by James Knapp
So, I was drunk, and I was mad, and I pushed hard. I pushed real hard.
The room got very bright, and everything went almost gray. I focused on the woman in front of me with more intensity than I think I’d ever turned on anyone. I reached out to the place where the light would bloom.
“Zoe?”
They didn’t appear. No lights, no colors …nothing. When I stared into her eyes, they didn’t change, they didn’t get dull and stupid. They just stared back.
My heart started beating faster. This had never happened before, not ever. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the patterns rippling around Nico’s head. It was working, just not on her.
I pushed harder, concentrating until the light got so bright she was all I could see; her face, her eyes, and the empty space where it should have been. Her thoughts, her consciousness, her self, her soul …whatever it was, it wasn’t there. The light blotted out everything else until the only thing that was dark was that empty spot, that empty hole where she should have been. It was like looking into an abyss or a black hole. When I pushed against it …
“Zoe!”
All at once, the lights dimmed back to normal. He was shaking my shoulder. The dead girl was still standing there, looking at me. I wiped my nose and there was blood.
“What happened? What did you see?”
She was just standing there, staring at me the way she did in my dreams. Those electric eyes watched me lifelessly as I backed away. I had to get out of there.
Nico reached out to me and I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. What was I doing there? What in the world ever compelled me to get involved in this whole thing? All I wanted was to get back to my apartment, lock the door, and forget about the whole thing—him, her …everything. It was a mistake. The whole thing was a mistake.
I stumbled to the door, and he followed me. I pushed on him again, making him stop before he could reach me.
“Your friend is gone,” I told him, and left. He didn’t come after me.
He didn’t even come after me.
Nico Wachalowski—Guardian Metro Storage Facility
After Zoe ran, I wasn’t sure what I should do. Faye had sat back down on the bedroll and hadn’t spoken in minutes.
“Who was that?” she asked finally.
“No one.”
I hadn’t wanted to risk poking around in her systems, because I knew she was seeded with Leichenesser, and the memory of the dock revivor melting away on that autopsy table was too fresh in my mind. That had been triggered when I started rifling through sections of memory I wasn’t supposed to be in.
“Where am I?” she asked.
As I looked down on her, she just stared up at me, her brown eyes replaced by moonlight silver. It was amazing how dehumanizing that one change alone was, but it was more than that. This was the first time I had ever seen a revivor that I had previously known so closely, and the change was subtle but startling at the same time. More than just the color of her eyes or her skin, it was her body language, her expression, the way she held herself; everything was different. It was as if her body had been inhabited by some completely different entity.
I sat down on the bedroll in front of her so that we were facing. Immediately, she reached out and took my hands in hers.
“Why did you do that?” I asked. Her palms and fingers were cold, with no pulse.
“I don’t know.”
“Hold still,” I said, “and stay quiet. I need to concentrate.”
Closing my eyes, I scanned the communications band until I found her signal. She was on an encrypted broadcast band.
“I can’t force my way in,” I told her. “I’m extending a connection; can you see it?”
She didn’t respond at first. I opened my eyes and saw her staring into space, slightly out of focus.
“Yes,” she said.
“Can you accept the con—”
Call connected.
Are you picking me up?
In front of me, her lips curled very slightly, forming the ghost of a smile. Or was that wishful thinking?
“Yes,” she said.
Answer back over the connection.
Yes. I’m picking you up.
Good. There should be a copy of any communications you’ve received in your memory buffer.
This feels strange.
I’m going to try to retrieve it.
Okay.
Her hands were like ice, but my palms were sweating.
The last time I tried this, I accidentally triggered a device designed to prevent anyone getting in.
Okay.
The revivor was destroyed.
Okay.
I moved more carefully this time around, sending a data miner across to feel out any security instead of brute-forcing it. Her systems were protected, but since she hadn’t been deployed, there were no modifications, and the miner managed to clear the way in.
What are you looking for?
Having only been reanimated for a short time, there wasn’t much in there. The bulk of it was a dynamic database. It looked like a full copy of the list I’d pulled off of the dock revivor.
I’ve got it.
I compared the list fragment I’d pulled from the dock revivor to the database of names I’d just recovered. There were no matches.
As I watched, it changed size in front of me. A couple seconds later, it did it again. It was getting smaller.
Do you know what this is? I asked Faye.
No. Do you?
A list of names, but the ones I was looking for aren’t there.
It keeps changing.
What?
It keeps getting updated.
How often?
It varies.
How do these updates occur?
A connection opens and they arrive, Faye said. First the list came; then, after that, the updates.
The list was keeping track of the names dynamically. That was it; the names were no longer on the list because the people they represented were dead. The database had been updated, and the names removed. If it was a synchronized database, then the updates were coming from somewhere. As the Heinlein rep had pointed out, revivors communicated in a hub-and-spoke fashion, not directly to one another but through a common point. That common point, that hub, must be where these people were based. If I could locate that …
The last change in the list size was already complete. I set up a monitor to watch all incoming ports to trace the next one when it came in, then went back to the list.
What do these names have in common? I asked her.
I don’t know.
Was your name on the list?
No.
I’m going to try to view the history. Hold on.
There were backups going back several iterations in case of corruption. Fishing through them, I found the names from my list fragment. They had been removed eight iterations ago:
Database synchronization pending. Updating …Header mismatch: Zhu, Mae. Murder. Removing. Header mismatch: Valle, Rebecca. Murder. Removing. Header mismatch: Craig, Harold. Murder. Removing. Header mismatch: Shanks, Doyle. Murder. Removing.
There were several iterations preceding that one. There were a lot of names in there. At least twenty had already been removed, and there were hundreds more.
I’m going to need a copy of those names. I’ll be careful.
Okay.
Rather than try to mirror the entire database, I decided it would be safer to go through and just scan the names one at a time and copy them manually. As I got closer to the most recent version, I noticed one of the iterations actually increased the overall size by a small fraction instead of decreasing it.
Hold on.
Shuffling ahead to that entry, I brought it up to view it.
Database synchronization pending. Updating …Header mismatch: Ott, Zoe. Experimentation. Adding.
I jerked my hands back, but those cold fingers locked around my wrists.
Who’s Zoe?
/> Let go.
Who’s Zoe?
Twisting my wrists, I knocked her hands away. I put a call in to Sean.
Sean, the revivors are communicating with a base of operations somewhere. That partial list we recovered from the dock revivor is part of a much larger one, and they’re making their way through it.
Why? Who are they?
I don’t know why, but do some digging. I’m sending the names to you now.
Roger that.
The entries have been getting crossed off more and more frequently. It looks like it started to ratchet up maybe six iterations ago….
That was around the time Ohtomo dispatched the National Guard. There was a string of removals prior to that, in between.
Faye, these early names are all your victims. The ones you were investigating.
I noticed that too.
It looked like in addition to that, the suicide bombing was referenced as well:
Database synchronization pending. Updating …Header mismatch: Strike 0. Terror. Removing.
The equipment, bodies, and weapons Tai was bringing in, the victims of Faye’s killer, the recent bomb attacks; all of it was planned in advance.
Sean, I need to know who these people are. They have something in common. Someone out there wants them dead, and they’ve gone to a lot of trouble and expense to make it happen.
If there’s a connection, I’ll find it.
In the meantime, I’m monitoring the channel so the next time a communication comes through I should be able to trace it back—
Faye twitched in front of me, her eyes widening. All at once her body tensed up, cords standing out in her neck.
Shit.
I backed off, recalling the miner and retreating from the memory I had accessed. Her fingers curled and I could see warnings spilling past. Was I too late? Had I already triggered it?
“Faye?” I asked out loud. She didn’t respond. Her eyes didn’t turn toward me.
Agent Wachalowski.
I turned my attention back to the connection between us. The message hadn’t originated from her. It came over another connection to her that had just been opened.
Who is this?
Agent Wachalowski, this is Samuel Fawkes. Why are you playing with one of my revivors?
Samuel never left.
It’s not your revivor.
It is now.
An override code was running; he’d taken remote control of Faye’s systems. Her command center switched over. If he wanted to, he could shut her down completely.
Wait. How do you know who I am?
Because I’ve been watching you.
Why?
Because you have been sticking your nose in my business for longer than you realize.
Why are you killing these people? What did they do? Who are they to you?
You wouldn’t believe me. Not for long anyway.
What does that mean?
They’ve already gotten to you, Agent.
The warnings stopped streaming by. Faye’s body relaxed.
What do you mean ‘they’? I found footage in a reporter’s memory of someone sending him to Tai’s place before I arrived. Is that who you mean? Are these the people who are on your list?
You’ll never know, Agent. I was going to wake you up, but now it’s too late.
Why are you killing them?
“Nico?”
It was Faye. She looked up at me with eyes that were wide and innocent in their lack of understanding. I remembered back to the female revivor at Tai’s place, the way when she spoke it had seemed like some alien intelligence had spoken through her, referencing memories it had never experienced. It didn’t feel that way when Faye said my name. She said it the way she used to say it. She remembered me. Maybe her memories were corrupted during the transition, and maybe some were even false, but she remembered me.
“Nico, help me—”
By the time I heard the sound, it was too late. The sound of sliding metal ended with an abrupt crunch as something pounded into my chest, sending burning pain up my neck and down both arms, all the way to my palms. My reaction was too late, and by then I couldn’t move, not even to take a breath.
She was still staring up at me, those electric eyes looking faintly distressed. Her fingers touched my chest gently as beneath them a blade extended from the base of her palm to the center of my rib cage, the point buried somewhere inside. Neither of us could speak as the hydraulics hissed, unable to push any farther. With a snap the blade retracted, tugging free from me and disappearing back into her arm. She reeled above me as I fell back, my vision swimming with black blotches that turned everything dark.
“Nico?”
I couldn’t move. Even with my systems firing off, trying to right me, I couldn’t move a muscle. I sensed her there, still looking down on me as warm blood seeped through my shirt. Had she finally remembered me? Would she help me, or leave me?
I wondered that as the stream of warnings ceased and went out.
Zoe Ott—Pleasantview Apartments, Apartment 713
At my front door, I fumbled for the key. My hands were shaking badly, and all I wanted to do was to find it and get inside before the jerk next door came out, because I really didn’t think I could handle him right then. Whatever had made me get involved in this whole mess in the first place was a drunken mistake in judgment. I wasn’t cut out for any of it. I just wasn’t the kind of person who got involved in whatever it was I had gotten involved in.
I found the key and started to put it in the lock, but I couldn’t keep it steady. The tip of the key scratched around the keyhole as I moved closer to the knob. I wanted to forget any of it ever happened. I didn’t want to see Nico or the woman or any of them ever again. All I wanted was to get warm and watch TV, and drink until I stopped feeling like I did.
The tip of the key found the slot and I jammed it in, turned it, then pushed the door open and went inside, letting it swing shut and slam behind me. I turned the bolt, wishing there were three more of them.
After having not been in my apartment for a little while, I couldn’t help but notice it had an off smell. I needed to clean the place up. I threw my keys on the coffee table and shrugged out of my coat, hanging it on the rack. I felt dizzy. Why did he show that revivor to me? Why was he with that woman? Why was she chained, and what was he doing with her down there?
Shivering, I went into the kitchen and poured a drink, drained it, then poured another one. The heat moved down my throat into my belly, but when I wiped my face, my hand was still shaking and the sweat there was cold. That had been the woman from my dream. It was definitely her. Three more drinks, and the shaking still wouldn’t stop.
I hated the thing that Karen called my gift. From the bottom of my soul, I hated it all the way back to when I dreamed of my father’s mangled body, and every second since. I hated everything about it, but I learned something back in that storage room, and that was that hate it or no, I relied on it. I never realized until that moment how much I relied on it.
When I pushed on that revivor, I felt something I’d never felt before in my life. When I focused on her and nothing happened, it felt like I had gone blind. None of the colors appeared and I couldn’t sense any of her thoughts or her feelings or even her mood. Until she stepped out where I could see her, I hadn’t even known she was standing a few feet away from me. It was terrifying.
There was no way to make her go away, or make her go to sleep, or decide to leave me alone, or tell me who she was, how she got there, how she knew him …nothing. She could do whatever she wanted, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I couldn’t stop replaying that moment. There was just a gap, like a dark pit. Looking into it was like stepping through a door and finding no floor. It felt like if I pushed into that void, I would fall inside with no way of knowing what was down there or if it even had an end.
I drained the glass and poured out another one, and that’s when the ripples appeared in the ai
r in front of me, right between where I was standing and the fridge. The distortion took the shape of a man, and then just like that there was someone standing there, as if he’d appeared from out of nowhere. The glass slipped out of my hand and smashed on the floor between us.
“Damn it!” I hissed.
He was a big man dressed in a jacket and coat, with some kind of cloak or poncho draped over that. The coat’s hood was up over his head. It struck me that it might have been the first time I actually saw a vision appear while I was watching.
“You guys need to start wearing bells,” I said. “Look at this.”
He stood there, not moving, as I grabbed a paper towel and sopped up the booze, pushing the broken glass away against the bottom of the counter. I grabbed a new glass and filled it.
“Look,” I said, feeling tears forming, “I don’t think I have anything left today, okay? How about you all leave me alone and let me just pass out tonight?”
He didn’t say anything; he just kept watching me.
“Please—”
He reached out and grabbed my shoulder. His hand was real. He wasn’t a dream or a hallucination; he was real.
He squeezed, and it hurt. I panicked, hitting at his arm, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
“Help!” I screamed.
I tried to focus on him and nothing happened. Just like earlier, I couldn’t see him or feel him. It was just like it had been with the dead woman in the storage unit: nothing but an empty, dark hole.
“You’re—”
He shook me hard and bashed me into the counter. Everything went white for a second when my head bounced off the wall; then he pulled me back toward him. No one had ever moved me like that; it was like I weighed nothing to him at all. Before I could do anything, I was dragged backward, out of the kitchen, and thrown down onto the sofa.
He was dead, just like the woman. It was a revivor, and I had no way to control it.
When I looked up, he was coming right toward me. I glanced to the front door and saw my next-door neighbor standing there. He was looking in, his eyes wide, but he wasn’t doing anything.
