John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

He dug his index finger against the ball of solder where his thumb had been, and relished the pain. “I won’t.”

“Last chance. I won’t ask you again. Tell us about your family.” Robert’s hand stroked up his thigh, as if they were lovers. “Can you feel how warm them screwdriver’s getting? Think about that here.” The squeeze was surprisingly light.

“I won’t tell you that,” Ecco said. Courage and strength seemed to surge into him. He knew now he would end horribly, but not badly.

Robert said, “I’ll do as much as I want whether you talk or not. Then you’ll talk, Mister Ecco, but only when I decide you should, after I’m done.”

Here we go. Just like the dentist’s office except I gotta hope for a chance to kick the dentist in the balls.

By the time Robert said, “Time for lunch,” Ecco said, “No. No. No,” because now it was all he would say.

The radio tech gave Cameron Nguyen-Peters the thumbs-up and tapped the windup timer, which showed the standard hour. “Hey, Heather, it’s me. Okay to talk now?”

“More than okay!” Heather’s voice hissed and crackled; the encryption gadget didn’t work as well in daylight as it did at night. “So you know it’s a boy, Leonardo Plekhanov Junior, who I’m calling Leo, and he’s healthy as a moose, and the best baby ever born?”

“Absolutely. Arnie told us all last night, of course, when he sent it out on the secure channels. I didn’t call then because I thought you’d want to sleep.”

“I did,” Heather said. “But to tell the truth, now I’m bored. Tired, but bored. And Leo’s amazing and wonderful but not a great conversationalist just yet.”

“Well, he will be, if he takes after either parent. Tell me everything about him.” Cam leaned back and listened; Leo sounded like every other baby, but Heather sounded great.

In the secure radio room, the big, slowly rotating spindles of plywood cams, the beer-bottle capacitors, and the big spark coils looked like a 1920s mad-scientist’s lab. A hundred years of progress to be back where we started.

Heather finally wound down and said, “All right, have I put you to sleep yet?”

“Not a bit. This is great.”

“Since when is a lifelong bachelor interested in babies?”

“Since I started taking an interest in the future, because that’s who’s going to live there.”

“Yeah, but even the best baby in the world only has so many little toes and eyes to describe.”

“Twelve, I believe—”

“ Twelve? Oh, ten toes and two eyes. For one moment I was hoping I hadn’t miscounted. But yes, you’re right.”

“I’m an ex-baby myself.” He had been trying to think of a smooth transition to what he most wanted to say, but there wasn’t any, so he said, “Sorry to bring in business, but I wanted to thank you for the help from our mutual friend.”

“Business is a great thing to bring in, and I take it our friend let you know we’re secure here?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid they’ll notice if we talk too often. So I’m afraid I’m taking advantage of your big occasion—”

“Hey, like I said, I’m bored stiff here. And you just gave me an idea. I’ll send you a personal letter in the next mailbag—for sure they’ll open that—and start off about how much more we need to talk. Since they probably know we dated years ago, I think I’ll pretend I’ve got a crush on you, Cam. You play back. Talk about me enough to bore the people around you. That should give us an excuse to chat more often.”

“All right, great idea, as long as I’m not expected to be convincingly romantic.”

“I’ll just be so besotted I won’t notice your sheer ineptitude. Now what’s on your mind, Cam?”

“Bottom line, I’m losing out to Grayson and the reverends. He’s taking directions from his father-in-law, pulling competent officers out of posts near here, replacing them with people with the right religion, and rotating them out to our frontier with the Lost Quarter. Which I can’t really object to because we sure as hell need them out there, but it also means my coup insurance is disappearing. There’s forced prayer, strictly Post Raptural, at parades and reserve exercises now. The last editor at the Weekly Insight who wasn’t Post Raptural is not only gone, but was explicitly fired for being the wrong religion. And guys who’ve been Republican since Reagan are being thrown out of their party for not praying right. And I object, and object, and object, and—nothing. They just keep doing it.” Cam wasn’t just embarrassed, as he’d expected to be; he felt as humiliated as if he were admitting he’d spent his inheritance on whiskey and whores and had to ask his best friend to make his rent for him.

“Cam, I know all that. Besides our mutual friend I have plenty of other sources, open and not. Look, we’re completely on the same side here. We’ve got to find a way to either knock Grayson out of the game, if we can’t get a deal with him that will put America back together, or bring him back into it and playing under the same rules as the rest of you. So we’d be in this together, even if you weren’t a friend.”

Cam felt funny in his chest; it had been a long time since someone had just said they were his friend. Fine dictator I make, he thought sadly. Worrying all the time about whether people like me.

There was still more to admit. “The truth is, I don’t know what will happen while I’m out of Athens.”

“Well, then bring Grayson along; he’s your deputy, he should be with you anyway. And if his followers pull a coup while you’re here, just stay. I’ve got ten jobs that you’d be perfect for.”

“Such as?”

“Well, babysitter for the world’s best baby comes to mind. He just made the most amazing face.”

“You’re not going to live much longer,” the shorthand girl told Ecco. “Do you think water would be okay for you?”

His face hurt terribly. “Don’t know, but I’m thirsty.”

“Let’s try, but let’s be careful. I’d hate to hurt you any more.” She gave him a sip from the watering can; it felt good, and his guts at least did not rebel immediately. “More?”

He nodded. He wished he could see her, but the last thing he had seen—or ever would see—was Robert bringing the hot screwdriver down into first his left, and then his right, eye. They had broken his ankles and knees with sledgehammers, and branded the soles of his feet, before their rampage across his body was done; his last fantasy of escape was done with.

She gave him more water. He made his mouth shape the words, “Do I need to answer more questions or tell you stuff?”

“I’m here on my own,” she said. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Better ask soon,” he said. He was so tired and fading so fast, but he didn’t want her to leave him alone.

“Have you been anywhere near Pale Bluff, Illinois?”

It clicked. “You’re Pauline Kloster,” he said, very softly, barely breathing. “Carol May asked me to look for you.”

“Is she okay? Where is she?”

“Back in Pale Bluff.”

“It’s still there? They told me it was all burned.”

“It’s still there. And it’s nice,” he said. “Pretty. It’s summer; the orchards are so green, it smells so good.” He started to cry. “I was there two weeks ago. It’s like you remember. Get moving, now. Get home, Pauline, leave now.” He fought down the impossible words that formed in his heart— and take me with you .