Ninth City Burning

by J. Patrick Black

  He’s right. He has most of the power here. I’m all alone, and almost everything in this world is on his side. As I settle onto the couch, I get a better look at the box making the crowd noises. On the side facing the Zero’s desk, there’s a rounded glass panel, and inside of that is the image of a baseball field. In the back of my mind, I hear the word “television.” But this isn’t just any baseball field—it’s my baseball field. I recognize it right away. So maybe I’m not totally powerless here after all. My game is still going on. It may be shut up in a little box, but at least it’s here somewhere.

  The Zero pours himself a glass of brown liquid from a heavy, clear bottle. “So,” he says, “let’s begin with your name.”

  I don’t say anything, but the Zero catches me looking at the television. He walks over and turns a small knob beside the picture panel, and the sound of the crowd fades to nothing. “I’m enjoying the game, too, but please, let’s try not to become distracted,” he says, settling onto the couch across from me. He folds one leg over the other and smiles at me again. “Your name, please.”

  “Jax.” I don’t believe for a second that I’m here for some friendly conversation. He’s trying to weaken me, to absorb me into his mijmere. He could probably kill me right now—hit me with that bottle of brown liquid, or throw me into the fire—but I’d be able to fight back, and my guess is he doesn’t want to risk getting hurt. He’d rather wait until I’m too weak to do anything. I’m getting there, too. The television’s picture has begun to jump and roll, static gathering like snow over the field. Pretty soon, it’ll cut out completely. I’m not sure why he hasn’t turned it off himself, actually. But if telling him my name slows him down, I’m glad to do it.

  “I do love athletic competitions, don’t you, Jax?” the Zero says, nodding toward the television. “A far better use for our energies than war, wouldn’t you say?” The picture rolls again, and the Zero leans over. I’m sure he’s about to flip the television’s power switch, but he only plays around with a little antenna on top, like he’s trying to tune the game back into focus. “My apologies. The reception here is atrocious.”

  I realize with a bolt that the Zero doesn’t know baseball is my Theme. To him, it’s only entertainment.

  “If it’s distracting you, just turn it off,” I tell him. My mouth is totally dry, but I think I sound confident enough.

  “Oh, no. It’s no bother. The sound keeps me company. This place can be so gloomy.” He looks back at me, then notices something over my head. “Ah, here we are.”

  The man with the black suit is standing at the door again. “The water you requested, sir,” he says. “And cookies. I took the liberty of providing some milk as well.” He sets the tray in front of me. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “No, thank you,” the Zero says, looking at me the whole time. He keeps his eyes on me as the man in the black suit leaves, like he’s waiting to see what I’ll do. I stare at the tray, the crackling fire reflecting in its silvery surface. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the water or milk or cookies, but I still don’t want to touch any of it.

  “Well, Jax,” the Zero says with a sigh, like he’s getting down to business, “this is a sorry state in which we find ourselves, isn’t it? I will admit I never thought much of your people, but I never expected they would send children into battle. Look at you—you’re nothing but a cub!”

  “No one sent me,” I say, trying to sound calm. “I came on my own.”

  The Zero takes a drink of his brown liquid, watching me over the rim of his glass. “Is that so?”

  “I was supposed to evacuate.”

  “And instead you charged heroically into a losing fight,” he says, like he’s finishing my sentence. “Well, bravo. Good for you, Jax. Truly.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I say, feeling suddenly angry.

  “Oh, now you’re just being silly. There is always a choice. As you said, you were supposed to evacuate. You could have left this war behind, but instead you chose to make your stand. Not the most prudent idea, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s not a real choice,” I snap. “Just like I didn’t have a choice about being in this war to begin with. None of us does. If we don’t fight, you’ll just kill us.”

  “That’s likely true,” the Zero admits, “but it’s still your choice.”

  “Not a very good one.”

  “And then,” he continues, like he hasn’t heard me, “who’s to say your people didn’t choose this war?”

  “Me. I’m saying that.”

  “And how do you know? Were you there when it began?”

  “I know people who were.”

  “And you simply take them at their word?” He laughs. “What else would they tell you? They want you to fight, don’t they? They want you to believe you have no choice. But if you allow yourself to think about it, Jax, really think about it, you’ll realize you know almost nothing about this war you’ve been convinced you have to fight. I’m right, aren’t I? I can tell by the way you’re frowning to yourself.”

  He sips his drink, watching me, but I don’t have anything to say. “You don’t even know what it is you’re fighting,” he says, sounding like he’s teaching a lesson in class. “And if you don’t know what, how can you really say you know why?”

  “That’s easy,” I tell him. “We’re fighting because you’re trying to kill us.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose you’ve got me there,” he says with a chuckle. “I am going to kill you. If it’s any consolation, I can assure you I won’t enjoy it. I will kill you because it is my duty. You understand duty, don’t you, Jax? I’m sure your people teach you all about duty. It’s such a convenient way to relieve oneself of the burden of choice.”

  He’s watching me again, and I try my best to look him right in the eye. It isn’t easy. He seems like a normal, polite, kind of oldish man, but there’s something not right about him. His yellowy teeth seem sharp and almost rusty, and there’s red around the blue of his eyes. He uses a calm, friendly voice, but he’s talking about killing me. Right now, though, I want all his attention on me because I’ve heard something. When the man in the black suit left, he didn’t completely close the door, and now there’s music coming through, soft and muffled like the sound of my game on the television, but getting louder. Fiddle music.

  “We should probably just get this over with,” I say. “I’m sure you’re extremely busy, right?”

  “Oh, not at all! And you haven’t even touched your cookies.”

  I haven’t. I’ve been concentrating on that music. I’m imagining a forest outside the windows, filled with flocks of singing birds and wind whistling through the branches, that old clock in the hallway ringing, ice clinking in the Zero’s glass—anything to bring music into this room.

  A loud crack! comes from the direction of the bookshelves, and a second later there’s the soft, fuzzy sound of a fiddle playing. What looks like an old, dusty-looking radio has suddenly started working. Needles in lit dials on its face bounce back and forth with each staticky note.

  The Zero looks over his shoulder toward the radio. “Finicky old thing,” he says. “Naturally, it waits until I have company to start working. One moment, Jax.”

  He starts to get up, but I say, almost shouting at him, “You looked pretty busy when I came in. What were you doing?”

  That stops him. His yellow smile stretches out again, and he lowers back onto the couch, blue eyes burning. “You know, Jax, I suppose you’re right. Why prolong the inevitable, eh? I’ve enjoyed our conversation, really, but the time has come to bring it to an end.”

  Maybe he’s waiting for me to say something back, but instead I take the whole tray of water and cookies and milk and throw it at him. Then I kick over the table. If this were a normal house, one I could leave and actually hope to get away, that’s exactly what I’d do. But this is a
mijmere, and I can’t escape by running. So I don’t. I make a dash for his desk.

  I get about halfway around the couch before he grabs me and slams me to the ground. He’s insanely strong—stronger than anyone should be.

  “Such awful manners,” the Zero snarls. He doesn’t sound polite anymore. Behind him, the fire roars and blazes, turning him into a reddish shadow. “I’d hoped to conclude our acquaintance in a civilized manner, Jax, but it seems quick and dirty will have to do.” Leaning beside the hearth is a heavy metal rod with a handle on one end and a spike on the other. The Zero grabs the handle and swings the rod back, ready to bash me with it.

  But before he can bring the rod down, there’s a loud screeching sound, a mess of musical notes. When the Zero turns to look, something thuds into his stomach. He lurches forward, and whatever it is hits him again, colliding with his knee. When he stumbles, I see Naomi standing over him, holding her fiddle case.

  I think she must have hurt the Zero pretty badly, but he’s more surprised than anything. He whirls on her, letting out a growl that doesn’t sound human at all, and swings his metal rod at her head. She blocks it with her fiddle case, but the force of it knocks her to the floor. The Zero swings again, and this time he catches her on the arm, making her cry out in pain.

  “So very sad,” the Zero says, though he sounds extremely pleased with himself.

  Naomi raises her case to block his next attack, but the rod smashes straight through. The case shatters, and she disappears with a little musical twang. Her Theme has been stopped, and her mijmere has collapsed. To this Zero, she’s completely powerless. She could be anywhere in his mijmere now, or anything: a ceramic doll on the mantel, an image on a piece of paper. I have maybe a few seconds before he kills her.

  “Not so gallant anymore, are we, Jax?” the Zero says, turning toward me. He must mean because I let Naomi take him on all by herself. But he didn’t know what I was doing all that time. When he sees me, his smile clenches tight.

  Naomi gave me a chance, and as soon as the Zero had his back turned, I went for it. I knew if I was wrong, we’d both be dead like that, but it was our best hope of getting out of this alive, and anyway I’m not wrong. I grabbed all the papers from the Zero’s desk, and now I’m standing in front of the fireplace, with every one of them piled in my arms.

  He forces a laugh. “What do you think you’re doing, Jax?”

  “Just going to burn a few papers. Too much clutter in here, right?”

  “Dear me, Jax, don’t be foolish. That won’t—”

  Maybe he’s about to say burning his papers won’t do anything, but I never find out, because right then I heave them all into the fire. The whole stack lands right on the burning logs, and a few flaming pages flutter out like fiery bats. The Zero lunges for them, but before he can touch even one, the whole room vanishes, burning away like just another piece of paper, and the next thing I know I’m back in my stadium, the one where I went when this battle began.

  “Whew. That was close,” says the Kid. He’s munching peanuts from a bag. Down on the field, the game is well under way. The lights are up, and in the distance, I can see colorful explosions—though not like something from a battle. These are more like happy explosions.

  “They’re called fireworks,” the Kid says, sounding a lot like the voice in my head that told me about typewriters and televisions.

  “Naomi!” I shout. “Where is she?” For a second I’d forgotten about the whole fight with the Zero.

  “Right there.” The Kid points down toward the field. Naomi is off to one side, sitting on a stretcher. A man in white is wrapping her arm in bandages, and another is holding a cup of water for her to drink. Her head is bandaged, too, but she doesn’t look badly hurt. She sees me and nods, smiling. “She’ll be fine,” the Kid says, and I know he’s right. Once her mijmere comes back, she’ll be able to heal herself pretty well, but until then this is about as good as I can do for her.

  “What about the Zero—the man from the library?”

  The Kid only grins and nods toward the concrete beneath our seats, where he has a cockroach trapped beneath a clear plastic cup. “Pests,” he says. “Huge problem around here. We’d better take care of this one.”

  Without his Theme, the Zero’s mijmere has collapsed. He’s only a bug to me now. But for some reason, I don’t want to just squash him—or have the Kid do it, which would be almost the same thing.

  That Zero was terrible. He would have killed me and Naomi both. If I let him escape, he’ll try again. But he was right about one thing: We don’t really know anything about the Valentines. I wonder if anyone’s ever tried really talking to a Zero. What if, instead of killing him, I found a way to capture him? We could learn from him. Wouldn’t that be better?

  But while I’m thinking about all of this, a heavy black boot stomps down on the plastic cup, crushing the bug-Zero underneath. I look from the boot up to the person who’s just jumped over the seat beside me. It’s Fontana Malandeera. She’s in heavy, dark clothes, and there’s soot all over her face. She twists her foot, grinding the cup into the concrete. “Let’s go, Jax,” she says. “This fight isn’t over yet.”

  SIXTY

  IMWAY

  We’re all alone out here. Our last contact with IMEC-1 came in a rush of radio traffic, a single message repeated on every available frequency: All units, return to home. After that, everything went to shit.

  The 126th was tasked, along with the rest of Sixth and two other cohorts from Ninth Legion, with isolating and neutralizing a full wave of Valentine fighters. The enemy outnumbered us five to one, with four Zeros to our single fontana, but with IMEC-1 behind us, the odds were solidly in our favor. Beyond that, our source was Fontana Nellope, one of Ninth Legion’s best. We already had two Zeros down, and quite a nice panic under way in the Valentine ranks, when our artillery support abruptly dried up. Without the constant hammering of ordnance to keep her opponents in line, Nellope was quickly surrounded, forced into a fight on the enemy’s terms with no prospect of retreat, and all of us with her.

  Our one and only goal now is to get Fontana Nellope free of this battle, and that means helping her defeat the two Zeros hemming her in. Nellope is an experienced and formidable fighter—in her three tours at the Front, she’s defeated no fewer than ten Zeros in single combat—but that doesn’t mean taking on two sources at once will be a simple matter, not when they know how to use the numerical imbalance to their advantage. The whole of Sixth Cohort will seem like little more than a cloud of buzzing mosquitoes to any of them. But mosquitoes can be distracting, and for Fontana Nellope, some strategic distraction could mean the difference between triumphing over these Zeros and being snuffed out. If we can divert either of her adversaries for even a fraction of a second, it could give her the opportunity she needs. That means we have to try.

  I’ve led the 126th on three runs so far. Three steep dives over battling sources circling one another in a dance like something halfway between stalking predators and orbiting moons. Each attack lasted only minutes, but in that time we’ve taken more losses than in the entire preceding battle. Hitting a Zero means flying low and fast over a sea of roiling energy, where one thoughtless wave can crush an equus like a cracker. On our first run, Koleg and Midmurro took hard lashes that left them clinging to the emergency safety gear inside equi suddenly reduced to dead husks. On the next, a swell of stars rose and completely swept away three more of us. Uo, Pelashwa, and Rachel—all of them gone before anyone could react. We looked for them on the next pass, but found only a few drifting shards of armor.

  The 126th is holding together. My equites are as frosty and precise as when we sortied from Earth—more so, if anything, since we reached the tipping point toward mayhem—but they’re balanced on a knife’s edge, fueled by a cocktail of training and determination fortified with adrenaline. We’ve never lost one of our own before, and here we are down three. A
s we circle through the storm of fighters—both legionary and Valentine—seeking our next avenue of attack, I can’t help wondering how long we can keep this up.

  The time to move will be just as Nellope’s orbit reaches its farthest separation from the Valentine Zeros. It isn’t an easy point to spot, but I have to trust myself. There are people who claim they can tell one source from another simply by the look of an individual mijmere, but I’ve never quite mastered the technique. Fortunately, sources project a wide variety of radiation aside from visible light—everything from heat to noise to high-energy gamma rays—and each has a kind of signature, a combination of patterns and energies unique to that source. It isn’t quite as reliable or consistent as a fingerprint, but it’s a dependable enough way of spotting our own. Fontana Nellope profiles powerfully in hard X-rays and magnetic pulses, and through FireChaser’s sharpened senses, I pick her out easily as she draws away from the two Zeros, one of which shows up mostly in infrared, the other in microwaves with ripples of electricity. When I judge the moment is right, I order the 126th to draw weapons and fall in.

  We’ve covered roughly half the distance to the target before resistance begins in earnest. A swarm of Type 5s—the style sometimes called waspies for their resemblance to gigantic versions of stinging insects, but more formally designated as Mid-Range, Mid-Power Interceptors, or MMIs—banks out of the melee and takes up a parallel course. I bring the 126th in fast. MMIs can be dangerous if they get you in their sights, but they aren’t made for close combat. Once we lay into them with our WhiteLances, there isn’t much more to say. The fight slows us down, but we come out well enough: all eight remaining equi still combat-capable. Iftito loses ThunderWalking’s right leg from the shin down, and Xempa takes some damage to LoyalShield’s off hand, but it isn’t enough to hamper our mission. You don’t need legs to fly, and one-and-a-half hands is plenty to swing a ’Lance.

  An encounter with a second drove of MMIs—a variation more like dragonflies in shape than wasps this time—brings an unexpected boon. As we’re closing to engage, another escadrille of seven equi swings in ahead of us, catching the MMIs in an impromptu pincer maneuver. They’re from Third Cohort, flying big A-12 Destriers, and when I contact their dek over DS, he suggests we team up for the coming run.