Countdown

by Michelle Maddox

  Bernard shook his head. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

  There was a sharp, discarded piece of metal on the ground, and Rogan snatched it up. He moved closer. "You have very little time. Just tell us who you really are."

  "There are five minutes remaining in this level of The Countdown."

  Bernard's eyes widened, but he said nothing to give any indication that he was a game plant.

  Oh, God, I thought. He was just a civilian after all.

  "Rogan, what do you think you're doing?" My heart was pounding painfully against my ribs.

  He didn't look at me. "I already told you. I'm doing what I have to do."

  I shook my head. "You can't. Please, my family-"

  "Your family has nothing to do with this." He glanced over his shoulder at me and met my gaze. "I'm doing this whether or not you understand. I'm sorry, Kira. There's no other choice. Not if we want to live."

  His eyes held a look of despair, which quickly closed off to blankness. Then he tore the look off and stalked toward Bernard before I could say another word.

  Bernard froze in place as the convicted murderer approached, weapon in hand.

  "You're Bernard Jones," he said.

  "Yes. I already said I was. I don't know what this is about. I… I… don't want any trouble."

  "Neither did I."

  The man blinked nervously. "Listen, you can have my money. All of it. Just do not hurt me."

  "Money doesn't do me any good anymore."

  I'd approached on Rogan's left side, and I touched his arm. It felt as hard as I'd imagine the metal bar would.

  "Rogan …" I was crying now. He was going to kill the man in cold blood like it meant nothing. I could see the determination in his eyes. I felt as helpless as I did the night my family was killed and all I could do was hide in the dark and wait for the silence.

  "Please!" Bernard's voice shook as he eyed the shiny weapon. "I have a family who needs me."

  "Do I look like I care?" Rogan's voice caught on the last word.

  "I recognize you," Bernard babbled. "You … you're Rogan Ellis. You killed people. Women. Killed them brutally. Some while they were asleep in their beds. Lots of them. I remember seeing it on the news."

  I felt a tremor go through Rogan at his words. "Do you always believe everything you see on the news?"

  "Yes! You're going to kill me, aren't you? Aren't you?" He fell to his knees and shielded his face with his hands.

  "Rogan, please don't do this," I managed. "Please!"

  Rogan's chest heaved in and out with labored breathing. Then he raised the piece of metal above his head as if he would bring it down in a death blow, but something stopped him. His jaw twitched and he slowly lowered the weapon back down to his side.

  He looked at me, his eyes glistening. "Do you believe everything you see on the news, too?"

  I shook my head. "No. I make my own decisions. And you … I don't believe you're a bad man. I don't. You're better than this. I know you are."

  A tear slipped down his face. "I can't do it. Fuck, Kira. I can't do it. I can't kill him. Even to save us." He was shaking. He dropped the piece of metal and it hit the ground.

  "There are four minutes remaining in this level of The Countdown."

  I pulled Rogan to me and hugged him tight, feeling his chest go in and out, his entire body tense.

  I nodded and pulled back, rubbing my thumb along his cheek to wipe the tear away. "I know. It's okay."

  Bernard was fumbling around in his pockets. He let go of his shopping bag and it hit the cement with a thud. Pieces of paper and old tissues fell out of his jacket pockets.

  What was he looking for? His wallet? His ID? A piece of gum?

  But then he found it.

  My eyes widened as I watched him pull out a gun and aim it at Rogan's head.

  He smiled, and there was something very unnatural about it.

  "Other contestants have taken me out very easily in less than ten minutes," he said.

  Rogan tensed even more under my touch. "I knew it. I knew there had to be a catch to this."

  "You are supposed to be a formidable murderer. I expected that you would have no problem at all with this level. She"-he nodded at me-"was the wild card. She's not a murderer. It would have been interesting to see if she tried to stop you, but she didn't."

  "I did," I said as confusion slid through me. "I didn't want him to kill you."

  He shrugged. "You didn't put up much of a fight. He would have killed me, but you would not have stopped

  him. Unfortunately, Rogan Ellis is a coward. The subscribers will be horribly disappointed. They had very high expectations."

  Rogan eyed the gun. "Ask me if I give a shit what the subscribers think."

  Bernard smiled that strange, steady smile. "It is fine. The subscribers will be sated when I eliminate both of you for failing to complete the level successfully." He moved the gun toward me. "Perhaps I will start with you, Kira Jordan."

  Rogan put an arm in front of me. "What are you?"

  I frowned at his choice of words. What instead of who.

  Bernard's head swiveled toward him. "I am highly surprised you don't already know the answer to that, Rogan Ellis. I am an Ellipsis Cyber Drone, model number six-six-five-five-point-one."

  What did he just say? What kind of an answer was that? What did that even mean?

  "An Ellipsis Cyber Drone?" Rogan's eyebrows went up. "But… but how-"

  "There have been many advancements made in artificial intelligence since you were incarcerated, Rogan Ellis," Bernard said evenly. "I am only one of them."

  "What does that mean?" I asked.

  "He's a robot," Rogan growled without taking his eyes off Bernard. "With a very advanced artificial intelligence program. Fuck. I knew there was something wrong. I just don't trust my own instincts anymore. Of course they wouldn't make us kill a civilian."

  "Three minutes remain in this level of The Countdown."

  Bernard's fake smile slipped back over more of his teeth. "Rogan Ellis, convicted rapist and murderer, could not bring himself to kill an Ellipsis Cyber Drone. And for that, both of you shall be eliminated from The Countdown."

  I felt a line of perspiration slide down my spine.

  The robot smirked, and suddenly I could see what he truly was. Before I was in too much shock, too much fear, to see that this guy didn't look all that human after all. He was too shiny, too seamless. His eyes reflected no inner personality. His voice had a slightly metallic tinniness to it that reminded me of the computer countdown I couldn't run away from because it fed directly into my brain.

  "It will not be long now," the robot said. "Rogan Ellis, my database tells me that you have been wishing for death for many months. You do not like Saradone Maximum-Security Prison? I know that the scar on your face is from fighting off four other inmates who wanted to do very bad things to you. You killed two of them before the guards stopped the fight and placed you in solitary confinement. I think that you are lucky you received only a mark on your face. I am not surprised that you agreed to come on The Countdown instead of facing life back in the regular prison population. I would say that you would not have lasted another week."

  I looked at Rogan. That was how he got his scar? Trying to fight off other inmates? I felt a flood of pity fill my chest but tried to push it away.

  I couldn't even wrap my head around how wrong all of this was. From holoscreens, to flying cameras, to robots posing as fucking accountants-it was so messed up my brain couldn't even process it all.

  "There are two minutes remaining in this level of The Countdown."

  "You know what, robot?" Rogan said, and there was zero emotion in his voice. "I still have two minutes left to reduce you to a pile of tin cans. You can't kill us until after the level's done, right? So we still have time."

  The robot nodded with a firm jerk of his head. "This is true. I cannot kill you yet."

  He lowered the gun and pulled the trigge
r. I felt the bullet rip into my upper right thigh and I fell to the ground, screaming and clutching my leg.

  "However," the robot continued, "I can still entertain the subscribers until the level comes to its conclusion." He chambered another round. "Rogan Ellis, I would have believed that you would appreciate watching another woman writhing around in agony before her inevitable death. Why do you look so stern?"

  "Kira!" Rogan called out to me, his voice hoarse.

  I could barely hear him. My leg felt like it was on fire, and all I could do was wrestle with the pain. It hurt so horribly that I couldn't see anything but white. I couldn't hear anything except the countdown, now at one minute.

  One minute and no more pain.

  "Fifty-nine.. fifty-eight.. fifty-seven …"

  I blinked and tried to focus as tears streamed down my face. Rogan had rushed Bernard and grabbed his arms, wrestling him to the ground. The gun skittered across the pavement, coming to rest an arm's reach away from me.

  "Son of a bitch!" Rogan snarled as he pounded his fist into the robot's face. Through my tear-blurred vision I saw a glimmer of metal show beneath the artificial skin.

  With a metallic roar, Bernard flipped Rogan onto his back, effortlessly pinning the large man to the ground. A viselike metal grip fastened around his neck.

  "Do not fear, Rogan," the robot said in an eerily calm voice. "It will all be over soon. You failed. You failed Kira Jordan and you failed yourself."

  Rogan moaned and swore incoherently. "Don't hurt her!"

  "It is my job to hurt her."

  "Thirty.. twenty-nine … twenty-eight…"

  I reached out and wrapped my hand around the gun, then staggered up on my left leg, doing my best to ignore the searing pain in my other leg. I felt nauseated and weak and ready to drop back down to the ground. I swayed unsteadily but managed to stay upright. Bernard looked up at me from where he had Rogan pressed against the hard ground. I could see the robot underneath the skin. Just multicolored wires and smooth silver metal, like the cameras that spun around the area taking in every angle of the scene. His skin must have been plastic. Just plastic.

  All of it was fake.

  I'd been ready to die to protect somebody who didn't even exist.

  "Ten … nine … eight…"

  I raised the gun and pulled the trigger over and over until it was empty, and I hoped it would be enough.

  It was. It blew Bernard's robot head clean off his body.

  I dropped the gun and collapsed back to the ground and let the pain take over again. Rogan crawled to my side.

  "Kira." There was a red mark around his neck where the robot had almost choked him to death. "Are you okay?"

  His hand clamped down on my thigh, attempting to slow the bleeding.

  I tried to speak, but found that I couldn't form the words.

  The words would have been something along the lines of: Okay? Do I look okay to you?

  Just before I passed out, the last thing I heard was:

  "Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing Level Three of The Countdown."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was dark that night. So dark.

  "Mom? … Dad?" I said, too softly for anyone to actually hear me. I was scared. I'd gone to bed early, mad that I couldn't get something-new jeans, a new purse .. didn't matter anymore. Didn't matter then.

  My bedroom door was closed. Locked. I didn't want to talk to anybody. Not even my friends, who were sending me text messages. I ignored the soft vibrating sound my new phone made every few minutes.

  It was after midnight on a school night. I remember I had a big test the next day that I hadn't studied for. Math, I think. Or Neogeography. I didn't care what happened- if I passed or failed. I actually couldn't think of one thing in the stupid, boring city I really gave a shit about.

  But suddenly I did care about something. The creaking sound of somebody moving around in the hallway. I knew that it wasn't either of my parents-I just sensed that it wasn't. It wasn't my older sister returning from a late date and sneaking back in the house so she wouldn't get in trouble for breaking the new citywide curfew of eleven o'clock. She'd gotten back from the movie theater hours earlier.

  It was somebody else.

  Somebody bad.

  For a moment I thought it might just be my imagination, my overwrought, overworked brain that always came up with the worst-case scenario. My mom said I should be a writer, since I always made up such crazy, overdramatic stories. Made mountains out of molehills, she 'd say. But even before I had my flex-or at least, before I'd learned to use it-/ had this sense. A sense of impending doom. The ability to tell if something wasn't right-that something felt off.

  And that was how I felt when I lay in my bed that night with the sheets pulled up to my nose, listening to the footsteps outside my door.

  Something was off'. Horribly off.

  And then I heard my father move into the hallway to investigate the noises. I listened to shouting as he must have confronted the intruder.

  And then I heard the gunshots-two gunshots-and the thump as my father's body hit the floor.

  Then I heard the screams as my mother… and then my sister-oh, God, both of them-were confronted by the intruder. More shots rang out. My whole body shook as I fell off the side of my bed and crawled underneath, tears streaming down my cheeks. My whole world narrowed in on that moment. Those three minutes that felt like three years.

  When all was silent, when my family was dead, I heard my door rattle as the murderer tried to get into my room. My door was locked, but he would have no problem busting it open.

  I'm going to die, was all I could think. And I was afraid. So afraid.

  But suddenly there was the sound of police sirens, and the intruder fled without another sound, without a word, into the night, where he was never caught.

  I never appreciated my family until they were gone forever. I hadn't even said good night to them.

  And ever since that night, the inky darkness just reminded me of how close to death I had come. How powerless I was.

  How it felt like hands clutching at my neck, holding me down, forcing me to relive my family's murder when I didn't do anything except hide.

  I woke slowly but saw only blackness. The pain in my leg immediately alerted me to the fact that I wasn't sleeping. Or dead.

  At least, not yet.

  "No," I murmured, feeling those familiar tears of panic prick at my eyes as I felt the darkness close in on me. "No … please. Not again."

  "Kira," a voice said, familiar and deep. "It's okay. You're going to be okay. Open your eyes."

  I felt a warm hand on my cheek, wiping away my tears. Soft lips brushed my forehead, and fingers stroked the hair back from my face.

  "It's okay," the voice murmured again. "I'm with you."

  My eyes shot open. I thought they'd been open before, but I must have been only half-awake. Half dreaming. I squinted as the soft light of wherever the hell I was became less blurry.

  The first thing that came fully into focus was Rogan. He was sitting on the edge of the bed I was lying in. He looked like hell, still dirty and bloody and a total mess, but the sight of him made me feel happy, chasing away my nightmares.

  He frowned. "What's that?"

  "Wh-what's what?" I managed. My voice sounded croaky.

  'That thing on your face."

  I tried to reach up. "What is it?"

  "I think it's … yes, it's definitely a smile."

  I let out a long breath and rolled my eyes. "Obviously a total mistake. There's no reason for me to be smiling right now. Is my leg still attached?"

  He glanced down the length of my body and then looked back up at me with a half smile on his own face.

  "For now." The smile faded. "You were having a bad dream."

  "I can't imagine why. We've been having so much fun." I tried to look around, but didn't see anything other than a bland room with a small window that only looked out to another buildin
g. "Where are we now?"

  "They brought us to a medical station. I guess you getting shot wasn't in the script."

  "There's a script?"

  He shrugged. "Who knows?" His gaze met mine, and I noticed for the first time since I woke up how filled with anguish his was. "I was worried about you."

  "That makes two of us."

  "Don't joke." His voice caught, and he brought his hand back up to stroke my face gently. "You have a knack for working your way into somebody's life real fast, you know that, sweetheart?"

  "I thought I asked you not to call me sweetheart?" I was only half-serious as I said it.

  He smirked. "Sorry." He didn't move his hand, and I didn't push it away. In fact, I moved my face to nestle closer to him.

  "So now what?" I asked.

  "So now we're waiting for somebody to check your leg and release us, I guess. They took the bullet out already and patched you up. They gave you some pain meds, which is probably why you were out so long."

  "How long was I out?"

  "A long time. Almost eighteen hours."

  My eyebrows raised. "Eighteen hours?"

  He nodded. I raised the white sheets to look down at myself. My clothes were gone and I was now wearing a white, scratchy hospital gown. My right thigh was bandaged.

  "So you've … you've been here the whole time? With me?"

  "Yeah," he said. "They said I should wait outside, but I refused. I thought they'd beat the shit out of me for giving them attitude, but they didn't. Don't know why. Let me sit in here with you after they were finished patching up your leg."

  "For eighteen hours? You've been sitting next to me the whole time?"

  "I dozed for a bit myself, but otherwise, yeah." He looked away, and then back to me. "I didn't mind. It's not a bad view, after all."

  I felt my cheeks heat. He'd been watching me sleep. That should have totally creeped me out, but instead it made me feel… feel… I don't know. It made me feel secure for some reason. Like he was looking out for me. Making sure nobody hurt me.

  Which didn't make a damn bit of sense at all.

  Why would a convicted murderer want to be my guardian angel? Why did being around him fill me with anything but the fear I should be feeling with him? Why did I trust him not to hurt me when I was completely helpless? Why did I like the feel of his hand on my face?