Zero Sum Game (32 page)

“Consider it payment for springing me from prison,” I said.

“That was nothing. I had backdoors built into those systems already. Just, you know, in case. Don’t tell Arthur,” he added as an afterthought.

“I already said I wouldn’t.” He might not be prepared for rebuilding computer clusters on the run, but Checker had some levels of paranoia I heartily approved of. I wondered what his history was. “So, what’s the verdict? You want me to dead drop the equipment?”

“Oh, I’m sending you after way too much for that,” he said. “We might as well do this in person. This is where I take the leap, I guess.” His voice had gone high and uncertain. “How can you be sure you’re…cured?”

I looked around the edges of the closed blinds. The traffic of Los Angeles buzzed by on the streets below, the cars splashing miserably through rain sheeting down from a soggy sky. My head still hurt, so I liked to think I was resisting
something,
but that was very far from a sure thing. “I’m not,” I admitted.

I heard Checker take a few shallow breaths. Then he said, “I can’t help wondering. How do we know this isn’t part of some elaborate Xanatos Gambit?”

I left off staring at the traffic. “Some elaborate what?”

“Some sort of complicated scheme. I mean, how do we know this isn’t all exactly what she wants us to do?”

It was an extremely legitimate question. “I don’t know.”

The conversation stalled into awkward silence. I had a pretty good idea what Checker might be thinking: Dawna hadn’t found him yet. He could continue to run, and run as fast and far as he could, instead of hooking back up with us and facing the real possibility of becoming another one of Pithica’s pawns.

“If it helps,” I said. “It
feels
like I’m fighting her. Plus, Rio really does seem to be immune, and he thinks I’m okay.” Checker still didn’t say anything. “Hello?”

“Who?” The word was slow and suspicious.

My chest started to cramp in a way that had nothing to do with the healing wound or the wet bandages, and my headache suddenly felt twice as bad. I leaned against the wall next to the window. “Arthur neglected to mention I work with Rio, didn’t he.”

“
That
Rio?”

“I assume so.”

He made a choking sound. “Some of the things Arthur said make a lot more sense now. I’m going to kill him.”

“I take it you’ve heard of Rio, too, then.”

“Heard of—!” He cut himself off. I could practically hear him mentally rearranging his impression of me in light of the whole works-with-a-mass-murdering-sadist connection. I closed my eyes, heartily tired of this. “That name,” whispered Checker. “Some of the less-than-reputable people I’ve known, before I met Arthur—he terrifies
them,
beyond reason. It’s like he’s the boogie man. People invoke his name like he’s a demon or something. Cas Russell, I like you so far, but…”

“I trust him,” I said, for what felt like the thousandth time.

“To do
what?”

That was a good question. What did trust mean, exactly? “To have my back,” I said.

“I have to think about this.”

“He got Arthur and me out of there.”

“He did?”

“Yes. I told you, I trust him.” I tried for impatient, but the words just came out drained.

“He’s after Pithica?”

“Yes.”

“I have to think about this,” said Checker again. “I’ll—I’ll call you back.”

He hung up the phone and I leaned my head against the wall. The pounding of the rain reverberated through it, a steady thrum. A moment ago I’d been so hopeful. So sure we had a chance, that we could do this, but for the first time I could remember, I needed help to make it happen, and nobody wanted to jump with me. Why did everything involving people have to be so difficult?

Rio came over. “Other plans notwithstanding, we should change location,” he said. “Tresting told me you were made.”

“I lost them,” I said.

“Regardless, now that you are well enough to travel, you should leave Los Angeles. Other plans can wait. Pithica will be able to track you here eventually.”

I’d been thinking the same thing back when we’d lost our tail after Checker’s place, but now my feelings had snapped into orneriness. “Here’s a thought,” I said. “Let them. We’ll set a trap of our own, figure out a way to fight back.”

“Cas,” said Rio.

Arthur joined him. “Leaving LA ain’t a bad plan, Russell. This is too big. Even if the info you think you found is legit—”

I growled at him.

Arthur held up his hands placatingly. “Might be a better idea for us to run anyway. From what you say, we ain’t causing a fuss, maybe they let us be.”

Rio turned away from him slightly. “Your assistance during this has been appreciated; however, you will not be going with her. You are still compromised.”

“Says the man who shot her!”

“You are free to go your own way,” said Rio.

“I can? Why, thank you
so
much for the permission!”

“Cas,” said Rio, “We must move you to a more secure location immediately. Preferably outside the country.”

“No,” I said.

“Cas—”

“Yeah, you just go and tell everyone what to do—” put in Arthur.

“Cas, I cannot impress upon you the danger of—”

“I ain’t trusting you to keep her safe!”

“Hey!” The shout sent spikes of pain shooting through my still-damaged lungs, but I didn’t care. This was like trying to corral wet, angry cats. Rio thought Arthur useless, Arthur thought Rio an abomination, Checker didn’t trust anyone anymore, and Rio didn’t trust anyone ever, apparently me included. For crying out loud,
I
was the only one who wanted to be a team player, which was so laughable it pissed me right the hell off. Not to mention the ridiculous, chauvinistic chivalry that apparently came mandatory with a Y-chromosome—I was capable of wiping the floor with both Rio and Arthur at once, and they thought they had a right to dictate what I should do? No wonder I preferred to work alone.

“I’m done with this,” I snapped, and hit the button on the phone to redial Checker, putting him on speaker again. “Okay, you three, listen up,” I said the moment he picked up. “Pithica’s come after all of us. They’ve tried to kill us, they’ve tried to brainwash us, and they’ve messed up our world in ways we probably know nothing about. Two of you have been chasing them for months; Rio, you’ve been going after them forever. I tell you I think we can finally make a difference and bring them down and you choose to give up
now?”

“I would like to discuss your discovery,” said Rio, “but first we must assure you are safely—”

“What? Out of the way? That’s not your decision to make!” This was only the second time in memory I’d lost my temper toward Rio, and the first time had been caused by Dawna’s influence. “I get that you’re trying to look out for me or some other ridiculous notion, but that’s not your call. I’m angry—I’m
furious
—and guess what? I’m going to fight back. If the three of you aren’t in, then, God help me, I will figure out a way to go after them myself, and I will fucking win. And you—” I gesticulated at them wildly. “—can go and do whatever you want with your meaningless little lives, run if you want to, I don’t care, but I am thoroughly sick of trying to work together on this. So if you aren’t in, I’m done. I hope you all have nice lives.”

The rain pounded against the walls, almost drowning out the city noise outside. No one spoke.

“Was that supposed to be a motivational speech?” said Checker finally from the phone.

“No,” I said, quite cross.

“Good, because I don’t feel motivated. I vote against you for team morale officer.”

Arthur’s lip twitched. “That mean we a team?”

“Well, I’ve got a self-destructive streak a parsec wide that needs feeding,” said Checker. “And war, strange bedfellows…uh, something. I suppose I’m in; I mean, was I ever going to say no to this? But, Arthur?”

“Yeah?” said Arthur.

“I still don’t think you should know where we do this thing. At the risk of setting Cas off again—it’s just good sense.”

Arthur hunched his shoulders slightly. “That’s okay.”

“Rio?” I said.

Rio spread his hands. “If you are determined on this course of action, I will assist you.” I couldn’t read his expression. “However, I must still insist we at least leave the city.”

“As long as it won’t delay us too much,” I conceded.

“Leaving the country would still be the best—”

“And would take time,” I argued. “Unless you think flying commercial on a fake passport is secure enough. No, I didn’t think so either. Look, every day we wait on this is another day they can use to rework their financial structure.”

“Is there nothing I can say to dissuade you?” said Rio.

“Nope,” I answered. “You can tell me if it sounds like I’m playing into her hands, or walking into a trap, or doing something that might be Dawna Polk’s lovely programming, but you’re not keeping me out of this. Okay?”

“Of course I shall alert you if you appear compromised.”

“And you trust him to—” started Arthur.

“Rio,” I said, “do I sound like myself, or do I sound like I’m just doing what Dawna wants?”

“You sound distinctly uninfluenced,” said Rio dryly. “Regrettably.”

“I can hit the road within an hour,” said Checker.

“Okay. We’ll get the equipment in the meantime,” I said. “I’ll text you where to meet us.”

“Just make sure it’s not a walk-up,” said Checker. “See you soon.”

“Talk later,” offered Arthur.

There was a brief pause and then a click as Checker hung up.

I bared my teeth at Arthur and Rio in something that might have been a smile. “Okay. Who feels like electronics shopping?”

Chapter 31

Rio,
with a disapproving turn to his mouth that said he thought a hundred and twenty miles was not nearly far enough to run, volunteered a safe house out near Twentynine Palms. He gave me the address after Arthur was safely out of the apartment. “Take the path from the road to the back door,” he told me. “Do not go in the front.”

“Or what?” I asked curiously.

“I have some minimal security measures in place.”

“Goody,” I said. “Just make sure you don’t forget to tell me about any of them.”

Arthur had taken off first, following my hastily-scrawled directions to retrieve copious amounts of cash from various places in Los Angeles to buy computer equipment with.

“Wait, you remember where you keep your stashes with
equations?”
he’d demanded incredulously when I started giving him directions.

“It’s easier than memorizing them,” I tried to explain, but he just shook his head at me and departed with the list. The plan was for Rio to meet him and then drive all the equipment out, stopping to collect Checker at a rendezvous point some distance away from the safe house. Rio didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t him or me not to pick up a tail.

Rather than risk accidentally activating a LoJack signal, I retrieved an old clunker from a storage space that I had acquired quasi-legitimately some years ago—along with a few weapons for the trunk—and fought creeping LA traffic to the 405, where I jerked northward through the rain. I figured I’d hit the 14 and cut across, taking a roundabout route via Victorville. If I got made on the first leg, the assumption would be that I was heading towards Vegas, or maybe Mojave. I kept one eye on my mirrors the whole way, but I got out of the city clean, and eventually I left the crush of LA behind to mark mile after mile through the desert.

I reached Yucca Valley and slued east, following Rio’s directions and heading off the highway. I’d left the rain behind with the city, and the wind swirled fogs of dust across the asphalt, the tiny grains of sand pattering against my windshield and obscuring the half-hearted attempts at civilization out this way. I thought it too generous to call them towns.

I finally crawled up a steep, winding dirt track to the address Rio had given me, wheels crunching and thumping over rocks not nearly small enough to be considered gravel. The little car strained up the slope, the tires skidding on the scree, until I reached a small clapboard house clamped to the top of the crumbling plateau, its high ground commanding a view of the desert nothingness for miles.

Twilight was falling over the landscape heavy and purple as I got out of the car, and the rock formations and knobby Joshua trees cast long, stretching shadows across the emptiness of the desert. The last rays of the sun warmed my skin, but the air was already turning cold and biting in the shadows. After retrieving some guns and a stack of legal pads from my trunk, I heeded Rio and went in the back door.

The place was small but well-stocked. Crates of MREs, foil packages labeled as emergency rations, and sealed bags of drinking water dominated most of the storage space and were stacked against the walls of the rooms, with a respectable number of gasoline cans keeping them company. I even saw a cabinet filled with hard liquor, which I frowned at—as far as I knew, Rio didn’t drink. Temperance was one of the Christian values, after all. Maybe alcohol had some survivalist purpose I didn’t know about.

I also found a heavy metal door that was very solidly locked. I figured Rio stored the armaments back there. Or it was a small bunker. Or both.

I flicked on the lights to banish the shadows collecting in the corners and leaned my weapons up against a nearby wall fully loaded—a girl has to feel safe, after all. Then I picked up the first legal pad and pulled out a ballpoint pen. My chest ached, my head ached, and the long drive had drained me, but none of that mattered.

I started writing.

My longhand scribbles expanded over page after page. As I finished each one I tore it off and spread them out in order over every available surface. By the wee hours of the morning, the floor was carpeted in scrawled-on yellow paper, the walls had sheets Scotch-taped up to form an overlapping wallpaper, and the cardboard backs from five dead legal pads lay discarded in a corner while I scribbled on a sixth.

When I heard tires on the dirt road, I dropped my pen, slung a rifle over my back, and picked up the pump-action Mossberg beside it. I was pretty sure it was only Rio and Checker, but better to be safe. I slipped out the back door into the pitch darkness of the desert night, the sky crusted in stars above me.