Zero Sum

by B. Justin Shier

  The air was chill. The house was quiet. He was waiting for my answer.

  I looked him straight in his dank grey eyes and slipped off my sweater and shirt.

  “Na. I just wanted to make it easier on you. Last time you hit like a girl.”

  One squared is one.

  Two squared is four.

  Three squared is nine.

  Four squared is blurry.

  Five squared is—

  “Jeez, Dieter. You always look so constipated when you’re sleeping?”

  I jolted awake.

  A warm hand patted my head.

  “Easy there, white boy. I’m not here for reparations.”

  I opened my eyes against the sun. I was resting on a soft quilted blanket. Birds were chirping. Kids were laughing. Elliot. I was at Elliot College. Mount Sleeping Giant was sitting off in the distance. Las Vegas was thousands of miles away…and Monique Rice was standing above me, her chocolate brown arms resting on her hips. A big smile was planted on her face. She looked thoroughly amused. I took a moment to admire her lengthy braids. They always reminded me of sun chimes.

  Behind her, Jay Dante let out a yawn. I felt for him. It had been a long time since any of us had some rest.

  “What’s up, captain?” I asked.

  “What’s up?” she asked. “What’s up is that I told you not to nap here. You’ve already got a sunburn.” Like most everyone else, Monique was still wearing her gym clothes. Most of us had lost everything when the dorms were bombed last evening. The school’s supply of gym clothes was about all we had.

  I wrinkled my sun-toasted nose. She had a point. I was burning. But I decided to be difficult anyway.

  “Are you my mother?”

  Monique rolled her eyes at me.

  “I don’t know, Dieter. Do you need one?”

  “Actually…”

  Roster snorted awake beside me. Jolting up, he knocked me over.

  “Where the ladies at?” he asked.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Monique groaned.

  Roster was training to be a cataphract knight. I wasn’t totally clear on what that was, but apparently it required every one of his abs to be able wage war independently. He ran a hand over the top of his shaved dome and gestured to the wrecked dorms in the distance.

  “They clear us to go in, yet?”

  “That’s why I came over to wake you two love birds up,” Monique said. “Let’s get a move on. They’re only giving us two hours. They want to start bulldozing ΙΚΛΜ by sundown.”

  “Freakin’-A,” Roster grumbled.

  “Freakin’-A,” I agreed.

  “Am I going to have to bust out the jar?” Monique threatened. “The two of you with the cursing…I mean, seriously!”

  +

  We spent the afternoon combing through our wrecked dorm. The guys’ side was nearest to the blast, and all I managed to salvage were a pair of socks, my indestructible, Japanese designed, vacuum-sealed thermos, and a single melted flip-flop. The Emperor Palpatine poster survived too. We all marveled at that one for a while. In another stroke of luck, Dante found Sadie Thompson’s bunny mug. When he brought it over to her, she started crying again. Turned out, it was a gift from her dad. She spent the rest of the afternoon cradling it on our ruined couch. Jules sat and talked with her while the rest of us finished up. I was really worried about Sadie. The strain of not knowing whether her parents had survived the assault on Portland must have been terrible. And now she was being asked to get into that fight herself…it didn’t seem fair.

  After scrounging what little we could from our own room, Dante and I went over to give Sheila a hand. A large beam from the roof had split Sheila and Monique’s room in two. Sheila was digging through the scrap heap that was once her bed.

  “It’s under here somewhere,” she said, her feet straight in the air.

  “Wow,” Dante muttered. He spent a moment taking in the sight.

  “Don’t worry, Sheila,” I said. “We’ll dig whatever you need out from under there.”

  Shaking his head clear, Dante nodded and agreed.

  Rummaging through the debris was a welcomed change of pace. It was straightforward work. All I had to do was lift and toss. There was no magic or explosions. No men dying. Just a big pile of junk to move. The task reminded me of cleaning dishes at Newmar’s Restaurant. I let myself fall into the task.

  As we were getting near the bottom, Monique yelled at us from the ground floor. “Alright guys, let’s finish up. We only have an hour of daylight left. I’ve got some boxes and dollies. Let’s start moving our stuff to Central.”

  “Right on, capt’n,” Dante replied. “Just give us a minute and we’ll be right over.” With his one good arm Dante tossed off another piece of plaster. My own shoulder was protesting vigorously, so his broken collarbone must have been plain screaming. Every now and then he let loose a wince, but other than that, you’d never have known.

  I noted his behavior with a grunt. Dante grew up on a farm. That’s how they rolled.

  A few minutes later, we reached the mattress and yanked it off, revealing a tightly packed duffle bag and a long cylindrical black case. My dad had a similar one, a remnant of his fish-master phase.

  “Geez, Sheila,” I said noting the case, “I didn’t know you fished. You should teach us sometime.”

  I reached down to heave up the bag and nearly yanked my shoulder back out its socket.

  “Hey! This thing weighs a ton. What’s in here, rocks?”

  “Na, bud. Steel,” Dante explained.

  “They make steel fly rods?”

  “It’s not a fly-rod, Dieter. It’s just you can’t go walking around town with something like Caladbolg. It’s either this or an instrument case.”

  “Caladbolg?” I had no freaking clue what Dante was talking about.

  “Sheila’s last name is Mordred, remember?”

  “Yea. What’s your point?”

  “My point is—”

  “Let’s go boys and girls,” Monique shouted.

  “Thanks for the help,” Sheila said. Reaching through the crack, she yanked out the long cylinder with ease.

  “No problem,” Dante said happily. “Anytime you need me, we’ll come running, right Dieter?”

  “Sure.” I couldn’t think of a time when Sheila needed a hand with anything.

  “Let me get that for you,” Dante said, grabbing the duffle. He hefted it over his shoulder like a heavy bag of salt.

  I stepped off the pile, dusted myself off, and ran over to grab my belongings. I counted my blessings. You never knew whom you’d get as a roommate. Dante sure was a nice guy.

  +

  I sniffed at the chill cavern air. It still smelled like sour wine. I hadn’t been back in Central’s enormous basement since the grape juice incident. Jules hated the place. She claimed magic went funky this close to a leyline. And nobody liked the cold. The administration had supplied some cots, which we set up next to the elevator. We even had use of the locker room for showers and the like, but it didn’t feel like home. Dante and I made busy making beds while Monique, Roster, and Sheila went to ‘scare off the bats.’

  I made a mental note not to stray too far from the lights.

  “Oi! Yanks!” Jules shouted. She was stumbling down the stairs with our laundry.

  “Did the plaster come out?” Dante asked as he took the hamper from her.

  “That it did. But I lost every single dress my grams sent me.”

  “They were getting a bit long in the tooth, Jules.” There was this dull green one that actually had ruffles…I shuttered to think who had been buried in it last.

  “Why, thank ya, Dieter,” Jules said with a frown. “Guess I’ve been saved from fashion purgatory. Slight problem, though. I’m broke. Maybe ya’d be happy to buy me a fresh new wardrobe?”

  “Sorry, milady, but I’m broker still. All I have is this set of sweats and the jeans I left drying at Rei’s.”

  Jules and Dante both gave me suspicious l
ooks.

  “Well, I was covered in blood.”

  “Might as well be covered in soy sauce,” Dante replied.

  Jules shook her finger at me. “Ya keep this up and I’m gonna be wrapping’ ya in garlic before I let ya leave the dorm. And I hope ya at least had better luck with the jeans. I tried ta wash yer robe…” She tossed it on the nearest cot. “But it still be a total fockin’ mess. Stained everything’ else in the load, it did too.”

  Our Elliot robes aren’t really robes; they’re duffle coats. You know, those big comfy wool pea coat things with the big fat wooden toggles that cinch the front? The coats stretch down past the knee and come with oversized hoods on top. The original Elliot robes were indeed actually robes. But robes went out of style around the time of the Civil War. There have been many new versions since then. Only two things have remained constant: Elliot robes are always charcoal grey—and always flame retardant. But my robe wasn’t grey anymore. It had taken on a dark reddish hue.

  “What the…” Dante picked up my coat and frowned. “I thought these couldn’t stain.”

  “Did ya cast on it last night?” Jules asked. “I washed it twice, but the red won’t come out.”

  “Nothing fancy. Just an anti-kinetic fortification.” And good thing I had. That spell had stopped a bullet. Even still, there was a black and blue welt growing across my belly.

  “Weird,” Dante said. “It looks like an alizarin crimson dye. I know that color from class…isn’t that Mars ruled?” Dante’s eyes went all squinty as he searched the old memory banks. “The quality of Mars rule is opening. The secondary is bind and strengthen, right?”

  “That it is,” Jules said with an approving nod. “Good job, Dante. That’s the Culpeper definition ta a tee. But I already tried probing’ it for charms. I couldn’t find any at all.”

  “Wait, the charms are down?” Dante looked confused.

  I signaled for a time-out.

  “Sorry, clueless initiate here. Why do you care about my robe?”

  “Because students have been trying to crack those charms for ages—you know, to trick them out. Your robe wasn’t this color before I…uh…jumped out of that window. Did anything else happen to it?”

  “Nope. Rei and I got up on the roof and tossed the bomb. The only reason I ditched it in the first place was because Rei puked all over it.”

  “Gross!” they both screamed in unison.

  “Drainer puke!” Jules said scurrying off to wash her hands. “Fockin-A, Dieter, tell me that first!”

  “Sorry, bud, but that’s just nasty.” He started to laugh. “That’s not a hack. Her gastric juices set the blood like a dye. Probably burned straight through all the charms too. You should get a new one. That one isn’t safe anymore.”

  “As long as it keeps me warm, who cares?” I rubbed the welt on my abdomen. This robe had taken a bullet for me. I wasn’t about to throw it away over a stupid stain. And I’d take a lucky robe over a charmed one any day. I threw it over my shoulders.

  +

  Dante and I had finished setting up the cots when Monique and company returned from scaring off the wildlife. Then Maria, Lambda’s unofficial supply queen, came down with some rather good news: We were getting reimbursed for the property we lost in the blasts. The Department was giving everyone $750 to buy new clothes. Better still, we were all granted permission to go into town this Saturday to get it done. None of us had been allowed off campus since the first attack over the summer, and the chance to go into New Haven for a shopping spree was a serious morale booster. The whole squad—and I guess that’s what we were now—headed up to the cafeteria to celebrate. Roster was standing on top of the table in no time. He did his best impression of Dante jumping out of the window.

  The school accepted Roster like air. His theatrics were greeted by the usual hoots and hollers. Roster could say or do anything, and people couldn’t help but love him. Right now, he was in his element. Dante sat scratching his head with his good arm. He took it all like a good sport…especially after Sheila patted him on the back. But try as I might, I couldn’t let loose. I couldn’t relax. They were serving lasagna tonight, and as I looked at my platter, a sour metallic stench crawled up my nose.

  Jules nudged my shoulder. “I can’t eat mine, either. Doesn’t it remind ya of…?”

  “Yea,” I replied. I pushed the dish away.

  “Hey now. You did what ya had ta do.”

  I sighed. I’d already gone over this a thousand times in my head. “I know, Jules. And I would do it again if I had to.” I paused to look at the rest of Lambda. Roster was stomping up and down flapping his arms as Dante chased him around the table. “I guess that’s the problem. It was too easy…like they weren’t even people. I didn’t once wonder why they were doing what they were doing. All I cared about was stopping them.”

  “We saw a threat, Dieter. We thought our friends were in danger. And we were right.” She placed a hand atop my own. “Dieter, yer one of us Conscious now. We don’t get ta call the cops. We don’t get to complain ta Parliament. The government doesn’t come by ta make it all better. We—”

  “We are the law,” I said grimly.

  “Absolutely not! We adhere ta the Tenets for that very reason. But, Dieter, ya haven’t lived in our community for very long. Ya don’t know what it’s like outside these walls. Weakness ain’t tolerated by the supers. If we shirk our duties, innocent folk do the dyin’. There be nary a sole behind us, Dieter. We’re the one and only line. It ain’t pretty, but that’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it’ll always be.”

  “You’re probably right, Jules,” I said, patting her back. “I’m gonna go for a walk. I need to work some of this out with my feet.”

  “Want me ta go witya?” she asked, her green eyes twinkling.

  I stood and looked at the door.

  “Nah, that’s okay, Jules. But thanks.”

  Jules looked hurt, but she didn’t say anything as I left. I knew that I was being selfish. I knew that I wasn’t the only one feeling like shit. But I wasn’t in any shape to bear company. I tightened my stained robe and stepped out into the cold October night. I headed off campus straightaway. I wanted to return to that quiet place I’d found working through the rubble, but my body was tired, my shoulder was swollen, and my temple throbbed with every heartbeat. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept. One day? Two? It felt like ages.

  I looked up at the starless sky. The world wasn’t the same place anymore. Professor Simons was going to be buried with a hole in his head. He would never give another boring Polimag lecture. Gone from the world. Erased as easy as chalk. I shut out the whining coming from my muscles and stretched out my stride. Somewhere ahead was Mt. Sleeping Giant. Dante said it took an hour-long hike to reach the top. It seemed as good a destination as any.

  I let my body settle into a steady rhythm. Twenty minutes later, I was deep in the pitch-dark forest without a clue to north. The weather was shifting. Cold gusts whipped through the trees, and thunder grumbled a warning. I didn’t care. I crashed on through the brush even as the rain began to patter down. The tiny slashes chilled my skin. All the better, I thought. The cold was yet another distraction.

  My enemies had names now. Talmax. Diego Carrera. DOMA Mexico. Their motive? Probably the usual world domination and the like. Motives are rarely complicated. It’s the explanations that tend to get tortuous. I mean, really. Why do we fight wars? For glory and honor? Please. It’s always for money and power. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors, jingoisms to get fools into uniforms and packaged off to the battlefields. My situation was simple. Talmax wanted my friends and me dead. If we wanted to survive, we would have to be better at the killing game than they were. Their motive didn’t matter. They just needed to stop breathing. I nodded to myself. It was like Fukimura said: The path was clear. Killers needed to be put down.

  So when do we plan to put her down, my child?

  I froze. It was that damn voice again
. The one I heard on the train. The one I heard as I nearly drowned in the circle.

  I clenched my fists. “That’s different,” I said aloud. The voice gave me the willies, but I wasn’t about to start hiding from my own head…

  Then is it as you suggested to the Druid? Are we the Law of this world? Can we bend these ‘Tenets’ for the shadow dancer?

  “That’s not it,” I said. “It’s not her fault. It’s her design. It’s what she is. What she needs to do to survive.”

  Silly child, the fanged one doesn’t have to do anything. She has free will, does she not? You are the one who is mistaken. You want her to be a creature she is not. She is an amoral beast. We know better than anyone else how much she loves it when they—

  “Shut up!” I smashed a branch with my fist, but the cursed voice wasn’t done.

  We know what excites her, my child. She loves to hear them whimper. She loves to tear into their flesh. We can feel it, can’t we? She only feels alive when she—

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I was running now, my lungs burning back in protest. Pain was what I needed. Pain to strangle these thoughts rising up inside me. Pain to drown the guilt and bludgeon the doubt.

  My child, this effort is meaningless. You cannot flee from me.

  I could hardly see my hands in front of me. A low-lying branch smacked into my face, drawing blood. The wet crack. It sounded just like the neck of the gunman I threw down the stairwell…

  “No, that’s not right. He landed on his arm. He was knocked out. That’s why I tied him up.”

  Do the rabble go limp when you break their limbs?

  I stopped running. This voice. It wasn’t my conscience. It didn’t feel like me at all.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I demanded. “Why are you in my head?”

  I am part of you, of course.

  “Bullshit,” I said. I looked left and right. Where was it coming from? Was this some form of psych-spell?

  The rain beat like a dull drum roll against the leaves. Fog draped the trees. I could hardly see my hand ahead of me. I opened up my Sight in a fury. A squirrel scampered under the brush. A steady stream of ants rushed back to their nest. An owl huddled against a tree.