Patient Zero

by Jonathan Maberry

  That sort of visual is how Bug gets his revenge for paperwork. I’m convinced of it.

  “But in one case, Joe, we got something different. We got a scale stuck in the fabric of the victim’s robe. The robe he was wearing when he died.”

  “A scale? What kind of scale?”

  “Not the kind you weigh stuff with. More like a snake scale, only in this case, it’s completely synthetic. I pulled a few strings and got a schematic of the thing. It’s not organic, but it’s also not standard plastic. This thing is designed to do something; I’m just not sure what without more of the big picture.”

  “So we have a plastic doohickey in the shape of a scale. That might not be enough to get Church all kinds of excited.”

  “That was in Philadelphia, Joe. Here in D.C. there are ten more of those scales, three of them found embedded in the victim’s chest and flesh. Currently they’re on their way to DCPD Forensics. You think Mr. Church might be able to get a couple of them sent my way?”

  I smiled. That was the sort of information that made Church a happy man. It was the kind of information he could sink his teeth into.

  “So why does MindReader think all of these are connected? What was the red flag here?”

  “Joe, all of these guys move in the same circles, right? But none of them really have a reason to be hanging out together. It could be coincidence if all of their bosses were hanging around together and doing their political dances, but each and every one of these people has been together every other month on the fifteenth in places where their employers were not hanging around together. MindReader caught on to that. MindReader also caught on to the weird cause of death.”

  Bug was sounding like a proud papa again. He should have been. He was the one who built MindReader from the code up, and his creation was capable of pulling together algorithms that no one else knew existed, because MindReader could get into programs that no one knew were out there in the first place while completely hiding its trails. Believe me when I say this: MindReader made everyone who knew it existed a little nervous, and the list of people who knew about it was very small.

  “Let me talk to Mr. Church. We’ll find out what’s going on from there.”

  Three things about that case made me happy. First, Bug had just proven the value of MindReader beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, there was a chance we could stop a burgeoning international incident from exploding all over the faces of the right people. Third, I got a good reason to hold off on finishing my paperwork.

  I talked to Church.

  He agreed. We had to get on it.

  The problem with multiple possible targets is that there are multiple possible targets. All we had was a list of five names that might be targeted for assassination by someone who had successfully avoided every security tape and file in places known for their overzealous use of security cameras, apparently crept into rooms that were secure (and in two cases had chains or slide locks across the doors), and then left again with no obvious cause of death to the victims. Aside from the synthetic scales that Bug was going crazy over, there was no proof beyond the state of the corpses that any kind of attack had happened. And whatever the cause of those deaths, it wasn’t chemical, electrical, or connected to any known firearm.

  Piece of cake, right?

  Without the right information, without any real understanding of how the assassin was working, there was nothing we could do.

  Once again, Bug is the real hero here. Well, with a little help from Circe.

  When he got back to me, he was babbling like a kid for three minutes. After that, I told him to calm down and explain.

  “Okay, so, with just a little bit of current running through one of the scales two things happened. First, they’re photosensitive in a way that is crazy. I mean cray-cray crazy. They don’t actually disappear, but they take on the closest colors to them. They’re a little bit like the skin of a chameleon.”

  “So, invisible?”

  “No, just super well camouflaged. You can find them, but you have to look. After we figured that out, we checked the footage from the previous victims’ hotels from around an hour before their deaths and for about an hour after. In two cases there’s a definite distortion. It moves slowly. Very slowly. I’m not saying whoever it is couldn’t be seen, but you seriously have to be on the lookout for something to spot.”

  “Yeah, that’s not gonna be a problem.”

  “Actually, it won’t. It only works in the regular spectrum. IR and UV are loud and proud. So there’s that. You’re gonna have to run with goggles, but it’s not going to be impossible to see the target.”

  “That’s a plus. What else?”

  “They vibrate.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The scales vibrate, Joe. I mean they seriously run hard-core, at a speed that is insane. We activated one and it was like watching an ice cube in a hot pan, floating on a field of boiling oil. That sort of vibrate. The damn thing bounced halfway across the room the first time. Took me five minutes to find it again. I’ve never in my life seen technology like this. I can’t completely tell if it’s synthetic or organic or maybe even a blend. It’s the sort of thing that makes me believe in intelligent life on other planets.”

  “You’re babbling again, Bug.”

  “Sorry. Okay. So near as we can figure these scales move fast enough to actually change the molecular frequency of the person wearing them.”

  “In English?”

  “Okay. This is why I’m freaking out. These scales? Enough of them on the right sort of suit would make a person nearly invisible and allow them to walk through walls.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No, seriously. The scales they found on the victim and in the victim? They weren’t shaken loose. They were left behind. They were pulled out of the suit, and we think that happened when the assassin shoved a hand into a living body and let it vibrate there for a few seconds.”

  You ever hear the term my blood ran cold? I had a serious case of the shivers at that notion.

  * * *

  The last bit of research was as vital as the first. We had an idea of how it happened. We knew where it had happened. Now all we had to do was safely predict the next target and neutralize the threat.

  Mr. Church didn’t say there had been ripples from the previous murders, but he didn’t have to. No one was admitting to anything, but everyone involved was tense.

  The U.S. didn’t seem to be involved and that made them tense, too. All we had to go on was a series of meetings that took place in different parts of the country and even in other nations, between people with plausible deniability. No one could point a finger and prove anything. MindReader didn’t need to prove anything. It just needed to guess the next target.

  Two of the possible targets were actually out of the country. One was in California getting ready to watch the premiere of the latest superhero extravaganza with his wife and three kids. That left two possible targets in D.C., and we had no reason at all to contact them and warn them of the possible dangers, except for the fact that we needed to alert them in order to save their lives.

  That was where Mr. Church came in. Have I mentioned that he gives us the best toys to play with?

  Instead of dealing with the massive NV goggles we used in the field, we got slightly clunky-looking eyeglasses that allowed for a “full spectrum” of visibility. Let me translate the way I made Bug translate. The glasses weren’t as good as NV goggles or UV goggles, but they altered the spectrum we could see enough that we could sort of see through walls. Not actual X-ray vision, but a modified ability to see body heat.

  We could look through a wall that was nearby and see heat signatures for about fifteen feet. More important, they’d theoretically let us see the chameleon armor of our assassin. Why did Church have these things lying around? Apparently they were a failed experiment. I had my doubts. He never struck me as the sort to leave extra junk around to clutter his closet, if you see my point.

  A
t any rate, it was me and Bunny at the Madison Hotel.

  The Madison and the Dolley Madison are the sorts of hotels no one goes to, unless they’re diplomats. There are a lot of political figures who use the hotels for rendezvous or just to drop into town overnight. The security is good and the discretion of the employees is better. Somebody wants to hang out and play poker with some buddies? No one hears about it. Somebody else wants to call in a high-level escort? The press never knows. Allegedly there are tunnels under the buildings. I’ve never been able to find them.

  What we did find, thanks to Mr. Church, was a vacant room on the left of Maurice M’Gombe’s suite. M’Gombe was in town for only one night. He seemed the most likely target.

  I sent Top and Warbride to the Dolley Madison, where the other target was staying for a few days. It was always possible the next attempt would be at the other target or that the assassin would go for a twofer.

  Dr. Hu—not the one from the BBC—called me on the comm-link with a final warning or two, just to make sure I was properly paranoid.

  He said, “Cowboy, we have examined the hotel rooms involved in the previous assassinations and seen a disturbing pattern.”

  “How so?”

  “The walls of the hotels are structurally sound enough, but there are microfractures running through what we believe were the access and egress points for your assassin.” Sometimes I longed for the simplicity of a conversation with Bug.

  “The walls were damaged when the assassin came and went?”

  “Exactly so.” Lucky guess.

  “What does that mean?”

  “By itself it would mean nothing, but the actuality is that the structural damage to the walls actually gets worse if we visit the sites chronologically.” There was a pause while I was trying to translate that, and then Hu had a little mercy on me. “We believe the suit might be damaged. The scales are an indicator. Each wall has been more destabilized by the vibration frequencies used to ghost through them. Unless the creator of that suit makes adjustments or builds another suit, it’s very likely that the phasing issues will only get worse.”

  “Worse how?”

  “From a practical standpoint, we think the suit could cause serious damage to the wall and to the wearer if too many more attempts are made. We also believe that the scales that fell off are very likely having a destabilizing effect. Who can say how many scales have actually been lost? The suit doesn’t use very much power, but it definitely generates serious vibrations. If the suit were to malfunction or be seriously damaged, there’s a chance the vibrations could create the equivalent of a localized earthquake.”

  “A localized earthquake?”

  Bunny looked at me and shook his head. He wasn’t any fonder of that notion than I was.

  “How big are we talking here?”

  “Impossible to know, but certainly enough to level a story or two of a building.”

  From our perspective that would only mean about ten additional stories of structure falling down on our heads.

  “How do we avoid damaging the suit any further?”

  “To be perfectly honest, I can’t be certain. I’d suggest a head shot or making certain that if there is a noticeable battery pack, or anything that looks like one, you avoid shooting it.”

  The sound came down the hallway a few minutes after I’d finished my conversation with Hu. I was about to check in with Top when I heard it.

  Have you ever placed a tuning fork near your ear? There’s a sound, of course, but it’s not really just a sound. It’s also a sensation. That’s the vibrations from the sound waves hitting your body. I mean, we’ve all been to a concert where the bass pounded through us, but this was different. This almost tickled.

  There had been no reports of sounds before. Not at any of the previous crime scenes. Rather than open the door, Bunny activated his glasses and then nodded. Someone was coming down the hall and they were heading directly for M’Gombe’s suite.

  The idea was never to let the assassin reach the target, so Bunny signaled and then moved into the hallway, his Glock tucked into the small of his back, and I followed after him.

  The sound was clearer out in the hall. The air was distorted by vibration and our glasses saw something in the center of that distortion that fluctuated and shimmered. It was a form, but it was either a teenager or a woman if I had to guess. The figure seemed too small to be a man of even average size, but I couldn’t bank on that. The distortion was too much.

  That shape reached for the door, not even bothering to look in our direction. Maybe it couldn’t see us clearly. Maybe it didn’t care.

  Bunny drew, sighted, and fired one round. That should have been the end of the situation.

  The bullet passed right through the ghostly shape and the air around it screamed at a nearly deafening volume. That wave of vibrations changed right then and there. Whatever Bunny had hit, it seemed to have caused damage of some kind. The ghost didn’t fall down and die, didn’t seem to be bleeding, but something had changed.

  Subtlety was out the window and the ghost looked right at Bunny and changed course.

  “Fuck.” Bunny has always had a way with words.

  I backed up and he backed up as the ghost came at us. Bullets went right through. Hadn’t really counted on that. I’d been hoping that the vibration thing happened only when going through walls, and maybe that was supposed to be the case. It just never crossed my mind on the bullets part.

  I hoped to live and learn.

  We backed into our hotel room. That was intentional. We weren’t limiting our access to anything. We were drawing the ghost away from a target. Bunny took a chance and tried firing again with the same result. There was that high-pitched scream as the bullet moved through without actually touching the target. What came out the other side didn’t look like a bullet. A missile went in and black dust came out the other side. Near as I could figure, the vibrations shredded the bullet as it passed through. That hadn’t happened to the walls before and it hadn’t happened to the people the ghost killed.

  I tried warning Bunny, but I don’t think he could hear me over the noise, so instead I pulled on his shoulder and urged him backward. He nodded and retreated.

  The ghost’s hand touched the air where Bunny had been a second before. Looking at that blur was disorienting.

  At the same time, he tried for another head shot and the scream came again. Not a ghost, a banshee. It was screaming and I was beginning to think we were dead.

  The ghost’s hand bumped into the wall and instead of phasing through anything, it disintegrated the drywall and the wooden studs behind it. A trench exploded along the wall where the hand touched. The ghost paused long enough to look at the damage and then came at us even faster.

  Bunny retreated and I grabbed the mattress on the bed and hurled it as hard as I could toward the approaching killing machine.

  There were bits and pieces of mattress exploding all over the place and the scream came back again. Bunny fired three more head shots and this time around our resident spook stumbled backward.

  I couldn’t tell if it was the weight of the mattress or if it was the bullets.

  I screamed, “Shoot it again!” and whether or not he heard me, Bunny cut loose. The screams came loud and fast, like high-pitched thunder cutting loose from two feet away. I felt the vibrations in my fillings and my vision distorted even more as my eyes shook in my skull.

  Still, the ghost fell back again and again, until it struck the wall. The wall screamed and so did the ghost.

  The wall shook and shuddered and started to crumble. I didn’t have another mattress to try my luck with, but I had to try something. Bunny’s shots had caused some sort of damage, but it was impossible to say how much. What was certain was that the suit was still functioning enough to be a serious problem. The wall was fracturing and neither of us could grab the ghost and try to pull the assassin away without being vaporized.

  “Screw this!” I ran past Bunny and headed fo
r the bathroom. I’d call it instinct more than anything else. The suit ran on electricity and maybe there were a few holes in the wiring. If so, there was a chance to short the thing out, but better than nothing. I grabbed two tools. The first was the fire extinguisher under the bathroom sink. The second was the ice bucket. I put the bucket in the tub and opened the tap. Cold water sloshed into the bucket and the tub.

  I didn’t wait for it to fill, but instead pulled the ring that prevents accidental discharges on fire extinguishers and ran back to the main room. The ghost was half-buried in the wall. The wall was vibrating and Bunny was looking a little desperate for something he could do about it.

  I gave him the fire extinguisher and went back for the water. When I got back into the bedroom, Bunny was covering the ghost in foam that vibrated itself all over the place. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  My bucket of water, maybe a liter all told, splashed all over the ghost and the suit.

  There was another scream, but this one was more human and less terrifying. Several very large sparks arced from the ghost and then the screaming stopped.

  My ears were ringing. My body ached from the levels of sound that tore through me and I could see Bunny wincing even as he looked over our ghost.

  The entire suit was gray now, the sort of gray that settles on dead flesh, though I could clearly see scorch marks and circuitry in places. I now understood what Bug had meant about scales. They were all over the place, buried in the mattress ticking and the walls, and now that the fun was over, I could see where two of them had hit me and, thankfully, bounced. The red marks showed me where the bruises would be.

  Bunny got the worst of it. He had about a dozen spots where the scales had hit him like high-velocity guitar picks. They weighed almost nothing. If they’d been heavier, we likely would have been dead or at least punctured in places I don’t want to think about.