State of Decay

again.

She—I mean it—was still down in the factory last I saw. No one found it?

Whoever was behind this rigged the place to do a very slow, very hot burn. Experts are saying the lower levels could smolder for months. Nothing past the parking garage can even be accessed by firefighters right now.

I thought the soldiers burned the place. Weren’t those their orders?

I don’t know what their orders were and neither do you, Wachalowski. The people responsible for this burned the place, along with the prisoners they were keeping there, to cover their tracks. End of story.

My memory of what happened down in the factory was a little fuzzy, but that didn’t sit with what I had seen. Still, I knew when something was a done deal. If I was going to pursue this further, it wasn’t going to be in front of Noakes.

So, we stopped them.

The ring of smuggled revivors and weapons was traced to a terrorist cell that was using the old factory as a base of operations, from which they organized a series of kidnappings, murders, and terror strikes. We’ve broken up the smuggling ring, found those responsible for the attacks, and, with the aid of the military, taken out them and their headquarters. Yes, we stopped them.

Noakes, this is Sean.

What is it?

I’m sorry, sir, but I need to finish the reinitialization of the JZI, and that will include the communications array. Can this wait until I’m finished?

Fine. Agent Wachalowski, good work. The governor is happy. The mayor is happy. I’m happy.

Yes, sir.

You are too, Wachalowski.

Yes, sir.

The communication broke; then the array went off-line, thanks to some internal tweak from Sean.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“What happened to Zoe and Calliope?”

“They interviewed them, of course. Ott insisted she was unconscious the whole time and didn’t remember anything about her capture or her abductor.”

“They believed that?”

“I can’t explain it, but they just let her go.”

Maybe he couldn’t explain it, but I could.

“What about the other one?”

“Flax backed up the story you gave when you were brought in. They held her for a couple days, then cut her loose.”

“So that’s that?”

“Yeah.”

“No one cares about Cross, or the breach at Heinlein, or what was really going on down in that factory?”

Sean smiled faintly, then sat down next to the maintenance chair. He leaned in a little closer, putting his face near mine, like he was going to whisper something to me.

Instead, his stare became fixed, and a second later I watched as his pupils dilated almost all the way open. I felt a little wave of dizziness, but then it passed.

“Mark one three one,” he said. I was about to ask him what he was talking about when he spoke again, this time in a different tone of voice.

“Stop pursing the specifics of what was going on down in the factory,” he said, his voice authoritative and calm. “Any and all links to Heinlein Industries were opportunistic, to make use of their resources in order to maintain their smuggled revivor soldiers. There was no link between the murders investigated by Detective Dasalia and the events leading up to the strike on the factory. You never found the prisoners being kept in the underground facility, and as far as you know, they were burned along with everything else. Do you understand?”

His stare and his statements took me by such surprise that I thought I almost said something before I realized what was happening. As I watched him from the other side of that dark spot swimming in front of my eyes, I realized he was staring at me the same way Zoe had that time, the way I’d seen her stare at others when she was controlling them.

He was one of them.

Sean was looking at me, pupils still wide, waiting for an answer. Except for some reason his little trick wasn’t working, and he hadn’t realized that. Not yet. His eyes narrowed.

I’d had pinprick necrosis in a section of my brain. Whatever had happened to me, it seemed to have left me immune to their influence.

I let my mind go blank. I stopped thinking about anything else except what he’d said.

“I understand,” I said. His face relaxed.

“This was a win across the board,” he continued. “Whatever you saw or heard down there, forget it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Sean’s eyes stayed the same, but his face relaxed a little and his tone of voice changed when he spoke again.

“This is for your own good, Nico. Stay out of this.”

I had known Sean for years. Our relationship had always been the same, and I trusted him with my life. Seeing him then, it was like he had pulled off a mask.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said, leaning closer, “then forget everything to my statement ‘mark one three one.’ I need to know one thing.”

“Okay.”

“Where is Samuel Fawkes? Did he get out of the facility?”

I knew there was a lot riding on my answer. This was important to him, very important. I had never seen him so serious about anything before in my life. Fawkes had been telling the truth. The group he described, they did exist. They had infiltrated even the FBI, and they knew about him.

“No,” I said.

“No?”

I could have told him I didn’t know or I could have told him the truth, but something told me to play that information close to the vest.

“Samuel Fawkes is dead.”

“You’re sure?”

“He’s dead,” I said.

What the hell. It wasn’t a lie.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Knapp grew up in New England and currently lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Kim.