Element Zero (24 page)

The revivor on the tarmac moved quickly as it clutched the canister to its chest. Up ahead, through the snow, the third revivor in the chain waited.

Let me know the second the reaction starts. If we can retake control of the facility and the transmitter, we might still be able to stop this.

Faye’s connection turned from green to red. It went out. The link dropped.

Faye?

“Three minutes, Agent.”

On the tarmac, I saw the revivor stop short in the snow. A second later, the feed went dark.

8

REVENANT

Calliope Flax—Stillwell Corps Base

A door to my right bashed open as they shoved their way into the hall behind me. I picked up speed and put some distance between us, but got stopped at the end of the hall by a metal door with panes of safety glass. I put two slugs into one of them and kicked out a hole, then squeezed through as they rushed in behind me. Palms slammed against the glass, and one grabbed at my boot as I started to run.

Vika, you ready?

Rdy.

It’s going to be close.

Behind me I heard them smash out the rest of the glass. Down the main hall I could see the back exit, with a guard station between walls of bulletproof glass. Past that was the back lot, and outside the bodies were already piling up. They’d mobbed the door, beating on it with their palms and fists.

I’m not getting out this way, kid.

They surged against the wall, and the metal frame squealed on its hinges. Back behind me, they were closing in. I aimed my pistol and put down the two in front, but it didn’t slow them down much.

Kid—

A crash came from the lot, and I turned to see an armored military truck plow into the crowd on its way to the back exit. It didn’t slow down as revivors were smashed against the grille and dragged underneath. Up in the cab, I saw the kid grip the wheel as she braced for the impact.

The glass caved in and the metal frame broke loose from the concrete as the truck smashed through the guard station and into the back lobby. Glass sprayed down the hall and cold air blew through the gap.

The kid revved the engine and waved me in. I fired a couple more rounds into the crowd behind me, then jumped through the wreckage toward the cab. A hand grabbed my boot as I pulled the passenger’s door, and I turned and shot a woman in the face between her black eyes. I threw myself in the seat and slammed the door behind me. There was a rifle propped against the dash inside.

“Can you shoot?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Switch places!”

She squirmed past me and grabbed the rifle as I got behind the wheel. They pulled her door open, and she fired three quick shots. An expended shell burned the back of my hand as bodies fell into the snow, and she pulled the door shut again and pounded the lock.

Gears ground as I slammed the truck into reverse and stomped on the gas. Bodies thumped against the rear of the truck as I cut the wheel and hit the brakes. Outside, one of them smashed a trash can against Vika’s window, but it held. She cracked it open and fired out the slit. Shells trailed smoke as they pinged off the dash and onto the floor.

“Hold on!”

The back lot led to a side street through a short connector, and I aimed for it. Tires spun in the snow, then we lurched forward. Faces flashed in the headlights before they got creamed against the grille and went under.

Metal and glass popped as we clipped a parked car and pushed out onto the street. There were more of them out there, maybe hundreds. They swarmed us, piling up as we smashed through. At the main road, I smashed the nose of a passing car, and bodies tumbled into the street as I hit the brakes.

They climbed over the grille and onto the hood. Vika fired the rifle again as I picked up speed and rolled over them. A few slipped off, but one hung on the driver’s-side mirror. I jerked the wheel, and it was scraped off as I swiped a parked car.

“Shit!”

Horns blared, and I felt the rifle’s muzzle flash on the side of my face. Tires squealed and the truck started to slide. We spun out, and metal and glass crunched as we hit something hard.

“Goddamn it!”

Something hit the driver’s-side window. Bodies slammed against the truck and hands tried to pull the doors open. Another one jumped on the hood and stomped down on the windshield. I punched the gas again and broke out of the snowbank. Bodies thumped under the tires as I gunned it down the street. Soldiers scrambled, firing into the crowd but there were too many of them.

Up ahead, way in the distance, I saw the smoke. The spot where the CMC Tower used to be was nothing but black smoke that rolled down the streets and swallowed up everything. Mobs of people ran to try to get out of the way of it, and more revivors were coming. The CMC was southwest of the Stillwell compound. I pulled up the GPS and plotted a route to the north gate.

“They’ll try and follow,” I said. “I’m going to lead them off the base!”

I cut the wheel again and took a side street toward the compound’s main strip. With the smoke in our rearview mirror I watched as the bodies fell off behind us, still running in our direction.

Faye Dasalia—Heinlein Industries, Test Facility Five

The revivor stood stone still, the metal canister clutched to its body. Wind sheared across the tarmac, whipping its clothes around it.

“Faye, what are you doing?” MacReady asked.

“It wasn’t me,” I said. Someone else was in my head. They’d shunted their way into my command node and put a hold on my communications.

“Faye—”

“I fucking knew it,” a voice said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ang Chen step through the doorway, a pistol clutched in one hand. His eyes moved from me to MacReady, then back.

MacReady held up his hands and stepped forward, but stopped when Ang pointed the gun at his chest.

“Ang—”

“You were overruled, Bob. You should have stayed out of it.”

“Chen, he destroyed the CMC Tower,” MacReady said. “He’s going to—”

“You don’t know what’s at stake,” Ang said. His voice was still calm, but his eyes had grown wide. The hot mass of his heart thudded in his chest.

“Ang, please,” MacReady said, as he took another step. “Think about—”

The gun boomed as Ang fired a single shot. MacReady staggered back and dropped the electronic pad to the floor. He stared down at his side, where blood had begun to spread through his shirt.

Ang aimed to fire again, and MacReady lunged. Not toward Ang, but toward me. His fingers, warm with blood, touched my neck, and I felt the metal rod slide out of the back of my head. The control lock winked out, and impulses began to flow back down the length of my spine. My system tree reestablished. I could move again.

Ang fired. The bullet shattered through MacReady’s front teeth, then exploded out through the back of his neck. His body fell against the wall behind him, then collapsed onto the floor. Chen stood, still pointing the gun, as smoke drifted slowly out of the barrel.

“I know what’s at stake,” I told him.

Chen’s eyes flicked to me and stared. “Shut up,” he said.

“I know what they did to me—”

“So do I!” he barked. “They got to me too, and I know it now! I know everything! Every goddamned thing!”

The gun shook in his fist as he held it out. The network of veins stood out under his skin, like spiderwebs of warm light, and I knew he was very close to the edge. I realized then that when he said he knew, he meant he really did know; his memories had returned. Somehow, Fawkes had found a way to return them while still leaving him alive.

Whatever happened to him, whatever he’d done and been made to forget, he’d come face-to-face with it. Whatever it was, he couldn’t accept it. Without a revivor’s disconnectedness, he was losing control.

“Fawkes woke you,” I said, and I could see it was true. “How—”

“Shut up!” He stepped forward and stuck the gun in my face. He took two steps toward me, and the end of the barrel pushed into my cheek.

I fired the bayonet and struck Ang’s gun hand with it. The pistol went off near my ear, as blood spurted from the notch cut in his wrist. He staggered back, blood seeping through his shirt cuff. Blood dripped down onto the floor as he clutched his wounded arm. He raised the gun again, but he couldn’t hold it straight.

Suddenly, something forced him out of my head, and the communications block was released. The revivor connections came back online. When he realized what happened, Ang’s eyes widened.

“Who did that?” he whispered. “Who else is helping you?”

Faye? Faye, are you reading me?
It was Nico.

I’m here.
I checked the revivor feeds and saw the units perk up as the command spokes reformed. They found me.

Ang transferred the gun to his left hand and took aim. He followed me as I circled the table and fired a single shot that went wild. I could sense him digging into my systems, trying to reestablish the override. I pointed my own gun in his direction.

“Drop that connection,” he said.

The remote unit carried the canister across the Pratsky Building, where the last revivor in the chain waited down in a darkened stairwell. I watched them make eye contact with each other, meeting halfway on the stairs. The last unit accepted the canister, then turned and made its way down.

Both guns went off, and a bullet struck my chest. I grazed Ang’s shoulder as he fired again, punching through my right elbow. It triggered the mechanics in my forearm, causing it to split apart. The pistol flipped free from my hand and spun across the floor.

I ducked under the table as the final revivor picked up speed down a long corridor and into the main climate-control center. I swung the bayonet and slashed Ang’s hamstring. He screamed, and I heard his gun thump down onto the table above me.

I stood and saw him reel, hopping on one foot. He lunged for his weapon but stumbled and fell. I pulled the bayonet back, preparing to deliver the killing blow, when Samuel Fawkes appeared in the doorway.

Two soldiers followed him in. They aimed their rifles at me.

“Stop,” Fawkes said. His eyes glowed flatly in the dim light. Ang looked back, his face dark. A vein pulsed at his neck. Three more revivors filed in from behind Fawkes and took positions around him. They all had automatic rifles at the ready.

“Pick up your gun, Mr. Chen.”

He reached across the table, smearing blood, and recovered the weapon. He hopped back, and one of the revivors held him steady.

I felt Fawkes connect, and he began to scan my systems. He poked around, looking for a way in. His owl’s eyes didn’t change expression.

“Who is controlling you?” he asked.

“She’s running some kind of virtual command connections,” Ang said. “I tried to shut her down when someone blocked me, someone from inside. Someone besides MacReady is helping her.”

“Virtual command connections to where?”

“I wasn’t able to trace them before I got kicked off.”

In the feed, I saw a pair of hands place the tank on the concrete floor as the revivor scanned the room. A huge turbine of some kind took up most of the space there, surrounded by smaller blocks of machinery and rows of metal ductwork. The main pipe stood higher than a man. According to the building’s schematic, that was the main outflow pipe.

All nodes, report in.
Fawkes’s eyes looked distant as the responses began to pour in. It would take time to process them all, but not much.

On the feed, the revivor grabbed the tank and approached the pipe. Using a cutter, it opened a hole large enough to squeeze through, leaving one corner attached. It peeled back the lid, and I could see its uniform begin to ripple madly as the air escaped. From far off, I heard a low whistle moan through the halls.

Fawkes looked back through the doorway.

“What is that?”

The revivor passed the tank through the hole, then climbed in after it. Inside the pipe it was dark, but its night vision allowed me to see the interior as it reached back through, grabbed the metal lid, and pulled it back. The whistle went up in pitch as the revivor held the metal in place, its fingers stuck through the seam.

Fawkes began issuing orders over the command spokes. In minutes, a squad of revivors would be down there, and he’d know.

Faye, I’m shutting down the circulation to T5.
The message came not from Nico, but from Dulari. She’d been monitoring us. I tried to respond, to tell her that Fawkes was here with me, but the circuit was one-way, so it couldn’t be traced back.

A low thud came from somewhere in the building. The airflow to the room we were in stopped. Fawkes continued to watch me impassively as he ran a trace on the override circuit.

The revivor in the pipe gripped the tank between its legs, still holding the pipe lid shut with one hand. It used its free hand to open the tank, and icy mist began to drift from the mouth. It pushed the tank over with one foot and liquid gushed out, down the pipe. When it hit the air, it exploded in a cloud of gas. I caught a glimpse of the revivor’s arm and hand as they bubbled and dissolved away. I saw the mechanism that held the blade inside the forearm as the muscle and flesh melted; then the feed warped and went black.

It’s away,
Dulari said.
Critical saturation should occur within minutes.

Fawkes looked down at MacReady’s body, then back to me. “What did he tell you, Faye?”

“He said you’re going to destroy the city.”

“That’s bullshit,” Chen said. “She—”

“Take Mr. Chen to be treated, please.”

The revivor that was holding him up steered him toward the doorway and began half dragging him out. Over his shoulder, Chen glared at me, red-faced.

“What else did he say?” he asked.

“Just do it,” I said. “Kill me.” He stepped closer, and his soldiers crowded in behind him.

“Not until I’ve had a chance to look through your memory core,” he said. “Something’s going on here. What else did Mr. MacReady tell you?”

“He said you’d destroy the city no matter what anyone did.”

“If I wanted to destroy the city, then I’d do it. I have the capability to do it right now. I could issue one order and it would be done. I have no intention of destroying the entire city.”

Fawkes stopped short. Orange light glowed in the darks of his eyes.

“One of the gen-eight nodes just dropped off,” one of the soldiers said.

A message came in over the command network, instructing all revivors inside the missing unit’s patrol perimeter to report the location of the missing node. One by one the responses would be coming back.

“Faye, what did you do?”

Faye,
Nico sent,
get him out of there. He needs to be inside the dispersion area.

There wasn’t any other option. I opened a channel to Dulari and tried to warn her, even as Fawkes began tracing it.

Dulari, open the blowers to this room,
I said, but she didn’t respond.

Fawkes came farther into the room. Through the open doorway I could see down the corridor to the other end, where two guards stood in the main corridor. He stepped past the body on the floor and stopped in front of me.

“You still belong to me.”

He finally broke through, then, and released the locks on my systems. He reestablished the command spoke and tapped into my nodes.

“Now tell me: what did you do?” Data spilled by in front of me as he accessed everything. He found the packages Nico had installed. He found the virtual command network hidden inside his own. He identified the end nodes, and his eyes widened just a fraction.

Something clattered in the hall outside the room, and he turned suddenly. Through the doorway, I saw the guards sway on their feet as white smoke began to stream from their flesh. A crackling sound filled the air, and both figures collapsed inside their uniforms. Their remains splashed to the floor, dissolving away to nothing.

The guard closest to the door slammed it shut. Fawkes turned back to me and stared. It was one of the few times I saw anything resembling emotion in his eyes. He tried to shut down the virtual links and found that they wouldn’t respond.

“Kill her!” he barked. One of his guards took a step, then all at once they seized and fell to the floor. The Leichenesser hadn’t made its way into the room; someone had hijacked them and shut them down remotely.

“Dulari,” Fawkes hissed.

Faye,
Nico sent.
Get him out into that corridor. It’s the last chance you’ll have.

Orange light flickered in Fawkes’s eyes, and a moment later a thud drummed through the floor as the air circulators shut down. The others must have reached the control center.

Fawkes issued a broadcast and pulled a node count. Already it had dropped to a third of his original forces. He slammed one fist down on the table.

Faye, take him now.
Fawkes stepped closer and looked into my eyes, like he was staring through a window at something, or someone else.

Wachalowski,
he sent.

He grabbed my throat with one hand and squeezed.