S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (46 page)

Kelly finishes his a few seconds later. He tosses the tray away, then goes over and lifts Ashley onto Reg. He struggles a bit, even though she can't weigh but a hundred pounds, probably half of Reggie's weight. After she's secure, he goes over and gets Tanya in a position where he can lift her.

I can feel the strength returning to my muscles after the Insta-Meal. I go and grab the remaining ones from the cart and stuff them into my pack.

Tanya's body is dead weight, but Kelly manages to get her onto Stephen's back. He straps her on piggyback. Stephen staggers beneath her weight, but doesn't fall.

“
Deal with it,” Kelly says. “And don't drop her.”

We take turns pushing the wheelchair with its double burden. It's hard going and the front wheels keep wanting to flip sideways. Still, it's probably a hell of a lot easier than carrying them. Barely five minutes into the return walk and sweat is pouring off Stephen's face.

“
You okay over there?” I ask him. Kelly makes a sound of disgust, but doesn't say anything. “I just don't want him dropping her.”

“
He won't, if he wants to keep all his body parts.”

I shine the light at Stephen's face, but he doesn't even flinch. Sweat drips from his nose and chin. His hair is plastered against his neck and his skin has taken on a waxy sheen.

“
We'll be lucky if he doesn't have a heart attack,” I say.

“
Be lucky if he does,” Kelly mutters.

 

We return to Jake
and Micah nearly two and a half hours after leaving them. As soon as Jake sees our flashlight he comes running back to meet us.

“
Took you guys long enough,” he cries.

I try not to snap at him as I pass.

“
Looks like somebody made a full recovery,” Kelly mutters. He raises his voice and says, “You could offer to help one of us instead of just standing there, Pukeboy!”

I've got Ashley's arm slung over my shoulder, supporting her as she stumbles along beside me. She had started recovering about a half mile back and only in the last thirty minutes or so has she been strong enough to walk. My side and back are sore and my arms feel like jelly. I'd laugh at Kelly's name for Jake, but I'm too tired.

Kelly's helping Reggie. That's a hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle. Same story: walking but still weak. His face contorts under the strain. Only Tanya's still completely out of it. Stephen's pushing her in the wheelchair. His fingers are curled around the back of the seat, his knuckles white. He steps and pushes, steps and pushes, his head down, like he's deep in thought.

“
Let me take Ashley,” Jake offers.

I shake my head. We're so close now that I want to finish this. Giving up now would be like admitting I'm weak.

“
Take the gun,” I tell him. He hesitates, then reaches over and tentatively pulls it free from my waistband, obviously sensitive to Kelly's withering glare. Again: under different circumstances, I might have found it amusing.

“
Are you sure you don't want me to take Ash instead?”

“
Damn it, Jake! Just do it!” I grit my teeth. Thirty feet. That's as far as I have to go before we can rest.

“
I tried pinging you,” he says, following alongside. “You guys were taking so long. But I think my Link's fried. It keeps sending me this error message.”

“
It's not fried, Pukeboy,” Kelly snaps. “It's because we're near the EM. The signal's scrambled.”

“
Oh. Stop calling me that.”

“
Pukeboy.”

“
Kel!” I roll my eyes. “Micah's still out?”

He's still lying on the floor, snoring like a baby. I lower Ashley to the floor next to him. She crumples with a moan, her eyelids fluttering. A moment later Kelly drops Reggie next to her.

Micah's IV bag dangles from an old electrical bracket protruding from the wall. It's completely dry. I'm certain I clamped it off back in the terminal, after knocking him out with Ash's sedative. I remember checking it again when we left the tram to come back.

“
Did you touch this, Jake?”

He shakes his head. I hurriedly check Micah's pulse. It's a bit slow, but strong. Last thing I'd want right now is for him to OD because of my carelessness.

“
Hey!” Kelly shouts, startling the crap out of me. We look up and catch Stephen disappearing down the tunnel, still pushing Tanya. “Hey, asshole, where are you going? Stop! Where the hell does he think he's going?”

“
Stephen,” I yell, “we're resting now!”

I run over to him and stand in front. The chair bumps into my shins. Only then does he stop.

“
What the hell?”

His face is completely blank. There's not a trace of emotion on it, no pain or fatigue. Nothing.

“
Hey,” Kelly says, grabbing his collar and shaking him. Stephen blinks once. “When we tell you to stop, you stop. Do you understand? I said, do you under—”

Slowly, Stephen nods.

“
Christ,” Jake says. “What's up with him? It's like he's—”

“
Shut up, Jake,” I say, but the same thought has crossed my mind. It's like he's a zombie.

“
What's up with him is the same thing that's up with me and Jess,” Kelly snaps. “We're freaking exhausted. We haven't been sitting on our asses for the past two hours!”

“
Hey!”

“
We'll rest for a few minutes,” I say, “but not too long. That guy I heard talking last night is probably on his way here on foot right now.”

I go over and sit down, glancing back once to make sure Stephen doesn't move. He just stands there like he's brain dead or something.

“
As soon as the others can walk on their own,” Kelly says, jerking his head in the direction of Long Island, “we'll get the hell out of this place.”

“
Good, because I'm getting really sick of tunnels,” Jake grumbles. He flops to the floor beside me. Kelly looks down and frowns. “They give me the creeps.”

“
You and me both, Jake,” I say.

Kelly sneers and gets up and walks off.

“
Where's he going?” Jake asks.

“
Must have to go take another leak,” I answer. I'm sick of having to deal with petty jealousies.

† † †

“How much further,” Ashley complains. It's the first thing out of her mouth since we started up again nearly two hours ago—first
coherent
thing, anyway. Other than Micah mumbling, there hasn't been much talk at all. The claustrophobic darkness of the tunnel and the unsettling way our footsteps echo and our breathing seems to be amplified all make us uneasy. I strain my ears, listening carefully for clues we're being followed. So far, there's been no indication we are.

“
My feet are sore.”

I glance over and give Ash a dirty look, though I doubt she can see it in the gloom. Kelly's in front with the flashlight and all we have is the glow from our Links to keep the shadows at bay. Hell, I can barely even make out Stephen and he's right next to me pushing Micah in the wheelchair. I can hear him, though, the dry rattle of his breathing and the squeak the chair has picked up in the past ten minutes. The sounds are really starting to get on my nerves.

Reggie and Jake bring up the rear, Tanya slung between them. She's conscious, but still completely useless. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was faking it. The suspicion makes me feel a little guilty. She looks miserable. But then again, we all do.

I know I'm responsible for her being in this situation. Me and no one else. Arc had been monitoring the Stream for pings to Kelly and when I met Tanya on the bus coming back from Hartford the day I applied for my replacement Link. I'd used hers to see if Kelly had come back from rescuing Jake. That's the only reason she's here, because I'd borrowed her Link. It's the only reason she was kidnapped and why she's had a new implant put inside her brain. It's the only reason she's now trapped here on Long Island with us. And it's the only reason Arc planned to inject her with whatever Stephen injected into me on the tram.

I reach up and feel my neck again. The bleeding there has stopped and formed a hard, crusty scab. Whatever the alpha treatment is—whatever was inside that syringe—it still doesn't seem to have had any effect on me.

Yet.

“
Can we rest?” Ashley asks.

Really?
What does she have to complain about? At least she's got shoes on—brand new ones, even. I'm back to being barefoot, since I returned Tanya's shoes. They were killing me anyway, squishing my toes together, giving me blisters. Thankfully, the floor of the tunnel isn't all that bad. Or maybe it's because the bottoms of my feet are covered in such a thick layer of greaser and grime that I might not even feel it if I did happen to step on something sharp.

“
Stuffy,” Ash says. “Hot.” And when I don't answer, she moves up to see if Kelly will give her any sympathy.

When the others aren't looking, I slip the inhaler from my pocket and take a hit. My grandfather's words come back to me:
You're special, Jessie. You need that medicine so you won't get sick.
It's just wishful thinking, I know, but it does make me feel better, and you know what they say about healing: it's fifty percent psychological.

Kelly keeps dropping back to ask me how I'm feeling. He touches my forehead, checks my eyes. I can see the wonder in his eyes. He's puzzled too. Nobody else knows yet. Neither of us has said anything to them.

But we'll have to. Soon.

Eventually.

Maybe.

I look over at Stephen. He hasn't spoken in at least three hours now. He just keeps walking, stepping and pushing, like a machine.

“
We should be trying to get some information from him,” Reggie says, startling me.

I shrug. I'm too tired to even think about it.

“
Hey, asshole,” he calls. His voice raps off the walls. They hurt my ears. “You can make this easier on yourself if you'd just talk to us.”

Stephen doesn't answer. I hadn't expected him to.

“
Who the fuck gives a crap about him?” Jake says.

I turn and glare at him.

“
Ignore the kid,” Reggie advises. “We're all tired and hungry.”

“
And my head is god damn killing me,” Jake complains.

Great, another complainer.

I don't feel very sorry for him or for Ash. We're all feeling terrible. There's no sympathy left inside any of us for someone else's whining.

Finally, just as it feels like we can't go any further, the light changes. We reach the tunnel opening and step out into the airport terminal. I quickly gesture at everyone to stop and keep quiet. “Let's check things out first.”

“
I told you we shouldn't have left those two here like that,” Jake grumbles. “They probably got loose five minutes after we left.”

“
Somebody tell him to shut up,” Kelly whispers.

He and Reggie offer to scope it out, leaving us hidden in the darkness of the tunnel. When they return twenty minutes later, they report that the baggage claim area where we'd left the two Arc employees is completely empty.

Reggie shows us the bindings we'd used. “Bet they went upstairs to check on Nurse Bitch,” he says.

“
They'll be in for quite a surprise.”

“
This is not good,” Jake says, shaking his head.

“
What's the worse they can do?” Kelly asks. “It's not like they can communicate with anyone outside the barrier—”

“
Not that we know of,” Jake counters.

We all have to concede that point. As far as we've been able to determine, our Links won't function across the EM, but who's to say Arc hasn't worked out a way to overcome that barrier. In fact, given their business here, it's probably safer to assume they have the means to do practically anything they want.

“
We know nobody escaped through the tunnel,” Kelly says. “We would've known. This is the only way in or out of LI now that the other tunnels are gone.”

“
Again, I wouldn't assume that.”

“
Yeah,” Ashley says. “What about Volunteers? And equipment?”

Nobody answers her. Nobody wants to talk about Volunteers.

Kelly turns to Jake. “Fine. What do you think we should do? We can't leave.”

“
We can't stay either.”

“
So we wander around the island until someone finds us?”

“
No, we get Stephen to tell us how to defeat the failsafe mechanism.”

“
We will,” I say. “But we need a place to hole up.” I gesture at Micah. “He's still too weak to do much running.”

“
I agree,” Reggie decides. “We do what Jessie says. She's in charge.”

Jake looks surprised. He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.

“
Let's go back upstairs then.” Everyone nods.

I don't know why they've chosen me to become their leader. I don't know if it's because I was the one who managed to escape and rescue everyone. Anyone in my shoes would've done the same. Or maybe it's because I'm no longer burdened by the new implants. Well, neither is Kelly, but he's never tried to be a leader of our group.