by T. K. Malone
The Free World logo dominated everything. Free World this, Free World that, gold-embossed words which by their very dominion had eradicated any meaning they might have once held. He could have chosen Free World Burger Bar, or Free World Chicken Shack, where he could have had some Free World Fries, but he hadn’t. The Free World Bar And Grill served Free World Guacamole, and in Connor’s opinion, it was the best in the—
A car skidded around the corner of Fifty-Fifth Avenue. That in itself was odd. For a start, it meant it had a driver, and that was uncommon. It was also speeding, and that was illegal. The stiffs would be after that poor bastard, Connor thought and thought no more, until it screeched to a halt beside him.
One of its tinted windows slid down.
“Connor Clay?” the driver asked, but he knew already; Connor could tell. The car’s back door clicked open. A hand reached out and flashed a badge at him. Without hesitation, he got in. Connor guessed something was going down and for some reason they needed him back at the station. A sinking feeling gathered in the pit of his stomach as he realized it could be because... Could it be that the button was about to be pressed? He scoffed, concluding it was more than likely just another rehearsal. Last one had seen half the city hiding in their basements. Not that that would help. Nukes were so much better at bunker busting nowadays.
“Terrorists or are we at war?” he asked with an almost flippant tone, then properly noticed the man now sitting beside him.
He was older, but not so old as to be thought redundant, like all the old folk around here. He had a distinguished air: swept back gray hair, a neatly trimmed beard, his black coat collar turned up like Connor’s, yet an overly large collar, as though he’d a need to hide his face. “We are always at war, Connor. What else is there?” The car pulled away.
“Where are we going?” Connor asked, but the man said nothing at first, just leaned on the doorsill and looked out of the car’s window. As Connor stared at him, he thought there was something familiar about the man, but what eluded him.
“Just look. Look at the city. Look at the world, Connor,” but the man then fell silent again until they were past the city limits, through a checkpoint and out into the scrap and wasteland.
After a moment, he leaned down and picked up a small pouch from the foot well. Unzipping it, he withdrew a syringe. “Do you play chess, Mr. Clay…Connor? I can call you Connor, can’t I?” but Connor knew he wasn’t the type that expected nor needed permission.
“Not since I was a kid.”
The man nodded ever so subtly. “Perhaps I can teach you—when we find the time. Remind you of its ballet.”
“Where are we going?” Connor repeated the question that had been on his mind since they’d left the city. He’d been picked up before, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary. It seemed the gentle lilt of his voice was regarded as a natural comforter. “The voice of a national crisis” it had been called. He’d covered them all, earthquakes, destruction, assassinations, explosions, and most of the time he’d been plucked off the street. But never taken beyond the city limits, never anywhere but the station—such were the banks of computers that played the music nowadays.
“Like I said,” his companion went on to say, “I must teach you. Had you played chess, you’d have known what an impasse was.”
“An impasse?”
“Think of a stalemate; that, Connor, will get you closer to its true meaning. Do you know why an impasse is bad?”
Connor shook his head, feeling nervous now, uncomfortable.
“No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t understand.” The man turned and smiled, his white teeth glistening like his wet lips, as though he was hungry to impart his words of wisdom, as though salivating at the thought of eradicating Connor’s ignorance. “You couldn’t understand. Once you play, you will. Once you comprehend the intricacies of the game, the majestic dance the thinker must choreograph merely to hold his opponent at bay. Once, Mr. Clay, once you get that, then you’ll understand why an impasse is bad, why it’s so disappointing that it can’t be allowed to stand.”
“So what is it?”
He laughed at that, clearly not with humor but as though at the futility of a master toying with a new student. “It’s the point in a game where neither side can win.”
“What happens then?”
“Then?” and he shrugged. “Then you either cease playing and everyone dies of boredom, or…”
He shuffled over on the seat and grabbed Connor’s head, raising the syringe. Connor didn’t fight; there was no point. The man was government through and through. Resistance just delayed things, and usually meant you vanished soon after. The brush and wasteland sped by, Sable having been unusually quiet in his mind since he’d gotten in the car. The needle pierced his skin, its contents cold. His consciousness began to recede.
“Or,” the man continued, “you wipe the board and start all over again.”
12
Connor’s story
Strike time: unknown
Location: unknown
Sable was talking to Connor, whispers on the edge of his consciousness, reassuring him, trying to calm his breathing, trying to pacify the demons acting out his nightmares. Her voice was soothing, like a mother’s, and he knew she loved him, assuming an AI could love; maybe cared for him would be more accurate. To Connor she was like a liver, a kidney, something you couldn’t see or feel, but she was there, and she was part of his functioning, a perfect symbiosis. But she couldn’t turn off his dreams.
He dreamed of death, witnessed destruction, but saw little suffering. Back in the city, Zac was standing behind his counter, tea towel draped over his shoulder, whiskey in hand, and then there was a flash, and he was no more. Billy was walking down an alleyway, his hulking frame loping along like he was stalking the world, his grin arrogant, daring life to cross him, and then he too was gone, along with the alley. The hunched drunk was lying unconscious in a gutter, where he’d pissed and puked. He stirred and reached out for a discarded bottle and then he vanished as well, the gutter gone, the alley, the city all gone. Polly had been mad at him. She’d waited a full fifteen minutes before she’d paid for the dinner Connor had never made. She stood, stamped her feet and cursed Connor’s very existence, then she’d gone out into the street in search of some other plaything for the night, only to look up and become mesmerised by the star-filled sky. And she was no more.
Despite the dire scenes, laughter filled Connor’s mind. The man in the car was laughing. Oster Prime, leader of The Free World, he was laughing too. Over the seas, medal-strewn generals were laughing.
Through all, Sable’s soothing words carried on, although Connor could hardly hear them, drowned out as they were by the maddening cackle of his nightmare.
Connor opened his eyes, blinking, focusing on a sole bulkhead light from which a bland, concrete ceiling spread away.
“You’re awake, ” a female voice said, not Sable’s though.
He made to look around, made to sit up, but his head screamed in protest, and his hands shot up, his fingers instinctively squeezing his temples.
“Stay lying down, just for a minute,” she said, and he felt her hand on his brow. “You’re boiling up. Whatever they gave us dehydrates. I’ll get you some water.”
“Where the hell am I?” he said, his voice grinding through his parched throat. The concrete ceiling pulsed in and out of focus, the light blurred like a sun.
He felt his head being cupped and tilted forward, the rim of a mug forced between his dry lips, and then the welcome coolness of water. Sipping, each swallow hurt like hell, spilling and dripping around
his neck.
“Molly, my name, it’s Molly,” the stranger said.
“Thank you, Molly,” he managed, a little less croakily.
“I’m not sure,” Molly then said. “You asked where we are; some sort of prison, I guess.” She tilted his head again. This time he gulped the water down. Turning, Connor looked up at her. She was around his own age, blonde, face drawn and looking scared, very, very scared. Her skin was pale, pasty—block worker—gridder, he immediately thought, a gridder like himself.
Gingerly, he sat up. A prison looked about right. They were in a box of a room, two beds, no windows, and two doors. “Just you and me?” he asked. She nodded.
“What the fuck…?” he said, reaching out and grabbing the cup. Emptying it, he looked straight at her. She seemed to squirm under his gaze. “How long have you been in here?”
She shrugged. “Long enough. A day, a night. Difficult to tell. There was someone else in here, but they took him away soon after. Lost track—”
“After?”
“After they dumped you on his bed.”
“Who dumped me?” Connor’s head was splitting, each word like a nail being driven into his skull.
She pointed at the larger of the two doors, a metal one, one that had a lock and a hatchway. “Two guards—I’m assuming they were guards. They wore uniforms, like a cross between the army and the stiffs, not quite one or the other. Their faces were covered… Guns, they had guns. Sorry,” she said, “I tend to waffle when I’m nervous.”
Connor looked at the other door.
“A bathroom,” she said.
He nodded and got up, gingerly, and went over to the door, pulling it open; a shower, sink, toilet, basic stuff, basic like a cell would have. His head swam, then he felt his knees go weak and he stumbled, grabbed the sink and staggered to the toilet, his guts convulsing, sending a stream of bile and water into its metal bowl.
“It’s the drugs—they make you dizzy,” he heard Molly say, and so he tried to breathe, deep breaths, and felt Molly’s hand on his back, but he waved her away, gasping for air.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”
He heard her backing out, heard the door click too. Connor tried to stand, grabbing the sink again and pulling himself up. He looked into the mirror above it and decided he could easily be dead, just a pale ghost looking back at him. “Fuck,” he said.
Noticing the reflection of a shower curtain behind him, Connor turned and drew it back. Yanking the shower lever up, he ducked his head under its spray. It felt cool on the nape of his neck, but not calming; his eyes were wide, his dread now looming. He remembered the man, the man in the back of the car, remembered his dream, and his knees buckled again. What the fuck had happened? Had the world ended? Lurching for the door, he shoved it open and staggered back to his bed. Spinning around, he sat on it, his hair dripping water all over the concrete floor. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, straining for air but finding none. “I’m sorry, sorry, so sorry,” and his shoulders shook and his body convulsed, then he began to sob. “What the hell’s happened?”
The sound of her walking toward him forced him to lift his gaze, his eyes pleading for an explanation. She sat beside him, her arm embracing him, but said nothing. He doubted there was anything worth saying. Was it all gone? The Black City, the world. Was it all gone? Yet they were still here—the two of them. If two had survived, then more may have. She’d mentioned another man, and guards; she’d mentioned them. “Are we all that’s left?” but he knew she probably couldn’t answer. “I’m sorry.” Calm, calm down, he thought. Was Sable still with him? No. Where the hell was she? He pinched the bridge of his nose and took yet another deep breath. “Why us?”
“Sorry?”
He looked Molly in the eye. “Why us? Why did we survive?” His stare bored into her, demanding an answer he soon realized wasn’t for the taking.
Molly shook her head, and Connor thumped the bed. “Why,” he almost screamed, “why us?”
“I don’t…” but then she withdrew her arm, her own shoulders now heaving.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. You…” He reached out and put his arm around her. “Sorry, it’s all a bit…” and he squeezed his eyes shut, tears welling.
Molly reached out and grasped his knee, leaving her hand there, and they sat like that for a long while, waiting for the grief to pass, but somehow knowing that when it did, another wave would be fast on its tail.
Eventually, Connor’s mind settled enough that he noticed he was wearing some kind of jumpsuit made out of a heavy, uncomfortable gray cloth. Molly wore the same, no doubt some sort of prison uniform. He began to feel calmer, just a little, and assumed Sable had messed about with his hormones, or something. Whatever she’d done, it was working. He drew Molly closer, her arms going around him as her whole body continued to shake.
“What happened to the other man?” Connor eventually asked.
“They just took him,” Molly sniveled. “He had an odd name.”
“Odd?”
“Yeah, like Turtle…well, something like that. They didn’t say a word, just took him.”
“And he never came back?” A particularly dumb question, he realized.
She shook her head.
“Do we know if—”
“Yes, Tuttle, that was his name, Byron Tuttle. He seemed to know what was going on. He got here after me, said he’d been on the last bus out…”
“Out?”
“Of Black City. Out of our city.”
“The last…”
She drew back and gazed at him, her eyes glazed pools of blue. “The last survivors.”
Connor raked his hair, inwardly moving heaven and hell to try and hold back his tears. “So, they’re all dead?”
“Think so. Did you get the bus?”
“Bus?”
“A drill,” Molly muttered, “but no normal drill, just selected people. I was at work. Just got a message—high level—to go to a rendezvous point. They put me on a bus and the rest is a bit hazy. We were traveling along…I remember Forty-Second and Fifth, I think, then nothing.” She stared at Connor. “Much the same for you?”
Connor nodded, for some reason the lie seeming the better option, the easier one.
“Zac…my brother” he whispered, and she bit her bottom lip and nodded. “You?”
She shook her head. “No, no relatives. I was born a gridder. How come?”
“How come what?”
“How come you’ve got a brother?”
Connor let out a long sigh. “I don’t remember, but I do have.”
Molly nodded. “I knew there was something special about you.”
“Special?”
“Your show, the radio show, it’s packed full of emotion—more than a dozen gridders would have.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry,” she said, her eyes breaking away to stare at the floor.
“Don’t be,” Connor whispered. “Don’t be.”
“Used to give us hope. All of us wondered why they let you play.”
Connor knew why. Hope was good, hope was essential, but not too much. Too much was a cancer.
“How many people?” he asked. “On the bus.”
“Why?” and she fidgeted on her seat. “Er, well, about forty…fifty.”
“Two buses at least.”
“Two?”
“Yours and Turtle’s”
“Tuttle. Does it matter?”
“No, not really, but it tells us a few survived.”
“But—”
“Yeah,” he said. But whoever had brought them here hadn’t wanted them knowing where “here” was. “So, neither of us know where—” but then there was a rattle, a key in a lock, and the door swung open.
Connor now understood what she’d meant. A guard stepped into the room, looking more army than stiff, but definitely a bit of both. He wore a gray uniform, heavy boots, and a balaclava, and was armed to the teeth—the machine gun looked particularly menacing. “Hunter,” the gu
ard barked. “Molly Hunter. Please, this way,” and he waved the nozzle of the gun toward the doorway.
“Wait,” Connor shouted, but the guard just swung the gun back and braced his feet, and Connor instinctively raised his hands.
Molly got up and walked through the doorway, a single glance behind as she disappeared. “I hope they let you go on playing,” she said. “I liked your show a lot.”
The guard followed her out.
“Goodbye, Molly Hunter,” Connor whispered, now alone. He hunched over, his hands raking his damp hair. What the fuck was going on?
“Goodbye indeed, Connor,” came a voice from the still-open doorway, and Connor looked up.
“I don’t think I properly introduced myself in the car on the way here, now, did I?”
“No,” said Connor, staring at the man who’d drugged him.
“Name’s Charm, Josiah Charm. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
Connor shook his head, then raised his eyebrows as recognition dawned.
“Do you know, I didn’t think you had recognized me in the car.” He pouted. “Hurtful, that’s what it is. We have met, though, a few times, before everything went…well, a little south, shall we say.”
Charm pulled the door closed as he came into the room. He smoothed the bed opposite, pulling a handkerchief from his overcoat and wiping it before sitting down.
“There,” he said, and smiled. “You will, you know—remember. You will—in time. Now, you must have a lot of questions.”
“How—” but Charm raised his hand.
“I said you must have some questions; I never said you could ask them. There’s a protocol at stake, and one that needs to be established early on in our…yes, our new relationship.” He smiled, almost the beginnings of a laugh. “It’s going to be quite a simple one. I’m in charge, and you’re not. There. Got that?” and his eyes lit up. “Time for a few truths, Connor Clay, a few truths to set you on your way.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Cigarette?” he asked, taking out a packet and tossing them over. Connor slid one out and threw the pack back. Charm caught it easily and stood up. “May I?” he said, indicating the space next to Connor. Connor shuffled along.