S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (106 page)

She found the text message folder and clicked it open. There were only a handful of stored messages, and, once again, most were between Links whose owners' identification codes were concealed. There were, however, two texts from
ENOCH
. The most recent one had been sent to Ben's Link almost a month prior, from about a week before Jessie had run into him. It said simply:

<<
 PACKAGE DELIVERED. WAITING PICKUP. 
>>

She didn't know to what it referred. Was it the file now on her Link?

The second text was nearly six months old, and it didn't take long for Jessie to realize that it was this message which Ashley had used to figure out how to deactivate and extract an implant device:

<< 
EMPLOY
RAPID SUCCXN EM PULSE X2 W/IN 5MIN 
>>

<< 
30MIN WNDW B4 MPLNT REBOOT 
>>

<< 
CAUXN! 3RD PULSE MAY SCRMBL FRMWR 
>>

It seemed almost too simple: Two blasts from an EM pistol within minutes of each other. They probably forced the implant to completely shut down, then reboot. By then the device would have already been extracted.

And suddenly it became clear to her why the EM pistols the Necrotics Crimes officers like her brother carried contained only enough charge to fire once every thirty minutes. It had always seemed like an arbitrary and unnecessarily dangerous limitation, certainly one that could be easily remedied with a more powerful charging system. But Arc Tech was the weapon's developer and sole manufacturer, so they controlled the specs and approved any improvements. They clearly didn't want a weapon that could destroy the implant or expose it to theft.

So where had Ashley gotten a pair of EM pistols, enough for two shots in rapid succession?

Jessie dug through the girl's backpack and found one of the weapons. She assumed it had once belonged to Ben; most of the equipment inside the bag was his. The pistol's housing had been cracked open, then wired back together again. Jessie pointed it at the wall and pulled the trigger.

She could feel the EM pulse behind her eyes, a mild itch and a sensation of fullness, as if her brain had swelled slightly. The discomfort quickly receded. If she'd been aiming the pistol toward herself, she'd be unconscious for the next half hour.

She took aim a second time and squeezed. Nothing happened. There was no soft
pop
or sensation. The weapon was out of juice.

The recharge dial on the barrel indicated that the time before next discharge was twenty-nine minutes.

Whatever Ashley had done to bypass the power restriction, she'd apparently removed it again. The modification had served its purpose.

Jessie searched through the remaining texts on Ben's Link, but they were all scrambled, presumably encrypted. One very recent text, however, contained no characters at all, only an attached image. At first, she didn't understand what it was. It appeared to be some sort of wiring schematic. She zoomed in on a notation at the very bottom:

ACCESS TO iVZ CODEX VIA ACDI BACKDOOR: DIRECT HARDWIRE IMPLANT-CONTROL CONSOLE REQUIRED. TO BYPASS DEVICE FIRMWARE FOR CONTROL EXECUTION, INPUT IMPLANT REGISTERED NAME TO SELECT IDENTIFIER CODE.

This was it. These were the instructions Ashley had used to gain access to Reggie's and Kelly's implants and assume control of their bodies. If not for the firewall her grandfather had installed in Jessie's implant, Ash would've done the same to her, too.

The backdoor allowed access through what was known as the Asynchronous Communications Device Interface. ACDI was an architectural construct, and it was the foundation upon which the entire iVZ codex was built.

Architecture had been Micah's specialty.

Had he written the firewall?

It seemed likely. This had his signature all over it.

 

Blackness, that's what Jessie saw. Nothing but a vast, unbroken emptiness. And silence. There was nothing here which suggested her mother was alive.

“Mom?” she said, her voice shaking.

Nothing.

She wouldn't hear you, even if she were alive.

“She is alive,” Jessie said, as if voicing it aloud might make it true.

Fool. Don't believe it. Don't let Ashley get to you.

“Mom?”

She tried to make her move like she might make a Player move in
The Game
. She tried to make her at least open her eyes. But the darkness continued unabated. She raised her hand. She stood up. But there was nothing.

That's because she's dead.

Reluctantly, Jessie removed the goggles from her head and switched the gaming console off. She didn't want to admit that she was terribly disappointed, both in the result and in herself for falling for Ashley's trick. The girl must have known Jessie would try. Even from beyond the grave, she still managed to torment her.

Jessie wanted to hurl the headgear across the room. Rage built up inside of her, rage and disappointment, threatening to make her lose control like she had earlier.

She knew what she'd just done was wrong, and it made her even angrier. She'd known how hypocritical she was being, even as she programmed the identifier into the gaming console. Nevertheless, she had convinced herself that what she was doing was okay. All she was doing was checking. She wasn't going to actually make her mother do anything.

Except she had tried, hadn't she?

It had taken her the better part of an hour to figure out the schematics, another twenty minutes as she painstakingly reconnected the delicate wires from the implant and gained access to the inner workings of the codex. Once inside, she located the identifier code database, which consisted of millions upon millions of listings. But finding the right one had been as simple as inputting her mother's maiden name and birth date. It was so easy. The code was right there along with every other, just waiting for anyone to steal.

Even her grandfather's.

But it had all been for naught. The question of her mother's status still hadn't been answered. The blackness and silence had told her nothing. All she had done was to prove that Ashley was stronger and smarter than she was.

She supposed there was something positive to be gleaned from the brief connection she'd made. If her mother really was dead, then she hadn't yet been conscripted. She wasn't mucking about in some sewer or standing guard in some desolate outpost. Not yet, anyway.

It would've been a terrible irony if they'd turned her into a Player and set her here to find and kill Jessie. If that happened, would she be able to stop the thing that had once been her mother? Would she have the will to snap her neck?

She set the goggles back into the duffle, then extracted Ben's Link from its socket in the console. The implant dangled loosely to one side. She carefully wrapped the wires and set the unit inside.

The shoulder where Ashley had bitten her was throbbing again. She reached up and rubbed it absently. Searching through the rest of Ashley's backpack, she found a computer tablet and set it aside to check later. There was also a tube of wound ointment — probably from Ben or one of his people — and she applied the greasy medicine liberally over the open sores. It took the edge off the pain. The stiffness, however, remained.

A glance at her Link told her it was nearly midnight.

She might be asleep.

But sleep hadn't prevented Ashley from controlling Reggie. It would not have prevented Jessie from controlling her mother.

She was tempted to try again, but this time with one of the others, Eric or Kelly, just to prove that the connection could be made and was working as the schematic said it should. Surely they'd understand.

She already had their identifier codes typed in. All she'd have to do is reinsert the device and give the command.

She reached over and her fingers brushed the surface of the Link.

“No. You need to be stronger. One way or the other, you can't do anything about it anyway.”

But her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own. They slipped over the surface of the Link, skimming through directories, opening folders. She was delving deeper inside the codex than anyone had a right to.

A dialog box popped open and asked if she was sure she wanted to open the next file. Even as she tapped
YES
, she frowned. This was the first time it had asked her that.

The screen went completely blank.

“What in the—”

But a loud crash from the front of the building jolted her attention away. She threw the Link to the ground and hurried out into the darkened hallway. The automatic light sensor was smashed, a casualty of her earlier rampage. In the lobby though, between the inner and outer doors, lights blazed. The front door stood wide open, swinging back and forth. Above her, a vent rattled.

“Just the wind.”

But the wind couldn't turn doorknobs.

“Hello?”

She'd never felt so alone in her entire life. Alone, yet anything but.

The shut doors to several of the other rooms rattled in their frames, as if people were inside trying to get out.

Just the storm
.

Or Live Players.

“I have a gun!” she yelled.

There was no answer.

Her mind considered the dead in the woods surrounding the compound. Had they somehow managed to get in?

She thought about Ashley. Now she regretted not doing to her what she'd done to Master Rupert. Would she come back? Had she been infected when Rupert's bone impaled her arm?

Should've broken her neck.

It was too late now.

The inner door slammed shut, pitching her into darkness, rendering her blind until her eyes adjusted to the new gloom. The feeble light from the room behind her was only a dim patch on the wall and floor, and it didn't illuminate much.

Step after agonizing step, she approached the front.

She felt the knob tremble in her palm, felt the resistance as the wind wrestled her for ownership of the door. With some effort, she managed to get it open again, flooding her and the hallway behind with light.

The reception area was empty.

“The wind. That's all. Just the wind.”

It howled defiantly outside.

Jessie took hold of the outer door and began to push it closed. This time she'd be sure to latch and lock it. The wind pounded at her, whipping her hair about her face. The knob was slick with rain and she lost her grip, wrenching her wrist and spinning her around. The edge caught her injured shoulder and she collapsed to her knees as her legs went to mush.

“Son of a bitch!” she screamed.

The door slammed against the wall with a terrible noise, then rebounded. Jessie drew back to avoid getting hit. Outside, the storm roared. Rain whipped in, dousing the carpet, spraying her.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and for a fraction of a second she thought she saw someone standing out there, arms extended, their fingers splayed in yearning. Thunder crashed over her, a living thing with weight, roiling and cursing, rattling its celestial chains and shredding the clouds until they fell to the earth in a million tiny pieces.

Another bolt, distant this time, and in the afterglow, Jessie saw that the figure was only a tree.

She hadn't realized how loud the storm had grown. The rain wasn't as heavy anymore, but it was blowing in parallel to the ground, first in one direction, then another.

Jessie stood and caught the door to steady it. She stared out into the squall, her wet hair whipping about her neck. Several more bolts of lightning lit up the night, but like the last, these were distant, their thunder muted by the wail of the wind.

In the distance, weakly illuminated by the security lamps, she could see the diaphanous veil of the chain link fence. Beyond it, the woods were a ribbon of black so complete that it seemed a chasm between the earth and the charcoal sky above.

Another gust buffeted her, rocking her back a step. She decided she'd had enough fresh air and began to shut the door. The fence would hold. And as long as the power remained on, it would send its lethal charge through it and keep her safe.

The moaning sound — it had been there all along, a low rumble, half whistle, half groan — suddenly grew into a fierce shriek. It lifted the hair on her neck and froze her in place.

It's just the wind.

But it was unlike any wind she'd ever heard before.

It charged up the hill, getting louder as it came. It roared through the trees, snapping the strong and diseased alike. She could hear them crashing to the ground, could feel the earth shudder beneath her feet. It was like a thousand elephants stamping their way to her.

The wind reached the fence and passed through it like a spirit. Jessie could only see the wire shudder a moment before the tempest was upon her, a black shadow so huge it felt as if the world had fallen into a hole. The wind stripped the door from her grip and flung her hard against the counter. Her feet slipped on the slick surface and she fell. With a screech of tearing metal, the entire building began to quake.

Then, just as suddenly, the wind reversed direction and sucked her forward.

Jessie scrabbled for something to grab. The door clipped her thigh and slammed shut with such force that it would have taken off a hand or foot if they'd been in the opening. The frame splintered and the door was suddenly gone, sucked out into the night.

Jessie lost her grip then. Screaming, she flew out through the opening and landed on the grass. She turned in time to see the corner of the roof peel away like the lid from a sardine can. A moment later it slammed back down again.

She managed somehow to get back inside, but knew she couldn't stay. Half the roof was gone. Windows were exploding in the rooms. Foam tiles were falling like leaves from the ceiling.

Back in the room, she had an unobstructed view of the clouds through the girders. An air duct crumpled and crashed to the floor.

She stuffed what she could carry into the duffle bag and backpack. Then, dodging panels as they fell, she slung everything onto her back.