IX. Mechanical Failure

"Did you ever wonder how history will remember this?" said the guard on monitor bank 2. His voice suggested that decades of two-packs-a-day had eroded a nasal tenor into the gravelly tone it now held. His name tag read "Baird," beneath a head of gray blond hair.

"Remember what?" said the guard on monitor bank 1. He was a dark-skinned man with a name tag on his shirt that read "Porter" and a book on his lap that read "Sudoku." He made an occasional glance from the half-empty booklet to the bank of surveillance screens in front of him. A janitor was currently pushing his cart past Hazardous Material Storage; the others screens showed no signs of life.

"This point in history." said Baird, leaning back in his chair. "You know, will it be looked on as a shining moment of global unity, or an unfortunate period of regression?"

Porter went back to his Sudoku. "Man, Baird, you think too much for this job."

"It's what I get for going to school for--"

"Philosophy. In college. Yeah, I know. And this was the only job you could get. You've been here two years now, remember?"

"Hey, just humor me. There was this period from the ninth century to the fourteenth. They call it the Middle Ages. But some people call it the Dark Ages. For five hundred years, Western civilization hunkered down and did nothing. Took a plague that wiped out a quarter of the population to get things moving again."

"Eh, it hasn't even been thirty years. It's a bit early to call it a dark age, don't you think?" Porter said, glancing up at his screen again. He frowned. "Monitor A's gone down."

"Yeah, I just lost G." said Baird. He sat forward and held down the intercom button. "Central, this is Security, Floor twelve. We've lost visual on two--"

"--Four!" put in Porter.

"Scratch that, four monitors. And there goes another. What's going on down there?"

"Security, we're experiencing problem with the surveillance system CPU. It should be back on in a few minutes. In the meantime, conduct a manual sweep of the floor. It's probably just a malfunction, but Knupsky's not taking any chances. We've got LEMs on standby, call 'em if you need 'em."

"Understood. Beginning sweep now."

Porter moaned.

"Quit your whining; you should be glad to get out of this box for a change." said Baird, picking up his walkie-talkie. By now all twenty-four screens in the room had lost visuals.

"Look at this. F just went out." said Porter. The screen on his bank had gone black.

"Maybe they're rebooting the system. Come on, I'll take North side, you take South. Check in every five minutes."

"Calm down, cowboy; it's just a computer failure."

"Like I said before," said Baird, checking his sidearm, "just humor me."

Eighteen floors down, technicians scrambled around the sub-basement in the area of the surveillance system central processor. The case had been removed and those assembled watched in dismay as its 64 lights winked out one at a time.

"What the hell is going on?" demanded Security Chief Knupsky, a red-faced man in a black uniform. "Why are my cameras all going blind?"

"Sir," said a technician, "The surveillance system's exhaust fans somehow jammed. Each of the system's processors are way over safe operating temperature, and they've started burning out. Each time one goes, the system automatically divides its workload between the remaining processors, which is only making things worse."

"Hod do we fix it?"

"We'd have to shut the system down entirely and wait for it to cool."

"Shut it down? Do you have any idea what a security risk that is?" Knupsky's booming voice almost pushed the technician back.

Two more green lights went out. Twenty-three processors remained online.

"Sir, we'll lose the whole system if we don't. It could be days before we can conduct enough repairs to get it back from that state."

Knupsky scowled. "Then do it. But you eggheads better understand that heads will roll for this."

As the massive computer was deactivated, Knupsky continued interrogating the cornered technician. "Why don't we have a backup?"

"This machine is a Micrologic multicore. Their primary strength is that each individual processor backs up the other sixty-three. The system doesn't even notice until twenty or so go down, and keeping it above that level is easy. The only problem is that the system generates a lot of heat. That's what the exhaust fans are for. The odds of them all going down at once like this--they're astronomical!"

"Sure, sure. How long will the system be down?"

"He have to get the fans going, or the whole thing will just overheat again. Ten, maybe twenty minutes." said the technician.

"Dammit." Knupsky pulled out his radio. "All units, I want you out on patrol. Put this building on lockdown until I give signal. No one enters or leaves."

Loyalty Enforcement Monitors, colloquially known as "chots," poured out of their barracks and ascended the stairs and elevators of Tower Zero. In their hurry to set up a lockdown, the seventeen janitors ending their shifts went entirely unnoticed.

VIII. The New Hire

Molly Buchanon didn't like her job. Not anymore. When she'd signed on out of college being the Talent Acquisition Manager for Tower Zero had seemed like such a windfall. That had been seven years ago, and the number of no notice disappearances since then had ground her optimism down. For the first couple of years, she was able to convince herself that the people had simply quit. She did her best nowadays not to think about what would happen to people who caused problems in Tower Zero.

Today's hire was hardly an earthshaking endeavor--one of the janitors had gone downhill over the past week or so and had been subsequently canned. Molly drew some solace from the fact that since he was just a janitor he had probably only been turned out, not executed. She needed to sort through the list of applicants and get someone cleaning the floors as soon as possible.

She went through the selection, and stopped on the fourth file. It showed a picture of a middle aged man with green eyes. The name listed was "David Briggs." What caught her eye was the comment. It showed four small stars, with the signature "Aaron Snyder" following them.

"Well, one of Snyder's boys. I'm not sure how you get someone like Snyder to get you a job in custodial, but I'm not losing my job over it."

Aaron Snyder was the son of George Snyder, a member of Rehnquist's personal cabinet. Aaron was the head of Talent Management and Acquisition at Tower Zero; ignoring his recommendation was a good way to get fired. Molly had seen more than one Acquisition agent kicked to the curb for not following his instructions. That was that; if Snyder wanted this one, that was one less thing she had to worry about.

Molly set up the paperwork and paperwork and called Briggs' home number. She got an answering machine, which she told to be in for the noon to eight PM shift.

Darrus stood next to the answering machine as Molly recorded her message, nodding approval. Everything was going as planned.

VII. Beneath the Black Umbrella

Gerald Solon pressed his thumb to the car's ID reader and pushed the starter, but nothing happened. He tried again, to no result. After the third try he got out and popped the hood.

"Fuel cell's depleted, I'd guess," called a gravelly voice from behind him. Solon turned to see a man with long graying hair leaning out the driver's side window of a black sedan. "I can take a look, if you want."

"Sure." said Solon, his hand surreptitiously moving toward the sidearm at his waste.

The black sedan slid into the driveway behind Solon's. It was a nice neighborhood, as New Liberty went. It could have passed for a suburb if not for the ancient (Darrus guessed late 20th century era) smokestack stabbing into the sky at the end of the street, dark with age in front of New Liberty's permanent haze of smoke (colloquially dubbed "The Black Umbrella").

The long haired man got out and popped the hood of Solon's car. "Sure enough, it's shot. Look here. Empty."

The gauge was on E, which didn't make a lot of sense to Solon. His dashboard indicators should have warned him when it was empty, and they had been silent. Solon detached the cell and it was light as a feather--definitely empty.

"Well, shit." he said. "I've gotta get to work."

The tall man looked up. "Where you headed?"

"Tower Zero, downtown. The big--"

"Government complex, I know. I go past it on my way to work almost every day. Hell I'll give a you a ride up there now if you want, it's on my way. You're on your own for a way home, but at least you won't be late."

"Sir," said Solon. "I appreciate your generosity, but I have to say this is a little suspicious. I'll thank you for the offer, but I'll get a cab."

"Suit yourself." said Darrus. "I know how it is; can't trust anyone these days." He reached through his window and pressed the left horn button.

*

"You all right?" asked the tall man from the driver's seat. "You passed out, so I decided to take you to the hospital."

Solon found himself buckled into the passenger's seat of the black sedan. All the windows were up. "Passed out?"

Darrus tapped the cruise control. "Yes, passed out. I'm going to drop the Good Samaritan act now, Mr. Solon, and we're going to have a conversation."

"Is that so?" said Solon, going for his gun. It was gone, the holster filled with nothing but air.

"I'll give you your gun back when I drop you off, which I still plan to do. I'm not going to injure your person, so tell me what I want to know and this will be easy."

"What do you want to know?" said Solon, willing to play ball. After all, what choice did he have?

"Shift times. When the shifts change for the first, eighth, twelfth, and sixteenth floors of Tower Zero. I want to know what positions have full clearance for those floors. I want to know which windows are monitored by the surveillance system."

"You do realize that giving out that informationis treason and could get me killed. Forget it."

"Well, I guess these will hit the press and the police stations by tomorrow, then." Darrus pulled a manilla folder from the back seat and tossed it onto Solon's lap. "Go on, take a look."

Solon opened the folder. It contained a dozen eight-and-a-half by eleven inch color photographs on extra glossy paper. The photographs showed a general continuity of Solon sexually violating a girl that he would guess was about eight years old. He scoffed. "These are fake."

"I know that. And you know that. But they're convincing, aren't they? You can't tell they're forgeries. Being accused of molestation with evidence like that against you? That'll certainly cost you your job, probably your marriage and custody of your kids, too."

"The charges will never stick."

"They won't have to." said Darrus. "Those photos are a cunning enough forgery it'll take weeks for the police to figure out they're fakes. Weeks for your superiors to heap doubt on you. Weeks for your family to revile you. Who knows, if the case is high profile enough, weeks for people to call you monster, and actually believe it. And even when they're proven false, no one's going to look at you the same. Even being accused of something like this will ruin you."

Solon swallowed.

"There we go, I knew you were a smart fellow." said Darrus. "Now then, let's play ball."

*

Gerald Solon walked up to Tower Zero twenty minutes later with a manilla folder in his hand and a gun at his hip. As soon as the sedan had pulled away, he's checked the clip, and wasn't surprised to find it empty.

VI. Malign Intervention

A crumpled wad of credit notes was pressed into the greasy hand across from Walt McKay. It closed and its companion deposited a brown paper bag in Walt's open hand.

"Don't spend it all in one place." growled the voice of the man in the broad brimmed hat. His position beneath the streetlight threw his face into shadow, making it compliment that voice. It was voice that seemed as though it had been made for leering even before it had been coated with years' worth of tobacco tar. Walt couldn't see the face beneath the brim, but he would have guessed the fucker was wearing a condescending grin--probably with bad teeth, just to complete the image.

"Well?" said the sepulchral figure of the dealer. "You gonna sit here and stare all night?"

"No, no." mumbled Walt. His voice was deep and somehow scruffy. The sort of thing that gets swept into corners, and likely devoured by voices like the one across from him. "Same time next week."

"You know where to find me." growled the dealer.

The contents of Walt's bag varied by decade. It was currently called slip, crash, or dimmer. Police reports still listed it as cocaine. At least, about 60% of what was in that bag was cocaine; the rest was some foul cut that Walt did his best not to think about. Exactly how Walt McKay had gotten himself hooked on this stuff eluded him now; he supposed it was back in college, back when there had been college. That was three years in the past, and at the age of twenty-five, Walter McKay had to deny daily that there were more days ahead than behind; and a certain part of him failed even at that. Nowadays, Walt wasn't good for much that didn't involve pushing a broom.

He'd tried to get off the junk, had even gone to one of those meetings where people as desperate as him pooled their resources to help each other. It hadn't worked. He'd been clean maybe six days before the withdrawal had just been too much. He'd kept going to the meetings for six months, hoping that maybe one more time would shed light on his situation, give him just enough...just enough whatever it was he needed to get over this. But they hadn't, and so Walter McKay's name had vanished from the roster a few weeks after that. He had resigned himself to the fact that death was the only thing short of divine intervention that was going to save him.

He walked from the place where he bought his fixes back to his apartment. It was run down, but that was more do to the general state of New Liberty than to his personal failings. It seemed like every day a few feet of decent neighborhood gave way to slums and ghettos. Walt didn't care. His world was shit and had been shit for long enough that seeing people in shit no longer gave him pause. He clambered up the rickety stairs to the little nook he called home.

It was sparsely furnished; a mattress in the corner, a big wooden spool used as a table, and a rickety old chair that he was relatively certain had come from his mother's house at some time in the distant past. He locked the door--probably the most well-maintained item in the room, thus proving the junk hadn't destroyed his mind completely--behind him and sat at his makeshift kitchen table and spread out the small plastic bag that had devoured half his paycheck.

It looked a bit like sugar in the dim light that filtered through the window from the city beyond. He carefully measured the powder out into three lines, saving most of the bag's contents for the rest of the week, and indulged himself.

The next thing he was conscious of was being shaken to consciousness. He was still in his room, spread out on the mattress, but there was a beautiful young woman standing over him. She had auburn hair and the most enchanting blue eyes Walt could ever remember seeing. She wore a pure white dress and seemed to be glowing. The apartment was filled with dazzling white light.

"Wake up, Walter." she said. "It's time for you to wake up, from a very long sleep."

Walter was confused. He didn't feel right. He looked out on the city--it was still dark out. He shouldn't be out of it yet. But somehow this woman's presence was comforting, calming his confusion.

"Are..." he stammered. His voice wasn't quite working, but he tried again. "Are you an angel?"

She smiled. "I was sent to help you, Walter. I'm going to help you save yourself from the poison in you. I've taken it all out of you."

Walt should have felt alarmed, but he didn't. Couldn't. There was a beautiful angel here. He couldn't believe it; divine intervention had happened!

"It's not going to be easy for the next few weeks, Walter. But you can do it, Walter! You can beat this! And I'm going to help you."

"You're nice." he said, half-dreamily. A wave of euphoria washed over him, purer than anything the bag on the table had delivered.

She smiled again and he felt like his heart would burst. "I think you're nice, Walter. And I think you'll be even nicer once you're back to your old self."

"What's your name?" Walt asked the beautiful apparition.

"You can call me Lily." she said.

"Thank you, Lily. But I'm really sleepy." It was true; he could barely keep his eyes open.

"That's all right, Walter. You can sleep now. In the morning, your new life begins."

Walter drifted off into a deep sleep. Towards morning, he dreamed of the angel who had come to rescue him.

When Walter awoke, the sound of the city was pouring through his open window. The bag of what had been cocaine last night now contained nothing but sawdust. Walt was a little troubled; he had woken in a cold sweat with a headache, and now what he would have used as medicine was gone. He dressed himself and went off to work.

V. Mister Jones

Over the past seven years Saul Jones had, by his own reckoning, taken the lives of twenty-one individuals. When the insurrectionists needed someone removed, Jonesy was one of the people they turned to.


His neighbor knew nothing of his occupation. They knew Saul Jones was a reasonably handsome bachelor in his early thirties who tended to be out late most nights but was always friendly and rarely drunk. Most of the tenants were aware on some level that he was a practicing Jew, and a handful were aware that he was proud of it.

His faith and his occupation caused some dissonance in Jonsey's mind, but he believed in both causes too strongly to forsake one for the other. When asked by his fellow insurrectionists how he was able to reconcile the murders he committed, his standard response was "I've never had a dull Yom Kippur."

Jonsey came in the front door of his apartment around 6:30 in the morning, just as his downstairs neighbor Lydia was sending her son Tommy off to school.

"Morning, Jonsey." said Tommy. The kid was twelve, perhaps thirteen by now.

"Mornin', big fella." he said. The alcohol from the previous night had left his system some time ago, restoring Jonsey to his normal, charismatic self. "Where's your mother?"

"Inside." Tommy jerked his head towards the open door to room 102.

Jonsey poked his head through the doorway. "Hey, how's my favorite shikza?"

"Good morning, Saul!" called Lydia from behind her kitchen counter. She stood up, holding an empty plastic container. Lydia Crown was a few years past thirty and had long brown hair. She'd been raising Tommy by herself since before Jonsey had moved in three years ago. Jonsey didn't know what Lydia did for a living, only that it was a government job. For her part, she though he was a Human Resources director in an up-and-coming organization (which Jonsey reasoned was a possible interpretation of his occupation). As for Tommy's father, Jonsey couldn't blame the guy for impregnating a woman like her, but he had a few choice words for anyone who'd force her to raise the kid alone. Apparently she'd kicked him to the curb after he knocked her up and then got himself locked up. Other men in Lydia's life was not a topic Jonsey was intent on pursuing.

"I see you're sending that fatherless boy off to school," said Jonsey, smiling. "When are you going to get that boy a good male role model?"

"I don't know, Saul. I guess he'll just have to settle for you in the meantime."

"You wound me, Miss!" Jonsey clasped his tattooed hands over his chest.

Lydia's bearing changed just enough for Jonsey to notice it. "Well, I think I should make it up to you. Does Friday sound good to you, perhaps around seven?"

So there it was. The invitation he'd kept himself from extending for more than a year now. She'd got tired of waiting and just thrown it out there herself.

Jonsey's cheeks darkened slightly and he averted his eyes. "I can't. I've got this big thing at work, this man-eater of a client. They don't know when he's coming in, just that it's sometime this week, and they'll kill me if I'm not there whenever he decides to mosey in."

Lydia's face fell. "Oh, right," she said. "Sorry." She shook her head as if answering an internal monologue.

The story wasn't a total lie. He did have a very important job later this week that he didn't have an absolute time slot for. Keyes had been adamant about it. But Jonsey realized how unlikely it must have sounded to Lydia. He decided that this was not the scenario he wanted.

"Can I get a raincheck, though? It's only Tuesday, this big guy may have come and gone by Friday night. Or maybe next week if he hasn't."

She hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, sounds good."

He smiled, and so did she. She glanced at the kitchen wall clock. "Hey, I've got to get to work, but I'll see you, right?"

"Oh, sure. I'll let you know about Friday night as soon as I can."

"Sounds good. I'll see you, Mister Jones."

"And I'll see you, Miss Crown."

As he climbed the steps to his room, Jonsey realized his heart was fluttering like a teenager's.

IV. Threats and Smoke

Seymour Lovitz slept soundly. He and his wife had been separated for six months next week, and he'd gotten used to having the bed to himself.

But Seymour wasn't alone as he had reckoned. He realized this when the sound of a gunshot brought him to consciousness. He sat up and cringed back reflexively as an arm grabbed him by the front of his pajama top and lifted him out of the bed. He managed to take in that the bedside lamp was on, casting a sepia glow around the room and the man who held him aloft. He looked into the man's pale green eyes for an instant before clamping his own shut.

Lovitz felt himself being lifted entirely out of the bed and out over the floor. It seemed the man was lifted all of Seymour's two hundred pounds with one arm.

"Open your eyes." came a gravelly voice a foot from his face. The smell of a chainsmoker drifted into Lovitz' nostrils. He opened his eyes to see a gaunt face framed by greying brown hair down to his assailant's shoulders.

"Mornin', Seymour!" said Darrus. The alarm clock on the nightstand read 4:37.

Thus far, Darrus' plan was working perfectly. Lovitz was a lower level administrator inside the administration complex known as Tower Zero. Darrus was keeping Lovitz terrified and off balance until he got what he needed. "Sleep well?"

"Who are y--"

Darrus put the barrel of his gun between Lovitz' eyes. "Ah ah. I'll be asking the questions. And you're going to answer them. Because if you don't, I'll shoot you. Maybe in the head, maybe in the stomach. Do you know what happens if you shoot a man in the stomach? Nod or shake your head, Seymour."

Lovitz shook his head as best he could with his skull pressed flush to the wall.

"It rips through your stomach lining, pouring your stomach acids out onto your other organs. It takes about fifteen minutes of agonizing pain before it finally kills you. You don't want me to do that, do you, Seymour? Shake your head no."

Lovitz shook his head again, eyes wide with panic.

"Very good, Seymour. I think you and I are going to get along just fine. Now then, I want to know how many backup devices exist for the surveillance system in Tower Zero."

"T-two power stations." stammered Lovitz.

"Power stations? What about the central processing unit? Does it have any backup devices?"

"No, b-but it's a 64 core processor. It doesn't n-need a backup except for power."

"Very good, Seymour. Now, what brand is that processor? Think hard."

Lovitz swallowed hard. He was soaked in sweat. "M-Micrologic!" He had no idea why the green eyed man wanted to know technical details of the Tower Zero CPU, but was acutely aware that there was still a pistol in his face.

A smile spread across Darrus' lips. It was exactly as he'd hoped. "Very good, Seymour. Well, I think it's time you went back to sleep. Deep sleep."

Lovitz nearly wet himself in terror at the implication.

"No, not what you're thinking." said Darrus. "This is all a dream. Think about it. You haven't lived in this house for years. Just wake up!"

Seymour Lovitz sat bolt upright in bed--the right bed. Marla, his more-than-friend-less-than-mistress, slumbered to his right. There was no trace of the tall man with the piercing green eyes.

"It was a dream." he whispered to himself. "It was just a dream."

Within fifteen minutes, sleep returned to Seymour Lovitz, and this time, it was dreamless.

*

Darrus stepped back into Hell. He talked to his son in the dreamscape from time to time and was aware Nightmares were sometimes harvested from it, but that made the transition no less disorienting. Regardless, he had a piece of what he needed, and had left a man with no more evidence of his information gathering than a bad dream that would be no more than idle breakfast time chatter.

III. Wheels

Cankerworm's chamber bore a strong resemblance to an executive office. Darrus doubted it had always looked this way, but he guessed its tone had remained consistent throughout the centuries. This was the abode of a being of power, the office said.

Cankerworm himself took the form of a middle-aged businessman, right down to the wing-tip loafers. His suit was black and his eyes were blood red.

"Darrus." said the Archdevil. "Good, the Succubus reached you. I have a job for you."

Darrus lit a cigarette. "And how is this different from normal?"

Cankerworm grinned. His teeth came to points. "You do your job well, Darrus. It keeps you in demand."

Cankerworm, being an embodiment of corruption, paid lip service to Darrus' skills only when it was convenient. Cankerworm spent most of their time together looking down his nose at Darrus, waiting for the demon to screw up, often throwing out threats of what would happen if he did. Darrus had learned to shrug both off.

"So, what infernal task do you have for me now?"

"There is a package in New Liberty, and a man who wants it. It is in our interest to make sure this happens. You will be facilitating this change of possession."

Darrus blew a cloud of smoke. "So, you called me here from literally another planet in order to give me duties as a drug runner? I mean, I hear church attendance is up, what with the world basically being a kettle of shit right now, but is Hell really doing that poorly?"

Cankerworm's grin vanished. "It's not a box of drugs. If anything, it's the opposite. And the task is more complicated than you think. We're not certain where exactly the item is, only that it resides inside Tower Zero. You'll need to get it out, and do it without overwalking."

Darrus' eyebrow rose. "Any particular reason why I can't overwalk?"

"The package's contents is at least partially organic. Overwalking will kill it and make it worthless."

"So what exactly is in this little box?"

"That is on a need-to-know basis, and you haven't been cleared."

Darrus glared at Cankerworm. "On whose authority?"

Cankerworm's reply was barely above a whisper. "The Lightbringer."

Darrus' eyes widened. "The Lightbringer? As in the Morning Star, the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of the Air, the Seven-Headed Dragon? That Lightbringer?"

Cankerworm nodded. "That Lighbringer."

Darrus thought for a moment, puffing his cigarette. "So first I have to figure out just where this box is. Then I have to recover it and I would presume deliver it somewhere without overwalking. I would assume I'll need to be gentle with the box, too?"

"Correct. The contents must be safeguarded. Also, don't open the package--you risk the contents dying if it's exposed to any airborn pathogens." Cankerworm saw Darrus' expression of confusion and added, "I think I can go so far as to say that the contents of the package includes an aquatic lifeform and open air isn't good for it. As for delivery, you're correct. You'll be meeting an operative for the relevant organization in a small cafe a few blocks down from Tower Zero--it's the closest inconspicuous location to the Tower."

"So I'm expected to sneak a box (that I'm going to go out on a limb and assume is of some importance if even Hell doesn't know where it is) out of the highest security facility in New Liberty, out past its walls, then carry it down the street for a few blocks, all without overwalking or being detected. Would I be wrong if I assumed I'm being left to my own devices to figure out how to do this all?"

"Yes, you would. You've been authorized the use of a demon engine. You'll be briefed on its operation once this meeting is concluded."

Darrus nodded. “A set of wheels, that should be a nice change.”

“There’s one other important issue. Don’t get caught. I don’t care what means you use to get the package out of the building, but it cannot register as anything supernatural. It is imperative that this look like a human operation. Our involvement in this transaction has to be kept secret or the whole mission counts for nothing. Leave nothing more substantial than anecdotal evidence, understand?”

“Not a problem,” said Darrus. It was a lie—that detail would make this infinitely more complicated.

“Good. One last thing. The package you’re looking for is called Project Grendel, Revision Eight. It will be in the development wing of Tower Zero.”

“Project Grendel, Revision Eight. Now, how about a threat for what will happen if I screw up. You know, just for tradition’s sake.”

Cankerworm snorted. “I told you, the Lightbringer has taken personal interest in this job. I don’t think I need to elaborate on what will happen if you disappoint the sovereign of Hell.”

If Darrus still had sweat glands, a wave of cold sweat would have washed over him. Instead, his face did all the work informing Cankerworm that the threat had worked. “Right, I’ll go check out that demon engine.”

Cankerworm nodded. Darrus overwalked out the door and into the garage. Hell’s garage endless, filled with means of travel that were as primitive and exotic as infernal llama caravan and as advanced as a Scion IV Martian colonization pod, a device capable of carrying five thousand colonists from Earth orbit to Martian touchdown. The vehicle Darrus was looking for sat directly in front of him.

It was a midsize black sedan. It was identical to the Miramo “Spirit,” one of the most ubiquitous vehicles on the streets of New Liberty. As a whole, the vehicle was just was Darrus preferred—inconspicuous, able to blend in with the city and hide in plain sight.

"Howdy," said a demon next to the car. He had a short brown goatee and appeared to be wearing protective goggles. "The name's Blix, and yo u must be Darrus. Let me show you what this baby can do."

Blix climbed into the driver's seat. Darrus sat down in the passenger's seat and looked on. Blix pulled a set of jingling objects from his pocket. "To start her up, put any one of these keys into the ignition. I know keyed interfaces are a little old school, but they're still common enough it shouldn't raise any questions. Like I said, any of these keys will work, but nobody carries a ring with just one key on it--it's the sort of thing people notice. Now then, you just turn it forward like this."

Blix turned the key and the car's engine started, humming pleasantly as it sipped power from the fuel cell under the hood. At least, that was what Darrus assumed--given that this was not in fact a Spirit, but a demonic construct, it was entirely possible the sound of the engine was entirely artificial.

"I know how they work." said Darrus. "I used to have keyed interface car."

Blix shook his head. "That's a relief. You'd be surprised how many I get coming through here that need it explained to them. Now then, let's take a look at the actual features of this vehicle."

Blix indicated a pair of buttons, one mounted on each side of the steering wheel. Each was marked with a simple image of a trumpet. "Pressing the right horn button or the center of the wheel will honk the horn like normal." Bliss pressed the center of the wheel in and the card make a loud report. "The left horn's different, though. Push that one, and it'll put a human into a trance--knock 'em out for about a minute, give or take. It's good for any time you need to get rid of some witnesses without leaving bodies."

"Sounds good. Do they remember anything about the trance?"

"Nah, they usually think they've fainted or passed out or something.

"Moving on to these ones," Blix gestured at three buttons distributed beneath the horn buttons. "These are the cruise control, at least as far as any humans in the car are concerned. This car is a semi-intelligent entity and has its own Nexus tap. Hit ON and it'll drive itself to your destination, changing lanes and making turns as necessary. It'll even signal properly. As you might guess, hitting OFF or tapping the break pedal will drop it back to full manual control. I wouldn't recommend using the cruise control when anyone is in position to see the inside of the passenger compartment."

"Why not?" said Darrus. "Self-driving cars have been around for more than a century."

"But out of production for a few decades. They used common routing satellites--there was too much potential for terrorism. One well-placed hack could send a hundred cars smashing the front of a chosen building. Rehnquist had the routers powered down a few months after he took power. So if somebody sees your car drive itself--"

"They'll know something's not normal about it."

"Right on." nodded Blix. "Now here's where your cruise control gets interesting. Tap 'Set Accel" to enable the car to overwalk. You do just like you would normally, except the car goes with you. This indicator here," Blix pointed to an orange LED on the dashboard display, "tells you whether or not its enabled. You have to be a little more careful about overwalking a car--people have an easier time noticing when it goes in a tunnel and disappears, especially the one's in traffic around you. Now, this next part will help you out with that."

Blix reached up and hit one of two buttons on the ceiling. The dome light came on. "The front button does exactly what you'd think it does--turns the dome light on and off." He clicked it again and the light went off. "The back button, on the other hand, will turn lights outside the vehicle on and off. It'll know which light you want. It's a good way to blind any humans around you, whether you need a patch of darkness or a sudden bright light. Just FYI, this thing's only good on artificial lights. Sunlight, starlight, hell, even fireflies, aren't bothered by it at all. Keep that in mind."

"Gotcha." said Darrus.

"Other than that, this thing works like a normal Spirit. Any questions?"

"Yes, actually. I'd planned to bring a Nightmare with me, and I don't think it'll fit anywhere in here."

"Hm..." Blix scratched his beard. "How big are we talking?"

"About 12 feet at full height, fourteen long including the tail, maybe eight feet wide."

"Damn, that's a big-un." said Blix. "Nope, won't fit inside...but I think I know a workaround. Give me a couple of hours and I should have it ready."

"Glad to hear it. My other question is, where's the ashtray in here?"