Null Set

by S. L. Huang

  I actually backed up a step. If he’d been a different person, I think he would have hit me.

  Fists slamming, the grappling of limbs and flesh.

  I groped my way out to my car. Rio wouldn’t, the pieces of my brain that were working kept repeating. Rio wouldn’t—even if he hadn’t promised me, he wouldn’t hurt someone like Pilar—would he? Pitting criminals and militias against each other was one thing; if innocent people got hurt in the crossfire it would still be the gangsters’ doing. Going after someone innocent himself, just to get to me—

  I floored the accelerator.

  Walls filled my vision, tile the color of blood.

  The F-350 Rio had been driving tonight was parked outside Arthur’s office.

  Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck—

  I pounded up the outside staircase and burst through the door.

  Rio stood over Pilar. She was curled on the floor clutching one wrist with her other hand, and he was pointing a .44 Magnum directly at her head. Her little compact CZ dangled from his other hand.

  “Rio!” The shout tore out of me. “Rio, stop—what in the living fuck—” I ducked in front of him and helped Pilar up, hustling her away from him. She whimpered. “You gave me your word, Rio—you told me—”

  “She has information,” Rio explained serenely, lowering his gun. “Your other friends would have been better, but you are correct: I promised I would not threaten them.”

  I lost the ability to breathe, like someone had smashed a wrecking ball into my lungs.

  I hadn’t mentioned Pilar by name to him. Holy fuck.

  “You don’t get to threaten Pilar, either!” I made sure I was standing in front of her. “You stay the fuck away from her! She’s innocent, do you hear me?”

  “Not of your project, it appears.” Rio’s voice was mild.

  “My project! Mine! You want information on it, you threaten me!”

  “I will not threaten you, Cas.”

  Silver needles and white cloth, and I reached for a syringe and jammed it into my thigh—

  I was losing my mind, and Rio had just coolly put a gun to Pilar’s head.

  “No. No. No.” I didn’t care how far back we went; there was a line Rio was not fucking allowed to cross. I closed the distance between us and snatched Pilar’s gun, then marched back and handed it to her.

  She raised it in her left hand and pointed it at Rio, her grip shaking.

  He tilted his head at her, as if bemused, leaving his own weapon down.

  For a moment I doubted my senses. It wasn’t as if they’d been very reliable lately. “What are you doing?” I said to Pilar.

  “Cas, I think—I think you should move—I think I should shoot him—” Her voice was so low I could hardly hear it, and her hand shook harder, the little CZ vibrating.

  “No one is shooting anybody!” Oh, Jesus. “Pilar, put down the gun or I’ll make you.”

  “You didn’t hear—what he said to me—what he said he’d do—”

  My stomach twisted. “Rio doesn’t hurt innocent people,” I insisted loudly. “He was just threatening you.”

  “There you are wrong, Cas,” said Rio. “I would have done whatever was necessary to ascertain the information I needed. This must needs be done, and as we have mentioned, she is not innocent of this crime.”

  Pilar was crying silently, her face soggy with tears. I couldn’t blame her.

  “What the fuck, Rio,” I said hollowly.

  He gave me a small half nod of conciliation. “I would have released her as soon as I obtained the information I required.”

  “I’m right here!” screamed Pilar. “I am right here and I am pointing a gun at you and I am thinking about pulling the trigger and you are going to look at me and realize I am a human being and take me fucking seriously!”

  Rio turned his gaze to her, his stare penetrating. “My death will be a great justice,” he said. “Perhaps you will shoot me today. I will not tell you it is undeserved.”

  “Pilar!” I forced myself to take a breath, to moderate my tone. “Pilar. Please. Please put down the gun.”

  She hesitated for a long moment, then said, “No. Make him leave.”

  “Pilar—”

  “This is my office.” Her voice had gone back to that low, barely audible hoarseness, flat and dead and very serious. “Make him leave, or I swear to God I will fire. I swear to God, Cas. Get him out of here.”

  I could have wrested the weapon out of her hand. I was probably close enough to be able to do it before she could squeeze the trigger. Probably.

  Somewhere else, mortar fire thundered through my senses, magazine ammo counts overlapping with probable avenues of safety. Dirt and cold filled my nose and mouth.

  I clawed back away from it. Pilar—Pilar—she wasn’t really planning to fire, was she?

  Shit. Shit.

  I needed to take Rio somewhere anyway, drag him somewhere and tear him a new one, loudly, for a very long time.

  He’d crossed a line. Some things were fucking off-limits, and he should have known. He did know—I didn’t care how little he understood about human behavior; he knew better.

  And he’d done it anyway.

  The ice cracked like a gunshot, and the ATV lurched.

  “Rio,” I choked out. “Let’s go.”

  He paused for a hairsbreadth, his gaze flicking between Pilar and me. Pilar’s CZ had steadied, her grip tightened. Along with her jaw. Her face was still wet, but she’d stopped crying.

  “If you try to hurt her right now, you’ll have to go through me,” I said.

  Rio gave a little head tilt that seemed to say, Well, another time then, and sidestepped to the door. When it swung shut behind us, Pilar still hadn’t lowered her gun.

  twenty-six

  THERE’S NOWHERE in a city that feels truly isolated, but I strode into an alleyway behind a closed and darkened car dealership, clubbing away the encroaching flashbacks of other times and spaces. Rio followed.

  When the alleyway got dark enough I turned so fast he would have run into me if he hadn’t had Rio’s reflexes.

  If he’d been anyone else I would have slugged him. I almost did it anyway.

  “What the fuck!” I ripped into him instead. “I told you, I have friends now. If you do anything like that again, if you so much as startle them—” I stopped.

  I didn’t know what I’d do.

  The thought of truly going after Rio physically, actually trying to hurt him—my insides clenched and writhed.

  He’ll be your ally, a voice said.

  Forty-six hours, he’d told me, and then he’d—

  “This isn’t working.” Rio held me down while the world imploded.

  What kind of person was I, that I calmly played chess against him for an entire city, but he went after one woman I happened to know personally, and I fucking lost it?

  “Cas?”

  I shoved the cacophony in my head away. I wanted to shove Rio, too, but I crossed my arms instead, trapping my hands to restrain myself. “You attacked a friend of mine.”

  “On the contrary,” Rio said. “I promised I would not harm your friends, and I have stood by that. Pilar Velasquez’s name was not on your list.”

  Guilt knifed me with renewed savagery. I’d only just gotten comfortable with the idea of considering Arthur and Checker friends, and I still hadn’t been sure what being friends with someone was supposed to mean—figuring out how to fit a third person into that mold had seemed overwhelming. How did someone handle that many obligations?

  I supposed it wasn’t something that would worry me for much longer.

  I wandered. The city was gray. It wasn’t a city I knew.

  Jesus. Who cared what relationship I had with Pilar? However I labeled it, she was still in the category of people I’d kill to protect. “Anyone I work with, Rio,” I spat out. “Anyone I know. You can’t—”

  “I cannot possibly have an awareness of everyone you would likely be familiar with.”


  “That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it. You came after Pilar in the first place because she was working with me on this!”

  He tilted his head in a nod, acknowledging the fact.

  “I’m serious.” I didn’t know what else to say. Didn’t know what else to do. “If I can’t rely on you not to—”

  Someone put firm hands on my face, turned my eyes into the sun—blazing, consuming me—trust him—

  I cried out. I was sitting fallen against the wall of the alleyway, and my back and shoulders hurt as if I’d been hurled into it.

  Rio crouched next to me, his hands gentle as he helped me sit up against the wall. “Cas. Are you here?”

  “Yeah.” My skin was clammy. My throat and chest seized briefly before letting go. “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Cas, your condition appears to be worsening.”

  “Rio,” I said, scrambling for my point like a pit bull with a bone, “Rio, I can’t trust you if—”

  Something blew through my mind like an express train, all noise and light and terrible force. I ducked and clamped my arms over my head and slammed my eyes shut and tried to breathe but I couldn’t, because my lungs were squeezed flat.

  Dark and pain and blood, fear and betrayal, and Rio reached out as if he would help …

  Trust him, Cassandra. You have to trust him.

  “Cas. Cas. Cas.” Rio said my name in a rhythm that was almost a chant. “Cas, return here. Cas.”

  “Stop changing the subject,” I growled. I couldn’t remember what the subject had been, but I was angry, and rattled, insecurity about—something—crawling in roots through my brain, crumbling my consciousness, and I needed to yell at Rio about something but I’d lost my bearings and that made me furious—

  Trust him.

  The world spasmed again. Neurons crisscrossed and bits of my body went rigid while others collapsed.

  “Cas,” said Rio, and he might have sounded alarmed, if Rio ever sounded alarmed.

  Rio sitting across from me in a small apartment. “That decision is yours, Cas. This life is yours now.”

  I nodded—

  “Cas, I promise you, in the future I will not harm your friends or coworkers, nor threaten them with harm. Respond to me, Cas. Speak.”

  Breathing became easier. My lungs stopped constricting. I leaned my head back against the grimy wall. The dim light burned into the back of my eyes.

  “Cas?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Cas,” said Rio again, and I wasn’t imagining it, there was urgency in his voice. No, that didn’t make sense. I had to be imagining it.

  “It’s good to know all I have to do is have some sort of seizure and you cave in,” I said. I felt like my voice should have been hoarse, but it wasn’t. Only a little short, like I still wasn’t breathing enough. “Now how about you agree not to fucking destroy Los Angeles?”

  Rio’s expression twitched. “On that, I am afraid, I shall stand by my previous imperviousness. Cas, I did not realize this was of such importance to you. I apologize.”

  “You what?” I sputtered. “You didn’t realize this was of importance? Fuck you, you expect me to believe torturing the people I work with didn’t register on your list of human interactions that would rank?”

  “That is not precisely what I meant,” said Rio, after a moment.

  Somewhere else, we sat together at a table, at an impasse, while the light changed and the sun rose.

  I let the madness in my brain ebb and flow, leaning my head back against the wall behind me while the world passed by.

  “Cas,” Rio said. “Please reconsider allowing Simon to aid you.”

  I didn’t deign to answer him.

  “Is there nothing I can say that would convince you?”

  “If I knew of such an argument,” I said, “I would already be convinced. Because, you know. Logic.”

  Rio bowed his head. “In that case, I beg of you to fix what you have done to the city in the next forty-five hours.”

  He stood.

  “Rio,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  I swallowed. Pilar’s tear-streaked face danced in my vision again. One woman, and now I had to save all of LA.

  “Rio, I don’t … I don’t think I want to see you again.”

  “If that is your wish, Cas.”

  Graveyard dirt smelled like any other dirt. I stretched my fingers, pressing into it. It was okay: no one would remember.

  Including me.

  My eyes were shut. I pried them open to focus on the alleyway. Rio had disappeared. I hadn’t heard him leave.

  I was cold and bruised, and the uneven brick of the wall was digging into my back. I pushed myself up.

  “What do you have for me today?”

  “Target practice.” A Dragunov was pressed into my hand, its stock smooth and polished.

  “I’ll try not to have too much fun.”

  “Fuck you, too,” I muttered to Valarmathi. She laughed.

  I limped back up to Arthur’s office.

  When I pushed open the door, Arthur whipped around and drew his sidearm on me.

  “Whoa, hey! It’s just me. Alone,” I added hastily.

  Arthur slumped and lowered the gun. “He’s gone?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to keep the guilt out of my tone. “Where’s Pilar?”

  “The hospital, Russell. He broke her wrist.”

  Considering my brain was rotting me alive, I hadn’t thought I could feel worse. Apparently I was wrong.

  “Maybe I should end it now,” I said.

  Arthur’s head came up. “What are you talking about?” He asked the question with such controlled evenness that I was pretty sure he already knew.

  “Rio gave me an ultimatum,” I said. “I don’t know what he’s going to do. I don’t know if I can stop it. But if I’m not here to leverage…” I shrugged, trying for careless, but it felt like my blood had gone leaden. “I’m dying anyway. It might be nice for it to mean something.”

  “Russell,” Arthur whispered, and he sounded so broken and defeated I regretted suggesting it.

  If I was going to do it, I should have just done it without telling him. That would have been the considerate thing to do.

  “You’re not telling me not to,” I said quietly.

  A pounding came on the office door. We both jumped and pulled weapons.

  “Who’s there?” Arthur called.

  “Arthur? Arthur, you here? It’s me, it’s Justin!”

  “Oh, Lord.” Arthur holstered his Glock and strode to pull open the door. “Kid, what’s wrong?”

  “You ain’t picking up, I been calling you,” Justin babbled, falling into the room—Arthur caught him and helped him to a chair. “You gotta help us. It’s Katrina, she OD’d. Arthur, you gotta help—”

  “Mary and Joseph, you call 911?” Arthur interrupted. “Where is she?”

  Justin kept sniffling, like he was trying not to cry. “Yeah, I called, I ain’t care if she hate me for it later. She in the hospital now. They been asking ’bout her parents, I ain’t know what to say.…”

  “How’d this happen?” demanded Arthur. “She was off the stuff—I know she’s been struggling this week, but you told me you were keeping her off—”

  “Something went wrong!” Justin wailed. “I ain’t know what! We was—we was going to meetings, together, and now she say they ain’t feel supportive no more. And she ain’t inventing it, neither. It all been feeling pointless, the support and shit, just gone. And we been going clubbing, just dancing and shit all night, but this week Katrina said she ain’t connecting with none of it no more, said she needed something—something else.” He sniffed and dragged a sleeve across his face. “And it ain’t just her—I swear I ain’t making up no bullshit; my friend said it was sunspots or something, ’cause Katrina, she ain’t the only one. We all feeling it. We go out and the music and the lights, they was all the same, but all flat—some clubs, they shutting down ’cause ain�
��t nobody coming in no more. And meantime X going through the roof. Katrina, she said she feeling so dead inside, said she needed it, and I tried to stop her, but she ain’t listen, accused me of not supporting her neither.…”

  A kernel of panic exploded in my core. Arthur was trying to calm Justin down, and I didn’t know if he’d made the connection yet, but he would—he would—

  Support groups who couldn’t provide support anymore. The bestial high of clubbing becoming flat and unexciting. Energetic relationships losing their connections. And drug sales skyrocketing as people chased a high they couldn’t get any other way …

  The brain entrainment countered deindividuation. It broke up people’s urges to follow each other, to feed off each other’s emotions. Deadened those urges.

  It dissolved the connections between people.

  Oh God. The realization plowed into me like a freight train. I couldn’t get enough air, but this time it was reality that strangled me.

  Katrina had stood brazen and alive in this very office, just a few weeks ago, and Arthur had been helping her—and then I—I had—

  “I have to go,” I said to Arthur. He barely heard me, concentrating on Justin.

  I ran.

  As soon as I hit the alleyway outside Arthur’s office, my body rebelled and threw up. I coughed, leaning against the concrete wall.

  Just down the block was one of our cell hacking boxes, hidden on the lip of a roof at the end of an alley. I ran, half stumbling, until I reached it.

  I barely made the climb. My hands slid and scrabbled, my equilibrium shot. I pulled out my knife and pried the box loose, then half fell back to street level and smashed it under my heel, once, twice, again and again, shattering the components inside.

  My hands and feet slapped against wood and ropes and rocks with effortless probability, my course through the obstacles already predetermined.…

  Not now. Not now!

  I’d been so close to considering suicide the perfect solution, to being almost at peace with running out of time, but it was all going wrong, because this wasn’t what was supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, only give people back their freedom.

  It was supposed to help. It was supposed to solve everything.

  “I disagree with your definition of the mathematical optimum,” I said. The wall blew up, scattering tile everywhere, the color of blood.