Null Set

by S. L. Huang

  Unless my central nervous system decided to go out on me again. I weighed the chances of that happening. But even if I collapsed in the building, it wasn’t like Pilar would be in trouble, was it? Checker could pull her out, the mission would be a bust, and I’d get myself out somehow too.

  Fear of my own mind couldn’t keep me locked inside, unable to take the smallest action. I refused to let it. Besides, if I stopped working …

  That was a bad idea even under normal circumstances. I didn’t want to know how much worse my brain might get if I ended up at loose ends right now.

  When I came back from making a run for backup gear, Pilar met me in front of Checker’s house. While I’d been gone, she’d changed into a black cocktail dress with tasteful cleavage and more makeup than I was used to seeing on her.

  “What on earth are you wearing?” I said. “We’re committing robbery, not going to a wine-tasting party.”

  “And my role in your robbery is to be as trustworthy and vulnerable a person as possible. I was coming from a party when my car broke down, for your information.”

  I pointed at her heels. “You can’t run in those.”

  “Cas, honey? I know you have way more experience than me when it comes to pretty much everything involved in this. But you gave me this job because you thought I could do it, so trust me when I say I know way more than you do about how to make someone want to help me.”

  To be perfectly honest, I’d recruited Pilar because she volunteered, not because I’d given consideration to her capability of looking nice in a dress. Maybe Checker was right, and I hadn’t thought this through.

  Or maybe I was more right than I knew, considering that Pilar clearly had.

  I sighed. “Where’s your sidearm?”

  “In my purse.” She lifted her sleek clutch.

  “That’s not the best place for it.”

  “The dress is worth it. Trust me on this one.”

  I supposed I’d already made that decision. I jerked my head at her and got back into the car. She trotted after me and slid into the passenger seat, opening the clutch to take out a few gadgets.

  “From Checker.” She handed me a cell phone, an earpiece, and a small plastic stick about the size of a flash drive. “I’ve got a dongle of my own on me, but here’s one for you, too, just as backup.”

  I snugged in the earpiece. “Checker?”

  “Here,” he said.

  “Don’t sound so excited.”

  He harrumphed at me.

  The warehouse was several hours outside the city. Pilar didn’t sleep on the way, but she didn’t seem nervous, either—she sat with her hands folded loosely in her lap, staring out the windshield. When I finally pulled over a few blocks from our destination, she took one steady inhale through pursed lips and then got out of the car.

  “You sure you’re ready for this?” I said.

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “Good, because it’s too late to say no.”

  She looked around. “I—I’m not oriented; I’m sorry.”

  I pointed. “That’s San Alvarez Street. Turn right. You should see the guardhouse. Are you with it now?”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  “Tell me what you’re telling the guard.” We’d been over this earlier in the evening, but the last thing I needed was Pilar freezing up on me.

  “That my car broke down, and I’m waiting for Triple A but I didn’t want to wait out on the street, because it’s dark and dangerous and all, and can I please hang in the guardhouse for a few minutes. And then just chat. Chatting I can do.”

  “What’s your signal to leave?”

  “Once you’re out, Checker’s going to call me saying he’s the tow truck.”

  “Good.” I popped open the hood of the car and reached down to unscrew the distributor cap and pull it off. “Just in case the guard tries to be gallant, your pretend car now will truly pretend to not start.” I tossed her the keys, which she caught clumsily and tucked into her clutch. “Now go.”

  She paused for long enough to take one more deliberate breath, then started swiftly in the direction of the intersection.

  “You’re at least keeping half an eye on her, right?” Checker said in my ear. “This plan only makes sense because this is a deserted and scary neighborhood. If Pilar gets mugged or assaulted because she was walking around there alone—”

  “I’m following, I’m following,” I groused, and hurried after her, keeping to the shadows. I couldn’t help wondering if this area had been so deserted and scary a year ago, when Pithica still had their fingers everywhere …

  Pilar’s heels echoed on the pavement. She turned the corner and made a beeline for the guardhouse. I lurked, out of range of the warehouse’s security but still within sight of her. Once she was on the security cameras, she didn’t pause. She approached the guardhouse with a half wave as whoever was inside saw her, and hugged her arms as she leaned to converse through the sliding window.

  “She’s close enough,” Checker said. “Taking control of the security cameras in three, two, one. You’re set for as long as she’s in range.”

  Nodding and smiling, a white-haired man in a security guard’s uniform opened up the door and ushered Pilar inside with him.

  “You can see her on the cams, right?” I said to Checker.

  “Yeah. She’s in. He’s facing away from you and talking to her. Go.”

  Good. As long as my psyche held out on me, this would all be fine. I turned toward the warehouse—

  And ran smack into Simon.

  “What the fuck!” I barely managed to keep the exclamation to a hissing whisper.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I drew my Colt on reflex. Not that it would do me much good. “What am I doing? What are you doing!”

  “I’m sorry, Cassandra,” he said, hugging himself. “I didn’t want to follow you again, but you don’t know what I know. I’m concerned. And now I’m more concerned. After putting yourself in so much danger the other night, and now—what are you doing here? What are you involved in?” His forehead wrinkled in worry.

  He must have followed us from Checker’s—I realized I’d forgotten to tell Arthur that Simon knew where Checker lived. I’d forgotten to tell any of them.

  Or maybe I hadn’t forgotten. Maybe he’d made it so I just wouldn’t think of it.

  If I had, would it have made a difference? Would we have been able to figure out a way for me not to pick up a fucking tail again?

  “Cas!” Checker’s voice in my ear grounded me. “Cas, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all is going on. Is Pilar still keeping the guard busy?” I reholstered my weapon and pushed past Simon.

  “Yes. I think he’s showing her pictures of his grandchildren. Who are you talking to?”

  “You’re about to see,” I said. “He’s following me.”

  “Holy shit,” Checker said. “Is it that Simon guy? Tell me it’s not the Simon guy. Abort. Abort right now.”

  “No,” I said.

  “He’s going to blow the whole thing! Cas, you’re probably not thinking clearly—call it off!”

  “No,” I repeated. I was closing in on the chain-link fence. Simon scrambled behind me, every few breaths pleading for me to stop and talk to him.

  “This isn’t right,” Checker said. “I’m pulling Pilar out of there.”

  “You do that, and you’ll expose me,” I said.

  “Dammit, Cas!”

  The metal of the fence was chilled to the touch, and my scabbing, bandaged fingers curled stiffly, the links digging into the still-healing flesh. But chain-link fences were easy to climb even without mathematics, and the horizontal lines of barbed wire at the top only required a careful shift of my center of mass before I was over.

  My boots landed lightly on the pavement of the other side. I tried to ignore the noises still coming from the top of the fence. Simon deserved it if he got skewered.

  But he
was also going to crash my whole operation if he kept it up, and I didn’t trust a nickel’s worth that he’d help us get out of the consequences if he did. I unslung the empty backpack I wore and took off my jacket to throw it in a swooping parabola, the air resistance catching it neatly to drape on top of the barbs. Simon flailed over it and tumbled next to me, hitting the pavement in a heap. I didn’t make a move to break his fall.

  In fact, after jumping to pop my jacket off the barbs, I kicked him in the stomach.

  It pleasantly surprised me that I was able to.

  “Cassandra!” he coughed, his eyes filling with betrayal. “Why?”

  “Because you’re stalking me and trying to blow my cover,” I said. “Now get up and out of view of that guardhouse.” I dragged him upright by the collar and then marched for the main building. Somehow I knew he would hurry after me.

  “Cas,” Checker tried again. “Please listen to me. You are being stupid and dangerous and dangerously stupid. You cannot take this guy on a mission to steal a top-secret prototype. Are you hearing the words I’m saying? Stupid. Dangerous. Top secret. Cas, I think—I think you might be compromised. And Pilar’s in the middle of this with you. Will you please listen! You have to abort!”

  “Keep distracting me and I’ll mute you,” I said.

  “You know you can’t do that. That would be even more stupid than what you’re doing right now, which is—”

  “Five. Four,” I said. He shut up.

  I reached the heavy metal security door and pulled out a set of lock picks. Not my usual MO, but the plan had been not to leave a trace. I picked the lock with algorithmic precision, the pins dropping neatly onto the edge of the shear line one after the other, and pushed open the door into the darkness of a cavernous hallway. The LED flashlight I snapped on just after the door closed revealed a cement floor large enough to drive trucks down, flanked by enormous metal roll-up doors on each side that gleamed in the slashing beam. Almost like a storage facility, except bigger and way more oppressive.

  “What is this place?” Simon’s question echoed off the concrete and metal.

  Now that the guard couldn’t see or hear, I spun around, grabbed him, and shoved him against the wall hard enough for his body to ricochet like a rag doll. “I am not letting you interfere with my life,” I said. “You hear me? You are a ghost. A nightmare. I don’t care what you think you know about me. You have no claim on me. If you keep following me, I will work my ass off until I figure out a way to kill you, and in the meantime maybe one of my enemies will shoot you for me. Now stay out of my way.”

  I strode off down the corridor without looking back. No footsteps sounded behind me.

  I paused and took a second to breathe, trying not to let Checker’s reaction shake me. At least my brain was still quiet.

  At the second-to-last vault on the right, I entered the code Checker had looked up for me earlier and hauled the door up high enough for me to duck under. The Signet Devices had been listed as lots 466 to 487, and it took less than four minutes of searching for me to find a working model. It was a bit large and cumbersome, with a scattering of additional pieces outside the main casing, but I managed to stuff everything in my backpack. I also found what looked like the technical specifications in the next file box over and jammed those in, too. They’d save me a good deal of reverse engineering.

  “Checker,” I said. “Are the dongles traceable to you?”

  “No,” he answered instantly.

  I hadn’t wanted to leave anything behind, but the dongle was probably a lot less obvious than a creepy, bruised psychic. I had no doubt Simon could get back out past the guard, but he wouldn’t be able to erase himself from the security cameras … which meant Checker was signed up to cover his exit, too. Total stealth, I reminded myself, leave them no reason to take inventory. Too bad—under other circumstances I would have enjoyed blaming him for my little theft.

  I tucked the dongle in the bottom of a file folder fat with design specs for a different project and put everything else back the way I had found it. “Checker, if you’re picking up my signal for the cameras, pull Pilar out now.”

  “What about the guard? Your exit—”

  “You keep me off the monitors; I’ll worry about the guard. Now pull her.”

  “Pulling her.”

  He kept the line open, and I caught the low murmur of him faking the tow truck call to Pilar as I jogged back through the dimness. It took him longer than I expected—I gathered the guard wanted to walk her out after the third time Checker had to assure her he was right down the street at her car—but he ended the call about the time I reached the outside door. I shined the LED flashlight around, but Simon was gone.

  “I’m headed back outside. Where’s the guard’s line of sight right now?”

  “He’s looking at his monitors. They’ll stay blank.”

  Good. At least one thing I wouldn’t have to worry about.

  The guardhouse bisected the front section of chain-link fence. I had a vast open area of pavement to cross, and it would only take the security guard lifting his eyes unexpectedly to nail me. And I had to go through the front—behind me the warehouse property abutted buildings with even tighter security, and to the right the fence divided the property from a blind alley that had been built over at the ends. No egress that way.

  No egress, but maybe still a better way out …

  There’s no escape from a one-way function, laughed someone who sounded like me.

  No. No. I was so close. The alley to the right. Built over on both ends but with the chain link running along it.

  I cut sideways, sprinting faster than I should have, as if I could outrun my own past. I hit the fence against the alley and scaled it, my loaded pack bumping my shoulder blades. But at the top, instead of swinging over to the other side, I kept running straight up the links like they were a ladder, up the links and then up the strands of wire between the hooked barbs, my momentum bringing me up and up and straight up and stretching me to the heavens in direct opposition of forces until I stood balanced on the barbed wire. The strand pressed through the soles of my boots, swaying gently below me. I let my muscles compensate, shifting my weight minutely so the vectors lined up equal and opposite.

  I waited for a hairsbreadth, almost expecting another mental spiral to rear up snarling and tear me down off the top of the world. Anxiety bit into me like the barbed wire beneath my boots. But the night was quiet again, taunting me with uncertainty.

  Go, I ordered myself.

  I ran.

  The barbs were spaced five inches apart, and the soles of my boots were almost twice that. I ran between them on the balls of my feet, a springing prance, the wire absorbing and rebounding against the vertical component of the tension as it rocketed me down my knife-thin path. The front corner had a tall, fat brick pillar interrupting the chain link, but just before I reached it I leapt diagonally, cutting the corner and turning my skipping dash so I was running along the front side of the fence.

  I was almost right on top of the guard, but I was playing the odds that he wouldn’t notice. People never looked up.

  As I neared the guardhouse I fed in some deceleration, braking myself until I’d hit the barest tiptoe when I stepped onto the guardhouse roof. Less than a minute and I’d be out of here. I only had to hang on for a few more seconds.

  “Is the guard looking away?” I whispered into my earpiece.

  “Still on the monitors,” Checker said.

  I crept to the edge of the roof and dropped. On the street side of the guardhouse, I stayed curled below the windows for one more moment, listening, and then moved away at a crouch.

  “Am I good?” I asked.

  “He’s looking up at the building now. No way he sees the street.”

  I straightened up and ran.

  I’d made it. We’d done what we came here to do.

  Then why did I feel like I was leaving pieces of myself scattered on the ground behind me, with Simon cackli
ng among them as he watched me crack?

  Pilar was waiting inside the car, in the passenger seat. She jumped a mile when I knocked on the window and immediately groped for the unlock button. “Oh, thank God!” she said as soon as I opened the driver’s door. “I didn’t see you coming. I was so worried. You were supposed to be out ahead of me.”

  “It got hot,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. “It did? Oh my gosh, it’s probably better I didn’t know that. What happened?”

  “Keys, Pilar.”

  “Oh! Right!”

  She dug them out and handed them to me. I tried to start the car, but when I turned the key, nothing happened.

  “You forgot to fix the engine,” Pilar said.

  Fuck. I must be even more rattled than I thought.

  Or maybe Checker had it right, and I wasn’t thinking straight at all.

  ten

  I HUNG up with Checker and took out the earpiece, over his protests. I didn’t want him ranting at me, especially if he was right. Once I fixed the car and got us on the road back toward LA, Pilar started asking me questions about what had happened, her hands twisting with way more nervousness than she’d exhibited before the operation. But I put her off.

  I didn’t feel like explaining. Even to myself.

  Especially to myself.

  I dropped Pilar off at Checker’s house and sped away without going in. Avoiding Checker forever wasn’t an option—I’d need his help on the devices soon enough—but I could be petty for tonight.

  By early the next morning, however, I was sitting on the floor surrounded by pages of technical specs and the guts of the model Signet Device, and feeling like I’d just thumped my head slowly into a wall about three dozen times. In order for my calibrated net to work, I needed to deploy hundreds of the things all over LA in extremely specific locations, which meant miniaturizing the one I’d stolen from the warehouse. I’d been able to figure out how each component worked without much trouble—circuits were little more than Boolean algebra made exponential—but making the pieces themselves smaller—