Zero Rogue

by Matthew S. Cox

  Shimmer, still in her tank top and white/grey camo fatigue pants, lay face down on the floor. Her powder blue hair darkened in spots from what could only be blood. Six other men stood around her as if appraising their work, brandishing scraps of rebar, pipe, or boards.

  “I gotta ask ya,” said the man behind the desk. “Not that we don’t appreciate the gesture, but why’d you give her up?”

  Darwin held up a three-inch black plastic device, pinched between his thumb and middle finger. “The price was right.”

  Desk Man grinned.

  “Anytime.” Darwin snapped his fingers, tossing credstick up and catching it in a closed fist. “Let me know if you need anything else. A pleasure workin’ with yas.”

  He spun to walk out, heading right for the door where Aaron hid. He had only known the man for a few months, but the sense of betrayal left him stupefied. Darwin made it three steps before his chest exploded with the sound of a gunshot. He blinked and looked down at the crimson seep. A second shot tore a hole in his gut, and he went down. He dragged himself forward a few more inches and went limp, lifeless eyes focused at the credstick.

  Desk Man shook his head as he lowered a giant handgun. “I ain’t got no tolerance for betrayers.” He held his arms to the side, looking for affirmation from his cohorts. “They’re like feedin’ fuckin’ pigeons. Do it once, they’ll do it all the time. No principles.”

  Aaron’s rage bubbled over, summoning a telekinetic wave that smashed both wooden doors into an explosion of splinters and chunks. He tore the pistol out of Desk Man’s grasp, launching it across the room and through a cinderblock wall.

  After the initial shock wore off, Desk Man raised a hand in a gesture of greeting. “You’re too late, my friend. Our business with Miss Braddon is completed.”

  Aaron looked down at Darwin, who wasn’t moving. Blood crept outward along the pale cement slab where he’d fallen. “The girl wanted revenge for her murdered brother. You Syndicate tossers do the same thing. Someone kills one of yours, you kill one of theirs.”

  “Not exactly,” said Desk Man. “We usually kill two or three to get the point across, and that little bitch wasn’t Syndicate. Pity she was so good with electronics. We could’a used her, but there was no trust there. She didn’t want to work anything out.”

  Aaron stepped over Darwin. “You’ve got two seconds to leave, or you’re all dead men.”

  Desk Man gestured at Aaron. “Kill him too.”

  The six men raised their bludgeons. Aaron disregarded them for the moment, seizing Desk Man with a telekinetic hold and sending his screaming bulk to the far right of the room. Anna walked up alongside on Aaron’s left.

  “This hardly seems fair,” she muttered. “There’s only seven of them.”

  He blamed himself for Shimmer, in the same way he wore the mantle of guilt for Allison. He reached the point of cracking, screaming random, incoherent obscenities. Desk Man’s pleading morphed into an unintelligible warble as a vengeful burst of telekinetic force sent him into the left wall, creating a hole not quite big enough for him. Fragments of cinderblock and gore spattered all over the adjacent room.

  Anna gestured at the largest man in the pack, launching him off his feet with an electrical discharge as big around as her arm. The smoking body hit the ground six feet away, still. The other five went from advancing to backing away.

  Aaron grabbed them all, snarling, and glided them to the same launch point from where Desk Man took his final flight. All five wailed and begged like children. Two wet themselves.

  Anna grabbed his arm. “Aaron, must you?”

  “Do you want to deal with their retaliation?”

  Three of them swore not to say a word.

  Little Anna stood up on tiptoe to get her face in his field of view. “Do you want to deal with murdering them?”

  He shuddered with rage. “They beat a defenseless girl to death and enjoyed doing it. This isn’t murder; it’s a summary execution for what they did to an innocent. If there’s any cop left in me…”

  “You’ll have them arrested.”

  Aaron couldn’t help but see Allison in her eyes. He stared down, feeling defeated for a moment. Two breaths later, he pointed at Shimmer. “Look at her. They’re Syndicate; they’ll be out in a few months.”

  “I suppose.” Anna bundled her coat and turned away from them, and Aaron.

  He flung them into wall, floor, and ceiling, breaking holes in plaster, cinderblock, and studs. One by one, the Syndicate men went from flailing panic to limp weight. Aaron dropped them in a heap.

  “They’re not dead. I just gave them a light thrashing. What about ’im then?”

  Anna exhaled, seeming relieved. “He’s just napping. That wasn’t a killing shock.”

  “A block of sweet coated in a bit of sour.” He sniffled.

  By the time he trudged to Shimmer’s body, the tears came unbidden. Grief hit him as heavy as if he watched himself kill Allison all over again.

  aron dropped to his knees at Shimmer’s side. Her sinewy figure lay in an ungainly face down sprawl, arms and legs spread. Gentle telekinetic force lifted her, rotated her over onto her back, and set her down in a serene pose. If not for the bruises on her face, she’d have looked asleep.

  Anna walked up behind him. “Are you all right?”

  He snuffled and wiped his eyes. “I’m becoming quite sick of stumbling over women people’ve taken advantage of.”

  “Not to sound too cruel, but… hello pot.”

  “That’s different.” He gestured at the girl on the floor in front of him. “Those were women, this is just a girl… The ones I…” Faces flashed by in his memory, dozens of women he’d known for one night. Who knows how many of them had been hurt when he never came back.

  Anna squatted behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

  “I found a tom in a motel room, and another girl these tossers used as bait. I should’ve done more for this one. I shouldn’t have left her there alone.” He launched the desk through the ceiling, shouting “fuck” loud enough to redden his face.

  The primal sound echoed into silence. She squeezed his shoulder.

  “Do you think Allison kept leading me to these kids, hoping I’d remember who I was?”

  “I dunno. That’s more a question for Aurora. I don’t really do the ghost thing. I just electrocute stuff.”

  Darwin let out a wheezing gurgle of a cough. His roommate and former friend curled on his side, one hand over the bullet hole in his chest. Anger overtook Aaron. He leapt to his feet and pounced on top of him.

  “You bastard!” Aaron pulled Darwin up by a fistful of his shirt collar and punched him in the nose. “How the fuck did you find her?”

  “Stone.”

  Aaron throttled him. “What?”

  “Frictionless… orb… recorder.” Darwin gurgled. “Saw you reading the maps.”

  Not only had his friend betrayed him, he’d used a frictionless game orb, a supposed gift, to do it. All the energy seeped out of Aaron’s voice. “Why?”

  “Heh.” Darwin gurgled again. “I dunno. Just wanted to. Couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Aaron, do you make a habit of being rash?” asked Anna.

  “Seems, aye.” He gazed at the blood seeping out of Darwin’s chest. “I shouldn’t have involved her in this.”

  Darwin closed his eyes. “You just gonna watch me die?”

  “Aye,” said Aaron. “Something like that.”

  He leaned back and gurgled, waiting for death. Anna swiped at the back of Aaron’s head. When he looked up at her, she tapped her temple. Aaron’s heart stopped for the second time in ten minutes.

  He seized Darwin by the shirt, two fists bunching up at the man’s throat as he leaned over him. Lightheadedness crept over his head from an opening telepathic link. Deep within the man’s brain lurked the telltale trace of a suggestive compulsion. The psionic adjustment looked recent, but Darwin had no memory of anyone who seemed a likely candidate for
the implant. Aaron forced an image of Talis into Darwin’s consciousness as bait, but it triggered nothing.

  She must’ve wiped the memory. He shook with rage. Random bits of debris rattled in the distance.

  Aaron lowered his fist. “Darwin, you were compelled. It wasn’t you.”

  “Son of a bitch.” He laughed up some blood. “I get it now. Why you drink so damn much.”

  “Hang on, mate.” Aaron patted himself down, searching every corner of his suit until he found a single stimpak in the jacket’s right pocket, clinking against Allison’s nameplate. He held it up. “Here we are.”

  A soft whine escaped Shimmer.

  “Aaron. She’s still got surface thoughts. She’s not dead.” Anna gave him a light slap in the back of the head again. “I was talking about her. Didn’t you think to look in her head before assuming she’d kicked it?”

  The small, red autoinjector slipped out of his hand. Darwin’s body shook as he forced one arm up and curled his fingers around the stimpak on his stomach. Aaron twisted on his knees to peer at the girl. Sure enough, she had weak surface thoughts; amid a fog of pain and lack of any desire to move, she believed she heard a faint male voice repeating her name. Real or imagined, her brother calling her was a bad sign.

  “I’ve summoned a MedVan,” muttered Anna.

  Aaron didn’t care a trauma team would come with police. Private citizens reporting gunshot wounds always triggered a Division 1 escort. He doubted Anna had a corporate gold or platinum service plan with Ancora Medical. They stopped asking questions at gold and would even help finish off your problem at platinum, if the risk wasn’t too great.

  Aaron grasped Darwin’s hand, squeezing it into the stimpak. One thumb flicked the yellow safety cap off the metal end as he twisted it over to point at his friend’s chest, and hesitated. Two rounds from a Class 5 handgun had left gaping wounds in his torso. A single stimpak seemed like putting a bandage on a missing arm. Still, it might buy time for the MedVan crew to save him.

  He listened to Shimmer’s brain again. Cory’s beckoning voice had grown louder. Lost in a dream, she pictured foggy hedgerows full of flowers in the shape of a maze. She imagined herself twelve again, playing hide-and-seek with her brother.

  Aaron stood. Darwin’s hands slipped off his, and the stimpak.

  “It’s okay, man…” Darwin wheezed. “I’ll hang on till the van gets here. Don’t let the kid die. She’s half my age.”

  Aaron hesitated. “Bullshit man, you’ve been shot. She took a beating.”

  “Yeah, been shot. Go on, man.” Darwin coughed. “You’re always savin’ the girls.”

  “Aye, that’s been working out so well for me.” He snarled, looking back and forth between them for a second.

  Shimmer convulsed.

  “Do it,” whispered Darwin.

  “Fuck.” Aaron rushed to her side, skidding to a halt on his knees and stabbing the autoinjector into her chest. He pushed down on it until the faint hiss ceased. After it fell silent, he dropped it and gathered her hand in his. “Come on, Lily…”

  He trembled, though he couldn’t tell if it came from the sight of Shimmer looking so dead or how close this felt to losing Allison. Once again, he found himself on his knees with a lifeless woman’s hand in his own. Even if he didn’t fire a gun that ended this girl’s life, exposing her hiding place was just as lethal. Aaron looked up at Anna, a wordless ask of ‘are they here yet?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught motion. Darwin’s arm slid lifeless from his chest and flopped to the ground at his side.

  “No.” Aaron squeezed Shimmer’s hand, gripped by the dread he’d wasted the stimpak. Finger-mark bruises covered her forearm.

  Anna’s boots clicked as she paced to the door, away from him.

  “Come on, Lily!” he shouted before trying telepathy. Lily! Come on out of that maze.

  Her surface thoughts had gone blank and dark. Darwin didn’t appear to be breathing. He stroked the back of her hand.

  “Anna, you should go. Don’t be here when the police arrive.”

  She shot him a worried look. “I don’t like that tone. You’re not giving up?”

  “I―”

  A loud crack made him jump. The smell of ozone hung in the air, and one of the Syndicate thugs moaned.

  Anna held up a sparking hand. “You dogsbodies stay right there. Next one won’t tickle.”

  Strength filled the girl’s hand; she squeezed his fingers and whispered, “Took you long enough.”

  “What?” He leaned over her, forcing her eyes open with his thumbs. “Did you just say something?”

  Her breathing forced blood out of the corners of her mouth. “I said it took you long enough to find me. Next time, get here before I get my ass kicked.”

  A distant siren lofted apart from the din of advert jingles and hovercar traffic.

  “I’m going to tell them you’re psionic.”

  She forced a frown. “Please don’t. I don’t wanna get the process. Damn police are as corporate as everything else in this piece of shit city.”

  “Gee, thanks. I used to be one of those cops.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe there’s some exceptions.”

  “It’s this POS city or spears and loincloths in the Badlands.” He patted her hand. “I think you like tech too much, but you’d look cute dressed as a tribal.”

  “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.”

  A rush of dust blasted off the front wall and swirled in the door. Intense light flooded the lobby area backed by the roar of high-output ion thrusters. Shimmer’s hand tightened around Aaron’s. She trembled.

  “Am I dead? Is… that… heaven?”

  Dark figures moved in the blue-white light, creating long, creeping shadows in the floating dust. Two men and a woman in immaculate white armor bearing the logo of Ancora Medical entered behind a pair of Division 1 patrol officers. A deep woman’s voice outside barked orders about perimeters and security. Aaron raised an eyebrow at the small laser pistols on the medic’s belts, Starpoint Pulsar 2s. One step down from an E-86, but still more than a match for anything a medical response team might run into.

  “No,” said Aaron. “But they’re as close to angels as you’ll ever meet.”

  Five Division 1 officers approached; the outer edges of their deep blue armor tinted white in the glare from behind. The medics moved around the police officers. The woman paused by Darwin for all of four seconds before joining the other medic at Shimmer’s side.

  “You called me Lily,” she whispered. “No one’s called me that since…”

  “Don’t talk, hon.” The medic pulled an amber visor down over his eyes, which lit up with a green grid and a horizontal outline of a body in various shades of red and blue. “Give us a little room, please.”

  Aaron backed up. Lily, those Syndicate wankers might not stop. They’ll think twice about comin’ after you if you’re with Zero. Organized criminals aren’t the only ones who take revenge to the next level.

  “I… suppose they pay well,” she whispered, right before passing out.

  A blue armored glove settled on his shoulder, drawing his gaze up a beefy arm to a full-face helmet. Two square spots darkened in the mirrored silver, on either side of Aaron’s warped reflection. No doubt the man inside ran his face through the system. The scanners would confirm he had no weapons or cybernetic implants.

  “Give ’em some space, and let the medics work. What happened here?”

  Aaron let the officer pull him upright and away. They swarmed on Shimmer, attaching tubes and wires connected to portable kits. The shorter man jogged out to retrieve a stretcher. More Division 1 officers came in, apparently summoned by his partner when he saw the pile of Syndicate thugs.

  One of the cops looked around as if lost. “Gene, did you see someone behind me? I swore I just bumped into a person.”

  “Nothin’ there man,” said a woman to his left.

  The cop escorting Aaron went rigid; armored gl
oves creaked around his compact rifle.

  “Yes,” said Aaron, sounding exasperated. I’m Division 0. On an undercover mission. The whole fugitive thing is a cover. He flashed the same smile that got him in bed with three women a few nights earlier. Whether or not Mikhail could make good on his offer, it couldn’t hurt to run with it.

  “Psionic,” muttered the cop. “How―”

  Aaron glanced at the man’s nameplate. Officer Diaz… Do you know I’m not making you think things? Easy. I’m not a suggestive. Check my file; I’m telekinetic with a dash of telepathy. If I was gaming you, I’d have left already. Of course, you understand why I can’t talk about this aloud. It’s a clandestine operation. Don’t breathe a word of it to anyone. The brass would be happier if you leave me entirely out of your report. You blokes can take all the credit for saving this girl from the Syndicate. He leaned to the right as they loaded Shimmer onto a floating stretcher. “Is she going to be all right?”

  The lead medic stood almost a head taller than Aaron. Sympathetic brown eyes set in dark brown skin softened. His appearance seemed incomplete without belt-long dreads, but that probably defied Ancora’s dress code. “Yeah. She’ll be sore for a few days but no permanent damage. There’s still some internal bleeding, but the stim shot slowed it down quite a bit.”

  Aaron smiled; the sudden lack of worry left him feeling tired.

  Diaz poked the rifle into his side. “Give me one reason why I should believe that.”

  Aaron’s used-hovercar-salesman smile felt mile-weary. Verify it if you like with Regional Commander Kovalev. The operation was authorized right from his desk, over three layers of command. Oh, and, please make sure the girl meets with someone from Div 0. She’s a psionic as well. I’d do it, but I’m tits deep in this undercover.

  “Uhh.” The officer looked around, lowering his weapon. “Okay… so, what is this mess?”

  Shimmer and her hover-gurney glided by, flanked on either side by the medics.