ZerOes (9 page)

THE POCONO MOUNTAINS, PENNSYLVANIA

T
he SUV carves its way through dark pine forests. Morning sun passes through the pleached trees, dappling the windows of the vehicle. Chance can tell they're heading up.
Ascending
. Into the mountains, he guesses, though what mountains, he's not sure. His head still feels gummy from whatever drug cocktail they gave him last night.

He woke up in this car about an hour ago. The driver—an implacable dude, stone faced and staring forward—never once acknowledged Chance's presence. Chance tried talking to him. Making faces. Yelling. Kicking the chair.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Nothing. Big-jawed guy stayed silent as a brick wall.

The doors on the SUV won't open. No handles. Like what you get in a cop car. Chance was in a cop car once. In high school he got drunk with Jay-Jay Burgos on Yukon Jack and the two of them hung out on the shoulder of a defunct overpass, spitting on the cars below—until Jay-Jay thought it would be funnier instead to
piss
on the cars below. And damn if it wasn't—at least, until he whizzed right on a cop cruiser. (Hell, it was funny even then.)

The car takes a hard bounce as it cuts off the narrow road on which
they've been driving and turns onto a red gravel drive. Chance's teeth vibrate together. That plus his empty stomach and the drugs from the night before have him feeling suddenly queasy.

And hungry.

Hungweasy.

Ugh.

This stretch of bumpy gravel is long—not a driveway as much as it is a road. They go for five minutes, maybe ten, and then tires skid on loose stone. Out front, Chance sees a chain-link fence and a gate. The fence is tall—thrice his height, easy. Ringed with loops of razor wire, in which are caught leaves and branches. The gate is mechanized: nobody around but them to watch it click, hum, and drift open.

The car passes through. The gate whirs, then closes behind them. The chain link rattles as it shuts.
Stone-Face moves the car forward again.

Another ten minutes go by. Forest all around. Rocks, too—boulders painted with green moss. They pass by a little waterfall not far off the “road,” white water frothing and gushing like a stab wound.

Then, ahead, Chance sees it.

Hollis Copper called it the Hunting Lodge, but this isn't one building; it's a whole damn complex—a series of cabins and pods connected by decking walkway, lots of redwood and dark wood. The cabins are modern—boxy and clean, like something out of an Ikea catalog, plunked down in the middle of this tract of mountain forest. All of it stands surrounded by another—shorter, just above head height—fence. Another drunken loop of razor wire decorating the top.

Another mechanized gate. Stone-Face eases the car through and they park in a line of identical SUVs underneath a broad metal awning.

“Are we there yet?” Chance asks, as snarkily as he can muster.

Stone-Face gets out of the SUV, stone faced, and opens Chance's door: “Yeah. Get out.”

Stone-Face pulls a long duffel bag out of the back of the car and shoves it into Chance's arms.
Oof
. “The hell's in this?” Chance asks.

“Your clothes.”

“I didn't pack anything.”

Stone-Face shrugs. “We packed for you.”

“I hope you remembered to pack underwear. I don't wanna have to go commando in this place. It's damp up here, man, I don't wanna get some kinda crotch fungus—”

Stone-Face suddenly grabs him by the ear and slams his head into the back of the SUV. Chance cries out, pulling away. Ear ringing like a bell.

“Shut your mouth,” Stone-Face says. “You keep babbling that brook and we'll dam it up for you. You're here to serve a purpose, you little skidmark. That purpose is not to irritate me. Thinking you're a fucking comedian.” Chance gives him a sneer, but that just sets the man off further. Asshole reaches out, grabs for Chance again, cups a meaty hand around the back of Chance's neck. “You wanna have a go at me? I'll throw you in the Dep so fast your dick will shrivel. You know what happens—”

“Roach,” comes a voice. “That's enough.”

Stone-Face—or, apparently, Roach—gives Chance's neck one last
squeeze
, then fakes a laugh. “Sorry, Agent Copper. Just giving our newbie a short, sharp shock.”

Chance pulls away. “Whatever, dickhead.”

Roach's jaw tightens.

Hollis Copper comes up, steps between them, gives Chance a look. “You don't know when to shut up, do you?”

Chance shrugs. “I figure it says as much in my file.”

“It does. Let's go. Bring the bag. You have some people to meet.”

Roach gives him one last look as they head up a set of aluminum stairs.

Chance gives him the finger. It's a dumb move, but nobody ever said he was smart.

Hollis strides along, long limbs swinging like branches. Chance loops the duffel around his back and grunts as he bears its weight, hurrying to catch up. As they walk up over the gravel lot, Chance can see that the tops of the parking canopies are lined with solar panels—photovoltaic octagons. There's a big building in the center of the complex; standing near it is a tall white post with a trio of triangle-shaped pieces framing it, each like a rack for billiard balls. Chance knows what it is, because they'd put one in not far from his house: a cell tower.

“Hey, ain't you gonna give me the nickel tour?” Chance asks.

Hollis, without stopping, points. “That's the main building. That's
where you eat. There's a rec room in there, too. On the other side, basketball court and lap pool. Over there”—he points to gray composite pods with black windows, windows through which Chance can see the smeary glow of monitors—“is where you'll work. Some of the pods are individual. Some of them are team pods. You get assigned 'em as they come up. Past that—”

Coming up on them is a young Indian or Pakistani kid staring out from behind a set of too-big glasses, like the kind a shop teacher might wear. Walking with him is a wispy sylph in a long tie-dyed dress, her skin so pale that she might as well be one of those see-through anatomy dolls in science class. She's older by a good bit—not old enough to be Chance's mother, but definitely, like, older sister age. She turns her gaze away as they pass, looking frightened.

The boy gives a nervous nod and an anxious laugh (
heh-heh
).

Hollis gives them a nod. “Dipesh. Miranda. Past that,” he continues, “are the cabins.”

“And the Dep? Where is that?”

“You don't wanna know about the Dep. Where it is doesn't matter.”

“What the hell is it?”

“Like I said, Mr. Dalton, you don't want to know.”

Chance grunts. “All right, fine. Those two that just passed. They hackers, too? Everybody here a hacker?”

Hollis stops. Turns toward Chance. “Two types of people here, Mr. Dalton. Prisoners and guards. Are the prisoners all hackers? To the number, yes. Are the guards all capable servants of the government who know how to extract results? Yes. All that being said, on a good day, this place is pretty cushy. Not everybody gets along, but everyone plays well together, and on those good days, our relationship is more like
babysitters
and
children
. On days when folks don't get along, that's when it becomes clear that no matter how nice the view, no matter how
fresh
the mountain air, you're still trapped in here until your time is done. And you do what we say.”

“That's, uhh, real good to know.” Chance offers a stiff smile.

“So everyone here is a hacker. Question is, Dalton—are you?”

I'm not
, he thinks.
I'm a poser
. But he nods. “Yep, yeah, sure.”

“Then let's go meet your bunkmates.”

Chance steps into the cabin. The doors must be pretty well sealed against sound inside and out, because soon as he opens the door, the noise of the argument is like a slap to the face.

“—I said I'm an
atheist
, okay? You don't need to use language like that around me. I find it offensive,” a young woman says as she plucks shirts out of a carry-on bag. Chance is struck by the intensity of her eyes—dark yet bright at the same time, like chips of shiny coal catching light. She pulls out each article of clothing and folds it with stiff hands and bloodless knuckles, like at any point she might let a shirt drop and haul back and pop the older fella with the gray mop of hair right in his gin blossom nose.

The old fella says, “Quit it with the politically correct word-police horseshit. I didn't mean
jihad
like jihad-jihad, I just meant you were really doing a jihad on those clothes—I mean, hell, look at you. You're folding them like it's a religious war.”

The woman spins around, eyes narrow, lips curled in a scowl. “Oh really? You would've used that same word if you were speaking to her?” She gestures first toward another young woman, in a loft space above—a big girl splayed out on a bed, using a duffel as a pillow, a wide grin that could only be described as
shit-eating
smeared across her face. “Or him?” Now she points to a lanky black dude—maybe Chance's age, early twenties or so.

That dude says, “Naw, no way, uh-uh, don't drag me into whatever this is.”

Hesitantly, Chance steps in through the door with Copper just behind him. The cabin's an A-frame—narrow at the top, like some kind of ski chalet. Not much in there except three beds down below and two on the loft. Couple of bookshelves: all fiction from a quick glance, nothing nonfiction. A couch at the far wall. No kitchen. A small door that Chance guesses might be a bathroom and shower?

But most important: No TV. No computers. No phones. No connection to the outside world.

“Kids today,” the older man says. “I swear, you are about as tough as a rain-soaked Kleenex. Everybody's so easily
offended
. As if that's the worst thing that's ever gonna happen to you, somebody saying something that puts a little grit in your panties? I was born in 1950, which means I saw some time in 'Nam, and let me tell you—”

Up on the loft, the big girl guffaws. “Man, really? We're shut up
in this place with a crotchety old vet?” She laughs so hard she almost cries. “I wouldn't have pegged you for the type, gramps. You look like Ben & Jerry, not John Rambo.”

The old vet waves her off. “Well, you look like you
eat
a lot of Ben & Jerry's.”

That just makes her laugh harder. “Fuck, man, we haven't known each for a whole hour and”—here she wipes laugh-tears from her eyes—“already with the fat jokes? Suck it, old man. You know I'm a prime piece of real estate up here. My homie down there knows what I mean.”

“Goddamn,” the black guy says, “can't y'all just shut up for five minutes?”

Their voices all start to rise together again.

Hollis has obviously had enough, because he pushes his way in.
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

Everyone shuts up. They don't quite scatter like cockroaches in the light, but they do freeze in place like spooked mice.

Hollis clears his throat, then nods. “Good. Here's the last of you. Chance Dalton, meet your pod. In order left to right: DeAndre Mitchell, Wade Earthman, Aleena Kattan, and up there in the loft, Reagan Stolper.”

“'Sup,” DeAndre says.

Wade gives a clumsy salute. “Dalton.”

Aleena looks away.

Reagan gives him an obnoxious waggle of her fingers. “Ahoy, script kiddie. Welcome to the Good Ship Dipshit.”

THE LODGE

D
eAndre thinks as he walks:

Keep your head low
.

Do your time
.

These people gonna dangle bait in front of you—don't take it. Just do the bare minimum of what they say and run for the hills soon as they let you out
.

His “pod”—man, how he hates that term, sounds like something out of some science fiction film, something out of Cronenberg—follows their new babysitter, Hollis Copper, back toward the main building. A building Hollis refers to as the Ziggurat, “because it is your temple.”

The little know-it-all, Aleena, corrects him: “Ziggurats weren't necessarily temples. They were towers, on which a temple usually featured.”

“Thank you for the history lesson, Miss Kattan,” Hollis grumps.

The white boy, Chance, speaks up: “Shoot, I thought it looked like something out of an Ikea catalog. The funky angles and that blue frosted glass.”

“The Billy Bookcase Building,” Reagan snarks. “The Triple-B, bitch.”

“Everybody pipe down,” Hollis says. “Before we hit breakfast,
you gotta know some rules.” Here he stops walking and pivots like a revolving door. “The Lodge has, as I understand it, one helluva lot of bandwidth. This bandwidth is for use by the United States government and in service to our government's many needs, actions, and ideals. It is not for personal use.”

He rattles on: No cell phones. No smartphones. No iPads or iPods. No pagers. (Reagan mutters: “Who the hell uses pagers?” DeAndre: “Time-traveling drug dealers from 2004.”) No connection to the outside world—when he says this, that's when people lose their shit. Aleena starts talking about her family. Wade goes on about “I got a whole network of friends and family who you don't want trying to hunt me down.” Reagan shrugs, says: “I got a sister and she's kind of a twat, but she'll worry.” DeAndre's about to speak up, talk about his moms, but then he reminds himself again:
Head low, do your time, shut your mouth
. Repeats it inside his head like a mantra.

Chance looks at DeAndre, laughs a little like he's trying to cover up a deeper feeling, and then whispers to DeAndre: “I don't really have nobody to worry about me.”

DeAndre mumbles back: “Then you're lucky, man.”

Hollis talks over and past them: “No unsupervised media access.”

And here, a new round of protests, Reagan loudest among them: “Hey, whoa,
hey
. I got a DVR schedule back at home that is a thing of beauty. It has risen to the level of art. I need my shows. I need my Netflix, too. Given our surroundings, I think we can all agree that a little
Orange Is the New Black
is a necessity—”

“I love that show,” Wade says at half volume. “Some funny lesbos.”

Everyone gives him the stink-eye.

“You want media access?” Hollis says. “Read a book. Books: the original TV shows.”

More grumbles of dissent. Hollis goes on to add: No drinking, no smoking, no drugs. (A groan from Reagan.) No fighting. (Another Reagan groan.) No fucking. (Reagan mutters: “Then you might as well just kill me.”)

“Tomorrow morning,” Hollis says, “your service to this great country begins in earnest. You will be given tasks to complete both as individuals and as a team. Should you fail these tasks, you will be punished. Should you fail them repeatedly, you will be washed out and thrown back into the prison pipeline that you have—at present—avoided. Are we clear?”

A bunch of nods and eye rolls. DeAndre looks around: Chance looks nervous. Gone pale as a ghost, that one.

“Now, let's get you some breakfast,” Hollis says.

“Breakfast is over,” the woman says from behind the counter. She's got hair the color of a Weimaraner's coat shaped into something that resembles a wave about to crash down on a beach. The name on her white chef's coat:
Zebkavich
.

It takes them a while to find the cafeteria. Hollis obviously doesn't belong in this place—he takes them to a back door that's locked, then around the side where they have to wind their way through a hall of what looks like offices and supply closets, then back down a stairwell until finally, the cafeteria.

It's a big room. Lots of round white tables with people sitting around them. Lots of light, too, from tall windows—though the light is muted, filtered as it is through the forest. Couple of arcade machines sit tucked in a lounge. Plus an air hockey table.

DeAndre's looking around when he hears the woman say that—
breakfast is over
. He sucks air between his teeth. “Aw man, what? I'm hungry.”

Hollis holds up a finger. “Deb—”

“Zeb,” she corrects. “Short for Zebkavich.”

“Got a first name?”

“Yes.”

Awkward silence. Hollis sighs, then says: “Okay, ahh, Zeb—can you spare something for the pod here? They just got here.”

“They
just got here
seven minutes too late, Agent Copper.”

“You serious? You have absolutely nothing to spare?”

Her face scrunches up in a bulldog scowl. “Rules are rules, Agent. Surely you can respect that?” But then she sighs and says: “Here. Hold on one minute.” She disappears into the back for a minute, then returns with a bag. “Bagels,” she says. “Old bagels. From yesterday.”

Aleena protests: “Hey, wait. I don't eat bread.”

Hollis shrugs. “Then you don't eat.” He thrusts the bag into DeAndre's hands. “Have a good breakfast. You got an hour, then you need to be back in your cabin.”

Hollis leaves, and the rest of them all pick a table and take a seat. They pick at half-stale bagels like bored but hungry squirrels. Quiet, mostly—DeAndre thinks it's a welcome change from when they were all trying to tear each other new buttholes back in the cabin. He thumbs a hole in a puffy sesame bagel, peels apart the crust, and pops a piece in his mouth. Feels like he's chewing a bike tire.

All around them, the other—what? Hackers? Inmates? White hats? Whatever they are, they all sit around, finishing up their breakfasts. It's a pretty motley crew, DeAndre thinks. Mostly dudes. Some girls. The expected racial breakdown: not a lot of brothers, no sisters at all, couple of Latinos, and the rest a mix of Asians and whites. Different styles: a girl with a Mohawk the color of grape soda sits between a chunky Asian neckbeard in fly Reeboks and some gawky white kid who looks like he took his fashion cues from
D&D Dungeon Master Weekly
. Most everybody's young. Everyone looks tired, bored, angry, beaten down, beaten up. Hollow-eyed stares and the like.

As DeAndre stares at the hackers, they all stare back.

“I don't know many of these people,” Reagan says, mush-mouthed around a wad of everything bagel. Specks of the “everything” dot her chin. “But I see we got at least one hacker superpower in the bunch.” She nods toward the back of the room.

DeAndre turns. Huh. Well, damn. “Shane Graves,” he says.

“Ivo Shandor?” Aleena asks.

Reagan winks and picks bagel from her teeth. “Bingo bango bongo.”

Graves is tall, lean, broad shoulders—ropy without being skinny. He lopes between tables like a wolf or a coyote keeping the rest in line. He's never not smiling, but that smile ain't exactly happy. It's the smile of a shark. Or worse, a salesman.

“He's a high bar,” Reagan says. “So I guess it's time to slap all our scrotums on the table. Show our
jewels
, as it were.” When no one responds, she makes an impatient gesture—finger rolling like a barrel down from Donkey Kong's hand. “Your hacker cred, motherfuckers. Spit it out.”

“Fine, since I guess we're all workin' together.” DeAndre shrugs. “I'm nobody special, but I'm good at the game. Made a name for myself over the last couple years—been going by Darth Dizzy lately. Mostly
switched everything over to the carder market. I know the guys who hacked Walmart.”

Reagan whistles. “Oooh, you
know the guys
. Gosh, jeez, wow. Did you ever touch them? Can I smell you? What a hero!”

“Hey, man, shut up. You asked, I'm talking. I stick mostly to gas stations. Skimmers and shit. It's good money.”

“If you don't mind people getting hurt,” Aleena says. Her mouth tightens up like a greedy person's coin purse. “Stealing is stealing.”

“Yo, whatever. What I do these days is a
victimless crime
. Money isn't money anymore. It's all just ones and zeroes.”

“We're all just ones and zeroes,” Wade says. “Trick is figuring out which of us are
ones
and which of us are
zeroes
.”

Reagan interjects: “Sitting at this table, I'd say we're all
zeroes
.” Then she holds up a bagel and makes a fart noise through the center hole. “Actually, that's a pretty good name. I've never been part of a group before but they always have names. Masters of Disaster. Lulzcult. Chaos Chess Cabal, or Triple-C. I say we're”—and here, said with some flare—“
the Zeroes
.”

“Whatever, Reagan, you call us whatever you want. I'm just saying,” DeAndre continues. “It's not like I'm reaching under somebody's mattress and stealing their hard-earned bills. Credit card fraud? All that's just data. And it's backed up and insured—it's damn near no different from, like, BitTorrent. I can copy the latest
Transformers
piece of crap and who cares? Same thing here, except I'm just copying dollar bills. I get one, you get one. Like Oprah and shit:
you get a dollar bill, you get a dollar bill, yoooou get a dollar bill!
”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Aleena says.

“I sleep just fine,” he says. “And don't pretend that you don't do some illegal shit. You didn't get here by helping old ladies across busy roads.”

“Lemme guess,” Reagan says. “White hat. Arab Spring?”

Aleena says nothing. Wade grunts.

“More racist nonsense?” Aleena says.

“Hnnh?” the old man asks. “Nope. I'm all for the Arab Spring. Spread some democracy around that joint like butter on toast.”

“It's not about democracy,” Aleena. “Not like you mean it.”

“And how do I mean it?”

“You mean America. You want to spread America.”

“No, that's not it, either. Maybe some perfect world idea of America.
But this country hasn't been a democracy in a long time. We ain't free like we think we're free. Politicians keep coming along, each stacking the deck just one more card deep in their favor and in the favor of the rich and powerful. Big companies. Big government. Big men.” He's suddenly super serious. “It's all a rigged game, and you realize that soon as you start flipping through the rule book and none of this stuff even makes sense. Soon as you play a few rounds, you start seeing some common themes: the Bilgerbergs, the Trilateral Commission, MK-ULTRA—”

Reagan bleats an attention-getting laugh. “Yep. You're one of
those
. Conspiracy-nut alert. Lemme guess: you probably think one of them is run by the Jews.”

“Well . . .” Wade furrows his brow. “I figure some Jews are in there somewhere.”

“It
is
worth looking at Israel's influence over world politics,” Aleena says.

Wade nods. “Sure is.”

DeAndre shakes his head. Two minutes ago they were sniping at each other, now they're nodding at each other from across the table. Bridges burned, rebuilt, probably burned again before too long.
That's hackers for you
, he thinks.
They're a group of individuals every time. Don't work well together because to the number they're all freaks, mistakes, assholes, fringe-dwelling wack jobs who got a real bug up their asses about people telling them what to do
.