Zeroes

by Scott Westerfeld

  But then that feeling like liquid valium was pouring back into the room, the tide of fear pulling out again. Ethan marveled that he could feel so calm.

  “While you’re thinking about that, Jerry, ask yourself: If I knew you’d be here, then who else did?”

  The gunman’s words came out with exaggerated calm. “Tell me what you know, kid.”

  “Everything. Like why the silent alarm went off ten seconds after you showed up.” A strained little snort forced its way out of Ethan. The voice wasn’t very good at laughing. “It all has to do with Nic over there.”

  Jerry’s hockey mask swung up toward his two armed colleagues.

  The voice continued in a whisper. “Remember his drug charge back in March? The one that went away for no good reason?”

  Jerry was quiet. Ethan figured he probably did remember.

  “And ever since, Nic’s been telling you about this bank job. How easy it’ll be. How he wants you to do all the talking, because you’re such a nice guy who’d never hurt anyone. People trust you. Then he gives you the biggest gun. How am I doing so far, Jerry?”

  The two gunmen behind the tills were done gathering up the cash. Now they were making their way through the customers spread across the floor. As long as they didn’t come over here. The voice struggled if there was more than one person to convince.

  “Listen, Jerry. I like you,” Ethan heard himself say. “You just want what’s best for Kelsie, after all. Poor kid still misses her mom. And a guy like Nic, who makes deals with the cops, is a problem for everyone.”

  “No,” Jerry muttered. “No, no, no.”

  The tip of the rifle was in front of Ethan’s face, and it was shaking. Jerry’s hand on the butt trembled. It didn’t look like fear was making his hand shake, though. More like rage.

  Ethan shut his eyes, as if that would protect him from bullets. “Nic hasn’t been in town that long, has he? Maybe he’s the kind of guy who’d lead his buddies into a trap just to get out of a bullshit possession charge.”

  “Sirens!” one of the other gunmen called. “We gotta go!”

  “Damn it!” Jerry stood and swung his gun up, all in one movement.

  Ethan had a moment to breathe freely, a moment when he thought that the voice had done its work and he was free. Jerry had forgotten all about the duffel bag, and now the gunmen were about to make a run for it.

  But then Jerry shouted, “You knew they’d be here, Nic! You son of a—”

  And then the shooting started.

  CHAPTER 11

  MOB

  AFTER THE SHOOTING INSIDE WAS over, a new crowd formed.

  It didn’t feel like a dance club or a party. It was closer to the rubberneckers after an accident, drawn by the flashing lights, the police tape fluttering in the morning breeze. They milled around in the street, mostly directionless except that everyone kept glancing at the bank doors. They were in there interviewing everyone, and it seemed to be taking hours.

  Kelsie was waiting too. For her dad.

  They hadn’t brought him out yet. Because the first guy out was someone in a body bag. And it wasn’t her dad, because . . . well, it just wasn’t. No way her dad was dead.

  Right behind that was another guy, this one on a stretcher. He was alive, at least. Two paramedics carried him out while a third ran along beside holding a drip high in the air. One of the cops lifted the yellow police tape so they could duck underneath and load the guy into a waiting ambulance. Then the ambulance sped off, and no more paramedics went in.

  Everybody else inside had to be alive and unhurt, right? Kelsie doubled over with relief, hands on her knees. She took a long breath. She wasn’t an orphan. Not yet.

  Somebody asked if she was okay, and Kelsie straightened. She gave the stranger a tight smile and moved away to the edge of the crowd, trying to reconnect with the people in the bank.

  When the handful of shots had been fired, there’d been panic. A few minutes later the police had stormed in, and there’d been a swell of relief. Then nothing. Their emotions were scattered, the crowd beast broken into individuals.

  A new ripple of energy passed through the people outside. The bank doors opened, and two cops came out, half dragging her dad in handcuffs. He looked dazed and suddenly ancient. But at least he was unhurt.

  Kelsie felt relief and grief and anger all at once. He was going back to prison. Every day for the last five years he’d promised he would never disappear again.

  The crowd turned its attention to the man in handcuffs, like a herd focusing on a predator. Not a lot of bank robberies in Cambria. Everyone wanted a good look at his face so they could tell the story when they got to work late.

  You wouldn’t believe this guy. Limping, skinny, burned-out-looking. Robbed a bank and shot two people.

  Kelsie couldn’t help it; she was part of the crowd now. She felt her grief begin to roll outward, tangling with their curiosity. And not just grief: her anger, too.

  How could her dad have risked all those people’s lives? Hadn’t he felt the fear he’d caused? He’d shredded all the trust Kelsie had ever put in him.

  She tried to rein in the emotion. To squeeze it all back inside her own body. But it was too late and she was too exhausted.

  Of everything he’d done over the sixteen years of Kelsie’s life, nothing had been this wrong, this selfish. Maybe he hadn’t meant to hurt anyone—she was sure he hadn’t—but he’d still done something awful. He’d destroyed their future together.

  “Bastard!” a man beside her shouted, and a stir went through the crowd.

  The cops looked confused. They had a job to do, and couldn’t feel Kelsie’s anger winding its way through the crowd.

  People began to press against the phalanx of police. They’d turned from docile onlookers into something hostile, something wrathful and righteous and dangerous.

  They were becoming a mob.

  Kelsie saw the look of terror on her father’s face.

  “No, no, no,” she breathed, trying to reel it all back in, to break the connection between her own energy and the crowd’s. She’d done this, molded a single entity from the spectators and given her own anger form.

  She took a dozen sharp quick breaths, making herself hyperventilate. Dizziness cut her anger. With her influence gone and with the police shouting terse orders, the mob dissipated.

  The crowd ebbed, but her dad still looked scared and lost.

  For the first time, she felt tears burn.

  Her father was pushed into a police car, which was soon nosing its way through the onlookers toward the clump of tall buildings at the city center.

  At last the customers from the bank were led out. They stepped into the daylight, blinking and in shock. She felt them click into their own little tribe, united by what they’d been through. Kelsie could feel their shaken confidence that the world made sense. The seeds of a thousand nightmares were taking hold in their minds. They went down the stairs clinging to each other.

  Except one guy.

  He wasn’t in black clothes like the robbers, but two plainclothes detectives were guiding him toward a police car. He wore a pin-striped shirt and carried an army-green duffel bag. He had a familiar expression, too, tired and strung out.

  The guy from the diner.

  What on earth did he have to do with all this?

  He wasn’t handcuffed, so he was probably just a witness. Kelsie pulled out her phone. She had to get to the police station and make sure her dad was okay. She hoped Mikey was still awake. She needed a ride.

  It was barely ten in the morning. This was going to be a long day.

  CHAPTER 12

  SCAM

  “OKAY, TERRENCE, LET’S GO OVER this again. Is this really your address?”

  Ethan didn’t answer aloud, just nodded.

  He was sitting across from two detectives at the Central Cambria Police Department. He had no idea what the voice had said wrong back in the bank, but he didn’t want it screwing up again.

&n
bsp; One moment it had all been going smoothly, the voice reeling off a fake name and address and a few generic reactions to the robbery—no, he hadn’t seen much, too busy hugging the floor, and oh, how about that, he must have left his ID back at his leafy, north-side home where he lived with his dad. The uniformed cop had looked ready to move on to the next interview.

  But suddenly this detective wearing a grim expression had appeared out of nowhere, and Ethan had been politely but firmly hauled out of the bank. Duffel bag and all.

  They knew something, but Ethan had no idea what.

  It wasn’t about the duffel bag, which was on the floor beside him, ignored and unopened. He’d considered leaving it behind in the bank when they’d dragged him here. Just walk away and pretend it wasn’t his. But what if he’d left fingerprints on it? Or DNA? People were always being busted by their DNA on cop shows. So he’d taken it with him.

  Plus, the money was his now. He couldn’t just leave it.

  And anyhow, he had bigger problems.

  He snuck a glance around. The detective’s desk was in the middle of a busy floor full of cops. What if someone who knew his mom recognized him? She was down here at the police station all the time, doing her deputy DA work. With a bank robbery under investigation, she might even be here right now.

  Ethan hunched down in his chair.

  The detective continued, “And you don’t have a phone number yet, right, Terrence? Because you just moved here?”

  Ethan nodded. Why the voice had gone with Terrence was beyond Ethan. Sometimes he figured it was just trolling him.

  “Do you mind answering out loud?” the other detective asked. She gave a sympathetic smile. “Just so we’re clear.”

  Ethan sighed, letting the voice take over again. “Yes, I moved here from Chicago. That’s my new address, right there.”

  He gestured toward the yellow legal pad on the desk between them.

  “And your dad doesn’t have a cell phone?”

  “That’s right, Detective King.”

  The voice was good at stuff like that, remembering to call adults by their names.

  King was kinda nice. She had short hair and brown eyes that were just darker than her skin. She smiled when he called her by name. Her partner, Detective Fuentes, didn’t look convinced by anything the voice said. He was taller, wider, and meaner-looking. Ethan shifted his gaze back to King.

  “And your mom?” she asked.

  “Don’t have a mom,” Ethan said, too quickly. He reminded himself to let the voice handle this.

  “Your dad got an e-mail address?” Fuentes asked.

  “He’s old-fashioned. Doesn’t trust the internet.”

  King nodded and smiled, as if not trusting a bunch of wires made sense. “Why were you in the bank, Terrence?”

  “To open a new account. We don’t have a bank here yet. But then these three guys came in. With guns. Really big guns.”

  “Yeah,” said King. “You told us that.”

  “They were going to rob the place but then they shot each other. That’s all I remember. It was pretty traumatic, you know?”

  “So you keep saying,” Fuentes said. He had the kind of frown that looked like it wasn’t going anywhere soon. “None of them spoke to you?”

  “They shouted at us to stay down. Then they said they were going to rob us. This girl beside me, they took the ring right off her finger.”

  King asked, “You didn’t know any of these guys?”

  “How would I? I’m seventeen, for crying out loud! And I just moved here. Where would I meet guys who rob banks with shotguns?”

  “Semiautomatic rifles,” Fuentes corrected him.

  “Like I’d know what kind of guns they had!” The voice sounded nervous, but Ethan had read that innocent people get nervous when they’re interviewed by cops. Only criminals had the patience to stay calm and wait it out.

  “Which high school you at?” Fuentes asked.

  “I’m not enrolled yet. My dad was thinking of Palmdale Academy.”

  Ethan had to fight the crazy urge to laugh. He had about as much chance of getting into Palmdale as he did of a career with NASA.

  But the lie had done its work. For about a microsecond King looked impressed. Then she gazed down at her notes. “So you’ve never met Jerry Laszlo before?”

  “Who?”

  She looked up. “You didn’t call one of the bank robbers by name?”

  Ethan shifted in his seat, but the voice sounded certain. “That’s crazy.”

  “Isn’t it?” Fuentes leaned forward on heavy forearms. “And yet we got you on video, talking to them.”

  Ethan blinked. They’d already seen the bank’s security footage? That was fast.

  He gave the voice free rein. “One of the robbers talked to us, yeah. The guy that took Sophie’s ring.”

  “Sonia,” King corrected him.

  “Right.” Great. They’d spoken to Sonia. Of course they’d spoken to Sonia. She’d probably told them about the weird conversation he’d had with Jerry Big Gun. “She wouldn’t let him take her ring. I told her to just give it to him! You know, so she wouldn’t get killed.”

  As the two detectives looked at each other, Ethan rubbed his jaw, which felt like he’d spent six hours in a dentist’s chair. The worst thing about the voice was that it felt like someone else was operating his mouth. Pulling it open and snapping it shut in time with all the lies coming out of it.

  His ears were starting to itch from listening to himself lie so much.

  Fuentes said, “We spoke to Sonia Stoller at length, Terrence. She said you knew the guy. Said you had quite the conversation with him.”

  A stifled sort of laugh escaped Ethan, but inside he was cringing. He should never have insulted that pop-trash guru, Jay Stupid-Face White. He wished he could take it all back, the whole damn morning and, come to think of it, the night before, too. This was turning into a lousy summer after all.

  Just like last summer. If the voice hadn’t gotten rid of all his friends, maybe Ethan wouldn’t have been wandering around Ivy Street without a ride.

  The voice stayed smooth. “Yeah, I talked to the guy. I just wanted him to chill out, you know? So I was chatting like we were buddies. But it’s not like I know him. Sonia was being crazy, not giving up her ring. I just wanted to make sure nobody got shot.”

  Fuentes said, “The way you tell it, you’re quite the hero.”

  “I did what had to be done.” The voice almost sounded modest.

  King smiled. “What’s funny is, she didn’t seem crazy when she talked to us. She seemed like a very composed and articulate young woman.”

  Fuentes nodded like his partner had just revealed a universal truth. “Yeah. She kept her head pretty good, for someone in the middle of an armed robbery.”

  Detective Fuentes pulled out a phone with a sparkly case and pink headphones. A smile finally cracked his face.

  “You want to watch a video?”

  CHAPTER 13

  SCAM

  ETHAN FELT THE BLOOD DRAIN from his face.

  That was the problem—one of the problems—with the voice. It couldn’t control his expressions except when he was talking.

  Both the detectives were smiling at him now.

  Fuentes held the phone out so Ethan could see the screen. “You got a clear view of this, Terrence?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ethan muttered.

  A video began to play on the little screen. It was a shaky point of view from close to the marble floor of the bank. Feet scrambling, blurs of motion, a tiny flash of Sonia’s face, all over the distorted sound of shouting through the tiny speakers of the phone.

  The view swung around and there Ethan was, hugging the floor, his expression more spacey than terrified. He remembered the weird, disjointed calm he’d felt after the first shot had been fired into the ceiling. That feeling like he’d swallowed too many painkillers. He really wished the Ethan in the video looked more scared. Or that he had some of that miracle cal
m right now.

  He watched the video in silence while the detectives watched him.

  There was Jerry Big Gun looming, his hockey mask filling the frame as Sonia argued with him. Ethan fought a surge of admiration. Not only had Sonia defied an automatic-rifle-wielding criminal over her worthless ring, but she’d been videoing the whole thing.

  Mental note: Check out this Patty Low sometime.

  Fuentes pressed the screen with a thumb, halting the video on a frame of Ethan’s too-calm face. “It sounds like you just said ‘Jerry.’ Did you catch that?”

  Ethan nodded slowly, like he was thinking, and let the voice loose.

  “Jerry, yeah. One of the other guys said it when they came in. Geez, I hadn’t even remembered that, Detective Fuentes. Guess I was running on instinct.”

  Fuentes rolled his eyes.

  “Play the next bit,” King said.

  Fuentes obliged, and Ethan heard his own voice clearly. “You just want what’s best for Kelsie, after all.”

  Fuentes froze the video again. “So, who’s Kelsie?”

  “I have no idea.” Ethan tried to match a shrug with the voice’s innocent tone.

  “Funny thing,” Fuentes said. “After you mentioned Kelsie, that guy turned around and the shooting started. Which makes you about the most interesting person in this whole station right now.”

  To Ethan, it seemed like the actual gunman would be way more interesting. But this didn’t seem like the right moment to argue the point. “I have no idea why he started shooting. Maybe you should ask him.”

  “We did,” Fuentes grunted. “He’s not talking.”

  Ethan sighed, almost wishing he was back in the car with the Craig. At least then he’d had a chance to grab the keys and drive away. But here in the middle of this crowded police station, there was no escape.

  “I didn’t even know what was coming out of my mouth!” Ethan said this in his own voice, utterly honest for once.

  King shook her head sadly, like she was hearing bad news. “Best you just tell us everything you do know, Terrence. Tell us how you made that guy turn on his friends in the middle of a hostage situation. With a skill like that, maybe we could use you on the force.”