Zero Rogue

by Matthew S. Cox

  Aaron looked away as she traded the miniskirt for a pair of pants. “You can get government assistance and all that.”

  “Lame. I’m not a fucking child.” She clomped about, kicking her boots into place. “Are you gonna kill that shithead?”

  “White Hat? No. He’s goin’ ta send a message for me.”

  Andrea slung her backpack over one shoulder and walked up alongside Aaron. She’d put on a black Netßunny t-shirt as well. “Spare me the bullshit about winding up as a druggie prostitute. You’re too fuckin’ late.”

  “If that’s the life you yearn for in your heart, I won’t get in your way.” Aaron dragged White Hat out of his hiding place with a telekinetic yank.

  Andrea scowled at the floor.

  Aaron’s weariness showed on his face. “You’re disappointed I’m not riding you about getting off the street.”

  She glared. “I’m―”

  “Can’t lie to me, luv.” He tapped his head. “Alas, I’m not a paladin anymore.”

  “Why not?” She blinked. “And what the fuck is a paladin?”

  In his mind, he saw himself in the Division 0 armor, Allison at his side, guiding this girl out to a waiting patrol car. Another Aaron from another life. “Ehh, long story… Look, you wanna get your ass shot off out here, it’s none of my business. You wanna dose a bad batch of chems, get high, and never wake up, go for it. You wanna have some sodding twit like this”―he bonked White Hat into a cubicle wall―“traffic you into off-world slavery, go right the feck ahead. You’re not gonna change shit because I tell you to. If you want to, you want to. I’m done trying to save a world full o’ people who don’t want to be saved.”

  What’s the point without Allison in it? He looked up from the blood-soaked floor, at the trying-so-hard-not-to-look-terrified girl next to him.

  Andrea’s surface thoughts teased at the idea of lying a year or two off her age and riding government assistance, even if it meant they would ship her off to a colony for adoption. “Can I have one of those guns?”

  “If you at least talk to someone, you can ’ave the fancy one.” He pulled it out and offered it, handle first. “Only a lady would carry something this gaudy.”

  White Hat started to say something, but Aaron bounced his head off a cubicle wall.

  She hesitated.

  “Remember, I can see what you’re thinking.” He dangled the handle at her. When she reached for it, he smiled. “You also have to promise not to shoot this guy, because I need him.”

  “He was gonna sell me.” She raised her voice. “He killed most of my crew. Shit, bullets hit the fucking chair.”

  Aaron rotated White Hat upright and set him on his feet. “I need him to send a message on my behalf. Would’ya settle for a kick in the bollocks?”

  Andrea moved to attack. White Hat guarded the wrong place as a roundhouse combat boot caught him in the cheek. She slipped in blood; the spinning kick left her on her ass but set White Hat’s nose gushing. He growled and lunged at her, but wound up dangling as if swimming in midair.

  “Only prisses kick in the balls, an’ I ain’t no priss.” She pulled the knife from her boot and lunged; a fatal strike to the chest became a painful but cosmetic slice to the arm as Aaron’s telekinesis seized her as well.

  Andrea glided away from White Hat, feet off the ground. “Put me down!”

  He continued pushing her across the room, to the exit. “Get out of here. I’ll deal with this bloke. Go… be safe or something.”

  “You’re a fuckin’ dead man,” muttered White Hat.

  Aaron looked at his chest, patting around for wounds. Aside from the stinging in his ear and a small piece of shrapnel stuck in his left shin, he felt fine. “Don’t feel dead.”

  “Wiseass mother―”

  The rest of the word distorted into a scream. Aaron flung the man out from under his hat into a blur. He stopped him short two feet from a tile-covered wall, already bloody from an underling. Aaron took a step forward and stooped to pick up the hat. The Syndicate lieutenant babbled and flailed.

  “Now that I have your undivided attention… Do you ’ave any idea how much force it takes to liquefy a body from blunt impact?” Aaron rotated the man around and pushed his back into the wall. He stopped two paces away. “Even Division 0 has no idea what I’ve become, mate. I’m quite thoroughly unlike anything you’ve ever fucked with.” He reached out and set the hat back on the man’s head. “You’ve seen me mildly cheesed off. I’d advise against pushing me to the point of genuine anger.”

  “Y-you killed ten… You killed Cray… Do you have any idea how pissed off the big bosses already are?”

  “You lot are all about ‘It’s no’ personal, is business’, aye? Well, it was business. I needed information, and Cray had to die for me to get that information. You sods kill for revenge, same shite comes back your way, you act all offended.”

  “The Syndicate had no problems with you until you made one.”

  Aaron took out his NetMini, trying to reach Shimmer again, without luck. “Not my revenge, you twat. That hacker you lot are so keen on finding. Cray ordered her brother killed.”

  “He was a damn informant.”

  “A police officer.” Aaron narrowed his eyes. “I thought you boys had some sort of unwritten agreement to leave us… I mean cops alone?”

  “You?” White Hat raised a bushy eyebrow.

  “Ex.”

  “Oh. Yeah, well… Cray was pissed. Some money changed hands. The investigation led to a patsy.” White Hat laughed. “Another bastard we needed dead. Got the cops to do our job for us. Sooner or later, we’ll get you sleeping. How much is it gonna suck to spend your life, short as it may be, lookin’ over your shoulder all the time?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, mate.” Aaron levitated him close enough to kiss. “I don’t much give a wank if I live or die, and I’m pretty sure I could do quite a bit of damage if I put my mind to it. How does that settle with your cost/benefit analysis? A little known fact about psionics is that our abilities feed on emotion. At a resting calm, I’ve managed a shade over four thousand kilograms.” He paced about like a professor. “If the usual escalation holds true for awak―err, bother that. If the usual curve holds true, I reckon I’d about double that power if I was upset.”

  He tossed White Hat aside. The lack of telekinetic output after such a long period of constant use felt wonderful. Neither man spoke for almost four minutes.

  “You go back to your boss, and you tell him to stay the feck out of my way.” Aaron pointed at him. “I see one more of you chaps, and I’ll knock down buildings lookin’ for every last one of you roaches. I don’t care what kind of no-touchy arrangement you’ve managed with Div 1, I’ll bring the castle down even if it buries me too.”

  Your people can’t keep secrets from me. I’ll find every safe house, every stash, every operation you have and tear it to bits. He flung White Hat to his feet and into the wall again. This is the last time I’m going to speak to you, Pablo.

  The unabashed violence in the room had not done as much to dim Pablo’s sense of untouchability as did Aaron’s voice echoing within his mind. Aaron walked away, leaving the shaking man to slide down the wall to sit in a puddle of his former associates. Aaron stopped short at a figure near the exit to the outer salon room. Darwin gawked at him, holding onto the doorway as if to keep from fainting.

  He looked as grey as a zombie.

  “What?” asked Aaron. “Well, I suppose that was a touch melodramatic, wasn’t it?”

  wkward silence hung in the air. Aaron studied every scratch, gouge, and stain on Darwin’s dashboard. He catalogued each missing button, broken toggle switch, and cracked holo-emitter―twice. A glance at zombie-Darwin in the driver’s seat elicited no reaction but a faint “hmpfh” noise and a mild body tremor.

  The image of a screaming dark blur zooming into the wall and bursting into a shower of liquid repeated in Darwin’s mind. A pattern of red spots on Darwin’s left side, a lingeri
ng reminder of the detonation. Aaron dropped the mental connection before too much of what it had smelled like made it across the link.

  Light flooded the car along with happy chimes as an ovoid advert bot hovered by the driver side window, offering a number of cleaning products, favoring tissues. Aaron leaned forward to examine the ethereal screens as they cycled among different items.

  “You’ve got somethin’ on your cheek, mate.”

  Darwin made the “hmpfh” noise again.

  “Right then. If you’re going to sit here all night, I’m going to order food.” Aaron fished for his NetMini.

  The advert bot glided over the car to Aaron’s window, displaying an array of snacks. He shrugged, indicated an interest in some pretzel nuggets, and looked back to Darwin.

  “Nothin’ for me, man.”

  With a happy chirp, the floating bot zoomed off.

  “Well there’s some progress. Actual words.” Aaron patted his thigh. “Odd how they make those little blighters emotive, innit?”

  “Hmpfh.”

  “What’s gotten you then? Was it what I did, or peeing in the Syndicate’s porridge?”

  “Six of one…” Darwin maintained his glassy-eyed stare straight ahead. “Man, you did more than pee in their porridge. You took an enormous shit right in their oatmeal, while the man was at the table.”

  “At least it’s not me, then. Oh, bollocks.” He used his NetMini to order two stimpaks. “Damn bit of metal in my leg.”

  “You shoulda killed Pablo.”

  “That, my good friend, would not have gotten my message across. I needed someone to do a proper job of explaining my position on the matter. Besides, they already know me. It’s not like they couldn’t have guessed what happened here.” Aaron leaned left, raising both eyebrows. “Darwin, you can relax. I’m not angry with you for leading me to an ambush.”

  “You readin’ my mind?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Hmpfh.” Darwin added a chuckle. “Shim’s made a career outta not bein’ found. She’s spent a couple years pissin’ off the Syndicate. Them dudes can’t even find her. I should’a had some sorta clue the post she left was fake.”

  “They”―Aaron pointed at him―“are not you. You can find her.”

  A shivering rectangular hover bot about the size of a meatloaf glided up to Aaron’s window. It chirped a greeting, which his NetMini repeated. The little machine rocketed away after he removed the two stimpaks.

  “Poor thing was afraid of the area.” Aaron stared at the bit of metal sticking out of his leg. He grunted, trying to maintain focus despite pain. The shard wobbled and rose up in a well of blood. It was longer than it looked, more than three inches had gone into his leg. “Ouch. Oh, this is some kind of cartoon law, innit? Doesn’t hurt until I look at it.”

  “Ouch?” Darwin blinked. “That thing just came outta your leg and alls you gotta say is ‘ouch?’”

  “I used to be a cop. I’ve been shot seventy… four times. Before that, I played professional frictionless.”

  “Oh, yeah… tough man.” Darwin got close to smiling.

  “How many times have you broken your shin?” Aaron jabbed himself with the stimpak. In seconds, the blood welling up from the injury foamed, then stopped. “A booster boot can punt a stone, err… frictionless orb at damn near forty miles an hour. What do you think that boot does if it hits a leg? Eighteen times here. Stops hurting after the… oh, never mind. Hurts like balls every time.”

  Darwin cringed, took a breath, and stuck his finger in the broken start button. The car thrummed to life. Aaron hadn’t realized how badly Andrea stank until the burnt silicon air conditioning brushed his face.

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I don’t think even I can find her.” Darwin got the car moving. An easy task with the total lack of ground traffic in the grey zone. “Last thing I heard, Syndicate’s got two million on her head.”

  “Assuming they take offense to the loaf I just pinched in their oatmeal, do you think I’ve outdone that?”

  Darwin laughed. “Can’t say. Tell you in a few days. I know you ain’t wanna hear this, but might be time ta pack it in on the whole Shimmer thing. She’s the kind of supergeek that only gets found when she wants to get found.”

  Flashing lights lit up the rear-view monitor.

  “What the fuck? I ain’t…” Darwin glanced at the screen twice. “Oh, damn. It’s just a bot.”

  “Slow down. Probably my pretzels chasing us.”

  It was.

  Darwin declined the offer of an open plastic bag.

  “You sure? Mustard and onion.” Aaron chomped away.

  “How can you eat that?”

  Aaron laughed before stuffing another handful into his mouth. “There’s gotta be some way to find her.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” Darwin took a right turn, slowing as they joined traffic where the quality of the city improved. “I’m gonna go ahead and guess that little situation’s changed your mind about that engine.”

  Aaron chuckled. “Well, you got over it pretty quick.” He pondered a pretzel nugget for a moment before tossing it in his mouth. “You still lookin’ to give most of it to your son?”

  Darwin swerved; when he recovered control of the car, he divided his time between watching the road and glaring at Aaron. “How the―”

  “Psionic. The only reason I went along with the casino thing. I thought you were daydreaming about fancy cars and a nice house.”

  “Heh.” Darwin grinned, leaning back with one hand on a control stick. “I was, but not for me. My ass is beyond help. Kurtis was nine when the old lady got stars in her eyes for this Marine motherfucker.” He raised one hand. “Now, I ain’t got nothing ’gainst the Marines as a whole… just that one motherfucker.”

  “Understandable,” mumbled Aaron over a mouthful of pretzels.

  “Guess she got tired of my side business. Her ass was convinced I’d wind up incarcerated.” He chuckled. “She’s almost right, but I slipped through their fingers. Spose that’s why I’m in the grey now. She wouldn’t let me see my own son. Took him right off the damn planet. He’s twenty now.” Darwin seemed to deflate. “I know I ain’t made all much of an effort to contact him, but that guilt gettin’ heavy, ya know? I just wanna make sure he’s good while I still can.”

  Aaron jostled the bag, looking for a large piece. “You’re certain you can cash in that engine? Something like that is going to stand out. Even if you manage to sell it, people might follow the money trail to your boy.”

  Darwin grumbled as he turned right onto a major ground-level road, three lanes in either direction. Pushcart vendors, beggars, and vagrants dotted the ten-foot wide strip separating east from west traffic. Quite a few had tents, or more permanent dwellings made out of old shipping crates. They drove four blocks before coming to a standstill amid a sea of bright red taillights. Aaron gestured at the logjam of cars. He tried to say, “Aww, now what the feck is going on?” but only sprayed pretzel bits while mumbling. Their retreat closed off as another driver crept up within inches of their back bumper.

  “Yeah, exactly.” Darwin leaned back and closed his eyes. “Wake me up when this shit clears.”

  At the head of the stopped cars, a pair of cargo transports had entered an intersection up ahead at the same time. One from the left, one from the right. They sat cab to cab in the middle, cutting off all four directions while the drivers shouted at each other about who should back up.

  “Bloody well lucky I forgot my E-90.” He flagged down an advert bot and ordered a large bottle of iced Earl.

  “That ain’t smart. We’ll still be sitting here when you gotta piss.”

  “Cmff you fnmff wakfmafi?” Another spray of white crumbs flew everywhere with the last word.

  Darwin tapped his fingers on his legs. “For a psionic, you’s dumb as shit.”

  Can you find Rakshasi? Aaron gave his friend a light punch in the arm. Skip Shimmer altogether.

  �
�Maybe… I gotta do it the hard way though, could take weeks.”

  Take weeks. That phrase planted the seed of discontent at delays in Aaron’s mind. The concept of losing the next twenty minutes in traffic grew intolerable. His foot got to tapping, which led to his entire leg bouncing, which led to him turning red in the face two minutes later.

  “Come on you sodding wankshafts, flip a bloody coin or something!”

  “Yellin’ at ’em would work better if you opened the windows.”

  “Bugger it.” Aaron glared at the cargo mover on the right.

  The fifty-plus ton vehicle shuddered and twitched. Aaron grunted; exertion darkened his already anger-brushed face.

  Darwin glanced at him. “If you shit in my car, your ass is buying me a new one.”

  “Gaaaaah!” roared Aaron, spittle flying from his teeth.

  He panted. Lifting it was too much. He concentrated again, focusing on lateral motion rather than vertical. Fingers dug into the seat as he strained. The metal beast wobbled and let off a loud boom as though a giant had kicked the trailer. Both drivers and twenty some odd people who’d gotten out of their cars to watch jumped and spun around to look. With a great squealing howl of rubber on plastisteel, the cargo hauler on the right skidded back into the lane it came from. Small cars crumpled together behind it, brushed aside like dead leaves. A surge of light-headedness almost made him faint when he ‘let go’ of the truck’s mass. He flashed a euphoric grin, despite a mild nosebleed.

  The driver of the moved truck blamed the other driver for ‘doing something fucked up’ and threw a punch at him. Other motorists returned to their cars.

  “You get points for subtlety.”

  “Bugger subtlety. Those two idiots would’ve been there for hours, and all these useless people beeping weren’t doing―” Aaron opened his window and leaned out to yell, “All you sodding wankshafts beeping are doing precisely fuck all to help the situation.”