Class Zero

by Y A Marks

  What? Use the gun? Was she crazy? I didn’t even want to see that thing again.

  Sun Hi’s eyes thinned. “Paeton, listen to me. You need to learn how to shoot.”

  “I um, well…”

  “Yes cher…” Josalyn twisted her head toward us. “Next time, you might not be so lucky.”

  I considered my options and the last day’s events. It didn’t take me long to give a quick nod.

  Leaning close, Sun Hi placed an encouraging hand on my shoulders. “We can start training after breakfast.”

  Josalyn’s head straightened, and her eyes popped open to a normal size. “No,” she said.

  Sun Hi angled her neck. “No? What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “Don’t trust her,” Josalyn said. “That glowing teleporting girl will have you broken and bleeding.”

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “I just did. Did I not say that?”

  “If not me, then who? Don’t say AJ, he’s busy with plan repairs.”

  “Then Rylan.”

  “I knew it. Conspiracy theory confirmed. This whole place is in love with him,” Sun Hi barked.

  Josalyn’s voice dropped. “Now, you gonna take that back. I ain’t no fan of nobody but me, because I’m perfect and the rest of you are well… vying for the number two spot.”

  “I’m going to teach Paeton. She needs somebody she can trust.”

  As Josalyn leaned closer to me, her face knotted. “Paeton, I know you’ve seen Sun Hi whiz around like she’s a freakin’ mutant on steroids. She gonna do that shit to you. Trust me, you don’t want all of that. Rylan won’t kill you, and besides Gray-Eyed Fox needs something to keep him out of trouble.”

  ***

  Even though Dhyla was a part of Escerica, and I was enemy number one, at least in my mind, I just didn’t see myself as some kind of hooded rebel that would help liberate America. I was just a sixteen-year-old girl who’d never had more than two friends, never owned a pair of heels, and never kissed a boy. Right then, joining Escerica was not part of my plan, and I generally stuck to my plans.

  My only concern was to find a way to get to Mari and Miko, and to help Dhyla if I could. After that, I held a thread of hope that somehow my name could be erased from the police database, and I’d be free to walk the streets in peace again. It wasn’t a great life, but I didn’t know anything else. The thought of fighting for my life was scary enough without complicating it by battling for other people’s lives.

  I followed Josalyn down the stairs to the long, cold hallway in the basement, which I dubbed the Corridor of Death. After stopping at the second door, she grabbed the handle. The door screeched open. As we entered, Rylan spun around in his seat.

  A huge hologram of Atlanta hovered behind him, flicking in a deep blue. A circular desk larger than a small pickup truck surrounded the hologram. Several places had been marked with a red glow and lots of names and numbers shifted along the far side.

  “Hey Gray-Eyes,” Josalyn said.

  Rylan smirked and eyed me.

  “Yeah, you. Paeton needs some training.”

  “What kind of training?” he asked.

  As I stood there like a six year old being assigned to a classroom, my stomach bubbled.

  “Shooting. She’s got the gun from before, remember?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So you’re up. Teach her how to use it.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes you, ya dumb fox.”

  “Nope, I got things to—”

  Before he could get more than a handful of words out, Josalyn marched across the room saying “Nananana” over and over again, blotting out any statements he could make. Once she reached him, she leaned over. “We won’t be making any runs for a while. Dhyla’s not here, and Paeton needs to know how to shoot. We don’t know what kind of situation we’ll be in next time.”

  Leaning back, Rylan crossed his legs at the ankle. “What’s in it for me?”

  “That you don’t get the shit beaten out of you and just maybe I might see to that favor you asked.”

  Thinning his eyes, Rylan perked up. “I just want to see how he’s doing…” Rylan murmured, “And it’s not even for me.”

  “Whatever. So?”

  “Yeah cool. Old Elsa over there isn’t a problem.”

  “Then I leave her to you, monsieur fox.” With a twist, she marched out of the room.

  Standing, Rylan raised his hands. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was to welcome me or if he felt a sudden defeat. Either way, anxiety crept into my thighs and snaked its way down into my toes.

  After leaning forward, he pointed out of the room. Like yesterday, I followed him watching his lean frame move through the shadows. Oce we walked a few steps through the hallways we stopped at a door named Test Fire. The door barked open, and he flicked on the lights. I watched them come to life one at a time until a wide room was visible. Like the other rooms, it was created from trailers, which made it easy to calculate its size at sixteen trailers wide and one and a half trailers long.

  It was a normal-sized firing range. Just like in the movies, there were little booths at the front. The booths, however, only extended for half the room. On the other side was an open area.

  “What’s that over there?” I asked, pointing to the open area.

  “That’s the Free Range,” Rylan said.

  We walked over, and I noticed the foot-thick glass in front.

  “Shooting can’t always be done in a perfect vacuum. Sometimes you have to move and shoot.”

  I pressed my hands against the glass and saw metal slats inside mounted on what appeared to be robotic arms. “And what are those for?”

  “The room moves.”

  I stared at him for a second. I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  “It does. It’s no good to you if the room can’t fight back and just gets shot at.” He grinned. “Enemies shoot back at you most of the time.”

  Twisting my gaze back into the other room, I wondered how much training it would take to master it.

  “That is Sun Hi’s baby. I think this is why Jos brought you to me,” he said.

  I stared at the long welded pipes and twisted metal spiraling out like a withering tree and thanked God for Rylan.

  With a quick pat, he said, “C’mon, Let’s get started, Elsa.”

  I crossed my arms. “Are you going to call me that forever?”

  “I dunno. I thought you liked being a cold, hearted woman.”

  “I’m not cold hearted. I’m just… cautious.”

  “And I told you, I already know, and told you can give up the act, Pae-ton.”

  As I rolled my eyes, he went over to a booth and toyed with a panel that looked like a shattered computer screen. After a few moments, a white piece of paper fluttered around. It was about the size of a human torso with an outlined target, but this one already had holes in it. In fact, it was so ripped I could barely tell what it once looked like. The holes and rips had been fixed with pieces of other targets, and the target outline had been redrawn in bold black marker to make sure it could be seen.

  “Love you guys’ extravagant accommodations,” I said.

  “Gotta save where you can.”

  He smiled and pulled out the gun from this morning. Grabbing the barrel, he passed it to me, grip first.

  “It’s a little heavy,” he warned.

  I took it and felt the weight of the metal.

  “This is a T-80, an electro-shock weapon. It’s much different than the Glock you took from the police officer. The police use the Glock 2060s which still use bullets. Because bullets cost money—lots of money—we use the T-80s primarily because we can recharge the cartridges.”

  “When we left the trailer, Sun Hi used a long gun to stop the scrappers. What was that?”

  “That’s an AK-E. It’s pretty much a newer version of the AK-47 antique, just made to use electric rounds instead of bullets. It’s more powerful than the T-80, but you have t
o reload it often.”

  “When she was fighting, there was this blue, hazy, line thing around her. Do you know what that was?”

  Rylan’s body stiffened. I don’t think he liked me asking questions about Sun Hi, and from their squabbles I was beginning to wonder why. After a moment, he shrugged. “She uses magna-track boots when she fights. They give you the ability to magnetically adhere to any surface, and, odd as it sounds, allow you to warp spacetime.”

  “What?” That was impossible. I had never heard of such a thing. I glared for a few seconds, waiting for his expression to change and for him to burst out in laughter.

  “It’s real all right. Before the Five-Day R, there were experiments done with everything imaginable from animal DNA to electric fields. Some technologies worked, like the tech that allows androids to be stabilized by human tissue.”

  “Ugh.” I wish he hadn’t reminded me of that. I was doing my best to keep from panicking. The thought of Mari and Miko being processed and turned into androids gnawed on my spine every moment I was away from them.

  “Most products never made it past a short production because they were unstable, like the magna-tracks,” he said. “The magna-tracks that Sun Hi use do work. They just leave you dizzy and nauseated. The boots can only be used for a small amount of time, a few minutes at most, but it takes hours to recover.” He focused on me as though what he told me was his own personal gospel.

  “But time is the ultimate weapon, right?”

  “Yeah, if you win in like two minutes. But if you don’t win, you’d better make sure that there’s not even a squirrel with a gun near you. For my money, I’d rather just learn to be good, and not use tricky-tech to get by.”

  I thought about seeing Sun Hi the day after the first drone went down, and later after we left the trailer park. Both times, she was tired and sickly. I had to agree with Rylan that maybe it was better to leave things like that alone.

  “Okay, so you ready to shoot?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.”

  I raised the gun, wrapped my fingers around the grip, and put one finger on the trigger. I glanced at Rylan for confirmation before flicking the safety at the back and firing. Five bright lights jumped from the gun to the target. Of course none of them hit the center where a human heart would be. Two of them missed their mark totally, and of the final three, one hit the open paper near the head, one hit a shoulder, and the final one was about two inches from the left cheek.

  “You don’t play around, do you?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

  I put my arms down and turned toward him. “What? Why do you say that?”

  “You’re aiming at the head. Most of us aim at the chest.” He pointed to his own chest with a mocking expression spread over his face.

  “Oops, sorry.” I didn’t know why, but a few drops of embarrassment pooled into my cheeks.

  “No, it’s cool. Just something you don’t see every day.”

  “I’ll try for the chest this time.”

  I aimed the gun and stared down the sight. After a moment, I shot off three quick blasts that ripped holes in the paper target, one near the arm, two in the torso but none near the heart.

  “Crix.” I stared at the target in disbelief. I wasn’t some super-soldier, but at least I could hit the target somewhere near the middle.

  “Not too bad.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You wouldn’t have killed the guy, but at least he’d be hurt real bad.”

  I sighed. “What am I doing wrong?”

  “Only a few things. First…”

  He moved closer to me and glanced over my shoulder. I still had the gun raised, and I wondered if he was going to try to shoot over me, like I had seen so many times in movies or books. It was silly, but part of me wanted that. I shouldn’t want that, but when I was around him, electricity jumped around my stomach.

  He grabbed the top of the gun and forced it back toward me.

  “Well first,” he said. “You have to relax a bit. You don’t shoot with the gun fully extended. Instead, your arms need to be out, but there should be a little give in your elbows.”

  As he moved the gun closer to me, my arms pressed against his will. I don’t know why I fought him, but I was. He coughed, and I released a nervous giggle to cover up my mistake.

  “Strong, aren’t you?” he said.

  Heat pressed against my face and neck. “I’m from the Meadows. We keep it real,” I said, trying to be funny.

  “Just stop being Elsa for a minute and allow yourself to be Paeton. Okay?”

  After a moment, I yielded. “Okay.”

  “The next thing you need to do is breathe—just in and out, in and out.”

  Chest rising and falling with his words, he caught me with his hypnotic spell. His voice steadied and lowered an octave. As every other sound in the room silenced, his words, his tone, his energy pressed against my neck, my back, arms, and chest. The air thickened with the smell of him, all while his words “in and out” repeated in my mind, luring me deeper into him.

  Drifting, my shoulder brushed against his chest. His muscles were hard, but the skin above it was soft. I wanted to move closer, to feel his heat, to know if his heart was beating as fast as mine. My eyes closed. I didn’t care about the target anymore. I had fallen into his trap.

  Three cool fingers steadied my shoulders and corrected my posture.

  Opening my eyes, I took a deep breath. Refocusing on the target, I wasn’t sure where he was anymore. My skin prickled all over waiting for his touch.

  “The final thing you need to do is aim a bit below where you want to shoot. Just a hair.” His words brushed against my ear. Each movement of his mouth sent pulses around my neck and down my spine as my loose hairs brushed against my earlobe.

  His fingertips grazed my wrist with the softest of touches, and almost instantly, my arms lowered with his movement.

  I had a difficult time focusing on the target. He had barely touched me, but maybe that was the problem. For someone like me who was never touched, even a slight graze could mean everything. My gaze lingered on his hand, and I wondered if he would—

  “Pull the trigger, Paeton,” he whispered.

  I focused on the sight once more and felt the trigger give way under my finger. I didn’t know if I had pulled the trigger or if he had forced me to. It felt so effortless.

  My eyes were focused somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where. I didn’t see the target anymore. Though the air from the room around me was cool, my mind concentrated on the heat of his fingertips. His energy burned inside my chest and warmed me from the inside out.

  Something soft and distant tickled my eardrums—my name. He was calling my name. I turned and focused on Rylan. His face slowly turned from blurry to sharp.

  “Good job, Paeton. You hit it dead center,” he said.

  I craned my head a few inches and saw a tiny hole ripped through the heart of the target. Something so little and insignificant, yet it meant the difference between life and death.

  My arms fell to my sides. For a moment, it was as if the wind had been knocked out of me.

  I placed the gun on the table.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I fought the increasing heat inside of me. Part of me wanted to stay, to feel his fingers on more of my skin, up my arms and around my back. I pushed the sensations away as I fled the scene.

  “Nothing—nothing, I uh, just need a quick break. Can you give me five minutes?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  In a panic, I rushed out of the room and slid the door shut. I walked the halls with my mind spinning. This was not what I wanted. I wanted my life back. I wanted Mari and Miko to be safe. I wanted a chocolate mocha. I didn’t want to be enemy number one or two or whatever I was. And, I really didn’t want some goofy, gray-eyed teenage boy. I didn’t want him.

  What was happening to me? Why couldn’t I c
ontrol this? I needed to be in control. I was always in control. I kept myself safe. I needed to be safe.

  His touch had felt so good. Why did it feel that way? Why did I want more? It was almost like I could still feel his fingertips on my wrists and the way they tickled my skin.

  I took so many deep breaths I thought I would pass out. Then I raked my nails through my hair, trying to clear my mind. This feeling, this longing, it hurt. A pain like I had never felt before was compelling me to run back to him as though I couldn’t breathe without him.

  It took a while, but I forced the sensations away. After my mind cleared, I stormed back into the room, reminding myself I was doing this for Mari and Miko. I reminded myself that I was a loner. I remembered that everyone in the world wanted something, and they would do anything to get what they want. I reminded myself I was Lower-C and that Upper-Cs were the enemy. The world will not change. People are evil.

  He said something, but I tuned out his siren song. His voice was dangerous, his touch evil, and his gray-eyes deadly.

  I picked up the gun, and remembered what he told me. I fired ten blasts over the next few seconds. None of the shots hit the heart, but they were on the body.

  He switched out targets, and I fired again, and again, and again.

  Rylan took notes with the computer. By the end of the day, I hadn’t hit the heart a second time. I had ripped up arms, kidneys, stomachs, necks, and had a few great headshots. But I never hit the heart again. The more time went by, the more frustration burned my bones.

  If I couldn’t shoot through that heart again, then it meant without his touch I didn’t have the ability. That was how he controlled me. He could change me and make me want things I didn’t want. He could make me hope for things that would never happen. I controlled my heart. No one else had the right.

  CHAPTER 16

  That night I tossed and turned on my bed. Mari and Miko dashed through my mind, and I refused to think about Rylan. He was a distraction to my goals, and I needed a way to politely remove him from my life.