State of Decay

by James Knapp

  I blinked once, hard, shutting down the implant; it was the only thing that was going to buy me any more time. With the visual filters off-line, he wouldn’t notice anything strange. I opened my eyes wide, and looked straight ahead before Tai could say anything else. He shined the light in my eye and leaned in close. He stared into it for a while, his breath on my face. After a few seconds, he snapped off the light.

  I didn’t say anything; I just kept holding my breath. The knife came out of the wall and moved out from between my legs.

  He lunged, but I knew it was coming. I tried to move, but he kicked out my right leg and pushed me down against the wall. I fell into an awkward squat but managed to deflect his thrust, and the knife slammed into the wall just to the left of my throat.

  I grabbed his leg and rammed my forearm into his pelvis, knocking him back. He lost his balance and crashed back into the door behind him, the two of us spilling into the room where the revivors were working. It looked like he had lost the knife, but his hand was in his jacket. I grabbed his wrist and we struggled. I saw the gun coming out, and some of the revivors tried to pull me off of him.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and reactivated the implant.

  Jovanovic-Zaytsev Industries Cybernetic Implant model L65730001-M initializing . . .

  The JZI came back online. Tai struggled to get the gun free as diagnostic information scrolled in front of me and the communications link began to reconnect. The translator module finished initializing, and as the revivors continued to chatter, words began streaming by.

  Stop! What are you doing? Help!

  I kept my weight on Tai, but he was stronger than he looked. I brought my fist back, my elbow crunching into the nose of one of the revivors who was trying to pull me away, then hit Tai with everything I had. His eyes swam, but he didn’t go out. The revivor I’d creamed fell onto the floor next to us, clutching its face.

  Before I could hit him again, a big hand grabbed my arm from behind, hauling me back like a rag doll. As I was pulled off of Tai, I kept a grip on his gun, and as my feet left the ground, I stomped my heel on his forehead.

  That put him down. His hand went slack, and I grabbed the gun as a beefy arm came around the front of my neck and squeezed. The muscle felt like cold stone against my throat, and breath smelling of rot huffed down the back of my neck.

  The fear was worse than I had remembered. My legs went weak and everything seemed to slow down. I put the barrel of the gun against the thigh of the thing behind me and pulled the trigger. The blood that splashed back was cold.

  Tai’s eyes fluttered open and he sat up, looking disoriented. He got to his feet and smoothed his clothes.

  “Kill him,” he said.

  He took off, but I didn’t see where he went. The arm came off my neck and I pulled in a breath as I was spun around, spots swimming in front of me. Something crashed across my head, and my legs went out from under me. As I dangled by one wrist, the hand that gripped it tried to shake the gun out of my hand. I looked up and saw a big male revivor with cropped black hair standing over me, its eyes ghostly white. Its mouth gaped open and long strands of drool hung from its lower lip, all of its crowded teeth on display.

  This was the kind of revivor I knew. Low-end, made for combat, with only one or two imperatives buzzing around in its decaying brain. It might have come from the same steamy hellhole where I saw my first one.

  I hit it, but if the thing felt any pain at all it didn’t show it. It forced my gun hand around and I squeezed off another shot, which grazed its ear. It pushed the gun back, twisting it around toward me.

  As the barrel began to move toward my face, I felt the thing’s thumb rooting around for the trigger. From over the revivor’s shoulder I saw the bathroom door open, and the female revivor stepped out, staring at me through its stringy hair. It held its hands up in front of it, like a child who wasn’t sure what to do.

  There was a loud bang, and the female retreated back into the bathroom. Shadows played on the wall as two uniformed SWAT men barreled around the corner.

  “Here!” the one taking point shouted. Without hesitation, he aimed and fired, causing the revivor’s head to pitch to one side, spraying oily black fluid. The grip on my wrist released as it staggered away from me.

  The SWAT officer fired again, and it dropped to one knee, then fell onto its back. The two men approached me as I rubbed my wrist. I moved over to where the revivor lay, trying to get back up as fluid pooled around its head. I aimed the gun and fired, putting a bullet between its eyes. I fired three more rounds and the top of its head broke open, spilling black guts out onto the floor.

  “Whoa, whoa!” the officer said, holding up one hand. “You got him, chief.”

  “That is not a pleasure or a labor model,” I said, pointing at it with the barrel of the gun.

  Something was going on here. Tai was into something that went way beyond what I’d gone there to bust him for; something he’d managed to keep secret.

  I turned and saw Tai being dragged into view down at the end of the hall. Two more officers forced him against the wall, and when he tried to turn around, one of them kicked out his leg and forced him onto his knees.

  “Hands behind your head.”

  “Starting a war?” I asked him.

  He grinned. “Keep your doors locked,” he said in a low voice, glaring at me. He didn’t look angry, just serious.

  “Shut up,” the SWAT guy said. I turned and started down the hallway.

  “You hear me?” Tai called.

  “Yeah.”

  I passed the wall where Tai had pinned me, and saw his knife lying a few feet away. I approached the squad leader.

  “There are ten revivors out back,” I said to him, “plus one in the bathroom.”

  “Looks like our guys picked up another ten,” he said, “plus the rest of Tai’s men. You all right?”

  “Yeah. Process Tai and the others, then load them and the revivors into the truck.”

  “Roger.”

  “Were your techs able to get a connection into his computer system?”

  “You should have access now.”

  I scanned and found the socket, then opened a connection to it and brought up the system in my field of view. I turned the antisecurity software on it and waited for it to drill down and disable his firewall. Tai’s stuff was encrypted, but nothing fancy. I cycled through his files, which mostly consisted of inventory—the specs and identifications of revivors he had brought into the country, which ones had been moved already, and which ones were still on order. No pickup location was spelled out, but there was a series of docket numbers, and it didn’t take long to match them to receiving ports at the Palm Harbor Shipyard. It looked as if they were being smuggled in among legitimate cargo from a bunch of different sources. I couldn’t tell from where, but it was a good start.

  I headed back to the reception area, where the SWAT team had gathered the revivors. They had been grouped in rows and were now kneeling, with their hands behind their heads. Most of them were female and had cookie-cutter versions of the same body modifications. They were all dressed in cheap paper hospital smocks.

  As I headed out the door, I turned back and saw one of the men bring in the one from the bathroom, nudging it forward with the barrel of his rifle. It looked at me like it recognized me. The man forced it down onto the floor with the others, and I turned and headed back to the elevator, putting in a call to the assistant director.

  Noakes.

  This is Noakes.

  Agent Wachalowski reporting. Four suspects apprehended. Twenty-one revivors recovered. It looks like they’ve been bringing them in via Palm Harbor.

  Where are the revivors now?

  SWAT is loading them into the truck. We uncovered some pretty serious firepower here as well. Weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment. SWAT is cataloging it; you’ll have the list shortly.

  What are we looking at?

  Whoever wanted it knows his stuff. There’
s enough to arm a small militia.

  Noakes didn’t respond right away.

  Get the seller down here. We need that information.

  They’re moving him and the revivors now. From Tai’s records, it looks like something was just brought in to the shipyard. I’m on my way there. If we’re lucky, no one has picked it up yet.

  A team will meet you there. Find out where that stuff was going.

  I will.

  The doors opened, and I crossed into the lobby. Across the foyer, I could see someone standing in the shadows near the exit. He wasn’t in uniform. I pinged the squad leader upstairs.

  You guys have anyone in the lobby?

  Negative. Two outside; the rest are up here.

  The figure moved toward me, and when he stepped into the light I could see he was young, maybe college age. He had tangled brown hair and uneven stubble. He wore sneakers, running pants, and a gray hoodie. He wasn’t carrying a weapon.

  “What are you doing in here?” I asked him.

  “Agent Wachalowski?”

  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  I scanned into the soft tissue of his face and saw some bioelectronics fitted behind the eyes. He was here gathering footage. I was being recorded.

  “I hear you’ve got some revivors upstairs,” he said.

  “Be careful what you admit to,” I said, moving past him. “There’s only one way you could have heard that.”

  As I pushed past, he followed, keeping pace with me.

  “Come on, you can give me something, can’t you?”

  “Sorry, I can’t,” I said. “And listening in on even unsecured communications like that is a felony; you know that. The SWAT guys are on their way down, and if they find you here, you’re going to be arrested.”

  There’s a reporter down here looking for footage. Clear him out before you bring the revivors down.

  Roger that.

  “It’s already out,” he said. “You can’t keep it a secret. Just give me fifteen seconds’ worth.”

  “Technically, if you’re not outside, you’re supposed to inform anyone you talk to if you’re going to record them,” I said. “Like you’re doing right now. If you want, I can slap an injunction on you, and the techs can take a crawl through everything you’ve got sitting in your buffers. How does that sound?”

  That seemed to hit home, and he stayed behind as I headed across the parking lot toward my car. When I got in, I could see him still standing there like he wasn’t sure whether or not he should chance going back. In the rearview mirror I saw him watching me, probably still recording as I pulled out and drove away.

  With the scene behind me, I took a deep breath. I realized my heart was pounding and I tried to slow it down. I couldn’t get the image of that girl revivor’s face out of my head.

  The first time I ever saw a revivor’s face, it was dark out and hotter than hell. The revivor was a male, and when it came staggering up out of the wet grass, I knew for a fact that the man was dead because I was the one who had killed him.

  The last time I’d seen one out in the grinder, I was being airlifted away in a helicopter, with a tube down my throat. It came lurching out of the brush, wet eyes staring right at me as we began to rise. Its teeth, stained bright red, were showing, and there was a terrible want on that waxy face that remained even as the gunner turned on it and made it dance.

  Faye Dasalia—Shine Tower Apartments, Unit 901

  “Faye,” he’d whispered. I could almost still hear him as I roused from the dream, stirring in my cold bed.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Faye. . . .” He’d breathed it into my ear, the stubble from his chin pricking the side of my neck. He had finally stopped, and was propped over me, smelling like sweat and that brand of deodorant he used. Even awake, I could almost still smell him. It was almost real.

  “You deserve better than this,” he’d said, as he said every time. “The world should be yours.”

  Stretching under the covers, I tried to shake it off. I didn’t want the world; all I wanted was to make it to first tier without getting shipped off to the grinder. I didn’t want the things I dreamed, no matter how many times I dreamed them. Sometimes I thought they happened because he was the only man I knew, but I knew him only because I worked next to him every day. We never had so much as a drink together, and he had never even been inside my apartment the entire time I’d known him.

  Besides, I didn’t think of Doyle like that. It wasn’t even a departmental or career thing; I just didn’t think of him that way, and that made the whole thing all the more strange. Doyle Shanks was a friend and I liked him, but there was nothing else there. Not even the dreams could change that.

  My phone was ringing. I cracked my eyes open and saw that neon was still seeping through the blinds, but otherwise the room was dark. It wasn’t morning yet, then. I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep, but it hadn’t been nearly long enough.

  The room seemed to spin slightly as I oriented myself, finding the dresser where the indicator light on my cell made a mellow green strobe as it rang again. Cold air rushed under the blankets as I groped for it and brought it close to my face to check the number; it wasn’t Shanks’s cell, but I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d be calling me.

  They found another body. That was the first thought that came into my head. That would make a fourth. Four murders, all the same. I knew somehow that the case was going to go from bad to worse. I retreated back under the covers and flipped open the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Dasalia?” a man asked. It wasn’t Shanks; I didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “Is this Detective Dasalia?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Detective, someone is walking in your shadow.”

  Terrific. A precious handful of hours of sleep, cut short for this.

  “Look—”

  “Stop following me, Detective.”

  That got my attention. I sat up in bed, pulling the covers around me. Fumbling with the phone, I began recording the call and started a trace. Had he actually decided to make contact after being virtually invisible for so long? Could I be that lucky?

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “Did you hear me? I said stop following me.”

  “Am I following you?”

  “Yes. You will find another one this morning. Your partner will find her first, but I want you to let it go.”

  “You want me to let you continue killing these people and do nothing?”

  “Yes.”

  Glancing at the screen, I could see the trace was coming up empty. The ’bot was having trouble following the circuit connections back to the source, for some reason.

  “Why should I do that?” I asked. “Why are you doing this? Help me understand it. Is it because they’re all first tier?”

  So far, that was the only thing any of the victims had in common; they all managed to make it to first tier without getting shipped off to serve. It was a category I hoped to fall into myself one day, but none of the victims so far looked like they had to work very hard for it.

  “Your only way out of this is to wake up,” he said, ignoring me.

  The trace had failed. Whoever he was, he could be anywhere. He was quiet for a minute. I listened but I couldn’t hear anything on his end. There was nothing to indicate where he might be. The line was eerily quiet, almost like a digital recording.

  “What do you mean—”

  “Try to wake up,” he said, and the line cut out.

  I stared at the LCD for a minute, trying to make sense of it as the screen flashed and the connection dropped.

  The time said 3:13 a.m. I’d been in bed for a little more than four hours, and I had one more hour of sleep coming that I wasn’t going to get. The cold was already invading my bed. It was time to get moving.

  Stretching again, I felt aches in my lower back and other places that were harder to explain. O
ne night I had watched people on TV debate the possibility that a dream could be so vivid, it could affect a person’s physical body. At least one of them believed it was possible that dying in a dream that was vivid enough could result in a person’s death. It made me wonder whether the same premise held true for an erotic dream, and if one were vivid enough, would it be the same as actually committing the acts? If it was, it was grossly unfair.

  I got up, hating the way my joints cracked as I stood and stretched. Since the tenant below had moved out, the floor was always freezing and I had gooseflesh head to toe in seconds. I snapped on the carnival glass lamp next to the bed, found my slippers, and shrugged on my robe, pulling it tightly around me. The floor squeaked under my feet as I made my way in a haze into the kitchen.

  I’d spent the previous night comparing everything I knew about the victims, trying to find some kind of thread that tied them together, but so far I had come up pretty much empty. The murders had a ritualistic quality that made me think the selection of the victims should be significant, but none of them appeared to have anything in common at all, except their first- tier status, which wasn’t much to go on.

  I poured a small glass of water from the filter and set it in the microwave, then took a single sugar cube from the little jar on the table. Using a dropper from the bottle next to it, I squeezed two amber drops onto the cube and watched the liquid bleed through the white granules. I was still staring at it when my phone rang again.

  “Hello?”

  “Dasalia, it’s me.”

  “Shanks,” I said. The microwave dinged, and I winced as I reached in and pulled out the steaming glass.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “They found another one,” he said.

  Your partner will find her first. . . .

  “Female?” I asked.

  “Yeah. How’d you know that?”

  I plopped down at the kitchen table, put the sugar cube on my tongue, and tipped back the glass. The cube dissolved as the hot water scalded my mouth, and I swallowed the bittersweet liquid in one hard gulp.

  “We’re being watched,” I told him, blowing out a hot sigh. “I just got a call announcing the new victim.”