State of Decay

cool and dry.

“Faye—”

She put one hand in the middle of my wounded chest and shoved me back.

That was the last time I saw her.

Cal pulled me the rest of the way as the panel slammed shut.

Go, Faye said; then the link cut out.

When I looked back at them, Calliope was shouting something and Zoe was just staring up at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Even for her, there was something strange about her expression. It was like she had forgotten who I was.

On the other side of the panel, I heard gunfire and the shriek of a flamethrower. I felt the heat on my face as it radiated from the panel in front of me.

I checked the magazine of the gun Cal had handed me. Half the rounds were left.

“Stick close,” I told them. The heat was starting to get intense, and at this depth, between the fire and the smoke, the air would get used up fast.

We didn’t encounter any soldiers on the way back. We ran through the passageway until we came out near the elevator, which was shut down, so I followed the route Cal had taken us when we came in. We headed back up the stairs, back out through the bombed factory entrance and into the underground parking garage, where the shells of the cars were still burning.

As we moved up the ramp, the hot air below became a warm breeze, rushing over us from behind and smelling like smoke. We stepped out into the night and the crisp, cold air. Snow began to fall on my face. It felt good.

The helicopters had been joined by three more, sitting there quietly in the dark. There were no soldiers around, so they had to still be down there. Did they follow the revivors as they tried to get out, or did the whole lot of them burn?

I tried to open a connection to Faye. She didn’t respond.

“What do we do now?” Cal asked.

Sean.

Yeah?

I need an EMT at my location.

You got it. Good to hear from you, Nico.

You too.

I knelt down in the snow next to them, the last reserves of my energy trickling away. Zoe stood near me, shivering in the snow as the wind whipped through her thin white linens. I took my coat off and pulled her down to me, placing it around her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Come here.”

I guided her into my lap to keep her bare feet out of the snow, and held her as she shook.

She’s just one of many, Agent. Your friend isn’t unique; she’s one of thousands….

Fawkes believed it. He’d provoked the deployment of the National Guard so he could take control of its revivor ranks, then used them to kill the people on his list. He thought he was bringing down a massive conspiracy. He’d been torturing those people in that underground facility to try to learn how they did what they did and how to stop them.

Zoe shivered in my arms. Was Fawkes insane? Or could there be some truth to what he said?

Nico, what happened down there? Sean asked.

If my memories had been altered, I wouldn’t know it. Zoe proved that the day I first met her.

…she’s one of thousands, and they have been using you to get to me….

The kind of destruction going on below us wasn’t sanctioned by the FBI. Whoever was behind the operation, it wasn’t us. They were destroying everything. Faye was gone, this time for good.

Nico, respond. What happened down there?

I don’t know, I said, and cut the connection.

Cal scowled as a gust of wind blew. She looked down at me.

“Hey, what do we do now?” she asked again.

“We wait.”

“Wait,” she snorted.

“Quietly,” I said, and that’s how it ended.

Well, more or less.

13 Dawn

Zoe Ott—Pleasantview Apartments, Apartment 613

“Hey, you okay?”

I caught myself staring into space again. I’d been doing that a lot. After everything was over and I finally got back, nothing felt the same. I guess I hadn’t really been gone very long, but it felt like forever.

I tipped my glass back, smelling the licorice and letting the fire fill my mouth, then my throat and belly. Karen watched me do it, but even though I don’t think she approved, she still smiled. I think she didn’t expect to ever see me again. I know I didn’t expect to see her again.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Thanks again for letting me stay with you. My place is kind of a crime scene.”

They had held me for a while and asked a lot of questions. I wanted to see Nico, but they wouldn’t let me. I was brought to another room where they tried to stick me with a needle, but I made them let me go. When the cab dropped me off, there were some cops still in my apartment and yellow police tape was all across the front door. The place was totally trashed, and no one would tell me anything. There were markers on the floor around a giant bloodstain, and kind of in the middle of it was the outline of a body in white tape. I found out later that it was my next-door neighbor. The revivor that took me killed him right there in my living room.

They asked me if I had anywhere else to stay while they finished their investigation, and when I said I didn’t, they said I should get a hotel for a few days. I was too afraid to ask what happened to Karen. I was looking around, afraid to find another outline, when she showed up in the hallway. She got me something to eat, and better still, something to drink. It was like she was waiting for me.

“Did they tell you anything?” she asked. I shook my head.

“Me neither,” she said. “Did they find out who it was?”

“No.”

“Well, you can stay here as long as you need.”

“What about what’s- his-face?” I asked. I didn’t see the oaf in the tank top anywhere around.

“He doesn’t live here; he just stays here,” she said. “He’s going to stay at his place for a while.”

Her eyes got kind of teary, and she wiped at the big, nasty double shiner she got when she ran in and tried to rescue me.

“Sorry you got hurt,” I said. She smiled, but she didn’t even remember how it happened. She never mentioned the revivor that broke in and attacked me, because she didn’t remember it. When I wiped her memory, it was like for her that part never happened. She knew only what she’d been told afterward. “What about your friend, the agent?” she asked.

“Nico’s going to check in later.”

“You’ll get to see him again, then.”

“Yeah.”