Countdown

by Michelle Maddox

  "You're a mess," I informed him.

  'Tell me something I don't know."

  "You stink, too."

  "Again, well aware. Like I said, they didn't give me a few hours at the spa before locking me up in that room so I could smell like a flower for you, sweetheart."

  My throat thickened with panic. "You really think this is where we should be? Are you sure?"

  "I was. But there aren't any doors. There's nothing. And if we'd already reached the finish line you'd think there'd be some sort of indication." His words finally betrayed an edge of strain.

  "I'm going to let go of you now," I said.

  "Thanks for the warning."

  He eased back against the crumbling concrete wall behind him, and I stepped away to stand in the middle of the alley. I turned around slowly, trying hard to ignore the ticking that potentially indicated the last seconds of my life.

  "I used to watch TV shows like this before," I said. "Not exactly like this one, of course, but they'd have the races and the puzzles to solve. Usually at this level of a game it's fairly easy. Or at least, not insanely impossible to figure out." I glanced at the camera hovering in the air four feet from my face.

  "You don't know the people who set this game up. It's all about the losing, not the winning for them."

  "I'm just saying that it can't be the end. Not yet."

  I scanned the alley. Two brick walls. One concrete wall, gray and unyielding behind Rogan's hunched-over frame. I looked up. There was a sliver of slate gray sky up above the thirty-story buildings that surrounded us like cold, emotionless sentries.

  "What did you think we were running toward?" I asked. "What did you see on that map, anyhow?"

  He looked around. "It was an office. I remember it from before I got sent away. I could have sworn it was right here."

  "One minute remains in this level of The Countdown." "Fifty-nine …fifty-eight.. fifty-seven …"

  There was a Dumpster to the side of us, full to overflowing. Strange, considering that the neighborhood was deserted, that there would be a full Dumpster just waiting for the garbage collectors to show up. A rotting apple core lay to the side of it, the fruit turning brown. No flies, though. Didn't seem like anyone or anything lived here anymore, but that piece of fruit didn't seem as old as it should have, considering the surroundings.

  "What kind of office was it?" I asked.

  "What?"

  "What kind of office?" I repeated, loud enough to be heard over the countdown.

  "It was a … a doctor's office. A shrink."

  "Let me guess, your doctor?"

  His expression shadowed. "I had a few appointments there, yeah."

  "Obviously the quack wasn't very good at what he did."

  He glowered at me.

  A doctor's office. Right here. But now it was gone? Was Rogan tripping out? Or was he remembering something extremely important?

  I sure as hell hoped it was something important. We didn't have enough time to be wrong.

  I didn't think about what I was doing; I just did it. I went toward that Dumpster and jumped in.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Rogan exclaimed.

  'Trying very hard not to die."

  I plunged my hands into the muck and filth I found in there. Rotting food, discarded boxes, plastic bags filled to overstuffing with rancid garbage. Living on the streets for as long as I had gave me a necessary talent for Dumpster diving. You could find some really good shit if you had the time and inclination to go searching.

  Currently I didn't have the time, but I sure as hell had the inclination.

  I didn't even know what I was looking for. Even when I found it, I still wasn't sure.

  "Twenty-four… twenty-three … twenty-two.."

  It was a bell attached to a sign that read: Please ring bell and the receptionist will he right with you.

  "What are you doing?" Rogan shouted at me.

  I held my breath and rang the bell.

  Nothing happened for a moment, and I felt what little hope I had start to disappear, but then I heard something. Something heavy and metallic.

  "Look." Rogan pointed at the ground.

  I looked over the edge of the Dumpster to see that a door had slid open. I hadn't even noticed the edges of it before.

  "Ten … nine … eight…"

  I launched myself out of the garbage like a woman possessed and grabbed Rogan's arm. There was a flight of stairs leading down, and without thinking twice I pulled him with me and we quickly began descending into the semidarkness below.

  "Three … two … one …"

  The door above us slid shut. I froze and waited. When nothing happened I continued down to the bottom of the stairs. A short hallway led into a white room.

  "I don't feel dead," Rogan said. "So should we be celebrating?"

  I thought about that as I tried to bring my breathing back down to a normal pace. "If we're dead, then it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

  "Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing Level Two of The Countown."

  "Is he going to say that every time?" I asked. "Because that's going to get old really fast."

  Another camera appeared and whipped past my face. I watched my eyes narrow in the shiny surface. By no stretch of the imagination did I look happy. My dark brown hair was matted and tangled, and the long bangs were slicked against my forehead. My jaw was clenched tightly, and my dark eyes flashed with anger. I hated that thing. Hated it more than I remembered hating anything for a very long time.

  "You shouldn't look directly at it," Rogan advised, and he touched my arm with the hand that wasn't clasped to his injured shoulder.

  "Why not?"

  "You don't want to give the subscribers more than their money's worth. They want you look at them that way. It gets them off to see how much they're making you suffer." He pulled me away so that I wasn't staring right at the camera anymore. "How did you know to ring the bell?"

  I finally looked at him. "It was just a lucky guess."

  "Yes," a voice said. "Very lucky. And very smart."

  I turned to see that a door had opened and a man had entered the white room. He was tall and skinny, with very short black hair and a trimmed goatee. He wore wireframed glasses and a white doctor's coat and held a clipboard tightly to his chest as he approached.

  "Who the hell are you?" I asked, forcing myself not to take a step backward. He was the first live person I'd seen other than Rogan since this nightmare began.

  He stopped walking. "My name is Jonathan. I'm your liaison to The Countdown?"

  "And that means what?"

  He didn't answer me. Instead his gaze flicked to Rogan. "You're injured."

  "I'm surprised you didn't know that, being our liaison and all." Sarcasm mixed with pain in Rogan's voice.

  "It's worse than I thought it would be." Jonathan let out a long sigh and shook his head. "We will have to wait a moment first."

  I looked around the room. He wasn't moving, just staring straight ahead.

  "What are we waiting for?" I asked.

  Jonathan held up a finger. "One more moment."

  Every muscle in my body was tense and ready to run, but I waited, standing silently in place like the two men were. After a couple of minutes a small door in the wall to my right opened up and the silver ball camera left the room. The door closed behind it.

  "What the hell?" I said.

  "The Countdown is now on an official break," Jonathan explained. "We have a little time to prep you for your next level."

  "I won't last another level," Rogan said.

  Jonathan nodded. "I know. I've been monitoring your vitals."

  He left the room briefly and returned with a white box.

  "Sit," he instructed, and Rogan sat down in a white chair.

  I swear, everything in the entire room was white. It felt like a hospital, only way cleaner.

  I watched Jonathan push away the shirt material that covered Rogan's wound. T
hen, with no sound from the murderer other than a halfhearted groan of protest, Jonathan cleaned the wound and then sprayed it with some sort of colorless substance. The skin around the cut turned a sick shade of green.

  "Ah," Jonathan breathed, peering closer. "The knife they used on you was tipped with Isouliije poison."

  "That would explain why I feel like my insides are melting." Rogan sounded strangely calm. "Because they are."

  "What the hell is going on?" My fists were clenched so tightly at my sides that my fingernails dug painfully into the palms of my hands. The pain helped me stay focused.

  "What does it look like?" Jonathan asked, glancing up at me.

  "Why are you helping him?"

  "Kira," Rogan growled, "didn't you hear the part about my insides melting?"

  "But-"

  "I can't play this fucking game if I have melting insides. Do you get that?"

  "Of course I get that. But why is he helping you? Doesn't he work for the stupid game?"

  "I do," Jonathan said. "But that doesn't mean I always agree with their idea of entertainment."

  He injected a blue solution into Rogan's shoulder. Rogan flinched and clenched his jaw. "That should be enough antidote to halt the damage and hopefully reverse it. You're not going to feel great, but you'll feel a lot better than you have." He peered at the now clean wound. 'The antidote will also help the wound knit rapidly. You shouldn't require any stitches."

  "Thank you." Rogan pulled away from Jonathan the moment he was finished.

  I frowned as I watched their interaction. "Do you two know each other already?"

  Rogan's eyes flicked to me. "No."

  My frown deepened. For some reason I wasn't convinced.

  Jonathan closed the box. "Are you well, young lady?"

  "Am I well?" I repeated. "No, I'm not well. I want out of this game right now."

  "That's not possible. But you're doing fine so far. I anticipate that you will last several more levels." He looked away.

  My breath hitched. "Look, I don't know what I can do to convince you, but I don't belong here."

  "None of us belongs here, Kira," he said wearily. "Sometimes we need to do the best with what we're given."

  "I would have to disagree with you there," Rogan said.

  Jonathan looked at him sharply. 'Time has a tendency to change many things, Rogan."

  "Not as many things as you might think. But time does have a way of making things a hell of a lot clearer."

  "If you say so."

  Rogan glowered at him. "I do."

  I watched their exchange with growing confusion. Like hell they didn't know each other. I wasn't that blind.

  "You weren't supposed to fix him, were you?" I asked.

  He glanced at me. "No, I wasn't."

  "Are you going to get in trouble for it?"

  He didn't answer the question. "We must talk about Level Three."

  "I'd rather have a nap," Rogan said with a small, humorless laugh.

  "I'm sure you could. And you're in luck, because since The Countdown is on a break, you've just entered a mandatory rest period."

  Rogan's throat worked as he swallowed. "That's not necessary."

  "I thought you said you wanted a nap?"

  "On my own terms, yeah."

  Jonathan pressed a button on the wall and another holoscreen appeared in the middle of the room. "First I need to tell you about your next level." The image of an average-looking man flickered into focus. "This is Bernard Jones. He is forty years old, has been married for fifteen years, and has one child. He makes his living as an accountant. He has dreams of moving to Offworld with his family and opening a restaurant there."

  "Sounds like a fun guy," I said dryly, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. "So what are we supposed to do, get him to do our taxes?"

  "No. To successfully complete Level Three you are required to assassinate him."

  My mouth dropped open. "Kill him?"

  "That's right." Jonathan's voice was suddenly void of any emotion. "There will be no weapons allowed for this level. You will have to use whatever means are available to locate and eliminate this target. You will be informed of what is your time line for this once the level begins. That is all I can tell you. I wish you good luck."

  Rogan was frowning. "Jonathan, there has to be some way out of this. You have to let me speak to-" His voice broke off as he yelled and clutched his head, and then crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  I watched him fall and then raised my wide-eyed gaze to look at Jonathan.

  "I'm very sorry," he said.

  I opened my mouth to say something, I wasn't even sure what, but lightning pain ripped through my brain and everything went black.

  LEVEL THREE

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I opened my eyes slowly and blinked until everything came back into focus.

  My first thought was, Implants-not a good thing to have.

  I absolutely hated the idea of somebody out there with their finger on a little button that could cause me pain like that. It just didn't seem fair. However, I did like the idea of finding whomever was in charge of that little button and giving their groin a nice, sharp introduction to my knee.

  My head hurt. Bad. But at least I still seemed to be in one piece.

  Where the hell was I now?

  I glanced around and realized it was somewhere populated. Not another empty, clinical room. I could hear voices. There was the faint sound of clothes swishing and rubbing together as a few people passed nearby but out of sight.

  There was a heavy weight on my shoulder, and I slowly realized that it was Rogan-specifically his head. He was still out cold and currently using me as a pillow. We were both sprawled against a wall like a couple of homeless people. But no, this wasn't the street. Linoleum tile felt smooth and cool against my hands, which were flattened on the floor. We were inside. Somewhere.

  I frowned. It was somewhere familiar to me.

  I know this place.

  And then it dawned on me.

  It was the mall. One of my main haunts. The same place I was when this nightmare first began-when I'd stolen my new pair of shoes. I looked down at my feet to see the bright red sneakers were still there.

  "Rogan." I jostled him.

  He didn't wake up.

  I moved my hand to the back of my head and took a moment to feel the incision mark where they'd inserted the implant. Then I moved to see if I could feel the same thing on Rogan's scalp. His dark hair felt surprisingly silky slipping through my fingers.

  My frown deepened. I felt not just one but two incision marks on Rogan's head. Why were there two?

  I took a good look at him then. He looked so innocent while asleep. His eyelids fluttered, and I wondered what he was dreaming about. I looked closely at the scar on his face, and traced the line with the tip of my finger down to his lips.

  "Are you really as bad as they're trying to convince me you are?" I mused out loud.

  Why the hell didn't I want to believe it? I was being totally irrational.

  He wasn't accused of stealing bubble gum from the corner store. He was accused, and convicted, of rape and murder.

  I glanced around the hallway. Nobody was around. Not one person was within spitting distance, and as far as I could see, neither were the flying cameras.

  I pressed my hand against his throat and felt his steady pulse, warm and alive beneath my touch. Then I slowly trailed down to his collarbone and then right over his muscled chest to his heart. Skin against skin.

  Dammit. I didn't want to be this close to him. He was a very bad man who had done very bad things-unforgivable things-and it shouldn't feel this good to touch him.

  But I didn't feel threatened or afraid when I was this close to him-and not just when he was unconscious. Why was that?

  It was that damn flash I'd had when I'd done my flex on him on the street. First impression? He was seriously fucked-up. But really bad guys had this bad vibe that was hard to ignore, lik
e a cold blanket of darkness that sucked the warmth right out of me. I hadn't felt much with Rogan-there hadn't been enough time-only warmth and pain and a little bit of sadness.

  He hadn't felt like a bad guy.

  But maybe I'd been wrong. It had been only the briefest of touches, but first impressions are lasting.

  It would just take a moment. Just one moment of complete concentration to know all I wanted to know about my partner and I'd be certain one way or the other.

  I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on using my flex.

  "Hey," he suddenly rasped, and I found my hand in his as he pulled it away from his chest. "I'm out for a few minutes and you start to get frisky on me?"

  I scowled at him and pulled away. "Hardly."

  "Then what were you doing?"

  "Just making sure you weren't dead. FYI… you're not."

  He gave a short, humorless laugh and glanced around wearily. "So where the hell are we now?"

  "We're in the mall."

  "The mall," he repeated with a frown. "Why are we in a mall?"

  I reached back to feel my incision again. "We need to get these implants out."

  Rogan grabbed my wrist. "Don't do that."

  "Why not?"

  "You can't tamper with it or it will…" He hesitated. "It… it may kill us anyhow."

  I frowned. "Why do you think that?"

  "It makes sense, doesn't it?" He shakily got to his feet and held out a hand to help me up. I ignored it and got up on my own.

  "You have two incisions," I told him. "Does that mean you have two implants?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "Do I?"

  I nodded.

  He reached around to the back of his head to feel. "Maybe they made a mistake when they were digging around. Put it in the wrong spot."

  "Maybe." My gaze traveled over to his shoulder wound. "What Jonathan did to you back there. That antidote. How do you feel now?"

  He gingerly touched his shoulder and moved it up and down. "It worked. I feel stronger already. It doesn't even hurt much anymore."