S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (141 page)

“
It wasn't Arc, though,” I tell him. “Or at least not entirely. It was the SSC.”

“
Yeah, we figured that out, too. Arc's scrambling to absolve themselves as much as they can. But they've got other problems now. Bigger problems.”

“
Micah's with them, the SSC.”

Eric's face clouds over for a moment. “Listen, it's going to be complicated getting you off the island. Manhattan's under quarantine. All the checkpoints are on lockdown. There's an outbreak there right now. They're containing it, but barely. Arc's control systems are limping along, but… But they may not for long.”

I open my mouth to confess that we started the outbreak, but Eric speaks before I can: “It looks like SSC breached Arc's security network. Their engineers are working around the clock to shore it up, erecting firewalls and blocking attacks, but the virus that was used is tricky. It's replicating itself, spreading, evolving. It's like a living thing, and it's learning faster than Arc can immunize themselves against it.”

I feel my face go ice cold, and the coldness spreads through the rest of me. This virus sounds a lot like Ashley's program.

Eric looks to the side. Now I hear rhythmic
wup-wup-wup
sound of the helicopter coming through my Link. He turns back. “They're here. Looks like we got clearance,
finally
. Should take us only about twenty minutes to get there.”

“
Us who?”

“
I've got a team of NCD officers and the Marines—my former unit—is supplying a squad of Omegas. For me personally, this is a rescue and extraction operation. That's all I care about. But for Arc and the government, it's a containment operation. This means we'll need to tread carefully.”

“
I'm so glad to see you,” I tell him.

He sighs and gives me half a smile. “There's a couple other things you should know, Jess.”

“
What?”

“
This happening the way it did busted open an on-going investigation that we've been conducting for a while. NCD has been sweeping through towns and cities all over New Merica, thousands of arrests. Some, even, of people close to you.”

“
Who?”

There's a shout and Eric turns to the side.

“
I'll explain when I get there. I have to go. Twenty minutes. And Jess… I'm glad you're all right.”

Then the screen goes black and he's gone.

I've wandered quite a distance from Kelly and Reggie and now find myself near the gate. I'm startled to find that a small group of Players is standing there. They're silent as night, their dead, black eyes staring blindly in at me. The sun is setting behind them, a large orange ball of fire, and it makes them look like plastic cutout shapes. I count at least ten of them.

“
Sister Jane?” I call, trying to be as quiet as I can.

She'd gone off to gather more of the plants to make more poultice for when Kelly wakes. Brother Walter and Micah aren't anywhere in sight.

The Players moan at the sound of my voice and grow restless. This lasts only a couple seconds before they settle down again.

Something shiny flashes in one of the Player's hands, and for a moment I think it's a knife. I can't really see what it is from this distance, not with the sun behind them. But as I draw closer, I realize it's too small to be a knife. It fits entirely within the Player's fist, only one corner showing. Curious, I walk closer.

The hill is quiet, just the late afternoon wind and the early evening bugs. There's no hum of electricity; the current is still off. Thankfully, the gate is closed and latched. I supposed if they'd wanted to, they could've opened it and come in. If their Operators wanted them to. If Arc wanted them to. But they just wait. They seem almost… embarrassed.

I stop a good four or five feet away from them, well out of their reach should the fence suddenly disappear. A faint musky, synthetic smell wafts off of them. Their clothes are thick denim. They're dressed just like the one Micah and I had encountered down in the parking lot. Like the ones we'd found scattered about here when we first arrived, their necks snapped by Matthew and Nicholas. Players. They all carry battle wounds, some crusted over with a thick, granular substance that reminds me of brown sugar, some weeping a yellowish amber-like fluid. This is what I smell, their wounds.

I'm not sure how long I stand there, staring, inspecting them while they let me. I don't recognize any of them from the show. But then again, I was never much of a fan of
Survivalist
. How many Players are there in this place, I wonder. Hundreds? Thousands?

More likely tens of thousands.

“
Why are you standing way over here?” I ask them, speaking barely above a whisper. “What do you want? Do I let you in?”

They look like they're guarding us.

The closest ones shuffle their feet and moan at the sound of my voice. The rest follow suit, like a ripple spreading across the surface of a lake. But then they grow silent and still.

How does the control thing work?
I wonder. Is there some sort of delay?

I wave my hand in front of one of them.

It lurches forward and I pull back with a yelp, my heart yammering in my ears. But it freezes after half a step. Then it slowly pulls back, like a toy resetting.

I move over to another and repeat the wave. This one manages to complete the step and begin another before it pulls back. It's slower than the first.

Now I notice other differences. The second one has more wounds, even though it appears to be more freshly reanimated. Does that mean its Operator is slower? Is its L.I.N.C. connection to
The Game
not as fast? Or is it slower because it was slower when it was alive?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of them looks old enough to have reached its life expectancy. They were probably murders in life and were sentenced to early LSC.

The last one in the front row has only one visible wound, an inch-long flap of muscle hanging from its left cheek. This one is muscular and still has most of its hair. I wave my hand in front of its nose. It barely flinches. The connection between it and the Operator must be very strong and very fast.

I've been watching that new Player.
Tanya's voice, from the bus ride back from Hartford. The day I'd gone to Citizen Registration to report my Link missing and to get a temporary replacement.
What a hunk. I bet he was a hottie when he was still alive. People say he's going to outlast any Player that ever played
The Game
. There's a rumor he was a Volunteer.

Standing four feet away from them, I can say with every assurance, if they're not murderers, then they're Volunteers.

“
How much did they pay you?” I ask it. I can feel my bitterness rising up inside of me, my anger. What happened to that money? Did it go to pay for some poor child's hospital bills? Did this Player have children it left behind?

How could anyone just leave their family like that?

“
They've left for much less,” I whisper.

Now I look deeper into its eyes, past the point of fear, deep inside to where I know there's someone living looking back out at me. “How much did you pay for him?” I ask. “Two million? Three?”

The Player doesn't move. It doesn't answer. It just stands there staring. I imagine the Operator sitting there in his or her cybernetic setup, looking at me, amused, curious, like I'm some kind of exotic bug. Maybe even tempted to let go of the controls. For just a second. To scare me. See what I'll do. To show me that it's better than I am because he's richer and I'm nothing.

“
How much!” I scream at it, suddenly furious. “How much did you pay!”

My voice slams off the buildings behind me and sweeps back. The Players all step forward as one, all open their mouths and moan, and for just a moment they are nothing more than IUs, uncontrolled, driven only by that instinctive hunger. They attack the fence, their fingers reaching through, as if they could separate themselves from the bodies that are too large to squeeze through. Reaching, straining, wanting to tear into my flesh. I hold my ground and abruptly they draw back again and are quiet.

“
What the hell are you doing?” Reggie hisses into my ear, startling me. He appears at my side, grabbing my arm, pulling me away.

But then I see the shiny object I'd noticed earlier in the player's hand. It had dropped it when I yelled. Now I can see what it is. Cautiously, I bend down and reach my hand through.

“
Jessie, get the hell away from there.” Reggie tries to pull me away again, but I resist.

The Players don't attack. My fingers close over the object. I pull it in. I see the message Ben left for me on it, but that's not why I try to hide it from Reggie. He reaches over and gently pries opens my fingers, because he knows. He saw what it was. He knows it's Ashley's Link. He's seen the blood on it.

His hand closes over it and he clutches it to his chest and falls to his knees. “Ah God,” he cries. “Oh God, Ashley!
ASHLEY!
”

And on the other side of the fence, the Players raise their voices and sing along their moaning death song. But their despair is not like Reggie's. They cry out of hunger. They have fed, but they are hungry still.

Reggie weeps and the sun goes down and the sky begins to bruise. And suddenly the world is a very small place. But all I see before me, all I know, is those words Ben left for me to find on Ashley's Link. They crowd the world and fill every corner, every niche:

<< READY FOR PART 2? >>

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[END OF EPISODE SEVEN]

Two weeks. That's how long it's been.
Two weeks since our lives got flipped upside down and the shit shook out of them.

It was two weeks ago today that we drove down to lower Manhattan in Micah's old beat up Ford to check whether we could even find the opening to the Midtown tunnel. Two weeks ago we were standing at the railing, looking down and trying to see beneath the reflective surface of the water, wondering what thrills might be waiting for us.

Two weeks since Micah pushed Kelly in and he got sucked down and swept up in the current.

Shirt caught inside the tunnel. Almost drowned.

This is no place for young folks like you to be
.
This from the NCD officer who had threatened to bust us. He'd thought we were looking for a place to make out.
You should be at home enjoying the summer break.
Like we were just another gang of typical teenagers
.

If only that were true. If only we'd listened.

I remember sitting in the car on Kelly's lap, passing the Teterboro Airport, the sunlight glinting off the swampy water surrounding the hangars. The old buildings had reminded me of giant eggs ready to hatch.

And the Meadowlands, sinking away into a mosaic of green and silver.

The impossible blue of the sky.

Looking down from the elevated portion of I-95 into Central Park and Reggie howling out the window like a dog at the moon. Us laughing. Me and Kelly kissing and Ashley telling us to get a room. Ashley with her red hair. Oh God, we were all so happy.

Memories. Echoes of memories. Haunting whispers of a happiness that was all a lie.

Two weeks ago from tomorrow is when we would have gone out to the reservoir, too excited to really pay much heed to Jake as he tried to teach us how to use the rebreather systems he'd ‘borrowed' from his uncle's store. The tension in the group—between the three of us—Kelly making fun of everything Jake had said. The kid was trying so hard to fit in.

Two weeks ago he was just a boy. A boy with a boy's crush and a boyish desire to be a part of our little ‘grown-up' group. Two weeks ago he was alive.

Now he's turned into some kind of a monster—half alive or half dead. Or maybe something in-between. I don't know. I honestly don't know. Where could he have gotten to? Why would he run away if he was a zombie? Why would he hide?

Not typical behavior.

Kelly and I had gotten into a fight that morning. I can't even remember the details anymore. I don't want to remember them. Such minor, insignificant details. Not worth remembering at all.

He was too buoyant in the water, I remember that. Not enough weight on his belt and having trouble diving down. And Ashley kept forgetting to breathe only through her mouth. Losing her air. We should've stopped then. We should have stopped after she panicked the first time. Or after she panicked the second time. She'd almost drowned inside that abandoned shell of a building, down in that barren elevator shaft, the darkness pierced by the feeble beams of our flashlights. We'd thought
that
was scary.

We should have stopped. We had every opportunity to.

We had no right to continue.

Everything had happened so quickly. The planning and break in, the narrow escape coming back, Jake getting left behind and Kelly's going back without the rest of us. To be a hero. SSC kidnapping us. By then it was too late. We were in way too deep by then.