by James Knapp
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Jan Holst.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Zoe Ott.”
“You’re with the FBI?” He said it like he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.”
I fished my contractor’s badge out and held it up so he could see it.
“Okay,” he said. He turned to the woman. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
She nodded, still looking at me. She looked pretty beat-up, but she smiled, just a little.
“You’ll have to leave,” I told him. He frowned, and I felt a little surge of anger come from him.
“Look, Miss Ott,” he said. “This wom—”
He stopped in midsentence as I concentrated and the room got bright. As the colors drained away from everything except the light around his head, out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman’s smile get a little bigger. I pushed back the spike of red light that had been forming until it disappeared back into the blue.
“I need privacy,” I told him. “If anything happens, I’ll get you.”
He nodded. In the doorway, he looked back at her one more time, then left, closing the door behind him. The lights went back to normal. When I turned and looked at her, she was still smiling. There was a chair in the room and I pulled it over next to the bed and sat down.
“How are you doing?” I asked. She shook her head, and pointed to the bandage over her throat.
“Sorry, right.”
Nico told me about that in the phone message. I had to sign out an electronic tablet. I took it out of my purse and turned it on, making the little gray screen light up. She held out her hand and I gave it to her.
“Does it hurt?” I asked. She shook her head, then tapped on the little keyboard and angled the screen so I could see.
I’ll be okay.
“Good.”
What did you want to ask me, Agent Ott?
“Miss Ott. I just work for them sometimes.”
Digging in my coat pocket, I found the list of questions I was supposed to ask and pulled it out. Smoothing the paper, I looked at the first question.
Where is Hiro Takanawa?
I focused in on her so I could put her under, and she closed her eyes. When the aura appeared over her head, though, I saw that thin, white halo. The swirl of color behind it stayed calm when I tried to change them, and couldn’t. She opened her eyes and smiled as she met mine.
My heart was beating faster. Nico’s questions sat forgotten in my hand.
She tapped on the tablet’s keyboard.
You can see.
“Yes.” She could see me, too.
We’ve contacted you more than once. Why don’t you respond?
That was true. I’d gotten several notes and a few weird phone calls. I knew they were interested in me. The weird little woman that appeared after the revivor took me and wired me to their machine told me they were interested in me.
I didn’t have a good answer for her. I just shrugged.
Aren’t you even a little bit curious?
“I’ve just …been avoiding it, I guess.”
Why?
My words got caught up in my throat, but then I started to relax a little. For a second, it actually felt like I’d taken a big shot of ouzo. I felt the tension inside me loosen.
“Because I was scared,” I said.
Scared of what?
“Nico doesn’t trust you …I thought he’d be mad …I was worried he might be right, maybe, or that …I wouldn’t be special?” I said. The words were flowing like I was drunk. “That I wouldn’t be any good, and I’d be as bad at this as I am …”
I trailed off, and she smiled again.
You are special, and there’s no reason to be scared. We would welcome you, and I know how lonely it feels to think you’re alone.
My throat burned and I felt tears in my eyes again. She was right, in a way. It seemed like I’d gotten to the point where I was doing everything right, or the way I was supposed to do them anyway. I was trying to be like everyone else, to go to bed sober and wake up and go to work and make friends, but it wasn’t working. Even though I knew more people now than I ever had, I was lonely. Karen acted like it was the drinking that made her kick me out, but it wasn’t. It was part of it, but it was the other stuff she couldn’t stand. My ability, and the dreams, and all the things she thought were so cool at first; they started to scare her.
The people around you don’t understand you, Jan typed. They can’t.
I shrugged as her fingers moved over the screen.
You need to understand what it is you can do—how to do it and when to use it. Let us show you.
“Maybe,” I said.
These people and the way they treat you make you sad, but these people, the ones who aren’t like you, what they think doesn’t matter. They don’t deserve to hold this power over you—
“Stop.”
She deleted the message. She didn’t look disappointed or mad or anything. She just stopped typing.
Nico didn’t trust them; that was the thing. Sometimes, the way he talked, it was like he thought that all those people that got killed back then deserved what they got. Sometimes, the way he talked, I wondered if maybe he didn’t trust me either, and I really wanted him to. I wanted him to believe in me. I wanted him to know that whatever side he was on, I was on it too.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
It’s okay.
I looked back at the paper Nico gave me, the one with the questions, but I knew I wouldn’t ask them. I crumpled it and shoved it in my pocket.
“Is the city really going to burn?” I asked. Her eyes got very serious.
Yes.
“Why? How?”
Meet with us and you’ll get your answer.
As I read the words, a bad feeling came over me. I started feeling really dizzy, so bad it made me sick to my stomach a little.
“I can’t …”
If you don’t, she’ll be forced to—
I practically jumped out of my skin as a loud popping noise went off right near my head. At the same exact time, one of her eyes blew up. It just blew apart and caved in, leaving a big red hole behind. Her whole body jerked on the bed, and the eye she had left rolled in the socket, looking off at a weird angle.
The tablet slipped out of her hand and clattered onto the floor. She slumped back onto the pillow, and the machine she was hooked up to was beeping over and over. Someone was shouting from down the hall. A puff of smoke was rising from a spot in front of the bed.
I was still trying to figure out what the heck just happened when the IV rack next to the bed shook all by itself, then tipped over and crashed onto the floor. When I looked over, I saw the air ripple there, just for a second. For just a second, I saw a guy standing there. He was bald, and his skin was gray. His eyes glowed a dull yellowish color, and for that quick flash, they were staring right at me. He moved, and I saw a gun in his hand before the air flickered again, and he was gone.
What just happened?
The doctor came through the doorway. He looked from the woman on the bed to me. The look on his face snapped me out of it.
“What happened?” he asked. When I concentrated on her, just the barest blue light appeared, like a pilot light, and then even that flickered out. The vitals monitor started droning a steady beep, and the doctor’s eyes widened.
“Jesus, what did you do?”
Other people started filling up the room, pushing me out of the way. I grabbed the tablet and backed away.
“What the hell did you do?” the doctor demanded.
“Nothing, I …”
“Call the police!” someone yelled.The doctor reached for me and I focused on him, stopping him before he could grab me.
“Leave me alone,” I told him. His eyelids drooped, and his hand began to lower back by his side.
“Leave me alone.”
I slipped out the door and ran.
Nico W
achalowski—Sigil Veranda Apartments, Apartment #901
Mist gave way to a short squall of snow as I inched down the street. The strip of sky above the buildings had turned dull gray. Sean’s place was on the other side of town, and by the time I got there, the commuters were in full swing. Traffic had piled up in front and behind. People trudged along the sidewalks on either side with their collars turned up and their heads down. I nosed past a group of people waiting impatiently at the curb, crept down the side street, then took a concrete ramp into the garage below.
According to the apartment’s security logs, Sean got in late the night before. The timing suggested he’d gone straight home after we spoke. That put three hours or so between when he arrived home and when he sent the message. Another two had passed since then, and he never showed up at work. He was in trouble.
Heading up the front entrance, I checked the logs for visitors. There had been a handful, but none were signed in by him. Cameras didn’t record anyone who was unaccounted for, coming or going.
Inside I took the express elevator up, and then made my way to Sean’s unit. I gave the door a knock, but no one answered. I knocked again.
“Sean, open up.”
Using the backscatter to scan through the door, I could make out his coat on a rack. Next to that, I could see his shoes. Nothing moved in the gray space behind them.
“Sean, if you’re there, open up.”
I listened for a minute, but didn’t hear anything. I took my badge from my pocket and put a call in to Noakes.
Noakes, I’m at Sean’s apartment, and I need a silent entry. I also need a warrant related to possible crime in progress.
Done and done, Agent.
He stayed on the line while I held my badge to the door scanner and the bolt released, suppressing any voice or electronic response. When I pushed open the door, I saw that the apartment was dark. I went inside and closed the door behind me.
Through the thermal filter I could make out faint traces of footsteps, but none of them had been recent. None approached the door. No one had come or gone for hours.
Creeping into the main hall, I drew my gun and adjusted my visuals to let in more light. Nothing looked disturbed. The apartment was completely quiet.
“Sean?”
No one answered. The thermal signatures were very faint, but got stronger through the living area. He had sat on the sofa for a while, and there was an empty glass on a marble-topped end table. Fresher footsteps headed toward the bedroom. I followed them in.
The bed was still made, but I could make out a warm spot in the middle, as if he had lain there on top of the covers at some point. I recorded the image, then followed the footsteps through a door and into the master bath.
In the bathroom, he’d stood in front of the sink. There were drops of brown liquid on the porcelain and bunches of tissues in the trash, stained with something black, maybe ink. There was a thermal handprint on the toilet lid.
Lifting it up, I looked in and saw the water was stained pink. A wad of tissue was clogging the bowl, and floating above it was a wrinkled white orb that trailed red tissue.
Noakes, are you getting this?
I zoomed in on the eye. It looked like it had been cut out. The iris was clouded and scarred.
I got it. Is it his?
Checking …
I tried to scan the retina, but it was too damaged. Something had scorched it.
Kneeling in front of the sink, I fished through the trash. Under the tissues was a small, glass bottle with a dropper. It was unmarked, but had a sharp, chemical smell.
What is it?
I’m not sure. Hold on.
Back in the bedroom, I noticed some scoring on the frame next to the bathroom doorknob, and pinprick burn marks on the carpet. When I zoomed in on the latch, I saw the metal bolt had been burned through. Someone cut their way in to get to him.
Someone broke in.
I’m sending a forensics team over, Noakes said. Keep me informed.
Roger that.
He closed the connection.
Rain drummed against a window next to the bed. I switched to the backscatter and searched the room, looking for anything that might have gotten left behind. When I scanned across the floor, I found a safe concealed under an area rug next to the bed.
Moving the rug aside, I raised the panel to find it fitted with an electronic lock. I remembered Sean’s message.
31 03 76 11 52 57 81
I keyed the sequence into the safe’s keypad, and a moment later I felt a thump through the floor as the bolts retracted. Whatever he was trying to tell me, whatever he wanted me to know, it was inside.
I turned the arm and pulled open the heavy door. The only thing inside was a small recording device. A yellow LED flashed on one side of it.
It looked like the recorder was receiving from a wireless source, or at least it had been. I tapped into the recording buffer, and a window came up in my field of vision, displaying a test code. The recording came from a camera eye, a version of a JZ implant’s optics, or a revivor’s eye. News peddlers and paparazzi used them. The eyes had a recording buffer, but they could also transmit to an external recorder.
Sean had one implanted, then. The eye would be inferior to the recorder he already had, but whatever it recorded wouldn’t end up in the JZI buffer. The only reason for him to do that was so that he could record things without anyone at the FBI seeing them.
I played the recording. There was no sound, just a streaming image from Sean’s point of view. He was standing in the bathroom, looking into the mirror in front of the sink. I knew the expression I saw on his face; he was in trouble at the time the recording was made.
He looked into his own eyes in the mirror, giving the illusion he was looking out at me. He reached up with an erasable marker and began writing on the mirror in black ink.
I know we can’t influence you anymore.
I don’t know why.
He wiped the message away with a tissue. He dropped it in the trash next to the sink and wrote again.
I’m sorry.
He frowned, and his eyes looked sad as he added:
I tried to protect you.
He wiped the mirror clean, then looked back through the bathroom doorway like he heard something. After a second, he turned back to the mirror again. He held the marker up to it, and began to write again as a light flickered somewhere behind him.
Motoko Ai believes you are an important element. She’s been looking for you. She will contact you soon. Be careful; she lies.
Motoko Ai …I didn’t know that name. He wiped the mirror clean, and began writing more quickly, glancing back through the doorway again. Sparks were spitting out from the seam next to the knob of the bedroom door. A cutter was being used to slice through the bolt.
Fawkes has the nukes. He was the buyer. The same buyer was behind the first attack. Fawkes was behind the bombing of Concrete Falls.
He underlined the last part, then stopped writing and turned around as the bedroom door opened and a figure stepped through the smoke. He pulled the bathroom door shut and locked himself inside. Just before it closed, I caught a glimpse of a pale face moving toward him. It was only for a second, but the soft glow behind the eyes was unmistakable. As he turned back to the sink, I saw sparks begin to fly from the door seam as the cutter began making its way through.
Sean turned back to the mirror and started to scrawl one last message:
Second Chance—
Light flashed behind him and he stopped, throwing the marker aside. He opened the medicine cabinet and I watched him remove the small brown glass bottle I found in the trash. The camera looked up at the ceiling as he held the dropper over it. A fat drop swelled at the tip, then fell and the image immediately warped. A second later, it went blank. From the look of it, whoever came for him removed the eye, but was too late. He’d destroyed it.
The mirror above the sink was wiped clean. Either he’d done it after he destroyed the came
ra, or the intruder had.
Fawkes was behind the bombing of Concrete Falls.
It wasn’t some kind of terrorist protest, then. If it was true and Fawkes was behind it, he wouldn’t have staged a strike like that without a very specific reason. If Sean hadn’t taken the chance to say what that was, then he either didn’t have time or didn’t know.
I rewound the footage, looking for the revivor’s face. The recording was hectic, but he managed to pick up a few frames’ worth anyway. The skin was Caucasian but definitely revivor, with its characteristic gray tinge. It had a complete lack of hair. Follicle dissolution was usually associated with assembly-line revivors. I cleaned up the image, canceling out the motion blur. When I did, I stopped cold.
Faye.
In the image, she was stalking through the smoke, toward the door. Her eyes stared dispassionately but with purpose. She was still out there, and for whatever reason, she had come for him.
I took the recording chip from the unit in the floor safe and slipped it in my pocket. At least for the time being, no one else knew about it. I meant to keep it that way.
She hadn’t been lost in the fire. I’d hoped to track her down one day, but the circumstances couldn’t have been much worse. Sean wasn’t just a federal agent; he was more than that. In another circle, one I wasn’t allowed to ever see into, he was something else entirely.
If it got out who had taken him, it was going to mean trouble, and not just for her.
3 Rise
Faye Dasalia—Alto Do Mundo
I sat in a wooden chair and I waited. A man in the next room spoke on his cell phone, his voice easy and certain. Somehow I felt sure he was speaking to her …that physically frail woman with the oversized head and the fishlike face; the woman he answered to, both his leader and master.
His suite was inside the Alto Do Mundo. The third largest structure inside the city, it housed much of the elite. In life I had seen it only from afar, watching it from the rail that took me to work. Once I investigated a murder there. Part of me had always envied those inside, even then.