S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (117 page)

The dead. That's what this is, an outbreak.

But where were the vehicles from Eric's unit? Where was Eric?

She put her hand on the door handle. She needed to help Kelly. He was looking for her son.

Did he go back inside?

She couldn't remember.

She pushed the door open and the smell of gunpowder assaulted her nose, made her eyes sting. She lifted a foot out and set it on the ground. It didn't feel very stable. God, she was so tired.

Another crash, this time behind her. Someone was shouting.

Pop pop pop!

Screaming.

She pulled her other foot out the door, then stood up. She had to lean against the car, she was so out of breath. And her balance was off. And her back hurt so terribly much.

Another crash, right next to her. A car burst into flames.

Stop it!
she wanted to yell. People were crazy, driving around like maniacs.

Tearing up the grass.

POP POP POP!

Smoke rose from the buildings.

Someone drove into the hospital?

She heard someone moaning.

“Kelly?” she panted. Where the heck did he go? “Jessie? Eric?”

They're all inside.

She took a step away from the car, and the buildings retreated from her, shrinking away out of reach like a balloon suddenly deflating.

She stumbled over to another car and pressed herself against the hood.

Jessie?

Her knees gave out and she collapsed.

Above her, the clouds were white bits of confetti, shredded by the winds which ushered out last night's storm.

In town, the noon bell tolled.

And nearby, someone moaned.

 

“Twelve o'clock you said?” Grant Pearson had situated himself on the carpeted step at the front of the choir so he could keep an eye on Jessie. He glanced at the pair of Links on the floor by his side; one was his, the other hers. “It's five past.”

The network's still down, Jessie.

The pistol swung loosely in his hands, but she knew it would only take a fraction of a second for him to aim it and fire. “Where's your ping?”

“The network's still down.”

He picked up one of the Links and thumbed it to check. “Convenient, don't you think?”

“It's not my fault.”

“No, it's mine for falling for it.”

His eyes dropped to the struggling form on the floor, and the pistol stopped swinging. The muzzle was pointed at Micah's head.

“He can feel it,” Jessie hurriedly said. “He can feel when his Operator is connected.”

Grant's frown turned deeper. He was losing his patience.

“Look, I can prove it.”

“How?”

“Whisper something to him. He'll tell me what it is.”

Grant chuckled. “With the acoustics in this building? No, but that does give me an idea.” He stood up and walked over to Micah and held the screen of his Link in front of his face, hiding it so Jessie couldn't see. Micah began struggling, but the voice in Jessie's head was calm and clear.

“Three girls,” she told Grant. “They're all pretty.”

“Lucky guess. But you already knew about them.”

“The middle one's wearing a red shirt. She's taller than the rest, or higher up, anyway. I'm guessing that's your wife.”

Grant narrowed his eyes at her. “It doesn't prove anything.”

“God, you're so bullheaded!”

He checked his Link again, then strode over to one of the windows and peered out through a crack. “Time's up.”

“Five more minutes,” Jessie begged.

He shook his head. “I have a sixth sense about these things, an intuition. The others are closing in.”

“And isn't your intuition telling you I'm telling the truth? Please, you have to believe me.”

He pushed away from the wall. In less than three steps he was standing just a few feet away from her, the pistol a bridge between them. “I don't have to believe you,” he finally said. “I only have to believe my intuition. And right now, it's telling me time's up.”

“But—”

He stuck the gun into the holster on his hip. “Grab your pack.”

“You do believe me?”

“That's irrelevant.”

“You're letting me go?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“I don't understand. Where are you taking me?”

He shook his head. “I'm not taking you anywhere. I'm sticking with you, at least until the Stream comes back on.”

 

The former senator from the State of Ohio, Lawrence Abrams, sits in a back booth of a tiny diner on the outskirts of Santa Fe in the Coalition state of New Mexico and orders two cups of coffee, one with cream and sugar, the other straight out of a carafe that's probably been incubating since the breakfast rush died down a couple hours before. He's come during the dead time just before lunch.

When the cups arrive, he pushes the muddy java across the table to the empty seat, then takes a sip from his own. He winces at the bitter taste and waits. He wears a troubled look on his face, put there by the stories he's been hearing on the black streams.

“Get you anything to eat, sweetie?” the waitress asks, startling him out of his reverie. She's a good twenty years younger than he is, at least has the breasts and waist of a woman less than half his age, though the crows feet around her eyes and lips suggest the years she's been on the planet have not been easy ones. He figures she's had three — no, four — kids already, most likely all of them boys. He lets the “sweetie” reference slide and gives her a smile.

“Grilled cheese,” he says. He wasn't planning on eating, but he feels sorry for her. And besides, Constipole is late, which means he probably had trouble at the border. “White bread, please.”

“Cheddar or Swiss?”

He orders the cheddar, though he'd actually prefer the old processed American cheese. He's not sure how the locals would react if he asked her for it. Most folks he's met since leaving New Merica are still terribly bitter about being expelled from the States.

He's nibbled away half of the congealed sandwich when Constipole slides into the other seat. Both coffees are cold by then, though since this is Abrams's second he doesn't really mind.

“How's Sandy?”

“Resting.” It's not an answer, nevertheless it conveys a message to change the subject that Constipole doesn't seem to get.

“The chemo?” the man asks.

Abrams nods curtly.

“Sir, you should consider taking her to China. They've made some amazing breakthroughs there with this particular kind of cancer.”

“No.”

“It's her decision, too.”

“This
is
her decision.” He looks at his old friend and he knows his eyes are haunted; he sees it every morning when he looks in the mirror.

Constipole swallows some of the coffee and grimaces. “Sorry.”

But Abrams has already moved on. “What have you heard?”

“The collapse is accelerating.”

“We knew that would happen.”

“No, it's going even faster than we predicted. Significant Stream outages have hit at least a dozen major metropolitan areas. Outbreaks have been reported in over forty locations, and those are just the ones we know about. Arc keeps sending mixed messages about deactivating assets— do it, don't do it. It's very confusing.” He sighs in frustration. “Civil labor departments are starting to take the initiative on their own and are mothballing them until they can be sure.”

“Without Arc's permission?” He looks surprised.

“And Arc isn't cracking down on them.”

“Casualties?”

“Most jurisdictions have been able to contain incidents within hours of a failure. So far, infections have been limited. Mostly, anyway.”

“Mostly?”

Constipole sets down his cup unnecessarily hard, and the spoon rattles as it tumbles off the saucer onto the table. Abrams notices that the man's hands are shaking. “We just learned that Greenwich is in a level three situation. And it doesn't appear to have been started by a typical breach. The source of the virus doesn't trace back to an Arc asset.”

“Greenwich? Please tell me it's just a coincidence.”

“We have few details. In fact, we have almost nothing except a report that it started at the hospital. Local PD let slip over an open frequency that it may have been a patient who reported to the ER with a fever. Several people were exposed before anyone realized what was happening. By then it was already out of control.”

“Son of a bitch,” Abrams utters under his breath. “If it's the hospital, that means the Stemple woman was involved.”

“We don't know that, sir. Not yet, anyway.” He adds another spoonful of sugar to the lukewarm coffee and stirs it in. “With the network down, there's no implant control. Local NCD has been ineffective. The police refuse to deal with it. And Arc appears to be . . . .”

Abrams raised his eyebrows. “Appears to be what?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. Going dark, I guess is the best way to describe it. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're complicit. Their execs are either hunkering down or fleeing the country. Either way, no one's trying to stop anything.”

“And the girl? Do we extract her?”

“I think we wait till she has the package.”

Abrams shakes his head. “We may not have time for that, not if the contingency is accelerating.”

“Should I give the order then?”

He sighs. “You know I dislike taking such extreme measures, not unless I know for sure it'll prevent even worse from happening.”

“We may not have another opportunity.”

The former senator from Ohio, a state in a country which no longer resembles the one he once served, finishes the last bite of his sandwich. The cheese has turned to rubber, and the bread is dry. He carefully wipes the crumbs from his fingers and nods.

“Do it.”

Constipole nods and pulls out his cell phone and keys in the order.

“It's done,” he says. Then he gets up and leaves.

 

Grant Pearson, who spent most of his days inside an air conditioned office in upper Manhattan recommending corporate stocks to international investors (through shell accounts, since it was illegal to deal with foreign money), stared down at the girl's body he was straddling. He'd broken her neck with a quick twist, surprised at how easy it had been. After counting to twenty, he gently lowered her to the road, then straightened up and wiped the sweat from his face.

The mix of feelings he experienced surprised him. In all of his time playing
Zpocalypto
, he'd never before felt any qualms about killing. Not even in the past six months he'd spent as an Operator in
The Game
.

This, however, was totally different. Slaying someone with your own bare hands wasn't something you could ever understand using proxies.

He thought he'd relish the moment, but he hadn't. Not at all.

The delicate neck had snapped like a dry twig, instantly ceasing any and all movement.

He stood over her motionless form for several more seconds and focused on letting the emotions pass from him, but they lingered with the stubbornness of a bad migraine headache. He was puzzled mostly by the sense of remorse he felt. He didn't like to admit that the girl who had become his target in this unexpected and surreal twist had affected him more deeply than he'd realized.

As he gazed down at the body, he tried not to force his thoughts. They would clear eventually. But for the moment, what plagued him was the truth that this girl had once been someone's daughter, possibly even a sister. Once, she had had friends, might even have had a lover.

She had had a name.

And a home.

All gone now. It was all gone.

You're getting sentimental in your old age.

He scolded himself, reminding himself that letting his feelings take control of his thoughts was a weakness he couldn't afford in a place such as this. Emotions were distractions, and sometimes those distractions could be fatal. In fact, they would almost certainly be fatal. It was just a matter of time. There were simply too many dangers here to let his guard down.

He swung his leg over the body and turned her over with the toe of his boot. He didn't want to look at her face anymore. That face, which in no way resembled his own daughters' faces, yet called them to mind nonetheless. Manda and Dahlia, his two princesses. He realized now that he missed them terribly, and that coming here in the way that he had, spitefully stripping his and his soon-to-be-ex-wife's savings account to bare bones the way he had, was a stupid spiteful thing to do, a terrible, childish mistake.

He needed to go home. Now. He needed to fix things with his daughters. Maybe it was too late for him and Rachel, but he could still repair the damage they had wrought together where Manda and Dahlia were concerned.

On one side of the body lay Jessie's bo staff and her sword —
katana
, he reminded himself;
she called it a katana
 — and on the other was her backpack. He'd insisted that she drop everything here, right in the middle of the road. She'd protested, of course, though not very strenuously. She knew that he wasn't going to give her any choice in the matter.

A long stick and a sword, that's all she carried to defend herself. It made him ashamed of the pistol at his side. It made him ashamed of his freakish strength, of these hands of his which could crush so easily. He flexed them in front of his face, stretched out his fingers, then curled them under again and squeezed.

Killing should not be so easy. It should never be that easy.

He nudged the backpack, suddenly curious to see what else she'd packed inside of it. He reached down and plucked it from the road. It was heavy, but by the way the contents rattled around, he knew it wasn't all just food and water.