S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (7 page)

In an apparent retaliatory move by Arc, the senator was accused of accepting payoffs from foreign companies and spying for the Southern States Coalition. This was typical tit-for-tat, except this time Arc's claims seemed to have little bite.

Eric had learned that police forces in other cities had stopped interfering with open protests against Arc and their stream technologies. People were boycotting the new federal inoculation initiative, which mandated total implant compliance by month's end.

“No military issues have been reported to the civilian agencies,” the captain emphasized.

“Arc would probably try and suppress knowledge of it if there were,” Eric pressed, which elicited another tired frown from Captain Harrick.

The shift foreman tried to force his way in front of Eric again, but Eric grabbed the handrail to block him. There was a twitch of movement at his feet, and he knew the vic was starting to revive. He took the Link off speaker and pressed it against his ear. “About that other thing,” he said.

“The trace?” the captain asked. “I'm afraid my hands are tied. You know I can't legally track a Link without evidence of a crime. And as far as I know, an identifier code matching your mother hasn't come up on any of the Lifeguard lists Arc sends us.”

Assuming those lists are accurate
, Eric thought.

“At least you know she's alive. Maybe she's just taking a break after what happened. I mean, look at the Evanses.”

Eric sighed and nodded. Ashley's parents had left town in a hurry once they found out their daughter had died on the island.

He was about to thank the captain for trying, even though he was disappointed by the news, when the shift supervisor tugged on his sleeve and gestured toward the far wall.

“Um, Cap, looks like they're here with the S-and-R unit,” Eric said. “I have to go.”

“See me when you get back.”

Lurching toward Eric was a zombie in a full bodysuit and helmet. Eric raised a questioning eyebrow at the shift supervisor, who explained, “The suit is for our convenience. It makes cleanup easier.”

Eric pulled his Link away from his ear and checked the screen, but the captain had already disconnected.

“And the helmet?” he asked, slipping the device back into his pocket.

“So they don't swallow any sewage.”

“What difference does it make if they do?”

“The stuff leaks out for weeks afterward. Makes a huge mess.”

‡ ‡ ‡

“Reg? It's Jessie. You in there?”

Most of the value held by the old arcade games Mister Casey had collected in their garage over the years was sentimental. Still, he insisted that the building be locked at all times unless someone was inside. Jessie knocked and the door swung slightly open. She peered into the darkness through the crack.

“Reg? Kel?” The key beneath the loose shingle by the door was gone, so it had to be one of them. “Hello?”

She pushed the door open a little more and stuck her head in, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Sixteen hours ago, the winds of her fury had blown her here, to Reggie instead of her own husband. Subconsciously, she had known that Reggie would somehow understand the difficulty she was having adjusting to life after Gameland, after the death of their friends. Kelly always tried too hard to fix things, and she didn't need that right now. She just needed someone to share her pain.

Now, after another tormented night of sleep, feeling embarrassed and guilty for the way she had behaved in front of Reggie, she was forced to return for a much more mundane reason: to retrieve the backpack she'd forgotten so she could head off to school for yet another day of hell.

She quickly looked around outside. The Caseys were already off to work, and the line of sight to the street was empty of witnesses. Once inside the garage, she gently pushed the door partially shut behind her, allowing only a sliver of light to enter.

The building was two-cars wide. Over the years Reggie's dad had added to it, doubling the length and erecting a new wall to separate the back half from the front. The old part was stuffed with old cardboard boxes, the trappings of years of accumulated possessions: broken bicycles, garbage cans, garden and power tools that no longer served any function. The game room with all the antique machines was in the newer, air conditioned section.

Jessie walked over to the ArcTech console. Reggie had set the controller up on a dusty side table. The smoked blown-glass lamp that had occupied the spot for as long as she'd known him was gone. The thing had been the very definition of ugly, with its garland of black metal chains and its yellowed lampshade, but for some strange reason Ashley had developed an attachment to it and Reggie refused to throw it away.

The game gear was turned on. She could see the ghost image of the Player standing motionless in the projected hologram. She recognized Reggie's Link in the controller base, the dent on one side where it had stopped a bullet.
The Game
's status light blinked green, indicating that Reggie was connected, but play was paused.

So where is he, taking a potty break?

Finding the gaming gear yesterday had been a complete surprise. Though Jessie immediately intuited what Reggie was using it for, she couldn't help but redirect the anger already seething inside of her toward it. Why hadn't he told her?

To protect you.

Eventually, her curiosity took over and she found herself geared up and connected. The experience left her sick to her stomach, and yet, for some reason, she couldn't leave.

It didn't take long before another Player found her. And it didn't take long for her to feel good about killing it.

Last night, as she lay awake in her bed, she had promised herself never again. Going back had been way too easy. It had drawn out the worst part of her, and that frightened her. But what terrified her most was that, for the first time since coming home, she had felt alive.

Not alive. That isn't living.

Maybe Eric was right and she should see a shrink.

She glanced over at the Player standing motionless in the center of the hologram, waiting for its next command. She hadn't bothered to look at it at all yesterday.

What's the harm in looking?

The zombie's chin was raised toward the sky. Jessie could barely make out the clouds through the haze of static cast by the old projector. If the bulb died soon, she wouldn't be surprised. The thing was clearly long out of warranty.

Standing there, not two feet away from the apparition that represented all she loathed about the world her family had created, she found she could feel nothing but pity for the thing. What had he looked like before he'd been conscripted? Had he been admired? Had he been a father? A brother? A husband? Or was he one of those prisoners, the first Omegas?

Could somebody still be wondering about him the same way she wondered about Ashley and Jake? Or Ashley's grandmother, G-ma Junie?

Probably not. This zombie was very old. Maybe someone had once wondered where he was, but they'd almost certainly have stopped years ago.

The plastinated skin was stretched tight over the bones of its skull, pulled taut like the membrane of a drum. Its eyes bulged from their sockets. A thin strip of rubbery flesh dangled from one cheek, a recent wound, from the looks of it, as it was still weeping a brownish-yellow discharge along the edges. Through the hole in its cheek, she saw the stained and pitted pebbles that were its remaining teeth. The blackened shadow of its tongue inched forward, probed the opening before disappearing back into the darkness again.

Jessie shivered and looked quickly away.

“Reggie?” she called, feeling suddenly anxious.

Her backpack was on the edge of the couch, its contents spilling out.

“You in here, Reg? Time for school.”

Silence.

She found a crate in a corner of the floor and pulled it over and stood on it. She leaned in closer to the flickering, transparent image. Through the glow, she could see the faint shapes of the video arcade games glittering in the faint light.

A murkiness filled the Player's dark eyes. This was the characteristic stare which always drove her thoughts to the blown-out windows of the abandoned East Harlem tenements they'd drifted past in their rented rowboat, just before the bombers sent them to New York Medical.

On a whim, she waved a hand in front of the Player's face and, when it flinched, she let out a startled yelp. But it was just a coincidence. The zombie couldn't see her, of course. It couldn't possibly sense her because it wasn't here with her. It wasn't here, and she wasn't there with it.

She let out a nervous chuckle.

Miles separated them. Miles and walls and an EM barrier. The mined Long Island Sound. Only a stream of electrons connected them, fed through Arc's relay towers on the secure game streams. Nothing but digital information processed by the projector and packaged into a virtual image. Electrons and photons, streams of code.

Where the hell
is
that boy?

She stepped off the crate and circled the hologram. She didn't understand the technology of how the image was created. The software had to be incredibly sophisticated, since not all of it could be live feed. There simply couldn't be that many cameras on the island to capture this level of detail.

She assumed that the majority of the static information — the island's topography and buildings — was already stored within the system and what she was seeing in the hologram was superimposed over bitmapped landscape. Maybe it refreshed every so often, to take changes into account. Undoubtedly, the arcade was littered with recording equipment, though she'd only actually seen cameras inside the computer mainframe complex on Jayne's Hill. Other times, she hadn't bothered to look.

As for the Player, the neural implant likely contained a geopositional locator and gyroscopes, though this was just speculation. The system would require some sort of reference input to pinpoint its location and body orientation within the arcade.

None of the control gear was in sight. She wondered about the goggles, which provided both auditory and visual information. How were the images generated? Were there microcams installed inside the zombie's eyes? Or did the implant receive and process optical information organically?

The whole thing was really quite amazing, when you stopped to think about it.

The Player was standing in the middle of a paved lot. The view around it extended with decent clarity for about thirty feet; beyond that, the details grew fuzzy, unreliable.

“Hey!” she shouted, when she circled back around to the front of the zombie again.

This time, it didn't move, didn't react. Not a single muscle twitch; not a flinch. Its head remained angled upward, as if enjoying the sunlight. Its mouth hung open.

This was a familiar pose, the same one she'd observed other unimplanted victims of the Long Island outbreak assume when they weren't chasing after the living. Only a few of them acted this way. Most tended to wander off and hide in the shadows when the sun was out. She had surmised that those which stayed and stared at the sun were broken.

Did the light hurt them? Maybe it's what turned their brains into powder. Her
Anatomy and Physiology of Reanimates
teacher had never mentioned any of these little nuggets of wisdom. She doubted the teacher even knew about such things herself.

“Are you broken?” she muttered.

She couldn't understand why Reggie would just leave it standing out in the open like this. Didn't he know that if another Player came along, it could kill it?

She reached down and pulled Reggie's Link from the cradle, disconnecting it from
The Game
. She hoped the Player would wander off on its own. A spasm passed through its body, making her jump back in surprise. Its arms flared away from its sides, then dropped back down again. But that was the extent of its movements. Other than a slight swaying, it remained standing where Reggie had left it and stared at the sky. After a moment, the image flickered off.

She set the Link onto the table and looked around. Reggie couldn't have gone far; he needed to stay within range of his Link or else risk his implant activating. Unless the tower strength here was different than it was on the island.

Why would he just leave?

Another ten minutes passed. She took the time to gather her belongings and she was about to leave when light flooded into the garage. She turned to find Reggie standing in the doorway.

“Damn it! You just scared the piss out of me!”

He didn't move, didn't answer. He just stood there, his arms dangling loosely by his side.

“Um, that's your cue,” she said. “You're supposed to ask if there was any leakage.”

Reggie stepped forward, away from the glare. Now she could see the frown on his face. He gave his head a quick shake.

“Are you okay?” she asked, suddenly concerned.

He was still wearing the leggings and gloves. The goggles were cocked back over his head.

“Wh– what are you doing here?” he asked. “What time is it?”

He looked around, as if unsure he was even awake.

Jessie went over and grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to the overstuffed chair, and he sat down into it with a heavy exhale. A puff of dust billowed into the air around them.

“You're kind of freaking me out here, Reg. Would you mind telling me why you left your Player standing out in the middle of a parking lot?”

Reggie's frown deepened. He glanced over at the holo image. Shaking his head again, he pushed himself away from her and stood up.

“Yeah, no need to worry,” Jessie said, watching him. “I just checked, and it's fine. No worse for the wear.”

Another frown of confusion clouded his eyes. “I was— I guess I decided to take a walk.” He chuckled, but he didn't sound amused at all.

“In the middle of
The Game
? You decided to walk out and leave your Player?” She studied him for a moment. “Are you drunk?”