Element Zero

“I said, ‘stop’!” the woman’s voice screamed again. I turned to my left and saw several men and women dressed in hospital scrubs. In front of them was Doctor Pellwynne, her eyes wide with shock. Her expression was horrified. Tears had formed in her eyes.

A few feet away, I saw my reflection in the side of a polished steel cabinet. My face was as pale as the revivor’s arm next to it. My cheeks looked drawn, and there were dark circles under my eyes. My face and neck were spattered with Pena’s blood.

“Please,” Pellwynne said, holding up her hands. “Please just let him go.”

She looked at me like I was some kind of lunatic. She was pleading with me. Behind her, two security guards moved in, and when they looked in the room, their eyes widened. One of them said something into his radio.

“I’m an FBI agent,” I said. I reached for my badge, but I’d taken off my jacket.

“Please, Agent,” Pellwynne said again. “I am asking you. We can still save him. Please.”

My mind buzzed as thoughts crowded in faster than I could process them. I realized what I’d done, and my head began to spin. The whole room felt like it was spinning.

“I …”

I lowered the revivor arm and ran the hand over my face, smearing sweat and blood. The fingers and palm felt cold, and I felt myself cringe. This wasn’t who I was. What had I done?

The people in the room were saying something, but it was like the voices were coming from someplace far away. For a second, I couldn’t remember why I was there or what had happened. My brain was on overload, reaching out for something, anything solid to hold on to until it passed.

I didn’t do it consciously. If Faye was still out there she wouldn’t answer, and if she did, she couldn’t help. It made no sense to send the message to her, but I did, like some involuntary yelp.

I need you.

The message went out, and I killed the connection behind it as a cold drop of sweat rolled down one side of my neck. My stomach clenched, and I thought I might be sick.

Harold Deatherage. Ang Chen. Dulari Shaddrah.

I stood up, unsteady, and grabbed my jacket from the gurney. I looked Pellwynne in the eye, and what I saw there made me feel ashamed. I couldn’t explain to her why I’d done what I’d done. I didn’t understand it myself. Without looking at the other people, I pushed my way through them and staggered out into the hallway.

Harold Deatherage. Ang Chen. Dulari Shaddrah. I walked, letting the voices fade behind me as I tapped into the FBI’s network and began pulling information on the names I’d just obtained. I focused on that.

I knew about Chen, but according to the files, they all worked for Heinlein Industries. Chen was a top-tier nano engineer tied to the Huma project, and currently on loan to the DOD. Shaddrah’s specialty was brain work, and she was also tied to the Huma project. Deatherage researched payload and delivery methods for the Huma prototype. How were three high-ranking revivor specialists connected to someone like Pena?

Worse still, Chen was working on what might turn out to be our only viable offense against Fawkes. If he was somehow involved in this …

Incoming call. The request flashed in my periphery. It was Van Offo.

I checked the records and found all three of them were all still employed at Heinlein. Whatever the connection was, they were all involved somehow. Fawkes had contacts inside Heinlein Industries and at least one inside the DOD.

Incoming call. I picked up.

Leave the hospital, he said before I could respond. Someone’s on their way to get you. Go to the corner of Tenth Avenue and Park and wait there.

Van Offo—

Do it, Nico. Your name just lit up the wire. That stunt you pulled is going to disappear, but get out of there.

I glanced back over my shoulder in time to see a group of EMTs push their way into the room. People had stepped out into the hall to see what was going on. I turned away and headed for the elevators.

“Somebody stop him!” a voice shouted, but no one tried.

I don’t know what happened in there, I said.

We’ll figure it out. For now, just get going. Did you at least get any usable info? Van Offo asked.

Three names: Harold Deatherage, Ang Chen, and Dulari Shaddrah. They’re all Heinlein employees, Al, Chen is one of the top researchers on—

I know who he is. Van Offo paused on the other end of the line. This is bad. You want to get back here right away, Nico.

Why? What happened?

Word came down while you were under: Fawkes has taken control of Heinlein Industries.

What?

He piped over some video footage that looked like it was taken from a flyby of Heinlein’s campus. Below I could see a throng of people crowded at the entrance to the security tarmac. Past them I could see an open flame roar through the empty windshield of a large truck. Smoke rose into the air from several locations in the distance.

This was taken less than an hour ago, he said.

How? I asked. And why would he do that?

We don’t know how he managed it, but the current assumption is that it was so he could use their link to the defense grid.

They use that to upgrade revivors in the field, I said, and for the revivor communications bands.

It’s still part of the defense grid. It was a way in. He somehow used it to take control of a satellite armed with twelve nuclear ICBMs less than an hour ago.

What?

Nico, he’s threatening to launch if we try to send anyone in after him.

I rounded the corner and found a mob at the elevators. Turning right, I found the stairwell door and pushed it open, leaving a smear of blood behind. It was quieter in there. I started down as the door slammed behind me.

If he’s threatening instead of just firing, I said, then what does he want?

We don’t know yet.

Can we get control of the nukes back?

They’re trying, he said. But like I told you, I think this could be it. The end. It’s coming.

Not if we stop it.

If they could stop it, they—

Never mind that, I said. Focus. What was going on in that basement? Were we able to figure it out?

Not yet, he said. But, Nico, something strange happened down there.

What?

The people down there, the screaming man in particular—I couldn’t control them. I tried to calm him down, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t influence him.

I remembered the look of fear he’d had on his face when he’d made his way to the cages. Fear and confusion.

Why not? I asked.

You are supposed to be unique, he said. A lot of the path that we’ve tried to lay out hinges on that fact; Ai herself predicted it. One man will be beyond our control—one. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t control those people. Any of them.

What does it mean?