James Knapp - The Silent Army

“What’d you just say to me?”

“I said fat pieces of shit who hit their lady can’t make their dick get ha—”

He moved faster than I thought he would, and he caught me off guard. He put his hand on my left tit and shoved me hard. I went back on my ass, cracking my head on the wall behind me.

“Fuck you, bitch!”

That was it. I was pissed before, but that was it. He looked surprised when I got back up and came at him. He even tried to shut the door, but he didn’t make it. It slammed against my boot and I shoved it back open with my shoulder. I reached through with my dead hand and grabbed a fistful of tank top and skin, then pulled him out into the hallway.

“Ow! You fu—”

Still holding him with my left hand, I creamed him with my right fist, and he went down like a sack of sand. He wasn’t out, though, just pissed.

“You want it like that?” he said, blood coming out of his nose as he got up. He came at me like a bull and got his big arms around me when he hit. My boots came up off the floor and he heaved me back with his fat gut. I went down on my back, and he came stomping toward me.

“You want it like that?” he said again. “Get up bit—”

From the floor I shot my leg out and put the heel of my boot right in his paunch. His eyes bugged and I thought he’d puke, but he just staggered back. His face went dark when I got up, and I saw death in his eyes. The guy was a straight-up psycho. He blew blood through his nose, down onto his shirt.

“You’re dead, bitch …”

He came at me, and I swung. I broke his jaw, but he kept coming. A door opened behind him and someone looked out, but went right back in. He slammed me into the wall by the stairs and I locked my wrists behind his fat back.

I squirmed under his sweaty arm, scooting behind him. With his gut hanging over my arms, I spun him, pulling him down until we hit the stairwell door and it banged open. He went down on the landing with me on top of him.

People get a look when they start to lose a fight, when they know the beat-down is coming. He got that look when he fell. He went nuts, trying to buck me off and get back up, but he didn’t have the abs for it. I got one knee on his left shoulder, pinning him, and planted my other foot a couple steps down. I hit him with the dead fist, and his lip split open. I hit him with the right, and one of his teeth broke off.

I’d been put in the hospital twice in my life, both times by fuckers like him. I forgot about the skinny bitch with the weird eyes. I hit him again and his nose crunched under my fist. The door slammed open behind me.

“I’m calling the cops!” an old woman screamed. “You hear me?”

He tried to push himself away, but he slipped and started going down the stairs. The door slammed shut as he rolled, landing on his back on the next landing down. I followed him and put the toe of my boot in his ribs. I kicked him twice more, then knelt back over him. I hit him in the face until he shut up and quit moving.

I stood back up and wiped my nose. It was bleeding. He was in a heap in the corner, nose mashed and mouth full of blood. My knuckle was cut and blood was coming out fast, dripping off the ends of my fingers.

I could hear people out in the hall, and from up above. It was time to get out of there.

“Asshole.”

The trip was a bust. The bitch was going to have to wait. I took the steps two at a time down to the ground floor and went out the way I came before the cops showed up.

Deep within the shadows of a disused alley, I slipped between a trash bin and a brick wall, into a dark culde-sac. The ground was littered with trash, where pitted brown ice still lingered from winter. On the far side was a rusted metal door, near where a group of homeless men were huddled underneath a plastic tarp. A sign on the door read HEALING HANDS CLINIC.

Incoming call: Fawkes, Samuel.

I’d expected another contact from him. I’d been lucky at the restaurant. With the lip-reading software, I’d transcribed some interesting information. Motoko was trying to recruit Nico. They knew Fawkes had the weapons. Nico, at least, had drawn a connection to Concrete Falls.

The only thing I hadn’t shared was one phrase, one that Motoko had repeated to Nico: You kill Fawkes . I wasn’t sure yet why I hadn’t told him.

Call Accepted.

I’ve reviewed your report, Faye.

And what have you decided?

That giving Wachalowski the information he wants would be extremely risky.

Fawkes had gathered a lot of concrete data. Over the years he had tracked down many names, and had verified connections between them. He had connected many secret accounts, and traced money trails to key politicians. He’d managed to peel back their many layers and identified their many different fronts. He tracked their holdings and their hidden assets. He knew where they’d based themselves, and the chain of their command. Outside a court of law, he could prove it all, but exposing them would accomplish nothing. Those told would simply forget, and all Fawkes would expose was how much he knew.

Still …

It is the only thing that will convince him, I said.

I agree, but I’ll only authorize a small piece, and we must control it carefully. I’ll draw something up to present to him. It will have to be enough.

He won’t kill her anyway.

I’ve seen Wachalowski’s war record, Faye; don’t be so sure. He’s made decisions that might surprise you.

He didn’t offer up what those might have been. It didn’t really matter.

Lev is waiting for you. He’ll have your work detail.

I understand. May I ask you one question?

Yes.

Why attempt the shooting at the restaurant?

I’d not been told that the shot was coming. After, I saw him follow the trail of smoke, and spot the hole in the glass. I had to move quickly to get off the street, as the paparazzi swarmed. The slug had passed within six inches of me.

I didn’t order that, Fawkes said. If killing her was that easy, I’d have done it by now.

Then who fired the rail gun?

Not a revivor. Maybe one of the Second Chance recruits acting on his own.

With a million-dollar high-tech weapon?

Maybe she staged the assassination.

You think the shooting was staged?

I don’t know. Like you said; not many people have access to a weapon like that. I’m looking into it. Concentrate on Wachalowski for now.

Understood.

The call dropped, and I moved toward the metal door as the words faded away.

No direct sunlight could reach the area, but neither could rain or snow. It was cold, but I sensed warmth under the tarp. I sensed the low, staggered beats of the men’s hearts, and one conspicuous pocket of silence. Two eyes opened in the dark, and cast a moonlit glow into the alley.

When the revivor moved, the living men stirred, but not much and not for long. Except for the eyes, it looked no different from them. In the cold, no one noticed its lack of warmth. Under layers of dirt, blankets, and plastic, it was ignored completely.

It thumped the metal door three times with its fist. A moment later, I heard a dead bolt turn and the door opened slowly.

Lev appeared in the dark space, his eyes staring down from under his thick brow. His expression didn’t change, but he extended a private connection. I accepted it, and he began to stream. This assignment would be different from field work, but it would be simpler. One of the revivors who was stationed there was receiving the upgrade. He assured me the job was temporary, and understood why I cared; some of us liked the quiet, but I wasn’t one of them. It left too much time to pick through memories and to contemplate the blackness beneath them.