Seasons of Murder: In the Shadow of This Red Rock

by John Wiltshire

  “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

  “His implant is working properly according to this device.”

  “I sense a but coming?”

  “Yeah. A big one. I deactivated the machine before I took it in. Removed the battery, disconnected the cables. I was waving a piece of scrap metal over him, Doc, but I saw the correct numbers come up.”

  The doc sat up a bit straighter. “He’s manipulating the device?”

  Cal shook his head slowly. “No, he’s manipulating my mind—how I see the reading. And he’s not mind reading. He’s projecting. He’s a—”

  “Sender?” The doctor’s eyes went wide. “He’s sending you thoughts? My God. I thought that was just myth.”

  Cal turned the device over in his hands. The doctor stood up and took it from him, examining it for himself. “If what you say is true, if he’s one of these legendary Senders, why didn’t he read from you that this wasn’t working and not use his ability?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t figure that out either. Maybe he’s worried I’d detect him in my mind. Shit! Shit!”

  “What? Lieutenant…Cal, what’s wrong?”

  “This could have been going on for some time. He’s fucking played me, Doc. I’ve…kinda let my guard down around him. Thought things…Trusted him. But apparently they weren’t my thoughts. It’s all been a lie. Fucking hell.”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s think through this logically. Run the test on the others. Let’s determine what we’re dealing with here first.”

  Cal nodded distractedly. He felt more like pushing them all into an airlock and opening it to deep space, but he returned to the Minders’ cabins and one by one systematically checked their readings. The device remained inert and not functioning at all. It appeared as if the other Minders could not project positive readings. Unless, of course, Zero had worked out he’d been tricked and was communicating with them not to…or was still in his head now, projecting negative over their positives…Cal’s head began to spin with all the implications of Z’s ability. How could you know what was real and what was not?

  And was this their great strength, these Minders, the power that had caused a war that had decimated Earth’s population? Not murder or revolution, but just an ability to cause confusion about reality?

  It had all felt so incredibly real. For the first time in his life, Cal had begun to want someone else. To like them. To trust them. He remembered the feelings that had washed over him when he’d come face to face with the flayed man: the sense of calmness and peace. That must have been Zero. And all that had gone on between them before…The kisses, the arousal…Could it all have been merely planted in his mind? The desire? Fucking hell, the friendship?

  He stood outside the last Minder’s cabin, clenching the broken instrument. He was sick with anger and betrayal. Suddenly, as if Zero were standing alongside him, he heard him say, “I think we need to talk, Cal.”

  Cal’s head snapped up. He stared at the door to Zero’s cabin.

  “I’m not in my cabin. I’m down in the gym. I thought you might prefer to talk here.”

  “Fucking hell!”

  “You don’t need to speak out loud, Cal. People will think you’re going mad—talking to yourself, yeah? Never a good sign.”

  “You can hear this? If I just think it?”

  “Yes. I can hear that. I’m sorry, by the way. This isn’t what I wanted.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll let you. Just come down here, please?”

  Cal doubled over. He was trying not to think anything so the Sender couldn’t read him, but the more he tried not to think, the more he did. “Can you hear this, you fucking freak?” No reply. Could Zero turn it on and off? Listen in when he wanted to? He began to run and burst into the gym. Zero was sitting on one of the weight benches. He stood up nervously when Cal came in and visibly swallowed. Cal came right up to him and jabbed a finger at his face. “Stay out of my fucking head.”

  Zero nodded then turned away. Cal grabbed his arm and yanked him back, and to his amazement, he saw a tear trickle down the Minder’s face. Zero jerked his arm back. “Let me go.” He wiped his face fiercely with the heel of his hand.

  Cal hesitated. “I don’t know what to trust anymore. Are you manipulating me right now?”

  Zero sat down heavily and put his head in his hands. “If I were, I could make you forget all of this. I could make you accept anything I wanted you to. So why would I be making you believe what you are thinking about me right now?”

  “So you are reading my fucking mind!”

  Zero looked up. “Don’t be so stupid, Cal. I can guess what you’re thinking. You feel betrayed, raped, dirty, frightened, angry, confused, ashamed. You want to kill me. Does that about cover it? So, trust me, it’s not me giving you those thoughts. Those are all your own.”

  Cal sat down next to him. “So the only thoughts I have about you that I can trust are bad ones?”

  Zero glanced over at him. “If I wanted you to love me, to take me down on the floor here and now, then I could do that as well. Whatever you’ve felt for me—feel for me—good or bad, is all you.”

  “So, you’re just a fucking saint who’s all misunderstood? Seriously? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  Zero stared at his hands, twisting them around. “I’m just a guy, Cal. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to hit you or hurt you. I don’t want to rape you. Why are these physical things so different to things of the mind? It’s all the same to me. I want to kiss you, and I want to make love to you, and sharing thoughts with you then could be incredible. So, yes, I’d like to read your mind then, have you inside mine when you were inside my body. Fuck. I don’t know. I’ve never not been able to do this, and I’ve never seen it as a bad thing.” He lifted his eyes and focused intently on Cal. “If you were the only sighted man in a world of the blind, would you want to hurt? Or would you want to help, use your sight to be their eyes for them? Think of the harm you could do if you wanted to: taking advantage of their blindness. But would you?”

  “Some men would.”

  “Yes. I know. That’s why we didn’t tell you. Some men would, and that taints all men, doesn’t it? And for you especially.”

  Cal stood up abruptly. “You don’t get to say that.”

  Zero shrugged. “You don’t trust people. I know that. And I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t get to tell me things you only know because you’ve been in my head!”

  Zero rose as well. “Why not? Why shouldn’t I be like…I don’t know…a doctor? Seeing the inside things of a man that are usually hidden?”

  Cal sat down again then gave a small laugh of exhaustion, running his hands over his face. “The others?”

  “They are completely neutered. I know you don’t trust me and can’t believe a word I say, but it’s the truth. They volunteered to be blinded so we could escape from Mars.”

  “And you?”

  Zero sat down as well, their little dance, up and down, mirroring their emotions. “I would volunteer if I could. Shit, I would take any kind of castration you wanted if that would mean my people could live on Earth again. But you can’t neutralise me! I’m…unique. I’m a Sender, Cal. I’m the stuff of your nightmares, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  Cal turned to him. “If you’re so fucking powerful, how come I’ve discovered you after a few days? I mean, shit, you’re pathetic!”

  “I know, I know.” Z buried his head in his hands once more. “I didn’t think I’d find someone like you. Oh, fuck. What can I say? It’s just you. I think I…I think I…shit. I’m not going to say it.”

  “Say what?” Zero focused on Cal at this question, and suddenly Cal’s mind was flooded. It was as if he’d released a geyser of imagery, sensation, thought, feeling—and all of it was so, so good. He saw himself and Zero entwined, then just a feeling of rightness and warmth and belonging.
He heard himself laughing. He saw himself smiling and kissing. And his whole life stretched ahead of him with Zero as his soulmate and companion if only he had the courage to reach out and take it. He reeled. He wondered if the floor had shifted beneath him, unstable. Gravity altered: one of those little deviations that became space myth. He fumbled for support and stability and everything good he’d never had in his life, and Zero was there, holding him and telling him out loud and in his head that it would be all right. That everything would be all right.

  You had to trust someone or you had to have faith in no one. And what was life like if you trusted no one?

  Not a single person in Cal’s life had given him reason to trust before this infuriating Minder…Sender. If it was all lies? Well, he signed up to the deceit. He surrendered.

  He was in love and love meant conviction. Love meant being blind.

  So be it.

  He lifted his face and found Zero’s mouth. His lips had never been as welcome anywhere as they were on that soft warmth. He realised he hadn’t been the only one in torment. He knew for the first time in his life he wasn’t alone. “Can you hear this?” No reply. He spoke openly against the urgent lips. “Listen to me. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, of course, always when you want me to.” Lips mashed harder on his then and tongues came into play.

  “I think this must be love.”

  Cal sensed Zero smile at his comment, physically around the kissing and like a bright colour in his mind.

  “I agree. I think I began to fall for you when you stuck this fucking redundant disc on my head.” Hands were now exploring Cal’s clothes, seeking beneath for the warmth and intimacy of skin.

  “What am I going to do about you?”

  “Before or after you do me?”

  “Can we stop now? Speak out loud? Just be…normal? For a while?” Cal eased his mouth away. Being able to kiss and talk was too dangerous. What secrets would leak out in moments like these? “Are you reading me now?”

  Zero shook his head and copied him, speaking out loud. “I would never if you didn’t want me to.”

  “You were in my mind when we found the flayed man.”

  Zero looked down. “What would you not do for someone you loved? Even if they said they didn’t want you to? If you said, ‘Don’t touch me,’ wouldn’t a hug be welcome even so? Shit, Cal, your rules don’t apply to me. I’m one of a kind, and I’ve had to make up my own ethical code. You were crumbling, so I shored you up. Was that so wrong? Would you rather have broken? Oh, God, I don’t know! Tell me what to do, what I’m supposed to be?” He kissed Cal furiously once more, and if nothing else told Cal that Zero was to be believed, that he was genuine, then that kiss did. What could he do? He fell, totally and completely. There was nowhere else to go.

  They ended up on the floor. It wasn’t the bed either of them would have chosen for their first time. Cal wouldn’t let the Sender top him—as much as he tried. He needed to stay in control, for many reasons, not least of which he needed to show Zero that there were more ways than one to invade another’s body, and when it came to the corporeal, he was going to be the boss.

  Zero spread out beneath him, exposed, his pale Martian-colony backside perfect globes of hard flesh, and between them lay the place of all pleasure. Cal pushed himself in. They’d gone from a few kisses to this, but he reckoned he was owed, given the other man had been inside his head.

  He experienced then the incredible privilege of entering Zero’s tightness, and began to work in and out gently, knowing it wouldn’t take much—it had been far too long since he’d enjoyed this. But then, just as the animalistic intensity was mounting to a peak, his whole being was slammed with a jolt of pure, wild, unfettered joy. It was as if he was running downhill and had launched himself into the air, just to see what would happen—and he was flying.

  He cried out, unable to process such ecstasy, kept on thrusting and reached out in his mind, and Zero was there. They were flying together, bodies naked in the air and on the mat, spinning weightless and yet entirely earthbound. Then, just for a moment, he experienced the sex through Zero’s awareness. He was fucking his own body, his arse filled and stretched, and each thrust was bringing him to a crescendo, so when his orgasm came it was doubled, his and Zero’s crashing through his groin, cock, balls, arse equally, until he could not tell where he began and Zero ended.

  Cal lay on the sleekly muscled, hard form, panting, recovering. He began to pull out but was enveloped in a vast mental hug. It was the only way he could describe it. It was strong arms and a pact to defeat the world in a flood of heat washing like a warm ocean through his mind. He stayed in and relaxed onto the Sender. Zero’s eyes were closed. Cal studied the perfect features for a while. He wondered whether Zero was reading his mind. Whether he would become unutterably vain from hearing his thoughts about such beauty. Z didn’t appear to be listening at all. He seemed to be dropping off to sleep. Cal chuckled. Zero’s eyes flew open. “Sorry, what? Did you say something?”

  “Aren’t you reading my mind?”

  “I think I’m a bit sore up there as well.”

  Cal immediately eased himself out and rolled to one side. “I’m sorry. It’s been a while for me, too.”

  Zero nodded and turned on his side to face Cal. He put a hand up to Cal’s face and rubbed his thumb along his cheekbone. He glanced shyly at him. “Can you think something for me?”

  Cal caught his hand and brought one finger to his mouth, biting gently on the tip. “What do you mean?”

  “Can you think about grass?”

  “Grass?”

  “Yes, picture yourself sitting on it? Smelling it maybe?”

  Cal frowned, but he closed his eyes and thought for a moment, then remembered a time when he’d been mowing the lawn as a boy. It had been a punishment for some misdemeanour, imagined or otherwise, and he’d resented it at first.

  It was hot. He stripped off his T-shirt and pushed the heavy mower over the lumpy yard. The first time he emptied the bag, he was overwhelmed by the sweet smell of the grass. It was the first day of the summer holidays. He tossed handfuls of grass into the air, watching the strands against the blue sky, eyes squinting against the sun. He had green fingers all evening, green, bony knees where he’d knelt to empty the bag, green soles of his bare feet. He found little pieces of grass in his hair, on his pillow, and the smell and the drone of the mower in his memory lulled him to sleep.

  He opened his eyes. Zero was staring at him, his eyes welling with tears. Cal huffed. “I’ve never made a guy cry before.”

  “I’m not…” Zero wiped his eyes aggressively with the heel of his palm. Very tentatively, he reached out and plucked something from Cal’s hair. Cal looked down. He hissed and snatched at the tiny piece of fresh grass, but it was gone. Zero shrugged. “I can’t maintain it if you try to touch. It’s not that real.”

  Cal lifted his eyes. “You made me see that?”

  Zero pouted. “I’m sorry, I thought…”

  “Do it again!”

  Zero chuckled and repeated the trick. Now, Cal didn’t try to touch the grass; he just stared at it. “It’s exactly the same piece as I found…” He gazed at Zero. “Read this.” He closed his eyes again and brought a much more recent memory to mind: a day off at the beach on his recent visit to Earth.

  He was running barefoot on baking hot sand to the water’s edge and then plunging through turquoise-white surf to the translucent smooth green beyond, lying on his board under the scorching sun, salt on his lips, and then the build-up of a wave, the crest and rush and sense of being god-like in the water, balancing on the power of the curl. And then he was tumbling with water up his nose before a rush to the surface, coughing and spitting.

  When he opened his eyes, Zero’s were the exact same colour as the translucent green ocean. But then Cal realised it wasn’t an illusion and they were just that colour anyway, but when he looked down, instead of a training mat there was water. He was physically seeing a wa
ve recede across the gym floor, miniature, perfect and, for that moment in time, just his. An Earth-ocean wave in space.

  He drew his thumb over one of Zero’s exquisite cheekbones. “Your parents didn’t name you very well. You aren’t Zero. You should be Infinity.”

  Zero chuckled. “I make your head hurt to think about?”

  “Do it again. Something else. Please.”

  Zero pouted delightfully for a moment then held out his hand, palm up. It was full of red grains. They began to swirl and multiply. The tiny sandstorm left Z’s hand and began to envelop them. Cal began to panic but he could see it only; the sand didn’t enter his lungs as he breathed. It was an illusion, but so real that everything started to go dark and was just this: sand.

  As quickly as it had begun it was over, and there was Zero with his brilliant green eyes. They were wet and he blinked away the tears. “That’s all I know, Cal. Red dust.”

  Cal stretched out his hand once more and this time smoothed a damp cheek.

  There was nothing he could say.

  A lifetime in a handful of dust.

  He rose to his feet. “Come on. I think now that I’ve seen what you can do, I have another use for you. I—We have a murderer to catch.”

  “We?”

  Cal huffed at the sound of surprise and shook his head ruefully. “I think that’s all there is now: no me—just us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When they returned to his cabin, Cal sat Zero down and went through everything that had happened from a Sender’s perspective. This was a unique experience for Cal. Zero was the first witness he’d ever questioned who could take him through the events as if he had lived through the murder—from the standpoint of the dead person. Z’s recall of the deaths was raw, visceral, honest, confused, frightening, and occasionally amusing…like life, Cal reckoned. Zero obviously toned down the pain he’d suffered from the other mind and his recollection wasn’t perfect, just like anyone else’s, but he was clearly doing his best to remember what he’d felt and heard and thought.