by David Liss
Finally I heard a voice, and I wished again for silence. It was Ardov.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go this long without speaking,” he said. “Does it hurt you not to talk nonsense?”
This was not a situation I wanted to be in. Ardov had total power over me. We were on his turf, and he had every advantage. Somehow I didn’t think cracking wise was going to get me very far. “Hey, Ardov. You sure get around, don’t you?”
He smirked his evil-cat smirk. “I figured it was only a matter of time until you showed up here, looking for your friends. And now we’re all reunited. Kind of nice, actually.”
“So, it’s one thing to be working for Junup, who’s taken you under his wing and all, but now you can’t even pretend you’re not one of the bad guys. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“There are no good and bad sides, Zeke. There are just the powerful and the powerless, and I’m siding with the powerful. That’s what I’ve always done.”
“And you’ve always lost,” I said, “which maybe kind of tells you something.”
“There is an old saying from my city-state,” Ardov said. “ ‘Declare no battle won until the war is over.’ ”
“So all those times I handed your butt to you were just strategic withdrawals?”
“Temporary setbacks. Necessary steps to get us to where we are today. I have the upper hand, and you are utterly defeated, like the powerless weakling you are.”
“I’m still not clear on why it’s taken so many strategic withdrawals and setbacks to get the upper hand on a powerless weakling,” I said. “Can you walk me through that part?”
“You are not going to be laughing soon.”
“I’m not actually laughing now. Mostly I’m really nervous. I don’t have any problem admitting that. It’s the way I tend to feel when I’m tied to a chair in an experimental lab with a wacko speechifying in my general direction. But here’s the thing, Ardov. You don’t have to be that wacko. You don’t have to be the bad guy. All the things you’ve done, the beings you’ve hurt, you can put that behind you. Untie me. Help me get the others out of here, and it can be a whole new life for you. Doesn’t that seem more satisfying—helping beings instead of hurting them? Wouldn’t you rather work for the good of the many instead of the power of the few?”
He smiled at me, a pitying sort of smile, and I knew that there really was nothing there to save. Maybe he had a sad story—a childhood trauma or a cruel parent. Maybe Ardov had endured terrible things and was now broken. Maybe he’d been seduced to the dark side by Darth Junup and had been brainwashed beyond redemption. It didn’t matter. I knew I could never reach him.
Unfortunately, this realization did not get me anything, because I was still tied to a chair in an experimental lab. I guessed that when Ardov started to torture me, I could take comfort in the knowledge that there hadn’t been much I could have done to prevent it, but there’s not really all that much comfort to be had from that.
Then from behind me I heard a door hiss open. “You’re not supposed to be in here,” a female voice said.
“I didn’t know that,” Ardov said.
“I find that unlikely,” the voice answered. “You are dissembling. If you wish to serve the Phandic Empire, you must never dissemble.”
“Yes, of course you are right.”
“Your rivalry with this being does not further the empress’s cause. Go purge yourself of these feelings.”
“Yes,” Ardov said. “Right away.”
I heard him step toward the door and exit the lab.
So now I was alone with a being who frightened Ardov. Things just kept getting better and better.
I heard her approach from behind and then come around the front of my chair. It was a female Phand wearing a turquoise lab coat. She had thick hair pulled back into a long braid, and she wore big silver rings on almost all her fingers. I’d never seen a Phand with jewelry before.
She placed her hands on her hips and jutted out her lower jaw slightly “You’re awake at last,” she said with an unexpected amount of cheer. “I’m so excited!”
I tried not think too much about what she might be excited about. Any being who worked here was probably a big fan of torture. I was part of a group that had killed two of their guards. There was no way they were going to go easy on me.
“If I take off your restraints,” she said, “do you promise not to try to run away?”
“I pinkie swear,” I assured her. If I had the chance to get away, I’d take it. She could drag me to pinkie court later.
“You’ve been treated with nanites to make you susceptible to the control gas,” she said, “so if you do run, you’ll be quite easy to stop this time. But you won’t want to run, because I’m your friend. You know I’m your friend, don’t you?”
“It sure is looking that way,” I agreed. “Can I ask who you are?”
The Phand smiled. “I am Investigator Kossnarian-iz, and I am so excited to finally meet you.”
“This is a big day for me too.”
Investigator Kossnarian-iz pressed a button and the restraints vanished. I began to rub one wrist with the opposite hand while my captor watched me with the delight people on Earth reserve for Internet cat videos.
“My superiors haven’t figured out yet who you are,” she said. “If they had, they wouldn’t have let me have you. I suspect your friend Ardov might inform them if he decides it will be to his advantage, so I’ll have to be quick.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously. “What is it we need to do?”
Investigator Kossnarian-iz came over and crouched by me, putting her tusked face uncomfortably close to mine. “I’m a great admirer of yours,” she said, sounding giddy. “Zeke.” She said my name quietly, like it was a secret. Then she giggled.
A giggling Phand fan is not something you see every day. Still, I’d been meeting lots of different kinds of Phands lately. “Are you with the renegades?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” Investigator Kossnarian-iz said, keeping her face uncomfortably close. I guessed this sort of proximity had some meaning in her culture. All I knew for sure was that it made me squirm. “I’ve heard of them. Traitors to the empress. I don’t have the time for such silly things. I’m not political. I’m in it for the science. I love science. Don’t you?”
“Science,” I assured her, “is super great.”
“It is,” she assured me, with a creepy look in her eye. “Super and great.”
Okay, so this Phand was not looking to destroy the renegades with a sweep of her mighty arm. That was good. She was, however, extra weird.
“Hey,” I attempted, “you seem like a really nice being. I’d love to introduce you to my friends. Do you think you could get them out of their cells?”
She brightened at this. “Your friends! Including the Rarel girl, yes? The whole galaxy knows about you two. It is the great romance of our age.”
“We’ve held hands a few times,” I said. “Anyhow, I think she’s done with me.”
“No!” gasped Investigator Kossnarian-iz, putting a hand to her tusked mouth. “What did you do to her?”
“Why, exactly, is it my fault?” I demanded. “She just suddenly started giving me the cold shoulder, so how am I to blame?”
“You must be, because she is so devoted to you,” Investigator Kossnarian-iz said, scrunching up her face judgmentally. “Anyone can see that.”
“Yeah, well, things have changed. Now she’s into getting as far away from me as possible.”
“You know, young ladies are complicated beings,” Investigator Kossnarian-iz began.
“Look, I appreciate the advice and all, but do you have any thoughts on how I could get out of here and maybe bring Tamret and the rest of my friends with me?”
“I do,” she said. “That’s what we’re here to discuss.”
That was easier than I thought. “Just so I understand, if you think the beings who are working against the empress are silly, then why would you want t
o help me?”
“I’ve followed your exploits,” she said, “and I want to see what you can do. You are my special experiment, Zeke. And the universe itself is my lab. How do you like that?”
“I love it,” I said, because I think you’re out of your mind, and you are totally freaking me out, while honest, might not have gotten me the results I wanted.
Investigator Kossnarian-iz clapped her hands together several times rapidly. “I’m so glad. Now, I’ve made great progress with this ancient technology. I have a prototype, you know. Prototypes are so much fun to play with. They are full of promise. If things go well, I should be able to deploy in a matter of a few months. We would never have gotten so far if not for you. Your blood sample made it all possible, Zeke. Won’t that make you happy, being responsible for such big changes across the galaxy?”
“I’m already a pretty happy person,” I said, having no idea what she was talking about. I suspected she wasn’t really listening to me anyhow.
“I searched you, you know,” she told me, her expression sly. “While you were unconscious, I looked through your things. I checked your pockets. What kind of person walks around with a stun grenade?”
Just when you think the creepy factor can’t go any higher, life defies your expectations. “That was a very reasonable thing to do,” I assured her.
“I see you found the powder.”
Was I in trouble? If I tried to act innocent and asked What powder? she might get angry or be disappointed. For whatever reason, this freaky Phand scientist had decided she liked me for being me, so I decided to take a gamble on being honest.
“I thought it might help me get my abilities back,” I said, “but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I was afraid if I used it wrong, it might kill me.”
“As it turns out, if you use it right, it might kill you. Oh, yes. It might indeed.” She nodded rapidly. “Do you know what the chances of it killing you are?”
I shook my head.
“It is very simple to take the powder. Just put a few grains on your tongue. The dose is actually not terribly important. It is almost impossible to take too little, and you can’t take too much. Once you ingest the powder, it will work instantly. You will then have a fifteen percent chance of dying. Do you know another way of expressing the number fifteen, Zeke? Three out of twenty. You have seventeen chances out of twenty of surviving, but this is Former technology, so it’s not that simple. You’ll still have access to the abilities, but the powder will kill you in a few hours if you don’t immediately check to see if you will survive.”
“What do you mean, ‘check to see’?”
“The powder, the nanites—they are both designed with quantum entanglements. And this is the object with which they are entangled.”
She opened her grayish hand and showed me a black twenty-sided die, which she dropped into my hand. Anyone who has ever played a tabletop role-playing game would recognize the object. This one was heavy, made out of stone or possibly even an alien metal.
“You put a few grains of powder on your tongue,” she said, “and then you roll the die. If you get a four or higher, you will live. If you get a three or lower, your body will shut down when the benefits of the powder have worn off.”
“There’s a saving throw?” I asked. “That’s what you’re telling me?”
This was a classic tabletop RPG move. Let’s say your character has been zapped with a sleep spell that has a 30 percent chance of working. You roll a six-sided die, and if you get a three or higher, she’s safe. Different percentages require different dice, which is why there are also dice with four, eight, twelve, and twenty sides.
“Why would this stuff be designed this way?” I asked.
“Who knows?” she answered. “The Formers are mysterious. Perhaps this was just second nature to them, pure logic to their minds. Some think they took pleasure from creating tricky rules and forcing lesser beings like ourselves to follow them. I don’t know why, but that’s how the system works. So keep the die and the powder. You will want both.”
“Couldn’t I manipulate the throw?” I asked. “Like maybe load the die?”
“The die will automatically calculate what the correct outcome would have been had you not interfered, and that number will be the one that drives the outcome, even if you don’t know it. Believe me. We experimented on many subjects. I know this to be true.”
“And how long will the effects last?”
“Approximately one eighth of a day—Confederation standard, that is. I have used a frame of reference for your convenience because I am a kind being.”
That was a little over three hours. Plenty of time to get us out of here. “Okay. Fine. Then what happens now? Are you really going to let me power up and save my friends?”
“If you have the courage to risk death and use the powder, then yes. I will observe and take notes. I will then post about it on my [blog]! Anonymously, of course. Otherwise I would be arrested for treason, but that’s silly, as my first loyalty has always been to knowledge!”
“Isn’t there some way to turn the nanites back on without risking death?”
“A method like that wouldn’t much interest me,” she said. “I did my graduate-school work in quantum entanglements, so you can see why I’m so excited.”
“Sure,” I said, “but is it possible?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
This wasn’t true. The lie-detecting software that Convex Icosahedron had given me buzzed softly against my wrist.
“Come on,” I said gently. You can tell me the truth.”
“Fine,” she said. “I probably could work something up if I wanted to, but it would take weeks, maybe even months. If you want to get out now, this is your only choice.”
No buzz from my wrist, so Investigator Kossnarian-iz was telling the truth.
“Let’s deal with reality as we find it, shall we?” she proposed, placing a finger on her chin as though posing for a photograph entitled Thoughtful Phand. “In just a few seconds, I’m going to alert the guards to who you are and let them know you’ve escaped. If they recapture you, you will be treated much more harshly than you were the first time, and I will not be able to meet with you again. I’m afraid that if you hope to remain free and liberate your friends, you have but one chance to succeed.”
I was going to have to roll the die. Literally. I tentatively unscrewed the vial and put a few grains on my tongue. It tasted like nothing, but I knew now the clock was ticking. I was, as of this second, doomed to death unless I pulled off a saving throw.
I could not remember how many times I’d done this with friends, goofing around as I cast game dice. I wasn’t goofing around now. I took the die in my hand and let it drop onto the table. As I did so, something snapped into my head, and I suddenly recalled that in math class I’d once learned the geometric name of a twenty-sided die. It was a convex icosahedron.
• • •
I kept my head turned away. I couldn’t bring myself to look.
“Seventeen!” I heard Investigator Kossnarian-iz shout gleefully. “Safe with room to spare!”
I snatched up the die and put it in my pocket next to the vial of powder. I also saw Villainic’s stun grenade on the table, which I grabbed. You never knew when that would come in handy. Just then the door opened, and five guards charged in. The scientist screamed and backed up.
“He broke free!” Investigator Kossnarian-iz shouted. “He’s a monster! A glorious alien monster! Destroy him.” And then, with a twinkle in her eyes, she added, “If you can.”
They raised their weapons, and I looked at them, realizing almost instantly that my HUD had reactivated. I was back. I was not going to die, and I had several hours of superheroic ability with which to get my friends out of here. Things were looking up.
I slowed time but sped myself up. I must have looked like a blur to the guards as I approached, grabbing the gun out of the hands of the closest one. I checked to make sure it was set to st
un, and then opened fire on the remaining four. Maybe two seconds had passed since the door had opened, and the guards were down.
I turned back to Investigator Kossnarian-iz, who was giving me a big, tusky grin. “That was what I was hoping for.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” I told her.
“I look forward to following your exploits, Zeke. Up until a roll of the die kills you.”
“What makes you think I’ll ever use the powder again?”
She smirked. “You won’t be able to resist.”
She was wrong, I told myself. I’d be able to resist plenty once the Confederation was safe and Earth was free. I wasn’t a thrill-seeker by nature. I kept finding myself in these situations through no fault of my own, but once things calmed down, I would be ready to go back to being a normal kid. I told myself that this was completely true, and maybe part of me believed it, but I also knew that the scientist was right about one thing. Going back to being a normal kid was not going to be easy.
Getting my friends off Planet Pleasant, I hoped, would be.
I made my way back to the prisoner wing, encountering a beefed-up security presence, but that was no obstacle for me. I won’t belabor the details. Guards with guns: disarmed. Locked doors: smashed. Electronic security measures: neutralized. In very little time I had the cells open, and I was reunited with my friends.
It took a few nanoseconds to interface with a computer terminal to find the nearest usable ship, which was on the other side of this complex. It would only take us a few minutes to get there. I would go a little slower than my best speed to make sure everyone else stayed safe.
“How are you up and running again?” Charles demanded.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “It just happened, so I’m not going to stop to wonder why.” The last thing I wanted was for everyone else to start gambling with their lives. If I could take the burden on myself, I would do it.
“One of the scientists was tinkering around with my nanites,” I said. “She must have accidentally triggered something. Let’s worry about how later, because I don’t think it’s going to last. The question for now is how quickly we can get out of here.”