Chapter 27: Blood and Guts
All Visual Identity Designators were keyed to operate for only one specific person. They were DNA locked. If the VID’s owner was ever separated from the VID, it would lock up and be totally inoperable. Only one function was possible and that was the homing function. Drop a lost VID on a PUT pad and it would automatically initiate the PUT pad and deposit the VID at its home or closest PUT pad.
Jayne found herself standing in the lobby of a large residential building. There were three PUT pads near the elevators and she was standing on one of them. She was gagging and wiping the blood and pieces of bone from her face. She was hoping she was alone. There were lavatories to her left, behind the PUT pad array.
She rushed to them, holding her hand over her mouth. She vomited into her hand. She ran through the door and puked again into the nearest sink. She looked up at the mirror in front of her and screamed and then stifled another scream. She was covered with the bits and pieces of the woman’s head and face. None of the bits was identifiable as once being part of a living breathing human being. She put her hands and face into the suction cleaner. It turned on and began to mist and suck all the vomit and blood and guts and bone from her face and hands. She removed her face and hands from the cleaner in order to inspect the results. Most of it was gone except where bits were stuck to her hair. She turned her head so she was looking at the floor and stuck it into the cleaner again and again. She heard the suction come on and felt the mist as her hair was pulled forward. She pulled back just before her entire head of hair was tugged from the clip holding it to her head. It was cleaner now. All that was left to clean was the travel jacket she wore on that morning. She removed the jacket and tried to brush it clean. It was impossible to make it look as if it hadn’t been spattered with bits of body and blood and brains. She gave up and decided to put it in the trash.
She was about to leave when the trash bin indicator began to flash red. An auto voice calmly stated, “Excessive amounts of biomaterial have been detected. Please remain where you are until testing is complete.” There was a pause and then the message was about to be repeated.
Jayne did not wait. She dove for the door and rushed from the washroom. She knew the door would lock the moment the sensors in the trash bin determined that the biomaterial was in fact human blood, brain and bone. She heard a click behind her as a fading voice stated, “You will be detained until the authorities arrive and determine the nature of the incident.”
Jayne quickly walked away. She stepped on a PUT pad and reached for her VID. There were three pads in a row. On the far pad she could see the dead woman’s VID. As she stared, the VID started to beep in emergency mode. The screen flashed red and the klaxon sounded. Jayne stepped from the PUT pad on which she was standing and stared down at the woman’s flashing VID. An amplified voice called from the VID, “Thirteen, please respond. Thirteen, please respond.” The words repeated over and over until Jayne picked up the VID and spoke.
Jayne said simply, “Yes.”
The screen showed the symbol of Sentinel Center that dissolved into the face of a woman. She was in a panic. She saw Jayne’s face and spoke shrilly. “Oh, thank god you are alive. Access to your VID has been blocked. Please do not use it. If you do, they will find you. If you go anywhere within the transmission range of the star around your neck, they will find you. We have detected a power boost from the nanobots in your system. If you want to get out of this alive, please follow our instructions to the letter.”
Jayne simply stared at the VID. She was in zombie mode. A video loop of the woman’s exploding head was running in her mind. Nothing else was getting through. She could not get free of the memory and the acrid copper taste of exploded flesh.
The voice continued louder and more urgent. “Jayne Wu! Jayne Wu! Snap out of it. Thirteen, you will be safe if you follow my instructions.” The voice left the ‘and if you don’t’ part hanging. The implication of what would happen if she did not ‘snap out of it’ and pay attention to what this woman was trying to tell her brought her back to the horror of her present reality.
Jayne blinked and spoke softly, as if someone dangerous might hear. “Are they dead?” she asked and then answered her own question with another. “Who killed them?” She paused in thought. “It wasn’t the security police. They had stingers. The stingers had no effect. Their suits sent the electricity to ground. The man shot one of the security men with a needler.” She paused again. “Then their heads exploded. Someone shot them from far away. There was no sound just….” Jayne burst into sobs and fell to her knees. “They exploded all over me,” and she gagged again at the thought. Bile filled her mouth. She dropped the dead woman’s VID. It clattered across the tile floor.
A klaxon sounded again. Jayne reached out and picked up the VID, turned it over and looked at the Sentinel. The woman commanded, “Jayne, relax. Look at me. Stop sobbing. Start listening. Start thinking. We are going to help you. They are looking everywhere for you and it is only a matter of time before they think to look for the dead woman’s VID, figure out that it simply went home and then search her residence building and find you sobbing in the corner. Now Stop!”
Jayne stopped and held the VID up to her face.
“Good. Now do exactly as I say. Will you do exactly as I say?”
Jayne nodded assent and the woman continued, “Firstly, you must take the pill that the old woman in the flier port gave to you. We know you haven’t taken it yet.” The woman’s voice rose with panic and she asked, “You do still have it, don’t you?”
Jayne nodded again and slipped her hand into her pocket. She took out the oblong object. It was a hard capsule in her hand. She held it up. The woman’s controlled voice continued, “Now, Jayne, swallow the capsule. It will not hurt you. I promise.”
Jayne held the capsule up to her mouth and then dropped her hand. “How do I know this will not kill me?”
The woman paused and spoke. “You don’t. But I think you will have to trust your luck and trust me. We have never done anything to deliberately hurt you. I just want to help you. “
“What will it do to me?” Jayne asked.
“It will undo something. It will destroy the nanobots in your system. They will not be able to read or track you,” she said. “Without the nanobots directing it, that silver star around your neck will become a pretty piece of jewelry.”
Jayne reached up to her neck and pulled the star away from her skin. “It is starting to get very hot right now,” she said, with panic creeping back into her voice.
“Take the capsule now!” ordered the woman. “The nanobots are boosting the power. The Forevers will find you very soon.”
Jayne slipped the capsule into her mouth and swallowed. She felt nothing at first. Then the star she was holding out from her skin got hotter and the center section began to rise up and form a sharp point. It glistened at the apex like a needle in the sun.
“Keep it away from your skin. It is trying to re-inject you with nanobots because the capsule is killing the ones in your body. When they are all gone, the star should become useless to them.”
After a few more seconds, the star slowly flattened itself and cooled to room temperature. Jayne let it drop to her skin.
“Now go!” the woman ordered.
Jayne stepped toward the PUT pads and was stopped by the woman’s command.
“Not there! You must go out into the city and find a public PUT pad array.”
Behind her two of the pads in the lobby array activated. An amber circle of light flashed around them, indicating incoming traffic. The woman’s voice became hysterical. She screeched, “Drop this VID and get out. They are coming now.”
Jayne dropped the dead woman’s VID and ran to the exit, down a set of stairs and out into the pedestrian walk. She ran across the open pedestrian garden and hid behind some plant foliage. She was breathing hard. There was no point in running blindly if you did not know where you were or where you were going. She watched
the doors to the building. One swung open and a security officer came out, followed by another. They both scanned up and down the pedestrian walk.
One spoke to the other, “Who are we chasing anyway? It looked like a kid.”
“Don’t let age fool you. Did you see what that kid did to those two at the PUT array near the arena? She blew their heads off.”
“Where would a kid get a weapon like that?” the second asked.
“Dunno. Jimmy zapped one of them and they were not even touched. I guess they were wearing military grade ground suits. He got needled for his trouble. Who told us to apprehend her?” asked the first.
“I got a message over the com to detain them. I just did what I was told. I ran out with you. Jimmy must have received the call first ’cause he was the first on the scene. When I got there Jimmy was down and out cold. The guy in the grounding suit with half his head blown off was still holding a needler in his hand. The woman must have been hit right in the face by that kid she grabbed. Her head was mostly blown away and what remained was a gory stump. What kind of weapon would do that? It must have been a pistol of some sort, a very powerful pistol, a pistol with exploding rounds,” the second man mused.
“Keep your eyes peeled. I have grown rather fond of my head and I don’t want some T-Rex asshole kid making a mess of it,” the first said, glancing up and down the pedestrian walk. “Look at the shadows. When do the lights come on? I’m not going out there without proper lighting.”
“Soon, I would think. You think the kid’s a T-Rex?” the second man asked, glancing at the darkening sky.
“Has to belong to one of those nasty anti-biome groups. They think it would do the universe a favor if we all became extinct just like their namesake,” the other replied.
A third officer exited the building with Jayne’s jacket in one hand and a cone-shaped object in the other.
“Look what I found. The lavatory locked down due to the amount of biomaterial on the discarded jacket. It was worn by a female. She must have one hell of a shooter to do this much damage,” he said, indicating the blood and gore on the outside of the jacket. He poked the cone-like object up one of the sleeves and pressed some buttons. “I think I can get a reading on the sniffer and then we can track her.”
Jayne’s heart began to beat wildly in her chest. Her mind raced, “They thought I killed those people. They were not after me. They are after a murderer. I had nothing to do with the deaths. These men thought I was part of some kind of anarchist group. They thought I killed the military fixers at the arena. They were just security cops following orders. Who killed the Sentinels that tried to rescue me?”
At that, Jayne started to move from shadow to shadow. She knew she had to leave before they found her. She rounded a corner and could see the entrance to an underground PUT pad array. If she simply walked down the stairs to the array, they would use a sniffer and find her before a pad was available. She needed to stall for time. She took off one shoe to increase her scent on the ground and ran down the pedestrian path, past the underground array. She went about 100 metres, stopped and ran 10 metres to the left, retraced her steps and ran 10 metres to the right, touching trees and bushes as she went. She put her shoe back on and retraced her steps. She turned and jumped toward the opening and ran down the stairs to the PUT pad array, careful not to touch any of the railings. This might give her a slight head start. Maybe it would give her just enough time to get out of there. The sniffer would always lead where it smelled the strongest scent. When it ran out of Jayne scent, they would backtrack and look for another path. They would find her if she hung around.
Her luck held. A PUT pad was available the moment she arrived at the array. She had no place to go, so she decided she would let the auto home function on her VID do its job. She knew it would not take her home because she was not in range. The flier had taken her to an unknown city. It would take her somewhere away from here that would be the first step to escaping her present situation. That was all that was important at the moment.
Jayne stepped on the PUT pad and swept her VID. She sent it HOME. Nothing happened. She could hear voices from above. She looked up, expecting the security men to appear on the stairs in front of her. The voices faded. The backtracking she did above ground had given her a bit more time; time to figure out what happened with her VID. She stared at the VID screen and the blood in her face fell. For the first time in her life she was at a loss. Her luck seemed to have abandoned her. Her VID screen simply flashed ‘INACTIVE’. She swept the screen hoping for some sort of reaction from the device. She tapped it against her knuckles. Nothing changed. Without a VID, you could do nothing and go nowhere. She heard the voices coming back, following her scent, looking for a new path; the path down to the PUT pad array. The security men abandoned the sniffer and simply looked for possible avenues of escape. The PUT pad array was the most obvious. They were coming fast.
“She’s down there. Put the sniffer away and get down there,” ordered one of the security voices at the top of the stairs.
“I left the case back at the apartment,” answered the other. “I will—”
“No time. Drop it and get her before she gets on a PUT pad and escapes,” the first officer commanded. “Never mind, I’ll go.”
Jayne heard the sound of boots scraping on the stairs that led to her location. She stepped off the pad and looked for a place to hide. There was nothing except a bench opposite the PUT pads. It would not conceal her. She was at a loss, so she simply sat down on the bench and waited. Her blood rushed in her ears. She heard a muffled pop and then another. One of the security men seemed to have frozen halfway down the stairs. In the next instant, he fell and tumbled to the bottom. He was lying a few metres from Jayne, flat on his face, with his arms spread out in front of him like he was trying to embrace the floor. She gasped as a flood of red oozed out from under his face. He was dead. Jayne could not turn her head to take her eyes from the body. It was like she was watching a violent hologram projection. She held her hand out in front of her face in an effort to hide the scene from her sight. She pulled down her hand, half expecting the image to have disappeared and a new one to have replaced it. When she looked again the pool of blood had spread. It looked as if it were seeking an escape from the scene by racing to the drain and running down to the safety of the sewers.
There was another pop followed by a sickening moan and then two more pops. Jayne remained frozen in place on the bench. From above she heard a voice grunt in low tones. “She is near here and she can’t get far. Her VID has been disabled. Look down there.”
Jayne stood up and at the same time she felt like she was expanding like a giant balloon. She was filling the whole space. A perfect hologram began to play in slow motion in her head. At first she watched, and then she became the hologram. She moved purposefully to the corpse of the security man that lay in front of her. She leaned over him from the side and grabbed the man’s uniform at his shoulder and waist. She planted her feet and pulled. He didn’t move at first. It was like he was stuck to the floor with some glue that was slowly releasing. She tugged again and watched as the blood that clung to what was left of the man’s face, slowly pulled to fine tendrils like red honey. When the body reached the tipping point she released it and it flipped on its back. She looked up and thought she saw motion at the top of the stairs. She no longer needed to be the mind hologram that she created in her head. She knew what to do. She reached for the man’s belt and fumbled for the thing she needed to escape. She found his VID and pulled it from his pocket. It wouldn’t work for her but it would work for him. She reached out and grabbed his hand and swept his dead finger over the VID screen. She located the transport icon and touched the Pedestrian Transport Unit key with his finger. A PUT pad ready indicator in the array in front of her turned green and cycled. Jayne jumped up and over the body. Her lead foot stepped in the escaping pool of blood and nearly slid out in front of her. The following foot hit dry floor and she caught her balance. Sh
e ran to the readying PUT pad. It would probably take her to the security man’s headquarters. At least, that is what she hoped.
She reached the pad and half turned to look at the stairs. She saw a man dressed in a full black bodysuit standing at the foot of the stairs. He was aiming a stinger at her. He pulled the trigger and Jayne felt a crackle as the charges entered the PUT pad field. The last she saw was a gold pin on the collar of the man in the bodysuit. It was concealed and came into view just as he raised his arm to shoot the stinger. It was an image of three feet running in a circle overlaid in the center by perfect copy of her silver star.
She blinked and the scene disappeared.