Element Zero

Agent Wachalowski, over here.

A man waved from between two trucks off to the right, where the roadblock was set up. I edged the car down another side street and managed to creep along to where they were stationed. Two military vehicles sporting the Stillwell emblem sat in the street, while groups of soldiers kept the emergency lanes clear and watched for signs of trouble. Several soldiers approached as I pulled in and cut the engine. In front was their sergeant, a man named Ramirez.

I shouldered the door open and the others got out behind me. Rotors approached as I headed for the blockade. I held up my badge. Ramirez stepped forward to meet me.

“Agent Wachalowski,” he said, scanning my badge. His eyes flicked to the ashen fingers holding it. “We were told to expect you. I see you brought our soldier back.”

Calliope snapped a salute, and he returned it.

“Welcome back, Flax. We could sure use the help. Singh will fill you in.”

“Sergeant, I need to get to Palos Verdes Estates immediately,” I said. “Can that chopper take me there?”

“Stark Street’s inside a hot zone, Agent,” he said. “That whole area was overrun when the transmission went out.”

“I need to get inside that building.”

He nodded. Light flickered behind his eyes and the men near the helicopter began to scramble.

“Have you in the air in one minute,” he said. “Watch yourself out there.”

Snow, salt, and sand was kicked up, and Vika shielded her face. A soldier inside the chopper gestured for Van Offo and me to get in.

Van Offo, come on. He stood with his back to me.

“Al, we’ve got to go!” I called.

I can’t, Nico. Sorry.

He turned to look at me and swayed on his feet. Sweat was beaded on his forehead in spite of the cold, and dark circles had formed under his eyes.

“Al—”

A red spot appeared in the middle of the gauze patch on his neck and began to expand.

“Medic!” I shouted. Ramirez signaled, and two men sprinted toward us as Al lost his footing. I got an arm around him as he slumped and guided him down onto the cold blacktop.

Blood seeped through the gauze patch on his neck. As the medic knelt beside him, I used the backscatter filter and saw a big, dark pocket had formed under the skin where the patch was. He’d hemorrhaged, and was bleeding internally.

“Sir, step back,” the medic said as a second man joined him. I stood and backed away. Al opened a circuit as his eyelids fluttered and closed.

Get going, he said. There’s no time. I told you, I die today. I already knew that.

I nodded.

Zoe will stop him.

What?

He reached blindly with one hand as they tried to staunch the blood.

You will kill Fawkes—that’s what they think—but Zoe will stop him. That’s what she believes.

How? What does that mean?

I pity that girl, he said. All she ever seems to see is death and destruction, with her at its center. It’s too bad.

Al, how does she stop him? For just a second, his eyes got that amused look they sometimes got.

She’s got it bad, for y—

The connection dropped. The medics continued to work on him while the soldier in the chopper signaled to me again. There was nothing I could do. I headed toward them and climbed in.

Cal, I’m going off the grid for a while.

I got it.

Good luck.

You too.

The chopper lifted off, and she scowled up into the wind from the rotors. Off to the side, I saw the medic signal to Ramirez and shake his head. Van Offo had died.

His blank eyes still stared up at the chopper as we lifted off into the air.

Calliope Flax—Avenue De Luz

When the chopper took Nico up, Van Offo bled out and kicked it. I helped wrap him up and get him in the back of the truck, then took the kid to Singh, to see what he wanted to do with her.

“Flax, good to see you in one piece.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“Sorry about your friend,” he said, and jabbed a thumb at the body.

“He wasn’t my friend. I hated that asshole.”

The wind blew and I smelled blood mixed with those shitty cigarettes he smoked.

“There is no door,” a voice said—a girl’s voice—right in my ear. I looked around, but no one was there.

Pain throbbed in the back of my head, and everything went blurry for a second. My mouth filled with sour spit. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for it to pass. When it did, I got a flashback to my old apartment. It was so real, I could smell it.

I was standing in the hall across from the bathroom and I’d pushed aside the flag I took back from Juba. Behind it was a door, and I stood in the open doorway. The room on the other side had walls and floors covered in plastic. There was a gurney and a tray of surgical tools in the middle.

A little, spooky-looking woman stood in front of me, blocking my way. She stared up at me, the middle of her eyes black.

“There is no door,” she said.

“You okay?” Singh asked, and when he touched my arm, I jumped. I shook my head to clear it and pushed him away.

“I’m fine, dickhead.” I spat on the ground.

“I don’t think you are,” he said. He leaned a little closer and tapped behind his ear with one finger, right in the spot where I had the scar from the inhibitor implant. “They know.”

As the medic slammed the doors to the back of the truck and Ramirez got on the radio, I started to put in a call to Wachalowski, but before I could open the channel, something stopped me and I let it drop.

“Don’t call him,” Singh said, and for a second, I felt dizzy. “Just relax. Everything is fine.”

Ramirez glanced back over his shoulder at me as he stepped toward the jeep. I could just make out his voice over the wind.

“Yeah, she’s here,” he said, then paused. “We took him out by chopper. Van Offo is down, so we haven’t got anyone with him…. Yes, he’s en route to Palos Verdes.”

He was talking about Nico.

We haven’t got anyone with him….

“Who the fuck is he talking to?” I asked. “What do you mean, ‘they know’?”

Singh acted like he hadn’t heard. He looked down at the kid.

“Who’s this?”

“My name is Vika,” she said.