Zero Recall (3 page)

“You may board, Rri’jan,”
Forgotten told him, deactivating the ship’s defense protocol.  “I will suspend
any unpleasantries until I have heard your proposal.  You have my word.”

Rri’jan hesitated.  “
That
was a test?
”

“Of course.”

Rri’jan said nothing. 
The airlock opened and he stepped inside.  Forgotten immediately decreased the
artificial gravity of the ship to be something more comfortable to the Huouyt’s
ancestrally aquatic, boneless, three-legged frame.  If Rri’jan noticed or
cared, he said nothing.  As Forgotten watched through the ship’s cameras, the
Huouyt strode purposefully down the hall and stopped at the entrance to
Forgotten’s chamber.

“Open the door, Geuji.”

Forgotten found the idea
of having Death literally a few digs away strongly alluring.  He opened the
door before he realized how alarming that was.

The Huouyt stepped
inside, dressed in the gold and silver garb the Ze’laa family preferred—a
testament to his success as a Va’gan.  The writhing white cilia that covered
every ninth of his skin were utterly calm and still, despite the fact that they
both knew Forgotten held the Huouyt’s life in his hands.  His eyes were the
bright, white-blue shade that most species found unnerving, even going so far
to suggest the Huouyt could read minds and peer into souls with their eerie
gaze. 

Forgotten preferred to
think that the eeriness behind a Huouyt’s stare was simply due to their
soulless nature.  Of all the species he’d ever worked with, he found his
experiences with the Huouyt the least enjoyable.  It had actually been very
satisfying to see Representative Na’leen’s grand schemes foiled on Kophat by a
handful of raw recruits just over fifty-three turns ago.  To think he might be
working to regain what Na’leen had rightfully lost left Forgotten discomfited.

“I warn you, Rri’jan,”
Forgotten said, as Na’leen’s replacement to the Regency looked idly around his
chamber.  “I do not like Huouyt.  Your offer must do much to persuade me, and I
do not need wealth.”

Unlike most species when
confronted with a Geuji’s featureless mass, Rri’jan’s gaze did not fumble for
some point of reference.  Instead, it simply found a spot and stayed there, his
unnatural eyes never moving.

“Then perhaps I should
warn
you,
Geuji,” Rri’jan replied casually, “that if our bargain here
does not please me, I will tow your ship back to Levren and hand you over to
the Peacemakers.”

Oh, this was getting even
better.  Perhaps Forgotten would let the fool live…with permanent drug-induced
mental instability.  “You will not kill me?” he asked, as surprised as he could
manage.

Rri’jan’s expression was
cruel.  “Why would I do that?  You are one of the most critically endangered
species in Congress.”

“So your offer is a
threat?” Forgotten asked, amused.  “Help you or join the rest of the Geuji in
prison?”

“Help me and I shall use
the Tribunal to see the Geuji freed.”

Though Forgotten had long
ago considered this as a possibility, to have another species say it out loud
threatened to steal all logic from his mind.  Hope flared like traitorous
sparks in his core.  It required all his effort to ground himself, to remember
the past.  

“Aliphei would not allow
it.”

“Prazeil and I can
override Aliphei.  ‘Tis the nature of the Tribunal.” 

“Why would Prazeil care
about the Geuji?”

“The Jreet have a soft
spot for misfortune.”

It was true.  Forgotten
realized with alarm that the sparks of hope had grown into something more. 
Rri’jan offered something Forgotten had always wanted but had never been able
to acquire.  Something that even his wealth had never been able to buy.

Freedom. 

Despite his distaste for
the Huouyt, Forgotten said, “The Huouyt will be given a permanent place by the
Tribunal.”

Surprise agitated his
visitor’s cilia.  “
Permanent
?”

“Yes,” Forgotten said. 
“I see no need for the Huouyt to continue to struggle and bicker with other
species for a seat whenever one becomes available.  We should make your station
as permanent as Aliphei’s.”

Satisfaction rippled
briefly across Rri’jan’s breja.  “How long will it take?”

“A turn.”

“You already have a
plan?”  Though Rri’jan tried to hide his surprise, the ship’s monitors picked
up the steady increase in Rri’jan’s biological functions.

“Yes.  For the Huouyt to
gain a Tribunal seat, we must kill Mekkval.”

“How?” Rri’jan asked,
intensely interested, now, and trying unsuccessfully to hide it.

“The first step is to start
a war,” Forgotten said, already seeing it in his mind.

“What kind of war?”

“The kind Congress has
never seen before.”

CHAPTER 2:  Zero Recall

“Have you seen
this man?”  Joe held up the age-progression photo of his brother to the dirty
glass window.

The hollow-eyed
man behind the booth scratched his greasy beard and said, “A man like that
don’t come cheap.  You a cop?”

“I’m his
brother.”

The man looked
him up and down and snorted.  “Yeah.  Right.”

“
Look
at
him, damn it,” Joe said, pointing at the picture.  “We’re obviously related.  Same
chin.  I’m just trying to find him.  I haven’t seen him since the Draft.  He
could be going by the name Sam or Slade, okay?”

The druggie’s
hollow, skull-like gaze sharpened on Joe, for the first time taking in the rash
that had developed around the newly-activated hair follicles of Joe’s face and
scalp.  Immediately, distrust tightened his features.  “You’re a Congie?”

Joe closed his
eyes to keep from putting his fist through the glass and strangling the doping
bastard.  “Not anymore.  I was forcibly retired a couple months ago.  Please. 
I’m just trying to find my brother.  I hear he’s still alive.  Some sort of
rejuvenation technology or something.”

The druggie’s
face darkened.  “Thought you sounded funny.  Get out of here ‘fore I get my
gun.”

“Listen, you sootwad,”
Joe snapped.  “I’ve gone through eight other furgs just like you, all of whom
said the same thing, and all of whom ended up telling me exactly what I wanted
to know.  Think about it.  I was a Prime Commander in the Congressional army. 
Been working in Planetary Ops for fifty turns.  It was my job for a good number
of those turns to make vaghi like you sing like canaries. You
really
wanna piss me off?”

The druggie eyed
him sullenly.  “You weren’t in no Planetary Ops.”

Joe slapped his
right palm to the window, displaying the tattoo of a green, single-moon planet
with a headcom, a PPU, and a species-generic plasma rifle leaning against the
debris ring.  The tattoo glowed slightly, a cell-by-cell gene modification that
caused Joe’s skin to bio-luminesce.  It was a government nannite tat, and no
ink in the world could duplicate it.

Even as the
druggie’s eyes were widening with shock, Joe once more pressed his brother’s
picture to the window.

“Oh, shit,
man.”  The addict behind the window looked paler than ever.  “You’re asking the
wrong person.  He’s a big-timer.  I’m just a wanna-be, man.  I ain’t got no
idea where the Ghost is.”

Joe had to fight
back the frustration he had felt ever since returning to Earth to find his
mother twenty years dead, his brother vanished into the world of crime.  As of
yet, every single person Joe had interviewed had responded in the same
maddening way.  They recognized his picture, but didn’t know anything else
about him.  It was like Sam really was a…ghost.

“So tell me what
you know of him,” Joe said, as calmly as he could.  “Everything you can
remember.”

“Shit, man. 
Shit.  I ain’t never
seen
him before, man.  Just heard of him.  Shit, I
shouldn’t even be sayin’ nothin’.”  The guy swallowed and looked around like he
expected the very walls to be watching them.  “Don’t care if you
are
his
brother, he wanted to talk to you, he would’ve found you already.”

“I’ve only been here
a week,” Joe growled.

The druggie nodded
emphatically.  “Yeah, man.  If the Ghost had wanted to talk to you, he
definitely
woulda talked to you by now.”

Joe was fed up. 
The last seven days of civilian life had been hell.  Not only did they question
him, but sometimes they outright refused to talk to him—something that had
blown Joe’s mind the first time it happened.  People were rude to him,
especially when they realized he’d been a Congie.  His PlanOps tattoo tempered
that a little bit, but the hostility was still there.  While he got along with
every alien species even better than a Jahul, Humans, his own kind, hated him.

Once more, Joe
wondered if he’d made a mistake in coming back to Earth instead of settling on
an Ueshi pleasure-planet like Kaleu or Tholiba.  On Kaleu, he would’ve been treated
with the same welcome and respect as any other of the three thousand, two
hundred and forty-four sentient species in Congress.  Here, he was just one of
those kids that got brainwashed by aliens.  Here, he
was
the alien.  He
might as well have Ooreiki tentacles or a Huouyt’s breja for the nervous looks
and outright sneers he got.  Earth simply didn’t want him.

And yet, the
Ground Force didn’t want him, either.  Not anymore.

Not after
Maggie’s final bitch-slap in front of half of Congress.

Thank you for
your latest reenlistment application, Commander Joe Dobbs, but the
Congressional Army is over-capacity and is no longer in need of your services. 
We’ve scheduled your shuttle back to Earth for tomorrow morning…

Bitterly, Joe
said, “Just tell me what you know about him, okay?”

“They call him
Ghost,” the druggie said.  “Not because he’s hard to find, huh-uh.  Because he—”

“—bleached his
hair white and wears contacts,” Joe interrupted.  “Yeah, I know.  What
else
?”

The druggie’s
greasy brow wrinkled.  “No, man.  Who told you that?”

“Look,” Joe
snapped, “Do you know
anything
that might be helpful?  As I see it right
now, you’re just wasting my time.  Just like I told all the other ghost-burning
sooters I’ve come across, I grew up with the little furg and he’s got
blue
eyes and
brown
hair.  Even if he went all the way and had his eye color
permanently changed—which, if he’s really as smart as everyone says he is, he
didn’t—his eyes don’t fucking
glow
.  How stupid
are
you people?”

The guy raised
his hands in surrender.  “Man, I just know what I been told.”

“Really?” Joe
barked.  “Then who told
you
?  Maybe I’ll get some answers from him.”

“I don’t know,
man,” the guy said, rapidly shaking his head.  “I know a lot of people.  I was
prolly stoned at the time.  Karwiq bulbs, you know?  The one good thing
Congress brought with ‘em.  You get a good one and it’s like you died and went
to heaven.”

Joe narrowed his
eyes and leaned in close to the glass.  “You wanna find out what that really
feels like?” Joe growled.  “I’ll show you, you Takki leafling.”

The druggie
sobered, really looking at him now. 

Joe tensed,
realizing that this could be the break he’d been looking for.

“Gum,” the
druggie said finally.

Joe waited, then
when that was all that was offered, he blinked at him.  “Gum.”

“Yeah, you
know.”  The druggie made exaggerated chewing motions.  “I hear he likes gum.”

Joe stared at
him for several moments, then his face tightened in a scowl.  “I should break
your stupid neck.”

“Hey, man, you
asked.”

“I asked for
something I can
use
,” Joe growled.

“You never
know.  Maybe the Ghost owns a gum factory or something.”

Joe stared at
the druggie for several moments before turning and stalking from the building. 
In the parking-lot, he took out the picture of his brother and threw it aside. 
He slipped inside his civilian
haauk
and pressed his head to the climate-controlled
steering panel.

The hasty plans
he had made of reuniting with his family and returning to his roots had
crumbled to dust over the past week he’d been on Earth.  Fifty-five turns after
Joe had been Drafted, everyone was dead except Sam, and Sam did not want to be
found. 

Joe had spent
over fifty turns—over
sixty-one years
—hunting down people who didn’t
want to be found, and yet somehow he hadn’t even got a whiff of the little
druglord soot’s whereabouts.

“Damn this
place,” Joe muttered.  For seven days, he’d been wandering the planet, wasting
his retirement money, getting no more than four hours of sleep at a time,
trying to pin down a ghost.

Joe gave a tired
scoff and wondered what his groundteam was doing on Falra. It had to be more
interesting than trying to find a career criminal who probably didn’t remember
him or even care he existed.

Joe lifted his
head and glanced at the list of contacts he still had to visit.  Six names,
none of which he recognized, all of which had been given to him by the same
unsavory sorts that in the last seven days had tried to murder him, rob him,
drug him, rape him, and in one case, harvest his organs.

Joe had known
from the beginning he wouldn’t get a hero’s welcome upon his return to Earth. 
What he had experienced here, however, left him feeling numb.

They hated them.

They hated every
one of them.  As if the Congies were responsible for Earth’s woes.  As if the
kids who had been Drafted sixty years ago were to blame for Congressional rule.

They didn’t
understand.  None of the Earth-bound furgs would ever understand.  Congress was
the only thing protecting them from something far more dangerous—the Dhasha,
the Jreet, the Jikaln, the Dreit, the Huouyt, and all the other warlike
creatures Congress had found along the way.