Zero

Chapter 1

Thad shoved his twin brother Theo into their bedroom wall as hard as he could, knocking the wind from the smaller boy’s lungs. “Little fucker,” he spat, “I know you did it. I know you’ve been telling her shit about me. Ashley said you didn’t, but I know you did.”

Theo stared death into the eyes of his brother, wishing he could fight back physically as well as mentally, and at the same time wishing that Thad were less of an asshole.

Thad smiled at his sibling’s impotent rage. Theo never fought back. He was pissed at the little shit, but Thad loved the feelings he got when he hurt someone. His smile faded as he remembered how humiliating it had been when his girlfriend of almost two months had called him a sick freak in front of everyone in the hallway at school and dumped him earlier that day. It was the most embarrassing thing he had ever experienced, and he was certain his brother was the cause of it. He had really pounded the shit out of Theo two days before just for fun, and though Theo didn’t retaliate physically, he usually found some other way to get back at Thad.

“This is a warning, fuckwad.” Thad said, pushing Theo into the wall harder. “If you ever say anything, to anyone about what I do back in the woods, I’m going to break your arm.” He dropped Theo, who was now gasping for breath, onto the floor and walked out of the room.

Theo rose slowly from the floor and pulled himself onto his bed. In a moment he had recovered his breath, but still he lied there, resting and thinking. He wondered for the thousandth time how two brothers who shared a womb for nine months, who had the same mother and father, could be so different. They weren’t identical, but fraternal, twins which meant that they were born at the same time but didn’t look alike. In fact, the two boys hardly looked like brothers.

Thaddeus Keiser was tall, muscular, and possessed of average intelligence. His hair was much lighter than Theo’s, almost blonde like their mother’s. He was also cruel. Theo had thought for most of his life that he was the sole focus of his brother’s cruelty, until one day he had been walking in the woods behind their house and he spied the larger boy torturing a baby fox with one of their father’s screwdrivers. Theo had been too shocked, and far too afraid to stop his twin. He had watched from behind some bushes in mute silence, petrified to move an inch until Thad had finished with the animal and left.

Theo, of course, had to look at it. What he saw changed his already negative view of his brother to something much worse, and sickened him almost to the point of vomiting. The little thing lay there still alive, a large hole in it stomach, struggling and making a pitiful sound that Theo would never forget, a sound which had haunted his dreams since then. He felt tears leaking from his eyes, and he knelt down next to it.

“Poor little thing,” he said, openly crying now, “I’m sorry he did this to you.” The little guy was shaking now, and blood started to come out of its wound faster. Theo knew what needed to be done, and he used a nearby rock to put the pitiful little fox out of its misery.

Theo cried some more, then made a grave far from the place where his brother had tortured the baby fox. He walked home through the forest in silence. He knew that he could never admit to Thad that he had spied on him or he would be beaten much more severely than was normal. He couldn’t tell their parents either. Thad was their golden boy. He was a fullback on their high school‘s football team, popular with the girls, and very charming when he wanted to be. Their father had been a football player when he was a teenager, and he and Thad were always either tossing a ball around or talking about the sport. He had even seen them drinking a beer together once. Theo hadn’t spent any time alone with his father since he was ten. That was almost six years ago, right before Thad had joined the local pewee football league.

Their mother wasn’t much better. She doted on Thad, always commenting on how tall he was, or how muscular he was getting. She occasionally gave Theo a positive comment about his perfect grades, but these words of encouragement were few and far between. He felt like he was someone his parents tolerated but didn’t really like, and certainly weren’t proud of. He tried his best to keep from making waves with them.

Since the incident in the woods, Theo had gotten the feeling that his brother had somehow found out about his spying, but he was never quite sure. Now his suspicions were confirmed, though he still didn’t know how Thad had found out. He didn’t really care, as he didn’t plan to make a habit of spying on him. It was bad enough the one time. Thad was right though, he had told Ashley about the fox. His brother’s ex-girlfriend was a nice girl, even to geeks like himself, and he felt like he had to tell her because maybe someday Thad would graduate from hurting foxes to hurting girlfriends.

After a while Theo glanced at his watch, stood up and walked out of his room. He walked to the kitchen, noticing that there was nobody home except him. He drank a glass of water quickly, and then walked out his front door. He turned right on the sidewalk and walked to a small white house at the end of his street. He used the steel knocker attached to the door to announce his presence and then entered, shedding his shoes once inside.

“Tanaka-Sensei, it’s Theo.” The boy called as he entered. He walked down the hallway into the living room. A very old Asian man was sitting in a ratty avocado colored recliner, smoking a cigarette and watching TV. He looked up and smiled at Theo as he walked in.

“Theo, you’re on time for once,” said the old man. His voice was wispy, ancient, and carried a heavy Japanese accent. He motioned towards another chair, his recliner’s twin, and Theo sat down.

“I’m always on time,” replied the boy, smiling. It was true. He had never been late for anything in his life. But this was a game they played, a ritual performed each time the boy came over to visit, and it amused them both. In truth there was no set time for his lessons, but Theo had made a habit of coming over at 3PM every day after school and kept it.

The old man squinted at Theo’s face, his already deep crow’s feet becoming shadowy rifts in the process. “Tears, no? Another fight with your brother?” he asked kindly. Theo nodded, and no more was said. Tanaka knew about Theo’s situation and didn’t judge or preach to him about it. He just listened, and very rarely would offer a piece of advice. In turn, the old man would talk about his past. He would talk for hours about many things; the war that took all three of his sons, the famine that took his daughter. He talked about coming to America to find a better life when he was still a young man. Once, when he had had too many beers, the old man had sobbed and talked about losing his wife to cancer over twenty years ago.

Theo admired Tanaka and loved him like a father. The old man had been a farmer in Japan and then studied for years to become a medical doctor in America. He had retired eight years ago at the age of eighty, and now spent his days working on the rock garden he kept in his back yard. He also practiced the martial arts, which he had been teaching to Theo since he was ten.

“Shall we practice, Zero?” asked Tanaka. This was the pet name he had for his student. He had mangled Theo’s name several times when they had first met and had never been able to pronounce it correctly. The old man had always had trouble with the English “th” sound. Theo didn’t mind the nickname and even came to like it. Theo knew that calling someone a zero was an insult, equivalent to calling him nothing, but Tanaka didn’t mean it that way. Theo remembered how his teacher’s eyes had lit up when he told him about his older brother, a combat pilot for Japan in World War 2. He had flown a Zero, the attack plane favored by the Japanese, and one of the most deadly aircraft of the era. His brother had managed to kill thirteen other pilots, becoming an Ace, before his final mission in which he had crashed a plane loaded with explosives into an American aircraft carrier. Tanaka explained about how attitudes had been different then, and how the Japanese pilots believed they were dying for the glory of the Emperor. Despite his words, Theo knew that his teacher considered his older brother to have been a hero. Theo was proud to carry the name Zero because of what it meant to the old man.

“Hai, Sensei,” replied Theo. Yes, Teacher. They walked into Tanaka’s back yard, past his rock garden, and into a building about half the size of his house at the edge of his property. The building contained one big room, and when unlocked by the old man revealed a floor padded in thick rice mats called tatami. It was thicker than was usually found in a dojo, but Tanaka was old and didn’t want to break anything when he fell. The walls contained several racks holding various weapons, a few of them ancient treasures brought over to America by Tanaka when he immigrated. Most of them, though, were merely wooden training tools made by Tanaka or Theo on an electric lathe in the old man’s garage.

Theo turned on the lights and opened all of the windows for ventilation. It was a warm day and they would get hot while training. The old man and the young teen stripped to their underwear and changed into their gi’s, traditional training outfits. They sat down opposite each other on the padded floor and stretched out until they were limber, and then slowly jogged around the walls of the dojo a few times until they were felt warmed up. The two practiced kicks and punches independently before moving into contact practice and from there to some light sparing. Throughout this, Tanaka gave his student instructions and corrected his technique several times. Theo felt good as he moved through this familiar routine, thinking about how much better he had become over the years. He had talked to other martial artists occasionally, and most of the time they would ask what rank he was. Tanaka did not believe in rank, and considered it nonsense. The old man had learned karate-do and kenjutsu, Japanese swordsmanship, from his father. It was uncommon, outside of a few expensive training schools, to use any kind of ranking system at the time when he was taught. There was only the teacher and the student. Some of the other martial artists had sneered at him when he explained this to them, but Theo didn’t care. They could keep their green or blue or black belts. They were an invention of chain karate schools to make kids feel happy and to make parents believe they were getting their money’s worth.

After practicing karate for about an hour, the two took a short break to drink some water and also to give Tanaka a chance to rest for a few minutes. He was an old man. They sat on a wooden bench that was the sole piece of furniture in the room and talked while the elderly Japanese got his breath back.

“How is school?” asked the teacher, looking at Theo.

“It’s alright. I’m thinking about graduating this year. I’ve had enough credits since last year, but I wanted to take the last three AP classes. They count for college credit, you know.” The young man shrugged. He knew this wasn’t really what his teacher was really interested in. “I still don’t have any friends there. I guess I’m not really taking your advice, huh?” Earlier that year Tanaka had said he should make an effort to talk to more people at school, especially girls. Theo had tried to take this advice, but he was really quite shy. It was difficult for him to initiate a conversation with another guy, and almost impossible with a girl. Small talk was a skill that eluded him.

“Hmmm.” replied Tanaka. He looked thoughtful. “I was visiting Edo once, when I was your age. As I have told you before, Zero, I spent my childhood on my family’s farm. Being in a big city for the first time was very different.” He paused. “I found that I acted quite differently than I did at home. Perhaps being in a place so different made me feel like a different person.” He chuckled, and then continued. “Things that would have embarrassed me at home…did not bother me there.” Tanaka finished his story and they sat in silence for a few moments while Theo thought about the story.

“Sensei, do you mean that if I go somewhere different than here, that I should be able to talk to people more easily?” asked Theo.

Tanaka shrugged. “Perhaps. I was a shy boy when I was young. I found that most of my shyness left me when I left my home.” He stood up, smiling now. “Let us practice Kenjutsu now, Zero. Get us bokken.”

Theo walked to one of the racks on the wall, and retrieved two curved pieces of wood, mock swords, and joined his teacher in the middle of the training mat. They each took one, took the proper stance, and practiced the form and technique of wielding a Japanese katana for several minutes. Theo especially liked practicing kenjutsu. The movements felt natural for him, and he knew he did better at it than karate because Tanaka corrected him far less. After a short time they selected different weapons from the rack, a different kind of training sword called a shinai. Instead of a solid piece of wood like the bokken, it was made of thin pieces of bamboo and wasn’t nearly as heavy. The shinai was made for contact practice and was usually used for kendo, a Japanese sport based on traditional kenjutsu.

After getting their shinai, Tanaka opened a cabinet and removed two sets of armor made of cloth and plastic, designed to protect human skin from the stinging blows of their weapons. They quickly donned this gear and met again in the center of the room and bowed to each other. The practice started slowly, like always, and progressed in speed as the time went on. Anyone watching would have known from the beginning that despite his smaller stature, Tanaka was the superior swordsman. Of course, he had been practicing since before World War II. Theo was no slouch, though. This was his favorite part of their practice, and from his teacher’s comments he knew that he was fairly decent at it. The teen counted the blows as they traded them, and knew that he was scoring them at least half as often as Tanaka, and blocking more blows than he received. He remembered many times, years ago, when he would struggle an entire lesson without hitting his teacher’s armor even once.

The two finished their practice shortly and did some cool-down exercises. They changed back into their regular cloths and re-entered the house.

Theo stayed in the living room a while longer, talking with his teacher and drinking tea. When the old wooden clock on the wall showed five minutes to six, he bid his teacher goodbye and walked home.

Theo arrived just as his mother was setting out dinner. It was chicken from KFC, one of his favorites, and he was starving. Thad and his father were already seated, and as usual they were talking about some football thing. They ignored him when he sat down.

“Hi Mom,” he said to her as she sat down. He didn’t ask about her day. That was always a mistake. His mother hated her job, and if anyone asked her about it she would usually fall into a bad mood for the rest of the evening.

“Hi Theo,” she replied as she put a drumstick on her plate.

Theo dug into the chicken and coleslaw as the other two males in his house continued to talk about football in between quick bites of their food. His mother paid attention to their conversation as usual, ignoring him completely. Theo finished his dinner quickly and started to leave the table.

“It’s your turn to do the dishes, Theo,” said his mother, turning to him. Theo simply nodded. Usually it was his turn to do the dishes about five nights a week, and if he argued about it he would be lectured and grounded from going to Tanaka-Sensei’s house. As far as Theo knew, Thad had never done the dishes. He finished his chore quickly and went to the bathroom to take a shower. He wanted to wash off the sweat from his earlier exercise.

Theo frowned at his clothes as he shrugged out of them. He was fifteen years old and could still fit into most of the clothes he had worn in middle school. He was only five feet four inches tall, which made him feel extremely jealous of Thad’s six-foot stature. At least he was in good shape due to his daily exercise. His frame was lean, but he had a very defined musculature. Thad worked out in the school gym daily and looked like the hulk, but Theo did not envy him his giant muscles; he thought they looked repulsive. He shrugged and stepped under the spray of hot water. He would almost definitely get taller. There were no men in his family under five-eight, and he knew boys could continue to grow until they were eighteen or twenty. Thad finished his shower and changed into his pajamas. All of his homework had been finished earlier, in his free period, and Theo realized he had nothing that needed doing so he logged onto his computer to check his email and surf the web.

The computer booted up quickly, and Theo visited one of his favorite web sites, a message board for science majors in college where he posted under the screen name ‘Zero’. He was an active member of the community there, and he always learned a lot from the debates and the sharing of knowledge that went on regularly. He contributed a lot, too. He had taken over ten credits of AP classes, every one that his school offered, and was at least as well versed in the sciences as most sophomores in college. Theo wanted desperately to get into MIT or Cal Tech one day, and every new fact that he grasped moved him closer to this goal.

He read a few posts, replied to a few messages on the board, and logged off. There hadn’t really been anything interesting today. He opened up his email program and looked at the list of messages. There was one from his C++ teacher reminding him to send in an assignment he had already finished, and another trying to sell him viagra. He was about to close the program and shut down the computer when another message suddenly appeared. Theo looked at it, interested. The subject line of this new email read: Zero Keiser - Important Message.

This was extremely odd. Theo had never used his real name in conjunction with his alias online, and nobody in real life knew that he was called Zero except Tanaka. The message couldn’t be from Tanaka-Sensei; the old Japanese man had never owned a computer and didn’t know how to operate one. Very curios about its contents, Theo opened up the message.

The ‘from’ field was blank and the sender’s email address was his own. This was getting stranger all the time. The body of the message was a simple sentence with no punctuation or capitalization. It read: “be at the spot where you killed the fox tomorrow at 4 o clock pm”.

When he finished reading the message a chill went down Theo’s spine and he felt like all the blood had drained away from his face. There was no way anyone but he or Thad could know about that. Was Thad taunting him or planning something awful? This was completely unlike his brother. Thad was not computer friendly, and guile was foreign to him. Whenever his twin had a problem with him, he would either hurt him or threaten violence. Thad would never have figured out how to disguise his email address, or break into Theo’s account.

But maybe it was all an elaborate practical joke on Thad’s part. Maybe he had paid or threatened someone knowledgeable in computers to help him with it. Then Theo remembered that his brother had football practice at 4PM. Thad was as punctual as Theo, and he had never skipped practice. Maybe, though, maybe Thad was even angrier than he had let on about losing his girlfriend. If he was acting this erratically, then Theo definitely didn’t want to confront him alone in the woods tomorrow.

Theo shook his head. There were too many questions, and no answers. He realized that he would have to speak with Thad.

Thad was watching TV and drinking a glass of milk in the living room. Luckily, both of their parents had gone to bed early. Theo didn’t want to them to hear this conversation. He decided to be bold. For all his faults, Thad had never been a liar and Theo hoped to force a confession out of him. He walked closer and closer to his twin until Thad looked up at his smaller sibling angrily.

“I got your email, Thad,” said Theo, simply and loudly. He studied the expression on his brother’s face as the words sunk in.”

Thad’s brow furrowed slightly, and his frown deepened. “What in the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, curiosity and anger mixing in his voice. “Why in the fuck would I email you?”

Theo was more confused than ever. His brother’s reaction was as genuine as anything he had ever seen. The idea that there might be some unseen stranger spying on him entered his mind, and scared the young man badly. He stood there in silence as Thad impatiently waited for him to say something.

Finally, Theo shook his head, seeming to come out of his trance. “Sorry,” he said simply, turned on his heel, and walked quickly back to his room. Suddenly Theo felt extremely tired, and longed for the warmth and comfort of his bed.

Thad watched him go, not understanding a bit of what just happened. He shook his head in confusion. “Fucking egghead,” he said contemptuously. “Probably been smoking opium with that chink down the street.” Thad laughed loudly at his own joke and went back to watching his television program.