Zero Rogue

by Matthew S. Cox

  Althea looked up at Aurora, with a guarded smile. She seemed to adore the affectionate contact.

  “Willing?” Anna froze in place. “You mean she agreed to come with you now?”

  “Not to stay,” said Aurora. “I promised I’d take her right back once she’d helped Aaron.”

  Althea exchanged stares with Anna for a moment.

  “Uhh.” Anna shied away, stood, and wandered into the kitchen. “I’m not really all that nice.”

  The girl gave Aurora an earnest stare. “She won’t see her heart. She has the lies, and believes.”

  “In time,” whispered Aurora. “In time.”

  “Father always says that.” The child grinned. “Tomará tiempo.”

  Aaron slid his feet in close, resting his arms over his knees. Why do you look so frightened?

  After a slurp of cocoa, she offered a timid glance. Archon tried to take me. He wants me to do bad things. I got away. I… She sent a sheepish smile to Aurora before burying her face in the cup again.

  You’re worried Aurora wanted to kidnap you? Why did you agree to come here then?

  “She asked nice,” whispered Althea. She pointed at Rakshasi. “I want to help that woman, too.”

  Aurora stifled a laugh. “I’d say she’s not worth the bother, but I know you won’t listen. She’s the one who hurt Aaron. She’s not a nice person, kills people for money.”

  “This is her home?” Althea set the cocoa on the rug and stood, keeping one hand against her chest to retain her towel. “She was defending herself.”

  “Not entirely,” said Aaron, with a weak chuckle. “I was trying to leave.”

  Althea tiptoed over to the convulsing figure, earning a disbelieving shake of the head from Anna. She knelt at the woman’s side and slid a hand into the neck of her bathrobe. Rakshasi’s twitching ceased. Soon, she put both hands on the woman’s chest and lapsed into a meditative trance. The towel slipped down, gathering around her like a skirt.

  Aaron fought his way upright. He found his telekinesis back to normal and used it to hold Rakshasi down. He did not want to witness the effect of a blind-panic Nano claw attack on an innocent girl.

  He glanced at Anna. “That woman might be able to help me find Talis.”

  “It’s all right.” Aurora held a hand up to delay a lightning bolt. “I know where Talis is already, plus this Tí-zhèn was just a pawn.”

  “What?” Aaron spun on her. “You know where Talis is?” He almost fainted from anger and surprise.

  “Hello…” She leaned toward him, tapping herself on the head. “Clairvoyant with ghosty powers. Talis has quite a welcoming party waiting for her on the other side.”

  Aaron frothed at the mouth; a glop went flying as he spoke. “You could’ve found her all this time? You…” He pointed at Rakshasi.

  “You asked me to find that techie girl.” Aurora winked. “You were rather focused.”

  “Gaaaah!” He babbled. “Why didn’t you tell me you could just find Talis and skip this whole mess?”

  “That wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.” Aurora examined her fingernails.

  Aaron grasped two handfuls of his hair, ready to tear it out. His eyes felt about to pop from their sockets. Anna gave him a ‘see what we have to deal with?’ smirk.

  “Ngh… Why can’t I move?” whimpered an accented voice.

  “Shit,” muttered Aaron, realizing he’d let go of Rakshasi.

  Althea brushed hair off Rakshasi’s face. “You have many hurts. I will fix them. I told your body not to move because they said you were not nice and might attack me. Do you want me to take the metal poison out?”

  “What?” asked Rakshasi.

  “Cyberware,” said Aurora. “Leave the metal bits, mite. I think she wants to keep them.”

  “Okay.” Althea leaned over the woman, hovering nose to nose. “I’m going to wake up your muscle shapes. Please don’t hurt me.”

  Rakshasi didn’t react, but Althea smiled.

  A minute later, the weary child stood out of the towel and walked back to retrieve her cocoa. She stopped after three steps, looked down at herself, and went back for the towel. Fatigue kept her eyes half-lidded, but she still seemed afraid. After gathering the towel around her like a dress, she trudged over and took a seat on the floor by her cocoa.

  You have the hate. It is a monster at the door love cannot sneak by. Althea sipped cocoa, staring at Aaron. If you don’t make the hate go away, you cannot find the happy. She raised the cup to her mouth again, and gave Anna a sideways glance, smiling.

  Aaron couldn’t bear the innocence in her eyes in contrast to the sight of a little girl covered in blood, and looked away. “Yeah… yeah.”

  Rakshasi sat up, rubbing her chest over a burn hole in her robe.

  “You twitch wrong, and your ass is going back down.” Anna threw a spark from hand to hand.

  “I don’t understand what you people are, but you roasted my interface. Everything’s offline.” The once-imperious Aparna Devi sounded meek. “I’m no threat. I…” She sat up and regarded Aaron with a weary, defeated stare. “I remember feeling great love for Talis. It is gone.”

  “Someone left a bad inside her head,” said Althea. “I fixted it.”

  “Fixed,” said Aurora. “Aren’t they giving you an education out there?”

  Althea stood, and stared at the floor. “I wanna go home.” She gathered the towel tight, shivering. “This place has much cold.” Her teeth chattered. “He’s not here, is he? I don’t want to see him.”

  Anna fidgeted.

  Aparna dragged herself upright and staggered to the kitchenette, her limbs barely flexing. She moved with the speed and grace of a centenarian. A brief glare at Aaron, the only man in the room, still carried distaste―as though he tainted her living space by merely existing in it. Compared to earlier, her expression held only a fraction of the vitriol.

  She got us both.

  The woman jumped at the invasion of his voice in her mind. He read no intent to cause further harm, only pain wracking her body and difficulty moving, as though her limbs were made of stiff wire. A body used to cybernetic augmentation had grown dependent on the electronics. Since the control wiring had fried, the Myofiber synthetic muscles slowed her down as much as they had accelerated before.

  I’m sure Preston will cover your repairs. Aaron winked before he gave her a sympathetic frown. Ehh, sorry about the mess. I only wanted to talk. No hard feelings?

  She wanted him out of her home, wanted the lot of them gone as soon as possible―except the child, who she thought creepy as hell, but not as frightening as everyone else. Aparna made another cup of tea and limped to take a seat at a small table.

  Althea looked up with a gasp at the sound of someone moving in the outside hallway. She took a step back and gave Aurora a pleading stare.

  “Wait a minute,” said Aaron. “You’re that special project they’ve set up out in the Badlands… The field base.”

  The fear and sadness in Althea’s mute expression tore at Aaron’s heart.

  “How…?” Aaron rounded on Aurora, pointing. “How did you get her here so fast?”

  “I’m not a project,” whispered Althea.

  He cringed. “Sorry, mite. Not what I meant. The project is Zero being out there…”

  “The city police bring the bad to Querq,” muttered Althea.

  “What?” asked Aaron.

  “Technology.” Aurora winked. “She had a rather negative experience last time she visited West City, so anything modern she feels is evil.”

  “Oh.” Aaron stared at the snow-white woman. It hit him at that moment that her lips hadn’t moved. He couldn’t recall them ever moving. “What’s with the telepathic voice?”

  She laughed. “Part of my oddities. The usual way never quite worked for me. Radiant telepathic communication. Can’t help it.”

  Althea finished off the cocoa and tossed the cup over her shoulder.

  “Hey…” Aaron caught the m
ug with a telekinetic hand, guiding it to a table.

  The child looked at him, confused.

  He decided not to bother. The kid lived in the Badlands, and he didn’t have the energy to waste on an explanation of trash cans she wouldn’t understand. “Never mind.”

  “How did you get her here so fast?” asked Anna.

  Aurora bounced from the couch, nose in the air, one hand on her hip, the other up as if holding a pipe. She lowered her voice as deep as it could get. “A little thing I like to call being the most powerful astral traveler in the world.”

  Althea’s nervousness broke up into giggles.

  Anna rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Lauren?”

  “Spirit doors. Distance doesn’t work quite the same way on the other side.” Aurora held both arms out to the girl. “Come on, mite. Your lips are turning blue. Let’s get you home.”

  Air-conditioning induced shivers ceased. Althea’s face lit up as she took both of Aurora’s hands.

  “Might want to get him cleaned up a bit, Anna.” Aurora blew an air kiss.

  Aurora and Althea held hands for a moment, toe to toe. Aurora closed her eyes and leaned her head back. A momentary expression of surprise manifested on the child’s face an instant before they both dissipated in a glowing silver fog, which swirled into a tiny point. A plum-colored towel and a red silk robe fell empty to the rug.

  “Well, shit,” said Aaron. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “Come on, then. Into the shower with you.” Anna grabbed his suit jacket as if leading a wayward schoolboy and gave him a light shove toward an interior hall. She glanced around the apartment and offered an apologetic smile at Rakshasi. “Sorry about the flat.”

  “It can wait. Wouldn’t want to taint her facilities with man cooties.”

  “She won’t mind.” Anna shot the other woman a dire stare.

  Aparna cringed, refusing to look away from her tea. She made no effort to hide the fear on her face. Aaron almost felt insulted at not inspiring the same sort of dread that the tiny woman next to him did.

  “Bother. I’d just as soon be away from here.” He pulled his destroyed jacket off on his way to the exit.

  Anna followed at an unenthused meander, a somber stare fixed at the floor with an added trace of a pout on her lips. He stopped short at the door, making her bump into him and look up.

  “For what it’s worth…” He took her hand. “I don’t think you’re a freak. I think that little one’s right about you. There’s another Anna in there somewhere, hiding.”

  “It’s not going to work,” she muttered, close to tears. “My knickers aren’t going to fly off because you’re all of a sudden charming and sensitive after almost dying.”

  “I’m not trying to get you in the sack.” He squeezed her hand before backing into the outer hallway. “I’m trying to say thank you.”

  aron replayed the events of the past two hours in his head while the relaxing spray of hot water hit him from all sides. Shimmer had given him all the data on Rakshasi, every cyber part, address, even the technical schematics of her apartment―which he’d glossed over. He wondered if the file contained any information about the lockdown routine or the disorienting gas mechanism.

  He closed his eyes amid the spatter of spray soap, astounded to have walked out of Rakshasi’s flat with no greater problem than deep hunger. The only remnant of his near-death experience manifested as a dull ache centered in the core of both thighs… and another ruined suit. However, considering the major bones in his legs had been salami-sliced not too long ago, he couldn’t complain.

  His growing urge for food kept him from running another shower cycle. The hotel room had felt stuffy and uncomfortable on the way in, but he stepped out from the steamy autoshower into air that qualified as downright frigid. He swiped a towel from the wall and ran it over his head where the too-short dry cycle hadn’t quite finished on his hair. Red lettering stitched into the end caught his eye:

  Towel will ignite if removed from the hotel property. Do not steal.

  “Self-immolating towels. Ahh, the wonders of modern technology.” He wrapped it around his waist, entertaining momentary second thoughts about having something capable of spontaneous combustion that close to his tender portions, but he wasn’t planning on going outside. “Note to self, keep this bloody thing far away when Anna’s watching frictionless.”

  “Very funny,” said Anna.

  She waited for him in the bedroom, sitting at the end of one of the twin Comforgel beds with her chin in her hands. Her expression held a mixture of sad and awkward, and she didn’t look up. Unable to resist, he peeked at the tip of her brain, finding her attempting to stifle guilt and shame for an unexpected sense of attraction to him. He spun on his heel as though forgetting something in the bathroom.

  I still got it. The enormous shit-eating grin mirror-Aaron flashed back at him faded with the memory of the look she’d given him as they left Rakshasi’s place. Surface skimming wasn’t necessary to tell how she felt about her powers. She’d told him she’d accidentally killed a man when she’d been twelve, a defensive reaction in the middle of being beaten. How long had she believed she’d murdered her father and not some CSB tosser? An event of that magnitude could make a psionic ashamed of their powers. He’d seen similar cases when he’d been with Division 0. A traumatic enough event associated with their gifts could make them afraid to use them ever again. He tapped the sink for a moment, trying to sort out his thoughts, and wandered back to where she had arranged a clean suit on the unoccupied bed. She had to have sensed that peek. Great, I just made it more awkward. Aaron picked at the suit, straightening it.

  “I know you’re spoken for.”

  Anna still didn’t move.

  He slid on a pair of boxers under the towel and let the damp cloth fall. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  Anna deflated with an outward breath. Her voice came a hair above a whisper. “Sorry about your wife.”

  “Thanks.” He took an undershirt from the stack and sat on the end of the bed. “Are you hungry at all? I’m famished.”

  “It’s from the girl.” Anna’s face lit up from her NetMini’s terminal screen. “I’ll order us something.”

  She remained quiet while he dressed, not moving except to retrieve food from the delivery bot when it buzzed the door. The unmistakable fragrance of fish and chips swam into the room.

  “Cute. You’re taking after Darwin now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She sounded halfway between sad and bored.

  “Oh, nothing.” He plopped down at the tiny table by the front window, attacking his portion.

  “Look, Aaron. I know what you’re thinking. He’s forty-five, I’m twenty-eight, he’s stuffy…”

  Aaron held a hand up until he finished chewing. “No, nothing to feel bad about. I understand. I’m not trying to get in your knickers. The whole time I played for Arsenal, I had girls throwing themselves at me.” His tone conveyed more annoyance than bragging. “All they wanted was their fifteen seconds and as much of my money as they could get. Shallow. Insincere. You probably don’t believe me, but I never touched one of them.” He stuffed his mouth, chewed twice, and forced it down. “When I got here, things were different. Allison had no idea who I was. I… owe it to her to make that bitch pay.”

  “James thinks this is a giant waste of time. He understands, though. He knows how you’re feeling. I’d love to get my hands on the bastard that shot my mother.”

  “I’m sorry.” Aaron’s appetite faded for all of a second. “That had to be hard.”

  “I was two. I don’t even remember her, just the bastard posing as my father.”

  “Still not easy.” He dumped so much pepper on the chips Anna sneezed.

  “I killed him. I was twelve.” She fell into a chair, picking at her food. “I didn’t know he wasn’t my dad then. He got so worked up when I’d get emotional and something would blow up. Ironic, I think. He was worrie
d I’d accidentally kill him in a fit of teenaged angst, so he drank himself to the point he became someone else. One night he was hitting―”

  Aaron grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to go back there.”

  “It’s all right. He wasn’t my father, just some CSB agent.” She clenched her fists.

  “Would it be easier to live with if he was really your dad?”

  Overhead lights faltered but didn’t explode. “No. I would rather it though. If he was my real father, that’d mean I had a family even if it was a ballsed-up one. Better a painful truth than a pleasant lie.” She scratched at the table for a moment. “A lie won’t last forever; something’ll eventually come along and ruin all the defense I build to weather it, and it’d hurt all over again―likely worse. Truth will always be right in front of you. No surprises.” She sniffled into a laugh. “Look at me, all wallowing in self-pity.” Wet sapphire eyes locked on his. She reached across the table to hold his hand. “I can’t imagine… It was beyond cruel to make you shoot her.”

  Aaron’s appetite went down for a three-count. “I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. Without her, I can’t find meaning in anything.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ll help you kill Talis if it’s what you want. It’s the least I can do.”

  He let off an uninspired chuckle and jammed a third of a piece of reassembled cod in his mouth. Anna slid back to her side of the table and tested her chips. She looked as unimpressed with them as Aaron felt.

  “Seems we’ve got to cross the pond to get a decent meal,” said Anna.

  “I’m starting to doubt I can beat her. Everything’s going to sod.”

  “You’re Awakened now, Aaron. She’s merely a psionic. She won’t know what hit her.”

  “Rakshasi wasn’t even psionic and look where I wound up.” He stabbed chips with a fork, four at a time, cramming them into his mouth. “Mrff, mmmf mmm.”

  “She had the advantage… of you being pig-headed and trying to do everything alone.”

  “I thought you didn’t like killing.”

  “I don’t.” Anna frowned at her lap. “A little girl once told me some people deserve to die. I think she’s right.”