James Knapp - Element Zero

He looked out the window again and watched the people stream past.

“We had run out of green onions in the kitchen,” he said. “My mother had run across the street to buy some, to get us through lunch. Coming back, she was caught in the blast and killed. She was fifty-one.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I remember that day so clearly. You know? I saw her, on the other side of the street just before it happened. You had raised your badge, and the revivor looked at you. Your lady friend tried to pull you away, and my mother watched as you suddenly turned and pushed the woman down behind a delivery truck. I knew the explosion was coming then. I opened the door and shouted to my mother, but she didn’t hear me.”

He wanted answers. He wanted to make some kind of sense out of why the whole thing happened, but even if I could tell him everything I knew, I didn’t think it would help much. The truth was that while I’d never forget the attack that day, it was just one of many and it was already in my rearview mirror. The threats kept piling up, eclipsing the ones before them.

“You really got to me that day,” the boy said. “I thought if I had been you, or someone like you, at least I might have had a chance to save her. I was determined that when I was old enough, I’d enlist, but my father needed me here, and as you can see …” He shrugged.

I wished I could tell him that we’d at least gotten the ones responsible, but he knew we hadn’t. Samuel Fawkes’s main target, Motoko Ai, controlled much of the media through the Central Media Communications Tower and its mogul, Robin Raphael, but even they couldn’t cover up things completely. Only a small handful of people knew the truth, but our investigation was too big to keep invisible. Something big was still brewing out there, and everyone knew it. Whispers of mass arrests and secret detention centers kept circulating. It was starting to happen faster than Motoko’s people could keep up with.

“We almost went out of business back then,” the boy said. “A lot of places on the strip were struggling and the damage was too much for them to absorb. No one wanted to come here after what happened. It made no sense that there would be a second random attack in the same spot, but people were afraid.”

He pointed again out onto the street.

“But when you look at it now,” he said, “it’s like it never happened. Right? We all came together in the aftermath. We helped each other. The damage was repaired, the streets are clean now, and everyone is open for business. Some are even better now after rebuilding, and there’s something here that wasn’t here before. Like a bond. You know? Now if a stranger or a tourist were to come here, they would never even guess what happened right there.”

I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I hadn’t thought much about the area at all since then. As I watched the dark spot in front of my eyes drift across the falling snow, I knew there had to be stories just like his all throughout the city. Had I begun to lose touch? That had been both Fawkes’s and Ai’s mistake.

The thing was, though, that the kid didn’t know everything. He had gotten caught in the crossfire of a conventional bombing that didn’t really even have anything to do with him. If Fawkes had pulled off his plan three years prior, there would have been at least three nuclear detonations in the heart of the city, one for each of Ai’s strongholds. How long would it take to bounce back from that?

I opened my mouth to say something when my phone buzzed inside my jacket pocket. I took it out and saw the name VAN OFFO flash on the LCD.

A year ago, Alain Van Offo became my partner. The assignment came from high up, and he reported privately to Alice Hsieh. Motoko and her people knew they couldn’t directly control my mind anymore, but they still had him shadow me. Van Offo was a good agent, but he was one of them and he never pretended to be anything else. Like all of them, he controlled the minds of the people around us as a matter of course. Sometimes he had a good reason for it. Sometimes he didn’t. I dropped the phone back into my coat pocket without answering.

“You’re busy,” the boy said. “I should go.”

“I wish there was something I could tell you,” I said.

He waved his hand. “Maybe it’s stupid, but I wanted to tell you that we are okay. I wanted to tell you that even though you couldn’t stop the bomb that day, we are persevering. We’re strong. If another attack comes, we will overcome that too. If my mother was alive to see us still here, she would be very happy. You know?”

“It isn’t stupid. And thanks.”

Someone yelled across the restaurant in Chinese, and he glanced back before getting up.

“No charge for the food,” he said.

“Thanks again.”

“When you find the prick that did it, though, kill him for us.”

He wormed his way away from my table and back through the crowd.

“I’ll do that.”

Incoming call. The words flashed in the air between me and the empty chair across the table. It was Van Offo. Whatever he wanted had to be important.

Call accepted.

Wachalowski here.

You didn’t answer your phone.

I know that. What do you want?

The data sweeps just got a hit. They think it’s related to revivor tech.

Where?

Black Rock train yard.

I brought up details on the location and found it off the projects of Dandridge. The satellite photos showed that a big chunk of it was out of commission. A graveyard of retired freight carriers sat half-buried in the snow, waiting for the scrap heap.

It looks abandoned.

A flyby picked up heat and a big electrical signature. Magnetic scan suggests at least one heavy-duty lock. Someone’s there.

Got it.

I browsed through the satellite footage and the more I did, the more convinced I became that we were dealing with Fawkes. Since he’d gotten out of stasis and rejoined the living, we knew he’d disappeared somewhere inside the UAC. That meant sticking to places no one wanted to go. Even when he’d directed things from his box on the other side of the planet, that had been his MO. The city’s underbelly was big, bigger than it should have been. It was easy to get lost in, and he knew that.

Who were they communicating with? I asked.

They were unable to track the remote location, so we’re going in. SWAT is assembling now. Get back here.

Understood. I’m on my way.

I got up and made my way to the front door, a little bell ringing as I pushed it open and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The temperature had dropped and the snow was picking up. I joined the flow of foot traffic and started back toward the garage to get my car.

Any one of these people , I thought as I walked among them. Any number of them could be carrying the Huma injection. How many would Fawkes feel he needed before he decided to go ahead with whatever his plan was?

At the intersection, the light had changed again and I stood with the rest, waiting while snow began to blanket the vehicles that piled up along the side street in front of us. The spot where the revivor had stood was less than ten feet away from me.

The kid was right, though. The wound had healed, and you couldn’t tell. The city had been bruised but not beaten.

So far.

Every night, it was the same goddamned dream.

The faces and the voices changed, and even the body I looked out of changed, but it was the same place every time.

I was strapped to a gurney while guys in rubber suits pushed me down a hall. I could see and hear, but I couldn’t move. A door crashed open and they took me through to some big warehouse or hangar. Sheets of heavy plastic, some specked with blood, hung from hooks to screen off work areas, and I could see metal tanks with heavy hatches down there, fingers and palms pressed against glass ports. More guys in those hooded suits moved through the rows, and in an open spot in the middle, dirty naked people were on their knees, their necks chained to metal posts.