Z 2134 (12 page)

“OK then,” he said, falling into his
chair and resting a hand on his knee. “It’s decided then.
This
is how it
shall be.”

Each word sounded more threatening than
the one before it. By the time Keller whistled the end of the
be,
Ana
was shaking.

Change your story.

Tell him what you know!

Save yourself — it’s not like you know
where Liam is. He’s a big boy. He can handle this a hell of a lot better than
you or Adam!

Just tell Keller what he wants to know!

Ana, suddenly proud to be her father’s
daughter again, for the first time since the bottom of his boots were covered
in her mother’s blood, shook her head. “I told you everything I know.”

“OK, Princess,” Keller stood. “Looks like
we have our newest Darwin Games player. And good thing, you’re just in time. A
new game starts tomorrow.”

“What?” Ana said, falling back in her
bed.

“You don’t want to cooperate with us,”
Keller shrugged. “That’s fine, we understand. But there are examples to set,
and we must set them. So we’ll be putting you somewhere where your poor
decisions are on full display for the benefit of the entire City to learn
from.”

“I told you!” she screamed. “I don’t know
anything. I wasn’t in that fucking church!”

“I’m sure,” he said, turning from Ana and
stepping through the sliding door.

“You can’t just put me in The Games, you
have to try me in court first!”

Keller turned back, smiling.

“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t.
Suspected traitors can’t be put on the stand without compromising City
security. You’re guilty as charged, declared by me.”

She screamed, “You can’t do that!” as
Keller turned halfway through the door and smiled.

“I can and did. Enjoy your final night of
freedom, Ms. Lovecraft. Tomorrow we have a daughter following in her daddy’s
footsteps for the first time in the history of City 6. Fans will love that, and
you. Who knows, maybe you’ll even make it to City 7, so you can reunite with
your murdering daddy. I bet you two have
so much
to catch up on.”

Keller left laughing, while Ana stayed
inside her cell screaming, at first into her pillow, and then at the walls,
which echoed her anger.

Even when she stopped screaming out loud,
Ana couldn’t silence her mind.

Who will protect Adam?

Two days
earlier…

J
onah imagined the clean efficiency of
the City 7 hospitals and smiled. No waiting, no assembly-line medicine — true
rest and whole-body healing was just another short van ride away.

Every part of Jonah’s body ached from its
inside-out beating, but there was solace in knowing that was now part of
yesterday’s worry. City 7 had soft beds and strong medicine. Jonah would be
healed, back to himself, and better than ever in no time. He might even feel
something close to normal — or as normal as he could following the murder of
his wife and destruction of his family.

While Jonah was thrilled that he’d won
The Darwin Games, he wasn’t entirely surprised.

He had seen enough Games from beginning
to end to believe he would make it to the middle rounds at least, and had
believed it from the second he was tossed outside The Wall. Once Jonah made it
to the middle, he figured there was a reasonable shot of his seeing the Final
Six. Once there, Jonah
knew
he would eventually be facing off against
Bear.

But he never believed he could kill Bear,
at least not until he knew that he had to.

He had, and his life was saved. Jonah had
earned a new dawn at City 7.

It’s what he had fought for, bled for,
and what he deserved.

What Jonah didn’t deserve was the
reputation that would follow him into the coveted City, where he would be
forced to live the remainder of his life without any hope for repair. He could
never return to City 6 or prove to his family, friends, and loved ones that he
wasn’t a monster.

That made City 7 a prison, despite its
presentation as a paradise. No one ever left City 7. You lived in luxury but
never returned. Leaving was impossible, at least according to legend.

Jonah had never been to City 7 himself
but knew its history well, like everyone else. Much like the Australia of the
old world a half millennia before, City 7 was initially settled by convicts — all
of them former winners of the Darwin Games.

Rehab facilities inside City 7 were the
best in The State, turning many of The City’s convicts into productive members
of the almost-Utopian society.

The entire City was practically one giant
Arcade, and despite the one-time criminal population, or perhaps because of it,
City 7 was said to be freer than any other City in The State even though there
were some rules and it still operated within The State. It was such a paradise
that many lined up to willingly enter the Darwin Games in hopes of winning a
new life in City 7.

Jonah was heading into City 7 carrying a
handicap none of the other winners had to tote behind them. He was former City
Watch, which meant he’d put thousands of citizens away during his decorated
career. Some of those citizens had entered The Games, and a few even made it
out alive and into City 7. Jonah had lost track of the winners over the years,
mostly because he didn’t want to know.

Now he had to.

He would be a marked man.

He figured The Darwin Games were aired in
City 7, and word of his exploits, and past, had undoubtedly made their way to
prior City 6 winners.

They saw him battle.

The saw him nearly surrender.

They saw him finally triumph.

Some of the men in City 7 would love
Jonah. Most would hate him. Some would want him dead. Perhaps City 6 winners
would be so pleased with their new lives, far better than their old lives, that
they’d be thankful for his part in their destiny.

He could hope, anyway.

He would need to make friends, though.
Because he had big plans. Plans to expose City corruption, and perhaps bring
City 7’s freedom to all the Cities.

The van finally stopped and Jonah smiled,
now just scant seconds away from laying eyes on a new life he never thought
he’d see. The door opened, and Jonah stepped from the van, spinning in a
circle, confused.

He expected to see the rising spires of
City 7, like he’d seen at the beginning and end of every Darwin Games broadcast
since he was a boy. Yet there were no rising spires or wide asphalt streets
dipping like gleaming black knolls from the near horizon to the ocean vista.

Instead, they were in the middle of
nothing but woods, just as they’d been since leaving The Wall of City 6. A small
shack, maybe an outhouse, lay about a hundred feet away — the only thing in
sight not made by nature.

“Where are we?” Jonah turned to the first
driver.

Before the first driver could answer, the
second pulled the trigger on his dart gun. Jonah dropped to the dirt, his eyes
already woozy.

“Welcome to City 7,” the second driver
said.

Jonah woke with a start, lying on the
cold floor of an empty-feeling room, draped in darkness. His heart pounded as
he braced for impact of anything or anyone, living or undead.

He rose from the floor, woozy and head
spinning, then realized from his movement’s echo and his foot brushing the base
of a wall in front of him as his hand hit the side wall, he was in a narrow,
confined space. Jonah’s mind was surfacing from its bog surprisingly fast,
considering he’d been shot with a coma dart, as the drugged darts regularly
used by both Watchers and Darwin Games producers were not-so-affectionately
called. He flashed back to the last thing he’d seen as he was passing out — the
small wooden building.

He wondered why he’d been brought out to
the middle of nowhere instead of City 7. One of the men had said, “Welcome to
City 7.” Jonah wondered if that was the driver’s way of saying that City 7 was
all a lie. The hopeful part of him, the part that had been clinging to the
beautiful paradise on TV since the second he was sent outside The Wall, refused
to even consider that City 7 was anything but reality, though.

It has to be real.

This has to be some other part of the
show or something.

Or maybe they just couldn’t let ME into
City 7. Maybe they knew what I was planning for when I got there.

But that didn’t make sense. If they knew
his plans, they would have simply killed him. They’d shot him with a coma dart
instead, then put him in a relatively safe place out of the elements. Why take
the time? Why make the effort? They could’ve simply shot him dead or just left
him on the ground where zombies would’ve eventually found him and finished him
for good.

If they didn’t kill him, then they didn’t
want him dead. Yet, they didn’t bring him to City 7.

Why?

Because it’s a lie, you idiot. You, and
everyone else, have been duped.

He thought back on all the countless
hours of City 7 footage he’d seen throughout the years. The shots of Kirkman
standing in front of the sprawling beaches, the montages of people having fun,
splashing in the water, relaxing on the beach, or strolling along the city’s
clean streets in its shopping district with their seemingly endless credits.

They couldn’t have faked it all, could
they?

Jonah was certain that he had seen them
show past winners arriving at City 7. Not often, but at least a few times. The
show had always explained that there was an adjustment period before new
denizens were allowed to mingle in the city, which ensured the peace. Jonah
wondered if this was some part of his “adjustment period.”

His head swam as he silently turned
around in the shack’s thick curtain of black. He kneeled to the floor then
swept his hand along the ground. It was cold and hard, a bit of debris — dirt,
twigs, and small rocks — moved beneath his fingers.

He was cold, hungry, and confused.

Jonah leaned forward, carefully
positioning himself on his knees as he reached out into the darkness, feeling
the wall in front of him as his hands searched for the door.

His right hand slid across the cold metal
of a doorknob, and he twisted it slowly. He pushed at first, then realized that
the door opened inward. He pulled it open.

The door creaked much louder than he’d
wanted, spilling dim moonlight into the wooden structure. As his eyes slowly
adjusted to light, he made out the snow-covered clearing where he’d been
dropped off, and beyond that, a wide thickness of trees lining every side of
the forest.

He listened, trying to discern anything
above the sounds of the haunting wind and occasional animal noises that he’d
grown used to during the course of The Darwin Games. He heard nothing unusual,
so he slowly opened the door the rest of the way, then turned back, casting his
eyes around the small structure’s interior in hopes of finding food, supplies,
or weapons.

There was nothing.

Shit.

He stepped out of the building and looked
around. A cool breeze bit into his skin, and he wished he’d been wearing
something more than the gray coveralls and boots the network had given him.

He wasn’t just hungry, he was thirsty.
When Jonah was declared the winner, he was given a bit to drink, but it was
barely a swallow, and there wasn’t so much as a morsel of food. That already
seemed like a lifetime ago. He couldn’t remember the last thing he’d had in his
stomach — probably a handful of the wild juniper berries he’d had two days
before, which had seemed a million times sweeter than the sweetest of treats
he’d had within The Walls.

He had to find something soon.

Jonah scanned the snow for tracks, but
fresh snowfall had smoothed the forest floor.

Shit. Shit.

He reached down and scooped some fresh
snow into his hands, brought it to his lips, and swallowed, savoring the
moisture. He took one more scoop, then stopped when he heard a branch snap in
the distance. He waited for a second snap, but none came.