"What the hell is that?" I asked.
He looked up at it grimly. "Must be showtime."
I clenched the key so tightly that I knew it would leave an impression in my fingertips. "Why would they be taping us?"
"Because they like to watch."
"Watch what?" I snapped. "Can you stop being so damn vague and just tell me what's going on?"
But he wasn't looking at me; he was looking at my key. "Now, if I used my great big brain and thought this through, I would have to guess that your key fits my lock and my key fits your lock."
I frowned. "How do you know that?"
"I didn't say I know. I said I guess." The murderer smirked at me. 'Try to pay attention to the class, would you?"
I gritted my teeth. "I don't like you."
"My heart is breaking. Now, why don't you be a good girl and throw that key over here so I can test my theory?"
"Screw you."
He shrugged, then grimaced, as if the wound on his shoulder caused him massive pain. "We can do that too if you like, sweetheart, but I'll need to be unchained first. Then again, we can bring the chains with us if you're into that sort of thing."
I gave him the look I gave to men who tried to pick me up. The losers and the freaks who thought sex was a sport and I was just somebody to score with. In the circles I'd hung out in lately, guys like that were the norm rather than the exception. All the good ones seemed to have left the city long ago. And you know what? With some of them, I played it as good as I could. I knew that I wasn't ugly-that despite living on the streets a little more than I'd like, I had a good body and a nice face and that men were attracted to me. I used it, I played them, and then I took their wallets when they weren't looking.
So sue me.
This guy didn't have a wallet as far as I could see. He had nothing I wanted. Nothing except that key.
I shifted my position into something a little more alluring. Boobs out. I sucked in my stomach. I raised an eyebrow and forced a smile to my lips. "Why don't you throw me your key first?"
He studied me and my sudden change in demeanor. I still wasn't letting him have what he wanted, but the vibe I was giving off was much more.. .friendly. I mean, the guy had been in prison for four years. He had to be a walking hard-on by now, right? I could work with that. A little estrogen thrown his way and he should be putty in my hands.
Dirty, murdering putty. With sexy eyes and a great smile. An unusual combination, to say the least.
He licked his lips and let out a long sigh. "Sweetheart, you're good. If I didn't feel like a pile of shit and that my arm was about to fall off, you might have me, but pain does help one to focus. Your key. Throw it to me. Then I'll throw you mine."
My fake smile slipped. "And when I throw you my key how do I know you'll do the same in return?"
"You'll just have to trust me."
"Give me one good reason why I should."
He stared at me and laughed that short, staccato, humorless laugh. "I'm coming up blank here."
'Then I guess we're both shit out of luck."
"I guess so." A smile twisted his mouth. Then he closed his eyes and pain shadowed his face.
Dammit. I didn't want to feel sympathy for this guy. He was a murderer, just like the bastard who had killed my family. But if that blood was any indication, he was seriously wounded.
Then again, how did I know for sure? Maybe it was just a ruse. Maybe he was acting like he was hurt. After all, that camera did just appear out of nowhere. What did he say a minute ago? Showtime?
The camera whirred again as it changed direction; it turned to point at Rogan.
He pried his eyes open and looked up at it.
Then he gave it the finger.
Suddenly the lights began to flash on and off and an alarm sounded, so loud that I instinctively clamped my hands over my ears. From complete silence to a maddening noise in a split second.
"What's happening?" I yelled.
Rogan's gaze darted frantically around the room.
And then I heard something else. A metallic, computer-generated voice could be heard from speakers I couldn't see, but seemed to come from every direction.
"Sixty…" it announced. "Fifty-nine …fifty-eight… fifty-seven …"
Rogan began struggling hard against his chain. "Shit. Shit! Kira, throw me that key. Right now! Do it!"
"Why? What's happening?"
"It's the countdown!"
Okay, I figured out that much all by myself. If I wasn't so scared out of my mind I'd take the time to roll my eyes at him.
"Which means what?"
His face looked wild. Panicked. He craned his neck to look around the empty room as the lights flashed on and off, plunging us quickly back and forth into darkness and bright like a strobe light in a dance club. "We've wasted too much time."
"Fifty-two …fifty-one …fifty…"
"What happens when it gets to zero?"
He stared across the room at me. "When it gets to zero we die. Do you understand? If you don't throw me that key, in less than fifty seconds we're both going to die!"
"What do you mean? Die? How do you know that?"
"There's no time to explain. I know you don't trust me, but please. Just do what I say so we can live."
I stared at him. No. I couldn't do it. I couldn't trust him. If I threw him the key he'd unlock himself and leave me here. He was a murderer. He'd admitted it. He'd told me that there was no reason he could give me to trust him. And I didn't trust him. I didn't trust anyone but myself.
"Come on!" he yelled.
"Thirty-five … thirty-four… thirty-three…"
I stared blindly around at the metal-walled room. There had to be another way out of here. Who would want to kill us? It didn't make any damn sense. None of this made any damn sense.
Rogan swore so loud it hurt my ears over the alarm and countdown.
"Fine!" he yelled. "Take it! You go first."
He threw the key at me and it landed by my feet. Without thinking twice I grabbed it and worked it into my lock. The shackles popped open immediately.
Just as my bindings were unlocked, a door to my left swung open into more darkness. I eyed it with uncertainty, but just for a moment, before I took a step toward it.
"Wait.. " Rogan held a hand out to me. "What about our deal?"
I hesitated. He was a murderer. Mass murderer. I should leave him there, wherever there was. My family's dying screams echoed in my memory.
I pushed any sympathy I might have away and gave him a cold stare and said nothing.
"Nineteen … eighteen.. seventeen …"
Suddenly, swearing loudly, he slumped back against the wall and looked away from me, his chest heaving with each labored breath. He wasn't going to beg me to help him.
He gave up just like that?
He thought he was going to die-honestly, truly die when the countdown ended. I'd seen it in his eyes. You couldn't fake that. Whether it was true or not didn't matter. He believed it.
I swore under my breath and ran back to grab the key off the ground, then closed the distance between us. I sank to the ground and worked the key into his lock. It snapped open. I quickly got back up to my feet and turned away, glancing over my shoulder at him. He was struggling to get to his feet. It was the shoulder wound-it hurt him badly. He could barely walk.
"Ten … nine … eight…"
I turned back and grabbed him around his waist, practically pulling him through the room with me. He leaned heavily against me.
"Four… three.. two … one."
We were through the door on the last count, and it slammed shut behind us with a deafening, heavy metallic grinding noise that shook the ground.
Rogan groaned and collapsed to his knees. I frowned and reached toward him to touch his shoulder. It was knotted with tension.
"You're seriously hurt."
He blinked at me. "You thought… thought I was faking in there?"
"I wasn't sure."
'Thanks for the help."
I was about to say, "Anytime," which would be the typical response to the statement, but I stopped myself. There was no "anytime" with Rogan or any other murderer. This was it. We'd escaped the room and I was so out of there.
Only there was a little problem.
I still wasn't entirely sure where "there" was.
We'd entered another room. This one didn't look much more interesting than the first one. Only this time I could see the outline of a door with no handle. I walked to it and kicked against it as hard as I could.
"Let me out of here!" I yelled as loud as I could. The sound of my voice echoed against the metal walls.
"That's not going to do anything," Rogan said.
"We'll see about that." I kicked the door again. And again. Until my leg hurt but the door didn't look any worse for wear. I hadn't even made a damn dent.
Finally, panting hard and sweating buckets, I stopped and turned around to Rogan. I thrust a finger in his direction. "Start talking. I want to know everything you know."
He blinked up at me, holding one hand against his wound. "You came back for me."
"Yeah. I did. And don't make me regret my decision."
"I thought you'd leave me to die."
"You still think we would have died if we stayed in there?"
He nodded gravely. "The grinding noise? That was the ceiling clamping down on the floor. Twenty thousand pounds of pressure. I'm just guessing that might have killed us on contact."
I just stared at him for a moment blankly.
"How the hell do you-"
Before I could finish asking him how he'd know something like that, I was interrupted.
"Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing Level One of The Countdown."
It was a disembodied voice coming through unseen loudspeakers, just as the countdown had. I couldn't pinpoint the exact direction, but the sound of it physically hurt, and I cringed against the words.
Unlike the countdown itself, which had a metallic sound that betrayed it as a computer-generated voice, this one sounded very human. Very male. And very smug.
"You son of a bitch," Rogan growled. "Let us out of here!"
"Level One," the voice continued, as if it couldn't hear Rogan's comment or was choosing to ignore it, "is to test your abilities of reason and compatibility. You have won the chance to continue on to Level Two, and due to your performance thus far we have teamed you as partners."
"What the hell is going on here?" I demanded. "I don't even know what you're talking about. I didn't sign up for anything like-"
Suddenly what felt like a bolt of lightning ripped through my brain. I screamed and clamped my hands on either side of my head and fell to the ground as white-hot pain tore through me.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rogan do the same.
The pain vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and I stared around at the room, numb and in shock.
"Wh-what…?" I managed. My throat hurt.
The voice went on as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "Your implants have been activated and tuned to each other's frequency. Kindly keep in mind that you are playing as a team, and to separate more than ninety feet from your partner will lead to immediate disqualification."
Implants? Frequency? Disqualification?
I scrambled unsteadily to my feet. I felt dizzy and disoriented and I stumbled, finally bracing myself against a cold metal wall.
"I want to know what the hell is happening here," I demanded hoarsely. "I want to be let out of here immediately or I'm calling the police!"
It was an empty threat. The police wouldn't give a crap what happened to somebody like me. I didn't even have any ID. They'd probably end up throwing me in jail for causing a disturbance.
I was on my own.
Rogan looked over at me. He hadn't bothered getting up from the floor. Maybe he was a lot smarter than I was.
"Give up," he said.
"Like hell I will." I moved toward the door and kicked it again, knowing it wouldn't do anything helpful, but feeling the desperate need to lash out. "Come on! Come on, you bastards. Let me the hell out of here!"
I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye and turned around slowly. The lights in the room dimmed, and a holoscreen appeared out of nowhere, showing an overhead view of the city.
"What the hell?"
The only time I'd ever seen anything like it was from sneaking in to see an old sci-fi movie at the only theater in the city that was still open. Shit like this didn't exist in real life. Did it?
Well, obviously it did, because I was looking right at it.
I walked around the screen, trying to see where it was projected from, but there was nothing. I touched it and the image flickered and morphed as if I'd just dipped my finger into a shallow pool of water. It was partially transparent, and I could see Rogan on the other side. He looked at me and shook his head.
"It begins," he said.
"What begins? What the hell is happening?" I felt a tear of frustration slip down my right cheek.
On the map a round white glow appeared at an intersection that was otherwise unmarked.
"Level One has been completed successfully," the voice returned. It sounded enthusiastic, and there was an odd singsong quality to the words. "There are six levels to The Countdown. Complete all without suffering disqualification or elimination and you will be considered the winner. Your next level is to reach the marker you see on the map by the time the clock runs out. If you are not successful you will be eliminated from The Countdown. Do not delay. You have fifteen minutes to complete this level. Your time starts now."
The map faded into the image of a ticking clock, and then that also disappeared, leaving me staring directly at Rogan. The lights came up and I felt a draft of cool air touch my bare arms.
I turned to see that the door I'd been kicking had opened up. Beyond it was the outdoors. The city. Familiar territory.
"Kira!" Rogan called after me.
But I barely heard him. I was too busy running.
LEVEL TWO
CHAPTER THREE
The beeping started when I'd gone nearly a block away. Soft at first, but growing steadily in volume and speed with every step I took.
I decided to ignore it.
I'd escaped. Holy hell, I'd escaped. I didn't know where I'd just spent who knew how much time, but I was glad I was out of there. And the more distance I could put between me and whatever the hell that had been was distance well traveled.
I looked around at the gray street and the gray buildings that reached high into the sky. Not another person to be seen.
Yeah. Welcome to my city.
Twenty-five years ago it had been a thriving and successful place of business. In fact, the whole world had been on an upswing then. Technology was increasing. The economy was thriving. A new world had even been discovered that had the same life-sustaining properties as Earth. And just when everybody was feeling all positive about the future, the Great Plague swept across the world, and in a matter of weeks 40 percent of human life was wiped out. Dead and gone.
Those who survived continued on-I mean, what choice did they have? The world kept turning. They rebuilt, they had children, but the world was sure as hell not the way it used to be. The city, once prosperous and filled with life, was now a sad and empty shell of what it used to be. It was depressing, sure. But it was all I'd ever known since I was born almost three years after the plague was over with.
I actually couldn't imagine living here when it was crammed with people. It was still busy over on Paragon Avenue-as if everyone who remained here congregated there in a sort of minicity. But the rest of the streets and neighborhoods were close to deserted, like this one apparently was.
As far as that new world that was discovered, over the past twenty-five years it had grown a lot. People referred to the new colony as "Offworld," and it was this shiny, beautiful paradise where everyone aspire
d to go and start a new life.
Apparently there's some kind of a shuttle that will take you there. But you need to know the right people, have the right kind of money, and have a hell of a lot of luck. Even with 40 percent of the population no longer breathing, mat still leaves three billion people looking for a ticket off this dying world. That would be a pretty damn big shuttle.
Finding out more about that shuttle and how the hell I could get myself on it was my biggest dream. So far, no dice, though. Apparently I didn't travel in the right circles to get any solid information on the subject. Big surprise.
"Kira! Stop!" I heard Rogan yell from behind me, but I didn't look. I was out of there. Away from there and away from him. I didn't need any more problems in my life, and that man was one big problem from head to foot.
Maybe I'd use this bizarre "countdown" experience as a catalyst to turn my life around. I mean, I was almost twenty-three now. Not a kid anymore. I could get a job. A real job. Make a real living. Contribute to society instead of stealing from it. Give up the dream of going to Offworld and just find a nice guy and settle down over on Paragon Avenue. Maybe pop out a couple kids of my own. Maybe I could be happy if I let myself. Forget about my past. Run away from it like I was running away from the metal room and the dangerous-looking man with those hypnotic blue-green eyes.
If it just wasn't for all the damned beeping I might feel like a new woman.
"Kira!" Rogan shouted again. I looked over my shoulder. He was running after me. Well, actually it was more like a speedy shuffle. The man was injured, possibly dying, and yet he was still trying to catch up to me.
I ignored the rush of empathy that thought triggered.
What the hell was he chasing after me for?
And then I knew. It was the pain that clued me in. The stabbing pain through my head that stopped me dead in my tracks. The beeping was so loud now I couldn't think, couldn't concentrate. I fell to my knees and pressed my hands hard against my ears to block out the blinding, fast beeping-it was like an endless train roaring over the tracks-but it wasn't going to do any good.
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