Element Zero

Every face looked scared. There was no violence yet, but panic simmered just below the surface out there. The military presence on the street helped, but with every media outlet broadcasting the carnage, they could see for themselves how bad it was. We’d been hit hard and were still reeling, and everyone knew it.

Something flickered in the corner of my eye, and it took me a second to realize it was the call request I’d left open to MacReady. He’d just picked up.

Use the new circuit. The message flashed in front of me as he cut the link. A new, encrypted connection appeared. I picked up and applied the provided key.

MacReady, where are you?

Inside the Pratsky Building of Heinlein Industries’ campus, he said. We need to be careful. Fawkes is monitoring communications.

What does he want?

I haven’t been able to determine that. To access the defense grid, and alter the existing revivors using the transmitter array, but I don’t know what his ultimate goal is.

What do you know about Harold Deatherage, Ang Chen, and Dulari Shaddrah? There was a brief pause.

I know who they are.

Harold Deatherage called me during a raid of an illegal test facility and he dropped your name.

He paused again, and I was afraid he might break the connection. Several people ran past the front of the car while a police officer shouted after them. One man stopped in front of us, and I honked the horn.

I know them, he said. The man outside changed direction and ran off.

What is their connection to Fawkes?

I don’t know.

Don’t bullshit me, MacReady. There isn’t time.

I’m not, he said. We worked as a team on a classified project—that’s how I know them. But if they’re helping Fawkes, then that happened without my knowledge.

What project?

The study of Zhang’s Syndrome.

It was my turn to pause. Years ago, MacReady had been the one who first told me about Zhang’s Syndrome. It was believed to be some kind of corruption of revivor memory during reanimation, but Fawkes had identified it for what it really was: erased or manipulated memories that returned to their original state after death. Supposedly, MacReady hadn’t believed that.

The four of you worked on Zhang’s Syndrome?

Among others.

For how long?

It doesn’t matter now, Agent. What matters is that at least part of that team has become convinced that Fawkes is right.

Footage of the attacks was playing across a bank of screens in the window of a nearby electronics store. People were queued up around it as the audio blared through a speaker that sat on the sidewalk outside.

“ …as of yet, no one has claimed responsibility for these attacks, and no demands have been issued,” the reporter said. “Several witnesses confirmed, however, that the helicopters that initiated the attacks were sporting the logo of the private military employed by Heinlein Industries…. ”

So far the FBI had kept Fawkes and the nuclear threat off the radar, but that wouldn’t last. Someone would dig it up. In an hour at the most, the media would be saturated with news of twelve ICBMs aimed down on our heads. Then we’d see real panic.

Fawkes has had men watching us from the inside, I said. I could use a similar advantage right now.

I’ll do what I can.

I need access to a revivor on Fawkes’s command network as well. Can you manage that?

What sort of access?

I’ll need a control spoke and the ability to install custom packages.

He might notice that.

Can you do it, MacReady?

He understands revivor technology very well, Agent. He’ll be scanning for intrusions, but I’ll see what I can do. He’s bringing online units that were being stored in the processing plant. That might be our best bet.

Good, I said. Actually, that’s perfect. The processing plant is where the Leichenesser stores are kept, right?

Each revivor that came off Heinlein’s line was implanted with a seed of the necrotized, flesh-eating substance in case of emergency. Even trace amounts of it would consume a revivor in seconds.

Yes. It’s kept in liquid form in cold storage within the plant itself.

Where is Fawkes based?

Here inside the Pratsky Building.

I want to move some of it from the processing plant to his location.

You’ll never get it close to him, Agent.

I won’t need to. If it hasn’t been gelatinized, it will turn to gas when it hits the air. If I can get it into the climate-control system, will that be enough?

MacReady thought about it for a minute.

That might work, he said.

An alert flashed on the HUD in front of me. The advance team was reporting trouble at Palos Verdes.

“Damn it …”

One last thing, MacReady: do you know anything at all about an effort to reanimate animals? Dogs, specifically?

Animals? No. Even for research purposes, we passed the need for animal trials decades ago. Why? What did you find?

More reports were spilling in from Palos Verdes. At least one revivor had been spotted and was being contained in the building.

“Wachalowski,” Van Offo warned from the back.

“I see it.”

MacReady, I have to go. Get me access to a revivor and at least five good candidates I can use it to spoke to.

I’ll try.

Get back to me as soon as you do.

I cut the connection, trying to find an opening in the lane ahead. Traffic was backed up as far as I could see. We were still blocks away from Palos Verdes.

I nosed into the intersection, where crowds had blocked traffic in both directions, and chirped the siren again. People moved out of the way, scowling and swearing as I inched past. The roadblock was up ahead. Two large military vehicles were wedged there, a gun turret mounted on each with a soldier manning it. A small chopper sat in the middle of a business plaza next to them.

I looked over at Calliope. She had one boot up on the dash and was glaring out the side window.

“You okay?” I asked. She didn’t answer.

“ …tally at each of the seven sites places the initial death toll somewhere around three hundred—”

Calliope stabbed the radio button with her finger, switching it off.

“Al,” I said over my shoulder. He didn’t answer. I checked the rearview mirror. He looked ashen.

“Al, how’s the neck?”

“Better than your arm.”

Someone nearby leaned on his horn, and a woman screamed back in Spanish. Al rubbed sweat from his face with one hand, and as he took a deep breath, his fingers shook.