Game Slaves (20 page)

“And spend the other eight plugged in,” Mi continued.

“It's like our old schedule, only backwards.”

We all stood there for some time, watching. Occasionally, they twitched. Every now and then a hand would come up or they'd duck like moving into cover. They'd cheer when they won and swear when they lost. I don't know how to describe it, all those souls in this building, the next, and probably every one in every surviving city around the globe. Was I sad for them that our digital landscapes had become so much more desirable and interesting than their real ones? Or was I happy for them that they now had a way to escape the complete dreariness of their real existence?

I wondered how my team felt. Who was glad for these survivors? Who pitied them?

And did we really want to trade what we'd had for what these people had?

It wasn't like we had much of a choice. Could we find out where we came from? Were there answers there? And how would we get them? Who did we ask? Would they just give up that information, or would we need to be . . . persuasive?

Dakota, again, had taken her eyes off the tuned-out citizens in the next building. She was staring right at me, and I knew something was coming my way.

When I saw what was eating her, honestly, I didn't know what to make of it. Maybe I still don't.

The next morning, before anyone woke, Dakota nudged my shoulder and motioned me out of our room. Mi mumbled something about needing the car to go to the grocery store but didn't stir again.

In the hall, Dakota said, “You gotta come check this out.”

So we left the building before daylight and set off through the city center.

We made quick time through the streets, around a nuke plant where she'd been offered work, and then along an interior wall. It actually had trees growing on the other side, and I realized they were the first I'd seen since leaving the suburbs. No trees grew through the crumbling pavement where we had just come from. No grass, either. Maybe it was because of the atomic plant. Maybe it had all been grazed five years before, when times were really tough.

Times sure weren't tough on the rich side of that wall, though.

But that wasn't where Dakota was leading me. The sun was breaking through, and I knew this meant the working class folks were rising, pulling off their controllers, and getting ready for another day on the assembly line. It made me think about what Screw had said. How many of them knew that once the wall was complete, BlackStar troops were going to force most of them to the other side, out into the wasteland, so that the chosen could live in safety behind the impenetrable barricade?

Screw had that knowledge, and he only seemed comfortable blabbering about it to others with a company tattoo. Most of the ordinary citizens, like Hal, probably had no idea. They were all doomed as soon as they finished their jobs.

“There's the lake.” Dakota motioned up ahead, still moving at a brisk pace.

“Yeah, Reno told me about that. Makes for a natural border. I'd bet the hordes can't swim or build boats.”

“Right, a natural border,” she repeated. “But Reno didn't go farther. I walked a ways around it.”

So Dakota had gone the extra miles. But what was out there? York had said the north wall was done. And up here, these were the nice neighborhoods. Clean. Well taken care of. Even the air smelled cool and fresh. Nothing like the stench around that power plant and its century-old wastewater pool.

We walked along the rocky shore. No fish jumped, not a single bird came in low. Bugs danced, and when they did, I saw Dakota cringe. She didn't like those things, and was still scratching at her neck where she'd first gotten bitten.

And that's when I began to see them. Far off in the distance. Snow-covered peaks were just collecting the first of the morning light. Glacial fields stood as steep as any man-made wall, only these stretched thousands of feet high.

“We're bordered on the northwest by a mountain chain?” I asked. Was this all she wanted to show me? It wasn't a surprise. Something had to feed that lake. Snowmelt was usually unpolluted. The city couldn't survive without a source of clean water.

“Not the mountains”—she motioned—“look lower.”

We started hiking up. Now I saw. And it was strange, but not really worth the trip out here. About a mile up, the wall was still under construction. A long section reaching all the way to the lake had been completed. So they were enclosing this side too, but that made sense.

There was less urgency here. Security guards were few and far between. The horde wouldn't try to infiltrate from up high. How could they? They'd have to have walked naked through the mountains.

Still, the wall was going up. And along its eventual path, the surveyors had laid out the concrete footing for the vertical beams. Nothing unusual there.

The thing was, out there in the field, at the base of the ice cliffs, thick grass was growing. Wildflowers had sprouted. And unlike in the wasteland to the south,
animals
were moving. Not big ones, nothing that was a full meal, but here and there a small rabbit darted through the brush.

Still, this was not why Dakota had brought me here. See, on the concrete footing stood men, women, even kids. Not a lot of them, but those who'd woken early and ventured up.

It was almost like they were afraid to leave the city boundary, because none of them were out in the field. It didn't seem like the guards even took notice. But trust me, the citizens wanted those rabbits. And why wouldn't they? That was free food running around out there. Maybe the tastiest bites any of them would ever have. Can you imagine barbecued rabbit after a lifetime of eating those brown chunks of mystery feed they got in those plastic packages?

So maybe two dozen of them were
fishing
for rabbit. Bizarre. It didn't seem like the best way to catch a meal.

The citizens stood on the edge of the fresh pavement and attached all sorts of bait to wooden hooks or snare loops. Then they'd carefully toss their lines out into the field near one of the bunnies. You could even hear them coaxing the animals, “Here, Mr. Rabbit. Some nice cornmeal for you! Have a taste! Just one little taste!”

Dakota pointed. “What do you think?”

I was honest. “I think they've got a good game spot, and they're lucky the horde isn't aware of it and devouring every one of those little rodents.”

“Phoenix.” She rolled her eyes. “
Not
the bunnies. What do you think about all the people
fishing?
”

“I think they're doing what they can to make life better for their families. Same as I'd do.”

“But they could go
hunt
in those woods,” Dakota argued.

“The guards would stop them,” I pointed out. “And there might be bigger, hungrier things out there to worry about. None of
us
have guns, Dakota. What do you think their chances would be with sharpened sticks?”

I watched her. It was weird, like she couldn't take her eyes off the gaping escape route. And I also noticed something else: Dakota was sweating. Even though it was cold up here, her body was shedding water like we were running a marathon.

Daylight was burning, and we had a pocketful of money and things to do. I had my own family to provide for.

So shortly after, Dakota and I began the trek back down the hill.

I admired those people out there. They never gave up, even when the deck was stacked against them. I hadn't seen a single one of them catch a rabbit, but good for them for trying. Never give in. Sometimes a solution is just one more cast away.

The day was slipping away. It was midafternoon and we needed food. We also needed medicine, as Mi had picked up a cough and I remembered her telling me her chest had been hurting. What was it? The radioactivity? Fallout from some past war? Maybe she just wasn't used to breathing grit all day.

My head hurt, but that was from the redness around my skull port. At least out here, all those creepy dreams had disappeared. Made me think we were on the right track, even if actually visiting Phoenix, Arizona, or the Dakotas was out of the question.

York had gotten quieter lately. Even Reno. The eager look of kids exploring a new playground had disappeared from all their eyes. Mi's gaze had grown cold, as if the green in there was about to fade.

It was all starting to get pretty clear to me how it worked out here. And, also, that we shouldn't be walking around with huge amounts of money jingling in our pockets. You've got to watch out for the bad guys, don't you?

It was time to stop playing tourist. I knew where we had to go. I had a pretty good idea what we'd see. To get there, all we had to do was follow the trail. In the Old West, it would have been train rails leading to the town's supply center. In Redwood, it was the giant prints made by that huge machine. Just follow them back to their home.

“They
knew?
” Mi asked when we finally saw it. “The rich bastards knew all along, didn't they?”

Yes, sweetheart, they
always
knew. Back when there was gasoline. When everyone lived like kings and had cars and money and boats and even private planes.

Back before the Middle East went up in a series of mushroom clouds. Before the governments dissolved and military factions had their brief reign. Before deadly plagues occupied the southern country, any place where there was a marsh in which the infections could breed. Before the horde. When those living in the lawless wasteland between cities had some humanity left.

They
always
knew. They
always
saw it coming. And from the first brick that was ever laid, they planned for the day when they would rule everything that was left.

Didn't anyone back then have any tactical training? Didn't they know a military installation when they saw one? Were they all fooled by the brightly colored paint and oversaturation of preschool smiley faces?

Those weren't buildings, they were bunkers. Those weren't parking lots, they were kill zones.

BlackStar, you see, was not top dog. Not the big boss. Redwood, like everyone everywhere now, served those who fed and clothed them.

Want to know my first clue? Remember
HIGH PLAINS KILLER
? Every town had a general store. One store, no more. It controlled every piece of merchandise that came or went. They charged what they wanted and drove the small business owner into poverty. In the Old West the general stores were supplied by train, but out here, rails had long ago been torn up.

So now towns were supplied by those giant trucks. We hadn't seen one, not yet, but what else could survive thousand-mile trips across the wasteland? What else could bring processed food, clothing, firearms, armor, hammers, rivets, controllers, and every other thing these people had?

And think about it—just go look at what passes for today's general store. Look at the heavy walls. The barricades in front of the doors. The lines of surveillance cameras on every corner. How, in all directions, the land is cleared like a shooting range.

Look at how everything inside is overbuilt. Wired for security. And not made for form, but for function. To last centuries. To outlast an apocalypse.

I'd played the Sims games too. So what was Redwood's general store originally? A Walmart Supercenter? Probably. Maybe a Target or Home Depot. Whatever.

When we got there, it was shocking. The building had zero windows. Two entrances, both of which were glass during the day and covered by solid steel at night. All-weather cams along the roof. Motion detectors and infrared and automated gun placements under smoked-plastic “observation” domes. Open approach on all sides providing clear fields of fire.

The rubber tire tracks led through the city to colossal sliding doors on the side of the building, the area that clearly used to be their automotive department, back when cars were common and gas pumps owned every corner.

I knew, without seeing it, that somewhere in there were the city's only fuel tanks, where Screw's tow truck was issued its rationed supply. Where BlackStar security and delivery vans must go to fill up.

But that was for the elite shopper. We were in line at the peasant entrance. Going through the metal detectors. Getting patted down by faceless security. Shuffling along with a mass of others who behaved as if it were some kind of special privilege for them to come to this warehouse and spend company money in a company store on goods that were far overpriced. They had no choice, though. Where else could they get packets of feed for their kids? Or a shirt? Or a pair of work gloves?

XMart. The place, like in the past, had
everything
. It was the city bank, their pharmacy, their grocery, and of course, the provider of all their entertainment, not to mention their dentist, their doctor, and their community center.

In the early days the neighborhood supermart had lured customers by offering the lowest prices. Then the world began failing. And the supermarts remained. They ran their own fleet trucks. They could armor them. They had the gas, the rubber, the parts, and the guns to keep business rolling.

No one had suspected, had they? That
this
had always been the plan of the people who built these mega-marts? After all, everyone was warned
over
and
over
again that oil would run out. When that time came, who could ship medicine? Without it, millions would die within a generation. With no doctors, plague would spread. With no government, there would be no schools. After just a decade, much of the youth in outlying areas would be no smarter or more civilized than cavemen of the past.

And they
knew
it was coming. So when the first store went up, it was nothing but reinforced concrete, heavy fortifications, and durable goods. Within a decade, every city had one. But no one noticed that they were not stores, not really, but weaponized bomb shelters. Easy to defend. Plenty of firearms. Would last for lifetimes.