The Games

by Ted Kosmatka

  “Why did you make them?” Evan asked.

  “I don’t know. It seemed interesting.”

  As good a reason as any, he supposed.

  “Are you going to keep making more?”

  “Maybe sometimes. It’s easier to let them make themselves. I just start them. Then they do the rest. There’s so much I’ve been doing. So much I want to show you. I’ve made everything for you.”

  “I want to see it all.”

  The pull came, then—sudden, familiar, unstoppable. It drove all other thoughts away.

  There was still much Evan wanted to ask. He knelt down and hugged the boy. “Pea, they’re calling me.” The pull grew stronger.

  “No, don’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “No! You can’t leave!”

  “It’s not my choice.”

  “I’m so alone,” Pea cried. “I need you.”

  “I need you, too.”

  “I get so scared. I don’t know what I might do.”

  Evan was pulled up to his feet. “Neither do I,” he said into the darkness of his faceplate. “Neither do I.”

  SILAS WATCHED Chandler’s body go into convulsions as the drives wound down to a soft electronic whir. The lights came on, and the room exploded into frenzied activity. A team of medics rushed the plug booth as the obese man broke free from his moorings and collapsed to the floor in a quaking avalanche of flesh and twitching sensor wires. They worked quickly to extricate him from his skin suit, cutting it away in big, gauzy swaths with their stainless-steel scissors. Someone shouted something about a defibrillator. To his left, Silas could see a tech he recognized from Helix shaking his head at the readout on his computer feed.

  “What just happened?” Silas asked him.

  “Not sure,” the man replied. “But that is one crazy son of a bitch.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Not him, it. I’m talking about the Brannin. It’s flawed.”

  “What do you mean?” Silas asked.

  “Look,” the man said, gesturing to the terminal that sat on the folding table in front of him. Silas looked over the man’s shoulder at the screen.

  ACA CAC UAU AUG CUU CUC CUG GAU UUA CGC AGG UGG UAG UGA UAC CAC CAA AGG CGA UCG UUU UCA ACU ACC AUU CGG CGG AAA ACG GGA UUU GUG GUA GGG GGA CGU AUG AUA CCG CUA AAU UAU GAG AGU AUG GCA UAG GUU UAA AGA ACU AGA GAG GGU AGU CAC CUG UAG UUU UGA CGU ACG AUU UCG CGC CUC CCC UCC UGA GAG AUU GGG CGA CAG UCA CAG GUC UGC ACA CUA UGC CUC CUU CAG GCG CAC GAG UCU UUG CCA GAC GUC AUC CGU GGG GCA UGA AGA CUG CAU UGG UUU ACU GGG CAG CUG CGG GCA AAA UGA UUU UAA UUU GGA AAC GGG CAG CAG CAG GAA CCC CUA GUC GGG UGC AAU GGG GAC CAA CAA UAG UGA CAU CUG CAU CAU GAU AAG UUU CAU UAC GAG GGA CAU CAU CAA AUG GAC UGA UGA GUG UUG CUA CCG AGU UUU AAC GUG AAA GGG UAC AAU GGA UAG AAA ACH AGU ACG UAU GGG GGG AUG AAA GUG AGG ACG CCC CGC AGC CCC CGG GGG CCC CGG CAG AAA AGA AGC AGC AGC CCC CCG ACG AGC AGA

  As Silas read, he tried to feel surprise. He wanted to feel like he hadn’t expected this. Somehow, if he could just conjure up a little shock, just a modicum of outrage, he could go on pretending that he really believed this whole thing had been the result of some sort of miscommunication.

  “What about the other queries?” Silas asked.

  “All answered, by the looks of it.”

  “But not ours?”

  The man scrolled down through several more screens. “Absolutely nothing. It’s the same code the Brannin gave us before. It accessed our file, but it didn’t answer the query. It just gave the code back to us.” The man swiveled around in his chair to face Silas. “I think we’ve been snubbed.”

  Silas glanced across the room, and Baskov was staring over another young man’s shoulder into a similar computer feed. The scowl creased his face to the bone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The first thing Evan did upon regaining consciousness was to immediately wish he hadn’t. The second involved rolling onto his side and puking unceremoniously over the edge of the bed. Hot vomit splashed cold tile. The sound came at him muffled, like the world heard from the other side of a closed car door. His head throbbed. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His eyes ungummed to a blur of white and gray. He fought to focus, but the effort exhausted him, and he collapsed, grateful, back into the dark swirl.

  After a time, the world swam toward him again. He tried to resist, to retreat, but was thrust into the light. Of all his senses, one seemed to work. His nose whispered to him in the oldest language. He was in a hospital. He could smell the sickness around him.

  It came back to him in parts after that. The Brannin. Pea. What happened to me in there? He heard a moan, low and miserable, again from the other side of that invisible car door that muffled his hearing. The moan was his, of course, and when he could, he stopped.

  He sensed movement at his side, a subtle change in the composition of gray that surrounded him.

  “Evan, can you hear me?” a voice asked in the distance.

  He tried to answer, but the words broke apart in his throat.

  “You’re going to survive,” the voice said.

  Evan recognized Baskov’s gravelly tone. “Too bad,” Evan managed to say.

  “Yes, truer words I’ve yet to hear you speak. The doctors say you’ll never be the same again. They say your brain has been damaged.”

  Evan swallowed hard against the dryness of his throat. How long have I been out? A day? A month? “What do you want?” he croaked.

  “I told them you were no prize to begin with, that your brain was damaged all along, and they shouldn’t waste their effort. But it seems the Hippocratic oath has saved another piece of shit.”

  “What do you want?” Evan repeated.

  “I just want to know what you could possibly have been thinking.”

  “Pea.”

  “What is Pea?” Baskov asked.

  Evan thought about how to explain, but after a second or two, his mind lost the trail and he forgot what the question had been.

  “Where did you go when the screens blacked out?” Baskov asked.

  Evan hesitated, trying to judge how much he could hide.

  “I’m not a patient man, Evan. We’ve tried to back-trace what happened, but there is no record to follow. You covered your tracks well. There are ways that I can get you to tell me what I want to hear, but the doctors tell me you are very weak. The drugs could kill you. I’m under pressure that you couldn’t begin to understand. If that is what I need to do, I’ll do it.”

  More shapes moved around him in the gray. A dozen voices whispered in tones too low for Evan to unscramble. He thought about dying. It would be a relief in many ways, but Pea would think he’d been abandoned. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why didn’t the computer answer the Helix queries?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. It interfaced the logs but didn’t reply.”

  “That’s not possible. The computer can’t choose what it responds to.”

  “It chose not to respond.”

  “It doesn’t know how to ignore.”

  “It did.”

  “I activated the logic areas before the smooth-out. You saw me do that, the levers. It had to process.”

  “It didn’t,” Baskov said flatly.

  “Then I don’t know.”

  “Do you expect me to believe you, Evan?”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “You don’t understand,” Evan said.

  “I understand better than you think. I had people checking up on you, Evan. They’ve been looking into you the way I should have before I ever involved you in any of this. They interviewed your old professors, your colleagues, your subordinates. Would you like to know what I keep hearing about you?”

  “No.”

  “Sure you do, Evan. At the heart of things, insecure bastards like you always want to hear about yourselves. You want to hear that
you’re a genius, that you’re gifted, that you’re special. Well, they said those things, Evan, they did; but mostly they said you were an asshole. They might not all have used that word—though some certainly did—but it came through loud and clear every time. You’re a sad-fuck introvert too arrogant and self-absorbed to notice anyone but yourself; consequently, nobody gives a damn about you. That piece of information really helps me. It gives me the keys to your little kingdom. Nobody cares you’re here—nobody is going to come looking, or making calls, or pulling strings. You’re mine for as long as I want you.”

  Baskov pulled a chair away from the wall and clattered it across the tile. He sat.

  Evan tried to rise, to move away, but he was too weak.

  “I’m going to let you in on a secret, Evan. That gift you’re so proud of, that genius …” He moved closer, speaking softly. “It’s maladaptive.”

  Baskov nodded seriously. “It’s shit, Evan. Think about what it’s ever done for you. I mean, look at you, for Christ’s sake. Isolated, no wife, no children, without friends. Have you ever even been with a woman?”

  Evan stared at him.

  “Of course not,” Baskov continued. “What woman would open her legs for you? What woman would let you know her that way?” Baskov jabbed Evan’s gut with a gnarled finger.

  Evan turned his head away, wanting to hear nothing more.

  Baskov went on. “People think that man will be smarter in the future, that our intelligence is evolving on some upward trajectory as a species, but that’s not really true at all. The bell curve rises to its peak at an IQ just above a hundred for a very good reason. The bell’s under directional selection from both sides, isn’t it, Evan? Stray too far from that safe middle bulge and the world becomes unnavigable. Pass a critical threshold on either side of the curve and the world, the real world, unravels in your fingers. You’re testament to that.

  “I’m a fan of history, and history has shown it time and time again. Einstein used to forget his children in the park. Newton suffered debilitating depressions. Do you know how Gödel died?” Baskov prodded him with his finger again. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “His death certificate listed inanition as cause. The father of incompleteness couldn’t be bothered to eat. He starved himself to death.

  “You’re not so special, Evan. You’re a story that history has retold many times. People like you rise from the fringes at regular intervals. Outside the cloisters of your respective fields, you’re helpless—like specialized worker ants born only to provide some benefit to the rest of us before your tragic little lives draw to a close, usually in poverty and madness. Tesla and Turing—do you remember how their stories end?”

  Evan kept his face turned away.

  “That your kind keeps rising at all shows some flaw in our species’ template. You’re a sport, a type of sacrificial defect, and it’s my burden to see to it that your sad existence is made use of. I take that burden very seriously, Evan. You believe me, don’t you?”

  Evan said nothing; the finger jabbed him again. He tried to speak then, but his voice gave out.

  “Oh, you have something to say?” Baskov said. “Speak up. I’m listening.” Baskov leaned closer.

  “You,” Evan said, pushing the word out, “are jealous … of us.”

  Baskov’s face went white. His hands fisted. Evan waited for the blow, but it didn’t come.

  “You wanted to be us, didn’t you?” Evan croaked. “As a child, in school. Like Gödel. You studied. But you weren’t smart enough.” Evan smiled.

  After several seconds, Baskov hissed, “I’m going to enjoy this, Evan. I’m going to enjoy making you talk.”

  “Probably you will,” Evan scraped. “But not so much as you think. Because I know. And now you know.”

  There was a strange sound. Then the faraway voices murmured.

  “Tell me why the computer didn’t answer the questions.”

  Evan saw no reason to lie. “Pea,” he said.

  “What the hell is Pea?”

  Evan swallowed again, and his throat clicked. “I wanted to talk with the profile core.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I wanted time alone with him.”

  “With who?”

  “With the profile core. With Pea.”

  “What is a profile core?”

  “I anthropomorphized a redundancy loop in the logic core. It was the one thing that is connected to everything inside. It touches on everything. I named him Pea.”

  “Him?”

  “Yes, the boy.”

  There was a long silence. Baskov’s voice was lower, turned away from Evan, toward someone else in the room: “Will the drugs still work if he is insane?”

  “Not sure,” another voice answered.

  “This is the part I will enjoy, Evan. And the part that comes after.”

  A few seconds later, Evan felt a muffled sting as a needle penetrated his arm.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Silas sat alone, looking through the thick glass and into the nursery. He took notes on a clipboard as little Felix romped around in the new containment area.

  Benjamin was the one who originally came up with the suggestion about the cardboard boxes. It was such a simple thing, but the idea had worked better than they could have hoped, turning the sluggish and docile young organism into the shiny black rush of activity that Silas saw before him now. It had just been bored, apparently. Like any youngster, it wanted to play.

  As Silas watched, it busied itself at reducing the boxes to a random scatter of cardboard mulch. It had a talent for disassembly. Its true calling.

  Ever the cladistician, Silas unconsciously continued to assess the organism as it played. As much as he tried, the little thing defied classification. Although it was engineered, there should still be something that gave away the roots of its nature, some trait that would reveal itself and imply that, yes, Felix was a feline derivative, or a simian derivative, or an avian derivative. But Silas was left without this closure, and always when he watched it, he felt uneasy because it seemed he was looking at something completely alien.

  Putting the clipboard down, Silas walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a large jug of milk and a square plastic container of dried prey food. With a heavy wooden spoon, he stirred the milk into the crunchy mix until the consistency was about right.

  The biochemists had had a field day with little Felix. After doing a complete metabolic workup, they’d found that the organism could profitably digest an amazingly wide variety of foodstuffs, from grains and cereals to raw meat. Though they guessed that simple dog food would probably have sufficed, they ended up synthesizing their own dietary blend, which, when combined with a hefty pour of whole dairy, seemed to do the job well. The little thing was growing fast and was now cutting a second row of jagged teeth.

  Silas opened the outer door of the nursery with his left hand, being careful not to spill the brimming bowl in his right. When he heard the latch click behind him, he opened the inner door and stepped into the nursery chamber. The scent of disinfectant and wet cardboard assailed his nostrils.

  The little creature squealed with delight. Silas quickly found it clamoring at his feet for its dinner. Long, thin arms fluttered about his torso, reaching up at the bowl.

  “Hold your horses,” he said, trying not to stumble over it as he crossed the room. He placed the bowl on the floor in the center of the chamber and watched with satisfaction as the creature dug in ferociously. He made a mental note to increase the feeding again. The thing ate like an elephant.

  He smiled, marveling at its vigor. Thin, stumpy wings positioned high on its wide back bobbed rhythmically with the pleasure of eating. Its large gray eyes maintained a position just above the bowl’s rim, alternately looking down at the food, then up at Silas. Silas liked that. It would be easier to train the gladiator if it associated humans with the arrival of food. Tay Sawyer, the resident animal trainer, had made a point
of stressing that.

  When the creature finished the bowl, it sat back and licked its chops, snaking a thick tongue around the outside of its short black muzzle. Gray eyes looked into Silas’s brown.

  As they stared at each other, Silas wondered what might be going on in its head. What kind of mind worked behind those eyes?

  Silas stood and crossed the room. When he stooped to pick up the bowl, the creature made a noise. A strange sound Silas hadn’t heard before. He hesitated. This was new behavior. The creature’s ears flattened to its skull, and its back arched. Not catlike. Nothing like that. Instead, it reared up like some angry black baboon—but like something else, too. Something not at all like a baboon. Something Silas couldn’t place.

  The thing moved forward, guarding the bowl.

  “Back off,” Silas snapped. “Back!”

  He clapped his hands, and the creature slunk backward a few feet.

  It was still young, he reminded himself. Despite its size. Barely out of infancy. At this age, animals as predatory as genus Panthera were still docile cubs that could be petted and played with.

  “Come on, back up!”

  But the creature didn’t move, only hunched down lower to the floor. Silas whispered, “What a strange thing you are.”

  He slapped his foot on the ground to drive the creature away from the food dish, but it stood its ground, staring up at him.

  “I need the bowl,” Silas said, by way of exasperated negotiation.

  The creature hissed in response—a sound something between a cat’s hiss and a hyena’s cackle.

  “Enough is enough.” Silas bent to pick up the bowl, reaching past the creature.

  He wasn’t, at first, sure what happened.

  Pain.

  Like being kicked in the hand. A jolt.

  And the creature spun away, a dark streak.

  Silas flinched, blood spattering the floor. First in fat drops like rain, then in a gush.

  Silas clutched his other hand to the wound, squeezing down on the pain, an instinctual response.

  “What did you do?” Disbelief pouring out of him like all the blood.