Zero Site 1607 Read online

  Before Saeliko could answer, the pilot called out from the cockpit, alerting them that they were nearing the coordinates Eliska had given him earlier. The doctor gave her captive one last glance and then walked forward in the passenger hold until she reached Dallas’ side. At first, Eliska thought the pilot was coming in low, but she quickly realized her mistake. They were flying over an alpine meadow high on a blunted, peak-less mountaintop.

  That made sense. Mr. Toad would want to meet somewhere unpopulated. All around, the absence of human civilization was apparent. The meadow was speckled with small lakes and rivulets of water flowing between them, and the occasional cluster of stunted shrub growth constituted the only objects rising more than a meter off the ground. In the distance, Eliska could see dozens of mountaintops, some connected by rugged ridgelines, others separated by deep forested valleys. What she didn’t see were roads or buildings. Wherever they were, it was remote.

  A craft of some sort was parked near one of the larger lakes. It wasn’t a Kye-shiv, but it was similar. It had a bulky midsection that was designed to carry a dozen or so people, and given the lack of any runway, it must have been able to land and take off vertically.

  “That’s an A90,” the co-pilot stated. “Cloudrunner series.”

  “Who uses Cloudrunners?” Eliska asked. She regretted asking as soon as said it. Now the pilots knew that she didn’t even know the identities of the people she was supposed to meet down there.

  The co-pilot didn’t seem to notice or care. “Just about everyone but us. The Kye-shivs are exclusive to Zodo, but anyone with cash to burn can buy a Cloudrunner.”

  Good, she thought. That would keep the pilot and co-pilot from identifying the people waiting on the ground, or more to the point, who they were employed by.

  At the same time, Eliska’s own curiosity was peaked. After all this time corresponding with Mr. Toad, he still hadn’t confided in her who he worked for. Under normal circumstances, that would have been a giant alarm, but the doctor was certain that whoever she was dealing with was better than Zodo.

  “Land us right there.” Eliska pointed to a flat patch of ground about thirty meters from the A90 Cloudrunner. The pilot acquiesced and nosed the Kye-shiv downward. When they were almost on the ground, Eliska noticed a man descending out the back hatch of the Cloudrunner.

  All right, she thought. Let’s see who you are, Mr. Toad.

  2.4 KETTLE

  All his earlier thoughts of ultrarunning prowess had long since faded into oblivion. Kettle was in pain. Everywhere.

  Most of all, his calves burned. His quads were being pulverized, too, but his calves felt like they were going to explode with every step. He now understood that any notions he had held about beating Vasper in a long-distance race were both stupid and delusional. His Zero DNA was a marvelous thing – it had saved his life on numerous occasions already – but there were limits. For example, it didn’t magically transform him into Steve Prefontaine.

  Other than the sheen of sweat covering his face and neck, Vasper wasn’t showing any ill effects from the twelve and a half hours of near constant movement. It wasn’t all running. The trail – if it could really be called a trail – that they were following had sometimes been too steep to run. In those spots, it had been more of an upward scramble on all fours. Vasper had even allowed them to stop twice for food, which existed in the form of dense little cake thingies that Vasper had stashed in his pack. He called them infuse-blocks. They were about two inches long and one inch thick, and if you closed your eyes and ignored the texture, they almost tasted like blueberries. Or distant cousins of blueberries. Two bites of uber nutrition. Vasper claimed that infuse-blocks were so jam-packed with calories, electrolytes, proteins, blah, blah . . . that one block equaled one and a half regular meals. To Vasper’s credit, Kettle didn’t list hunger among his current ailments.

  Hydration came in the form of streams. That seemed like a bad idea. Kettle remembered learning as a kid that drinking water straight from natural sources was a good way to pick up a whole host of nasty bacteria. The last thing he needed now was to be cleaning out his insides from both ends while trying to run through the mountains. But Vasper had the answer for that, too. He made Kettle and Haley swallow two little pink pills. When Haley asked what they were, Vasper just shrugged and said that soldiers called them pinkies. Kettle then asked if they would keep them from getting sick. Vasper said, “Probably.”

  The sun was near setting when Vasper pulled to a stop on a little open plateau surrounded by trees. Kettle gave a silent thanks to whichever gods were paying attention and collapsed onto his knees. He regretted that. His quads seized up like rusted old engines, forcing him to roll over onto his side and groan for a while.

  Haley jogged onto the plateau ten seconds later and found Kettle prone on the ground in front of her. “You big baby,” she chastised him between deep breaths. Then she collapsed on the ground beside him.

  There were only three of them now. Jovis had fallen behind almost as soon as they had departed all those hours ago. He could track them, but Kettle was now wondering if the man would ever catch them. According to Vasper, they had covered over seventy-two kilometers, and that was about an hour ago. Kettle had spent a solid twenty minutes after learning their distance trying to convert it to miles, which he concluded was in the mid-forties. On a side note, he found it interesting that Americans weren’t just oddballs on Earth for rejecting the metric system; they also seemed to be oddballs of seventeen universes. American exceptionalism indeed.

  In any case, that was approaching two marathons. Ridiculous. “Are we almost there yet?” he asked and noticed that his voice was croaky.

  “No.”

  Kettle waited for more information, but as usual, Vasper wasn’t in a talkative mood. Instead, he was busy staring at some craggy rock formations to the south. Kettle rolled over to look at Haley, who was lying on her back with her harms splayed out to either side. “Do you hurt as much as I hurt?”

  “I feel like a hundred angry children have been stomping on all my leg muscles for the last few hours.”

  “Only a hundred?”

  “A hundred fat children.”

  “Yeah, that’s about right.”

  “My lungs hurt.”

  He tried to nod, but with his head already on the ground, it was more like he was just dragging his ear through the dirt. “My spleen hurts.”

  “You don’t even know where your spleen is.”

  “That’s true, but everything else hurts, so I’m sure my spleen is no exception.”

  “Fair enough. My spleen hurts, too.”

  “Well, let’s try to look on the bright side.”

  “Yeah? What’s the bright side?”

  “No pirates.”

  “Ah. Good point. I really don’t miss having people try to hack my head off with cutlasses.” She pulled herself up into a sitting position, which Kettle viewed as an impressive feat given that he wanted nothing more than to lie still for the next eight or ten hours. “Hey, Kettle?”

  “Yeah, Haley?”

  “You’re not an asshole.”

  “Really?” Kettle hoisted himself up onto his elbows and then into a full sitting position, wincing as he did it. His eyes met hers. “When did you decide that?”

  “About two hours ago, right after we climbed that horrible hill and I threw up.”

  Kettle frowned. “Are you sure you’re not just comparing me favorably to vomit?”

  “No.” She smiled and wiped some of the sweat off her brow, which left a streak of dirt in its place. “Although they do say pain brings clarity. Maybe my agony was helping me think straight.”

  “Well, in that case, thank you for being in agony.”

  “Careful, smartass, or I’ll change my mind again.”

  “Noted.” He refocused on his own agony and tried to massage his leg muscles, an activity that brought more pain than relief. He pulled his right pant leg up and examined his calf muscle. It looked smal
ler than before. It probably was. His muscles had gradually tightened up under the abuse. He turned his attention back to Haley and said, “You’re wrong, you know.”

  “About?”

  “Me. I was being an asshole. I didn’t react well, and when I had the chance to apologize I didn’t. I was pigheaded and made it worse.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t make it easy for you.”

  “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but I don’t want to fight with you anymore. We’ve got way bigger things to worry about than pissing each other off.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And for the record, I’m sorry, Haley.”

  She waved a hand through the air as if to dismiss his apology. “Forget about it.”

  Good. His body was in a lot of pain, but his mind immediately felt better. Having Haley mad at him had been dragging him down. Now it felt like the proverbial weight had been lifted. Having Haley on his side made him stronger. It made him happier, too.

  Kettle admitted to himself that he really liked Haley. He liked the way she was sitting on the ground right now, dirt splotched on her sweat-streaked face, cheeks reddened from the day’s constant exertion. He liked the way she gently pumped her fist against her thigh muscles, trying (probably in vain) to bring some relief to the aches and pains. But it was much more than a physical attraction. Kettle liked Haley because she was . . . just . . . Haley. The ornithologist from Korea had a lot for Kettle to admire and aspire to. She was intelligent, she had a quick wit, and perhaps most important of all, she was genuine. She didn’t pretend to be anything she wasn’t. Haley didn’t have multiple personalities that she could select from to suit the occasion. There was Haley Version 1.0, and that was it.

  Kettle laid back down on the ground but kept looking at her. “Hey, Haley, I was thinking.”

  “Don’t. It’s not your strong suit.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I try.”

  “Do you think our emotions were being driven by our ancestry? I mean, remember what Dr. Tannishoy said in that meeting? Do you think we lost our temper with each other because of our genetic traits?”

  “Nah.” She shook her head. “You know, the thought crossed my mind, too, but I don’t think we can let ourselves off that easy. Even if that booster shot the pilot gave us is causing certain behaviors to rise to the surface, it doesn’t mean we get to give in to all our base desires. We’re still human. We still get to control how we treat everyone around us. And if we don’t do a good job controlling our emotions, if we start acting like jerks, if we treat people unfairly, we have to own up to that.”

  That made sense to Kettle. He could see the logic. Blaming snotty behavior on Zero DNA was a slippery slope. The more you did it, the more you relinquished accountability for your actions. “You’re right,” he told her.

  “As usual,” she said and smiled.

  “What about . . .” He closed his mouth and left his question unfinished. Vasper was talking into his wrist device again, albeit only in abbreviated one- or two-word comments. While he spoke, his eyes remained peeled to the rocky terrain to the south.

  “Yes, sir,” Vasper said crisply. Kettle marveled that the man still had the energy to stand and sound energetic. “Affirmative. Yes, sir.” Kettle couldn’t hear the response coming from the other individual in the conversation, which once again made him think that Vasper was relying on an implant to receive the incoming voice. “Yes, sir. I tried that, too. No contact yet, sir.” Kettle checked with Haley to see if she was following, but she looked confused as well. “Copy that. Good luck, sir.”

  Vasper brought let his arm fall back down to his side and continued staring at the landscape. He didn’t even look at Kettle or Haley, nor did he offer an explanation. The man was clearly interested in something out there, but when Kettle tried to follow his line of sight, all he could see were rocks and trees. It didn’t help that the sun was almost gone. The dim golden light made Yensh territory very picturesque, but it also made it difficult to pick out details.

  “Was that Caurfo,” Haley asked, beating Kettle to the punch.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He’s making a run for the border. Too much heat on him.”

  Kettle asked, “What did you mean when you said no contact?”

  “Something’s wrong with our communication systems. Colonel Caurfo’s communication channel to Zodo isn’t working. I’ve been trying to raise ARCOB, but the signal’s not going through.”

  Vasper didn’t betray any emotion when he gave them this information, which made Kettle pause and wonder if he had misheard the sergeant. Losing communication with HQ was a bloody big deal. “We’re alone out here?” Kettle said.

  “No one’s coming for us?” Haley added.

  “I didn’t say that. I said we’ve lost contact. That’s all.” Still, Vasper didn’t look at them.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” Kettle asked.

  “Five men. Maybe six. Hugging the tree line on that outcropping on the right.”

  Kettle whipped his head around to the vicinity Vasper was talking about and tried to pick out movement, but he didn’t see anything. He forced himself to calm down and study the craggy hilltops more carefully. Other than a pair of large birds catching an upward draft in the distance, nothing made itself evident.

  “I can’t see . . . whoa!” Kettle sucked in his breath. Something had flashed in the fading light. Just a reflection from the all-but-gone sunshine. He stared at the spot and willed the details to come into greater focus. He finally saw movement.

  “They can’t have been following us this whole time,” Haley said. “There’s no way they could’ve kept up.”

  “No,” Vasper admitted. “They’ve been radio hopping. This is the third group to try to track us. If they lose us, they’ll just radio ahead to another group of hunters.”

  “But they’ll have to stop soon, right. They just ran out of daylight. They’ll have to wait until dawn.”

  “They’ve got at least one dog, and I’m guessing they’ve got lights. They’ll keep coming.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We keep moving.”

  “Oh Jesus, we’re not camping here?”

  “No. We have to keep moving.”

  “For how long?”

  “It’s another twenty-two kilometers to ZS 1607.”

  Kettle almost threw up at the thought of it. “I don’t think I can make it that far.”

  Vasper finally took his eyes away from their distant pursuers and looked at Kettle and Haley, both sitting on the ground. After a few moments, he said, “We can rest a few more minutes. We should eat again before we go.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Kettle said.

  “Your body needs the calories.” He took his pack off and dug out three more infuse-blocks. “Eat them. Then we’ll get up and keep moving.”

  “No, I’m serious, Vasper. I don’t think I can do two more kilometers, let alone twenty-two. There has to be another way.”

  “Yes you can. You just think you can’t because you’ve never run this far before.” He pointed a finger to his temple, tapped his skin three times and gave Kettle a little nod. “Running is ten percent physical, ninety percent mental. You just keep telling yourself, one foot forward. Then another foot forward. Then another. Don’t think about anything else. Just one more step. That’s all.”

  “There has to be another way. You’ve got a rifle. Haley and I have pistols. Can’t we ambush them? Maybe Jovis will get here soon. He could help us fight them off.” Kettle knew that was a dumb idea as soon as he said it. Jovis was a pilot, not a runner. There was no way he was anywhere close.

  Vasper lifted his wristband and tapped its tiny control panel a few times with his fingertip. A hologram popped into existence above the device and shimmered into a rectangular shape approximately one foot wide and two feet long. It undulated for a few seconds, little contours of yellow light moving up and down, until it stopped in its
final form. Kettle recognized it for what it was: a 3D map. A few more seconds after that, he was able to orient himself and locate their position, three miniscule blue dots on a raised bit of yellow that split two valleys. Kettle scanned the map and searched for the route they had followed over the last twelve hours, using his memory of the day’s run to reconstruct a path. It took him almost to the other side of the map, where he located seven more blue dots.

  Vasper noted Kettle’s focal point and spoke. “That’s Caurfo.”

  “Where are the other four?”

  Vasper used his free hand to manipulate the hologram, stretching it and zooming in toward a dead-end box canyon. Near the canyon wall, two red dots appeared. Then Kettle saw another red dot roughly a kilometer away, and a fourth close by.

  “Red is dead?”

  “Red is dead.

  Kettle stared at the four red dots. Each one represented a human being that had been alive this morning. Four men that would never see their friends and family members again. Kettle finally forgot about the pain in his legs. Now all he could feel was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “They died for us,” Haley said in a soft, sober voice.

  Vasper zoomed the map out again, taking attention away from the red dots. “No, they didn’t. They didn’t die for you. Those four men died for an idea. They died because they believed you might be able to find a cure.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better,” she said.

  Kettle looked at the map again. “What about Jovis?”

  “Here.” Vasper readjusted a third time and magnified a flat area with a wide river. Next to the river was a blue dot.

  “He’s alive. But . . . wait a second . . . How the hell did he get over there?”

  “He’s moving,” Haley added.

  “Oh, you’re right.” Kettle could see the dot move a fraction across the map.

  “In a vehicle of some sort,” Vasper confirmed. “Probably captured. I’ve tried contacting him, but he doesn’t reply.”

  “Maybe it’s the same technical issue that’s blocking you from Zodo HQ.”

  “No. Two different systems. The tech I’m using to maintain contact with Jovis and Caurfo is independent from the Zodo channel. Jovis isn’t answering because he can’t. I don’t know why Zodo isn’t answering.”