Zero Alternative Read Online Free Page A

stretched his neck, his eyes narrowing. ‘Not bad, white guy.’ He crouched lower and approached, unleashing a series of left jabs, his fist moving so fast it almost blurred. Walker defended out of instinct, parrying a couple and managing to avoid a third. He tried to slide away from the corner of the ring leaning into the ropes but his foot slipped on a sweat stain and he lost his balance for a split second.
    He didn’t even see the punch that knocked him out.
    Walker stepped out of the shower, his body still aching from the punishment. A deserved one, since he’d never learnt to stop when he was overmatched. He had needed to while away the hours and the tension before the Italian election results, but the best kids down at Fisher’s Youth club were obviously becoming too quick for him. Sighing, he dried his short dark hair and checked himself in the mirror – no cuts or lumps, just the usual intense grey eyes set under a high forehead.
No worries; at least I’m still a decent-looking bastard
.
    He jumped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and poured himself a drink in the open kitchen in his loft-style living room. After lighting a cigarette, he walked to the ceiling-height windows and looked out at the Thames, swirling darkly four floors below. To his left, less than a hundred yards away, the bright lights of Tower Bridge painted a maelstrom of red, blue and white into the London night. Beyond them shone the skyline of the City, where new buildings continued to shoot up, defying the gravity of another economic crisis. Astonishing, how Finance could still find ways to expand and pay when entire economies crumbled.
    It felt as if… as if the parasite was killing the host, slowly bleeding it dry. Walker’s mild soul-sickness threatened to return, and again he wondered what he was waiting for. The entire world seemed strained, ordinary people were suffering. Maybe it was time to think of ways to help repair the damage. Not much he could do alone, but DeepShare might…
    He coughed a few times, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. He flicked his cigarette away and watched the tip spiral into the water before going back inside. The 60-inch TV on the wall was on, volume muted. A few Italian politicians argued around a cowlicked host who’d seen better days, filling air-time and waiting for the election exit polls to come in.
    Another twenty minutes.
    He grabbed a bottle of 42 Below from the fridge, picked up his phone and lowered himself gently onto a leather couch. His body felt like he’d just walked out of a car crash but the adrenaline was already starting to pump again. Flights of fancy about helping to shape a better future were all right, and maybe one day he could afford them, but right now he needed to be sharp, focused. If he and DeepShare were wrong and the Italian election went as expected… the next few weeks would turn into a financial massacre for Walker Ltd.
    His trading portfolio would take a battering in the market, bleeding away like an unstitched open vein. He would personally lose Dorfmann a fortune in the run-up to Christmas, and that fat idiot Fontaine would lean on Jack Morden to have him fired if he closed the year down fifteen or twenty million. Spineless Jack wouldn’t stand in the way of the head of trading – the idiot didn’t really care, not if it could cost him money when the envelopes were handed down on Bonus Day. Then again, maybe it would be better to be pushed, if he couldn’t jump.
    He exhaled and readjusted his legs on the sofa, trying to get comfortable just as his phone rang with the slightly odd melody that signalled a video-call.
    Luigi
.
    Walker smiled and gestured at the TV, transferring the call onto the big screen. The image split down the middle, Italian politicians still silently jabbering away at each other. Luigi Seu’s ruddy face materialized on the left-hand side of the screen, his blue eyes glinting. His short beard was half-grey, the cropped hair receding beyond