Krueger waited a long beat, gazing down at Dillon's final moments. Finally, he shot Taylor another look and he immediately eased his hold on Dillon's neck.
“I hacked Peters during her last augment,” Krueger said. “Made her an asymptomatic carrier for my retrovirus. She slipped right through your scanners because the pathogen lay dormant within her own DNA until I triggered it. Once triggered, she started shedding virus. As you know, it's a particularly nasty creation. Phase one is a rapid onset, weaponized Ebola. Slows down the infected party, allowing time for the virus to spread before the real weapon deploys. Then, the patient's own cells begin producing a strychnine-like compound—an alkaloid that disrupts neurotransmission. Once that's in system, death is certain. The body goes into convulsions, then asphyxiates. Immediate rigor mortis sets in.” Krueger leaned back, reveling in his creation.
“I survived,” Dillon whispered.
Krueger's smile turned down in annoyance. “Yes. The gene work you had to offset your rheumatoid arthritis inhibited the second phase of my retrovirus. I fixed that glitch.”
“And now Sarah is expendable?”
“Now, Peters is serving a much larger purpose. She dances so well to my tune. As I once did to yours.”
Andrew coughed hard, forcing words through his compressed wind-pipe. “You picked wrong. She'll see the pattern.”
“You're done, Andrew. Game over.”
Dillon began to laugh, a manic high-toned bark, grating into the night. “Sarah will outplay you.”
Krueger leaned back and smiled, the muscles in his cheeks knotting into hard fury.
“Really?”
“Laing will find her—and they'll turn their sights on you.”
The smile froze on Krueger's face. “I'm counting on it.”
He stepped forward, delicately positioning his foot on Dillon's neck. Dillon had no strength left to struggle. Krueger began to push, forcing Dillon down. Andrew splayed, neck bending over the side of the pool.
As the back of his head touched the water, Dillon tensed. His eyes never left Krueger's. The last of his will seeped into the ink-red water and he relaxed.
The snap of Dillon's neck reverberated through the water and rose into the night. The man went limp.
Alfred Krueger held still, savoring his victory.
“It's done,” Taylor said softly.
Krueger pinioned Taylor under his cold stare. Taylor's eyes lowered immediately. In a moment, the fury vanished and Kreuger's glassed removal returned. He nudged Dillon with his foot. The corpse slipped into the pool, snake smooth.
“EMPYRE is gone,” Kreuger said. “Dillon is gone. It has only just begun.” He watched with satisfaction as Dillon's corpse sank into the black.
Only when it had been completely subsumed did Krueger return his attention to Taylor. “Trigger Peters for an extended virus shed. Time to draw in the big fish.”
Taylor nodded.
Krueger turned from the pool, the click-squish of his footsteps breaking the silence. He left a single track of blood on the white tile.
17
NEW YORK CITY
Laing slumped into the plastic contour of the subway bench. He'd been riding the rails, trying to figure out his next move. Slowly, the bone in his ribs had spidered back to whole. His mouth and eyelids still burned but had regained their previous form. The vision shift took longer to manage. He found it hard to recalibrate to a single pair of eyes. He felt confined in his own flesh.
Ryan shook off the feeling. He needed to hone down. Go offensive. Needed to find Sarah before she went too deep. Slinging subway, he felt helpless. How was he supposed to outmaneuver an entire infrastructure on the hunt for one woman?
He slumped farther into the hard seat and shifted into the flow. Right now, he could only watch, wait, and hope Sarah popped up on his field.
MANUFACTURING DISTRICT, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
For Sarah, there was no warning. One moment she sat at the bar, drinking her beer. The next, a jacked release, like an orgasm without the sex. Pure expulsion. Her face flushed hot. At first, she thought something had been slipped into her beer. Carl was known for adding psychedelics to his liquor.
But no. She quickly realized what it was and knew what would come next. Nothing she could do. Like the interminable moment after jumping off a cliff and before hitting the ground.
Then it began.
The virus struck in waves expanding around her. An impossibly perfect man sitting next to her, knife work apparent in the smooth balance of his digi-star looks, began to sputter. He coughed out his drink—surprising himself. Sarah watched him realize that his body was shutting down.
The bar quieted. Not the normal ebb and flow of social interaction—this quiet was thick doom.
The man looked up at her, his face pocking into a ghoulish mask. He caught his reflection in the bar's mirrored surface. The bloodcurdling scream that followed sent the patrons into wild hysteria. Those closest to the exit bolted. The resulting stampede created a bottleneck of sweaty death.
Some escaped to spread the plague. Most didn't.
.....
The future didn't exist. Not for them. Not anymore. Sarah Peters had wiped it from them. Spreading from her like a flash fire, death burned through the barrio. With equal speed, word of the plague hurled the community into chaos.
Sarah did not move. She stood in Father's Office, looking down the barrel of Carl's twitching gun.
“Carl, please,” she whispered.
“I knew it was you. I fuckin' knew it!”
Most of the other patrons were dead, eyes wide open, bodies locked in rigid spasm. Those who still lived had withered to a pulpy gore, their cries filling the tight space. Carl propped himself on the bar, eyes blood wet. He had been on break when it began, returning to bloody carnage with Sarah at center stage.
Now, he tried to hold focus. “You're not sick,” he huffed out.
“Carl—” Sarah started.
Carl cut her off. “It's her!” he yelled to those outside the bar—to anyone who would listen. “From the blogs. It's Sarah . . .” Carl's voice trailed off as he tried to pull her last name from his fevered mind.
“Peters,” Sarah said, tears streaking her face.
Carl nodded slowly. He looked down at Will, the man's bald head now blistered, his eyes open in a death stare. “Will got his wish. Sarah Peters—terrorist fuck—in the barrio.” He nudged the man with his foot. “Lot of good it did him.”
Outside the bar, Sarah could hear the slow rise of voices—a mob forming. She couldn't bring herself to care.
Before her, Carl gripped the last strings of life with ruthless determination. Convulsions began, his neck arching back in spasm. The barrel of his ancient shotgun wobbled.
Sarah stared down the black muzzle, unable to look at anything else. Time slowed. Carl pulled back the hammer, clicking it home. His finger curled on the trigger.
This is better, she thought. End it here.
In her fear and longing, Sarah lost her hold on the tat. Her skin pulsed as if she had ripped the northern lights from the Arctic sky. Carl's eyes widened, the sight cutting through his haze.
Sarah longed for the shot—an end to this nightmare. It did not come.
“Who are you?” he asked, his eyes lost in the dance of color.
She shook her head. “I didn't want any of this.” The words came with slow precision, dredged from her darkness. “Please.” She eyed the gun.
In the bar's mirror, she caught her reflection. She turned from Carl.
“No!” Carl shouted. A plea, not a demand.
A shuffle of movement and Sarah felt Carl's hand on her cheek. She turned with the fingers' jerking pressure and gazed into the man's eyes.
“It's . . . beautiful.” Though locked jaws muffled his voice to a hard grunt, the anger in it had faded.
Tears hazed her view. She watched the man die, his eyes never wavering from her own. The gun fell into Sarah's hands. She handled it insti
nctively, fingers curling over the grip. Carl directed the barrel to his chest, stepping into it, locking it to him.
“Please,” he sputtered through clacking teeth.
She understood, but couldn't move. Wouldn't. Her fingers went numb. She dropped her head, tears streaming.
Carl forced a shaking hand to her chin, pulling her back to his gaze. They faced each other, separated by the length of the gun.
“It's beautiful,” he said softly.
The words tunneled into Sarah, dislodging that part of herself locked in darkness. She gazed into the man's eyes, an ember of connection breaking through the fog of her tears.
Carl could no longer speak. Before her, he began to asphyxiate, unable to draw air. He simply nodded. A request she could not deny.
The hammer struck home.
Sarah did not remember squeezing the trigger. The quiet moment burst into sound and gore. Buckshot obliterated Carl's chest, blowing him back into the bar. He crumpled at its base, eyes glassed.
Sarah stumbled backward, bile rising. She hacked it out, her throat burning. The weapon was heavy in her hand. She pitched it to the ground, unable to pull her gaze from Carl's mangled form.
The moist curl of fingers on her ankle tripped her. She fell hard, coming face to face with a woman about her height, her weight. Sarah stared into the face. The woman looked at her and then beyond, into nothing. Coagulating blood puffed from her nose to the rhythm of her breathing.
Sarah scuttled away, unable to contain her cry. She pulled herself up and bolted for the door, slipping on the blood. She ripped the entrance open to new horror.
The virus had spread. Along the catwalk, ragged men and women advanced on her. Their eyes gleamed with desperate determination. They had clubs, knives, anything they could get their hands on.
“That's her,” one of them gurgled.
They pushed in.
18
NEW YORK CITY
The Wall's surveillance center was the loosest secret in Manhattan. Ringing the island, the Wall held the waters at bay. It also watched those within.
Everyone knew the eyes were there. That the watcher surrounded them, unseen yet pervasive. At first, there had been an uproar: intrusion on privacy, overreaching governmental power. But with each successive threat, those protests had withered. If only the government had seen a bit more—known a tad more. Every disaster was one that could have been averted.
And so, the Wall continued to watch. And it watched well. Since full implementation, terrorist attacks had gone to zero. There were simply easier targets in the world.
But with that security, the pendulum began to swing in the other direction. The Wall's gaze pushed into the city's demeanor—a reverse panopticon. New Yorkers operated under the raw nerve of being watched. It set the city on edge.
In one of the Wall's many control rooms, Frank stalked back and forth, unable to hold still. He had come here to find Laing. So far, he wasn't having any luck.
“He's not in the city,” a dull-faced tech said through chomps on her Danish.
Frank stood over her, watching the woman manipulate the eye. “He is. You just can't track him.”
“Sir, we can track everyone.”
Frank just laughed. He turned from the techie and gazed into the city. Seaside, the Wall was a smooth slab of self-sealing, algae-sustained biocrete. The inward face was another story. It glistened, flickering translucent and pocked with antennas and dishes. Most of these were in-operative—just for show. Frank stared out through the filmed plexi. Across the river, Manhattan looked like a silver dream: ethereal scrapers, impossibly close together.
Something drew him to 80 South Street. An inconsistency. A red flicker within the structure. He didn't have long to ponder it. The penthouse puffed, then blasted out in white heat. Before him, 80 South Street lit up like a candle.
Boom.
The concussive force of the blast tipped him back into his chair. Cries of surprise filled the room. The watchers had front-row seats on this one.
“Ah, fuck no,” was all Frank could manage.
He leaped to his feet and put his hand to the plexi, watching in horror. The penthouse did not burn—the explosion had simply demolished it. Debris rained down on the twelve other cubes that made up the building.
“It's going to hold,” one of the techs said with more hope than assurance.
It didn't.
Two wide supports and a central core held the building together. The penthouse's absence set the building into a slow wobble. It teetered, torquing hard. Then one of the cubes fell. It smacked into the one below it, and the building toppled like a series of dominoes.
In seconds, there was only smoldering rubble.
Around Frank, stunned silence broke into pandemonium. The techs beat into their flow decks, setting a perimeter and pushing the first responders to the scene. Frank watched, trying to work out the past seconds.
The techs buzzed around him. Frank grabbed the closest one. “The fuck's happening over there?!”
“We're efforting that now, sir.”
“Was the blast internal, a missile? What?”
The row of tech-men latched themselves into the flow, pulling feed. In spite of the insanity surrounding them, they sat frozen.
“Oh shit!” one cried.
“Oh shit, what?” Frank whirled on him, ripping off the man's visor.
The man blinked away the flow shift.
“Come on, man! It's one of our own in there!”
“No—it's not that. I'm picking up a tag—full pattern match. Ten for ten.”
“Spit it the fuck out.”
“We got viral contamination.”
“The Australia thing?”
“No, sir, it's in our backyard. Trenton is red hot.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Dispersal pattern matches Langley's. It's Peters.”
“Do we have confirmation on that?”
“Sir, the pattern match—”
Frank cut him off. “What did I fuckin' ask?!”
The tech swallowed, then turned into the flow. After a moment, he replied with smug I-told-you-so assurance. “We have confirmation. Reports on scene. Peters is there.”
Frank was too preoccupied to notice the man's tone. He grabbed his jacket and bolted for the exit.
“Sir!” the female tech shouted after him. “Do you want to continue the Ryan Laing search?”
“Don't bother. You won't find him.”
She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. “Of course we will.”
“You just get help to those people down there. Figure out who blew up that fuckin' building. I know where Laing's headed.”
MANUFACTURING DISTRICT, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
Zachary Taylor waited. His specialty.
His thoughts didn't track with those of others. They weren't normal. He could remember the way he used to think, to worry. Now, he floated over the sea of life, dipping into it only as directed. He sat in the back of Father's Office, sipping at skunked beer. Around him, Sarah Peters's carnage offered an infernal ambience. The stink of bile filled Taylor's nostrils but did not alter the steady rhythm of his breathing.
He had tracked Sarah after weaponizing her. Knowing what to look for, he had managed to slip into the barrio before the CDC and Department of Homeland Security threw up their net.
Taylor had entered on street level, just before the real carnage began. Shanty shops peppered the lower floors of the vertical maze, selling everything from ramen to subderm memory caches. An energetic bustle surrounded him, people buying and selling, children scampering through the tight passages and up the swaying ladders.
Taylor worked his way up, sifting through the maze of barrio life. On the lower levels, the airport traffic came across as little more than a rhythmic grumble, a far-off storm. But as he ascended, the thunder loomed ever closer. The scaffolding shook with each takeoff. He entered the Keep. In the Keep, darker desires drove commerce. Quaking under the jet
wash, the Keep offered satisfaction. Meth-tipped psychedelics, sexual perversions, the lure of oblivion.
Taylor slipped through the dealers, pushers, and pros. His Armani singled him out from the shabby grunge of those around him. Eyes followed him. His battle tension rose. Hardly breaking his gait, Taylor smashed his right palm into the face of a burly man who had decided only an instant before to hassle him. All Taylor had needed was the subtle clench of the man's cheek to know. He attacked before provocation was even a full thought in the man's mind.
The man dropped to his knees, stunned. Gouts of blood burst from his pulverized nose.
“Excuse me,” Taylor whispered, stepping around the man.
After that, eyes no longer tracked his progress. The aura of violence clung to him. Street sense kept one alive in the Keep. He was given a wide berth. As he ascended, Taylor sensed a rising tension. There was action on the levels above. There was fear in the air. Lots of traffic heading down in a hurry.
Then, the hacking cough of a man drowning in his own bile. A smile broke the plane of Taylor's face. He followed the sound. Working his way up a series of ladders quivering to the rhythm of the port, he pushed into a fast-expanding hot zone. Before him, men and women sprawled at the door of a dilapidated bar. He approached, unhurried.
A man slumped in the passageway, hacking out his last breaths. Taylor stooped to look at him. He stared into the man's eyes, lifting his chin with a slender hand. The man's face had blistered black. Taylor heard the distinctive crackle in the man's lungs.
“Please . . .” the man spewed.
Taylor held his gaze. After a beat, his hand dropped from the chin to the man's neck. He found the soft thump of the carotid and pressed. The man shivered, jerked once and died. A last expulsion of air frothed over his lips.
“You're welcome,” Taylor said.
Taylor entered the bar to silence. Sarah had already fled. Just as well. She wasn't the target.
Now, Taylor sat in a corner seat, having pushed the corpse of a young man to the floor. He wrapped his hands around the man's drink, sipped lightly, and waited.
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