Root of Unity (23 page)

I grunted.

“Your family? Any siblings?”

I shrugged irritably. “Been too long.”

“Since what?”

“Since I’ve seen them, clearly.”

“Were you very small, then?”

I didn’t answer.

“When did you move to LA?”

“A few years ago. Can we stop now?”

“From where?”

“I’ve lived a bunch of places. They all run together after a while.”

“Like where?”

“Other cities,” I scoffed. “Who remembers names?”

“Cas,” said Checker. His voice was choked. “Listen to yourself. You can’t remember.”

“Stupid stuff,” I agreed.

“No. Anything. Your memory’s gone.”

I almost laughed, the emotion edged with brittleness. “No, it isn’t.” Of all the things that were fucking me up in the head right now—that was ridiculous. I’d know if my memory was gone.

It was Checker’s turn not to say anything.

“I remember things!” The words tore out of me, almost rising to hysteria, Checker’s thrown gauntlet hanging between us. “I remember plenty of things! It’s perfectly normal for the details to fade. That’s not something wrong with me; that’s normal; that’s—I bet you don’t remember
anything
from when you were five. See?”

“My kindergarten teacher’s name was Mrs. Farrow,” said Checker. “The first day of class I tried to convince the other kids to join me in mass rebellion against authority and ended up sitting in the corner for the rest of the day. I also tried eating a yellow crayon. It was not as tasty as it looked.”

I stared at him, shock and fear flooding me, suffocating me.

“My foster parents at the time were named Millie and Bruce,” Checker continued inexorably, “and they had two real children named Claude and Jeannette who were perfectly dull and would tell on me for trying to light things on fire. Bruce eventually had the town fire marshal sit down with me and try to explain that playing with matches was bad. My counter-argument, that fire was spectacularly cool, did not sit well with him, and I got moved soon after that.”

I was still staring. It was the first time Checker had ever told me this much about his childhood. I had thought—I had assumed—that everyone must remember their pasts in the same hazy, disconnected way I did, because that was normal, it had to be, it
had
to be—

But here was Checker’s in technicolor detail.

“I don’t remember everything from when I was five,” he finished softly. “But you always remember something.”

“I…” I tried to think that far back and got the same vague image I always did, of brown people and brick and bright colors, and an indistinct impression of being among many other children in a classroom of some kind. Those were the only memories I had associated with childhood. “Stop it,” I mumbled, my lips numb. “Stop…”

“Please. Let me help you look into this. I can help you figure this out.”

“No.”

I wasn’t looking at him anymore, but I could feel his confusion. “What?”

“I said no. Leave it.” My voice shook, but I had no doubts.

“But—”

“Maybe there’s a reason my brain doesn’t want to remember,” I said. “My brain’s pretty smart, you know.” Smart, and broken, and now starting to stutter wildly in a way I was all too familiar with, stutter and squeal and demand I lock myself in a small dark room and black out—

I tried to make an angry exit, but I wasn’t sure I managed it. I didn’t look back at Checker to find out.

Chapter 23

When I
got back to my apartment, I was in my kitchen collecting a blessedly full whiskey bottle to my chest before I could think about it. Then I hesitated. My mind was whirling sickeningly, the numbers dancing around me, mocking edges of emotion that were already raw and red, and Checker’s stupid,
stupid
jabs circling round and round in my head, a meaningless litany that was nonetheless somehow driving me mad—and this, this wasn’t going to be enough—

I shoved the bottle violently back onto the messy counter and grabbed at the cabinet, tossing things out in a frenzy. I needed to shut my brain off—shut it off shut it off
shut it off—

Some time later I discovered I was lying on my couch, the world spinning lazily above me, wobbling in silly patterns and making me want to giggle. The math was no longer a smothering, choking mass, instead just pretty little numbers that had gotten dressed up in party outfits to parade around for me.

I did giggle a little.

The next time I woke up I felt a good deal less shiny and happy, and someone was pounding on the apartment door. I tried to cover my head with a pillow, but it was too small, and the pounding wouldn’t stop. I stumbled over and dragged the door open.

“Go away,” I said to Arthur, half-falling out past him to crash into the opposite side of the hallway. I sat down hard on the floor. The wood of the baseboard was a funny texture. New discovery! I giggled.

“Not a chance,” I heard someone say from above me, and then strong hands were under my arms, lifting me. “Up you get.”

“You’re strong,” I slurred out, but wondered why he was lifting me sideways when gravity was pulling downward. I lurched.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” The hands caught me before I hit the floor again. “Girl, look at me. What did you take?”

“My medicine,” I said automatically. That was the right answer, wasn’t it?

“Good God,” I heard Arthur say grimly, from somewhere northwest of me. “Let’s get you back lying down.”

I found myself back on my couch covered by a blanket, vaguely aware of Arthur moving around my apartment going through some of my things. He came back just as the shiny was starting to dim a little further. “Need more,” I mumbled. “It should be prettier.”

“You’re not getting any more of anything, sweetheart. Except water.”

I could feel a sob welling up; a tantrum to crown all childish tantrums nucleating in my chest. “But I want the
pretty!”
I insisted.

Arthur didn’t bother responding. Instead, he sat on me and made a phone call while I threw my tantrum. I remembered I was angry at Arthur, so angry—and I let it all tear out, rain down on his head, the most creative profanities I could construct.

It didn’t seem like he heard me. In fact, he was yelling, too—things like what-the-hell-happened and for-such-a-smart-guy-you-can-be-really-dumb-sometimes into the phone. Somewhere in there things got hazy again, and I wasn’t sure when the haziness of reality slipped into the haziness of chaotic dreams, dreams filled with men with guns that turned into needles.

When I woke up with a splitting headache and a stomach that wanted to turn itself inside out and wring itself dry, I was lying on my sofa and Arthur and Checker were in my living room. Arthur handed me a cup of water. “Here. Drink.”

My mouth tasted like socks, and I only got down a sip or two before my insides rebelled and I hastily set the cup down and threw up over the side of the couch, the mess spattering my floor. I decided I felt too sick to worry about it, and spat, trying to focus my eyes.

“Checker,” I observed blurrily, still tasting the socks. “How’d you get up here?”

“Desperate times, Cas,” he said lightly.

“Wait. I’m mad at you,” I remembered in a confused mumble.

“This is an intervention, Miss Russell,” said Arthur, in a more serious tone.

“Sending me to rehab, are you?”

He snorted. “Almost tempted. We’ll time how long it takes you to break out.”

“You don’t have a drug problem,” said Checker.

“Well, no, you do—” corrected Arthur.

“Not a
serious
one,” grumped Checker.

Arthur shot him a look. “Ex-cop here, remember? But I’m fair sure it ain’t nothing you’ll accept help with, and I ain’t think you’re no danger to yourself. Normally. Am I right?”

I sighed. I wanted them to go away. The conversation was too loud, beating in time with the pounding in my skull. “So why are you here, then?” I couldn’t speak quite as forcefully as I wanted to. My stomach was still determined to revolt, and I had to keep it calm.

“Because you’ve lost large chunks of your memory,” said Checker, “And we want to help you look into it.”

My stomach gave an extra savage twist, and I quickly tried to swallow against it. I won the battle, barely. “I said no.”

“We think something might be making you say that,” said Arthur, and I could tell they had rehearsed this. “Can you give us a good reason why not?”

“Or any reason,” put in Checker, with grim blitheness.

“Because first of all, you’re wrong, and second, it’s my life, and I say no.”

“Not good enough,” said Checker.

“Fuck off,” I shot back eloquently.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” said Checker, in his watch-me-set-my-jaw tone. “I’m going to figure out what happened to you. Whether you want to participate is the optional part.”

“That’s a violation of my privacy,” I got out, but there wasn’t all that much vitriol behind it. I was trying to feel violated and betrayed by Checker’s insistence, but it wasn’t quite coming. I was too worn out and sick. “I’m not helping you.”

“Okay,” said Checker. “Then I’ll do it myself.”

“Russell,” said Arthur, in a careful way that suggested he was bracing himself for something, “We’ve seen it before, people who can…manipulate. Who can make you say things, think things, that you wouldn’t otherwise.”

Memory sparked—a slim, Mediterranean-looking woman, features fine and birdlike and serene. Dawna Polk. Pithica. A group of people trained to be so emotionally manipulative that they were, for all intents and purposes, trained psychics. The last time I had seen Dawna, she had rendered me almost catatonic somehow while she escaped, coolly hammering me with a barrage of words and questions I could never quite recall. The memory did not help my nausea. “Nobody messed with my head,” I got out angrily.

“You
idiot,”
snapped Checker. “Clearly
somebody
did!”

“Checker—” started Arthur, a note of reproach in his voice.

“No, I’m sorry, Arthur! This is like the morons who don’t believe in evolution, even with infinite amounts of evidence thrust under their noses! Cas Russell, you are taking denial to the level of being stupid!”

“Go to hell,” I muttered. Epitome of brilliant comebacks. “And get out of my place.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” said Checker. For some reason, the tone he said it in hurt, twisting up my insides on top of the withdrawal. “Come on, Arthur.” He levered his chair around and moved to the door.

“You, too, Arthur,” I said, loudly and heartlessly, trying to stamp down savagely on that hurt feeling. For some reason I felt as if I had been the one to cause it. “Get out.”

He stood reluctantly. “I’m coming back to check on you in an hour,” he warned. “Drink some water.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said.

Arthur glanced back at me one last time, his expression worried. Checker didn’t look back at all.

I put the pillow over my face and wrapped my arms around it, half-hoping I would accidentally smother myself, and tried not to think. I considered getting up and rooting around for something to make myself feel better, but Arthur would’ve cleaned me out. Not that I couldn’t get more, but that seemed like so much effort.

He better at least have left the alcohol. I was off contract now; he had to know how fucked I’d be if he hadn’t.

My cell phone rang, the jangle loud and piercing and
right by my ear.

I flailed against the couch cushions and yanked out the phone, prepared to let it fly against the nearest hard surface at exactly the right angle so it would shatter into at least five pieces. As I drew back my arm to throw, I caught the number on the caller ID.

Halliday.

Shit.

I hesitated, the phone still drilling its high-pitched urgency into my hungover brain. I didn’t have to answer. I wasn’t working for her anymore, technically. The job was over.

Unless, for some reason, it wasn’t.

I stabbed at the button to connect the call. “This better be important.”

“Xiaohu—when we—he didn’t—” Her words crashed against each other.

“Spit it out, Professor. Did Zhang come pick up the proof?”

“Yes, he was just here, but—he wasn’t supposed to take it!” she burst out. “He hadn’t even notified the NSA that we’d finished. He told me they’d cleared him to take custody, but I just talked to one of the agents and they say they never would have done it that way.”

I sat up far too fast; my stomach and head both wanted to burst and blister. The room yawed sideways and I felt so sick I lost sense of reality for a moment. I fought savagely for coherence. “What are you talking about?”

“Xiaohu was supposed to be keeping his superiors updated, but he didn’t tell them we completed the proof. And they say they never would have cleared him to be the one to take it. Now he’s not returning anyone’s calls; they can’t find him—”

“Maybe he got stuck in traffic,” I said.

“No, are you listening? The other agents, they said they had very specific protocols for this. We should have realized, shouldn’t we? We were too naïve—”

“You think Zhang’s working for the Lancer?” I rubbed my eyes, trying to sync myself with reality.

“No. I know him. He wouldn’t.”

She had far too much faith in people. Zhang was out for himself, just like everyone else. Halliday was right about one thing: I’d been a fool to let us trust him.

I staggered up and looked for my boots. My mouth felt like it was filled with moss. Rotting moss. “When did this all go down? How long ago did they find out?”

“It’s only been a few minutes—I called as soon as I could get away. I think they’re sending people now.”

Geography splayed out in my brain. If Zhang was at his office, the NSA had him surrounded already. But my current location was only minutes from his home address—and considering Los Angeles congestion, that gave me a massive advantage.

Of course, if he was smart he wouldn’t be in either place, but his home might give us evidence of what he was really up to.

“Call Arthur,” I said. “Tell him I’m on the way to Zhang’s house.” Agents were probably listening in on this call, but we’d have to come up with a story for them anyway. Right now I just wanted to get to Zhang first.