The Silent Army

“It’s easy sometimes,” Ai continued, “to stop seeing your enemy as human. In battle, it can be easy, maybe even convenient, to remove yourself from the human cost your struggle inflicts on your enemy. You understand that.”

I nodded.

“Sometimes war necessitates ugly choices, but Mr. Fawkes is not a nation and he is not a soldier. Mr. Fawkes is an individual. Strictly speaking, he is not even a citizen of this country any longer. No matter what his beliefs are, he had no authority or right to do what he did.”

“I agree.”

“Fawkes is still a threat. We both know what he recently acquired, and we both know he’ll use them.”

“Miss Motoko, if you have specific information—”

“I have specific information,” she clipped. “I have more specific information than you would believe. The devices he acquired are just part of his plan; he is gathering an army, and when he is ready, he will unleash both on us. He means to wipe us out completely, Agent, and it doesn’t matter to him who gets in the way. It doesn’t matter to him if he has to destroy this entire city to get rid of us.”

“Fawkes has an army of revivors?”

She nodded.

“Where? How?”

“We don’t know how yet,” she said. “We don’t know where, either—not yet. We’re closing in on their location, but what I said before about probabilities is true; stopping Fawkes is not a certainty. There is a very real possibility that this entire city and everything you see around you will cease to exist in a matter of days.”

Her eyes stared at me evenly from across the table, while a bad feeling began to sink into my gut. Zoe’s eyes were wide, and her mouth had parted slightly.

“The city gets destroyed?” she whispered.

“It will start here, but it won’t end here,” Ai said. “There will be almost no survivors.”

I wasn’t expecting that, but again, she was deadly serious.

“What do you mean ‘It won’t end here’?” I asked.

“Just what it sounds like,” she said simply. “Fawkes will destroy this city, and then, one by one, the rest will begin to fall.”

“That’s impossible—”

“I’ve seen it too,” Zoe said quietly. Her face was pale. She looked scared.

“When?” I asked her. “When does this supposedly happen?”

“Soon,” Ai said.

“Fawkes has most likely been destroyed by now,” I said. “If not, he will be soon. Haven’t you seen to that?”

She raised her thin eyebrows a little, like she was surprised I was so dense.

“Fawkes doesn’t get destroyed with the rest of his obsolete generation,” she said. “You kill Fawkes. The cull will locate him, but you, the one who is immune to our control, will kill him. That’s why you’re here.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I looked to Zoe, wanting to ask her how accurate these visions really were, but doubted she knew herself. If there was any truth to it …

“How long before he attacks?” I asked.

“An exact time frame is difficult to pinpoint,” she said, “but soon. We were unsuccessful in intercepting the weapons; he has them, or most of them.”

“Do you have any leads as to where they went?”

“We’re looking for them as hard as your agency is. We haven’t located them yet.”

“If Fawkes is operating out of the city, then give me something to go on,” I said. “I can’t just take your word for it.”

Penny reached across the table and handed me a data spike.

“We recorded that less than six hours ago,” Ai said.

I opened a connection to the spike and accessed the recording that was stored on it. It was a text message, repeated in a loop. The message used a revivor’s transponder code.

Nico. This is Sean. I’m here. Help me.

“Several of our people have gone missing,” Ai said, “and we recently tracked them to several locations. One is a facility called Rescue Mission. It is a nonprofit medical center for the homeless, which is run by the group known as Second Chance. Have you heard of them?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“I believe they’ve taken your friend, Agent.”

Nico. This is Sean. I’m here— I stopped the loop.

“Sean told me this started with the Concrete Falls bombing,” I said. “Do you know what he meant by that?” She shook her head.

“If Mr. Pu made that determination, he never got a chance to report it to me.”

She looked over at Zoe then. She spoke again, but when she did her tone had changed, becoming softer.

“Someone has to stop it,” she said. “You will be part of this too.”

“How many of you are there?” Zoe asked. The nervousness was gone. She looked excited.

“Us,” Penny said.

“How many of us are there?”

“More than you think,” Ai said. “You are not alone.”

The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye. Zoe opened her mouth to answer her when a wineglass on the table popped and something hissed loudly from directly in front of Ai’s face. The air rippled, and there was a loud crack that made everyone in the dining area turn. Outside the restaurant, a low boom echoed down the street.

A small object spun in the air in front of Ai, then dropped onto the tablecloth, trailing smoke. It was a piece of smooth, black metal, in the shape of a bullet.

“What the hell?” Zoe squawked.

She’s wearing an inertial dampening field. It was the only thing that could stop a round cold like that. The slug looked like it came from a gauss rifle.

I turned to follow the trajectory. A thin trail of smoke led to a window out front where four inches of bullet- proof glass had a neat hole bored straight through. A waiter walked through the smoke trail, disrupting it without even noticing.

Back at the table, Penny recovered quickly. She used a cloth napkin to grab the bullet, then stowed it in her purse. As I stood, I saw her hand off the purse to a passing woman. The woman disappeared into the crowd with it.

This is Agent Wachalowski. We have an unknown weapon fired from the street at Suehiro 9, possibly a magnetic rail gun.

Roger that.

I stood up and as I turned, I saw Ai sag in her seat, just a little. She stared at the air in front of her, looking very tired.

“Go,” Penny said.

I left the table and headed for the front entrance. When I got closer, I could just make out something through the window, a ripple in the air just past the glass. A gust of wind sprayed rain against the passersby, and for just a second there was a gap in the mist.

“Stop!” I yelled, drawing my weapon. The crowd was in the way. I struggled through them, but the gap in the rain was gone.

“Stop!”

I shoved past the hostess and through the front entrance, onto the sidewalk. People were moving in every direction. I couldn’t pinpoint him.

Damn it.

There was an alley alongside the restaurant and I ducked down it. Even if the shooter couldn’t be seen, he’d need to get off the street and away from the crowd. People parted in front of me as they saw the gun; one man backed into a woman, who slipped off the curb and landed in the street. A car stopped short, and I heard the crunch