Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  Melni slid a hand under the bedsheet and unclasped the straps at his ankles. “Are you ready to talk sense now, prisoner?”

  “Not until you bring my food,” he shot back, playing his part. Then he whispered, “What are you going to do?”

  Melni held her hand perpendicular across her mouth, the gesture for silence she’d taught him. “Come through that door in twenty seconds,” she mouthed more than said.

  He nodded, watching as she turned and strode back into the room beyond the mirror.

  —

  Caswell counted, only to fifteen since their seconds were a bit faster than his. Then he leapt from the bed and rushed the door, rubbing his temples the whole way. He wanted focus, clarity of mind. Lack of empathy and pain suppression. But the implant only complained. An empty feeling, like hunger, that told him the chemical reserves had all run dry. His implant could do nothing unless he found food.

  Melni stood with her back angled toward him. She had one arm around the neck of a man who sat in front of a reel-to-reel recording apparatus. Her other hand he couldn’t see, but from her posture he guessed she’d stabbed him, or was slitting his throat. Jesus.

  The man spasmed, hands outstretched in sudden panic. A book fell to the floor. Melni grunted with effort, her feet scrabbling on the tiles for purchase. Caswell stepped toward the pair, ready to help, but then the victim melted back into his chair, slid down until his back was on the seat cushion, and fell off one side into a heap under the desk.

  “You killed him?”

  Melni half-turned, held up something that resembled a syringe. “He will be out for hours,” she said. She moved to the next door and leaned against it. “Get his outfit, and be quick. They come for you as we speak.”

  Caswell knelt and set to work on removing the man’s clothes. “I thought you’d abandoned me,” he said again.

  “We need to find this proof.”

  He didn’t bother with the undergarments. The pants fit, the shirt as well, though once the clasps were fastened it stretched too tight across the chest. Still, it beat the patient gown. The shoes, though, were far too small. “Shoes don’t fit,” he said.

  “We call them treadmellows.”

  He sat on the floor, strained to get them on without success. Frustrated, he tossed them aside.

  “Take the socks,” Melni offered. “They are black. Someone would have to look to notice. We must go.”

  “Fine.” He took the socks. They reeked, but he pulled them on all the same. He stood and studied himself. “It’ll do, I guess.” He inspected the pant pockets. In one, a money clip held a surprisingly thick stack of teal notes. In the other was a set of keycards. Unsure of both, he tossed them to Melni.

  “There are two guards outside the door,” she said. “I will go out first and try to distract them….”

  She paused because he had stopped listening. A wheeled storage rack parked against one wall had caught his eye. Various medicines and other ancillary items were arrayed on the shelves. A standard set of supplies, wheeled in to any infirmary room. “What is it?” she asked.

  Caswell took slow steps over to the rack and reached to one shelf in particular, near the top. There, tucked between two boxes of syringes, was an oval-shaped metallic package. He pulled it out and grinned. “Calories,” he said, salivating.

  Melni just watched him.

  He twisted off the cap and sucked the contents down in a single, gulping swallow, crushing the package in his fist to get every last bit of nutrients into his mouth.

  “Sweet potato mash,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. “With peas. Worst of the lot. Of course they’d pick this one, the monsters.”

  “We could try to find your—”

  He held up a hand to cut her off, then sank to his knees.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, saying nothing, waiting for his body to process the food. “Give me five minutes,” Caswell whispered.

  “You can have one,” Melni replied, and she meant it.

  “Five,” he groaned. He massaged the back of his neck to get more blood flowing there. The seconds slid away. Then the minutes. Melni shifted impatiently but said nothing.

  The phantom sensation of emptiness in his skull abated. He moved his fingers to his temples and asked the artificial organ for what he needed. This time it complied.

  Everything slowed down a bit. Dreamlike, but crystal clear. Sights, sounds, even smells, all amplified. Every ache and lingering bit of fatigue in his body melted away. They were there, but only as data. Information that could be comprehended and summarily ignored.

  “Right,” he said. “Guards outside?”

  “Yes, two. I shall distract—”

  “No. Wait here,” he said. Before Melni could stop him he was at the door, then through into the hallway.

  They stood to either side, backs to the wall, batons holstered at their hips. No firearms. Caswell coiled toward one, smashing his windpipe with a knife-hand punch. Then he uncoiled, twisting and extending his leg in a snap kick that took the other guard full in the face.

  Melni emerged seconds later, and gasped. “You killed them.”

  “That’s what I do.”

  “I…This is not how—”

  “Go back in there, Melni. Pretend I overcame you and fled. There’s no reason for you to take any blame for this.”

  “No,” she said. Then with more conviction, “No. I am coming.”

  He stared at her a long moment, trying to process what the implication would be for her career, not to mention her safety.

  “Then help me with the bodies,” he said. He grabbed one by the legs and jerked his head toward the door for Melni to hold it open. She complied, still shocked at the violence.

  A door at the far end of the hall, ten meters away, creaked open. He heard this easily, despite being in the room with the recorder. Out in the hall Melni stood frozen in place, holding the door, staring in the direction of the sound.

  “What is the meaning of this, Agent Sonbo?” someone said. A sour, emotionless voice, like a stern grandmother.

  He could hear others, too. Breathing, footsteps. Six, or maybe eight. Guards? He assumed yes. And right about now they’d be readying their weapons. Caswell grabbed the police-style baton from the guard’s belt.

  “Director, I—” Melni stopped when Caswell pushed by her at a full sprint. Not toward the newcomers, nor even away from them, but straight across the narrow hall. Two steps and he leapt, planting a foot on the wall and pivoting his body toward the “director” and her party. In the same motion he threw the baton.

  The woman ducked on instinct. Caswell knew she would; everyone ducked in such a scenario. So he had leapt high, aimed low. The black nightstick slammed right into the woman’s face with a sickening, meaty thud.

  The group behind her erupted into chaos. Most were doctors, Caswell belatedly realized. Some guards at the rear were trying to move forward, shoving the medical staff aside. Everyone was shouting. The woman on the floor rolled over and came to her knees, hands pressed to her bleeding face, a horrible moan spilling out from between the fingers.

  Caswell grabbed Melni’s arm. “Which way?”

  “That—” she managed before he yanked her away from the fallen director.

  She’d pointed to a door in the opposite direction. He raced to it, yanking her behind him. Pulled it open, shoved her beyond, and then closed it at his back with a click.

  Ancient stone walls surrounded them. An old prison, he thought. “Where now?”

  His words didn’t seem to register.

  “Where?” he shouted, squeezing her arm.

  “Go down,” Melni managed. “All the way down.”

  “Where’s the stairs?”

  “Director Clune,” she stammered. “You just—”

  “Melni, get ahold of yourself. For all they know, you’re my hostage.”

  Her eyes came up, met his. Those purple pools, normally so full of intelligence, now f
ull of fear.

  “Stairs?” he repeated.

  “Stepwell. The second left, then the last door on the left.”

  He rushed ahead. Melni struggled to keep up at first, but with each step the shock seemed to bleed out of her. Distance from the carnage. Soon enough she was only a few steps behind him.

  Overhead, the lights dimmed, shining red when their brightness returned. Somewhere an alarm began to wail.

  “Garta’s light, no,” Melni whispered.

  A guard burst through a door ahead of them, looking the wrong way. Caswell dove high and flew over the man’s shoulders, grabbing the neck as he flew, twisting him around and pulling him down. Caswell landed and continued to fall, an iron grip around the neck. The motion pulled the man off his feet and brought him crashing down on top of Caswell. Or would have, only the assassin had rolled out of the way. He was up on his hands and feet already. The guard tried to stand, bewildered. Caswell kicked a side of the man’s skull with flawless precision. The guard collapsed. All before Melni had had time to catch up.

  “Come on, come on,” he rasped.

  Melni stammered some reply. He could hear her footfalls on the stone steps, falling back. But still coming, still following. He pressed ahead, taking the steps three at a time.

  By the time she found him at the bottom, three more bodies lay at his feet.

  —

  The black waters of Riv Dimont gurgled by. Three bodies drifted away on the languid current toward the sea. Caswell stood with his back to her, watching them go.

  “The raft,” Melni said, numb. She could think of nothing else to say. Her plan to sneak Caswell away from here under the cover of night, find her proof, and report back, triumphant, had shattered like glass when that trunch had smacked Rasa Clune right in her nose. She’d only just come to grips with the bodies they’d left behind in Combra, but this…this was something else entirely. These were Southerners. Her allies. Caswell had torn through them like a bhar through weeds. “The raft,” she said again.

  The assassin did not react. He just watched the bodies float off. His shoulders heaved as he gulped air. Finally he turned, and she saw what the flurry of activity had cost him. His face was bone white, what little color he’d had above now drained save for little flecks of blood. He opened his mouth to say something, his lower lip quivering. No words came. He stumbled, one knee giving out to exhaustion.

  “What have you done to yourself?” she asked, catching him mid-fall.

  “What I had to,” he replied, eyelids fluttering.

  She hauled him to the raft and laid him on the wood slats, then took to the oars. The current did most of the work. Within ten minutes they reached the swirling waters where the river met the sea. Caswell had come to a sitting position by then, his color returning. He kept his gaze carefully behind them, wary of pursuit, but perhaps because of the hasty nature of their escape no one had thought to check the raft docks below the bridge. Sirens still wailed above, growing quieter as Riverswidth receded into the distance.

  Melni strained against the shifting forces where the currents met, guiding the little raft to the north shoreline, where a set of pourstone steps met the water’s edge, built for fishers. The steps led up to street level. Standing on the slick black rocks along the waterfront she tried to push the raft back out into the river, but it kept gliding right back to rest on the stones.

  “Wait,” Caswell said. Using some hidden reserve of strength he started to pull the raft out of the lapping waves. Melni understood at once and helped him. Together they lugged the old thing up onto the fisher’s platform beside the steps. Three discarded fishing poles had been abandoned there. Caswell compelled her to help him lay the raft upright against the seawall. Then he took the poles and arranged them neatly alongside. Standing back a few steps, it looked convincingly like the arrayed gear of a dawn fishing expedition, left alone perhaps while the occupants went off in search of cham and bread.

  “Will it work?” Caswell asked.

  “It might buy us a few minutes, and that could be the difference.”

  She led him up the steps. They walked along the promenade arm in arm as they had in Midstav, her head against his shoulder. With each step she expected to hear a chin-up’s whistle, though there were no chin-ups in Dimont. With each step that no alarm sounded she relaxed just a tiny bit more.

  At the dockyards Melni paid cash for two seats in the galley of a hauler she knew well. Before being deployed to Combra she’d written a summary of the boat’s activities, and dossiers on the key crew members. She knew everything about it: schedule, captain, all of it. That investigation had been dropped for reasons beyond her, but Melni still retained the details.

  “I cannot take you past the line. There is a blockade on,” the gruff old captain said.

  “Marados will suffice,” Melni said, and he agreed.

  Caswell said nothing at all. He kept behind her, always on the side with more shadow, always carefully bland and uninteresting.

  The boat looked ancient compared to the sleek yachts and massive cargo haulers she’d become accustomed to seeing in the harbors along Combra’s western shore. Her looks were deceptive, though, as Melni well knew. She was a long and narrow thing with a hull of treated wooden planks, and her air-engine rattled like an old man’s bones as the craft glided out from the dark port and into the bigger waves beyond.

  The captain led them to a crew galley near the stern of the ship just above the waterline. Porthole windows offered grime-filtered views of the dreary docklands and, in short order, black seas below a star-filled sky. The boat rose and fell on waves ten feet high, moving with remarkable speed on the favorable current.

  There’d been no identification request upon boarding, not even a request for names. Just a handful of bills Melni provided from the flush clip Caswell had found in his stolen trousers.

  They were alone in the galley. Pots and pans hanging from ceiling hooks swayed with the waves. Bags of fruit and vegetables, too. Thin red cushions lay on a bench that ran along three sides of the meal space. In the center there was a low wooden table that looked a thousand years old. Words were knife-etched into the deep brown surface. Names of current and former crew, or those they loved. BLIXXING COMBS, a vulgarity aimed at Northerners, in bold block lettering. Others instructed all desoa to go home, as if that were a thing that one could do. The ignorance made her blood hot.

  “Did you find my supplies? Any more of my food?” Caswell asked, once seated.

  She found herself really looking at him for the first time since they’d left his cell. The tally of bodies left in the wake of their escape, not to mention Clune’s broken nose, had shocked her senseless. But now, sitting here across from him, she reached the truly terrifying conclusion that he had done it all. He’d turned into some kind of machine. Without a weapon save that baton he’d fought through at least a half-dozen trained Riverswidth guards without so much as a scratch. What limits did this man have? No wonder he’d found his way into the Think Tank so easily.

  “Melni? My food?”

  Numb, she shook her head. Then she remembered the one thing she’d kept hidden from Clune. “I did manage to recover this.” She removed the “Smart Needler” from her sock and slid it across to him. “Will it help you?”

  Caswell picked up the tube and turned it about in his hands. Examining it for damage, perhaps. After a few seconds he slipped it under the table. “Thank you. Gratitude, I mean. It’s not for medicine. It’s a weapon. The same kind I used on all those cruisers at the base of the mountain.”

  “Oh. Regrets. I suppose that might have been useful getting out of there.” Not that he seemed to need any help.

  He tilted his head inquisitively, changing the subject. “What’d you find in the records room?”

  Melni plucked the information packet from her blouse and laid the images out on the table between them. As he studied them she made a pillow of her folded arms and laid her head down. The lure of sleep tugged at her eye
lids within seconds. She watched his face as he studied the images, waiting to see if the same revelation would strike him. When it did, she found she was smiling.

  “Graves,” he said. “Buried bodies. I’m sure of it.”

  “That is what I suspected.”

  He stared a moment longer, then handed the papers back. “Careless of her.”

  “You made the same mistake, did you not?”

  He flashed her a grin. “Exactly. Nice to know she doesn’t think of everything.” He seemed to notice her half-closed eyes then. His grin turned into something warmer. “Get some rest. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

  Between his warm smile and the slow rise and fall of the boat, she soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

  —

  He woke before her. The sea had calmed. Birds—their version of them, anyway, with their smaller set of hind wings—wheeled and screeched out over the gray-green waters. Now and then one would streamline itself and dart down into the waves to spear whatever it was they ate.

  Caswell watched them for some time, absorbing. He’d forget all of this, that much was undeniably true. But the chances were slim to none that he would leave this world after reversion. Memories would be formed, then. Perhaps a lifetime’s worth. He grinned at that prospect. They may have sent him to assassinate Alice Vale, but he doubted anyone would ever come to rescue him. No, they would study this place from orbit for decades.

  What would he do? How would he live? Become a hermit in some remote house? Maybe he’d travel. Adventure-wandering, like he did for his holidays after any other Archon mission. Only this one would never end. He could move from place to place, disguise himself and try to blend in until anyone began to suspect something, then move on. Perhaps become some kind of legend.

  The idea that Gartien would be his home, that he’d never do another mission for Archon, that his implant would never delete another memory after this, had only just begun to sink in. He was thirty-four years old. There was still time for a normal life, a real set of memories without gaps and the suspicion of evil tucked therein.

  He turned and looked at Melni, who lay curled up on one of the cushioned bench seats, sound asleep. Maybe she’d come with him. Although she hadn’t said as much, he sensed she would not be able to return to her home. Not without dire consequences, at least.