James Knapp - The Silent Army

I leaned against the wall next to the door and let it keep running.

“Where do I know you from?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “You don’t.”

I hit the emergency stop and the car bucked as the bell rang and kept ringing. She jumped and looked up at me.

“What are you doing?” she squawked.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“What?”

“Goddamn it, I know you,” I said. “You were down in that fucking pit. I went in after—”

I remembered then. Last time I’d seen her, she was on the other side of a cage door. Everything was burning. People were shooting. I looked through the glass, and saw a stream of fire reflect off it. I went down there to get her. Somehow I knew her.

She knew me too; I could see it in her eyes. She knew me.

“You’re wrong. I—”

I stepped in on her and she stepped back, against the wall. She looked scared as I stuck my finger in her face.

“Don’t lie,” I said. “Tell me who—”

Her eyes changed then. The black parts got big, until the green part was almost gone. My voice stopped cold and I just looked at her.

“Sleep,” she said. Nothing happened for a few seconds; then she leaned close.

She looked scared before, but not now. In the recording, she looked at me like a bug under a magnifying glass. It happened just like that, like someone flipped a switch.

“Can you hear me?” she asked.

“Yes,” my voice said.

“You don’t know me. You have the wrong person. Whoever you think I am and whatever you think is going on, you’re wrong. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to tell you to unstick the elevator, and when I do, you’re going to forget this whole thing. Whatever you planned to do, you decided not to do it. We don’t know each other. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I’ve got stuff I have to do during my lunch; don’t follow me. Now unstick the elevator.”

I watched my hand reach out and hit the button again. The bell stopped and the elevator kept going. We both just stood there the rest of the time. She left, and I stayed behind.

What the fuck?

I went back to a freeze-frame of that ugly face staring up at me, eyes gone black.

Who the fuck are you?

At the front door, I hit up the guard.

“Do you know who that was?”

“Who?”

“The stick. The one with the red hair.”

“Oh, her,” he said. “Name’s Zoe Ott.”

“Who is she?”

“Don’t know. Some contractor.”

“That’s it?”

“She drinks, I think.”

“Zoe Ott, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thanks.”

When I got outside, she was long gone. I had a name and a face, though. Ten minutes and twenty bucks later, I had more than that.

Name: Zoe Alia Ott. Sex: Female.Hair: Red. Eyes: Green.Parents: Harold Llewellyn Ott (deceased), Nichole Alia Donovan Ott (deceased).Citizenship tier: Three. Served: No. PH: No.Criminal Record: (7) counts of public drunkenness.Employment: Self/Other. None.Awarded monthly compensation in work-related death of Harold Llewellyn Ott. Currently contracts for Federal Bureau of Investigation in undisclosed capacity. I brought up her picture again, staring up at me in the elevator. It was like she just erased my goddamned memory. How the hell had she done that?

There was more info on her, but mostly stuff I didn’t care about. I skimmed through until I found the one thing I did care about.

The second part of Nico’s little favor took me halfway across town, a tidbit of information he’d completely forgotten to mention when he was blowing me off. I had to call Karen to bail on lunch, but I was all the way to the hospital and she still hadn’t picked up. A sign outside said I couldn’t have my phone on once I went in, so I’d been waiting in the rain for ten minutes before I finally got her on the line. I was going to be late.

“You have to cancel,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Karen. Really.”

“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “It’s just lunch; we’ll go tomorrow or something.”

“It’s just something came up. Nico’s got me doing this thing, except it’s not at the Federal Building. It’s off somewhere else across town, so I had to go right over there.”

“That’s good, though, right? You get paid by the hour, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. It feels like he’s using me sometimes.”

“Zoe, it’s work you get paid to do,” she said. “He’s not using you. He’s contracting you.”

“I guess.”

“He does that because you get results. Plus you’re working with him. That’s one of the best ways to get to know someone.”

She had a way of making things seem better than they probably were. I guessed what she said might be true, but I was still ticked off.

“He ditched me today. I’m doing this totally on my own.”

“He trusts you,” she said. “He knows you can come through on your own.”

“Maybe.”

“Here’s what you do; instead of us going to lunch tomorrow, you take him to lunch tomorrow instead.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Zoe, it’s been, like, two years. You’re never going to get him if you don’t even try.”

My face got hot when she said that. It was easy for her to say. Guys stared at her all the time; they never looked at me that way. It wasn’t the same.

“It wouldn’t work anyway,” I said. “He’s hung up on someone else, I think.”

“You always say that. You always say ‘That wouldn’t work anyway.’ You’re just afraid to try.”

“Look, if you’re so smart about guys, then how come you’re still hooked up with that loser?”

“He has a name,” she said, clipped. “We’re not talking about that right now.”

“Yeah, I know. You always say that. He’s bad news, Karen. I know he’s bad news.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Just …go do whatever you have to do,” she said. She sounded pissed.

“Fine.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up.

I shut my phone off like the sign said. First I was late getting into work; then those jerks made fun of me when my back was turned. I had to miss my lunch, and now Karen was pissed at me. Plus that woman …

This one is a destroyer. She will cause you to lose something very dear….

She was in the green room. In the elevator I thought she was going to punch me. How did she remember me? Back then, I made her forget. How did she remember?

Shaking off my umbrella, I closed it and went inside, where a bunch of people were sitting like they’d been waiting there forever. A big, round woman in a flowered shirt sat behind the main desk.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Jan Holst,” I said.

“Visiting hours resume at one,” she said. “You can have a seat and wait if you like, or you can come back.”

“I’m not here to visit. I’m here to do an interview.”

“Interview?”

The room got brighter, and I stared at her until her fat face went slack.

“Just tell me where her room is.”

“Sixth floor. Room 6E7.”

“Go back to what you were doing and never mind me.”

I stopped pushing her, and she looked back to the computer screen.

Alone in the elevator, I hit the button for the sixth floor. The inside of the door was mirrored, and in it I looked like a drowned rat. My hair was frizzed and tangled, and my face was blotchy. My ears were bright red.