by Spencer Baum
The don’t-be-gullible doubt was next. He had just found and read a startling memoir in which the woman now guiding him was a star player, and her role in that memoir was to manipulate, control, and deceive. What was it Jenna had written? With Sunny, you never recognize what the agenda is until it’s too late. He was in the crosswalk on Las Vegas Boulevard now, realizing that Jenna’s entire memoir was, in part, a warning not to trust the woman Gabe was choosing to trust, right now.
The trust-your-instincts doubt was next, and it was this one that made him turn around and go back. This doubt started with the memory of Cameron at a Tetradome Watch Party—Kind of interesting that her friend, her boyfriend, and her brother all ended up dead—and continued with the memories of two gruesome images in Gabe’s mind: Bart Devlin’s corpse being pulled from a dumpster, and a bloodstain immediately to the right of Kyle Duvall’s couch.
He ran back across the street, back across the parking lot, back into the Polaris.
A woman in a black dress. She was in here. She was watching him. He had seen her.
He didn’t know what he would do if he found her, but he was certain this was the correct course of action, that Sunny had an agenda, and he wouldn’t be a part of it.
*****
She stepped out of the tunnel and into the central dome. The crowd greeted her like a returning war hero.
If you bastards only knew.
She was high above the arena floor. The Freedom Bridge stretched out in front of her, cutting across the Tetradome. She had two minutes to cross the entire length of the largest arena on earth.
Less than two minutes. A clock hung from the ceiling, dangling above the Finish Line.
00:01:59…
00:01:58…
There was no way she’d make it at a walk. Her left hand on the railing of the bridge, she accelerated. From a walk to a shuffle.
00:01:55…
54…
She had to go faster. From a shuffle to a jog, a painful jog. Every muscle in her body cried out in revolt, so badly did it just want to sit down and rest. Run through it anyway, Jenna. Bear the pain anyway. So much death around you for your entire life. Don’t let these people die too.
00:01:49…
When she kept going, she did it for Kyle, who wasn’t strong enough to bear the burden that had been dropped on their family. I’ll bear it for you, Kyle. A heavy step with her left foot, a ginger step with her right.
She did it for her mom, who was the sole breadwinner in the house for years, working her ass off even after she was diagnosed with cancer.
She did it for her grandma, who made Jenna grow up faster than any of her peers, and left her ready to handle adulthood when adulthood came early.
Would I still be alive had you not made me the woman I am, Grandma?
No, I would not, and neither would anyone else in this arena.
00:01:30…
Her left foot was tired of carrying the load, and her entire right side was begging her to stop. She pushed on anyway, pushed on for Mariscela, her pen pal and lifetime best friend, who kept on talking to her after the rest of the world stopped, who took Jenna at her word even when the rest of the world thought she was a liar, because that’s what friends do. You gave me the strength to survive years in solitary, Mariscela. If I was strong enough to do that, I’m strong enough to do this.
00:01:20…
Halfway across the bridge. At this pace, she would make it with time to spare. The thought was seductive. She could feel her right leg shortening its gait with each step. No, I will not slow down. I will not leave this up to chance. I will not stumble across that Finish Line with one second left. I will keep moving and end this. And when I do, I will do it for all the people who have died before me. Harold, Bertram, Solomon, Michael, Byrd, Jurrigan, Victoria, Robin, Malcolm—one-hundred and forty-three people this year alone, and many thousands in the years before that. The people in the stands who had the gall to cheer for Jenna now, just weeks after cheering for her death—the blood of 143 inmates was on their hands, and it would be so easy for Jenna to strike a blow in return, just as Sunny and Nathan had wanted.
Easy and wrong. I will do it because it’s the right thing to do, because an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I will do it for all the reasons that Sunny and Nathan would not.
00:01:05…
The Finish Line was close. The thought of making it across, of all of this being over, was almost too much to bear. Survivor’s guilt was taking hold. Visions of all the people who died tonight. Memories of their screams. It made her already weak legs grow weaker.
She pushed ahead.
00:00:49…
She could count the steps to the Finish Line. She could sense the manic atmosphere in the arena. It was like she was the star of a rock concert. Or a religious revival.
00:00:46…
We said our purpose was to bring beauty into the world, Rudy, but the world wouldn’t let us.
00:00:43…
Two butterflies in a hurricane, whatever purpose we thought we had was lost in the storm.
00:00:40…
The storm brought me here.
00:00:39…
A registration packet turned in late, a college orientation at the end of the summer, a girl with bumblebee toenail polish.
00:00:36…
A Senator shot dead, a trial, a jury, a death sentence.
It brought me here.
Into the largest arena on earth.
00:00:34…
What’s my purpose, Rudy? To bring beauty into the world?
No. That was yours. My purpose is different. My purpose is to be here, with the detonator on my wrist. My purpose is to carry it across the Finish Line and prevent Sunny from killing half a million people.
With 31 seconds on the clock, Jenna’s broken body neared the red ribbon. She leaned into it. Her balance began to fail. She needed one more step to cross. She found the strength to take it, and when she did, she told herself that final step was for Rudy, who had shown her, with his presence in her life, short-lived as it was, that your heart grows stronger when you give it to someone else.
She collapsed to the ground, listening to the sweet sound of the stadium announcer’s voice.
Ladies and gentlemen, Jenna Duvall is your winner of The Tetradome Run!
CHAPTER 82
On a restricted access highway outside of town, the black Devlin Enterprises van that had been parked on the side of the road, hazards flashing, headlights pointed towards Vegas, used the entire width of the road to make a U-turn, and drive back to New Rome.
CHAPTER 83
The cocktail waitresses at Polaris wore skimpy black outfits with silver sparkles on the shoulders.
It was the sparkles that allowed Gabe to pick them out from the crowd, one by one.
This waitress over here? No, she has blonde hair. How about that one? Too tall. There’s another in the back. No, that’s not her either.
It was like watching bees on a honeybush. The waitresses carried trays with food, with drinks, with dirty glasses…anything these rich pricks wanted: vodka tonics, scotches and soda, cigarettes, vapes, Cuban cigars...
There! At the other end of the club—the hair and height and face all seemed right.
A closer look. I need a better look at your eyes.
She tilted her head, and even from the other end of the room, Gabe knew it was her. The hair was shorter, the face was thinner, but it was the girl from Kyle’s photographs. It was Sunny, dressed, and apparently working, as a cocktail waitress at Polaris.
She had a thick serving tray jutting out from her waist. The serving tray completely threw him off. Whatever he imagined about the mastermind described in Jenna’s memoir—this wasn’t it. Looking at her, he saw another young woman busting her ass for the partygoers, a serving tray strapped onto her body with suspenders and loaded to the hilt with water bottles.
He watched her move from one table to another, smiling at someone as
she passed. Did she just…?
Well that was weird. She just pulled a brand new filled-to-the-top-and-sealed bottle of water from her tray and tossed it in a trash can.
She was coming around on the back side of the room now. Her eyes were visible again and he’d be god-damned if those weren’t Sunny Paderewski’s eyes.
She threw another water bottle in another trash can. What the hell?
The noise and chaos of Jenna’s surprise win rang out in the club. Not a soul was looking away from the giant screen except for Gabe. And Sunny. The girl with bright blue eyes, who wasn’t serving the bottles of water in her tray, but rather, seemed intent on throwing them away, one at a time.
Time to confront her.
A thick crowd of rubber-necked viewers slowed Gabe’s efforts to catch her. There was no passage through this club that didn’t drive him through standing throngs of Tetradome fans.
“Sunny,” he said. Did he dare say it louder? Should he try and call out her name?
Another water bottle in another trash can. This girl, the manipulator, murderer, bomb-maker, and terrorist from Jenna’s memoir, was throwing bottles from her tray, one at a time, into every trash can in the casino.
He pushed through a tight tangle of tuxedoed arms and silky gowns, and now had an easier path to the girl, who was tossing yet another water bottle in the trash. It was a strange thought, but Gabe couldn’t shake it. What if those bottles didn’t have water in them? Gabe thought of clear liquid explosives, nitroglycerin and the like, pages of Jenna and Kyle’s writings about the girl’s chemistry prowess.
“She’s up to something,” he muttered to himself. He tried breaking into a run but a push of people crossed his path. He ran into one, a young man in a blue baseball cap.
“What the fuck?” the man said.
“That girl,” said Gabe, struggling to break free of the crowd around him. “That girl is up to something!”
*****
Arnold Detwick wasn’t surprised when Jodi asked him to take Blake’s spot at the Finish Line.
Blake was AWOL. The whole security crew was off-kilter. Rumors were flying on the radio band that Bart Devlin was dead.
What a weird night.
Arnold rushed to the Finish Line, stood in Blake’s traditional place, and was the first to greet Jenna when she fell across the red ribbon. He squatted down, put his hand on her shoulder, spoke quietly in her ear, “Congratulations Jenna. You won.”
Jenna’s body convulsed with each breath. Touching her shoulder with his hand, gently, Arnold felt like this girl was different than the one he sent into the race a few hours prior. He felt like she had crossed over from the realm of mere mortal and into the rare air of the professional athlete, or the rock star.
A brown-red film of muck coated her skin. Her hair was tangled and matted. A gash on her left temple, clotted shut but still damp with blood, throbbed with every heartbeat. She had a pungent odor to her; tart, salty.
She pushed up to a sitting position, and then, in a moment Arnold would remember for the rest of his life, Jenna put her head on his chest and leaned the full weight of her body against him. She was a young woman who had run deep into the depths of hell, and come back. Now she was crying out for human contact.
Arnold was happy, maybe even honored, to wrap his arms around her.
“It’s over, Jenna,” he said. “You did it. You won.”
Cameras and boom mics, doctors and trainers, within seconds, Arnold and Jenna were at the center of a crowd of people. They gave her water. She gulped it down. They shouted questions at her. She ignored them, leaned her head on Arnold’s shoulder, gasping for air, then said something strange.
“The bomb.”
“What’s that?” said Arnold.
“There’s a bomb. My cuff.”
Such explosive words, spoken in such a quiet voice.
“Your cuff?”
She held up her arm, showing Arnold her wrist.
“The detonator’s connected to my cuff.”
“Jenna, do you understand what’s happened? You’ve won the race. You get to go to Devlin Estates.”
“It’s in the flowerpots.”
“Jenna…”
“The flowerpots in the Underdeck.”
“Jenna, you’re all worked up. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Dame’s Rocket. She filled them with Dame’s Rocket.”
“Filled what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you there’s a bomb in the Underdeck!”
*****
The first sip of champagne was barely on Jodi’s lips when Jenna, who was still front and center in the live broadcast, started some crazy rant.
“What’s that she’s saying?” Jodi asked.
“Boom mic’s not live yet,” said Lisa, the sound tech. “Give it half a second more, and…”
The volume on the broadcast swelled. Words that Jenna was saying, muttled and indistinct before, were now coming in clear.
I’m telling you there’s a bomb!
“Oh shit,” said Jodi. “This again?”
She opened a line on her headset. “If Jenna says another word about a bomb I’m gonna have to cut away.”
They had Jenna on her feet now. Arnold from security had his arm around her and was carrying her towards the winner’s stand.
It’s in the flowerpots and the detonator’s in my cuff! she yelled.
“God dammit,” said Jodi. “We need to cut away from Jenna. Chad and Marion, get ready, we’re coming to you.”
Parna spoke next. “Going to the commentary desk in 3…2…”
The main feed cut to a confused-looking Chad Holiday. And so, one of the most memorable runs in the history of the Tetradome ends with Jenna Duvall crossing the Finish Line…
“Have Chad carry us through some highlights,” Jodi said.
“Cue highlight reel B for Chad and Marion to talk about,” said Parna.
“And somebody get a doctor to Jenna right away,” said Jodi. “I need a professional who can convince that girl to calm down and shut up about a bomb so we can interview her.”
A crackle of radio static came through on the walkie-talkie, followed by a voice Jodi hadn’t heard all day.
“This is Blake. I’m on my way to the winner’s stand now. I’ll handle Jenna and let you know when she’s ready for an interview.”
CHAPTER 84
They still weren’t listening.
“Nathan’s big stunt was supposed to set it off,” Jenna said. “You need to send someone to look at the flower pots in the Underdeck.”
Arnold led her away from the Finish Line and towards a set of stairs.
“No, not the flower pots,” she said. “Don’t start there. Start at the status grid.”
He stopped walking. “What did you say?”
They were a few steps away from a catwalk that led out of the arena, probably to the Underdeck.
“Take me to the Underdeck and I’ll show you,” Jenna said. “There’s a basement with a bunch of generators and a TAC Status Grid.”
“Yes, I know about that basement,” said Arnold. “How do you know about it?”
“Sunny wanted the bomb to blow when Nathan died, and I stopped that from happening, but she still--”
“Jenna, how do you know about the status grid?” said Arnold.
More security was running in from the back of the tunnel. Three guards coming in from behind Margo and Dr. Hoyer. One of them was Blake Miller.
“I’ve seen it, okay?” Jenna said. “It’s a long story. I can tell it to you and anyone else who wants to hear it later. But first we need to get down there.”
The way Arnold was looking at her—was he listening? It almost seemed like he believed her.
“Will you take me there?”
“Jenna…how…?”
“It’s Sunny,” she said. “Sunny did this and I know her. I used to help her build her rigs. I know I can disarm it if you’ll just take me there.”
>
“Sunny?”
“Foster. You all knew her as Foster Smith.”
Arnold’s mouth was agape now. She was getting through to him.
“Come on! For all we know Sunny might be planning to set it off any minute!”
Now Blake appeared. “Thank you Arnold,” he said. “I’ll take this from here.”
“Sir, Jenna was just telling me something that, well, I think you’d better, no strike that. I think the three of us, you, me, and Jenna, need to go to the east wing generator room right away.”
Blake was already putting his shoulder under Jenna’s arm, trying to remove her from Arnold’s grip.
“I’m fine,” she said, stepping away from them both. “I can walk on my own.”
“However you like it, Jenna,” said Blake. “Just come with me.”
“Blake, I really think we need to take her to the generator room.”
“I’ve got specific instructions about where she needs to go,” said Blake.
“I need to go to the generator room,” said Jenna. “I’ll go wherever else you want me to, but you’ve got to take me there first.”
Blake sighed. “We know about the generator room, Jenna. We know about the bomb.”
“We do?” said Arnold.
“We heard you shouting about it at the beginning of the race,” Blake said to Jenna. “We looked into it.”
“When?” said Jenna.
“Yeah, when?” said Arnold. “I was down in the generator room not twenty minutes ago.”
“It’s all fixed,” said Blake. “We’re safe. Arnold, I need you back at your post. Jenna, you come with me.”
“Are you sure it’s fixed?” said Jenna. “Sunny’s circuit-boxes can be complicated. If you take me down there I’ll make sure you disarmed it properly.”
Trainers and doctors and security were all crowded around them now. Blake yelled at everyone to back up, that he needed room.
“Jenna, I’m going to carry you out of here, okay?” he said.
“I don’t need you to carry me.”
“I insist.”
“I insist you take me to that generator room.”
“Fine. Just let me get you moving so we can get on with the show. We’ve got a hundred million people waiting to see you in the Winner’s Circle.”