James Knapp: State of Decay

Damn it …

Bleeding again, I got back onto my feet and looked behind me to see that I had tripped over a body. There were a pile of them stacked along one wall, arms and legs sprawled. They were all nude, facedown, and arranged in rows. Some of them had the flesh cut away from the backs of their necks and heads. A woman’s body had slid off one of the stacks and was lying faceup, tangled black hair plastered to the floor and a series of electrodes stuck to her forehead.

Sean, are you getting this?

I’m reading you, but they’re blocking the visual feed. What do you see?

I’m not sure. There are a lot of bodies down here.

Leaning in to one of the bodies that had the skin stripped away from the back of its head, I zoomed in on a square hole that had been sawed through the skull to expose a section of glistening brain matter. Scanning the tissue, I saw several thin objects, like tiny rods or tubes, embedded inside. I looked back to the corpse’s face; it was a young man, his blue eyes clouded over.

These aren’t revivors; they were human beings.

I jumped as a few bursts of gunfire went off not far from where I was. Several more single shots followed.

“Hold!” a voice barked over an amplifier.

“There!” another voice shouted. It was the Special Forces team. They were getting closer.

I pushed the plastic aside and ran down the hallway, where a series of thick cables snaked along the floor and walls. Through another sheet up ahead I saw a cloud of flame shoot through the air, accompanied by a high-pitched hiss. I heard the roar and crackle of fire as hot air began to blow through the seam and down the corridor.

When I pushed through the last sheet of plastic, I immediately smelled burning flesh. The air was heavy with a stinking mixture of charred hair and meat. Ahead I could see stacks of huge, rust-corroded cylinders that were used to store long-distance cable. They towered up into the darkness where I could just make out a giant mechanical arm reaching across them, sixty feet overhead.

A doorway to my right led into a large open area where I could still register a bunch of human thermal signatures, in spite of the rising heat. As I watched, another jet of flame arced through the room and lit up rows of figures strapped down into chairs before fading again. Just past the doorway against the wall, I could see a stairway leading up to some kind of control room. I ducked through into the room and hugged the wall on the other side as the smell of blood, urine, and antiseptic hit me.

Shit …

The room was filled with dozens of people, all sitting in chairs and each with a small table in front of him or her. They were all bent over, foreheads touching the tabletops where their heads and shoulders were strapped with bands of packing tape. Each of them had a surgical opening cut along the back of the head and neck that exposed the muscle and bone underneath, and the back of the skull was cut away in a neat square to expose the brain tissue inside, like the bodies I had seen piled in the back room. It looked like each hole contained a bundle of neuron probes that were inserted into the brain.

The people were arranged in rows that stretched off into the shadows. In the far corner, a fire was beginning to rage.

Sean, I found the bodies you picked up on the satellite scan.

Are they still alive?

I think so.

Each body had an IV rack next to it, the tubes trailing down under the hospital robes they wore. At each station, a wire connected a high-voltage battery cell to a thick needle embedded into the occupant’s chest. A throw switch allowed them to be jolted on cue. Beneath each chair was a plastic bucket stained with human waste. The bottom of each chair had been bored through so they could eliminate without being moved.

This is bad, Sean.

One of the victims, a young woman with a cluster of star tattoos near one eye, was dead. Her vitals monitor showed a flatline, but the others were alive. Crouching next to the man sitting closest to me, I pulled the packing tape away from his face so I could see one of his eyes. When I shined a light in it, the pupil contracted. His limbs were atrophied and pocked with bedsores.

I don’t know if these people can be saved.

A high-pitched hiss screamed through the air again as another jet of flame lit up the room and washed over the bodies in the rows. In the swell of light, I saw skin wrinkle and blacken before being peeled away, IVs bursting open in the heat. None of them moved as their flesh was seared away.

“There and there!” a voice boomed, as two rows of the hooded Special Forces soldiers began filing in from across the room, each taking one side. More flames shot through the air, and heat singed my nostrils.

There was no way to stop it from happening. If I gave my position away, they’d turn on me as well, and there was nowhere to take cover from the flames. The smoke was getting thick; it wasn’t safe to stay down there without protection. I had to find Calliope and get her back up to the surface.

My knees buckled under me without warning and my stomach twisted. For a second my vision blurred around that blind spot, and I felt sweat trickle down my back.

Sean, the Special Forces soldiers are here. They’re burning everything—

Get out of there, Nico.

Keeping low, I scanned the room for an exit. There were three options; back the way I came, up the stairs to the control room, or another door on the far wall where a series of wires trailed from the direction of the burning bodies.

The backscatter showed more people through that doorway, along with rows of what might be computer equipment. The bodies were seated, except for one that might have been Calliope.

Looking to the top of the stairwell, I could clearly make out two figures through the wall, both of them revivors. I picked out their signatures; one of them wasn’t on file, but the other one I knew.

It was Faye’s.

“Hit each one!” the radio voice barked. Over the racket, a gunshot boomed and I saw the commanding soldier stride down a row of captives. Smoke drifted from the barrel of his gun as he placed it to the temple of the next one in line, even as her flesh burned. He fired, blowing out the opposite side of her face.

“Nothing left behind, people! That means nothing!”

Faye was there. When Samuel took control of her, he brought her to this place, for whatever reason.

Wachalowski, get out of—

I cut off the communication feed. The fire was consuming half of the bodies by then, and the air in front of me was rippling crazily in the heat. The cacophony of voices, gunfire, and roaring flames began to sound as if it was underwater, punctuated by the high-pitched screams of the flamethrowers.

A warning message appeared in front of me, then another. Warning me about the temperature, warning me about my wounds and the chemical imbalances inside of me that were beginning to hit critical. A choice had to be made. I had to go one way or the other.

My legs felt like lead as I moved up the stairs, wondering whether I would be shot or burned before I ever got to the top. I didn’t turn around to see what was happening behind me; I just moved forward until my palm touched the door and I pushed it open. Everything seemed to slow down as a blast of cool air blew over me, condensing the sweat covering my face and neck into cold, hard drops. Inside, everything was white and clean and crisp.

Faye was there, sitting in a chair and looking up at me, while a large figure stood behind her. The warm hazel of her eyes had been replaced with that cold synthetic light, but it was close enough. Even without her hair, and the dark veins that branched beneath her skin, at that moment, I felt as if it was close enough.