Countdown

by Michelle Rowen

  “Yeah, you, too.”

  “Like, seriously, Rogan. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been with me through all of this.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  Silence fell, and I began to feel very awkward again, and at a total loss for words. He moved back toward the door, but paused there, blocking it as I was about to move past him.

  I eyed him. “Do I need to pay a toll?”

  His lips curved. He studied a spot on the ground by my feet. “No toll.”

  But he didn’t move.

  “Well?” I prompted.

  He snorted softly, and finally raised his gaze to capture mine. “It’s going to be a little strange.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “What’s going to be strange?” “Not having you around anymore.”

  My heart began to pound faster. “I thought you’d be glad to finally get away from me.”

  “Glad isn’t exactly what I’m feeling right now.”

  I hesitated. “What are you feeling?”

  He shrugged and finally stepped out of my way. “Forget it. I know the past few days have been bad for you, Kira. Don’t worry, the worst is over now.”

  I moved past him, but he caught my wrist.

  “There’s just one thing I really need to know…”

  My breath caught. “What?”

  He captured my face between his hands, and then his mouth was on mine in a deep kiss that made me gasp against his lips from the sheer force of it. He pressed me up against the wall, and the picture of the lake went crashing to the f loor.

  The reward room experience had ended in such embarrassment that it had tainted the moments we’d spent together, made me doubt what I’d begun to feel. But this kiss—so unexpected, so right. It made me realize that the only bad thing about that moment with Rogan had been the interruption.

  “What did you want to know?” I asked as we parted for a second, my heart going a million miles a minute.

  He grinned. “If you’d kiss me back.”

  I was going to laugh, but his next kiss stole my breath.

  His warm hands slid under my sweater to circle my waist, pressing me tight against him. There was no future, no past, only this moment. All I knew for absolutely sure was that I never wanted to let him go.

  But then the sound of a slamming door made me freeze.

  “What the—?” Rogan didn’t waste any time. He grabbed his gun and ran down the stairs. I was right behind him.

  We turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs to see that Jonathan had returned. He stood by the sink in the kitchen with his back to us.

  I let out a long breath. “Jonathan, thank God it’s only you.”

  Rogan grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to face us.

  I gasped. Jonathan looked terrible. His face was as white as snow and damp with sweat. The skin around his left eye was dark purple, the white of it filled with red. He clutched at his upper chest with his right hand and supported himself against the counter with his other.

  “What happened to you?” Rogan demanded.

  Jonathan shook his head. “There’s no time to explain. I learned that the shuttle would be here early and had to tell you. You must leave now…you have only minutes to catch it. Gareth and the others—they know…they’re…they’re coming for you…”

  “What? They know about this place? Did you tell them?”

  “They know that I…that I helped you. They’ve been suspicious ever since I gave you the antidote. They think I helped you escape.”

  He slid down to sit awkwardly on the f loor.

  “What did they do to you?” My heart was banging painfully against my ribs. “What can we do to help?”

  “Be safe.”

  Then his expression stilled and his eyes glazed over. His hand dropped away from his chest to reveal a large, bloody wound. It was just like the wound Rogan had had when the game had begun—the wound from the knife dipped in calcine poison.

  Rogan dropped down beside him and pressed two fingers to Jonathan’s throat. He looked up at me grimly. “He’s dead.”

  I stared at him in shock. “He can’t be dead!”

  “They killed him, Kira. And they’re on their way to do the same to us.” He leaned forward and closed Jonathan’s eyes, and then got to his feet. “We need to leave right now.”

  I didn’t want to believe it, but it was true. Jonathan was dead. The only one who cared enough to try to help us…and they killed him because he helped us.

  Rogan’s hand closed around my upper arm, and he roughly guided me along with him out of the kitchen as a banging sound came from the front door. Someone, or a lot of someones, was trying to get in. They were from Countdown. They were trying to get me and Rogan and take us back or kill us or torture—

  “Kira, come on,” Rogan urged. I shook my head trying to clear it enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other. We slipped out the back door just as I heard the splintering of the front door behind us. The back of the safe house looked out on a yard encircled by a small fence. A few hundred feet beyond the fence lay a set of train tracks.

  A train was pulling up right now.

  “That’s got to be the shuttle.” Rogan’s voice was strained. “We’re going to miss it.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe there are lots of shuttles that go past here.”

  “Maybe. But this one has the symbol on it.”

  He was right—it did. However, at first glance and if I hadn’t had the mayf lower symbol pointed out, it didn’t look any different than any other train I’d ever seen.

  When we got there, the pain in my ankle obscured by the racing of my heart, a white-haired man reached out to me from the side of the shuttle. “Do you have a ticket?”

  “Yes!” I showed him the ticket Jonathan had given me. He eyed the ticket, then eyed me. If he saw anything strange or suspicious, either he didn’t show it or he didn’t care. Maybe he saw a lot of panicky people about to board. In fact, I’m sure he did. This wasn’t just a train, it was the promise of a better life.

  Scratch that. It was the promise of a life. Period. There were no such promises in the city.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said with a nod.

  I climbed up on the shuttle and turned around to look at Rogan.

  “Ticket?” the man asked Rogan.

  Rogan looked back at the house.

  “Rogan!” I tried to get his attention and reached my hand out to him. “Come on, there isn’t any time. They’re coming.”

  “I know.”

  There was something glinting in his eyes when he met my gaze. Resolve. Determination.

  It worried me deeply.

  The man frowned down at him. “The shuttle’s leaving, young man. On or off?”

  Rogan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Kira. I can’t go with you.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “Now that Jonathan’s gone, I have to stay.” There was anguish in his eyes.

  Panic clawed at my chest. “No. No, Rogan! You have to get on this shuttle right now.”

  “I can’t just turn my back on him knowing what I now know—about…about my father.”

  This couldn’t be happening. Not now when we were so close to escaping! “We can think about what to do later when we’re somewhere safe. Those men—”

  “Those men are being controlled by something evil that needs to be stopped.” His expression was strained, but fierce. “I want to come with you, but I can’t leave. I have to stop him.”

  The shuttle let out a sharp whistle.

  We had tickets. The shuttle was here. It was about to leave, to take us somewhere we’d be safe. My dream come true of starting a fresh new life, finally after all this time—it was everything I’d ever wanted.

  “I need to go now,” Rogan told me, his voice strained. “I have to do this, Kira. You see that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I managed. “I see it.”

  I jumped off the shuttle to land at hi
s side.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rogan growled. “You were on the shuttle. You were leaving.”

  “I know. And now I’m off the shuttle and I’m staying.”

  “I can’t wait any longer, miss,” the man said.

  I turned to look at him grimly and tucked my ticket back into my pocket. “I understand.”

  “Very well.” He nodded and blew a whistle. The shuttle began pulling away from where we stood.

  “There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to find another shuttle,” Rogan said.

  “Well, that’s just the chance I’m going to have to take, isn’t it?” I clenched my jaw. “Now, are you going to stare at me all day, or are we going to get out of here before those whitecoat-wearing freaks figure out where the back door is?”

  He chanced a glance back at the safe house and then sent a pained look at the departing shuttle as if he couldn’t believe I’d just sacrificed a first-class trip to the Colony to stay here with him.

  Yeah, me neither, actually. But here we were. “Do you need a literal countdown all the time to get your ass in gear, or what, rich boy? Let’s go!”

  “You drive me crazy, Kira. You know that?”

  I felt his anger at my decision like a heat wave emanating from him. He crossed his arms in front of him, and I saw that he’d tucked his gun into the waistband of his new jeans. He started walking along the outer line of the fence. We didn’t say another word until we found an opening and were able to dart through a neighboring yard, and then along a side street that took us back out into the village. A cool wind had picked up, and it blew my hair around my shoulders as we emerged on a well-populated street.

  “So what’s the plan?” I finally asked.

  “The plan is to get you somewhere safe, and then I’m going to the location on the business card Jonathan gave me to see if I can find this Joe person. I just wish Jonathan told me more before he—” His voice broke. “Damn it.”

  “You want me to go somewhere safe?” I repeated f latly.

  “That’s right.”

  “Forget it. I got off that shuttle for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to help you stop the virus and save your father.”

  He laughed. It was a cold laugh that sent a chill through me.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What’s so funny?”

  “Save him?” he repeated bleakly before his eyes went hard with resolve. “Actually, my plan is to kill him.”

  I COULDN’T HAVE HEARD HIM RIGHT. “WHAT did you just say?”

  His jaw tightened. “You heard me. Jonathan said it himself. My father begged for Jonathan to kill him when he had the chance. It’s the only way to put him out of his misery and to get rid of the virus once and for all. It’s evil, Kira. It has to be stopped before more people get hurt. It’s the only way.”

  I’d sacrificed my chance at the shuttle to help Rogan with a rescue mission, not to be an accessory to murder. “There has to be another answer.”

  He gave me a sidelong look as we hurried along the crowded sidewalk. “Oh? And please tell me what it is, being as you’re so technically savvy.”

  “Sarcasm not terribly appreciated right now. I don’t know anything about computers or viruses or anything, but I can’t believe the only option is to kill him.”

  He hissed out a breath. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

  “You’re not a murderer, Rogan.”

  “I killed that kid in St. Augustine’s.”

  “Only because you had to. But this is your own father.”

  He glared at me again as if he couldn’t figure out why I was giving him such a hard time. “This is difficult, don’t think it isn’t. Why didn’t you stay on that shuttle? Then at least I’d know you were safe. Damn it, Kira. Why did you have to jump off?”

  Because I think I’m falling in love with you.

  But of course I didn’t say that out loud. The thought, which came out of nowhere, shocked even me, since I hadn’t realized the truth of it until this very moment. My throat tightened. “Because…because you need my help. I’m in this just as much as you are, you know. And even if I had made it to the Colony doesn’t mean that your father’s men would have stopped looking for me. Can you promise me that they won’t? That they won’t try to hunt me down wherever I am?”

  His jaw tightened. “I can’t promise anything right now.”

  I crossed my arms and kept walking. “Didn’t think so.”

  My now implant-free brain was working overtime. Computers. Viruses. Artificial intelligence. Stuff that could have been pulled straight out of my parents’ collection of old scifi movies. I’d seen things while playing Countdown that I’d never seen before in my life—things I never dreamed possible. Holoscreens, cranium implants, a freaking talking evil robot that had shot me in the damn leg.

  It was all way, way out of my league, and I knew it. Sure, I could pick a pocket or con somebody into buying me lunch on a good day, but apart from my Psi ability, which I was only starting to get a hang of, that was about where my talents ended.

  I looked around the street. This area suddenly seemed familiar to me. “Where are we headed, again?” Rogan handed me the business card. I studied the logo that looked like an H. “I’ve seen this somewhere before, but I forget where.”

  “Wherever it is, I need to talk to this Joe guy,” he said. “But Jonathan didn’t tell me how he might be able to help or what this place is.”

  My eyes widened as it finally clicked for me. “Wait a minute. I do know what this is. And I know somebody who goes there all the time.”

  “Who?”

  “Oliver. The guy from the mall, remember? I’ve been friends with him for months. This place…I know it because he wears the logo on a T-shirt. It’s an underground gaming den. If he’s not at the mall, he’s there. He hangs out there for hours, sometimes days.”

  Rogan stared at the business card, his brows drawing together. “This is a gaming den? You’re sure? How did Jonathan think some guy who can be found at a place like that’s supposed to help us?”

  I shook my head. “No idea.”

  “Maybe he gave me the wrong card to throw me off so I wouldn’t get in his way. For all I know, maybe he didn’t have a plan to stop my father in the first place.”

  “He died to help us and to give you that card. Let’s make sure he didn’t die in vain, okay?” I touched his arm to stop him from walking. “We can check it out. Maybe Oliver will know who Joe is.”

  He looked grim. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Considering that your other option at the moment is storming one of the biggest office buildings left in the city and trying to take out the CEO by force, I’d say this is something that we look into.”

  “If I tried walking through the front doors of Ellis Enterprises right now, I have no doubt they’d shoot me on sight.”

  I nodded firmly. “Then let’s go to this place and hope Oliver’s there. If anything seems off, then we’ll get out of there and look for him at the mall instead.”

  He didn’t say anything for so long, I was sure he was going to argue with me some more. But he didn’t.

  “Fine. I still think it was a bad move for you to jump off that shuttle, Kira. But…” His gaze locked with mine. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said as he drew closer to me. He leaned toward me, his attention shifting to my lips. I suddenly forgot how to breathe.

  Then suddenly, somebody banged into us and totally ruined the moment.

  “Watch where you’re walking,” an old man snapped as he gave us the evil eye. “Get off the sidewalk and get a room. Damn useless kids.”

  The perfect moment for another kiss had been destroyed, but it was probably for the best, given the gravity of our situation. “We need to get going. The place isn’t far from here.”

  Rogan tore his gaze away from me to study the sidewalk stretching out before us. “Then lead the way.”

  Years ago, kids
used to get together and play networked videogames in secret underground dens, staying for hours and hours working their way through the levels—fighting against each other or working in teams to accomplish their digitized goals.

  Not that much had changed, really. Ever since the Great Plague, new technology offered to the general public was both rare and exorbitantly expensive, so the same sort of games being played twenty-five years ago were still popular today.

  Oliver was one of these kids, bringing his ratty old laptop computer to his secret gaming headquarters to get plugged in. He had always bragged to me about how amazing he was and how nobody could beat him. He was “a god among gods” when it came to kicking ass and taking names in the digital jungle. At least, according to Oliver himself.

  To me, playing games that earned you nothing but wasted time was, well, a waste of time. Therefore, I’d never paid too much attention to computers.

  That was before a walking, talking computer put a bullet in my leg.

  Now I was ready to take a stand and say that I wasn’t a big fan of them.

  “Here.” I nodded when we got to the location on the business card around an hour after leaving the safe house—and saying goodbye to the Shuttle of My Dreams. The front door had no marking other than the H-symbol. I remembered now. According to Oliver—when I’d asked him about the logo on his T-shirt—it was the Hagalaz, a rune symbol that stood for “controlled chaos.”

  Welcome to the Secret Society of Gamer Geeks.

  Rogan nodded, pushed the door open and we went inside.

  I still had hope, but it was waning with every passing minute. How was somebody from this place supposed to help us? All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want Rogan to get killed by trying to assassinate his father, so any other option was better than that.

  But I also knew the man had to be stopped. Some way and somehow. There was no other choice.

  And the familiar geek playing the war-zone videogame in the corner of the dark basement at the bottom of a sketchy f light of stairs might be just the person to help us stop him.

  The only light in the basement came from the f lickering screens of ten computers. All of the guys—and they were all guys, no girls—sat staring at their computer screens as if hypnotized.