State of Decay

by James Knapp

  “Why are you so scared?”

  He started to protest, but I soothed the membrane back, calming it.

  “Don’t—”

  I’m not sure what made me do it, but I put my hand on his.

  “Shhh.”

  The billowing light faded a little more but wouldn’t quite go away. Even as his expression and his breathing relaxed, the tension wouldn’t completely go away, and my heart kind of went out to him. Underneath his fear were other things: guilt, uncertainty, sadness, loneliness, and all the other things I knew so well. In him they were more structured than usual, but in some ways that seemed to make them all the more intense, like the colors were reined in but more concentrated and brighter.

  “Stop doing that,” he said, but there wasn’t much conviction in his voice.

  “Why?”

  There was no one there to see. I put my other hand on his stomach, right under where the gun was strapped. It felt flat and firm under his shirt. Right away, I could tell from the way his patterns shifted that he hadn’t been touched in a long time. I knew how that felt too.

  Maybe it was the alcohol, or just the total weirdness of the whole thing, but all I could think about right then was the way he felt under my hand. Without thinking, I ran my palm up and down his belly, feeling the ridges of muscle underneath his cotton undershirt.

  “I know you miss it,” I said. “I know you know how I feel.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t pull away either. He put a hand on my shoulder like he might push me away, but he just left it there as the colors shifted in front of my eyes. His eyes drooped further as I moved closer, my forehead almost touching his chest.

  “I wanted to thank you,” I said into his shirt.

  “For what?”

  “For caring about me, even a little bit.”

  Something flashed from the darkness behind him just then. When I looked over, I saw a pair of eyes glowing softly back in the corner.

  Not now . . .

  There was no one else there; I had checked before I went inside, so I had to be seeing things again. But then the eyes moved. Something got knocked over, and the eyes began to move closer.

  “You . . .”

  Breaking out of the trance, Nico jumped, looking disoriented. I pulled my hands back in surprise as a figure stepped out of the shadows, moving toward me. It was her, the dead woman from my dreams, naked except for a button-up shirt that was open at the top. She stepped forward again, then stopped short with the jingle of metal as she reached the end of the chain that was pad-locked to her ankle.

  “You can’t be here,” I said, as Nico turned to look and saw her too. She was really there. For some reason, her hair was gone, even her eyebrows, but there was no mistaking her. She even had a thick, puckered pink gash closed up in the middle of her chest.

  She stood there, following my eyes down to the wound.

  “It got split,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, taking a step back. Nico looked from her to me.

  “Zoe, calm down.”

  “Why is she here?”

  “I need to know what she knows,” he said, gripping me by the shoulders. He held me hard enough so that it hurt a little.

  “What?”

  “She might be the only one that can tell me,” he said. “I need you to help me.”

  It was a trick. He didn’t call me to him because he needed me; it was because he needed her. All he wanted me for was to do something for him. He wanted me to make his woman friend talk.

  “Help you do what?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. His patterns were so chaotic right then that I doubt he even knew himself.

  “Please,” he said.

  “You want to know what’s in her head,” I said. “Fine.”

  So I pushed, and I pushed hard. Maybe because I was drunk or maybe just because I was angry; it wasn’t fair that another woman was there, and it wasn’t fair that even though she was dead, he could only think about her and not me. It wasn’t fair that he only called me to do a trick for him. None of it was fair. Right at that moment I wanted to control her, to make her leave or back off, or maybe even hurt her if I could.

  So, I was drunk, and I was mad, and I pushed hard. I pushed real hard.

  The room got very bright, and everything went almost gray. I focused on the woman in front of me with more intensity than I think I’d ever turned on anyone. I reached out to the place where the light would bloom.

  “Zoe?”

  They didn’t appear. No lights, no colors . . . nothing. When I stared into her eyes, they didn’t change, they didn’t get dull and stupid. They just stared back.

  My heart started beating faster. This had never happened before, not ever. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the patterns rippling around Nico’s head. It was working, just not on her.

  I pushed harder, concentrating until the light got so bright she was all I could see; her face, her eyes, and the empty space where it should have been. Her thoughts, her consciousness, her self, her soul . . . whatever it was, it wasn’t there. The light blotted out everything else until the only thing that was dark was that empty spot, that empty hole where she should have been. It was like looking into an abyss or a black hole. When I pushed against it . . .

  “Zoe!”

  All at once, the lights dimmed back to normal. He was shaking my shoulder. The dead girl was still standing there, looking at me. I wiped my nose and there was blood.

  “What happened? What did you see?”

  She was just standing there, staring at me the way she did in my dreams. Those electric eyes watched me lifelessly as I backed away. I had to get out of there.

  Nico reached out to me and I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. What was I doing there? What in the world ever compelled me to get involved in this whole thing? All I wanted was to get back to my apartment, lock the door, and forget about the whole thing—him, her . . . everything. It was a mistake. The whole thing was a mistake.

  I stumbled to the door, and he followed me. I pushed on him again, making him stop before he could reach me.

  “Your friend is gone,” I told him, and left. He didn’t come after me.

  He didn’t even come after me.

  Nico Wachalowski—Guardian Metro Storage Facility

  After Zoe ran, I wasn’t sure what I should do. Faye had sat back down on the bedroll and hadn’t spoken in minutes.

  “Who was that?” she asked finally.

  “No one.”

  I hadn’t wanted to risk poking around in her systems, because I knew she was seeded with Leichenesser, and the memory of the dock revivor melting away on that autopsy table was too fresh in my mind. That had been triggered when I started rifling through sections of memory I wasn’t supposed to be in.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  As I looked down on her, she just stared up at me, her brown eyes replaced by moonlight silver. It was amazing how dehumanizing that one change alone was, but it was more than that. This was the first time I had ever seen a revivor that I had previously known so closely, and the change was subtle but startling at the same time. More than just the color of her eyes or her skin, it was her body language, her expression, the way she held herself; everything was different. It was as if her body had been inhabited by some completely different entity.

  I sat down on the bedroll in front of her so that we were facing. Immediately, she reached out and took my hands in hers.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked. Her palms and fingers were cold, with no pulse.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hold still,” I said, “and stay quiet. I need to concentrate.”

  Closing my eyes, I scanned the communications band until I found her signal. She was on an encrypted broadcast band.

  “I can’t force my way in,” I told her. “I’m extending a connection; can you see it?”

  She didn’t respond at first. I opened my eyes and saw her staring into space, s
lightly out of focus.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Can you accept the con—”

  Call connected.

  Are you picking me up?

  In front of me, her lips curled very slightly, forming the ghost of a smile. Or was that wishful thinking?

  “Yes,” she said.

  Answer back over the connection.

  Yes. I’m picking you up.

  Good. There should be a copy of any communications you’ve received in your memory buffer.

  This feels strange.

  I’m going to try to retrieve it.

  Okay.

  Her hands were like ice, but my palms were sweating.

  The last time I tried this, I accidentally triggered a device designed to prevent anyone getting in.

  Okay.

  The revivor was destroyed.

  Okay.

  I moved more carefully this time around, sending a data miner across to feel out any security instead of brute-forcing it. Her systems were protected, but since she hadn’t been deployed, there were no modifications, and the miner managed to clear the way in.

  What are you looking for?

  Having only been reanimated for a short time, there wasn’t much in there. The bulk of it was a dynamic database. It looked like a full copy of the list I’d pulled off of the dock revivor.

  I’ve got it.

  I compared the list fragment I’d pulled from the dock revivor to the database of names I’d just recovered. There were no matches.

  As I watched, it changed size in front of me. A couple seconds later, it did it again. It was getting smaller.

  Do you know what this is? I asked Faye.

  No. Do you?

  A list of names, but the ones I was looking for aren’t there.

  It keeps changing.

  What?

  It keeps getting updated.

  How often?

  It varies.

  How do these updates occur?

  A connection opens and they arrive, Faye said. First the list came; then, after that, the updates.

  The list was keeping track of the names dynamically. That was it; the names were no longer on the list because the people they represented were dead. The database had been updated, and the names removed. If it was a synchronized database, then the updates were coming from somewhere. As the Heinlein rep had pointed out, revivors communicated in a hub-and-spoke fashion, not directly to one another but through a common point. That common point, that hub, must be where these people were based. If I could locate that . . .

  The last change in the list size was already complete. I set up a monitor to watch all incoming ports to trace the next one when it came in, then went back to the list.

  What do these names have in common? I asked her.

  I don’t know.

  Was your name on the list?

  No.

  I’m going to try to view the history. Hold on.

  There were backups going back several iterations in case of corruption. Fishing through them, I found the names from my list fragment. They had been removed eight iterations ago:

  Database synchronization pending.

  Updating . . .

  Header mismatch: Zhu, Mae. Murder.

  Removing.

  Header mismatch: Valle, Rebecca. Murder.

  Removing.

  Header mismatch: Craig, Harold. Murder.

  Removing.

  Header mismatch: Shanks, Doyle. Murder.

  Removing.

  There were several iterations preceding that one. There were a lot of names in there. At least twenty had already been removed, and there were hundreds more.

  I’m going to need a copy of those names. I’ll be careful.

  Okay.

  Rather than try to mirror the entire database, I decided it would be safer to go through and just scan the names one at a time and copy them manually. As I got closer to the most recent version, I noticed one of the iterations actually increased the overall size by a small fraction instead of decreasing it.

  Hold on.

  Shuffling ahead to that entry, I brought it up to view it.

  Database synchronization pending.

  Updating . . .

  Header mismatch: Ott, Zoe. Experimentation.

  Adding.

  I jerked my hands back, but those cold fingers locked around my wrists.

  Who’s Zoe?

  Let go.

  Who’s Zoe?

  Twisting my wrists, I knocked her hands away. I put a call in to Sean.

  Sean, the revivors are communicating with a base of operations somewhere. That partial list we recovered from the dock revivor is part of a much larger one, and they’re making their way through it.

  Why? Who are they?

  I don’t know why, but do some digging. I’m sending the names to you now.

  Roger that.

  The entries have been getting crossed off more and more frequently. It looks like it started to ratchet up maybe six iterations ago. . . .

  That was around the time Ohtomo dispatched the National Guard. There was a string of removals prior to that, in between.

  Faye, these early names are all your victims. The ones you were investigating.

  I noticed that too.

  It looked like in addition to that, the suicide bombing was referenced as well:

  Database synchronization pending.

  Updating . . .

  Header mismatch: Strike 0. Terror.

  Removing.

  The equipment, bodies, and weapons Tai was bringing in, the victims of Faye’s killer, the recent bomb attacks; all of it was planned in advance.

  Sean, I need to know who these people are. They have something in common. Someone out there wants them dead, and they’ve gone to a lot of trouble and expense to make it happen.

  If there’s a connection, I’ll find it.

  In the meantime, I’m monitoring the channel so the next time a communication comes through I should be able to trace it back—

  Faye twitched in front of me, her eyes widening. All at once her body tensed up, cords standing out in her neck.

  Shit.

  I backed off, recalling the miner and retreating from the memory I had accessed. Her fingers curled and I could see warnings spilling past. Was I too late? Had I already triggered it?

  “Faye?” I asked out loud. She didn’t respond. Her eyes didn’t turn toward me.

  Agent Wachalowski.

  I turned my attention back to the connection between us. The message hadn’t originated from her. It came over another connection to her that had just been opened.

  Who is this?

  Agent Wachalowski, this is Samuel Fawkes. Why are you playing with one of my revivors?

  Samuel never left.

  It’s not your revivor.

  It is now.

  An override code was running; he’d taken remote control of Faye’s systems. Her command center switched over. If he wanted to, he could shut her down completely.

  Wait. How do you know who I am?

  Because I’ve been watching you.

  Why?

  Because you have been sticking your nose in my business for longer than you realize.

  Why are you killing these people? What did they do? Who are they to you?

  You wouldn’t believe me. Not for long anyway.

  What does that mean?

  They’ve already gotten to you, Agent.

  The warnings stopped streaming by. Faye’s body relaxed.

  What do you mean ‘they’? I found footage in a reporter’s memory of someone sending him to Tai’s place before I arrived. Is that who you mean? Are these the people who are on your list?

  You’ll never know, Agent. I was going to wake you up, but now it’s too late.

  Why are you killing them?

  “Nico?”

  It was Faye. She looked up at me with eyes that were wide and innocent in their lack of understanding. I remembered back to the female revivor
at Tai’s place, the way when she spoke it had seemed like some alien intelligence had spoken through her, referencing memories it had never experienced. It didn’t feel that way when Faye said my name. She said it the way she used to say it. She remembered me. Maybe her memories were corrupted during the transition, and maybe some were even false, but she remembered me.

  “Nico, help me—”

  By the time I heard the sound, it was too late. The sound of sliding metal ended with an abrupt crunch as something pounded into my chest, sending burning pain up my neck and down both arms, all the way to my palms. My reaction was too late, and by then I couldn’t move, not even to take a breath.

  She was still staring up at me, those electric eyes looking faintly distressed. Her fingers touched my chest gently as beneath them a blade extended from the base of her palm to the center of my rib cage, the point buried somewhere inside. Neither of us could speak as the hydraulics hissed, unable to push any farther. With a snap the blade retracted, tugging free from me and disappearing back into her arm. She reeled above me as I fell back, my vision swimming with black blotches that turned everything dark.

  “Nico?”

  I couldn’t move. Even with my systems firing off, trying to right me, I couldn’t move a muscle. I sensed her there, still looking down on me as warm blood seeped through my shirt. Had she finally remembered me? Would she help me, or leave me?

  I wondered that as the stream of warnings ceased and went out.

  Zoe Ott—Pleasantview Apartments, Apartment 713

  At my front door, I fumbled for the key. My hands were shaking badly, and all I wanted to do was to find it and get inside before the jerk next door came out, because I really didn’t think I could handle him right then. Whatever had made me get involved in this whole mess in the first place was a drunken mistake in judgment. I wasn’t cut out for any of it. I just wasn’t the kind of person who got involved in whatever it was I had gotten involved in.

  I found the key and started to put it in the lock, but I couldn’t keep it steady. The tip of the key scratched around the keyhole as I moved closer to the knob. I wanted to forget any of it ever happened. I didn’t want to see Nico or the woman or any of them ever again. All I wanted was to get warm and watch TV, and drink until I stopped feeling like I did.