Elizabeth Bear - Wetwired 1 - Hammered

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HAMMERED

by Elizabeth Bear

A Bantam Spectra Book / January 2005

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

Cover design by Jamie S. Warren Youll

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen

property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author

nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed "s" are

trademarks of Random House, Inc.

ISBN 0-553-58750-1

Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada

OPM 10 987654321

This book Is dedicated to Dr. Richard P. Feynman and Dr. Robert L. Forward

—for being unable to put down a puzzle.

Acknowledgments

It takes a lot of people to write a novel. This one would not have existed without the

assistance of my very good friends and first readers (on and off the Online Writing Workshop

for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror)—especially but not exclusively Kathryn Allen, Rhonda

Garcia, Jaime Voss, Chris Coen, Ilona Gordon, Jean Seok, Derek R. Molata, Tara Devine,

Chelsea Polk, Caliann Graves, James Stevens-Arce, Michael Curry, and Larry West. I am even

more deeply indebted to Stella Evans, M.D., to whom I owe whatever bits of the medical

science and neurology are accurate; to M.Cpl. S. K. S. Perry (Canadian Forces) and Capt. Beth

Coughlin (U.S. Army), without whom my portrayal of military life would have been even

more wildly fantastical; to Leah Bobet, my native guide to Toronto; to Thomas Lade-gard,

whose firsthand experience in the sewers of Hartford proved invaluable; to Stephen Shipman

for handgun tips; to Asha C. Shipman for listening to me curse (and type) late into the night; to

my copyeditor, Faren Bachelis; to the North Las Vegas Police Department's Lt. Ed Finizie and

Officer Marion Brady for giving me some idea what it means to be a big-city cop; to Dena

Landon, Sarah Monette, and Kelly Morisseau, francophones extraordinaire, upon whom may

be blamed any correctness in the Québécois—especially the naughty bits; to Jennifer Jackson

and Anne Groell for too many reasons to enumerate; and most especially to my husband,

Chris, for staying married to me not only through the third novel (blamed for many a

divorce), but through the fourth, fifth, and sixth ones, too.

The failures, of course, are my own, with one exception: Jenny's completely wrong about

the squirrels.

Editor's Note

In the interests of presenting a detailed personal perspective on a crucial moment in history,

we have taken the liberty of rendering Master Warrant Officer Casey's interviews—as

preserved in the Yale University New Haven archives—in narrative format. Changes have been

made in the interests of clarity, but the words, however edited, are her own.

The motives of the other individuals involved are not as well documented, although we

have had the benefit of our unique access to extensive personal records left by Col. Frederick

Valens. The events as presented herein are accurate: the drives behind them must always

remain a matter of speculation, except in the case of Dr. Dunsany—who left us comprehensive

journals—and "Dr." Feynman, who kept frequent and impeccable backups.

What follows is a historical novel, of sorts. It is our hope that this more intimate annal than

is usually seen will serve to provide future students with a singular perspective on the roots of

the civilization we are about to become.

—Patricia Valens, Ph.D. Jeremy Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.

BOOK ONE

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

—Thomas Jones

0307 hours, Wednesday 29 August, 2062

Hartford, Connecticut Sigourney Street

Abandoned North End

I never sleep if I can help it.

So when somebody starts trying to kick down my door at 0300 hours on a rank hot

summer night, it isn't quite the surprise for me that it might be for some people. When the

noise starts, I'm sitting on a gouged orange plastic chair in my shop. I drop my old-fashioned

paperback book, stand, and draw my sidearm before sidling across oil-stained concrete to flick

the monitor on. Smart relays in the gun click on in recognition of my palm print, too quietly

for normal ears to hear. The air thickens in my lungs; my heartbeat slows ominously.

And then I curse out loud and go open up the big blue steel door, holding the safetied

pistol casually in my meat hand while the metal one turns the knob.

"You wanna pound the damn door down?" I accuse, and then I get a good look at the

purple-faced kid dying in Razorface's arms and I'm all somebody's sergeant, somebody's

mother. Not that the two are all that different.

"Ah, shit, Face. This kid is hammered. What do you expect me to do with this?"

Face shoves past me, skirting a dangling engine block and a neat pile of sheet metal, two of

his "boys"—teenage hoods—trailing like ducklings. He doesn't answer immediately. Even as I

take his name loudly in vain, Razorface carries the baby gangster gently around the scarred

steel lab table that holds up my hot plate. He lays the kid on my cot in the corner of the shop,

wrinkling the taut brown blanket. Razorface, Razorface. Gets his name from a triple row of

stainless steel choppers. Skin black as velvet and shoulders wide as a football star's. The old

kind of football, yeah.

I know the kid: maybe fourteen, maybe twelve. His name is Mercedes. He's rigid, trying to

suck air and failing. Anaphylactic shock. Besides that, dark red viscous blood oozes out of his

nose, and his skin looks like pounded meat. The nosebleed and the wide-open capillary color of

his face are dead giveaways, but I give him the once-over anyway. Then I grab my kit and lug it

over, dropping to my knees on the cold damp concrete beside the cot. Bones and metal creak.

The room reeks of Razorface's sweaty leather, the kid's blood, diesel fuel. Once it would have

made me gag. I ain't what I used to be.

"Can you fix him, Maker?"

Face's boys stand twitching just inside the doorway.

I fumble in my kit, finding epinephrine, the long needle. Even as I fill a syringe I know the

answer. "Nah, Face. There's no fucking way." But I have to try. 'Cause Face is one of mine, and

the kid is one of his.

I don't look at the punks. "Will one of you two be so fucking kind as to lock the

goddamned door?"

"Derek," Razorface says, "do it," and the taller of the two shoots him a sullen-jawed look

and stalks away.

I know already, from the color of Merc's skin, but I need to ask—so I turn my grim

expression on Razorface.

"What'd he OD on?" Please God let me be wrong.

They can break you of religion, but they can't break you of praying.

Face holds out a twist of pills, and a chill snakes up my spine. I reach out with my metal

hand and take the packet away from him, squeezing the ends to pop the slit. "Putain de

merde!" Yellow pills, small as saccharine tablets, with a fine red line across the diameter.

Rigathalonin. Hyperex.

We used to call it the Hammer.

How did a two-bit piece of street trash get his hands on something like this? And just what on

God's gray earth do you think I can do for a kid who chewed down a handful of Hammers, Face?

But I don't say that. I say "How long ago? When did he take them?"

Face answers. "An hour ago. About an hour ago," and the taller gangster starts to whine.

I glare up at Whiny. "Shut up. How many of these did he take? Anybody see?" Nothing

that I can manage—that anybody can manage—is going to make a difference for this kid. If

Merc's central nervous system isn't already so much soft-serve, I'm not a card-carrying

member of the Teamster's Union.

"One," Whiny says. I curse him for a liar, but the other one—Dopey? Doc?—backs him up.

Allergic reaction? Merci à Dieu. I drive the needle into his flesh, through cartilage, into the

spasming muscle of the heart.

He quits twitching and his eyes fly open, but there's nobody home. I've seen it before. The

funny purple color will drain out of his face in a couple of hours, and he'll be just like any other

vegetable. I should have let him kick it when I could. Kinder than letting him live.

You're a hard woman, Jenny Casey. Yeah, well, I come by it honestly. "Shit," I whisper.

"Another kid. Shit."

I wipe cold sweat from my face, flesh hand trembling with the aftershock. I'll be sick for

hours. The only thing worse than the aftermath of a plunge into combat-time is stepping up to

the edge and then backing off.

All right. Time to make coffee. And throw Razorface's gangsters out onto the street so I can pat

him on the shoulder, with nobody else to see.

Later, I wash my face in the stained steel sink and dry it on a clean rag. I catch myself

staring into my own eyes, reflected in the unbreakable mirror hanging on my wall. I look

chewed. Hell, you can barely tell I'm a girl. Not exactly girlish anymore, Jenny.

Hah. I won't be fifty for a month.

You wouldn't think I'd spend a lot of time staring in mirrors, but I never got used to that

face. I used to stand there and study it every morning when I brushed my teeth, trying to

figure out what the rest of the world saw. Vain as a cat of my glamorous good looks, don't you

know?

Stained torn sleeveless shirt and cami pants over a frame like rawhide boiled and wired to

bone. An eagle's nose—how come you never broke that witch's nose, Jenny?—the skin tone and

the cheekbones proclaim my three mostly Mohawk grandparents. Shiny pink burn scars. A

prosthetic eye on the left half of the face.

Oh, yeah. And the arm. The left arm. From just below the shoulder it's dull, scratched

steel—a clicking horror of a twenty-year-old Canadian Army prosthesis.

"Merde." I glance over at Face, who hands me another cup of coffee. After turning back to

the steel table, I pour bourbon into it. Shaking my head, I set mug and bottle aside. My arm

clicking, I hoist my butt onto the counter edge.

"Where'd he get it?" I hook the orange chair closer with my right foot and plant it on the

seat, my bad leg propped on the back. Hell of a stinking summer night, and it's raining again.

The tin roof leaks in three places; rain drums melodiously into the buckets I've set underneath.

I run wet fingers through white-stippled hair. It won't lie flat. Too much sweat and grime, and I

need a shower, so it's a good thing the rain's filling the rooftop tanks.

The left side of my body aches like the aftermath of a nasty electrical jolt.

Face rolls big shoulders, lifting his coffee cup to his mouth. The ceramic clinks against his

prosthetic teeth, and then he eases his body down into another old chair. It creaks under his

weight as he swings his feet up onto the counter beside me, leaning back. Regarding me

impassively, he shrugs again—a giant, shaven-headed figure with an ear and a nose full of gold

and a mouth full of knife-edged, gleaming steel. The palms of his hands are pink and soft

where he rolls them over the warmth of the mug; the rest of him shines dark and hard as some

exotic wood. A little more than two-thirds my age, maybe. Getting old for a gangster, Face.

"Shit, Maker. I got to do me some asking about that."

I nod, pursing my lips. The scars on my cheek pull the expression out of shape. Face's gaze

is level as I finish the spiked coffee in a long, searing swallow. The thermostat reads 27°C. I

shiver. It's too damn cold in here. "Hand me that sweater."

He rises and does it wordlessly, and then refills my cup without my asking. "You drink less

coffee, maybe eat something once in a while, you wouldn't be so damn cold all the time."

It's not being skinny makes me shiver. Face. It's a real old problem, but they give it a longer

name every war.

"All right," I mumble. "So what do you want to do about it?" He knows I don't mean the

cold.

Face turns his attention to the corpse-silent child on my narrow bed. "You think the shit

was bad?"

I bite my lip. "I hope he was allergic. Otherwise—" I can't finish. I wonder how many of

those little plastic twists are out in the neighborhoods. I rake my hand through stiff hair and

shake my head. Hyperex is not a street drug. It is produced by two licensed pharmaceutical

companies under contract for the U.S. armed forces and—chiefly—for the C.A. It's classified.

And complicated.

The chances of a street-level knockoff are slim, and I don't think a multinational would

touch it.

"What the hell else could it be?" I wave my left hand at the twist on the table. The light

glitters on the scratches and dents marking my prosthesis. He doesn't answer.

After setting my cup aside, I raise my arm to pull the sweater up to my shoulder. It snags

on the hydraulics of the arm and I have to wiggle the thread loose. Cette putain de machine. Face

doesn't stare at the puckered line of scar a few centimeters below the proximal end of my

humerus. Did I mention that I like that man? I pause to comment, "Half a dozen tabs in there.

You want to try one out, eh?"

Then I drag the black sweater over my head, twisting the sleeves around so the canvas

elbow patches are where they should be, mothball-scented cotton-wool warm on my right arm

only. The left one aches—phantom pain. My body trying to tell me something's wrong with a

hand I lost a quarter century back.

Long slow shake of that massive head, bulldog muscle rippling along the column of his

neck. "I don't want this shit on my street, Maker." A deep frown. I hand him the bottle of

bourbon by my elbow, and he adds a healthy dose to his cup along with a double spoonful of

creamer and enough sugar to make me queasy. What is it about big macho men that they have

to ruin perfectly good coffee?

I'm shaking less. I nearly triggered earlier, and the reaction won't wear off for a while yet,

but the booze and the caffeine double-teaming my system help to smooth things. I raise my

own cup to my lips, inhale alcohol fumes and the good rich smell of the roasted beans.

Fortified, I brace myself and go down deep, after the memories I usually leave to rot. Old

blood, that. Old, bad blood.

Two more breaths and I'm as ready to talk about it as I'll ever be. "I've never seen anybody

do that off a single hit, Face. We'd get guys once in a while, who'd been strung out and on the

front line for weeks, who'd push it too far and do the froth-and-foam. But not off a tablet. The

Hammer's not like that." I glance over at Mercedes, who is resting quietly on my cot. "Poor

stupid kid."

"He's cooked, ain't he?"

I nod slowly, tasting bile, and reach for the bourbon. Razorface hands it to me without even

looking and I kick the chair away and hop down, holster creaking, wincing as weight hits my

left knee and hip. There's a lot of ceramic in there.

I gulp a quarter mug. It burns going down. Nothing in the world ever tasted quite so good.

Jean-Michel. Katya. Nell. Oh, God. Nell.

I fight my face under control and turn back to him, thrusting the bourbon his way "Drink

to your dead, Face?"

Face's lips skin back from his shark smile as he waves the bottle away. Thick, sensitive lips,

with the gray edge of an armor weave visible along the inside rim where they should have been

pink with blood. I don't like to think about his sex life. "I'm gonna find that dealer, Maker."

"What about Merc?"

Face looks at the kid. "His momma will take care of him."

"Better to put a bullet in his head."

He looks at me, expressionless.

"What's his mother going to do with him? Better to tell her he's dead. He isn't coming back

from this."

Another slow roll of his shoulders. "Shit, Maker. I don't know if I can do that." He's one of

my boys, one of my kids, his eyes tell me. I wonder if Mercedes is Face's son. I wonder if he

knows. Half the bastards in Hartford are his, likely as not.

"I can," I offer. His eyes flicker from mine down to the piece strapped to my thigh, and

then back. The muscles in his face tense and go slack.

"No," he says after a moment. "He's mine."

He hands me back my mug and scoops Mercedes into his arms, letting me hold the door. I

lock up after they go, and watch on the monitors as his back recedes into the blood-warm

predawn drizzle, leaving me alone with my thoughts and most of a bottle.

That bottle looks back at me for long seconds before I take it and climb into the front seat

of a half-restored gasoline convertible, getting comfortable for a long night of thinking.

Lake Simeoe Military Prison

Boyne Valley, Ontario

Friday 1 September, 2062

Dr. Elspeth Dunsany folded her prison coveralls for the last time and set them on the shelf

above her bunk. Denim jeans and a peach-colored button-down shirt felt strange against her

skin, and the colors were garish after over a decade of unrelieved blue and gray and khaki. She

had no mirror, but she was willing to bet that the pastel shirt made her dark bronze

complexion look brassy. She wondered what it would be like, to look at walls that were not

gray, to taste different air.

"Hurry up, Doc," the guard by the barred door ordered, not unsympathetically.

The prisoner looked up at her guard and grinned. A single lock of once-black hair curled

out of Elspeth's ponytail and hung down before merry eyes. "Officer Fox. You've been keeping

me here for twelve years. Now you can't wait to get me out."

"Fear of freedom?" The guard rattled her keys. "Truth is, I'm sad to see you go."

"I'm not sad to be going." Elspeth Dunsany picked an army-green duffel-bag up off the

floor, puffing a little under the weight. "I thought I'd be here until I was a much older woman

than this." She stepped through the door as Fox slid it back and fell into step behind Elspeth

and to her right.

"What's happened with that? Warden said your sentence had been commuted."

Elspeth laughed low in her throat. "I cracked under the pressure, kid. Times have

changed."

"Yeah, but—Elspeth. We've known each other a long time." Fox's boots rang on the

concrete floor. A few catcalls followed them down the corridor, but the women on this

hallway, notoriously, kept to themselves. Quiet, well-educated, model prisoners. Some of them

had cried a lot, at first. The ones with families. "I've never seen anybody charged with

espionage just… released before."

Elspeth stopped and turned toward Fox. She chewed her lip for a moment, gathering the

dignity she knew made her short, chunky frame seem larger and powerful. "Not espionage."

"Military Powers Act violation, sealed," Fox replied. "What's that if not espionage?"

"If I told you that," Elspeth answered, "it would be espionage."

Fox grinned and challenged her again. "Most of population swears they're innocent. You

never made a peep."

Elspeth turned back slowly and resumed walking toward the barred daylight streaking the

far end of the hall. "That's because I'm guilty as charged, Officer Fox. Guilty as charged."

***

Elspeth leaned her face against the sun-warmed glass of the bus's side window and watched

the trees spin over, a leafy tunnel just touched with traces of cinnabar and gold. The soft

electric hum of the engine lulled her, and she breathed deeply, hair rumpled by the wind

trickling in the open vent. A strand blew across her eyes and she shoved it back with a sigh.

Between the leaves of sugar maple and towering oak, the sky overhead was blue as stained

glass, golden sunlight trickling through it.

The bus wasn't crowded, but Elspeth nevertheless closed her expression tightly and did not

raise her eyes or fidget, except when she reached up to run her thumb across the thin gold

crucifix that hung over the hollow of her throat.

Forty minutes later, she disembarked on oil-stained concrete at the Toronto bus station,

retrieving her duffel-bag before she started toward the passenger pickup area. She scanned the

crowd for a sign with her name on it—a car will be provided—but saw nothing. Elspeth

checked her fifteen-year-old watch for the third time, and almost walked into the broad chest

of a uniformed man.

"Sir, excuse me …" Her voice trailed off as she raised her eyes to his face. The hair was

thinning now, distinguished silver she thought he probably brightened. The jowls were a little

more pronounced, and the deep lines running from nose to mouth cut through a face

reddened across the cheeks. Mild rosacea, she thought. "Colonel Valens," she stammered. "It is

still Colonel, isn't it?"

"Dr. Dunsany. It's been a long time." He lifted the duffel out of her numb fingers, hefting it

easily despite having more than ten years on her. He offered her a smile, which she returned

cautiously. Remember what a charming bastard he can be when he decides to, Elspeth. He may have

gotten you out of jail, but he's also the one who put you in there.

"I wasn't expecting you to come in person."

He laid a strong, blunt-fingered hand on her shoulder and moved her easily through a

crowd that parted for his height and uniform. "I couldn't do less. It's good to have you back

with us after all this time."

I was never with you, Valens. Elspeth tilted her head to examine his face, trying to determine

if any irony colored his tone. The old ability to read people's souls in their faces was still there,

and it pleased her to feel as if she understood him. "I'm surprised that you still have any

interest in using me, Colonel. After all this time, my skills are very rusty. And my research

dated."

"Please. Call me Fred. Or Doctor Valens, if you can't stomach the familiarity. I want you to

think of me as nothing more than another researcher. I'm only an officer to the army, and I'd

like to put history behind us. If we may."

His insignia glittered in the late afternoon sun. Elspeth nodded as he led her to the car. She

breathed deeply before she spoke, savoring the diesel-scented air. "Let's be brutally honest,

then, Doctor Valens. If we may."

The driver opened the trunk of the car, and Valens placed the duffel inside. "Of course,

Elspeth."

He helped her into the front seat of the sedan, closing the door firmly as she pulled her legs

inside. The jeans were too long. She had cuffed them over white sneakers so new they seemed

to glow. Her casual clothing left her feeling awkward in the face of Valens's dark uniform and

gleaming brass. He slid into the seat behind her, buckling his safety harness before he leaned

over the chair back to talk. "It was time we got you out. For one thing, the war is over."

"The war has been over for three years. I like to think of myself as a conscientious objector."

He laughed, as well he might.

She pulled her chair forward to make room for his longer legs. It would have made more

sense for her to sit in the back, but she would take any inch he gave her and call it a mile. "And

unless somebody else has solved artificial intelligence while I've been incarcerated …" She

stopped and turned back over her seat to meet his eyes. "Someone has duplicated my

research?"

He studied her face for some time before the corners of his eyes crinkled, and he laughed.

"The government is nothing if not transparent in its motivations. No, we haven't solved it. But

now that you're willing to work with us, finally—Elspeth, I bet you will."

4:30 p.m., Saturday 2 September, 2062

Bloor Street West

Toronto, Ontario

Gabe Castaign carried his younger daughter up the third flight of stairs, more pleased than

he would admit that he wasn't gagging for breath by the time he reached the landing. In the

grand tradition of Toronto apartment buildings, the elevator was slow enough that it might as

well have been broken.

Leah held the door to their new apartment open as he carried Genie inside. She curled

against his chest, pale hair tumbling over his hands; he held her gently. Many floors below,

automobiles hissed on the rain-wet street. "We're home, Genie," he said, crossing beige

carpeting to lay her on the overstuffed tweed couch. "New home. Are you feeling any better?"

"Some, Dad. Is my bed set up?" She struggled to sit upright, coughing slightly. She

sounded better already, as if the mucus in her chest were thinning. Gabe counted his blessings

between the fine-etched lines of her ribs. "I'm really tired."

"Petite chouchou, it is built and ready. You want to walk in yourself?" Over Genie's

shoulder, her older sister caught their father's eye, teenage brow furrowed tightly. Leah had her

mother's gray-green eyes, and Gabe pushed a little ache aside at that familiar grimace.

"I can. Can I have something to eat? Crackers?"

Gabe checked his watch. "Hungry already? I'll bring you dinner in bed. Leah?"

"Yes, Dad?"

"Tuck in our little cabbage here, merci beaucoup? I'll fix her something to eat and bring it

Elizabeth Bear - Wetwired 1 - Hammered

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