Blood Zero Sky

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gates, J. Gabriel

Blood zero sky : a novel / by J. Gabriel Gates

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-1610-4 (pbk.)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-1610-7 (pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-1611-1 (ebook)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-1611-5 (ebook)

I. Title.

PS3607.A78854B56 2012

813'.6—dc23

2012012124

©2012 J. Gabriel Gates

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos, and its marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

3201 S.W. 15th Street

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190

Cover illustration and design by Joshua Mikel at Sharkguts Design 2012

Interior design and formatting by Dawn Von Strolley Grove

—Contents—

Chapter ØØ1

Chapter ØØ2

Chapter ØØ3

Chapter ØØ4

Chapter ØØ5

Chapter ØØ6

Chapter ØØ7

Chapter ØØ8

Chapter ØØ9

Chapter Ø1Ø

Chapter Ø11

Chapter Ø12

Chapter Ø13

Chapter Ø14

Chapter Ø15

Chapter Ø16

Chapter Ø17

Chapter Ø18

Chapter Ø19

Chapter Ø20

Chapter Ø21

Chapter Ø22

Chapter Ø23

Chapter Ø24

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

—Chapter ØØ1—

Gone now is the gun from my hand.
Gone, the laughter of my friends. Gone, my father’s protective glare. This is the path one walks alone.

Behind me, the N-Corp headquarters building thrusts from the earth like a giant spear, impaling the sky. It, this building, is the axis around which the whole world turns. From its doors flow all the wealth, all the abundance, and all the horror that mankind has wrought. That I have wrought.

Its glistening steps are speckled with blood.

In its mirrored doors I see myself: a skinny, pale young woman, standing alone.

Those black-clad men at the foot of the steps are coming for me. The crack of their bullets shouts my name. And no, this is not a dream.

From all around come murmurs of shock and uncertainty. Hundreds of frowning, watching faces surround me. Women in their designer-cut skirts, men in their impeccable ties, they pull back, dreading to soil their clothes with a drop of my blood. Of all the terrors in the world, they fear for their cleanliness the most.

They would rather slip past me and begin their workday immediately, so they can finish early and go home to dine on steak, sleep in silk. Already, they’re desperate to forget me, this sight, this morning. Already they cannot.

All this, after all, has been for them.

There is a snap in my chest as a bullet strikes a rib, and seemingly from nowhere a kaleidoscope of painfully vivid images is unleashed upon me: my life, the Company, the revolution. I see it all. Every breath, every heartbeat, every prayer. A vision so bright I could cry.

But this is not the beginning.

~~~

Four hours until the Battle of Detroit.

Ethan, standing on a dusty tabletop, calls out:

“For those of you who are new, welcome. The first thing to know is this: if you’re here, it’s already too late to turn back. So listen well and understand what you’ll be bleeding for.

“We are the Protectorate, the fourth branch of American government. Before there was a president, we were here. Before the Constitution was scratched onto paper, we walked the streets. In the year seventeen eighty-three, George Washington founded our organization in secret. We were and are a group of citizens assembled to live and die in the service of the people, to defend a liberty more basic than free speech, more fundamental than the freedoms of press or assembly or suffrage. We protect the last human right: the right of rebellion.”

There are raucous shouts of assent. Energy courses through the crowd, making the air around us almost seem to vibrate.

“Never forget, my friends, how much blood has been shed in the name of freedom. Any student of history knows it is enough to wash us all away. But do not forget what the word
freedom
means: we face an enemy today who uses the very word against us. Freedom, to the Company, is the freedom to bleed the poor, to assault our minds with their greedy, warping propaganda, to hold liens against our every possession and our every minute of waking life, to watch us, track us, judge us, and execute us, without our having any recourse at all. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Am I ringing any bells?”

We yell out in agreement.

“The few of us who have been able to learn the true history of our world are filled with regret. There was a time when these atrocities could have been prevented. Once, and many times in history, the people of the world stood together in opposition to those who would make slaves of them, who would drink their blood and sweat like wine. Well, the spirit of freedom—of defiance—might slumber, but it never dies. I see it stirring again, in all of your eyes.”

There are nods and whistles among the crowd. All around, the excitement builds. The atmosphere is electric.

“We are the Protectorate, guardians of freedom. We are the fourth branch of American government, the last one that remains. Today brothers, today sisters, the second American Revolution begins.”

The crowd roars. They wave their white guns high. Some weep, some laugh. All seem ready to die.

I can’t speak for the rest of us, the hundreds huddled with me in this dark and abandoned place, gripping simple weapons, preparing to face the most advanced and ruthless fighting system humankind has ever devised—but as for me, I’m scared as hell.

But this is not the beginning.

~~~

Morning, three months ago.

I hurry along the electric sidewalk, feeling its polished, stainless steel surface gliding along swiftly and fluidly beneath my fast-moving feet. On the opposite sidewalk, tie-men rush to work at the headquarters’ South Tower complex. Everyone on my side of the walkway is heading for the greatest monolith in the Hub—the Headquarters itself. I can see it rising before me from among the other great buildings that pass by on either side.

Above each doorway, a sign: the letter “N.”

I hear a slight hiss and glance up at one of the scent machines, dispensing a waft of pleasantness as it always does throughout the morning commute. The entire Hub smells of freshly baked muffins today. Sometimes it’s pumpkin pie, sometimes chocolate chip cookies, sometimes jasmine or honeysuckle. Workers are an average of 5 percent more productive and 15 percent more content when presented with pleasant olfactory stimuli, according to the latest study from Cranton. So the whole city is sprayed with simulated eau de muffin.

Except I don’t feel 15 percent more content today. Far from it.

Standing in line at the N-Coffee bar moments later, packed in among fifty other bleary-eyed office workers, I’m subtly aware of being a shadow of myself.

This tragic realization begs the question: Who was I before? Who is it I’ve become a shadow of?

The truth is, I’ve completely lost track.

I can still see scraps of myself. I remember in school, when all the other kids would have their lesson-goggles on, learning economics or mathematics or whatever the N-Ed program demanded for that day, I’d be staring at the sky out the classroom window, my goggles pushed back on my head, daydreaming. Invariably, I would get caught and yelled at. Teachers worked only on commission, of course, so when a student did something that threatened to diminish her test scores, that student tended to get her arm yanked out of its socket. Eventually, in keeping with the N-Corp tradition of innovation, they just replaced the windowpanes with frosted glass. Problem and solution.

I remember throwing grapes at our maids when I was about seven or eight and hiding at the bottom of the stairs to try to look up their skirts. The beginnings of a bad little girl . . .

I remember starting my career with N-Corp—it seems like decades ago now, though it has only been a few years. Even then, I was bossing around men twice my own age. Even then, people feared me.

But as I stand here now, watching the machine fill my coffee cup, I wonder,
Do any of these scattered memories actually constitute me? The real me?

The answer is no. The equation doesn’t add up. This life, these days, these memories don’t equal the sum of me. There’s something else I can’t put my finger on. Something missing.

Above the coffee bar, an imager screen flashes a 3-D holographic ad for the new N-Roadster. Zero to sixty in nothing flat. Nice lines. Well designed. Supple interior. Very ergonomic. And just like that, my previous thoughts flutter away like a flock of birds, and I’m lost in distraction again.

Which new rug should I buy for my apartment? When should I trade my car in for the new model? Tomorrow? What about that new platinum-series toaster?

Was it this hard to think before I got the cross implant? Somehow, I don’t know. It was years ago now. . . .

At the counter, the pimple-faced coffee boy recognizes me.

“Wait a minute, you’re May Fields! You’re the CEO’s daughter, right?”

Only twenty-four years old and I’m already world famous. I hate it.

The kid grins. The other people in line turn to look at me. A few gasp.

Before I become completely incapacitated with embarrassment, I shoot the coffee boy a glance that freezes him like an icicle through the heart.

“That’s right,” I say. “I’m May Fields. And you’re the pathetic little scab who sells me my coffee.” And I pick up my cup and walk away without another word.

Cruel, maybe, but this is me. This is who I used to be. And in my defense, it’s not as easy being the daughter of the most revered man in the world as everyone might think.

My high heels clatter against the polished steel as I hurry out of the N-Coffee store toward the Headquarters building. Hustling tie-men pack the walkway. It’s so crowded that some people (mostly low-credit-level workers who can’t afford the sidewalk fee anyway) have to walk in the street.

Suddenly, the light around me changes. The imager screens that normally paint the entire length of each surrounding skyscraper with colossal, fast-moving advertisements have shut off, leaving the buildings naked-looking, clad now only in glass and steel and not in their customary coats of fiber-optic brilliance.

The shutting off of the ads signals the end of rush hour. It means we’re all late.

Instantly, chaos erupts. Car horns blare. Pedestrians elbow one another. Now that they’re late for their shift, the crowd’s desperation to get to work is nearly palpable. A girl next to me, the heel of her shoe snaps beneath her and she breaks down sobbing as she hobbles forward. One man screams at another to get out of his way. A large woman shouts at both of them to shut up as she wriggles her way past them.

Their stress is understandable. If you’re late, a five-hundred-dollar tardiness fee is assessed to your N-Credit account, automatically. These people, they’re sweating, pushing, fighting to beat the half-hour-late deadline. After that, the fee goes up to a grand.

Me, I’m late every day. But then, I can afford it.

From among the N-Roadsters and N-Troops and N-Wagons that clog the street, a bus pulls up. There, on its side, is my newest imager ad. The one from the diamond campaign. There’s the girl, her little half-naked teenage body all airbrushed and perfect, with a huge, glittering diamond lodged in her cleavage. The smile and wink she gives as the bus passes seem to be directed only to me.

Given my proclivities, one might imagine I would love this campaign. Add to that the fact that it’s raised diamond sales by 7 percent across the board and garnered me a crapload of accolades, and one would think I’d be positively thrilled to stare at it over my morning coffee. But no. I hate the ad. And the bus. And the cars crammed together, unmoving, honking at one another under a glaring red stoplight.

The cars are all one-seaters. N-Corp doesn’t make two-seat cars anymore. This way, there’s no sharing. If you want to ride in a car, you have to buy your own. Sales in the N-Auto division went up 12 percent when my father cooked up that policy.

I fall into the tussling crowd along with everyone else, feeling uncomfortably like a fish swimming in a school. A bunch of ugly, suit-and-tie-wearing cods, maybe. One guy, a fat catfish of a fellow, jostles me as he comes out of a store. I shove him back so hard he nearly topples to the sidewalk. If it weren’t for a gaggle of passing school children who break his fall, he’d probably have cracked his head open. He looks at me with big, wild-looking eyes, but says nothing. Instead he rises, dusts off his suit, and hurries away from me, obviously more interested in saving himself a thousand dollars than picking a fight with a small-framed young woman in the middle of the sidewalk on a Wednesday morning.

Me, I’d rather have fought him.

On I go, through the mass of people, between the sleek glass N-Corp towers, under a sky so distant and hung with smog that it might not be blue at all.

“May! May!”

I wince. But when I turn around, I find it’s only Randal, my oldest friend, jogging toward me—all jiggling belly and round, whiskery face.

“Randal,” I say, giving him a little smile. “Thank God. I thought you were going to be another brownnosing tie-man asking me to get him a credit raise.”

“I know better than that,” he jokes. Then his expression becomes serious. “I wanted to c-catch you before you got into the office. I’ve gotta talk to you about something. About the presentation. It’s important. Can we g-grab lunch later?”

“No can do. Gotta work on the new IC launch. It’s going to be huge.”

“So is this p-p-presentation, May! It’s for the board—it’ll be televised, for heaven’s sake!”

“Keep your pants on, Randal,” I say, glancing at my watch. “The presentation is going to be fine.”

“B-but, May! I found something in the numbers. Something important.”

I look at him. His eyes are wide, his forehead covered with sweat. He’s all worked up—and it’s not just the Peak they give him over at Cranton.

“Look, I’m late, I’ve gotta run,” I tell him. “We’ll talk tonight. You still up for Rocketball?”

He nods, and I hurry past him. “Alright. We’ll talk after I beat you, then!” I shout over my shoulder.

In the Headquarters courtyard, I hike up the grand marble staircase toward the building’s glass front entrance, moving fast among the throng of people. We all fight against one another, shoulder to shoulder, to pass through the row of doors. Above, the massive N-Corp sign with its logo—a stylized “N” next to a black cross—ushers us inside.

I’m pondering the new product launch I’ve been working on all month but get immediately distracted upon seeing a young clerk in a knee-length skirt. Her hair is clean and shiny and the little calf muscles beneath her milky white, deliciously smooth skin bunch up tight with every step. Her hips move hypnotically.

She’s a lovely distraction, but my eyes were drawn to her only out of habit. The truth is I would never dare to give this beautiful stranger more than a surreptitious glance. I’ve fought too hard to develop an ironclad policy of self-control to let it slip now, when I’m finally attaining a degree of success. And anyway, when one spends long enough denying one’s self, certain kinds of hunger are prone to die.

Now, as I search for that once familiar feeling, that subtle rush of blood, that aching twinge of desire, there’s nothing. Just the coffee in my hand, just a herd of humans grazing the fields of commerce, heading up to work, to their slow, slow slaughter.