Forging Zero

by Sara King

  “Be glad your Daddy isn’t here to see this,” her mother snapped. “The only thing he likes about you is you’re not scared of anything. I wonder what he’d think if he saw you now.”

  Realizing it was true, Libby lowered her head in shame.

  “Here.” Her mother shoved her lunchbox at her. “Go up to that alien over there. Tell him you’re here for the Draft.”

  Libby had heard about the Draft on the little TV Marcella kept on all the time in the laundry room, and suddenly it all made sense to her. She glanced up at her mom, both hurt and thankful. “You mean you pretended there was a photo shoot so I wouldn’t get scared?”

  Her mom snorted and pointed. “Jean-Jean’s right over there.” Indeed, the photographer’s sleek gray RV sat backed over a hopscotch area. He was already setting up the lights. “I thought I’d get you out of the way first.”

  Libby looked. She saw the cameramen, the tripods, the flowing white tents, the beach towels spread over the playground sand. Six photographers, unbeknownst to her, had been taking pictures of them the whole time, the reflective black lenses of their cameras flashing in the sun as they clicked photo after photo of them together, in front of the ship. Libby took a deep breath. “Bye, Mom.”

  “Come here for a hug.” Her mom wrapped her long, thin arms around her and squeezed gently to keep from damaging her expensive gauze dress. In that moment, she held Libby tighter and longer than she’d ever held her before, and for a moment, Libby thought her mother was showing the first real hint of love she’d ever gotten from her.

  Then she heard the cameramen scramble in to get close-ups. “Just hold her right there,” one of the guys said. “That’s right. Perfect, perfect!” After another minute to give them their shots, her mother released her and went to begin rummaging through her luggage for her outfit bags. Now the photographers were focused on Libby, leaning in close, crouching upon the concrete in front of her for a better angle.

  “You gonna be a hero, kid?” one of the photographers said, his face hidden behind the huge black eye of his camera. “You gonna go fight aliens?”

  Gripping her lunchbox, surrounded by strangers, Libby lowered her head and bit her lip. She wanted to run to her mother and grip her leg, but her mom hated that.

  “Poor kid’s crying,” one of the photographers called. “Be sure to get that.” More clicking of their shutters. One leaned in close for face-shots. Libby twisted away, wishing she could drop her lunchbox and kick the guy in the head.

  “Hey, kid,” one of them prodded, “how about you look up for us, okay? Stop staring at the ground. Nobody gets on the front page of People staring at the ground.”

  Flushing, Libby took a deep breath and turned toward the alien ship. The alien standing guard was watching her. Swallowing hard, she walked up to the Ooreiki at the base of the staircase. It stared down at her through a black helmet that made his face look like some sort of wasp, utterly motionless. On its chest, a four-pointed star sat in a circular border, both made out of a bright, near-white metal that reminded Libby of her mother’s wedding ring. Libby cleared her throat and glanced behind her. Her mom wasn’t even looking, but the photographers used the opportunity to snap at least a thousand pictures, the flashes lighting up in waves. Libby turned back to the alien. In her strongest voice, she said, “I’m here for the Draft.”

  The alien made some guttural sounds in its chest. A little black ball hanging around its throat said, “We don’t start collections until tomorrow.”

  Libby lifted her chin. “I want to go now.”

  It gave Libby a long look. She couldn’t see its eyes behind the helmet, but she stared back at it anyway. Finally, it said, “You can’t bring foreign objects on our ship.” A slender tentacle snaked out to touch Libby’s lunchbox.

  “Fine,” Libby said, throwing it aside. It clattered against the crushed jungle-gym and split open, spilling a dozen tiny bags of Cheetos out onto the sand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mom walking away from the car, toward the mini city of the photo shoot. She could even make out Jean-Jean as he ran out and embraced her mother, then led her back to the site with an arm around her waist.

  “This way,” the alien said.

  Libby turned and followed him onto the ship.

  CHAPTER 7: An Unexpected Gift

  Now that Nebil’s war classes had begun to give him a taste of what Congress could do to its enemies, Joe had begun to worry that the aliens would tire of the human resistance and simply blow Earth away.

  It would be easy. Like popping a zit.

  The more he learned about this alien army, the more the cold, hard truth settled into his guts like a cancer. Congress was too big. Utterly too big to be stopped. And it dealt with those who crossed it quickly, and with breathtakingly brutal efficiency. It wiped out whole cities, plunged planets back into the Dark Ages, then set up blockades to keep it that way.

  And Earth was filled with groups of guys rolling their sleeves, planning out how to best take down the ship squatting in the parking-lot of their local strip-mall. Humans, Joe knew from agonizing experience, couldn’t take a hint if it was splattered across live television.

  Furthering his fears that Congress would simply decide that humans were more effort than they were worth and just blow up their whole solar system, every time Joe asked about Earth, the aliens completely ignored him. As if the idea wasn’t fully off the table yet, but they didn’t want to spook the nine hundred kidnapped kids so it would be easier to blow them away when the time came to abandon the farce.

  Instead of giving them any news of Earth, the aliens filled their every waking minute with lessons about language, war, weapons, and culture. And, despite Joe’s aversion towards his captors, he learned everything they had to teach him and found himself craving more.

  The military subjects especially fascinated him. When Battlemaster Nebil taught him to take his rifle apart and put it back together, Joe only needed to see the demonstration once before he could do it on his own. When taught the differences between laser and other energy weapons, Joe could identify them on sight from then on.

  In fact, for the first time in his life, Joe actually found himself excelling in classes. He found himself putting together facts that the instructors didn’t even mention, all of the pieces of the alien puzzle fitting together in his head. Joe knew he shouldn’t enjoy learning what the enemy wanted him to know, but he couldn’t help himself. It was as if everything was already in his brain, waiting to be brought to the surface.

  Of all the other children, only Libby seemed to match him class-for-class. While Scott, Elf, and Maggie struggled with the knowledge and had to be told again and again, Libby complained that they were going too slowly. Actually looking somewhat pleased with that, Battlemaster Nebil gave Libby and a few other volunteers newer and harder things to learn, teaching this advanced class on weaponry himself.

  It made Joe envious, but he felt like he would be betraying his home if he asked to join them, so he feigned ignorance, stuck with the slower class, and secretly listened to Libby’s instruction from afar. After all, he didn’t plan to stay with the Ooreiki. First chance he got, he still had to find a way back to San Diego.

  Tril was the only alien who even came close to alleviating Joe’s worries about Earth.

  “Last I heard, they sent a Human Representative to Koliinaat,” Tril said, when Joe asked. “If they did, they’re safe, as long as they don’t do something stupid. Sentient species have special protection from the Regency.”

  “What is Koliinaat?” Joe asked.

  Commander Tril gave him a hard look. “Koliinaat is the seat of Congressional government. It’s the largest artificial construction in the known universe, a product of millions of years of construction and care, an unparalleled masterpiece of technology. It houses the First Citizen, the Tribunal, and the Regency. Over three thousand species’ Representatives are quartered there.”

  Joe felt himself staring. “Three thousand? Species? But Sma
ll Commander Linin’s only taught us about five.”

  Tril scowled at him. “He chose the most important. It is impossible to pack your limited Human brains with that much information in just a few days.”

  “But there’s three thousand different types of aliens?” Joe insisted.

  “More,” Tril said. “Some are slaves. Some are still evolving. And some are extinct. But once a species becomes a member of Congress, they will always retain a Representative at Koliinaat. The Watcher keeps them all alive even after their species dies off, in case their planets recover or a lost colony returns. There are even more species in galaxies so distant that it takes whole turns to visit or communicate with them, even with our advanced technology. Those races have smaller Regencies to rule them, which in turn bow to the wisdom of Koliinaat. Further, we plan on finding more. Koliinaat’s Regency seats are only half full. Exploration of our universe is not even close to complete.”

  Joe again found the enormity of the problem staring him in the face. Earth was outnumbered, maybe millions to one. Humanity needed more than numbers to regain its independence. It needed weapons, ships, raw materials, science… It needed some kind of miracle.

  Joe wondered if his dad had really understood what he was up against. Remembering the way he’d left that night, never to come home, Joe was pretty sure he had.

  Yet, thinking of his father, Joe frowned. His father’s face seemed fuzzy in his mind. In fact, everything about Earth felt vague, almost like they were feeding them some drug to make the memories just slip away. Joe was brooding over this when a tall, bony girl took him by the arm and pulled him out of the cafeteria line.

  She looked twelve, but she already had a line in her brow. Joe recognized her as the piranha-looking girl who had asked Nebil if she could hit her groundmates.

  “What?” Joe snapped. He was irritated because he could not recall his dad’s favorite color. What kind of son can’t remember his dad’s favorite color? I’ve heard it a hundred times before. I just need to concentrate harder…

  The girl jutted out her chin even further. “Well, if you’re gonna be like that, maybe you don’t want it.”

  “Want what?” Joe said, focusing his attention on the wiry girl. She had the cocky look of a bully, someone who was used to getting what they wanted.

  “You sure? Maybe I’m having second thoughts.” The girl pulled her fist away, hiding its contents, enjoying his confusion.

  “Go screw with somebody else,” Joe said. What’s Dad’s color? I know this.

  The girl seemed to consider, then held something small and red out to him. “You dropped this, back on the first day when they beat you up.”

  Joe’s breath sucked in. It was his Dad’s Swiss Army knife. He snatched it out of her hand, unable to believe that it was real. The girl watched as he reverently pried open a blade, feeling the smooth red plastic in his fingers.

  Red. Joe blinked. His favorite color is red. In a whisper, he said, “Thank you.” He held out his hand. “I’m Joe. This is Monk.” The other members of his groundteam were holding their spot in the cafeteria line.

  The bony girl gave Joe a look like he had grown beetle antennae, ignoring his outstretched hand. “You use your real names?”

  “Why not?” Joe asked.

  “Because they’ll punish you,” the girl said. “They told us to use numbers.”

  Joe shrugged. “Until they kill me, I really don’t care.”

  The girl frowned at him. “Hasn’t anyone told on you yet?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like her,” the girl said, jabbing a finger at Monk.

  Monk’s eyes darkened. “I’m not gonna tell.”

  “They tell on me,” she said, pointing at the kids behind her.

  “Then you’re a bad ground leader,” Maggie said, helpfully.

  Joe did not like the look the girl gave to Maggie. He stepped between them. “It was really nice of you to find my knife.”

  The piranha-girl snorted. “I only gave it back so you’d help me.”

  Joe prickled at her tone. “Help you do what?”

  “We almost didn’t get to eat last time Tril made us run for the balls. From now on, you can get a ball for my group first, then get yourself one.”

  Joe stared at her, wondering if the girl was from the special bus. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Sasha.” She sneered at him. “You’re gonna help me if you wanna keep your knife, Zero.”

  “I’m not helping you.”

  “Then I’ll tell the aliens about it,” Sasha warned.

  “Then we’ll tell the aliens how you hid it from them,” Monk said.

  Sasha’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re not gonna help me, give me back my knife.”

  Joe’s hand clenched reflexively over his father’s knife. “My knife.”

  “It’s mine. I found it,” Sasha said. “Give it back.” She made a grab for it.

  “Screw off,” Joe said, putting his back between her and the pocketknife.

  Sasha kicked him in the side of the leg. It wasn’t enough to tear tendons, but it bent his knee painfully sideways, making his leg collapse out from under him. He threw out his hands to catch himself and Sasha bent to take the knife from him as he fell. Instead of stopping his fall with his hands, Joe slammed all of his weight onto his knee and grabbed her collar, jerking her forward until her face was only inches from his.

  “Back. Off.” Every ounce of him wanted to smash her head into the wall for what she just tried to pull. “The knife is mine. You try to take it again and you’ll wish the aliens had put you up there with me during the Choosing ceremony. Get me?”

  The look of triumph drained from Sasha’s face and she struggled against his fist, terror brightening her eyes. Joe let her squirm for a few moments before letting her go. She stumbled backwards, pale as a corpse. Her fear, however, was quickly replaced with angry promise on her piranha-like face. She sneered as Monk helped Joe to his feet.

  “You won’t always be the big one,” Sasha said. “Someday I’ll be big enough to beat you up, then I’ll take my knife back and eat your food in front of you. Maybe if I’m really nice I’ll let you lick the bowl.”

  “Maybe if Joe’s really nice right now, he won’t make you eat off the floor,” Scott said.

  “Yeah,” Monk said, sticking out her tongue. Elf and Maggie laughed.

  Sasha gave them another creepy sneer and strode off into the cafeteria.

  “I don’t like her,” Scott said.

  Joe watched Sasha go in silence. He felt bad, since she had given him back his knife, but somehow she reminded him of his Aunt Caroline. Lost in dementia, the woman delighted in hurting those around her with cruel words and underhanded, manipulative comments. Except Aunt Caroline had an excuse. She was old.

  Sasha was just a bitch.

  “They only had one boy, Joe,” Libby said softly. “They’re not gonna do good when we get bigger and Tril makes us fight for the balls.”

  So? Let that little psycho starve. Joe tightened his fist around his knife, reassuring himself of its presence. He still felt numb from the sheer amount of fury that had overcome him when Sasha had tried to take the knife back. I almost killed her. He stared down at the red plastic in his hand, wondering if he was going crazy.

  “Girls are just as good as guys, Libby,” Monk said. “My mom said so.”

  “Not in a fight,” Scott said.

  “Yes too in a fight!” Monk turned to face Scott with all six years of height. “I bet Libby could beat you up, Scott, and she’s only eight.”

  Scott rolled his eyes. “Boys get bigger than girls. It’s a fact of life. Isn’t it, Joe?”

  Still staring at his knife, he said, “Congress changed the facts of life.” Libby frowned at him, then at his knife. Seeing her look, Joe stuffed it into his pocket.

  Later, as they ate, Joe said, “Sasha’s right. I’m not gonna be the big one forever. We gotta start planning for the future. Pretty soon—maybe just
a couple months—we’re gonna have to fight for our food like everybody else. Do any of you know how to fight?”

  “I fought kids all the time in school,” Elf said. “Bullies liked to pick on me, ‘cause of my ears.”

  Looking at the elephant appendages that jutted from the sides of his head, Joe forced back a grin. “I’ll bet. What’d you do to fight ‘em off?”

  Elf grinned at him proudly. “I stomped on their feet and punched them in the arm.”

  “Okay,” Joe said, smiling. “I think we’ll have to get a little more advanced than that.” He glanced at the others. “I know a little about street fighting, mostly ‘cause Sam was the biggest loser ever born and I ended up saving his ass every other day. When we get back to our rooms, I’m gonna teach you what I know. It’s not too complicated. Even Mag should be able to do it.”

  “You’re gonna teach me to fight?” Maggie cried gleefully.

  Joe grinned despite himself. “You sound like I’m giving you a pony.”

  “She wants to be able to beat up that guy who took her food,” Elf said. “She was drawing pictures of him in snot on the bench of that first class.”

  Joe’s face twisted. “Snot? Mag, that’s disgusting.”

  “The aliens wouldn’t let me take my crayons,” Maggie pouted.

  “Well, you’ve got markers, now. You can use those.”

  “I can?” she cried, in enthusiastic glee. “Where can I draw, Joe?” She bounced in her seat, face full of childish excitement.

  Joe thought about that. He didn’t have any paper, and he doubted the Congies would be too impressed if he let her graffiti over her new white clothes. But, now the idea was in her head, he had to find something to draw on or that was just what she’d do. “You can draw on me,” he said. “On my arm. You can give me an anchor like Popeye.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened and she stood up to go.

  Joe laughed. “We can’t do it right now, Mag. We have to finish our classes, first.” And he had to find someplace safe to stash his knife.