The Apocalypse Emperor

Chapter 2: The first warning

Adrian held the phone against his ear and said nothing.

Three years of memory told him the outbreak began on October 13. A woman who should have been dead was telling him he'd gotten the date wrong.

"What do you mean, already begun?" he asked.

"Not the public version," Dr. Evelyn Cross said. Her voice was low and frayed, a voice that hadn't slept. "The incident at the facility this morning wasn't an accident. It was the first one they couldn't hide."

He crossed to the window. Halcyon City glittered below in the Sunday light. Delivery drones threaded between the towers in neat lanes, and commuters queued at automated transit gates. The city looked immortal. Adrian knew the exact week its locks would begin to close.

"Tell me what happened."

"Three night-shift employees ran high fevers. By morning, two were convulsing. One bit through his own lip while they restrained him, and he didn't flinch." She paused. "Security sealed the building. Someone ordered the incident reports destroyed."

"Someone with authority."

"Yes."

Adrian pressed his fingers to his temple. The pressure behind his eyes had returned, but there was nothing in it. No stray thoughts, no flicker of her fear. Just a dull ache and a flat silence where her mind should have been.

Whatever this ability was, it didn't work through a phone.

That was something. It was also a problem, because it meant he had to trust her voice, and he had spent three years learning what trust cost.

"Why are you calling me?" he asked. "We've never met."

Evelyn hesitated. "Because you were on a list."

The ache sharpened.

"I pulled a restricted file from the research network three days ago," she said. "It was a roster of subjects whose neurological activity stayed stable after exposure. Most of the names meant nothing. Yours was marked for review."

"Exposure to what?"

"I don't know. The file was incomplete."

"I've never set foot in that facility."

"I know. That's why I'm calling." She exhaled. "Then this morning, someone sent me a message. Stop looking. And then you answered on the second ring, and you said nothing when I told you the apocalypse had begun. People don't stay quiet about that unless they already know it's coming."

She was right, and Adrian disliked how quickly she'd seen it.

"You said if you've returned too."

"I did."

"Returned from where?"

The line hummed. When she spoke again, her voice was careful. "I was on a ship," she said. "Then I wasn't. Then I woke up in my apartment three days ago, and it was September, and everyone I'd watched die was alive."

Adrian said nothing.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Not yet."

"Fair." A soft, humorless laugh. "I wouldn't either."

He glanced at the notes file open on his laptop: a supplies list, a name at the bottom. Warehouse, generators, water filters. Plans that had felt airtight an hour ago. Now someone had moved a piece he hadn't known was on the board.

"Who else saw the file?" he asked.

"A man named Marcus Hale. He runs the Meridian Corridor labs." Her answer came a half-second too fast. "I can't say he's involved. I can say he has access to everything."

"You don't trust him."

"I don't trust anyone with access."

It was a good answer. Too good. People who told the truth didn't usually sound that polished.

"Where are you now?"

"My apartment, the east side of the Corridor. I was going to go back into the network today and find the full report, because if your name is in there, there are others, and I think I know why they were chosen." Her voice dropped. "I think they were chosen because they weren't supposed to survive."

The words hit like cold water. In the dead town, he had thought he'd survived the first winter through luck, or Ren, or spite. Never because something had been waiting to see what he would do.

"Don't go back into that network," he said.

"I'm not a fool, Mr. Cole."

"Then don't act like one."

"If I'd wanted advice, I'd have asked a stranger." A beat of silence. "Sorry. I'm frightened. I haven't had anyone to say this to."

For a moment, the call softened. He could hear a faint electronic beep and the rustle of paper in her apartment, and under it a steadier, more human sound: a woman breathing carefully so she wouldn't shake.

Adrian almost told her the truth.

Then the knock came.

It was a heavy knock, three beats, nothing frantic about it. Evelyn stopped talking.

"Don't answer it," Adrian said.

"I'm not." Her voice had changed. "Nobody knows I'm here. I didn't tell the building I was home."

A second knock, harder.

Something scraped against her door, metal on metal.

"Is there another way out?" he asked.

"The fire stairs, but it's..." She swallowed. "Adrian, I think they've been watching me since I opened the file."

"Evelyn. Listen. Go to the fire stairs, and don't stop for anything."

"They're not going to wait."

The door shuddered. The line is filled with static.

"Evelyn?"

A crack, sharp and wet, and something heavy hit the floor.

Then the call died.

Adrian stood very still, the phone against his ear, listening to nothing.

He redialed. It rang until it disconnected. He tried again. The same.

Less than fifteen minutes had passed since she first called.

He lowered the phone. His hand wasn't quite steady, and he realized the ache behind his eyes had turned into a thin, bright pain that tasted like pennies. He wiped his upper lip and found a smear of red.

Someone had reached her within a quarter of an hour of that call, which meant they were already one step ahead, and Adrian had thirty days he no longer fully believed in.

He looked at the list on his laptop. Warehouse. Water. Generators. Capital.

Not enough. Not anymore.

He needed money, and he needed it fast, and he needed people he could use before he trusted them. He had exactly one name for that, a name he'd hoped not to touch until he was ready.

His phone buzzed.

Morning, bro. Are we still meeting today? Got something important to discuss with you.

Adrian stared at it, the old hatred and the new problem crossing in his chest.

Then he answered.