by James Knapp
“These more of your goons?” he asked.
“You should shut up, Ted.”
“Who are these guys—your FBI goons? Fuck you and them.”
“She died,” I said, tears coming up.
“Yeah, they told me.” I could see sadness there. Not much, but a little. I saw guilt there too. Mostly, though, it was fear. Under the anger, it was mostly fear. He was afraid of jail, of punishment. He was afraid for himself.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said.
“Wasn’t your fault?” I yelled, but my voice cracked so it came out like a pathetic squeak. “You beat her to death! She died!”
“You’re the ones that sent that fucking—”
He stopped before he said whatever he was going to say. He was still mad, still scared, but I saw something else then. It was shame. He was ashamed, but not because of what he did. It was because of something that happened to him.
“I didn’t send any—”
“She was looking for you, bitch. She called you by name.”
“She?” It took me a second to figure out what he was saying. It was that woman, the one that tried to trap me in the elevator. She came looking for me.
“She beat you up,” I said.
“Fuck you!” he yelled. His eyes bugged out, and the light around him flared out. It swirled, with bright strings of hot red flicking through like they were out of control. He wanted to wreck something. He wanted to tear me apart. I could see it in his eyes, and in the pattern that surrounded him. I’d thought before that by stopping him, I might be making him worse. That night, I thought it might be true. It was who he was. The longer he went without being able to feed his urge, the worse it got. He looked crazy.
“Shut up.”
“Fuck you!”
“I said shut up!” I yelled. I’d started crying, but I didn’t care. “All I have to do is say the word and those people will kill you. Do you get it?”
His fists started opening and closing, like he was going to have a seizure or something. His face was beet red and his sweaty jowls shook.
“You tell me you’re sorry,” I said. “I won’t make you do it. Admit what you did and—”
“I didn’t mean to kill her. She asked for that.”
“I should have stopped you. She deserved better than you. She—”
“Karen was a fat-assed slut,” he spat. “I warned her what would happen, and she didn’t listen.”
I didn’t say anything. I wanted to be tough, but I was crying and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t believe he could just stand there and say those things after what he’d done. He wasn’t even sorry. He’d killed her, and he knew she was my best friend, and he still kept saying those things….
“How many times did the bitch have to get slapped before she fucking figured it out? Did she fucking want to get hurt?”
The others were back there somewhere, watching me. They were watching me stand there and cry with my face in my hands while the man who killed my friend shit all over her. The wind picked up and blew my hair in front of my face, covering it up so no one could see me.
“Cry all you want, you fucking stupid, ugly bitch,” I heard him say. “She was fine before she met you. You had to get her going. You weren’t happy until she got put in her place. This happened because you—”
I didn’t think about what I did before I did it. My eyes were covered by my hands and my hair covered my face, but I could see the part of him that mattered as clear as day. The storm of colors floated there in the dark like a ghost of him, and all at once they got clearer than I’d ever seen them before. I stopped crying, and while he spit and yelled, I reached past the reds and yellows and all of his violence and anger and hate. I reached in as deep as I could, until everything was gone except a single hot, white band. Everything else was connected to it. It was the source of everything he thought and everything he was. It was the source of everything he’d ever done and would ever do.
He was still ranting when I focused on the stream and turned it off. When I did, his voice stopped. The flow of light stopped and went dark. The reds and yellows scattered and faded until nothing was left behind.
I moved my hands away and opened my eyes. When I brushed my hair from my face, I saw Ted standing there, but his eyes were blank. His mouth hung open, and a string of drool dangled from his bottom lip, getting blown in the breeze. The smell of pee hit me, and I saw he’d gone to the bathroom in his pants.
“Ted?”
He went back on his heels and fell, completely limp, off the platform and down onto the tracks.
I heard him hit, and I was going to look when the train blasted by. I screamed. It was all over before I could even move. The wind from the passing train blew my hair across my face and made my jacket whip and snap around me. The side of the train was a blur that filled up everything, and then just as fast, it was gone.
My heart thumped in my chest as I stared, unable to move for a minute. The wind died down, and the sound of the train faded into the distance. When I looked, I saw the red lights zoom off into the distance.
Finally, I moved to the edge of the platform and looked over. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was down there, but it turned out that except for a spot of red that the rain was washing off the side of the concrete, there wasn’t anything at all. Ted was gone.
9 Element
Nico Wachalowski—Wilamil Court, Apartment #516
Wachalowski, where are you?
I was stepping off the elevator when the call came in from Vesco.
I’m at Flax’s apartment. What have you got?
Buckster’s long gone. Looks like he cleaned out a safe and left in a hurry.
You find anything?
Yeah. There’s something you need to see.
A window opened and live footage streamed in. Vesco moved through Buckster’s apartment and into the bathroom. He looked down into the tub, where a set of women’s clothes were sprawled. They were arranged in the shape of a person. The body that was in them was gone. One high-heeled shoe was lying on the floor next to the toilet.
Looks like he killed an unknown female and then used Leichenesser to dispose of the body. Trace particles indicate it happened recently. Could it have been your civilian?
The stream moved closer, looking over the shirt and pants. They looked expensive. A pin on the collar of the shirt looked like a diamond set in gold. The shoe had a three-inch heel.
No.
You sure?
Someone died in Buckster’s place, but it wasn’t Calliope. Whoever it was, she was wealthy and fashion conscious. She didn’t leave any components behind.
Flax has a JZI.
Got it. Nothing like that here.
Any sign of the radiation signature?
Nothing. If he was hiding something here, it wasn’t the nukes.
Understood.
What about your end?
I’ll let you know.
When I knocked on Calliope’s door, there was no answer. I listened, but didn’t hear anything inside.
Alice, I need an override on a residence at my location.
No.
What?
I’m denying that request.
Do you want to find the case or not?
Yes, and tracking down those weapons is more important than tracking down your friend.
I hadn’t told anyone at the bureau about getting Calliope involved. It was a safe bet Calliope never told them.
Are you watching me?
Yes. Your friend is fine. Get back in the field and—
Are you refusing to give me the override?
Yes. Don’t go in—
I cut off the connection and aimed my gun at the lock housing. Using the backscatter, I found the bolt, then fired two bursts into the door.
It bent but didn’t break. I stomped my heel down over the still-smoking hole as someone shouted from the floor below. With gunshots and a break-in reported, it was only a matter of time before the police
showed up, but with everything else going on they’d be tied up for a while.
I threw my shoulder against the door and it finally gave, flying open and slamming into the wall as I stumbled in after it. I turned on the lights. The place looked okay. It was a mess, but it hadn’t been tossed.
“Cal?”
The living area was set up with a couch, a TV, a weight bench, and a heavy bag that hung from a chain. According to the thermal scan, she’d been gone for a while.
I looked over the floor, turning up the filter’s sensitivity until faint footprints appeared. I knelt down for a closer look.
There was more than one set of them. I counted maybe four in all, but it was hard to pick hers out of the mess. The freshest ones were small. They looked too small to belong to her. I followed them from the kitchen through the living area. They passed out of the room to a short hallway that led to a bathroom and a bedroom. Whoever it was had sat on the toilet.
I smelled the air. It smelled like sweat, but there was something else under it, something antiseptic.
Wachalowski, this is Noakes. I’m getting grief from Agent Hsieh. What are you doing?
Following a lead on Buckster.
Well, wrap it up there. It looked like the satellite just got a hit on your missing ship.
Where?
About fifteen miles offshore, and getting closer by the minute.
That was lucky; if it was the ship we were looking for, it was in UAC waters. We could seize it.
Are they sure it’s the right one?
It has to be. It was practically invisible since it’s running on minimal power, and the comms, transponder, and sat-nav are all dark. It’s hiding.
We need to coordinate with the Coast Guard.
Already on it. They’re putting a safety and security team together. You can go in by air.
Understood.
The team will be assembled and ready for launch within the hour. Be ready.
Zooming in, I followed the footsteps from the toilet back out the bathroom door. They didn’t head left, for the bedroom, or right, back to the living room. They went right up to the wall across from the bathroom door. A large flag from one of the African republics was hung there from ceiling to floor.
I knelt down. The stride of the footsteps took them right into the wall. There was heat concentrated at the base of the flag, rippling out from underneath it.
I pushed the flag out of the way. There was a door hidden behind it. Whoever the footprints belonged to, that was where they’d gone. Another pair overlapped them, heading back out in the opposite direction. I knocked quietly.
“Cal?”
No one answered. I didn’t hear any movement. Looking through the front of the door, I couldn’t make out anyone inside.
I turned the knob—it was open. I pushed open the door. It was warmer inside than in the rest of the apartment, and dark. The air smelled like rubbing alcohol and body odor. I reached over and flipped on the lights.
Shit.
Clear plastic covered the floor and had been stapled up the length of every wall. A hospital gurney sat in the middle of the room, flanked by two surgical trays. An IV rack had two bags hanging from it, one of clear fluid and one of blood. Both were mostly empty, the tubes trailing to the floor. Blood spots dotted the mattress on the gurney, and I could see bloodstained gauze wadded up in a wastebasket underneath it.
What is this?
There were scalpels and a suture needle on one of the trays, along with a spent hypo. Impressions were left in the plastic that covered the floor where boxes had been removed. It looked like most of the equipment had been packed up. Whatever happened here, it was over.
I looked around for anything that might tell me where she’d gone. On the metal frame of the gurney, someone had stuck a small note:
Destroy everything. Report to me.
The room wasn’t set up on the fly. From the look and smell of it, it had been occupied for days, maybe weeks. There was no way Calliope didn’t know it was there….
Unless she’d been made to forget.
Someone else must have been there, right in the apartment with her. Ai had planted someone there, and kept Calliope from consciously knowing about it. I stared at the surgical tools and the bloody gauze. What had they done to her?
I picked up my phone and called the contact number Ai had given me. A woman’s voice answered, but it didn’t sound like the woman from the restaurant.
“Hello?”
“This is Agent Wachalowski. Who am I speaking to?”
“You are speaking to Penny. What’s up, Agent?”
“I need to talk to Ai.”
“Oh, now you need to talk to her?”
“Can you put me through to her or not?”
“I can, but I’m not going to.”
“I—”
“Save the threats. I don’t care who you are; you don’t get to demand to talk to her. You’ll talk to me.”
“Put me through to Ai, or I’m hanging up.”
“Fine, but if you do that, you’ll never find out what happened to your friend.”
“What?”
“Your friend Flax. I assume that’s what this is about.”
“Where is she?”
“You found the room, didn’t you? Do you have any idea how many times I had to replant that memory so she’d remember seeing a wall instead of that door? She’s got a stubborn streak, that one.”
“If you know where she is, then tell me.”
“Not on the phone. I want to see you.”
“I don’t have time for this—”
“Make time. I’m at Zoe’s new place. You know where that is?”
“I …” it was the first I’d heard of it. I didn’t even realize Zoe had moved. “No, I don’t.”
“Of course not.”
“Look, just—”
“I’m sending the address. Decide what you want to do.”
She hung up. I checked the time. The MSST would be in the air in less than an hour.
If I hurried, I could make it.
Faye Dasalia—112th Street Station
I knelt near a pile of plastic trash bags and looked out through the mouth of the alleyway. Through the LW field, the people who flowed by had a ghostly look. Facial recognition software scanned each one, matching it against my target.
While I waited there, hidden, I looked through the array of my memories for other references to the strange woman. I found one other instance, before Flax had hauled her into the clean room. I’d seen her shortly after I’d been brought back. As the crowds of people streamed by the alley, I brought up the memory and looked inside.
I was in the underground storage unit where Nico buried his past. He brought me there so that he could bring me back, and no one would ever know. The concrete room was cluttered with forgotten boxes and old furniture. He’d chained my ankle to a grate in the floor, and he told me to stay still when a knock came on the heavy metal door.
I watched from next to the bed we’d once lain on, while he crossed the unit and opened the door. A tiny woman stood on the other side. She was zipped up in a huge purple parka, red hair sticking out from under a wool cap. She stared up at him from over a beaklike nose, and I saw heat stream through the veins in her face. She was excited by him.
She’d stepped closer, then, and spoke softly to him. I saw her pupils expand.
“What happened?” she asked. “Why are you so scared?”
“Don’t—”
She put one shaking hand on his. “Shhh.”
“Stop doing that,” he said.
“Why?”
She had put her other hand on his stomach and spread open her fingers.
“I know you miss it,” she said, putting her forehead to his chest. “I know you know how I feel. I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For caring about me, even a little bit.”
She was placing Nico under her control. At the time I didn’t re
alize what I’d seen, but I recognized it now. I saw the guilt in her eyes as she touched him, knowing his acceptance of it was coerced. I stepped out from the shadows, and she saw me.
“You’re dead—you can’t be here!”
She’d recognized me back then. We had never met, but still, she knew my face. She stared up at me, hands curled into tight fists, as heat coursed out from her chest. Even then there was something, some base instinct that told me she was trouble.
A small figure passed the mouth of the alley and toward the entrance to the convenience store. The computer took a snapshot of her face. It ran the comparison and got a match.
Target is spotted.
I stood and walked to the mouth of the alley. People streamed past me less than four feet away, but under the cloak, I was invisible. They’d see her, of course, and hear her if she screamed, but it would be over in a few seconds. By the time anyone realized she was dead, I would already be gone.
I watched her enter the store. Through the window, I watched her make her purchase. When she came out, she had a brown paper bag. Her red hair was draped around her sullen face, her lips drawn into a frown. She walked quickly, with her eyes on the sidewalk, and it looked like she’d been crying.
Now.
When she passed by me, I grabbed her by the wrist. I put my other arm around her thin waist and pulled her into the alley. She stumbled, but I held her as the brown paper bag slipped out of her hands. A bottle popped when it fell and hit the ground. An older man who passed by glanced down toward us, but didn’t even slow down. He could not see me; just some staggering drunk.
“Hey!” she yelped, and I clamped my hand over her mouth. She stuck both her legs out straight, but her heels just scraped along the wet blacktop as I pulled her deeper into the alley.
“Quiet,” I said in her ear.
I hauled her behind a trash bin, out of view. Running water ran down an open storm drain and helped cover the sound of her struggling. I forced her back and slammed her to the brick wall, then moved my right hand over her bony chest. I shut off the stealth cloak’s field, and her face went white as she saw me appear.