Zero Sum Game

Chapter 35

I kept my eyes on the circuit board in my hand, as Rio had told me.

“You have something I need,” said Dawna.

Rio had also cautioned me not to speak, but she was impossible not to respond to. “You came all alone?”

“You won’t kill me,” said Dawna, her voice a low, even purr. “On the other hand, you are unusually effective at dispatching my people. I would hate to be caught in a crossfire.”

I heard her take another few steps into the room. Felt her eyes on the back of my neck.

They pierced me. Observing. Studying. She knew.

Rio’s voice echoed in my brain, telling me under no circumstances to let her see my face, making me promise, impressing upon me that the slim probability we had of this working existed only as long as I kept my head down—I felt myself turning and tried to stop, tried to deny her, to keep her limited to my body language—don’t look up, keep your eyes away, don’t ruin everything, we’re so close—!

No words, no precautions, no plans made any difference, not against her. I turned and met Dawna’s eyes, and the moment I did, the smallest datum that she might have been lacking snapped into place.

She knew everything.

She knew that Checker was far outside the county, that he was the one scrambling to stream our code, that I had left it all in his hands.

She knew that she had never been poisoned, that Rio and I had invented the story so Arthur would feel compelled to call her and tell her where I was, because Arthur’s messed-up brain was still sympathetic enough to her not to want her dead. She knew we had chosen such a story so she wouldn’t bomb the building outright and kill us all once she found out our location.

She knew that I was bait, and that I was bait because I could take out every mook she sent against me until she was forced to come down herself.

And she knew that Rio was at that moment taking aim with a high-powered rifle directly at her head.

None of it should have mattered. She shouldn’t have had anywhere left to go. She was unarmed, and even if she’d had a weapon and the skill to go with it, nothing should have made a difference against a sniper. We should have been able to beat her, once and for all, finally: Rio was one of the few human beings on the planet mentally capable of killing her, and we’d lured her into his sights.

Almost.

I didn’t know precisely where Rio was, but I had glimpsed the heights of nearby buildings, could draw the array of lines that might angle through the windows to target anyone in this room. Even with the most generous of estimates, Dawna Polk needed to take half of one step more.

And because I knew it, she knew it.

In the split-second between meeting my eyes and having her brain matter spattered across the floor, Dawna Polk registered exactly what was happening. She knew our entire plan, and the moment she knew it, it failed.

She smiled.

She stopped and took a step backward, out of danger, and flicked her eyes to Arthur—

—who spun with the speed of an action hero and aimed the Beretta in his hand exactly at my center of mass.

And I, someone who could have turned Arthur Tresting into a smear on the carpet without so much as thinking about it, who could have disarmed and incapacitated him in a fraction of normal human reaction time before he ever got the gun on me—I hesitated. I didn’t stop him.

Dawna twitched her head at Arthur and me, and we sidestepped closer to the windows, until the dim ambient light outlined us clearly. “Call him down,” she said.

It didn’t cross my mind to disobey her. I gestured at the windows, beckoning at Rio from a thousand yards away, not taking my eyes off the barrel of Arthur’s gun.

Rio had told me this was a bad idea. I hadn’t listened.

“You thought you could trap me?” said Dawna. She sounded more surprised and amused than angry.

My throat was dry. “I had to give it a shot.”

“No pun intended,” said Dawna.

I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “I have a great enjoyment of language in particular. I admit I don’t enjoy the more ribald—bullying, shall we say—brand of humor. It gives me no pleasure to put other people down.”

“You put down a lot of your people out there today,” I said. I half-saw her stiffen out of the corner of my eye. “Hey, you’re the one who likes puns.”

“I admit, we fell for the first part of your ruse.” Her voice was still soft, but the words had turned dangerous and threatening, the sound of a cobra sliding over dead leaves. “You killed many good men and women tonight. I won’t forget it.”

Well, that was a bit unfair. Where did she get off blaming me for defending myself?

Her tone became derisive. “Ms. Russell. Really. You set a trap to murder me, and then call your violence self-defense? Oh, you bring self-justifying, irrational absurdity to a new level.”

It was the first time she had ever spoken to me anything less than politely. It sounded out of place and slightly shocking, like hearing a priest start cussing.

“You think me incapable of your brand of anger?” Dawna scoffed. “I may not enjoy debasing myself, but I assure you, I am not above temper. A great many of my people have now lost their lives thanks to you, and you have caused me an unconscionable expenditure of time and resources—far more than you are worth. And if your programmer friend is even partially successful, you will cause untold casualties.” Her words whipped at me, cold and furious. “You condemn us for playing God, yet you decide to toy with the same forces when you have no concept of the fallout. Do you have any idea how many people all over the world would die if your little plan were to be successful? Do you?”

“At least one,” I shot back, even as no small part of me wondered if she was right.

“You know I speak the truth,” she spat, responding to my thoughts again rather than to my comeback. “You consider yourself intelligent, yet you would be willing to let so many millions suffer and be killed, because you have the gall to judge that they should, because we are somehow evil for helping them.”

I heard a noise at the door and glanced over, but it wasn’t Rio, only one of Dawna’s paramilitary troops. “Track down the programmer,” she ordered him. “He’ll have driven west from Yucca Valley. Check electronics stores along the edge of the blackout zone for break-ins; he’ll need a computer. This is our top priority—put everybody on it.”

He nodded smartly and left again.

Shit. Checker. My stomach curdled in dread.

“Oh, dispense with the drama,” Dawna said disgustedly. “They’re not going to kill him. Your co-conspirator has some skill; he’s already been deemed to be useful enough to come and work for us.”

The dread froze into horror.

“I grow tired of your judgment,” snapped Dawna.

“Then stop reading my thoughts,” I retorted.

She fell silent.

I was still trying not to look at her, not that it mattered anymore. Instead I kept my attention on Arthur. He was staring fixedly at the gun in his hand as he pointed it at me, his jaw bunched, all the muscles in his face vibrating with tension. A bead of sweat slipped down his neck and slid under his collar.

Poor guy.

Rio appeared in the room.

He materialized so suddenly and quietly that I could have sworn Dawna started slightly. She recovered in less than a breath, however. “I’m glad to see you are being wise,” she said, her voice cool again. “If you had tried to kill me, Ms. Russell would be dead.”

Rio lifted one shoulder in a miniscule half-shrug, as if to say, Maybe, maybe not. His hands were empty and held out to his sides.

Dawna nodded, her lips curving upward in a slight smile. “Yes, perhaps you would have been skilled enough to rescue her and still accomplish your assassination. It seems I was correct in thinking you would not risk it.”

“Quite a chance to take,” I pointed out to Dawna. I couldn’t help but feel a squeezing disappointment; some part of me had still hoped Rio might pull a rabbit out of a hat and save us all.

“Not terribly,” said Dawna. She turned away from Arthur and me, ignoring us and addressing Rio. “You really are predictable in your own way. Did you honestly think this would work?”

Rio shrugged again. “It was a gamble. I judged it worth it.”

“You shouldn’t have told Ms. Russell your plan, then. She gave you away.”

“Regretfully unavoidable,” said Rio. “It was her idea.”

“Then someone else should have played your bait.”

Rio’s gaze flickered to the doorway, to the bodies that littered the floor outside it.

“I suppose not,” said Dawna. “She does seem to have some unforeseeable skills, our Ms. Russell. Is that why you like her?”

Rio didn’t answer.

“So, a continued mystery,” said Dawna. “I like mysteries in people. I see so few of them. She has no idea, and you aren’t telling me.”

Rio still said nothing. I wanted desperately to ask him what she was talking about.

“I would love to know what you have done to her,” murmured Dawna. “Inspiring such loyalty. Of course, the weakness seems to go both ways.”

“You brought me down here,” said Rio. “What do you want?”

“You, of course,” said Dawna. “I had still thought to harness your power, but unfortunately my colleagues have deemed our lack of success in that area…indicative. The decision has been made that you are a liability with too little potential for turning to an asset.”

“In simpler language, you are going to kill me,” Rio said.

“No,” I breathed. The night couldn’t unfold this way. I couldn’t allow it. I looked at Arthur again; his hand had started to shake, the gun barrel vibrating in tiny tremors as it held me at bay.

Dawna was still ignoring me. “Well. I shall not be the one to kill you myself; I do not have the stomach for such acts.” She moved to the doorway and reached down, retrieving a Taser from one of the fallen troops. “And Mr. Tresting is otherwise occupied at the moment. I think convincing Ms. Russell to do it would take more time and energy than we have here, don’t you? Though the irony would fascinate me. No, I am only going to incapacitate you, and as soon as one of my troops can be spared, the job will be done. I am sorry.”

“Forgive me if I do not quite believe you,” said Rio.

“Oh, you misunderstand,” said Dawna. “I will not be sorry for your death. Neither are you, I think—we both know it is far less than you deserve. But you have proven a most fascinating subject of research. And I do regard it as something of a personal failure that our recruitment efforts have failed in your case.”

“Quite spectacularly so,” agreed Rio.

“I am glad I have been able to speak with you one more time,” said Dawna. “You are indeed fascinating, and in a world filled with the mundane. This may be a victory in a moral sense, but in a scientific one, in the spirit of curiosity, I regret that this is our last conversation.”

Rio opened his mouth to respond, but with no fanfare, Dawna lifted her hand and fired the Taser. Rio jerked, every muscle stiffening, and collapsed.

At that moment, Arthur’s gun hand twitched.

Not far. Not far enough for it to make a difference for anybody else. Not far enough even for anyone to say he wasn’t aimed at me anymore.

But he knew me by now. He had seen what I could do. And the movement was just far enough for me.

I spun in, slipping to the side and snapping my elbow forward to smash into Arthur’s temple. He crumpled. My left hand had his Beretta; it came up and on line in the smallest fraction of a second, the mathematics flowing through me in a torrent, every motion a thousand interacting vectors in space as the sights snapped into alignment and I squeezed my finger against the trigger—

“Oh my God!” shrieked Dawna. “I know what you are!”

Every muscle screeched to a grinding halt. My finger stopped half a millimeter from firing.

Dawna was gazing at me, fearless and searching, Rio prone and forgotten at her feet. I had thought she had seen through me before, felt transparent and naked in front of her, but that was nothing compared to what I saw in her eyes now; she stripped me to the atoms, tearing every last shred of my person from its moorings to be scrutinized and catalogued—she saw the parts of me I didn’t know existed, read me like she had a detailed manual of my soul, tore me apart and undid me until I had no sense of self anymore.

Until this instant, I realized, I had only had an inkling of what her powers could do—with the full weight of her focus drilling into me, driving into the core of my being, I didn’t have the slightest chance against her. Probability zero. She had won.

“I see now,” she whispered, stepping toward me, ignoring the gun I still had pointed at her. “It all makes sense. I should have looked more closely before. But why would I have thought…” She drew closer, less than a meter from me now, and narrowed her eyes slightly. I could see her mind racing behind them, putting together the clues, discovering—finding all the right questions and slotting in the answers just as quickly.

Knowing me. Knowing me.

“You told me everything,” she breathed, more to herself than to me. “Of course you told me everything. Except what you didn’t know yourself. Hidden. So cunningly hidden, even from you.”

“What are you talking about?” I whispered.

“Drop the gun,” she said.

I dropped the gun.

She reached out a hand, almost touching my face but not quite. “It’s brilliant work,” she said. “Seamless. It had to be one of us. So much makes sense now. Your relationship with Sonrio. Why you’re more resistant to me. All your…abilities.”

“Tell me what the hell you’re talking about,” I demanded, but my voice was a croak, with no strength in it.

Dawna ignored me. “I know where you’re from,” she said, almost wonderingly. “I wonder what would happen if you knew. If you remembered.”

Remembered what?

Dawna smiled, a predatory showing of teeth. “Let us start with an easy one. Sonrio. The degree to which you trust him is frankly insane. Where did you meet him?” She spoke as if she already knew the answer.

“He saved me,” I said through stiff lips. Everything was starting to go off-balance, the world canting like it wanted to make me seasick, the numbers that always surrounded me bleeding together in a nonsensical, blurred mass.

“Saved you?” said Dawna. “From what?”

“From…” Flashes collided in my vision, as if I were in two places at once. Red tiles, and people in white coats.

The room tilted, inverting, stretching and eliding, wrong. My senses whirled, bleeding together and at the same time painfully acute, my consciousness freezing and spiking and stiffening into numbness—

The roar of a helicopter exploded outside the windows. I felt barely aware of it even as it shook me apart, the thunder of it engulfing us, the beam of a searchlight blanching everything into stark whiteness. Dawna looked up. The muffled boom of a megaphone clogged the air, someone shouting unintelligibly, and out of the corner of my eye I saw more troops materialize at the door—why were they here, hadn’t she sent them all after Checker, had they found him?—but they were angry, their report grim, and Dawna whipped back toward me, her face filled with fury, and I thought, He did it, Checker did it!

And then Dawna was on me, grabbing my collar and shouting, her face inches from mine. “Millions will die because of you! Is that what you wanted? Is it?”

Behind her, Rio rose from the floor like a phoenix, his duster flying behind him, moving so fast that the rest of the world seemed to crystallize into slow motion. Dawna’s troops tried to bring their weapons up, but they were too late.

Dawna had just enough time to shout one word, her eyes blazing, her face filling my vision:

“Remember.”

The world fractured.

My senses fragmented like shattered glass, scattering, my brain erupting with too many thoughts—I saw Rio, in another time and place, staring down at me—the wet green of a jungle morphed into steel and chrome and rows of windows showing a white winter sky—another man, a young man with handsome dark features, called to me insistently and earnestly—I raced through the darkness, the bark of automatic weapons fire thundering around me, traps at every corner, and I was avoiding them all, and it was exhilarating, I was winning, but somehow it wasn’t enough; I was failing—

Rio’s face swam above me again against a clear, cold night; I smelled grass and peat and too many thoughts, too many memories, I was screaming and holding my head and someone else was dragging me and shouting, too late, too late, and I could see the stars—

And then I was back in the room at the LA Air Force Base, curled on the floor, the helicopter thrumming right outside the windows, Dawna’s troops surrounding me, but Rio had Dawna and they were all frozen, a deadly tableau, and I thought I have to help him but I was drowning—

Help her.

Rio sat in the corner and watched while I threw up so violently my body spasmed and seized—

I had failed—I had failed, and I was going to die, but worse than that was the knowledge that I had lost, was lost; I curled on the bed letting the pain overtake me; it throbbed through my head, larger than existence, robbing me of identity—

I was scribbling madly, paper spread out all around me like in Rio’s house in Twentynine Palms, except this was white paper, and I had to fill it, fill it quickly, the math outpouring with overwhelming urgency because something—

I was running again—it was dark—

And then I was laughing; I was with other people, young people, teenagers, and we were laughing—

I dove into the water—

The light was too bright—

I felt the impact in my chest crack a rib, fell to the concrete—

The wind rushed by—

I leapt—

I screamed—

I slept—

Remember—