The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers

me wound up breaking up in its atmosphere if we got too close. The main tower was ancient and soared up above us, the tallest building in New York, with hovers landing and taking off from the roof all day long.
    As we walked, I had to consciously adjust my pace, slowing down to an unconcerned roll while my heart pounded in my chest, pushing my acid blood around so it could slowly dissolve my bones. You stayed on the sidewalks, too, because of the pedicabs that were always barreling down the middle, shouting people out of the way, two or three fat fucks sitting in the back. As I stepped aside to let one skinny, exhausted bastard scamper past with his freight shouting at him to move his ass, I thought maybe I hadn’t picked such a bad path after all. I might be royally fucked, but at least I wasn’t that guy.
    Jabali just grunted as we passed the spot. Dr. Daniel Terries lived in a narrow five-story building that looked as if it was held up by the buildings around it. I walked past it without turning my head. It was an old building—every building in New York was old—but it was obviously upgraded, reinforced and outfitted with the standard amenities. We went around the block a few times, stealing glances as we passed, finally crossing the street and paying two hundred yen for two tiny coffee drinks from a stand. I put my back against a wall and looked at anything but the building, just getting snapshots as I turned my head this way and that, enjoying the goddamn hell out of my thimble of warm, brownish syrup.
    There would be a shell system, of course, providing basic but useless security and valet services. An escalator, air system, Vid dish on the roof—middle-class luxury. I didn’t expect to find much by way of real trouble getting in. It was crazy to break into a building just blocks away from Cop Central. Crazy was sometimes the best camouflage you could have.
    “What now, boss?”
    I shrugged. “We wait.”
    Waiting was the number one skill a Gunner could have. Half the stories you heard about Canny Orel involved him waiting heroic lengths of time, just being a statue in shadows, barely breathing. Going in didn’t pay. Between the inadequate security shell and the expensive and equally useless inner security door, we’d lose precious seconds busting our way in, and Terries could make a run for it or maybe even call the cops—and since he was a government official, they might even come, though rumor had it the SSF and the civilian government had no love lost between them. No, we had to grab him off the street, and we had to do it clean and fast.
    I just wanted to talk to the man, find out what he knew, without someone pressing their mental thumb into the soft spot in my brain. A Vid screen was located above the roof of a tall, skinny building with a burned-out top floor. I didn’t think there was anywhere in New York you could stand and not be in view of a Vid; the fucking government was forever putting new ones up and swapping out the old ones for bigger versions with new features. You even found them inside buildings, in the oddest places. Silently, this one spelled out exciting news: the civilian government—which was the Undersecretaries, since the Joint Council they nominally served was just a bunch of defunct husks buried under London—had created, by decree, a reconstituted System Military, to be funded immediately. There hadn’t been an army since Unification. Who needed an army? The dedicated and skilled members of our beloved System Security Force kept us snug, and we were one world now, without borders.
    I lit a cigarette and ignored Jabali’s longing look. I could wait if I had to. Not like a statue, but I doubted any of the stories we heard about Canny Orel were all that true. He’d probably killed a lot of people, but shit, killing people was easy. Killing a lot of them just made you ambitious.
    I was halfway through the pack when Jabali nudged my shoulder, looking away down the