Game, Set, Deathmatch

by Edwin H Rydberg

  “Let’s hope no one’s looking for us,” she concluded to agreeing nods.

  “If dey are, we fight like no tomorrow. Cause there ain’t gonna be one this far out.”

  “Bodybag’s right,” DaemonS said, clarifying. “We’re much too far for the truck to be useful. That means no cloning.” The others must have realized the same because none were surprised.

  In the moment of quiet that followed, Vorpal added, “I wonder how much longer it would have remained anyway?”

  “Yeah, Genilon was pounding it pretty good,” Pincer said.

  Vorpal looked over to her. “Not only that, but....”

  “Da synthoids,” Bodybag interjected.

  “Exactly.”

  “I was hoping they were a bad dream,” Defcon said with a distant look.

  “Unfortunately, they were as real as us.” And the thought of who they must be working for left DaemonS with a bad feeling in her gut. “They’ve gotta be Halandri.”

  “You can’t be serious, Daem.”

  “Vorpal, I’ve seldom been more serious in my life.”

  “Halandri?”

  “They’re the only possibility.”

  The looks on their faces told the story: disbelief giving way to realization. There was no other explanation.

  Pincer pieced it together first, “But that would mean....”

  “Dey set us up!” Bodybag said. “Those dirty, two-faced....”

  And then the world took on a surreal hue, sounds and colors dulled and the walls closed in on her as the full truth slammed her in the stomach. He must have been in on it. DaemonS staggered from the revelation, her knees buckled and she sat hard on the floor. That Halandri set them up had been obvious to her for some time, but until now she hadn’t realized that Figment must have been a part of it. He set them up. Set her up.

  The room vanished in a blur of remembered images, smells, the sound of his voice. The gentle curves of his face changed to a mocking laugh as she numbed to everything save the sharp pain in her chest. How could she have been such a fool? She was going to be sick — if she didn’t faint first.

  “Breathe Daem, breathe — in, out, in out. That’s it, just relax and take nice deep breaths.” Vorpal’s soft, even voice seeped into the darkness of her world, a tiny beacon leading her back to the others.

  “I’ve been an idiot, played like a stupid little girl.”

  “Daem....”

  “My little games could have cost everyone their lives.”

  “Daem....”

  “How could I have fallen for that...?”

  The sharp sting of a slap pulled her from her thoughts, thrusting her back into reality. The walls of the laboratory snapped into place and she looked up to see the other four Cowgirlz staring at her.

  “Daem,” Vorpal said, lowering her hand, “I don’t know what there was between you and that Figment guy, but it’s irrelevant. We came here because we had a contract. They gave us back Bodybag so we owed them. Your feelings played no part in this.”

  “That’s right Daem,” added Defcon. “Without Halandri, we would have one less Cowgirl. No price was too high in payment of that debt.”

  DaemonS stared at Vorpal and then Defcon for long moments. They were right. Nothing in her relationship with Figment had any bearing on this moment. The realization didn’t lessen the sting of betrayal, but it lifted the burden of guilt. She would carry on. The Cowgirlz would survive.

  “I’m still going to frag him, next time I see him,” she said.

  “’Den you’ll have ta get in line,” said Bodybag to agreeing nods.

  * * *

  The chronometer implant on his forearm showed an elapsed time of five hours, it felt like five days. Figment swore and struck at the ground, heel sinking a few inches into the soft floor. He was hoarse from cursing at his stupidity but there was little else to do. He could be anywhere within translocator distance, which meant he was still in the city — unless PS had rigged a translocator chain. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  The room was pitch black, its four walls identical in their feel and response. If there was a door he hadn’t found it yet, and it was too dark to for there to be a window as almost anywhere he could be would have some ground level light seeping in. His stomach growled.

  Figment stood, hammering his fists into the semi-rigid wall behind him and then each of the other walls in turn, “Hey, is anyone there? Do I get any food in here?”

  A few moments later, the sound of a tray striking the floor, the rattle of plates and cups, came from his lower right. He dove for the wall but contact revealed only an uninterrupted surface; a thorough check of the area was no more informative. The tray must have come from somewhere outside, and that meant an opening; so where was it? Could it have been a different wall? Not likely. He felt the tray and its upturned contents inches from what he thought of as the west wall and performed a thorough search. Nothing, not a hint of any gap.

  Figment sat in the center of the room, legs crossed and ingested the tasteless, semi-solid nutrients. Then he set his chronometer alarm for his estimate of the next feeding time, closed his eyes and meditated.

  Hours passed without light. The only sound was of his own breathing.

  He pulled out of his trance just before the alarm went and waited.

  Another hour passed and no food came. Deciding there was little point in waiting further for a tray that may not come, Figment spent time tossing the thin cylinder of a translocator target into the air, bouncing it off the high walls of his cell. He listened for the telltale rap on a window, or hoped the beacon might finding a set of bars to escape by. But the soft squish of contact with the floor always met his ears after a few silent moments. And then he would grope in the direction of the sound, locate the target and start again. He could have used the recall button on the translocator, of course, but what was his hurry?

  The translocator was the only device he had with him — other than his communicator, which was either being jammed or was out of range of a relay. If fortune favored him, however, the translocator was the only device he would need to escape. If he could find an opening, or the gap where food entered, he could place the target on the tray and translocate out when it was collected. There was, of course, the worry that the last tray had seemed to dissolve into the floor.

  He should probably be thankful someone wanted him alive enough to supply food, although it might be more comforting to know why his continued existence was desired.

  More hours passed. Figment lay back on the soft floor and closed his eyes.

  Out of the darkness, colorful spirals approached and he could see they were dancing in time to a lilting melody, rolling and swirling until they unraveled, stretching into long tentacles. The squirming arms didn’t touch him as he waded through them and when he reached their center, they shriveled, drying and hardening to explode in a burst of light, scattering a sphere of shrapnel. As each fragment landed, it grew into a machine gun that found its place, one of hundreds in ordered rows that disappeared into the distance. The weapons began marching in synchronized precision until Figment slapped himself hard, forcing his awareness back to reality.

  The omnipresent darkness, the soft walls, the quiet of the cell, it was like being confined to a sensory deprivation tank. If he didn’t get some stimulation soon, Figment feared he might go mad. He tossed his translocator target into the air. It fell once more with soft thud.

  He picked it up and leaned back against the wall, which suddenly came alive. Tentacles reached out entwining his arms and legs, holding him fast. Moments later, a small spot of light appeared across from him. It stretched into a thin line, which then swelled into a rectangle. Into the light stepped a silhouette.

  “The emissary will see you now,” a voice like grinding gravel said.

  Turning his head from the brightness, Figment nodded toward his bonds, “I’d love to oblige him, but....”

  The figure
drew a weapon, aiming the barrel at him, “They are no longer necessary,” it said, as the tentacles slackened their hold before sliding back into the wall.

  “Nice trick.”

  “Come this way. The emissary is waiting.”

  Figment gave his legs a quick rub to ensure adequate circulation before he stood. Shielding his eyes from the glare from the corridor, he stepped out of the room and into an alien vista.

  A tubular corridor stretched into the distance before him, branches and tributaries visible at regular intervals. The walls seemed to be covered with leather, or the skin of some animal turned inside out. Grey in the dull lighting, the eerie orange circles in the ceiling pulsed at regular intervals along the passage.

  As they trod down the corridor, Figment reached out a hand, tracing it along the wall. It was damp and cool to the touch, much like those of his cell. A rifle barrel in the back warned his hands away.

  “Keep moving. The emissary is waiting.”

  They wound their way through the network of tunnels for almost a quarter of an hour if Figment’s judgment was correct. Whether by chance or design, he saw no one else in that time. The facility seemed huge yet, although he couldn’t understand why, it also seemed oddly familiar.

  “Halt!”

  A large semicircular portal stood before them, innervated by a series of thin, pulsing tubules that met at the center. His guard approached it and the portal oozed open like a giant sphincter. The rifle barrel directed him inside and he followed its suggestion, staring at the door as he passed under the archway.

  “Welcome,” an all too familiar voice said from a throne at the far end of the room.

  Figment turned from the door, to see an unexpected and unwelcome figure.

  “Ah, Figment, my resourceful servant.” Pre-emptive Strike rose, stepping down from his dais, arms open wide in welcome.

  “I’m not your servant, nor anyone else’s.”

  With a wry smile, PS reminded him of the truth. “As I recall, your services belong to the highest bidder.”

  Despite his anger, Figment had no reply. It was true. He seldom turned down a job and never once a deal was brokered. It had been his code of honor. Lately, events had made him question just how honorable that code was. “The job is over, you got what you were looking for. What do you want from me?”

  “What makes you think I want anything from you?”

  “Cut the games. If you didn’t want something, I would already be dead.”

  “Hmmm, yes. You have a point there. Fair enough. I want to offer you something most only dream of. Immortality.”

  “I wasn’t aware you had ascended to Godhood. Halandri may be powerful, but I doubt they’ve come that far.”

  PS stared at him for a moment and gave a short laugh before answering. “This is far more than corporate squabbles over market shares and stock options Mr. Figment.”

  That wasn’t hard to believe as he once again observed the pulsing, organic nature of the room’s walls that surrounded him. It was almost as if they were supported by bone, skin stretched taut over the original structure. There was a definite feeling they were alive. “So what is it about?”

  “A new order has come to the universe,” PS said, staring upward at, or maybe through, the wide, domed ceiling. A trio of luminescent spots throbbed at the distant apex. His gazed returned to Figment, and he spoke with the eyes of a zealot. “The next stage of evolution has arrived. Life will never again be the same.”

  If the surroundings hadn’t fit so well with Pre-emptive Strike’s speech, Figment would have assumed the man was crazy. “You don’t look like much of an improvement for someone who has reached the next level of evolution.”

  For a moment, PS looked over his own body as if seeing for the first time that he wore an unfashionable suit. Hands, arms, legs, he studied them with distant eyes. When he looked up again, there was a smile on his lips. “This form was necessary in order that we remained undiscovered and to initiate the conversion. However, my own ascension will occur very soon.”

  “Is that what you needed the Genilon information for?”

  “Ah yes. The information so effectively discovered by your agents. While not crucial to our success, it will be a boon to our plans.”

  “And what of the Cowgirlz?”

  “Should they survive, they will receive a special place in the new order. After they are converted, of course.”

  “They’ll never join your madhouse, and neither will I.”

  Booming laughter echoed throughout the chamber before PS said, “Do you think you’ll be given a choice?”

  “We’ll fight you. Together. Better to die a thousand deaths than become part of your madness.”

  “What makes you believe they will have anything to do with you?”

  “Because we’ve been through a lot since this started.”

  “Surely you must realize that your woman will not have you back? Her eyes see betrayal Figment. You sent her and her comrades to their deaths. Such a thing will be difficult to overcome.”

  The hollow feeling in his gut told him PS was right. There was no other way she could see it. Not only had he been used to do Pre-emptive Strike’s bidding, but he’d been set-up to take the fall.

  The one person in the world he cared about, that he had any chance of loving, and she was lost to him. The admission struck him hard. How had it happened? She had slipped past his defenses without him even noticing. And now that she was inside him, a part of him, he had lost her.

  “Do not worry. When you all ascend, you will be together as one.”

  “Yeah? And just what will it take for my ascension?”

  “Why, Mr. Figment, I thought you would have figured that out by now. The price, of course, is your death.”

  Pre-emptive Strike’s laugh was loud and maniacal as heavy stepfalls approached Figment from behind. “Time to ascend.”

  The gun barrel jammed in his back forced him forward, toward the dais, toward Pre-emptive Strike. Time was running out.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing,” PS said between bouts of laughter.

  The guard forced him to his knees and the cold barrel of the weapon pressed hard against the back of his head.

  “You will make a fine addition to our forces, Mr. Figment. And when your ladies, the Cowgirlz, join us, I’ll be sure to arrange a reunion. Now, do you have any final words before you ascend?”

  “Yeah. You’re crazy...,” Figment said as he spun on his knees, grabbing the gun barrel and twisting it to ram it into the guard’s face before jumping to his feet. Two shots, point-blank splattered black and green goo across the room, stilling the squirming figure, and Figment turned to PS. “... if you think I’d be willing to join you.”

  “You will join us, willing or not. There is no escaping destiny.” PS now had a frightening, manic look in his eyes — the glare of a lunatic. His laughter was maddening.

  “Like hell there isn’t.” Figment pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times the gun spewed lead death into the chest of Pre-emptive Strike.

  The laughter stopped. In the deadened quiet PS staggered backward clutching at his shrapnel-filled torso. He pulled his hand away, staring as the bright red blood dripped to the floor. And then, he began to laugh again. A weak, hideous gurgling at first. But it soon grew to fill the room, echoing off the skin-like walls of the domed chamber.

  Figment staggered backward toward the door, eyes fixed on the maniacal death throws of Pre-emptive Strike. His back contacted the door and it opened automatically with a rapid suction noise, but Figment remained transfixed on the image before him. Instead of a lifeless body collapsing to a heap on the ground, PS seemed almost to dissolve, sinking into a black mound of tar that remained roughly humanoid in shape. From the mound, strands of smoking black wormed their way outward, stretching into, across, and over, the floor as the glow of the ceiling increased, now seeming to fill the entire room.

&nb
sp; The laughter was deafening and Figment turned, fleeing from the room, to be pursued through the long corridors by the haunting sound.

  14

  “Any thoughts on getting off? I assume we’re not going to ride a jettisoned Genilon laboratory to the ends of the Earth.”

  “Uh, no,” DaemonS answered, shaking her head. “Anyone know where we are?” Her question was met with a series of negatives.

  “Never thought to check a map of the surroundings before going in,” answered Defcon.

  “Never t’ought we’d be set up, ya mean,” Bodybag clarified from the ceiling before returning to her watch.

  In the ensuing silence there was only one thought in her mind. “Damn it!” DaemonS slammed her foot hard on the sloping floor and rammed her fist into the wall beside her. “I can’t believe I was that stupid! The thought of a double-cross never even entered my mind.”

  Pincer rested a hand on her shoulder, “You weren’t the only one, Daem. None of us saw it coming.”

  “But damn it, what kind of captain am I, leading my team into a set-up?”

  “In my books, a damn fine one for making sure we all got out.”

  “We’re not out of it yet,” she said, before whispering, “but thanks for the support. Now, anyone have a thought on how to leave this boat?”

  “De river’s narrowin’ ahead,” Bodybag called from the ceiling. “An’ gettin’ rough. Hold on!”

  The room bounced off something hard sending the Cowgirlz tumbling to the floor as it twisted against the obstacle and continued downstream.

  “It’s quickening too,” Pincer said, climbing to her feet. “Rapids?”

  “Aye, we be passin’ de wastelands,” Bodybag called from her ceiling perch. “It’s gettin’ rough.”

  DaemonS rushed to the other window, a small portal in the left wall, and stuck her head out. Green fumes rose from the river as it narrowed, funneling into canyons formed from melted bedrock. Although the river had narrowed, as Bodybag said, it was still a half-mile across. And that was a half-mile of rapids filled with eddies and jutting, rocky obstacles swimming in toxic effluent and discarded corporate byproducts. From what she could see of the shore, it wasn’t much better. There was no question, this was definitely the wastelands.