James Knapp - Element Zero

He never expected me to make it, he said. I knew that. Whoever goes down this pipe is expendable. Did he tell you?

I had suspected it, but I shook my head.

There’s a lot he doesn’t tell you, Lev said.

He doesn’t trust me?

You shouldn’t have told him about what you remembered.

We hadn’t spoken of that in a long time. After reanimation, memories that had been erased would return. It’s why Ai feared us. But long ago when I awoke on the tanker, one particular memory had returned—a piece of the puzzle that never quite fit. As a detective, I’d processed one of them, a woman named Noelle Hyde. Back then, she’d tried to kill Fawkes, but she wasn’t ordered to; it was just the opposite. They’d killed her for what she’d done.

They didn’t want Fawkes dead, I said to Lev.

They lie. He thinks you give too much consideration to their motives.

I know what I saw. At the time, I thought they feared something else, something besides Fawkes stripping them from power.

Lev’s eyes just watched me from the murky darkness.

I still think that, I said. Lev managed a nod.

Maybe they do.

“ …It will start here, but it won’t end here …” Ai had said once. “Fawkes will destroy this city, and then one by one, the rest will begin to fall…. ”

They need to be stopped, I said, but he should have listened.

There’s a lot he doesn’t tell you. Just remember that.

I will.

Do you want to continue your existence?

I think so.

You think?

The darkness that waits for me, I told him, it’s the only thing left that really scares me. I don’t want it to take me. I’m not ready for it to take me, not yet.

You may come to terms with that someday, he said.

Have you?

A long time ago. He will shut you down, you know. Someday soon.

I know.

I wish I could stop it, he said.

You do?

Yes.

I moved closer to him and hoped he could see my face. Using our private channel, I told him something I hadn’t told anyone else.

I found a way to sever his command spoke.

He didn’t respond right away. The shunt I’d fashioned over the years would work—I didn’t doubt that—but Fawkes’s reaction, if he knew, would be extreme. It would mean the end not just for me, but everyone on Fawkes’s network who knew of it.

Will you run, then? he asked.

Under my tongue, I felt the small glass capsule. Lev would have had one as well.

Do you still have the Leichenesser? I asked.

No. I swallowed it in the struggle.

I placed one hand on the side of his cold face and the other over his Adam’s apple. Peering through his flesh, I found his command nodes.

Good-bye, Lev.

Good-bye, Faye.

The blade pushed through his skin and into his spine. With a small twist, the command connections snapped. The circuit between us dropped as black blood bloomed out into the cold water, blotting out the light from his eyes even as they faded, and went dark.

Alone, I brought up the memory he gave me. With no pathways associated with it, it wouldn’t last very long. I wanted to see it before it decayed.

I looked into it and saw myself, alive. From the subtle distortion, I knew he’d been looking through a Light Warping field as he stood and watched me. I was in my apartment. My skin had color, and I still had hair. Real blood still pulsed through my veins, and I could almost sense sadness in my eyes.

This is the night I was killed.

The heat in my veins stood out as he’d watched me and monitored the steady beat of my heart. He kept tabs on a second heartbeat as well; my old partner, Doyle Shanks, was there with me.

Target Shanks is here. The words appeared in the air, and though I realized he’d been talking to Fawkes, his stare remained fixed on me and not on Doyle Shanks.

Kill them both, came the reply, but Lev had hesitated.

I can remove the target and leave the other, he offered.

Kill them both, came the reply, and the memory scattered. The ember, Lev’s last thought, faded away, gone forever. I didn’t look back as I swam on ahead.

Fawkes, I’m through.

Good. The perimeter is roughly five hundred meters ahead.

From the security perimeter’s edge, it would be a half mile. Well past the point of no return, I swam on. Eventually, I saw a broadcast message from the surface far above:

You are entering a restricted area. No unauthorized communications are permitted in or out from this point forward. No unauthorized scans, visual, audio, or data recordings are permitted beyond this point. No unauthorized personnel, or authorized personnel with a security clearance of less than 3, are permitted beyond this point by order of the UAC Government….

The words scrolled by in the dark, but they didn’t concern me. It was a stock message, given to all visitors. They had no way to detect my presence, and if they did, I’d get more than a warning.

…by continuing, you forfeit your right to refuse any and all searches, including of your vehicle, its contents, and your person, up to and including full internal scanning. Any property including identification may be confiscated at the guard’s discretion and held for an indeterminate period of time. Failure to comply with security will result in action up to and including lethal force….

It took thirty minutes to close the distance. The pipe ended abruptly, and a connecting pipe led toward the surface. That muted pang of anxiety faded, and the dark void receded, just a little.

I’m at the junction.

I looked up into the dark. According to the blueprints, the pipe was a straight shot up to the surface. I pushed off the cold metal and began to swim upward. The water pressure eased the higher I went, until I came to a ninety-degree bend. The pipe was running across the tarmac now.

…entering a restricted area. No unauthorized communications are permitted in or out from this point forward. No unauthorized scans, visual, audio, or data recordings are permitted beyond this point….

The words warped and then winked out. As part of the security protocol, my communication node had been shut down.

I swam, measuring the distance, then stopped. I snapped open my left arm and took the handheld arc cutter from inside. When my hand rejoined, I placed it on the pipe, feeling the cold metal in front of my face.

The cutter hissed as I carved out a circle three feet in diameter. I lowered the plug down into the water, and dim light seeped through the hole. I turned off the night vision and looked up through the surface of the water at what looked like ceiling struts high above me. I reached up and gripped the edges of the hole, cold air chilling the skin of my exposed hands, then pulled down until my head broke the surface.

I slipped through and lowered myself to the floor. I was in a huge hangar where a fleet of large vehicles hunkered. Over on the opposite side of the room, a large glass window looked into an office, but the lights were out inside. I listened, but I didn’t hear anyone.

I stood, naked, and surveyed my location. I saw twenty or so large trucks parked inside. The pipe ran along the base of one wall. Crouching, I followed it to its exit point, and through a grimy window I saw it continue across the tarmac to a large water tower in the distance. Snow was falling, large flakes swirling in the wind.

The tower held four thousand gallons of water used as coolant down in the processing plant. Every six months it was flushed through the pipeline to the watertreatment plant, where I began my journey. The large silo stood several hundred meters out in back of the main plant, directly across from a storage depot. That depot was my target.