Element zero, p.14
Element Zero, page 14
part #3 of Revivors Series
“Out of the way!”
Vika bucked on the seat behind me as we hit a ridge of ice and caught air for a second. The bike fishtailed just as a man shoved a sheet of plastic out of the way and jumped out of the alley ahead of us. Vika squeezed my waist tighter as he grabbed for us and I steered out of his way. When I blew past him, I caught a flash of light in his eyes, and the static in my head crackled.
It’s nuts out here, Nico.
I know. I’m at the FBI building. Can you get here?
What for?
I want to run something past you. Off the wire. It’s important.
I looked down the street. The traffic was jammed as far as I could see. The Federal Building was a lot closer than the base, and I could drop the kid off there too.
I’ll be there.
Thanks. I cut the line, and called in to get a new route to the FBI. Dispatch pulled up the traffic reports and drew one out for me.
Stay off Stark Street; it’s gridlocked, the guy said. He fed me a new route.
Roger that. I changed direction and took us down a narrow ramp with chain-link on one side and pitted concrete on the other. We passed into the shadows under the monorail, and a couple pairs of eyes flashed in the dark. Something knocked over a shopping cart and stumbled behind a rusted pylon, but I didn’t see if it was human or not.
A shot boomed and more people scattered as I veered past a line of cars stuck behind a crash. Two more went off behind us as we approached a vehicle rolled over on its side, fire and smoke pouring out from the undercarriage. When we passed it, I saw a burned body through the back windshield.
This is fucked.
I took us through an alley to the main drag, where the Federal Building was. Something else scrambled across the street ahead and the static in my head picked up, a spike in the white noise. There was one nearby.
Vika tapped my back. Up ahead the space between the brick walls got narrow and there was a trash bin at the mouth of the alley.
Thrs 1. The message popped up on my JZI. The little shit had some kind of implant. She tapped my back again, and I saw her point from behind me.
Thr.
The crackle got louder. I saw something move from behind the trash bin. In the shadows, a pair of eyes flashed.
I cruised to a stop but kept the engine running. The thing trudged out from behind the box, and I drew my gun.
The static hissed as its feet scraped on the pavement. It was a street guy with a nasty beard and gaps in his teeth. I caught him in the headlight and saw that the whites of his eyes were stained black.
I put one in the guy’s forehead. The back of his head blew out, and he fell back against the metal bin. Steam rose off his sticky hair as he slumped over into the snow.
Nice shot.
I glanced back at her. When I scanned her, I found a JZI, or some half-assed version of one. It had a com link, but not much else.
Where’d you get the hardware? I asked.
Army. 2 yrs.
Two years in the army. The kid was sixteen, if that, so it wasn’t the UAC army. She had to be a refugee from somewhere in the Slav bloc. Who knew how she ended up here?
I drove past the body and back out onto the street. On the main road, a Stillwell truck used a winch to pull a wreck out of a snowbank. The FBI building was up ahead.
I parked on the sidewalk next to the entrance, and when I stood up my knee buckled for a second. The HUD on my JZI flickered, and a band of static squiggled past.
“You okay?” the kid asked.
“I’m fine. Come on.”
I tasted bile in the back of my throat as I headed up the stairs. Fawkes’s trigger didn’t kill me along with the rest, but something was wrong. I didn’t feel right. I was wound up, like I wanted to break something, but I didn’t know why. I took a deep breath and blew it out my nose as I pushed open the main door.
Inside I flashed my badge at the guard. He gave a nod and buzzed us in.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Vika said in the lobby. It was a madhouse in there. Security was doubled and people were backed up coming and going. I shoved my way past them and dragged the kid after me.
“They got better things to care about,” I said. “No one cares if you’re illegal.”
“I’m not illegal.”
“Whatever you are, no one cares.”
“I’m not a criminal either.”
“Shut up.”
Nico, I’m here. Where are you?
Fifteenth floor, east wing.
I picked up a kid on the way. Where do you want her?
Put her in Conference Room B and someone will take care of her. Meet me outside the war room.
Got it.
At the fifteenth floor, I took her east and dumped her in the conference room like Nico said.
“Give me five minutes,” I told her.
“Wait—”
“Five minutes. Don’t wander off.”
Vika opened her mouth again, and I shut the door.
Bch.
I made my way down the hall and picked Nico’s node out of the mess. When I got close, I tuned in on their chatter.
“ . . . analysis of the canines recovered at the storage yard is more or less complete. There’s no doubt at this point—the nodes we recovered from the animals were created by a version of Heinlein Industries’ M10 series, code named Huma. However, after some study, it would appear that there are key differences in the underlying nanotech.”
“What differences?” That was Nico.
“We’re still trying to determine that,” a voice said. “We’re working to bring in experts in the field, but without access to Heinlein, there’s only so much we can do. All I can say right now is that it’s not the original prototype. It’s been altered.”
I opened the door, and when I stuck my head in, a bunch of suits looked over. A shit-ton of photos were up on the wall in front of the table; I saw a train yard, some burned bodies, and a bunch of wire cages that were ripped open. One was a close-up of wet fur and a shaved patch of gray skin. There was a big bite mark that was puffed and scabby.
“All of the animals we recovered exhibited these wounds,” a woman said. “We were able to match at least some to the recovered canines.”
“They bit each other?” That was that prick, Van Offo.
“So it would seem. That behavior isn’t completely unusual in revivors, but the number of wounds suggests the urge to attack and bite was amped up in these specimens and that would fit with what we’re seeing on the streets right now. The shaving of the fur seems to suggest the sites were either being treated or monitored.”
“Why reanimate dogs at all?”
“We don’t know yet, but those animals appear to have been the main focus of whatever they were doing there.”
I saw Nico across the room and snapped my fingers in the air.
Hey, asshole.
He looked over, and when he saw me, he smiled. His face had taken a beating. He had a cut through one eyebrow, and there was a bad bruise around his neck. When he stood up, I saw him wince, but all in all he looked okay.
“The basement caller has been identified as Harold Deatherage,” Nico’s boss, Hsieh, said. “Agent Wachalowski has provided two other names as well: Ang Chen and Dulari Shaddrah. All three were involved with the M10-series project. And as I’m sure you all know by now, Ang Chen has been assisting directly with the development of the countervirus.”
“Where is Chen now?” someone asked.
“Not at his residence or at the Stillwell base. We believe he is most likely somewhere inside Heinlein Industries.”
“So Fawkes has him?”
“We now believe he’s been working with Fawkes all along. The program responsible for issuing the activation sequence was embedded in the computer systems at the Stillwell compound. They were able to trace it back to his ID.”
“He was vetted,” Van Offo said. “How was he able to lie to us?”
“We don’t know,” Alice said. “But it looks like that’s what he did.”
“What about the other two?”
“Shaddrah is most likely also on the Heinlein campus, but we think Deatherage might be on the run. The statements he made during his call suggested that whatever they were planning he might have gotten cold feet at the last minute and tried to back out. A team hit his residence an hour ago and found the body of a woman identified as his wife, but no one else. We know he bought a plane ticket out of the country, and we’re covering the airports, but so far there’s no sign of him.”
“I might have a lead there,” Nico said. “It looks like he had a woman, probably a mistress, set up in an apartment in Palos Verdes. I doubt the wife had that information to give up. Agent Van Offo and I will head over there.”
“So we’re unable to verify the purpose of either the Mother of Mercy or Black Rock facilities at this point?” a guy asked.
“Not yet,” Hsieh answered. “Scans have detected traces of nanostructures inside all of the recovered brain tissue, but nothing resembling revivor nodes in any of the human victims.”
“What about the transmission from earlier in the day?” Van Offo asked. “The one that froze them temporarily?”
“I know what that was,” I said. Everyone turned around to look at me. Nico grinned just a little.
“Who the hell are you?” some guy in the back asked.
“I’ve seen it before,” I said. “A field upgrade will make them freeze up for a minute.”
“What makes you think—” the guy started, but Hsieh cut him off.
“Quiet, Vesco,” she said. “Miss Flax is correct. As of twenty minutes ago, our techs were been able to decipher at least a portion of the transmission, and it looks like it was some kind of field upgrade that caused them to reinitialize afterward. Right now, our best theory is that Fawkes somehow enlisted the help of the individuals from Heinlein, Ang Chen in particular, to develop a Huma variant that would not be vulnerable to our countervirus. As of oh-eight-hundred hours this morning, his entire army may or may not be completely protected against that contingency.”
That got some fur up. Voices rumbled through the room, until Hsieh shut them up.
“We don’t know that for sure!” she snapped. “The current plan is still to attempt to use the virus. We could be wrong. We could be right, but Fawkes’s attempt to guard against the virus could have failed. We don’t know yet. After the transmission there have been more behavioral changes. So for all we know, that might have been the whole point of the alteration.”
“What kind of changes?”
“Heightened aggression, mainly. An increased impulse to attack and bite even without specific direction over the command spoke. Some have begun eating from victims—the ghrelin inhibitor has definitely been switched off since they first went active. For all we know, that was the only purpose behind this. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that this upgrade appears to have affected all M10 nanoblood in the field, including the payloads found in prosthetics. Agent Wachalowski has provided a viable nanoblood sample. Once it’s analyzed, we’ll know more.”
A lot of eyes looked over at Nico.
“Should he be in the field?” someone asked.
“He’s fine,” Alice said. At least one guy didn’t look sure, though.
“That stunt he pulled this morning was a long reach from ‘fine,’” he said. “I think we should . . . ” He spaced, then, drifting off midrant like he was stoned or something. Hsieh’s pupils opened as she stared them down, and the rest shut up.
“Agent Wachalowski is not a revivor,” she said, clipped, “and he is vital to this case. Nanoblood from prosthetics doesn’t intermingle with a person’s organic systems, and he has experienced no symptoms of any kind. Right?” She shot that last bit at Nico.
“Right,” he said, but there was something off about the way he said it. Was he lying?
“How’d he manage the code push?” I asked. “Back in the grinder, command used a satellite for that.”
Hsieh turned to the wall and a photo popped up of a big cluster of satellite dishes mounted on a frame behind a wall of buildings.
“This is Heinlein Industries’ transmitter array,” she said. “It’s used to communicate with the UAC satellite network for defense, and also for the specific purpose of field upgrades. We’ve verified the transmission was sourced from this array and bounced back from Heinlein’s satellites. This transmitter is also how Fawkes is currently controlling the nuclear satellite, Heinlein’s Eye, and his Huma units in the field. It’s the lynchpin of his strategy and a high-priority target, but before we can move on it the Department of Defense needs to determine whether or not this might trigger a launch of the ICBMs.”
Woah, I said to Nico. What launch?
He waved at me to shut up.
“And what if it will?” he asked.
“Osterhagen has a team working on taking control of the grid back,” she said. “Stillwell is ready to move on the facility the second we do. They’re doing everything they can. For now just get over to Palos Verdes. I’ll keep you informed.”
Nico signaled to me, and I saw Van Offo watch as he took me back out the door and into the hall.
“What launch?” I asked. “What was she talking about?”
“ICBMs. Fawkes has twelve of them pointed at the city.”
ICBMs. That meant nukes.
“Why? What the hell does he want?”
“We don’t know for sure,” he said, “but the bottom line is, we have to get to him first. To do that I’m going to need your help.”
“You got it,” I said. He waved me into another conference room and shut the door. He turned on the noise screen and leaned in close.
“When you did your tour, you worked with the M8 series, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ever hijack a revivor from an existing command network?”
“Sure.”
“Without using some kind of override code?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“There’s only one way to command a jack,” I said, “and that’s over a command spoke. You set up a new spoke, or you take over one that’s there already. You know that. What are you after?”
“I’m looking for a way to take control of one or more revivors from an existing command network, without tipping off the person controlling them.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d pulled that kind of thing off back in the grinder. “Sure. You can set that up, but you need to grab a revivor from the target network.”
“These revivors are behind Heinlein’s security perimeter, Cal. I won’t have physical access to them.”
“You need a live command spoke from a jack that can’t turn you in to the original commander—Fawkes.”
He rubbed his nose, and I saw his right hand. It was gray, like mine. There were black scabs fused over deep gouges in the knuckles. Those came from teeth. He’d bashed someone good.
“Shit, Nico.”
I grabbed his sleeve and pushed it up. The gray skin and black veins went up to his elbow.
“It’s fine.”
“Bullshit.”
I put my dead hand on his. The skin was the same color. Usually skin felt hot under it, but now his hand was as cold as mine. He gave my dead fingers a squeeze with his. Then he pulled away. He yanked the sleeve back down.
“I heard what you did down at the VA,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like you. You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m fine,” he said again, looking at the back of his dead hand for a second. “I think I might have some bleed-through, that’s all.”
He meant nanoblood leaking through the filter that joined a new limb and infecting the real blood on the other side. It happened sometimes with a rush job, or if you stressed a new joint too much, too soon. He said it like it was no big deal, but it was. You could die from that.
“‘That’s all’?”
“I’ll get it looked at,” he said. “Never mind me. What about you? The inhibitor worked, then?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
He smiled. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” I said. “I mean, I’m glad you’re okay.” He looked like he was going to say something else, but before he could I punched him in the arm—his good arm.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I know. Me, too. I got to get back to base. Tell me what you need.”
“For now, let’s say I’m able to get access to one of the revivors without Fawkes knowing,” he said. “How would I take control of the rest?”
“Easy. My CO showed me on week one. You keep the one you grab on the command spoke so you don’t tip anyone off, then drill into its control center to keep it quiet. Physically drill. After that, you can use a special package to set up your own command net, right on top of the first one.”
“That works?”
“Kind of. Any jacks you spoke to will take orders from either person controlling them, so you can still get caught. How many is he running total?”
“Inside Heinlein, probably hundreds.”
“Perfect. He can’t keep his eye on that many; it’s fucking impossible. Pick a few he doesn’t move, ones on autopilot, and use those.”
“Do you have the modules to do this?”
“I can get them.”
“Do it. Keep this quiet.”
“I’ll need to call in a favor.”
“Just keep it off the network. Fawkes had men inside Heinlein. He might have them here too. I’ll only have one shot at this.”
“Don’t worry about—”
I stopped short. A shiver ran down my spine. I heard it before I even knew I heard it.
“What is it?” Wachalowski asked.
The sound came from outside. I’d heard it enough times in the grinder to know you hit the deck when you did. It was the sound of rotors. A Chimera was coming in hot.
“Nico, get—”
The wall to my left blew into a thick cloud of powdered concrete and glass as a Gauss chain gun unloaded on the side of the building. The turret howled as it tore open the conference room around us. I caught a flash of the building across the street through the hole behind me, then hit the floor with my hands over my head.
