by James Knapp
“That’s the CMC Tower,” he said quietly. He rubbed at his brow, and I saw his hand shake. “That was the CMC Tower.”
I realized the feed was live. That hole was forming in the skyline right now. Over MacReady’s shoulder, I watched the last of the Central Media Communications Tower crumble into the cloud of smoke and fire.
Memories were rising out of the darkness, points of light expanding to display visions of that structure as it loomed in the distance. The morning it all started, as I rode the monorail on my way to the scene of Mae Zhu’s murder, I’d watched the tower’s shadow loom off in the distance through the haze of snow. I’d seen it nearly every day of my life.
I made this possible.
The blocks around the blast lost power, the buildings and neon lights going dark to form a black hole in the bright cityscape. A smaller building nearby began to fall. I’d always known this was part of Fawkes’ plan. I knew he would destroy the three towers, but it seemed that knowing it and seeing it with my own eyes were two different things, even now. For the first time in a long time, I wondered if I hadn’t placed my trust in the wrong man.
“You may not have much time, Mr. MacReady.”
He turned then, and looked at me. He was an older man with thick, wavy hair that had turned completely gray. He smiled, showing unnaturally white teeth, but he couldn’t maintain it. He stood and approached me.
“You’ve held up remarkably well,” he said.
“That isn’t Fawkes’ only target.”
“I know. Did Fawkes remove the Leichenesser seed, or was it Agent Wachalowski?”
“It was Nico.” My eyes moved over the screens, following the trees of data mapped out there. On some level, the patterns were familiar. I saw profiles of individuals, lines tracing associations between them.
“It reminds me of the precinct,” I told him. “When we’d try to chart organized crime or gang associations.”
That caused him to grin weakly. He followed me as I passed by him and stepped toward the screens.
“That’s not too far off,” he said.
A high-pitched whine filled my head as something cold pierced the skin behind my ear. Immediately, I felt my muscles seize. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, my jaw locked in place.
“I’m sorry, Faye,” he said. He guided me down into the chair he’d been sitting in, and reflected in the screen I saw that he had some sort of handheld tool pressed near the base of my skull. He disconnected something at its tip and moved it away, placing it on the table behind him. A long, metallic rod was left behind, sticking several inches out of the back of my head. He guided a wire into the rod and fastened it there.
I tried to move, but I was completely paralyzed. When I tried to access my communications node, I found I was cut off. He moved back around to where I could see him and tapped a stylus to an electronic pad he held in one hand. My jaw unlocked.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I’ve frozen your primary systems. I’ve cut off most of your motor functions, and outgoing communications will be monitored and controlled from here on out.”
I triggered the injector, but my arm didn’t respond. In my system tree, everything was locked down. My core functions still ran, but electrical impulses had been cut off at the C3 vertebrae.
“I will need to disable your control shunt as well,” he said.
“If you do, Fawkes will reestablish his command spoke.”
“I know, but he won’t be able to do much with you now.”
“He’ll be able to track me and come here.”
“I know,” MacReady said, “but there’s no other option; Fawkes has to be stopped. Your friend needs your help, and I can’t leave this to chance.”
“My friend?”
“Agent Wachalowski,” he said. “He needs your help, and so do I.”
He pointed to the screens of data.
“This is where we continued Fawkes’s work,” he said, “after he was gone. This is where we continued his work studying Zhang’s Syndrome. There were six of us at first. Heinser, Cross, Deatherage, Dulari, Chen …and myself. We kept it quiet, but believe me, I understand, and I know what Fawkes is trying to do.”
“You may not know as much as you think,” I told him.
“Every second-tier citizen who dies comes through here,” he said. “We’ve had access to all of them, along with every scrapped generation-seven model we’ve been able to get back in here. As you saw on your way in, reclaiming their memories has gotten much more efficient since Fawkes’s day. That’s a lot of data points. These people manipulate things in a very-well-thought-out way to influence policy and politics on governmental, corporate, and even social levels. Right now, their most powerful organization is based in the UAC, and the UAC dominates the globe both militarily and economically. But there are others like them, and over time other seats of power will rise in other parts of the world, if they haven’t already. What we will ultimately end up with is a group of powerful countries that follow the UAC model.”
What he said surprised me. I’d heard this before, but I didn’t expect to hear it from him.
“You sound like Fawkes,” I said.
“Fawkes’s data was irrefutable,” he said quietly, looking back to the destruction on the screen. “When I realized what we had, I knew no one could know. When your friend Wachalowski came sniffing around, I threw him a bone, hoping he’d track down Fawkes on his own without leading anyone back to us. But it was a mistake. Both sides figured out someone was watching them from here. Cross was killed and Heinser disappeared overseas after the Second Chance incident. Two years ago someone—Ang, I think—took matters into his own hands and used a rail-gun sniper to try to assassinate their leader, Motoko Ai, when she came out into the open to meet with Agent Wachalowski. I should have known then. I should have kept a closer eye on him. When Ang and Dulari truly understood what was at stake, data gathering wasn’t enough. They wanted action.”
“They were right,” I said. “Fawkes has a plan to stop them, not study them.”
“There are things Fawkes doesn’t know,” he said, “things he never bothered to learn. He was obsessed with proving their existence and eliminating them. He never dug into those lost memories to understand what drove these people. They are afraid of something, Faye. Something much bigger than Fawkes himself.”
His words triggered something inside. Memories swirled over the void below them, and one small cluster disengaged from the rest. As one ember broke orbit, a portal opened to the contents inside.
“What you did was attempted murder, Noelle,” I said. “You’re going to jail.”
In the memory, I sat in an interrogation room. A gaunt, wasted woman sat across the table from me. This was the memory Fawkes didn’t want to hear.
“I wish I was,” she said. “They might not be able to get to me there. That’s why I’ll never go.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“I was supposed to stop him,” she said. “I just wanted to stop him. Samuel Fawkes is a dangerous man.”
“He’s some engineer at Heinlein Industries. The man is not dangerous.”
“Things change,” she whispered.
MacReady’s brow creased as he watched the tablet in front of him. He tapped at it with his stylus, and memory addresses began to appear in the HUD in front of me.
“That’s a suppressed segment you’re replaying,” he said. “Reclaimed information.”
“A woman,” I told him, “long ago. Fawkes was still alive, but she was afraid of him even then. Afraid enough that she had tried to kill him.”
“Did she say why?”
“No,” I said. “She never did, not directly, but I got the impression it was to avoid something much larger.”
“Did you relate these memories to Fawkes?”
“I tried. He didn’t agree.”
”Well, your instincts were right, I’m afraid. What they fear is much larger than anything we’ve seen so
far, and it begins with the destruction of this city.”
“Fawkes has specific targets. He won’t destroy the city. He’s trying to save it.”
“Fawkes will destroy the city,” MacReady said. “He knows that killing hundreds or even thousands of them is futile. If you remove the human equation, then the only efficient way to stop this is genocide. He’s been lying to you, Faye. He plans to wipe the slate clean, and start fresh. These people, these mutations, they don’t just envision the city’s destruction; they’ve seen a nuclear annihilation specifically. They foresee eleven nuclear devices—specifically eleven—that will cause it, and after dropping one in the bay as a warning, that is exactly the number Fawkes currently has pointed at the city from the orbiting missile shield. Fawkes will destroy this city and with control of the nuclear defense shield I don’t think he’ll stop there. These people have foreseen a world-ending event, Faye. Total annihilation of society as we know it.”
He stepped closer, and I could see the bands of orange heat that ran up either side of his neck beneath the skin. The core in his chest pulsed. He believed it too.
“Fawkes will strike another target, probably soon, and I think you know that,” he said. “You’ve been dead a long time, but I don’t think you’re ready to write off the world you knew as an acceptable loss, not yet. Please. Help your friend.”
Orange flickered behind MacReady’s pupils. Shortly after, he forwarded a link to my communications node. It was him. It was Nico.
“I’m putting him through,” MacReady said.
The channel opened, and Nico was there.
Faye, he said. It’s me.
Hello, Nico.
It’s been a long time.
Yes.
I know a lot has happened, but I need you now, Faye. Will you help me?
Do I have a choice?
You know me well enough to know the answer to that. There’s too much at stake.
Fawkes could be the only chance we ever have to stop them, I told him.
I know. And they might be the only chance we have to stop Fawkes. That’s what I’m left with. That’s what we’re all left with.
So you’ve chosen them?
I’m not looking out for either side. I’m trying to look out for the people stuck in the middle of all this. No matter what you think of his motives, Fawkes set something in motion today. He killed thousands of people who aren’t even part of the thing he’s trying to stop, and he’s used Heinlein to alter the revivor technology inside them.
That stopped me. He was referring to Fawkes’ transmission.
Alter it? Alter it how?
It’s spreading on its own. Jumping from host to host.
That’s impossible, I said, but even as I said it I began to wonder. It would explain why he needed to occupy Heinlein Industries. It would explain how he intended to keep up his resistance, even after he was gone.
It’s happening, Faye. It’s already out of his control.
A virus. An engineered virus. Was this what the woman, Noelle Hyde, feared all those years ago when she’d sat across from me in the interrogation room? Had her abilities allowed her to see what Fawkes would someday unleash on the world?
If it was true, and she had, then had she witnessed the end of humankind? Or only the end of her kind?
Faye?
I’m here.
Something has to be done. I’ve made my choice. You have to make yours. Who will you trust? Me, or Fawkes?
In my mind, I could almost picture Nico’s eyes. I could almost see the ruthlessness in them, and that certainty in his soul that he was right. I remembered the way he was, long ago, when he put everything he knew on the line because of that certainty. I had envied him that, but in some ways, to truly see in terms of pure right and wrong—Fawkes’s way—was what he railed against hardest.
I’m reactivating your command spoke, he said. I felt him intrude into my systems, and begin some kind of transfer.
When you do, he’ll track me down, I said.
I know. This is going to be close. You know Fawkes better than me at this point. You could make the difference.
Nico—
I know you don’t love me, he said. I know you can’t, not anymore, but you can still trust me. You can still do that.
The locks I’d placed on the command connection began to break down, and fall away. Immediately I could feel Fawkes there, finding footholds in those new openings, and forcing his way in.
We’re out of time, Nico said. Make your choice.
Nico Wachalowski—Stillwell Corps Base
Stillwell soldiers flanked us, escorting us down the hall after an armed garrison unit met us on the helipad. The northern section of the base, where we were, was still secure, but the numbers outside were rising.
The connection to Faye flashed on the HUD. Through her, I would be able to direct a team of five revivors to move a payload of Leichenesser from the processing plant into the atmosphere control center for the Pratsky Building. It was a total distance of roughly a quarter mile, and the clock would begin ticking the second I reactivated her command spoke.
“It’s down!” someone shouted in a room as we passed. “The entire structure is down. Communications are out all over the city—”
Military channels were still functioning, though, and the footage coming in from the street was devastating. Smoke drifted between the buildings below like a gray fog. The Central Media Communications Tower, the second-tallest structure in the city, had been razed in less than a minute. A hollow pit formed in my gut. Not even anger had filled it yet.
“I need to talk to Osterhagen,” I said to one of the guards. “Is he here?”
“He’d just arrived back at the UTTC when the attack began,” he said. “We can put you in touch with him.”
As we walked, I cycled through the data Cal had sent just moments before the explosion—the only lead I had on Fawkes. In it I found lot numbers and stats for the units under his control, circuit information for the revivor network …even override codes for the sixth-genand-up revivors on his command spokes.
Good work, Cal.
He’d flushed his visual data regularly, but the last segment was still in there. In the playback window, I watched as he addressed an Asian man and a dark-skinned woman that I recognized from the FBI records as Chen and Shaddrah.
There was no audio, but after a minute Shaddrah nodded and left the room. Chen began to follow her, then turned back as what must have been a private message to him flashed on the screen.
Watch her.
Chen nodded.
The next strike will come soon. If she becomes a problem, you know what to do.
The soldiers led me into a war room where engineers were hunched over terminals in rows. Mounted on one wall was a screen that lit up as we entered, and I recognized the face that appeared as Osterhagen’s.
“You’re on,” the soldier said.
“General, my name is Agent Wachalowski,” I said.
His face was calm, but fury brewed behind his eyes. “I know who you are,” he said. “I’m told you’re recommending we leave Heinlein’s transmitter intact.”
“Yes, sir. Hear me out. I think I know what’s going on.”
“Motoko puts a lot of faith in you,” he said, “but there are millions of lives at stake here, and a preliminary analysis of the data you recovered from Palos Verdes doesn’t prove your suspicions that we’re dealing with some kind of outbreak. The threat of the nukes is real and immediate.”
“With respect, sir, we’ll never be able to analyze that data in the time frame we have.”
Osterhagen thought for a minute, then turned to the men in the room.
“Mr. Vaggot?” One of the engineers glanced up at the screen. His eyes were wide but focused. His fingers moved over a keypad like they acted on their own. “Can you retake control of the satellites or not?”
“I can, sir.”
“In the time frame we discussed?”
Vag
got hesitated. “I can, but not in that time frame.”
“And if we destroy the transmitter?” he asked.
“If Mr. Fawkes had rigged the satellite to launch already,” he said, “meaning, if it was set to launch at a preset time, then the launch sequence would be, in effect, already active. If that were true and we destroyed the transmitter currently controlling it, then it would assume an enemy infiltration, and the launch sequence would be locked down; we wouldn’t be able to stop it. If the launch sequence was not active, then the satellite will be receptive to our control, as long as the proper security codes are presented. At this point, we are confident that the launch code is not currently active.”
“You’re sure?”
“We won’t know with one-hundred percent accuracy until the ’bot reasserts full control, but we’ve got hooks into most of its systems now. I’m sure.”
“Agent Wachalowski,” Osterhagen said. “Fawkes is no doubt gearing up The Eye to fire again.”
“I know.”
“Without that transmitter, he’ll lose control of both satellites, and his ground forces too.”
“I know,” I said, “but I’m telling you—Fawkes used contacts inside Heinlein Industries to develop a Huma variant off the grid. The transmission that halted the revivors earlier fundamentally changed the behavior of the nanotech. He repurposed it.”
“Repurposed it for what?”
“With the help of Heinlein’s engineers, he’s found a way to administer the Huma payload without an injection. They’re spreading it through saliva, through bites.” The Stillwell engineers were listening now. Even Osterhagen’s face changed.
“You think he’s trying to create more revivors?”
“No,” I said. “The dogs we recovered at the train yard had standard M10 revivor nodes, but the engineers worked on different components of Fawkes’s variant. At Black Rock, they were testing the ability to disseminate it through bite wounds. Another engineer designed it to self-replicate so it could be transmitted over and over, but I think the experiment in the Mother of Mercy’s basement was the key. We found evidence of nanotech in their brains, but no revivor nodes. When Van Offo tried to influence the prisoners down there, to calm them down, he couldn’t. Fawkes has been experimenting in secret for years now, trying to figure out what makes you guys tick, and I think he finally did it. He’s repurposed Huma not to make more revivors, but to switch off your influence. To trigger Zhang’s Syndrome in the general population and give them their memories back. That’s what this is about. He is trying to wipe you out, but not in the way you think.”