James Knapp - Element Zero

In the dim light, no one noticed my eyes change as I stared at Mr. Landers through the window. As he bundled himself against the wind, I saw the colors, that strange signature of his consciousness, bloom around his head. The patterns there looked content, like he was a guy on top of the world. I burrowed deeper, to where other patterns swirled—righteous anger, ambition, and fear of getting caught—then entered his mind. It was as easy as slipping into a warm bath.

He stopped suddenly, perking up as he sensed me.

Hello, Mr. Landers.

His face went pale and he started to look around, until I made him relax. He stood there as people streamed around him.

I want you to do something for me, I told him.

He wasn’t equipped to resist me. Actually, he was one of the easier ones I’d come up against during the past year. His mind was easy to influence, and what I wanted him to do was hardly anything at all.

Outside, he nodded, still not even aware I was there watching him. His eyes looked a little unfocused as he stepped to the curb and waited. Snow drifted down and collected in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat while he breathed slow and steady. He stayed like that, between the bumper and grille of two parked cars, until I saw what I was looking for.

The oncoming driver was already speeding. It took only a very small push to make him accelerate. Landers didn’t even look over as the engine gunned and tires chirped on the wet blacktop.

Now, Mr. Landers.

He knew, I think. Right at the last second he knew, and I felt him resist, but it didn’t work. He took a single, well-timed step backward off the curb and into the street. The crash made everyone in the bar jump. The driver stomped on the brakes, dragging Mr. Landers for several yards before slamming into the rear end of the vehicle ahead of him. Blood rained across the snowbank piled up next to the sidewalk as his body was crushed.

Someone outside screamed. People crowded around the accident, some of them using their phones to take pictures. I saw the bartender pick up a handset and dial as his customers began flocking to the window.

I just sat for a minute and waited. If Landers somehow survived, I was supposed to finish him off. But when I tried to sense him, he wasn’t there. Mission accomplished.

I paid my tab, and then without making eye contact with anyone, I left the bar.

I swam through cold, black water at near-freezing temperatures, through the narrow pipe that seemed to have no end.

The only light came from my own eyes, and even my night vision could barely make out what lay ahead of me. The rumble of the treatment plant’s centrifuge had faded behind me a long time ago. The sounds of the street and underground metro were lost through the tons of concrete above me. The only sound that far down was the electric hum from inside my chest.

Three hours had passed since I entered the pipe, and my body temperature was far below normal, even for me. The void that yawned beneath my field of memories seemed very wide, very deep, and very close. With nowhere else to look, I stared into it while fear buzzed in some disused part of my brain.

Will this finally be the day? I wondered as I felt my mind sink further, through the lights of my memories and toward the dark. Will this be the day that I finally die?

Faye, you should be almost there. Do you see anything?

The words appeared in the dark and floated there, as I watched a seam in the pipe pass by me. It was Fawkes, contacting me from the surface. I scanned ahead for movement but didn’t spot anything.

No sign yet.

Lev had been three hours in when we lost him. Whatever he’d encountered, it had to be close. I left a circuit open, hoping he would pick it up, but so far there’d been nothing.

How are you holding up? Fawkes asked.

Fine.

It had been one year since Samuel awoke, since he stopped being just a voice in the dark. He walked now, and talked here with form and presence. He’d been part of my life for a long time, but now he seemed real to me in a way he never had been before. Before the tanker sank into the ocean, he’d left stasis and stepped into the real world, where he was both more and less vulnerable. He had one more plan, one more chance to stop them. Whatever happened, it would be over soon.

A signal lit up at the edge of my sight. Sonar had picked up movement down the pipe in front of me.

Wait, I’ve got something.

A gray shape appeared from out of the blackness. Metallic ticks vibrated through the cold pipe as the shape changed position.

What is it? Fawkes asked.

It was dense, and maybe a third of my size. I scanned it and found electrical current.

It’s mechanical.

I tuned the sonar, creating an image. Up ahead was a layer of sediment, and just past that was some kind of small machine with many spindly legs. It used a sensor to probe ahead of it as it scuttled through the pipe.

There’s some kind of servo down here. Stand by.

The servo reached out with a wire-thin claw and poked through the sediment in front of it, kicking up small, fleshy cubes.

Faye. The word flashed in the dark in front of my face. Lev had picked up the circuit. He was still down here somewhere.

Lev, where are you?

Just ahead. Don’t approach the servo yet.

The robot scuttled forward, kicking up more of the soft, uniform cubes. I watched them float back down to the bottom.

It’s revivor flesh, I thought. The pieces were Lev’s remains.

What happened? I asked.

It’s some kind of maintenance ’bot, he said. It must be designed to carve up blockage. It came up behind me and severed my spine before I could stop it. I’ve kept it from the rest of me, but I can’t continue the mission.

I strained my eyes through the dark, and there, maybe twenty feet or so in the distance, I could just make out his eyes. They shifted in the darkness, staring, I thought, into his personal void.

How do I get past it? I asked.

Watch the claw, but your best bet is probably to just grab it. It’s not designed for combat, and it’s not heavily shielded; you should be able to penetrate its skin.

Understood.

The servo moved through the chunks, heading in my direction. When it locked on, it moved surprisingly fast; a claw brushed my face as I lunged and grabbed the leg at its base. Through the water I heard the whir of motors as it tried to pull away.

The cutter flashed in front of me a few times as its little legs scrambled, trying to make a retreat. I found a seam in the thing’s outer chassis and placed my free palm on it. I fired my bayonet and it punched through, into its electronics.

The robot jerked in my hand and my body seized as a jolt of electricity passed through it. The current arced from my back and down the pipe as I turned the bayonet. I heard a metallic crunch; then the servo stopped moving.

I retracted the blade and dropped the machine. Pushing through the chunks of flesh, I stirred up fingers and toes until the water cleared on the other side. I swam close to what was left of Lev Prutsko.

I’m here, Lev.

His eyes had dimmed in the dark. All he had left was his torso and one arm. His gaze stopped shifting around and he made eye contact with me.

I’m glad it was you who came, he said.

Glad?

I think so, he said. Yes.

Over the channel we shared, he began to stream something, a thin trickle of embers, over to me. It was one of his memories. When the stream ebbed out and died, he signaled for me to lean closer to him. I moved in until our faces nearly touched.