Null Set

by S. L. Huang

  I sensed more than saw the wave of humanity below surge forward as I failed to hold them off. Angry silhouettes scaled one of the catwalks to the side, gaining height on me. I shot one of them, but then I had to return my attention to the floor. With half my focus on Rio, I was no longer fending them off—even with the high ground, even with good cover, even with my skills and an accurate rifle.

  Inequality of numbers was one of the most basic mathematical concepts.

  I still kept going, breathing in gun smoke and decimals, letting mathematical interpolation fill in the data for every blind spot and taking out one enemy per shot.

  Rio had stopped moving. Dampness soaked through the folds of his duster.

  I heard the ricochet too late to do anything.

  The bullet pinged off one of the metal pillars and kicked me in the left side of my ribs. The armor stopped it, but the kinetic energy spun me off Rio, sprawling me on the catwalk.

  I struggled to get back up, to protect Rio, to fight—the vast net of data became all I could sense, and I gave myself in to it, squeezing the trigger over and over, but I was only one, and the probability mounted against me, massive and toppling.

  Theory argued that when you knew the outcome of a problem, it was immaterial how you got to the end. This fight was over, but I wasn’t admitting it. Not until they killed me.

  Apparently I was a crappy theoretician.

  I crouched over Rio, making my body as small a target as possible—

  “Stop!”

  The shout was a clarion call above the fray, somehow perfectly audible through the thunder of the gunfire.

  “Stop!”

  And everyone did.

  We stopped.

  Below and around me, across the entire factory floor, gun barrels wavered and then dropped to point at the ground. The last shell casings fell in the earsplitting silence, clinking against cement and sheet metal.

  I lurched, and had to put a hand down to keep from falling. I tried to raise my rifle to target and fire, but …

  That was really a bad idea, wasn’t it? With the bad guys deescalating, I should deescalate too, shouldn’t I?

  Rio’s arm hitched, and somehow a pistol appeared in his hand, its grip resting on the catwalk. Its sights wobbled in a drunken line. “Let them go,” he slurred into the utter stillness. “This is a sin in the eyes of the Lord.”

  “And slaughtering each other isn’t?” came the same voice. It echoed from just down the catwalk, over the heads of those who had come to kill us. “This conflict is pointless. Go home to your families; see to your wounded. Save your lives for a fight with meaning. You can trust that the technology affecting you will be deactivated. Justice has been served here.”

  Everywhere in sight, weapons slid into holsters or were slung over shoulders. There weren’t many wounded—Rio and I didn’t shoot to wound. But the crowd shuffled to retrieve the bodies of their dead and help each other out of the building.

  I thought about shooting some of them. But that wouldn’t be very sporting, would it? Shooting people in the back as they walked away, after the fight was over?

  A tall, lean silhouette slipped in through a side door as the last of the stragglers wandered out. Mama Lorenzo. She’d been outside. She’d probably heard.

  She didn’t have a gun. Her hands opened and closed by her sides, and she gazed around at the blood-soaked floor with glassy eyes.

  “It’s over,” called Simon, from where he stood, alone and unarmed, on an open catwalk above the empty factory. “No good can come of any more violence. You’re done here.”

  Her head jerked in a nod, and she stumbled against the doorway as she made her way back outside.

  The door banged shut behind her.

  Simon alone remained, a single living silhouette in a mosaic of smoke and shell casings and blood. So much blood, so much the sharp metallic scent of it overwhelmed everything else …

  Simon’s head bowed forward. He gripped the railing of the catwalk in front of him, and his shoulders began to shake.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  “Cas,” Rio murmured. “Are you back?”

  He had to know it was a stupid question considering he couldn’t trust my response, but I answered by scrambling for my weapon anyway.

  Though there was no point in going after them now, was there? Even if I could chase any of them down? And Rio needed help—

  “Just let them go, Cassandra. Please,” Simon said. Brokenly.

  “Let me make the goddamn decision myself,” I shouted back, throwing down the rifle and heaving myself back toward Rio. Moving had opened his wounds further. I pressed back down on them again, ruthlessly, and he let me. I couldn’t tell how bad it was.

  Simon picked his way toward us. “Would you rather I not have come, then?” he asked, so bitterly I felt it wash through me in a wave.

  “Yes,” Rio said. “This was not well done.”

  “Good, we agree,” Simon shot back. “I should have left you to die. Or let you murder them all—that would have been so much better.” He reached us and stared down at Rio with no sympathy. “Are you going to kill me, if you live?”

  “You merit it,” Rio answered. “For your sins.”

  “I’m still the only person who can help Cas. Although why I should, after this—”

  Rio exhaled slightly in acknowledgement, and let the pistol drop from his fingers.

  “Wait just a damn second,” I said. “Fuck that.”

  Simon shifted to face me. “We had a deal.”

  “In exchange for you resolving this situation, which you skipped out on doing,” I pointed out.

  “It’s done now.”

  Fuck. He might’ve been late, but he’d crossed every moral line of his to come fix this, in the end. As I’d asked him to. As I’d bargained with him.

  I wondered if he was influencing me to think all that. He probably didn’t need to.

  “If Rio lives,” I said, “then you’ve held up your end.”

  I knew that wasn’t fair—or rather, I could feel Simon thinking it wasn’t fair, along with a wave of hatred and anger, for me or the situation or Rio. I wasn’t sure. But he crouched and helped me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, and I wondered if he regretted saving my life.

  Then I wondered if that was my thought or his.

  thirty-six

  THE FALLOUT was messy and sprawling, but fortunately for us, fell mostly elsewhere.

  The police had the recording of McCabe’s radio show and the obvious scene of a massacre at the factory, but when they pressed McCabe for a description of me, he apparently couldn’t give them anything beyond “short” and “black,” which wasn’t even accurate. And he’d never asked my name. The detectives did interview Arthur, who managed to spin them a story—again—about being a PI investigating something peripheral who just happened to end up as a witness. He was remarkably good at that.

  Mama Lorenzo had a sizeable chunk of the LAPD on her payroll already and turned out to be disinclined to give them any information. Or to come after me. I wasn’t even sure she fully remembered all the events after her brother’s death—I asked around in some corners, and the word came down that Malcolm’s killer had already been declared dealt with.

  That should have relieved me. Instead, I was swamped with guilt and fury, impotent rage with no target other than myself.

  Simon and I had gotten Rio to a hospital before he bled out. Between his surgery and when the detectives came to talk to him, he’d disappeared. I didn’t much worry about him—Rio could take care of himself. He’d call me if he needed to.

  Banking on my mental health stretching just a little longer, I’d told Simon I needed a week before I submitted to my side of our bargain. I spent most of it canvassing the city and reprogramming our boxes to strip the brain entrainment app from any phone that had it. I limped through the process; getting shot had cracked two of my ribs, and my left side felt like one sol
id bruise. Other bits of intel trickled in from my inquiries—even as the brain entrainment ebbed away, nobody seemed to be taking up arms against each other, and beyond the Lorenzos, no one else was talking about being angry with me, either. Or talking about me at all.

  It was as if I’d never been involved.

  Even though he’d almost certainly saved my life, the thoroughness of Simon’s magic made me resent him all the more. He’d so completely erased a piece of my history right in front of my eyes, a series of events and mistakes that now no one could remember, no one save me and a few friends.

  What else of me would he erase, in the name of saving me?

  I spent a lot of time wondering if Checker had been right, and we’d chosen the greater of two evils.

  I spent a lot of time wondering if Dawna had been right, and had only been doing what we had been, on a greater scale.

  The morning after I finished spreading our cellular fix, I went to see Pilar at her apartment. The windows were dark, the blinds drawn, but Arthur had said she was taking some personal time, and I knew she was home. I knocked lightly.

  “Pilar? It’s Cas.”

  I thought for a minute she wasn’t going to answer, but then the bolt slid back and she pulled the door open. She was in pajamas, her right wrist in a cast. I winced.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Her eyes darted behind me.

  “It’s just me,” I assured her quickly.

  Her lips pressed together, her face closing in.

  “He’s never going to hurt you again,” I said. “I promise.”

  “I don’t know if you can promise that,” Pilar said. Her voice was low.

  “I swear to you. He’s not.” I hesitated. “Can I come in for a minute?”

  She turned and walked back into the living room of her apartment, leaving the door open. I followed.

  She sat on her couch. I sat across from her, on the edge of a bright rainbow-colored bucket chair.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Cas,” Pilar said finally. “We’re friends, we are, and I’ve been worried sick about you, and I’m really glad you’re okay, and Checker’s been keeping me updated and I’m really glad everything else turned out okay, but—fuck you.” She started to cry.

  I shifted on the edge of the bucket chair.

  “And fuck him, too,” she added.

  Pilar didn’t usually cuss. The words sounded wrong in her mouth, like she was searching for something that fit the situation and couldn’t find it.

  “I promise—” I started again.

  “You can’t promise that,” she said. “You can’t, and you know you can’t!”

  “Yes, I can,” I said. “I’m absolutely sure. He’s not going to come after you again. Ever.”

  Confusion warred on her face. She sniffed. “Wait, do you mean—what do you mean by that? Did you…”

  “No! Jesus, of course not. But I told him that if he hurts you again, I—I told him he can’t.”

  “You told him. Right.” Pilar hunched into herself. “No. This isn’t okay.”

  “It is now,” I said. “I’m sorry for what happened, but—”

  “No. No, you don’t get to—you don’t get to rescue me by”—her mouth twisted on the word like it was a curse—“by telling a man who, a man like him, by just telling him not to, and then tell me it’s all okay, because it isn’t okay. This isn’t okay.”

  I took a breath. “What are you going to do?”

  Pilar was too smart. She squinted at me, her brow furrowing. “Is that what you came over for? To make sure I wouldn’t—what, go out for revenge?”

  That’s not fair, I wanted to say. I had wanted to see if she was all right. I had. But I’d also wanted to make sure—fuck, I was the one who’d taught Pilar to shoot. Bought her a gun. She wasn’t nearly as good as Rio, but if they crossed paths again, which they very well might—and if I wasn’t there, or I was … not myself, or worse—it would only take one shot, and thanks to me, Rio wouldn’t fire first.

  Not that I wanted him to kill Pilar, either. Fuck.

  Pilar laughed, sudden and hoarse, with no humor in it. “I can’t believe it. Two people like you, worried about little ol’ me. That’s like the punchline of a joke.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. She’d stopped crying. “Are you going to take my gun back?”

  “What? No, that’s ridiculous. You need it. And besides, you could just buy another one.”

  “I guess that’s true, huh?” She sat back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe this is a conversation I’m having. I’m listening to the words I’m saying here and I can’t believe it.”

  “Look,” I said. “I got Rio’s word on this. I’m asking you for yours. That’s all.”

  “My word. That I won’t—what, kill him?”

  “Yeah.”

  She laughed again. It didn’t sound like she found anything funnier than the first time.

  I waited.

  Pilar finally sat forward again and made eye contact with me. “I don’t even know if I could, you know? I’ve never—you know I’ve never. You don’t need to worry about me, as long as he’s not trying to hurt any of us again. But Cas, I … I need to understand this. You owe me that, at least.”

  “Understand what?” I said.

  “This. Him. You. Why you’re— If I’m going to see him again I need to understand why I shouldn’t call the police.”

  Her calling the police hadn’t even occurred to me. I swallowed. “He does more good than harm.”

  “That’s not a reason. You know that’s not a reason. The world can’t work that way.”

  I thought of Pithica. I thought of what we had done, with Simon.

  She was right. I did know better.

  “Make me understand,” Pilar said. “What he almost— And you, you say all you did was talk to him, after he— And you say it’s okay, and that’s outrageous, and I know what he was doing to Los Angeles because I was there, and I need you to make me understand.”

  “I trust him,” I said. The words dropped in the room, soft and yet too loud.

  “Why?”

  He’ll protect you.

  Protection isn’t living. Don’t pretend it is.

  I gripped the edge of the bucket chair. Valarmathi had been surging back again, just as I’d known she would.

  “I don’t know,” I said aloud, to Pilar.

  “You don’t know?”

  “You’re perfectly well aware of what’s been going on with me,” I said. “I know I know Rio from before, and I know I trust him, and I know I owe him. And that’s enough.”

  “Not for me, it isn’t!” Pilar cried. “I thought you had a reason! I knew he was tangled up in all this, with Simon and everything, but I thought you had a history—”

  “We do have a history.”

  “One you can remember!”

  She glared at me.

  Aren’t you supposed to help?

  I take a somewhat different view of what it means to help.

  Yours, or your God’s?

  “Pilar,” I said quietly. “Please. This is the one thing in my whole fucking life I’m sure of. Please.”

  “You’re asking me to trust you on something that— You’re asking me to trust you.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “When you don’t even know what you’re asking me to trust.”

  “Yes.” I paused, and then added again, “Please.”

  Pilar took a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay,” she said. “I can’t make any guarantees for the future. But, for now … okay.”

  “That works,” I said.

  “What about my family?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to tell her Rio would never, but I hadn’t thought he’d go after Pilar, either. “I’ll make sure,” I amended.

  “Make sure. Or I can’t agree to anything.”

  “I give you my word.” I stood up and stopped. “When are you coming back to the office?”
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  She gave me a small smile. “When I’m ready.”

  thirty-seven

  I APOLOGIZED to Checker, too—both for what we’d done and for Rio. He got emotional and threw an action figure at me, after which he demanded for us please to get drunk together and watch at least fourteen episodes of Stargate.

  I wasn’t sure he’d forgiven me—he never said he did—and our interaction felt rawer around the edges, but I fell asleep on his couch that night and the next day we went to work in the Hole running his statistical programs. Pilar came over, too, a little later in the day. She was quieter than usual, but otherwise acted like everything was normal.

  The feelers I’d put out had seemed to indicate everyone was still licking their wounds, but the data hit harder and revealed more. We’d been expecting the crime statistics to rebound to their previous level or higher, but thanks to the massive deadliness of Rio’s and my last stand combined with Simon’s overwhelming effect, we only saw a slight and gradual elevation in criminal activity. It also seemed like most of the people who had gone straight thanks to the brain entrainment were staying that way—at least for now. I suspected once the leaders of the various criminal organizations got back on their feet, recruitment would start up again.

  “It wasn’t a complete failure,” Checker said, his chin propped on one hand as he studied the line graphs.

  “I’m not sure those words mean what you think they do,” I said. “Either ‘not’ or ‘complete’ or ‘failure.’”

  “I’m talking about strictly looking at the numbers.” He pointed. “From a purely utilitarian standpoint, you axed the crime rate. And I think you were right that most of the people this targeted were the ones who were getting swept up in peer pressure and indoctrination.”

  “Most,” I bit out.

  “All of them, really,” Pilar said. “We just didn’t consider peer pressure and indoctrination could be used consensually, for positive stuff.”

  “It’s like computerized doctors, or self-driving cars,” Checker said. “They make fewer mistakes than humans do, but they’re different mistakes. What you did helped people make fewer mistakes, but the ones who did made different ones.”