The Silent Army

belly button and the hard muscle underneath.

Wachalowski, do you copy?

Blood was running out of the wound. I focused, keeping the knife clear of the dark artery that showed up on the backscatter. I felt the tip touch the shell of the device, and saw it move inside of her.

The virus failed, I said. I can’t stop the bomb. I’m coming up.

How long before detonation?

Eight minutes.

Understood. We’ll wait as long as we can.

The revivors had begun moving through the room, not sure what to do. Several focused on me, trying to resolve the signature with the body heat they detected. If one of them grabbed me, that might be all it would take to set them off.

How many to be extracted, Wachalowski?

I grabbed a set of glorified pliers from a rack of surgical tools and held the tip above the wound. As soon as I pulled the knife free, more blood pumped out, and I jammed the pliers into the hole. As the warmth rushed over my fist, I found the edge of the device and grabbed it.

It didn’t want to come. I winced as I pulled it free anyway and dropped the small, sticky brick and its trailing wires into a bedside pan. I injected blood clotter into the wound and watched it harden. Calliope’s face was gray, the color fading from her lips.

Wachalowski, come back. What about your civilian?

I cut the connection.

12 Resurrection

Faye Dasalia—KM Senopati Nusantara

“We’ve got him,” a voice shouted. Revivors carrying backscatter scanners walked atop the stacks of crates. One of them waved to the others down below. A loud snap from above echoed through the hold, followed by the whine of electric motors. One of the winches moved to retrieve the crate.

“Probability?”

“Near one hundred percent.”

The cable lowered, and they attached the hooks. Ice flaked away with a crunch as the crate was pulled from the rest of the stack. They began lowering it down toward the deck.

An explosion thudded from somewhere above, and the lights overhead swayed, throwing shadows. A metal groan came from the remaining stacks, and something clanged to the floor. The men below used poles to steady the crate as the cable brought it in.

Someone has boarded the ship. The words flashed in front of me. It was a broadcast from Fawkes. The thousands of eyes in the hold stopped moving, all at once becoming fixed.

The scout teams were unsuccessful. Find them and stop them.

The sound of a thousand weapons readying cracked through the hold like thunder. The figures began to move.

Above them, the winch lowered the stasis crate. It met the deck with a thud as the revival team moved in. The metal surface was dull and spotted with corrosion. There was lettering stenciled on its surface in both English and Hebrew.

“Open it,” one of them said.

Two revivors stepped closer. One released the magnetic restraining bolts while the other broke the seal. Air rushed in with a loud hiss as they pulled the cover free. Mist trailed from the door as it was thrown aside.

Secure the nukes, Fawkes broadcast. Those responsible for carrying them, retreat to the engine room. The power core there will mask the radiation. Once they are confirmed below, seal off the engine room and keep it secure. A second team will secure the bridge and keep it locked down at any cost.

An armed helicopter has approached the helipad, a report said. Only one confirmed.

Take that helicopter out. Get as many stingers up there as you can. They can’t stop them all. Do not allow them back onto the helipad; whoever boarded does not get back on that helicopter.

A stasis blister bulged there inside the crate, and I saw a male figure inside it. A revivor deployed its bayonet and jabbed the tip through the blister. It slit the plastic open and the stasis fluid inside flooded out. Two others plunged their arms into the thick soup and grabbed the figure inside. They lifted it out, arms and legs dangling, and more approached as it was placed on the deck.

One sprayed the body with a jet of water, washing it clean while others scanned it. I got a look at its face under the lights, and realized that I knew it. He was bonier now than in his pictures, and black veins wormed beneath skin that was pale and thin, but I still recognized him. The man was Samuel Fawkes.

“It’s him,” one of the revivors near him said. “Confirmed. It’s him. We’ve got him.”

Samuel Fawkes had been murdered; we knew that. A C-shaped dermal patch stood out on his side, just underneath the right side of his rib cage; I remembered it now from the crime photos. That’s where that strange street woman had stuck the knife. She’d meant to kill him then, and she almost did. She believed her own people would come for her when they found out what she did. She disobeyed an order…. After that, she disappeared.

The second skin patch had sealed a deeper wound, where flesh puckered around his left jugular. He had lived for three more years, before a second murder attempt was made. The second was successful.

If the memories of it hadn’t been taken, it would have been clear as day; at least one person had wanted to kill him, and at least one person wanted him alive.

Are they not as organized as we first thought?

A revivor pulled the tube out of his throat. Another held a metal wand to his neck. With an electric snap, his body convulsed, muscle striations standing out in shadow. The sound crackled through the hold as the soldiers continued to file out. Smoke began to rise from the metal wand in thin threads, and then a new signature began to initialize. It coalesced, and snapped into its waveform.

The waveform contained his encoded ID—that same ID that had reached out from far off, from across the desert and across the sea. It was here in front of me. As I stood and stared, I could feel him reaching. As the others helped him up onto his feet, he extended a connection out to me. I accepted the circuit, while he stood up for the first time in ten years.

Faye.

Yes. It’s me. I’m over here.

Samuel Fawkes opened his eyes. A faint silver light swelled, and began to grow brighter.

Nico Wachalowski—KM Senopati Nusantara

With Calliope’s body hoisted on one shoulder, I pushed through the throng of revivors as fast as I could. They’d noticed the blood on the gurney and were nosing past us to get at it. I adjusted her weight and headed out into the main corridor. Something crashed in the med ward behind me as I stepped onto the moving walkway and eased her down. My vision blurred as I knelt over her body, gasping. Another crowd of revivors was moving through the