S Huang - Zero Sum Game

He snorted. “Yeah, ‘exciting’ ain’t exactly the word for it. Usually, anyway. I work enough to take on pro bono cases for them that need it, though—those are always the better ones. Still not much excitement, but fulfilling, you know?”

I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. “Sure,” I said.

“Can’t get it all out of my head, though,” he continued. “What she did to us. I ain’t fond of being someone’s puppet.” The edge of steel in those words might have made even Dawna think twice, if she hadn’t already beaten us.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.”

“I can’t…” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Everything I remember thinking, it made so much sense at the time. Still makes sense, if I’m honest. But there’s something in me that knows chunks of it ain’t me at all…and I still ain’t rightly sure which all those chunks are; I just know they gotta be there. Think that’s what scares me the most, still not knowing what was me and what was her.”

“I’m pretty sure you pointing a gun at me was all Dawna,” I said.

“Which time?”

We laughed a little at that, even though it wasn’t funny.

“Ain’t my usual habit, you know,” Arthur said. “Greeting people barrel first. You didn’t catch me in my best week.”

“Well, I don’t usually knock people unconscious to introduce myself, either,” I said.

He affected surprise. “You don’t?”

I punched him in the shoulder. Only a little harder than necessary.

“Ow!” He gave me a mock glare, rubbing his arm, and then got serious again. “Listen. Been thinking about something. Dawna—when she had us prisoner, she talked to us, both of us, for a long time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, she did.”

“How do we know…how do we know there ain’t more?”

“You mean, how do we know that we don’t have, what, sleeper personalities or something? That what we’re thinking might not be our own thoughts anymore?”

“Something like that.”

I looked down at my hands. I wasn’t going to say it hadn’t occurred to me. “I don’t think it would be worth it to them,” I said. “That level of control. She got what she wanted from us, and—well, even at the end we weren’t under her total control, yeah?”

“You weren’t,” he said softly.

“Neither were you,” I pointed out. “You didn’t give us away until we pushed you to it. And at the last minute, you took your gun off line—when it mattered.”

“Barely.”

“You knew it would give me the window.”

He nodded, conceding the point. “Hey, about that. What you can do. It’s pretty special, ain’t it?”

The question caught me off guard. I tried to keep my face neutral. “What do you mean, what I can do?”

He chuckled. “I got eyes, Russell.”

“I’m good at math,” I said. “That’s all.”

He squinted at me, still smiling slightly. “You gotta tell me how that works sometime.”

“Sometime,” I agreed vaguely.

The moment of levity faded, and Arthur looked down again. “We really can’t be sure, can we?” he said after a moment. “Could be some small way. A thousand little bits she might’ve changed. Maybe we say she had a miss with us at the end there, but still…we don’t know what else she might’ve done.”

“No,” I said. “I guess we don’t.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, what can we do?” I pointed out.

Arthur took a deep breath. “Keep making the best decisions we can, I guess.”

And hope that nothing had wormed its way into our brains, ticking like a time bomb, waiting to make us betray ourselves. I wasn’t happy about it either. But we had no way to know.

“What if we watch each other?” I said suddenly. “It’s not foolproof, but it’s how—well, Rio could tell, with me. We can keep in contact, warn each other if we get crazy.”

He pulled a face. “Looking for excess crazy? How will I know?”

I punched him in the arm again.

“Hey!” He gave me a gentle shove in return. “Y’know, it’s a good idea. Better than nothing, for sure. You got my cell number, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Stay in touch, then. You know, call me, let me know you’re okay. Or you can always pick up when I ring. Can’t watch for excess crazy if we don’t talk regular.” He grinned at me, then reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Russell.”

I blinked. By proposing we watch each other, I had been thinking in terms of a mutually beneficial business arrangement, but Arthur seemed to be taking it as an overture of friendship. “I…if you say so,” I got out.

“I do.” He gave my shoulder a final squeeze and then stood. “Talk soon, right?”

A sort of tight feeling was growing through my chest and throat, the same type of squeezing discomfort I got in certain death situations. Except it was kind of a good feeling, which made no sense at all. “Yeah, okay,” I said.

“Give you a buzz tomorrow,” said Arthur, and let himself out.

I stayed sitting on the couch, staring at the floor and feeling very strange.

I wasn’t used to having friends. Friends meant obligations, and complications, and effort—

And people who checked in on me, another part of my brain pointed out. And had my back. And could watch for signs of psychic brainwashing.

Huh.

My phone beeped.

It was a text message from Checker, newly arrived back in LA. The strange, fizzy feeling in my chest intensified.

DRINKING CONTEST 2NITE ITS ON BE @ HOLE 8PM SHARP CHECKER

And then, an instant later, a second one:

WEAR SUMTHING SLINKI

I stared at the messages. The invitation felt surreal, as if I were watching someone else’s life: somebody who lived in society, somebody who did the whole “human interaction” thing, somebody who got text messages that weren’t either about work or death threats.

Somebody who made friends and went out drinking with them.

Was I even capable of being someone like that?

I thought about Arthur’s visit. I looked down at Checker’s texts again. Maybe people weren’t all bad, I thought. At least not all the time.

Maybe…maybe it wouldn’t be such an awful thing not to drink alone tonight.

I hit reply.

As long as my new Colt 1911 counts. See you at 8. Cas.

THE END

Cas Russell will return in *HALF LIFE* (coming 2015)

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