James Knapp - Element Zero

“That’s mine. Show me what I came here for, and it’s yours.”

“Fucking slut,” he muttered under his breath.

“In there,” Yavlinski said. He pointed to a rusted metal door at the far end of the alley, and I walked the bike down after him. At the end, he shoved open the door for me.

“You first,” I said.

I held the door and the four of them went in. There was light from a fire inside. It came from a doorway on the other side of what used to be a diner. The tables and chairs were gone, and the floor was covered in grime. Anything worth shit got stripped a long time ago.

From the light spilling through the doorway, I saw a shadow move. Yavlinski headed toward it. I parked the bike, armed it, and followed him.

Nico, pick up. When I sent the message, the link bounced, then cut out.

Goddamn it. What the fuck was he doing?

The four walked past a guy who stood guard next to an electric lamp, to a heavy metal door with chipped blue paint. Yavlinski banged on it twice with his fist, and a bolt turned from inside.

He opened the door and we went in. As soon as I was through the door, the static picked up. At least one of the guys they were holding was for real. To my right, a big ape sat on a stool with a shotgun across his lap. There were four guys on the floor against the far wall. At least one was a junkie, and two of them looked sick. One of them looked up when we came in. The rest just stared at the floor.

“Now you give me the bag, you ugly slut,” Yavlinski’s guy said.

“You’ll get paid when I say you get paid.”

His eyes flashed and his lip curled. The rest glared over at me as I walked up to the first guy in the row and nudged him with the toe of my boot.

“You, get up.”

It took him a second, but he got on his feet and leaned back against the wall. His breath reeked.

“Hold out your arm. Either one.”

He put out his right one. His dirty hand shook as I pushed the sleeve back from his wrist. There were needle tracks there. I took the tester out of my jacket and flipped the guard off.

He didn’t flinch when I stuck him. The tester sucked in a drop of blood and the screen lit up. The strip at the base turned red. He was a carrier. I pointed to the corner of the room.

“Over there.” He shuffled over and sat back down while I popped out the sample and stowed it in my pocket. I swapped the needle and moved to the next one. When I was done, I had three on one side of the room, and one on the other.

Singh, pick up.

I’m here. What did you find?

Three total. You got my position?

I see you. We’re sending in a retrieval squad now. Ten minutes.

I cut the link, then turned to Yavlinski and the rest.

“I got hits on these three. Not that one. That one can go.”

The one who was clean looked around the room. He took a step toward the door, but the guy with the shotgun tensed up.

“Not so fast,” he said.

“I said, he’s clean. Let him go.” Yavlinski’s guys got twitchy. The one that did the talking looked pissed.

“What the fuck?”

“You got three. You get paid for three.”

“We got four.”

“You got three. That one came up green. Now let him the fuck out.”

“Hey, fuck you. This is what you wanted, right? Pay up.”

“You’ll get your shit once the pickup is done. That’s the deal.”

He looked at Yavlinski, then back at me. He was trouble. I could tell by his eyes. I stowed the tester inside my jacket and curled my fingers through the brass knuckles there.

“How about I kill them and you, and fucking take the shi—”

I turned around and threw a right cross. The brass slammed into his jaw and broke it. A mouthful of blood and spit hit the wall next to him, and he went down like a rock. The rest of them jumped back, but none of them came at me. The guy with the shotgun didn’t point it at me—yet.

“Goddamn it …” the guy on the floor growled. He got up on his hands and knees, blood dripping out of his mouth and nose. I stomped my boot down on his ear and he went down in the dust and stayed down.

“You guys take it easy and everyone gets paid,” I said. “You want to fuck around? I tagged all your mugs when I came in, and a Stillwell unit is on its way here right now. You keep this shit up, and if I don’t bury you assholes, then they’ll come in here and kill your fucking grandkids. You get me?”

They got me. The guy with the gun nodded.

“That one goes,” I said, pointing to the one who came up green. This time they let him leave. Once he was out the door, he took off.

I checked out the other three. The static that crackled in the back of my skull was making my head hurt. Ten minutes was a long time to stew in that shithole. Yavlinski joined me and leaned in close.

“Just give them what they want,” he said. “You got what you came for.”

“They do the pickup. I pay you, you pay them. That’s how it works.” He sighed, and I caught a whiff of vodka.

“Sometimes I think you have a death wish.”

A call came in, flagged red. It was an alert from Stillwell. I picked up.

Flax, this is Singh. Forget the pickup, get out—

Out of nowhere, the static turned to a feedback whine that shot through my head. It hit me like a freight train. I saw Yavlinski’s eyes go wide as I reeled back. The brass slipped off my fingers and clanged on the floor as the shriek got louder.

Yavlinski’s mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear. My legs went out from under me. The room spun, and I went down on my back on the cold, hard floor. Garbage puked out of my JZI. The three guys in the corner jerked and started to fall. Behind me, I heard the door open, and someone ran out.

The carriers fell. Their bodies hit the floor near my feet. The last thing I saw was Yavlinski as he came down on his side a foot away from me.

What the—

A vein in Yavlinski’s eye turned black. It popped, and black spots bled through the white of it.

Huma.

I got it then: the fucker had finally done it. We were too late. After two years, Fawkes dropped the ax. The inhibitor was a wash. I was going down with the rest of them. Yavlinski’s ugly face was the last thing I was ever going to see.

The light popped and went out.

Fog drifted across the clinic’s lot as I pulled in next to a bank of snow pushed against a twisted chain-link fence. Van Offo watched the entrance with a flat orange glow behind his pupils, as a strip of fabric, part of a shirt, maybe, flapped from a coil of razor wire out back. The building face was covered in graffiti and darkened by years of smog. I’d seen too many places like it in the past year.

I cut the engine. A gust of wind blew powdery snow across the windshield and made the clinic’s metal door rattle in its frame. Through the window, I saw the waiting area was full.

“Let’s go,” I said. But Van Offo didn’t move. He leaned back and watched the door through half-closed eyelids. His mood had taken a turn since we left the train yard. He stared at the entrance to the clinic, but not at the people crowded inside. He had that far-off look he got when he saw something else, something only he could see. It was the same look Zoe used to get.

“You know something?” I asked him. He shrugged.

Orange light flickered softly behind his pupils. He had a secure connection open through his JZI, like he always did. The others watched and listened with him.

“Van Offo, if there’s something I need to know—”

The orange light went out and his eyes cleared. He’d killed the connection and left us alone in the car.