Zero Sum Game

Chapter 29

Arthur didn’t seem to be able to move. I reached out and nudged the door all the way open, stepping into the dimness. My boots squelched on soaked carpeting.

The inside of the garage was finished, and was the room I had seen during our video connection with Checker. A counter around the perimeter of the small space served as one long computer desk, and brackets rode up the walls supporting more monitors and tower frames. Checker had probably half again as many computers as Anton crammed into about a quarter of the space, but whereas Anton’s machines had been a sprawling mess of half-open cases and loose circuit boards, Checker’s cluster was much more fastidiously organized.

At least, it had been.

Someone had torn the place apart. Computers had been rent open willy-nilly, every hard drive in the place yanked, and I saw a number of loose adapters in empty spaces where laptops had probably sat. All the monitors were dark, and one LCD was smashed, the cracks spider-webbing outward from where something very hard had struck it. Something like a crowbar or a tire iron.

I swallowed.

Near the back, soot blackened the desktop in several places, and metal frames twisted where they had been on the periphery of small explosions. I bent to look more closely in the dim light. A dark brown smear and smudged handprint told their own story.

Arthur edged into the room behind me. “Oh, Lord,” he whispered. “Oh my God…”

“Let’s check the house,” I said.

The back door of the house was still locked, so I kicked it open, ignoring the twinge from my chest wound. Someone had beaten us here, as well: multiple black bootprints tracked through every room, and drawers were upended and furniture overturned in a search that had as little regard for Checker’s living space as Steve’s men had shown for Courtney’s.

Steve’s men. This could have been them again. Or Pithica. Or both.

“Did I do this?” mumbled Arthur. “Did I?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Orphaned adapters and Ethernet connectors told us Checker had kept no shortage of computers in the house, either, but everything from laptops and tablets to ebook readers had been swept up and taken. I wandered into the living room. A flat screen TV dangled crookedly on the wall where it had been knocked askew, and a snowdrift of papers from an emptied file cabinet made half a mummy of a guitar on a stand. It looked like Checker had had a pleasant place, before he’d been abducted.

“Russell,” Arthur called.

I found him in the washroom, frowning at the sink. “What is it?” I asked.

“Toothbrush,” he said. “Toothbrush and toothpaste are missing.”

“So?”

“Seem weird to you? Kidnappers or killers, and they take him a toothbrush?”

I mulled it over. It did seem weird.

“My God,” said Arthur suddenly. He pushed back out of the washroom, dashed to the front door, and flung it open to dive out onto the porch, his head swiveling from side to side as if he were trying to see in all directions at once.

I followed him out. “What is it?”

“Blue Nissan. You see a blue Nissan anywhere?”

I got what he meant immediately. This was Los Angeles, of course Checker owned a car—but the driveway was vacant, and the garage had been converted into his hacker cave. So where was it?

I peered through the sheeting rain into the street. Parking wasn’t bad in this neighborhood, and cars were sparse. I didn’t see a blue Nissan.

“He got away,” I breathed. Maybe.

Arthur pounded a rain-slicked fist against one of the porch’s pillars. Then he sank onto the porch swing and rested his head in his hands.

I had a thought. “Hey. Where have you been leaving him your messages?”

“Got a few numbers for him,” Arthur mumbled. “Tried ’em all.”

“Whatever you think is the most foolproof one, dial it now.”

I sat down next to him as he pulled out his cell; he wiped a wet hand on the porch swing’s cushion to dial with marginally drier fingers before handing the phone to me. Over the drumming of the rain I heard a recorded stock voice of a British woman tell me the party I was trying to reach was not available and to leave a message after the tone. Said tone chimed.

“It’s Cas Russell,” I said. “I’m, uh…I’m here with Arthur, and we’re kind of hoping you aren’t dead.” I swallowed and thought again of Anton. “We both got whammied by Dawna Polk, but I’m pretty much back to normal. At least according to someone I trust. Arthur’s still a basket case, but I think he’s getting better.”

Arthur reached out and tried to grab the phone away from me, but I leapt up off the swing and danced backward. “Call us back, okay? And whatever you do, don’t give Arthur back the flash drive. Dawna convinced him it’s meaningless, but I’m pretty sure it’s important.”

I hung up.

“He hasn’t called me back.” Arthur sounded sore. “What makes you think he’s going to call you back?”

“Let’s wait and see,” I said. “Should we go back to the flat? It’s drier.”

He stood. “Can I have my phone back now?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if Checker calls back, I don’t want you to answer.”

Arthur hunched into himself. “Really think he’s okay?”

I looked out at the rain. I hoped we were right, but realistically? “I don’t know,” I said. My chest was aching badly now. “Let’s go back, yeah? I’ve got a car.”

“And where did this car come from?”

“I bought it.”

“Liar.”

He allowed us to drive back anyway.

Only a few roads out from Checker’s place I took a right turn and said, “Don’t look now, but we’re being followed.”

Arthur flicked his eyes to the side mirror. “I don’t see anything,” he said, after a few more streets of watching the tragic comedy that is LA drivers trying to navigate through pounding rain. “How can you tell?”

“Game theory,” I said. “The white sedan isn’t driving selfishly.”

“They staked out Checker’s place,” Arthur guessed. “Case we came back.”

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “They’re not after us; they want us to lead them back to Rio. I can lose them.” I juked the steering wheel to the side and slammed on the gas, shooting through the next intersection just as the light changed. Arthur yelled. In the rearview mirror, an SUV crashed spectacularly into the passenger side of the white sedan, and brakes screeched as three other cars skidded on the wet streets, spinning to a stop and completely blocking the intersection behind us.

“What the hell!” cried Arthur.

“We’d better switch cars,” I said.

“You could’ve gotten us killed!”

“Please. That was child’s play.”

“You might’ve gotten other people killed!”

“At those velocities it would have been their faults for buying death traps.” It was true, though I hadn’t thought it through in so many words beforehand. I decided against telling Arthur that. “We should probably relocate our hideout to somewhere outside LA.”

Arthur covered his eyes with one hand. I almost felt sorry for him.

By the time we arrived back at the apartment, I could tell my body temperature was edging up into a fever. We squelched inside, and I went to dig out some dry bandages. Arthur, no matter how irritated he might be with my methods, started mother hen-ing me again and pulling out another bag of IV antibiotics.

When the phone in my pocket rang loudly, however, the clean bandages hit the floor as I scrabbled at my jacket. Arthur was squeezing the IV bag in his hand so tightly it looked like it might burst. I finally got the phone out, almost dropping it in my haste to hit the button before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”

“Cas Russell? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Checker, it’s me.” I was grinning myself silly at Arthur. “Good to hear your voice.”

He was slow in answering. “You said Dawna Polk got to you. Both of you.”

“Yeah. It turned out that going into a known ambush was a spectacularly bad idea,” I said pointedly in Arthur’s direction.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but…how do I know you guys are still you?”

That was a very good question. I sat down on the bed and thought about it. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t trust me right now either.”

He made a sound like a hopeless laugh. “That makes me feel better about you than what Arthur’s been saying. His messages don’t sound like him at all; I’ve been going out of my mind. Is he okay? You guys got out, right?”

“Yeah, we escaped, and then Arthur betrayed us, and then I got shot, and then we escaped for real.” I had to jump up and duck away from Arthur, who was trying to grab the phone again. “Dawna had me shot in front of Arthur, though, so she kind of messed up her own mojo there. He’s in a state.”

Checker was sputtering. “You got shot? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Arthur’s been smothering me. I think he feels guilty. ’Cause it was, you know, his fault.” I peeked at Arthur. He looked ready to murder me. “He still seems under the influence a bit,” I told Checker. “But he’s lucid enough that he hasn’t been calling Dawna to come get us, so I think he’ll probably be all right.” I had already figured that the only reason Rio had let Arthur stay was that he’d needed the extra hand in helping me back from the brink of death—as a general rule, Rio didn’t like working with other people if he didn’t have to—but it occurred to me that he probably would have kicked him to the curb anyway if he’d judged Arthur was still enough of Dawna’s tool to be a danger. It made me feel better about Arthur’s chances.

“Oh,” said Checker in a small voice. “Okay.”

I winced at his tone. I wasn’t the only one Arthur had betrayed, and Checker had known him a hell of a lot longer. “He really couldn’t help it, you know,” I said, adding in a spurt of honesty, “Uh, neither of us could. I would have given you away too, if I’d known how.” I thought of Rio and was flooded with shame again. “Don’t blame him.”

“Oh, I know that,” Checker brushed me off. “You guys were going after a mind reader, duh, of course I got somewhere safe. It’s Arthur I’m worried about; what did she—”

“Hang on, you weren’t even there anymore when they broke in? But—we saw blood, and it looked like there had been a struggle—”

“Yeah, uh, sorry if I scared you guys. I figured with multiple groups in play, whoever came by first would think the other one had beaten ’em and then go after them instead of me. I think it worked, too; I proxied into my home security and by the way, these people are truly evil the way they’ll tear apart a perfectly nice computer that never did anything rude to them—”

“Wait, you staged your own kidnapping? That was all you?”

“Well, the Hole was my work, mostly, though when whoever-it-was came they scavenged everything that was left. My poor network! I’m going to have to rebuild it from scratch. And I have no idea why they felt the need to break into my house. Talk about unnecessary.”

“They were probably looking for the flash drive,” I said. “Everyone knows you have it now.”

“Yeah, what’s the deal with that? Arthur, he—he left me like seven messages about it—”

“He did, did he?” I looked up from the phone conversation to glare at Arthur. “Tresting, really? No wonder he didn’t call you back.”

“What?” demanded Arthur, all innocence.

“She really did a bad job on you if you’re coming off that programmed.” I talked back into the phone, explaining to Checker. “Dawna tried to convince him it was meaningless, but I got a source says Pithica’s still trying to recover it. I think it might be important. Did you crack it?”

“Yeah, a few days ago; it’s mostly numbers. What do you mean, she programmed Arthur? How bad is he? Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s, uh—well, I’m not an expert or anything.” I tried to figure out how to answer. “I think she only influenced him with regards to this case. He seems as annoying as usual otherwise. I think maybe just don’t trust anything he says about Pithica, and if she doesn’t get a chance at him again…”

“You really think he’ll be all right?” His voice sounded tinny over the line. “He’ll be—back to himself?”

“I’m guessing there’s a good chance.” It wasn’t a comforting answer, but what else could I say? For all I knew, Dawna had twisted up Tresting’s mind permanently. “Go back to the drive. You said it’s numbers?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Lists of numbers—gigabytes worth. I haven’t been able to find a pattern yet.”

Numbers. “I’m good at numbers,” I said. “Email it to me.”

There was a pause. “Done.”

“Wait, how do you know my email address?”

A hint of his former humor returned. “I’m all-powerful, Cas Russell. Didn’t I tell you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you mentioned it once or twice.”

“I’m like Oracle, Mr. Universe, and Elaine Roberts all rolled into one. Nothing can hide from me! Oh, uh, speaking of, I think I found Dawna Polk.”

“Wait, what?” I turned away from Arthur and lowered my voice. “What do you mean, you found her?”

“Sorry, ‘found her’ as in ‘figured out who she is,’ not physically located her. Arthur left a name in one of his messages—Saio, he said. I did a search. Well, a lot of searching—”

“Checker. Spit it out.”

“It was decades ago. A Daniela Saio. Her parents were famous fortune-telling psychics—”

I snorted.

“I’m on your side on that, but here’s the interesting part,” said Checker. “When she was ten or so, Daniela got more famous than her parents. Psychic extraordinaire. The toast of Europe. She was brilliant at it.”

“Brilliant at making people believe her rigmarole,” I said.

“I told you, I’m with you, but you’re not seeing this. She was doing that when she was ten.”

The air in the room suddenly felt heavy. “And after that?”

“That’s the weird thing. She just dropped off the face of the earth.”

“And then what?”

“And then nothing, that’s what I’m telling you. For years. I found two other recent aliases for her in other countries, both as airtight as the Polk one, and who knows how many others might be out there, but in between—”

“What happened to ‘nothing can hide’?”

He hissed in frustration. “I’m still working on it.”

“So wherever she went in between, that’s where she…what, got trained up? Injected with psychic superpowers?”

“I don’t know,” said Checker. “But wherever she went when she was ten, I’d bet an original mint condition Yak Face action figure it had something to do with Pithica.”

I digested that. “You think Pithica took her.”

“Find genius kids and recruit ’em young,” he said. “It’s one theory. The skills she had already, well, anyone who could get her on their side—and then considering they were able to give her this crazy boost in psychology? Someone was thinking ahead.”

A strange ringing was buzzing in my ears. “She was just a kid.”

“Huh?”

“They took her when she was just a kid.”

“So?”

I closed my eyes, took a breath. “I don’t like it when bad things happen to kids.”

“Right, well, I’ll keep looking. Maybe I can find something that will help us fight the adult version.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay. And I’ll check out those numbers. See what I can make of them.”

“Sure,” he said. He sounded subdued. “Hey, tell Arthur…tell Arthur I’m worried about him. And tell him he shouldn’t worry because I took care of the other thing.” He hung up abruptly. I was left staring at the phone, emotions roiling.

“He didn’t want to talk to me, huh,” said Arthur. His hands were shoved in his pockets, his expression miserable.

“Don’t take it personally,” I said.

“Hard not to.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t know what to say to that. “He said to tell you he’s worried about you. And, uh, he also said to tell you not to worry because he took care of ‘the other thing.’ What other thing?”

His whole body relaxed, tension easing out of every line. “Nothing. Doesn’t have to do with this case.”

His tone screamed it was something private. Since I was nosy, I didn’t respect that. “I thought you didn’t have any other cases right now.”

“It’s personal, Russell.”

“Fine.” I’d bug Checker to tell me later, if I remembered. I cast about for a change of subject. “Let’s check out these lists of numbers, yeah?”

“They won’t mean anyth—” Arthur tried to insist, but I interrupted him with a glare.

“Go—go dry off,” I instructed tiredly. “I’m going to waste my time looking at a completely meaningless file. Okay?” He looked as though he wanted to argue, but he complied.

I pulled over the laptop and opened it. Sure enough, a new email showed bold at the top of my inbox, encrypted with my public key. I sighed. It wasn’t like my public key was secret, but the fact that Checker had had it on hand was just annoying.

I uncompressed the file, and the computer locked up for a full sixteen seconds while it opened. The thing was long. Very long. And as Checker had said, it consisted mostly of contextless numbers, some of them arranged into tables, others spinning out into protracted lists. I scrolled through pages, and pages, and pages.

I let my eyes unfocus. Let my brain relax. The numbers slid over each other, rearranging, realigning. Some joined into armies, others popped up and shouted, drawing attention to themselves. Patterns crossed and recrossed. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers…

“Cas.”

I looked up. Rio stood over me, his hand on my shoulder. Arthur, clean and dry, was watching me with some concern. I realized that I was still quite wet and very cold, and that my whole body ached and wanted to start shivering. But it didn’t matter.

“Cas,” said Rio, “Keeping the bandaging clean and dry is medically important.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Rio, I know how to take down Pithica.”

“How?” asked Rio.

My lips twisted into a feral smile. “By using math. We’re going to destroy them economically.”