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

Unfortunately, the world did not know about immunity or treatments or cures. There was only Infected and Uninfected. Us and Them. It was the stark difference between carefully managed use of Reanimation technology to benefit society, and the terrifying consequences the virus yielded it left unregulated. The network was the wall.

Nobody had ever really questioned the potential for abuse. People simply accepted Arc's word that the implants were completely foolproof, both unhackable and unable to be activated while a person was still alive.

But Jessie now knew that both of these assertions were false. Arc's technology was not as invulnerable as it claimed.
That's
why she resisted getting a new implant.

She approached the front of the line with some apprehension, her eyes flicking from one person to the next. The scanner's soft beeps confirmed the presence of an implant in most of the people passing through. A solid tone identified three people who didn't have one. Two were older gentlemen, nearing their LSC age. They shuffled through the gates without expression and were sent to the twenty-third floor. The third, a young girl about seven, held her mother's hand and seemed both excited and scared. Each of these individuals was ushered away with a, “Thank you for your service,” from the screener.

Jessie's skin alternated between hot and cold. Thankfully, the dull ache of apprehension in her abdomen hadn't turned into anything requiring immediate access to a restroom.

The person in front of her was scanned, passed, sent to her destination. Then it was Jessie's turn. The same woman who'd screened her just the week before, when she and Eric had come to return the replacement Link she'd been assigned after losing hers on Long Island, was there again today. There was no flicker of recognition in her eyes. She lifted her hand toward the back of Jessie's head and gestured with her fingers for her to move forward. The little handheld scanning device passed out of Jessie's view for a moment. There was a confirmatory beep and the woman nodded.

“Fourth floor. Elevator three,” she told Jessie, stabbing a finger to the screen of her computer. She waved to her right.

With a sigh of relief, Jessie stepped through the metal detector, then walked over to the crowd gathering by the elevators.

Several people got off with Jessie on the fourth floor, but only one other followed her to room 412, a woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. There was something odd about her, something that made Jessie nervous. When Jessie glanced at her, the woman quickly turned her head to the side and wouldn't meet her gaze. There was a bandage on the back of her neck and a yellow stain that suggested an infected wound. Jessie wondered if this was a new implantation that hadn't healed properly.

The woman opened the door, but wouldn't step inside. Jessie hesitated, then went in. The room was wide, though only about ten feet deep. Plastic chairs were lined up against the near wall, facing a bank of windows. All but one window were shuttered with a rolling metal barrier. A large man with bloodshot eyes sat behind the open window. The waiting area was empty.

The bandaged woman stepped directly over to a chair and sat down and stared at her knees.

The man gestured at Jessie, waving her over. “Name?” he asked.

She bent down. “Jessie— Jessica Anne Daniels. I'm—”

“Daniels? With an ‘s'?”

“Yes. I'm actually a little early. My appointment's at—”

“Have a seat. Next! You!” He crooked his fat finger at the woman.

Jessie straightened, turned. The people who worked here always seemed so impersonal, but as many times as she'd been here in recent weeks, she never seemed able to get used to it.

The woman stood up and made her way over, sidling past Jessie, though still staring at the floor.

“Young lady, please have a seat,” the man repeated, this time pointing to the chair directly opposite him. Jessie realized he was speaking to her and she took the chair indicated.

Eleven o'clock was still forty-five minutes away. Jessie hoped she wouldn't have to wait that long. She just wanted to get this over with and go home.

The woman mumbled something to the man, her mouth pressed right up against the small metal screen in the glass.

“Remove the bandage,” he instructed.

Jessie raised her eyes. She tilted her head discretely and peered through the curtain of her hair. The woman reached back and began to carefully remove the gauze pad. Strands of hair stuck to the tape, and she grimaced as she pulled on it. The man asked her how long she'd had the implant.

“Eleven years.”

“And how did it get infected?”

The woman turned her head. Her eyes met Jessie's for a moment, and just before Jessie turned away, she thought she could see terror in them.

“I  I don't know.”

“It is a federal offense to tamper with implant devices or to attempt to remove or disconnect them,” the man recited. “Implant devices are impervious to unauthorized removal. If our examination uncovers evidence of tampering, you may be held over for LSC review.”

There was a click, and a door-shaped panel in the side wall slid open. The man indicated that the woman should enter. Before she did, Jessie caught a glimpse of another person waiting inside, a man. He was wearing medical scrubs and held a computer tablet. After the woman passed through into the room beyond, the panel slid closed.

Jessie's heart was hammering in her chest.

There was no clock, so she found herself checking her Link. The minutes seemed to pass with inexorable slowness.

Her thoughts drifted. She could see Reggie standing in the doorway of his garage, looking confused and scared. Despite his denial that he had been zoning, it was the only logical explanation. How else could he explain just taking off for eight hours and leaving the Player exposed like that? It was a stupid thing to deny, but he did have a history of coming up with lame excuses for the embarrassing things he'd done over the years.

Jessie thought about him going back to Gameland in
The Game
. She knew how unlikely it was that they'd find Ashley or Jake. They were just two out of the ten thousand Undead still on the island, spread out over a thousand square miles. Even though Gameland itself covered only a tenth of that, they could spend an eternity looking and never find them.

Closure. That's why he was doing it. He'd never be able to move on until he knew for sure that Ashley was finally at rest.

And what if he actually does find her? Will he do what's necessary?

The panel in the wall opened up again. The fat man had left his window and was now waiting just inside that other room. He had his back to the door.

Jessie stood up and began to walk over. Was it time for her screening? But the man turned and gestured impatiently for her to move back. The medical attendant appeared from the side with the other woman slung around his shoulder, half dragging, half walking. She appeared to be heavily sedated.

The two men guided her out into the waiting area without speaking, though they didn't sit her down in one of the chairs. They just stopped and waited by the exit door.

Someone new had taken the fat man's seat and was quietly typing. He didn't pay any of them any attention. Jessie backed up against one of the shuttered windows and watched, her pulse throbbing in her temples.

After a few seconds, the hallway door opened, and the two men dragged the woman out of the room. Jessie leaned forward and saw that there was a gurney waiting. A third set of hands reached over and helped her onto it. Not a single word had been uttered; the procession was as silent as a funeral.

The gurney began to roll off down the hall.

“Would you mind shutting that?” the new guy asked.

Jessie stepped over. Before the door shut, she saw another woman dressed in white pushing an equipment cart after the gurney. There was a boxy instrument on top. Jessie had seen a machine just like it only a few days before. It was a conscription machine, just like the one they'd used to reanimate Micah.

‡ ‡ ‡

“Um, why exactly are we seeing you?” the attendant asked her as he ushered her into the room.

Jessie glanced up from the computer tablet he was scanning, and frowned. After what she'd just witnessed, she couldn't keep herself from imagining the worst. Her heart was racing and she was sweating, despite the air conditioning. What would they think when they saw the replacement implant the Coalition had put in? What would they do when they found out her body had rejected it?

“The federal inoculation initiative?” she answered, her voice shaking. “I missed my implant screening at school.”

The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “And they sent you here, to
this
room?” He shrugged and stood up, setting the tablet to one side and gesturing for her to sit on the stainless steel examination table. “Strange.”

There was only one other instrument in the room with them, but Jessie couldn't tell what it was for. She tried to focus on her breathing, on calming her nerves.

The man — his badge said his name was Thomas — gave her a perplexed smile. He picked up the tablet again and swiped the screen. “There's a note here to check your implant's firmware. Know anything about that?”

Jessie tried to swallow, but her mouth was completely dry. She shook her head, but all she could think about was the woman they'd seen before her.

“Well,” Thomas said, shrugging, “I guess I'll run some diagnostics. They sometimes call in random individuals for quality control purposes, make sure the control program hasn't been corrupted. If everything checks out, then I guess you should be good to go. I'll send a note up to Records confirming the implant so you don't have to come back.”

“So, this isn't because of the school screenings?”

The clerk sniffed and shrugged. “We don't do routine verifications in this office.”

“What
do
you do here?” she asked. “In this office.”

“We're
supposed
to deal exclusively with devices that have been corrupted, but lately they've been handing us some of the overflow. We've been swamped.”

“Because of the network problems?”

Thomas frowned at her. Before she could say anything else, he excused himself and exited through a second doorway. Jessie cursed silently. She knew better than to mention the rumors here! Citizen Registration employees were supposed to work for the state, but many of them were subcontractors loyal to Arc.

Thomas returned a few minutes later carrying a handheld implant scanner. He seemed to be back to his personable self.

“Just collecting your baseline, Miss Daniels.” He gave her a strained smile, then reached behind her head and passed the instrument over her neck, nodding when it beeped. Next, he repeated the sweeping gesture, except this time holding the scanner close to the tablet to transfer the information.

Jessie kept silent. She wanted to ask what would happen if they thought there was evidence of corruption, but she knew that appearing too curious would look suspicious. It was better just to keep quiet.

“Your vitals look good— blood pressure, heart rate, temperature.”

“You got all that?” She frowned in surprise.

“I know,” Thomas said, misinterpreting her confusion. “People ask me about that all the time. They think that the implants are completely inactive. I mean, that's what the ‘latent' in ‘latent individualized neural connection' means, right? They don't stop and think about how the devices are supposed to be monitoring their vitality. How else would they know if you're dead?” He chuckled and added, smiling wryly, “By the way, you're alive.”

Jessie continued to stare at him, still trying to understand.

“Is everything alright?” he asked her. “You look surprised.”

She blinked. “It's just . . . . I guess I'm still learning about what they do, how they work,” she lied. “I just had it replaced a few weeks ago.”

Thomas shook his head. “Not according to my records. Same implant identifier code. Looks like an older model number. Says here the device was inserted—” He swept a finger across the screen, tapped. “Looks like you've had it since you were three?”

Jessie reached behind her neck and frowned. The incision was a month old and the scab had fallen off, but the scar there was still fresh.

“Oh, wait,” Thomas said, nodding. He read some information on a new screen when it came up, his lips moving silently, before nodding. “Looks like there was an order to upgrade the device at New York Medical Center after an accident? Never heard of this model, though.”

“New materials,” she told him. “That's what the doctor told me.”

“That would make sense. Better biocompatibility, but . . . . Hmm. It says they tried but couldn't replace it.”

“What?”

He tapped the screen, read, tapped again. “There's only a medical code listed here, but I don't recognize it and it's not cross-referencing with anything.” He looked up at her, a strange look on his face.

“So, can I go?”

“I just need the boss to take a quick look.” He stood up again and left her alone in the cold, too-bright room.

Jessie tried to relax.
It's going to be fine
, she told herself. So why was her heart racing like crazy?

The door opened several minutes later and Thomas returned. “I need to run a couple tests. May I have your Link communication device, please?” He was all business now as he extended his hand toward Jessie, palm up.

Jessie pulled it out of her pocket and handed it over. “What's wrong?”

He didn't answer, just pulled the machine closer and inserted Jessie's Link into a slot on the side. The instrument instantly whirred to life. A screen flickered from black to white to green. When it beeped a series of rapid pulses, he tapped a button on the menu.