by SL Huang
Was I remembering something she had said while we were fighting? As she was shattering me?
Fear clenched at me. I started digging through the mess in the flat for a scrap of paper, tossing bottles and food wrappers and dirty clothes to the side while I repeated the word in my head over and over, afraid it would fade away again before I snatched the chance to write it down. I found an old envelope and a half-dried ballpoint and scribbled faster than I could form the words in my head:
HALBERD. THIS MEANS SOMETHING IMPORTANT. FIND OUT.
The sentences floated in front of my vision: mad, mocking, absurd. They meant nothing.
Stupid. I crumpled the envelope in my hand.
Then, for some reason, I smoothed it back out and put it in a drawer. Halberd did have something to do with Pithica, after all; Anton’s memo had shown that much. Foolish to think it was anything more than that, and I wouldn’t be able to look into it anyway after what Dawna had done, but still…it had to mean something.
For some reason, I shivered.
I needed a drink. Yes. Large amounts of alcohol sounded perfect right now. Something in me needed to get royally drunk and pass out for about three days. Good plan.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. I yanked it open to reveal Arthur, his hand raised to knock.
“Arthur,” I said, surprised. “Hi.”
“Hi, Russell,” he said.
We stood awkwardly for a moment.
Arthur waved a hand apologetically. “Tried calling.”
Phones. Right. I felt around in my pockets and found my latest cell phone. A blank screen stared back at me, and I vaguely remembered getting annoyed with the ringing a few days ago and turning it off. I hit the power button and saw a message proclaiming fourteen missed calls.
Oops. “Sorry,” I said. “You need something?”
To my surprise, he chuckled. He had a very handsome smile. “Russell, you remind me of someone I knew once. Someone who’s a damn smart cookie like you, and almost as prickly.”
“Huh?”
“Mind if I come in for a minute?”
“Sure, whatever.” I let the door swing all the way open and led the way in to flop on the saggy couch. Arthur sat down next to me. His eyes took in the forest of empty liquor bottles, but he didn’t say anything, and I told myself I didn’t care about his opinion anyway. “So? What’s up?” I asked.
He looked like he was searching for words. “Checker’s back,” he said finally. “Just been to say hello.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good.”
“You okay?” he asked. Oddly, he sounded like he cared about the answer. In fact, I was struck with the strong impression that he had come all the way here to…well, to check in on me. What the hell?
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Really?” He laughed a little hoarsely. “’Cause I ain’t.”
Was he trying to confide in me? “I guess I’m just waiting for life to get back to normal,” I said. It sort of already was, for me. Except for the dreams. But maybe those were normal, too. I was having trouble remembering.
“Ain’t worked any case but this in six months,” said Arthur. “Gonna be weird, going back to doing background checks and divorce cases.”
“The exciting life of a private eye?” Boy, was I glad I didn’t have his job.
He snorted. “Yeah, ‘exciting’ ain’t exactly the word for it. Usually, anyway. I work enough to take on pro bono cases for them that need it, though—those are always the better ones. Still not much excitement, but fulfilling, you know?”
I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. “Sure,” I said.
“Can’t get it all out of my head, though,” he continued. “What she did to us. I ain’t fond of being someone’s puppet.” The edge of steel in those words might have made even Dawna think twice, if she hadn’t already beaten us.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.”
“I can’t…” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Everything I remember thinking, it made so much sense at the time. Still makes sense, if I’m honest. But there’s something in me that knows chunks of it ain’t me at all…and I still ain’t rightly sure which all those chunks are; I just know they gotta be there. Think that’s what scares me the most, still not knowing what was me and what was her.”
“I’m pretty sure you pointing a gun at me was all Dawna,” I said.
“Which time?”
We laughed a little at that, even though it wasn’t funny.
“Ain’t my usual habit, you know,” Arthur said. “Greeting people barrel first. You didn’t catch me in my best week.”
“Well, I don’t usually knock people unconscious to introduce myself, either,” I said.
He affected surprise. “You don’t?”
I punched him in the shoulder. Only a little harder than necessary.
“Ow!” He gave me a mock glare, rubbing his arm, and then got serious again. “Listen. Been thinking about something. Dawna—when she had us prisoner, she talked to us, both of us, for a long time.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, she did.”
“How do we know…how do we know there ain’t more?”
“You mean, how do we know that we don’t have, what, sleeper personalities or something? That what we’re thinking might not be our own thoughts anymore?”
“Something like that.”
I looked down at my hands. I wasn’t going to say it hadn’t occurred to me. “I don’t think it would be worth it to them,” I said. “That level of control. She got what she wanted from us, and—well, even at the end we weren’t under her total control, yeah?”
“You weren’t,” he said softly.
“Neither were you,” I pointed out. “You didn’t give us away until we pushed you to it. And at the last minute, you took your gun off line—when it mattered.”
“Barely.”
“You knew it would give me the window.”
He nodded, conceding the point. “Hey, about that. What you can do. It’s pretty special, ain’t it?”
The question caught me off guard. I tried to keep my face neutral. “What do you mean, what I can do?”
He chuckled. “I got eyes, Russell.”
“I’m good at math,” I said. “That’s all.”
He squinted at me, still smiling slightly. “You gotta tell me how that works sometime.”
“Sometime,” I agreed vaguely.
The moment of levity faded, and Arthur looked down again. “We really can’t be sure, can we?” he said after a moment. “Could be some small way. A thousand little bits she might’ve changed. Maybe we say she had a miss with us at the end there, but still…we don’t know what else she might’ve done.”
“No,” I said. “I guess we don’t.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, what can we do?” I pointed out.
Arthur took a deep breath. “Keep making the best decisions we can, I guess.”
And hope that nothing had wormed its way into our brains, ticking like a time bomb, waiting to make us betray ourselves. I wasn’t happy about it either. But we had no way to know.
“What if we watch each other?” I said suddenly. “It’s not foolproof, but it’s how—well, Rio could tell, with me. We can keep in contact, warn each other if we get crazy.”
He pulled a face. “Looking for excess crazy? How will I know?”
I punched him in the arm again.
“Hey!” He gave me a gentle shove in return. “Y’know, it’s a good idea. Better than nothing, for sure. You got my cell number, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay in touch, then. You know, call me, let me know you’re okay. Or you can always pick up when I ring. Can’t watch for excess crazy if we don’t talk regular.” He grinned at me, then reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Russell.”
I blinked. By proposing we watch each other, I had been thinking in terms of a mutually beneficial business arrangement, but
Arthur seemed to be taking it as an overture of friendship. “I…if you say so,” I got out.
“I do.” He gave my shoulder a final squeeze and then stood. “Talk soon, right?”
A sort of tight feeling was growing through my chest and throat, the same type of squeezing discomfort I got in certain death situations. Except it was kind of a good feeling, which made no sense at all. “Yeah, okay,” I said.
“Give you a buzz tomorrow,” said Arthur, and let himself out.
I stayed sitting on the couch, staring at the floor and feeling very strange.
I wasn’t used to having friends. Friends meant obligations, and complications, and effort—
And people who checked in on me, another part of my brain pointed out. And had my back. And could watch for signs of psychic brainwashing.
Huh.
My phone beeped.
It was a text message from Checker, newly arrived back in LA. The strange, fizzy feeling in my chest intensified.
DRINKING CONTEST 2NITE ITS ON BE @ HOLE 8PM SHARP CHECKER
And then, an instant later, a second one:
WEAR SUMTHING SLINKI
I stared at the messages. The invitation felt surreal, as if I were watching someone else’s life: somebody who lived in society, somebody who did the whole “human interaction” thing, somebody who got text messages that weren’t either about work or death threats.
Somebody who made friends and went out drinking with them.
Was I even capable of being someone like that?
I thought about Arthur’s visit. I looked down at Checker’s texts again. Maybe people weren’t all bad, I thought. At least not all the time.
Maybe…maybe it wouldn’t be such an awful thing not to drink alone tonight.
I hit reply.
As long as my new Colt 1911 counts. See you at 8. Cas.
THE END
Cas Russell will return in
HALF LIFE
(coming 2015)
Thank You For Reading
If you’d like updates on the series, including release announcements for sequels, you can sign up for the Russell’s Attic mailing list at www.slhuang.com. (This list is used only for publication news and occasional discount offers.) If you’d like to read my day-to-day madness, feel free to visit my blog at www.slhuang.com/blog or follow me on Twitter at @sl_huang.
If it’s not too much trouble, please consider leaving a frank review of this book wherever you purchased it (or on a review website). I’d greatly appreciate it!
And if you didn’t purchase this book, no problem. I’m a strong believer in piracy always being helpful to an author, which is why I’ve licensed this text so sharing isn’t illegal. If you read this book for free, enjoyed it, and have the means to do so, you can support this series by buying a copy of the book through a retailer. If you feel enthusiastic about the book but don’t have any spare finances, you can still help me out as an author by recommending it to people, sending a copy to a friend, leaving a review online, or seeding it on your favorite torrent site. As noted on the copyright page, this book is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA-4.0 license, which means you are welcome to share the text of Zero Sum Game as much as you like as long as you aren’t doing it for money and you leave my author name intact (though please do not share the cover, which is copyright Najla Qamber, all rights reserved). For more information on the license the text of this book is under, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
No matter what, I hope you had a good time reading. Thank you for joining me on my mad romp with a dysfunctional superpowered mathematician!
Acknowledgments
This book would not exist without a number of very important people.
First, to my critique partner and sister: This series owes its soul to you. For the late-night phone calls when I was stuck on a plot point, for the brainstorming suggestions, for your reactions and recommendations as you read every word—for the encouragement in the face of my self-doubt and your faith in the story—thank you. To try to write without you in my life…I can’t even think about it.
Second, to my incredible, unparalleled beta readers, Bu Zhidao, Kevan O’Meara, Jesse Sutanto, and Layla Lawlor: Your brilliance and honesty brought this novel to another level. Your enthusiasm for helping me make this happen has been a support I don’t know how I deserve. You’re all amazing writers yourselves, and you floor me with the genius wordsmithing and creativity in your own works—I hope that everyone reading this takes a moment to look you up and become as much a fan as I am.
Third, to David Wilson, the expert linguist who copyedited Arthur’s dialect for me: Thank you for sharing your stunning level of knowledge and skill with me so I could make sure I got things right. Your intelligence and generosity awe me. I am extraordinarily, undeservedly lucky you chose to share your talents with me.
To my cover designer, Najla Qamber: You were an sheer joy to work with, and I’m deliriously happy with how you brought my book to life. To my editor, Anna Genoese: I wish words could express how thrilled I am with the polish and shine you gave to my little novel. The level of professionalism you both brought to the publication of my book is irreplaceable, and I will walk through fire to work with you both again, as many times as you’ll let me hire you.
To my proofreaders: Thank you for putting up with my obsessive levels of perfectionism. Thank you for helping me ensure the product I was releasing would show utmost respect for my entire breadth of readers, across all possible devices.
To the entire community and all my friends at Absolute Write: I cannot imagine going through the publishing process without your accumulated wisdom and generosity of knowledge at my back. I shudder to think about continuing to write without your lively humor, your constant support, and your mind-blowing critiques. For any aspiring writers out there, I strongly recommend you stop by the boards at www.absolutewrite.com/forums.
And to my delightfully madcap writer’s group: thank you for your encouragement, for your opinions, and most of all, for putting up with my various neuroses as I ramped into publication. Puppy, Lusty, Hippo, Dragonface, Bats, Bunneh, Donkey, Snake, and kk, I owe you all cake. And Mr. Hippo for the British help, and Margaret for your constant ridiculous levels of support and for answering all my questions. You guys are outrageous and fantastic and I’m the luckiest writer alive to know you.
Finally, to everyone in my life who has inspired and supported me along the way, to those who laughed at my math jokes or geeked out with me or embraced my nerddom as a feature, not a bug—thank you. This book never would have happened without you.
About the Author
SL Huang majored in mathematics at MIT. The program did not include training to become a superpowered assassin-type. Sadly.
You can find out more about SL Huang than you ever wanted to know by visiting www.slhuang.com or by following @sl_huang on Twitter.
