Zero State Page 9

  When he finally reached her, it felt like he'd been crawling for hours.

  He gripped Zoe's hand, pressed his forehead against hers, and waited for it to end.

  CHAPTER 12

  Dante closed the door to the holding cell. The walls inside were white. There was a cot, a toilet, and a sink. Eliza stood in the center of the floor, wearing hospital pajamas and slippers.

  Beyond the outer layers of security, there were no cameras inside The Farm. Nothing here was legal, and the people running the show were smart enough not to document their own crimes. Dante had never had to work too hard to hide his extracurricular activities.

  His heart rate was already increasing, sweat had already begun to roll down his underarms. He didn't fully understand his attraction to Eliza. She had plain, brutish features and the kind of muscular body that made watching the women's Olympics such a turn off.

  But here he was, getting hard just being alone in a room with her.

  He'd spent some time thinking about this attraction and had decided it had something to do with power, with dominance. The fact that she was so strong, so capable of violence, and he could exhibit such control over her. That was the turn on.

  It also might explain why he favored Eliza over the others. She was the strongest of the female operators, and she had more confirmed kills than any of the males.

  From time to time, the male operators had crept into Dante's fantasies as well. Not as objects to be played with, but as stand-in cuckolds. He hadn't worked up the courage to try it yet, but one day soon he would bring one of the males into the room to stand by passively as he groped a female.

  Or maybe he'd do more than grope.

  He'd never taken things beyond that. Not yet.

  Eliza was standing in front of him, her leg touching the edge of the cot.

  He stepped closer and ran his hand over her buzzcut hair. It was both bristly and soft, and made him think of tracing his thumb over a fine layer of pubic hair that was just starting to grow in after having been shaved away.

  His arm snapped violently to the side. Eliza had struck him.

  He hit the floor, fear and panic flooding his brain. It was more than the shock of sudden violence. It was the sudden shock of learning a long-held belief was false. His bosses had told him—told everyone working at The Farm—that the operators were conditioned to never harm any member of the staff, conditioned to obey every staff member's command without question.

  Either someone had miscalculated, or his bosses had fed him and everyone else a line of bullshit.

  He landed on his arm and the whole right side of his body lit up with pain. There was blood. A jagged spear of bone jutted from his forearm.

  He rolled on to his back, hyperventilating, his breaths short wheezing sobs. Eliza gripped him by the throat and dragged him into a seated position, his back against the wall. The pain was at a level he had never experienced, that he hadn't known was possible.

  "Eliza… Eliza… stop…" The words were strangled squeaks. She tightened her grip on his throat. He watched jagged bones sprout from the wound as she bent his broken arm in a way it was not meant to bend. The pain became incomprehensible. Dante was reduced to a desperate, clawing, squirming animal.

  He fought uselessly as she inserted a stalk of splintered bone into his eye.

  ***

  A hard push drove the bone through the brain. Eliza wrenched the arm back and forth, scrambling Dante's gray matter.

  She exhaled, realizing she'd been holding her breath. She was still gripping Dante by the throat. His body jerked with violent spasms as it finished dying.

  She let go. She straightened her legs and stood. Her heart was pounding inside her chest. The cell felt like a box compared to the world she had lived in during the past few days—the open sky above the sea, the park she'd slept in one night, the scenery beyond the window of the bus. She fought the urge to run outside, back to that world. She looked down at Dante, his fractured arm pinned to his face, and knew they would kill her for this.

  But they had intended to kill her anyway. That's what the doctor had meant. Recycle her. Grow a new one.

  It was at that moment that it had truly sunk in for Eliza—she wasn't human. The people that surrounded her did not see her as one of their own, and she did not see them as one of her own.

  Her mind flashed on the memory of Daniel's chest exploding, of his lifeless body collapsing in the mud.

  Everything that happened after this was a matter of one species fighting for survival against another.

  ***

  The set of keys in Dante's pocket opened nearly every door in The Farm. Eliza padded away from her cell on bare feet. She didn't engage any of the guards she encountered, and instead slipped past them unnoticed.

  She made her way to the sleeping quarters she shared with the other operators, a single room lined with sixteen bunk beds. Twelve bunks were occupied by males and females in gray pajamas. Four bunks were empty. One of the empty bunks belonged to her. The one next to it had belonged to Daniel.

  She had no idea what time of day it was. Either very late or very early, because everyone here was asleep. Almost everyone. Adam stood from his bunk when she entered the room. At first he didn't seem to recognize her. Then he did, and the expression on his face turned to a mixture of relief and fear.

  "Eliza," he said. "We thought you were gone. Are the others…"

  "They're dead. Killed during the mission. Daniel is dead, shot in the back, blown to pieces in front of me."

  Adam's eyes hardened. "Who killed him?"

  "I don't know his name. He was there for the same thing we were."

  Around them, the others were waking up.

  Eliza looked at her brothers and sisters. They all shared the same strong, plain faces, the same muscular bodies.

  She held up her hands. Her fingers and palms were still wet with blood.

  "I killed Dante," she said. "I've been here since last night, inside a cell. The doctor said I'm damaged, that I won't work anymore. He said to get rid of me. Dante came to my cell, and I killed him."

  She let the weight of what she was saying settle over the room.

  Then she showed them Dante's keys, smudged with her bloody fingerprints.

  "What do you need us to do?" Adam asked.

  ***

  They used the keys to unlock the door to the armory. They changed from gray pajamas into black combat fatigues and body armor. They painted black stripes across their faces. They loaded guns. They sheathed knives. They filled their pockets with ammo mags and grenades. They stood, ready for battle, and looked to Eliza for what to do next.

  She stood in front of the armory door. She was unplugged from the secondmind, but her thoughts were moving fast, like part of the secondmind was still there. Like so many hours of exposure had reshaped the way her thinking worked. Or maybe this way of thinking had always been there, and had only now come un-tethered because her survival demanded it. All of their survival demanded it.

  Her heart pounded inside her chest.

  The other operators looked at her, waiting for their orders.

  "We take out the guard towers and then work our way back in. Kill everyone."

  CHAPTER 13

  The man's voice sounded like a lifetime of cigar smoke and barking orders.

  "Nap time's over."

  A boot nudged Logan in the ribs. He looked up at the voice's owner. The first thing he noticed was that the guy had to be pushing seventy. He had a face that was more lined than wrinkled, the skin stretched tight over a hard brow and harder jaw. He wore black cargo pants and a black t-shirt, with a knife sheathed over each massive pectoral. His hair and stubble were gray, but his age ended at the neck: he had the physique of a professional bodybuilder, with arms that look like they'd been carved out of trees and a torso like stacked bricks.

  The boot nudged Logan again. His head lolled. He became aware of someone leaning on his
back, a head against his shoulder. A soft moan told him it was Zoe.

  They were on a concrete floor, back to back. Their arms had been tied together with strips of fabric. The restraints weren't necessary—Logan's limbs felt like cooked pasta, an aftereffect of the sound grenade. He couldn't have fought off a stray kitten.

  Zoe coughed, and moaned again. "Fuck you, Barnes."

  Logan tried to speak. It was a few attempts before his voice made any sound.

  "You know this asshole?"

  "You know me too, Logan," the man named Barnes said. "Or at least we've met before. It was about... Oh, I guess it was four years ago." Barnes named a place Logan hadn't thought about in a long time. "Remember that?"

  Logan remembered the job, but not the man he was talking to. It didn't surprise him. He met guys like this on every job. He didn't offer a response.

  There were two other men in the room, both wearing black, both holding shock sticks—basically cattle prods designed to be used on humans. Painful but non-lethal. Neither carried guns, not even sidearms. This meant they weren't looking to cause any serious harm to him or Zoe. At least Logan hoped that's what it meant.

  Light filtered through dirty windows. The air tasted dusty and stale. The walls were sealed with some kind of waterproof paint, and pockets of trapped moisture bubbled on the surface like blisters, giving it the look of diseased skin. Logan thought of the man he'd taken off the island. As they'd floated in the middle of the ocean, waiting to be collected, Logan had looked through the window of the coffin-pod. The body inside looked like it had been dragged behind a truck. Blood was leaking from the eyes and bubbling at the mouth. More blood was leaking from burst ulcers that covered the face. He reminded himself there were far worse situations to be in.

  Zoe said, "Who tried to scrub us the other night?"

  "Rival corporation. It was a business matter. Six months ago, one of our employees killed a few of theirs and pissed off the wrong decision makers. This was retaliation. You weren't the only ones targeted, but you are currently the only team that's fully intact."

  "How many?" Zoe asked. "How many dead?"

  "There were fifty simultaneous strikes. Nineteen handlers were killed, seventeen operators, and ninety-three company men."

  Logan did the math. A hundred and thirty people, minus one. He felt Zoe's heart pounding through her back.

  Barnes continued. "It was a hell of a coordinated scrub. At least half the shooters were double agents, guys who'd been working for us for years. The others were a mix of freelancers and full-timers. We captured a few, killed a few more, and the rest have gone off the grid. Looks like their new company gave them all their vacation days up front. But none of that's important. A cease-fire has been negotiated and signed. There's a no-retaliation clause. It's done, and business needs to continue as usual."

  Logan asked, "Does this have anything to do with what was on that island?"

  "Are you talking about the plague or the mutants that were trying to take it?"

  "Either. Both."

  "Don't worry about the plague, we've got that stowed away. I supervised the delivery myself. And the people behind the scrub don't want any part of that, they made that clear during negotiations. As far as the four things you killed during the op, we have no idea. Who the fuck they were, what the fuck they were, how many more there are. The labs are reviewing the footage. Judging by what we saw, they're not human, at least not in the traditional sense. By the way, you have no right to any of this fucking information, I'm telling it to you purely as a matter of professional courtesy."

  "Appreciated," Logan said.

  Zoe spoke up. "You still haven't told us why we're here."

  "I was getting to that. It's pretty easy to figure out that the events of the past few days have left us a bit short staffed. That means a lot of projects just got wait-listed. But a few others have very limited windows of opportunity and are deemed too valuable to let pass."

  "You grabbed us to offer us a job?"

  "First, we're not offering you anything. You're taking this job. End of negotiation. And second, you assholes opened fire on us."

  "You chased us down."

  "What the fuck were we supposed to do? Reach out on one of your secure sites? Call you and ask you to come in? You would have been so spooked you'd have turned to ether. We need you. So we gave you enough slack to move around a little bit and then we moved in."

  "How'd you know we would meet up?"

  Barnes laughed. "You think you're the first pair of handler-operators we ever tracked down? Nine out of ten times, one always leads to the other."

  The conversation was dragging on. Logan was tired of sitting here, on the cold floor, his arms tied, his mind and body exhausted. He wanted to leave and find someplace to sleep. "What's the job?" he asked.

  Barnes turned to the two men standing by the door. They nodded and left. It was time to talk business.

  When the door closed, Barnes said, "You've heard of Paradime?"

  "The social media company?"

  "That's the one."

  "I don't use it."

  "Me either," Zoe added.

  "Well, a billion other assholes on this planet do. And if you read up on your tech news, you'd know they've moved beyond status updates, shitty targeted ads, and collecting consumer data. On to things like implantable technologies, smart drugs, and 'transparency initiatives' which is just a friendlier way of saying 'mass surveillance.' Hell, they're even talking about starting their own space program."

  Zoe asked the next logical question, "What are we stealing from them?"

  "Something called 'Outcome.' A new thing being worked on inside a lab on their San Francisco campus." Barnes unsheathed one of his knives and knelt down beside them. The blade cut through the fabric binding their arms with a flick of his wrist.

  Barnes re-sheathed his knife. Logan separated from Zoe and stood, or tried to. He only managed a squat. Zoe stayed seated a moment longer, her hands flat on the floor for balance.

  "What's this thing do?"

  "They're not telling us. We don't need to know."

  This wasn't unusual. Logan had worked a dozen other grabs where he had no idea what he was stealing. The people in charge liked to spread knowledge thin, limit how much any one person knew about the whole operation. The thing Logan had taken from the island was a perfect example. They hadn't told him if the contagion was bacterial or viral, if it had a name. They'd only told him how it was transmitted.

  "How big is it?" Logan asked. "Is it unstable, radioactive, hazardous in any way?"

  "It's a piece of computer hardware, smaller than a breadbox. No radiation or hazardous components. Before I send you on your way, I'll be giving you a dossier that contains any information you need to complete the grab, including a picture of the device."

  "What's our timeframe?"

  "You need to be in San Francisco two days from now. Logan has already been set up with a job on the Paradime campus, fitness instructor," Barnes chuckled. "The grab happens next week, when Paradime's CEO, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Business Officer will all be out of the country, one for vacation, the other two at a business conference in Johannesburg. All three have a personal interest in the Outcome project, and tend to work odd hours. We don't want any of them injured or killed if they walk in during the middle of the grab—they might invent something else we want to steal in the future."

  "You're expecting a body count?" Logan asked.

  Barnes laughed. "Oh, we'd like this to go smoothly and quietly. But you should have figured out by now that we don't really hire you for the jobs we think will go smoothly and quietly. We hire you because you know who to shoot when a plan goes to shit."

  Zoe was standing now, leaning against a wall, testing out the strength in her legs. "What does this job pay?" she asked.

  "Twice you usual fee. Also, a 'no-compete, no-retaliation' clause will be added to your contracts. This means
that once the grab is over, and if it is completed successfully, you can walk away from all of this. And you'll have the company's legally-bound word that there will be no retaliation, as long as you're not working for a competitor." Barnes grinned, "Though, why you'd want to give all this up is a mystery to me."

  ***

  They were dropped off outside Logan's apartment.

  "Good luck, kids," Barnes said, leaning over the passenger seat as Logan stepped out of the vehicle. "We'll be in touch." Logan closed the door and stood next to Zoe. Together, they watched the pair of black vehicles disappear down the single road that led to and from the industrial park.

  It was Saturday, and Logan's neighbors had the weekend off. The place was deserted.

  Logan looked at his watch and saw that it was barely past noon. It felt later. The sky was sunless and crowded with dark gray clouds, like dusk was already approaching. The sleepless night, the violent morning, and the thousands of miles of travel over the past days added to the feeling, leaving him without any sense of place or time. He had to remind himself that he was standing outside his home.

  The conversation with Barnes had taken place inside a derelict building on the outskirts of the feral city, a few miles from the scene of that morning's battle. The drive here had taken an hour. Logan and Zoe hadn't exchanged a word in that time, operating under some unspoken agreement to deal with the situation later.

  Zoe held a parcel in her hands. It contained driver's licenses, passports, phones, credit cards, and various other effects for the identities they would be using, as well as a hard drive with all the available information about what they needed to steal and the layers of security surrounding it. All the stuff they would add to the list of things to deal with tomorrow.

  Just another job, he told himself. And he'd be able to walk away afterward, with the promise that there would be no retaliation, though he wasn't sure how much he trusted that promise. Corporate power was power on a scale beyond comprehension. If they'd wanted him dead they could vaporize his entire apartment with an antimatter bomb. If they wanted him for another job they'd send Barnes to put a boot on his throat. He thought of all the people that had been killed over the past few days. A hundred and twenty-nine freelancers and full-time employees from the organization he worked for, plus whatever the other side had lost. That was the reality he was living in.