Zero Recall (76 page)

Joe hesitated, staring at
the message for several tics before he hit SEND.  Then he leaned back and sat
there in his oddly-flat Human chair, watching the little flashing MESSAGE SENT
light.

He couldn’t, he found,
move from the chair.  He kept checking and re-checking, waiting for her reply.

It came a couple hours
later.

not ushuly my thng,
but we can trie it.  will be thare for dnnr.  Hve sumthing too drink.  i lyke
kon-yak.

Joe stared at the reply
for several tics before he nervously glanced at the time.  22:14.  He had a
little over six hours.  He got up, took a shower, brushed his teeth, combed his
hair, dressed and redressed, forced himself to eat half a hamburger, then just
sat down beside the pool, nervously tapping his fingers on the armrest of the
strange alien chair.

What do you think
you’re going to accomplish with this, Joe?
he thought as he watched the
tics pass by with agonizing slowness. 
You’re just gonna ask her nicely what
the fuck her problem is, and she’s gonna tell you?

No, he was not that
naïve.  She wasn’t going to just
tell
him what was wrong with her.  He’d
asked her enough times and she’d just laughed him off that
that
was
painfully obvious.  And, he realized with growing apprehension, the moment she
saw his face, she would just leave.  No way would she even hang around for the
question.  She would just get pissed, maybe fly off the handle, then go try to
get him demoted again.

So what the hell was he
thinking he was going to accomplish?

Yet, the more he sat
there, agonizing over what Maggie would do once she realized just whose yacht
she had stepped onto, Joe knew that he
had
to know.  He
had
to
get her to finally answer the question that had been burning at him ever since
he’d graduated basic.

So he began to plot.  He
made dinner.  He set out a note.  He put on some nice Ooreiki music.  He bought
a couple alien flowers from the hub and set them in a glass of water.  He left
a trail of strategically-lit rooms and corridors, ending in the dining area. 
Then he stood in the shadows inside the bathroom and waited.

Maggie arrived ten tics
early, dressed in wig, makeup, false eyebrows and lashes, and a body-fitting
black dress.  She’d taken out the contacts and now her soft gray eyes looked
almost vulnerable.  Joe actually felt his breath catch and his heart start to
hammer, seeing for the first time the beautiful woman that had had nothing but
sneering disdain for him for so long.

…the beautiful woman
that, he knew, could have shared his life with him.  They had so much in
common, so many stories to tell…

He watched from the
darkened bathroom as Maggie eyed her surroundings with a look of awe. 
“Hello?”  Her voice was hesitant, almost timid.

Joe stayed where he was. 
He needed her to step deeper into the room before he could show himself, lest
he risk losing the only opportunity he was ever going to get.

Maggie’s gaze finally
came to rest on the note he’d placed on the coffee table inside the
living-area, almost four rods into the room.  She hesitated, and Joe got the
feeling she was considering abandoning the meeting and going back out the way
she’d come.  He held his breath, waiting.  He saw her eyes drift tentatively to
the dining-room down the hall, where even then he had the light and music
cranked up, giving it an appealing ambiance.

Almost reluctantly,
Maggie left the air-lock and stepped down into the main living area, then
crossed to the end-table.  Setting down her purse, she picked up the note.

Joe knew what it read by
heart.

Dear Maggie,

Tell me why.  You owe
me that much.

-Joe

Maggie started and
dropped the note, but not before Joe had stepped from the bathroom and put
himself between her and the air-lock.  Seeing him, her soft gray eyes went
wide, first with fear, then with fury.

“What the ash are
you
doing here?” she demanded, her decades-old sneer solidly back in place.

“I saw your profile,” Joe
said.  “Thought we could catch up.”  He crossed his arms and leaned against the
air-lock pointedly.

Maggie’s gaze flickered
to the exit, then back to him.  Her eyes narrowed.  “Get away from the
airlock.  That’s an order.  From a
Corps Director
.”

“So,” Joe said, staying
where he was, “are you gonna tell me?”

Maggie’s look was
deadly.  “I could have you thrown in the brig.”

“Maybe,” Joe said. 
“Later.”  He cocked his head at her.  “Just tell me why, Mag.  That’s all I
want to know.”

“Why what?” she barked.

“Why do you hate me?” Joe
asked.

Her pretty face twisted
in a sneer.  “You’re a traitorous waste of air.”

Joe kept waiting.

Maggie snorted and yanked
her purse from the end-table.  “Get out of my way.”  She stomped up the steps
to the air-lock and tried to push past him.  When Joe remained where he was, he
watched violence cross her steely gray eyes.

“Careful,” he warned. 
“You hit me and you
will
ruin that dress.”

“You’re threatening me,”
Maggie laughed.  “A superior officer.”

Joe just waited.

She must have realized
that he was serious, because Maggie took a couple nervous steps backwards, away
from him.  “What do you want?”  The sneer was gone, replaced with a hunted
look.

“Tell me why,” Joe said
calmly.  “You’re not leaving until you tell me why you’ve been such an ashing
backbiting vaghi bitch for fifty turns.”

Her pretty eyes darkened
to the color of slate.  “You really want to know?”  It came out as a cold
whisper.

“I wouldn’t be here if I
didn’t,” Joe said.

Maggie set her purse down
on a table-stand holding a fancy lamp.  “All right, Joe.  Here’s why.”  Her
gaze was like ice.  “Once every few rotations, I’m visited by a Trith.  They force
me to watch my own death, again and again and again.  Back in Basic, they would
come to me every two or three weeks, while everybody else was sleeping. 
They’ll show me other stuff, too.  Awful stuff.  Like Earth getting wiped out. 
Covered in kreenit.  Everyone getting eaten.  Every time they come, they show
me that soot, Joe.  They show you in the middle of it.  And I can’t stop them. 
They won’t. 
Stop
.”

Joe frowned and he felt
his arms loosen against his chest.  “A Trith?”

“They want you dead, Joe.” 
Her cold gray eyes were becoming tear-filled.  “And they won’t stop coming to
me
because they want
you
dead.”

“Mag,” Joe said softly, a
wash of empathy flooding his chest.  “I’m so sorry…”

“Oh burning shut up
already,” Maggie snapped, swiping a forearm across her eyes.  “You have no idea
what it’s like, knowing your own future.  Knowing you’ve got no choice in it. 
Knowing
how
and
when
you’re going to die.  Having to see it over
and over again.  Makes me tempted to get out my gun and blow my own goddamn head
off, to spite them, you know?”

“How do you die?” Joe
asked softly.

Fear flickered across her
eyes before Maggie looked away.  For a long time, she just stared at the
table.  Then, softly, “An interrogation.  Asking about you and that Geuji. 
Three days from now.”

Joe froze.  “What?”

“It’s someone trained,
but not military.  Not Peacemaker, either.”

“Va’gan?” Joe demanded.

Maggie’s head snapped
up.  Slowly, she nodded.  “Two of them.  Working for someone powerful.  Lots of
pull.”  She hesitated.  “Joe, I think it was Aliphei.”

Joe frowned.  “Ghosts,
Mag!  We need to get you out of here!”  Jer’ait, he knew, would watch over her
in the Sanctuary on Koliinaat, if he asked.

Maggie made a disgusted
snort.  “There’s
nothing
you can do.  Don’t you understand that? 
They’re
Trith,
Joe.  Whatever you try to do is only going to send me
right into their arms.”

Joe opened his mouth to
tell her that he was a vortex, that he could
change
the future, then he
thought about that little docking slip sitting at a bar on Koliinaat.  He
closed his mouth and looked away.

“So now
I’ve
gotta
ask,” Maggie whispered, stepping up to peer up into his eyes.  Her hatred was
there, as strong as ever, but there was also something deeper, something that
reminded him of a little girl who missed her guppies.  “What is it about you,
Joe, that I’m going to die to protect?”

Joe opened his mouth.  He
almost told her everything.  Almost.

Then he saw a rapt glint
in her eye, a tiny window into a massive factory of sheer cunning, just for a
moment, before it was gone, hidden away as if a shutter had been drawn.  Joe
blinked at her, every hair on his body suddenly standing on end in a
bone-chilling wave.

“Burning ghosts,” he
whispered.  He took a step backwards, slamming his spine into the door, rubbing
goosebumps on his arms.  “Burning ghosts.”

The Huouyt gave him a
long, deliberate look, then smiled.  “I tire of her pattern, anyway.  Fifty-four
turns is too long.”

Joe was suddenly acutely
aware of the fact that he wasn’t carrying a weapon, not even a knife, and that
there was no way he could get the air-lock open in time to escape his visitor.

“To answer your
question,” the Huouyt said calmly, “I made your life a hell because Na’leen
believed so much in you that he made stupid decisions.  A hundred turns of
planning, and he threw it all away because of the few whispered words of a
Trith.”  Maggie’s face smiled up at him.  “And, because I failed Na’leen, I
could never return to Va’ga.  I had no place in society.  No purpose.  No
meaning
. 
You took that from me, Human.  You left me as a pawn without a hand.”  The
Huouyt narrowed Maggie’s eyes.  “So yes, nothing would make me happier than to
see you die the dance of nine thousand slices.”

Joe swallowed
convulsively, and the Va’gan returned his gaze for long tics, cold and silent.

“Now,” the Huouyt eventually
said, Maggie’s pretty face still formed into a pleasant smile, “perhaps you
will get out of my way?” 

Joe was trembling all
over, the tingles of alarm now a screaming cacophony in his mind.  He was so
sure he was going to die that he didn’t actually hear the words that had come
out of his tormentor’s mouth.  He blinked.  “You’re not going to kill me?”

The Huouyt snorted.  “Oh,
believe me.  I would enjoy nothing more.”  Maggie’s eyes were cold and calculating. 
“But you’re going to destroy Congress.  And I hate Congress more than I hate
you.”  Maggie’s face gave a bitter smile.  “It’s a delicate balance.”  The
Huouyt gestured at the door and cocked its head at him, waiting.

Very slowly, Joe stepped
aside.

The Huouyt gave him one
last, long look.  Then, “Tell Jer’ait he’s getting better, but he still has
problems fully assimilating a pattern’s culture and psyche.”  Then opened the
lock and stepped into the hub beyond.

-END-

Note from Sara:  Zero Recall is different.  If
you read it right the first time, it should’ve blown your mind.  Now, if you
read it right the second time, it should blow your mind again.  It should still
be perfectly entertaining the third time through.  It was an experiment in
layers.  Like a cake.  (Or an onion.)  It was a complex biyatch to write, but I
think (hope??) I succeeded. 

So.  Now that you’ve finished the book, I dare
you to go back and read
Chapter 1: Forgotten
, and
Chapter 5: The
Hungry Kitten
.  I think it will answer a LOT of your questions, if you
still have them.

Let me know!  Oh, and if you liked this book, please
leave me a review on Amazon!  I can’t stress enough how, in the Grand Scheme of
things, a few honest words from Readers Like You can really go a long way toward
that World Domination thing I keep talking about.  :) 

[email protected]

About
the Author

My name is Sara King and I’m going
to change the world.

No, seriously.  I am.  And I need
your help.  My goal is simple.  I want to champion, define, and spread
character writing throughout the galaxy.  (Okay, maybe we can just start with
Planet Earth.)  I want to take good writing out of the hands of the huge
corporations who have had a stranglehold on the publishing industry for so long
and reconnect it to the people (you) and what you really want.  I want to
democratize writing as an art form.  Something that’s always been controlled by
an elite few who have (in my opinion) a different idea of what is ‘good
writing’ than the rest of the world, and have been feeding the sci-fi audience
over 50% crap for the last 40 years.  (To get my spiel on character writing and
what it is, jump to the
Meet Stuey
section of this book.)