Element zero, p.10
Element Zero, page 10
part #3 of Revivors Series
“Wachalowski! Wachalowski, where are you?” A voice was shouting my name, muted, from somewhere up above. Sean’s voice. My squad had found me somehow.
I fought them then. My brain seized on the hope that I might still survive, and I fought.
They saw the boy. One of them swung, but he got out of the way as the bayonet tugged at his filthy shirt. With most of my strength gone, the others turned their backs to me and closed on their fresh victim.
He tried for the side tunnel he’d come through, but another one had come in behind him. He was cut off. He scrambled back until he hit one of the makeshift walls. One of the planks was broken, and behind it was a small space that someone had dug out to hide food or munitions.
The boy squeezed through just as they reached him. He retreated back into the cubby as grimy fingers clawed an inch from his face. I pushed myself up and got on my hands and knees next to the revivor that lay facedown in the dirt. I looked for something, anything to stop them with.
“Wachalowski!”
Hands grabbed me from behind and pulled. I tried to scream, but my throat burned with something salty and warm. I choked, and coughed up blood.
Sean, wait . . .
He pulled me away, away from the backs of the revivors crowded around the broken plank. He thought I was alone. I could just make out the boy’s face, terrified, as I was dragged from the room and back up the tunnel.
“Shit! Set up a perimeter!” Sean yelled. I heard gunfire. The trees spun above me as Sean leaned over and shined a light in my one eye.
“Nico, stay with me,” he said. I tried to speak, but I was choking. Blood ran from my mouth.
Someone craned back my head, and I felt a tube slide down my throat. I could breathe again. I groped for Sean’s sleeve and pointed back down the tunnel.
Sean, wait, I said over the JZI, but I never finished. He leaned in close and stared into my eye. I felt dizzy as his pupils got wider, and as he stared, I felt the pain and the fear ease back. My heart rate went down.
“Sleep, Nico,” he said. I felt myself relax. “It’s over now. Don’t try to talk. Just sleep.”
I wanted to tell him about the boy, but when I tried, I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t form. He didn’t know. None of them knew. He was six feet underneath them, and none of them knew. Why couldn’t I respond? What had Sean done to me?
He leaned in until his lips were at my ear.
“You will forget this,” he said. “I can’t do anything about the physical scars, but I can do this. I don’t know if I can take it away completely, but I’ll try. Just forget . . .”
Forget . . .
“ . . . forget what happened down there.”
The medevac came. They airlifted me out. One of the revivors, its teeth stained red, came back up and watched the chopper. The gunner turned on it and cut it down as we left the boy who’d saved me to his fate, forgotten.
I opened my eyes. I was in a hospital, lying in bed while a doctor stood off to one side, turned away from me to examine an X-ray. I could still picture the boy’s face in my mind.
Was it real? Had it been a dream, or had that old memory finally worked its way back to the surface?
Outstanding message: Flax, Calliope.
There were many other beds in the room, all occupied. Off to my left I saw a man with bandages wrapped around his face, and in the bed across from his, another man whose hand was wrapped. At least two of his fingers were missing. A woman on a gurney had been wheeled in and pushed along one wall to wait her turn. Her face was lacerated, and there was a tube down her throat.
Outstanding message: Flax, Calliope.
The words flashed near the corner of my eye. I opened it.
Where the fuck are you?
I smiled, and felt a knot on the right side of my face. The time stamp on the message said it was two hours old. She was alive, or at least she had been two hours ago. I shook off the dream and accessed the Bureau’s system to find out what was happening out there.
FBI alerts had piled up, and they were still coming in. All across the city, thousands of people had dropped dead, only to get back up minutes later.
“MacReady was right. . . . We should have listened. . . .” I remembered. The basement caller, maybe Deatherage, had said that. Did he mean Bob MacReady, the same man I knew from Heinlein Industries?
I put in a call to him over the JZI, but he didn’t pick up. His communications node was still active, though. Wherever he was, he was alive. I left the channel open and set it aside in case he responded.
Out in the hallway, another patient was trucked by while a man shouted instructions. The hospital was overrun. According to the reports, the revivors had initially shown violent aggression, and riots broke out. Vehicles were abandoned in streets that became gridlocked. Stillwell soldiers had scrambled to assist local police, but before they could get a handle on the situation, the damage had been done.
I closed my eyes and cycled through incident reports. A citizen tip site had been set up, and flooded almost as soon as it came online. The FBI was scrambling to process the incoming information, but phones, data, and even JZI links were getting jammed. The media storm had networks nearly at a standstill.
It was a disaster. The carriers were slipping past perimeters set up after the initial assault, and disappearing. No one could say for sure where they were going or if there was any organization to their movements. The entire city was in a panic.
“He’s awake,” I heard a voice say. “Call the Agency and get them off our backs.”
“Doctor Pellwynne, process him, then get him out of here,” another voice said under his breath. “We’ve had two hacks into our system, looking for info on him, already. And anyway, we need the bed.”
Most media reports agreed that the transmission that triggered the carriers had come from Heinlein Industries, and the FBI’s information backed that up. There were unconfirmed reports of a security breach over at Heinlein as well. An automated emergency call had gone out, then been cancelled. No one at the campus had called out since, and all incoming calls were being bounced to the messaging system. Even JZI traffic was blocked.
“Agent Wachalowski?” a woman’s voice said. A cold hand gently touched my forehead. I opened my eyes and saw a pretty woman with skin the color of chocolate and black hair grouped in short twists. She looked down at me with tired eyes. As the report scrolled by between us, she smiled.
“Welcome back,” she said. “I’m Doctor Pellwynne.”
“Where am I?”
“The VA Hospital.”
I looked around. It was crowded, but the facility was first tier. It was a far cry from Mother of Mercy.
“Why here?”
“You needed some special work done,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She approached the bed and sat down in a chair next to it. I saw an orange flicker inside her pupils.
“What do you remember about the attack?” she asked.
“You don’t have time for this,” I said, “and neither do I. I’m sorry.”
“We have time,” she said. “What do you remember?”
“They mobbed us,” I said. It was sketchy, but I remembered the room filling up with bodies. They were revivors. “How many of them are out there?”
She kept her face calm, but there was fear there, in her eyes.
“A lot. That’s all I know. I haven’t had time to think about it; we’re running at triple capacity. The hospital is secure—for now.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“I understand, but I need to speak with you first.”
“Why?” I didn’t understand.
“What do you remember about the attack?”
“I . . . ”
I remembered falling down into the water. I’d been hit in the head. I was disoriented and went down on my back. I fired as one of them lurched toward me.
The ax. It had taken the ax from the wall.
Under the blanket, I’d closed my right fist and felt no pain. I stretched the fingers and made the fist again.
I looked down and saw a crease near the joint of my right shoulder where some kind of major work had been done. It was deep, and the skin there was thick and white. The scar that had been there since my last tour ended abruptly at that crease. I heard the tempo on my vitals monitor pick up.
“Before you look,” she said, “I want to prepare you—”
I pulled the blanket away and held up the arm in front of me. It was gray. Under the skin, I could see a network of black veins.
A cold feeling sank in the pit of my stomach. The sound of the heart monitor sounded faraway as it began to blip faster.
“Calm down,” Pellwynne said.
I flexed the fingers again. The muscles worked under the skin, but the hand wasn’t mine. The arm wasn’t mine. My tattoo from the service was gone. The scars, the calluses, even the body hair . . . they were gone. In their place was the smooth, gray limb of a dead man.
“Calm down,” she said again. She reached out and took the gray hand in hers, then placed her other over the back of it.
“Feel that,” she said. Her hands felt hot, like warm wax.
“They’re warm,” I said, but it wasn’t true. The fingers she had touched my forehead with were cold.
“You’ll get used to the temperature difference.”
“Who authorized this?” I asked. It was all I could think to say.
“It was at the Agency’s discretion,” she said.
“Who, specifically, authorized it?”
“I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”
She gave my hand one last squeeze and then let go of it.
“You will get used to it, Agent. I promise.”
I checked my JZI, and it had detected the new system. Information regarding the nerve interface and the paper-thin filter that separated the living tissue from the dead popped up and scrolled by. System vitals appeared and provided feedback on the arm’s condition, right down to the nanoblood version.
“Where is . . . ” I started to ask.
“By the time anyone got there, it was gone,” she said. The revivors had taken it.
“You’ll have full use of the new arm in two weeks, and it will be stronger than the original,” she said. “Until then, you’re running at near ninety percent. You can go back in the field, but be careful.”
I nodded. I’d seen replacements fitted in the field before. I’d told myself it was the next best thing. The reality of what had happened hadn’t hit home yet. It buzzed at the edge of my mind, like a fly at a window that couldn’t get in. I felt weirdly distant and calm.
“How long was I out?”
“You’ve been in surgery for four hours.”
Four hours. Fawkes had issued the code four hours ago, and we were still at a standstill. I had to get out of there.
Van Offo was offline. I tapped into the hospital records and checked the inpatient list; he’d been brought in to have the bullet removed from his neck, and was discharged two hours ago.
The man arrested at the site, Rafe Pena, hadn’t fared as well; he was still checked in. He’d suffered broken bones, internal injuries, and multiple bite wounds. He was listed as being in serious but stable condition.
I found the FBI records for the lockdown at Mother of Mercy and brought them up. According to them, Van Offo and one SWAT team member were taken out, along with me, by the EMTs. The SWAT officer died in transit. There were no other survivors from the basement.
“Where’s Pena?” I asked. Pellwynne frowned.
“He’s not ready for transport yet,” she said. “His injuries were fairly traumatic. Don’t worry about him right now.”
I watched one black vein bulge in that gray arm. I tried, but I couldn’t look away from it.
“You know, it may not seem that way now,” Pellwynne said, “but you’re very lucky, Agent Wachalowski.”
I cycled through the footage. Bodies lay in a foot of water that had turned red with blood. The cages had been torn open and the captives inside ripped apart. There was blood spatter painted across the walls, punctuated by bullet marks. It had been a slaughter.
“I found you a good match,” she said. “The nerve interface . . . it’s some of my best work. I know that doesn’t make this any easier to swallow. There was enough residual tissue to use with the growth accelerators. The join is solid. The blood is the latest version. It’s field upgradable, so you won’t have to report to Heinlein for transfusions. You shouldn’t experience any of the tingling or phantom muscle ticking usually associated with the older variants, and you’ll have full—”
“When can I leave?”
“As soon as you want. I’ll be honest, Agent—we could use the room.”
I sat up and put a call into the Bureau to let them know I was back on my feet. Fawkes could have played this card at any time—he didn’t choose today at random. I had to find out what the reason was.
“You can sign for your weapon when you check out,” she said. “I’ve left my contact information on your JZI, should you have any questions or need anything.”
“Thanks,” I said, but I barely heard her. She lingered for another minute; then I was vaguely aware of her leaving the room. The fly continued to bounce at the window as I stared at the black vein, following it as it branched out beneath the stranger’s cold, dead skin. Though terror was brewing somewhere inside me, I couldn’t look away.
4
FIRST STRIKE
Nico Wachalowski—VA Hospital
I left the hospital room in a daze. The circuit request still flashed in the corner of my eye. MacReady hadn’t picked up. Maybe he wasn’t going to.
Because of the trouble in the streets, the halls were crowded. Patients sat, holding bloodied gauze in place, outside doors while doctors rushed by. People were shouting, but I barely heard it. I felt like I was moving through the chaos in a bubble. Numb. Blood dotted the floor in a wandering line, and I followed it, heading toward the elevators.
I eased relaxant into my system, but even with the drugs I couldn’t shake the jitters. One of those things had cut off my arm. While I’d lain there, bleeding to death, they’d carried it away and eaten it. The last man I’d seen with any link to what was happening out there was somewhere in the building right now.
Halfway down the hall, I stopped, and an angry looking nurse brushed past me. I accessed the hospital’s records again.
Rafe Pena. Room 9E-C.
He was on that same floor, being held for questioning. The next time someone in scrubs moved past, I grabbed his arm. He looked irritated, but winced a little when I applied pressure.
“Room 9E-C,” I said.
“Back down the hall and to your right,” he said, pulling his arm free. Before I could say anything else, he was gone. I turned away from the blood trail and began moving back the way I’d come.
The room had three gurneys, but only one was occupied. The empty ones were still dressed in bloodied sheets, and on the third lay a whip-thin man. His pockmarked face was slack, and there was gauze covering the right side of it. I watched my hand push the door closed and then lock it.
“Wake up, Mr. Pena,” I said. He didn’t respond right away, and I kicked the gurney. One of his eyes cracked open, and when he saw me, the other one followed suit.
He sat up as I approached him, and when I breathed in, my nose filled with the stink from my clothes: rank blood and sweat, combined with the fouled basement water. I unbuttoned my jacket, the thick, gray fingers tripping me up for a second, then removed it and tossed it onto one of the empty gurneys. Sprouting from the rolled-up sleeve underneath, the thing that took the place of my arm didn’t look human. Muscle striations stood out in bands under the gray skin, webbed with a network of black veins. Just the sight of it brought back memories I’d give anything to forget, memories of that damp, dark pit and the cold hands that held me down as they . . .
I overrode the JZI and eased another dose of relaxant into my bloodstream. Warmth and numbness crept through my body as I closed my eyes and counted back from ten. My teeth chattered as I sucked air through my teeth and let it out slowly.
“You can’t—” he started to say; then I clamped that gray hand down on his neck. His skin felt hot underneath it, the signals jumping up through the grafted nerves like sparks of electricity. His eyes popped open as the fingers squeezed.
“What was going on in that basement?” I asked him in a low voice.
“Fuck you.” He grunted. I willed the dead hand to squeeze tighter, and it responded. His face turned darker, and blood began to bloom through the gauze over his right cheek.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Fuck . . . ”
He grabbed the forearm and pushed, but I leaned into it. As he struggled, in my head I heard Sean’s voice from long ago, back in the grinder. I was underground, where they’d dragged me. Their cold fingers dug into my skin from all around.
“Wachalowski! Wachalowski, where are you?”
In my mind, I heard the crunch as the first set of teeth bit down. I felt the impact of a knee in the side of my head, and that cold hand that clamped down on my face.
“Wachalowski!”
Rafe threw a punch that thumped into my ribs, but there was no power behind it. He threw two more, then tried to kick me, but got tangled in the blanket.
“I want to know what was going on down there,” I said. I eased up on his throat, and he gasped in a breath, then coughed through strings of spit.
“I don’t know anything,” he wheezed.
“You know who you worked for.”
He got one leg free from the blanket and thrust his knee into my side, but again, there was no power behind it. He was weak and injured. An IV tube still trailed from one of his arms. I didn’t need to strong-arm him, but something was building inside me, out of my control.
Still feeling like I was moving through a haze, I let go of his neck and reared back the fist. I fired it down like a piston, and his teeth broke against the knuckles of the dead hand. A front tooth and canine disappeared into his mouth and he coughed through a spray of blood, both red and black. He held one hand between us as I hammered his face again.
