James Knapp - Element Zero

“Agent Wachalowski?” a woman’s voice said. A cold hand gently touched my forehead. I opened my eyes and saw a pretty woman with skin the color of chocolate and black hair grouped in short twists. She looked down at me with tired eyes. As the report scrolled by between us, she smiled.

“Welcome back,” she said. “I’m Doctor Pellwynne.”

“Where am I?”

“The VA Hospital.”

I looked around. It was crowded, but the facility was first tier. It was a far cry from Mother of Mercy.

“Why here?”

“You needed some special work done,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

She approached the bed and sat down in a chair next to it. I saw an orange flicker inside her pupils.

“What do you remember about the attack?” she asked.

“You don’t have time for this,” I said, “and neither do I. I’m sorry.”

“We have time,” she said. “What do you remember?”

“They mobbed us,” I said. It was sketchy, but I remembered the room filling up with bodies. They were revivors. “How many of them are out there?”

She kept her face calm, but there was fear there, in her eyes.

“A lot. That’s all I know. I haven’t had time to think about it; we’re running at triple capacity. The hospital is secure—for now.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“I understand, but I need to speak with you first.”

“Why?” I didn’t understand.

“What do you remember about the attack?”

“I …”

I remembered falling down into the water. I’d been hit in the head. I was disoriented and went down on my back. I fired as one of them lurched toward me.

The ax. It had taken the ax from the wall.

Under the blanket, I’d closed my right fist and felt no pain. I stretched the fingers and made the fist again.

I looked down and saw a crease near the joint of my right shoulder where some kind of major work had been done. It was deep, and the skin there was thick and white. The scar that had been there since my last tour ended abruptly at that crease. I heard the tempo on my vitals monitor pick up.

“Before you look,” she said, “I want to prepare you—”

I pulled the blanket away and held up the arm in front of me. It was gray. Under the skin, I could see a network of black veins.

A cold feeling sank in the pit of my stomach. The sound of the heart monitor sounded faraway as it began to blip faster.

“Calm down,” Pellwynne said.

I flexed the fingers again. The muscles worked under the skin, but the hand wasn’t mine. The arm wasn’t mine. My tattoo from the service was gone. The scars, the calluses, even the body hair …they were gone. In their place was the smooth, gray limb of a dead man.

“Calm down,” she said again. She reached out and took the gray hand in hers, then placed her other over the back of it.

“Feel that,” she said. Her hands felt hot, like warm wax.

“They’re warm,” I said, but it wasn’t true. The fingers she had touched my forehead with were cold.

“You’ll get used to the temperature difference.”

“Who authorized this?” I asked. It was all I could think to say.

“It was at the Agency’s discretion,” she said.

“Who, specifically, authorized it?”

“I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”

She gave my hand one last squeeze and then let go of it.

“You will get used to it, Agent. I promise.”

I checked my JZI, and it had detected the new system. Information regarding the nerve interface and the paper-thin filter that separated the living tissue from the dead popped up and scrolled by. System vitals appeared and provided feedback on the arm’s condition, right down to the nanoblood version.

“Where is …” I started to ask.

“By the time anyone got there, it was gone,” she said. The revivors had taken it.

“You’ll have full use of the new arm in two weeks, and it will be stronger than the original,” she said. “Until then, you’re running at near ninety percent. You can go back in the field, but be careful.”

I nodded. I’d seen replacements fitted in the field before. I’d told myself it was the next best thing. The reality of what had happened hadn’t hit home yet. It buzzed at the edge of my mind, like a fly at a window that couldn’t get in. I felt weirdly distant and calm.

“How long was I out?”

“You’ve been in surgery for four hours.”

Four hours. Fawkes had issued the code four hours ago, and we were still at a standstill. I had to get out of there.

Van Offo was offline. I tapped into the hospital records and checked the inpatient list; he’d been brought in to have the bullet removed from his neck, and was discharged two hours ago.

The man arrested at the site, Rafe Pena, hadn’t fared as well; he was still checked in. He’d suffered broken bones, internal injuries, and multiple bite wounds. He was listed as being in serious but stable condition.

I found the FBI records for the lockdown at Mother of Mercy and brought them up. According to them, Van Offo and one SWAT team member were taken out, along with me, by the EMTs. The SWAT officer died in transit. There were no other survivors from the basement.

“Where’s Pena?” I asked. Pellwynne frowned.

“He’s not ready for transport yet,” she said. “His injuries were fairly traumatic. Don’t worry about him right now.”

I watched one black vein bulge in that gray arm. I tried, but I couldn’t look away from it.

“You know, it may not seem that way now,” Pellwynne said, “but you’re very lucky, Agent Wachalowski.”

I cycled through the footage. Bodies lay in a foot of water that had turned red with blood. The cages had been torn open and the captives inside ripped apart. There was blood spatter painted across the walls, punctuated by bullet marks. It had been a slaughter.

“I found you a good match,” she said. “The nerve interface …it’s some of my best work. I know that doesn’t make this any easier to swallow. There was enough residual tissue to use with the growth accelerators. The join is solid. The blood is the latest version. It’s field upgradable, so you won’t have to report to Heinlein for transfusions. You shouldn’t experience any of the tingling or phantom muscle ticking usually associated with the older variants, and you’ll have full—”

“When can I leave?”

“As soon as you want. I’ll be honest, Agent—we could use the room.”

I sat up and put a call into the Bureau to let them know I was back on my feet. Fawkes could have played this card at any time—he didn’t choose today at random. I had to find out what the reason was.

“You can sign for your weapon when you check out,” she said. “I’ve left my contact information on your JZI, should you have any questions or need anything.”

“Thanks,” I said, but I barely heard her. She lingered for another minute; then I was vaguely aware of her leaving the room. The fly continued to bounce at the window as I stared at the black vein, following it as it branched out beneath the stranger’s cold, dead skin. Though terror was brewing somewhere inside me, I couldn’t look away.

I left the hospital room in a daze. The circuit request still flashed in the corner of my eye. MacReady hadn’t picked up. Maybe he wasn’t going to.

Because of the trouble in the streets, the halls were crowded. Patients sat, holding bloodied gauze in place, outside doors while doctors rushed by. People were shouting, but I barely heard it. I felt like I was moving through the chaos in a bubble. Numb. Blood dotted the floor in a wandering line, and I followed it, heading toward the elevators.