Day Zero: The Last Bite

The Countdown

The contractor raised his radio, and Marcus's whole body went cold.

"Down," Reyes hissed, yanking Marcus by the collar behind the car. "Now."

They dropped low, Priya pulling Mrs. Hart down beside her, all of them pressed against the side of a parked sedan. Marcus's heart hammered so hard he could feel it in his teeth.

"Did he see us?" Priya whispered.

"Don't know," Reyes said, easing his head up just enough to peek through the car windows. "Nobody's running this way. Maybe he was talking about something else."

"Or maybe he's just letting us know he doesn't need to run," Marcus said.

A voice carried across the street, easy and unhurried, the same calm tone from the shelter's speaker. "You can come out from behind the car, Mr. Cole. I already know you're there."

Marcus's stomach dropped straight through the pavement. Reyes swore under his breath. Priya grabbed Elena's backpack strap out of habit, though Elena wasn't even the one exposed yet.

"How does he know your name?" Reyes whispered.

"I don't know." Marcus's mind raced back through the last few hours—the annex terminal, the beacon, the tunnel camera. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped being nobody.

"Mr. Cole," the voice called again. "I'd rather we talk than waste each other's time. Nobody needs to get hurt right now."

Marcus stood up slow, hands loose at his sides, stepping out from behind the car. Reyes grabbed for his sleeve, too late.

"Marcus, what are you doing—"

"He knows my name and my daughter's school," Marcus said quietly. "Running isn't an option anymore."

He walked into the open street. The man in plain clothes watched him approach without a flicker of concern, hands folded in front of him like he was waiting for a delivery, not a confrontation.

"You're the one they call The Handler," Marcus said.

"Names are for people who need them," the man said. "You can call me whatever helps you sleep tonight, assuming you get the chance to sleep again."

"You started this. The outbreak. The six-minute turn. All of it."

The Handler's expression didn't change. "I authorized a necessary correction. The world had too many people and not enough resources to sustain them. Someone had to make the call nobody else had the stomach for."

"You're talking about killing thousands of people like it's a budget meeting."

"I'm talking about millions, actually, though I appreciate you keeping your estimate conservative." The Handler glanced toward the school building behind him. "Your daughter's inside that building, along with several dozen other children who survived the initial wave through pure geographic luck. That luck runs out in about eleven minutes."

Marcus felt his hands curl into fists. "You're not touching her."

"I'm not touching anyone. My team is handling containment procedures, and containment procedures for a lost sector include full sterilization." The Handler said it the way someone might describe cleaning a spill. "It's policy, Mr. Cole. Not personal."

"It's murder."

"It's math." For the first time, something sharpened in The Handler's voice, thin patience wearing through. "You have no idea what this program prevented. Resource collapse, mass starvation, wars fought over clean water within a decade. This outbreak was a scalpel, not a disease. Painful, yes. Necessary."

Behind Marcus, Priya's voice cut through, sharp and furious, as she stepped out from behind the car despite Reyes trying to pull her back. "Necessary for who? You didn't ask anyone. You didn't put this in front of a vote or a court or a single elected official. You just decided, and you let thousands of people burn for it."

The Handler's eyes shifted to her, and something like recognition crossed his face. "Dr. Anand. I thought we'd already had this conversation three years ago, back when you still worked for people like me."

"I quit," Priya said. "I should have gone public then instead of taking the money and staying quiet."

"You made a rational choice at the time. Rational people usually do." The Handler checked his watch, unhurried. "Regardless of old history, we have a countdown running, and I have somewhere else to be once this sector's finished. Mr. Cole, your daughter has about nine minutes left. I'd use that time wisely instead of standing here arguing philosophy with me."

Marcus's whole body wanted to charge across the street right then, straight through however many armed contractors stood between him and that fence line. Reyes's hand landed on his shoulder before he could move.

"That's exactly what he wants," Reyes said quietly. "You rushing in gets you shot before you reach the gate, and it gets you shot in front of your kid's window."

"Then what do we do?" Marcus said, voice breaking on the words.

Reyes looked past him toward the school's perimeter, studying the contractor positions with the same practiced eye he'd used at the checkpoint. "There's a maintenance gate on the north side, blind spot in their rotation. I clocked it walking over here."

"You want me to sneak in while he's standing right there talking to me?"

"I want you to keep him talking," Reyes said. "Priya, get that data out now, whatever network you can reach. If this gets exposed loud enough, fast enough, somebody with actual authority might call off the strike before it happens."

Priya was already moving, phone out, fingers flying across the screen. "I'm sending it to every independent outlet still online. It won't take long once it hits the right inbox."

Marcus turned back to The Handler, forcing his voice steady even as his heart threatened to climb out of his throat. "You said nine minutes. That's plenty of time for a conversation."

The Handler's mouth curved into something almost like respect. "Stalling. Clever, for a man who spends his days fixing subway signals." He checked his watch again. "Eight minutes now. Talk fast, Mr. Cole. I'm listening."