S Huang - Zero Sum Game

It was coming on noon when I finally got back to my bolt hole with a couple of new prepaid phones. I stuck one in my wall stash as a backup and dialed the other from memory. Rio picked up on the first ring.

“It’s Cas,” I said.

“Cas,” said Rio, and I could have sworn he sounded relieved. Odd. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I burned my phone,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen a paper this morning?”

“A newspaper?”

“ Yes, Cas, a newspaper.”

“No need to get sarcastic,” I said. “I’m part of the Internet generation. No, I haven’t. Why?”

“You’re in it.”

That brought me up short. “What?”

“Or rather, a bruised, if accurate, composite of you.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said, feeling sick.

He paused a moment too long. “I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

“Beg pardon?”

“That tone,” I said. “You hesitated. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It also says you’re a person of interest in a shooting in Griffith Park.”

“Oh, that one I did do. Do they have any leads?”

“Not that they mentioned. Cas, you have to keep a lower profile.”

I felt unfairly put upon. “I didn’t ask for this!” I reminded him. “Someone dragged me in, remember? And now people keep trying to kill me! The police are only after me because I tried to kill them back!”

Silence over the line. Then Rio said, “Cas, what’s wrong?”

“What, other than people trying to kill me?” Fear shot through me as I remembered one of the reasons I’d wanted to call Rio in the first place. “Wait, am I acting strange? Do I seem off to you?”

“You are very defensive.”

“Unusually defensive?” I pressed.

“Cas, what’s going on?”

“It’s about Dawna Polk. We found out why she made me act…when she talked to me; she can…” I didn’t want to say it. Saying it would make it real. “We met a group working against Pithica. Rio, they say she’s a real-life telepath. They say she can make you believe anything.” My words sounded crazy to my own ears. “You probably think I’m insane. I think I’m insane.”

“No,” said Rio. The word was slow and deliberate. “I believe you.”

I digested that. “You knew,” I said finally.

“Yes.”

“When I started acting funny the other night—you already knew what she was.”

“I suspected.”

“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

“Cas, I have been trying, to the best of my ability, to keep you out of this.”

“ Why?”

“These people are not to be trifled with.”

“I’m very good at trifling,” I said.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“Cas, believe me when I say that you are not prepared to deal with them.”

First Arthur, now Rio. Did everyone think I was a child? “I’ve already beaten them,” I reminded him. “Several times.”

“You have not been their focus. And you have been lucky.” He took a quiet breath. “Please, Cas. Stay out of this.”

I felt myself frowning. Rio had never made a request like that of me before. “You’re the one who told me to go consult with Tresting,” I pointed out.

“To be perfectly honest, I had no idea he would prove so competent.”

“So you tried to send me on a wild goose chase.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I told you, Cas. Pithica is far too dangerous. You now know part of the reason why.”

“So it’s true, about Dawna.” I swallowed against a dry throat. “She can do that—she did do that, to me.”

“Yes.”

“How much can she do?”

“She could make you believe black is white. She could make a mother kill her child and enjoy it.”

The words parsed in my head, but they didn’t make sense. “ How?” I breathed.

“She plays on emotions. Expertly. Small influences, but her targets eventually feel and believe whatever she wishes them to.”

“Small influences that can drive people to murder?”

“For an act that defies her target’s psychology in the extreme, it is true that it would take her time, not a single conversation. Months, perhaps, depending on the person she targets.”

“But you’re saying even a strong enough person can’t—”

“Strength does not enter into it,” he corrected. “It is—I suppose you would say psychology. What you would call a weaker mind might prevail for longer, simply because it may be more comfortable with the mental contradictions her influence would produce. Or it might fold immediately. Each psychology is unique, and each will itself respond differently according to what she attempts.”

“And there’s no way to fight it?” I pleaded.

“None that I am aware of.”

I pulled the blanket from the bed up around myself again, wrapping it close. I still felt cold. “How can I know if I’ve been affected?”

“It is nearly impossible to tell, because you will rationalize whatever she has made you believe. You are concerned?”

“Of course I am.”

“Walk me through the course of events since I saw you last. It is not foolproof, but I shall tell you if I observe inconsistency.”

And it would be good for him to have my intel in any case. I took a deep breath and started with Courtney Polk going missing, then described my night with Tresting, finding the office workers, Leena’s abrupt change, and the meeting with Finch and Steve. Rio listened quietly. I shared everything, up to and including Tresting’s and my final conversation.

“I think that’s why I’m feeling so defensive,” I finished unhappily. “Unless Dawna Polk has been messing me up again. But he was so—he was so patronizing.” And since he had implied I was not only a thoughtless kid but one who went around killing people…“Rio, am I—do you think I’m green? Do I act like it?”

He seemed to think for a moment. “In some circumstances. You can be impulsive.”

I wanted to curl up in a corner and disappear from the world. So much for being good at what I did.

“You are young, you realize,” Rio continued. “I am given to understand that impetuosity is to be forgiven in youth.”

“I’m not that young!” I protested. “Stop making excuses for me. Tresting’s right. Part of my job—I hurt people. I can’t mess up and then call it a learning experience!”

“You are, perhaps, asking the wrong person about that,” Rio said. “I myself have learned many things by killing the wrong people.”

I picked at the hem of the blanket. As much as I trusted Rio, I didn’t want to be him. Didn’t want people like Arthur Tresting to think of me that way. Didn’t want to live with being that type of person. “Rio…did you do the office building?”

He barely hesitated. “Yes.”

“Off the text I sent you?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed.

“Cas, if it helps, they were not the wrong people.”

I thought about how young the receptionist had been. Whatever mistakes she had made, her youth had not excused her from Rio wreaking God’s vengeance.

“Cas?” he said.

“Did you learn anything?” I asked quietly.

“Yes. Many things.”

“You aren’t going to tell me what they are, are you.”

“I would hardly have gone to such lengths to keep them from you only to divulge them later,” he answered.

I thought of the shredded and pulped papers. “Right.”

“What you shared with me today is valuable also,” said Rio. “I shall put it to good use. And although I cannot say for sure, I do not believe Dawna Polk has influenced you further.”

“Oh…good. Thanks.”