The Games

by Ted Kosmatka

  Inside, the man was behind the counter again, back on his stool.

  “Where do you want it?” Silas asked.

  “Set it near the charger. I’ll take care of it.”

  On the way out, Silas snagged the new battery by its long handle, carrying it like a fat briefcase. At the car, he lowered it carefully into its casings. He tightened the wing nuts, and on the fourth or fifth turn, the bulb came on strong and bright. He slammed the hood.

  “Not used to electrics?” Vidonia asked, when he was back in the car.

  “You could tell?”

  “No, you’re a natural.”

  “I’d rather pump gas. I can’t see why people drive these things.”

  He started the car and pulled around the lot.

  “That’s why,” she said, pointing to the sign showing the price per gallon in regular, extra, and premium.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Back on the street, he hit the headlights and bathed the block in sharp white light. The shadows retreated, leaving the figures exposed like crabs left on a beach after a tide. They stalked in loosely assembled groups, shuffling over the broken glass between storefronts. Some carried things. Some didn’t. But none liked the light in their faces, pushing the shadows away. A bottle flashed across the beams. A thrown thing. A warning. Silas hit the dims. See no evil.

  He wondered about the guy at the station. He’d seemed a little too at ease sitting there in his own blanket of darkness.

  They passed the business district. They passed long rows of crackerbox houses, and soon after, the green sign for Highway 15 rose up in the headlights. As they neared the steep climb of the ramp, Silas gunned it, and the car lurched forward, climbing like a champ. On a full battery, these little cars could actually be kind of peppy. He leaned forward, unconsciously urging the car faster as they climbed back onto the skyway. The sign in the distance read: Technical District 5 miles.

  SEVEN MINUTES later, they were down from the skyway again and deep into the technical district at the edge of the desert.

  They drove in silence.

  There was no small talk, no nervous conversation. They were like a couple on a first date, steeped in anxiety.

  Adrenaline jolted through Silas’s system as the high chain-link fence of the compound came into sight around the bend in the road. They were almost there. He drove parallel to the fence, waiting for the bushes and the gap.

  When he came to the break in the fence, he didn’t turn. Instead, he passed by slowly—but not too slowly—checking the gatehouse to make sure it was vacant. He knew that the place was supposed to be deserted—most pertinent personnel were in Phoenix—but now that they’d come this far, he didn’t want to take the chance of any unwanted entanglements. When he satisfied himself that there were no guards on duty, he circled the car in the middle of the road and slipped toward the gate.

  “Do you want to use my badge?” Vidonia asked him.

  “Why?”

  “Your name might raise a flag. The gate could be tied in to something, and you never know who’s checking.”

  “We’ll have time to do what we came for. After that, who cares if they come? I’m not trying to elude them forever.” He waved his badge past the sensor, and … nothing happened, of course.

  They both smiled at their lack of insight. It was amazing how deeply electrical power was interwoven into their everyday existence. It was something taken for granted, noticed only in its absence. Silas stepped out of the car and into the pool of light. The gate didn’t appear to have any sort of latch on it. He pushed; it moved. He walked the gate all the way open, then climbed back into the car. They rolled inside.

  He knew that it was ridiculous, but as the darkened buildings came into view, he felt irrational disappointment and realized that he had harbored a secret hope that the blackout would somehow have spared the compound itself. He searched his mind and found no reason for entertaining such a possibility other than his fervent desire not to have to do this in the dark. He followed the winding drive through the facility grounds, passing buildings and parking lots and vast tracts of green space. The darkness made it seem even larger. He followed the curve to the left and then turned the ignition off, coasting the last twenty yards to the large eastern building’s entrance.

  “Are you ready for this?” Silas asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. Me, either. Let’s do it.”

  They stepped out, and the cool wind raised gooseflesh. The trees on the promenade shook their branches, as if warning them away. Silas ignored their advice and led Vidonia up the short flight of stairs to the broad entrance doors. He yanked, but they didn’t budge. The doors were standard battleship gray, two inches thick and very metal. He took out his card and swiped it.

  Not so much as a beep.

  “Had to at least try,” he said, to her look.

  He glanced back down at the car.

  She followed his gaze. “No way,” she said.

  “It might.”

  “No way. Too many stairs.”

  He backed away from the doors and looked down the length of the building at the other entrance. It had the same raised staircase.

  “I guess we’ll have to go through the back,” he said. “But it’ll be a longer walk once we’re inside.”

  They climbed in the car, and he backed out. It would be one hell of a dark walk in there, and darker still once they’d made it to the gladiator enclosure. An idea came to him. He jerked the wheel in the other direction.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to need a little light.”

  He followed the road back the way they’d come. Once at the gate, Silas jumped out and pushed his face against the glass of the gatehouse. It was black as ink inside. He felt around in the dirt for a rock, but they were all too small. Thinking then of a lug wrench, he returned to the car, leaned inside, and popped the trunk. There, beneath a fold of carpet, and beneath the jack, his fingers found the two feet of cold steel.

  He stepped over to the guard shack, squinted his eyes, and bashed the window in with a single hard blow. There was a satisfying crash of broken glass. He snaked his left arm past the clinging shards, feeling for the lock. Found it. The latch turned, and the door came open in his other hand.

  Mentally, he added another breaking-and-entering charge to his personal dossier of high crimes and misdemeanors.

  The gatehouse was very small, which made his search considerably shorter. Either it was here or it wasn’t, but there just weren’t a whole lot of places to hide a flashlight. He yanked the drawers out and dumped their contents to the floor, trusting his ears to finish the job his eyes could only half accomplish. He heard the slick rasp of paper, the rattle of pens and pencils, the thwack of a cardboard box of paper clips.

  He emptied the bottom drawer and a dark shape clattered solidly against the tile and rolled to the wall. The right shape, the right sound. He snatched it up, and his finger found the button. Light bloomed.

  “Yes,” he said aloud.

  Back in the car, Vidonia looked properly impressed. Silas shifted into reverse, spun around, then lurched up the drive toward the compound. Around the back of the research building, he remembered that the windows in the newer wing were lower to the ground. That would be their best option, because it would leave them closer to the enclosure than the rear doors. His own office window was somewhere above them, out of reach on the second story.

  He drove the car up on the grass until the nose touched the wall. He shifted into park and cut the motor. His fingers caressed the cold of the lug wrench on his lap.

  “Do you want to stay here?”

  “No.” She didn’t hesitate.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You’ll need an extra set of eyes in there. The eggs could be anywhere inside the enclosure. And the sooner we find them, the sooner we can get out of there.”

  “Okay.”

  “Besides that, there’s no way you’re leaving me out here
in the dark by myself.”

  He couldn’t say he blamed her for that.

  He opened his car door, and she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Did you believe him, what that thing said about what could happen?” Her eyes were pleading.

  He could think of no honest response that would make that look go away.

  “Extinction?” she prodded.

  He sighed. “I’ve seen what it can do.”

  “We both have, but that’s not answering the question.”

  “I’ve seen its genome on a plasticine sheet. All that heterozygosity.”

  “So you believe, then?”

  “Yeah, I guess I believe.”

  “He said the gladiator would be coming for its eggs.”

  Silas nodded.

  “Phoenix is a long way from here, but we drove the whole way. Could it be here already?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  “I have no idea how fast it can fly. It’s heavy, and it’s still learning, so I think it’s safe to assume it’s not efficient at long-distance flight. It might take days to get here. But you and I both know we’re going in there, regardless.”

  “That’s not exactly reassuring.”

  “The less we think about it, the better. C’mon.”

  They shut their car doors.

  Silas stepped up onto the hood and felt it buckle slightly under his weight. He raised the lug wrench over his head, took aim, then brought it crashing down on the window. The glass shattered. He struck several more blows, bashing the glass inward—then finally raked the metal bar around the perimeter of the frame until all the big pieces were knocked loose.

  He reached his hand down and pulled Vidonia up to join him. The hood popped loudly and caved another two inches.

  “There goes the deposit,” she said.

  Silas pulled his long-sleeved shirt off over his head. He folded the shirt and placed it carefully over the base of the broken window frame.

  “Let’s do this.”

  He leaned down for a good-luck kiss, and Vidonia’s mouth was warm on his. Her full bottom lip slipped into his mouth. He pulled away slowly.

  “Let’s not get killed,” she said.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “You think I don’t?”

  “I want us to have more time.”

  “We will.”

  “Together.”

  Silas paused. “We will.”

  He leaned his torso through the broken window and felt along the inside wall with his hands for something to grab on to. There was nothing but hard, blank flatness. The window was just high enough to make it awkward. He pushed against the wall and slithered through on his stomach. The pain was both sharp and small, the way bad cuts sometimes are, and he knew his shirt hadn’t been quite thick enough.

  He stood and sensed a room around him, though he couldn’t see it. His fingers explored the pain on his stomach. Wetness there, a gash three inches long between his sternum and belly button. Not too bad. He decided he’d live.

  “Hand me the flashlight.”

  Light bloomed again, and he wielded it like a sword, cutting bright swaths across the room. He was in one of the lower wet labs. Brown liter bottles of hydrochloric acid, xylenes, and acetone sat on the shelving above the long, black, chemical-resistant countertop. A periodic table of elements hung on the wall above two sinks. A trio of centrifuges squatted near the corner. The door to the hall was closed.

  He set the flashlight down on the floor and leaned out the window.

  “Your turn.”

  “What happened to your stomach?”

  “Don’t put your weight on the window frame. I’ll pull you through.”

  “Are you all right? It’s bleeding.”

  “I’m fine. C’mon, I’ll lift you. I’ll try not to get any blood on you.”

  “A little late to be worrying about exchanging body fluids now, isn’t it?”

  She extended her arms toward him, and he reached past her open hands to her forearms. He gripped her tightly and lifted her off her feet, pulling slowly. When her head was through, he looped one of her arms over his shoulder and placed his hand on her stomach, lifting and guiding her over the glass. Only her shins dragged across the window frame, and without the weight required to gouge through the thick fabric of her slacks. He set her on her feet.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He picked up the flashlight and walked to the door. The knob turned with a squeak, and he clicked the flashlight off, opening the door just wide enough to stick his head through. He felt like a burglar. The hall was dark in both directions. He listened. Silence. Accepting that his senses were practically worthless under the present circumstances, he risked the flashlight again, pointing it down the hall. Nothing moved. They were alone.

  He stepped into the corridor, leading Vidonia. He’d walked these halls a thousand times in his years as program head. He knew them like the halls of his own house. But now, as they jogged behind the bouncing beam of the flashlight, Silas was struck by the overpowering unfamiliarity of it all. Darkness changed everything.

  They ran on their toes, almost soundless.

  They slowed as they neared a corner. They were almost at the lobby now. He eased his eyes around the hard edge—only darkness. He slashed the light across the open expanse and chairs jumped out at him, coffee tables, two enormous potted plants. Large ceiling fans sat idle in the rafters. The hall on the opposite side stood vacant. He motioned to her. They crossed the lobby, walking fast.

  “If this comes out okay,” he whispered, “we’re heading to an island.”

  “Deal,” she said. Her breathing came louder now, faster. She was in good shape but didn’t have a runner’s sleek build. She had to work harder for the distance.

  “I mean it,” he said. “Someplace warm and sunny, where the mail takes two weeks to reach you.”

  “Let’s aim for three weeks.”

  The light bounced, throwing strange shadows. When they arrived at the landing, Silas took three stairs in a single stride. A hard right turn, and they were almost there.

  “They wouldn’t have cleaned out the cage, would they?” Vidonia asked.

  “Not without my direction,” Silas said.

  He slowed the last fifteen steps, and then they were at the iron bars, breathing.

  For a bad moment, he thought it was locked. And without electricity, he knew it would stay locked. But when he shined the light, he saw that only the mechanical bolts were thrown. The third lock had never been engaged after the gladiator was placed into transport. A stroke of blind luck. Silas lifted the double latch, and the door swung inward.

  He entered the enclosure, wading into the thick straw, swinging the flashlight like a scythe.

  He pointed. “That’s the blood I was talking about. I saw it just as the gladiator was being put into transport.”

  Vidonia bent, picking up the loose tangle of straw glued together in red. She pulled the clot apart. “It’s definitely blood, and something else.”

  “What kind of something else?”

  “I’m not sure. Dried secretions of some sort.”

  Silas nodded.

  They waded through the arc of light, bent, looking closely into the tumble of shoots and shadows. Even in good lighting, Silas hadn’t been able to find anything. The monocular stab of illumination that Silas now carried was not even within range of what could be considered good lighting. What chance did they have now?

  Minutes passed. Silas lifted the heavy wooden logs one by one, carefully checking beneath. They double-checked the piles in the corners. Half an hour later, when Silas recognized that they were going over territory for the second time, he stopped.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said.

  She straightened, looking at him. “There’s got to be.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “There’s no place else it could be?”r />
  “No. The gladiator was confined to this room for weeks before the competition. This is where the blood is. Whatever we’re looking for should be here. And it’s just not.”

  Silas spun the flashlight around, climbing the wall, raking across the heat vents and bars, and upward to the ceiling. Moonlight filtered in through the electrified wire meshing high above—well, it wasn’t so electrified at the moment. The cool night air was pouring through the gap in the ceiling, and the red wetness that clung to his T-shirt chilled him to the bone. He hunched his shoulders, wishing for a sweater.

  The flashlight lanced across the enclosure to the wall again, searching, and finally came to rest on the heat vent.

  The grating didn’t look quite right.

  Ever so slightly, it tilted to the left.

  “I think I found something,” Silas said.

  He bounded across the room, plowing the straw into fat horizontal bands around each leg. He had to push the pile to the side with his hands when he got close to the wall. The vent was a dark rectangle just above eye level, a foot tall by two feet wide, covered by a thick steel grating screwed into the wall. Silas reached up, and the grating came away in his hand. The screws were bent, the threads stripped smooth and useless. He tossed it to the hay and stood on tiptoes, shining the light inside. For the first time in his adult life, he wished he was taller. He could see the top of the duct, gray and metallic, for some distance into the wall, but the bottom was below his line of sight.

  Silas looked around for something to stand on. The logs were on the far side of the enclosure. It was one thing to roll them aside; it was quite another to pick up a thirty-foot cylinder of wood and haul it twenty-five feet through a lake of straw.

  He put the flashlight on the floor, sending light skidding up the wall.

  “Could I borrow you for a second?” Silas said.

  Vidonia moved to him, and he caught her under the arms, lifting her. She craned her neck.