Point Zero (_.5)

Point Zero (_.5)

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Commissioned by steelcondor 

Wordcount: 2500

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Warrants typically take an hour to process due to bureaucracy, so a break for lunch was in order before we began our efforts to search for Yefimova’s legs. A few of my fellow Commanders groused and complained about the slowness of the entire affair, but even though I could understand their desire to get more work done, I did not agree with them. Paperwork and processing times allow for perfect opportunities to take refuel, ponder, and critically think… on paid, mandated lunch breaks. 

Unfortunately, Yefimova had to pay for herself, but for myself and O’Hara, the multitude of cafes and restaurants surrounding the Point Zero Amphitheatre were ready to provide us with our required sustenance.

My free lunch is a two, 1-kilogram, dry-aged steaks reverse seared and basted in butter, garlic, and thyme. It had been preceded by a light watermelon, mint salad and freshly baked bread with a garlic spread. The large platter, naturally did not only have steak. Six baked potatoes filled with the mashed contents of the potato skins, as well as green onion, bacon, and cheese accompanied the star of the show. Dessert was to be the café’s handcrafted pistachio gelato. Just a single kilogram, due to my large snack in Yefimova’s overly-stocked dressing room curbing my hunger.

My steak arrived piping hot. Though they were perfectly circular, denoting the fact that they were crafted by food fabricators, the technique into its preparation and cookery and the perfect replication of protein and fat allowed it equal natural steaks. Its dry age and cook was so perfect that I could use a dessert spoon to cut through it, while the meat’s interior still retained a chew before it fell apart in my mouth. It was steak, but more. There was no hint of rubbery spring with each release of beef, every swallow was smooth and heralded the onset of herbs, garlic, and butter gilded by rich, mushroom-like savoriness and gaminess brought by the dry age. The sear was perfect, providing a near-crackling-like crust that reminded me of the finest of thin burger patties, while providing a toothy bite before the yielding, nearly-medium rare insides of the steak. 

The baked potatoes were the perfect compliment to the steaks. Creamy, mashed potato, tangy cheese, sharp green onion, and bacon were the only side-dish worthy of such masterpieces of beef. Though they did not disappoint, they were also incited my body to continue consuming my steaks, and once a finished on of the half-dozen halves, I returned to consume more of my steak.

I was finished with three halves of potatoes and a whole steak, before Yefimova and O’Hara’s meals came.

Yefimova took pictures of her tower of seafood, before digging into the chilled mass with gusto, but O’Hara merely poked at her mouth-watering BLT with slight hesitation.

While I truly valued my employees and wanted them to succeed, I needed to reign in my tongue, take deep breaths, and calm down as she let the thick-cut bacon, chilly, seasonal tomato, and crisp lettuce begin to reach room temperature. Did she not know that BLTs had to be consumed quickly? The tomatoes were going to run and spill everwhere. The mayonnaise was going to soak the bread. The lettuce was going to wilt due to the bacon’s heat, while the bacon itself will become hard insty of chewy and crunchy.

She’d been doing so well today, and I knew for a fact that she wasn’t an enthusiastic eater, so I could not judge her for her choices… but that is as her boss.

As a person, I could not help but think less of O’Hara—

“Uhhh, I got full from the appetizer and the bread. You can have my main course, boss.” 

As her boss, I had to restrain myself and not show her any favoritism whatsoever, because O’Hara is the best person.

The BLT proved to be a delicious break from your steak and baked potatoes, before you finished your steak and baked potatoes.

What an excellent lunch.

I won’t be hungry for at least two hours!

…

“So, now that we’ve made that pub-owner’s whole month of rent in a single sitting, how about we start considering where to start looking?” O’Hara, like every good subordinate, begins work immediately after lunch is completed. Surely, I cannot ask for a better subordinate. Though she has been impressed into service due to having illegal equipment, I can most certainly put in the work and effort to make sure that she gets her fair share for her work ethic and effort. Yep, she most definitely needs a raise from her current income. Actually, it might be zero. “Commander Yefimova, did your suspects have any recognizable symbols? Since you have your event coming up we should… speed up our looting and pillaging of the gangs.”

I’m not particularly interested in loot. The other Sectors might do so, but they’re in Sectors with criminal elements with more funding and possible, international backers. My own Sector, and the gangs within, are truly just the wastrels of Point Zero. Their power and strength typically comes in the form of junkyard, refurbished robots, up-gunned vehicles, and being utterly uncaring of their personal safety while utilizing their mutations.

They don’t look like much, they don’t have much, and they won’t be missed. 

“The criminals who ambushed me and stole my legs were clad entirely in black and wore ski masks. Simple, but effective means of evading recognition, especially with their transponders discarded.” Indeed, Yefimova’s words are true. There’s no way to get past bulky clothes and masks without upgrading cameras to be able to pear past clothes and utilize algorithms that will rob the common citizen of their privacy the moment they leave their homes. However, there were other ways of tracking lost items. “However, while I cannot find and identify my attackers, my limbs are more easily tracked.”

“Bloody hell, that’s strange as fuck, but that should be fine.” O’Hara seemed off-put by the thought of having trackers in one’s limbs. I suppose those who haven’t been battle don’t know how difficult it is to find lost limbs in battlefields… or how useful it is to be able to track down your foe who’s eaten one of your limbs or that of your companions. There’s also the matter of some limbs and pieces falling off once Infection reaches critical levels. Being able to track Infected, Military personnel is a must. Their training and experience is not lost in transition, thus they are more fearsome foes in combat as Bioweapons. “So, where are your legs at?”

“Unfortunately, due to the density of Point Zero compared to a battlefield, it’s difficult to tell. My limbs will respond to the software within my communicator, but that necessitates a sector-wide sweep on general signals, then we use short-range transmissions to find a general area.” Yefimova’s proposal was time consuming, thus it was it was simple, unspoken ploy for her to present a plan that shall benefit her and her nation. O’Hara was not privy to this, due to not being able to discern a person’s intent accurately from merely being in close proximity, of which I was capable. “So, I would appreciate being granted access to the Verdict communication network.”

I told her that I couldn’t give her that… and said so perhaps a little too quickly.

“Boss! You can’t seriously thing there’s some secret scheme going on here, do you?” Yes, indeed, I did. I hadn’t meant to imply it, though. The Russian Federation has very few friends in Point Zero. Their choice to withdraw from the United Nations Security Council to focus on their country’s own protection backfired, as they were recognized as an independent entity by the Interpid. They’ve since received their seat, which is now in the aloft in the UN HQ orbiting Earth, but they had no say about embassies or sectors in the construction of Point Zero, unlike the Chinese, Americans, and European Union. Thus, Commander Yefimova had every reason to want access to the UN’s latest surveillance network. “She’s lost her fookin’ legs for fuck’s sake. This can’t be a crazed plan for her to get a few dozen cameras, boss!”

A few dozen cameras that are linked to a few hundred, which are in turn connected to the processing units that operate the whole city’s surveillance network, but I tell O’Hara that I see her point. However, the fact remains that it isn’t within my power to give such things over to individuals who are not Point Zero citizens and members of Verdict. But, in the interest of getting the commander her legs back, I had someone who was capable of boosting a phone’s ability to receive signals, as long as they were provided with the correct resources.

“Huh? Who—Oh. Me. Right, then. Let’s hop to it.

To this day, I question why I feared having subordinates. 

They’re so cute when they make silly mistakes and do their best to fix those mistakes.

Irritation flared within Yefimova, but it wasn’t anger. Knowing that, I could believe that she’d merely attempted to be a good employee and overachieve. It was respectable of her to try and use the opportunity born of her losing her legs to further her country’s abilities. There was no hate directed towards me or O’Hara, just acceptance, and I was glad to find that.

If she’d tried to hurt me or O’Hara, then I would have had to treat her like a criminal and incapacitate her for detainment on the spot.

…

As expected, Yefimova’s legs were taken to the city’s outskirts, which somewhat fell into my jurisdiction. Though it was nearly impossible for life to exist atop the Himalayas outside of Point Zero, danger and fear was not in the vocabularies of the criminals who were trying to escape into the stars and expand one of mankind’s oldest empires throughout the galaxy. In the tundra and snow, with whipping winds that threatened to knock men off the tops of mountains, there were hidden facilities and labs utilized to create illegal drugs. 

With all the technologies freely given to earth, the creation of underground drug laboratories is an easy enough affair for those with capital and criminals had a fair amount of coin. They produced the illegal substances that humans wanted and desired for various effects. Now, though the whole of the gangs I’d crushed were taken away, the fact that no facilities outside exploded due to lack of care meant that they were still manned and fortified against any intruders. It hadn’t crossed my mind that the weak criminals that populated my Sector were entirely dependent on the greater cartels and organizations for their supply. Given their utter ineptitude and lack of brains, I suppose that I should’ve expected them to be mere puppets for the larger players. 

The knowledge was distressing to consider, but I led my companions onwards without making my concern known. As we walked through a fortified enemy compound, there was no reason for me whatsoever to give them doubt, especially when we were so close to our objective. I’ll report my failings later, in the official report, and if I am required to tell my subordinates about my shortcomings that shall be that. Hopefully, the goal-oriented, action plan that will be added as an extension to the report will suffice as an apology, so I would have to not embarrass myself. 

Wait.

Combat first.

We find ourselves before the facility that houses Yefimova’s legs. It is innocuous and instead of being built beneath ice, it is actually grafted into the mountain-side. So, not only did those within hold onto stolen, human limbs, but they also broke a strict edict that humanity shall never mine Himalayan mountain range. Technically, the latter gave me the permission to kill, since it endangered a multitude of lives for merely the purposes of creating illegal substances… but I preferred to err on the side of caution when it came to judgement.

Execution was a sentence that warranted doubtless belief and moral integrity.

So, I shall merely incapacitate them by decapitating them and placing their heads in life-sustaining chambers. 

…

The facilities were stark white within. After passing through the security systems, both living and automated machinery, the insides of the facility grafted into the mountainside was dedicated to the production of various narcotics and illegal substances. This one facility had the proper supplies and equipment to produce over a dozen types of drugs in industrial quantities, thanks to hacked and manipulated medicinal fabricators. Whether or not they purchased the tall, towering machines did not matter. All that mattered was that I reclaimed the clutches of the criminals… which was an easy enough feat, since I dealt with even those who wished to implement a scorched earth policy and self-destruct the facility, regardless of losing their own lives in the process. 

“Fucking Hell, we didn’t do a goddamn thing.” O’Hara words were sweet to my ears. My subordinate, who’d come into the mission fully-armed and expecting battle, had not needed to fight due to my efforts. What better praise can a subordinate give to their commanding officer than that, besides tremendous amount of high-quality foods? “Boss you’re a damn, living meat grinder.”

“Indeed, your efficacy is of such caliber that I wonder why you’re wasted here. On the battlefield your skills and abilities would turn the tide of many battles.” Ah, to also be praised by the attaché is wonderful. There’s no better praise to report to one’s superior’s than one from another organization entirely. Yefimova’s words were soothing to my poor ego, especially when I never considered attacking other crime groups within Point Zero and including them in my sweep. Due to my negligence, especially if I do not bring low these facilities, those who I defeated will simply return with different names and forms. “You are wasted here, Commander Elliot.”

I don’t agree.

There are many individuals throughout the world who are more suited for combat on the frontline. Given my metabolism, as well as my powers allowing me to operate in the city, it was a matter of me being better suited for urban warfare than out on the field. Other individuals of the same level of power as myself could not operate within Point Zero without fearing their powers would harm it. So, not only are my requirements for functioning met by operating within the city, I was also one of the few with sufficient power who could do so without destroying large sections of the city surrounding mankind’s only link to space. 

It’s a matter of efficiency. 

While I would function well out in the battlefield, perhaps doing as well as I do now against Bioweapons and the like, I am more worthwhile as an asset capable of functioning within a city’s confines. 

I would very much like go to the frontlines, especially if I am ordered to so by my superiors who are knowledgeable of my abilities, but as of this moment I know my place.

And, that place is at Point Zero.