Zero Sum

by Jan Thompson

  She came around the counter.

  Cayson felt a sudden splash of spit or liquid or something on his face.

  His eyes reflexively shut, and his shoulders pulled back. He lost his balance, and fell backward, going down on the carpeted floor.

  As he rolled, he felt a sharp, quick stab just above his left ear.

  The pain shot through his skull.

  He screamed.

  One

  By the time FBI Special Agent Stella Evans arrived in Atlanta and drove to the VenomLabs office complex in Marietta, the third victim had been dead for almost a day.

  Stella’s flight from DC had been full, and she had to change planes in Charlottesville because of engine trouble. If anything could be worse, Atlanta traffic might rate up there.

  From the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Marietta, the drive had been a crawl through rush hour in the metropolis, with the late-afternoon traffic going in the same direction she was, where Interstates 75 and 85 merged.

  Her stomach rumbled for dinner that wouldn’t come for another couple of hours. But she couldn’t worry about that now.

  Three deaths in a week.

  Today, it had been another network specialist Binary Systems, Inc.

  This time he had not died by his own hands. Jamal Cruze had been found in a roadside ditch in Woodstock, Georgia, some ten feet away from his Ducati.

  His head had exploded under his helmet.

  Officers from the Woodstock Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had been all over the place. Their reports would be shared with her, she had been told.

  Stella had no jurisdiction over the dead body itself.

  But she had jurisdiction over the implants in the victim’s head.

  If her hunch was correct, the implants would be the same as those found on the other two dead employees whom Binary Systems had contracted to the National Security Agency, two days before Cayson Yang had disappeared.

  If she were correct, then she could safely say that they had all originated from the same implant prototypes stolen from VenomLabs two years ago.

  New and improved and deadly.

  Meant for the NSA, not global terrorists.

  Vivek Rao had been the first victim, hit on the night of the data storage convention as he watched an evening cooking show at his rental apartment in Fort Meade. His housekeeper had called 911. Police had arrived to the gruesome sight of a headless body.

  Six hours and a continent away, in the Binary Systems office in Prague, Danika Svoboda had gone outside the building for a smoke. When she didn’t return to the process her team had been in the middle of, they sent someone to find her. And find her, he did, her head splattered like a smashed watermelon on the old cobblestone sidewalk.

  That had been the pattern of death: exploding head.

  So. Vivek Rao. Danika Svoboda. And now Jamal Cruze.

  Stella feared that the next person could be Cayson Yang.

  Dispatched by the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force to Atlanta because her partner, Jake Kessler, had decided to stay behind in Fort Meade, Stella’s job this week was to hang out with the cybernetics division at VenomLabs and make sure the FBI wasn’t left out of the loop.

  Of course, it had helped her cause that she had worked with Cayson Yang before in Project Pericarp, in which Binary Systems had been paid ten million dollars to set up an underground network for a supposedly British company so that the NCIJT could track the cashflow of terrorism.

  Sometime this morning, the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s Office had delivered the extracted implants from poor Jamal Cruze to VenomLabs. The implants had been badly damaged, but they were something to look at.

  I suppose.

  VenomLabs was the only contractor with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Whatever VenomLabs said, everyone believed.

  Who watched VenomLabs, really?

  VenomLabs owned a laboratory complex near the Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, just outside the Interstate 285 loop.

  By the time Stella reached the front gate of the unmarked building, it was almost six o’clock. After this evening’s meeting, she’d check into her hotel, get some sleep, and then drive to Chamblee the next morning, bright and early, for a NCIJTF meeting at the FBI field office for the next meeting.

  For some reason, they didn’t want to meet on site at VenomLabs.

  Something was off, but Stella couldn’t put her finger on—

  Her iPhone buzzed.

  Jake Kessler.

  The special agent in charge of her.

  They had both been assigned to the NCIJTF, but Stella wouldn’t do a thing unless Kessler gave her the all clear.

  Stella sat in her parked car. She glanced around to make sure the windows had been rolled up. “Yes, sir?”

  Excited about the NCIJTF collaboration with CIA field agents in Europe, Kessler was talking a mile a minute. All Stella could do was listen.

  They had found Cayson Yang, and he was alive.

  That was all Stella needed to know. “You want me to fly out to Istanbul?”

  “Yeah. We have people keeping an eye on him, but they don’t want to spook him,” Kessler said. “A familiar face might help.”

  “What’s he doing over there?”

  “He seems to be checking off his bucket list.”

  Yikes. “So that’s why he’s in Istanbul? Taking pictures?”

  “He knows what we’re up against. And we might be running out of time.”

  Stella had known Cayson for some months now. They had brushed shoulders after the FBI had found out about the sale of MedusaNet to Molyneux’s organization and had begun tracking their activities across the network.

  Even with Molyneux on trial for international war crimes, there had not been any lull. Someone else had taken over the organization and was supposedly planning attacks on American soil.

  Who is Molyneux’s successor?

  “If I fly out tonight, I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon,” Stella said. “Will I be too late?”

  “Atlanta to Istanbul would take anywhere from twelve to sixteen hours or more, depending on how many stops you make.”

  Stella waited. Kessler almost always had a solution. She had worked with him for the last several years to know that. He had been pretty determined to get Molyneux and had succeeded spectacularly—and in his own words, unexpectedly.

  “I might have a faster way,” Kessler said. “Pack your bags.”

  “My bags haven’t been unpacked. I just arrived.”

  “Right. Wait for my text. I’ll see if you can get a ride from Dobbins to Istanbul.”

  Dobbins Air Reserve Base was a couple of exits away from VenomLabs. Going against traffic, she could be there anytime Kessler wanted her to be.

  “Who’s going to babysit VenomLabs?”

  “I’ll take care of that. You are I will meet in Istanbul and go from there. And, Evans?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Trust no one. Not even me.”

  It was the strangest instruction Stella had ever heard.

  Two

  When Cayson Yang stepped toward the tip of the rocky Trolltunga outcrop jutting out into the Norwegian atmosphere, the wind picked up, whistling a call for him to surrender to the depths below, a drop of some two thousand feet to the calming water of the lake Ringedalsvatnet.

  How would it feel to be a part of the glacial lake of old?

  Cayson inched forward on the flat granite top, his GoPro camera on a stick a cover story for his venture into the dark abyss that had been crawling around his head all week.

  Like a thousand roaches, the throbbing darkness wove in and out of his brain, the implants giving no rest, no sleep, no peace, no future to speak of.

  The last project had been his own doing and undoing, the payment of ten million dollars now a wasted bitterness on the tip of his own tongue.

  He looked down at his grimy hiking boots, only inches away from the end of t
he world, beyond which was a vista worthy of award-winning photography.

  Only he wouldn’t live to see his future accolades.

  Future?

  There’s none but more pain and sorrow, I tell you.

  Cayson breathed in the crisp, clean mountain air sweeping through the most spectacular—and in his own estimation, the most picturesque—vista on God’s green earth.

  God.

  Ah, forgive me, Lord Jesus, for my weakness.

  I cannot take it any longer.

  His cousin and business partner, Leland, might call him a coward.

  I can’t stand the roaches.

  He had asked—pleaded, begged—for God to remove them, but the Almighty had not answered.

  Why?

  Who am I to order God around? To instruct Him?

  Leland had often quoted Romans 8:28.

  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.

  What purpose would it be to have inoperable implants in his head that could not be removed except by terminating his life?

  And then what would Leland do?

  Poor cousin Leland.

  If I go, she’ll be alone—

  No.

  She wouldn’t be alone.

  Leland was twenty-five years old. She could take care of herself. And Cayson’s parents. And his cats.

  Oy.

  He had forgotten about his cats.

  Well, Leland knew the routine. She’d make sure they’d be fed and happy.

  Cayson had left instructions that his bots would deliver to Leland later regarding feeding his three cats—oh, and watering his greenhouse plants, especially the new Nepenthes bicalcarata carnivorous pitcher plants he had added to his collection.

  All Leland had to do was make sure there was at least two inches of water in the immersion tray outside his flowerpots.

  Oh boy.

  Maybe he’d need to rethink this escapade. Somehow he wasn’t sure Leland would be in town enough to care for his parents, pets, and plants.

  The more Cayson thought about depending on Leland, the more he remembered the nature of Leland’s job. She often disappeared at a moment’s notice, whenever the CIA called her to arms.

  Intellectual arms, that was.

  Flashes of light pulsed in his head again. He felt his brain rattle in his skull. The pain!

  Aarrgghh…

  The camera slipped out of his hand.

  As he tried to pick it up from the granite, the pain in his head shot from one ear to the other, and he lost his balance, slipped on the rocky ledge, and fell…

  Three

  Her screams lodged in her throat as Stella Evans sprinted toward the granite ledge and tossed the drone over the cliff as Cayson’s shoes disappeared from her view.

  Her heartbeats drummed in her ears, and she could barely think as she knelt down, her knuckles turning white against the remote control in her hands.

  Please, God…

  The wind was fierce, flapping her windbreaker against her back.

  The small screen on her controller flickered to life, and she could see parts of the drone’s extended claws.

  In the speedy fuzz, Stella could make out the back of someone free-falling.

  She held her breath as she watched the drone attempt contact, its claws reaching for Cayson’s torso. The grip was clean and textbook.

  The other camera on the back of the drone showed that the parachute deployed.

  Stella’s hands shook so hard that the screen on the remote control turned blurry.

  “Let me,” a male voice said.

  Stella barely nodded as she handed the remote to Jake Kessler, whom the military transport plane had picked up at Andrews Air Force Base on the way out.

  En route to Istanbul, they had found out that Cayson Yang had bought plane tickets for Oslo. From Oslo he had gone to Tyssedal.

  Fortunately for Stella and Kessler, Cayson took over five or six hours to hike up to Trolltunga—a troll’s tongue—and thus giving the FBI special agents plenty of time to find a helicopter for hire.

  Stella collapsed on the ground. Above her, the late-afternoon sky began to give up its light.

  “He has landed.” Kessler spoke into his wrist watch. “We’re on our way.”

  He turned to Stella. “You okay? Deathly pale there.”

  “It’s the sun.”

  “Right.”

  Stella closed her eyes and prayed that she’d stop shaking.

  She had never been this nervous in her life. What was going on?

  It couldn’t just be Cayson, could it? Sure, they had known each other, but she had been careful not to get emotionally attached to a team member.

  Besides, Project Pericarp had been over a while ago.

  When she opened her eyes, there was one small, tiny speck of cloud in the distance. The rest of the stratosphere was denim blue.

  It was such a pretty afternoon that it was hard to fathom that someone had just attempted suicide.

  “We’d better get down there,” Kessler said.

  “Let him wait.” And Stella meant it.

  “He’s by the lake.”

  “He won’t drown himself. The drone will make sure he perpetually floats.”

  Still, there was Cayson Yang, somewhere on the grassy shore of a pretty lake directly below this ledge.

  The somewhat suicidal Cayson was now America’s only hope to shut down Molyneux’s network used by her mercenary terrorists at large, now trading weapons with North Korea and Iran.

  We are doomed.

  Four

  “Inoperable! Do you hear me?” Cayson Yang yelled into the wind swirling around the vertical mountain walls around them.

  A seaplane waited on the lake. He couldn’t believe it when he had seen it land on Ringedalsvatnet only minutes ago, disgorging two ghosts—one from his near past and the other from his distant past.

  Stella Evans nodded to him. “Calm down before you burst a blood vessel.”

  “Does that matter anymore?” Cayson tried to pry the six legs off his rib cage, but the drone held on. It gripped his torso pretty well.

  And had saved his life when he had slipped off the rock.

  He had almost changed his mind about jumping, but he had stepped too close to the edge, trying to retrieve his fallen GoPro.

  Perhaps the wind had given him a push.

  Stella was about six or seven feet away from him. She looked rather calm, having witnessed his ordeal.

  Behind her, Jake Kessler stepped back, as if to give Stella space to talk a deranged man into going with them in that yellow seaplane.

  “Cayson, remember me?” Stella asked.

  “Why are you speaking so slowly?”

  “Stella Evans.”

  “I know you who you are. You owe me coffee.”

  “I do?” Stella didn’t seem to remember anything. “We can get coffee.”

  “Too late.”

  “No, not too late, Cayson.” Stella took a step forward. Slowly.

  “I’m not contagious,” Cayson said.

  Stella straightened her shoulders. “I didn’t want you to do anything…uh…”

  “Stupid?”

  Stella spread her palms in front of her. “Look, first we save the world. After that, what you do with your life is between you and God.”

  “I’m next, Stella.” He waited to see if the FBI special agent would correct him.

  She did not.

  He knew that she had remembered their friendship after the project had been over. She had insisted that he couldn’t call her Agent Evans if they were going to talk about themselves.

  She liked her coffee black with only a drop of whole milk.

  “Arabica,” Cayson said.

  “You do remember.”

  “It doesn’t mean my head’s okay. They did this to us. In one week two of my employees have been killed.”

  “Three. They found Jamal yesterday.�
�

  “No…” Cayson’s knees went weak, and he wobbled—

  Whoosh!

  The drone deployed an air cushion.

  “Seriously?” Cayson began to laugh.

  “We’ve been working around the clock for a week,” Stella said. “We couldn’t find you for days.”

  “If you could hack into my implants, you would’ve found me.”

  Stella didn’t respond.

  “Oh. You did hack into my head.”

  “Technically, only your implants. VenomLabs has been testing ways to get them removed without killing you, but we need to get you to the lab.”

  “VenomLabs? The DOD contractor?” What did a Department of Defense exoskeleton contractor have anything to do with…

  Oh. “Their cybernetics division. This belongs to them, doesn’t it?”

  Stella stepped closer. “They left their backdoor open and…”

  “And Molyneux found the implants.”

  Stella nodded. “What they had installed on your team are not the prototypes anymore.”

  “I realized that.”

  “The implant from Vivek’s head had Iranian codes inside.”

  “Iran?” The plot thickeneth.

  “Who did you expect?”

  “I don’t care anymore. I have bigger problems.” Cayson shrugged. “I tried to hack into my implants all week. It took out my vision one time, and then another time, I had such a bad headache I thought I was going to explode.”

  Kessler joined their conversation. “We will work on getting that implant out of your head if you help us shut down MedusaNet.”

  “You don’t get it, Agent Kessler.” Cayson moaned. “I’ve tried getting to MedusaNet all week. The closer I get to it, the worse my headache is.”

  Stella looked at her colleague. “So they’re tied.”

  “What I need is a team of hackers to break down these implants,” Cayson said. “But my teammates are all dead.”

  “Not all. We’re your team,” Stella said.

  “We have hackers at the FBI Cyber Division,” Kessler offered.

  Cayson rolled his eyes. If they had been that good, the FBI wouldn’t have had to hire out projects.

  “We also have Raj Subramaniam’s company, Rhinotec. They’re on site right now at VenomLabs.”