S Huang - Zero Sum Game

“You know why I do what I do, Cas,” he said calmly. “Are we done here?”

“No. I don’t care how mysterious the ‘mysterious ways’ are—this isn’t adding up. There’s something you’re not telling me!”

He raised his eyebrows. “I have many things I don’t tell you. Would you like to know what I had for breakfast this morning?”

“Sarcasm. Nice.” I swallowed. “You aren’t my friend. You’re telling the truth when you say that.”

“I know,” he said.

“So? None of this makes any sense. You traded my safety for Dawna’s back there, and that wasn’t the first time. Back when she had Arthur and me—you were trying to take down Pithica, and you had the perfect opportunity.” Looking back, it made me want to scream in frustration that he hadn’t taken it, even given what it would have meant. Paradoxically, I remembered how certain I had been that he wouldn’t make that choice, and it made me doubt my own sanity. “You should have killed me, secured Dawna’s trust, and then destroyed them from the inside out. Tell me I’m not acceptable collateral damage for that kind of coup! It would have been perfect.”

I waited. He was silent.

“But you didn’t,” I said. “You broke us out instead.” An anomaly, Dawna Polk had called me. It suddenly bothered me intensely that she seemed to understand Rio’s relationship with me better than I did.

It was a long moment before Rio spoke. “I had other considerations. You were not aware of them.”

“So make me aware of them.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He was silent.

I stared at him, completely flummoxed. Irresistible force, meet immovable object. “This goes back even further,” I said. “I should have seen it right away. Back at the beginning, you told me not to get involved. Why?”

“Because I didn’t want you involved.”

“ Why not?”

Again he said nothing. The expression on his face was the definition of blandness.

“Someone who didn’t know better might think you’ve been trying to protect me,” I said. “Which I know isn’t true. So I’d like some answers here. I think,” I added, drawing myself up to my full not-very-imposing height, “I have a right to know.”

Amusement touched Rio’s features. “You might disagree with that.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Cas,” said Rio, “I’m not going to answer your questions. I advise you to stop asking them.”

“Why should I? For crying out loud, I’m not asking you to tell me something that isn’t my business! You know something, and it has to do with me, and I’m not going to—”

Rio tipped his hat to me and walked away, back down the darkened subway tracks. I was left ranting at the empty air.

I took a frustrated breath. “This doesn’t make sense, Rio!” I shouted after him. “I don’t like things that don’t make sense!”

My own words echoing back at me were my only response. Rio was gone.

I sighed and climbed back up to the platform. I had one more meeting today, and I was hoping it would be far more satisfactory than this one had been.

Steve met me at an empty construction site. He looked quite a bit the worse for the wear: several days’ worth of five o’clock shadow darkened his square jaw, and the purple shadows under his eyes were so deep they made his face look hollow. He had lost at least two kilos, and every twitch of his movement was that of a hunted man. A man with nothing left in the world.

I liked that look on him.

“We got your message,” I said. I had told Checker I would handle it. “So much for your security, huh?”

He scrubbed both hands over his face. “They knew everything. They—when they came—”

According to his frantic email, when Pithica had knocked LA to its knees, the first thing they had done was figure out where the alerts had come from. Then they had proceeded to destroy Steve’s organization with no quarter—at least, the cell here in LA. Apparently they had already been perfectly aware of every detail Steve and his colleagues had tried so desperately to keep hidden, and up until that point they just hadn’t cared. Steve’s group had been no more than a gnat gnawing on Pithica’s big toe.

“Tell me, Steve,” I said. “What bothers you more? That despite killing everyone you came in contact with, your little band of merry men was still leakier than a Swiss cheese umbrella? Or that for all your grandstanding against Pithica, you guys never achieved the annoyance level of an advertising jingle?”

“Please.” His hands were working at his sides, fingers kneading against each palm. “I’m begging you. I need help.”

“With what? Threatening people?”

“They killed everyone,” he mumbled numbly. “Everyone who might have still been working on your plan. Gone. They were trying to stop you.”

“They failed,” I said. “We won.”

“I can’t trust anyone.” He scrubbed his hands over his face again. “I was on the road when it happened, and I still—I barely got away.”

I wasn’t exactly going to cheer for that.

“They knew too much, too fast,” he said dazedly. “I can’t help but think—everything we did, I look back, and I don’t know anymore. Other than what we did with you, what we were told to do—the orders we received—how can I know?”

“You think Pithica might have been giving all your orders to begin with?” I clarified, once I had sorted through his disjointedness. Well, wasn’t that a delicious twist of irony.

“Or we’ve been playing enough into their hands for it not to matter. We were a cell system; we had some autonomy, but we…we clearly were not having the effect we hoped for…”

“They’re pretty good at the whole butterfly-and-hurricane deal, from what I understand,” I said. “They probably pushed a button in Istanbul and made you hop.”

“That does not make me feel better.”

“It wasn’t meant to.”

He shoved his restless hands into his pockets. “I suppose none of it matters now. But—we did help you, did we not? We gave you what you needed, and we suffered for it.” He had the gall to straighten up then, and he looked down his nose at me. I was immediately annoyed. “Will you return the favor?”

“Whoa there,” I said. “We offered you an opportunity to be a small part of the biggest advancement your stated mission has ever had. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Perhaps not, but—perhaps I can still be of service to you. I know a great deal of intelligence about Pithica—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I interrupted. “I’m not interested.” My heart hammered a little faster. The truth was, I couldn’t have said yes if I’d wanted to. I took a quick breath, trying to dispel the feel of Dawna’s greasy fingers on my brain. Damn Rio for not helping me.

Not that I wanted to make a deal with Steve anyway. That was too Faustian, even for me.

“Please,” he begged, with all the grace of an untamed boar. “What can I offer you? I need help. I have to get away—they’re coming after me—”

I highly doubted that. Pithica’s move against his group had been to try to stop Checker’s and my plan from completing. They had swept in and brought the hammer down where they thought it might provide a stopgap. I doubted they were losing any sleep about the collateral damage, but I would have been very surprised if they were still putting any resources into chasing after stragglers. Especially now that they had nothing left to stop. Revenge wasn’t Pithica’s style.

I didn’t tell Steve that, though. I was enjoying the hunted-animal look on him. “You only have one thing I want,” I said.

“What? Anything,” he promised abjectly.

“An answer.” My mouth was suddenly dry, and I had to force the words out. “Anton Lechowicz. And his daughter.”