John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

“How old is Daybreak?”

“Everyone I know, before they were in Daybreak, was in something that eventually flowed into Daybreak,” Aaron said. “You might say Daybreak is older than itself; whatever parts became the core of Daybreak were there before anyone spoke the word ‘Daybreak.’ At first it had many different names: the Coming, the Dawn, the Morning Glory, one goofy guy I knew said, ‘It’s Morning on Earth’ constantly. So I surely heard the word ‘Daybreak’ in that context at least a hundred times before I knew it would be the name of anything, let alone the thing it would be the name of.” Aaron cocked his head to the side, peering at Arnie. “Insightful, but very academic, Doctor Yang. Shouldn’t you ask about our troop dispositions? No wonder no one likes that incorrigibly academic Doctor Yang—”

“If you expect me to be ashamed of my education, you’ve—”

“Oh, but it’s not about education. It’s about understanding. All thinking beings surely want to be understood, don’t they? Consciously or not?” Aaron stepped backward. The shadows closed around him like a slamming door. Arnie was alone in the moonlit street.

Later, at home, he closed and bolted the heavy shutters, checked every bolt and lock multiple times, and stretched out so that his writing pad rested on his stomach and faced the candle. At the top of the page he wrote, Recent contact with an active long-term Daybreaker has provided evidence of the urgency of a full, in-depth, from-the-ground-up study of Daybreak. After ten sentences he realized he couldn’t remember the conversation nearly as well as the eyes, the rhythm, the too-empty street. The creaking of the old house, and the fantastical candlelight shadows, should have terrified him, he thought, just before he fell asleep.

Arnie’s “interview room” was a corner second-floor office space over a boarded-up computer store in downtown Pueblo. He had furnished it with wool and cotton blankets thrown over metal folding chairs, facing in a semicircle toward an old writing desk, and a side table with pitchers of water and some bread and cheese for snacks.

He sat down at the writing desk and opened his notepad, just as if he hadn’t been gone for more than six weeks. “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve met as a group. I’ve got some new questions; let’s see if they call up any new answers.”

Jason Nemarec, his wife Beth, and Izzy Underhill (who was actually Ysabel Roth, but was still at some risk of being assassinated because of her prominence on Daybreak day) were Arnie’s only “domesticated” ex-Daybreakers—people who had been fully part of Daybreak and were now reliably working for the RRC. The best estimate now was that on October 28, 2024, at least sixty thousand Daybreakers had participated in some act of sabotage within the United States; perhaps a million sympathizers, posers, and dupes had been involved peripherally during the year before.

Most Daybreakers were now dead, like most of everyone else; most of the living ones were in the tribes, but there must still be covert Daybreaker spies and saboteurs, as well as ex-Daybreakers, afraid to expose themselves to arrest or mob violence, hiding out the way Beth and Jason had for months in the little town of Antonito, far from anyone who might recognize them. It was a legitimate fear; every Daybreaker captured in those first months, despite the pleas of Federal intelligence and law enforcement, had been killed by mobs or summarily executed by local authorities. Trying to protect captured Daybreakers long enough to interrogate them simply got police and soldiers killed with them; shortly, most officials began handing Daybreakers over to mobs, or killing them themselves, as a matter of personal safety.

Izzy was petite, bony, and big-jawed, with long straight brown hair and deep sad eyes. “I’m so sorry to hear about what happened down at Mota Elliptica. It must have been terrible,” she said.

Arnie nodded, thinking, Don’t cry . “We lost good people. We did learn a lot about Daybreak.” He looked down at his notes. “Everyone ready?”

They all nodded.

“Then,” Arnie said, “do you feel like you joined Daybreak after it already existed, or do you feel like you helped create it?”

“Joined,” Beth said, simultaneously with Jason’s “Helped create,” and they both laughed.

“I’m not seeing the joke,” Arnie said.

“We heard about it on the same day from a guy named Terrel,” Beth said. “Ysabel was in a long time before we were, so—”

Ysabel screamed and fell from her chair, lying on the floor with her back arched and arms flailing. They had all seen this before; whatever part of Daybreak clung to individual minds, it still protected Daybreak. They cleared the chairs away, and surrounded her with pillows.

Beth said, “Well, Arnie, you sure hit a button that time.”

Arnie said, “Yeah, I guess so. How are you two doing?”

“Little bit of a headache,” Jason said, “but that could be all the screaming and the exercise.”

Beth nodded. “I’m okay. I can feel Daybreak not liking me but… I don’t know, maybe I just have more natural resistance. It was deep into Ysabel, here. Real deep. So fuckin’ much more Daybreak in her than we got in us, you know?”

“Keep telling me, I’m learning.”

She shrugged. “We used to kid around and call it Daydar, you know, like gaydar? One Daybreaker tends to know another one real fast and easy, and know how deep in they are and how long they’ve been. Some of those real long-timers it’s like they’re all Daybreak, ain’t much of them left, it’s like you’re talking to Daybreak direct without them there at all.”

“And we used to laugh at coustajam hippies,” Jason added. “People who liked the music, the vegetables, the clothes, and some of the words, but didn’t have a clue what it meant. You got so you knew the second you met someone.”

“Can someone who wasn’t a Daybreaker have Daydar?”

Beth looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, most straight people have some gaydar, don’t they?”

Izzy sighed and turned over on her side. Arnie made sure she was covered with a blanket. “She’ll want to sleep it off, and sometimes the easiest time to talk is right when she’s just coming out. I can sit here and wait for her, if you both have things to do.”

“I think I better stay,” Beth said. “She’s kind of… she gets scared when it’s just you there when she wakes up. She told us. Don’t get your feelings hurt or nothing, I’m just saying.”

Arnie nodded. “Okay.” Not sure what else to say, he added, “I’m sorry I’m scary.”

Beth shrugged. “Not scary so much… just, it’s your job, Arnie, you got to push us, hurt us even, to find out about Daybreak—maybe you’ll feel real bad after, but you’ll hurt us.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, uselessly, again.

“It’s okay,” Jason said. “Better that it’s you; at least we can tell you don’t like having to hurt us.”

Arnie nodded. Wow. Daydar. And how Daybreak came into existence or how people get infected is a third-rail question. More stuff to try on Aaron. Get one definite thing out of him, and Heather will be able to go straight to everyone for funds, people, and time—they’ll all have to listen.

The shadows were getting longer, stretching eastward, but sunset was still hours away. Bambi and Debbie had spent the day holding hands or leaning against each other, squeeze-coding, catching up on everything. Bambi found Debbie’s enthusiasm for tonight’s raid frightening. But then if I’d been chained for three months between bouts of scutwork and rape—