Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  His calm dissolved into cold calculation. What if she was here to unleash the secret weapon she’d been researching? What if she planned to kill all these people, here, tonight? Had that been what was so urgent that he’d given up his mnemonic to some stranger on a train?

  It must be that. Or something like it. Archon had probably been hired to prevent the weapon’s use. Caswell scanned the crowd again. He allowed his vision to glaze, letting his mind see the whole scene rather than the individual people. “Where are you, Vale?” he whispered.

  She was here to give a speech. A dignitary then. She probably wouldn’t be out here in the open. He scanned the tents and then the buildings that fronted the square, looking for the best one. Then he noticed that not all the buildings were dark. Most of the structures immediately adjacent to the space were lit from within. Perhaps the upper echelon of this gathering were huddled in those places. Some were more ornate than others. Palaces or mansions. Maybe even churches, though clearly this was not a city that subscribed to any religion he knew.

  Caswell glanced down at himself. He had a suit like the ones they wore, and a pistol of unknown capacity and capability. His implant was next to useless, unless he could find food, but even that would take a while to fully metabolize and find its way to the reservoirs in his neck. His current position, though it afforded a nice overlook, would not help him. Not without a preprogrammed drone rifle to place, or at the very least a decent hunting rifle. He needed to get down there, among that crowd, and start asking questions.

  He needed to do what he always did: drop himself into an unknown environment and blend in.

  —

  Peter Caswell walked a jagged perimeter and kept to the shadows, unsure what to make of the event under way in this strange place. Two sides, gathered in a city that appeared to be all but abandoned, about to hear a speech from a woman who disappeared twelve years ago instead of dying with the rest of her crew.

  Nothing made sense.

  Near the far corner of the square he spied a two-story building that may have once been a restaurant. Urine-yellow lights bobbed around inside as people with handheld lanterns or candles busied themselves within. He could smell food cooking, though the scents were unusual. His stomach growled all the same. He pondered shifting tactics. Steal some food, wait for his implant to extract the needed resources, then find his target. But that would waste precious time.

  A door at the back of the building opened abruptly. Caswell stood hunched over just a few meters away as a man emerged. He was taller than Caswell by a good ten centimeters, and heavyset. He held a steaming mug in his right hand. His clothing marked him as one of the “other” faction. Where Caswell’s own outfit looked like a designer’s vision for the “business suit of tomorrow,” this man wore something that, aside from a few stylistic variations, looked right out of a Cold War Kremlin meeting.

  Condemned to think in realtime, Caswell worked his way behind the chap. He darted in the last two steps, swooped his left arm under the other man’s, and clapped his hand around the poor sod’s mouth. Caswell raised his elbow, forcing the man’s left arm awkwardly up and away from his body—no chance to fish a pistol from that coat.

  The man emitted a surprised grunt and froze in place. The mug, still clutched in his right hand, trailed coils of steam up into the cool night air. Drops of hot liquid splattered on the ground. He did not flinch as Caswell groped around his chest, thighs, the small of the back. And there Caswell found a small, hard lump. He reached in and found a kind of holster attached in the curve of the lower back, angled so that one could, as long as he flipped his coat out of the way, reach behind himself and draw with relative ease. It took Caswell a few seconds to figure out how a small twist was required before the weapon would come free.

  The gun was small, and shaped more or less like standard-issue Cold War fare, to match the suit apparently. For an instant Caswell wondered if he’d stumbled onto some kind of large-scale anachronistic role-play event. The gun was real enough, though, and certainly the soldiers on the train had not been pretending.

  Caswell nudged the man forward. He guided him a good thirty meters out into the dark ruins of the city and forced him into a musty storefront. Broken grass crunched under their feet. Somewhere within came a rhythmic plopping sound of water on stone. There was another sound, too, a strange high-low chirp vaguely reminiscent of the cicada.

  The man stumbled on a bit of rubble. Caswell held him upright and spun him around. He slapped the mug away, the drink spilling out in an arc as the cup fell and clattered on the ground. “This is far enough,” he said. “You’re going to answer some questions for me.”

  The man rubbed his freshly uncovered jaw. The room, almost entirely pitch black, made facial expressions impossible to gauge, but Caswell sensed resistance in the man’s stance. Caswell flipped the pistol around in his hand and clubbed the man in the abdomen. Just once, and not hard. The suit crumpled to his knees all the same, coughing.

  “Cooperate and that’s the worst you’ll get from me, understood?”

  “Mmm,” the man managed.

  Flipping the pistol around again, Caswell lowered himself to his knees and pressed the business end up under the man’s chin. “Now. Questions. What is this place? Where are we?”

  The man’s brow furrowed. “How could you—”

  “Just answer. I don’t have time for any bullshit.”

  “What is bull?” the man said.

  Caswell slapped the man’s cheek with the edge of the gun barrel. It would leave a nasty bruise. “Where, are, we?” he asked with all the patience he could muster.

  “Fineva,” the man said. “The summit.”

  “Where’s Fineva? What country? I’m not familiar with it.”

  “Huh?”

  Caswell coiled for another slap. The man cringed away. “All right, all right. Fineva. In the Vongar.” At Caswell’s silence he stammered on. “The neutral city within the Desolation.”

  None of it made any sense. Caswell tried another tack. “Where’s Alia Valix?”

  The man’s eyes widened. He swallowed. “I…”

  “Don’t lie, I can spot that even in this darkness. Where?”

  “She remains at the terminal.”

  The same train depot Caswell had fled from, or another? “Which terminal? Describe it.”

  “You really do not know?”

  Caswell hit him again. The man ducked, too late, and took a solid knock to his eye. It would be black within an hour. “I’m asking the questions here. Where’s the goddamn terminal?”

  “Behind the palace,” he croaked through gritted teeth.

  “Good enough,” Caswell said, and slugged the man one last time. Enough to knock him unconscious. He didn’t want another kill on his conscience if he could help it. “Enjoy the hangover, come dawn. I don’t think anyone will find you before then.” Caswell knelt and rifled through the poor bastard’s pockets. Or tried to, anyway. None of them were in the usual places. Eventually he found the openings, though, and managed to lift a thin metal case with a simple hasp on one edge. Inside were various slips of actual paper. Money? Receipts? Perhaps identification? Who carried such things in paper form anymore?

  He clapped the little wallet closed and stuffed it into his breast pocket, which of course was on the right side of his shirt, not the left. Because fuck convention, apparently. Caswell shook his head and resolved to take a trip to Costa Rica the moment this op ended. Relax on a beach for once. Eat tacos and sip margaritas. Invite Monique to join him, since they’d probably both be out of a job for his field reversion.

  Back outside, armed with what at least resembled a normal pistol, Caswell worked his way toward what he hoped was the palace the man had spoken of. It was the largest building on the square, lit from below by several portable spotlights that cast long shadows in dark lines up the façade. Like everything else here the building was old and in serious disrepair. Bits of the outer stonework had fallen away to reveal crude br
icks beneath. Most of the round windows were jagged shadows. Black mold crept along every edge and corner. And yet despite all this it had been tidied. It looked like a site preserved for historical significance despite a limited budget, rather than a structure truly abandoned to time.

  There were lights in most of the windows. And, now that Caswell stood much closer, he could see guards posted at the doors, and patrolling a loose perimeter. None were dressed in obvious uniform, though. These were soldiers, he had no doubt from the rigid, concentrated faces, but they were in plain clothes. Why?

  He gave the structure a wide berth, creeping along abandoned cobblestone roads and through narrow, rubble-strewn alleys. On the far side of the so-called palace he saw another big structure. Unlike the train terminal he’d fled from, this one had apparently been built at the same time as the rest of the city. It was grand, with soaring pillars and huge, multi-paned windows. All of it was run-down and decaying, but still he knew immediately it must have once been a treasured place, rivaling Grand Central in New York.

  A sound high above caught his ear. Caswell crouched in a shadow and glanced up. At the top of the terminal building he saw a huge, oblong shape, dark against the dark sky. “A bloody airship?” he whispered. As if in answer the propellers mounted along the thing’s tail made a short buzzing sound, no doubt working to keep the beast still.

  Caswell decided only two possible explanations made sense for all this: He was dreaming, or he’d been given some bloody powerful hallucinogens.

  He forced himself to look away from the giant aircraft and focused on the ground between here and the terminal. Detritus from recent sloppy construction littered the ground. Lengths of rusty iron rail tracks, bent and broken, lay in heaps amid boulder-size chunks of gravelly concrete.

  The train depot opened onto the side facing away from the palace, with bizarre half-pipe tracks leading off into the distance. Caswell kept to the edge of the building when possible. It wouldn’t do him any good to be perched in a window across the wide avenue, or hidden among the old derelict train cars that rotted in the streets across from the building. The pistol he’d lifted was a tiny thing, no doubt only accurate and lethal when used at close range. Better to stay close in and rely on his senses, despite the lack of implant-fueled honing. Part of him relished the purity of the scenario. The strangeness of the place, the lack of useful intel. He would have to rely on his training and natural ability, just like one of his between-mission adventures.

  He crept the last few meters to the corner of the huge building and dropped to one knee. Light spilled from the open-ended back of the structure. He risked a quick glance around the corner, seeing without focusing, and then ducked back to mentally review the scene.

  No sign of Alice Vale. Just a mess of armed guards, ten at least, some with weapons out and in what appeared to be uniforms, though the “NRD” markings were unknown to Caswell. They were milling about around what appeared to be another train, though it looked like none he’d ever seen. It rested in those weird half-pipe tracks, which the tube-shaped train apparently rolled along with a series of rubberlike tires mounted in three rows along the underside. Inside, the half-pipe track sloped up from the ground and ran in along a metal lattice above an older set of more traditional-looking train tracks. This raised structure continued out for a hundred meters and then angled down into a ditch dug into the earth where the half-pipe continued on to the edge of the city and beyond. Curious. It was as if some competing form of train travel had been retrofitted here. Yet the train he’d arrived on had been different. Why? The answer seemed obvious once he factored in everything else he’d seen. Two sides, here for some sort of important meeting. Two sides with different clothing styles, weapons, and who knew what else. Alice Vale was either with, or a prisoner of, the side that used the half-pipe mode of rail transport. He searched for some meaning in this, some clue as to what the hell was going on, but couldn’t find it. He filed the detail away and focused on the tactical scenario.

  Ten guards, at least that he could see. The weird train. And, deeper inside the cavernous building, beyond where the train tracks ended, something large and oblong lay concealed under a large white tarp. Six of the guards stood near this object, plus what appeared to be two automated sentry turrets arranged on either side. These, he now realized, pointed at the covered shape with silent menace. What was under there? Some kind of holding tank for prisoners? Why conceal it?

  The other guards stood watch over the wide-open backside of the terminal building, one of them just five meters away from Caswell’s position.

  Getting in seemed impossible with such odds. He decided to backtrack. Halfway along the outer wall he spotted what he needed: a door, hidden behind a stack of iron bars and rubble. Again the strange center-door handle that connected to a lever at the bottom. Gun held in both hands, Caswell instinctively used the toe of his shoe to lift that lever, and sure enough the door clicked and swung open. He toed it the rest of the way, somewhat impressed by the clever utility of the design, and stepped into the darkness that waited within.

  Dust and bits of rock crunched under his shoes. The walls were bare, devoid of any ornament or piping. Just a simple hall, probably used by workers or maintenance staff back in the heyday of the old place. The hall was uncomfortably narrow. He saw light to his right and crept along in that direction until he came to another door, this one with a small, rounded window mounted at shoulder height. It was a grimy bit of glass, thick and uneven of surface. Primitive stuff. He glanced through and saw a wavy, blurred version of the terminal interior beyond. The hall had brought him right to the center of the large covered object he’d seen within. Against the white sheet was the silhouette of one of the guards. He or she stood in place, casually resting a rifle of some sort over one arm.

  Voices came to him through the old glass. On instinct Caswell willed improved hearing from his implant, only to feel the mild sting of rebuke from the engineered gland. So he did the next-best thing and cupped his hands against the glass, feeling like he was pursuing court intrigue in the Middle Ages, and finding himself suddenly very impressed at what his Cold War brethren had been up against in their day-to-day work.

  Nothing useful would come from standing here, but he did find it interesting that this little access hall had been unguarded. Perhaps they hadn’t seen it, hidden as the outer door had been.

  He started to push farther in, then stepped back at the last instant. A small crowd, a dozen or more, walked purposefully toward the “front” of the building, toward the palace, and the crowded square beyond. Through the crack in the door he’d caught a glimpse of the leader of this entourage, and now, squinting through the uneven glass, he felt sure it was her. Alice Vale, only twelve years older than the one who’d fled the Venturi, dressed in what probably passed for smart business attire in 1965, her hair trimmed short, her face determined and serious.

  Caswell decided his best chance was to attack while she moved between the two buildings. Something forced him to stay put, though. Something about that oblong shape below the giant tarp. The curve was familiar. He’d seen it recently, in the schematics Monique had given him to study.

  It was one of the Venturi’s landers, he felt sure of it.

  The allure of it was too strong. Alice would have to wait. If he could get into that ship he might be able to contact Monique. Report his status and acquire new orders.

  Caswell waited until the sound of footfalls receded into the distance and then slipped into the train terminal. A few guards had been left behind, but they seemed blissfully unaware of the entrance he’d used. Two stood way down at the far end of the building, looking out over the weird half-pipe track, perhaps guarding against sappers who might seek to demolish a train’s only way in or out of here.

  Three more guards stood near the covered shuttle. Concealed behind an old bench made of rotting wood, Caswell studied them more closely. These guards were fiddling with the pair of tripod-mounted sentry turrets. One clicked on
a spotlight mounted atop the nearer of the two devices. Cables snaked out of the back of the bulky, old-fashioned weapons, linking one to the other and then continuing off into darkness toward the far side of the building.

  One of the people then went to stand behind the turret and leaned into it until his eye pressed against the protrusion on the back. The man then gripped a handle of some sort and adjusted the aim of the device manually.

  Not a turret. A bloody camera. Caswell’s entire tactical map of the situation shifted. They weren’t guns aimed at something dangerous within the vehicle. They were cameras. Very goddamn old cameras, so old they required human operators—not guards at all—to fiddle with the settings.

  And fiddle the trio did. Once both devices were adjusted they moved off, talking in low voices. Caswell thought he heard the word broadcast in the conversation. Now he hesitated. He saw no way to get into the shuttle without the cameras seeing him. Were people watching, live? Would his antics be suddenly splayed across a billion screens around the globe?

  He had to take the risk. Teeth clenched, Caswell slipped out from behind the bench and raced across the gap. He ignored the glare of the camera’s lights and dove into a sideways roll at the last second, taking him under the draped edge of the white tarp. The material crinkled at his passage. If the guards heard or cared they had made no sound to indicate it.

  Caswell leapt to his feet and studied the black-scarred fuselage of the shuttle. His eyes darted to the identification markings. ESA. Vent uri. Griffin-class capsule. Lander 02.

  “Zero-two?” he whispered. He tried to recall what Angelina Monroe and her crewmate had discussed. One of the landers had been missing, but which one? He could have sworn they’d said 01.