James Knapp - The Silent Army

He’s going to be so disappointed….

I wondered if I should even tell him. He didn’t need to know. It was just one time. I could just get back on the program and forget the whole thing ever happened, right? It was just one slipup. What the hell was I think—

The second slap came then. My stomach rolled and I scrambled to my feet. I stumbled into the bathroom, just managing to get through the door before I fell down on my knees in front of the bowl. Everything came up; then I dry heaved on top of it to the sounds of cartoon music from the next room. I flushed and spit, leaning over the toilet while sweat rolled down over my stomach.

“Karen …”

I cried. I couldn’t do anything else, so I just sat there, staring into the toilet, and cried until I couldn’t anymore.

When I managed to get up, I walked on pins and needles, trying not to fall. Stumbling back to the living room, I accidentally kicked an empty bottle across the floor. It whacked against the coffee table. That’s when I saw Penny.

She was sitting on the arm of the couch, watching the TV. She had a bowl in one hand and a big spoon in the other, and was laughing with a mouthful of cereal when I came back in. How long had she been there?

She turned and looked over at me and she stopped laughing. For a second, she looked sad. She put the bowl down on the end table and dropped the spoon into it.

“Sorry, I ate some of your cereal,” she said. “Feel any better?”

“No.”

She nodded.

“I heard what happened.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. My head was spinning and I couldn’t think of where I would start. I didn’t want her there. I wanted to be alone.

“Lie down,” she said, pointing at the couch. “Come on, before you fall.”

The last thing I wanted to do was talk about it, but I really did need to lie down. I limped over to the couch and flopped on my back while she looked down on me from her perch on the armrest.

“Drink this,” she said, tossing me a bottle of vitamin water. She pulled a pair of pill tabs out of her pocket and tossed them to me too.

“Those will stop the nausea.”

I pushed the pills through the foil and swallowed them, washing them down with a gulp of water from the bottle. My stomach turned, but they stayed down.

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk right now, so I’ll keep it short,” she said. “Ai doesn’t want to see you like this anymore, and, honestly, neither do I. This, what happened here with your friend, it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t fair. This kind of thing shouldn’t be happening to you, so it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“Some tough love, I guess. We look out for our own, Zoe. I know Heinlein took her, but if you want to have a service, then Ai will take care of it. You don’t have to worry about a thing. None of it will cost you a dime. Anyone who wants to be there can be there, and we’ll stay out of it. How does that sound?”

I couldn’t think about Karen’s funeral. I didn’t want to think about Penny either, but Karen didn’t have anyone else to deal with that stuff. If someone else didn’t take care of it, I would have to do it, and I didn’t think I could.

“Okay,” I said.

“We’re getting you out of here,” she said, waving one hand at my living room.

“Out of here?”

“This place,” she said. “Is there anything left here for you?”

“No.”

“We’re putting you up in a new place, a better one, away from all this.”

“I—”

My phone rang in my pocket. When I fished it out, I saw the call was from Nico.

“That him?” she asked.

“I don’t want to talk to him right now.”

“I know, but you should answer it. Things are moving fast.”

“What do you—”

“He’s going to ask you to help him question a man named Leon Buckster. You should do it.”

“How do you know what he’s going to ask?”

“Just trust me. Quick, answer the phone.”

The phone was on its fourth ring. I picked up.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Zoe. This is Nico.”

“Hi.”

“Hi. Look, I’m wondering if you would be available to do me a favor today.”

It was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want him to see me like I was. He was smart; he’d pick up on it right away. No matter what I did, he’d figure it out. It made me mad that he’d call wanting a favor after what happened. It wasn’t fair because he didn’t know, and he wouldn’t have any way to know, but I didn’t care.

I opened my mouth to say no. I was tired and dizzy. I didn’t care what Penny said; I couldn’t do it.

“Sure,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I know this is an imposition, especially after what happened at the restaurant, but things are heating up. Did you have a good time, at least, before the shooting started?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded very small.

“Good.”

Penny had gotten up and stepped back from the couch. She took a little blank business card out of her pocket and handed it to me.

“Hang on,” I said, muting the phone. I took the card.

“Help him. Do whatever he wants,” Penny said, “but make sure you ask Buckster that.”

I turned the card over. On the back she’d written:

Where is Samuel Fawkes?

She smiled, and gave me a little wave as she headed back toward the door and opened it. I’d never seen the name before.

“Why?” I called.

“Because we’re pretty sure he knows,” she said over her shoulder. “Later.”

She shut the door behind her. I turned my attention back to Nico, unmuting the phone.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’m bringing someone in,” he said. “He has information vital to—”

“I understand.”

“Can you be here in an hour?”

“Sure.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“You’re nice to me, Nico,” I said. I don’t know why I said it.

“I’m your friend, Zoe,” he said, but he wasn’t, not really.

“I know.”

“Is an hour enough time?”

“One hour.” I hung up. Afterward, I sat there, staring at the phone in my hand and not moving. Those were the only times he called anymore: when he wanted me to come and do my tricks for him.

“Zoe, these people, I don’t think they are your friends.”

He’d said that. He kept saying that, but he wasn’t the one that showed up to see how I was after the night before. He wasn’t the one who offered to help when I really needed it.

He just called up and wanted me to help him. He didn’t care about me, not really. If I couldn’t do what I did, he’d never call at all. But it didn’t matter.

I wasn’t doing this for him. I was doing it for them.

Through the glass door, I watched the streams of people pass by on the sidewalk. None of them was Zoe. A dark window hung against the gray, rainy background, displaying the strange examination chair and the equipment surrounding it. Sean must have been wired right there, in that chair. The site wasn’t set up for full transfusion, which meant the revivors would have a very short shelf life. It also wasn’t equipped to do any kind of major surgical procedures or cosmetic procedures. That meant no physical augmentations and no weapon upgrades.

The JZI recording Calliope had sent over from the night before wouldn’t be admissible in any court, but it proved Leon Buckster knew more than he was saying. His statement about revivors remembering things they’d been made to forget implied he was familiar with Zhang’s Syndrome, the condition that Fawkes himself had discovered. If he knew that, he might be sympathetic to Fawkes’s cause. He might even have learned it through Fawkes.