Zero's Return (46 page)

Then we must hide in
the ocean,
Twelve-A said with the conviction of a ten-turn-old Dhasha
prince.

Joe smacked his forehead
before he caught himself, too late realizing that the sudden gesture startled
his less-animated companions.  Twelve-A had flinched and taken a step back to
glare, and once more Joe felt about a microrod tall, staring up at that
descending sledgehammer.

“Okay, look,” Joe said
quickly.  “You don’t get it.  We
can’t
go there.  Keepers or no
Keepers—you can’t live there unless you’re a fish.  That
is
what you’re
trying to do, isn’t it?  Find a safe place to live?  Somewhere to settle down?”

Twelve-A hesitated, then
nodded slowly.  The other experiments, after watching their one-sided
conversation curiously a moment, went off to sleep in a big pile beside a
boulder.

Joe shook his head. 
“Look, we need to head north.  There’s nothing for us to the west.  The kreenit
are going to eat everyone they can find in the major cities, then start
heading inland.  I’ve seen this happen before.  You know that, because you dug
through my head.  We need to get away from the metro areas, into the mountains,
the sooner the better.  You getting all this?”

For the first time, Joe
saw uncertainty in Twelve-A’s face. 
We can’t live in the ocean?

Joe would have laughed if
the telepath weren’t utterly sincere.  “No.  You can’t.”

Twelve-A glanced sideways
at the others, then returned his gaze to Joe, looking almost hopeful. 
You
can lead us to a safe place?

Joe shook his head. 
“There
is
no safe place.  But those people you call the Keepers are
gone.  They might have been killed or they might have run, but either way,
they’re not coming back.  You’re safe from them.  What you should be worried
about is gangs.  It always happens during the chaos of a Judgement.  The strong
get together to take what they need from the weak.”

Twelve-A’s platinum brows
tightened in a worried frown. 
And they would try to take Eelevansee from
us?

“Well, I’d say there is
that possibility, yes,” Joe replied slowly.  “Is she the only one who can make
food?  Who are all the others?  What can they do?”

The others are like
Nynjee and Eelevansee,
Twelve-A said slowly. 
But they don’t want to do
what the Keepers made them do.  The Keepers told them not to and hurt them when
they tried.

“Burn the Keepers,” Joe
growled, getting frustrated.  “They’re either dead or will be soon.”

The People are still
afraid of them,
Twelve-A insisted.

“Then make them
unafraid,” Joe retorted.  “You can do that, right?  I mean, if you can go
digging around in my head and show me stuff I’d purposefully forgotten years
ago, taking away their fear should be a snap.”

Twelve-A frowned at him. 
Bad things can happen if they try and aren’t ready.

Joe snorted.  “Bad things
can happen if someone visits you with a semi-automatic plasma rifle in the
middle of the night.”  When Twelve-A’s frown increased, Joe shook his head. 
“Whatever.  Let them wait, if that’s what they need to do.  What about you? 
Are there more like you?”

No.
  Twelve-A’s
thought was filled with pain, confusion.

“Why’s that?” Joe
prodded.

Twelve-A’s reply was more
a barrage of images and emotion than a thought-out response.  The gist was that
minders were very, very rare, were usually batshit insane, and that the secret
government agency responsible for making Twelve-A had also weeded out the
weaker telepaths by pitting them against each other in what Twelve-A called the
Dark Room.  There had been one other survivor, one of the originals that they
probably kept for reference purposes, but she was utterly unstable and Twelve-A
had killed her.

“So that leaves you,” Joe
said after the telepath had finished mind-vomiting on him.  He was curious,
now, and more than a little excited.  Twelve-A was dangerous. 
Really
dangerous.  Joe wasn’t sure if Twelve-A had intended to show him
just
how dangerous, but Joe had gotten a brief glimpse into his labyrinthine mind,
and now his heart was pounding.  Softly, he asked, “Do you
know
how much
the Congress would pay to get their hands on you?”

Twelve-A’s wiry body
stiffened, the mental vice again locking over Joe’s being, and Joe quickly
laughed and waved him off.  “Oh, calm down, you pointy-eared furg.  I’m not
gonna hand you over.”  He snorted at the very idea.  “Not a chance.  I want you
to live long and prosper.  Spread the seed of your loins across the whole
burning continent.”  As Twelve-A continued to give him a suspicious look, Joe
gestured at the other experiments, who were dog-piling in the grass.  “You and
all the rest of them.  I’ll keep you alive if it kills me, you understand?  You
just earned yourself a guardian Ayhi.” 

When Twelve-A continued
to watch him with distrust, Joe sighed and went on, “Okay, look at it this
way.  The Regency condemned a whole species as criminals, when there
are
whole
species of criminals out there—the Huouyt and the Jahul—who get away with ten
times worse soot every day just because they’ve got money and power.  Dumped
guys like me on a place like this, just ‘cause we shared the same genome with
those furgs who betrayed Congress.  After seventy-four turns of service, those
Takki bureaucrats signed our Judgement and then forgot about us.  They fully
intend to let Humanity wander around in the Dark Ages for a few centuries
before they come back for us, and if the Human race dies out in the meantime,
no skin off their backs—they’ll just have the Watcher revive the race.  You
know what I wanna do?”

Twelve-A frowned and gave
a slight shake of his platinum blond head.

Joe reached out and
tapped Twelve-A’s temple, making the minder flinch.  “I wanna give ‘em a taste
of their own nuajan,” he said.  As Twelve-A blinked and gingerly touched the
spot Joe had tapped him, Joe patted Jane and added, “I know war.  I also know
that everything I know is absolutely useless against guys like you.  You know
what
that
means?”

At the word ‘war,’
Twelve-A stiffened suspiciously. 
We’re not going to fight,
he warned
again.

Joe grinned and poked the
minder in his scrawny chest, making him jerk again.  “It means,” he said, “next
time Congress comes around, the Human race will have a big, ashy surprise
waiting for those soot-eating furglings who made the mistake of dumping guys
like me,” he poked him again, “with guys like you.”

Stop poking me
,
Twelve-A told him.

“So,” Joe continued,
poking him again, “knowing what I know, what do
you
want to do?”

Twelve-A hesitated,
blinking down at Joe’s finger where it touched his breastbone.  I
want to
live.
  The inference, of course, was that Joe apparently didn’t.

Joe laughed.  “Of course
you do.”  He took a deep breath, then glanced at the dog-pile again. 
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who
don’t
want you
to live, and most of them aren’t Human, and they outnumber us a hundred
thousand to one.  But we’ll deal with those later.  I just became your burning
Sentinel, you understand?  Right now, we need to protect you guys from Humanity
in general.  If you want my opinion, I say follow the mountains north until
we’re away from most of the major cities, scavenging farmhouses and small towns
for supplies along the way.  A lot of people are going to have the same idea,
so we’re gonna have to be ready to defend ourselves, which means your friends
are either gonna have to learn to fight back the way their makers intended or
get really good with a club.”

Twelve-A frowned. 
They
won’t fight.

Ignoring him, because
everyone
would fight given the right incentives—and Joe knew how to provide the
right incentives—Joe went on, “Secondly, no sex.  At least until we’re past the
Rockies.  I don’t want any pregnant women slowing us down.”

This time, Twelve-A just
stared at him blankly.

“By the ghosts, man,” Joe
said, his breath hissing between his teeth.  “
Tell
me you know what that
is.”

I do now,
Twelve-A
told him,
and I don’t know why I’d want to do it.

“Then
trust
me,
you
don’t
know about sex,” Joe told him firmly.  “You can play with
Palmela all you want, but once you get a taste of the real thing—”  He winced
and glanced over at Alice, who was sprawled atop the human dog-pile, listening
much too intently.  “Sorry, kid.  Maybe you shouldn’t be listening to this.’

Alice shrugged a little
too casually.  “I read about it all the time, before the Judgement.”

Joe laughed.  “Yeah, right.” 
He turned back to Twelve-A, ignoring her hurt look.  “So anyway, it’s kind of
complicated for them to figure out on their own, so I’m not
too
worried,
even though I’ve already seen a couple of them jerking off.”

Even then, one of the men
was off to one side of the human pile, beating his meat off into a bush. 
Twelve-A glanced at the grunting furg worriedly. 
Should I make them stop?

Joe scoffed.  “No.  We’ve
got the makings of a perfect society—a pretty naked ass here and there, free
food, no war, no Congressional population control, and a total lack of
modesty.  Believe me, when we get to where we’re going, you’re in for a treat.”

Twelve-A scowled at him. 
This act is fun for both parties?

Joe laughed.  “If you do
it right, she’ll beg you not to stop.”

Twelve-A considered that
a moment.  Joe had the uneasy feeling that he was burrowing around in his
brain, reviewing Joe’s experiences with sex.  “No digging,” Joe growled.

Twelve-A continued to
stare at the point between Joe’s eyes.  Finally, the telepath commented,
The
first couple times, you hurt her.

Blushing furiously as he
remembered Libby, Joe managed, “We were both just kids and she was a virgin and
she only hurt a little and—”  He caught himself and scowled.  “I told you to
stop digging around in my head, you sootwad furg.”

No.  It’s all there
for me to see, so why shouldn’t I see it?

“It’s rude,” Joe
gritted.  “Some stuff is just personal.”

Twelve-A gave him a flat
stare. 
Are you ashamed of yourself, Joe Dobbs?

Joe blushed again.  “Of
course not, it’s just…”

If you aren’t ashamed,
then there’s nothing you don’t want me to see,
Twelve-A replied firmly. 
The force of his thoughts allowed for no further argument.

The need to punch the
self-satisfied smirk off of Twelve-A’s face was so strong that Joe’s right hand
tightened into a fist.  Twelve-A merely raised a brow of invitation, obviously
catching the thought.  “You’re one annoying furg,” Joe finally growled at
Twelve-A.  “I’m asking for a little professional respect.”

I respect you by not
killing you,
Twelve-A stated flatly.

Joe’s eyes narrowed.  “I
could say the same for you.”

This time, the staredown
that followed was broken by Twelve-A’s need to pee.

As the minder started to
nonchalantly spatter the ground at Joe’s feet, Joe took a step back and
irritatedly found something else to look at.  “Listen,” Joe growled, “As your
self-appointed Sentinel, it’s my job to keep you alive.  That means we’re going
to need clothing for everyone.  Where we’re going, it gets cold.”

 
I cannot make the
People wear Keeper skin,
Twelve-A replied, as he finished relieving
himself.  The way his thoughts were formed, to Twelve-A, the thought was akin
to wearing a nice, thick layer of shit.

Joe glared.  The good
mood that had come with seeing the
potential
of the furg in front of him
had been utterly wiped away by its acute and chronic application.  “Fine,” Joe
said, “I’ll ask you about clothes again when the first blizzard hits.  You’ll
get the picture pretty damn quick.”  Already, the furglings were red-skinned
and bordering on crispy—if it weren’t for their obscenely long ‘lunch’ breaks
in the shade, he was pretty sure they would have barbecued themselves already.

We’ll see,
was all
Twelve-A said, in a tone that felt distinctly patronizing.

Joe took a deep breath
and let it out slowly, frustrated.  Not because the guinea pigs wanted to run
around in the nude—if they wanted to get blisters and freeze their balls off,
that was their prerogative.  He was frustrated because some ignorant, naked-ass
Takki turd could read his mind and dig up every damn thing he’d tried to keep
hidden for the last seventy-four turns and there was nothing he could do about
it.

You didn’t like being
Zero,
Twelve-A commented into the silence.

Immediately, Joe twisted
on the minder, bristling.  Stepping up close so he could glare down at the
skinny bastard from his extra three inches, Joe growled, “We agreed you won’t
dig in my brain and I won’t shoot you in the head.  You having second
thoughts?”

Twelve-A glared up at
him, irritation flashing in his blue eyes. 
You are the only one near me who
is interesting inside.

“
Ask
me, goddamn
it,” Joe growled, slamming his finger back into the skinny telepath’s
breastbone, “or you’re gonna find yourself with a pretty new hole between your
eyes.”

For a long time, Twelve-A
just scowled up at him.  Then, with incredible reluctance, he said,
Can I
look through your memories, Joe Dobbs?

“No,” Joe said.  “See? 
Wasn’t that easy?”

Immediately, the
telepath’s face darkened. 
I don’t have to ask.

“You do if you want my
help,” Joe told him.  “And I know you want my help, because you made me come
along and you haven’t killed me yet.”