The Legend of ZERO: The Scientist, the Rat, and the Assassin

by Sara King

  …which Slade understood all too well.

  Aw, hell, Slade said, seeing the regret in Thirteen-D’s violet gaze. God hates a coward…

  #

  When Rat returned, Sam was seated on the ground with his back to her and was playing tic-tac-toe with the experiments on the copyright page of his survival manual. Both of the experiments were grinning and laughing—until they saw Rat. Then the two of them went into an ominous silence and watched her approach warily. Turning, Sam saw her and closed his book, immediately breaking out into a beaming smile. “Why hello, milady. See anything?”

  “There’s a pharmacy and a bookstore,” Rat said. “Nobody around. Kreenit shit everywhere. Most of the buildings knocked down.” What she left out was that the kreenit had left piles of Human bones every four rods, and everything was soaked with urine, even the undersides of the eaves. Which bothered her. A lot.

  “Sam,” she said, “was the kreenit we killed male or female?”

  Sam cocked his head and blinked the way he always did whenever he was accessing a mental snapshot. “I didn’t see any dangling parts?” he offered, eyes slightly distant.

  “Their parts don’t dangle,” Rat said. “It’s all internal, contained in their chests. The difference is the wings. Females have wings.”

  “It didn’t have wings,” Sam said.

  “Males tear the females’ wings off during the first breeding,” Rat snapped. “Did it have scars, Sam? They would’ve been just behind the shoulder.”

  Frowning slightly, Sam said. “Yep, actually, it did.”

  “Ash.” Rat sucked in a breath through her teeth and glanced back out at the town. “There’s another one out there.”

  Sam frowned. “There was a dead one farther up the valley.”

  “They don’t eat their own mates,” Rat said. “They do, however, gang up and kill other kreenit that wander into their territory.” She yanked her walkie-talkie off her belt. “Tyson, how you holding up?”

  Static answered her on the other end.

  Sam’s head came up alertly and he frowned.

  “Tyson,” Rat said again. “You okay?”

  A little chill started working its way down her spine when she got nothing but silence.

  “Maybe his batteries ran out,” Rat said, gesturing at Sam. “Use the other system.”

  Sam obligingly swiveled to drag his walkie-talkie from his backpack, wiped peanut-butter off of it, and, while sucking it from his fingers, flipped on the sound. Around a thick mouthful of masticated nuts, Sam said, “Hey Tyson, you loveable lackey. You ignoring us, there, bud?”

  Nothing, not even static.

  “That’s…not good,” Sam said, swallowing his mouthful of peanut butter convulsively. He glancing at the town behind her with nervous apprehension.

  Rat shouldered her gun. “All right. You take your happy ass into town and get whatever you need to save the girl. I’m going to go find out what the soot is going on.” She paused, frowning down at the glove-wearing freak, who was still watching her with suspicion. To Efrit-boy, she said, “Uh…keep him safe, okay? He’s smart, but not dangerous. He needs…help.”

  The purple-eyed experiment’s suspicion cleared a little. He gave her a reluctant nod. Beside him, Sam snorted to Twelve-B. “Not dangerous? Did you hear her?” He offered her a spoonful of peanut-butter. Twelve-B took a bite, nodding happily.

  “Not dangerous.” Sam scoffed again. With great dignity, he scooped out another wad of peanut butter, put it in his mouth, and mumbled around it, “Lady…I’m the most dangerous one of the group!” Then he frowned and swatted at a bee that had landed on his leg, which proceeded to bite him and make him scream.

  “He’s not dangerous,” Rat repeated. She took a deep breath and glanced toward the head of the valley, where they had left Tyson to make camp. “Okay. Guess I should get started if I wanna get there by dark.” Still, she hesitated. She didn’t, she realized, want to leave Sam alone. In fact, the feeling was so nagging that it was leaving her ill-at-ease. She glanced again at the two experiments. Would they hurt him? They’d seemed to be getting along okay…

  Reluctantly, she pulled a gun from the three she kept on her hip and offered it to Sam. “You know how to use one of these?”

  “No,” Sam said, making no effort to take it. He hadn’t, she realized, even bothered carrying one since she’d shown up, which made her wonder if he had ever carried one at all.

  Rat squinted at him. “You know how they work.” Hell, given a forge and a Ueshi alchemist’s lab, he could probably make one.

  “Of course, milady.” He smiled, but still made no move for the gun.

  “Just take it, goddamn it,” Rat said, jiggling it. She sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to the purple-eyed freak.

  “I’m an intellectual,” Sam said. It was the same thing he had whined, over and over, on their daily runs. “I don’t need one of those—I kill people with my brain. Besides.” He reached over and clapped the wiry teenager on the shoulder, startling him. “I’ve got Mickey to protect me.”

  “Mickey,” Rat said flatly. She still didn’t like the idea of using the experiments’ names, considering she was going to have to kill them to fulfill her obligations to Mekkval, but Sam seemed to be insisting, which irritated her. The dilemma over Sam was enough—no need to get attached to more of them.

  “Mickey’s a badass,” Sam said.

  “I’m a badass,” the child-sized man said, pointedly looking at her as he said it. He popped his tiny gloved knuckles, watching her.

  “See?” Sam cried. “You’re in good company!”

  Snorting, Rat didn’t even dignify that with a response. She left the gun with Sam anyway, dropping it in the grass at his feet when he wouldn’t take it. “Don’t lose it,” she commanded, when he made a face. I’ll be back sometime after nightfall. Keep your walkie-talkie on, and if anything goes wrong, hole up in the library. It’s the most defensible. Fewer windows, all concrete.”

  “Former firehouse,” Sam said, nodding.

  Rat frowned at him. “How the hell did you—” But, by this time, she had stopped questioning the random bits of information that her ka-par slave had picked up over a lifetime with an innate curiosity and a completely photographic memory. She shook herself. “If something goes wrong, meet at the library. I’ll be back.” Then, turning, she went to figure out why Tyson wasn’t answering his walkie-talkie.

  She hadn’t taken three steps before she got that same gut-wrench of dread she always got before something was about to go horribly wrong. Last time, it had been when the Huouyt had tried to kill them. The time before that, it had been just before she entered Earth’s atmosphere, only tics before a Congressional bot blew her out of the sky. She stood there, her hairs rising on end all over her body, feeling like someone was using her spine to sight in a rifle.

  Slowly, she glanced back over her shoulder at Sam and the two experiments. The sense of wrongness eased immediately. When she turned back to the direction of the Survivors’ Guild, however, her gut cramped so hard she felt sick. The last time she’d felt a pang this strong, she’d been about to receive her summons to go to Neskfaat.

  Whatever lay ahead of her, it wasn’t a kreenit.

  “Problem?” Sam asked around the remnants of his sandwich. He’d offered the rest of it the two experiments. Mickey was eating his, but the woman was rubbing hers in the dirt.

  Rat swallowed, still eying the forest ahead of her, filled with that same, gut-deep sense of dread that had saved her countless times before. She remembered the odd way Tyson had said ‘craft’ bread and swallowed. “Sam, if you had powdered grain and yeast, what would you do with it?”

  “Try to salvage some genetic information, then let it ferment naturally before baking and try to culture the yeast for later generations?” He gave her a confused frown. “Why?”

  “Give me a simpler answer.”

  “Make bread?”

  Rat glanced at him. “Would you ever ‘craft�
� it?”

  “No, that’s more something you do with wood and stuff that survives more than a few minutes after getting pulled out of the oven.”

  “On second thought, give me back my gun.”

  Cocking his head at her, Sam soberly did as she asked.

  “We now have a codeword,” Rat said, as her gut settled minutely with the cold, hard feel of ruvmestin alloy in her hand. She didn’t bother dropping it into its sheath. “If you don’t use ‘purple thong’ the next time I see you, I’m going to shoot you in the head.”

  Both of Sam’s eyebrows went up. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “And you will do the same for me,” Rat said. “Pink bikini. If I don’t say it, shoot me. Just fucking shoot me.”

  “I don’t have a gun,” Sam reminded her. But he looked utterly serious, now. “What are we dealing with?”

  “I think the Huouyt got Tyson,” Rat said. She took a deep breath and considered bringing Sam and the other two along. Instantly, the sense of wrongness cramped her guts until she felt the need to puke. “And you are staying here.”

  “You sure you don’t want my—”

  “No!” Rat snapped, overwhelmed by the urge to get out of there, now. “You will burning stay here, Sam.”

  “You got it,” Sam said softly. “Should we just hide? Wait it out?”

  Rat’s heart was hammering so hard it was almost impossible to concentrate. The idea of going after the Survivors’ Guild was bad, but the idea of staying with Sam was worse. It took all of her effort to say, “That would probably be best.” She shouldered her gun. “Don’t follow me. I don’t care how long I’m gone. You burning stay here.”

  “Meaning you’re not sure you’re coming back,” Sam said in a whisper. “That how you survived Eeloir and Neskfaat? You…feel…something?”

  Rat thought about telling him—she wanted to tell him—but Mekkval’s warning made her take pause yet again. Sam was, above all, a scientist, and all she had to do to remind herself of how dangerous that could be to her was to remember the chickens clawing their way out of the Huouyt’s dying body. “Just don’t follow me,” Rat whispered, feeling the dread roiling within her gut, growing like a cancer. She needed to get away from Sam, and she needed to do it now. Steeling herself, she stepped into the brush and left them there.

  The walk back, mostly uphill, was exhausting after an entire day on her feet and little to eat, but adrenaline kept Rat’s nerves humming. She carefully took a wide arc around the valley, coming back to where they had left the Guild from the opposite direction.

  The Guild was gone.

  The ground wasn’t littered with bodies, as Rat had hoped. It would have been comforting, because it would have meant it was something other than what she suspected. Gangs and raiders left bodies everywhere. Huouyt did not.

  Once she’d observed the campsite for an hour in the dark, she stepped forward and examined the trampled area. There were no coals, no bare-dirt fire-ring—which Tyson had begun to strictly enforce ever since seeing what Sam had done with his lighter. There was no flour sprinkled on the ground, no signs of bread-making whatsoever. The ground didn’t even seem very trampled.

  Straightening, her palm sweaty on her gun, Rat surveyed the surrounding camp. It looked as if they hadn’t even stayed to wait for them. Which meant Tyson had turned on them—something Rat doubted, considering how long he had already put up with Sam—or Tyson was dead.

  Rat went back to the bluff overlooking the moonlit valley, where they had left Tyson to keep watch. Glancing around from that vantage point, she found a tree that seemed more secluded than the rest. She knew from long turns of experience that standing watch was long, boring, and the monotony was frequently alleviated with coffee or tea. Which meant lots of bathroom breaks. And Tyson, being a prude, always went out of his way to not be seen taking a piss.

  Swallowing down dread, Rat walked over to the tree. The old smell of male urine assaulted her senses. She squatted and looked at the ground, and immediately, her guts started to knot. Small scuffs ending in drag-marks. Heading into the woods.

  Dread coalescing in her stomach in a cold ball, Rat got up and followed them.

  Tyson’s body had been hidden under a carpet of dead leaves and twigs. His index finger had been cut off.

  She was about to shove the forest detritus back over him when she saw his big chest give a single, shallow breath.

  “Oh soot!” Rat cried, shoving the rest of the dead leaves away and checking his wounds. “Tyson?!” There was a deep gash in one leg, like he’d been sliced open the length of his thigh, and his intestines were showing through a rent in his abdomen. “Burn me,” Rat whispered. She pulled off her pack and started rooting through it for nannites. “Hold on, kid…”

  She got the kit, pulled out the applicator, got a good dose, and jammed it into Tyson’s arm. A few moments later, Tyson twitched, but appeared to stabilize. He slowly pulled his arm up, to cover the wound in his stomach.

  He’d lost way too much blood, though. Not even the severed finger, which hadn’t been bandaged, was bleeding.

  “Ashes,” Rat muttered, looking down at Tyson’s body. Without her help, he was going to die. But she didn’t have time to sit around playing nurse—if there was one Huouyt, there were several, and they had a ship, and they had possibly found genetic material they could use. She needed to find that ship…

  “Water,” Tyson croaked. “Head feels like a Hebbut’s going after it with a hammer.” Rat flinched. He still hadn’t opened his eyes, but he was obviously aware of her presence.

  Rat was stunned. With that kind of blood-loss, the man should have been comatose. Hell, he should have been dead…

  She quickly leveled her gun on his forehead and got out of reach. Huouyt were smart. Too smart.

  Still not opening his eyes, Tyson gave a weak laugh. “Not a Huouyt.”

  “Oh yeah?” Rat demanded. “Prove it.”

  Tyson raised his arm weakly and pointed to another lump of dead leaves.

  Glaring, keeping one eye fixed on him, Rat went to check it out. She half-expected a bomb, but she found a dead Huouyt, instead.

  “That doesn’t prove flake,” Rat snapped. “Huouyt kill their own, all the time. Maybe I should just cut you open and look for zora, eh?”

  “They cut it out a long time ago,” Tyson managed.

  Rat flinched, her world suddenly coming to a halt. “What?”

  “Long story,” Tyson managed. “Please. Water.”

  “Did you just admit you’re a Huouyt?” Rat demanded, her anger rising.

  With great effort, Tyson shook his head. “Sold to the Va’gan Death Pool. Dropped me in the maze to ‘train’ their new recruits. Cannon fodder, to help them figure out the best way to murder each different species. Except I kept killing their acolytes, so they eventually picked me up, took me back to their lab, and decided to use me as a Va’gan lab rat with about forty others. They were trying to replicate the experiments they were doing on Earth.”

  “You are flaking me,” Rat snarled.

  “Not flaking you,” he said weakly.

  Rat’s instincts were screaming at her to put a round through his forehead, then two to his chest, just to make sure. She actually tightened her finger on the trigger before she relaxed it again. In all the time she’d known him, Tyson had made her feel like she were missing something important about him. He seemed too…good…at what he did.

  “So how did you get here?” Rat demanded.

  “The Huouyt dosed me with something that gave me headaches and made me grow a zora—I was one of the only ones who lived through it, and they were super pissed it ‘didn’t work’. Then they cut out the zora and tossed me back into the maze, this time for good. I was Va’gan meat running the maze until Jer’ait Ze’laa found me and we helped each other escape Morinth.”

  Rat narrowed her eyes, sensing what could only be flake. “You’re telling me Jer’ait Ze’laa—the Peacemaster—went back to Va’ga? That�
�s a lie. They would have killed him on sight.”

  “They tried,” Tyson agreed. “He took out the entire assassin school. Again. Then he sent me here to watch Sam.”

  Rat squinted. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that Jer’ait Ze’laa had escaped the city of Va’ga only by slaughtering every teacher, student, and most of the staff—hundreds of trained killers, all out to execute him. Jer’ait had never confirmed nor denied it, but Sol’dan had once commented, upon seeing Jer’ait passing in the distance, “There goes the second Huouyt in all of history to have left the maze of Va’ga without permission.”

  “Who was the first?” Rat had asked.

  Sol’dan, the asher, had only smiled at her.

  “Please don’t tell Sam,” Tyson said. “If he knew Jer’ait sent me here to watch him, it’d change things.”

  It sure would. Every time Sam spoke of Jer’ait Ze’laa, it was in the same enraged breath as his brother and twelve billion credits. Though she still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that it wasn’t a Huouyt trick, she said, “I’ll get you some water. Stay here.” She got up and moved out of hearing range, doubled back from another direction, and watched him for over an hour.

  Tyson continued to lay on the ground, staring at the sky, holding his stomach and leg.

  Eventually, satisfied that he wasn’t going to get up and try to follow her, Rat went to get water.

  She had gotten maybe half a length away when Rat’s earlier dread suddenly became a pounding nausea, curling and twisting her guts into sweaty, heart-pounding knots.

  She was pulling out her walkie-talkie when, a few rods behind her, a stick snapped. Rat spun, saw the camouflaged flicker of a Jikaln against the trees, and started firing.

  #

  Slade was sifting through books in the local library the next morning when Rat’s voice came to him over the walkie-talkie. “Hey, Slade, looks like Tyson had a run-in with some Huouyt and the Guild ditched us. I’m coming back to you so we can decide what to do. Still got the experiments?”