S Huang - Zero Sum Game

“They will have some plan of escalation,” said Rio. “They are very efficient when they pool their resources.”

“So what do we do?” asked Checker.

“ We don’t do anything,” I said. “You get out of here. I’m going back to LA.”

“Cas,” said Rio.

“We have to bait them,” I insisted. “They have to believe they’ve got our scent until we can get the notifications out. That’s all that matters right now.”

“Abort,” said Rio.

“No.” I turned on him, talking very fast. “What’s going to happen if we do? If we run? What will their next step be? Bombing the LA metropolitan area into the ground and hoping they’ll kill us somewhere in there? As long as we’re a threat, they won’t stop coming after us. Which means we’ve got only two options—either we come to them and save them the trouble, or we make good on our threat, or we do both before they mow down anyone else in their way.”

I paused, out of breath.

“Do you have a plan?” said Rio, his baritone quiet in the shadowy darkness.

One was forming in my head even as we spoke. It was dangerous. Scratch that, it was insane. And it very well might not work. But I already knew I was going to go for it anyway.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. And I think—I think we’ve got a chance to take down Dawna Polk at the same time.” I took a deep breath. “But I’m warning you. You’re not going to like it.”

I told them.

They didn’t like it.

My plan depended on us being able to find a working car. If we couldn’t do that, we were stuck.

Fortunately, both the van and my clunky sedan turned over on the first try. They were both old cars, so maybe they didn’t have enough electronics to matter. I decided I didn’t care why they still worked, only that they did.

Rio and Checker loaded into the van. “Get him out safe,” I said to Rio, leaning on the open passenger window. He nodded. “How long do you think you’ll need?” I asked Checker.

He was gripping his arms across his chest very tightly. “I don’t know. Traffic might be backed up getting out, but once I can get my hands on a working laptop—two hours. I can finish in two.”

“I can give you that,” I said. “Good luck. It’s all down to you now.”

He shivered. “Cas.”

“Yeah?”

He couldn’t seem to form words.

“Spit it out,” I said. “We’ve got to get going.”

“Tell me you think you can make it,” he said in a low voice, not looking at me. “Tell me you and Arthur aren’t going to die for this.”

That was what was bothering him? Oh. “I’m really good at staying not-dead,” I tried to assure him. “It’s a special talent of mine.”

“Seriously,” said Checker. “Please.”

Maybe he was right to be concerned. After all, I reflected, I was going after an organization that had just taken down an entire metropolitan area to get to me, and I was going to put myself willingly in their crosshairs. Along with a good friend of Checker’s. When I looked at it that way, my plan felt a trifle more daunting.

“Hey,” I said awkwardly. I wasn’t good at being comforting. “I’m really good at what I do. Ask Rio.”

“He doesn’t like your plan, either.”

“Very true,” put in Rio.

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t used to having people worried about my welfare. “Okay, you’re on,” I said.

Checker finally looked up at me, forehead wrinkling in confusion. “On for what?”

“That drinking contest. Once this is over. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, I promise you.”

That got a smile out of him. “Promise me you’ll watch Arthur’s back?”

“I promise. Now get going.” I thumped the hood of the van and headed back over to my clunker as Rio made a precarious three-point turn at the top of the drive and then eased down the slope.

I put my car in gear and crawled down the gravel after them. The indicator lights flickered at me nonsensically, winking on and off. I tried smacking the dashboard, but it didn’t help. Well, I’d be fine as long as the engine stayed working—I had enough gasoline in the back to get me to LA five times over.

As I drew closer to the city, however, the freeway became increasingly clogged until traffic stalled to a standstill. Full dark had fallen, and not everyone’s headlights were working, leaving the lanes a weird play of shadows and vehicle silhouettes. I waited in the car for ten minutes, engine idling, the lines of cars not moving an inch, and then I got out and went to the trunk, where I pulled out a few weapons to sling over my shoulder. The driver in the minivan next to me stared in frozen horror, her face a pale circle in her window, before ducking down over her daughter in the front seat, who kept trying to fight back up so she could see what was making her mother so afraid. I ignored them.

I threaded the strap from a bag of ammo through a couple of gas cans and slung that on my back as well, and checked on the two handguns in the back of my belt. Then I hopped up on the roof of my car and looked out over the parking lot of vehicles. Within minutes I heard a faint rumble and saw the headlamp of a motorcycle threading through the stopped traffic on the other side of the median, headed out of LA. I ran, leaping from car to car, ignoring the squeals and screams of the drivers beneath me as my boots dented their roofs, and hit the pavement just in time for the biker to slam on his brakes. Or rather, her brakes. She squealed to a stop on the fringes of another car’s headlights to reveal a woman in full gear that was head to toe pink, on a pink bike, with a helmet that was black with pink flames.

I swung the Mossberg on my shoulder around and pointed it right at her.

“I need your bike!” I shouted over the roar of the motorcycle’s engine.

She hit the cutoff and raised her gloved hands. I gestured with the shotgun; she kicked frantically at the stand to put it down and dismounted to stumble to the side against a Jeep.

I yanked her pink-trimmed saddlebags off the back and threw them at her; she didn’t bring her hands down quite fast enough to catch them. I swung onto the bike, restarted it, and cut between two tractor-trailers to turn the bike and start back toward LA, going the wrong way on the stopped freeway. I didn’t bother stealing her helmet; the police had more important things to worry about right now.

In the side mirror, I could see the pink biker staring after me, a gawky, bright statue in the Jeep’s headlights, exhaust fumes fogging her image.

I faced a long haul back to the Westside. The 10 was stopped all the way in, and when I headed down the shoulder of an on ramp, I hit gridlocked streets of half-deserted vehicles. With no helmet on, I could hear shouts and crashes over the motorcycle’s engine, and sirens sounded from at least three directions. Los Angeles was not famous for the cooperation of its residents in times of trouble. The looting had already started.

The city was black. It was eerie: all the streetlights loomed dead and silent, every building a blank, dark silhouette in the night. Many of the gridlocked cars had been deserted, and the residents who had taken to the streets had become the monsters who came out at such times. One hoodlum ran down the pavement shouting, smashing a crowbar through car windows. He ran straight at my bike, swinging as I barreled between the stopped vehicles, hollering a wordless berserker cry. I took my left hand off the clutch, rolled the throttle all the way open with my right, drew one of the handguns, and shot him in the head. He crumpled in the tight space between the cars, and I swerved around his falling body, the math giving me just enough room.