Russell's Attic, Books 1 - 3

by SL Huang

  It was so like something I would say.

  I slid the envelope of clean documents out of my jacket. “Here. Use these to disappear again. Check in with Halliday later; let us know you’re—let us know you’re safe.” I clenched my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have said that last bit. But even after everything, I couldn’t bear the thought of her disappearing entirely again. I had to leave that window open, that sliver of hope we could find another way, a better way, for her to fix me. “Go now, Professor.”

  She made no move to take the envelope. The music paused, holding its breath, then dove into a smooth, slow river of sound.

  “The second movement,” whispered Martinez. “The andante. Mozart was a perfecter, you see. Haydn the inventor; Mozart the perfecter. The perfect symphony. Almost half a hundred of them.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. Arthur was the classical music buff. “Professor, did you hear what I said? They know you’re in Los Angeles. They’re coming—”

  “I think I could do it.”

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to patience. I couldn’t drag her out of here; we’d make a scene. “Do what?” I bit out.

  “Write one,” she answered. “Write a Mozart. I think I could quantify my appreciation sufficiently.”

  And then it hit me. If you can verify, you can solve. So if you could appreciate…you could create.

  Martinez’s proof potentially let her solve any problem in the universe. It could lift the veil from any spark of human inspiration, including Mozart.

  Potentially.

  “I think maybe I should do that,” she said quietly. “Just once, before I die. To see how it feels. The world might like another Mozart. Do you think?”

  “It doesn’t matter right now,” I said, even though nothing had ever mattered more, in the grand scheme of things.

  She lifted her hands and took the envelope from me, cradling it as if it were something fragile.

  “If you’ve been using any credit cards, give them to me now, and then go,” I said.

  A disturbing frisson ran through the orchestra. Martinez didn’t seem to notice, but I did. The mathematical rhythm was off, the pitches ever so slightly discordant as their frequencies failed to line up in pleasing ratios. Something was wrong.

  “Get out of here, now,” I hissed, grabbing Martinez by the elbow and heaving her to her feet.

  There was a shuffling down below, in the packed orchestra section. The planes of music from the stage were sliding apart, offset, the harmonies gliding further and further apart.

  The shuffling got louder. Someone a few rows in front of us coughed, and whispers rose across the mezzanine. I dragged Martinez toward the door.

  The music finally collapsed, jaggedly trailing into silence, the whispers from below becoming shouts and cries. We reached the door and I yanked on it only to find it barred from the other side.

  That’s okay, I thought. That’s okay; a proper application of force—snap off the door handles, the screws will pop—

  I tried to draw back to kick and almost fell, my foot impacting limply against the hinge like a soggy French fry.

  The people in the mezzanine were staggering up now, climbing over each other, a faceless, clawing mass.

  “Gonna get…trampled…” The voice sounded like mine, but I didn’t remember speaking. The voice was right, though—the rest of the audience was going to maul us trying to get to the door, the door that wouldn’t open—

  Martinez lolled against me and started to sit down. I heaved her back up and half-threw us into the last row of seats, covering her body with mine. Someone kicked me in the head with a high heel as we went down. Someone else stepped on my hand.

  I curled over Martinez’s limp form, pushing us as far under the row of seats as I could. The concert hall’s house lights had come on, but for some reason it felt darker than before. Maybe because I couldn’t open my eyes…

  That was stupid. Of course I could open my eyes. Of course I could.

  I just needed to sleep for a moment first…

  Chapter 34

  Clack, clack, clack.

  I woke up still on the floor, but it was a different floor, and I couldn’t move.

  Clack, clack, clack.

  I strained at pulling my eyelids up and managed a foggy strip of light.

  Clack, clack, clack.

  I pushed as hard as I could, willing my muscles to contract, to twitch, but nothing happened.

  “It’s a neuromuscular blocker,” said a voice above me. “It paralyzes you. And besides that, you’re trussed up like a Christmas turkey.”

  I managed to focus my eyes a bit. My wrists were on the floor in front of me, in irons. They looked like my arms, my hands, but felt completely divorced from my body, like someone else’s limbs.

  In the background were two large booted feet and an intricately carved walking stick.

  Clack, clack, clack, went the meditation balls.

  A stack of papers hit the ground in front of the feet: the documents and credit cards I’d had Tegan mock up.

  “Seems you were planning to double-cross me,” said the Lancer’s voice. “I’m not into that.”

  Yeah.

  “I would have killed you right off—I usually kill people who double-cross me. But you still have information I want.” Clack, clack, clack.

  Halliday’s proof. Right.

  “I’ll take great pleasure in breaking you.” He giggled like a hyena. “But I confess you’re not my top priority right now. You’ll have to wait. I just wanted to say hi.”

  Oh. Oh, shit.

  Martinez. He had Martinez, too. Of course he did—we hadn’t gotten out; he’d taken us both.

  That hadn’t been part of the plan. She was supposed to get away before he caught me.

  She was supposed to get away.

  This was my fault. I had to protect her. I pushed my neurons to move a finger with no success. The helplessness sandbagged me. I had to be able to do—to do something—

  I managed to make a sound in my throat, something like a sick rhinoceros.

  “Oh? You have something to say?”

  Don’t hurt her. Oh, God.

  “Mathematics should be shared, don’t you agree?” the Lancer said carelessly. “Oh, I forgot. You’re only in this for the money. Playing both ends against the middle. You don’t care.” The meditation balls stopped, and he was suddenly a lot closer, half-crouching, half-sitting so his face was near mine. “People like you are the scum of humanity. You don’t care about the field, about what humanity can discover. You’re only in it for your payday. Perelman would weep.”

  I would have liked to point out that he’d been planning on using Halliday’s proof for his own ends as well, and that he was almost certainly going to steal the fame and million-dollar prize from Martinez by convincing the world—and maybe even himself—that it was his own work. He was a delusional hypocrite.

  But then, he wasn’t entirely wrong about me.

  He stood back up. I pushed my vocal cords until I thought I would choke myself, straining to the breaking point, and managed a few unintelligible sounds.

  “What was that?” said the Lancer. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or not.

  “Weak…heart,” I got out. “Martinez…” The consonants slurred; I wasn’t sure if they were understandable.

  “Does she,” said the Lancer, after an interminable pause. “How do you know?”

  “Sh’told me,” I managed.

  He crouched down again. “I think you’re lying. But it will be easy enough to check.”

  Right. Computer skills. He’d get her medical records.

  Hell, Martinez wasn’t young; with any luck she really would have a heart condition. But at least I’d bought her some time…time for my plan to work.

  Time for Arthur to come for us.

  Faith…

  The Lancer pushed himself up and tapped his walking stick against one boot. “In the meantime, if you are telling the
truth, then she thinks you’re chummy enough to share your health with each other. What, did you tell her you were going to protect her?” He snorted. “There’s no one you haven’t betrayed, is there?”

  He wasn’t wrong about that, either.

  “But I doubt our dear doctor is wise to that. She seems such a trusting sort. If you want so much for me to spare her ‘weak heart,’ if you two are such good friends, I know an excellent solution.”

  He snorted with laughter again and called to someone in another language. Rough hands manhandled me, hoisting me up under my arms, dragging me. It hurt, more than it should have—oddly unspecific blobs of pain floating through my fried nervous system. It took a few minutes, but I got around to figuring that someone had kicked me in the face and ribs while I was out.

  By the time I’d worked out that conclusion I was being shoved into a very solid-feeling chair. Chains clanked as they fastened me down.

  “We’ll wait for the drugs to wear off a touch,” said the Lancer, from somewhere behind me. “After all, we want a show.”

  I strove to move again, heaved like I was trying to pull a muscle, and managed to twitch my wrist on the arm of the chair. Metal bit into my skin, cold and unyielding.

  The Lancer had started up with his meditation balls again; the sound traced out where he paced behind me. I wasn’t keeping good track of time at the moment, but it wasn’t very long before his men brought in Martinez.

  She was walking under her own power, and aside from also being cuffed up, she didn’t look any the worse for the wear. Apparently the Lancer had only felt the need to take out his anger on the person who had personally fucked him over. Thank God.

  Martinez plopped herself down in a chair across from me, and the goons chained her in, just as they had done to me. She managed to sit in the manacles primly, somehow, as if she were about to take tea and cakes.

  My muscles were responding now, a little bit, though twitching my fingers still felt like I was pushing through glue.

  The clack, clack, clack approached my shoulder, and I felt the Lancer lean on the chair behind me. “Last chance,” he said. “You really don’t want us to touch her?”

  I knew what was coming. I could take it, I hoped. As long as it bought us time.

  Arthur will be coming. He will.

  “You give her a heart attack, you’ll never get your proof.” My tongue was still thick and languid in my mouth, but the words had enough shape to make sense.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” He leaned close, his breath hot on my ear. “I doubt you’ll be a very good incentive. But I don’t really care.” He pushed off and walked away.

  Yeah. I’d pissed him off. Big time.

  And it wasn’t going to work out so well for me.

  “Is she all right?” came Martinez’s grandmotherly voice.

  “How nice that you care,” said the Lancer. He’d retreated to a spot between us, leaning on his cane, the meditation balls going in his other hand. “Dr. Martinez, you’ve told me you won’t part with certain information on a proof that—” he brayed his hyena laugh—“that I know you have. But I think we can change your mind.” He gestured at me. “We’re going to start by torturing your friend here, who so conveniently made herself available. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go out and find another one of your friends, or we’ll find your family, any family you have—children, grandchildren, newborn babies…do you want that?”

  Martinez was silent.

  “I said, do you want that?”

  “I assumed the question was rhetorical,” she said. “Of course I don’t want that. It would be a most inhuman state. And if I did want it, I would have been spurred to do it myself, in all likelihood, so even if you suspected violent psychopathy on my part, there is evidence to the contrary.”

  The Lancer stepped forward and spat on her. The globule smacked against her wrinkled cheek and slid down to dribble on her collar. Martinez twitched away from it in a gentle shudder, like she couldn’t believe the rudeness of kids nowadays. “If you don’t want it, then you’ll tell us what you know,” the Lancer sneered.

  “You’re assuming that wanting one thing—or, in this case, wanting one thing to happen—precludes wanting, or not wanting, another thing more. In my hierarchy there is no contest. This power makes me unto a deity, and it has been struggle enough whether to share it with the world, but to share it with only those who would use it for evil—there is no decision. I will not be the one to create an evil god.”

  “Poetic,” the Lancer said. “In that case, is there anything you wish to say to your friend? She’s about to be quite uncomfortable.”

  Something snicked off to my left, sharply, and an arc of sparks flew at the edge of my peripheral vision.

  Oh, shit.

  Martinez looked past me. “I’m sorry for the actions of these men,” she said. “But not for my actions. They are only rational.”

  The ironic part of it was, her logic made sense. In a wretched, soon-to-be-extremely-painful-for-me sort of way.

  The snick sparked again, louder, right by my ear this time. Bits of heat tingled against my exposed skin where the sparks fell.

  “Last chance,” said the Lancer.

  I didn’t hear what Martinez said back, because the pain hit.

  Chapter 35

  I’d been shot before. I’d been beat up before. In my various disreputable past jobs, I’d been blown up by airborne missiles, almost drowned, and fallen off the side of a mountain.

  I’d never been tortured with a fifteen-thousand-volt electric charge before.

  It wasn’t only the pain, although that was unimaginable, an almost out-of-body nerve-shredding bonfire that refused to localize to where they’d thrust the leads against me. But more—each charge ripped through my flesh like it wanted to flay me, rending me apart and tearing me like paper…the world twisted into sick, impossible shapes, stretching until it snapped, and my brain flash-fried and crumbled until it was dust.

  It took me some time to realize they had stopped, the searing burn pulsing through me even after they’d dropped the leads from my skin. My surroundings kept stuttering and hitching, like someone had taken handfuls of frames out of an animation. I was aware of the Lancer talking to Martinez, every third word piling up on the one before like he was a bad collage.

  After a few minutes, the Lancer and his men cleared out, leaving us chained to our chairs. They probably wanted me to beg Martinez to tell, or something. They hadn’t readministered the paralytic, but it didn’t make a difference: my muscles popped and spasmed against each other, defying my attempts to marshal them. Even if I’d been able to move under my own power, however, the mathematics of our situation were dismal; the chains wrapped my arms and legs with a depressing level of redundancy. The Lancer had wanted to make sure I didn’t escape again, and he’d done a good job with the overkill.

  “I can’t tell him, you know,” Martinez said after a few minutes. “It would be—it would be quite bad. I don’t know what he would be able to do.”

  What he was able to do without it was frightening enough. The Lancer was going to go out and find anyone else in Martinez’s life to hurt—friends, family, other mathematicians, Martinez herself once he knew what would be liable to kill her—until she capitulated. And capitulate she would, once our captor reached the variable named Sonya Halliday. Martinez had given up everything for Halliday, and she’d give up the proof as well, I felt sure. Their friendship was her zeroth axiom.

  It was a race, then. “Is okay,” I slurred. “I have a plan.”

  She raised her eyebrows. Her huge glasses were missing, I noticed, making her bones seem even finer and smaller than before. “I hope your plan does not involve being unchained, because if so, you are unlikely to be able to enact it.”

  “Doesn’t,” I said.

  “Intriguing.” She stared into space, considering as if this were a riddle: Two prisoners, A and B, are chained in a room until A gives up information. B tells A not to w
orry, that she has a plan to escape. What is it?

  I was tired. So tired. “Gotta wait,” I said. “That’s the plan. Wait…”

  Her brow furrowed, her lips pursing, trying to figure out the meaning in the punchline.

  “People are coming to get us.” I wasn’t sure I said the words or only thought them. I was loopy. Why did everything hurt so much? “Hold out, Professor…they’re coming. You have to hold out…” Who was I talking to? “They’ll be here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Faith,” I mumbled. Faith…

  I remembered my earlier resolution, that I didn’t need my past to decide who I wanted to be now. I could be the type of person who trusted, couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I decide to be that? The type of person who trusted, and who protected an old woman from being hurt for as long as I needed to…

  “I don’t believe in faith,” Martinez said, very primly. “It’s the antithesis of evidence-based science.”

  She was right. But maybe I didn’t need to believe in general—I only needed to believe in certain people. I could manage that.

  Certain people. Arthur. Checker. Myself.

  Myself most of all. I had to believe I had it in me, somewhere, to do the right thing when it came down to the wire. Otherwise, why keep existing at all? I had nothing else of value—was nothing else.

  “Professor,” I said. “Act like this bothers you. Okay? We need to make them draw it out…”

  “I don’t understand what you mean. Of course it bothers me. They’re evil men, to be hurting you like that.”

  “They have to keep going,” I tried to explain. “To keep going, on—on me, and not anyone else. Tell them you’ll give them something if they stop, beg them, and then take it back. Convince them they’re getting to you—”

  There was a sound at the side of the room. The Lancer and his men, trooping back in. I wondered if they’d had cameras on us. Too late to worry about it now.

  “Have you decided to share with the class yet, Dr. Martinez?” The Lancer leaned on his walking stick, pinning Martinez with his intense stare like she was a butterfly on a card. “Or shall we continue?”