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I WOKE UP WHEN AGENT Ramirez slapped my cheek. “Joseph? Joseph?”
“Déjà vu,” I mumbled.
“Indeed. Seems we’ve been here before.”
“Except this time I’m strapped to a chair. Whassamatter? You don’t trust me?” My body ached from head to toe. A quick inspection suggested no serious damage—a minor miracle considering I was blown up by a rocket and slammed around a tumbling van. “What happened?”
“The vehicle carrying you and your terrorist friends was intercepted by a man-portable missile on Golf Road, in Schaumburg. Do you remember that?” The agent’s eyes were bloodshot, and his tie hung askew. He stifled a yawn.
“Yeah, gotcha. What about the... others?”
“Two dead, five injured. Including you. Very lucky you survived at all.”
“Who died in the crash?” I asked the question to gain a few seconds. The sticky clouds filling my brain were clearing, but I needed time to think.
“Who cares who died? What did you think you were doing?”
“What you told me. Getting inside the Children of Liberty.”
He snorted. “Children, indeed. A stupid plan that has done nothing but stir up more trouble. Did you know there are already riots in DC? Those videos have sent people into the streets. Riots, Warren. A lot of people will die because of what you did tonight.” He rubbed his eyes. “Why can’t people simply behave? Why must they be so... so deviant?”
“Ummm... free will?”
“Don’t make me laugh. We’d be better off with a nation of B-Mod Revivants.”
A paintbrush dipped in ice water washed my spine. He sounded like he meant it.
“So, Joseph. I suppose finding the video file location is moot. Where is the MacCauley woman? Where’s her base of operation?”
“What about Ding? Deandre, Signe? And Chelle? What happens to them now?”
“Stop wasting my time.”
“They’re gone, aren’t they?”
“No coming back from B-Mod, Joe. Once injected, forever implanted.” Ramirez straightened his tie, seemed to pull himself out of his funk. “Now, answer my question and at least you can walk away. I’ll only ask you this once: Where are the Children hiding?”
My tongue stuck solid, and a baseball-sized lump settled in my windpipe. Here it was, laid out clear as a pane of glass. I could tell Ramirez everything I knew. About the entrance to the tunnels inside Franklin’s building and the one in the downtown parking garage. How the Children had more than four thousand men, women, and children living underground, under the feet of downtown Chicago pedestrians. I could give everything up and babble away all my secrets. Ramirez would invade the tunnels and massacre the entire population. Game over for Millie and John. What happened to me? Did I live or die? Would I care?
The alternative answer?
“Fuck you, Ramirez.”
I never saw him move. My head rocked, and my cheek burned from the slap. A high-pitched whine started in my ears.
“Shit, Ramirez,” I slurred. “Girl scouts hit harder than that.”
Smack! My head snapped to the opposite side. Now I had cheek burns on both sides.
“Joe,” he chided. “What’s gotten into you? Your time playing soldier started a spine growing down your back? Huh?” He slapped me again. My head bounced like a tennis ball being volleyed from side to side.
I spat blood between my feet. “You trying to hit me or fuck me, Ramirez? I’ve had rougher foreplay.”
A hard fist cracked my nose, and pretty lights sparked behind my eyes. My head jumped straight back this time.
“I don’t have time for this. Bring him in,” Ramirez ordered. I paid attention to the room for the first time. Me, in a straight-back plastic chair, arms and feet strapped down, sitting across from Ramirez in a similar chair, not strapped down. Duh. Stark room, no other furniture, a single light directly overhead, centered between the two of us. A hulking figure by the door, now leaving.
“Cheery place,” I said. “I like what you’ve done with it.”
“Tell me what happened, Joe.” Ramirez seemed sad, almost regretful. “Did the cute little MacCauley woman pussy-whip you? Did you convert to the cause? What did they say in the old days? Did you drink the Coca-Cola?”
“Kool-Aid, you prick. Drink the Kool-Aid.” My head hurt. I rolled it in a circle to loosen my neck.
“Tell me where they live, and I’ll make it easy.”
“What does it matter? The video’s out.”
“My orders are to eliminate the Children of Liberty, regardless of the video. Traitors to the core, each and every one of them.”
The door opened, and two goons carried in a slumping Alex de Galvez. Bloody bandages wrapped his bare upper torso, and his face was black and blue with purple all over. Agent Maravich trailed in behind carrying another plastic chair. He set the chair next to Ramirez, and the goons deposited Alex hard enough he grunted and his eyes popped open. Alex focused on me and tried out a weak smile.
“Hello, Joe,” he rasped.
“It seems,” Ramirez said as the two goons left, “all the insiders of the CoL have been injected with blocking agents that counteract the effects of our strongest truth-eliciting drugs. Using synthetic material to gain information has proved fruitless. Likewise, hypnotic blockers have defeated the... less pleasant ways of gaining information.”
“So you’re fucked. Sounds great. Can we go now?”
Ramirez’s lips compressed in a thin line. “Hardly fucked, sir. Hardly. I still have you.”
“Kiss my skinny ass, Ramirez.”
“Atta boy, Joe,” Alex mumbled. His eyes had closed again, and he slumped in the chair, held upright only by Maravich’s hand on his shoulder.
“Do you see what my companion is holding?” The agent waved a lazy hand. Maravich showed me an injector with a vial of blue liquid loaded in the delivery chamber. “That’s Gen I RVT 0287-A. The earliest working version of Revivant nanobots. They were never meant for human hosts. Do you want to know what happens if Agent Maravich injects them into Mr. de Galvez?”
I jerked against the restraints. “You fuck. Don’t do it.”
Alex opened his eyes in alarm. He stirred, and Maravich’s hand tightened on his shoulder.
“Mr. de Galvez,” Ramirez said, “will experience a lifetime of pain as the nanobots convert his living tissue to their own needs. They will invade his limbs, causing agonizing paralysis. From there, they will creep into his stomach, claiming his liver, kidneys, and bowels. All the excess waste in the body will be expelled as the nanos clean the system. His lungs will be commandeered, as will his heart, as the microscopic devices reprogram the nerves to react to their input instead of the brain’s.” Ramirez leaned forward, and the overhead painted his face in a Phantom of the Opera Halloween mask. “Then they will find that very brain they have just shut off from the rest of the body, and they will alter the neural pathways to suit their programming, creating a janitor, or a soldier, or... any number of useful citizens. Did you know there is a growing sex industry using Revivants? Seriously! I would not have believed it myself, but hey, to each his own, huh?”
“Don’t.” I wasn’t proud of the note of whiny pleading I heard in my own voice, but I was powerless to change it. “Please don’t.”
“You can stop it, Joseph.” Ramirez leaned back and held his palms up. “It’s simple. Tell me where the Children abide, and Mr. de Galvez may avoid this fate. He will not be forced to feel his own body being eaten away from the inside, one millimeter at a time.”
“No, Joe,” Alex whispered. Tears flooded his cheeks and dripped from his chin. “Don’t do it. It’s not worth it.”
“Goddammit, Alex.” My heart thudded, and heat rushed into my face.
“One last time, Joseph. Where are the Children of Liberty?”
“I...”
“No,” Alex pleaded. “Don’t say anything.”
“Ramirez...”
“Yes, Joseph.”
My throat worked as words tried to form in my head. What could I say that would get us out of this? All my life, I’d been quick with a snappy comeback. Words came easily; I used them like a weapon. The only words in my head were: Tell him they’re in the tunnels! My eyes locked on Alex’s. The rest of the room blacked out, leaving only the connection between his liquid dark pupils and my own. Across that gap, as powerful and real as a megawatt of electricity traveling on 10-gauge steel wire, his... I don’t know what else to call it except soul... jumped from him to me. It filled me with strength, like a direct charge of the power inherent in our shared humanity. Our hope for the future. Our passion for life and our willingness to die for the people we...
Loved.
“It’s okay, Joe,” Alex whispered.
“Well,” Ramirez demanded. “Time’s up. Where are they?”
“I’ll tell you,” I sighed and slumped, the connection from Alex de Galvez broken. How could I do this?
Ramirez leaned forward again, transforming himself again to the Phantom of the Opera. “Yes?”
“Everyone’s down at the dog shelter. Watching your mother pump out a new litter.”
Ramirez eased back with a long, sibilant sigh. He shook his head, as if disappointed by an unruly child. It’s a look I recognized because I’d seen it all my life. Except from Alex, who beamed enough approval to light a fire in my heart.
“I’m sorry, bro,” I told him, and meant it.
“It’s okay, Joe. I’m proud to have known you.”
“Enough of this shit.” Ramirez grunted. “Hit him.”
“About time,” Maravich said. He jabbed the injector to Alex’s shoulder and hit the trigger.
Alex lasted five excruciating minutes. He screamed the whole time. I held his gaze as long as he could manage.
When it was over, Ramirez said, “Joseph, I have to say you surprised me. It’s too bad, really.”
“Whatever. Suck on it.”
“I wonder...” He paused so long I cranked my head up and cocked an eyebrow. “I wonder if you have been with the Children long enough to get your inoculations against our truth agents. How about it, Joseph? You remember getting any injections?”
Oh shit. Nobody gave me any shots. Did they?
My answer must have been written on my features. The short Homeland agent’s face broke out in a genuine smile. “I thought not. Wait here, will you? I’ll be right back.”
***
LIGHTS.
Ow, that hurts.
Questions. Why are they asking me questions?
Shut up.
Go away.
What? I don’t understand.
I need to puke.
Oh, fuck, just kill me, okay? Get it over with.
No.
No, I don’t know. Stop asking me.
Wait, what’s that? Get aw—Ow! Oh... Um, that’s nice. Everything’s all floaty.
What? Sure. Why didn’t you say so? Yeah, that’s easy.
***
IN MY DREAM, SOMEONE was screaming.
A racking, bitter, horrid scream that never stopped. It was dark, and I couldn’t tell who was wailing. Shut up, I’m trying to sleep. But they wouldn’t. The shrieking paused for a moment, only so the tortured soul could draw breath to reload the scream machine.
Fuck this. Wake up and tell ’em to can it.
I cracked my eyes open. The howling continued.
Bright overheads. Reek of chemicals. Bleach overlaying a smell of shit. And a sound of pure, animal agony ripped from the core of a human soul. An ice demon gripped my heart in his frozen fingers and squeezed. I shivered and clenched my groin to keep from wetting myself. The type of pain required to induce that level of anguish...
I shifted, and paper crackled. Eyes squinted against the white light, I peered through fluttering eyelids. A hospital room? More like a ward. Six beds. I was at the end of the row, on an examination table. Sterile environment. One wall with a row of cabinets and a countertop. Medical crap all over the counter. Against the far wall, one of the beds was tilted upright, and, strapped in place, Private Perlmutter shrieked in mortal agony. Next to him stood Agent Maravich, holding an injector and pursing his lips in deep concentration as Perlmutter screamed his guts out.
“Stop it,” I commanded Maravich. Or I tried to. My voice came out kittenish, more of a mewl than a roar.
I levered up to a sitting position, and my movement must have caught the agent’s attention. He shot me a grin and said, “Your turn next, Warren.”
Perlmutter stopped screaming, like a faucet being turned off. A glassy, faraway look came into his eyes, just like a... just like Alex.
“A Revivant.” Panic raked my throat with grimy claws. “You killed him and made him a Revivant.”
“Eh, not quite.” Maravich shrugged. “More like: I made him a Revvie and killed him.”
“You’re a sick fuck, you know it.” My voice burred, rough and raspy. Aches and pains woke up and begged for attention. My left shoulder grated when I shifted that arm, pain slicing from the joint to my ribs. My guts hurt, as if a heavyweight boxer had been pounding my midsection for a few rounds, and I couldn’t be sure my legs would hold me if I tried standing.
Pain won’t bother me long if Maravich injects me with nanobots. Suck it up.
I flexed my muscles and breathed through the pain. I’d been banged up enough before. The sensation of working through pain was nothing new. Pain was nothing but a message from pissed-off tissue. Shut off the communication and block it out.
The burly agent busied himself unstrapping the former Private Perlmutter and settling his feet to the floor. He snagged a horseshoe-shaped collar from a rack and slipped it around the soldier-turned-Revivant’s head. Maravich crossed to a virtual keyboard on the counter and typed a series of commands.
Perlmutter twitched and ventured a step, followed by another. In a second, he marched to the door like a wind-up toy. Maravich tapped a key, and the door buzzed open in advance of the marine’s jerky steps. The dead marine exited, and the door swung shut behind him, locking with a click. Maravich entered some more commands, and it sounded as though another door opened and closed.
“Now for you, Mr. Warren.” Maravich sharked his teeth. He threw the used injector in a medical waste bin. There were four others exactly like it lined up on the counter, filled with blue liquid. “Why don’t you come on over so I don’t have to drag your ass kicking and screaming. Sooner started, sooner done.”
I cleared my throat. “I talked, didn’t I?”
“Like a schoolgirl,” Maravich gloated.
I have to get out of here.