The Silent Army (16 page)

A door behind the flag? The only flag I could think of was the one back at my place. I’d brought it back with me from my tour, and I hung it up across from the door to the toilet. There wasn’t anything behind it but wall.

Checking it out.

Something made me write it. There was nothing after, and I had no memory of doing it. Someone fucked with my head. Keeping the list worked; I’d gotten my first hit.

“Son of a bitch.”

I armed the bike’s alarm and stowed my helmet, then went up to the front door and pulled. It didn’t budge.

“ID please,” it said. I flashed my card at it.

“Flax, Calliope. First class. Violations including ...”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You are not a registered occupant of this residence. If a registered occupant of this residence is with you at this time, they should provide their ID now. If you are not with a reg—”

I leaned on the buttons next to the door until someone got sick of my shit and buzzed me in. The door was still talking when I slammed it behind me.

Inside, the elevator was out, so I headed up the stairs. The place smelled like piss.

When I shoved the stair door open, I almost ran into some woman with big lips, hips, and tits. She had a mean black eye.

“Excuse me,” she said. She kept her eyes down and tried to go around me.

“Nice eye.”

“Yo, get back here!” some guy yelled from around the corner. From the look on her face, he put the shiner there.

“A regular Romeo, huh?” I said. She stared at me.

“What?”

“You gonna take that?” I asked her.

“What, are you taking a poll?”

“Did you hear me, bitch?” the guy hollered. “I said get back here!”

She pushed past me and went down the stairs.

“Yeah, fuck you, then,” I said as the door slammed shut behind me. I was there for a reason, and she wasn’t it.

I turned the corner and went down the hall until I found 613. When I knocked, someone in there threw something; then footsteps stomped up to the door.

“Fucking bitch,” a guy said under his breath from inside.

The door flew open and a big guy stood there. He had on a tank top to show off his big arms, but half his size was fat. I knew his type; they showed up at the arena all the time. They had big arms and big mouths, but they couldn’t go three rounds.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, making a face. He was the same guy that yelled after the girl.

“I’m looking for Zoe Ott. She in?”

“Who?”

“Ott. Scrawny. Red hair. Big beak.”

That made him mad. He knew who she was.

“Oh, that bitch.”

“She here or not?”

“You got the wrong apartment,” he said.

“Records say she lives here, asshole,” I said. The guy was starting to piss me off.

“They’re wrong, dyke.”

I checked her last known address again to make sure. The number said 613. I looked past him to try to see in, but he moved to block me.

“I said she ain’t here!”

“Did she used to live here?”

“You a cop?”

“No, asshole—”

“Then get the fuck out before I either call one or kick your ugly ass out of here.”

“Like you kicked your lady’s ass?”

He gave me the finger and went to shut the door.

“Yeah, I bet that’s the only thing you ever get up you, limp dick,” I said through the crack, and the door stopped. It opened back up, and the dude’s face was red.

“What’d you just say to me?”

“I said fat pieces of shit who hit their lady can’t make their dick get ha—”

He moved faster than I thought he would, and he caught me off guard. He put his hand on my left tit and shoved me hard. I went back on my ass, cracking my head on the wall behind me.

“Fuck you, bitch!”

That was it. I was pissed before, but that was it. He looked surprised when I got back up and came at him. He even tried to shut the door, but he didn’t make it. It slammed against my boot and I shoved it back open with my shoulder. I reached through with my dead hand and grabbed a fistful of tank top and skin, then pulled him out into the hallway.

“Ow! You fu—”

Still holding him with my left hand, I creamed him with my right fist, and he went down like a sack of sand. He wasn’t out, though, just pissed.

“You want it like that?” he said, blood coming out of his nose as he got up. He came at me like a bull and got his big arms around me when he hit. My boots came up off the floor and he heaved me back with his fat gut. I went down on my back, and he came stomping toward me.

“You want it like that?” he said again. “Get up bit—”

From the floor I shot my leg out and put the heel of my boot right in his paunch. His eyes bugged and I thought he’d puke, but he just staggered back. His face went dark when I got up, and I saw death in his eyes. The guy was a straight-up psycho. He blew blood through his nose, down onto his shirt.

“You’re dead, bitch . . .”

He came at me, and I swung. I broke his jaw, but he kept coming. A door opened behind him and someone looked out, but went right back in. He slammed me into the wall by the stairs and I locked my wrists behind his fat back.

I squirmed under his sweaty arm, scooting behind him. With his gut hanging over my arms, I spun him, pulling him down until we hit the stairwell door and it banged open. He went down on the landing with me on top of him.

People get a look when they start to lose a fight, when they know the beat-down is coming. He got that look when he fell. He went nuts, trying to buck me off and get back up, but he didn’t have the abs for it. I got one knee on his left shoulder, pinning him, and planted my other foot a couple steps down. I hit him with the dead fist, and his lip split open. I hit him with the right, and one of his teeth broke off.

I’d been put in the hospital twice in my life, both times by fuckers like him. I forgot about the skinny bitch with the weird eyes. I hit him again and his nose crunched under my fist. The door slammed open behind me.

“I’m calling the cops!” an old woman screamed. “You hear me?”

He tried to push himself away, but he slipped and started going down the stairs. The door slammed shut as he rolled, landing on his back on the next landing down. I followed him and put the toe of my boot in his ribs. I kicked him twice more, then knelt back over him. I hit him in the face until he shut up and quit moving.

I stood back up and wiped my nose. It was bleeding. He was in a heap in the corner, nose mashed and mouth full of blood. My knuckle was cut and blood was coming out fast, dripping off the ends of my fingers.

I could hear people out in the hall, and from up above. It was time to get out of there.

“Asshole.”

The trip was a bust. The bitch was going to have to wait. I took the steps two at a time down to the ground floor and went out the way I came before the cops showed up.

Faye Dasalia—The Healing Hands Clinic

Deep within the shadows of a disused alley, I slipped between a trash bin and a brick wall, into a dark culde-sac. The ground was littered with trash, where pitted brown ice still lingered from winter. On the far side was a rusted metal door, near where a group of homeless men were huddled underneath a plastic tarp. A sign on the door read HEALING HANDS CLINIC.

Incoming call: Fawkes, Samuel.

I’d expected another contact from him. I’d been lucky at the restaurant. With the lip-reading software, I’d transcribed some interesting information. Motoko was trying to recruit Nico. They knew Fawkes had the weapons. Nico, at least, had drawn a connection to Concrete Falls.

The only thing I hadn’t shared was one phrase, one that Motoko had repeated to Nico:
You kill Fawkes
. I wasn’t sure yet why I hadn’t told him.

Call Accepted.

I’ve reviewed your report, Faye.

And what have you decided?

That giving Wachalowski the information he wants would be extremely risky.

Fawkes had gathered a lot of concrete data. Over the years he had tracked down many names, and had verified connections between them. He had connected many secret accounts, and traced money trails to key politicians. He’d managed to peel back their many layers and identified their many different fronts. He tracked their holdings and their hidden assets. He knew where they’d based themselves, and the chain of their command. Outside a court of law, he could prove it all, but exposing them would accomplish nothing. Those told would simply forget, and all Fawkes would expose was how much he knew.

Still . . .

It is the only thing that will convince him,
I said.

I agree, but I’ll only authorize a small piece, and we must control it carefully. I’ll draw something up to present to him. It will have to be enough.

He won’t kill her anyway.

I’ve seen Wachalowski’s war record, Faye; don’t be so sure. He’s made decisions that might surprise you.

He didn’t offer up what those might have been. It didn’t really matter.

Lev is waiting for you. He’ll have your work detail.

I understand. May I ask you one question?

Yes.

Why attempt the shooting at the restaurant?

I’d not been told that the shot was coming. After, I saw him follow the trail of smoke, and spot the hole in the glass. I had to move quickly to get off the street, as the paparazzi swarmed. The slug had passed within six inches of me.

I didn’t order that,
Fawkes said.
If killing her was that easy, I’d have done it by now.

Then who fired the rail gun?

Not a revivor. Maybe one of the Second Chance recruits acting on his own.

With a million-dollar high-tech weapon?

Maybe she staged the assassination.

You think the shooting was staged?

I don’t know. Like you said; not many people have access to a weapon like that. I’m looking into it. Concentrate on Wachalowski for now.

Understood.

The call dropped, and I moved toward the metal door as the words faded away.

No direct sunlight could reach the area, but neither could rain or snow. It was cold, but I sensed warmth under the tarp. I sensed the low, staggered beats of the men’s hearts, and one conspicuous pocket of silence. Two eyes opened in the dark, and cast a moonlit glow into the alley.

When the revivor moved, the living men stirred, but not much and not for long. Except for the eyes, it looked no different from them. In the cold, no one noticed its lack of warmth. Under layers of dirt, blankets, and plastic, it was ignored completely.

It thumped the metal door three times with its fist. A moment later, I heard a dead bolt turn and the door opened slowly.

Lev appeared in the dark space, his eyes staring down from under his thick brow. His expression didn’t change, but he extended a private connection. I accepted it, and he began to stream. This assignment would be different from field work, but it would be simpler. One of the revivors who was stationed there was receiving the upgrade. He assured me the job was temporary, and understood why I cared; some of us liked the quiet, but I wasn’t one of them. It left too much time to pick through memories and to contemplate the blackness beneath them.

You’re in luck tonight,
he said.

How is that?

Tonight will not be quiet.

He walked into the darkness, and I followed. The door creaked closed behind us.

He led me down a cinderblock corridor, to an old wooden door at the halfway point. At the far end was another heavy door, a slit of light underneath. In the hall, I could smell rubbing alcohol and human body odor. Lev pushed open the wooden door and stepped through.

Inside was a musty storage area. Boxes had been stacked up along the far wall, but had since been pushed aside. In the space between them was a heavy door, made of thick, shielded metal. A security scanner was mounted there, its lens glowing a soft red.

Lev stooped slightly and placed one eye to the lens, which flickered and turned to green. The door opened silently, and a huff of humid air blew over me. Through the metal door, I saw sheets of plastic. The eyes of revivors stared from along the walls there. I heard the hum of electronics inside, and heavy, scraping footsteps.

I’d heard groupings of revivors called nests and, on one occasion, hives. The terms were meant to be derogatory, but there was some truth to them. I found a certain comfort in these places, the stillness and the quiet. In life, I might have called the feeling cozy. The vibrations of their hearts and the faint smell of decomp inhibitor had become familiar and safe to me.

Lev and I found empty spots along the wall, and watched the figures move behind the plastic as we tuned to each other, out of the common communications pool, to share our thoughts in silence.

What do you think of the upgrade?
Lev asked me.

I like the different voices,
I said,
even if I can’t understand them. It’s hard for me to explain.

I sense hundreds of them,
Lev said.

Yes, me too.

Like tuning to a common pool, but larger.

Yes.

I like the sound, too,
he said.
I think they’re a promise of something greater
.

Across the room, his eyes jittered rapidly in tune, I knew, with my own. I thought that was a good way of putting it; the whispers were a promise. A new community about to wake.

Where do they come from?
I asked.

You’ll see for yourself tonight.

Fawkes said they might be dreaming.

He’s being poetic. I think it’s subconscious bleed-back from wired humans who are still alive.

Do you know that for a fact?

No, but it’s what I think.

Before Lev was made into a revivor, I eventually learned, he had been an engineer. His knowledge was put to use by his captors, before he was turned and packaged with the rest. He’d fought in Orikhiv for close to two years, before its collapse, when he was impounded. Later, he would end up on the black market.