"Yeah. Just... yeah. Don't worry about it."

"You sure...?"

"Not gonna say a f.u.c.king thing, all right? We're good."

"Thank you, man." Ernie exhaled, and chugged antacid. Ernie exhaled, and chugged antacid. "Stay safe, buddy. We got your back." "Stay safe, buddy. We got your back."

Eagle scooped up and stowed the pizza boxes, pocketed his gun and hopped on his bike as two more remote-controlled workers swept in to sc.r.a.pe up the mess.

Working together, making the world a better place.

VII.

The Dungeon Master had just burnt his tongue on the microwaved ricotta in his calzoneat least a three-hit-point woundwhen the Love Line rang.

He washed the glutinous lava down with a splash of root beer, checked his hair, and let the phone ring.

For allegedly living humans, the science division sure seemed to enjoy chewing on human a.s.ses. When they couldn't b.i.t.c.h about his kill ratio, they whined that his tactics were overkill; when his meat puppets weren't lagging and bugging out like an NT server, they were dangerous rabid dogs.

The Love Line blinked faster. His pager trembled and jittered off the edge of the desk into an empty pizza box.

He wondered which of the Brain Trust would be dining on his haunches today. Of the three-headed nerd colossus that ran New San Francisco, he got the least friction from the Livermore geeks. Nasty little crypto-fascist elves, but they made the best toys, and b.i.t.c.hed the least about his tactics.

His tongue throbbed and told him everything tasted like sandpaper. Perfect. He might as well throw the rest of the calzone back in the fridge.

Well, he thought, killing his root beer and reaching for another, somebody in the world probably has even worse problems somebody in the world probably has even worse problems.

He hit the Accept b.u.t.ton.

f.u.c.k my eyes, he thought.

Poison Lady.

Sherman sat up in his chair and brushed his oily hair back out of his eyes. "Dr. Childers, you're looking lovely today."

Meredith Childers' gray-green face tightened on the monitor. She wasn't just the chief researcher on the City's medical research Brain Trust. She was also their star guinea pig. It was easy to see why the other scientists called her The Hippie. "Sherman... Laliot.i.tis, is it?" "Sherman... Laliot.i.tis, is it?"

"Round these parts, they call me the Dun"

"This is not a game, Sherman. You were briefed by your superior about today's primary objective?"

"To secure the borders of Fortress Frisco against hostile invaders, ma'am. And phase one was a big win."

"Don't f.u.c.k around with me. You know what we're doing here. What needs doing."

Sherman looked around the control room. The Raiders' POV monitors showed the cleanup crews carting off the last of the bodies. "I, uh... I am sorry if you're unhappy with my performance, but... you know, capping enemies in the heat of battle isn't like cutting the heads off guinea pigs in the lab"

I'll bet the cultists would've done it, he thought. You could've paid them in lentils and Bentleys.

The order had come down last night to target all the squatters on the peninsula in a one-day blitz, using all meat-puppet crews. Every squad operator was on duty today or tonight. The machinists pulled double-shifts refitting a.s.sault teams and converting run-down workers into walking bombs.

All the targets were armed; most were subhuman freaks, but none of them was an imminent threat to the city. Most of the Green Zone was still half-empty, but they were expanding it again, and the whitecoats always needed more cold bodies to play with.

"I'm just," he finally said, "trying to do my job, ma'am."

"If you're as good as advertised, you should be able to control your team. Do you verbally monitor all of them at once?"

"That'd be impossible. I'm all over them in real-time for the real precise wetwork, but they're all running a bunch of apps, most of which I wrote myself."

"You've changed their programming for today, though, correct?"

"Well, sure..."

"No more headshots. You will be docked for each non-viable body"

"Docked?" Sherman sputtered. "How much?"

"How much is a human life worth on the current market? Harden the f.u.c.k up and do your job, Sherman."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You'll have no excuses for me next time?"

"No, ma'am."

"You're not the only warm body in San Francisco who's good at videogames, Mr. Laliot.i.tis. But if you're not the best in town from here on out-or if I hear of any more leaks in your operation-the machinists will help us discover a whole new world of uses for you. Am I clear?"

"Um, yes, ma'am." Voice choked. His catheter popped out. Cold p.i.s.s streamed down his leg.

The line went dead. Motherf.u.c.ker! Motherf.u.c.ker!

Sherman got an aluminum baseball bat and strode out into the hall, away from the mainframe made from 900 chained PS3s and the banks of refrigerated processors running every zombie in the city.

His eyes alit on the vending machine in the hall, but it was the only one in the whole building that worked.

A janitor pushed a floor waxer in loopy circles in front of the elevators.

He didn't flinch or look up as Sherman ran up on him and smashed his face in.

The janitor wore a cheap motorcycle helmet with an enormous smiley face sticker on the visor. It took four whacks to crack the helmet, but another twenty to kill the f.u.c.king thing.

It never raised a hand to block the blows with its nylon idiot mittens. Just kept stumbling back and back as he pummeled it again and again, driving it into the wall and making doork.n.o.bs rattle halfway down the hall.

By the time the shrink-wrap snapped and the septic contents exploded outward, he could barely swing the bat. His lungs vapor-locked, knees went wobbly, but he couldn't stop until the medpak in its skull cracked open, sprayed a little drugstore everywhere, and it finally spasmed and keeled over.

Sherman fell down hard on his hands and knees next to the bloodless corpse, blowing goat cheese in the beyond-septic waft, streaming snot and tears.

The door behind him clicked and hissed open. Wiping his eyes, Sherman saw a very old, very drunk man in a plush bathrobe hanging on the doork.n.o.b as he scowled at the mess. "Was ist pa.s.siert? Ist alles in Ordnung Ist alles in Ordnung?"

Why was everything in the real world so f.u.c.king hard?

VIII.

The Black Zone party was down by Golden Gate Park, at the end of Haight. Less than ten minutes out of the Red Zone, as the Eagle flies.

A universe of difference, by any other standard.

But every so often, Pizza o.r.g.a.s.mica would get an urgent call from one of the outlaws who had managed not to melt in the post-human hinterlands, or had snuck back into town after Black Flag Day. There were enclaves dug in all over the City, more than anyone knew. And they loved pizza, too.

These streets were not clear, so Eagle ducked and dodged between the cars: glad the Moots was good on rugged terrain, and thinking about how sweet it was to be seeing some long-lost friends.

If you were a bunch of college dropouts living in an empty metropolis, you would probably think it was the best idea in the world to hole up in the Haight-Ashbury Amoeba Records.

The front windows were boarded up, but a guy waiting on the roof with an M16 shouted, "Pizza man!" and buzzed the front door for him.

Eagle rode into the open floor of the record store. It was an impressive setup. Anywhere else, it might have even had a chance. The front counters were fortified with thick plexigla.s.s from a bank. A portcullis made of wrought-iron spikes was hoisted up to let Eagle in, then dropped behind him.

The ground floor of the record store was still a mess, but someone had been restocking the CDs. Along the far wall, a bunch of young guys and a couple girls sat on stationary bikes wired to car batteries, pedaling and watching cartoons as they kept the lights on and powered the big club soundsystem on a dais in the center of the store, where a pale guy with black dreads and a droopy mustache spun a deepdish dubstep mix. He saluted Eagle as the pizza guy parked and popped the hotbox on the back of his bike. "Hey, Tweak, you got any real music?"

Tweak flipped him off and tapped the sign on the decks: NO GRATEFUL DEADPLEASE DON'T ASK.

The second floor was a loft where the DVDs were stored. The new occupants had replaced the old staircase with a cantilevered drawbridge.

A couple semi-feral kids came hopping down the stairs to meet him, chanting, "Pizza! Pizza!" Black circles under their eyes. Bleeding gums. The adults looked worse.

Eagle dropped the stack of pies on the table and immediately wished he'd brought more. Fourteen hungry people converged on the boxes, making noises like Ernie's broken worker.

"Dude, thanks for coming out," Lester Wiley rolled over and pumped his hand. "You're a lifesaver. I don't have one of those pen things..."

Eagle sat on a milk crate next to Lester's wheelchair and pa.s.sed him a fat joint. "No sweat. You got the Sly Stone and Hendrix catalogs on vinyl?"

"If the kids haven't burned 'em. Little Philistines melted most of the cla.s.sic rock to make into swords and throwing stars and s.h.i.t..." Lester's eyes glistened as he watched his people eat. "Really, thanks for coming out, man..."

"It's just a couple pizzas, Les. How're you guys living out here?"

Lester lit up and took a stupendous. .h.i.t. "It's not easy, but when was it ever? At least the traffic's gone."

"Haven't seen you in ages. When did you come back?"

Lester sketched out the last year and change since he and his gang left the City to try a commune in the San Joaquin Valley. "Everywhere else was worse, so we came home. But we're not going back in the Green Zone, man. Don't know why you stay."

"Because it's safe."

"Nowhere's safe. At least out here"

"You're not safe out here." You're not safe from them. You're not safe from them.

"We've been here a couple months, and it was working out pretty good... There's a cistern in the park, behind Kezar Stadium, and we had gardens on the roof under pressurized tents"

"What do you mean, you had had gardens?" gardens?"

"Last night, somebody burned us out."

Gracie took Eagle up to the roof. Rows of burst bubbles and black crops. Gracie spat in the ashes. "Whole thing went up before we got up here. Chimi was on guard duty, but he was huffing something last night. He said he saw"

Eagle said, "Toy helicopters." He ran back downstairs.

Lester followed him, pa.s.sed him the joint. Eagle stubbed it out. "You guys gotta get out of here today. Now."

Lester coughed. "No way. We've got everything we need here. If they'd just leave us alone"

"They can't leave you alone. They need you" He stopped. "Did you hear that? Turn down the music!"

It sounded like thunder.

It was dark in the back of the garbage truck. Soothing miasma of rot inside, pushing out bad thoughts. In the dark, in the stench, #24 couldn't see the new recruits, couldn't smell their freshly welded metal and plastic new-corpse stink.

The Commander's voice recited a litany in his ear, over and over. The pre-engagement medpak spikes made him restless. When that happened, #24 got bored, and he started to picture something else happening, and remembering it, or imagining it. Wishing...

"Hold and contain. Wait for the gas to clear. Target center-of-ma.s.s. No headshots. Don't screw your Dungeon Master, kids..."

On and on. Over and over, like teaching a parrot to talk. If something else happened, anything, it would be better.

One of the Raiders moaned, a low, hungry sound in the dark. The others took it up. They did it every time. The drugs and the voice in their ears wound them up, so they must be getting close.

A flat, deafening boom lifted the truck and stood it up on its back wheels, then dropped it on its side. The Raiders were thrown into a pile. #24 was on top, but he couldn't move. Static chewed his ears.

The rear hatch hissed. Jerry the handler pried it open with a crowbar.

"Motherf.u.c.kers," he kept saying, like a parrot. Blood streamed from his ears and hundreds of cuts all over his face and chest that shone like rubieshalf-melted gla.s.s embedded in his skin. "Used our own f.u.c.kin' mines on us, Tooz..." Woozily, he punched #24 in the shoulder. "f.u.c.k 'em up, O-Town!"

"What is the f.u.c.king situation out there, over?" The Dungeon Master screamed in their ears. " The Dungeon Master screamed in their ears. "Gordo, Jerry... where are my dogs, G.o.ddamit?" Jerry... where are my dogs, G.o.ddamit?"