Element Zero

off me or I will fucking shoot him!”

“Stand down!” Ramirez ordered. “We need her alive!”

They lowered their guns. The guy I had covered glared back at me as the whistle from overhead dropped lower and lower in pitch. It was one of the ICBMs. Fawkes had just dropped one of the twelve nukes.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” someone yelled, and Ramirez turned on them.

“Get it together, people!” he barked. “We’re fine where we are! We have our orders, and I expect you to follow them!”

“You’re not taking me,” I told him.

“You’re making a big mistake, Flax. Singh, get her under control. Now.”

“What the hell is this?” Singh whispered. He looked twitchy. “It’s not working…. Why isn’t she under?”

The rest of the squad stood there, guns out, not sure what to do. Ramirez looked pissed.

“You’re not getting out of here,” he said. He took a step toward me, and I went to hit him again, but when I moved the gun away, a pair of beefy arms grabbed me from behind. They pinned me and squeezed.

“Hold her!”

“You motherfuckers!” I yelled. I stomped Ramirez on the shin with one boot. His face went dark and he grunted.

“Hold her still, goddamn it!”

I got one foot behind the guy who’d grabbed me, then hooked his leg and flipped him. He let go when he started to fall, and I spun around. When he hit the blacktop, I put the heel of my boot down on his face.

Blood squirted from his squashed nose and he stayed down, but two more were right behind him and every time my heart beat, the pressure in my skull got worse. They were all around me and I should have turned on the next-closest one, but I didn’t. I dropped to my knees over the guy I just took out and bashed his head into the pavement. Before I knew what I was doing, I felt my mouth open wide and warm spit leaked out.

Do it …

His skin was hot under my hand. I could feel the blood pumping under my palm, and something in me wanted to feel that meat between my teeth, even when the gun pressed against the back of my head.

Do it …

What the fuck? What the fuck is happening to me?

“Don’t shoot! We need her!” Singh yelled. I turned around in time for something to cream me right in the forehead. I saw stars, and my legs went out from under me.

“Watch the head, goddamn it!”

My knees hit the blacktop. I tried to get back up, but my legs wouldn’t do it. Everything spun around me, and I felt blood run out of my nose.

Before I went down, someone caught me. Arms held me and lowered me onto my back.

“You’re okay,” I heard Singh say in my ear as the lights went out. “Don’t worry.”

“I’ll take care of you.”

The last thing I heard was the faint roar of the missile, turning from a shriek to a low rumble as it fell down toward the earth.

Faye Dasalia—Heinlein Industries, Pratsky Building

The sounds of gunfire and screams faded behind me. I spotted a stairwell door at the end of the hall and headed for it. To my left, windows looked over the tarmac, off to the distant skyline. As I moved down the corridor, I saw a door slam open outside and a group of men and women came running out. They made a break for the far- off perimeter, but before they made it a hundred yards, there was a bright flash from the sky. A beam of energy rippled down through the clouds and washed over them. In an instant, the tarmac melted underneath them and they were gone in a cloud of smoke. The thick glass buckled in the heat and cracked down the center with a thud as wet ash and tar rained against it. Wind whistled through as I turned the corner and headed away. I needed to get out of sight, and soon.

There was no way for me to know where Fawkes was. I could no longer locate any of them, and it surprised me how lost that made me feel. I’d come to rely on that command network, and without it I felt a little bit blind. I had to watch and listen more carefully. By now Fawkes was rallying them against me. My former allies were now my enemies, and that sense of connection I’d felt to them was gone, leaving a void behind it.

I should have let him kill me, I thought as I ran. In another second, it would have been done. Now—

As I came to a T in the corridor, I almost ran headlong into a soldier who stepped out in front of me. Its gun, held in one gray hand, hung by its side. It saw me, but took a second to react.

I rushed it, closing the distance in three strides. My forearms split apart and I triggered both the bayonets at once. As it raised its weapon, I knocked it back onto the floor then thrust both blades down, deep into its neck. They crossed just in front of its spinal column, and two spastic jets of black blood painted the walls to either side of us. I jerked and scissored the two blades together. Its head nearly severed, the soldier fell back and crashed down onto the floor.

Faye. It was Fawkes. I could sense him trying to reestablish the command spoke to retake control of me, trying to locate exactly where I was. I stepped through the oily pool growing across the tiles and picked up the soldier’s gun.

Faye, answer me, he said. And that’s when I saw a second flash out the window, much, much brighter than the first.

It came from somewhere far off, out between Heinlein and the city proper. The source was beyond the mouth of Palm Harbor, maybe ten miles or so from the coastline. The light was so intense, the window tinted and a large, dark spot danced in front of my eyes. A huge dome of flame had begun to expand over the water’s surface.

What was that?

The overhead lights flickered and then went out. I heard a collective gasp from back down the way I’d come; then, just as suddenly, the lights came back on. A chest-thumping boom followed, then a low, steady rumbling sound. The wind began to pick up, and snow streaked past the window.

Fawkes, what was that? The ball of light grew larger by the second. There had been a detonation of some kind. Whatever it was, it was huge….

I realized then what I was seeing. A dark cloud began to emerge from the blast and rise into the sky on a column. My heart hadn’t beat for years, but still, the cloud’s mushroom shape inspired dread.

What did you do? I asked. The words floated in front of the growing cloud, as a huge electrical arc flashed through it.

This is bigger than either one of us, Faye. Come back.

The rumble went on and on, even after the light was gone and the windows cleared. The mushroom cloud continued to grow high into the sky.

This is what we’ve worked toward, Faye. Your existence no longer matters. I know you believe—

I cut the connection and put a block on his ID. I saw him try to reestablish the link, but I didn’t pick up. I checked the pistol’s magazine; it was full. For a moment, I stood over the body, not sure what to do next.

Find Robert MacReady, Dulari had said. I wasn’t sure who he was, but I scanned the JZI nodes inside the building and found a match for his name. He was inside, then.

I put in a call request, then sprinted to the stairwell door and pushed it open. At the rail, I looked down and saw that it descended several stories. Until then I hadn’t realized how deep the structure really went.

I started down. If the revivor I’d just destroyed had a chance to report my location, then there were already more on their way. My best bet was to head down and try to disappear until I could decide what to do next.

I’d descended five flights when my call request was picked up. MacReady was alive.

Faye Dasalia, what do you want? He’d responded, but the circuit hadn’t come through the transmitter; Fawkes couldn’t monitor the conversation.