Countdown

by Michelle Rowen

  The Colony was the only place of its kind, at least on this continent.

  And it was my dream to get there. Somehow. Someday.

  “Kira! Stop!” It sounded as if Rogan was catching up, but I didn’t look. I didn’t need more problems in my life, and that boy was one big problem from head to foot.

  “Kira!” Rogan shouted again. I looked over my shoulder. He was running after me. Well, actually it was more like a speedy shuff le. He was injured, possibly dying, and yet he was still trying to catch up to me.

  I ignored the rush of empathy that thought triggered.

  Why was he chasing after me?

  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 deafeningly loud beeping—like an endless train roaring over the tracks—but it wasn’t going to do any good.

  The noise had to be coming from inside my head. Nothing I did could block it out. And it was getting faster. And faster. I looked to my far left. Rogan had stopped running and was holding his head.

  And then I remembered what the voice told us.

  Your implants have been activated and tuned to each other’s frequency.

  And what else? I racked my tortured brain.

  To separate more than ninety feet from your partner will lead to immediate disqualification.

  I crawled over the rough pavement toward Rogan. The beeping decreased the closer I got to him, as did the pain. He lay on his side, only his moving chest showing that he was still breathing.

  “Rogan—” I grabbed his shoulder.

  He blinked his eyes open and looked at me. “That hurt.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He frowned. “You run really fast for a girl.”

  “Faster than you.”

  “I have an excuse. I’m mortally wounded.”

  “So you keep promising.” I let out a long sigh, but it wasn’t from relief, it was from frustration. “This ‘disqualification and elimination’ that voice was talking about in there—he means death, doesn’t he?”

  His throat worked as he swallowed, and he propped himself up on one elbow. “Smart girl.”

  “If I was that smart I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

  “True.”

  I looked him over thoroughly now that we were outside. The light wasn’t all that great. The sky was overcast. It seemed to always be overcast these days. Something to do with global warming and pollution levels. I never paid much attention to the news feeds. All I knew was I hadn’t gotten a good suntan in ages.

  At the moment, Rogan looked barely strong enough to hurt a f ly, but there was still an undeniable aura of danger surrounding him. Something in those pretty ocean-colored eyes made me think that I shouldn’t turn my back on him if I could help it. I couldn’t trust him. Not now. Not ever.

  I would never trust a murderer.

  But apparently we were partners. That is, if I didn’t want my head to explode.

  “I’m not going to beg,” I said softly. “But you’re going to tell me everything you know about this…this Countdown.”

  He nodded and tried to get to his feet. He failed. I stood and offered him a hand. He took it, and I helped him up. He didn’t let go of me immediately. His hand was as dirty as the rest of him, but firm with long fingers that wrapped warmly around mine.

  I let go first, pulling my hand back before it was too late.

  Before it happened.

  I’d had just about as much pain as I could deal with for one day.

  It had been like this since I’d turned thirteen, this weird, freakish thing inside of me. If I touched somebody skin to skin and focused on them for too long…sometimes it hurt. My brain hurt, that is. And then I’d get these bizarre f lashes zipping through my mind like electrical charges. Not f lashes so much as…feelings.

  Not my feelings, either. Their feelings.

  I didn’t know what it meant, and I’d never told anyone about it. All I knew was that it hurt. And, call me crazy, but I liked to avoid pain whenever possible.

  Whenever it happened, I got a horrible headache that lasted for hours. The scummier the person that I touched, the longer the pain lasted.

  The last person I wanted to touch was somebody like Rogan.

  His expression shadowed as if my actions had somehow hurt his feelings, and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his torn, dirty jeans.

  “I’ll tell you everything I know,” he said. “But we need to move.”

  “There are twenty minutes remaining in this level of Countdown,” the voice said from out of nowhere.

  When I didn’t immediately start walking, Rogan raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Let’s get going,” he said. “I’m not in good enough shape to keep running. Better make it a brisk stagger, so we need to move now.”

  “Okay, yeah. Then let’s go.” I frowned and tried to recall the map. Damn. I should have paid more attention. Fingers of panic dug deep into my stomach.

  As if he’d read my thoughts, he forced a grin. “Don’t worry, kid. I know where we’re headed.”

  I scowled at him. “I’m no kid, I’m sixteen. And the name’s Kira.”

  His grin widened a fraction. “No nicknames. Got it.”

  I studied him for a moment longer. That scar across his left eye. I wondered how he’d gotten it. Probably at St. Augustine’s, in a scuff le with another loser. Or maybe his victim had attempted to fight back before he’d mercilessly snuffed out his or her life.

  Scumbag.

  He caught me staring at his face and turned away so I could see only the good side. “Let’s get going, Kira.”

  Vain, was he?

  We walked. Slower than I would have liked, but it was fast enough to keep some of my panic at bay. With every step, I felt the clock ticking down the seconds we had left. What if we didn’t make it in time? Would they really kill us? Just like that?

  I was finding it easier and easier to believe.

  “Countdown,” Rogan began as we trudged along, “is just what it sounds like. A series of challenges with a set time frame and a win-or-lose outcome. It’s a game.”

  I glanced at him and kept walking. My heart pounded in my ears. “I didn’t agree to play any game.”

  “You didn’t have to. Countdown plays to the fringes of society over a top-secret televised network. That’s what makes it so appealing to the Subscribers.”

  “Subscribers?”

  “Bored rich people who haven’t headed to the Colony yet and want to be entertained by a modern Roman Colosseum. Death matches. There are a few other twisted games on the network to hold their interest. This is only one on the list.”

  My gut started to churn with disgust. “How is this even allowed? It’s illegal.”

  “I know that. You know that. But, like I said, it’s a secret. Even if it wasn’t, do you really think cops would give a damn about what happens to criminals, no matter how young those criminals might be? Makes their jobs easier in the long run, doesn’t it? Subscribers are fitted with cranium implants so they can watch in their heads. It’s like virtual reality, only they’re just watching, not participating. Safer that way.” His expression soured. “Bunch of rich cowards who get off on violence.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  He didn’t look directly at me. “I just know. The players used to be older prisoners recruited from Saradone, but recently it seems like the Subscribers prefer younger meat. I knew a couple kids who disappeared one night a month ago. The rumor was they were offered the chance to play the game.”

  “Why would they agree to something like this?” I hadn’t been given a choice.

  He shrugged. “At least with the game there’s a possibility you can win. A fresh-faced eighteen-year-old transferring to a prison like that—no matter what his crimes are…” His jaw tightened, and he finally offer
ed me a sidelong glance. “His days are numbered.”

  “That’s how they got you. You didn’t want to go to Saradone if there was a way to avoid it.”

  “Basically.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to. The bottom line is that it exists. And we’re right in the middle of it now.” He eyed me. “I don’t get you, though.”

  “Right back at you.”

  “No, I don’t understand why you were recruited. You weren’t in detention. You haven’t been arrested. You’re into low-end crime, and you have no family, but still. Only sixteen…” His brows drew together. “You’re too young. Too soft.”

  “There’s nothing soft about me.”

  His lips twitched. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Keep walking.” I put one foot in front of the other. “You’re sure you know where we’re going?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s not far from here.”

  This was insane. All of it. “So, if we finish—how many levels again?”

  “Six.”

  “If we finish six levels like the voice said, we’ll win. What does that mean?”

  “Freedom. Money. I don’t know what else. It depends on the player, I think.”

  “And if we mess up—”

  “No freedom, no money and a bullet in the brain. That’s if we’re lucky.”

  My stomach lurched. “Who would want to watch this?”

  “You’d be surprised. A subscription to the Network isn’t cheap, and it’s based on how much they watch. And the cranium implant that gets them access has to be surgically implanted. It’s not easy to do. The Subscribers expect to get their money’s worth. Maybe that’s why they had you join the cast. I don’t think Countdown has had a female contestant before.”

  That wasn’t terribly comforting. “Lucky me. Maybe they think we’ll be a good team.”

  He glanced at me. “Maybe we will.”

  “Don’t bet on it.” I looked away. “Are we almost there?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  “You think so? I thought you were sure where we were going?”

  “I’ve been out of commission for a while. Things change. Do you know this neighborhood?”

  “No.”

  I took a good look around. Gray on gray. No trees, no parked cars. Even the street signs were broken off the poles on the corner ahead. Nothing was familiar.

  Something f lew out from behind a corner ahead of us. A silver ball. It f loated in midair and headed straight for us at lightning fast speed. I ducked so it wouldn’t hit me, but it stopped three feet in front of my face and bobbed at eye level.

  A f lying digicam. Yet another thing I’d never seen before in real life. It ref lected me in the black iris of its lens.

  The voice spoke again in my head.

  “Level two for Rogan and Kira is well under way. Let’s take a moment to get to know these two contestants….”

  It was an implant. That was what the voice said earlier, didn’t it? They’d put one of the implants in my head. I reached into the tangle of my dark brown hair and felt around until I found the stitches over a two inch cut in my scalp. The area surrounding it was numb. They’d put the implant in my head. That’s why I’d been unconscious in the metal room. I’d been recovering from surgery.

  Outrage swelled inside me.

  We didn’t have time for this. I attempted to get past the digicam, but it blocked my way.

  “Kira Jordan, sixteen years old, was left an orphan two years ago after her family was brutally murdered. But don’t let her sob story or good looks fool you—she’s made her way in the world by becoming a street thief and pickpocket who would steal from her own grandmother if she still had one. And she isn’t afraid of using her body to get exactly what she wants. This girl’s as cold as ice.”

  I felt the color drain from my face, and I glanced at Rogan.

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  His expression was guarded, but there was an edge of curiosity in his gaze. “All of it or most of it?”

  “Most.”

  The camera then whirred over to block Rogan’s path.

  “Rogan Ellis, seventeen years old, is guilty of nine counts of firstdegree murder in what is now known as the Dormitory Murders. After a one-night rampage that left nine female university students dead and dismembered, he was sent to St. Augustine’s Detention Hall for dangerous youths until his eighteenth birthday, when he was to be transferred to Saradone Maximum Security Prison to serve a life sentence with no chance for parole.”

  Rogan glanced at me with an unfamiliar expression playing across his face, but I’d gone cold and silent.

  “That’s not true, either,” he said, his voice suddenly void of emotion.

  “All of it or most of it?” I asked shakily.

  “Most.”

  Nine girls. Dead and dismembered.

  I felt ill. I could have dropped to my knees on the cold, hard pavement and thrown up, but there was nothing in my stomach. It was one thing to imagine what he was guilty of, but another to have it sent across the airwaves directly into my brain.

  He was horrible. He was a monster, like the man who’d murdered my family.

  And if I didn’t stay with him I was going to die.

  The thought made me feel even sicker.

  Maybe they’re lying, a small voice in my mind insisted. Why would you believe what they say? They totally exaggerated who you are. Maybe he didn’t do it.

  Why would I even think that? Because he had nice eyes? Because he was vaguely charming and injured, and I wanted to make it out of this alive—and to do that, I needed him?

  Yeah, something like that.

  “Tell us, Rogan Ellis, do you feel any remorse for what you’ve done? And how do you feel your sociopathic tendencies will serve you in Countdown, especially now that you’re teamed with Kira—a girl who lost her own family to a brutal murder?”

  I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me, instead staring daggers at the camera, refusing to answer any of the “get to know you” questions the voice was asking on behalf of the audience.

  “Ten minutes now remain in this level of Countdown.”

  The time update was like a slap in the face.

  I grabbed Rogan’s shirt again. “We have to get going. Now.”

  The camera moved to block our way, and I swatted it with the back of my hand.

  “We’re not far,” Rogan said.

  “We better not be.”

  “You didn’t tell me your family was murdered.”

  “Forget it.”

  His brow furrowed as we hurried along the road. “Kira, what they said about me…”

  “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t care who you are or what you did. I just want to live. And if it means that I have to put up with a piece of garbage like you, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  “I understand.”

  “And one more thing—” I squeezed his shoulder hard, under the collar of his shirt just above his wound, and he let out a gasp of pain “—you try anything or you even look at me funny? I swear to God I’ll kill you myself.”

  He knocked my hand away, his gaze fierce. “Sounds fair enough.”

  I wiped a drop of his blood off my hand and ignored the mild f lash of pain in my head. I’d touched him. Touched his skin. I’d concentrated as best as I could considering the situation I currently found myself in—

  And I’d tried to feel something, some feeling. Some clue to help me.

  There wasn’t time to get much more than a headache and a jumble of confusion.

  All I knew for sure was that there was more to Rogan’s story. Much more. But right now there was no time to figure it out.

  If we didn’t hurry, in less than ten minutes, we were going to die.

  “HOW MUCH FARTHER?” I TOOK A QUICK LOOK over my shoulder to see that Rogan was about twenty feet behind me. I ran fast. Current
ly, he didn’t. Since I couldn’t let him lag too far behind—thanks to the brain implants from hell—it was becoming a problem.

  His already strained face creased into a deeper frown. He stopped walking and looked around the gray, deserted street.

  “We should almost be there” was his final proclamation, but he sounded uncertain.

  “We better be,” I muttered. “Which way?”

  “Take a left at the next intersection.”

  I took the left along the street up ahead. None of it looked familiar to me. The area was desolate; there was no one around—unless you counted the spherical silver digicam whizzing around that I already hated enough to fantasize about smashing into a million little pieces.

  I’d taken a swipe at it a minute ago when it got too close. The thing was faster than it looked—and it looked pretty damn fast.

  This whole situation was so bizarre I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that it was actually happening to me. But it was. If my heart wasn’t pounding so hard that it hurt and if I hadn’t already experienced enough stress and pain to fill up five lifetimes, I would have sworn that I was dreaming.

  Rogan cursed.

  I looked back at him with alarm. “What now?”

  He scanned the dead-end alley we’d just walked into. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”

  “Like what?” I didn’t try to hide the hard edge of panic in my voice. “And hurry up, because we’re almost out of time.”

  As if in reply, the voice in my head announced, “There are two minutes remaining in this level of Countdown.”

  Rogan brought a hand up to his wound and swayed on his feet. I ran to his side to support him before he keeled over.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  “I heard it.”

  “So?”

  “I could have sworn this was the right turn. I know this neighborhood. At least, I used to know it. It’s been a while, though. Things change.” His dark brows drew together.