Zero

by J. S. Collyer

  “Morning, Captain,” Webb said. “Have some of this coffee. Don't know where Doll gets it from but it's dynamite.”

  “It's sometimes good to have connections,” Doll said.

  Hugo blinked. Harvey was sat on one of the kitchen stools, head bowed as Doll ran a pair of clippers over her head. Hugo felt something shift inside him as the last of Harvey's yellow curls fell to the floor. She looked up, shook her head and ran her hands over the shaved locks, brushing away the last stray strands. Hugo felt his breath catch when she looked up and smiled, the missing hair making her face look rounder, younger, her eyes standing out as a more brilliant green than before. Her smile faltered and Hugo realised he was staring and looked away, feeling his cheeks flush.

  Webb was grinning at him, still holding out the coffee. “Suits her, huh, Hugo?”

  Hugo took the mug, glowering.

  “Should save you from everything but a close look,” Doll said, brushing hair form Harvey's shoulders. “I have an old welding tunic I don't fit into any more. You wear that too, you're just another solder-monkey.”

  “Thanks, Doll,” Harvey said, running her hand over her head. “You got a scarf too?”

  She nodded. “Somewhere. Hold on.”

  Harvey got to her feet and dusted herself off. “Right, I'm ready.”

  Hugo swallowed his mouthful of coffee. “Ready for what?”

  “We need supplies,” Harvey said. “Unless you're planning on glowering the Splinters into submission?”

  “You're not going on your own, Harvey,” Hugo said.

  Harvey frowned, hands on hips. “I'm more likely to be recognised if I get spotted with either of you two trigger-happy morons. Unless you want me to take the clippers to that lot, Webb?”

  “Hands off,” Webb growled as he poured another coffee.

  “Kaleb?” Harvey said with a half-grin, waving the clippers. Hugo ran a hand through his hair. He'd never worn it so long.

  “Not so fast,” Webb warned. “He still walks too much like a soldier. You give him a trooper haircut he'll stick out a mile.”

  Harvey put the clippers down and Hugo swore she actually pouted. “Pity. I think it would look good.”

  “It did,” Webb said, smiling around his coffee mug.

  Hugo frowned at the pair of them as Doll returned.

  “Here you go.” She handed Harvey a dust-scarf and grey welding tunic. Harvey zipped the tunic on over her flight suit, turning up the collar and wrapped the scarf around her face.

  “That'll do,” she said. “Don’t wait up.”

  “Stay on the comm,” Webb shouted after as she left.

  “I've got to go too,” Doll said, zipping up her own tunic and grabbing a pair of goggles off the side. “Spare keycards are in the lockbox. And get some food in you, the pair of you.”

  Webb watched her leave and as soon as there was the sound of the door closing above, he drained his coffee.

  “Right, come on Hugo.”

  “Come on where?” Hugo said, downing his own.

  “You wanted to get started right away.”

  “Shouldn't we wait for weapons?”

  “Here,” Webb pulled a gun out of his waistband and handed it over. “Now come on.”

  ɵ

  Webb seemed to be moving better today. He was barely limping and his back was straight, his movements more fluid. He didn't take them back through the maintenance decks but through a maze of alleys and out onto a main groundway to a shuttle stop.

  “Keep your head down, Hugo,” he muttered, though Hugo didn't need to be told again. He took a handhold and didn't make eye contact with any of the people crowded into the shuttle. He made out lots more welding tunics and some med tunics, boiler suits and lots and lots of cargo boots. The view out the window as the shuttle climbed above building-level showed mile after mile of factories, warehouses and meltworks with only the occasional and ill-maintained spacescraper breaking up the metal-and-concrete landscape. The shuttle stopped at each of the megastructures and people shuffled on and off in near-silence.

  “Where are we going?” Hugo murmured.

  “Sector 2,” Webb replied. “Spinn said the Splinters had some other buildings around there. And there's a bar owned by someone who has fenced for them before. We may be able to catch some news of Armin.”

  “Why does everything we do start in a bar?” Hugo grumbled.

  Webb raised his eyes to Hugo's long enough to smirk. “Welcome to the underworld, Captain.”

  “Do you not have any trustworthy points that could give us some solid information?”

  “Most points I wouldn't trust enough to dare start poking for leads on the Splinters,” Webb said. “And those I would trust, well, they're too valuable to get caught up in this mess.”

  “So what in the hell use are any of them?”

  Webb frowned. “Ask me that when we're not attempting to bring down a terrorist ring that has designs on their whole fucking colony, Hugo.”

  Hugo shut his mouth but ground his teeth, frustration and just a little fear mounting in his insides as the shuttle lumbered on. Webb finally had them get off at a ground-level stop on another busy groundway. The walkway was teeming with workers, a lot of them pushing or pulling lifters. Most of the vehicles that moved along the groundway had cargo of some kind.

  “Trading sector,” Webb mumbled as they moved down a narrower street into the shadows of some taller buildings. There was less foot-traffic on these streets but several of the buildings had openings in the walls at every level with lifters and forklifts being used to load and unload boxes and crates of cargo. Webb wove amongst the machinery and people in overalls with panels shouting orders. Hugo kept to his heels. No one gave them a second glance.

  “There,” Webb said at last.

  On the other side of the street was a three-story building with a sheet-iron roof and dark windows. There was no sign but the door stood open and Hugo watched as people in overalls came and went through the entrance.

  “Okay, Hugo. Head down. Here we go.”

  Webb crossed the street and walked in through the door, Hugo close behind. He peered into the gloom, making out benches and tables and booths along one wall, some gaming equipment in the corner and an unmanned bar with cracked panels laid in its top. Despite the hour there were already clusters of people at the tables with bottles of drink and bowls of food, some of whom looked like they might still be there from the night before. Only the people closest to the door looked up as they came in and their glances slid away, uninterested. He scanned the faces he could see and didn't know whether to be frustrated or relieved when he didn't recognise any Splinters amongst them.

  Hugo started to move toward the booth in the furthest corner with the thickest shadows when Webb took a hold of his elbow and steered him to one closer to the bar.

  “You take that booth it looks like you're trying to hide,” Webb murmured as he gestured for Hugo to take a seat. “Stay here.”

  Hugo tried to look around without making it obvious whilst Webb went to the bar and tapped into one of the panels. He saw his commander crane his neck and glance around as two bottles of beer rose out of a sliding section of the bar. He returned with the bottles, shaking his head.

  “No one here I recognise,” he said, still scanning the crowd. “But that's doesn't necessarily mean anything.”

  “Who's the owner you mentioned?”

  “Name's Callum Hannah,” Webb said. “He's more of a rat than a proper fence. Buys and sells info but that's about it. Small potatoes really. But he's not above doing deals with the likes of the Splinters -”

  “Shit...” Hugo said, fingers tightening around his beer bottle.

  “What?” Webb said, following Hugo's gaze to a door behind the bar through which three figures had just emerged.

  “It's Armin,” Hugo said, shifting round so his back was to them.

  “You sure?”

  Hugo nodded.

  “Keep looking at me,” Webb hissed,
though his own eyes were watching over Hugo's shoulder. “Don't turn round. Drink.”

  Hugo took a swig of the sour beer, trying not to grimace as it roiled in his empty stomach.

  “He's with Hannah,” Webb mumbled, beer in front of his face. “I can't decide if this if good luck or really, really bad luck. Shit. Keep still, they're looking this way.”

  Hugo turned his face to the wall, leaning back in his seat in what he hoped was a casual way and took another mouthful of beer. Webb did the same, idly mapping out patterns on the scarred table top with his fingers and gazing into the middle distance. Then his fingers paused and he glanced back toward the front door.

  “They've gone.”

  Hugo let out a breath and put the beer down. “That was too close.”

  “No shit. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.”

  “Follow him.”

  Webb put his own beer down with a clank. “What?”

  “It might take us days to track him down again and we need more information about him. I can't come, he'll recognise me.”

  Webb rubbed his mouth, glancing from Hugo to the door and back again. Then he nodded and fished a set of keycards from his pocket “You remember the way back to Doll's?” Hugo nodded, taking the cards. “Get yourself there and lock yourself in.”

  “Have you got a comm?” Hugo asked as Webb rose.

  “I do, but you don't so it's not much use.”

  Hugo grunted, rubbing his bandaged wrist where his wrist panel usually was.

  “Don't sweat it, Hugo. I'll be back. Harvey'll be back at Doll's soon and she's got a comm.”

  After a nod from Hugo, Webb strolled across the dingy room and out the front door and was gone. The prickle of guilt was back but he swamped it with resolve and another mouthful of beer, counted to a hundred then left.

  ɵ

  For a while after getting back to Doll’s, all Hugo could do was sprawl on the bench and glare at the wall. He went over the warehouse mission again and again, attempting to pick apart any details that might be useful for formulating a plan, but his head was throbbing again and all he could remember in any detail was the hollow face of Armin with his drilled-out eyes.

  With a growl of frustration he pulled himself up off the bench and booted up the workstation. It turned on quickly despite its battered appearance, and was connected to the Lunar 1 mainframe and the solarnet. Hugo felt his spirits lift a little and started searching through everything he could find recorded on the Splinters. He searched the local records and news reports, the public property listings and even some of the gossip and rumour boards that weren't coded, but tracked down next to nothing.

  Grunting in frustration, he logged onto the solarnet and searched Orbit-wide news networks and records but still came up with little besides historical reports and a little Analyst data that classified them as inactive. He leant back in his chair, rubbing his face, wishing he could put Rami and Spinn on the case. He closed down all his dead-end searches and then after the slightest hesitation typed Donatella McCullough into a new one. He swallowed, clicked search and began to read.

  “You know I would have told you if you'd asked.”

  Hugo spun around to see Doll closing and locking the door behind her.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I needed to know -”

  “That you could trust me?” Her smile was soft and a little sad.

  “Can we?” Hugo said.

  “I may not be Service-mad, my boy, but don't worry. I do not have the leanings of my late husband. I didn't then. I don't now.”

  “You kept his name.”

  She shrugged. “I loved Duran. Still do. The part of him I knew anyway. He wasn't a bad man. He just had strong beliefs about a future for his people.”

  “He was willing to sacrifice a hell of a lot of those people for those beliefs.”

  Doll regarded him coolly. “If I were mean-spirited I would mention the amount the Service was willing to and did sacrifice in retaliation. But that's not something I like to think about much. Come. I bet you ignored me earlier when I told you to eat.”

  Hugo followed her down into the kitchen where she shrugged herself out of her tunic and set about boiling water and opening tins.

  “Did you know what he was going to do? Governor McCullough?” Hugo asked quietly.

  “No. I watched him watch his people trying to scrape lives out of vacuum and saw the anger build. But I didn't realise where he was going until it was too late,” she said, pouring the contents of a can into a pan. “I tried anyway. For the sake of peace, I told myself. But his drives were always more powerful than his desire for personal happiness. I left when I saw he wouldn't come back from the edge. I came here to attempt to do my bit to ease the fallout.”

  “A youth unit?”

  “St Augustine's,” she said, turning round and leaning against the counter. “That shows up in my records, does it? Interesting.”

  “That's where you met Webb?” Hugo guessed.

  “It was the only unit that managed to hold on to him long enough to name him. He was happy there, I think. For a while. Then the Service came for him.”

  Hugo felt the blood drain from his face. “You know?”

  “Oh, yes, I know,” Doll said, turning and getting mugs out from a cupboard. “The Endeavour, the Zero, everything. I was there when Spinn made the deal.”

  “Spinn?”

  “He was the recruiting agent. He brokered the deal with St. Augustine's for a young, nameless orphan with intelligence and potential.”

  “What was the deal?”

  She shrugged, not looking at him. “An offer the unit couldn't refuse, apparently. Then they took him away in the night. And I let them.”

  Silence stretched between them for a while as Doll stirred the mixture on the electric stove and made up mugs of sweet-smelling tea.

  “They gave him a life,” Hugo said into the quiet.

  “They bought his life. Like you would buy a flyer or a shipwright contract. They bought him, programmed him and now they own him. Just like the rest of that crew.”

  “The Service saved all that crew from youth units and backwaters,” Hugo said, willing anger to flare. “Without the Zero they'd be lost.”

  “They'd be free,” she said mildly as she placed a plate and a mug in front of him.

  “They'd probably be dead. Or worse.”

  “At least they would have made their own paths.”

  Hugo shook his head, glaring at the food.

  “Here,” she said, handing him a fork. “Eat.”

  He looked up at her, took in her shorn head and the shrapnel scars on her face. She had a heaviness in her eyes. Then he took the fork and started on the stew. It was synthetic meat but the sauce was rich and savoury and he dug in, unable to deny how hungry he was.

  “Webb has a purpose,” Hugo lumbered on, not looking up as Doll sat and started on her own lunch. “And St. Augustine's benefited.”

  “After they took Ezekiel, the Service paid off the managers and shut the unit down. It was about the same time their hold on Lunar 1 slackened all round. I tried to keep track of what happened to him, but that’s not so easy with the Zero. Next time I saw him he was the man you know and it was too late to save him. I have since faced up to the fact that it was too late the minute I let them take him away. Maybe even before then.” Her face took on a far away look for a moment before she took another mouthful.

  “So the youth unit closed down and you buried yourself away in the meltworks?”

  “It's a living. And I hear things. It helps me keep track of the bigger picture and not forget who I am or what I've done.” She looked up at him. “You think I'm full of shit, don't you?” Hugo swallowed his mouthful but didn't answer. “That's okay. I hope you never have to come to understand what it's like to fail someone who depended on you. Finish your tea.”

  Hugo scraped his plate clean and swallowed the last mouthful of his tea and Doll took the dishes to the washer.

  “I
met your parents once, you know,” she said. “Many years ago, in Sydney, when Duran was still using words to try and win his battles. They were fine people, I remember. Stood tall and talked well. Every inch of both of them said they belonged to something they believed in. But what about you, Hugo?”

  “What about me?”

  “Do you believe the Service is worth your life?”

  “I believe in peace,” Hugo said. “The Service fights for peace. So I fight for the Service.”

  “Fighting for peace,” Doll shook her head. “I never understood that notion.”

  “Peace has to be won,” Hugo said, wishing his palms would stop sweating.

  “You saved a lot of lives with that decision you were publicly disgraced for,” Doll said as she straightened and closed up the washer. “Do you think the Service shares your idea of what peace actually is?”

  “Whatever the outcome of my actions,” Hugo said. “I disobeyed orders.”

  “To do what you thought was right.”

  “If everyone thought they knew better, the system would crumble. The Orbit would fall into anarchy.”

  “Is that what your parents taught you?”

  “It's what life has taught me. Look what happened on this colony. And on Haven.”

  “You ever been to Haven, Hugo?” Doll asked.

  Her change in tack caused him to frown. He shook his head, wiping his damp hands on his trousers.

  “You should. It would be educational.” She pulled her tunic back on and then stood looking at him for a while. “Tread carefully Hugo. And I don't just mean on Lunar 1.”

  He sat and glowered around the kitchen for a while after she left the apartment again, waiting for the whirling uncertainty to settle into anything: determination, indignation, anger. But his mind kept flowing between everything like rainwater down rocks and couldn't catch a hold. He growled and got up and went back up the stairs, thinking he'd go back to the workstation, when the door buzzer went. He paused on the stairs and it buzzed again. He climbed the rest of the stairs and stood staring at the intercom, heart thumping.