SINdrome Read online

  “You got a little blood on you, buddy,” the small man mocked, throwing my earlier words back at me.

  I ignored the jibe. The cut on my arm stung, and I flexed my fingers. Everything seemed to be responding normally, so I knew the cut couldn’t be that deep. It was bleeding a fair amount, but not enough to put my life at risk. I shunted the pain off to the back corner of my mind, ignoring it as best I could, and focused on the knife.

  Damn near every martial art had some sort of “what do you do if confronted by a knife” technique. A lot of them would get you killed in a hurry. Among the good ones, it boiled down to two possibilities—address the knife directly by attacking the arm controlling it, or address it indirectly by disabling the attacker before he could cut you to ribbons. In the first case, you had to deal with the fact that a trained knife fighter was a slippery bastard, and a fast-moving arm was a tough target. In the second case, you had to find a way past the knife to attack something more important, like a head, throat, or groin.

  There’s a reason why, in most martial arts, they say the best thing to do when confronted with a knife is find a longer weapon…or run. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury.

  “Not such a smartass now that you’re bleeding, pig?” the small man snarled, stalking me around the circle of onlookers, knife always moving, always questing.

  I resisted the urge to respond, knowing my silence would be more likely to piss him off and force some action than engaging in more friendly banter would be. Instead I watched the knife. Not just the knife, of course. Focusing just on the weapon was a sure way to get killed. But there was something about how he was moving it. Down and to the left. Lateral to the right. Up in an almost stabbing motion. Repeat. Drawing a small triangle in front of him.

  Keeping an active weapon hand—at least if you were in an aggressive, weapon-forward stance, was a good idea, but falling into patterns? Never smart. I had been backing away, circling, keeping out of the reach of his questing knife. Staying on the defensive until the little man committed to an avenue of attack. But as the blade swept down and to the left, then started tracking across his body again, I reversed direction.

  I shot my left—and injured—arm out, elbow bent, palm forward as I stepped, keeping my right hand on guard. It was a risky maneuver that relied as much on timing and surprise as anything, but when the bad guy had a knife and all you had were your empty hands, damn near everything was risky. All he had to do was step away and bring the knife up and he’d likely take a few of my fingers with him for the trouble. But my timing was good.

  My palm met his knife arm just behind the wrist as he was pulling the blade across his body. He was stepping forward as he did so, and as my momentum hit his, his arm collapsed, pressing tight against his body, unable to resist the force of our combined weight. He was good, very good, and immediately tried to back up, regaining the space he had lost and freeing his arm. I didn’t let him, pressing forward, keeping the knife trapped between my hand and his body. There was a limit though—we weren’t fighting in an open field, or a broad street, or even a gym. In a few more steps, he’d hit the wall of inmates…and so would I. They might be content to be spectators as long as I was out of arm’s reach, but I had little doubt they’d take what shots they could if I got close enough.

  I didn’t want to take him to the ground. Size advantage or no, there was too great a chance of losing my hold on the knife, and lying on top of someone so they can better fillet you was a bad idea. So, I reversed direction again. We’d taken no more than a step or two, and he was still backpedaling, trying to free his arm from the pressure I was applying. Once again, I caught him off guard, this time clamping my hand down on his wrist as I stepped back. His knife arm went from being pressed tightly against his stomach to fully extended, elbow locked in an instant. I reached across with my right hand, grabbed the back of his elbow, and pulled with all the strength I could muster while keeping his wrist firmly locked in my other hand.

  The sound was not unlike a drumstick being ripped off a turkey.

  There was a moment of absolute silence in the wake of that hollow pop, an instant where my attacker could only stare at his arm, which was now bent nearly ninety degrees in a direction nature had never intended. The knife fell from his nerveless fingers, clattering against the tiles. There was one brief sound, not quite a scream, not quite a whimper, and then my attacker’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he, too, clattered to the floor.

  I stood in that circle of silence, right hand now clapped over the long slash on my left arm, back to the cafeteria counter, eyes watchful. Would another challenger step from the ranks of orange-clad men to try to finish what the pair had started?

  I made no move toward the knife. As it was, the cameras would show only me defending myself. If I picked up the blade, I’d be all but asking for some timely “intervention” from the prison staff. I was tired, wounded, panting from exertion. The injuries I’d suffered in our raid on Walton Biogenics hadn’t had a chance to fully heal, and now I’d stacked new ones on top of old. If they came at me now, I was done. That moment seemed to trickle on forever.

  Sirens began to blare and the lights started to strobe. At once, the other inmates dropped to the ground, proning themselves out on the floor, arms outstretched above their heads. I followed suit, trying to keep my head up, watching for the knife in the back or the boot to the head that might be coming. The prison’s riot squad burst into the room, clad in full battle rattle with a pair of ballistic shields leading the way. It was overkill—no one was resisting. But it would look good for the electronic eyes, if anyone ever bothered checking on the incident.

  In short order, I found myself hooked up, pulled to my feet, and “escorted” from the cafeteria. My assailants were receiving similar treatment, at least, and to the credit of the corrections officers, no one took any cheap shots at me. No one said anything to me either, as I was led through the corridors of the prison and deposited in an isolation cell.

  The door slammed shut, and I took stock. Isolation wasn’t much different from the regular cells. No screens, not for a punishment cell, but the same narrow cot, stainless-steel sink, and stainless-steel commode sat in the same positions in the ten-by-ten box. Harsh fluorescent lights burned overhead, protected from any tampering by a metal screen that diffused the light and created odd shadows. The floor was poured concrete, bereft of any sort of covering.

  I could still feel my arm oozing blood. No visit to the infirmary for me. A minor cut, but one that could be a problem if I didn’t get the wound cleaned and bandaged as best I could. There was a bar of soap on the sink, and a roll of rough toilet paper by the commode.

  Time to get to work.

  Chapter 2

  The worst part about the isolation cells wasn’t the isolation. I’d spent a good chunk of my life trying to be left alone. I was perfectly comfortable in my own company, and even the lack of a screen didn’t bother me much. The space was sparse, but big enough that I could work various forms, which helped mind and body both relax. The guards had even brought me some antibiotics and alcohol wipes with my meals, to keep the knife wound clean.

  No, the worst part of the isolation cell was not knowing what the fuck was going on in the outside world. The eve of revolution had come and gone and here I was, locked in a cage, with no way of knowing if the first shots had been fired, if they had struck home, if the outside world was being torn apart in an orgy of fire and blood, or if all things right and good and just had prevailed.

  I snorted at that thought as I lay on the cot. No. The world governments would not have simply capitulated to the demand that synthetics be granted full rights. I could hardly blame them. Doing so would upset the apple cart of a lot of peoples’ utopia, to say nothing of forcing them to acknowledge an ugly truth. No one was going to do that based on threats. Those threats would have to be borne out if the revolution was to have any chance of suc
ceeding.

  And the consequences of carrying out those threats would have to be weathered.

  That was what gnawed at me as I lay on the thin mattress. Silas, Evelyn, her daughter, Jacinda. They would be in even more danger now. Tia Morita, the beautiful medical examiner’s assistant who seemed, to my unending surprise, to harbor some romantic feelings toward me, would be in almost as much danger, if she insisted on throwing her lot in with the synthetics. Melinda Hernandez, my former sister in blue, who I’d dragged into this whole mess more or less against her will. The dozens, maybe by now hundreds, of synthetics who had fled from their “owners” or been turned out, only to find some measure of shelter and solace within Silas’s organization. They would all be subject to the anger not just of the authorities, but of every ignorant or angry citizen looking to vent their rage.

  And with the conditioning that prevented them from engaging in violence, the synthetics wouldn’t have a chance of defending themselves. Their only defense was secrecy; their only weapon, knowledge. That was the kind of thing that public service messages claimed made you stronger, but in the real world, knowledge had a hard time stopping bullets, and spy satellites and drones had a way of finding secrets. They needed protection, and I couldn’t give it to them.

  That thought, more than anything, grated on me. I knew that the likelihood of me surviving any prison sentence I might receive was almost nonexistent. Once I was found guilty and shunted off to a federal facility with the real criminals, it would only be a matter of time.

  I could deal with that. Accept it. At least I’d be able to fight, to do something to affect my situation. But for Tia, Silas, and the others, I was useless. Just like I’d been for Annabelle.

  I lay on my bunk, eyes closed, mind and stomach both churning on the bitter thoughts.

  The heavy thunk of the door bolt disengaging broke my reverie. I was on my feet before I fully recognized what the sound had been, hands up before me in a defensive posture. Not that I really expected the guards to try to finish what the inmates started, not with the odds of being observed by the electronic watchers so high, but it never hurt to be careful.

  “You have a visitor, inmate.” It was one of the guards, a big, hairy man with an equal mix of bulging muscle and bulging gut. He held a pair of manacles, and I offered up my wrists. Not much else to do, really.

  I was escorted from my cell, and I took note of the other two guards who had been waiting in the wings. They weren’t taking any chances with me, but I couldn’t help a small smile. Three on one was bad odds, but I’d dealt with worse. Still, I played the good little prisoner, and fell in line. Maybe the time would come when I’d have to make a move, but not yet. Not when there wasn’t anything to gain by it.

  They led me down the stone corridors, and I ignored the insults shouted at me from every cage we passed. It didn’t bother me. The ones shouting and blustering weren’t the ones you had to worry about. It was the ones who watched me go by in silence, their dead-eyed stares conveying more malice than the worst of the hurled expletives, that made my palm itch for the butt of my forty-five.

  I was escorted to an interview room, the kind where prisoners were afforded some measure of privacy in meeting with their attorneys. The guards shoved me into a plastic chair and bolted my manacles to a ring on the metal table. The table, too, was bolted to the floor. With the press of a thumb on the locking mechanism, I was effectively immobilized. It grated on me more than the cell. At least in the cage I could move. And if I could move, I could fight. But now?

  The tension burned in my shoulders as I sat and waited. I tried not to let it show on my face. The rooms where prisoners met with their lawyers were supposed to be unmonitored, but you never knew, and damned if I was going to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.

  It wasn’t a long wait, no more than five minutes, but it felt like eons.

  Then the door opened and a man I’d never met walked in. He wore a hand-tailored cashmere suit that had to cost five figures, and walked with a sort of smarmy confidence that only politicians and senior executives could pull off. His perfectly coiffed hair was iron-gray, but nothing in the face beneath it spoke of age. The features were strong, hard-chiseled, and handsome. The eyes were deep brown and seemed to exude confidence. The smile…that smile had me missing my sidearm even more than the cold dead stares of the inmates had. There was something in it, something beyond arrogance, beyond disdain. It was the smile of a man who could look at another human being and see…nothing.

  He watched me for a long moment, that smile fixed in place, and it made me want to take a shower. In bleach. Then he slid into the chair across from me with a kind of effortless grace that magnified his already overwhelming sense of presence. The word demagogue leapt into my mind.

  “Well, now,” he said, his voice a smooth, baritone-rich in timbre, “you’re the one who has been causing all the trouble.”

  I gave him a thousand-yard stare, looking right through him. In my experience, the best way to piss off a narcissistic asshole was to ignore them. His whole effect screamed politician, but I knew—by sight at least—all the New Lyons city politicians. You had to, to be a cop. Couldn’t accidently cite the wrong person after all. And I knew the state and national level as well, congressmen and senators, at least for a few states in any direction. The military had instilled in me the habit of knowing the chain of command all the way up the commander-in-chief. The man across from me wasn’t in the local government, nor the national government, nor did he fill a directorship in one of the three-letter agencies that sometimes crossed paths with regular cops.

  “My name is Sam Woodruff,” he said. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but…” He trailed off and that smile, that oily, insincere smile, washed over me again. Did he know the effect that smile had on regular people? Or did he honestly believe he was being friendly? “I assume you’ve heard of me?”

  I hadn’t, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have fed his ego. Instead, I gave him the briefest once-over before saying, “Nope.”

  The smile again, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I find that surprising,” he admitted. “Given, that is, the lengths that you’ve gone to, to ruin me.”

  I snorted as the pieces fell into place, and leaned suddenly forward. I felt a surge of satisfaction as Woodruff leaned back in his chair, moving away from me. “So, you’re one of the assholes who run Walton Biogencis. I should have guessed from the suit.”

  He must have realized that the shackles were short enough that I had no chance of even head-butting him across the table, because he shifted forward once more, resting an elbow on the tabletop and waving one hand languidly. “Perhaps. The prison’s management team tells me that you keep having issues with your screens. You’re most likely unaware of what’s been going on in the outside world the past couple of days.”

  I fought down the thrill of excitement that shot up my spine at his words. I didn’t want the eagerness to know to show on my face. But a little must have slipped through, because Woodruff’s smile grew. “Yes, I thought as so. Well, Mr. Campbell, let me tell you just what your revolution is doing to the outside world.” He paused, one finger tapping thoughtfully against the metal table.

  “Your friends,”—he invested the word with a spiteful sneer without ever losing the smile on his lips—“have carried through with their promises. They’ve released some rather hateful information about certain members of Walton Biogenics and members of local, state, and federal governments across the country. Across the world, really. Seems your network’s intelligence gathering capabilities were far greater than we could have anticipated.”

  The finger stopped tapping for a moment, and a thoughtful frown flashed across his face. “You know, I didn’t really think you could deliver on the threat you made on New Year’s. I’m not sure anyone did. But you did deliver. I’ll grant you that, Mr. Campbell.”

  Once more, I had to
fight the urge to comment, maybe even to gloat. There was something in the set of Woodruff’s shoulders, the tilt of his head, that made me believe the opening shots in the synthetics’ revolution had done more than just strike home. From his body language, I intuited that they had wounded, deeply and maybe mortally, the targets they had struck. Score one for the network Silas had built and the weaponized secrets his fellow synthetics had gathered. But there was something else there, too. An edge in the executive’s voice that kept the vindictive joy I felt from finding an avenue of escape.

  “We really didn’t expect Dr. Kaphiri to have kept such detailed records. That little stunt, I can almost admire. And you, turning yourself in, playing the martyr to lend credulity, to lend gravitas, to the information.” He touched one finger to his forehead and then flicked it in my direction in a mocking salute. “Very well done, Mr. Campbell.”

  His whole patronizing attitude was beginning to wear on me. I found that I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “Is there a point to all this, Woodruff? I mean, I’m not exactly a busy guy these days, but I think I’ve had prison shankings less painful than sitting here and listening to you talk.”

  “Ah,” he said, glancing at the bandage wrapped around my arm. “A miscommunication, I’m sure.”

  The enigmatic statement took me aback for a moment. Was he implying that someone at Walton Biogenics had somehow ordered the attack? Perhaps someone without the authority to do so? “What do you know about it?” I asked.