Zero's Return (50 page)

“
Fight
!”
Doctor Molotov screamed, when everyone continued to stand around, staring at
each other.  The harshness of her voice made everyone jump.

“Before they
do,” Codgson said calmly, walking up to the lines, “I have a change I’d like to
make to the lineup.  Lieutenant Drake, release Six Two One.”

“Colonel, what
are you doing?” Doctor Molotov asked, her voice containing ice. 

Colonel Codgson
gave her his gut-curdling smile.  “After rooming with such a
prodigy
,
Six Two One undoubtedly has gained an unfair advantage over her fellow
soldiers.  I think it’s only fair that
one
of them survives, right?”

“You already
made one radical change to my program’s calculated best-match scenarios.”
Doctor Molotov interrupted.  “I will have to ask that you don’t make another.”

“Ask away,”
Colonel Codgson said, grabbing a confused-looking Six Two One and walking her
over to stand in the puddle of blood in front of Six Six Five.  “Lock her
down,” he commanded the technician, gesturing at Six Two One’s ankle.  The
technician gave Doctor Molotov an unsure look, then, when Doctor Molotov just
stood there, shaking, she uncertainly bent to begin fiddling with the chain and
padlock.

Seeing her new
opponent, Six Six Five’s heartbeat was hammering again, and this time, all the
rage had subsided, leaving nothing but cold, icy fear as they locked her friend
into the slot across from hers.  Standing across from her, the technician
working at her ankle, Six Two One was likewise staring at Six Six Five, looking
utterly pale.

He’s going to
make me fight Six Two One…
  Six Six Five swallowed hard, suddenly not
feeling so strong, so powerful. 
Please no,
she thought. 
Please
don’t make me fight her…

“Fix her chain,”
Colonel Codgson commanded the tech, pointing at the loose chain dangling around
Six Six Five’s foot.  “This time,” he said sweetly, “you will
only
win
if your opponent surrenders.”

Six Six Five
swallowed down a raw ball of fear in her throat, thinking of her long nights
whispering with Six Two One in her bed, talking about how they wanted to be
something other than soldiers.  She realized that one of them
wasn’t
going to be a soldier, and she felt her heart racing with a thousand times more
terror than she’d felt fighting Six One Eight.  She met Six Two One’s green
eyes, her breath coming in ragged pants.

Then Colonel
Codgson’s words came back to her, echoing like sweetened venom in her brain. 
“…it’s
only fair that
one
of them survives…”
Six Six Five forgot to
breathe, horror driving stakes through her veins. 
He’s going to kill the culls.
 
Though no one had said as much, she suddenly had the all-consuming knowledge
that it was true. 
Just like he killed Six Seven Two and Six One Eight.
 
Suddenly, she knew that there was no technician’s position on the other end of
this fight, no doctor’s training.  No training at all.  Just a pool of blood
and the smell of the toilet.

As she remained
frozen in place, horror paralyzing her muscles into rigidity, the technician
came over and bent to work on Six Six Five’s ankle.  The touch of her manicured
hand on her leg jolted Six Six Five out of her terror.  Six Six Five
automatically stepped backwards, yanking her foot out of reach.

Seeing that,
Colonel Codgson cocked his head.  “Are you
surrendering
, Six Five?”  He
looked supremely satisfied.  “Are you
volunteering
to be culled?”

“N-no,” she
blurted.  Still, she didn’t return her foot within the technician’s reach.  Her
heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and her knees kept trembling to the
point where it was hard to stay upright.  She could feel all eyes in the
auditorium on her, watching. 

“Six Six Five
already won her match,” Doctor Molotov snapped.  “To pit her against her own
roommate is just cruel.”

“War is cruel,
doctor,” Codgson said, pinning Six Six Five with his gaze.  “Now, Six Five. 
Either you’re going to be strong and volunteer to fight, like a
good
soldier, or you’re weak and you’re volunteering to be culled.  Which is it?”

Volunteering to
be culled…  Six Six Five’s eyes dropped to the pool of crimson that Six Two One
was even now standing in.  Heart hammering, facing her best friend, Six Six
Five knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to her war-mind.  Not ever.  She
squeezed her eyes shut, thinking about what it would be like to be culled, how
much she would feel before she stopped twitching.  The unknown ate at her,
gnawing wormy holes through her guts.  She took a deep breath, steeling
herself.

“I volunteer.”

Although she had
been thinking it, the soft, tentative voice had not come from Six Six Five’s
lips.  She froze, realizing that it had come from Six Two One’s, instead.  The
technician, who had paused in fixing the chain around Six Six Five’s leg,
looked up at Colonel Codgson.

The colonel
stiffened, then turned to scowl down at Six Two One.  “What did you say?”

“I volunteer,” her
friend said again, louder this time. 

“No!” Six Six
Five shouted, starting toward her.

Colonel Codgson
stopped her short with a strong arm, a new smile forming on his face as he
focused his attention on her best friend.  “You volunteer for
what
, Six
Two One?”

“Don’t!” Six Six
Five pleaded.  “Please.  I’ll—”

Six Two One
lifted her head in that way she always did before she was going to do something
stubborn.  “I volunteer to be culled, colonel.  I don’t want to be a soldier. 
I don’t like to fight.”

There was a
collective gasp all around them and Six Six Five felt her breath slide from her
as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.  Too late.  Looking at Colonel
Codgson’s wormy smile, she knew it was too late to stop her.  She’d said the
one thing that would get any recruit removed, never to be seen again.

“How
interesting,” the colonel said.  “The
prodigy
rooms with a
traitor
.” 
He yanked Six Two One away by the back of her shirt until her ankle chain
pulled her up short.  “Release this little shit.  We’ll give Six Six Five
someone else to fight.”  He drew his knife.

“You
won’t
!”
Doctor Molotov snapped, stepping up between them.  “This is
insane
. 
What you are doing is
insane
, colonel.  You’re showing a distinct
personal bias to a very sensitive experimental process, and it is destroying
your objectivity.  I’m going to have to ask you to leave, or I will have to
call the general and explain the situation.”

Colonel Codgson
made a face, Six Two One still in his grip.  “What situation might that be,
Doctor?”

“The situation,”
Doctor Molotov said, “where I have been recording this whole damn thing.”  She
held up a small hand-held device.  “From what you did to One Eight to what you
just did here.  You’re going to get the fuck out of my lab or I’m going to send
this to someone important.  You get me? 
Sir
?”

Colonel Codgson
gave her a weird little smile.  “Doctor Molotov, I have friends in
very
high places.”

“And if this
gets out,” she said, mimicking his smooth sweetness, “you’ll need every fucking
one of them.”  As Colonel Codgson flinched, she went on, “You’re treating this
project as your personal playground.  You
executed
our star performer. 
After we were put under express orders not to alarm the test subjects, you cut
out his throat and covered half the room in
blood
.  You’re a liability. 
You threaten to compromise the entire batch.”

Colonel Codgson
smiled and didn’t even face the doctor.  “Release this one.  I’ll take her to
the sleep bay.

“Six Two One has
excellent potential!” Doctor Molotov snapped.

“She surrendered,”
Codgson said flatly.  He gave her a bored sigh, his smile still in place. 
“Either we do it there, or I do it here.  Which do you think would be more
traumatic to your precious subjects?”

They’re
talking about killing her,
Six Six Five realized, her heart beginning to
hammer out of control.  Even knowing that, though, she couldn’t bring herself
to speak.  Shame and terror mingled in her chest, keeping her silent.  She had
to be wrong.  She
had
to be.  They were simply talking about taking her
away, training her in something else…

Doctor Molotov
stared at Codgson for several moments in the total silence that followed, then
her eyes shifted to Six Two One, who still looked confused.

“So do I get to
be a doctor now?” Six Two One asked softly.  Then, when Doctor Molotov just
stared at her, she quickly added, “Or an assistant?  I’d be a good assistant,
Doctor Molotov.  I’d carry your clipboard for you and take good notes.  I never
really wanted to be a soldier.  I don’t like to fight.”

For a long
moment, Doctor Molotov’s gaze was fixed on Six Two One.  Then, suddenly,
without a single word, she spun and walked away, her heels clicking desperately
on the concrete as she passed.

After she was
gone, Colonel Codgson chuckled.  “Get them fighting,” he told the technicians. 
“Winners go to the cafeteria.  Culls in the corner.  I’ll deal with them as
they come.”

Unlocking the
chain from around Six Two One’s foot, Lieutenant Drake licked her lips and
stood.  Nervous gray eyes on Six Six Five, she said, “What about the ones that
need medical attention?”

Six Six Five,
whose heart had been pounding too hard to even think about her wounds, flinched
and curled her hand into a fist to hide her injuries.  The last thing she
wanted to do was go anywhere with Colonel Codgson.

“She broke
protocol,” he said, sounding bored, now.  “She can run laps until the games are
over.”  Then he grabbed Six Two One by the shirt and steered her away from the
formation.  The last thing Six Six Five saw of her before one of the soldiers
was prodding her out of the room was her friend’s look of apology.

Take care of
Pizza,
Six Two One mouthed, smiling.  Then she was gone, led by Colonel
Codgson through the far door.

“Time to run,
kid,” the gun-toting man said, pushing Six Six Five gently with his gun, urging
her from the room and towards the gymnasium.

“Lucky little
shit,” another one added, glancing over his shoulder once they were out of
earshot inside the gym.  “You fucking see that?”

The first
soldier grunted.  “Yeah.  I’d say the little guy’s gotta watch out for arsenic
in his Cheerios from now on.  I’ve never
seen
Codgson so pissed.”

“Dude, I think
it’s a girl.”

The other
soldier shrugged.  “Can’t tell the way they shave their heads and dress ‘em
like robots.”  Then he frowned.  “Hey, kid.  We said
run
.”

Six Six Five
reluctantly broke into a jog around the edge of the room, but as she did, she
wondered what arsenic was, and where she could find Cheerios.  And why the
soldiers acted like it was something out of the ordinary to have their heads
shaved.  And why robots would wear clothing.  Sometimes, she realized, the
soldiers acted as if they were from a completely different world.  One that was
bigger, one that they all visited on a regular basis …

Six Six Five
stumbled in her run as she realized that the soldiers’ faces were never the
same day in and day out.  It was like they alternated, only ‘protecting’ them a
few days each week.  And if they alternated, where did they
go
? 
Was
there a bigger world out there, one the doctors weren’t letting them see?

“Run, kid!” one
of the soldiers behind her laughed.  “Only a zillion laps to go.”

“Dude, she can
understand you,” his partner muttered.

“So?” the
soldier demanded.  “You saw Codgson’s face.  In a couple of weeks, that one’s
gonna be sent to the glue factory.”  He paused and frowned in Six Six Five’s
direction.  “
Run
.  Don’t make us tell you again, shrimp.”

“I hate it when
they look at us like that.  Almost like they
think
, you know?”

The other
soldier grunted.  “They’re automatons.  They don’t think.”  Then Six Six Five
was out of earshot, running laps around the huge gym.  By the time she got back
to her starting-point, the soldiers had moved to a table near the bleachers and
had started up a card game.  As Six Six Five ran—seemingly endless laps, over
and over, for hours—her fingers started to pound and her nose, which had
stopped bleeding in the time after her fight with Six One Eight, began to
dribble blood again.  By the time a technician arrived, her fingers were
throbbing lumps of agony at the end of her arm and her nose was blowing bloody
snot down her shirt, but thoughts of Six Two One kept her running, that look of
apology, that last whispered goodbye, that horrible fear that she wasn’t being
sent to train as a technician. 

Instead of telling
the soldiers that it was time for her to quit running laps and go to medical,
however, the technician only told the soldiers they would be there longer than
expected. 

“A couple of
them are being stubborn,” Six Six Five overheard the lab-coated man say, as she
continued running in circles.  “No clear winners.  Lookin’ like it might take
awhile.”

“Well, fuck,”
one of the soldiers said, glancing at Six Six Five.  “I don’t wanna babysit
this little shit all night.  It’s Miller time.  Send him to medical—he’s just
spreading blood around.  If Codgson whines about it, I’ll take the hit on
Monday.  It’s past
ten
man.  Screw this.”  He stood and threw his gun
over his shoulder.  “You okay if we ditch?”

“Sure,” the
technician said, giving a tired look in Six Six Five’s direction.

“Hey,” the other
soldier said, as they were leaving.  “Jackson and I had a bet going.  Is that a
boy or a girl?”