by SL Huang
ROOT OF UNITY
by SL Huang
Copyright ©2015 SL Huang
The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
For more information or further permissions, contact information is available at www.slhuang.com.
Cover copyright ©2015 Najla Qamber
All rights reserved. The cover art may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the copyright holder, except as permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance in the text to actual events or to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9960700-6-5
Cover art: Najla Qamber Designs
Editing: Anna Genoese
Chapter 1
The little charge blew the safe open with a satisfying pop. The only thing inside was the flash drive I’d come for; I tucked it into my inside jacket pocket, thinking in an idiotically conceited fashion that this job had been a piece of cake.
Then I turned around and found myself facing three assault rifles.
Well, shit.
“We take a dim view of thieves in this house,” said the one man not holding an M16. He flicked open a silver lighter and lit a cigarette, playing the casually evil villain cliché to a T, down to his expensive suit and cavalier posturing. Probably one of the Grigoryan brothers themselves.
“That’s funny,” I said, “considering that you stole this. I’m just stealing it back.”
“Very high and mighty,” said the Grigoryan man. He made a condescending tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “Strange attitude for someone I hear will take any job for the right price.”
He knew who I was, then. I shrugged. “Never said I didn’t.” My eyes flicked over his goons. Their gun barrels were trained on me steadily, their eyes unwavering. Well-trained—or perhaps they had been forewarned. Dammit. I was good, but I wasn’t faster than a bullet.
The boss villain shook a finger at me, smiling as if I were a puzzle. “Oh, you! You intrigue me. Cas Russell, am I correct? I hear you are a little lady with superpowers. At least, that is what they tell me, eh?” He spread his arms expansively. “Perhaps you could demonstrate them for us.”
“Superpower,” I corrected. “Just one.”
“And what is that?” His smile was indulgent.
“I can do math,” I said. “Really, really fast.”
His smile flickered, like someone trying to figure out the punchline to a joke. One of the goons blinked, his gun barrel wavering for a precious split second.
I was ready. Lines and angles and pivot points whirled around me like a fourth dimension, a sixth sense. Trig functions and force calculations cascaded through my brain faster than thought. Today’s problem was relatively simple: did the number of goons divided by the rate at which I could bash in goon heads equal less than the time it would take for one of the goons to shoot me?
It did, assuming the men only had normal human reaction time. I’m very good at bashing in goon heads.
If there was any possibility one of them had some sort of unexpected ability, like me, I didn’t give much weight to it. Mathematical expectation: the probability any of the goons was supernaturally fast, the probability one of them could get me with a nontrivial gunshot wound…
More than worth the risk.
Before Goon #3 was halfway done blinking, I pivoted toward him, spinning to leverage one boot off the wall at the exact angle calculated to give me the force I needed. I slammed into him from the side, my leg shooting out to connect with his face with a sickening crunch as I wrenched the M16 away. Unfortunately, the momentum of that move carried the assault rifle toward Goons #1 and #2 stock first, with no time to spin it and line up a shot, but that was okay. While Goon #2 was still turning to get me back in his sights, I continued my M16’s arc to slam into his weapon and followed through with my body, diving into a roll. Goon #1 got off a burst of automatic gunfire that sprayed over my head. I rolled out onto my back and pulled the trigger.
This M16 had been set on full auto, too. The weapon stuttered in my hands and Goon #1 jerked like a marionette with a bad puppet master before falling inelegantly back through a glass bookcase.
I rolled up to my feet, my borrowed M16 pointed at the Grigoryan brother. Goon #2 had managed to collect his battered weapon and had it retrained on me, but I ignored him.
“Impressive,” said the Grigoryan, his voice shaking a little. Damn well better be. Three goons neutralized in about two and a half seconds. I was good. “But now we have a standoff.”
“Nah, I jammed up his weapon when I hit it,” I said, jerking my head toward Goon #2. “Thanks for giving your men M16s, by the way. AKs are a lot sturdier.”
Grigoryan’s dark eyebrows drew together furiously and he glanced toward Goon #2, who tried to pull the trigger. A spectacular amount of nothing happened.
“Bye now,” I said to Grigoryan, and slid carefully out of the room, keeping an eye on him the whole time. He stared at me as I left, his cigarette dangling forgotten from a corner of his mouth.
It made my day. I liked impressing people.
Of course, now I had to get off the grounds. Grigoryan had probably raised every alarm in the place before he set foot in that room. I flicked the M16’s selector lever to semiauto—automatic fire was for people more concerned with looking impressive and chewing up furniture than being deadly. I didn’t need spray-and-pray; I needed precision.
The one thing M16s do pretty well is accuracy. If you’re a good shot, it’s possible to hit a target six hundred meters away. And I was better than a good shot. When it came to guns, I was a fucking computer program.
Some people—those I might be tempted to call “good people”—preferred a fair fight. Sniping a target from a long distance without any warning at all was disturbing to them. Killing at all was disturbing to them.
I wasn’t one of those people.
With every loud bark of the M16 in my hands, the projectile motion played out perfectly and another tiny target dropped in the distance, efficiently clearing my way to exit the Grigoryan estate. It was like reading a particularly artistic mathematical proof: every step as it should be, every piece following seamlessly from the last with no wasted moves.
The shouts and screams multiplied exponentially, emanating from all over the sprawling mansion. I didn’t let any of the search parties get remotely close to me. Instead I played my own fucked up game of cat and mouse with them, one in which the mouse turned out to be an invisible assassin with an assault rifle who never missed.
I made it to the fence and set a ten-second charge. The explosion would bring them all running this direction, but by the time any of them made it this far, I’d be long gone. Tomorrow I’d deliver the goods and get paid, and this job would be over.
That was the part I wasn’t looking forward to.
♦ ♦ ♦
Two days later, I slumped very predictably in a bar, trying to drown myself in cheap whiskey. Also very predictably, it wasn’t working.
I signaled the bartender for a fifteenth round. He frowned at me. I wasn’t a large woman, and he’d never seen me before—I purposely didn’t keep to a local. I could tell he was wondering if he should cut me off. It didn’t help that even though I was legal, I probably could have passed for a teenager if I really tried.
“I’m not drunk,” I said crossly. Yet. That was the goal.
“You drive?” he asked.
“No,” I lied. Unfortunately, I was just as good at math drunk as I was sober. I’d never been in a car crash. At least not an unintentional one. “Now give me another one.”
“Hey, sweethea
rt,” interrupted a voice by my right shoulder. “Buy you a drink?”
I frowned without looking up. People didn’t hit on me in bars. First of all, I wasn’t attractive. Whatever my mix of genes was, it combined to give me the approximate appearance of a small brown troll, and the way I dressed didn’t help: sloppy loose clothes and combat boots with no makeup and short hair that approximated a tangled bird’s nest. Second, I gave off “keep away” vibes strong enough to pin the largest man to the far wall.
Which meant the speaker was either blind drunk or someone I knew, and the vocal oscillations had already teased out to solve the mystery anyway. “Arthur,” I said, without turning. I needed more alcohol.
A tall black man came into view beside me. He was in his forties-ish, good-looking, with a square jaw that had a close-shaved beard pebbling it, and unlike me he always dressed neatly—well, as if he expected to be seen by other people when he left the house. He swung himself up onto the next stool over.
“I won’t have what she’s having,” he said to the bartender. “Give us each a shot of whatever’s two steps up from that.”
“You don’t know what I’m drinking,” I said.
“Ain’t sure I want to, knowing you.”
“Since when do you have such a gourmet palate?” I demanded.
“I ain’t. Got taste buds.”
Ouch.
The bartender delivered the shots and I downed mine, the whiskey burning all the way down my throat. Dammit, he was right. It did taste better. Not that I’d admit it.
“Tried calling,” Arthur said, spinning his empty shot glass on the bar.
“I know,” I said.
“How you been?”
“Oh, you know me.”
“Hey. Russell.” He put a hand on my shoulder and nudged me to face him from my stool. “Thought we was supposed to be keeping an eye on each other. Can’t do that if you disappear on me.”
I shrugged him off. “It’s been two years since Pithica. I’m not worried.”
“Ain’t the point. What’s going on?”
I looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m off the wagon,” I said.
He spared a glance for my fifteen shot glasses. “Were you ever on it?”
“Not that wagon.”
It took him a minute to get it. Then he said, “Oh.”
I signaled to the bartender again. “Don’t give me that look like I kicked your puppy. See, I knew you would react this way.”
“Want to talk about it?” said Arthur.
That wasn’t what I had expected him to say. “No. No, I don’t. The thing is, I realized—I don’t care. I really don’t care. I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t feel any different. And it’s so much easier.”
“Okay,” said Arthur.
“‘Okay?’ I go back to killing people willy-nilly again and that’s all you have to say to me?”
The bartender put down our next two shots so hastily they sloshed over his wrists before he retreated into the back and out of sight.
Arthur made a shushing gesture and peered around the near-empty dive to see if I’d freaked out anyone else. “Ain’t saying I’m happy about it, but…well, I ain’t believe the ‘willy-nilly,’ first off. Thing is, Russell, you might say you don’t care, but I know for a fact you ain’t no killer. Don’t like you taking no hard line again, but I still got faith you only charging the guilty.”
“And if I’m not?”
He spun on his stool to lean back against the bar. “Well, that’s what I’m here for, ain’t it?”
I tried to maintain a belligerent facade, but I’d never been good at bluffing.
Arthur’s expression softened. “Don’t mean I ain’t going to keep trying to convince you, though. We had you, what, a year sober?”
A year, two months, three weeks, two days, seventeen hours, forty-three minutes, and seven seconds, give or take the amount of time it took someone’s brain to shut down after he bled out. “Yeah,” I said.
“You gonna stop avoiding me now?”
“Maybe.” I remembered how smooth and satisfying it had felt to take out the Grigoryans’ security army, and grabbed for one of the shots the bartender had left. I knocked it back and then stole Arthur’s, too. “How’d you find me, anyway?”
“I’m a PI, sweetheart. It’s what I do.”
I grunted. Arthur was one of the few people who could get away with calling me “sweetheart.” “Checker tracked my phone, didn’t he.”
“He was worried.”
Checker was Arthur’s business partner, friend, and master of all things electronic. Technically, I supposed he was my friend, too. Once I’d stopped returning his messages a few weeks ago he’d started pestering me through text, from DRUNKN BSG MARATHON 2NITE B THERE to PILAR&I R GOING 2C NEW BATMAN MOVIE U SHOULD COME to R U ALRITE??? SRSLY, TXT ME BACK, and finally, I KNOW UR ALIVE, I CHECKED. LAST CHANCE OR IM SICCING ARTHUR ON U. I’d ignored them all; I hadn’t been in the mood for company.
Arthur cleared his throat. “So. I take it you ain’t got no cases right now.”
“Just finished one,” I said. “This is vacation.”
“You don’t take vacations.”
“Work’s been slow,” I admitted. The jobs I got paid me more cash than I knew what to do with, but the dead time in between was becoming a problem. “I think…”
“What’s going on?”
“No proof, but I think the Lorenzo family might be putting in a bad word here and there. Mama Lorenzo can’t break appearances by coming after me aboveboard, and she might’ve said we were square, but I’ve gotten hints she’s held onto a gallon or so of resentment after last year.”
“And she’s good at subtle,” Arthur agreed. “Shit. Well, I’m in luck then, ’cause I might have a job for you, and looks like you’re available.”
“Ha. I don’t need your charity.”
“Ain’t charity. Client knows I need an assist on this. Your rate’ll be met.”
I squinted at him, but his face was serious. “You gonna let me work it my way?”
“Not a chance in hell. You in?”
“Why not.” It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.
Arthur’s hand tightened on the edge of the bar. “Before you say yes. Happens I need more than just an extra gun.”
“I said I’d play it your way, okay? No C-4, roger.” I mock-saluted him.
“Ain’t what I meant. Russell…we ain’t never really talked about this, but…” He’d gone still and tense. “This case, client’s a friend of mine. Real important to me. It’s about her work, and…my friend, she’s a professor.” He wet his lips. “Math professor.”
“No.” The refusal slipped out through stiff lips before I realized I had heard him, and I slid off my stool and stumbled toward the door. The room was whirling a little. I kind of hoped I was just drunker than I thought, but I could do the damn differential equation; I knew I wasn’t.
“Russell, wait.” I felt Arthur catch my arm as my foot missed the ground. “Hey. You okay?”
“Get off.” I tried to shoulder his hand away; the ceiling slipped sideways again.
“You ain’t have to take this job,” Arthur said from somewhere up and to my right. “Forget it. Ain’t no problem.”
At least, that was what his words said. But his voice was tight and desperate, as if the list of people he thought could help his friend began and ended with me.
“Fine,” I ground out. “I’ll help.”
The tension went out of him where he was still touching my arm, and I hated myself. “Sweetheart, I could kiss you,” he said.
“Don’t push your luck.”
Still keeping a supporting hand on my elbow, Arthur pulled out his wallet and threw a handful of bills on the bar. “Come on, let me drive you home. I’ll tell you more on the way.”
“My car is here,” I said.
His eyes slipped back to my seventeen shot glasses lined up in neat groups on the bar. “Ex-cop here. Humor me.”
“I hate cops.”
“Me too.” Something dark flickered in Arthur’s eyes. I’d never found out why he’d left the force, and even I, Queen of Social Disgraces, had eventually clued in I shouldn’t ask about it.
“Fine,” I said. The room was still whirling a little anyway.
Arthur took another glance back toward my neatly grouped glasses as we headed toward the door. “Fibonacci series?”
I looked back at the bar. “Sequence,” I corrected. I hadn’t realized I’d been doing it.
“Like to see the world the way you do some time,” said Arthur.
Vectors stretched out around me in a thousand variations, constantly reforming, lengthening, summing in infinite combinations like I was in the middle of some fucking chess game and couldn’t help but see twenty steps ahead in all directions, and I dearly wished I’d been able to have more alcohol. “No,” I told Arthur. “You wouldn’t.”
Chapter 2
Professor Sonya Halliday, well-known luminary in the fields of cryptography and complexity theory, greeted us the next morning at the door of her on-campus office. With its sprawling California architecture and palm tree-lined avenues, the university was one of those places that tried so hard to be warm and cheerful that it automatically made me feel rebelliously depressed.
Professor Halliday was a tall, thin African-American woman who was probably in her mid-forties but looked older. She was dressed very precisely in a straight skirt and severe blouse, with her graying hair pulled tightly back from her face. She regarded us through rimless glasses and shook my hand formally when Arthur introduced us. “Are you a private investigator, as well?” she inquired.
“No,” I answered, biting down on the “ma’am” that wanted to pop out afterward. Professor Halliday had that kind of effect. “I do retrieval.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Halliday, in a tone that demanded I explain.
I resisted the urge to tell her to look up “retrieval” in the dictionary. “It means people hire me to find items of value for them and bring them back safely. Usually things that have been stolen from them.” Usually. Sometimes I was the one doing the stealing. I left that part out.