Sifters

by Shane Scollins

  Ebo started sticking the adhesive-backed diodes to Chloe’s chest and head. One by one, she put the sticky pads into place, and attached the leads. Once they were all on, she plugged them into the machines.

  Ebo looked at Tallon with concern. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  Tallon shrugged. “Has anyone?”

  “I have,” Rotus assured them. “It’s a detailed and painstaking procedure, but with a little luck we should be fine. Once I’m able to determine which model it is, it’s no problem.”

  “How’s it work?” Tallon asked.

  “Each device has a specific RFID signature,” Rotus replied. “I’ll know what it is when I see it.”

  Ebo punched some keys on the computer attached to the EKG. “Tell me what you need.”

  Rotus slid a USB card from his pocket and stuck it into the tablet computer. “The device is in her bloodstream. It’s injected, and then it splits in two. One of them deploys a spur and adheres itself somewhere near the central cortex. The other one travels around through the system, while it sends out specific signals that force the body to produce different hormones. In this case it’s the same effect as sodium amytal or sodium pentothal, only they can extract the information more directly. There’s really no beating one of these.”

  “What’s the catch?” Tallon asked.

  “The catch is that when these two devices come back together in the brain, they tend to short out. And they take the patient’s brain with it. It was a defect, which I eventually perfected. But not surprisingly they liked the original defective version for certain applications, so the defective ones were sold and put into use.”

  “How can you stop it?”

  Rotus pulled out a tiny vial and handed it to Ebo. “I need this in a syringe. This is a nanoserum. There are crystal nanobots in here that I can program externally for any cellular level job. I’m working on being able to deploy these to eradicate all kinds of disease including cancers. In the future, there will be no more chemotherapy, open-heart surgery, or any open body surgery of any kind. Someday very soon, doctors will be able to inject these and program them to do the job. Nanotechnology is the true revolution.”

  Ebo blew an audible breath. “This is incredible technology.”

  Rotus looked up at her. “Yeah, well, I’m a genius.”

  “Seriously,” Ebo insisted. “This will change the world. I knew this stuff was in testing phases but I had no idea.”

  Rotus gave her a raised brow look. “I’ve got news for you, this is not new. The government had this technology in testing two decades ago and longer before the crash. But they refused to fully fund it. It was supposed to revolutionize medicine years ago. But as usual they felt it was better to concentrate the funds on war.”

  Tallon thought it was in his head. But the slight thumping noise was outside. He looked over to Dia. Her eyes grew wide.

  “Helicopter?” she asked.

  Tallon drew one of his pistols and handed it grip-first to Dia. “I assume you know how to shoot?”

  She racked the slide. “You bet I do.”

  Tallon ran to the windows, looking up at the night sky. Then he looked back to Ebo and Rotus. “Do not stop that procedure no matter what happens!”

  Dia moved to the windows on the opposite side of the room. “They’re leaving?” she said in response to the sound growing quieter again.

  “No, they’re on the ground.” Tallon scurried over to the tall locker. He extracted two M-16 rifles and handed one to Dia. “Ever use one of these?”

  Dia shook her head. “Never.”

  He pointed to the gun. “Safety, slide, magazine, you got thirty rounds per mag. Just point and shoot.” Tallon went to the side door. “Stick close to me, there’re going to be four or six of them. They’ll be two-by-two flanked cover positions.” He stopped to listen at the door. “Do you know what that means?”

  She nodded. “Sort of.”

  He knew just by the sounds that they were forty or fifty feet away. “There’s two on the left, engage them, staggered shots left-right and high-low. I need cover.”

  Tallon kicked the door open in a flash, and gunfire erupted from the two points he suspected. One just above the concrete wall that divided the parking lot and the street, another set of guns flashed from the crest of the small riser where some bushes grew. He waited for Dia to provide the cover, and he then dove out the door into the tall thicket of bushes that made a living wall. He returned fire and moved to his right, jumping into another taller bit of trees. Bullets thumped the soil around him with muted sounds.

  Looking back to the door, he saw Dia fire more shots toward the rise. The darkness made it impossible for him to get a hand signal to her, so he just hoped she reacted favorably to what he was about to do. He reached into his pocked and took out a small flash-popper. He rose up, whipped the popper toward the men near the wall, and attacked the men near the rise by charging them. He emptied the magazine of the machine gun into the bushes.

  The aggressive tactic worked. They didn’t return fire because they were overwhelmed with the spray of bullets. He kept running and dove over the wall, rolling back up to his feet, and rounding out and around up behind the other two shooters who were busy engaging Dia in a pointless battle where neither side could hit the other.

  Tallon saw them, dropped to one knee, and fired his M-16 until both men were down. “Ceasefire!” he yelled to Dia. Advancing on the bodies he took out his flashlight and scanned the scene.

  Dia came up to meet him, standing on the other side of the three-foot wall. “Who are they?”

  Tallon kept his attention on high as he scanned the ground with the light. “Not who I thought they were.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Not what I thought.”

  “You’re being cryptic.”

  “These men weren’t here for us—not for you and me anyway. C’mon.” Tallon headed back into the building. Dia followed.

  Just as they entered, Tallon saw Ebo and Rotus were unhooking the machines.

  He hurried up to the gurney. “Well?”

  Rotus turned to face him. “My bots were able to eat it up, but—”

  “There’s a slight complication,” Ebo interjected.

  “What complication?” Tallon clenched his teeth.

  Rotus removed his glasses. “As I indicated, I was able to turn off the device, and the bots were able to dispose of it, but we had to hit it with a bigger charge than I wanted to in order to get the bots to respond. I’m afraid that there was enough, that it may have caused some unintended damage to her brain. It’s my fault, I should have made sure the bots were charged fully before I injected them. Ordinarily it’s not a problem, but her brain swelling was still evident. We don’t know yet.”

  “What does that mean in simple terms?”

  Ebo firmed her lips. “I’m afraid it means that she may never wake up, and if she does, she might not be the same. It’s just so hard to tell with these neurological things. I want to prepare you for the worst case scenario, and that’s the worst case. Best case is she wakes up in a few hours with no ill-effects.”

  Tallon pinched the bridge of his nose. “When will we know?”

  Ebo just shrugged. “I wish I knew, but it’s impossible to predict. These coma situations can last two hours or two years, and there’s no real scientific way to understand and predict them.”

  “Ebo, I need to know, realistically. What are her chances?”

  “They’re fifty-fifty.”

  Tallon nodded. “Fine. Can you stay here with her?”

  “Here? Isn’t this place compromised now?”

  Tallon shook his head. “No, those men weren’t here for me.” He looked at Rotus. “They were here for you.”

  Rotus’ eyes widened in shock. “That’s not possible. No one knows I’m alive.”

  “Someone knows. Those men were government operatives, civilian intelligence, probably a branch of the NSA. They were not from C
ortech.”

  Rotus sighed. “That could only mean they matched me with facial recognition software. They must still have me in the alert system.”

  Tallon placed his rifle on the table. “Then you need to get to a safe place. Take the car and head to the annex. Go to Hoboken, there’s an old complex called Riverwalk. It’s near the park about a block from the river. I’ll send someone to meet you, and she can take you to a safe place. Her name is Jocelyn.” Tallon twisted his phone to show him a picture. “This is her. Trust her with your life.”

  Rotus nodded.

  Chapter 23

  Dia sat on the concrete retaining wall waiting for the sunrise. The crushed cola can at her feet reminded her of a time she went with her mother to the store. A child a couple years younger than Dia was at the time was sitting on the floor of the grocery store, opening and drinking every kind of soda he could. Dia’s mother said something in Japanese in an angry tone. She asked her mother what she’d said, but her mother wouldn’t tell her. She just smiled and said, “Some words are not meant to be heard or spoken by children.”

  A sudden swell of sadness and loss overcame her. She missed her mother, and her father. Finding Ray and getting him out was so important. She just kept dreaming of the new establishments down south. If the rumors were true, a new government, run by the rejects, might just be the best thing to ever happen. Maybe that’s what America had forgotten. That they were all rejects to begin with.

  She saw Tallon walking toward her from the building.

  “How’s Chloe?” she asked him.

  “She’s showing some signs of improvement. Ebo thinks she’s probably going to wake up. We just have to hope there’s no permanent damage.” He leaned on the wall next to her. “I wanted to say thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “You did some nice work when they attacked us. You use a gun just like you use your fists. You’re a formidable opponent and a worthy ally.”

  Dia folded her arms across her torso. “My father trained me well.”

  Tallon looked up to the sky and said, “I made a deal with you. And you’ve more than held up your end of the bargain.”

  Dia chewed the inside of her bottom lip. “What next?”

  “We have to get into Cortech. I need to see exactly where they’ve taken the kids from your brother’s school.”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “I know the area. But we need to know a few logistically pertinent details that I don’t have. And to get them, we need to get into Cortech, into the files.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “We have to go right now, before the executives get into the office.”

  “Can we pull it off?”

  Tallon pursed his lips. “It’ll be risky, but there’s always a way. I know of a terminal in one of the unregulated areas. We should be able to get in and out without too much trouble.”

  * * *

  Dia watched the door at the back of the glass building, waiting for the signal from Tallon to move past the cameras. Somehow, she knew that Tallon’s idea of in and out seemed like a stretch. Maybe it was possible. But looking up at the size of the building, it didn’t even seem real. It stretched so high it appeared to be ready to fall on her. She wasn’t exactly sure how tall the Cortech International Tower was, but she did know it was the fifth tallest building in New York City. Cortech International owned not only that larger building, but the five smaller ones around it. They were breaking into one of the smaller ones.

  She saw the lights flash three times, ran across the street, and climbed quickly up the firm eight-foot chain-link fence, swung over the top, and dropped to the ground silently. With a quick scan of the midnight blue around her, she bolted toward the rear door. Tallon waited and they disappeared into the long corridor.

  He moved quickly and Dia followed close. They hurried through one dreary concrete hallway after another until they came to a set of steps, which they traversed down and into a small, seemingly abandoned, subway station.

  “This is the Cortech executive’s private line,” Tallon offered. “These trams connect all five buildings directly through the central hub, which is about a quarter mile down. These stations have no security except during business hours.”

  Dia jumped when a rat scurried past her feet. Her quick inhale ushered in the thick stench of some petroleum-based smell. She was more twitchy than usual. But if they were caught, she was going to jail for a very long time. Being in jail for a day was bad enough. Being in there for a few years was not at all something she wanted to contemplate.

  They jumped down onto the tracks and hurried along the rails. Tallon started jogging, and then he picked up the pace into a run. She had no trouble keeping up, but it made her nervous to be trapped in these walls.

  Suddenly she realized why he was hurrying as the sound of a train started to fill the corridor with growing intensity. She yelled, “Is that coming our way?”

  “Yeah.”

  She glanced left and then right, but there was no place to hide. They were stuck in this tube. “We’re screwed.”

  “We’ll make it. We just have to run faster to the maintenance cut.” Tallon dropped his stance and started sprinting full speed.

  Dia followed suit. The noise of the train grew louder, and louder. The sound of her breathing matched the volume. The end of the tunnel was nowhere in sight. She had faith that Tallon knew what he was doing, but then again this guy was reckless.

  She looked up from the tracks and saw the light bearing down on them. This was it. Death was going to smack her in the face with a hundred tons of speeding locomotive. Her lungs were burning, heart slamming in her chest, and just when it looked like doom was inescapable, Tallon yelled back at her.

  “There are two nooks ahead. Get your back flat to the wall and you’ll be fine.”

  He jumped over the rail and into one of the side-by-side nooks. She slid her back hard against the wall as the noise became thunderous and a blast of wind hit her so hard it nearly sucked her off the wall and into the blur of the speeding train.

  The silver cars were so close she felt like she could stick her tongue out and lick them. The suction of air took her breath away. Finally, with one turbulent gust of wind, it was over. She drew in hard for some fresh breath, but there was none down here.

  Tallon looked over at her. “You okay?”

  She nodded and stepped out onto the tracks.

  “C’mon, it’s just up ahead.” He ran toward the light.

  They got to an open area with several doors all around, and walking paths that led somewhere in different directions. They took the far right path and followed it for several hundred feet until they came to the end of the tunnel.

  Tallon started climbing up a stack of U-shaped ladder rungs that led up onto an iron catwalk that circled around. There were three doors, which led off the rusty catwalk into somewhere. Each door was the same rust-brown color.

  Tallon walked up to the center door and dropped to one knee. From his tactical vest, he removed two long steel pins, and in matter of seconds picked the deadbolt.

  She followed him into a freezing cold grey room with several cylindrical stainless steel containers that hissed with cold steam.

  “What is this place?”

  “It’s cryogenic storage for animal testing subjects.” He walked over to a computer station near the wall.

  “What the heck does Cortech do anyway?”

  “They are a multinational conglomerate specializing in everything from food to drugs and makeup.”

  “Food?”

  “They own over two hundred major brands including one of the biggest fast food restaurants in the world. And they manufacture and distribute fifty different types of drugs in eighty brand names.”

  “Wow.”

  “If it goes in or on the human body, Cortech has its hands in the pot.”

  Dia looked around. “No one’s coming to work in this room?”

  “I knew no one would be in
here at this time. It’s probably the least secure place in the building until about nine o’clock.”

  Tallon plugged a USB stick into the large computer tower. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Dia walked over and looked into one of the stainless steel tubes. She touched her palm to the side. It was ice cold. A thin horizontal pane of glass covered in frost begged her to look inside, so she did. And a pair of stark blue eyes stared back at her. “Oh God!” She jumped back. “There’re people in these things.”

  Tallon stood from the chair and walked over. He looked into the glass. “Human test subjects, I’ll be damned.”

  “I thought you were, like, head of security at this place.”

  “Well, my job was not securing the building. It was securing Cortech’s external endeavors and logistics. I didn’t really ask questions about my job very often. I knew they were working on this stuff. These people supposedly volunteered for this cryogenics program.”

  “Are they dead?” Dia asked.

  “Technically, cryogenically preserved.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Can they be brought back to life?”

  “I have no idea.” He walked back to the computer station.

  Dia had a sick feeling. If these people were doing this, what were they doing to her brother? “That special school, what do you think is really going on there?”

  “Anything is possible. I really don’t know what they’re doing at that facility. I only know the kids are going there.”

  “What are all these paths and drugs really for?”

  “The kids who comply, take their meds, and follow their path. They get good jobs. They have programmed lives. If they think your aptitude is perfect for a doctor, that’s the path they put you on. If they think you should be a cop, lawyer, a garbage man, or a train conductor, they force you into that. Maybe you’re not smart but can follow rules, you’d be a good farmer. They’d ship you out to one of the farm compounds.”

  “So these drugs are just a way to control society down to the smallest detail.”

  “Pretty much.”