Free The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers

skinny Crusher, nodding. “And Mongo.”
    The moon-man didn’t react beyond a slow, deliberate blinking of his eyes. I raised an eyebrow at Officer Stanley. “The SSF isn’t sparing any expense in recruiting, huh?”
    Stanley turned his head and spat on the street, just a few inches away from my feet. “Pook can move pretty light on his feet, you give him a reason. You got business uptown, Avery? There’s an Action Item about you from yesterday, you know.”
    I nodded, putting on the most serious face I could summon. “I have an appointment,” I said. “You guys expecting trouble?”
    There’d been a bug scare about thirteen years ago, I remembered. Turned out to be the fucking Brazilian flu, just a few thousand people dead and those mostly on their last legs to begin with, but for a few days everyone hid inside and only came out with these ridiculous masks on, keeping their distance. I remembered negotiating a job from across the fucking street, shouting at my client because he wouldn’t get any closer to me.
    This felt worse. Names pushed through my head: Candida Murrow, she died in a very … unusual way, Gleason, she dead, Wa too, Pickering. Whatever this was, I was getting the feeling it had started with my people. With me, right around the time I’d been on my knees in Newark with a gun to my head and not shot. I’d done enough evil in my time, the cosmos had me on its list, no doubt. But why hadn’t I gotten sick? Why wasn’t I dead? This shit didn’t make sense.
    I remembered the distorted voice: This is not an execution … this is an assassination. Not yours. But an assassination none the fucking less.
    “They don’t tell us any fucking thing,” Stanley said, hitching his pants up and giving Jabali the stinkeye for a bit. “We’re just not supposed to let anyone through without a specific order from a Captain or above.”
    I nodded, looking around. “I need a pass.”
    He looked away from me, suddenly interested in something across the street. Jabali, who maybe wasn’t the brightest guy in the world, had the common sense to shut the hell up and pretend to be deaf and dumb. “Fuck, Avery, you just come up here in the fucking open and—I’m not selling any passes today. You got an order, fine. Otherwise you turn around and go the fuck back to your shithole. Try again tomorrow.”
    My hands curled into fists and I recited my own personal Serenity Prayer. At least Stanley wasn’t dumb enough to think he could cash in on my Action Item and bring me in himself. I scanned the street, so quiet I could hear the snow dissolving our boots and Moon-man’s heavy mouth breathing. I counted eleven Crushers, not a drop of talent among them—especially Moon-man, who looked like he had to preplan every breath. I didn’t doubt I could rush the barrier and make it, but I didn’t need any manhunts up above Twenty-third Street, so I just shook my head. “I’ll pay double.”
    Stanley pursed his lips.
    “No bosses around,” I said quickly. “You know me, Stanley. You know you will never hear from me on the way back across. It’ll be like I was never here.”
    “Shit, Avery,” he muttered, glancing at Jabali and taking a quick scan of the street again. “Double?”
    I nodded. “The usual arrangement for payment. And we find our own way back.”
    Stanley shook his head, turning to spit. “Nothing’s usual anymore. The fucking Worms have been up everyone’s asses. Marin sees everything. I ain’t gonna end up in some shithole like Chengara. Not for you. ”
    I swore to myself. Officially, Dick Marin was director of Internal Affairs for the SSF—the King Worm. Before I’d killed Squalor for him, that’s where his power had stopped, especially since he wasn’t human anymore. He was a digitized intelligence operating through who knew how many mechanical avatars. You met Dick Marin in a room and he looked human enough, but he was just a remote-control Droid, with the real Marin, if that word meant