rest, but something was wrong. I didn’t feel right. I was wound up, like I wanted to break something, but I didn’t know why. I took a deep breath and blew it out my nose as I pushed open the main door.
Inside I flashed my badge at the guard. He gave a nod and buzzed us in.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Vika said in the lobby. It was a madhouse in there. Security was doubled and people were backed up coming and going. I shoved my way past them and dragged the kid after me.
“They got better things to care about,” I said. “No one cares if you’re illegal.”
“I’m not illegal.”
“Whatever you are, no one cares.”
“I’m not a criminal either.”
“Shut up.”
At the fifteenth floor, I took her east and dumped her in the conference room like Nico said.
“Give me five minutes,” I told her.
“Wait—”
“Five minutes. Don’t wander off.”
Vika opened her mouth again, and I shut the door.
I made my way down the hall and picked Nico’s node out of the mess. When I got close, I tuned in on their chatter.
“ …analysis of the canines recovered at the storage yard is more or less complete. There’s no doubt at this point—the nodes we recovered from the animals were created by a version of Heinlein Industries’ M10 series, code named Huma. However, after some study, it would appear that there are key differences in the underlying nanotech.”
“What differences?” That was Nico.
“We’re still trying to determine that,” a voice said. “We’re working to bring in experts in the field, but without access to Heinlein, there’s only so much we can do. All I can say right now is that it’s not the original prototype. It’s been altered.”
I opened the door, and when I stuck my head in, a bunch of suits looked over. A shit-ton of photos were up on the wall in front of the table; I saw a train yard, some burned bodies, and a bunch of wire cages that were ripped open. One was a close-up of wet fur and a shaved patch of gray skin. There was a big bite mark that was puffed and scabby.
“All of the animals we recovered exhibited these wounds,” a woman said. “We were able to match at least some to the recovered canines.”
“They bit each other?” That was that prick, Van Offo.
“So it would seem. That behavior isn’t completely unusual in revivors, but the number of wounds suggests the urge to attack and bite was amped up in these specimens and that would fit with what we’re seeing on the streets right now. The shaving of the fur seems to suggest the sites were either being treated or monitored.”
“Why reanimate dogs at all?”
“We don’t know yet, but those animals appear to have been the main focus of whatever they were doing there.”
I saw Nico across the room and snapped my fingers in the air.
He looked over, and when he saw me, he smiled. His face had taken a beating. He had a cut through one eyebrow, and there was a bad bruise around his neck. When he stood up, I saw him wince, but all in all he looked okay.
“The basement caller has been identified as Harold Deatherage,” Nico’s boss, Hsieh, said. “Agent Wachalowski has provided two other names as well: Ang Chen and Dulari Shaddrah. All three were involved with the M10-series project. And as I’m sure you all know by now, Ang Chen has been assisting directly with the development of the countervirus.”
“Where is Chen now?” someone asked.
“Not at his residence or at the Stillwell base. We believe he is most likely somewhere inside Heinlein Industries.”
“So Fawkes has him?”
“We now believe he’s been working with Fawkes all along. The program responsible for issuing the activation sequence was embedded in the computer systems at the Stillwell compound. They were able to trace it back to his ID.”
“He was vetted,” Van Offo said. “How was he able to lie to us?”
“We don’t know,” Alice said. “But it looks like that’s what he did.”
“What about the other two?”
“Shaddrah is most likely also on the Heinlein campus, but we think Deatherage might be on the run. The statements he made during his call suggested that whatever they were planning he might have gotten cold feet at the last minute and tried to back out. A team hit his residence an hour ago and found the body of a woman identified as his wife, but no one else. We know he bought a plane ticket out of the country, and we’re covering the airports, but so far there’s no sign of him.”
“I might have a lead there,” Nico said. “It looks like he had a woman, probably a mistress, set up in an apartment in Palos Verdes. I doubt the wife had that information to give up. Agent Van Offo and I will head over there.”
“So we’re unable to verify the purpose of either the Mother of Mercy or Black Rock facilities at this point?” a guy asked.
“Not yet,” Hsieh answered. “Scans have detected traces of nanostructures inside all of the recovered brain tissue, but nothing resembling revivor nodes in any of the human victims.”
“What about the transmission from earlier in the day?” Van Offo asked. “The one that froze them temporarily?”
“I know what that was,” I said. Everyone turned around to look at me. Nico grinned just a little.
“Who the hell are you?” some guy in the back asked.
“I’ve seen it before,” I said. “A field upgrade will make them freeze up for a minute.”
“What makes you think—” the guy started, but Hsieh cut him off.
“Quiet, Vesco,” she said. “Miss Flax is correct. As of twenty minutes ago, our techs were been able to decipher at least a portion of the transmission, and it looks like it was some kind of field upgrade that caused them to reinitialize afterward. Right now, our best theory is that Fawkes somehow enlisted the help of the individuals from Heinlein, Ang Chen in particular, to develop a Huma variant that would not be vulnerable to our countervirus. As of oh-eight-hundred hours this morning, his entire army may or may not be completely protected against that contingency.”
That got some fur up. Voices rumbled through the room, until Hsieh shut them up.
“We don’t know that for sure!” she snapped. “The current plan is still to attempt to use the virus. We could be wrong. We could be right, but Fawkes’s attempt to guard against the virus could have failed. We don’t know yet. After the transmission there have been more behavioral changes. So for all we know, that might have been the whole point of the alteration.”
“What kind of changes?”
“Heightened aggression, mainly. An increased impulse to attack and bite even without specific direction over the command spoke. Some have begun eating from victims—the ghrelin inhibitor has definitely been switched off since they first went active. For all we know, that was the only purpose behind this. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that this upgrade appears to have affected all M10 nanoblood in the field, including the payloads found in prosthetics. Agent Wachalowski has provided a viable nanoblood sample. Once it’s analyzed, we’ll know
