S Huang - Zero Sum Game

His calm tone hadn’t changed. In fact, he spoke like someone who did not care one whit that we had chosen this meeting and this location, someone who didn’t even care if we walked away from the park today, because no matter where we went, dispensing with the danger we posed would be as trivial as flicking an annoying fly from his arm.

My hand tightened on my weapon beneath my coat, and Tresting shifted beside me, rebalancing himself on the grass. If it came to a fight here and now, I would win, but killing Steve would mean nothing. Who else from their organization was here? How far could they reach?

“However,” Steve continued, turning to focus on me alone, “It is also of utmost interest to us how you managed to walk away from Dawna Polk with the knowledge that she was something other than what she presented. That is…astounding, in a word. Almost unbelievable. It would be a great asset to our task if we could discover how you were capable of such a thing.” He leaned forward on his elbows, pressing his fingers together and addressing me over them. “If you will agree to cooperate with us fully, in all ways, we will help you, along with Mr. Tresting and anyone else who has been involved in this with you, to disappear and start a new life elsewhere.”

“Strong-arming our intel, then? No quid pro quo?” I spoke more lightly than I felt. “What if we don’t want to enter your demented witness protection program?”

“Please believe me when I say that if either of you sees Dawna Polk again, you will give us away to her. Knowing that, what would you have us do?” He spread his hands, as if to say, sorry, but there you go. “The offer to help you disappear is an exceedingly generous one. You will have to be removed entirely from civilization, and be overseen by some of our own people on a constant basis to ensure you will never attempt to contact Pithica on some embedded suggestion from them. It will be an unspeakable consumption of our resources, and is not generally an opportunity we extend. I strongly suggest you take it.”

“You usually just kill people, huh,” said Tresting. He sounded offhand about it, but the words crackled at the edges, and I was getting to know him well enough to hear the outrage under his casual tone.

“We do not take it lightly. Ever.” Steve’s face tightened, his jaw bunching. “We exist in subterfuge and obscurity. We only act when our hand is forced.”

“Real gentlemen,” said Tresting.

Steve folded his hands on the table. “You will tell us what you know about Pithica, and you will disappear,” he informed us, his calm, charismatic tone as ominous as a death knell. “Whether you do either of those things voluntarily or not is your decision, but they both will happen, one way or the other.”

“Wow,” I said. “You and Pithica deserve each other.” I hadn’t moved yet, but the adrenaline was slamming into my brain, shutting away the revelations about Dawna Polk to deal with later and focusing on how to escape our current situation alive. The smartest thing to do might’ve been to accept their offer and play along, discover what we could, and then escape from the imprisonment they were calling protection. But I was a terrible liar—and besides, I didn’t feel good about our chances once we entered their custody.

The next obvious solution was to take out both men and run. But the minute I did, we couldn’t stop running. We’d have to dodge this organization’s crosshairs for the rest of our lives. Could we take Finch and his boss hostage instead, use them to negotiate for getting ourselves off the target list? Unfortunately, I had the distinct feeling their employers had a broad definition of “acceptable losses,” even when it came to their own.

My jaw clenched, and the metal of the Smith & Wesson dug into my palm. There had to be a better option.

Tresting had his head cocked to the side, still seemingly casual. “I’m thinking you’re an international group,” he said to Steve. “Banding together to protect the global power dynamic from Pithica’s influence, or something. Off the grid, not even answerable to the people who set you on this crusade of yours. Am I right?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more about us,” said Steve, still far too calm, “regardless of whether you take our offer. The less you know, the less you would be able to give away. Now, I must have an answer.”

“Well, you see, that’s a problem,” said Tresting, and I felt a surge of good will toward him. Did he have a plan? Maybe this working together thing wouldn’t turn out to be so bad after all.

The man called Steve sighed. “Please don’t make this difficult, Mr. Tresting. Not to be callous, but it’s not even your decision.”

“Oh, I have a problem, too,” I said immediately. “Right here. Problem. You look up ‘problem’ in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of me putting a gun to your head, which is what I’m considering doing in about three seconds.”

“Did I not make myself clear? If you don’t—”

“Oh, you were perfectly clear,” said Tresting. “Perfectly. Only, see, this here’s the problem. Just a little one, but—I got a guy on the outside, who knows everything we know, including about running into Mr. Finch here. If he doesn’t hear from us, bam, it all goes public. Everything, including you gents.”

Steve twitched. “You’re bluffing.”

“Willing to take that chance?” said Tresting.

“If you begin throwing Dawna Polk’s name and face around openly, we will be the least of your problems.” The ominous edge in Steve’s voice had turned darker, more deadly. “Besides, Mr. Finch has been with you since you discovered our involvement. You never had the opportunity—”

“He did make a phone call, Boss,” interrupted Finch with a wince. “And she ID’d me from Courtney Polk’s house. It’s possible they made us there.”

His boss gave Finch a look that promised repercussions would come later and took a deep, steadying breath before moderating his tone. “I told you our offer extends to the people with whom you’ve been working. Believe me, whoever this is, we can find him, too, and he can disappear along with you both—in whichever manner you choose.”

I ignored the very real fear settling in the bottom of my stomach, and decided to follow my other gut feeling, which was telling me to get out of here now. “Points for creepy,” I told the guy whose name wasn’t Steve, pleased with how unconcerned I managed to sound. “We’ll think about helping you, but it’s sure as hell not going to be on those terms. We have your phone number already—don’t call us; we’ll call you.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that,” I mused. “Bye now.”

I glanced at Arthur, but for once we seemed to be in complete agreement. I hopped off the picnic table and we backed slowly away. Finch and his boss watched us go, not moving from the table. Their tranquility was unnerving. It meant they didn’t have to be worried.

We headed onto the winding road. I saw a thick, knobbly stick by the side of the pavement and picked it up, twirling it experimentally. I looked back. Perfect. The picnic area was almost out of sight. Nobody on the path here would find someone tossing a branch that odd, and nobody back there would connect me with it. I twirled it one more time to build up the exact right centripetal acceleration and let it fly. Way back in the picnic area, barely visible now, the butt end of the branch smacked into Finch’s temple and bounced off at just the right angle to whack his boss across the ear. They both collapsed. “Might buy us some time,” I said to Arthur, who was starting to get the freaked out my-window-had-bars-on-it look on his face again.