The Silent Army r-2

by James Knapp

  “Sure.”

  He got quiet for a minute. I grabbed the bottle from the table and filled his glass again.

  “You worked with a lot of revivors over there, huh?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You wired?”

  “Fuck, no,” I said. “Why, are you?”

  He nodded.

  “You did your time,” I said. “You made first tier. Why the fuck would you go and do that?”

  Buckster was looking at the flag hanging on the wall. He had a far-off look in his eye.

  “Is that blood?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yours?”

  “No,” I said. “One of the girls from the Juba ghetto got grabbed as a hostage. Me and my team went in to take them out.”

  “Your team of revivors?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many?”

  “Five.”

  “She live?”

  “Yeah. After we took care of them, I found her in the cellar, naked and half starved. They’d …used her pretty rough, but she was in one piece.”

  “And her captors?”

  That mission was the first time, and last time, I’d let them eat. I was mad enough to do it, and I wanted to send a message. I wanted the other fuckers who used that camp to burn it down, and cross themselves when they drove by the ashes after what they saw there.

  “We took care of them.”

  He nodded, understanding. It actually felt good in a way to talk to the old man. He’d been there, so he knew.

  He took another drink, and leaned back. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out, still looking at the flag.

  “You don’t like revivors much, do you?” he asked.

  “Not much.”

  “But they were human once.”

  “Were.”

  “But they’re conscious. They have memories.”

  “My TV has memory too.”

  “Your TV was never alive,” he said.

  “Look, Chief, lesson number one when dealing with those things is, don’t get confused about what they are. Trust me. Whatever they used to be isn’t what they are now. They’re weapons, and that’s all they are.”

  “If you really believe what you say, then why not get wired for PS?”

  “Because if someone gets their face chewed off, my dead ass ain’t gonna be the last thing they see.”

  He drifted off for a minute. I hoped I didn’t give him one drop too many. I didn’t want him falling asleep on me.

  “Revivors save lives sometimes,” he said.

  “When they slagged the Congo, they said that saved lives too.”

  He shrugged.

  “They’re weapons, Chief. That’s what they are. They’re not soldiers. They’re weapons. Get it? They’re good at killing, eating, and soaking up bullets.”

  “Say what you want about them. They can’t be corrupted.”

  “Corrupted by who?”

  “Anyone.”

  His eyelids got heavy again. His eyes went back to stupid.

  “They can’t be corrupted,” he said. “Just remember that.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “They remember things.”

  That got my attention a little. Revivors did remember things, sometimes a lot of things. If it got quiet enough and you talked to them long enough, they’d tell you the story of their lives. Alone in the field with them for months on end, they were like TVs or radios.

  “What kinds of things?” I asked.

  “Things they forgot.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things they were made to forget.”

  That got my attention, a lot.

  “What does that mean? ‘Made to forget’?”

  He looked at me, his eyes trying to focus. They went from being out of it to being a little bit scared. Tears shone in those old eyes of his.

  “They make us forget,” he said, his voice quiet.

  “Forget what?” I asked, but his eyelids were coming down. His eyes still looked scared as they closed, and he eased back in the chair.

  “Old man?”

  His mouth opened a little, and he started to breathe deep and slow. He was out.

  Damn it.

  I took the glass from his hand before it fell and threw a blanket on him. Zombie was short-lived; he’d wake up in an hour or two and I’d send him home.

  I leaned back on the couch and took another hit from the whiskey bottle, listening to the old guy snore. Wachalowski said the shit that happened before I left never stopped, and I knew now that someone had been messing with my head. Someone had been making me forget. That’s what Buckster meant. He knew something.

  I called Wachalowski on the JZI, and he picked up like he was waiting for it.

  I think I might have something for you, I said.

  What?

  I’ll send you the recording I took, but long story short, I think he’s mixed up in something just like you said. Don’t hold him, though.

  Why not?

  Because he’s looking for a friend, I said. Someone he can bring in, and he just found one.

  What makes you think he’ll trust you enough to do that?

  I watched him sleep. He was relaxed now and the fear was gone from his face, but I knew what he’d been trying to say, and I knew what scared him.

  I just found out we have something in common.

  Zoe Ott—La Madre Emergency Ward

  I made one of the policemen tell me where they were taking Karen, but I didn’t know what to do. I froze up in the hallway. I stayed there until the sirens went away and people went back into their rooms. I never realized until then how attached to her I really was.

  When I finally did move, I went out into the rain without even going back to my room. I got on the subway, soaked from head to toe, and sat there, numb, the whole way over. The emergency room was completely packed. Some looked sick, and some were bleeding. They looked like they’d been there a long time.

  There was a big line to get to the front desk. I managed to make my way through the crowd and cut in front of the first person. He looked like a biker with big, tattooed arms.

  “Hey!”

  “I need to know where Karen Goncalves is,” I said. The woman behind the desk looked at me over her glasses.

  “Ma’am, please step to the end of the line.”

  “Yeah, end of the line, bitch,” the biker said.

  “I’m not checking in. I just need to know where—”

  “Ma’am, I cannot help you until you step to the end of the line and wait your turn like everyone else.”

  I looked back at all the angry faces. The line went to the door, and that didn’t even count all the people in the waiting area. Half of them were standing because there was no place to sit.

  “Bitch,” the biker guy said, “get to the end of the line before I—”

  I stared in his eyes and he trailed off as the room turned bright around me. All the color in the room faded away, until the only colors left were the ones rippling above everyone’s heads. There were so many people that they all started to merge together, but his was red and orange. His was angry and violent. Usually I eased them back, turning them to a calm blue, but not that time. That time I contained them and forced them back.

  “Before you what?” I asked. It was like someone else said it. He just stared at me, his face going slack.

  “Before you what?” I asked again. He just stared, mouth hanging open a little.

  There’s no time for this. I need to find her.

  I looked past him and pushed the next few people in line until they just stared too. I turned to the woman behind the desk.

  “Tell me where she is.”

  The woman’s eyelids drooped and she started tapping on her computer. She looked down at the screen, reading something there.

  “She was admitted through the ER. She’s currently awaiting emergency surgery.”

  “What does that mean?”

&nbs
p; “It means the available ORs are full and she’s being kept stable until—”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Third floor. East wing.”

  I walked away and took the elevator up to the third floor, where I followed signs to the east wing. It was crowded up there too. In the hallway there were gurneys parked in rows along the wall. There were people lying on them, but none of them was Karen.

  I started trying the rooms along the hall one at a time. The first room had an old man in it, lying on a gurney and not moving. He looked dead. The next room had a fat, middle-aged woman with an afro.

  “Are you a doctor?” she whispered. I shut the door.

  One door down, a man in a dark blue jumpsuit was standing outside. He had a black case in one hand and was leaning against the wall, watching a little screen he had in his other hand. When he saw me heading toward the door next to him, he started to say something, but I cut him off.

  “Are you a doctor or a nurse?”

  “I’m a technician.”

  “Then leave me alone.”

  He went back to looking at his little screen. I opened the door and went in.

  The room was dark. There was a gurney in there surrounded by a bunch of machines. One of the machines was beeping slowly.

  “Karen?”

  She didn’t move, but one of her eyes opened a little and looked over at me. It was her.

  “Karen, shit …shit …”

  I turned the light on so I could see her. Her face was all purple, red, and black. Bandages covered one eye, and under a big piece of bloody gauze, her nose looked flat. The one eye that could still open had tears in it. The white part had turned red.

  “Zoe,” she said, her mouth barely moving. Her jaw was broken and some of her teeth were gone. I thought I was going to be sick.

  “Don’t cry,” she said, but I couldn’t get control of myself. My hands were shaking.

  “Karen, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said, wiping snot away.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  It was my fault, though. I knew it would happen. From the first time I saw her, watching me from behind him while I made him go to sleep, I knew. I saw the bloody eye. I knew this was coming.

  “Come here,” she whispered. I went up to the bed and stood next to her.

  “Someone beat him …”

  “What?”

  “…someone …beat him …up …he …”

  I shook my head no. She groped with one hand, and I took it.

  “Karen, you’ll be okay. You’ll be—”

  “I’ll never forget …the first time …you came down …”

  “Me neither,” I said, but I already had, a long time ago.

  “I knew …you were special …”

  Her one open eye fluttered and then looked around, confused. She looked like she didn’t know where she was.

  “I’m going to get somebody to help you,” I said.

  “This …is not because …of you…. It was my …”

  She drifted off and a tear, pink with blood, rolled down over her swollen cheek. She coughed and something came up. She winced and swallowed.

  “I’m sorry I kicked you out….”

  She coughed again and made a face. She was in pain. I stared at her until the room got brighter. Her colors were very dim. Little bright spots swirled here and there, like they didn’t know where to go. Tiny orange spikes flaring up, like glowing coals. There was pain—physical pain, but more than that. I’d never realized how much there was, how much of it she kept covered up.

  I smoothed the lights back, calming them. I focused on the hot-looking spikes and cracks until they dimmed, turning cooler. Karen’s face relaxed and got a little dreamy. She managed a smile.

  “…you …do that …?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks …”

  There were a million things I wanted to tell her right then. I wanted to tell her how much she meant to me and how much she helped me. All the shit I put her through, I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean it. There were so many things I thought I should say, but I didn’t. I just stood there.

  The floor felt like it moved for a second, and I grabbed the bed to get my balance. The room got darker.

  Shit. Not now …

  Everything slowed down, and I felt cold. The tips of my fingers and toes started tingling. My head got heavy.

  No …not now …I need to be here now …

  “Zoe?” I heard Karen say.

  “Karen, I—”

  The darkness moved in like black smoke. For a second, all that was left was Karen; then it covered her too. The floor moved again.

  …how much longer?

  Almost there …

  The words flashed in the dark. No sound, just words. The smoke cleared just a little, and I felt myself moving through the fog. I heard footsteps on metal, but it was muted and faint. I was running. The walls were sprayed red, and down on the floor I saw empty clothes, wet with blood.

  Not now …I have to go back….

  I moved through a big, metal door and out onto a walkway. There was a railing to my right, and I could see a huge open space down below. There were coffins down there. They were stacked up high, arranged in rows. I slipped and saw a man’s hand grab the rail. People were starting to move down below. They started yelling, but I could barely hear them, like I was underwater.

  “Stop!”

  I heard gunshots. I was moving again. There was another heavy metal door up ahead, with a wheel mounted on it. As I got closer, I glanced down to where the coffins were stacked and saw the dead woman, the one from the green room. She looked up at me. There were tears in her silvery eyes.

  The doorway opened into a dark room. There was a single light overhead. It shone down on a bed where someone was lying. I ran up to the bed and saw that it was the mean-looking woman, the one with the black lipstick that cornered me in the elevator at the FBI. She was covered in sweat, big muscles standing out. She had on a hospital johnny. Her legs were spread apart and her ankles were locked in stirrups.

  “You’re too late!” she screamed.

  Something black and wet, something living, something dangerous, shot out from between her legs. Cords and veins popped out of her neck. I lurched forward as the man’s hand came hammering down on her heart, a blade held tightly in his fist.

  “You’re too l—”

  Everything went black. The screaming stopped. All I could hear was a steady tone.

  I opened my eyes. I was back in the hospital.

  “Karen?”

  She was still there, lying in the bed in front of me. I’d grabbed fistfuls of the sheets and was leaning over her.

  I tried to focus again. While I looked at her, the room got bright again, but I couldn’t see her colors.

  “Karen?”

  I realized then that the steady tone was coming from the heart monitor. I looked harder, until the room got so bright the color leached out of everything, but I could see her colors. I didn’t know what to do.

  The door opened behind me and someone came in. I thought it was the doctor, but when he came around to the other side of the bed, I saw it was the man in the blue jumpsuit from out in the hallway. He reached over and shut off the heart monitor. The beep stopped and the room got quiet.

  He took something out of his pocket and shined it in her one open eye. Then he lifted one of her shoulders, until she was on her side. He put his black case on the bed and snapped it open. He reached in, and I saw him take out a black syringe.

  He stuck the needle in the back of her neck and I got a clear look at the logo on his chest for the first time. He worked for Heinlein Industries.

  I left. I went back the way I came, back down to the lobby, and back through the crowd in the waiting room. I walked back out into the rain and into the street. A car screeched to a stop, the bumper an inch from my leg. Horns blared while I crossed, rain blowing across headlight beams in front of me.

  I walked past th
e subway stop, following the sidewalk and the water rushing beside the curb. It wasn’t until I saw the neon sign to my right that I looked up.

  When I first tried to quit, I’d break into a sweat every time I walked by that place. I started taking a different route so I didn’t have to see it. I never took that route again, but that night, it appeared out of nowhere. Right when I needed it most.

  I pushed open the door and went inside. Without thinking, I grabbed a bottle of ouzo, the biggest one they had. I walked up to the counter and put it down.

  “Long time no see,” the clerk said. After I stopped drinking, I realized the guy must have always known what a complete drunk I was. He might know what it meant, then, that I was back in his store. As stupid as it was, I think on some level, I was hoping he’d say something that would stop me, but he didn’t. He took my money, and I left with the bottle.

  The only time I hesitated was back in my apartment. I stopped for a second with the glass to my lips and breathed in through my nose, feeling the licorice burn of the fumes. It was a mistake. It was a bad mistake, but it was going to happen. Deep inside me, the pain was gathering. The only reason it hadn’t hit me yet was because I was in shock, but it was coming, I could feel it. At any minute, I was going to realize what just happened. When I did, the reality of it was going to stick its hooks in me. It would be there for the rest of my life. In the end, I couldn’t face it.

  When I took the first swallow, it burned going down. Heat flooded all the way back up my neck to my face, until air from the fan chilled beads of sweat on my forehead. The feeling that went through me was mellow and giddy. For a second, I forgot everything else. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt happy and I even giggled as I sat on the floor and let it flow out through all my veins, all the way down to my fingers and toes. For the first time in a long time, I felt right. It was like waking up after a long sleep.

  I’m sorry, Karen. I’m sorry, Nico. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I just can’t.

  I lifted the glass again, and that time I didn’t stop until my stomach turned over and threatened to puke it all back up. I sat down in the middle of the floor and broke out in a cold sweat as the numbness made its way through my body. I was crying, but some part of me felt such relief I didn’t care about anything else.