Authors: James Knapp
Who is this guy?
I asked Sean.
He’s not involved.
How do you know that, Sean? Who is he?
No one. Come on, leave the pervs for Vesco.
When I scanned his face, I found him in the system. His name was Hiro Takanawa, and he was as rich as he looked. It looked like it wasn’t the first time he’d been caught paying for time with a revivor.
“Where’d the revivor go?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I don’t see one here,” he said. “Do you?”
I didn’t. I shoved open the bathroom door and looked in, but it was empty.
SWAT, how many revivors are accounted for?
We got four, plus the two defunct in the room where you found them.
I checked the remaining signatures. There were six more beneath the floor somewhere, down on the basement level. Six up here, and six below. One was already defunct when I got there, so that put the node count at eleven. That was all of them.
“Which one was with you?” I said to Takanawa. He just shrugged.
“Understood,” Vesco said into his radio. He turned to Takanawa. “All right, you. Get out of here. Sorry, Wachalowski, that comes straight from the top. Let him go.”
Takanawa stood up and walked calmly toward the door. He gave me a wave over his shoulder as he headed out the door.
Sean, who is that guy?
He’s no one, Nico. Leave it alone.
The particle analyzer’s picked up the chemical signature,
Vesco said
. The explosive materials are nearby.
Takanawa headed down the hallway, hands in his pockets and a cigarette already in his mouth. He left a thin trail of smoke as he turned the corner.
In spite of whatever else he might be into, I trusted Sean; I’d known him too long and watched him put his life on the line too many times not to. He’d earned a certain amount of faith from me, but he knew more than he was saying. He knew who Takanawa was, and he knew why he’d been released. I suspected he might know Takanawa personally.
On a hunch, I followed him. Moving away from the crowd, I hung back and followed the heat traces left behind by his footsteps. They led down a dark corridor to an emergency stairwell.
Vesco, I’m heading down to deal with the remaining six revivors.
Roger that.
Have SWAT just keep the others together for now.
A metal door slammed down below, and I eased the door open and slipped through after Takanawa. The stairs took me down a dark, musty corridor. More rats scrambled as I came through, and I pushed the light filter up until everything turned black and white. The sounds of the raid faded behind me, then were gone altogether. Up ahead there was a stairwell door. His handprint was cooling on the handle.
Got it,
Vesco said.
We’ve secured the explosives. Bomb squad, prepare for transport.
Nico, I’ll move a team downstairs. Wait for them.
That was Sean.
I pushed open the door and started down the stairwell. It was pitch-black, but on the landing below I could see the other side of the door was lit. Just then, the audio spiked as someone shouted on the other side. Six revivor signatures glowed on the scanner.
Nico—
I cut the connection. As I went through the door, I heard voices from down the long, cinderblock corridor. The far end opened into a storage area that was lit with floodlights. Chain-link enclosures were assembled there, each one with a naked revivor sitting in it. Each revivor was shackled with a collar that was chained to the fence.
“. . . want to think about getting out of here,” I heard Takanawa say.
A woman’s voice answered, “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“They’re here.”
The thermal footprints I was following skipped for a second. A few steps later, the glitch happened again as more rats scurried down the hall.
“Leave them alone,” the woman said up ahead.
Around the corner, I saw Takanawa standing in front of a good-looking woman in an expensive suit. There was a metal briefcase on a desk next to her, lying open. Inside I saw a series of boxes, each the size of a brick, nestled in a bed of black packing foam. One of the slots was empty, and Takanawa held the box in his hand.
“Hard to believe they’re so small,” he said.
“Put it back, and get out of here already.”
He slipped the box in his jacket pocket instead. She made a face and reached over, slamming the case shut.
“What about you?” he asked. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Shortly. Go.”
He shrugged and stepped out of view. A service door began to grind open.
Keeping low, I moved in as the door began rattling shut again. When I looked around the corner, I saw Takanawa’s expensive shoes just before the door came down. A green light on the wall turned red as the lock engaged.
“There you are,” a man said from somewhere off to my right, his voice echoing in the open space. Three sets of footsteps were approaching the woman. She crossed her arms and leaned back on the desk, waiting.
“Yes, here I am.”
Two men in suits came into view, tailed by a big revivor.
“The fucking Feds are here,” one of them said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
She drew a pistol from inside her jacket fast enough to surprise both men. The first shot caught the man who’d just spoken in the face, and his head jerked back. The next hit the other man in the side. He staggered, and managed to draw his gun as she shot him a second time.
I crossed in front of the chain-link cages, my weapon drawn.
“Federal agent!”
“What the fuck are you doing?” the bleeding man grunted to the revivor that was with him. “Kill her!”
He went down on the floor next to his friend. The big revivor stepped over them, toward the woman. It reached out and grabbed a fistful of her shirt as she shot it three times in the chest. Her heels came up off the floor as it hauled her forward, then slammed her back down on the desk.
It grabbed her head in its hands and leaned in, baring its teeth. I fired a shot into its temple and it jumped back, letting her go. It swung one arm at the open air, black blood squirting from the hole as I put a second shot through its open mouth.
It gagged, black specks spraying from between its teeth, then fell onto its back. Its signature warbled, then blinked out.
The woman sat on the edge of the desk, wincing as she looked over at me. She still held her gun in one hand, pointed down at the floor.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The other revivors had started shaking their cages, trying to get out. The closest one had its face pushed into the chain-link, fingers straining through the holes as it ground its teeth.
“FBI.”
“You with Sean?” she asked.
“Slide the gun over.”
She did. I stopped it with my foot, then picked it up.
“Put your hands up.”
She nodded, cracking her back and wincing again as she lifted her hands up over her head.
Scanning her, I didn’t see any hidden weapons. She wasn’t wired and didn’t have any physical augmentations. Her face didn’t match anything in the databases.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Jan Holst. Can I put my hands down?”
“What is that?” I asked her, nodding at the briefcase. She frowned, but didn’t answer.
“Open it,” I said.
She turned and keyed in the combination to the case, then lifted it open and stepped away. I looked inside, and a warning appeared in the JZI.
Radiation detected.
The particles were coming from the case. I looked through one of the bricks and saw it contained a metal capsule. Inside the shell were wires and components, tightly packed around a radioactive core. There were eleven devices inside.
“What are those?”
She sighed, crossing her arms. I closed the case and contacted the SWAT leader.
I found the rest of the revivors. Six total. One is down.
Good.
I found something down here. I think it’s what we’re looking for.
We’ve secured the shipment, Wachalowski.
I don’t think so. I’m looking at eleven nuclear devices. The suspect who was just released, Takanawa, may have a twelfth. We need to lock down this area now.
There was a pause on the other end of the connection that went on longer than it should have. I opened an emergency channel back to Assistant Director Noakes, and sent down an alert.
Agent Wachalowski, what’s going on down there?
he responded. I recorded the image and radiation signature of the case and transmitted it to him.
The buyers were here to pick up nuclear weapons. They’re handheld, and at least one of them is moving. We need this whole block contained right now.
A terrorist alert went out and began branching down to response teams.
Understood. They’re mobilizing now. Find that missing weapon.
“Are you the buyer?” I asked the woman. She didn’t answer.
Just then a revivor spoke connection opened. I looked around for the source but couldn’t find it. The signal hadn’t come from any of the revivors in the cages.
Someone just opened a connection to a revivor band down here. Any missing from upstairs?
Negative.
It was close. Too close to be from upstairs.
I’ve got a stray down here somewhere.
“How did you know—” the woman started to ask but I held up my hand. She frowned.
I tapped into the signal, listening. The source was close by, somewhere in the room. I did a slow sweep, looking into the dark. No revivor’s signature was showing up, but it had to be there.
I moved past the cages to the edge of the lit area and scanned into the shadows. There was nothing there.
... eral agent here.
The partial message came across the connection. It was a fragment of a text communication.
. . . should I abort?
No. Upgr . . . forget the target . . . the case.
. . . about the ...
Kill her.
The revivors began shaking the cages harder. Something had them riled up. I couldn’t hear anything over the racket.
“Shut up!” the woman snapped. “Just shut—”
Her voice cut out. I looked back at her and she was clutching her throat. Her eyes were wide, and blood had started leaking from in between her fingers. The big revivor was still on its back. I didn’t see anyone near her.
Vesco, one of the prime suspects is down. I need an EMT here, now.
I ran to her as she took her hands away. Her palms were covered in blood. Her face turned white as blood poured from a gash in her throat, and she slid down the desk, onto the floor.
“Hold on,” I told her, easing her onto her back. “Help is coming.” Her eyes lost focus. Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t speak.
The revivor connection cut out. I heard the flutter of fabric next to me, and the case on the desk flickered, then disappeared.
Shit.
The nukes are moving. The target is cloaked. Coordinate with local authorities and initiate a lockdown in a three-block radius.
Leading with the gun, I scanned the room. There were no heat signatures, no heartbeat—nothing.
It’s a revivor. . . .
There was no revivor signature either, though. It was keeping itself well hidden.
I scanned for radiation. It was faint, but I found a concentration of particles a few feet away. They were clustered around an object floating at chest height.
The case.
The Light Warping field could bend visible light, but not radiation. The pattern swayed back and forth slightly. The revivor connection opened again.
. . . about the agent?
. . . ut don’t ki—
But—
Don’t kill him.
I reestablished the link with Sean.
Wachalowski, what the hell—
Sean, show me all the ways in and out of here.
The case appeared on the concrete floor and I heard something heavy shift its weight. I took a step toward it, and a cold hand clamped down on the back of my neck, hard. It pulled me back onto my heels as another hand grabbed my wrist, slamming my gun hand into a support column. I caught a glimpse of the woman’s face, flecked with blood, as I was dragged away from her.
Nico, what’s happening?
Vesco said. I could hear footsteps pounding down the hall in my direction.
Something connected hard with my cheek and I was spun around. One leg went out from under me, and I went facedown on the concrete. When I tried to get up, a boot landed between my shoulder blades and my chest slammed into the floor under it, forcing the wind out of me.
I need backup down here, now.
Where the hell was SWAT?
The boot lifted and I heaved myself onto my hands and knees, firing a back kick blindly into something solid. Heavy footsteps staggered back and I swung around, pointing my gun.
Before I could pull the trigger, a sharp pain stabbed into the side of my neck and the strength went out of me. My arms got heavy and fell to my sides. The gun slipped out of my hand and clunked onto the floor. Toxin warnings flashed as I staggered and started to fall.
Smooth material brushed my face as someone darted past me. The case disappeared again, leaving only the radiation signature. The cluster of particles moved away quickly, fading away to nothing as they moved out of range.
It’s doubling back the way I came in. Intercept it.
I went down on my knees, shaking. One of my internal stim packets popped as the JZI tried to cut through the fog. My stomach churned, and I had pins and needles in my legs as the feeling came back. I manually popped two more.
That did the trick. Everything got brighter. My heart pounded as oxygen and adrenaline flooded my bloodstream. I picked my gun back up and pushed myself to my feet, the room spinning around me.