Walking Ghost Phase (41 page)

“Where are they?”

“
I don't see them!”

“
I'm hit, I'm—”

“
Get out of—”

“
They're in the floorboards. Fire at the fl—”

“
Help me.”

The bursts of gunfire slowly tapered off to a few shots, and then they ended.
Different muffled voices now came through the headset. Emily pushed the helmet closer to her ear, listening.

“
Awesome plan.”

“
Yeah, we smoked them.”

“
But we're still here?”

“
Is one of them alive?”

“
Not that I can tell.”

“
So why hasn't the Sim ended?”

“
Not sure.”

“
Guys, guys, guys. I only count thirty-nine bodies.”

“
You're telling me they left one person at base? One friggin' person?”

“
Dammit, you mean we've got to run all the way over there?”

Emily smiled.
And I won't even fire a shot.

“
A couple minutes run and we can go to bed. Can't complain.”

“
Let's do it.”

The thud of boots faded to silence, and the radio went quiet.
Soon the blur of eight black figures raced toward her, getting larger, closer. Sitting on the ledge and in perfect view, she gave them an easy target. They only needed enough range to pick her off with a single, well-placed shot. The attackers moved closer still.

Emily shut her eyes, expecting the killing bullet to strike her at any moment, the darkness to seal off her senses, the long and painful wait. She was ready. Footsteps circled the dirt below. The attackers definitely had the range.
“Do it,” she screamed.

Something rattled behind her.
“Kill you?” the attacker asked. “Why would I do that?”

Emily
's chest tightened, suffocating the beat of her heart. Her heels dug into the building side. The voice didn't exist. It couldn't.
The Sim is messing with my mind.

The attacker wrapped his arms around her body.
“I'm not going to leave you this time.”

“
You're not real. This is Stallings' idea of a joke.” She stared at the sky. “Haha, Stallings. You got me.” Then she turned her cheek, feeling the soldier's skin, recognizing its touch. “Just kill me so your squad can get to sleep.”

“
Look at me, Em. I'm here. I want to take you home.”

Tears welled in her eyes.
“This isn't right.”

“
Please?”

“
No.”

“
One look?” He kissed her neck.

“
You aren't real.”

“
No, I'm not. But neither are you.”

“
What?” She turned. There he was. Matt. A full head of hair, blue eyes and a smile. She looked away. “Kill me. I can't take this.”

“
If you wanted to die, you'd have pulled the trigger yourself. You don't want to leave this place. But I need you to.”

She pushed her rifle toward him.
“You do it.”

“
No.”

“
You like seeing me suffer? You're not a very good friend.”

“
I'm more than your friend, Em. I love you. I've loved you since we were children. I want to be with you, but we can't stay here much longer. We still have time to see Raven and Sarah.”

“
How?”

Matt glanced over the ledge.
“I know you're scared. You believe you're fighting Stallings. You think that doing nothing will win this battle. It won't.”

“
You want me to ki…”

“
Only you can make the choice.”

She stared at the ground, at the specks of litter below. A hundred foot drop. It would be quick, painless, she hoped.
“Promise me you'll be there.”

“
I can't, because you shouldn't worry about what might be on the other side. You just need to want the release.”

Her breathing grew shallow.
“I don't know if you're really him. I don't know if I'm dreaming.” She inched closer to the ledge. “Matt?”

“
Em…”

“
I want to go home.”

She closed her eyes.
Soon the wind ripped through her fatigues.

The darkness had an unexpected clarity; absent was the void of nothingness. The timer hadn
't appeared. Emily felt her arms, legs, the wiggle of her toes. The warm gel splashed against her body. With a deep breath, she lunged forward, her eyes shooting open to a faintly yellow glow of light. As she looked around the chamber, silence surrounded her in every direction. Not a single white-coat scurried about the room, and the vats near her were empty. In the distance, a single elevator stayed open. “Hello?” she called.

“
She's awake,” a voice said. It was muffled, as if the wind spoke.

“
Come home, baby,” another whispered. “We're waiting.”

“
Is someone there?” Emily asked.

Silence.

She climbed out of the vat, found a towel on the floor and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Where is everyone?” A trail of gel footprints followed her to the elevator. Once she stepped inside, the top-floor button lit. The door slid shut, and the elevator ascended.

“
Listen to him,” a voice said.

Emily glanced at the intercom, from where the voice seemed to come.
“Is this a joke? If you wanted to scare me, Stallings, I'm scared. You win.”

“
Stallings isn't real,” the voice answered.

“
Who is that?” She stood on her tiptoes and examined the speaker.

Then the bell chimed, and the elevator door opened. For a moment she stared at the section of wall in front of her. The white doors had vanished, and the carpet appeared new, leaving no evidence of the black streak.
“Hello?” She slowly stepped off the elevator.

The hallway lights flickered and dimmed. Beside her, a pin-sized dot glowed on the wall, and it soon grew larger, stretching from the floor to ceiling. Blurry and distorted colors formed out of the whiteness. Emily neared the wall, imposing her shadow
on the image. She looked around.
No projector?
“What is this?”

The picture focused, and the image
showed an empty sidewalk. Behind her, voices grew louder, as though a crowd headed toward her. A young woman in a business suit, her heels clacking the concrete, walked across the image. The voices surrounded Emily now. A man and boy appeared next, strolling hand in hand. Soon the sidewalk filled with people who materialized from one side of the display and vanished once they reached the other side.

Down the hall, more brilliant dots glowed, and the pedestrians continued their walk through the new images. Emily rubbed her
fingers along the wall. “Is this a dream?”

Then the closest display flashed. The sidewalk blinked out of existence, replaced by a new image. Emily covered her lips. Toppled buildings and debris spilled into the streets, fires danced in the wind, smoke rose to the clouds. At the center of destruction, a crater stretched
out to a familiar location. The Washington Monument. Reduced to a pitiful stub of concrete.

The display changed to a pristine street of granite-faced townhomes. Ambulances and fire trucks, their sirens blaring, raced toward the background fires.

“Are we on?” a female voice asked. The camera rotated, focusing on an Asian woman. She lifted a microphone to her chin. “We have only limited information at this time, but a source inside the local Nuclear Emergency Support Team provided us with a preliminary report. At approximately 1:18 p.m. eastern time, a nuclear device, estimated at six kilotons, detonated near the Washington Monument. NEST is coordinating with local emergency services for rescue operations.”

“
Anna?” The man's voice, apparently that of newscaster in the studio, came from the display. “How concerned is NEST about fallout?”

“
Well, Jim, the weapon employed fission to trigger a small fusion reaction—in other words, a neutron bomb. Since a neutron bomb causes most of its biological damage through short-lived radiation, NEST has allowed rescue services access near ground zero. Our source also informed us that the level of sophistication needed to create such a device would likely rule out any small terrorist organizations. Presently, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.”

The reporter walked off the screen and into the next. Emily followed her. The background changed to a hospital parking lot where police cars and military vehicles formed a barrier around the entrance. The sun, now a blur of red behind the smoke, hung low on the horizon.

Breaking News
scrolled along the bottom of the display. “This is what we know. A survivor of the event—” A picture of a man wearing an Army dress jacket and hat appeared in the top right corner of the screen. A brief memory flashed in Emily's mind. Blue coveralls. Almost knocking her down. Cussing into a cell phone. “—Sergeant William Robertson, dishonorably discharged for reasons unknown at this time, has claimed to have insider knowledge of the attack. Government investigators are onsite and have deployed military units and local law enforcement to secure the location. We don't know what Robertson is telling the Feds or whether he acted alone, but our source, however, described Robertson's behavior as that of a betrayed confidant.” The reporter walked off screen.

Emily followed her again. Now the background changed to a warehouse. A few street lamps illuminated the reporter
's face and razor-wire fence behind her. “Is this as close as we can get?” She lifted the microphone. “Government investigators have been very tight-lipped about what is occurring inside this warehouse, but our FBI source told us this. At approximately 7:02 p.m. eastern time, an Army special forces unit stormed the building behind us and shot and killed this man—” The picture appeared in the display corner.

Emily
's throat felt as if two invisible hands strangled her. “Logner,” she said, her tone low.

“
—Army psychologist Colonel Richard Logner. As some of you may recall from leaked memos, Colonel Logner was under investigation for security lapses during his role as lead developer of a cancelled Army training program. Our sources speculate that he allegedly acquired the nuclear device with the hope that the event would increase defense spending and subsequently return funding to his program.”

A gust of wind slung the reporter
's hair across her face as a helicopter descended to a lone patch of grass inside the warehouse compound. “It appears more personnel are arriving.” A woman wearing a brown trench coat stepped out of the helicopter, followed by a man in dress pants, a dress shirt and a tie.

Then the newsreel paused.

The image pixilated as it zoomed on the woman's face. Emily had seen her before: at the beach house and driving the car in front of Matt's childhood home. But she wasn't the same woman who spent her days staring through the window and at the park. Emily's head ached. Her eyes bulged from the buildup of tears. “No…it can't…” A trickle of blood dripped out of her nose and splashed on the carpet, disappearing in the red strands. “Mom…” The camera then focused on the man in the shirt and tie. “No…you died…”