Ecko Rising

On the bed, the recumbent figure wasn’t restrained. As the door inched open, she turned her head to smile, although she didn’t sit up.

Her cupboard door stood ajar, spilling soullessly creased garments onto the carpet tiles. Her gaming console was on standby, the eyewear discarded. Beside her was a metal mug – as Ecko slipped around the door, he saw it contained puddles of white, furred mould.

Stink and revulsion flooding his system, he realised she hadn’t left the bed in days.

But – she wasn’t restrained. No one was forcing her to stay. She was lying there because... his heart cowered in his chest when the full depth of Grey’s achievement hit him... she was lying there because she wanted to.

She was happy.

Peace: a population that voluntarily incarcerated itself, that had no interest or need outside the workplace –

No passion, no fear, no desire. No anger. No frustration.

They didn’t even know to fight back; they no longer cared.

They wanted nothing. They were just content.

Stealth forgotten, Ecko stood in the centre of the little box, his blood congealed to fury. Around him, above him, across the room from him there were more boxes and more boxes...

How many people had Grey got in here – his control experiments, his gauges? Were they better than this? Were they worse?

The woman was – what – maybe thirty-five? Her well-cut suit was crumpled to a rag, her well-cut hair grown to an unruly tangle. She had clothes, food, entertainment – a door out of her box whenever she chose to take it...

But she was fine where she was.

Ecko found his face twisting round a sneer that felt like pity.

With a red flash of contempt, he wanted to make her react, to defy her own conditioning and stick one in Grey’s throat. He pulled the door from the cupboard, yanked out her garments, tore them to strips, kicked over her fridge... She followed him with her eyes, smiling at him.

He turned and snarled at her to move, to get the hell up, to say something, to cry, to curse, to fight, to beg him for help.

Her mouth moved, but it was only for a moment. She returned it to the smile.

With a short, sharp impact, he punched her in the face.

Her nose crunched, her lip split; blood splashed across her skin. She spluttered surprised red bubbles. Her hands half rose in an effort to cover her head against further blows.

But even that wasn’t enough. After a moment she fell back, arms tumbling slackly to her sides – like her fucking batteries had died.

Fight me, you fucking – !

With a surge of absolute savagery, hating the drone for being a victim, hating Grey for what he’d done, Ecko drew in a breath and exhaled.

He breathed pure fire.

It was Mom’s greatest trick, one he’d asked her to design for him. It was more a toy than a weapon – only lethal at very close range.

Like this.

The drone died without a sound, her face blackening, blistering and sloughing down into the pillow. Hell, she had to be better off. Beneath her, the unclean bedding coughed, spluttered flame and flared into life.

Ecko was just wondering if he had time to total the rest of them when he heard servo-motors, loud across the cavern’s quiet. His vision spun as he focused his telescopics in the direction Grey had taken – the other side of the room.

It was then, of course, that he’d seen the ’bot.

* * *

On the roof, the ’bot could no longer see him.

With a mouth full of terror and indignation pounding in his temples, Ecko pulled himself upwards until his forearms and elbows rested along the top of the wall.

His shoulders sang relief. He didn’t dare look at his fingertips.

Here, the stone was unbroken; here, he was shielded from the arc of attack. For a moment, he paused, feeling the sleet on his skin, the blood on his hands, the cloak flapping like a dead thing round his legs.

So much for the fucking cavalry, Lugan. The thought was a bitter one, but there was a savage sense of righteousness in doing this by himself.

What had Lugan said, after his interview with the Boss? “You get this right, mate, an’ she’s promised she’ll have Eliza fix you up proper, d’you know what I mean? No expense spared.”

Ecko responded as he’d done that morning, “What’m I, your fuckin’ bike, now? You think can customise me any which way? You fuckin’ hypocrite! You leave my cyberware alone an’ you stay the hell outta my head.”

There was motion. A door, booted feet. A clipped, military voice.

Salva.

Holding his breath, he watched.

Salva was coldly efficient, covering the shattered remains of wall and roof garden. Ecko didn’t need oculars to clock the precision in the way she scanned the area, ducked back, paused, and moved to the next checkpoint.

It’d be about sixty seconds before that checkpoint was slap-bang in his face. If he was gonna pull this off, he needed to move. Like, now.

He let the wind swing his body sideways, got one foot on the top of the wall. Not thinking about the drop below him – thinking about the ’bot, the ’bot – he rolled silently over the top and down onto the gravel.

The wind suddenly cut off as the stonework shielded him, his ears sang with cold. He stayed still, waiting, watching.

As Salva moved to cover the trashed remnants of the roof garden, Ecko realised that she was alone – her goons had not come with her.

At last, the Bogeyman’s luck was with him; he might just fucking do this after all.

Hope and adrenaline flooded his system.

Mom had built Ecko to be many things – stealther, spy, thief, tech – but her vision and genius had not stopped with reconnaissance and Bogeyman trickery. He had also been constructed to excel at something else.

Assassination.

Guilt, fear, compassion; these had little meaning against the adrenal boosting that supercharged his coordination and reflexes, against the ocular targeting that cross-haired the most elusive objective. His mottle-skin was spider-silk woven, lighter and tougher than Kevlar; biospheres in his bloodstream doubled his healing rate and fought infection. Increased capillarisation improved his body’s ability to transport and process oxygen. He was as strong, as tough, as fit as the characters he’d grown up with.

As Salva came closer, so Ecko went from joker to combat machine.

He had one shot at this.

The first kick hit her knee and snapped her leg. The same foot flashed again, connecting with the side of her head as she fell. Doctor Grey’s elite fighter never knew what’d hit her – she was dead before she hit the gravel.

Her rifle was in Ecko’s hands.

But the ’bot was moving.

He heard the high-pitched whine of the barrels, saw the thing turn into his field of vision. He raised the rifle butt to his shoulder; his targeters cross-haired the sensor array in its head. With a snarl of defiance, he squeezed the trigger to blow it away.

He missed.

His arms were shaking too badly. Overstrained, he wasn’t strong enough to hold the weapon and it climbed,