BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

Two dozen nanobots slid onto his hand.

The goggles lit up with screens. Twenty-four separate visuals. It was a magnificent jumble of imagery. Mostly what he saw was nanobots—nanobots looking at nanobots—the whole tumbling melee of spidery legs and spinning central wheels and seeking metallic eyes.

And he saw, for the first time, the world of the meat. The nanobots lay, stood, staggered around in what seemed like a deep ditch. Like a ditch where leaves had fallen and collected on the ground without any trees nearby.

Crossing the ditch were smaller cuts in the “ground,” the smaller lines of his palm. The ditch, wasn’t that what they called a lifeline or something? Wasn’t there something about your lifeline, long or short? Stupid, but it was weird being down there.

And the funny thing was that with the goggles on, it was almost impossible to think of himself as anywhere other than down there. That reality immediately took precedence over the macro world. Burnofsky was all but forgotten.

Superimposed over the various visual fields was a menu, glowing radioactive orange.

One choice was 1x1.

Another was Platoon.

Replay.

And one labeled SRN Rep.

Billy said, “One by one probably means play them individually. Okay, and Platoon …” He twitched a finger, the button showed a flare, and suddenly all twenty-four visual fields began to align, all looking in the same direction like a well-disciplined army on parade. There were secondary options—he could choose how many platoons of what number. There were subroutines being suggested.

“What does SRN Rep”mean?” Billy asked.

“Ah,” Burnofsky said dreamily, “That’s the best part. It means replicate. But I doubt you’re up for that.”

And here’s the thing: Billy knew Burnofsky was provoking him. He knew the man wanted him to push SRN Rep.

He just didn’t know why. Billy the Kid, who was always being underestimated, assumed the old dude wanted to see him humiliate himself. Like he couldn’t handle whatever replicate meant.

He did not guess that the old man had just decided to obliterate all life on the planet.

“Probably shouldn’t …,” Burnofsky said, letting it hang there.

Billy pressed SRN Rep.

To escape the Crystal City Hyatt was not easy. Bug Man was not there alone. AmericaStrong security occupied the rooms on either side. AmericaStrong agents regularly rotated in and out of the lobby, keeping an unobtrusive but constant watch on who came and went. Bug Man was a big asset to the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation.

They had of course bugged his room. And he had, of course, found those bugs, disabled all but one and looped that last bug into a program that simply replayed audio from TV shows.

Jessica had dressed up and looked stunning. Bug Man …Well, he had done what he could. He was never going to be George Clooney, or who was that other dude all the girls liked?

“Let’s go see some sights,” Bug Man said. He took her hand. She looked at his hand holding hers and frowned as if she was trying to remember something.

“Things are going to be a bit strange,” he said. “For a while, at least.”

“Strange?” She didn’t know what he meant, but she was unsettled.

Suddenly he felt doubt. He had almost convinced himself that nothing would change. She would still adore him, but maybe be just a bit less servile. A bit more honest.

Instead she was looking at him as if he presented a baffling mystery.

What am I doing with him?

“That’s okay, that’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He was doing what he hadn’t had to do since about three days into wiring Jessica: he was placating.

And his nanobots were still inside her. If things got too weird . . .

He had long since planned a way to evade the watchful eyes of the AmericaStrong watchdogs. He knew where the passage was to the room-service elevators. It went down to the kitchen and beneath that to the laundry.