Element Zero (30 page)

Faye Dasalia—Satellite-Dish Control Tower

The entrance to the transmitter’s control room required security clearance, but Heinlein’s systems were still offline and the scanner was dark. I pulled it open, and lights flickered on overhead as I stepped inside. The room was situated off the northern face of the building, with a huge, wide window that looked out onto the base of the transmitter itself. The outer rim of the main dish formed an arc across the sky far above.

There were many sets of clothes strewn throughout the room. Empty shirts lay against the backs of several chairs, still situated inside suit coats, neckties still in place. Pants legs dangled over empty shoes. Fawkes had forced them to initiate the first code transfer, then he’d had them killed at their workstations.

I’ve accessed the control room,
I told Nico.

I pulled up the instructions that Dulari had given me, along with the sample. The dish should still be aligned with the geosynchronous satellite in orbit above from the previous transmission, but I had to make sure. I tapped into the system and began the verification as I scanned the room. There were arrays of panels covered in minute controls and readouts, none of which I recognized or understood.

Using the included map of the consoles, my computer was able to identify both the main control station and also the image reader that would analyze and queue the sample for transmission. After that, I had no choice but to take Dulari’s instructions on faith.

Queuing up the current version requires two keys,
the instructions indicated.
They may still be in place. If not, use the provided override code.

I found the console and checked it. She was right; each panel was fitted with a large metal key with a thin hanging chain. Each was turned to the ON position.

Fixed beneath them was a thin metal door with a turn latch. With a twist, I pulled it open, and cold mist drifted out.

Satellite alignment verified.

Reaching through the mist, my fingers found the edge of the sample container, and I pulled it out of the bay. Carefully, I removed the sample Dulari had given me from its case and slid it into the slot. I shut the door and when I turned the latch, several lights on the console lit up. Messages began to scroll across one of the screens there.

Sample inserted.

Verifying version stamp . . .

Verifying authentication code . . .

Verifying certificate . . .

Green lights pulsed in response to each, and something thumped in the floor. The hum of electricity filled the room.

Validating sample . . .

Another screen blinked on and began cascading messages faster than I could read. A percentage appeared in one corner and began to creep up from 0 toward 100.

The door crashed open behind me and I turned in time to see a figure in a suit step through. The man leaned heavily on a crutch and held a pistol out in one hand. When he limped into the light, I recognized him immediately.

“Ang—”

He fired, and the bullet struck me in the left shoulder. Air from inside the suit began to leak through the hole as I staggered and fell back onto my side. Two more shots went off and struck the floor near my head as I kicked away, pushing myself behind one of the consoles.

Blood began to run down my arm as air blew through the hole in the suit. As soon as the pressure let up, air from the outside would make its way in.

As I heard Ang limp toward the console to shut down the sequence, I turned my gun on the window that overlooked the dish and fired. The glass stopped some, but not all, of the rounds.

I grabbed the nearest chair and gripped it by one metal leg. Pushing myself up off the floor, I spun it around and struck the broken glass.

Two more bullets struck me from behind as a spiderweb of cracks gave way in the observatory window and the chair sailed out into the dark in a shower of glass. Wind and snow shrieked through the jagged opening as I turned and aimed the gun at Ang.

He tried to dart away, but his injured leg gave out from underneath him. As he fell, the bullet punched through the wall behind him. I pulled the trigger again, but the hammer just clicked.

Something behind the row of consoles crashed, and I saw him get back to his feet, a vein bulging in his neck and his face red. He fired again as I began to barrel toward him. There was no way to know if the air was safe, but the seal on the suit was already broken.

I triggered the bayonet, and it sliced through the palm of the glove as I closed the gap between us.

Zoe Ott—Alto Do Mundo

As I focused on Ai, the halo appeared around her head like a thin laser and tried to push me back. She had turned all of her energy onto me, but I wasn’t afraid. Suddenly the air was as cold as ice and everything was crystal clear. Something warm ran from one of my nostrils and tickled my upper lip before dripping off the end of my chin.

“Zoe . . .” Ai gasped, and the halo warped. I pushed my way closer, and her eyes widened.

“Zoe, stop.”

Something slammed down the hall, and Penny turned. Behind her, I saw one of the smoked-glass doors open, and a woman in uniform stalked through. Her black hair was short, and there were tattoos on her neck. As her boots tromped down the hall, I could feel the anger radiate from her.

You.
It was Flax, the one who’d killed Karen.

Penny flicked out both batons, extending them as she marched down the hall to meet her. She was strong, but she was in pain, and I could see her limp just a little as she walked. Behind her, she left a trail of dots on the tile.

I felt Ai worm her way into my brain and I turned back to her, struggling to push her back as I remembered the dead woman’s words in my last vision. The words she’d said when she showed me that woman marching toward Penny with death in her eyes.

“She will take away the last thing that is dear to you.”

“Penny, wait!” Ai was overwhelming me. I could feel her beginning to take control. Penny was going to die. She was going to die right in front of me.

“Stop!”

I turned on Ai, and everything, all the fear and the hate and the desperation, came out at once. I smashed through the barrier she’d thrown up, and emerged on the other side like a missile entering the atmosphere. The fragments of color below were like a work of art, an intricate field of stained glass that contained more knowledge than I would ever know in my lifetime. They floated above a storm of emotion that no one ever saw; the loss of everything she ever cared about, the knowledge that she would never reach old age, fear for the future that would unfold when she was gone . . . and throughout it all, guilt. Deep inside, buried under layers and layers of duty and discipline and justification, was a remorse so intense it was almost blinding.

I saw remorse for everything she had done—every person she had killed or allowed to die, every life she’d destroyed or allowed to be destroyed. She carried it all deep within, even a truth that Penny had known all along: she’d let Karen be taken away, because she knew that without her I would find solace in them. She knew. She knew everything and she did it anyway.

The only thing I hadn’t expected was the remorse, made all the worse by the one, childlike fear that she kept as a secret in her heart of hearts.

I don’t think I can stop it.

“You don’t kill me,” I heard her whisper as I reached for the white band from which all the other light sprang. “I die from—”

Something in her brain burst. The halo disappeared and she twitched in shock. One hand desperately reached out at nothing, and the tiny fingers closed around a fistful of air.

“Don’t . . . ”

Her colors didn’t disappear, but they shifted suddenly. The stained glass of her mind melted and skewed. All the beauty went out of it. In an instant, it turned to something jumbled and meaningless.

One of her eyelids drooped. Her eyes rolled back, and then the colors faded and scattered.

She fell, and her large head struck the tile with a heavy thud.

I swayed on my feet, smearing something wet from under my nose and across my cheek. Ai’s little body lay on the floor, her clothes fluttering in the wind as it blew down the hall. A little speck of hot blue that reminded me of a pilot light fluttered above her head. I stared at it, pawing at the inside of my jacket until I found the flask there. I took off the cap and dropped it on the floor as I took a long swallow. The last splash ran down the side of my mouth; then it was empty.

I looked at the big Z monogram etched in the smoked glass and felt my throat burn. Ai had given that to me. Tears blurred in my eyes as that little pilot light went out, and Ai was gone.

I tossed the flask and heard it smash on the floor. It didn’t matter. There wouldn’t be any tomorrow. Not for me, or any of us.

Reaching back out into the night, I found Vaggot again as my last vision began to seep into my mind. For a minute I was in the dark, and a rolling field began to form: dark hills covered in wet grass and fog. Wind rushed over me, moaning through trees somewhere far away, where there were no buildings and you could see the stars and the moon. The ground began to move, and I saw that the field in front of me was crowded with figures. A mob of misshapen heads bobbed and swayed against the moonlit sky like boiling, black water, and thousands of eyes stared back at me.

Mr. Vaggot, how soon?

Less than five minutes.

Five minutes. In five minutes, it would all be over.

I don’t want to die.
That was the last thing I sensed from him.

I’ve seen your future,
I assured him.
Believe me, you don’t want it.

Calliope Flax—Alto Do Mundo Penthouse

At the penthouse, I’d followed the signal until I came to a glass door in a long hall where a bunch of bodies sprawled out on the floor. They were decked out in body armor, weapons scattered around them where they fell, along with big chunks of safety glass that had been blown out behind them. The glass panel was gone, and the hall opened right out into open air where shredded drapes flapped in the wind. Snow blew in on a rush of cold air.

Past the bodies, I saw her; I knew that beak nose and bony neck the second I saw them. Her long, red hair blew in the breeze as she stared at some other little twerp with her, some freaky-looking Asian chick with a big head. They didn’t even look like they heard me as I picked up the pace and started toward them.

Halfway there, I heard something behind me. I stopped and spun around in time to see a small figure lunge. It was a spooky-looking girl with black hair and blue eyes. She had a metal baton in each hand.

You . . .

The bitch was fast. The air chirped and one of the batons hit my gun hand hard. Black blood popped from the back of it as the skin split open. I fired two rounds, but they went wild.

Error.

The word flashed as warnings scrolled about the damage to the dead hand. A piece of yellow bone stuck through the skin where she hit it, but there was no pain. Pins and needles ticked down my arm as I squeezed the grip harder and tried to steady the gun. She moved in again.

“I know you,” I said. Her eyes were focused and intense, but there was pain there too. Her shirt was stained with blood, and when I scanned into the meat behind it, I saw a small, bright bullet lodged there. She was hurt.

“You should have done your job on the tanker,” she said. Her pupils opened up, and I felt a little dizzy. “This would all be over.”

It was her. That bitch who stopped me at the train station when I got back from my tour. The one who took my memories. She had me cut open right inside my own apartment and wired a bomb through my guts, then made sure I ended up on that boat so they could blow it up. She’d fixed it so I never knew. I remembered that dizziness now. It was the same as when Singh tried to tweak me back at the roadblock. It was the same every time one of them fucked with my head, but this time the feeling passed.

“What’s the matter?” I said. “Your little ace in the hole not working any—”

She moved fast. At the last second, I leaned back as the baton whipped past my face and I aimed the gun. Something hissed in front of me and I saw a puff of white mist as I squeezed the trigger. The gun boomed, but she’d ducked down again and was gone.

Warning. Warning. Warning.

Messages flew past as white mist began to boil from the back of my dead hand. Before I knew what happened, the skin melted away and I was looking at the meat and bone underneath.

Leichenesser. The bitch had a little key-chain canister hidden on her somewhere. She tossed it aside and picked up the baton she’d dropped on the floor as she closed in again.

The bone melted like wax as muscle sprang free and began to dissolve. I tried to fire again, but what was left of the hand wouldn’t respond. The gun fell to the ground, trailing smoke, and she stomped on it with one foot before kicking it back down the hall behind her.

“You fucking—”

She spun around again as the last of the hand sizzled away, leaving a clean stump where the filter and nerve interface was. Pain blasted through my ribs as the baton hit home.

“I won’t let you near her,” she said.

“She’s going to launch the nukes, you stupid bitch,” I gasped.

My right hand wasn’t half as good, but in a straight-up brawl, it wouldn’t matter. I reached back and pulled my field knife out of its sheath. She saw it and came around for another attack, but I closed the distance between us before she could strike.

“You’re dead,” I told her, and swung the knife.

12

ATROPOS

Zoe Ott—Alto Do Mundo Penthouse

Something crashed back out in the hallway, and the dark field scattered. I was back in the hallway with the bodies, and . . .

Penny.
Penny was in trouble. She needed me.

Cold air rushed over me from the empty window. Snow blew against the back of my neck as I turned to see Penny and Flax fighting. Both of them were bleeding, and the floor around them was smeared with blood. Penny had one baton still clenched in her fist. Flax was missing one hand, but had a knife in the other one.

“Penny!”

“Go to the roof,” she grunted without looking back. “Get out of here.”

Flax lunged, but Penny ducked under the blade and darted in close, to strike again. Before she could land the blow, Flax grabbed her by the wrist and head-butted her in the face with a loud crack of bone. Blood gushed from Penny’s nostrils as she staggered back.

I started to run toward them, not sure what I’d do when I got there. All I knew what that this woman had killed the first real friend I’d ever had, and she was about to kill the only one I had left. Before Penny could do anything else, Flax swung back around. The edge of her knife slashed Penny’s arm open, and blood splashed onto the floor.

“Penny!”

I ran. One of the batons was on the floor, and I went to scoop it up and fell. I slid across the tiles, then managed to pick myself up and stumble toward them.

Penny turned and saw me at the last minute. I flew past her and brought the baton down on the tattooed woman’s neck, but it didn’t stop her. I lost my footing, and the knife whipped over my head as I fell onto my butt.

Penny stood, rearing back to deliver a strike, when Flax stabbed her in the chest.

It was the most horrible sound I’d ever heard. The blade went in right at the base of her throat, and the hilt struck so hard it forced the air out of her mouth in a spray of blood. She jerked once, and the baton clattered onto the floor.

“No!”

Flax wrenched the knife out, and Penny choked. Blood was pumping out of the gash. Her eyes rolled and she fell to the floor.

“No! Penny, no!”

I scrambled beside her. A pool of blood was growing around her head. I put my hands over the hole, but it kept coming. I couldn’t make it stop.

The room got bright around me as I stared down at her. I looked for her colors, to try to soothe them, to try to stop any pain she might have, but I couldn’t find them. They were already gone. Penny was dead.

Penny, no . . . this can’t be happening . . .

I let go of her and held my head. It felt like it was going to explode. I couldn’t hear anything or feel anything. I was still staring down at her when I felt Flax’s hand grab my arm.

“Zoe Ott?” she growled.

I jerked away and ran. My foot slipped in Penny’s blood and I went down on one knee, then bolted back toward the stairwell as the woman’s footsteps closed in behind me.

I made it to the stairwell door and pulled it open. When I was through, I turned and tried to slam it shut, but I was too late. A tattooed hand clamped down on the edge of the door and held it. I backpedaled as Flax shoved it open and stepped onto the landing.

“Get away from me!”

I ran for the stairs, but she cut me off and backed me into the corner, up against the concrete wall.

“You’re too late,” I gasped. I could barely breathe. I could feel hatred pour off her as she walked right up to me. She was going to kill me too, but I didn’t care. In less than a minute, the missiles would fall.

“You’re too late,” I whispered.