James Knapp - Element Zero

“It’s coming up,” the pilot said over the headset. Through the windshield, the building towered above us.

Palos Verdes was a low-rent apartment complex that dominated the block. It was closed off from the main street by a blockade of Stillwell soldiers who kept anyone from entering. On the other side of the cordon it was chaos, but so far the area behind it was clear. One of the soldiers waved the pilot in to a small lot bordered by military vehicles, and he descended into the clearing.

A shot went off down the street and I saw a figure stagger behind a row of cars, but couldn’t tell if it was human or not. People on the sidewalk shielded their eyes as the rotors kicked up sand and salt. The pilot brought us down on the icy pavement while soldiers watched from the main entrance.

I climbed out and signaled to the pilot.

Wait here.

Roger that , he said, but if that cloud blows in they’re going to have to try a mass evac. Be ready to move.

The roar of the crowd rose over the chopper. Another shot went off somewhere as I made for the front entrance. As I approached, one of the officers broke the line and came forward to meet me.

“Agent Wachalowski?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Sergeant Lansky. We heard you were on your way.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Multiple revivors were spotted inside. We isolated them to the unit you’re after.”

“Is the target alive?”

“Heat signatures show no one living inside; it looks like we’re too late. We secured the site and were waiting for you to arrive.”

I looked at the entrance. People stood outside in groups, shivering in the cold. Eyes darted nervously toward the glow out over the water.

“Is the perimeter secure?”

“Yes, sir. No one’s come in or out.”

“How many revivors?”

“At least two. My men inside can tell you more. Basement level, unit 102. Sir, the launch. Do you know any—”

“Take the rest of your men and cover the street,” I told him. “This whole place could be contaminated in an hour; this is only going to get worse.”

I climbed the front steps and looked out from the main entrance. Back at the cordon, a soldier stood on top of a truck and barked over a bullhorn while the crowd shoved their way through the street. A mass evacuation would never happen in time. If the wind changed direction, most of the people there were going to be caught in it.

Pain pulsed in my head and I felt my jaw clench, the teeth grinding together. I needed to get back to headquarters to get checked out, but there was no place left to go back to. Even if there had been, there wasn’t time.

I pushed open the door. The lobby inside had glass scattered across the floor and I saw shell casings littered in with the debris. Some of the overhead lights were out, and some flickered where the ceiling had taken a stream of gunfire. A handful of tenants sat along one wall, watched by a pair of soldiers.

I drew my weapon and headed down a stairwell with concrete walls. The door clanged shut behind me as I reached the landing and entered the hallway. Following the unit numbers, I turned right, then down a long hallway where two soldiers waited. The younger one’s name patch read JIN. The other read ANDERS. When they saw me, they waved me over.

At the door, I switched to the backscatter filter and peered through. I didn’t see anyone on the other side. The scanner LED was green; the door was unlocked.

“There’s three inside,” Jin said. “We got them on camera.”

He angled the screen so I could see. From floor level, I saw a crumpled figure, and a woman’s face dotted with blood.

“That’s your guy’s mistress, Panya Garg,” the other officer said. “She’s confirmed dead. No word yet on whether your guy is in there or not, but we’re not picking up any vitals.”

“Power’s cut,” Anders said. “But we’ve got electrical activity and some light, so they’ve got some kind of backup.”

On the camera I saw a flicker—a flashlight beam, maybe. I heard movement from somewhere on the other side of the door.

“I’m going inside,” I said.

They nodded. I pushed open the door, and they took position behind me.

The front entrance opened into a short hallway, and up ahead I could see what looked like the living area. Heavy footsteps moved in one of the rooms nearby. I scanned through the walls on either side of the hall and didn’t see anyone.

I approached the woman’s body. She was dressed to go out, and there was a suitcase next to the front door. Blood had pooled behind the body from a wound in her back that probably came from a revivor’s bayonet. It was the wrong day to be associated with Harold Deatherage.

The living room was small and crowded with old, mismatched furniture. A set of dirty boot tracks crossed the matted carpet, away from the body and through a doorway on the far end of the room. A short connecting hallway extended from there. A flashlight swept through the room on the other side.

I approached, and the soldiers followed. The doorjamb was splintered where the door had been forced, and through the doorway I could see three male figures; two were standing and one was seated. None registered any body heat.

I’ve got three revivors here.

The room had been converted into some kind of makeshift work area. Two wall racks bordered a workstation, both stacked with equipment that looked out of place in such a run-down unit. Deatherage had been doing more here than just cheating on his wife.

The air inside was hazy, and I smelled smoke. I watched for a minute as one of the revivors rooted through a desk drawer, and the other pushed a collection of data disks from a shelf mounted behind the workstation so that they scattered onto the floor. It moved off to one side, out of my line of sight.

They’re looking for something.

The third revivor was seated in a chair in front of the workbench. The monitor glowed softly, silhouetting its face.

The equipment was still running on backup power, but the computer screens were blank. Threads of smoke rose from several chassis mounted in the racks. I zoomed in and pulled any names and model numbers I could read, then handed them off to a data miner to see what it could find.

The revivor in the chair shifted, and I heard a low scrape against the floor as the workstation desk moved. It had one wrist tied to the desk frame with a plastic zip tie. Blood leaked from a gash where it had dug through the skin, but the blood was red; human. A carrier, maybe.

The first revivor gave up on the drawers and looked around the room. After a minute, something sloshed, and the second came back into view, carrying a plastic gas can. It approached the seated revivor, and I smelled fumes as it poured a stream of gasoline down on top of its head. As the liquid splashed down over the desk and floor, I spotted an unlit road flare clenched in the revivor’s other hand.

I stepped inside, Jin and Anders moving in behind me. The revivors turned as I fired at the one with the can and caught it in the forehead. Its head pitched back and the can thudded to the floor as Jin fired at the second. The first round tore through its neck, and the second was a clean headshot. It fell back against the bookshelf and crashed to the floor. The second body staggered and left a streak of blood down the wall before it slumped down against the computer table. The road flare rolled behind a chair.

“Hold your fire!” I said.

The third revivor looked up from where it sat, hair plastered to its head. There were black blotches in the whites of its eyes. The first two were dressed in old, dirty clothes, but this one had on a buttoned shirt and a tie. Jin had his gun pointed at the revivor’s head, his finger on the trigger.