jonah’s paranoia.

  She realized she hadn’t heard from him. Mesa queued up the commNet and sent the panic alert to him.

  “They’re here,” she said. Her heart was racing, but her voice was calm. The HK4 was loaded and ready to go. The pocket pistol fit snugly in her hand; the sheathed knife clipped to the waistband of her jeans. With her free hand, she zipped the bag then put her arms through the shoulder loops. Inside were cash, ammo clips, and two more sets of clothes.

  Jonah was on his feet and moving. She heard his heavy steps in the hallway. Her dresser was beside the door. She moved fast, and the sniper’s bullets missed her by a hair. Crouched against the wooden face of the dresser, she tucked up close to the wall.