Zero Site 1607

by Andrew Calhoun

  ZERO SITE 1607

  Planet Zero Trilogy BOOK II

  Andrew Calhoun

  ZERO SITE 1607

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Calhoun

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner

  whatsoever without the express written permission

  of the author except for the use of

  brief quotations in a book review,

  or as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Cover by germancreative

  Map of the Verse Gates by renflowergrapx

  What did the Zeroes think when they

  uncovered seventeen worlds of humans

  in all their different stages of development?

  Did they feel the parental urge to protect us?

  To shepherd us through our messy teens?

  Did they plan to enslave us? Conquer us and

  exploit us for our muscle and sweat?

  Or did they give us much thought at all?

  What if, to these architects of the Verse Gates,

  we were less than human?

  Mere fauna.

  Enoch Cud, from A Chronicle of Human Failures

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1: PURPOSE

  1.1 SAELIKO

  1.2 KETTLE

  1.3 KETTLE

  1.4 ELISKA

  1.5 KETTLE

  1.6 ELISKA

  1.7 KETTLE

  1.8 SAELIKO

  1.9 KETTLE

  1.10 KETTLE

  PART 2: CROSS-PURPOSES

  2.1 SAELIKO

  2.2 KETTLE

  2.3 ELISKA

  2.4 KETTLE

  2.5 ELISKA

  2.6 KETTLE

  2.7 SAELIKO

  2.8 KETTLE

  2.9 SAELIKO

  PART 3: NEW PRIORITIES

  3.1 KETTLE

  3.2 SAELIKO

  3.3 ELISKA

  3.3 KETTLE

  3.4 ELISKA

  3.5 SAELIKO

  3.6 KETTLE

  3.7 ROY

  3.8 SAELIKO

  3.9 KETTLE

  3.10 EMMA

  PROLOGUE

  John ran through the subterranean corridor, a three-page printout clutched in his right hand and a white key card in the left. The contents of the printout simultaneously filled him with excitement and worry.

  Roughly thirty meters above, the hot sun beat down along the southern Tasmanian coastline. The Zodo facility was buried deep in the ancient rock that made up the South East Cape, hidden from view and unknown to all but a few key individuals placed in the Australian and American governments. The location was remote; other than occasional hikers crossing through Tasmania’s Southwest National Park, few people ever set foot on the rugged landscape above the network of underground hallways and chambers.

  From Zodo’s perspective, the property was ideal. Locally, it was within reach of Hobart International Airport, allowing Zodo personnel access to global air travel. More importantly, cartographically speaking, it butted up against the meeting point between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. For as remote as Tasmania might have seemed to the vast majority of the seven billion humans on the planet, it was situated very close to an inter-verse highway.

  Earth, or VGCP Seven as it was known in the multiverse, only had two gates (one entrance and one exit), which created something of an interplanetary bottleneck but simplified things from a planet-side logistical point of view.

  The entrance gate was in the Pacific, approximately halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. The only nearby inhabited land was a small sanctuary of dirt and lichen-covered rocks called Macquarie Island, which aside from hosting thriving rabbit and penguin populations, was home to only about thirty humans who collectively manned a research station.

  The exit gate, on the other hand, was about a half-hour flight northwest of an American military base called Diego Garcia, smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The Americans, of course, were unaware.

  Two and a half decades ago, there were regular Zodo flights popping out of the entrance gate (coming from VGCP Three). Those flights either carried on toward the exit gate (which sent travelers to VGCP Eleven) or stopped at the extensive Zodo facility in Tasmania.

  John had been in his early forties at the time. He had worked in Zodo’s Intelligence Operations Unit, which had boasted a full staff of thirty-two analysts within the facility and a further seventy-three operatives out in the field. Part of their job had been to make sure that the inter-verse flights and all related operations, including the shuttling of Zodo employees back and forth from Hobart to the Cape, went under the radar, both literally and figuratively. This involved, among other things, the maintenance of strategic Zodo influence within key branches in a handful of Earth governments.

  Then, twenty-two years ago, VGCP One had shut its gates and put itself under quarantine. For Zodo’s Earth-bound residents, everything changed on that day. All at once, traffic on the inter-verse highway ground to a halt. John’s bosses scrambled to come to terms with a harsh new reality, a reality in which they were cut off from everything they had taken for granted. No more instructions from HQ via drone, no incoming supplies, no fresh recruits to bolster the ranks, and aside from the rare Kye-shiv departing VGCP Three, no communication with any of the other sixteen verse gate connected planets.

  They were alone.

  John slowed down for the last set of stairs before Director Ivo Jrobek’s office, afraid of catching a toe and slamming himself into the steps. It was probably a good idea regardless; he hadn’t run so far in a very long time, and it would be an awful shame to have a heart attack at the foot of the director’s door.

  At the top of the stairs, he swiped his key card against a pad next to a set of double doors. The pad produced a dour sounding triple-beep and flashed a red light, indicating that it hadn’t registered the card. John rolled his eyes. “Not now!” Many of the security locks had been acting up lately, and there was no one left who knew how to fix them. Rumor had it that they were going to have to disable every lock in the base soon as a precautionary measure lest someone find themselves trapped forever behind an obstinate door.

  It took three more swipes before the beeps changed to a pleasant chime and the light turned green. John entered and walked through an antechamber. He tried to compose himself, lifting an arm to wipe the perspiration off his brow. He passed the secretary’s desk. There was no actual secretary anymore, but the desk still had a computer on it, and the polished wood was spotless. John pulled himself to a stop in front of the big wooden door with Jrobek’s nameplate fixed at eye-level. He rapped his knuckles three times, and upon hearing a genial “Come in!” from within, entered the office.

  “Ah, John!” Ivo said from his big leather chair behind a broad desk. “Nice of you to stop by. Haven’t see you in a fortnight. Not since you went to Hobart . . . John? What’s going on? Why are you breathing hard?”

  “This!” John held the printout triumphantly, his eyes wide and bright.

  “Sit down, John.” Ivo motioned to a burgundy leather chair with dark wooden armrests. “Catch your breath, old friend. Rest a minute. Have some tea.” He reached for a small metal tea kettle atop his desk, which sat next to a pair of empty teacups and saucers. “I’ve got some news of my own,” he added. “Some good and some bad. And then you can tell me what’s on that piece of paper of yours.”

  “No! This is more important.” Under normal circumstances, directors were not to be spoken to in such a haughty manner, but John and Ivo had been working together for so long that friendship had long ago chipped away at the restrictions of protocol.

  The director lifted an eyebrow and twitched the
neatly trimmed grey mustache above his thin lips. He set down his own cup and leaned forward. “Okay, John. What have you got?”

  “We found another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “Zero Stock.”

  “Another Zero? You’re kidding. Let me see.” Ivo held his hand out and took the printout from John. With his free hand he lifted a set of old circular-framed glasses to his face.

  “Just got confirmation from our boys in America.”

  Ivo didn’t answer right away. His eyes scanned the data for the tell-tale biological clues among the genetic markers.

  John tapped his fingers against his leg while he waited impatiently for Ivo to sift through the haplogroup analysis and get to the more important bits – the bits about the unmistakable anomaly. Zero Stock had a DNA marker shared by no one else on the planet, or anyone else on any of the seventeen inhabited planets. They were distinct from the rest of humanity because somewhere in their ancestry, Zero DNA had made it into their genes. I.e., one of their ancestors was from VGCP Zero.

  The term Zero Stock was deceptive. To be considered Zero Stock in Zodo’s conception of the term, having a Zero ancestor was necessary but not sufficient. In fact, over the past two decades of searching, Zodo’s science team had identified more than nine hundred individuals on Earth who could claim Zero ancestry. In all of them, the Zero gene was benign. Inoperative. Superficial. As one of the scientists had so eloquently put it, having a benign Zero gene was much like having a third nipple; it made you a curiosity but by no means any more or less useful than anyone else.

  Earlier this year, the science team finally hit the jackpot not once, but twice. First, they identified a Korean female by the name of Hyeji (Haley) Yoon, and shortly after that, an American male named Merrick Kettle. In both cases, the Zero gene was dormant but not benign.

  “Amazing,” Ivo stated almost under his breath. “All that time searching, and now we’ve found three in a single year.”

  “It’s a numbers game. More and more people are doing DNA tests than ever before, and our data collection systems are expanding.”

  “Female. Just turned fifteen years old. Born and raised in Seattle.”

  “Keep reading,” John urged. “The bottom of the last page.”

  Ivo scanned downward and shifted the paper up in his hands. The old man’s eyes squinted for a moment and then widened. “Really?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.”

  “But we checked.”

  “We couldn’t have known.”

  “She’s his daughter?”

  “Yep.”

  “Merrick Kettle has a daughter? Oh my, John. Merrick Kettle has a daughter.”

  “Indeed he does. Although there’s a chance he might not even know. The mother is a woman named Jane Connolly, maiden name Kalani. From the records we could obtain, it looks like she got pregnant while she was engaged. It might just be that poor Mr. Connolly thinks that Emma is his own daughter, but the DNA doesn’t lie. She’s a Kettle. Merrick dipped his wick, so to speak, before Jane got married.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “We have to get Emma off-world.”

  Ivo sighed and placed the printout on his desk next to the teacup. He took his glasses off and put them on top of the printout. With his free hand, he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “I know, I know.” John held a hand up to preempt Ivo voicing his concerns. “It was a hell of a job getting Merrick and Haley out. One hell of a job. The airplane, the fake university grant, the work contracts. But we had to do it. And we have to do it again. If there’s even the slightest chance that these people can stop the virus, we have to do it. There’s no other choice here.”

  “I know, old friend. But it’s a sickening business.”

  “It’s morally justified.”

  “We already sent two.”

  “But if they didn’t succeed . . . If they didn’t make it to VGCP Sixteen, then this girl is our next chance. This is the right thing to do.”

  “It’s kidnapping,” Ivo countered. “Abduction on a grand scale. And this is a fifteen-year-old girl we’re talking about here. Can you imagine the trauma we’ll put her through? Imagine the horror her parents are going to feel when their daughter goes missing.”

  “We could take them, too, Ivo. You know I’ve argued for that contingency in the past. It makes sense.”

  “Against regulations. You know that.”

  “No one’s left to enforce those regulations,” John pointed out. “And if this girl manages to save us, I’m sure VGCP One will forgive us our sins.”

  “It’s a damn dirty business,” Ivo said again.

  “Come on, Ivo. Let’s put that aside for the moment. Let’s talk logistics. How can we get her to the gate? I’m betting our boys in the NSA will have a few ideas on that one if you and I can’t come up with something ourselves.”

  “I already know how to get her to the gate.”

  This time it was John’s turn to look surprised. “Really?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do tell.”

  “Kye-shiv.”

  “We don’t have any Kye-shivs.”

  “Remember when I said I had good news and bad?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “We now have three Kye-shivs in the hangar. They arrived two nights ago while you were in Sydney.”

  “Well . . .” John took a moment and scratched his head. “Well, that changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “They flew in from VGCP Three?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “That’s the good news, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “What’s the bad news?” In fact, John already knew what Ivo was going to say. It was a possibility that they had already considered, a possibility they had hoped would never become a reality.

  “The Zero virus just hit VGCP Three. Those Kye-shivs were the last transports out.”

  John leaned back in his chair and slowly nodded. He digested the information and let it sit heavy in his gut. That was it then. The Zero virus was on Earth’s doorstep. “It’s more important than ever,” he told Ivo. “We have to get Emma out.”

  PART 1: PURPOSE

  The human race is neither good nor evil,

  neither benign nor malignant. The species is

  too complex to be summed with one or the other

  binary label.

  People, on the other hand – that’s a different

  matter altogether. For every wholesome soul

  putting out fires, there’s a right prick trying

  to set the world ablaze.

  Enoch Cud, from A Chronicle of Human Failures

  1.1 SAELIKO

  She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. As best she could tell, she was lying on a padded table in an empty, nondescript room. In consecutive order, the following three realizations presented themselves for consideration.

  I’m dead. Memories came flooding back. The battle on the Skag. Janx throwing a knife into her chest. Lying on the ground struggling for breath. Vision blurring and then fading to black. What a shame; things had been going so well.

  This is sure as turtle shite not Karramoor. Legends of the afterlife spoke of great feasts presided over by the Five and Twenty-four. They spoke of enlightenment, self-fulfillment and eternal pleasure. At the very least, they spoke of other people. They definitely did not speak of being alone in a small room. This was all kinds of not good.

  Someone tied me up. She looked down at the restraints around her wrists and ankles. Not rope or chains. She couldn’t identify the material. The loops around her joints were black and smooth, and the tethers were flexible yet unmistakably strong. There was sufficient slack for her to lift her hands off the table, but she wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.

  She lifted her head so that she could get a better look at the rest of her body. She had di
ed on the Skag dressed as a Saffisheen harker. Now she wore a flimsy paper-thin piece of material that wrapped around her like a pauper’s rags. The front was low cut, coming down to the top of her breasts. The bottom of the getup came down to her knees. Underneath, she was as naked as the day she was born.

  For the first time in a very, very long time, fear edged up to her consciousness like a school of little black vulture fish nibbling a corpse in the water. Even on the Skag, when the world conspired to burn her well-laid plans into ash and murder the crew of the Epoch one by one, Saeliko hadn’t experienced fear. On the contrary, she had felt invigorated. She was Saffisheen – bloodshed her companion, chaos her husband. She was trained to be the last woman standing with bodies strewn around her in all directions. That it didn’t work out was irrelevant.

  This room was different. Those little nibbles of anxiety wormed their way into her consciousness because there was nothing in this room she recognized. There were no frames of reference. She was, without question, not in control. There was nothing she could latch onto to even give herself the semblance of control.

  I’m dead, and I’m not where I’m supposed to be. This was not Karramoor, which led to a whole host of unpleasant possibilities. Torture came to mind. She pictured demented creatures, tentacles for arms and sharpened teeth in leering mouths, on their way at this very instant to burn her flesh with hot coals and tear her fingernails out one by one.

  Or maybe it would be isolation. Maybe she was to be left here, alone in this strange room, for all eternity until her mind decayed into mush. Which would be worse?

  Fear is a greater weapon than any blade. This was Verossa’s voice. Saeliko’s memory slipped back to her days at the Temple of Pedagogues. Verossa was a pig-headed, mean-spirited witch of a pedagogue, but now and again, probably through sheer accident, spittles of wisdom escaped her fat lips. Fear will dig holes in your guts and your heart before the real fight ever begins. It is only then that you’ll realize that your battle with fear was the real fight, and the battle with blades only an epilogue. Saeliko hated that woman – the feeling was mutual – but she knew these sentiments to be true.