F. Paul Wilson - Ground Zero

Jack had brought four—a pair each of the chocolate cake and sour cream models, both glazed—for a mid-morning snack.

“Nu . . . what’s the catch?”

Jack leaned against the far side of the counter and shrugged as he scratched his beard.

“They’re my white flag. I’ve surrendered. How long now have I been bringing you stuff you don’t want to eat? Does it do any good? No. I’ve decided it’s futile for me to care more about your health than you do.”

Abe put a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt. To the quick you’ve cut. So easily you give up?”

“It’s been years , Abe.”

“And you think I’m unmoved by these caring gestures?”

“Doesn’t matter. They haven’t changed a thing. And I confess my motives have been purely selfish: I don’t want to have to look for a new armorer.”

In truth, Abe was his best friend—not counting Gia—and he wanted him around as long as possible. Simple as that. No need saying it. Abe knew.

“And you should lord your diet over mine? You who thinks Cheetos is a dairy product and who considers a box of Pringles a serving of vegetables.”

“Yeah, but I move . I work all that off. You, on the other hand . . .”

“I had no idea of your deep feelings for me.” He sighed. “I’m touched. And because I’m so touched, a supreme effort I’ll make. Just for you.”

Jack watched in amazement as Abe replaced the donut in the sack, rolled the top, and slid it to Jack’s side of the counter. Even Parabellum’s beak gaped in wonder.

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true. A new leaf I’m turning. As of right now.”

They stared at each other for maybe half a minute, then Abe grabbed the sack and tore into it.

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll start.”

Jack had to laugh as he was reminded of the sign over Julio’s bar: FREE BEER TOMORROW . . . Abe’s diet was always starting mañana.

Which was why he was built like the Liberty Bell.

Then he sobered. “Think heart attack, Abe.”

Abe chewed his first bite thoughtfully as Parabellum hopped onto the counter and policed the crumbs.

“I have, Jack. And I’ve decided I don’t care. If I drop dead tomorrow, it’s okay already.”

Jack knew he wasn’t overstating. Abe’s wife was dead, his daughter hadn’t spoken to him in years, and he had very few friends—Jack perhaps the closest.

“Nothing to live for?”

Abe shrugged. “I’m not saying that. Do I want to die? No. But if I go, I’m gone. No regrets.”

“Worse things than dropping dead. You could have a stroke and wind up paralyzed.”

Abe pointed at the floor. “For that I’ve got a basement full of solutions.” Then he pointed to Jack. “And a friend who’ll help me cut short any unseemly lingering.”

“Swell.”

Offing Abe. He couldn’t imagine it.

“So enough already with the morbid talk.” Abe flattened his copy of Long Island Newsday on the scarred counter and took another bite of his donut. “I need to know what happened in the world whilst I slept.”

Jack sighed and pulled the Post from the stack of papers. He turned to the sports section. The Mets were in a hitting slump. Again.

“Nu,” Abe said after a moment. “Here’s an interesting story. Yesterday this doctor’s house burned to the ground in Monroe.”

“That’s interesting? I mean, I’m sorry for the guy and all, but houses burn every day.”

“If you’d let me finish, you might know why it’s interesting.”

Jack glanced at Abe. He usually wasn’t cranky in the morning. He hadn’t finished his first donut yet, so maybe his blood sugar was low. But that didn’t mean Jack would cut him any slack.

“You don’t need to finish. If it happened in Monroe, it’s automatically interesting.”

Weird little town, Monroe. Really weird. If Jack never saw it again, he wouldn’t miss it.

“You want to hear or not?”

Mimicking his accent, Jack gave an elaborate Abe-style shrug and said, “So speak already.”

“Turns out he was invaded by current patients and people who wanted to be his patients.”

“And they burned down his house? Why? He forget how to spell oxycodone?”

“No. They thought he could heal with a touch.”

Jack’s glazed sour cream donut stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa! Heal with a touch?”

“That’s what it says. I remember reading something about him in People not too long ago.”

“You read People? ”

Jack didn’t know why he was surprised. Abe read everything.

“I should spend my days not knowing who’s pregnant and by whom? Anyway, the article interviewed some of his patients who said they’d been healed by his touch.”

“And what did he say?”

“ ‘No comment,’ I believe.”

The story sounded too familiar. Walt Erskine from Jack’s hometown had been rumored to be able to heal people with a touch, but he’d kept pretty much to himself. And wore gloves all the time, even in summer. Jack vaguely remembered an incident with a woman with a deformed baby—

He stiffened. Wait a sec. Back in the spring . . . the paper had said Walt had died . . . in Monroe.

Abe’s eyebrows rose. “Nu?”

One guy who supposedly could heal dies and then another guy in the same town develops a similar rep. Coincidence, or . . . ?

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

Abe bent again to his Newsday . “Thinking is good . . . to a point.”

Abe started on a second donut; Jack bit back a remark. He’d given it his best shot. Time to back off. He flipped toward the front of the paper and stopped when a column header caught his eye: CULTure WARS .

“Tsk-tsk-tsk. Looks like those mean old Kickers and Dormentalists are still at it.”

A photo of yesterday’s melee—Jack was relieved to see that he’d ducked out of frame before it was taken—was followed by an article on the ongoing conflict.

“So I read,” Abe said. “But the real war is online. The Kickers have been hacking all the Dormentalist sites and either crashing them or changing the content.”

“Changing the content how? Somehow having Dormentalism make sense?”

“No, more like posting pictures of naked adolescent boys.”

Jack frowned. “Ah. The Luther Brady connection.”

“Yes. It’s getting ugly. The Dormentalists are recruiting fewer and fewer new shnooks and keep on losing existing shlemiels to the Kickers, and the Kickers are rubbing their faces in it.”

Jack nodded. “And since the Kickers are far less centralized, they’re harder to strike back at.”

“Exactly. Especially since they’re anti-Internet.”

“Does anybody see a contradiction here? They say they’re anti-Internet, but they have hackers who can breach the Dormentalists’ firewalls. What’s up with that?”

“You want I should explain these people? Why they don’t like the Internet, I have no idea.”

“Well, according to the book, the Kicker goal is to become ‘dissimilated,’ which has something to do with ‘kicking free’ from society. Maybe they see the Internet as something that assimilates everything.”

“I don’t know about assimilating,” Abe said, “but it connects everything and everyone who wants to be connected. Even some people who don’t want to be connected, I imagine.”

Jack glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “Speaking of connecting, I’m supposed to meet some guy to tell him I can’t help him.”

“You could do that on the phone.”

“It’s more polite in person.”

“Polite? Since when you’re polite?”

Abe’s fingers were edging toward a third donut. Jack snatched it up before they could reach it.