Zero's Return Read Online Free PDF

“You said you had
Dhasha.  I don’t see a damn Dhasha.”
    The general’s
face went slack.  “What test subjects?  We’re here because you told us your
famous Twelve-A could do something that would save billions of lives.”
    At Colonel
Codgson’s frown, a man in a pristine black suit bitterly snapped, “Do not tell us you brought us all together to waste our time, Colonel.”
    The colonel
stared back at them in complete confusion.  “I never sent for you, you diddling
furg.”
    A thin woman
with short-cropped brown hair entered the room and shut the door behind her,
but paused on the colonel’s last words.  Frowning, she said, “You didn’t?  Then
who did?”
    In the center of
the Dark Room, Twelve-A stopped pacing.  He turned, his ice-blue eyes cold
beyond the leaded glass. 
    Me.
    It was like a
mental thunderclap. 
    I brought you
all here.  To kill you.
    Several members
of the committee screamed and staggered toward the door.  Only Colonel Codgson
remained where he stood, staring at Twelve-A through the glass with a queer
little smile.
    Twelve-A looked
at them through the glass, meeting each of their eyes, though Marie knew he
couldn’t possibly see through the tinted windows.
    I want you to
know, Twelve-A said in another resounding mental boom, that I killed
them because they didn’t want to live, not because you told me to.  
    Every expert and
government official in the room was screaming and rushing for the door,
throwing each other aside as they wrestled for the exit.  Marie stayed where
she was against the back wall, knowing that there was nowhere to run, nowhere
she could hide from the telepath’s mental barrage.
    But with you ,
Twelve-A continued, it’s because you deserve it.
    Desperate men
and women were making it out into the hallway, and Marie heard their frantic
footsteps on the tiles of the corridor outside.  Back in the Dark Room, the
telepath shut his eyes and inclined his head slightly.  As one, the dozens of
uniformed men and women occupying the room around her collapsed in a silent,
falling wave of flesh that thudded lifelessly to the floor. 
    Except for
Marie.  She kept breathing, waiting for it to happen, but it never did. 
Minutes after her companions’ wide eyes began to glaze, she was stunned to find
herself still standing amidst the corpses.  Alive.
    She looked at
Twelve-A.  Beyond the glass in the center of the Dark Room, his body had
slumped to the floor along with his victims.  He was now lying on his side,
half-curled into a fetal position, arms pulled in towards his chest.  Heart
thundering, Marie climbed over the bodies to see if he lived.
    Put me back
in my cell, Twelve-A whimpered when she entered the room and knelt beside
him.
    Marie recoiled. 
“Your cell?  Why?”
    He squeezed his
blue eyes shut, face creased in obvious agony.  I want to die.
    “No!”
    Do it.
    The mental boom
allowed no argument, and Marie felt her body responding to the command before
she realized what was happening.  In a daze, Marie drew him to his feet and
helped him back into the containment area.  As she settled him onto his bed,
Twelve-A grabbed her by the forearm with a white-knuckled fist.  Please kill
me.
    The mental
whimper was infused with so much emotional despair that it left Marie fighting
to breathe.  Her eyes flickered toward the IV rack they used to keep the
experiments sedate.  “I’ll go get the drugs.  They’ll make you feel better.” 
She turned to go.
    Twelve-A
continued to hold her arm, stopping her, his blue gaze intense.  You should
kill me, Marie.
    “No,” she said,
finding strength in the words, “I shouldn’t.  I should get you and all your
friends out of here like I said I would.”  She patted his warm, slender hand
and Twelve-A reluctantly released his hold.  She went to the labs, got the
drugs, and hooked them to the rack.  As she was connecting his IV line to the
bag, however, the minder stopped her again.  This time, his