I’d been standing across the street, staring at the neon sign in the window of a convenience store for a long time. People passed by me on the sidewalk, leaning into the rain as I watched the water trickle down, blurring the brightly colored light. I counted the bottles that were lined up there behind the glass, all different shapes and sizes. All filled with different colors, warm colors.
This is stupid.
I told Nico he’d leave me there. I knew it would happen. He acted like I was wrong and he wouldn’t, and he meant it, but it didn’t matter what he said he’d do or even what he meant to do. I knew it would happen, and it did.
I was useless anyway. Nico was hoping I was going to get something out of them, but it was obvious the minute we walked in that there was no way that was going to happen. When I tried to concentrate on her, I couldn’t get anything. That halo was there, above her big head, but I couldn’t see anything past it. When I pushed a little harder, I got pushed back. She looked over at me then, and she wasn’t smiling. My head spun, and I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t try it again.
After the shot went off, when Nico ran out of the restaurant and left me with the others, I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe. It was too much. I had to get out of there. Ai offered to have Penny drive me home, but I didn’t want that. I looked around for Nico, but he hadn’t come back inside the restaurant. I said I had to use the bathroom, and ducked out.
I was still staring at the bottles through the window when a car turned onto the street in front of me, and when its headlights flashed on the brick wall, I saw two shadows there. They were in the shape of people, but there was no one there. The shadows were burned onto the bricks.
“Soon,” a voice whispered.
I turned, and a woman was standing next to me. Her long coat and her clothes were burned black, and when the rain landed on her body, it hissed, throwing up smoke and ash. Her face was covered in soot, and her hair was scorched. When the wind blew, a cherry red glow swelled under the ash of her clothes. Embers scattered and flew up into the air around her.
I looked back toward the burned shadows, but the building was gone, along with everything around it. A big expanse of wet soot and sand sprawled out in front of me, sheets of rain coming down to form gray rivers and pools. Big shadows stood at angles in the distance, and I thought they were the remains of buildings.
I’d seen this before. I’d started seeing it back when I first met Nico. This city, the whole city, was gone.
“How soon?” I asked the burned woman. She turned to me, ash flaking away from her face.
“It had to be done,” she said.
Lightning flashed behind the canopy of gray clouds overhead, and a few seconds later, thunder rolled across the empty field.
“How soon?” I asked again.
“Soon.”
The wind blew, and more ash streamed off of her body until she just disappeared. When I looked back to the empty field, it was gone. The buildings and the neon were back. The lit store window and the rows of bottles behind it were back just like before.
I turned away from the window and the bottles, and headed down the street. At the corner, I turned and began making my way toward the sign for Pleasantview. Up ahead, flashing blues from a police car were lighting up the outside of the building.
Perfect.
As I got closer to my apartment building, I saw there were actually a couple squad cars out there, and an ambulance too.
Passing by the police cars and heading up the main steps, I wondered if I shouldn’t have waited for Nico, but I had to get out of there. So far he hadn’t even called to find out where I’d gone.
Jerk.
I went inside. The elevator was still out, so I had to walk up seven flights of stairs. When I got up to the landing between the fifth and sixth floors, I saw blood on the floor.
“Gross.”
Drops of it were all over the place. In the corner of the stairwell, it was smeared around and I could see part of a bloody handprint. Did someone get stabbed or something?
There were drops on the stairs leading up, and when I looked up the stairwell, I saw the door to the sixth floor was propped open.
What the hell?
I passed by on my way up to my floor when I heard a bunch of people talking down the hall on six. Through the doorway I could see shadows from around the corner, and someone was talking on a radio.
“We’re bringing him down now,” a voice said. Footsteps were coming down the hall. Something was wrong.
“…for the EMT?” a man said over the radio.
“The elevator’s out. They’re coming down via the stairs.”
“It’s six flights,” the voice on the radio said.
“You got a better idea?”
I was still standing there listening when three men came around the corner and almost ran into me. Two of them were cops in uniform. In between them was Ted, his hands behind his back.
“Coming through, ma’am,” one cop said.
Ted had been beaten up bad—real bad. His whole face was covered in bruises, and there was a big cut over one eye. He was missing a tooth, and there was a bandage over his nose that had blood seeping through it. There was dried blood all down the front of his shirt.
When he saw me, I felt a big surge of anger from him.
“There she is, fucking bitch!” he snapped. The cops grabbed his arms.
“Keep moving, asshole!”
“You send that crazy bitch over to fuck with me?”
He got free from one of them and kicked at me. I fell back as his big foot stomped into the wall right next to me.
“This how you planned it, bi—”
He was cut off when one of the cops stuck a stun gun in his side and zapped him. He went down and flopped onto the floor.
“Piece of shit,” the cop said. Ted looked out of it, but he managed to get back up on his hands and knees, glaring at me through his sweaty hair. I’d seen him mad before, but never like that. When I looked, the colors around him were all red, like a fire, a fire that was raging. He wanted to kill me. His eyes were so crazy. I just stood there. I didn’t even try to push him.
“Get up, asshole,” the clean-cut cop said. “You can add that to your list of charges.”
Ted just stared at me from his hands and knees, panting.
“He said, get up!” the other cop yelled. “Now do it, or I swear I’ll use this thing again and ride your sorry ass down to the ground fucking floor! Move it!”
“Happy now, bitch?” Ted muttered. He started to get up, and one of them grabbed him and hauled him up the rest of the way. The big guy shoved him through the door and followed him while the other one checked on me.
“You okay, ma’am?”
I nodded. My legs felt weak.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“Domestic dispute, ma’am. Do you live on this floor?”
“No, but—”
“If you don’t live on this floor, then please move along while we—”
The room got bright as I pushed him, easing him back.
“What happened?” I asked again. This time his eyelids drooped a little and he answered.
“Best we can tell,” he said, “someone beat the shit out of the perp. When his girlfriend came home, it looks like he took it out on her.”
“Let me by,” I said. He didn’t move when I scooted around him.
Down the hall there were more people. They were all in uniform. One was a cop, but the others looked like medics. I started running toward them. They were all standing outside Karen’s apartment.
“Ma’am!” one of them said, holding up one hand. “Ma’am you can’t come down here!”
The medics were moving a stretcher through the door. The person lying on it had a face covered in bandages and blood.
“Karen?”
“Ma’am, step back please. We need to get through now!”
They were all around her. One pushed and one pulled while two stood on each side. One had a mask over her mouth and nose while the other started prep-ping a syringe. Her face was beaten to a pulp. Her body was totally limp. She looked dead. All the strength went out of my legs and I had to lean against the wall as they passed by.
“Try to keep her steady!” one of them yelled.
“Ma’am, do you know Karen Goncalves?” someone asked me. I watched them wheel her away. There was a light above her head, but it was faint.
“Ma’am, do you know her? Are you family, or do you know anyone we should contact?”
I stopped hearing him. I just stood there, frozen, and watched them wheel her away.
The Rescue Mission Clinic sat on a small urban strip, just outside Bullrich. To the left of the place was an Indian grocery and a laundry. The small parking area was empty, and the storefronts were dark. I cruised to a stop in front of the main entrance, then cut the engine and waited, listening to the rain drum on the roof. A rusted chain-link fence ran along its right side, a coil of razor wire running along the top. The wall facing the narrow gap had been spray painted. The blacktop was littered with wet trash.
According to the records, it was a nonprofit provider for the homeless, run by the local Second Chance chapter. According to the records, they dispensed everything from flu shots to methadone. They did blood work, and provided cheap contraception. Everything was legitimate on paper.
Nico. This is Sean. I’m here. Help me. The message appeared in the dark in front of my eyes. It had repeated every thirty seconds since I came in range.
I pushed the car door open and stepped outside into the cold. Through the glass doors ahead I could see the alarm system was armed. I approached, aware of the security camera mounted on the wall.
I put in a call to Noakes, but got rerouted to ID Hsieh, A. It was picked up immediately.
Who is this? I asked.
Agent Alice Hsieh, she said. I’ll be filling Agent Pu’s position. Can I help you, Agent Wachalowski?
Yes. I need the alarm system deactivated at this address.
She didn’t answer, but a few seconds later, I saw the display on the alarm system go dark.
Okay, you’re clear, she said.
I put my badge to the scanner, and it overrode the security code. I pushed open the door and went inside.
The main entry opened into a small waiting area. Wooden chairs were arranged there, facing a wall with a sliding window and next to that, a door. Old magazines with curled edges were stacked on a wall-mounted shelf.
I pulled up a blueprint of the facility. The sliding window opened into a small office or reception area, and the door next to it led to a hallway that gave access to it, along with three small examination rooms. The hallway formed an L and led to a restroom, two large storage rooms, then continued to a fire exit that opened into the back alley.
The door was unlocked. I went through, then took a left into the office behind the sliding window. A desk faced out into the waiting area. I turned on the computer and set up a ’bot to break through security.
I gave the desk drawer a tug, but it was locked. Touching the phone’s screen, I pulled up the address book and recorded the contacts there. One name jumped out at me.
BUCKSTER, LEON.
I knew that name. Calliope had mentioned him. He was her Second Chance contact. There was no other information except his contact number and work address.
Alice, pull the phone records, please. I need all calls placed to and from this location, starting at the date of the Concrete Falls attack.
She was fast. After a short pause, the data began streaming in. I filtered out anyone on the patient list or the employee directory. Only a handful of the numbers were unaccounted for. One in particular was tied to an organization called CCO: Charitable Contribution Organization. The number was leased under its name, maybe to hide the owner’s identity. I saved it aside.
The ’bot continued to work on opening a connection to the computer, but something was blocking it. The security there was a lot tougher than it should have been.
Something’s not right.
I backed out of the office and continued down the hallway. The examination rooms were open, and they were all empty. I continued on to the storage rooms. At the bend in the hall, I saw the storage room door in front of me. Down at the end of the corridor to my right was the metal fire door.
Nico. This is Sean. I’m here. Help me. I switched off the connection, cutting off the message.
The storage room was crowded with stacks of cardboard boxes containing medical equipment. To my right, a wooden door led to a closet. Inside there were shelves of sample drugs, along with a locked metal cabinet that covered the far wall. Peering through the side, I saw what looked like pill bottles and other pharmaceuticals.
Sweeping the main storage area with the backscatter, I noticed a metal door behind one of the stacks of boxes. There was a scanner mounted next to it.
Closing the door to the storage closet, I approached the metal door and pushed the boxes aside. Unlike the rest of the place, the door looked modern and new. The scanner next to it was fitted with a lens for performing retinal scans. A retinal scan wasn’t even required to get into the FBI building.
Putting my forehead to the surface of the door, I turned the backscatter up to full intensity. The metal was thick, but I could make out images on the other side. The edges of the room were lined with what looked like computer equipment. The middle of the room was dominated by what I guessed was a large reclining chair, like you might see at a dentist’s office. Several IV racks stood next to it.
Scanning along the edges of the door, I could see it was secured with magnetic bolts. I was trying to decide the best way to tap into it when the red light shining above the mechanism’s lens flickered and turned green. The bolts retracted with a dull thump.
I stepped back into the shadows as the heavy door opened, revealing a dark room behind it. A revivor stepped through the doorway, and the faint smell of sweat and decomposition drifted out behind it. Inside, I saw several sets of glowing eyes.
Before it could spot me, I slipped toward the wall next to the doorway and took the EMP wand from my belt. The revivor was male, with a heavy frame. Its head turned as it scanned the dark in front of it, trying to pinpoint my heartbeat.
I touched the wand to the back of its neck and the metal filament slipped through the skin and up its spinal column. Its body went rigid, and I caught it under one arm as it fell back. Quietly, I eased it onto the floor.
Before it could send out an alarm, I recorded its signature, then triggered the EMP. The light faded from its eyes. Using an old war trick, I looped the recorded signature through a custom transponder I’d installed back in Bontang. Revivors didn’t rely on signatures for identification purposes, and they would still detect my heartbeat, but it would keep them from attacking as long as I didn’t attack first.
I stepped through the doorway and looked around. Three revivors stood inside, each with their backs to one wall. Their eyes shifted ceaselessly, moving rapidly, almost like they were dreaming. They didn’t seem to see me or hear me as I moved into the room.
The light was low enough that even with the enhancements, it was hard to pick out details inside. I shined a flashlight beam, and swept it across the room. Shelving had been set up, stocked with towels. I saw several rolling trays that held surgical instruments, and empty vials for taking blood samples.
There was a faint thermal trace on the chair. There was no other indication that anyone else—anyone living, at any rate—had been inside.
A tent of plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. I could see dark shapes inside, and a series of flashing red lights. There was a gap in the curtain near the middle, and I pushed through.
On the other side of the curtain were five gurneys, and each one had a nude male corpse on it. From behind each of their heads, a thick wire trailed across the floor. I followed them behind a bank of electronics where the red lights flashed. The skin on each body was rigid. Dark veins were visible underneath the surface from head to toe.
Revivors. A scan didn’t produce a signature from any of them. They were dormant.
Back in the office, the ’bot broke through security and a connection opened to the main computer system. I accessed the link and began scanning the files. Most of them were innocuous—medical records of patients coming and going, payroll, ordering and inventory—but one section was isolated from the rest. A list of names and dates had been recorded there. The last four were displayed:
Subject: Harris, Erica. Female. 42. 23042091.Subject: Janai, Ryu. Male. 30. 10052091.Subject: Uris, Henry. Male. 32. 13052091.Subject: Takanawa, Hiro. Male. 28. 14052091.Subject: Pu, Sean. Male. 41. 15052091. Sean.
The connection to the computer broke, and the stream of data stopped. When I tried to reconnect, I found it was completely offline. The power to the system had been cut.
“Gathering for iteration six-three-two,” a metallic voice said softly from behind me. I turned suddenly, aiming the gun, and saw that the bank of red lights on the electronic equipment had turned amber. As I watched, they began to flicker and turn green.
A loud snap issued from the back of the room, loud enough to make me jump. One of the bodies moved on its gurney, then another. The toes arched back slightly, and I saw the fingers flex. Information began streaming by on one of the screens.
“Hold.”
“Gathering for iteration six-three-two.”
I felt a low hum through the floor. The gurneys creaked as the bodies arched their backs; then I picked up a signal on the JZI. It warbled and snapped into the waveform of a revivor’s heart signature. Another one quickly followed, then another as the hum’s pitch increased.
“Active,” the computer said.
Back on the gurneys, several sets of eyes had cracked open, creating softly glowing slits in the dark.
Moving the flashlight beam, I caught the face of one of the revivors who had lifted its head off of its gurney. One of its eyes was missing, leaving only a dark slit between the collapsed lids.
“Sean.”
He didn’t answer. His eye stared up from the dark, not recognizing me.
He’d been turned, and there was no way he’d gotten wired for it willingly. Sean was like me on that score. If we hadn’t decided when we joined up, then a few years of dealing with those things settled it for both of us. Sean turned out to have a secret, but I knew the man and I knew he was afraid of revivors. He never voiced it, but something he saw when he looked at them scared him. Whoever took him wired and then killed him.
I looked in his remaining eye for some trace of Sean, but it wasn’t there. Unlike Faye, he hadn’t been processed at Heinlein, and it looked like a hack job. As he worked at the restraints, I watched and I couldn’t look away, even though it felt like a block of ice was sitting in my gut. I’d known Sean longer than anyone else in my life. He’d pulled me out of that hole back in the grind and saved my life. Even if he had lied, he’d …
“Sorry, Sean.”
I moved next to the gurney and removed the probe from inside my coat. Turning his head away, I pushed it through the skin near the base of his skull.
The system tree came up, but only partially. For some reason it was having trouble reading the components. For the ones it could identify, none were tagged with manufacturing codes.
I managed to isolate his JZI. I found a socket and opened a connection.
Link established.
The connection triggered something; a routine executed, sending a text message across the link.
If you’re reading this, they’ve taken me. I have verified; Fawkes will launch a major strike in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. I wasn’t able to learn specific targets, but he will attack on two fronts; part of his army will come by sea, most likely by way of Palm Harbor. I intercepted the ID of a ship, ISO 10927718240, and I believe the bulk of his forces are there. Find the ship and you’ll find them. The second part of his army is already here, inside the city. I have no idea where he’s managed to hide so many, but there are already hund—
The message ended abruptly. I felt Sean’s jaw clench underneath my palm. His skin was cold.
His heart signature drifted in the periphery of my vision. There was something different about it. It had an arc that was more elegant than the standard waveform.
Hundreds. It didn’t seem possible, but I knew Sean. Something made him believe it. If Fawkes really had hundreds of revivors already inside the city, with potentially thousands more coming in by sea, it was going to be a bloodbath.
I managed to locate Sean’s revivor communications array, and opened the spoke connection.
Link established.
Immediately, a rush of data came streaming in. Before I could react, half the JZI’s buffers had filled up. It was as if hundreds of individual data streams were bleeding back over the connection. My systems weren’t designed to handle an influx like that, and I struggled to abort the link before—
“And stop,” the soft, synthesized voice said. The connection broke, and the flow stopped.
What the hell was that?
The bodies all relaxed on their trays. The light in their eyes began to fade. One by one, their signatures winked out.
“Checking signature …”
“Signature is gone.”
“Commencing cool down.”
I removed the probe. The revivors had gone dormant again.
They’re being cycled over and over, between animate and inanimate. Why?
I checked the rest of the bodies. Besides Sean, there were four others. One looked well kept, a first or second tier. The other three showed signs of exposure and malnutrition. One had track marks in his forearm. One had a thick scar running along one side of its face, trailing from the chin, up over the cheek, all the way to the ear. It looked like a cut from a knife, maybe.
Wachalowski, head’s up; we just got a report of an explosion across town. They think it’s tied to your location.
What was it?
A free clinic was just bombed. Healing Hands, over in Dandridge. Second Chance runs that one too. They know we’re on to them and they’re covering their tracks. Get out of there now.
“Initiating download and purge,” the metallic voice muttered from off to the side. I looked over and saw the counters had all reset to zero. The data was no longer being collected. The green lights had turned red again, and I was watching when they all went dark.
Hang on.
Wachalow—
I cut the connection as an electric snap came from the bank of electronics behind me, and the low hum began again. The metal gurneys creaked under the bodies. One by one, the heart signatures reappeared.
“Active,” the computer said. Their toes began to arch, fingers curling into fists. The glow behind each set of eyes got brighter.
The lights on the equipment went dark, and the hum stopped suddenly. One of the revivors sat up on the tray, the electrode wires growing taut, then snapping. The one next to it sat up as well.
Keeping the flashlight trained on it, I fired a burst at the first one, and it crashed back onto the gurney. I managed to get the second one before it could get up, and caught a third as it placed its bare feet on the floor. It staggered, then fell into the rack of electronics before landing on a rolling tray and scattering surgical tools.
Sean and the remaining revivor were on their feet. They split up and moved toward me.
I backed through the plastic curtain, and Sean followed. The three revivors along the walls still weren’t moving, but the jittering of their eyes had gotten more frantic.
Through the gap in the plastic tent, I saw white smoke billow up from the floor. The revivors I’d put down were dissolving.
Sean took another step toward me and I fired, putting a bullet into the middle of its chest. He didn’t stop. There was no recognition in his eyes as he lunged, clamping one cold hand down between my neck and shoulder. With his other hand, he tried to grab my gun. Twisting the barrel down, I shot him in the kneecap. Revivors didn’t feel pain, but the joint gave out and it started to fall to one side.
I lost my footing and came down on top of him. He tried to get up as the second revivor approached from my left.
I aimed and fired a burst. The first bullet caught it in one eye, and the next two tracked across its face, blowing out the back of its skull as it fell backward into a rack of equipment. Sean’s hand reached up, pawing at my face.
My JZI flagged a warning as it picked up heat signatures from around the room. They were sourced from the three revivors along the walls. In each one, a ton of energy was being rerouted to a component inside the torso. I fired several more shots as warning codes began spilling by. Sean’s hands slipped away as I staggered back from the body.
“Shit!”
The eyes of the three revivors began to glow brighter. Their faces turned dark, black veins standing out as pressure built up somewhere inside.
I stood up and scrambled past the chair, back out through the heavy door. Grabbing the handle, I pulled it shut as a set of fingers slipped through and the metal crunched down on them. Another hand wormed through the crack and began to pull it open. I stuck my gun barrel through the space and fired several rounds, then turned and ran for the fire exit.
At the end of the hall I hit the door and shoved it open. A gust of cold wind hit me, and my foot splashed down into a puddle. My heel slipped on a patch of ice and I fell back onto the blacktop, skidding toward a metal Dumpster.
I hit the rusted metal and rolled as a thud pounded through my chest and an explosion ripped through the wall behind me.
I sat up on the couch and grabbed the pint bottle off the table next to it. I took a swig of hot whiskey and blew fumes out my nose. My right hand hurt like hell, and the left one kept ticking. I cut open the knuckles on both of them when I beat down that fat piece of shit the night before. The last thing I needed was another assault charge, but the cops never came.
The reminder to check my files popped up in the dark behind my eyelids. I pulled up the text from where I’d buried it. There were three notes:
Called Buckster. He’s coming over.
I remembered that one. The other two, I didn’t.
There’s a padlocked door behind the flag. Wooden door, three locks. It was here the whole time.
Started a JZI record.
I opened my eyes and sat up. I checked the JZI buffer. It was empty.
Son of a bitch …
If I didn’t remember it and the JZI record was wiped, then someone who knew I might be recording was fucking with me.
There’s a door behind the flag.
I could see the flag from the couch—black and red with a green shield on it. I’d ripped it off the wall of a bomb-shelled office in Juba after we took out a pack of rebels inside. I used it to wrap the naked girl when I took her out of there. It hung ceiling to floor on the wall right across from the shitter. I knew for a fact there was no door behind it.
Didn’t I?
I put down the bottle, then got up off the couch and walked across the room to the wall with the flag. After a minute, I pulled up the file and made a note:
I’m taking down the flag. I’ll move it somewhere else. I’m starting a JZI record. The next time you read this it should be moved, and if there is a door behind it you’ll know.
The buzzer went off at the front and I jumped.
“Shit!”
I stood there for a minute. My hand was still out, hanging there like I was scared to look.
This is bullshit. I grabbed the edge and moved it out of the way. There was no door.
The buzzer went off again.
“Keep your pants on!” I yelled. It had to be Buckster.
I let the flag fall back into place and went to the front door. When I opened it, Leon was there, wearing a rain coat with the hood pulled back.
“Hey, Chief.”
“Hey, yourself. Bad time?”
“No.”
He looked past me and smiled.
“Looks like you’re making yourself at home.”
“Yeah.”
The place they set me up had started to grow on me. The pipes worked and the heat and water stayed on. The people there weren’t a bunch of drunks and bums. After Bullrich and the grind, it was actually not half bad.
“You gonna let an old man in?”
“Sorry,” I said, opening the door. “You want a drink or something?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
He shut the door behind him, then shook off his coat and threw it on the hook.
“I gotta piss first.”
“Have at it.”
I hit the can and left the door open a crack while I took a seat. I made one last note before I shut the file down:
Buckster showed up. I’m giving him the Zombie Maker, and we’ll see if he knows anything that might help Wachalowski.
The flood gates let go and I cracked my back.
Incoming call.
Call accepted.
Cal, this is Nico. Have you seen Leon Buckster since we last met?
Yeah, the old fart’s here now. Why?
Outside, I heard the old man’s ass hit the chair.
“You on Second Chance time or your own time?” I called out.
“Mine.”
Keep him there. I’m arresting him.
Arresting him? Why?
Because this investigation just turned ugly, and his name came up. He’s officially a person of interest and I need to bring him in.
Well, don’t bust down my door and do it here. He’ll fucking know I was in on it.
Cal, don’t start. I just tracked down a dead friend and almost got blown to hell myself.
What? Where?
Rescue Mission and two other Second Chance-funded clinics were bombed tonight, Cal. Buckster’s name is connected to Rescue Mission. I’m bringing him in for questioning.
“Damn it …”
Right now you’ve got someone on the inside, I said. You grab him now and that goes out the window. Let him have his little visit, and pick him up when he goes home.
I finished up and flushed. When I came back out to the main room, I found him leaning back in my chair.
“Make yourself at home,” I said. Wachalowski was still idling on the other end of the circuit.
Look, you know I’m right, I said. Put him under watch in case he runs, but have your goons wait for him at his place so he doesn’t link it to me.
You’re not part of this investigation, Cal—
I can take care of myself, asshole. If this goes back to what happened before I shipped out, then I’m involved. I’m not some street punk for hire anymore, I—
Okay.
Really?
The team will stake out your place and follow him when he leaves. We’ll pick him up at home. Gain his trust and find out what you can, but don’t tip him off.
Roger that.
Be careful, Cal.
He’s an old man. I think I can handle him.
He might be associated with some very dangerous people. Even if he isn’t, he might be a target. Be careful.
I will. I’ve got to go.
I closed the link. In the kitchen, the sink was full of dirty dishes, but I had two clean glasses on the counter. I headed back out and used the whiskey bottle to fill the bottom of the glass I’d dripped the Zombie Maker into. I gave it to the old man and he took a swig.
“Place looks nice,” Buckster said.
“Thanks.”
“Got everything you need?”
“Everything except a damn job.”
“Anything pan out with your friend?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Well, don’t worry. We’ll find something before the month’s end. There’s plenty of things you could do.”
“I was thinking maybe Stillwell Corps.”
“Not a bad option,” he said, “but not if you want things to quiet down.”
“You got any better ideas?”
“Maybe Heinlein. We’ve got contacts there too. They might be able to use someone like you.”
“What is that, a fucking joke?”
“I don’t mean in development,” he said. “They use a lot of ex-military in the testing facilities for the next-gen stuff. Just think about it.”
It was as good an in as any, I figured. Buckster was halfway though his drink and the Zombie had to be starting to kick in.
“What is it with you and revivors?” I asked, and for just a second, his eyes flashed. He got twitchy.
“What’s that mean?”
“You send third tiers over to get wired up. You send first-tier vets to Heinlein …What, do they give you a kickback or something?”
He grinned at that, relaxing a little.
“I don’t work for Heinlein, believe me. Second Chance is about just that: a second chance.”
“So the bums you recruit end up second tier?”
“Homeless,” he said, “and some of them do, yes. I get them as far as I can—clean them up, get them blood tested, and get them basic inoculations.”
“You pay for that?”
“We run a series of free clinics throughout the city. It’s paid for by donations and fund-raisers.”
“How many clinics?”
“Three, on record.”
“On record?”
He seemed to think maybe he said something he shouldn’t have. “The point is, we don’t make anyone get wired. That’s a decision they have to make on their own.”
“What about scar-face, the guy I saw you with at the train station when I came in?”
“He …” The old guy drifted off. His eyes had started to look a little dopey.
“He what?”
Buckster shook his head. “He didn’t sign up.”
“No second chance for him, then, huh?”
“He’ll have his day,” Buckster said. There was something weird about the way he said it.
“What?”
He drained his glass, and gave a big shrug. “Every dog has his day, right, Corporal?”
“Sure.”
He got quiet for a minute. I grabbed the bottle from the table and filled his glass again.
“You worked with a lot of revivors over there, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You wired?”
“Fuck, no,” I said. “Why, are you?”
He nodded.
“You did your time,” I said. “You made first tier. Why the fuck would you go and do that?”
Buckster was looking at the flag hanging on the wall. He had a far-off look in his eye.
“Is that blood?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yours?”
“No,” I said. “One of the girls from the Juba ghetto got grabbed as a hostage. Me and my team went in to take them out.”
“Your team of revivors?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
“She live?”
“Yeah. After we took care of them, I found her in the cellar, naked and half starved. They’d …used her pretty rough, but she was in one piece.”
“And her captors?”
That mission was the first time, and last time, I’d let them eat. I was mad enough to do it, and I wanted to send a message. I wanted the other fuckers who used that camp to burn it down, and cross themselves when they drove by the ashes after what they saw there.
“We took care of them.”
He nodded, understanding. It actually felt good in a way to talk to the old man. He’d been there, so he knew.
He took another drink, and leaned back. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out, still looking at the flag.
“You don’t like revivors much, do you?” he asked.
“Not much.”
“But they were human once.”
“Were.”
“But they’re conscious. They have memories.”
“My TV has memory too.”
“Your TV was never alive,” he said.
“Look, Chief, lesson number one when dealing with those things is, don’t get confused about what they are. Trust me. Whatever they used to be isn’t what they are now. They’re weapons, and that’s all they are.”
“If you really believe what you say, then why not get wired for PS?”
“Because if someone gets their face chewed off, my dead ass ain’t gonna be the last thing they see.”
He drifted off for a minute. I hoped I didn’t give him one drop too many. I didn’t want him falling asleep on me.
“Revivors save lives sometimes,” he said.
“When they slagged the Congo, they said that saved lives too.”
He shrugged.
“They’re weapons, Chief. That’s what they are. They’re not soldiers. They’re weapons. Get it? They’re good at killing, eating, and soaking up bullets.”
“Say what you want about them. They can’t be corrupted.”
“Corrupted by who?”
“Anyone.”
His eyelids got heavy again. His eyes went back to stupid.
“They can’t be corrupted,” he said. “Just remember that.”
“I’ll do that.”
“They remember things.”
That got my attention a little. Revivors did remember things, sometimes a lot of things. If it got quiet enough and you talked to them long enough, they’d tell you the story of their lives. Alone in the field with them for months on end, they were like TVs or radios.
“What kinds of things?” I asked.
“Things they forgot.”
“Like what?”
“Things they were made to forget.”
That got my attention, a lot.
“What does that mean? ‘Made to forget’?”
He looked at me, his eyes trying to focus. They went from being out of it to being a little bit scared. Tears shone in those old eyes of his.
“They make us forget,” he said, his voice quiet.
“Forget what?” I asked, but his eyelids were coming down. His eyes still looked scared as they closed, and he eased back in the chair.
“Old man?”
His mouth opened a little, and he started to breathe deep and slow. He was out.
Damn it.
I took the glass from his hand before it fell and threw a blanket on him. Zombie was short-lived; he’d wake up in an hour or two and I’d send him home.
I leaned back on the couch and took another hit from the whiskey bottle, listening to the old guy snore. Wachalowski said the shit that happened before I left never stopped, and I knew now that someone had been messing with my head. Someone had been making me forget. That’s what Buckster meant. He knew something.
I called Wachalowski on the JZI, and he picked up like he was waiting for it.
I think I might have something for you, I said.
What?
I’ll send you the recording I took, but long story short, I think he’s mixed up in something just like you said. Don’t hold him, though.
Why not?
Because he’s looking for a friend, I said. Someone he can bring in, and he just found one.
What makes you think he’ll trust you enough to do that?
I watched him sleep. He was relaxed now and the fear was gone from his face, but I knew what he’d been trying to say, and I knew what scared him.
I just found out we have something in common.
I made one of the policemen tell me where they were taking Karen, but I didn’t know what to do. I froze up in the hallway. I stayed there until the sirens went away and people went back into their rooms. I never realized until then how attached to her I really was.
When I finally did move, I went out into the rain without even going back to my room. I got on the subway, soaked from head to toe, and sat there, numb, the whole way over. The emergency room was completely packed. Some looked sick, and some were bleeding. They looked like they’d been there a long time.
There was a big line to get to the front desk. I managed to make my way through the crowd and cut in front of the first person. He looked like a biker with big, tattooed arms.
“Hey!”
“I need to know where Karen Goncalves is,” I said. The woman behind the desk looked at me over her glasses.
“Ma’am, please step to the end of the line.”
“Yeah, end of the line, bitch,” the biker said.
“I’m not checking in. I just need to know where—”
“Ma’am, I cannot help you until you step to the end of the line and wait your turn like everyone else.”
I looked back at all the angry faces. The line went to the door, and that didn’t even count all the people in the waiting area. Half of them were standing because there was no place to sit.
“Bitch,” the biker guy said, “get to the end of the line before I—”
I stared in his eyes and he trailed off as the room turned bright around me. All the color in the room faded away, until the only colors left were the ones rippling above everyone’s heads. There were so many people that they all started to merge together, but his was red and orange. His was angry and violent. Usually I eased them back, turning them to a calm blue, but not that time. That time I contained them and forced them back.
“Before you what?” I asked. It was like someone else said it. He just stared at me, his face going slack.
“Before you what?” I asked again. He just stared, mouth hanging open a little.
There’s no time for this. I need to find her.
I looked past him and pushed the next few people in line until they just stared too. I turned to the woman behind the desk.
“Tell me where she is.”
The woman’s eyelids drooped and she started tapping on her computer. She looked down at the screen, reading something there.
“She was admitted through the ER. She’s currently awaiting emergency surgery.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the available ORs are full and she’s being kept stable until—”
“Where is she now?”
“Third floor. East wing.”
I walked away and took the elevator up to the third floor, where I followed signs to the east wing. It was crowded up there too. In the hallway there were gurneys parked in rows along the wall. There were people lying on them, but none of them was Karen.
I started trying the rooms along the hall one at a time. The first room had an old man in it, lying on a gurney and not moving. He looked dead. The next room had a fat, middle-aged woman with an afro.
“Are you a doctor?” she whispered. I shut the door.
One door down, a man in a dark blue jumpsuit was standing outside. He had a black case in one hand and was leaning against the wall, watching a little screen he had in his other hand. When he saw me heading toward the door next to him, he started to say something, but I cut him off.
“Are you a doctor or a nurse?”
“I’m a technician.”
“Then leave me alone.”
He went back to looking at his little screen. I opened the door and went in.
The room was dark. There was a gurney in there surrounded by a bunch of machines. One of the machines was beeping slowly.
“Karen?”
She didn’t move, but one of her eyes opened a little and looked over at me. It was her.
“Karen, shit …shit …”
I turned the light on so I could see her. Her face was all purple, red, and black. Bandages covered one eye, and under a big piece of bloody gauze, her nose looked flat. The one eye that could still open had tears in it. The white part had turned red.
“Zoe,” she said, her mouth barely moving. Her jaw was broken and some of her teeth were gone. I thought I was going to be sick.
“Don’t cry,” she said, but I couldn’t get control of myself. My hands were shaking.
“Karen, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said, wiping snot away.
“It’s not your fault.”
It was my fault, though. I knew it would happen. From the first time I saw her, watching me from behind him while I made him go to sleep, I knew. I saw the bloody eye. I knew this was coming.
“Come here,” she whispered. I went up to the bed and stood next to her.
“Someone beat him …”
“What?”
“…someone …beat him …up …he …”
I shook my head no. She groped with one hand, and I took it.
“Karen, you’ll be okay. You’ll be—”
“I’ll never forget …the first time …you came down …”
“Me neither,” I said, but I already had, a long time ago.
“I knew …you were special …”
Her one open eye fluttered and then looked around, confused. She looked like she didn’t know where she was.
“I’m going to get somebody to help you,” I said.
“This …is not because …of you…. It was my …”
She drifted off and a tear, pink with blood, rolled down over her swollen cheek. She coughed and something came up. She winced and swallowed.
“I’m sorry I kicked you out….”
She coughed again and made a face. She was in pain. I stared at her until the room got brighter. Her colors were very dim. Little bright spots swirled here and there, like they didn’t know where to go. Tiny orange spikes flaring up, like glowing coals. There was pain—physical pain, but more than that. I’d never realized how much there was, how much of it she kept covered up.
I smoothed the lights back, calming them. I focused on the hot-looking spikes and cracks until they dimmed, turning cooler. Karen’s face relaxed and got a little dreamy. She managed a smile.
“…you …do that …?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks …”
There were a million things I wanted to tell her right then. I wanted to tell her how much she meant to me and how much she helped me. All the shit I put her through, I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean it. There were so many things I thought I should say, but I didn’t. I just stood there.
The floor felt like it moved for a second, and I grabbed the bed to get my balance. The room got darker.
Shit. Not now …
Everything slowed down, and I felt cold. The tips of my fingers and toes started tingling. My head got heavy.
No …not now …I need to be here now …
“Zoe?” I heard Karen say.
“Karen, I—”
The darkness moved in like black smoke. For a second, all that was left was Karen; then it covered her too. The floor moved again.
…how much longer?
Almost there …
The words flashed in the dark. No sound, just words. The smoke cleared just a little, and I felt myself moving through the fog. I heard footsteps on metal, but it was muted and faint. I was running. The walls were sprayed red, and down on the floor I saw empty clothes, wet with blood.
Not now …I have to go back….
I moved through a big, metal door and out onto a walkway. There was a railing to my right, and I could see a huge open space down below. There were coffins down there. They were stacked up high, arranged in rows. I slipped and saw a man’s hand grab the rail. People were starting to move down below. They started yelling, but I could barely hear them, like I was underwater.
“Stop!”
I heard gunshots. I was moving again. There was another heavy metal door up ahead, with a wheel mounted on it. As I got closer, I glanced down to where the coffins were stacked and saw the dead woman, the one from the green room. She looked up at me. There were tears in her silvery eyes.
The doorway opened into a dark room. There was a single light overhead. It shone down on a bed where someone was lying. I ran up to the bed and saw that it was the mean-looking woman, the one with the black lipstick that cornered me in the elevator at the FBI. She was covered in sweat, big muscles standing out. She had on a hospital johnny. Her legs were spread apart and her ankles were locked in stirrups.
“You’re too late!” she screamed.
Something black and wet, something living, something dangerous, shot out from between her legs. Cords and veins popped out of her neck. I lurched forward as the man’s hand came hammering down on her heart, a blade held tightly in his fist.
“You’re too l—”
Everything went black. The screaming stopped. All I could hear was a steady tone.
I opened my eyes. I was back in the hospital.
“Karen?”
She was still there, lying in the bed in front of me. I’d grabbed fistfuls of the sheets and was leaning over her.
I tried to focus again. While I looked at her, the room got bright again, but I couldn’t see her colors.
“Karen?”
I realized then that the steady tone was coming from the heart monitor. I looked harder, until the room got so bright the color leached out of everything, but I could see her colors. I didn’t know what to do.
The door opened behind me and someone came in. I thought it was the doctor, but when he came around to the other side of the bed, I saw it was the man in the blue jumpsuit from out in the hallway. He reached over and shut off the heart monitor. The beep stopped and the room got quiet.
He took something out of his pocket and shined it in her one open eye. Then he lifted one of her shoulders, until she was on her side. He put his black case on the bed and snapped it open. He reached in, and I saw him take out a black syringe.
He stuck the needle in the back of her neck and I got a clear look at the logo on his chest for the first time. He worked for Heinlein Industries.
I left. I went back the way I came, back down to the lobby, and back through the crowd in the waiting room. I walked back out into the rain and into the street. A car screeched to a stop, the bumper an inch from my leg. Horns blared while I crossed, rain blowing across headlight beams in front of me.
I walked past the subway stop, following the sidewalk and the water rushing beside the curb. It wasn’t until I saw the neon sign to my right that I looked up.
When I first tried to quit, I’d break into a sweat every time I walked by that place. I started taking a different route so I didn’t have to see it. I never took that route again, but that night, it appeared out of nowhere. Right when I needed it most.
I pushed open the door and went inside. Without thinking, I grabbed a bottle of ouzo, the biggest one they had. I walked up to the counter and put it down.
“Long time no see,” the clerk said. After I stopped drinking, I realized the guy must have always known what a complete drunk I was. He might know what it meant, then, that I was back in his store. As stupid as it was, I think on some level, I was hoping he’d say something that would stop me, but he didn’t. He took my money, and I left with the bottle.
The only time I hesitated was back in my apartment. I stopped for a second with the glass to my lips and breathed in through my nose, feeling the licorice burn of the fumes. It was a mistake. It was a bad mistake, but it was going to happen. Deep inside me, the pain was gathering. The only reason it hadn’t hit me yet was because I was in shock, but it was coming, I could feel it. At any minute, I was going to realize what just happened. When I did, the reality of it was going to stick its hooks in me. It would be there for the rest of my life. In the end, I couldn’t face it.
When I took the first swallow, it burned going down. Heat flooded all the way back up my neck to my face, until air from the fan chilled beads of sweat on my forehead. The feeling that went through me was mellow and giddy. For a second, I forgot everything else. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt happy and I even giggled as I sat on the floor and let it flow out through all my veins, all the way down to my fingers and toes. For the first time in a long time, I felt right. It was like waking up after a long sleep.
I’m sorry, Karen. I’m sorry, Nico. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I just can’t.
I lifted the glass again, and that time I didn’t stop until my stomach turned over and threatened to puke it all back up. I sat down in the middle of the floor and broke out in a cold sweat as the numbness made its way through my body. I was crying, but some part of me felt such relief I didn’t care about anything else.
I love this so much. Why did I ever stop?
Her being gone did come, just like I knew it would. Before the night was over, Karen being gone hit me for real, but by then I was numb and beyond feeling anything.