Element Zero

hiccup, and I knew he’d sensed me. In a second, Ai would sense me too, and when she did she’d shut me out again. I only had a short time to communicate with him, to plant, maybe, an idea in his mind. It was an idea that I didn’t totally understand myself yet, but somehow I knew it was the answer. When I thought back to what I’d learned about Noelle, who came before me and before Penny, it suddenly seemed clear. She’d known. She’d known all along; she just couldn’t handle it.

I took a long swallow off the bottle in my hand and wormed my way further into his mind.

When you retake the satellite, don’t shut down the launch, I told him. I felt anxiousness in him from somewhere deep inside as the command took root. Don’t shut it down. Wait for my signal….

I felt Ai then, and my eyes snapped open as the connection was broken. When I looked over at her, her large eyes had narrowed and there was a hard glint in them.

“I told you to leave him,” she said in a low voice. “I—”

She stopped short and perked up, as if she’d heard something. The anger went out of her eyes and I felt a spike of alarm from her, licking out of her consciousness like a solar flare.

“Robin, wait,” she said.

“Hold on,” Mr. Raphael said. He checked something offscreen.

In all the activity, no one else saw Ai sit up straight suddenly. Her eyes looked startled as they opened wide and stared into space. The others around the table jerked in their trances, sitting up straight along with her.

“Mr. Raphael,” Ai said, and the voices quieted.

“Yes, Motoko?”

“Abandon the CMC Tower immediately.”

“We’re organizing the evacuation now—”

“Forget the rest,” she snapped. “Use the helipad.”

“Motoko, there are sixteen thousand people in this building,” he said. “Tell me what you saw…. ”

On Mr. Raphael’s screen, he turned toward a window behind him where something outside had started to glow in the sky above the electric city lights.

“What is that?” he muttered.

The screen flickered and went out. A second later, all of the screens went out and the room went dark.

Nico Wachalowski—Stillwell Corps Base

From the helicopter, I could see fire in the streets below. A car burned in an intersection, flames spraying cinders as the wind howled through the street. Two blocks down, smoke was pouring from the broken window of a residential building.

Alice, we need to start tracking the bites that occurred since the activation code was sent.

We’ll coordinate with local hospitals. If this is true, though, Wachalowski, our best bet is going to be stemming it at its source, not chasing thousands of leads.

We need to contain the city. No one in or out.

We’re working on it.

The snow began to pick up as the helicopter took us back toward the Stillwell Corps base. Visibility was down and the ride was choppy. The windshield turned black, and a computerized view appeared in its place as the pilot passed between two buildings.

What about you? she asked. If this really is true, wouldn’t you be affected?

I’m okay.

But have you been affected?

A notification appeared in front of me as my internal diagnostic finished. My JZI called out my new arm on the system tree with a low-level warning. The necrotic bleed-through had been identified. It was true—the altered nanoblood was leaking into my bloodstream.

No, I lied.

The chopper hit a patch of turbulence and bucked underneath me. My stomach dropped. The vectors tilted in the windshield display, and through the side window I watched the buildings below as we banked left and veered over one of the main strips. From our position, I could see the Central Media Communications Tower in the distance, and beyond that, nearly lost in the snow, the UAC TransTech Center.

Keep me informed, she said. Let me know as soon as you have something we can use against Fawkes. She broke the connection.

I pulled my collar down to check my shoulder and saw what looked like bruising there. The bleed-through was getting worse. I wondered if the filter was no longer able to screen the altered nanotech at all. I could be running out of time.

I opened a new link over the channel MacReady had provided.

MacReady, this is happening fast. Do you have a revivor I can use?

It’s on its way. I will have it shortly.

Let me know the second you do.

Understood, Agent.

In the meantime, I have a question. Something revivor related.

I’ll help if I can.

You said you continued the Zhang’s Syndrome study?

Yes.

Was the condition ever recorded in a living person?

It’s a condition that occurs during reanimation. No, it does not affect living people.

What about a person experiencing necrotic bleed-through?

It doesn’t work that way, Agent. Even with the M10 series, the synthetic blood is something wholly separate from the revivor nodes that interface with the brain. Synthetic blood leaking into an organic system does not, and cannot, cause reanimation. If the traces of synthetic blood were to make their way into the brain, they would most likely kill the affected person.

Understood.

Do you know someone who is suffering from this condition? he fished.

What if the nanoblood were altered somehow? I asked. Could it be changed to that much of a degree?

You’re referring to Fawkes’s use of the transmitter earlier.

Is it possible?

I don’t know, he said. In theory …at the molecular level, many of the components are generic. They could be recoded to perform different functions, but not easily.

So it is possible?

I would say yes. Particularly if you had high-ranking scientists like the ones you named on your team. That kind of research would, of course, be highly illegal, but I would say possible, in theory.

Understood.

Are you saying that you’re—

Just get the revivors I asked for. And hurry. There isn’t much time.

I understand. I think you should know this before the time comes, though: you have a relationship to this revivor.

What—

It’s the revivor of Faye Dasalia, he said.