Gamerunner (8 page)

. . . and I completed the Roots of the Maze.

He heard Daed’s voice, as though the words were burnt into his brain.
You do exactly,
exactly
what I tell you. And in return I will continue to protect you from everything you need protecting from.

Rick opened his eyes, because he was getting dizzy. He took a deep breath and gasped at the twinge of pain in his ribs. If Daed did stop protecting me, he thought, and then deliberately bit down on his sore lip to distract himself. If —

Imagine.

But it can’t be
that
big a deal. Whatever I’ve done, it can’t be
that
serious.

Can it?

He waited until there was the click of Housekeeping signing in, and let his head roll sideways to watch the door slide open. The man with the tray — it wasn’t anyone Rick knew — raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. He crouched down and put the tray within Rick’s reach, and left again, silently.

The milkshake was brown and tasted foul. Rick managed to swallow three big gulps and then had to stumble to the bathroom to wash his mouth out. But he could think a bit more clearly now. He put some trousers on — if he’d had more guts he’d have done something about his bruises, but even the thought of it made him wince — and logged out of his room.

His body took him to the tanks, out of habit, although he only realised when he staggered on the stairs and asked himself through clenched teeth where he was going. He couldn’t play in this state, he knew that. But the instinct was too strong; and anyway where else was there to go?

The tanks were all free. He went to his favourite one, at the end, and pressed his hand against the panel to log in. It wasn’t working. He tried the one next to it, and the one next to that. They all said the same thing.

Sorry, there seems to be a problem with your account. Please contact Crater Customer Services.

‘For gods’ sake, just let me
in
.’

Sorry, there seems to be a problem
—

He smacked his hand against the panel, wiping his prints over the screen to register them. ‘Come on . . .’ Behind him the rain splattered and spat against the glass, and he felt the skin on his back prickle. He said, ‘I’ve got an infinite account! Let me in!’

Sorry, there
—

OK. He took a long breath. There was the smell of disinfectant, and, underneath, the clinging odour of sweat. It made him feel queasy.

He was locked out of the Maze. Someone had closed his account. Daed, presumably.

He stared at the panel. He said, aloud, ‘Hey, Rick, you didn’t want to run the Maze in this state, anyway, did you? What’s the big deal? It’s just a glitch.’ His voice sounded reedy, like a bad-quality recording. ‘Bound to be. An error. Isn’t it.’

No one answered.

They’d
closed his account
.

He shut his eyes. He felt sick and unreal. For no reason he thought of the skull Daed had on a shelf in his office: empty eyes and unchanging grimace, balanced on a pile of dusty old flatgames. Rick knew it must have been a person, once, but it had never seemed real. It was only now, standing in front of the locked tanks, that he thought he might be starting to understand.

Daed. The thought went straight to his heart, sending a shot of heat through his veins. He didn’t know if it was anger or something else; but in any case it helped him to move.

OK. It was too far to the lifts; he went up the emergency steps. Now that he had somewhere to go it was easier to ignore the pain. He found himself almost on all fours, helping himself up the stairs with his hands, but the floor felt reassuringly solid. He heard his own breathing and he was shocked — a little bit — at how much he sounded like an old man.

He said to himself, Daed. Daed will be in his office. He can’t do this to me. He’s my —

Whatever he is. He can’t — he won’t —

It’s going to be OK, Rick thought. I trust Daed. It’s going to be OK.

And this time he believed it.

Chapter 8

The door to Daed’s office was closed and Rick didn’t even stop to take a breath before he slapped the comms panel so hard he felt the shock resonate all the way up to his shoulder and between his teeth. He said, ‘Let me in. Let me in. I need to talk to you.’

A ripple of petrol-lustre blue went over the screen: the panel was working, but no one was answering. He said, ‘Daed. Please. Please, come on, I need to talk to you.
Now
.’

Nothing.

‘Please. Come on, Daed, I know you’re there, please, stop being such a —’ He caught himself. ‘Please. I’m sorry, OK, I’m sorry! But they’ve — you’ve — someone’s closed my account, and I just need to talk to you, for gods’ sake, please,
please
.’ He took a deep breath, waited. ‘Daed. Daed, come on.’ He was running out of self-control: he could feel it evaporating off his skin. Any second now he’d start crying. ‘Daed, please don’t do this to me. I —’ And there it went, his voice: cracking like glass in the rain. He swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I don’t know what to do. Daed, please don’t —’

The door slid open. A voice he didn’t recognise said, ‘All right, Rick, you can come in if you promise to
shut up
.’

He stumbled through. The light was silvery-blue, and the corners of everything glinted at him like eyes. He felt overwhelmingly sick. For a minute all he could do was grab hold of something and resist the urge to throw up again.

When the world was back to steady he opened his eyes. The voice said, ‘Sit down.’ Rick didn’t like obeying people he didn’t know, but he couldn’t deny that it was good advice. He let his knees go and there was a chair there, waiting for him. He was impressed, in spite of himself: whoever the voice was, they were as good as Daed.

He said, ‘Thanks.’

‘I thought I told you to shut up?’

Rick started to say, ‘I was being poli—’ and then his larynx cut out, because the voice
was
Daed. He blinked, because the face was almost as unrecognisable as the voice. It was only the two of them together that told him that it was Daed, standing there.

He was
grey
.

Rick knew he was staring, but he couldn’t stop. How could someone change so much in a day, in two days? He could already see the death’s head behind Daed’s face, just waiting for the rest to rot away. Only the eyes were the same: and now he knew exactly what was wrong with them. They were too old. They always had been. But before the face didn’t match, and now it did.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the mechanism of lungs and voicebox and mouth wasn’t working.

‘Don’t bother,’ Daed said. ‘I would be surprised if you had anything to say. Anything worth saying, that is.’

He was right. Finally Rick heard himself say, ‘You
hit
me.’

There was a pause, but not a long one. Daed said, ‘Yes. And?’

Rick looked at him.

‘Yes,’ Daed said again. ‘I did. You deserved it. I think we can agree on that. Am I right?’ He asked as if he didn’t know the answer; so it was surprise as much as anything that made Rick respond.

‘Yes, Daed.’ In spite of himself he meant it.

‘Good,’ Daed said, but he didn’t sound pleased. He didn’t sound
anything
, come to that. ‘Was that all?’

Rick stared into his face, wondering — not for the first time — who Daed was, how old he was, where he’d come from. He swallowed. He didn’t want to think like that; he was happier when he tried not to think at all, when he told himself Daed was just Daed, always snide, always right. He wanted to burst into tears. He wanted to tell Daed what it was like to wake up ill and alone in his bed, to ask for meds and food and get turned down, to be locked out of the Maze. Somehow he thought that — after all — Daed might understand. But he didn’t
want
Daed to understand. He said, ‘No. Do you have any food?’

Daed made a strange sound, like a laugh. He turned away and sat down at his desk. He was running his fingers over his flatscreen, creating a mesh of lines, a glowing hypnotic pattern. After five seconds he said, without looking up, ‘On the shelf. If you’re that hungry.’

Rick looked over his shoulder and there was a tall plastic cup, full of something viscous and brown: a P&V shake, like the one they’d given Rick. There was a drinking straw stuck in it, like an insult. Rick’s stomach heaved. He said, ‘I’m not drinking that. I want green tea and proper food.’ Silence. Finally he said, ‘Please.’

Daed didn’t react. His fingers traced shapes on the flatscreen, weaving filaments of light together. He dragged everything sideways, started again with an empty frame.

Rick said, ‘Why did you order
that
?’

‘Basic rations,’ Daed said. His hands were building another pattern, fluently. ‘That’s what everyone eats, Rick. In the real world we’d be lucky to get that.’

‘Yeah, but it’s disgusting —’

‘I didn’t order it,’ Daed said, and the mesh on his flatscreen grew and grew. ‘I’ve had my food credits withdrawn. As have you, I imagine.’

‘You . . . ?’

Daed didn’t say anything else. His pattern spread and flowered, and Rick realised that it was exactly the same as the last one. Daed dragged it sideways and started again.

Rick said, ‘
You
’ve had your food credits withdrawn.’

‘I have access to basic rations,’ Daed said, as if it didn’t interest him much. ‘We won’t starve. Yet.’

‘But —’ Rick stopped, waited for Daed to interrupt him. But Daed didn’t look up; he just went on constructing the same pattern over and over on his flatscreen. Rick stared at the glimmering blue lines, willing Daed to come up with something new. But he didn’t.

Rick licked his lips and tasted dryness. He said, concentrating on the consonants, ‘Why have they taken away
your
food credits?’

‘You know what Paz is like when she’s annoyed about something,’ Daed said, as if this happened every day, as if it was no big deal. It was only his fingers, flickering uselessly over the screen, that gave him away.

Rick took a deep breath; there was a grey, blank panic threatening to take him over. He looked up at the lights in the ceiling, but even the silver-blue neon didn’t help. It was like he was seeing everything through a fog. He didn’t want to move, or speak. He wished he could just . . . disperse.

‘Daed,’ he said, and let the silence stretch until Daed looked up. His eyes were blank and ancient.

‘Daed,’ Rick said again, hanging on to the word like a handhold. ‘What’s going on? What did I do?’

For a second the Daed he recognised was there, looking back at him with a glint of disdain. Then the old man resurfaced. He said, softly, ‘You did exactly, precisely the worst thing you could have done.’

‘I’m sorry —’

Daed raised one shoulder, shrugging the words away. ‘Irrelevant,’ he said, without rancour. ‘I should have known. You’re a kid. Kids like to win.’

‘I only —’

‘
Only?
’ Daed said, and his voice made the word silver-sharp, so Rick could almost see it catch the light. ‘No.
Only?
No.’

‘Then . . .’ Rick swallowed. The grey fog of fear had got into his bones, aching. ‘I just . . . it didn’t seem important. I did what you told me to do, and —’

Daed stood up. He walked around his desk to where Rick was sitting, and crouched in front of him, so that his face was on a level with Rick’s. Rick stayed absolutely, perfectly still. And if he’d thought he was afraid before he was wrong, because
now
—

Daed said, ‘You did
what I told you to do
? Oh, no. No, you didn’t.’

If Rick could have spoken, he would. But there was nothing to say.

‘Oh, no,’ Daed said again, very softly. ‘No, no, no. I think you must have misunderstood. I told you what you had to do, and you chose the exact opposite. You know that, don’t you?’ He looked into Rick’s eyes. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Rick said. In the Maze there were serpents that could turn you into stone with a glance. Now he thought he knew what that would feel like.

‘Good boy,’ Daed said. ‘At least you can admit it.’

He leant forward and took Rick’s head in his hands. His touch was light and firm and even if Rick had tried to get away he couldn’t. Daed held him like that for a second — two, five, ten. Rick stared back, until he couldn’t bear it any longer.

Then Daed kissed his forehead, embraced him, and let him go. He stood up, took a deep breath as if he’d put down a heavy weight, and went back to his desk. Rick could still feel the warmth of Daed’s mouth, as if he’d left the print of his lips on Rick’s skin.

Rick said, ‘Tell me what I did.’

Daed glanced over his shoulder and away again. He wiped his hand across his eyes. He said, ‘It’ll be OK. I can deal with it.’

‘But —’

‘It’s OK, Rick. I promise. It’ll be all right. Go and put something on your face. You look appalling.’