Zero's Return (78 page)

They were not, however,
when Twelve-A looked closely again, evil.  Just…broken.  Sad and broken.  And
determined to take Eleven-C away from them again because they were desperate. 
Starving.  Afraid.  They knew their own limitations, they knew they’d lost
their best fighters to Joe’s violence, and now they knew they weren’t going to
survive.  Mike, who was used to making decisions from his old job, had been the
one forced to make the call to leave their mutilated friends behind and salvage
the stuff they could use for the people who were going to live through the
apocalypse.  Though they had begged and pleaded with them to stay, Mike had to
think of the future.  Of the
children
.

Twelve-A settled into
their thoughts as Mike sat down to boil water over the fire that night, several
lengths away.  Everyone was hungry, tired.  They had run out of food that day,
and were now boiling grass and twigs in water to make it taste like it wasn’t
just water.  One of Mike’s boys had shot a squirrel with a slingshot, and it
was now boiling in the pot with the twigs.  The smaller, hard-eyed group spent
the time watching the squirrel cook talking about how they would ambush the
People’s group the next morning, when Joe got off shift and took his nap.  The
minder, they agreed, was too soft to hurt them, and with the proper
distractions—

I can help you,
Twelve-A offered gently.

Fuck, he’s in my head
again.  Fuck!  Just how far can he
reach
?

As far as I want to,
Twelve-A said.  Which was true—he could reach to the ocean in any direction,
and he didn’t want to reach beyond that.  The emotional misery on this
continent alone was overwhelming, straining Twelve-A’s ability to see anything
but the sickness every moment of every day.

“Change in plans,
guys.  That freak can sense us coming.” 
God.  Tammi’s gonna starve.  She’s
already sick…

Nobody has to starve,
Twelve-A said. 
We can share.

Could he be
serious? 
Then a wash of disgust. 
Yeah, right.  Nobody would
share
that
.  They’re walking around with a cornucopia, and we already
tried to take it once.  We’ll just have to take it again, and not leave the
fucking Congie or his foreign bitch alive to stop us.

We’ll share,
Twelve-A assured him. 
We have more than enough.

“Guys, we need to get
out of range.  I think we walked into the bastard’s head-space.  Let’s pack
up.  Head out.  Wait ‘til the freak’s asleep.”

Listen,
Twelve-A
insisted. 
You don’t have to take her.  We’ll
give
you food.  You
could bring things to trade.  Alice likes beads.  Joe keeps saying we need
rubbing alcohol and antibiotics—

We’re
not
giving you our goddamned antibiotics, you ailo freak.
 
He began to
think about how they would have to find a way to figure out which of the
experiments were useful after they killed the leaders.  The little girl had
said there was more than one of the experiments who could pull the magic
trick.  They’d have to ask her which ones, then they could kill the rest. 
Maybe lure them off with beads and trinkets while Mike slaughtered the rest of
the cattle.  Then they’d have to find a way to hide the makers from the rest of
Humanity.  Let those ignorant ailos die off, squabbling over cigarettes while
Mike and his folk lived like kings.  They’d need somewhere secluded, somewhere
quiet
…

Twelve-A was taken
aback.  He saw the goodness in Mike, but now it was masked, hidden behind a
wall of hardness.  If anything, Judgement had made Humanity’s sickness worse. 
Fear was a common thread, everywhere he looked.  Fear and
greed
.

I didn’t mean you
should
give
the antibiotics to us,
Twelve-A said. 
Once Eleven-C
can get a look at something, she can make it.  We can give you ten times as
much back.  We just need a pattern.

Mike hesitated. 
She
can make
antibiotics
? 
His group was running low because Joe had
met their violence with more violence and taken out his anger on their
friends—and Mike had had to use up over fifteen doses of antibiotics before he
had been forced to cut his losses.  Two had died.  The one without a foot had
lived…but only long enough for Mike and the others to have to abandon him in
their search for food.  Even then, that man starved to death in a stagnant
mental pond of loneliness and despair.

You want…to give us
food?  For nothing?
 
It was hesitant, uncertain.  Mike began to think
of happy thoughts, like playing with his daughter in the park and taking his
son to the merry-go-round before Judgement.

Yes,
Twelve-A
agreed, excited over Mike’s mental shift. 
There’s no need for you to
starve.  There’s enough for everyone. I plan to collect even more people
everywhere we go, to help the whole world see I’ve got a better way for them to
follow.  If Eleven-C gets tired, we can all eat a little less.

That soft, deluded
rat fuc—
 
Mike thought of his engagement to his wife, the way he had
given her silver, instead of gold, because it was all he could afford.  He
thought of how his son had been failing in middle school, and how Mike had
slipped the principal a few hundred bucks to fudge some scores.  He thought of
his daughter’s first puppy, and how she had tried to feed it chocolate chips
instead of Kibbles.

I think we can work
together,
Mike said.  He thought of holding his wife, watching a
sunset.  He thought of the birth of his first child. 
But nobody here
likes that Congie.  Or the foreign girl.  You think we could meet somewhere
they won’t bother us?  To do a little trading, then go our separate ways?

Twelve-A felt a little
twinge of alarm, thinking of meeting with outsiders alone, but then he
remembered what Joe and Shael had done to scared, helpless, hungry men and women
last
time and he decided that Mike was right.  They were too violent. 
Twelve-A and Eleven-C could give Mike the supplies he needed and then send him
off, with neither of them being the wiser.

I can arrange that
,
Twelve-A agreed.

He’s so naï
— 
The man thought of his last trip to Disneyland with his family, and their last
weekend in the waterpark.  He thought of his littlest boy, before the kreenit
ate him.  Happy, smiling, full of laughter.  He thought of his daughter riding
her first pony. 
Okay, when do you want to meet?

Tomorrow,
Twelve-A
told him, thrilled that the goodness was pouring out of the man again at the
thought of someone finally being
kind
to him. 
See?
he wanted to
tell Joe,
They
can
be healed.

When are you going
to sleep?
the man asked.  Mike thought of his daughter’s first words,
his son’s first peek under a hood with him, his wife’s first ‘baby-belly’. 
Maybe
we can do it tonight.

No,
Twelve-A
immediately told him. 
Joe watches the camp at night.  I’ll have to distract
them both tomorrow so you can come do your trading. 
He yawned. 
Besides,
it’s past midnight.  I should go to sleep now.  Joe wakes me up early.

If we think of
something you might like us to bring, could we contact you in your sleep? 
Would you hear us?  Maybe just by thinking loudly?
 
Mike thought of
taking his boys to shoot turkeys on his grandfather’s old farmstead and playing
Old Maid with his little girl.

No,
Twelve-A said,
getting tired. 
I wouldn’t hear you.  Just wait until morning.  We have
plenty of time.

So stupid.
 
Twelve-A
flinched at the bitterness and triumph of Mike’s thought, once more getting the
eerie feeling he should tell Joe about the proposed meeting, anyway. 
“Guys,
we’re gonna go trade with them in the morning.  They’ll give us food and
antibiotics, no hard feelings.” 
Then Mike added,
You know, if you
keep being nice to everyone like this, I might just have to start harboring
hope for the Human race.  Start bringing it back from the brink, ya know?

I hope so,
Twelve-A said, plaintively. 
I can’t live with all the pain.  The world is
filled with
so much misery
.  It hurts.  I have to find a way to fix it. 
I can barely stand it.

He sure won’t have
to stand it for very long.

Twelve-A frowned. 
I
won’t?

Mike hesitated, and
Twelve-A felt a weird pang of panic before Mike quickly added,
No.  I
mean, if you keep doling out bits of food to hungry people, you can
heal
them.  You could fix
everything
.  You could get
everyone
to
follow you and help you build the perfect society, with you teaching them all
how to love each other and live in peace.  You would have thousands of
disciples hanging on your every word.  You could travel the whole damn globe
and teach people the
right
way to live.

Twelve-A blinked.  He had
hoped for as much, but he’d never heard it spoken aloud by another before
this. 
You really think so?

Sure,
Mike
went on quickly. 
Right now, we’re liars, we’re thieves.  We’re greedy
and hurtful and arrogant and uncaring.  You take away the stuff we’re afraid
of, though—like starving to death—and all we need is a little love and
compassion.  You change the whole, ugly, backbiting Human race into something
beautiful again, something where everyone loves their fellow man, shares
everything, doesn’t covet their neighbor’s happiness…  You could change it
all
.

Twelve-A felt his
suspicions die in the wake of hearing his own desires from another mind,
unbidden.  He let out a relieved sigh. 
I was hoping I could do that.

Come talk to me
tomorrow,
Mike said. 
I have all sorts of ideas on how to save
the Human race.

Twelve-A felt his heart
begin to pound, because he could sense that Mike wasn’t lying. 
You do?

I do,
Mike
said,
but I spent my life speaking face-to-face for a living.  I think
better out loud.  I’ll have to show you in person.

Excited, now, Twelve-A could
barely contain his glee. 
You could tell me out loud right now…
 
He would do anything—
anything—
to end the agony he heard all around him.

No, I need to see
you,
Mike said.

Twelve-A’s disappointment
almost crushed him.
 
Okay,
he said, unhappily.

So…
Mike
said, sounding uncertain,
…
are we still on for tomorrow?  Zero and the
foreign girl stay home?

I’ll find something to
distract them with,
Twelve-A replied, grateful beyond words that there was
at least one other soul on Earth who
understood
, who could see how sick
the Human race was, and how easily it could be fixed with a little kindness and
compassion.  He knew, just by Mike’s simple words, that the two of them could
be friends. 

It worked,
Mike
thought, on a wave of amazement. 
That was easier than I thought it’d
be.  The old job actually paid off.

And, in that moment,
Twelve-A realized that Mike was hiding something from him.  Sensing that,
Twelve-A got another strong pang to tell Joe of the proposed meeting between
himself and Mike’s group, but the temptation of asking Mike if he had any ideas
on how Twelve-A could help the Human race, in
person
, was too tempting
to ignore.

Unlike Joe, who was
buried in the bad, trained to be violent and insensitive his entire life, Mike
could
see
.  He recognized that people were sick, and just needed a
little help to heal.  Perhaps the two of them could work together, converting
other Keepers, forging friendships and happiness wherever they went.

See you tomorrow,
Twelve-A told Mike, his heart singing for the first time in his life. 
Maybe,
over time, you can teach me how to be a politician, too.
  Of anyone, it was
the
politician
that understood the needs of the many over the needs of
the few, of the need for change, the need for self-sacrifice and cooperating
with one’s fellow man in order to create a better world.  Twelve-A had never
been so happy in his existence, and he wanted to learn what this man knew, to
study him and change the planet with him.

Uh…sleep well,
Mike
replied.

And Twelve-A did.

#

The next morning, when
Joe was ready to get moving again, Twelve-A delayed them.  Again.  When Joe
demanded to know why they had to be such lazy burning Takki, Twelve-A told him
he could take his Test Tube and shove it up his ass.

Which meant that Joe was
still
being punished for teaching Shael their intricate ‘clan names’ when he was
bored because everyone else was sitting around playing with grass like
leafmunch furgs.  Joe sighed and, realizing they weren’t going anywhere fast,
slipped out of camp to check again for Mike and his gang.  He was pretty sure
that they were going to make an attempt to get Eleven-C back, and he wanted to
be ready when they did.  Twelve-A could spew all the mind-vomit he wanted about
peace, happiness, and the goodness in people, but Joe knew there was no better
deterrent than a freshly-charged Nocurna plasma pistol sizzling against the
earlobe.  He also suspected that this time, Mike’s crew wouldn’t leave
survivors when they hit.  He knew that Shael’s little tree-topping
spectacle—and his own penchant for shooting off body parts—would have been as
good a reason as any to shove Mike and his followers over that razor-edge of
civility, from the Tie You Up And Leave You To Die merry band that had fallen
on a string of bad luck to the outright backstabbing, murdering kind whose eyes
danced as you died from their bullet wound.