INTERRUPT VECTOR

by

Robert B. Schofield

     I pulled the trigger and the BASHER detonated, one hundred and fifty million volts, ten times the power of a lightning bolt.  I remembered that from the vid, a confiscated Taitano Corp research clip.  It must have been a computer simulation.  That was ironic.  The vid showed the electromagnetic pulse ripping through intricate layers of silicone.  It looked like a hurricane going through tissue paper.

     The smoke cleared.  Not really smoke, it was ozone, as thick as soup.  The box still looked the same, square, blue, sitting in the middle of a white EC floor.  Other boxes surrounded it: datastores, routers, redundant power supplies -- but they weren't doing jack now, except burning nanoseconds in their little bitty computer brains.  I pulled the BASHER in against my flak jacket.  It felt warm, and heavy.  Much heavier than my old de-gausing rifle.  The extra weight didn’t bother me.  It was worth it.  One of a kind.  Three months ago I got the gun, a quarter of a mill, and a prosthetic pinky when the EC -- Environmental Controls -- of that datacenter tried to put out the white phosphorus grenades Widget set off.  The shit that got dumped from the ceiling caused the Willie-Pete to splatter.  I don't miss the pinky.  Could've been worse.  Widget uses Thermite-2 now.

     Ready to cook," Widget yelled from the access console where he'd been harvesting the "good stuff" from the datastores.  Time to burn them down; down to liquid pools of glass and silver, where data congealed from holographic storage plates into a swirling blackened chrome river of technology.

     "Do it."  I braced myself for whatever undetected fire protection this datacenter had.  Widget was at my side in a second, sliding a datacube into the custom designed lead case in his hand.  It had been his idea to collect the best intel from the corporation's main brains before giving them a lobotomy.  Sort of a bonus for ourselves.  We got paid to wipe the data, then we could sell the good stuff on the streets for added profit.  Our employers never seemed to mind as long as we gave them first look.  Small info, relatively speaking.  Best of all, we didn't need to add a hackman to our team.  We pulled the data from the service engineers console, hardwired straight into the box, where software security was as easy as a Hydro-whore before Ration Day.

     Widget triggered the thermite and sirens screamed.  I aimed the BASHER at a pinhole grill in the wall and fired.  The grill exploded as the speaker's magnet flew out of its socket at Mach-1.  We waited.  Nothing.  Not even Halon.  I pointed to my watch and Widget nodded.  Redeye would be back from the disaster recovery vault any minute, having melted the holographic backup decks to slag.  We were paid to be thorough.  Sirens still wailed from the back of the datacenter and down the hall, out beyond the smoking double doors with the sign that said, "Warning.   Restricted Area.  No Liquids!  No Magnetic Fields!"

     Widget and I were halfway down the hall when they rounded the corner.  Six of them in black suits and masks, no hesitation in their stride.  They walked around the corner like an onyx gate swinging shut.  Widget fell to the ground, fumbling at his pants pocket.  I looked down at him and heard the hiss.  Then the sniffer went off.  It was the first time I'd heard it outside training and it took a split second for the shrill beep to register.  When it did adrenaline shot through my body like rounds through a mini-gun.  Nerve gas!

What were they doing?  This was a datacenter in the basement of a corporate headquarters, not a battlefield.

     Did I have my mask?  Shit!  I grabbed at my own pants pocket, ripping the buttons off as I tore the flap up and jammed my hand into the baggy pouch.  No mask.  The black suits were walking toward us in slow motion.  I reached for the atropine injectors on my flak vest, realizing at the same time that their suits were more functional than just a design to impart maximum intimidation; they were activated charcoal.

     Somehow I'd never been convinced that injecting myself with lethal poison was the best antidote for nerve gas.  Once, when I was bored shitless on guard duty, I'd pushed the edge of an atropine injector up against the steel grate outside my guard shack.  The inch long needle shot out like a chrome viper and a stream of liquid squirted thirty feet across the microwave dishes.

     Damn.

     Supposed to clear your pockets.  No time.  The black suits were getting closer.  Widget was already convulsing, even though I saw he was breathing through the honeycombed filter over his face.  I gripped the thin tube and felt my biceps spasm.  I slammed the injector down onto my thigh.  There was a miniature explosion on my leg as the device began pumping its juice into my bloodstream.  What a feeling.  A swarm of locusts raced up and down my nervous system, biting, buzzing, overwhelming all in their path.  I roared, the roar of a madman.  My muscles knotted and bulged and I dropped the BASHER.  Out of control.  Then I saw them pause, wondering why I wasn't dying on the floor.  And I saw Redeye come around the corner.  Then I collapsed, kicking and screamed and pounding the air.  I heard gunshots and bodies falling and then my jaw locked and my eyes rolled up in their sockets and I lost consciousness.

*

     I awoke in our van.  Redeye's face two inches from mine was nearly enough to put me back in shock.  I swear I could actually see red deep within his pupils.  I forced my jaw apart, and managed, "How?"

He smiled, baring inch long fangs, gleaming white, as he backed away.  He patted his rifle, then used it as a crutch to stand.  It was his new toy.  Electrosonic gun.  It was like my BASHER, but worked on organics instead of silicone.  I replayed the Taitano Corp vid in my mind, imagining human brain-matter instead of the insides of a computer being blown away.

     "First live test," Redeye said, hefting the weapon.

     "I guess it works."

     He smiled again, licking his lips between his fangs.  Then he turned, tossing his yellow-brown mane around.  It fell over his shoulders ending at a point in the small of his back.

     "Hey, who's driving?"

     "We're home," he said, turning back to me.

     "How's Widget?"

     "Better'n you.  He's already inside wringing out the data.  We didn't want to move you.  You got a good whiff of that crap."  Redeye wrinkled his nose.

"I don't feel too bad."

"That's cause you've got one helluva cocktail pumpin through your veins.  I pulled the recipe from Walter Reed Military.  It's a derivative of Dehydroepiandrosterone, an adrenaline based hormone, Hydro on the streets."

     "Thanks."  I knew what was coming next.

     "Course, with a little genetic work you could be immune from that stuff permanently."

     "No thanks."

     Call me philosophical, but I still considered genetic alterations a degradation to basic humanity.  Not that I didn't like Redeye.  He'd saved my life more than once.  But I knew him before he opted for the Lion-Hunter special, with infrared implant.  I preferred drinking with him back then.

     "So, did Widget find anything good so far?"

     "Yeah.  He'd better tell ya.  I'll get him."  Redeye popped the door, sprang down, landed in a crouch, and froze.  He looked like he was searching for prey, stray antelope roaming through our farm, maybe.  How they'd ever get through the sonic minefield was beyond me.

     I thought about Jamber while I waited.  The juice in me made me jittery, just like I felt the first time I'd seen her at Retro Dejour.  She was beautiful; thick, dark hair, walnut brown eyes, trim, not too tall.  And she had a certain walk, a certain swing that grabbed my eyes and yanked them, caused them to lock-on like a targeting grid.  I'd said something stupid, and she'd smiled.  My brain melted and I was a schoolboy with a crush.  Somehow I'd managed a conversation that ended with a carefully written mail code on a napkin in my pocket.

     Two weeks later, waking up next to her, and looking at her sleek form under the sheets, I couldn't believe it.  Crushes weren't supposed to work out.  At least they never had for me.  Maybe because I always fell for the beauties, women who could have any man they chose, like Saara last year, a friend of Widget's cousin.  I think at one time I was one of six in her entourage.  Or Daphne before that, who was always breaking up with her rock star boyfriend and then getting back together whenever I asked her out.

     Jamber was perfect, beautiful, passionate, warm, and funny.  She was also rich.  And married.  Her husband was a corporate management clone that treated her like a showpiece in his art collection.  He'd skyrocketed fast up the corporate pyramid, but burned a few levels from the top and now he was on his way out.

     There was a knock on the van door frame, and Widget poked his head in.

     "Hey, buddy, how'ya feeling?"

     "All right," I said, and meant it.

     Widget looked fine.  Short afro on blotchy light and dark skin, a wide nose and thin lips.  He could have changed it, picked either or.  But he was secure in himself.  I liked that about him.

     "So, what'd you get?" I asked.  "Military?  It wouldn't surprise me to find Genetech designing goodies for our Tried and True."

     Widget's face went all serious.  "No," he said, looking at the ground.  "Damn, Slater. You're a soldier, and I'm no good at this so I'm just gonna tell you.  It was a setup, man.  We were supposed to buy it back there."

     "A setup?  Who?"  My mind started assembling a list of enemies.  I didn't have much trouble.  "The OSCT?  They hate us the most, but I doubted those flakes would have the guts to hire a nerve gas wielding death squad."

     "No, man."

     "Who?"

     Widget looked up.  His eyes drilled into me like bayonets.  "She did, man.  You knew it was too easy.  Too good."

     "Bullshit."

     Widget reached up, held a printout in front of my face, and dropped it on my chest.  "We'll be inside.  Come in when you're ready.  Don't take too long, we need to turn on the minefield."

     I picked up the printout slowly.  It was an Org Chart, standard quick sale intel.  I scanned the gray striped page slowly, stopping a third of the way down.  There it was, Mitch Steward, Jamber's husband, Executive V.P., promoted last week.

*

     I remembered the night Jamber laid out the plan to melt the datacenter.  It was raining outside the hotel room.  Neon smeared into a psychedelic rainbow, like an oil slick on the wall.  Raindrops splattered dirt and grease on the narrow chrome window ledge eighty-seven floors from the trash filled gutters below.  She lay on top of me, running her long, silver fingernails through the hair behind my ear.

     "It could be like this always," she said.

     "Mmmm," I nodded.

     "No, I mean me and you, together, without Mitch."

     "You going to leave him?"

     "Difficult right now."  She cupped her hands around the top of my head and propped herself up.  Her skin was warm, and moist with sweat.  Her legs slid around mine.  "But I know a way," she continued.  "I told you he's done at Genetech.  It's possible he could find out about it ahead of time, try for revenge."

     "How?"

     "My little sweet soldier."  She smiled and kissed me.  "What do your employers hire you for?"

     "For a competitive advantage.  It takes weeks to reassemble the data we purge, sometimes months.  Time is money to them."

     "And you don't think it's ever for a 'less financial' objective?"

     "Maybe."

     "Suppose Genetech's datacenter gets hit by your team.  I could make it look like Mitch had a hand in it, out of spite for the pink."

     "What good would that do?"

     "He'd be disgraced.  Maybe even get prison time.  A petty corporate crook.  I’d have no problem leaving him then."

*

     Stupid, but it made sense at the time.  I’d wanted it to make sense.  So I'd done it.  I'd talked Widget and Redeye into a freebie so Jamber and I could always be together.  And now the printout on my chest read Asshole in huge bold letters.  She wanted to end it?  Okay.  Like Widget said, it was too good to be true.  She could have just said the word, but she had to involve the team.  Mistake on her part.  Redeye and Widget did not like to be played.  I unplugged myself from the med-monitors, climbed out of the van, and went inside.

     "Let's waste her, man," Widget said from his desk.  He was running a Hyper-Smartscan on the data, a street program he'd supercharged with hardware.  A pair of Z-Tech optical fibers snaked from the datacube to a circuit board clamped at the intersection of two neon-helium lasers.  Text flashed by on his console so fast it looked like a fluid dynamic simulation.

I walked across the room and punched the code for the minefield, then went to the stool at my weapons bench and climbed onto it.  A neat row of 7.62mm rounds sat beside a pile of clip links.  Two different length barrels with mounting hydraulics and shock distributors rested on the bench behind a microwelder, the third foam cradle was empty.  I looked at Redeye.  He was sitting cross-legged on his cushion, growling low, and watching Widget.

     "Let's just forget about it," I said.  "Mark it down as a business loss."

     "Hey, it's not like it's tax deductible, man."

     "I know, but it's over now."

     "You think it's over?  Your honey wants you dead.  Just because she didn't get you this time doesn't mean she'll stop.  And I've got more intel for you."  Widget punched his console and the scrolling text froze, then shrank.  Another document popped up.  "You're not the first of Mrs. Steward's co-marital love adventures."  He pointed at the screen.  "It was her husband's chauffeur last year, and a plasma welder before that.  The welder died in an accident on the job, and after the chauffeur was let go, he vanished."  Widget swiveled in his chair, then shook his head slowly.  "Sorry, man, looks like you hooked up with a Black Widow."

     "Redeye, what about you?"

     "We have an image.  If word gets out, it could hurt business."

     They were both looking at me, waiting for the unanimous vote so we could load up, and head out to kill the woman I'd destroyed fifty billion dollars worth of data for.  "I'm going to call her," I said.  "Maybe there's another explanation."

     "Aw, man," Widget said.  Then, "Okay, fine.  You wanna' talk, we go see her.  All of us."  Redeye nodded.

     We went prepared for action -- full combat load, just like a data hit.  Redeye gave me another swig of Hydro.  "You're going to feel like your insides are trading places with your outsides through every pore in your skin when that wears off," he said.  "You need full bio sterilization, not more action."

     "Yeah, I know, but I gotta talk to her."  His warning was frightening though.  Redeye was never so graphic, unless he spoke from experience.

     Redeye parked half a klick from the Steward residence.  It was a tidy little estate on a plateau near the top of the Reitran Slopes, north of the city.  The house had only a single floor above ground, except for the domed art gallery which had three, according to the satellite pics, floor plans and defense schematics Widget snatched from his console.  As we approached from the south I was thinking the place looked like a miniature Taj Mahal.  International flags spread across the lawn added to the feeling that it was some sort of tourist attraction, as long as you didn't know they were actually reinforced polyfiber helicopter impediment rods.

     I'd never been to Jamber's house.  We always met at a club, usually Retro Dejour.  We'd talk, and dance, and eventually party our way to one hotel or another.  Once I asked her what she told her husband.  "Oh, different excuses.  Staying with Cindy who's just broken up with her latest boyfriend, or 'night out with the girls', or a fabulous twenty-four hour sale at the mall."

     I admired her in a twisted way, able to juggle two men, keeping one completely in the dark.  And this was at least her third time going through it all!  That took some type of talent.  I guess she eventually got tired of the juggling act.  One relationship was always plenty for me.  But, now that I thought about it, it wasn't much of a relationship.  We simply used each other.  I got my beauty.  She got her excitement, or whatever it was she was after.

     A hundred meters from the manicured lawn Redeye charged.  He pumped himself full of adrenaline until I could tell he was straining to contain a howl.  Then he took off like a homing missile straight for the front door.

     There are two ways for a small force to take a position: clandestine, or full assault.  You sneak around and try to circumvent or avoid as many defenses as possible until you're detected, at which time you go full out, or you do full force from the start.  We judged time in-and-out to be critical, partly because Redeye said I had a few hours max before I'd start to feel like "shit on asphalt, on a hot day", but also because we wanted to take action before Jamber got a second chance.  Time was money in my business too.

     As Redeye streaked across the fresh-cut smelling grass, I sighted on the auto-targeting machine gun nest above the front door, my BASHER preset for the energy spectrum guaranteed to do the most damage to the targeting system's electronics.  I acquired the machine gun in my scope, saw it swivel and track, then begin to lead Redeye all in the half second before I pulled the trigger.  There were no theatrics, no explosion, the machine gun just didn't fire.  There was nothing left of the sophisticated computer's brains to tell the machine gun what to do.  Then I switched frequencies and took out the security cameras.  Finally, for good measure, I switched to broadest spectrum and clicked the high energy radiator to maximum, blanketing the place with half a dozen shots, trying to keep Redeye out of my direct line of fire.  The last shot killed the row of lights that ran along the driveway.  Redeye slapped his package against the front door and roll away.  There was a double thump as the small shaped-charge went off, leaving a smoking hole the size of a man's chest next to the doorknob.

     Redeye had no way of knowing what was waiting for him on the other side of the door.  He started running in a tight arc, crouched, then sprang through the ragged opening in the door.  Three seconds later, what was left of the door swung in and Redeye waved the all clear.  Widget and I began to move.  He took the west side, I took the east.  We leap-frogged our way to the door.

     The place sported the latest styles in furnishings, although I couldn't name any of the designers or explain the motif.  There was a wall on our left.  Three steps down to the right led to a sunken living room.  A half wall at two-o'clock looked like it separated the front room from some kind of parlor, or den, with stairs that led up to the gallery.  A closet in the wall to the left had already been cleared by Redeye.  I recognized one of Jamber's fur jackets among the shredded pile on the floor.  I dropped, then rolled down the stairs ending up behind a footstool with the BASHER aimed at the half wall.  Widget backed into the corner and leveled his HK in the same direction.  Redeye took three bounding steps, then cleared the half wall with ease.  We waited.  Silence.  Redeye finally stood and motioned us toward the stairs.  I nodded, then waited for Widget to round the corner before following.  Widget covered the hallway that went off to the left from the den further into the house, and I followed Redeye upstairs.

     I was only a few steps up when she walked in.  I didn't see her enter, just glanced down and saw Widget pulling the HK tight into his shoulder.  Then I looked, and there was Jamber standing in the hallway raising her arm.

     "Wait!" I yelled at the same time a short burp erupted from Widget's machine gun.

     Blood doesn’t really look like the greasy stuff they use in vids.  It's much fuller, more vivid, like glistening drops of liquid neon.  At least that's what I thought as Jamber's blood sprayed across the wall in peacock plumage.  I shouted obscenities; at Widget, at Jamber, at myself, at the world, as I ran down the stairs and to her side.  By the time I got there she was gone.  Not a dying word, not a flicker of life leaving her eyes, just dead.  There was no weapon in her hand.  A part of me heard Widget in the background.

     "Thought she had a gun.  Looked like a pocket greaser."  She was holding a bloody, crumpled piece of gray, striped printout.  I read it.  It was a message detailing the special issue and use of nerve reagent Phosgene-VI for security guard staffing, Genetech Corporate Headquarters, last night, signed Mitchell Steward, V.P.

     I shoved the paper in Widget's face.  "Look.  It was him, not her!  I'm gonna' kill the bastard with my bare hands."  I stood up and raw energy poured through me.  I felt like the BASHER must feel when I pulled the trigger and unleashed its power.  I knew it was adrenaline mixing with the Hydro, and that triggered a vague reminder that I had a time limit, but I didn't care.

     "No, man, no." Widget was saying.  "He's corporate high brass, heavy shit.  Let's leave it, like you said."

     I didn't bother with a reply, didn't bother to remind him he was the one who wouldn't let it drop when I'd wanted to.  I headed for the stairs.

     Redeye met me at the bottom.  He put a hand on my chest.  "Careful," he said.

     I nodded, then took the stairs three at a time.  The gallery upstairs was open.  There were paintings and sculptures and walls standing by themselves at odd angles, like a maze with half the walls missing.  I didn't know if he was up there, didn't even know if he was home, but if he was I was going to find him.

     I started to hunt Mitchell Steward.

     Widget and Redeye advanced behind me, but I moved by myself, coldly aware that it was the worst way to search a room like this.  The BASHER was slung over my back.  I held a chrome Sikes-Fairbairn, hilt backwards, the blade against my right forearm, down along my side, with my left arm raised, fingers open.  Ten minutes turned up nothing except ugly, abstract art, and another stairway against the curved outside wall.  I ascended slowly and found myself in a short hall ending in a door.  The door was unlocked.  I walked inside.

     It was his office, tinted dome skylight above a circular desk with the center cut out so you could sit in the middle and swivel around to three hundred degrees of desktop space.  Billowing curtains lined the walls, fluttering lightly from subtle ventilation.  I hated curtains.  They were rarely for decoration.  A curtain to the left fluttered, separated, and Mitchell Steward stepped out.

     "Jamber was a whore," he said.  "Beautiful, and passionate, but a whore."  He was immaculately groomed; slick, straight black hair, a loose white gauze shirt and business shorts, and perfect white teeth.  He was tall and muscular, and he stood with his head high.  I raised the knife, flipping it around so I could throw it, then paused.

     "Then why stay with her?" I asked slowly.

     "Because I loved her.  I promised to always love her, and she promised to always love me."  He took a step away from the curtains, held out his hands.  "What now, Mr. Slater, will you kill me?"

     "You had the others killed," I said.  A twinge of nausea swept briefly over me.  I didn't know if it was from the drugs, or the thought of “the others”, or from Jamber's death, so fresh in my mind.

     "Yes, I had the others killed, and I would have had you killed too, but now there is no need."

     "How did you know about our mission?" I asked.

     "A vice president knows many things."

     "But she thought you were on your way out."

     "I arranged that."

     "This was all your idea?"

     "I planted the seeds, with help.  She followed through.  I knew my wife well, Mr. Slater.  Better than she thought."  He started walking slowly toward his desk.  I sheathed the Sikes-Fairbairn and unslung the BASHER, planting the muzzle in the soft carpet and leaning on it to relieve the sudden knotting in my stomach.  "I neglected Jamber for my career," he continued.  "By the time I realized my mistake and began to get things straight between us, she had already fallen out of love with me.  I spent the last years trying to change that.  Now things are different.  She is gone.  I suggest we both get on with our lives."  He sighed.

     "Something still bothers me," I said.  It did, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Something was still missing.  I believed his story, I believed he loved her.  But, he did not seem sad enough about her death.  His sigh seemed like a sigh of relief, relief that it was all over, that he was finally out of a situation he could not control.

     "You're a smart man," I said.  "You had to realize you might never be able to change Jamber."  I remembered Widget pulling up the data about the chauffeur and the welder.  If Widget could get it, so could others.  "You couldn't keep killing her lovers forever.  Maybe this time you decided to kill her instead.  Which would mean..."

     Mitchell Steward stared with a steady gaze, and the curtains behind him parted.  "It's been a big Interrupt Vector, man," Widget said, stepping into the open.  "You know what that is, Slate?  It's a hardware intercept.  Something that can't be changed.  The software runs along, thinking it’s in charge of the world, until bam!  A Non-Maskable Interrupt Vector kicks in from the hardware, takes control, does what it wants.  When it's finished, and only when it's finished, it gives control back to the software.  That's you, Slate.  You and Jamber, you're software.  We're hardware, Steward and me."

     "Widget?" I said.  "The team."

     "Screw the team.  Like Mr. Steward said, now things are different."

     "Yeah, now I know what was bothering me.  Back at the hit, when they used the gas.  You had your mask on before the sniffers went off.  So, Widget, you're his personal dog.  How long do you think that will last?  Only as long as it's convenient for him, then he'll get rid of you too."

     "Until that time, bro."  Widget began unslinging his HK.

     I snapped the BASHER up first, aiming through Mitch Steward at Widget's head.  Widget raised his eyebrows and smiled.  He was right, the BASHER's electromagnetic pulse probably wouldn't be fatal.

     The underslung 7.62mm recoiless would be though.  It was a recent mod.  I guess Widget hadn’t known about it or else he would have been faster acting.  Both he and Mitchell Steward knew about it though when I dropped my hand and pulled the trigger.  Red liquid neon sprayed across the wall in peacock plumage.

The End