S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (28 page)

“
Yeah, something like that.”

She twists her face. “I know Kelly's off limits,” she assures me. “I'd never do that to you. I'm— Hold on a sec.” She turns her head away, disappearing from view. I can't see what she's looking at, but when she returns, she leans into the Link and whispers. “Did she call the police?”

“
Yeah. And unless Kelly shows up on the Stream again soon, I have a feeling we're all going to be in deep shit.”

She shakes her head. “I tried pinging Kelly and Jake just a few minutes ago. All I got was that same message.” She pauses, then asks, “How'd your appointment go?”

“
Sucked. Like being stripped naked, slapped silly with a rubber hose and verbally abused by a nun for six straight hours. I couldn't even go to the bathroom.”

She turns again. “…sucks.”

“
What do you keep looking at?”

“
I'm with Micah.”

“
I gathered that. Are his parents there?”

She shakes her head, looks perplexed. “No. Why?”

It's like a game with us now. None of us have met Micah's elusive parents. We joke that they don't really exist. But, of course, they do. They're just never around.

“
I thought I saw a car in his driveway coming home.”

I hear a voice now in the background. Ash turns to listen, then turns back. “We're not actually at his house. I mean, we were earlier. We were working on the codex, but I got hungry so we went out to get some Golden Dragon to bring back.”

She rotates the Link so I can see where they are. Micah flashes by, then the view stops spinning. I'm looking down the street toward his house. They're a couple blocks away and the image is tiny, but I can see enough to recognize the cop cars parked outside his house. Their lights are flashing.

“
That's not good,” I mutter, my worry suddenly multiplying a hundred-fold.

Ash comes back into view. “We thought it might've been from the hacking.”

She's talking about the hack last week, when they first broke into the government computers on LI using whatever still remained of the old internet. They were looking for maps of the tunnels. Ash was in the middle of doing a search when she'd quickly yanked the wires from the old tech tablet they were using. She thought someone was trying to track her. But she was sure she'd pulled out before they did.

“
They'll probably be coming around to your place soon, Jess,” I hear Micah say in the background.

“
They don't know anything yet,” I assure them. “They're just fishing. And I won't tell them anything.”

Ash nods. “I think if we can avoid them till morning—tomorrow afternoon at the latest—then Kelly and Jake'll be back and hopefully they'll leave us alone. And if they do ask about the hack, we should just keep saying it was for a school project.”

“
Hacking the LI computers? Right,” I say. But I know she's right. Once Kelly and Jake are safe, then who really cares about a couple kids breaking into some old, outdated computers? Even the ones on LI. It's not like we're trying to hack someone's personal Link stream.

“
What about Jake's uncle?” I ask. “And the van? Did Micah say something to Mister Esposito?”

Micah leans in so I can see him. “Hey, Jess,” he says, winking. Same old Micah, even when the cops are pounding down his door he's cool. “I fixed it so Mister E will be staying in Albany for a couple more days.” He laughs. “So we're good there, at least.”

“
I don't even want to know.”

“
Good girl. It's better that way.”

“
What if he tries to call Jake?”

“
He'll be too busy. I sent him a few…presents. Of the female persuasion. Very persuasive females, that is. They'll keep him busy.”

“
Prostitutes,” Ash says, rolling her eyes.

“
Where the hell did you get the money to pay for them?”

“
Yeah… About that.” He shrugs, but doesn't elucidate.

I shake my head.

“
Look,” Micah says, “right now that's the least of our problems.” He glances away. “Looks like they're leaving, Ash. We should get back in there and clean up. Next time they return, pretty sure they're going to want to see more than just the front door.”

“
Ping me if you hear anything,” I say. Then, realizing I still can't receive yet on my temporary Link, I tell them that I'll get a hold of them instead. “I need to talk to Mrs. Corben.”

“
What are you going to tell her?”

“
Got any ideas?”

They don't.

“
I figure maybe I'll just tell her Kelly was planning a surprise for me and that I'm pretty sure his being gone has something to do with it.”

It's all true. I won't be lying. And hopefully it'll calm her down. At least until nightfall. Then…who knows.

I just pray Kelly gets back before then.

That's what I plan on telling her, but when I get off with Ash and Micah, I don't. I just lie there on my bed not moving. I just can't face speaking with Kelly's mom yet.

When Eric calls me down for dinner forty five minutes later, I consider not going, but that would just cause more of a problem. Besides, I haven't eaten anything since breakfast. I need food. Two days in a row of not eating and I'm starting to feel the effects. And assuming Kelly and Jake are back tomorrow and everything's returned to some sort of normalcy, I'll have hapkido. I don't want to get my ass kicked because I'm too weak.

How can I even think of hapkido now? How can I think of anything like that ever again?

Act normal
. Micah's last words come to me again.
We'll get through this, you'll see. Just act normal.

Easier said than done. I just wish everything would go back to the way it was. Maybe it wasn't exactly normal, but at least it wasn't…
this
.

I sigh and get up. Grandpa's already at the table, waiting. So is Mom, which surprises me. She gives me a weak smile when she sees me, more than her usual self-pitying smile. At least she's trying, but she looks uncomfortable doing it, awkward. She even did her hair up, and her clothes are clean. More surprises on a day when I don't need them.

“
Everything all right?” I ask. I hand Eric his Link back.

“
Just have a seat, young lady,” Grandpa says. “We're going to have a nice dinner with all of us for once.” He looks over at my mom, holds her gaze for a moment. It's a neutral stare—he's a master of hiding his emotions.

“
I hear you lost your Link again,” he says, after we've sat. It's not an accusation, though it sort of feels like one. “You need to learn to be more responsible.” Yup, definitely an accusation.

Mom puts her hand on his arm and says, “Ulysses.” She's the only one who ever calls him that. She's the only one who can get away with it. To everyone else, he's simply “The Colonel.” Or Grandpa.

He raises an eyebrow at her, just a fraction of an inch.

After the food is dished out and we're starting to eat, Grandpa turns to me. “Where did you lose it, young lady?”

“
I didn't lose it. It was stolen.”

The eyebrow raises another fraction of an inch.

“
So they'll catch whoever has it. I assume they put a trace on it. They'll find it, just like they did that last guy.” He stares at me for a moment. “I'm sure no matter where it is, they'll find it.”

My face feels brittle, like if I move a muscle, it'll crumble away and show everything I'm trying to hide.

I turn my gaze to Eric, who's also just sitting there, watching me, watching the both of us. I wonder what he's thinking. He has to know something's not right. He tried pinging me. He saw the message. He knows the Link's outside the Stream, meaning either beyond the reach of our communications network or physically destroyed. But why would someone steal it just to destroy it? They wouldn't, leaving only the other possibility.

Speaking carefully, he says, “It looks like her Link's been disabled.”

“
Strange indeed,” Grandpa says.

He stares at me. From somewhere far away, I'm dimly aware of Mom asking, “Why is that strange?” But Grandpa just sits there, thinking his own thoughts. And I sit here wondering what they are.

Thankfully, Eric's Link buzzes right then, startling us out of the moment. I blink and look over.

“
My bad. Thought I'd turned the audible alarm off.” He looks at his screen and frowns. Then he jumps to his feet. “Damn it,” he says. “Got to go. Sorry, Mom.”

She smiles tenderly at him, and I think I can see some of the mother inside of her peeking out. “It's all right, dear.”

“
What's the matter?” I ask.

“
It's my boss. He needs me to come in.”

“
Why, dear?” Mom asks. Now she looks worried. It's amazing the emotions she can suddenly express when she's not numb with alcohol or drugs.

“
There's a…problem,” he says, shoving another bite of meatloaf into his mouth while he simultaneously tries to scroll through his screen and put on his jacket. “Down in New York. They're calling in all NCD within a hundred mile radius.”

“
A problem? What kind of problem?”

“
I can't really say.”

Mom gasps. “Another outbreak?”

He shakes his head. “I need to go.” He bends down over Mom and kisses her cheek.

“
Be careful, honey,” she tells him.

“
I will. And, guys, not a word about this to anyone,” he says, holding up his Link. “It's not made Media yet.”

“
How can we tell anyone something if we don't know what it is?” I ask.

Grandpa's still looking at me, still watching me. His face is a blank slate.
Almost
a blank slate. Over the years I've learned to read of few of his emotions. The slight tilt of his head, for example, just like he's doing now. I know what it means. He says to Mom, even though his eyes never leave mine, “Well, we know it has something to do with Zulus, don't we? Otherwise, why would they call Eric in?”

Mom winces. She hates that old term, Zulus. Hates it even more than ‘zombie' and ‘CU' and ‘IU.' She hates any reference to the Undead, in fact. But especially Zulu. It was the term in use when her husband was taken away from her.

Eric squeezes Mom's shoulder, then straightens and clips his EM pistol to his belt. “Sorry your birthday dinner had to end this way.”

 

I can't believe
I forgot my mother's birthday. After all the criticizing I've done about my brother being a jerk, at least
he
remembered.

“
It's all right, dear,” she tells me after I apologize. She leans over and plants a dry kiss on my cheek, then leaves the dinner table, the food on her plate mostly untouched.

There's no cake. No presents.

I'm a horrible daughter.

And now this. I can't help but feel somehow responsible for what's going on in Manhattan.

In fact, I know I am.

A few minutes later I hear Mom talking to someone in her room. Grandpa and I finish our dinners in silence. If I can just not look at him, maybe I can keep my face from giving it all away. The carefully constructed shell I've plastered there since coming home yesterday threatens to crumble and expose my secrets.

While I'm washing the dinner plates—an excuse to hide my shaking hands—I hear a car pull up outside at the curb. It's not the police, and I breathe a sigh of relief. But then I hear the front door open and see my mother going to out whoever it is, and I suddenly wish it was the cops. At least then she'd stay home.

Grandpa goes off and leaves me alone, much to my surprise. That look he'd given me earlier had hinted at suspicion. I'm almost afraid of what he'll find out in the privacy of his office. He still has friends in the government, despite his rather public fall from grace. One call and he'll know exactly why Eric's going to New York. Or that we were there, too.

I finish the dishes and dry my hands, then sit down at the table and wake the house Link. I tune it to Media and search the sub-streams for news. There's nothing about an outbreak, nothing about Infecteds in lower Manhattan. Nothing at all.

I keep expecting to see a reference to a couple of kids getting caught coming out of the water near the Midtown tunnel. I don't.

Now I'm really worried. My shaking's become so bad that I'm barely able to scroll through the Link.

The closest thing I find suggesting something is going on in Manhattan is a small mention on the financial pages about the stock market getting shut down an hour early this afternoon and the building being evacuated due to an unspecified threat.

These sorts of things happen all the time—terrorists, protestors, random crazies. But this one just feels different. The video capture shows an officer forming a blockade. He holds his hand up to keep the reporter from getting closer. But what I notice is the EM pistol on his hip rather than the standard forty-five caliber police issue. Only NCD officials carry EM pistols. And NCD officers investigate crimes by and against the Undead.

I think it's time to talk to Ash and Micah and Reg again.