Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  Schmidt rubbed at his neck before nodding. “Yeah, of course. We all know the rules, sir.”

  “Good.”

  DARWIN, AUSTRALIA

  17.APR.2278

  The crowd in Ryland Square parted in almost biblical fashion at the arrival of one thousand bloodied, battered, angry soldiers.

  Despite all the death, despite the waves of infected still worming in through the bizarre safe zone that supposedly circled Darwin, Russell felt his heart swell at the sea of eyes around him. In those stares he saw hope, admiration, fear, and, simplest of all, resignation. A thousand soldiers had drained the fight out of the crowd like a plug pulled from a bath.

  Blackfield took care to meet none of those gazes. He kept his eyes locked on the entrance to Nightcliff. There a line of riot police stood, shields covering their bodies from chin to groin. Some held automatic weapons. Most held black truncheons. None held the expressions Blackfield had basked in from the crowd. No, these people were exhausted, hardened, soaked in bloodlust.

  Russell aimed for the one in the center and walked right toward her. She was a short woman, a bit plump. A splash of blood across her riot mask hid most of her face from view.

  “That’s far enough,” she said. There was no authority in her voice. She was parroting orders, nothing more.

  “Who’s in charge?” Russell asked.

  “Braithwaite,” she said.

  “Which one of you is Braithwaite?” Russell barked, glancing left and right along the line of police.

  The woman spoke. “He’s in the tower.”

  “Why? He a coward or something?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed for an instant. “He’s trying to keep the peace.”

  “He’s doing a hell of a job. What’s his title?”

  “Head of security, and he’s ordered that no one enter Nightcliff without his express permission.”

  “Well go and fucking get permission, sweetcakes.”

  She ignored the endearment. “Who should I say is asking?”

  “The army, you blind cow!” He’d shouted louder than he’d intended. The woman jumped as if slapped. “Lieutenant Russell Blackfield in command. That should be enough to get the wag’s ear. In fact I want him to come out here and chat. Tell him. Hurry along, love. Double time.”

  She stumbled back, turned, and ran for the enormous cylindrical tower in the distance.

  The crowd, silenced when the troops had arrived, began to whisper among themselves. The whispers grew to conversations. Talk was fine, as long as they weren’t rioting.

  Russell turned to Schmidt. He grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him close. “Pass word along to the men. Whatever food or booze they looted on the way here, share it. Smile and nod, be friendly. I want this crowd on our side when this bloke arrives. I want it clear that we made ’em settle.”

  “Gave yourself a field promotion, eh?” Schmidt said.

  “And why the hell not? You get one, too, come to think of it. Now zip that shit up and spread the orders.”

  “Understood,” Schmidt replied, and turned away. He couldn’t have hid his half smile if he’d wanted to.

  By the time the thin gray-haired man came up behind the line of riot police, the mood of the crowd had become almost like a celebration. They quieted as if compelled by some sixth sense when Braithwaite reached the perimeter.

  Russell looked him up and down. Old, flabby. Tufts of white hair poking out from nostrils and ears. The type of man who liked to sip tea and complain about progress.

  “Who are you?” the man demanded.

  “I’m your bloody salvation, mate,” Russell said.

  —

  They chatted under sulfur-yellow light in the recessed loading dock of a nearby warehouse. Out of sight of the crowd and the soldiers, Russell felt naked. Braithwaite must feel the same, and with his flabby old bag-of-bones body Russell figured he still had the upper hand.

  “Right, so what’s the score?” Russell asked. “We’ve heard damn little from anyone.”

  “Now just a minute,” the old man replied. “I’m in charge here. If you and your men intend to stay you’ll have to take orders from me.”

  Russell curled his hands into fists and planted them on his hips. “Bullshit,” he said.

  Arthur Braithwaite glanced up, startled. Fear gleamed in his eyes if only for a second. That was enough. “Excuse me?”

  “Here’s how this is going to work,” Russell said. “First: I’m the highest-ranking officer in the army at this moment, and my troops answer to me and me only.”

  Braithwaite’s jaw gesticulated for a moment, then he managed a single, tiny nod.

  “Second,” Russell said, “you appoint me head of security. Give yourself a new title. I’m under you, but in terms of keeping the riff-raff out of this place, that’s my job and I’ll do it as I see fit. Agreed?”

  “Now wait—”

  “Third: I see a hotel over there. Pretty nice one. I don’t care who is in it currently, my men and I will be appropriating accommodations for ourselves. It’s the barracks, for now.”

  “Hang on—”

  “Look,” Russell said, stepping in so close he could smell the bourbon on the other man’s breath, “you need me and my soldiers if you want to keep this place operational. I hear the Elevator is the only thing keeping us all from becoming like those animals out there, so keeping the damned thing safe is probably a good idea, don’t you agree?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “No buts. Just say ‘agreed’ and we’ll shake hands. No offense, mate, but you look like the sort of man who issues orders via interoffice-fucking-memo. All I’m asking you to do is let me handle the situation on the ground. I’m not much for big-picture stuff anyway, so you can have it.”

  “Well, how kind of you to allow me the privilege,” Braithwaite snarled.

  Grinning, Russell clapped him on the shoulder. “There’s a bit of backbone! The old man’s got some spark left, yet! All right, then. I think we’ll get along just fine.” He extended his hand.

  After several seconds, Braithwaite shook it.

  DARWIN, AUSTRALIA

  16.APR.2278

  The air clung, indistinguishable from sweat.

  Nigel and Rebecca emerged into a maze of low warehouses dotted with the occasional six- or seven-story office complex. Most were dark, unguarded except electronically. A few times Nigel saw armed security doing their rounds, but they paid little attention to the passage of a couple such as this. Rebecca kept to alleys when possible, darker streets when not. She took turns seemingly at random, and once out of the industrial zone she ducked into a massage parlor and pretended to study the menu of services for a while.

  He realized belatedly she was studying the screen of her comm, held low in front of her.

  Cars and trucks hummed by on the narrow street outside, spraying the remnants of an earlier rain shower into a mist that faded in their wake. People, immigrants mostly, shuffled by with their heads down.

  “Shit,” Rebecca muttered.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “No signal, not even Hocs. That’s not possible.”

  “And yet…” He studied her, a twinge of sympathy creeping into his thoughts. “Try somewhere else, closer to where the fat cats live.”

  She shook her head. “I know a place where we can hide out until I can reach Gr—” she stopped herself short of the slip. “My employer.”

  “This place wouldn’t be a luxury hotel by any chance?”

  “Parking garage,” Rebecca said, walking again. A graceful shadow against the gaudy storefronts.

  He fell in step, dragon-headed cane clacking on the damp sidewalk rhythmically. Rumble on the pitch. Rumble on the pitch. The phrase had continued to tumble around his head, and now he uttered it internally with each step.

  Eventually she turned down a crumbling two-lane road lined with shuttered storefronts, streetlights just branchless concrete trees, broken and useless. Dark forms loomed
in shadowed alcoves. Demonic faces lit red-orange by the tips of foul-smelling joints.

  Nigel tested his bruised leg. Pain flared with each step, but nothing a tight grimace couldn’t keep at bay. Still, he maintained the limp, content to be underestimated.

  Eventually Rebecca stopped in front of the barricaded entrance to a parking garage. A long rolling gate blocked the way inside, kept shut by a chain with a combination lock. Despite the darkness she dialed in the code with surprising speed. Unchained, the gate still required the strength of both of them to push aside enough for them to slip through. There’d be motors in the wall somewhere, probably in disrepair. He wondered how long this awful stretch of road would languish before the city’s Elevator-fueled prosperity reclaimed it. Darwin’s explosion of growth since the alien relic arrived seemed unstoppable. Well, except for the whole end-of-the-world business.

  Rebecca locked the gate behind them and led the way down a spiraling concrete ramp. By the end Nigel could see nothing at all. He used the cane as a probe for obstacles, letting her soft footfalls determine the pace.

  Three levels belowground she stopped. The air had a bite and smelled of mildew. A loud click preceded the hum of electricity. Weak urine-yellow light crept into the space, cast from a bank of LEDs mounted on a tripod. A new wall had been hastily erected where the driveway should continue on into the parking area. Prefab sections of chain-link fence lay in a stack off to one side.

  “What is this place?” Nigel asked, voice echoing in the large room and on up the spiral ramp.

  “Heard about it a month back. Two workers, grumbling about how the local slumlord had hired them to convert a garage into an underground club for drug raves. But the slumlord died. His son fired everyone and fled the country. I found it, cut the gate’s power, and added a lock.”

  “How forward-thinking of you.”

  She shrugged and moved farther in, stopping to unlock a reinforced door that looked like something yanked from a retro gentlemen’s club. Even from a distance Nigel recognized the deadbolt as one he could pop in less than twenty seconds. He filed that knowledge. Rebecca continued into the garage proper: a massive concrete room dotted with square pillars. She flipped on another bank of work lights.

  Effort had been made to add flimsy walls between some of the pillars to divide the space, though only a few portions had been painted. In the far corner a room had been built. Rebecca walked inside and lit a camping lantern set on a large oak desk, revealing the beginnings of an office.

  “A fine place to run a drug empire,” Nigel said.

  Rebecca flashed her half smile. “There’s some medical supplies in the bathroom. How’s your leg?”

  “I won’t turn down a painkiller or five.”

  She gestured to a large executive’s chair behind the desk. “Get off your feet. I’ll be right back.”

  When she’d gone he sighed and moved to the offered seat. He leaned his cane against the wall and lowered himself into the cushion. The plush leather squeaked against his coat.

  Somewhere in the cavernous garage a steady drip of water kept the silence from being absolute. Rhythmic, like his cane on the sidewalk. Like that stupid song in the elevator. Like slow-motion gunfire.

  Nigel levered the seat back and closed his eyes. He imagined himself back in Sydney, minutes away from a fat commission and a quick flight home. That outcome felt suddenly more alien than the Builders’ great Elevator itself.

  An image swam into his mind. The crack of a fist on the jaw of a cricketer, the spray of blood through sputtering lips. “Beginning of the end, that rumble on the pitch…” Nigel sang softly, and slept.

  —

  When he woke the lantern had been turned down to a dim glow. A grease-stained bag rested on the desk, the irresistible smell of a meat pie and fries wafting from within. Beside it stood a sweating glass bottle of ginger beer.

  Beside that, two red pills.

  He levered the seat back up. Something tugged at his arm. A chain rattled as he moved. He eyed it, followed the gray links from a handcuff on his left wrist to another latched to a metal rung on the floor, previously hidden beneath a patch of carpet. “Dammit,” he growled. He glanced around, patting without success at the breast of his duster for the locksmithing kits formerly concealed there.

  He saw the two kits on the far corner of the desk. Nearby but out of reach. A note rested atop them:

  Sorry, but you’re my ticket out of this mess. Back soon.

  He took a healthy swig of the beverage, popped the red pills in his mouth, and swallowed. The pie he tore into with ravenous urgency. Sated, he munched thoughtfully on the fries, his gaze absently defocused on the room’s only light. The LEDs within the lantern began to blur and swim after a time.

  “Drugged,” he said. Aloud or not he didn’t know. He tried to turn in the chair, the motion that of a flailing drunk. The chain snapped at his wrist, painfully. Something fell to the floor behind him. “Cane!” he bellowed, the word slurring. He groped for it even as the edges of his vision began to darken. Keeping his eyes open became a conscious effort. His fingers brushed the wooden shaft and he coaxed it into his palm.

  A tingling sensation began to fill his body. Hurry, he thought. He spun the chair back and patted the cane across the desk until he heard it hit the plastic case of his lock picks. The cane felt like a mallet in his numbing limb as he tried to gently shove the two stacked boxes toward him. Too slow, too slow.

  The sound of his own breaths began to drag.

  The last thing he heard was the sound of the boxes clattering to the floor.

  —

  A hand on his shoulder woke him. He blinked and waited for his eyes to focus. It seemed to take forever. His head felt like a jug of water.

  “Wake up,” someone said. A man’s voice.

  Nigel grunted. “When I’m ready.” To his own ear he sounded like some drugged-up washout after an all-nighter. He tried to look at the person in front of him and winced in the glare of a flashlight.

  “Does he have the rash?” someone asked. A different voice.

  “Negative,” a third said.

  The first man spoke again, his voice nasal and thin, like a weasel in human form. “The woman claims you possess knowledge regarding Nightcliff’s safe. True?”

  Nigel swallowed. They spoke like police officers, not street thugs. “Who…Who’s asking?”

  “A representative of Nightcliff.”

  With an effort Nigel rubbed his eyes with his free hand. The room swam into focus. A man leaned over the table in front of him. He had long stringy hair and the kind of eyes that would frighten children. He wore a gray overcoat. The two men standing behind him wore army uniforms, and had compact machine guns drawn and ready. Nigel cleared his throat. “Where is she?”

  Weasel-man ignored the question. “Are you capable of entering that safe or not?”

  “Not with a gun in my face. Where’s Rebecca?”

  “Indisposed.”

  “Dead?”

  The man glanced about the room. “She said you ran some kind of empire from here.”

  “She said that? I…” Nigel stopped himself. Possibilities unfolded in his mind. Intending to or not, heard correctly or not, Rebecca had nevertheless given him a gift. This was a new world, and he could make his own identity in it. Willing calm, Nigel spoke carefully. “I’m renovating. Who are you?”

  For a moment the man just sat there, sizing Nigel up, as if deciding how much patience he should expend here. “Kip Osmak. Assistant to Chief Constable Arthur Braithwaite, acting commander of Nightcliff.”

  Nigel leaned forward in the chair, the squeak of his leather duster on the cushion masking the sound of the rattling chain. He glanced upward, groping for clear thoughts, and saw a small black dome attached to the ceiling just inside the door. Security camera. Dead or disconnected most likely, but that wouldn’t be common knowledge. “Get all that, Verna?” he said to the dome. Verna? Sorry, Mum. First name that came to mind.

>   Kip turned and followed Nigel’s gaze. His friends did the same. Unobserved, Nigel probed around on the floor by his feet until he found the box that contained his implements. He opened it and began to run his fingers across the tiny tools.

  The weasel turned back, his façade of confidence drained away.

  “Tell me something,” Nigel said. Below the table he slid what he hoped was the right tool from its sleeve, resting the case between his legs. “Since when is the army enforcing law in Darwin, anyway?”

  Kip licked his lips, tongue darting like a lizard’s. “Destroy that camera,” he said. One of the soldiers obeyed. He bashed the security camera three times, each swing more zealous than the last. The second blow cracked the glass shell, the third shattered it.

  As shards rained down Nigel let the chain fall from his wrist and slipped the lock pick into his sleeve.

  Kip turned back, dropping the cane on the desk with a dull thud. “Would one of you please guard the entrance? And the other, search the other floors for this Verna and anyone else? Blackfield was specific. No witnesses.”

  The two men turned in unison and departed.

  “They won’t find anything,” Nigel said. “Verna is in Dublin, Ireland. That’s a remote feed. Can’t be too cautious.”

  Understanding grew across Kip’s face. “Ah, I see. You’ve been down here all along. You think there’s still a world beyond Darwin. Do you have any idea what’s going on out there?” He gestured broadly.

  “A flu or something.”

  Kip shook his head. “It’s not that simple.” He rattled off a story so bizarre Nigel thought it could be nothing other than true. Darwin had become a safe haven against an otherwise all-consuming disease. Billions dead. Billions. Millions surviving as some kind of murderous shadow of their former selves. And then there was Darwin, or at least the portion of it closest to the Elevator. The last safe place. An island surrounded by toxic air, under constant assault from the murderous hordes who bore crimson rashes on their necks. An island, Nigel realized, that no cargo ship would ever reach. A new world indeed…