Zero's Return (56 page)

“Please don’t kill
me,” Six Six Five whispered again.

The blue-clad
man sighed.  “You’re just a
number
, kid.  Of course I’m going to kill
you.  But if you’re entertaining enough, I’ll make it later, rather than
sooner.  I mean, I
was
on vacation, but it was with my prudish piglet of
a wife and her undead family.  They were playing
Trivial Pursuit
when I
got the call.  Do you know how much I
hate
that game?”  He started
kicking his feet.  “It’s
boring
.  I win every time.  I can’t
not
win, you know?  But I play their games, ‘cause if I don’t, they do something
worse like sing Christmas carols.  So, instead of winning all the time, like I
should, because I’m
smarter
, the good
doctor
makes it a point to
let them win one or two times out of three to keep their stupid little pea
brains from thinking I need to do something more involving, like
Twister
or charades.”  He snorted, shaking his head with clear amusement.  “My wife
actually thinks she’s smarter than me, the poor, stupid cow.  She also thinks I
work at a shoe manufacturing plant and drive a Honda.”  He cocked his head at
Six Six Five, grinning.  “Guess I don’t need to tell you how fucked up
that
particular assumption is.  Doctor Fucking Kevorkian, at your service,
sweetcheeks.”

“I could be a
doctor,” Six Six Five babbled.  “Or an assistant.  You don’t need to kill me.”

The blue-clad
man snorted.  “You’re not smart enough to be a doctor.  No offense, but they
don’t breed you furgs for your brains.  You could probably carry a tablet
around, though.  You wanna be a tech?  Clean halls and change out toilet
paper?”  He grinned at her with that adult-humoring-the-kids smile.  “You could
probably change out toilet paper.”

“Yes,” Six Six
Five said quickly.  “I’ll do that.  I don’t want to be a soldier.”

The doctor
chuckled.  “Yeah, I’ll bet you’d do that.”   He idly rolled the syringe around
on the table beside his thigh with a thoughtful finger.  Then he started
kicking his legs again as he watched her, considering.  “You ever sucked cock,
girl?”

“No, but I’ll do
that, too,” Six Six Five said quickly, having absolutely no idea what he was
asking, but willing to do anything to avoid that needle entering her bag.

He seemed to
consider.  “My wife turned forty and she became the fucking Ice Queen.  I got
suspicious, so I had her followed.  Bitch was cheating on me with a banker. 
Because he had
money
.”  He gave another derisive snort.  “Dumb oaf
drowned in his oatmeal the next morning—real tragedy, there—and I think I’m
gonna do her in a few months, once the insurance policy’s been around a few
years.  Less suspicion, that way.  Until then, I’ve gotta deal with the Addams
Family.”  The doctor sighed, giving her a long look.  “Damn, I miss good head. 
Got it from a couple bots in a parlor, but it’s just not the same.”  He glanced
at his watch.  “We’ve got some time.  No one’s down here but Doctor Molotov. 
Everyone else left already.  You wanna suck, now’s your chance.”

“Okay,” Six Six
Five said quickly, expecting him to let her up so she could start up her new
duties immediately.

He peered at her
for much too long.  “Nah,” he finally said, shoving himself off the table. 
“You’d be just as bad as a fucking bot.  Last thing I want clinging to my
dick.  ‘This enough pressure, sir?’  ‘This fast enough, sir?’  ‘Should I suck
harder, sir?’”  Grunting, he picked up the needle once more.

Six Six Five,
who had been convinced he would release her, took in a startled breath.  “What
are you doing?  You said I could help you.”

He laughed and
once again grabbed the translucent plastic bag.  “Yeah, maybe,” he said,
sounding distracted.  “Then again, maybe you’d bite.  Or maybe someone would
catch me.  They get weird about that kind of shit.  I mean, you’re dead anyway,
but if I get a little
fun
out of you first, that suddenly makes me the
bad guy.”  He shook his head and shoved the needle through the membrane.

“Please!” Six
Six Five cried, her breath coming in tiny pants as she watched the syringe. 
“Please let me live!”

“Meh.  Probably
would’ve been a lame blow anyway.”  The plunger depressed.

Seeing the black
rubber stopper shove its payload into her veins, Six Six Five screamed and
started to thrash against her restraints, losing control to the total panic
that was suddenly riding her tendons, tearing her muscles, loosening her
bowels.

“Oh chill out,”
the man chuckled, withdrawing the needle and tossing it into a red bin marked
SHARPS.  “You’ve got another few minutes, at least.”  He checked his watch and
fiddled with the timer.  Then he yawned and pulled out a small personal
tablet.  Casually returning to his seat on a nearby gurney, he started tapping
the screen, producing pleasant little electronic crunches followed by
plops
that sounded like water droplets.

“Please,” Six
Six Five babbled, straining her fists against the metal clamps holding them in
place.  “Please don’t kill me.  I’ll be a good soldier.  I swear.  I won’t talk
back to Colonel Codgson again.  I’ll kill the aliens.  Please let me kill the
aliens.”

“We don’t really
need you,” the man grunted, not taking his attention from his tablet.  “We’ve
got Twelve-A—whoa!” he cried, lifting up his tablet to show her rows of what
looked like ice cubes and a tortoise.  “I just made it past level
ten
.” 
He grinned at her like he expected her to share in his excitement.

When she didn’t,
he made a disgusted sound.  “Might as well be a bot.”  He went back to his
ice-munching tortoise.

Six Six Five
stared at him, her heart hammering a staccato in her chest, her hands trembling
from either the adrenaline or the drugs—she couldn’t tell which.  Realizing he
really was going to just sit there and play games while she died, Six Six Five
said, “When you meet with the obscure, honorless death you deserve, and you
take your shameful existence to taint the next realm, I hope your ancestors
find you, skin you, use your diseased leather to clothe Takki, bury your tek in
the bowels of its master, and send your hideless corpse through the ninety
hells alone.”

The man froze,
frowning at his tablet.  Very slowly, he lifted his head to peer at her like
she had just said she hoped the aliens would win.  “
What
did you just
say?”

“I said I hope
you die,” Six Six Five said, trembling all over.

“No,” he said,
looking at her in growing nervousness.  He set his tablet down and stood up. 
She could see the hairs raised on his arms.  “What you just said.  Before
that.  What language was that?”

“Let me
go
!”
Six Six Five shrieked, flailing against the metal table.  She was definitely
starting to shake, now, and it didn’t have anything to do with adrenaline.

“Goddammit,
kid,” the man snapped.  “Who taught you to talk like that?  Is there a spy down
here?  One of the techs?!”

“Help!” Six Six
Five screamed.  “
Heelllllp!
”

“Listen, you
little bitch,” the man in blue snarled, reaching out to grab her by the collar
and drag her up from the table until her arms were pinned painfully by the
metal bands.  “What you just said.  What language was that?  Who taught you? 
You been talking to Huouyt?  There a fucking Huouyt in this installation?”

“Help!” Six Six
Five sobbed, thrashing.  “Please help me.  Somebody.”  Not all of the flailing
was her own doing, either.  Her muscles were starting to spasm, and she knew
she was getting culled.  Just like Six Two One, just like Pizza, just like the
kid with his own guts exposed to the air, she was dying, and there was nothing
she could do about it…

You are a
cull,
Colonel Codgson had whispered in her ear, almost tenderly. 
You
just don’t know it yet.

“Answer me!” the
doctor snapped.

“
No
,” Six
Six Five whimpered, as her eyes started to jerk and twitch, her body spasming
around her.  “Please no.”

“Please no
what
?”
he snarled.  “I swear to God, if there’s a damned Huouyt down here…”  He
reached out and kinked the line leading to her wrist with one hand as he jerked
her even closer with the other.  “Which one is he?  He’s that fucking Codgson,
isn’t it?  I knew that ailo creep was too psycho even for
this
project. 
He a plant?  Which side he working for?  That why he keeps killing the clones? 
Is he a Congie?”

Six Six Five
blinked up at him, realizing she had been spared, at least temporarily, but
having no idea what he was asking.  “I…”

The blue door
slammed open to reveal a feminine form standing in the doorway.  Doctor Molotov
quickly sized up the situation, blinked when she saw Six Six Five on the bed,
then stormed inside and yanked the tube out of Six Six Five’s arm.

“What the hell
is this?” Doctor Molotov demanded, placing her fingers on Six Six Five’s face,
prying her eyelid open and flashing a light into Six Six Five’s eye.  Six Six
Five felt herself shivering uncontrollably.  “How much did you give her?”
Molotov demanded.

“Probably a
tenth of the dose so far,” the blue-clad doctor said, frowning.  “Why?”

“This soldier
was allocated for Phil’s S.H.A.E.L. program,” Doctor Molotov said, her voice
curt.  “I signed off on it personally.  She was supposed to be delivered this
afternoon, but never arrived.  Who authorized a cull?”

The blue-clad
doctor released Six Six Five and turned to blink down at Doctor Molotov in
confusion.  “Colonel Codgson delivered her and her orders to me personally,
Doctor.  Her chart says cull.  Shit, he wrote it in red marker across the whole
damn chart.  I didn’t think there could have been a mistake.”  As Six Six Five
lay there, shivering, he went to the end of her table and retrieved a chart, then
handed it to Doctor Molotov, who glanced at it with narrowed eyes.

“Codgson,” she
said coolly, “has a toddler’s attention span and the IQ of a pimple.  That
might as well have been fucking crayon, Doctor.”  She abruptly dropped the
chart on a nearby table as Six Six Five continued to spasm.  “What’s her chance
of survival?

“Her?”  the
doctor glanced down at Six Six Five in confusion.  “Oh, ninety percent, easy. 
Its main ingredient is just a muscle relaxant.  Stops the heart.”  He gave a
little frown.  “Say, her memory restructuring hasn’t already begun, has it?”

Doctor Molotov
snorted.  “Apparently, she’s been with
you
all this time, so no.”  She
cocked her head, then glanced at the empty beds.  “How long
have
you
been here, doctor?  Your timesheet showed you arriving four hours ago.”

The other doctor
reddened.  “I had to prep the intravenous solution and delivery apparatus.” 

Doctor Molotov
gave him a flat look.  “For four hours.”

“Look, who the
hell cares?” the doctor demanded.  “No one the fuck else wants to do it, and
I’ve got a damn house payment to make.”

“In what,”
Doctor Molotov demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, “the Hamptons?”

“Oh, fuck you,”
he muttered.  He snatched up his tablet and snagged his jet black leather coat
from the wall.  “Fuck you.  You know one thing I don’t like about you?” he
demanded, pausing at the exit.

“I don’t fudge
my timesheet?” Doctor Molotov asked.

“Your
self-righteous attitude,” he snorted.  “I mean, look
around
us, doctor. 
Look what we
do
for a living.  And you’re gonna whine about a few extra
hours on time sheet?”  He shook his head and snorted.  “Gimme a call the next
time you need me to murder a bunch of your babies.”  At that, he turned and
walked out the door.

“Ailo,” Doctor
Molotov muttered.  She glanced back down at Six Six Five.  “How are you hanging
in there, soldier?”

“C-c-cold,” Six
Six Five said, shivering.

Doctor Molotov
went over and grabbed a blanket that was draped over one of the other tables
and brought it over to her.  As she laid it across Six Six Five’s body, she
said, “I wanted to thank you for not hurting Charlie.  He wouldn’t have
understood, and I am so glad he didn’t have to go through that.  He’d been
through enough, you know?”

“Charlie,” Six
Six Five whispered, shaking all over.  “Can I see Charlie?”

Doctor Molotov
gave her a long look, and Six Six Five saw the edges of her mascara beginning
to smear again.  “No.  Charlie’s…away…right now.  Colonel Codgson didn’t plan
on you coming back.  He…couldn’t pass up the opportunity for…a lesson…for the
other recruits.”  Doctor Molotov’s voice cracked and she looked away.

Charlie’s
dead
.

The knowledge
was so shattering, so utterly final and absolute, that Six Six Five felt her
eyes lose focus, her body stop shivering as she stared at the wall, unable to
think, unable to feel anything at all.

“Six Five?”
Doctor Molotov asked, sounding panicked.  “Stay with me, soldier.”

“I’m not a
soldier,” Six Six Five whispered, eyes resting on the stainless steel sink set
into the far wall.

Doctor Molotov
hesitated.  “Yes you are.”

“No,” Six Six
Five said softly.  “I’m not going to fight.  I want to be a doctor.”

For several
minutes, Doctor Molotov stared down at her in silence, her chapped fingers
holding the blanket in place.  Then, softly, she said, “You can’t be a doctor.”

And, hearing
those words from Doctor Molotov’s lips, Six Six Five began to cry.

She wasn’t sure
when it happened, or how, but suddenly, Doctor Molotov’s arms were around Six
Six Five, and her hands were free to flop underneath her as the doctor rocked
her back and forth. 

“What are you
doing?” Six Six Five whimpered.  She liked the doctor’s embrace, wanted to
return
it, but it scared her.  It wasn’t
allowed
.