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The Print Job
by Brian Trent

I.

The dead men had printed semi-automatics for their assault on the shop and, from the look of spent casings, must have fired off a thousand cheaply printed bullets. But their target had printed a monster of some kind, and there wasn’t much left of the gunmen by the time Miguel Falcón arrived on the scene.

He was released from the back of the NYPD cruiser. The December night was cold. The stink of blood and loosened bowels hit him right through his concealment visor.

“Four bodies,” Detective Rod Ventrella said, pointing to the abandoned parking lot. Holographic tape reading CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS formed rectangles around corpses in the snow. “Looks like the work of a lion.”

Miguel stared. “It wasn’t a lion.”

“You can tell that at a glance?”

“Yeah.”

The detective raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“There are no lion tracks, for one thing.”

Ventrella considered the confusing pattern of footprints in the snowy, abandoned lot. Astoria, New York was like most cities nowadays: the loss of hardcopy stores had turned old parking lots into desolate, weedy glades. Saplings grew from cracks in the asphalt. A decaying store sat a hundred meters away.

Miguel adjusted his visor. “What happened here?”

“You tell us. I’m thinking this is the work of one of your business partners.”

“I’m not in that business anymore. Besides, I never dealt in weapons.”

Detective Ventrella laughed sharply. “Yeah, right.”

“Check my record, Rod.”

“Oh, I know it by heart. You never dealt in guns, that’s true. But you made lions, and I’d say those qualify as weapons.”

Another officer crossed the holographic tape to reach them. “Hey, Rod? Is this the guy?”

Ventrella jerked a thumb at Miguel. “Meet our fake-maker CI, in the flesh. He was just telling me this isn’t the work of a lion. And I guess he’d know; Interpol busted him two years ago for sending lion software to Africa.”

The younger officer blinked. “Sending lions to Africa? Why?”

“For the Maasai people,” Miguel muttered, glancing warily to the derelict building. “Their warriors fight lions as a rite of passage, traditionally.”

“Why not use actual lions, then?”

“Because all the real lions are dead or in zoos. And even if that wasn’t the case, the Maasai are being driven off ancestral lands by foreign developers. To keep some of their traditions alive, they asked me for a lion program.”

The younger officer viewed the woodsy lot with unease. “It could still be out here. Prowling around…”

The detective shook his head. “We’ve got drones searching for anything that large in the area. Fake-maker, how far can a printed lion get? What’s it using for power?”

Miguel sighed. “We don’t know it was a lion.”

“Whatever. Griffin. Manticore.”

“Both would still leave lion tracks. The only tracks I see are human. Why don’t you fill me in what you know?”

Ventrella folded his arms. “Patrol got the first call around 11 p.m. Witnesses reported lots of gunfire and screams. First unit on the scene found these guys.” He nodded towards the eviscerated bodies. “Each had an illegally printed semi-automatic.”

Miguel scratched an itch beneath his concealment visor and pointed to the derelict, ivy-strewn building. “And that?”

“Technically abandoned… but someone was living there. By the footprints, it seems the gunmen were approaching when our mystery tenant sent something out to meet them.”

“Show me what’s inside. And watch what you say in there. There could be cameras printed on every square inch of the place. My privacy—”

“Will be protected,” Ventrella said, slapping his shoulder. “Don’t worry, fake-maker. I wouldn’t risk my most valuable snitch.”

#

According to city records, the abandoned building had once been a shoe store—an astonishing waste in the days before people simply printed their own custom footwear. The mystery tenant had converted the place into an illegal printshop; toner cartridges filled old shoe racks, color-coded by type of raw—resins, advanced polymers, plastics, bioink, and various quick-dry multimaterials. At the heart of the operation were five industrial-sized assemblers—capable of printing and assembling complex machines using an array of extruders and articulated digits far more precise than human hands.

Walking around the shop, Miguel marveled at it all. The machines weren’t off-the-rack—whoever ran this shop had made impressive modifications, cobbling and welding different components so that they had a patch-and-stitch, Frankensteinian quality.

What the hell was being manufactured here?

Of course, most homes had 3D printers. Some even had assemblers. Clothing, household goods, toys, tools, meals… anything was feasible for at-home production. Yet some things were illegal to print. Weapons. Patented medicines. Sex dolls in defiance of likeness-rights… the list was lengthy.

“I take it you dusted for prints,” Miguel said.

“Sure,” Ventrella said. “So far, no matches.”

“His computer is missing.”

“Yeah?”

Miguel indicated a dusty rectangle on the workstation. “Looks like he grabbed it when he fled the attack.”

Detective Ventrella spat. “Great. I’ll put an APB out on a person carrying a computer and accompanied by a monster.”

Miguel continued his examination of the shop, glancing at boxes, the equipment, the calendar on the wall. And then he froze.

Squid.

The calendar’s picture for December was of a squid in the open sea. Drawing nearer, he flipped through previous months. More squid. Tiny ones and beached giants. There were even squid stickers and squid magnets littered about… and suddenly, he realized whose shop he was standing in.

Avenging Angel.

It’d been two years since Miguel’s arrest—two years since he’d cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison-time by becoming a criminal informant for the NYPD. He was valuable because he knew the underground community. As with any community, there were decent folks… and some very bad ones.

Avenging Angel was one of the decent ones. They’d never met in real life—only through chatrooms. Yet like Miguel, he didn’t deal in weapons, drugs, or the more twisted things that some customers asked for. In fact, his specialty was bugs. Ants and bees, specifically. Both were important for farmers: bees for pollination, ants for soil aeration and natural pest control. Yet both species had been devastated by some kind of fungus—urban legend blamed genetic engineering by companies who then pressured farmers into paying monthly subscription rates for pesticides and robotic insects. So Avenging Angel programmed and manufactured his ants and bees, selling them cheap to farmers who needed them.

His online avatar was a squid.

Ventrella drew near. “Anything?”

Miguel stepped back from the calendar. “No.”

“Really?”

“I’ve only been here a minute, Rod.”

The detective grinned. “You know I’ve got a sniffer program running, right? Your voice is sending out a big ‘anxious’ flag.”

“That’s because I’m fucking anxious.” He turned away, pretending to be interested in the rest of the shop.

Ventrella trailed him. “Any idea who operated here?”

“I’ll have to examine the cartridges,” Miguel said, keeping his voice neutral. “If I can narrow down what materials he liked to print with, that might provide a clue.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’?”

“I don’t.”

“Because you said ‘he’.”

“Rod, I’m just spit-balling here.”

“Or maybe you’re protecting one of your buddies.”

“I don’t have buddies like that anymore.” His wristpad chimed with an incoming text, and he glanced at the screen:

DAD, HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU BE?

GIVE ME SOME LEAD-TIME FOR DINNER,

OKAY?

He typed back:

BE HOME SOON. CAN YOU MAKE STEAK?

Then, catching sight of his belt-defying gut, added:

LESS THAN 500 CALORIES, PLEASE? THANKS HONEY.

Then he noticed something on the floor.

A balled-up paper had been thrown near a wastebasket. Miguel picked it up, unraveled it.

On blue-lined paper, Avenging Angel had sketched some kind of monster. It was a hideous bug-thing, vaguely cicadalike. Bloated body and multi-jointed legs. Beneath it, in barely legible handwriting, were the words:

FOR SIS

Ventrella peered over his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“Don’t know.” Miguel blinked, taking an eye-capture.

“I’ll get it to the evidence team.” The detective took the page from him. “But it sure wasn’t a bug that killed those gunmen.”

“You don’t know that. A bug can be printed out to the size of a tiger. There are legends…”

“Yeah, yeah… spare me the urban legends.”

“I’m just saying that—”

“You’re not really saying much of anything.”

“I’m doing my best here.”

“I don’t think you are, Miguel. You’re being cagey and—”

“Quiet!”

The detective stiffened, realizing his mistake.

Oh my God, Miguel thought, heart hammering. He used my name! If Angel is listening to us remotely…

For a moment, he dared to hope the response team had swept this place for cameras. It was standard procedure, after all, to secure a crime scene. No one wanted criminals spying on an ongoing investigation.

The truth, however, was that cops were woefully behind the times. They didn’t understand what was possible. Even if you swept for onsite cameras, there were other ways to . . .

His gaze fell on a mouse in the corner.

Only a few inches long. Furry body. Black eyes and pink nose.

It was staring at him.

Staring without blinking. Without breathing.

Then it scurried into a hole and was gone.

II.

“Dad, you okay?”

Miguel turned from his troubled reflection on the apartment window. “Sorry. You were saying?”

His daughter Alexis raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t actually. You’ve just been staring out the window for like an hour now.”

He backed away from the glass: Unit 639’s view of the eccentric landscape of hive apartments. Five thousand people lived in Philips Hive. The structure was an active print-site; industrial-grade print-cranes could stack a new unit in just hours. Even now, Miguel watched them at work like long-necked dinosaurs in the moonlight, laying repurposed concrete like strings of toothpaste from industrial-grade nozzles.

“Sorry,” he said. “Long day.”

Alexis studied his face. She was seventeen, slight of frame, and with features like her mother, but with her father’s pensive eyes. “Long day?” she asked. “Or bad day?”

“Don’t know yet.”

And the truth was, he didn’t. It was potentially bad that Ventrella had used his name at a crime scene. The whole point of wearing a concealment visor was to protect the identity of criminal informants; they even filtered your voice. Ventrella’s carelessness had put him at risk.

On the other hand, maybe the mouse had been a real, living mouse. And even if it had been an artificial eavesdropper, what of it? No one in the fake-maker community knew Miguel’s real name.

Maybe I’m safe.

His daughter gently kicked his foot. “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” he said, tousling her hair. “What I want is to enjoy dinner with you. Steak, right?”

Alexis put her hands on her hips, adopting a stance of mock annoyance. “You have to eat your salad first. We agreed I’m in charge of your diet, remember? You need to be good, Dad.”

“I always try to be good.”

He seated himself before a bowl of colorful leaves, sprouts, tomatoes, and roots. It was all grown on-site: the residents of Philips Hive had created the most elaborate community garden since Babylon. Working together, they’d transformed their rooftops into a forest of high-nutrition crops. Squash, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, peas, watercress, spinach… they even flourished down trellises and windowsills, bolstered by cheap printed glass for greenhouses to protect it all from New York winters. The yield was good. The trend was spreading to other hives, weening people off food-printer services that were always raising their subscription rates.

“What about the steak?” Miguel asked, munching the last of his salad.

“Yeah, yeah.” Alexis hopped to the foodprinter, loaded a meat cartridge from a Philips ReadyMeals box, and punched in a code for a sirloin.

The steak was smaller than he preferred. She’d printed it in a lattice pattern, too, making it less caloric, and added the words “TOO MUCH OF ME IS BAD FOR MY HEART” across the top.

“So how was your day?” he asked, cutting into the meat as Christmas music played in the living room.

“I decorated the Christmas tree. Pretty cool, huh?”

“It looks nice. How was school?”
“Had a biology test today.”

“And?”

“Aced it, I hope.”

#

FOR SIS

The words burned in his mind through dinner, and when he took a shower afterwards, they followed him there too. FOR SIS. It meant nothing to him. Did Avenging Angel have a sister? Why would he make a bug for her? More likely it was code for one of his clients. Why they wanted a hideous bug was anyone’s guess. There was an urban legend about a killer who put his victims into a dark room with 3D-printed spiders, and watched via night-vision cameras as they relentlessly bit, slashed, and chewed their prey to pieces.

Miguel was happy to help cops hunt down freaks like that. For his part, he’d specialized in making medical supplies. He hacked and cracked the DRM on a variety of health drugs and medical prostheses. Having grown up in poverty, and watching his own parents die as a result of being unable to afford essential treatments, he wanted to create a low-cost market for those who needed it. He’d assumed that’s what would do him in eventually. But no, it was the one-time lion job that put him in jail. His wife filed for divorce; last he’d checked, she’d remarried and was living in Chicago. Her old life—he and Alexis—deleted like a spam email.

He finished his shower and slipped into a terrycloth robe. In the hallway, the air smelled of something freshly printed. The door to his office was open.

“Alexis?” he called. “Are you using the printer?”

His question was met with silence. The only sound in the apartment, in fact, was the Christmas music.

Miguel strayed to his office and peeked inside. The assembler thrummed from a recent job. The coffeemaker had been pushed aside to expose the power outlet.

Alexis didn’t drink coffee. She’d have no reason to move it.

“Alexis?”

Heart squirming uncomfortably, he padded to the living room. He saw the half-decorated tree. Wrapped presents on the floor. A crate of ornaments still to be opened.

Miguel froze.

Alexis stood in the living room, but something else was there with her. A freakishly skinny, tall creature, pale as a maggot. It held her firmly by the arms, while a third arm clapped a rubbery hand over her mouth.

It had no face.

The eggshell-smooth head was interrupted only by a bulging mouth crammed with teeth like icicles.

Alexis’ eyes widened as she saw her father. She gave a stifled cry. The eyeless creature rotated its head in his direction.

Miguel edged into the room, hands out in a gesture of parley. “What do you want?”

The nightmare mouth split into an enormous grin.

“Traitor,” it whispered.

The blood drained from Miguel’s face. “Angel,” he stammered, “I know you’re a good guy. We’re on the same side, okay? I didn’t tell them anything! I would never… NO!”

The creature hurled Alexis through the living room window. She fell, shrieking, into the night.

Down thirty stories.

Screaming the whole way.

Miguel screamed, too, as he charged headlong at the intruder. Before he could bat it aside, before he could look down and see his daughter’s broken body, the creature collapsed into a useless, dead pile. Like a marionette snipped of its strings. Only the mouth continued moving, plastic lips toggling between two configurations as it spoke the same word over and over.

“Traitor.”

III.

Detective Ventrella stepped around the shattered glass and peered over the unit’s ledge. His breath came in short, wispy bursts. For half a minute he stared, and when he turned back he was pale.

“You’re very lucky,” he said. “Both of you are very lucky.”

Miguel had one arm around Alexis as they huddled on the couch, a space heater pushing against December’s chill. “It was a thirty-story drop yesterday,” he muttered.

The other person in the room was Ms. Evelynn Philips, landlord of Philips Hive. She paced unhappily around the apartment, taking stock of the damage. She finally halted and pursed her lips at the crumpled, three-armed nightmare on the floor. “What the hell is it?” she demanded. “What the hell did you print?”

“I didn’t print anything,” Miguel said.

“This… this thing…”

“Someone hacked my assembler. They sent this thing over the Internet.”

“You’re responsible for this!”

“No, he’s responsible for this!” Miguel pointed to the detective. “Rod, you used my name at the crime scene! You violated my anonymity!”

Ventrella sighed. “Before we get into accusations, please tell me how a 3D-printout can come alive and attack someone. Where did it get power?”

Miguel thought about the moved coffeepot in the office. “You can build something with a spring, or a series of springs, all wound up tight, to achieve an initial kinetic burst. That can give your creation enough time to scan for a better power source. A wall outlet would be its goal. It plugs itself in. Charges up. Then enacts the rest of its programming.”

Attacking a young girl! he thought, feeling sick.

Alexis, for her part, had a few bruises on her back, but was otherwise unharmed. The hive’s ever-busy printer-cranes had extended residential units directly beneath Unit 639’s balcony. Instead of a thirty-story plummet, she’d dropped just three meters to a freshly printed, blessedly flat rooftop. Over the next few days, other units would be added.

“Unplug your assembler,” the detective said simply.

“That’s not good enough, Rod! He knows where I live now! He can send anything he wants after us.”

Mrs. Philips clucked her tongue. “Then your presence here is a threat. You can’t stay!”

“You can’t just kick us out!” Alexis snapped.

The woman’s face flushed angrily, but Ventrella cut across the next syllables out of her mouth.

“Let’s not make any hasty decisions, okay?” the detective said. “But I do agree the Falcóns should get out of Dodge for a few nights.” He glanced to the shattered window, then to the body on the floor. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry. I’ll put you and Alexis in a hotel on my dime. And I’ll assign a watch on the place.”

Miguel said nothing. He retreated to his bedroom and started packing for a few nights—clothes, toiletries, and his briefcase containing a portable assembler. His hands trembled. Once he was done, he opened his wristpad and went to his old fake-maker chatroom. Avenging Angel was still an active member—his profile said he’d last logged on fourteen hours earlier.

Miguel typed a private message and sent it:

YOU TRIED MURDERING MY DAUGHTER, YOU PIECE OF

SHIT. NOW I’LL MAKE IT MY LIFE GOAL TO CATCH YOU.

Ventrella dropped them off at a small, high-volume hotel by LaGuardia; Miguel grudgingly summoned a “thank you” and stalked away, ascending the stairs with Alexis rather than waiting for an elevator. Their rented room was on the fifth floor, but Miguel led his daughter up a single flight, then headed for the back stairs. To her astonishment, he steered her down to the rear parking lot.

Alexis hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “Um, what’s with the James Bond routine?”

He put a finger to his lips. “We’re not staying in the hotel.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not.”

“Don’t start sounding like Mom,” she hissed. “She pulled that crap all the time. ‘Because I said so.’ Obviously you said so. I want to know why.”

Miguel was trembling again. The memory of Alexis in the grip of that kill-machine—the sight of her being pitched out the window, the shattering glass, her scream… dear God in Heaven, his little girl’s scream…

“Ventrella means well,” he managed, “but he’s an idiot. He escorted us in a marked police cruiser straight from the hive. If anyone was watching us, they’ll know exactly where we checked in. So we can’t stay here.”

“Where are we going?”

“A safehouse.” He forged a smile. “You know, like James Bond.”

She didn’t smile in return. The night had begun to flurry, and in the falling snow she looked like a kid again. Hell, she was still a kid, and with the hat and mittens and pink coat she appeared young indeed. Alexis folded her arms folded over her chest, looking cross and scared. “Who is after us, Dad?”

“A very bad man.”

“A friend of yours?” she demanded.

“A criminal.”

“You’re a criminal,” she countered. “You always say you try to be good, but how good can a criminal really be?”

He darkened. “I’m not a criminal anymore.”

“You sent fucking lions over the Internet.”

“And limbs to people who needed them. Medicines to those who couldn’t afford them.”

“You don’t even know any of those people!”

“Who’s sounding like Mom now?”

“Maybe she was right!” Alexis shouted, and then caught the hurt look on his face. “I didn’t mean that.”

He dredged up his go-to response. “No worries.” An autodrive cardio-bus passed, people pedaling furiously on stationary bikes through their predawn commute.

Alexis wrapped her arms around him. “Mom left us. You stayed.”

“She still loves you.”

“The fuck she does.”

“Can you stop swearing, please?”

“Sorry.”

With her in his embrace, he checked the chatroom where he’d messaged Angel.

There was a response.

His jaw clenched as he read:

MEET ME AT TABBY’S ASS. 5:00 A.M. SHARP.

Miguel glanced at the time—it was 4:21 a.m. He closed the message as Alexis released him. She glanced meaningfully to his wrist.

“Spam message,” he said.

“You’re a terrible liar, Dad.”

“Sorry.”

“It was him, wasn’t it? The bad guy. He’s still coming after us.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

His daughter breathed slowly in the cold air. “By the way, where is this safehouse of ours?”

“About ten blocks that way.”

She stared along the road. “Ten blocks… wait. Seriously? Dad, you can’t be serious. You are serious, aren’t you?”

#

At the south entrance of Philips Hive, they crept inside and took the elevator all the way up to Unit 922. His knock was answered by a brunette woman dressed in sweater and jeans.

“My God!” the woman cried, drawing Miguel and Alexis inside. “I got your message! Please, come in!”

“It’s just for a couple days,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t have asked, but…”

The woman shook her head. “Stop that nonsense. You both stay as long as you need! We’re a community, right?” She grasped Alexis’s hand. “I’m Marilyn. I work with your father at the clinic.”

Alexis surveyed the apartment. It was a rooftop unit, extending onto the community garden’s greenhouses. “Interesting strategy, Dad. Our safehouse is the same place we left.”

“Who’d expect it?”

Marilyn ushered them to the couch. “Do you want coffee? Or hot chocolate? I can make breakfast if you want!”

“Marilyn, it’s okay. We just—”

“What happened?”

He hesitated. In the warmth of his coworker’s apartment, surrounded by so many growing things, it seemed dangerous to speak of the attack. Like uttering a demon’s name on holy ground.

“I can’t get into it now,” he said at last. “Just watch over my little girl, okay? I have to go.”

Marilyn blinked. “Go? Where could you possibly have to go right now?”

“Shopping, Marilyn. I have to go shopping.”

IV.

From outside, Tabitha’s Market appeared to be just another cheap-rate New York ferry running the East River, with garish lettering on the hull announcing TABITHA’S RIVER CROSSINGS. Below decks, however, the vessel was an illicit warehouse, a floor-to-ceiling maze of printer supplies. Most arrived from black markets, part of a shadowy supply chain delivered by submersible drone; lots of mechanical hands wheeling and dealing underwater like shuffling mahjong tiles in a smoky Chinatown den.

From the hive, Miguel took an autocab to Way’s Reef pier. There, he watched the Tabitha approach. Customers disembarked, others boarded, in silence.

He went below decks first, pretending to be interested in the market’s offerings while searching for his quarry. It was of little use; he didn’t know what Angel looked like. Didn’t know if Angel was a guy or gal. The market throbbed with fake-makers inspecting crates, looking for materials to create whatever they specialized in. Lots of printer cartridges. Lots of programs for sale.

At 5:00 a.m. sharp, Miguel went topside to the aft deck—Tabitha’s ass. Alone, he set his briefcase at his feet and stared across East River to the lights of Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and Scylla Point.

“I didn’t do anything to your daughter,” a voice growled.

Miguel spun around. He was still alone on deck.

“Where are you?”

“You’ll understand why I’m not going to answer that.”

The voice was coming from the floor, but the only thing on the floor was a discarded flyer. It took Miguel a moment to realize that the “flyer” was a chainmail mesh of tightly woven metallic links.

As he watched, a face rose up from the mesh.

Eyeless hollows. Simple boilerplate nose. Thin lips. Like a clay mask. Ever inventive, Avenging Angel must have boarded the ship at a previous stop and left this proxy communication channel. There were urban legends of people doing similar things… creating remote faces on bathroom mirrors, windshields, park benches…

The lips moved, the voice tinny from wherever it was being transmitted. “You’re a bigger dude than I thought, Miguel. I always pictured you as being skinny.” The eyes narrowed. “Never figured you for a snitch, either.”

“I provide crime scene consultation.”

“Justify it however you like.”

“There are bad apples in our ranks,” Miguel insisted.

“I’m not one of them.”

“You didn’t send some walking nightmare through my assembler?”

“Hell no!”

Miguel stared at the face. “Someone tried killing my little girl.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“You didn’t have a mouse watching me at your place?”

“Of course I did. I wanted to see what the cops were doing. But you were wearing a mask! I had no idea who you were… not until you threatened me online.”

Miguel steadied his breathing, mind racing. “Why did those gunmen attack you?”

“No goddam idea. I was sleeping when my perimeter alarm went off.”

“You killed them.”

“Of course I fucking killed them. They were obviously there to kill me. Self-defense is a natural right.”

“The cops think you sicced a robot lion on them.”

The face hesitated—and Miguel realized the movements were so lifelike that they must be a real-time display of Angel himself, wherever he was transmitting from. “So that’s why they brought you in, huh? They figured you sold me your cat software. Listen, I don’t need a goddam lion to protect myself.”

“What did you attack them with?”

“A couple buzzsaw drones. Cut them up like sashimi. They deserved it.”

“But who were they? You must have pissed somebody off.”

“Obviously.” The face licked its lips, tongue appearing like a fat worm. “I think it might be an order I declined.”

“What order?”

“Something I was asked to make. It was bad business, so I said no.”

Miguel thought about the crumpled-up illustration he’d found in the shop. “Was it an order for a bug?”

“Yeah. It was fucked up, what they wanted.”

A hand appeared below the face, rubbing the chin. The Tabitha was approaching the next dock—Hallet’s Point. Miguel absently looked at the small gathering waiting there. One of the people stood back from the others.

And that person was scratching his chin.

Hello, Angel, Miguel thought.

Trying not to stare, he muttered, “Someone hired you to make a giant bug?”

“It’s not giant. Quite the opposite. This customer sent me the specs and—ahhhh!”

As Miguel watched in disbelief, something swooped out of the sky. It grabbed Angel by the shoulders, and pulled him straight off the pier.

For a moment, Miguel thought it might be the very bug they were discussing. But no, this creature sported enormous wings like the sprawl of a kite. Angel shrieked—the sound issued from both the face on the flyer and the man in the sky. People gaped and pointed.

Then the creature dropped its quarry. Angel screeched wildly as he plummeted to the street.

The disembodied face flattened into silence.

V.

Miguel disembarked at Hallet’s Point. Fearfully watching the sky and clutching his briefcase, he hurried four blocks, sprinting from one store awning to the next, like a hunted rabbit scrambling for cover.

Finding a narrow alley—too narrow, he hoped, for any winged devil to make a descent—he called for an autocab. Snow collected on him in large, fat flakes, settling over his shoulders and briefcase. It was a quarter past five. The roads were deserted. Streetlights carved pyramidal cones of light.

He called Alexis while he waited.

“Hey, Dad!”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure! Marilyn is really cool!” She hesitated. “Why do you sound out of breath? Did something happen?”

“Everything’s fine, sweetie. I’m coming home now.” Miguel studied the desolate streets. An autocab pulled to the curb. “Sweetie, can you look something up for me? My fingers are shaking too much; it’s… um… really cold out.” He called up his photo library and emailed the eye-capture he’d taken of the bug from Angel’s shop. “Can you try running a web match on that and see if anything comes back?”

Alexis laughed. “Don’t need to. That’s phylloxera.”

He climbed into the cab. “Phyl… what?”

The line went dead.

Miguel examined his wristpad display, astonished at the NO SIGNAL message. The autocab sped away from the curb.

“Take me to Philips Hive South,” Miguel told the autocab, as he tried warming his hands to call Alexis back. The NO SIGNAL message persisted. How could there be no signal in goddam Queens? The only way that made any sense was if the signal was being blocked.

At the source.

The vehicle accelerated along 27th Avenue, banked sharply onto a connecting street, and fishtailed onto Hoyt Street South, barreling west.

“Pull over here,” he said.

Ignoring his instructions, the vehicle tore through an intersection. Passing Crescent Street. Increasing speed.

“I said pull over!”

Like any New Yorker, he’d been in his share of autocabs—hardly anyone owned personal vehicles anymore. The vehicle flew past 23rd Street. Then 21st.

“Who are you?’ Miguel demanded.

There was no response.

“Goddam it, I’m no threat to you. Neither is my daughter!” His voice cracked. “Please!”

They sped by 18th Street, Astoria Park blurring past. He tried the doors. They were locked.

Where’s it taking me? Or is it simply going to drive into a building? Into oncoming traffic? Into… into…

“The river,” he whispered helplessly.

Acting out of desperation, Miguel drew back his arm and elbowed the window.

It was like striking a steel door. If the window was glass, it was several inches thick. Unbreakable and secure from cell phone signals. An inescapable Faraday cage on wheels.

Acting out of instinct, Miguel grabbed his briefcase. He frantically typed on the LED screen.

Then the car was airborne.

It hit the waters of East River.

And sank like a stone into sepulchral gloom.

#

For a moment, Miguel wondered how waterproof the car was. It had obviously been designed for moving prisoners or abductees in total secrecy—crazily, he imagined a glossy brochure promising customers “secure transport.” Something not available to the general public.

But then he heard water pouring into the vehicle. Felt the icy bite at his ankles. Water so cold it was like acid seeping through his socks.

His heart skipped a beat in horror.

I’m going to drown! Drown in total darkness. My mysterious enemy is tying up loose ends.

The cab struck the river-bottom. Freezing water surged up to his thighs.

Will Alexis be safe? Or is she the next victim?

The water was up to his stomach. His breath came in shallow bursts. It rose to his chest like the constricting coils of an invisible python.

Then a light bloomed at his feet. Tiny letters on his briefcase LED read:

PRINTJOB COMPLETE

In his line of work, it was helpful to have a mobile assembler. Potential clients were impressed when you could create prototypes on the spot.

The water was up to his neck. Miguel plunged his hands into freezing water, grasped the briefcase, and pried it open, fighting against the growing water pressure.

A pair of spiked knuckles lay in the print-tray. It was still hot to the touch as he fitted his fingers through the loops. Raising his fist above the water, he punched the window.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared.

He drew back and hit it again. And again. Just as the water swallowed his head, the window collapsed.

The water was so cold he wanted to scream. Miguel felt his body downshifting to early hypothermia. Stiff and ungainly, he squeezed through the window frame, the briefcase in one hand as his only source of heat. He was in blackness. Floating in space. Unsure of directions. For all intents and purposes, an entity without form. An idea before creation.

Then he saw light above him—maybe the moon, maybe a New York streetlamp—and he kicked towards it, hearing his daughter’s voice in memory.

Dad! I decorated the tree. Pretty cool, huh?

Miguel breached the surface. Sucked fresh air into his lungs, backpaddled ashore with leaden limbs. By the time he attained the riverbank, he was weeping in relief, clutching his briefcase for the meager warmth it retained.

“Hey!” a voice cried. “What the hell, man?”

Weakly, he raised his head. Above the riverbank, a tow-truck had parked, and the driver stood with a cigarette in one hand and coffee in the other. The man gazed down at him in disbelief.

Miguel staggered up the embankment. “You got heat in your truck?”

“Sure… but…”

He yanked open the door and collapsed into the seat. The driver came around to his side and studied him with sad eyes.

“Hey, pal? I know things get bad around this time of year, okay? But I’m sure you have a reason to live.”

Shivering, Miguel muttered, “I do.”

“Well… that’s great! Hey, you want this coffee?”

Miguel accepted the cup with frozen hands. The first sip hit his stomach like a firecracker. With thawing fingers, he called his daughter.

She picked up instantly. “Dad? You okay? The call dropped.”

“I’m… okay… yes.”

“Why are you still out of breath?”

“You were… telling me… about the bug I sent you.”

“We studied it in biology. It’s a tiny mite. Almost microscopic. It infests the roots of plants. A long time ago, they nearly destroyed all grapevines in Europe. They burrow into roots and kill them.”

He remembered something Angel had said.

It’s not giant, quite the opposite.

Miguel conjured the eye-capture. He stared hard at the scrawled letters above it:

FOR SIS

“They’re not letters,” he said. “They’re numbers. Three numbers.”

“Dad?”

“Sorry, honey. Gotta go.” He disconnected the call and looked to the truck driver. “You’ve already been very kind to me. But I need a ride.”

“Sure, pal! Where to?”

“The Philips Hive,” he said, settling back into the seat.

“Which unit?”

“515.”

VI.

Philips Hive had at its center a 3D-printed, Tudor-style castle—Unit 515—owned and lived in by Mrs. Evelynn Philips, landlord and owner of the entire structure.

It was past 6 a.m. when Miguel came within sight of the slumlord’s dwelling. Passing by printed replicas of Renaissance statues along the path, he was surprised to see two people sitting together on the porch. A heater rattled above them. A bottle of champagne sat on a small table, with two half-filled glasses.

Even from a distance, Miguel recognized Evelynn Philips straight away, golden hair matching the shade of her drink. And from the way she shot to her feet, she certainly recognized him, too.

“What are you doing back?” she cried.

“Figured I’d bring my rent check in person,” he said, and he regarded the man she sat with. “Hi, Rod.”

The detective’s eyes widened in surprise. “Fake-maker?”

“A little late to be taking a statement, isn’t it?”

“I’m… um… trying to locate your attacker…”

“If you mean Avenging Angel, don’t bother. He’s not the guilty party. Besides, he’s no longer with any party.” Miguel watched him. “But I assume you know that. Hence the champagne.”

Ventrella was typically the portrait of measured, smug calm. But now, he was so visibly shocked by the sight of Miguel that his mouth quivered, as if trying out various excuses and finding none palatable.

Mrs. Philips was in a similar state of apoplexy. “I ordered you off this property, Mister Falcón!”

Miguel glanced at her. “Not every order is followed. Like your order… for a tiny bug that infests plant-roots and destroys them.” He looked skyward to the rooftop greenhouses glinting by dull morning light. “The community garden. That’s what this is about.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“There are no grocery stores around here. If residents of Philips Hive want food, they pay monthly subscriptions to Philips ReadyMeals. A nice secondary revenue for you.” He glared. “At least, until our community garden started.”

The infamous landlady had frozen in place.

By contrast, Detective Ventrella grinned, like a mischievous kid whose plan has been uncovered and, instead of shame, feels pride in its revelation. “Nicely done,” he said.

Ms. Philips swallowed. “Rod, this man is trespassing…”

“Drop the act, Evelynn,” the detective said. “And be careful what you say. He’s just clever enough to try recording this conversation.”

Miguel shivered in fury. “When we started growing our own food, that bit into your profits. You needed something to bite back. I’m guessing you investigated ways of outlawing the garden, but that’s not easy: changes to lease agreements, legal challenges, and a lot of bad press. It would be easier to just kill off the garden. You went to your boyfriend here, asked him to subcontract a fake-maker…” He regarded Ventrella. “Someone like Angel, who you figured wouldn’t refuse. Except he did.”

The detective descended the porch steps. He pulled a scanner from his coat pocket and frisked Miguel with it.

“He’s not recording us,” Ventrella said at last.

“Good!” the woman said. “Get rid of him!”

“Gotta admire his tenacity.”

Miguel felt his anger like a ball of light in his chest. “You wanted me dead, fine. Why go after Alexis? Why try murdering a little girl?”

The detective laughed. “If I wanted her dead, she’d be dead. I knew the rooftop was there. I just needed to rile you, Miguel—get you mad enough to lead me to Angel.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Relax.”

“Relax?”

“Think of this as a business opportunity.”

Miguel stared at him incredulously.

“Angel wouldn’t play ball. But we still need someone to print those bugs. That’s you, Miguel.”

Ms. Philips snapped, “Rod, how the hell can we trust him?”

“Because he cares about his daughter, and he knows what I can do to her. How about it? Build us those bugs. In a couple weeks, the hive gardens die off. Dead of winter, people will rush to resubscribe to Evelynn’s service.”

“And in return?”

Ventrella’s forehead creased. “In return? I get you the best Christmas gift any father could ask for. You and your daughter get to live.”

Miguel stared at the detective’s smile. Saw the lie behind the expression, like the artificial ligaments beneath a printed beast. It made him sick. For a moment he thought he was actually going to vomit into the snow, but he choked back bile.

He cleared his throat.

He closed his eyes.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said flatly. “But for the sake of my daughter, I will.”

“Great!” The detective slapped his shoulder. “Then why don’t you go home and get fucking started? Bugs, Miguel. No lions, no manticores. Bugs only.”

“Bugs only,” Miguel echoed, and his wristpad trilled.

“Dad?” his daughter said. “You okay?”

He withdrew from Unit 515, retreating along the statue-lined path as Philips and Ventrella watched him go. “Hey sweetie. I’m on my way home.”

“Marilyn and I were just making breakfast. I really like her.” Alexis hesitated. “I’m sorry about what I said before. When I called you a criminal. You’re not a criminal. I know you’re a good guy.”

Miguel found his briefcase where he’d stashed it at the head of the path. “I do try, honey.”

“You sound weird. Is everything okay?”

“Everything will be.” His briefcase LED glowed:

PRINTJOB COMPLETE

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too. See you soon.”

By the time sunrise hatched over Astoria, the story was already spreading. But the world was full of stories, Miguel thought. Urban legends arising from the new age of magic-made-real. Like a burgeoning tale from Africa, about a foreign company coming under siege by strangely indestructible lions. Or street gossip of printed monsters that could snatch people into the sky.

Or how a New York slumlord and her detective boyfriend were devoured by unstoppable ants…

Brian Trent is the award-winning author of the sci-fi thrillers Redspace Rising and Ten Thousand Thunders, and more than a hundred short stories appearing in the world’s top fiction markets. This includes the New York Times’ best-selling Black Tide Rising series, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Apex, Cosmos, Flash Fiction Online, Flame Tree Publishing’s Gothic Series, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, Galaxy’s Edge, and numerous year’s best anthologies including back-to-back installments of The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF (for which he was the recipient of the 2019 Reader’s Choice Award). He is also a Writers of the Future winner.

Trent is a lifelong aficionado of classic science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and is the host of the podcast Space Station Squid where he discusses the genre. He can be found online at www.briantrent.com.

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