BZRK: Apocalypse (BZRK 3)

But of course she asked about Lear.

“It seems absurd to call each other Caligula and Plath,” Plath said.

Plath had picked the meeting place, and she was waiting for him when he arrived. It was public but not: a dark booth in a dark bar. It was against the law for her even to be sitting here across from him. But there was a law for regular minors and then there was a very different law for minors who could hand a fistful of hundred-dollar bills to a concerned bartender.

It amused Caligula that she had even found this place. It was classically male, a dive bar in a pricey Manhattan neighborhood. An easy walk from the safe house, which showed caution. After all, Sadie McLure had changed her hair, but she could still be recognized if a paparazzo spotted her. She had minimized the odds of that. Smart girl.

He took in the surroundings as he did every few minutes, checking for changes in personnel, in position and posture. There were a couple of hipsters at the bar imagining themselves as latter-day Kerouacs. A tired-looking woman who was almost certainly a hooker. Three loud businessmen saying things like, “So I told him, ‘That is not something I’m comfortable with.’ I mean, maybe he doesn’t give a shit, but I do.” After a few more drinks they’d be complaining about their wives and their kids.

But that’s not who Caligula watched out of the corner of his eye. It was a woman, thirty-five maybe, in an inexpensive business suit with slacks, sensible shoes, and khaki raincoat. She had brown hair cut short, but not so short as to be fashionable. She ordered something he didn’t overhear but that caused the bartender to look wary. It came clear and fizzy in a tall glass: sparkling water.

If she wasn’t some kind of cop, she was doing a very good impression of one. She confirmed the impression by avoiding looking at Caligula. It was a fact of life that any normal person would look at him.

Had it come to this? Were even the cops on the trail? It was one thing being shadowed by Armstrong people and by Plath’s security people. It was a different matter entirely when secrecy was so compromised that FBI or intelligence or even NYPD were watching.

Things were coming to an end. One way or the other. But wasn’t that what Lear wanted?

“It does seem ridiculous,” Caligula allowed.

“Call me Sadie.”

“Call me Caligula.”

That earned him a wintry smile.

He did not lean toward her. He had not shaken her extended hand—she would understand why. Caligula might be a part of BZRK in his own way, but you simply did not trust people armed with biots. A fleeting touch was all it took to send the tiny little beasties toward his brain.

He was nursing a beer in a tall, sweating mug. He casually dragged the mug across the table, left to right, leaving a trail of water behind. A barrier to the tiny bugs.

“I never thanked you. For that first time.” Plath nodded at him, a regal move that seemed natural for her. “You saved our lives.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. And waited.

“I need you,” she said.

“For?”

“Lear wants the computer servers in the Tulip destroyed.”

“They’ll have backups.”

She shook her head. “We don’t think so. They’re so paranoid they keep several systems cut off from one another. We’ve had access to many of their networks, but some of their computers are entirely unreachable from the outside. No Internet links at all. No phone lines. They might as well be something out of the 1980s.”

He nodded, accepting this as a likely fact. “It’s a large building. They are well guarded. This is not a movie; I could not do it alone, or do it even with your people.”

“How could you do it?”

“By destroying the entire building.”

She stared at him. He watched her eyes. Interesting. Her pupils had expanded. A pleasure reaction. But then her eyes had narrowed, and she had drawn away. Of course: she was conflicted.

“Destroying …”

“There will be natural gas pipelines in the basement. If you were to fill some of the sublevels with that gas and ignite a spark, it would very likely collapse the entire structure.”

“Like …”

“Like what, Sadie?” He knew like what. He had a pretty good idea what was being done to her. He could guess Lear’s direction. But he wanted Sadie to say it.