The Zero

“When do I talk?” Paul asked as he leafed through the program.

“Talk?” the woman asked. “About what?”

“Well.” Paul looked around the arena. “I don’t know. Maybe I misunderstood. I thought I was going to get to talk.”

“No, no.” The woman smiled. “We don’t need you to talk.”

“Oh. Yeah. See, I was under the impression that I would get to talk.”

“No. There’s no talking.”

Paul took a couple of steps and looked at the truck. “No. See that’s what I do… I talk. You know… about what I saw?”

“No,” she said. “No talking.” She leaned forward. “Honestly, I don’t think people want any more talking. For a while they did. But I think they’ve had enough of that kind of thing. I think we get it. No, all we need you to do is… look appropriate.” The woman shrugged, opened her handbag, and handed Paul an envelope. He held it for a moment before opening it.

While Guterak stared at his paycheck, Remy walked toward the truck and read the names, and indeed they were airbrushed with such artistry that the shadows seemed real and the letters had a disquieting depth. The names – all that was left of good people – rose like bruises from the metal-flake paint.

THE DOCUMENT looked just like Australia; in fact, in a way it was Australia, its edges burned into a perfect representation of the coastline, in that distinctive, thick oblong shape of the continent, bent in the middle, with a hole at the top corresponding perfectly with the Gulf of Carpentaria. Helpfully, someone had paper-clipped an actual map of Australia to the file; he glanced from the burned page to the map and then back again, and at the yellow flag on the plastic baggy in which the paper was placed: “Forward to SECURE. Isn’t this unca

Remy looked around. He was back behind his desk. There was still nothing on the walls except the photo of him between The Boss and The President, nothing to make this office look like anyone actually worked here. He opened the top drawer, found a pen, and wrote, “Yes,” on the flag. Then, after a moment, he initialed it. Before that day, when it became Australia, the page had been a simple expense report from a lunch meeting between March Selios and a man named Bobby al-Zamil, identified as “vice pre-” (the rest burned away down near the Great Sandy Desert) of a business called “Feynman-Mid-Ea-” something (burned away down in the populous regions near Melbourne and Sydney).

Remy glanced around his office. He turned the nameplate around again, just to be sure. It said REMY. Good. He’d begun to feel he could manage the skips with nonchalance, and he thought it best to treat this burned piece of paper with the same knowing shrug. He picked up the phone and hit zero, and a few seconds later an operator’s voice came on line.

“This is Diane.”

“Uh. Hi. Diane. This is Brian Remy.” He looked around again. “I’ve got this piece of burned paper that looks like Australia. Am I supposed to do something with-”

“Let me see if I can get him on his car phone.”

A few minutes later, Remy heard the buzzing of a phone and Markham picked up, apparently in traffic. “Markham.”

“It’s Remy.”

“Hey, buddy. We’re just on our way back. So… did you get the Australia document I sent over? Isn’t that wild?”

“Yeah,” Remy said, holding it up again.

“I wanted you to see the original before the probability companies started fighting over it.”

“The probability companies?”

“Yeah. We’re getting bids already.”

“Bids?”

“You know, to study the burn patterns?” Markham just kept going, as if all Remy needed was a little more information and then the whole thing would click. “Applying models of randomness and linear motion probability to the patterns in paper burns?”

“I don’t-”

“You didn’t see the story in the Times? The whole booming randomness industry… partial documentation recovery and interpretation… the old thought experiment about the drunkard’s walk?… Inevitability and random patterns, assuming unreversed trajectories and nonpreferred directionality? Applying that to burn patterns? You know.”

“No, I guess… I don’t-”

“The whole partials pedagogy… Jesus on a Fish Stick?”

Remy was afraid this would go on forever, and so he said, “Oh. Jesus on a Fish Stick. Sure. Look, do you need me to do anything with this?”

“No, I just wanted you to see it, that’s all. We got everything else handled. We’re on al-Zamil right now – should be ready to work him tonight.”

Something in Markham’s voice made Remy uneasy. “Work him?”

Markham laughed. “Would you relax. We’re following the protocols you wrote. We adopted ’em. No more sloppiness, I promise.”

“Wait. What protocols?”

Markham laughed again. “Come on, don’t test me. I swear: no more screwups.” Over the phone, Remy could hear a man saying something in Markham’s car, perhaps He’s moving. “Hey, I gotta go,” Markham said. “I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

“Wait!” Remy said, but Markham was gone. He dialed the operator again, but after a moment she came back on the phone and said that Markham was unavailable.

Remy hung up and looked down at his desk again. Had he written protocols? He tried the desk drawers but they were empty except for some blank paper, a letter opener, and a few pens. The big bottom file drawer was still locked. Remy yanked on it, then looked around the office for something to pry it open with. He tried the letter opener, but it just bent the metal blade. Wait – this was his office. Remy pulled his keys from his pocket, and separated a small one he didn’t remember having. The key turned the lock and he pulled the drawer back.

The files were alphabetized and primary color-coded under different titles, which were typed on the tabs. Some of the tabs (AGENCY, BUREAU, FLORIDA, ICEMAN) were intriguing to Remy, but he was worried about losing the moment, so he skipped ahead to the file called PROTOCOLS, and was about to open it when he saw the titles of the next two files, RECIPES, and the one that really intrigued him, near the end of the drawer, a tab marked SUBJECT A.

It could be anything.

He pulled out the file. It was thin, just two dated reports four months apart, each no more than a few short sentences. The first read, simply: “Made contact with Subject A. Continuing deep cover.” It was signed with his initials – BR. Remy read the second report, which was slightly longer:

Subject A remains reticent, possibly suspicious, could be deep grief… too early to determine if subject is concealing information… Recommendation: continued recon, deep cover and intel gathering.

Again, the document was initialed by Remy. He swallowed. This wasn’t necessarily April. Subject A could be anything.

Or anyone. He turned the report over. There was a handwritten note on the back, dated what he thought was just a few days earlier.

Took Subject A to attorney to file claim on dec. husband. Continuing to gain trust – recomm. extend cover…

Remy’s head slumped. He opened the top drawer and found a pen. He scribbled across the top of this second short report: Cancel. Then he thought better of it, balled up the two reports, and threw them in the garbage. He tossed the empty folder away, for good measure. He felt breathless. He had convinced himself that that if he just abandoned himself to this skidding, lurching life, without questioning it, things would turn out okay. Once you started down a road, what good did it do to question the road? But maybe that only worked, he thought now, if you can trust yourself in the moments between bouts of consciousness. What am I doing in those moments I don’t remember? He fell back in his chair, closed his eyes, and felt the moment leak away.