Zero Sum

by B. Justin Shier

  I took a deep breath to keep my nerves in check. “Actually, they call us room service attendants. We hold the same rank as waiters.” I tried to remember which execution method the Tenets prescribed for press leaks. I was pretty sure it was burned at the stake, but it might be rectal impalement. This wasn’t good. I was going to fail Polimag if I wasn’t careful. Never mind, Polimag was cancelled. My Polimag professor was dead, shot in the head. “Perrier, ma’am?”

  “Why yes,” she replied. “Pour one for yourself too.”

  I looked at the door wistfully. If I ran really fast…

  Ms. Curray’s smile dropped. “Sit or I start screaming.”

  I sat.

  “You know,” I grumbled, “when women make false accusations, it threatens the safety—”

  “Oh, be quiet,” she said, grabbing the second chair. She was careful to keep herself between the door and me. Darn it. I played with the idea of jumping out the window. Splattered like pea soup on the concrete seemed like an improvement over the current situation. If I could only fly on a broom…

  “I thought you were in college now, Dieter. But here you are working at the Over the Top.”

  One thing I had learned from our last meeting was to never lie. Ms. Curray could read right through it.

  “I am going to college,” I replied. “I’m on winter break right now.”

  Ms. Curray ate another cream cheese and jelly sandwich. Finishing it, she leaned back and smiled. “Goodness, I should compliment your boss.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why, for allowing you such a short term of employment. It’s quite commendable.” She was right. No sane manager would train up a staffer that was only willing to work for a month. We had lied about that (among other things) on our applications. I gulped. If Ms. Curray figured out that I was bullshitting, it would be just a hop skip and a jump before she found out three other people got hired on the exact same day and shared the exact same address. The entire operation would be blown. I was grateful Rei wasn’t sitting next to me. I didn’t like to think of her solution to this problem.

  “Look, you’re right,” I conceded. “I wasn’t exactly truthful on the application—but do you know how hard it is to get short-term work around here? With the tips I get at this job, I’ll be able to buy all my books for this year.” I left out the part about delivering divine vengeance upon my foes.

  Ms. Curray leaned forward on her elbows and took another slow sip of Perrier. The view was…distracting. “So, boy, you’re telling me that it’s just a coincidence that the kid who nearly died along with a high school drug dealer is now working under a false name at a hotel freshly purchased by a drug cartel?”

  “Wait. What?” I asked, feigning confusion. “How could a drug cartel buy a casino? The gaming commission wouldn’t allow that sort of thing.”

  Ms. Curray looked at me dubiously. She knew I was holding back, but she didn’t know about what. “Come on, Dieter, there’s a depression on. Money talks. I’ve got it on good authority that they’ve even bought the mayor. And I’m sure you know that the violence didn’t die off when you left town last summer.” Her face darkened. “Just last week, the photographer I worked with…” She shook her head. “The point is, the violence has only gotten worse.”

  I flipped on my Sight and executed a quick read. Her aura was a haze of shivering blue light. Under that calm, cool exterior Lauren Curray was alone and vulnerable. Something had happened to shatter her confidence—and that was where I had to hit her. Was Sighting her a dirty trick? An invasion of her privacy? You betcha. Was it necessary? Hell yes. I placed my glass back down on the table. “Stars above, I’m sorry. What happened?”

  She frowned, but just as I’d sensed, she wanted to get it out. “There were rumors that people were being kept against their will in the tower suites. Forced prostitution, that sort of thing. My colleague, Jason, I told him not to go, but he snuck up there. They say he was on the observation deck when he was…”

  “Electrocuted?” My jaw tensed. More death. More pain. More collateral damage from this ridiculous war. I turned to look at the second bed with the three lonely cameras. Ms. Curray had no idea what she was sticking her nose in. And it wasn’t because she was being careless. She had no ability to comprehend the danger. That rankled me. These Conscious pricks were messing around with innocent people’s lives. They were exploiting their gifts and crushing the weak. At least Lambda knew the score. We knew what we were getting into. We knew the risks. To not even have that—I shook my head in disgust.

  Ms. Curray’s posture stiffened. “How did you know that? The cause of death hasn’t even been made public. The coroner is suppressing the findings. The tower’s grand opening is coming up, and the tourist bureau is doing its best to keep a lid on it. They don’t want another flop on their hands.”

  “Easy guess,” I said quickly. “You were the one that showed me all those pictures, remember?”

  “Dieter…do you know something?”

  She was so desperate. All I needed to do was give her a little nudge. “I’ve heard stuff…but what can any of us do? There’s no proof.” I stood as to leave. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Ms. Curray, but I need to go. If you want to get me fired, that’s your prerogative, but if I don’t check back in with my boss, this job is done.”

  I tried to slide past her, but Ms. Curray grabbed my arm. She gave me a look that cut through me like butter. I felt like she was looking into my very soul. “The data stick,” she said, finally. “They took the data stick from his camera, but Jason switched them before that. He slipped it into a mail slot. The photos show some sort of meeting, a group of men gathered in a circle. It was bizarre. All the men were wearing strange pendants, like they were in some sort of secret society. One of them was a known narcotrafficker, a man by the name of Diego Carrera.”

  A rush of excitement ran through me. “How many men?” I asked.

  “Twelve in all.”

  “Only a dozen?” I couldn’t wait to get up there. I couldn’t wait to finally meet them. Three faculty members dead. Sadie’s parents dead. Over two dozen innocent Elliot students captured or killed. Hundreds of others murdered. And that wasn’t even counting their drug business. I ground my teeth back and forth. The thought of finally getting the drop on them…

  “Ms. Curray, I sympathize, I really do, but you need to steer clear of this.” I needed to get out of here. I needed to prepare.

  “Wait,” she said standing. She grabbed my shoulder and turned me around.

  I responded with a glare that would make Rei proud. I had no time for this. All I could think of was what I planned to do to those assholes. “It’ll be taken care of. Now let go of me.”

  Ms. Curray recoiled as if I’d burned her.

  I turned, took my cart, and wheeled it slowly out the door. I left her shaking in her bathrobe. The rattling of the cart hid my own shivers. They weren’t from fear.

  Chapter 16

  ROLZ

  “All I’m sayin’ is it ain’t necessary. It attracts too much attention. And besides, yer country is in the middle of a depression. It’s unseemly.”

  “I don’t know, Jules,” Dante said from the front seat, “I think it’s pretty sweet. This thing has more buttons than a laptop.”

  “Which you will not press,” Rei interjected. “Lieutenant, I will remind you that while we are onboard this vessel, I am in command.”

  “Sovereign Bathory territory, eh?” Dante said with a mock salute. “Aye-aye, captain.”

  Spending a week in the same apartment as Rei had sure loosened Dante up. Conversation came easy now. He’d even forgiven her for juggling with explosives. Dante’s change of heart made Elliot’s decision to keep Rei out of the dorms appear all the more stupid.

  A friendly Hungarian voice directed Rei to turn off onto a gravel road. (At least I assume that’s what the car said, because that’s what Rei did.)

  “Rei, this is a Mercedes, right?” Dante asked.
r />   Rei sighed. “Why, yes, lieutenant—in the same way that an M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank is a Chrysler.”

  I sensed Rei preferred the old, terrified Dante.

  Dante felt the smooth leather armrests and cooed. “Team, I just want ya’ll to know that I am very happy right now,” he said, beaming.

  “Too extravagant,” Jules protested. “We are supposta be workin’ for a living.” Jules eyes narrowed. “This could blow our cover.”

  “I thought, my dull Irish compatriot, that we are supposta be secret agents. I thought that we are supposta dress as giant bunnies—and subject ourselves to the trials and tribulations of common serfs—in order to get closer to our marks.”

  “That we do,” Jules protested.

  Rei looked up into the rearview mirror and grinned.

  “Well then, Druid, we should truly play the part. Open the compartment in front of you. As they say in M. A. D. Magazine, knock yourself out.”

  Jules frowned. She examined the shiny black compartment and turned to me for advice. I shrugged. I was busy puzzling over the cabinet full of liquor. Why did rich people put their hard alcohol into crystal glassware? They weren’t even labeled. How could they tell what was inside? Jules sighed, leaned forward, leaned back, leaned forward again, hesitated, and then flipped the compartment open.

  “Ohmygods!” she yelped. “Rei Bathory, those are illegal.”

  “No, Druid,” Rei corrected. “Those are all quite legal. I am informed that the laws regarding firearms are quite lax in this state.” I nodded in agreement. “The ones under your seat, however…”

  Jules yelped and lifted herself into the air. I caught Rei grinning in the rear view mirror. I frowned back at her. Rei liked teasing Jules just a little too much. “Jules, you trained me for three months,” I offered. “I can guarantee that whatever is below our seats is not nearly as dangerous as me.”

  “Correct,” Rei added. “That is why I store you in the back along with the rest of the high-yield—” In a blur of motion, Rei slapped Dante’s hand away from the center console. “Lieutenant, that one would give you another lesson in flight.”

  “Awesome,” Dante cooed.

  “Pofátlan,” Rei grumbled.

  Jules was still dangling from the handle above the door like spider monkey. I leaned forward and examined the guns in the compartment. I ignored the two Glocks and took out a Walther PPK. I raised an eyebrow. It was much heavier than I expected.

  “Jules,” I said, cradling the finely machined handgun. “Do you know what this is?”

  “I think so…” Frowning, she released her death grip. “It’s the Bond gun, isn’t it?”

  “You know you want to.”

  “Kinda…” She took it from my hands like a baby bird. “Jeepers, it’s much heavier than I thought it’d be.”

  “Most insightful, Druid,” Rei replied. “That is because of the depleted uranium munitions.”

  Jules turned a shade whiter and placed the gun back in the compartment.

  I scowled at Rei. “Was that really necessary?”

  “It was not false,” Rei snipped.

  “Are you two decades old or two years old?” I turned to Dante. “We should be close now, right?”

  “Yep,” Dante replied, indifferent to his team’s internal strife, “I can see their car now.”

  “Good,” Jules said. “Maybe they can give us a ride home.”

  Ah, home…where Jules and Rei took pot shots at one another from the comfort of their Serta loungers. This was only their most recent argument. We’d run into a snag getting over to our meeting with Monique’s team. The meet was set for the desert between Las Vegas and Henderson. With our stolen Were-Jeep still smoldering in the desert, we decided to rent a car. Then we ran into another problem—none of our fakes said we were over 25. Not a single agency would rent to us. Rei had told us that she had a solution. Fifteen minutes later, she returned to our apartment driving this land-yacht. The darn car cost more than the apartment building. It’d caused quite the stir in the neighborhood. I still didn’t know what it was called.

  “An armored Maybach!” Sheila shouted as we got out of the car. She approached Rei’s vehicle like a zombie drawn to brains. Rei tossed her the keys, and all six feet of female squealed with delight.

  “Sheila,” Rei urged, “do not push the button for the—”

  “Flamethrower. Yea, I know.”

  “Nah, it ain’t so good,” Roster said, patting the hood of an old Cadillac Escalade. “The measure of a vehicle is what it can run over.”

  Rei eyed him. “Mine can absorb a landmine—yours?”

  Roster put his hands in the air and laughed. “Touché, baby, touché.”

  “Come on guys,” Monique said. She turned to Ichijo who was walking back from the perimeter. “Ready?”

  “Mana is very scarce in this town,” he said shaking his head. Ichijo had scraped a circle into the dirt around us. He focused for a moment and delivered a burst of energy into it. I was impressed. He was using the same cast that Albright had used during Eikhorn’s meeting, and he was doing it with only his own mana reserves as fuel.

  I looked over at Sadie. “Can you hear me, 99?”

  She only managed a weak smile. That was the norm nowadays. Frankly, I was worried about her. Her aura was a convoluted mess—anger, indecision, and anxiety all vied for attention.

  “If we can get to business,” Monique asked. “It’s Christmas Eve, and I want to open my presents early. What do you have for me?”

  “Dieter goes first,” Dante said.

  “Okay, I got this from an anonymous source: A photographer from one of the major papers heard rumors of forced prostitution and snuck up to the private section of the tower to take photos. He snapped some of twelve men in dark clothes wearing pendants. The description I got matched that of the ACT devices I’ve seen. Better still, one of the men in the photo was Diego Carrera, himself.”

  “You talked to this photographer?” Monique asked.

  “The photographer is dead, captain. He was struck by a bolt of lightning while walking on the observation deck.”

  Monique rolled her eyes. “And it rains so much here…”

  “Exactly.”

  Dante pulled out a copy of the hotel’s plans. “Security for the tower is super-tight. Barely anyone has been allowed up top since the renovation. We were getting pretty frustrated, but then we got lucky. Jules found out there’s going to be a New Year’s Eve party on the rooftop. It’s for invited guests only, but I managed to manipulate some records. I got Dieter, Jules, and myself onto the team catering the event.”

  Jules said, “One of Carrera’s men, a fella by the name of Carlos Rojas, mentioned that a number of his associates are goin’ ta be at the party. He’s plannin’ ta head out of town after the first of the year. This may be our only chance to nab ‘em.”

  “What about Rei?” Monique asked. “Why isn’t she on the list?”

  “I was unable to get a position on the catering team.” Rei shifted awkwardly. “My performance reviews have been…poor.”

  Imitating their boss, Jules furrowed her brow. “Ms. Drusilla, you need to smile more often. Ms. Drusilla, you’re making the customers nervous. Ms. Drusilla, you’re skin and bones, why don’t you eat something?”

  Rei rolled her eyes. “No matter, I obtained a date for the event. He is a dimwitted oaf named Julio Sanchez. The bore believes he has impressed me with his negligible wealth.”

  “Good enough,” Monique said. “Now our end. Sadie, go.”

  Sadie pulled out a map and laid it on top of the foldout table. I frowned. Sadie must have lost another five pounds since I’d last seen her. A pair of black gloves covered both her tiny hands. Jules told me that Sadie’s burns had been so bad that the grafts didn’t take. She’d lost all feeling in the right. I rubbed at my scarred palms, uncertain if I should be feeling guilty.

  Rei looked over at me and frowned. She got edgy when I even thought about the topic. Des
pite the mana-dry desert, the weft-link was still acting up. Living in the same apartment seemed to have made it worse. Bad vibes and intense emotions dance with ease between us. The worst was when Jules insisted on vacuuming during the day. I tried to think happy thoughts: puppies, shoe boutiques, blood popsicles.

  Rei smirked.

  Pointing to the map, Sadie cleared her throat. “Reports out of Salt Lake aren’t good. Small-scale castouts are breaking out all over town. Our WIP teams are barely keeping up. The DEA had to contract out to Cerberus. Most of the Talmax combatants seem to be just sparks with toys, but it’s only a matter of time before someone slips up and an incident ends up in a paper.” A “spark” was a derogatory term for a Tier 1 or 2 mage. They were one trick ponies. Maybe they could do some charms or some tracking, but they were limited to spells within one weak skill set. It had to suck. You knew all about magic, but you could do so little with it. Maybe that’s why so many of them were signing up with Talmax. The ACT made them feel like giants.

  “And the ICE hasn’t intervened?” Dante asked. “Secrecy is the most important tenet.”

  “Talmax is contracting out. They’re using any dregs that’ve got a bone to pick with the law. They’re even using schizos. They hand the sparks an ACT device, wipe them clean, and let them run wild. Our agents take them down, but the devices self-destruct before we can get our hands on them. And if the ACT device doesn’t blow their head off, they have no idea who they are, let alone who they’re working for. Command thinks Talmax’s goal is to run our teams ragged.”

  “Fascinating,” Rei commented. “A most excellent tactic. How many weft-pairs remain in action?”

  I cringed. Sadie’s parents had been a pair.

  Monique walked between Sadie and Rei and scowled. “That number is classified. All you need to know is that our pairs have been shifted back East.” She turned to the rest of us. “And I think we can all guess what that means. DEA Command doesn’t think they can hold Salt Lake. They’re preparing to abandon the West Coast.”