Zero Rogue

by Matthew S. Cox

  Since the cybernetic hands had withstood his attempt to disarm them once already, his next telekinetic exertion mangled the thug’s rifle into an explosion of twisted debris. With a snarl, he slammed the huge man backward into the wall, smashing the left arm of a titanic sculptured demon holding a trident. White plaster bits fell around dark metal biceps that cracked open in a flurry of sparks. The assassin’s limbs smoked and shuddered. Myofiber muscles exceeded their stress limits, snapping like bundles of dark grey rubber bands as the metal limb flailed about. He managed to get a pistol halfway out of a belt holster before Aaron torqued the wrist around, breaking the hand off and flinging it. Gun and metal fist pulverized the wing of one of the sculptured angels while dark green fluid sprayed from a bundle of ripped wires.

  “Aaron!” screamed Anna. “Please…” A sharp bang came from an advert bot that made the mistake of getting too close to her.

  Damn, I can’t leave her sit out there.

  “Elevator or express?” Aaron leaned forward, bug eyed and looming. Every vein in his forehead swelled.

  The thug hauled ass for the elevator, jabbing his metal stump at the call button.

  Once the doors closed, he rushed to the edge. Anna clung to a metal spar about five feet below the floor level. She’d managed to get one leg hooked over the metal superstructure, likely a catwalk used by window cleaners or maintenance crews. He grasped her in a telekinetic embrace and gave a light tug, but she refused to let go.

  “Anna?”

  She looked up at him. For an instant, she had the same expression Allison had when he’d pointed a gun at her. Irritation brushed it aside. “Oh, finally got ’round to rememberin’ me out here?”

  “Aye, sorry. Couple o’ dogsbodies weren’t in the mood for a chin wag.”

  He levitated her up and in the missing window. She clamped onto him, trembling hard enough to make it difficult to stand. Smears of glittery eyeliner ran down her cheeks, her teeth chattered, and she gave him the most pathetic stare. An all-too-familiar pathetic stare.

  He pulled her into a hug, rubbing his hand up and down her back and ignoring the constant prickling sensation of electrical discharge. The distant sound of sirens didn’t matter. From the looks of things, the plummeting body caused a hovercar accident a few blocks away. He didn’t even want to think about what the massive hunk of glass had done.

  “T-thank you…” She squeezed him.

  The Spire’s staff had fled, leaving them alone in the damaged torus.

  After several minutes of clinging, she stopped trembling.

  “Aaron?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know this isn’t a hug… This is me bricking it.”

  “Aye. Don’t blame you. I can probably fly, and I’d sign cloth if I fell out that window too.”

  She swallowed. “I’m not afraid of much, but I can’t zap gravity.”

  Another minute passed in quiet. Neither made a move to let go.

  “Anna?”

  “Yes?”

  “You had the same look in your eyes Allison did.”

  She pulled away enough to meet his gaze. Her expression hadn’t changed much. He squeezed her arms, fighting the urge to do more than hold her upright.

  “Don’t make that face at me. I’m not your reincarnated wife. I’m older than she was.”

  He glanced down. “She was twenty-four.”

  “Twenty-eight ’ere.”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “Not for eight months yet.”

  Aaron glanced down at her painted toenails and chuckled. “No, I meant me. Oh, you seem to have lost your shoes. I hope they didn’t kill someone when they landed, though I have to say the barefoot look works with that dress.”

  She frowned at her feet. “Dammit. I just bought those today.”

  “You nearly fell from a two-hundred story building, and you’re worried about shoes?”

  Anna clamped onto him again at the reminder. “You said that on purpose, didn’t you?”

  “Aye.”

  “That was unfair.” She backed up. “Taking advantage of me. You know I’m not some helpless little flower. I could’ve taken out those cretins myself.”

  “Sorry. We should probably get out of here.” He motioned at the elevators.

  She brushed a smear of dirt off her left arm. “Yes, let’s.”

  hings had been worse at ground level than he’d anticipated. The slab of glass had hit a passing hovercar, shearing it in two pieces, each of which wound up striking nearby office buildings. Given the late hour, only a handful of people were at work, which reduced injuries on the ground… but the poor bastard in the hovercar hadn’t survived.

  They made it out of the immediate area before enough police arrived to set up a perimeter to trap people for interviews. Anna’s special purse had done its job, protecting her NetMini from the electrical storm her terror had unleashed. Aaron’s wasn’t so lucky. He cradled the scorched device in his palm, shaking his head at it, not paying attention to where the PubTran taxi went.

  “Sorry. Would you care to stop for a replacement?”

  Aaron made a face of resigned acceptance. He couldn’t be angry with her given the situation. “Might as well. Hopefully, they can extract the PID from this one and program a new one. Darwin set me up with a false identity so Div 0 doesn’t track me.”

  “What if they identify the one you’re using?”

  “It would take Division 9 to find it. There’s a decoy routine set up in the GlobeNet that creates a thousand clone traces using randomly selected PIDs. Each time a trace is started, the sample set changes.” Aaron dropped the dead NetMini in his pocket. “Even with their tech, it would take months… I hope.”

  “Well, with any luck we won’t be on Earth anymore in a couple of months.” Her face lit in hologram-green as she ordered herself a pair of basic sneakers and him a new NetMini.

  Fourteen minutes later, the PubTran car pulled over outside a disused-looking warehouse adjacent to a wharf. Salt air mixed with the decaying structures, flavoring the environs with the taste of metal and rust. Two delivery bots, which had been chasing them for the past ten minutes, caught up and dropped off her purchases.

  She tossed a box to Aaron and put the sneakers on.

  “How many of these things have you gone through?” He unwrapped a new NetMini and turned it on, frowning at the low charge level.

  “You don’t want to know.” She slipped into a gap in the gate and trudged across a rain-soaked courtyard full of dead robotic forklifts. “Too many. I went a good few years not bothering to ’ave one at all. I’m still not used to bein’ able to call a ride from anywhere.”

  “That had to be rough.”

  “You’ve no idea. It was like living primitive.”

  “C… ritical error.” A digitized male voice emanated from a massive metal cube on tiny wheels.

  Aaron jumped to the side, reaching for a gun he no longer carried.

  “System failure.” The cargo pallet on the loader’s spurs shuddered and dropped an inch. Three tiny green LEDs at the corners of the boxy robot winked out.

  “Did you do that?” Aaron found it difficult to look angry and accusing so soon after almost fainting.

  She hid her grin with a hand. “Possible. My little runaway zaps don’t only come from bad feelings. Any strong emotion’ll do it.”

  “Right.” He shot a wary look to the ancient forklift, pointed at it as if to remind it to stay still, and followed her to the building. “Does James have a dielectric nodder?”

  She punched him in the shoulder, but laughed.

  Anna ducked a half-open garage style door, walking into a cavernous space full of emptiness and dripping sounds. Six people sat around a long folding table against the far-right wall. Their mismatched clothes and wild hair gave them the look of a street gang, though they seemed more into the pile of technology in front of them than drugs.

  Four of the six opened telepathic links to Aaron’s surface thoughts. He cri
nged and blocked them out, causing them to pull handguns. The youngest of the lot, a girl of about fifteen with long, dark hair and pale skin, levitated four pistols in a cloud around her.

  “It’s all right.” Anna held up a hand. “He’s got a dangerous, involuntary reaction to mental connections. I don’t want anyone trying to do anything to him, is that clear?”

  Murmurs of discontent spread among the group, but they relaxed. Gun-cloud girl took the longest to stand down. She squinted as if daring him to give her an excuse.

  “Oh, that little girl over there is precious.” He pointed.

  “Melissa,” said Anna in a stern tone. “We’ve talked about this.”

  The teen sneered at Aaron as her guns flew back to individual holsters of pink and purple, some bearing Hello Kitty stickers. She whipped around to face the table and resumed soldering something. A cute cat-eared skull and crossbones with a little pink bow on its head took up the entire back of her jacket.

  “Sorry.” Anna patted him on the arm before moving in the direction of a small office. “She’s trigger happy.”

  “That looked territorial. Like she’s jealous of another telekinetic.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly.” Anna opened the door for him and followed after he passed. “She just wants to kill someone.”

  He blinked at her. “Aye, right up until she’s done it.”

  The tiny space looked as though it had once been a manager’s office. Aurora sat at a table against the interior wall, barefoot and wearing a black cheongsam with gold trim. She held a NetMini, which projected a holo-panel in front of her. A game with multi-colored glowing pieces in the shape of animals absorbed the entirety of her attention. The sight of it made Aaron crave gummy candies.

  A man with thick shoulder-length chestnut hair sat behind the manager’s desk. His brownish-grey suit gave him the look of a dowdy old-school professor. He glanced up as Anna approached and leaned forward to exchange a polite kiss. She sat on the corner of his desk, facing Aaron, and crossed her legs.

  That’s James? Aaron raised an eyebrow. He’s almost old enough to be her father.

  “Ahh, Mr. Pryce.” The man stood and extended his arm.

  “You must be Archon.” Aaron approached, shaking hands. “I’ve heard quite the lot about you.”

  Archon gestured, and the unused chair at the table slid up behind Aaron. “Please, sit.”

  “Telekinetic as well?” Aaron sat.

  “I dabble at it.” Archon leaned on the desk, giving him a once-over. “Anna tells me you have a rather unusual reaction to mental powers.”

  “Unusual.” Aaron chuckled. “That’s one way to put it. More like disastrous.”

  “Telepathic communication appears to be safe,” said Anna.

  “May I?” Archon eased himself into his chair. “I am quite curious.”

  “Your funeral if you poke the wrong neuron.” He cringed. “As well as everyone in ’ere.”

  Archon glanced at Aurora who still had not looked up from her game. After she ignored him for a few seconds, he looked back at him with a smile. “Would you be so kind as to recall the last time the ‘unusual reaction’ manifested itself?”

  Images of the casino filled his thoughts. The sense of Archon eavesdropping on his mind came on as though someone had balanced a giant, warm water balloon on his head. He fought the instinct to resist the observation and concentrated on the memory of the eruption of uncontained fury.

  A wave of vertigo swam over him, forcing him to grab the armrests as his head throbbed. Whatever Archon did, his mode of ‘reading’ the memory brought him back to the moment. The tiny office vanished, leaving Aaron on his knees in the gaming room. Frozen, he clenched two fistfuls of hair, mouth agape with a scream he could not hear. Debris, bodies, dice, and drinks hung in midair, jerking and stalling as time warped backward and forward. He had no conscious recall of the scene, and gazed around at what his subconscious had kept hidden with a paralytic sense of dread awe.

  The roulette table sailed away from him, passing through the croupier and the telepath, disrupting their bodies like liquid suspensions in human form. Falling objects appeared to hang motionless while the gambling machine glided past a cloud of blood at the pace of a brisk walk. Neither man’s expression showed a reaction as the table crushed them. They had died so fast they never knew what happened.

  Rippling carpet peeled up in a radial wave spreading from his feet. Everything burst outward from him: shot glasses pierced bystanders like bullets, a Nicohaler embedded in a man’s skull, larger drinks blasted holes in concrete. A momentary sense of relief came amid the carnage as he caught sight of Aurelia diving for cover inside an elevator. She hadn’t been in the room when he’d gone off, likely on her way to meet him at the bar when the room exploded.

  Every person, gaming table, machine, chair, and piece of furniture tore up from the ground and joined the expanding ring of devastation. The security man came apart in sparking pieces, confirming Aaron’s suspicion of his being a doll. Cracks rippled across the ceiling, suggesting the presence of an invisible sphere growing around him. At the instant the outer wall exploded away from the building, unconsciousness rendered the scene dark.

  The casino faded back to the mildew-scented air of the warehouse manager’s office; Aaron groaned and slumped in the chair. His eyes happened to point at the wall where a metal wire guide stymied a beetle’s attempt to climb. It reared up, trying to get its legs to purchase on the rod, shuffling to one side in search of an opening. Fatigue washed over him, rendering him tired to the point where breathing seemed an unwanted exertion.

  Archon’s voice existed in his head and reality simultaneously. “My word, man. What on Earth could have gotten you so angry?”

  It was an old telepath’s trick, one he’d used innumerable times―first as a cop and then as a one-night-stand artist. Archon asked it, and he thought it. As before, whatever Archon did made the moment seem real again, bringing back every ounce of sight, smell, and emotion. By the time he finished reliving Allison’s last moments, he blubbed like a schoolboy with a skinned knee.

  Archon kept a respectful silence. Anna bit her lip and glanced between the two men. After an apologetic stare, she examined her lap, making no move to comfort him. She kneaded her fingers and snuck another peek at him.

  The game floating over Aurora chirped and beeped.

  Aaron pushed himself upright before he slid to the floor, and wiped his face. The abnormal vividness of the memory faded fast, leaving him in control after a few breaths.

  “It is my theory that all psionics have the potential for awakening.” Archon gazed at Aaron over his steepled fingers, leaning back in his chair. “The death of your wife was a uniquely powerful emotional scar that broke down the wall holding you back.”

  “People die all the time.” Aaron glared at an exposed patch of floor where carpet had torn. “Wouldn’t that ‘awaken’ more?”

  “Your situation is unusual, Mr. Pryce. I am sure you are well aware, having been in the employ of Division 0 for some time, suggestive commands have certain limits. Impulses to inflict grievous harm upon loved ones rarely succeed.”

  Fire warmed Aaron’s cheeks. “Are you saying I didn’t love her?”

  “Oh, no.” Archon offered a condescending smile. “Not at all. I could see your feelings quite clearly. The unusual part of what happened was how that woman’s suggestion overcame you. If anything, your wife’s complete trust in you should have made it even easier to fight off.”

  Aaron gnawed on a knuckle as a lump swelled in his throat. “She was… She knew.”

  “If she understood how suggestion worked, her show of faith in you was deliberate. It should have let you resist, but it did not. Your mind cracked a touch.”

  “A touch?” Aaron blinked. “I gutted the bloody building. That’s ‘a touch?’”

  Anna smoothed a hand down her dress. “James is fond of understatement.”

  “That’s an understatement,” muttered Au
rora.

  Aaron shifted in the chair. “So, what is it then?”

  “As far as I can tell, this is your mind’s reaction to invasion. Rather than gamble on failing again, it counteracts any attempt at mental tinkering by destroying everything around you. Since the effort originates from deep within your subconscious id, it is unburdened by factors of morality, conscience, or hesitation. That’s why it is so powerful. It is your raw, primal caveman self-preservation.”

  “Why’s it feel like I’ve drunk The Isle free of whiskey?”

  “Simple overexertion, like operating any machine outside of its tolerances.” Archon smiled. “Let me assure you, I have no interest in attempting to weaponize your mental scars. It is indiscriminate, not to mention quite unhealthy for you. You’re no good to anyone burned out or dead.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  Archon tapped his chin, glancing up and to his right for a moment. “I dare say I would need a lot more study to render an opinion on that. My initial suspicion is that any attempt to correct the issue would require the use of abilities that would trigger it.”

  “’At’s a bit of a connumdrum, innit?” muttered Aurora, sounding half-interested.

  “There is also the possibility it would diminish you.” Archon brushed at his eyebrows.

  “Diminish me?” Aaron leaned forward. “What, like no longer being one of these ‘Awakened?’”

  “Essentially, yes. I’d need to study your mind at length to properly understand all the ramifications.”

  A knock came from the door.

  Archon raised his voice. “What is it?”

  Parrot-green hair adorned the head of the stick-thin man leaning in. “Oi, Hughes is on the Vid. Says he’s got six more on a shuttle, smuggled out of the ACC.”

  “Are they at least old enough to be useful?” Archon balanced his chin on his fist.

  “James!” Anna glared at him. “Those kids need our help. They’ll be executed over there.”

  “Yes, yes.” He waved his hand about. “We’re collecting an awful lot of little ones and running out of room as well as people willing to play nanny. What we need are men and women old enough to fight, should the need arise.”