The Zero Patient Trilogy (Book One): (A Dystopian Sci-Fi Series) Read online

  A woman steps out of the shadows of a building, her pale cover cloths adding bulk to her form. Over her shoulders are bindrings. Worn on both sides of the Great Demarcator, another name for the Off Limits, bindrings cover an Upper woman’s breasts and shoulders and prevent her from moving her arms past a ninety-degree angle. They are worn exclusively by women who are not yet married.

  If Sterling had a hat, he’d tip it. Instead, he gives the woman a nod and she hardly acknowledges his presence. No matter, he’ll have his chance later to have whatever he’d like at the fleshroom. Zander Damien, the man who sent him down here, said that he’d reimburse him for travel expenses. Sterling doesn’t believe him; regardless, lust unquenched can lead to greater aberrations.

  “Eyes on the prize,” Sterling says as he slows down at an intersection. Obeying traffic laws is crucial in the Canyon; move with rules or move towards death.

  “You familiar with The Book of the South?” he asks Bolt over the rumble of the engine.

  “I’ve heard some. It’s different than The Book of the North.”

  “Not what I’m getting at,” Sterling says as he continues on. “I want to know if there’s a passage that goes something like Move with rules or move towards death. Have you heard it?”

  “Everyone in the Canyon knows that passage, North and South.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  Bolt flashes a grin and lets it fade from his face as soon as he sees Sterling’s cold, hard visage. Most people by the age of thirty have been adversely affected by the conditions of the Canyon. Craggy faces, dehydrated skin, crow’s feet, perma-parched lips, wispy hair, sunken eye sockets – Sterling didn’t have any of these things, aside from the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but he did usually carry an expression that would instantly make anyone who met his basilisk gaze break eye contact first.

  A wind picks up, tornadoing tiny rocks and bits of sand. Sterling immediately pulls up his face cover. With his nose and mouth covered, he ducks and faces away from the incoming storm, clenches his eyes shut. “In the name of the Goddess, let the sand cease. In the name of the Goddess, let the sand cease,” he whispers.

  Bolt has done the same thing with his face cover, but he’s chosen a different prayer. “Goddess come down, protect, come down, protect, come down, protect, come down. Goddess come down, protect, come down, protect, come down … ”

  The sand stops blowing; the night calm returns.

  “Close one,” Sterling says as he shakes the grit out of his hair. “That’s the last thing we need.”

  Bolt doesn’t need to say anything – he’s seen firsthand the power of a sandstorm in the Canyon.

  ***

  “Show me where there’s food and I’ll take you there,” Sterling says. “But after that, a fleshroom. I’d like … ” He glances at the kid, wonders if Bolt is too young to know about lovers. Surely the kid knows – he’s thirteen.

  “To meet with a lover?”

  “Yeah, a whore. Know what that is?”

  “I know what lovers are.”

  He starts up the motocart and passes around an old well. There used to be water in the Canyon, but most the wells dried up fifty years ago. There were rumors that some wells still had water, but if they did, people kept it a secret. Now water was distributed from the Off Limits in ration packets.

  “How are we going to get food?” Bolt asked. “We’re not registered in the South.”

  “How’d you do it last time?”

  “Last time my aunt picked me up.”

  “Why didn’t she pick you up this time?”

  “We couldn’t get word to her.”

  “It’s not easy.” Sterling notices a depot a few blocks away. Like the North, many homes come right up to the main streets. Aside from their shapes, another difference between the two parts of the Canyon is the fencing – the South seems to have more than Sterling thinks necessary.

  Sterling stops in front of the depot. “You stay here and I’ll go in there and get us some food.” He steps off the motocart, stretches his arms above his head. A cough comes on and he goes at it for a moment and spits out a muddy combination of phlegm and dust. He’s a few paces away when Bolt calls out to him.

  “What?” he asks, turning to the kid.

  “Please, don’t … ” Bolt nods at the shiv in Sterling’s boot.

  “I won’t, trust me. There’s more than one way to skin a lizard.”

  ***

  “Can I help you?” the depot manager asks.

  He’s a Southern Upper, a merchant, with Canyon-colored eyes and a triple chin, indicating that he has access to considerably more than the standard ration. His garb is similar to Sterling’s; similar to everybody’s – a flowing, long sleeve shirt with an attached face cover, loose pants and brand-new R Boots. His rounded shoulders and unmarked skin clearly show that he’s a man who spends most of his time indoors. Beard tails hang to his belly to complete his ensemble of wealth.

  “Food,” Sterling says.

  The man sets three R Boxes on the counter, each about the length and width of a large hand. He grins, shows a set of blood red teeth – the mark of a red root addict. Behind him are two pallets of prefab panels.

  “Finger here,” the man says, holding out a registration unit.

  “Are you a gambling man by any chance?” Sterling asks.

  The depot manager drops his palms on the R Boxes. “I could be. You looking to wager?”

  “Always am,” says Sterling. “Rocks?”

  “For rations?”

  He nods at the depot manager. “I’ve already hit up another depot today.”

  “You’re hungry?”

  “Who isn’t? So, rocks for R Boxes?”

  “You have bits?”

  “Of course.” Sterling jiggles a small cargo pocket. “I’ll put five down.”

  “Hmmm … ” The depot manager places his hand in his pocket, sets his fist on the table. Sterling does the same. “Two out of three?”

  “Fine by me. Your number?”

  “Eight,” Sterling says. “Yours?”

  “Six.”

  Both men open their hands, dropping the pebbles on the counter. The man was holding two, Sterling six.

  “Damn,” says the man. “I’ll get it next round.”

  “Again.” Sterling returns his rocks to his pocket, makes some noise to indicate he’s figuring out a number. He palms four rocks and returns his fist to the counter. The depot manager’s fist is already waiting for him.

  “Your number?” Sterling asks.

  “Seven. Yours?”

  “Eight.”

  They open their hands to reveal five rocks in total.

  “Draw.”

  “Again,” says the depot manager.

  They repeat the previous gesture, fishing around in their pockets and eying each other as they do so. Their fists land on the counter again.

  “Eight,” says Sterling.

  “Seven.”

  Sterling opens his hand to reveal five rocks. The man, two. “You got it. All right, last round.”

  The two men return their rocks to their pockets, jiggle the pebbles, and place their hands back onto the counter.

  “Your number?” asks Sterling.

  “Four. Yours?”

  Sterling stares long and hard at the man’s hand. It’s a risky move, but he’s won plenty of games with what he’s about to do next. “Zero.”

  The man raises an eyebrow.

  “Well?”

  Both open their hands to reveal zero rocks.

  “Damn, how’d you know?” the depot manager asks.

  “Didn’t. Lucky guess. Let me have water packets too.”

  ***

  “This should get us through tomorrow.” Sterling approaches Bolt, who’s still sitting in the motocart.

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Lucky break.” He takes his seat and drops two of the three R Boxes in the attached cart, the same place where
the corpses used to be. He opens a water packet, drinks half, gives the rest to Bolt. From there he moves to the R Box. “Here’s yours,” he says, splitting the dry bar in half.

  “Thanks.” Bolt finishes the water, reluctantly takes the food.

  Sterling takes his first bite and gets it down. He’s been eating food all his life – everyone in the Canyon has, North and South. There isn’t much variation. Food is a grainy nutrient bar that tastes about as bland as it looks. His mother can doctor it up a little, make a mush for breakfast. Some people make a semi-sweet syrup out of a certain cactus in the Canyon and trade it for extra rations. Others sit it in the sun and eat their food warm. Sterling usually just bites right into it; better to get it over with.

  “Hurry up, eat,” he tells Bolt.

  “It doesn’t taste like much by itself,” the kid says, examining the bar.

  “Your mom’s not here to make mush.”

  “She doesn’t make mush; she sugars it.”

  “Where are you getting sugar?” Sterling asks. Talk about a hot commodity.

  “My mom works for the Off Limits Distribution Channel. They get sugar sometimes.”

  “Ever heard of Zander Damien?”

  Bolt shrugs.

  “Well, have you?”

  “Maybe my mom mentioned him, maybe she didn’t. I don’t know.”

  Sterling swallows a mouthful of food and takes another bite. Getting it down is the hardest part – the stuff is rough, flavorless and gritty. “That’s some serious connection right there. I have to be honest with you, Bolt.”

  “Yeah?” The kid takes a bite, grimaces as he chews.

  “I really can’t see why you’ve come down here. Your mom has a good job and she must have some connections with the Church of the North.”

  “I told you,” he says, chewing. “They were going to trim me. My mom wants me to have kids, so I came to the South, disappeared as far as she’s concerned. They’re better about it down here. A lot less eunuching because the population is smaller.”

  “It is?”

  “Much smaller. You can’t really tell because it’s night and nobody’s out.”

  Sterling finishes his food, starts the motocart. “Which way? I want to get as near to the Church of the South as possible, find a fleshroom for the night, and do what I have to do.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  He pulls back onto the road. “Which way?” he asks.

  “The church is about fifty vestas from here.”

  “And there’s always a fleshroom near a church.”

  “Why’s that?” Bolt asks.

  “Sin and repentance go hand in hand.”

  “Is that something from the Book?” the kid calls over the whir of the engine.

  “Nope,” Sterling shouts back, “it’s something I’ve observed.”

  .3.

  The fleshroom is marked by a single red light. Sterling remembers his father visiting one when he was a child and waiting outside while he ‘did what he needed to do’. A trip to a fleshroom was always followed by a trip to the Church of the North. It’s better to confess than be audited, and the church was canny enough to subtly light a path that connected the two institutions.

  The Canyon worked this way.

  For every sin there was sorrow, for every atonement another chance to succumb to temptation. It amazed Sterling how close these two things were, shame and the desire to err again. Bedfellows didn’t do the two concepts justice, they were one in the same, something he would say if he knew how to express it, and if he weren’t afraid of going against the Book.

  He’d been to reeducation once – it wasn’t a place he’d like to go again. There were some who became perpetually trapped in the cycle of reeducation and re-entry into society. These were called Repeaters, and they were almost always trimmed after their second time in reeducation – that is, unless one of their parents or relatives was on the Council of the North. The sons and daughters of the well-connected lived very different lives from their parents’ constituents. Very different indeed.

  Sterling drove the motocart into a shadowy alleyway.

  He’d need to get rid of it soon; eventually the two drivers would be missed, but maybe not for a while. Unsanctioned killing wasn’t very common in the Canyon, but the families would worry and go asking at some point.

  “All right, Bolt,” Sterling said, “I want you off the motocart and to never, ever look at it again. You’ve never seen it, never ridden on it, don’t know anything about it. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “We’ll leave the keys in the ignition. No questions asked, no answers questioned.”

  “I know that quote.”

  Most in the Canyon have memorized some or all of the Book. A collection of quotes and parables, the Book has no rhyme or reason to the way the chapters were arranged. It follows no timeline and can be read in any order.

  “Where will I stay tonight?” asks Bolt.

  “Here.”

  “In the alley?”

  “We all have to make sacrifices.”

  “I can go to my aunt’s home.”

  Sterling nods, “And I can make sure you don’t get to your aunt’s home.”

  “If you go into the fleshroom, and I stay here, how will you know if I’ve left or not?”

  “Will you?”

  Bolt crosses his hands over his chest.

  “Well?”

  “No,” the kid finally says.

  “Good. That’s how I know. Loyalty is faceless.”

  “Not in the South,” Bolt protests.

  “We’re not getting into a religious debate right now, kid.”

  A man passes them, shuffles his feet as he makes his way to the fleshroom. He’s draped heavy cloths over his body to conceal his identity.

  “Sit here,” Sterling finally says. “I’ll tell you when I’m done; you can share the room with me. How’s that?”

  “Thanks.”

  Bolt sits with his back against a wall.

  “And put the food in your bag,” Sterling says. “We’re abandoning the motocart as of right now.”

  ***

  “What’ll it be?” the flesh dealer asks. Sterling’s at the bar; another patron sits two stools down from him.

  “I’m looking for a room for the night and anything that this entails.”

  “Gotcha,” says the flesh dealer. He’s wearing outdoor wrappings, long and tangled, that extend to the floor. Like most clothing in the Canyon, the wrappings are a mixture of beige and gray with a subtle hint of pink. The man has the jaded look of a person who has seen much more than his fair share of debauchery. His nose is hooked, his teeth are crooked, his lips are obscured by a bushy, red-stained mustache, his skin brown and weathered. Women protect their skin, men don’t. “We’re booked for the next thirty minutes or so, and he’s first.”

  The flesh dealer nods at the man sitting two stools down from Sterling.

  “I’m next,” the man says as he fiddles with the glass of delixer. Sterling recognizes him immediately – he’s the same foot-shuffling, cloth-wrapped man from outside.

  “I’ll wait,” Sterling says, “and I’ll have your best delixer.”

  “How much?”

  “Mil.”

  The man sitting next to Sterling nearly spits his drink out. “Where’d you learn that word?” he asks.

  “People don’t use that word down here,” the flesh dealer explains. He takes a deflatable plastic bottle from beneath the counter and fills a glass to its brim. “But I know what it means. A mil is a double shot down here.”

  The man next to Sterling stands, takes the stool directly next to him. His clothing spells Lower – thin seersucker top that’s collarless, filthy pants covered in patches and crudely stitched repairs. Around his neck is a pair of oversized Leaks, the straps made of repurposed plastic and the glass lenses covered in a thin layer of dust and grit. The man has seen a few storms, survived them, and hasn’t cleaned up since.

>   “Where you from?” He snorts in his hand, wipes his runny nose on his sleeve. His eyes shine with delixer and belligerence, his face weathered and beaten by the fierce winds that routinely wreak havoc in the Canyon. Sterling has battled these winds himself – everyone has.

  “Near the Off Limits,” Sterling lies.

  “Your name?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter,” the man says. “It’s common courtesy to tell someone your name in these parts. Awful suspicious if you don’t.”

  “Leave him alone, Clay.” The bartender sets the delixer in front of Sterling. Made from cactus and other ingredients, delixers are an underground staple in the Canyon, no matter which side you’re born on. “Two bits,” the bartender says.

  “Put it on my tab,” says Sterling.

  “There are no tabs here – everything up front. I don’t know how they do business where you’re from, but that’s the way business is done down here.”

  “I got it.” Sterling dips his finger into his cargo pocket, finds a small pouch of bits. He’s been saving these for a special occasion, won them off a guy a week ago at a lizard race. “How much in total, the girl and the room for the night?”

  “Five bits.”

  “Done.” Sterling slaps the money on the table, aware that the man named Clay is watching his every move. “There a problem?” he asks as he returns the pouch to his pocket.

  “Who was the boy outside?” Clay runs his tongue across his crooked front teeth.

  “A relative, why?”

  “He wasn’t dressed like a boy from the South.”

  “How could you tell? It’s dark out.”

  “I can tell … ” Clay finishes his delixer, taps it on the counter to indicate he’d like a refill. The flesh dealer ignores him. “I was in a war, you know, at the War Zone.”

  “Wars aren’t held in any other places,” Sterling reminds him.

  “Yeah, but I was in one, a real big one. You see this?” he whips his left fist over his body, stops it about a foot away from Sterling. Instinctively, Sterling’s hand drops to his leg, which will give him easier access to the shiv in his boot if the man tries anything funny.

  “It’s a fist. I see it.”