Zeroth Law Read online

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Zeroth Law

  Digitesque, Vol. 1

  Guerric Haché

  For Mimi

  & for my mother, father, and sister

  Foreword

  We knew we weren’t the first to live on Earth. We couldn’t overlook the towering buildings of glass and metal and artificial stone jutting from the forests and the hills; the ancient machines still whirring to the touch; the human bones and blood-stained stones lying silent in the deep places of the world. But we remembered nothing, so we didn’t spend much time asking questions.

  We knew something had ended them. We said it was a thousand years ago, and we called it the Fall, though I couldn’t tell you who thought up that name. Whatever it was destroyed the ancients, their cities and societies, and all our collective memory - all at once. Nobody remembered.

  Nobody except the gods, at least. They watched us from the ring, a great silver band that encircles the world high above the sky. We knew of the gods because sometimes, if we were lucky, they spoke to us. They tended to us, and so did their watchers, machines that wandered the world and kept everything from falling apart - fixing buildings, maintaining machinery, repairing each other, harvesting crops.

  Still, there weren’t enough watchers, and nothing lasts forever. Over time most of that ancient world faded into ruin and dirt. By the time this story started, a few scattered cities still stood, some old roads and bridges still eased the long walks between settlements, but most of the ancients’ legacy was long gone, buried by the forests and deserts and oceans of the world.

  But their descendants lived on. Us. Some of us even had a single gods-given gift, one of a many sets of skills we developed when we came of age. They made us more than mere humans - blades of hard light, healing hands, razor-sharp eyes and more. And for a thousand years, we mostly used these wondrous gifts to fight over scraps of power in a world that was slowly, imperceptibly, being swallowed into nature and forgotten.

  Well... It’s time to remember.

  Chapter 1

  It was raining the first time Isavel died. Jagged, sharp white glittered against a black void. Her last sensation of pain had drained away, but the fear remained. None of this made sense, but still her mind committed the madness to memory, for whatever good that might do her. Her corpse lay cold among the dead, under faces and bodies she had known, but she was no longer in there. She was... elsewhere.

  She was reborn to something dripping on her eyelid. Blood, water, didn’t matter - she could move again. For a moment she was more alive than she had ever been, screaming and thrashing her way out of the pile of bodies, stumbling, bloodied and exhausted. And, apparently, alive.

  How? She remembered the moment it happened, the knife in her throat, the pain, the dizziness. The rain; where had the rain gone? Blood was rushing past her head and she pressed her hands against her ears as though that would hide her from the roaring wind. She fell to her knees, eyes darting around the ground. Boot prints. Blood. Shards of glass, splinters of wood.

  She reached to her throat. Somebody was grabbing her neck, trying to strangle - no. That was her own hand. It was okay. She touched, felt around for the wound, for that gash in her jugular. Nothing. Smooth as the day she was born. Again.

  Mother. Father.

  “M-”

  She slapped a hand to her mouth. Quiet. They would hear. They would come back for her, if she called for help. She didn’t want to die again.

  Where were her parents?

  Her eyes crossed the dead bodies, and even from the corner of her eyes she recognized friends, neighbours, her cousin Tawn -

  Just yesterday, Tawn had been telling her about travellers come in from the north. He’d wanted to follow them back up, to dig through the old ruins they had found. Today that want was gone, and all that remained was blood, slashed flesh, empty eyes.

  Isavel turned away, staggering back, trying to get the blood off. Whose blood was it? Was anyone else alive? She retched and vomited red onto the ground. She sucked cold, burning air into her lungs. She backed away, not looking, away from the bodies and the shattered place that had been home.

  Home wasn’t a real place anymore. This was someplace else.

  Everyone was dead.

  Isavel looked up and saw that familiar, silvery band stretched across the sky, from one horizon to the other; the ring, the gods’ wreath hung up around the Earth. She reached up, as though the gods might reach back down and lift her into their embrace, but there was nothing to touch. Still, they must be watching her. They must be protecting her. How else could she be alive again?

  Again. But not like last time. Where was her family?

  She had been sorting through new clothes from the weavery - not at home. They had come from the woods, demanding the village give up everything it had. Some resisted, fighting started, Isavel ran for home. Her parents were only cooks, but at least they had knives - maybe they could help, maybe they could fight back.

  She had never made it home.

  She still tasted blood. She spat onto the ground, again and again, trying to get rid of it. The taste wouldn’t go away. She was covered in it, swimming in it, afloat in chaos and violence. Where had the world gone?

  Chaos and violence sounded a lot like they were growling. She looked up, eyes refocused on what stood before her. Grey, furry, bloodied. A coyote? Bigger than she had expected. She had never seen one so close. Growling, teeth bared, grey fur around its muzzle caked with blood. Her eyes widened, and she whimpered.

  She didn’t want to die again.

  Isavel had been born once, and had come of age ungifted. There were no second chances in life to be granted a gift - and yet, this was another life. Her mind roared white noise, unable to think of a way out, but a line of hot energy cut through the noise from her core to her palms. A new muscle awoke .

  She reached out, aiming both palms at the animal. Stop . Of course, it couldn’t hear her silent commands. It growled, and didn’t back away. She felt and flexed that new muscle, and a stream of shimmering blue hexagons rose from her skin, collecting in her palm like dew. With them came an urgency, a tautness, like an arrow about to fly from a bow. Her eyes widened. The hunter’s gift. Was this even possible?

  She let it fly.

  Something hot and radiant blasted out of her palms and seared the animal across the face, neck, and back, passing through flesh and thudding into the gutted homes behind it with a flash. The scavenger collapsed and so did Isavel, head spinning and stars exploding in front of her eyes. Soft, wet dirt pressed into her mouth and nose. She dragged her hands through the earth, saw her olive skin marred by blood and mud. Hunter’s hands, hands that killed. How was this possible?

  “Please.” She whispered to the sky, and the gods beyond. “What’s going on?”

  Isavel had come of age years ago, ungifted. And yet now… this couldn’t happen. Nothing made sense.

  The afterlife. She must be dead, somehow, and this was what came after. But where were the others, those who had died? Why hadn’t they joined her?

  Mother had always promised she would wait for her, after . Where was she?

  Isavel wasn’t dead. Why wasn't she dead? What was she supposed to do? She was nobody, without talent or title. All she ever had were well-worn days of harvest and trade, stories and games. Now the farmwood would grow wild, the roads and firesides would be silent, and the dice would never roll again.

  She turned to the bodies, but every flash of recognition from the dead stabbed straight through her eyes and into her soul. She flinched and looked away. Nothing to see. Nothing in their eyes.

  Her stomach was gnawing away at her from the inside out, unbearable. Hunger had once been a delightful anticipation, a prelude to fruit and nuts and meats, chased with wine and shared across games and stories and plays. This hunger was different - nasty, insistent, scraping the insides of her ribcage and threatening to come for her brain if not sated. She would die all over again if she didn’t eat something right now, and -

  There was a knife nearby, a long and pointed knife never made for war, lying just out of reach of a dead body’s hands. Isavel raised a hand to hide her eyes from the body, leaned over, and snatched the knife. She raised it above the animal, just as they had raised it above her throat.

  She dropped the knife.

  It lay there on the ground, staring, daring.

  She needed to eat. She grabbed it, holding tighter to steady the shaking. The animal was scorched dead, just another body in front of her. They were all the same, all dead.

  She had done this kind of thing before, with her mother. Chickens, raccoons, a goat once - but she hadn’t killed any of those herself. The old grumpy trapper had. Was this how he had felt?

  She slid the knife in and started cutting. Some cuts drew blood, the sight made her retch even more, and tears finally fell as she raised a piece of meat. More blood, and she couldn’t get away. Her stomach was devouring itself.

  Several stringy mouthfuls in she threw awa
y the knife. Backed away, looked up. The bodies were still there, and some of the faces twisted in her direction, watching.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “Dad? Mamá?”

  Nothing. Of course not. They were in there , somewhere.

  She should dig through, find them, cremate them - it was the right thing to do.

  She couldn’t look at the faces. Gods, she didn’t dare look at the faces.

  Isavel stood up, shaking. Alive, while they were dead. She had always stood apart from them, however much she wished she hadn’t, and here she was again. One last time. She raised her palms. Gods watch over your souls.

  She flexed that new muscle, imagining heat, remembering warmth from another life. The campfire had never been as warm as during the autumn festival, the damp rains of winter not yet come and the muggy heat of summer no longer overpowering the fire. The warmth of fire, of wine and dance, of a life lived in peace. Let that heat flare one last time, if only in mourning.

  The little hexagons percolated into her palms, hot orange now. She let them fly at the bodies.

  The rain had stopped, but they were by no means dry. There was no fire.

  Isavel backed away. She couldn’t do this. She shouldn't have to. It was always the priests who performed the rites, unless you wandered too far into ever-growing wilds, adventurers without root. She was no such thing - just a belated hunter , resurrected into a life stripped of all she had once known.

  The sky was smeared with blotchy grey, the ring behind the clouds, the sun passing in and out of sight. Just like any other spring day. The gods watched on.

  She had lost everything else, but the gods remained. The gods, their priests, their great temple on the western shores. She only knew it was westward, little more. She has no other choice.

  She turned and ran west, in between towering firs still dripping echoes of the rain.

  Shapes moved in the trees, people in the distance. Human shapes, dark and twisted. She stopped and stared and they melted away, familiar faces giving way to crooks and knots in the trees. They were gone, but still they followed. Everywhere she turned, she saw them in all the corners of her eyes until she settled her gaze on them, and they were gone again. They reached out from the edges of all she could see, but they were nowhere to be found.

  Isavel found a crook in a ravine and crawled into it, turning away from the forest and the dead that would not die. They were all gone, and with them every purpose and aspiration she had ever had. What did the gods want with her? Why hadn’t they just let her die like the rest?

  It was cold.

  Isavel fell asleep.

  Ada kicked a rock down the mountainside. It struck redwood, kept tumbling. She tried imagining a face on it, but there were so many to choose from! By the time she settled on one, the rock had rolled into a gully and out of sight. To hell with them all.

  It was drizzling. She was hungry, and had nowhere to go. Of course, that was the point of being exiled, wasn’t it? That and to die of exposure, presumably. The thought incensed her. They didn’t deserve the satisfaction of finding her coyote-eaten corpse somewhere in the woods.

  Ada had no destination, but she had plenty of places not to go. East of the mountains was a wasteland fit only for nomad caravans, and north and south were just more damned mountains as far as anyone knew. So for days she kept walking west, the only direction that remained; towards the cool rainforest, the lush coast, what few cities still stood.

  Between here and there, tiny villages peeked sheepishly out from under a canopy of rolling forests that grew taller and thicker towards the coast. If she wasn’t so angry at everything it stood for, she might miss the ancient concrete, clear glass, and strong metal of the Institute - but she didn’t. She could disdain that place as much as the miserable little hovels she crossed out here. The bulk of humanity might live primitively, but the Institute was still a disgrace.

  So for days Ada had endured the bitter taste of leaves and bugs, drank from streams and licked rainwater out of the grooves in bark. Today, though, something an order of magnitude more interesting caught her eye. A change in the forest, where trees were shorter, denser, and covered in vines - farmwood. She didn’t immediately recognize the trees, but it barely mattered - it was farmwood. Gods, anything to avoid picking apart the forest for food.

  As she closed in on the farmwood, a glimmer of metal and blue light caught her eye, and a spherical metal shape floated into her field of vision, humming quietly and pointing a single bright blue eye straight at her. A watcher. Strange; usually they watched ruins and farmwood, not humans. She frowned and waved it off, creeping past to the farmwood it no doubt belonged to. She was too desperate for something with actual flavour to worry about a watcher.

  Into the farmwood and eyes about, her gaze quickly fell on red orbs beckoning from vines that grew all up the trunks of the trees. Tomatoes. A smile split across her face, and she ripped one off the vine and tore into it with her teeth, juice gushing out and dribbling down her chin. Real food!

  She swallowed the last bite and looked up at the tree itself.

  “Gods, apples?”

  She started scanning the branches, and saw one hanging low enough to reach. She smiled at her prey.

  “After weeks of bitter shit -”

  She gripped the apple, wrenched it from the branch with a snap, and crunched off the biggest chunk she could with her teeth. She leaned against the tree trunk, savoring the sugars and the fuzzy, fruity feeling of it in her mouth. Apples were not her favourite fruit, but they were close - they were damn good cooked with nuts, for one thing. Cherries might be her favourite, but she was glad there weren’t any cherry trees here. The ones at the Institute were special for reasons far beyond their taste, and if she stumbled across some in the wilds, she might just be confronted with the fact that they were really just another kind of fruit.

  Not a very appealing thought. She finished eating around the apple’s core and tossed it aside, going for seconds.

  “Hello there, traveller.”

  Ada froze. Who was that?

  She spun around, eyes wide, and found someone looking at her. He was dark-haired and golden-skinned, with wide-set eyes and a curious expression. He might look like he could have been family, if she squinted hard enough, but she frowned at him instead. “Uh, hi.”

  “What are you doing in our farmwood?”

  Ada narrowed her eyes. He was accusing her of stealing, wasn’t he? “I’m just passing through. I’m leaving right now, actually.”

  He stepped forward, smiling, and gestured behind himself. “Why don’t you stay here? It can be hard to run the woods like that, without any supplies. We can help you and send you on your way.”

  Help her? Help her by doing what - giving her a list of rules to follow, a list of people to kowtow to, and a hundred fake apologies and assurances that it was all for her own good? His resemblance to her father was already starting to grate. “I don’t need your help. I’m doing just fine.”

  “It’s really no trouble - there’s plenty of food to go around. Actually, one of our trappers just brought in some geese -”

  “I don’t want your fucking help!”

  His eyes fell a bit, and his voice dropped. “So you’ll pick through our farmwood, insult us, and move on? That’s no way to treat your hosts.”

  “You’re not my damned host -”

  He turned and yelled into the woods. “Thief!”

  Something rustled in the woods, and a young man stepped out, glancing between her and this stranger. “Dad? Who’s this?”

  Ada stared at him, wide-eyed. Was that…? Yes, yes it was. He was armed with a wooden bow, a nocked arrow pointed straight at her. She almost cracked a laugh then and there - almost, but reason got the better of her. It was still deadly, even if it was hilariously primitive.

  The father looked at her sadly, but it was a hard sadness Ada wouldn’t for a moment let near her. “I don’t know, but she has no respect for the people who live here.”

  Okay, okay - she was outnumbered and outgunned, but she was smarter than them. She could figure this out. She took a deep breath and tried for a wounded, plaintive voice to elicit sympathy.

  “I’m starving! ”

  Ada immediately knew the saddest thing about that voice was how fake it sounded, though. Even to her own ears, it sounded more sarcastic than anything. Damn. She had never managed to pout properly. If she had, maybe she wouldn’t have been exiled.