DAY ZERO

Joseph Martinez

By the time the light outside the high windows had gone from grey to darker grey, all three of them were running on fumes.

They'd been moving crates, hauling food sacks, dragging equipment from one end of the compound to the other for hours. Nobody told them what anything was for. They just pointed and you moved it. That was the system.

David worked and said nothing. He'd been quiet since they got inside, just watching. The guard rotation. Which doors stayed locked and which ones didn't. Where Joseph's men positioned themselves when they weren't standing over the work detail. How many were on the gate at any given time.

Tobey wiped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and leaned close to Kai while they shifted a heavy metal shelf unit across the storage floor.

"You got anything?" he said quietly. "Any kind of plan in that head?"

Kai kept his eyes forward. "No."

"Nothing?"

"Not yet."

Tobey looked at David on the other side of the shelf. "What about you?"

David didn't answer right away. He was watching one of the guards cross the far end of the room, track his usual route, disappear through the same door he always used.

"I've got something," he said. "Give me more time."

"We might not have more time," Tobey said. "You heard what he said about Elena. Tonight."

"I know."

"So—"

"I said give me more time Tobey."

Tobey closed his mouth and they pushed the shelf the rest of the way in silence.

Joseph came into the work area about an hour later.

He walked through slowly with his hands behind his back, looking at everything like a man taking stock of his property. He stopped to say something to one of the guards that made the guard laugh. He looked at the boys working and nodded to himself.

Then his eyes landed on David.

He smiled.

David saw it and kept working. He moved a crate from one stack to another and didn't look back over.

Joseph said something quietly to two of the men standing near him. They both looked at David.

Then they started walking over.

David put down the crate he was holding.

They grabbed him by both arms and pulled him away from the work area. He didn't fight it. Kai saw it happening and took a half step forward and David looked at him and shook his head slightly. Kai stopped.

Tobey watched with his mouth tight.

They took David through a door on the south side into a room with nothing in it except a bare bulb on the ceiling and a drain in the floor. Joseph came in after them and one of the men closed the door.

Joseph looked at David for a moment.

"You stubborn bastard," he said. "Holding onto her like that at the gate." He shook his head like he was almost impressed. "You think you can have your way in my house."

David said nothing.

"I am Joseph Martinez," he said. "People don't test me here. Nobody holds onto something of mine and walks away from it like it's nothing." He straightened his shirt cuffs. "I'm going to show you something about where you are."

He crossed the room and drove his fist into David's stomach.

It was a hard punch from a man who knew how to punch. David felt it go through him, deep and solid, the kind that takes your air completely. He grabbed his stomach and bent forward and let his legs go and went down to one knee. He stayed there with his hand pressed against his gut and his face screwed up.

He could have taken it standing.

He stayed down.

Joseph stood over him. "Look at that. All that attitude at the gate and here you are on the floor." He crouched down slightly so he was closer to David's level. "Men like you, I've seen a hundred of them. Tough until something real happens. Then they fold." He straightened back up. "You're nobody. You're a body I'm using until you're not useful. That's all."

David stared at the floor.

"That girl you came in with. Lia." Joseph said her name slowly. "When I'm finished with the other one tonight, she's next. I want you to think about that while you're on the floor."

David's hand pressed harder against his stomach.

He didn't move.

Inside he was somewhere between rage and something worse than rage. His jaw was locked so tight his teeth ached. He could feel his eyes going wet and he hated it, hated it the way he'd hated it in his father's house when he was twelve years old and too young to do anything about what was happening, hated it the way he'd hated it watching Brian's hand in the rubble and not being able to pull him out.

That feeling. The specific feeling of being right there in front of something terrible and having no move. Being forced to eat it. Being forced to stay on the ground.

He knew this feeling well. He'd spent years of his life learning its shape.

Joseph put his foot on the side of David's head and leaned weight onto it, pressing his face toward the floor.

David let it happen.

"Useless," Joseph said. He moved his foot and spat on the floor next to David's face. Then he kicked him in the ribs on the way past, not full force, just casual, the kind of kick that says you're not even worth the effort of a real one.

He opened the door.

"If he's not up and working in five minutes," he said to the men, "beat him until he stops moving. Clock starts now."

The door closed.

David lay on the floor.

Twelve seconds.

That's how long he gave himself. Twelve seconds on the floor of that room with his ribs aching and his stomach on fire and his face hot from where Joseph's boot had been.

He counted them.

Then he got up.

Tobey saw him come back through the door and straightened immediately. He crossed the room fast, eyes moving across David's face and arms.

"You're bruised up," he said. "What happened in there? What did he do?"

David told him. Kept his voice low and flat, just the facts, what Joseph said about Elena, what he said about Lia. He watched Tobey's face go through several things while he talked.

Kai had come over while he was talking. He stood listening without interrupting.

When David finished none of them said anything for a moment.

Then Kai said, "Whatever we're doing, we do it tonight."

"Yeah," Tobey said. His voice had lost the lightness it usually carried. "Tonight."

David nodded. He looked at the guard across the room, the same one he'd been watching all day, running the same route, using the same door.

"I've been putting something together since we got here," he said. "It's not clean but it'll work."

"How not clean?" Tobey asked.

"It's going to get loud."

Tobey looked at Kai. Kai looked at David.

"Talk us through it," Kai said.