by Allen Zadoff
I take a moment and steel my mind against him.
I am ready.
Mike rushes at me from across the yard, roaring as he comes.
He’s six feet away. Then four.
He leaps.
The blade extends out as I see his attack form in the air in front of me.
I prepare to meet it—
Suddenly there is a loud clapping sound, and Mike stops two feet away from me and drops the knife.
His hand flies up to the side of his head. He holds it there, confusion forming on his face.
“What the hell?” he says.
A line of blood eases from between his fingers. He lowers his hand and looks at the blood.
That’s when I see there’s a hole in the side of his head.
A bullet hole.
He stumbles toward me, unsteady on his feet.
I step back quickly, prepared to defend myself, but there’s no need. Mike falls to his knees in front of me, his eyes roll back into his head, and he collapses.
Only then do I see the exit wound, the back of his head blown out to expose the gray matter beneath.
I catch a glint of sunlight out of the corner of my eye.
I look up to the roof of a small building across the quad.
Tanya sits up, a rifle with a silencer in her hands. She waves to me.
Then she swings the rifle across one shoulder, scurries across the roof, slides down a drainpipe, and hops to the ground.
I watch her all the way until she sidles up next to me.
“Did you just kill Mike?” I say.
She glances down at his lifeless body.
“Looks that way,” she says.
“Why?”
“He was an asshole.”
Hard to disagree with her.
“Tanya, what about those things you said in the gym—”
“A performance for Mother. When they captured us at the baseball field, I knew I had to survive long enough to help you. If Mother thought I was still on my mission, I might get the chance.”
I look down at Mike’s body.
“You got the chance. That’s for sure.”
She steps back from the spreading pool of blood.
“I guess I broke protocol,” she says.
“More than broke it. You’ve gone rogue.”
“I went rogue a long time ago,” she says.
“When?”
“I was pretty rogue in the bedroom, wasn’t I?”
“I think I’m blushing,” I say.
“I kind of like it,” she says.
I look around the quad. The young Program recruits seem to have deserted the area. It’s possible they are massing elsewhere, preparing to attack. I try to imagine what Mother’s contingency plan might be in this situation.
I glance over at Tanya to ask her. I get distracted by the way the rifle strap cuts across her chest, pressing the fabric against her breasts.
“Eyes up, Zach. Are you looking at the gun or my chest?”
“To be honest, a little of both.”
She grins. “How do you want to play this?” she says.
“Howard first. Then I’m going to find Mother.”
She checks the safety on the rifle, then swings it down into a carry position.
“I think I know where they’re keeping Howard,” she says.
“Lead the way.”
TANYA GUIDES ME INTO THE BASEMENT OF A NEARBY BUILDING.
She opens a heavy metal door to reveal a hidden tunnel.
“These run underground throughout the campus,” she says. “We use them to get around in the winter.”
“Anything to be concerned about?”
“You mean like booby traps?”
“That’s a good start.”
“Not that I know of. But I’ll go first if it makes you feel better.”
She starts down the tunnel before I can stop her, and I have to hurry to catch up. Tanya moves with purpose, zigzagging this way and that before pausing in front of a door marked with a painted number.
“I think this is the right building,” she says.
We pop out into a different basement than the one we began in.
She says, “I tried to get myself assigned as his interrogator, but they wouldn’t allow it, not without knowing exactly what happened in the field.”
“It could be bad, that’s what you’re saying.”
She nods.
“Just show me where he is,” I say.
We walk around the corner, stopping at a door locked from the outside.
“In here,” she says.
I go first this time, hurrying to undo the latch and pull the door open.
I’m staring into a cold concrete cell, a chair bolted to the floor in the center of the room.
Howard is strapped to it.
At the sound of the door, his head snaps up, his expression defiant. It takes him a moment to realize it’s us.
“Holy crap,” he says. “It’s about time.”
I run toward him, undoing the leather bands around his chest.
“Did they hurt you?” I ask.
“Mostly my pride,” he says. He stretches, wincing in pain. “It looks like I’m the one in the torture chair this mission.”
“You know what they say: It’s not a real mission until someone’s in a torture chair.”
We both laugh.
“You two are nuts,” Tanya says.
“Inside joke,” Howard says.
I check his eyes and upper body. He’s been roughed up quite a bit, but he doesn’t appear to be gravely injured.
“I thought The Program was something cool,” he says. “But these are not nice people you work with.”
“I don’t work with them anymore.”
Tanya and I trade looks.
“What happened while I was locked up?” Howard says. “I heard alarms going off.”
“It’s a long story that will have to wait for later,” I say. “Right now you need to know there’s a whole campus of soldiers on alert above us. And Mother is leading them.”
“What about Mike?” Howard says with a shiver.
“He’s dead,” I say.
“Good. He was an asshole.”
“That’s what Tanya said.”
Tanya gives us a thumbs-up, then goes back to watching the hall.
Howard stands up, leaning on me to steady himself as I pat his arms and legs to restore blood flow.
“Did you find your father?” he says.
He must see something in my face, because he squeezes my shoulder.
I glance to the door. Tanya is watching and listening. I realize she doesn’t know what happened, either.
“My father is gone,” I say. “I’ll tell you both about it later.”
Tanya nods and redirects her attention out the door.
“All clear in the hallway,” she says. “But it might not be that way for long.”
“I’m going to get you guys out of here,” I say, “and then I’ll look for Mother.”
“Mother could be long gone by now,” Tanya says.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Why not?” Tanya says.
“Endgame. We haven’t had ours yet.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Howard says.
“Me, either,” Tanya says. “We’re in this together, remember?”
Both of them have determined expressions on their faces.
Howard shrugs. “Looks like you’re stuck with us,” he says.
“I guess there are worse people to be stuck with,” I say.
They both smile.
“How will we find Mother?” Howard says.
“I’m pretty sure I know where she is,” I say.
THIS USED TO BE MY HOME.
The farmhouse. I trained here for two years when I first arrived at The Program. It is the place where I ended one life and began a new one.
If I have my way, the same thing will happen again today.
The house is just as I remember it. A three-story, gray-planked structure with white lighting fixtures around the exterior. It looks deserted as we first approach, but as we walk up the front drive, young Program soldiers begin to appear from behind the house. They spread out around us with weapons drawn, sealing off any means of escape.
The front door opens, and Mother steps out. It looks like she’s been waiting for me. I wonder if she knows Mike is dead, or if she knew all along that I would win that battle. I suppose it doesn’t matter now.
She’s dressed casually in a dark gray button-down sweater and the new glasses I saw her wearing earlier. If it weren’t for the armed soldiers around us, you might think we’d been invited over for a dinner party.
“I’m going to talk to her,” I say.
“We’ll go together,” Tanya says.
“Alone,” I say.
“Do you want to take the gun?” Tanya asks, offering me her sniper rifle.
I look around at the two dozen young soldiers on all sides of us. They’re on edge since Mother came out of the house, fingers inside trigger guards.
“I think you’d better put the gun on the ground, Tanya.”
“I’ve got nine rounds left in the mag, and I don’t miss.”
“Nine won’t get the job done,” I say.
She takes the gun from her shoulder and gently places it on the ground.
I look at Mother on the front steps waiting for me. I start toward her.
Tanya reaches out and stops me with a touch.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Zach?”
“No idea,” I say. “But I’ve got a talent for improvisation.”
“Oh crap,” Howard says.
I wink at him, and I turn and walk toward Mother.
Several of the soldiers move to intercept me, but Mother motions them back with a wave of her hand.
I walk forward and stop at the bottom of the stairs.
“Welcome home,” Mother says.
Memories of my training flash in my head. Physical combat, weapons strategy, tactical classes. Everything I am today was formed in this house.
Not everything. I was a boy before I was a soldier.
“You knew I’d come here,” I say.
“I suspected as much,” she says. “So I made sure we had an audience.” She indicates the soldiers that surround us. “I want them to see this. I want them to understand.”
“Understand what, Mother?”
“What it means to be a family.”
“A family is supposed to support life. You’ve stolen these kids’ lives, just like you stole mine. You and my father together.”
“What were you before us?” Mother says. “Some kid in the suburbs, indistinguishable from thousands of others. You were a nobody. We made you somebody.”
“You took away my identity.”
“We gave you an identity, just as we gave identities to all the soldiers around you. That is your father’s inspiration.”
“He’s dead,” I say. “That inspiration died with him.”
Mother speaks loudly now, making sure she can be heard by the crowd around us.
“You want to go back to living a normal life?” she says. “Let me tell you what it means to be normal. It’s boring, purposeless. If you’re lucky, you’ll spend a fortune to go to college and maybe grad school, and what will you have to show for it? A diploma with your name on it and a job staring at Excel spreadsheets all day. Or, if you’re brilliant and you beat the system, maybe you’ll create an app, so people can play, killing zombies, forgetting for a second they’ve become zombies themselves. You’ll get rich and join the one percent, and you’ll fool yourself into thinking you’ve achieved something. But the truth is, you’ll live and die and make no difference at all in the world, just like everyone else.”
“I don’t believe that,” I say.
“You’re sixteen years old. You have no idea of the life that awaits you out there. You don’t know it, but you have everything you need in the world right now. You have purpose, you have a mission. That’s irreplaceable.”
“The mission is everything,” I say. “Just like you taught me.”
“That’s right,” Mother says. “Because without a mission, we are nothing. We are walking dead.”
Mother comes closer, her voice low.
“I used to be one of those people,” she says. “But no more. I’d rather die than go back there.”
“That’s your choice, not mine.”
“You have a purpose now, Zach. We have a purpose together. If you walk away, you risk getting lost forever.”
“I’m willing to take that risk,” I say.
Mother sighs, the energy seeming to drain from her.
“I had so much hope for you,” she says. “You were going to be the greatest soldier in the world.”
She comes all the way down the stairs, standing face-to-face with me. Her voice is a whisper.
“You can still be great,” she says.
“Mike is dead,” I say. “Father, too. All because of me.”
Her face does not register any emotion.
“I believe in survival of the fittest,” Mother says. “The weak die. The strong survive. Perhaps it was meant to be you and me from the beginning, a mother and her son, leading them all.”
Mother opens her arms. Her expression softens, her eyes focused on mine.
“Come, Zach. Let’s make this right between us.”
I step closer, drawn by the warmth in her voice. She smiles and brushes the hair from her forehead. For a moment I imagine what she might have been like when she was my age, a teenager dreaming of the future.
“Your father is dead,” she says, “but you still have a family if you want one. You were right about Howard. We need him, and Tanya, too. All of us can rebuild together.”
I am closer to her than I’ve ever been before. I can see individual pores in her skin, the mascara around her eyes, strands of gray starting to show in her sandy-blond hair.
“Call me a pragmatist,” she says, “but I’m not willing to lose all we’ve worked for.”
Mother puts a hand on my shoulder. She squeezes gently.
“I know your father didn’t get to install your new chip,” she says. “I imagine you must be having a lot of confusing feelings right now. Seeing the house again. And seeing me, Zachary.”
Something softens inside when I hear Mother say my name.
I step into her arms and she hugs me, her body warm against mine. She holds me close and whispers to me, telling me everything is going to be okay. Mother’s scent mingles with the memory of my father from years ago, the way he would hold me on his lap while he worked at his desk at home. I think of my real mother tucking me in at night, pulling the blanket up high until I felt the soft fabric against my chin. Then she’d lean over, put a hand on my chest, and kiss me on the forehead.
I used to have parents. I used to have a family.
Mother holds me tight with one arm. With the other she removes her glasses and wipes a tear from her eye.
She’s crying.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m unexpectedly emotional.”
“Me, too,” I say.
“You’re a good boy,” she says. “I’m sorry about this mess we’re in.”
Something glints in the corner of my vision. Mother is holding the glasses by her side, twisting them in her fingers, the metal frames catching sunlight.
They fall out of her hand and hit the ground.
“I dropped my glasses,” she says.
Her grip tightens on my shoulder as she leans on me for balance, stooping down to retrieve the glasses.
She comes up quickly. Too quickly.
My senses ramp up to high alert.
I am in danger.
By the time I realize it, my body is already in motion.
I grab hold of Mother’s forearm, stopping it in midair. She has detached the temple piece from her glasses, and she’s holding it ti
ghtly in her hand, the weaponized needle out and ready to strike.
The needle comes closer as Mother fights to get within striking distance.
“I’ll do anything to save The Program,” she says through gritted teeth. “If you’re not with me, then you’re a liability.”
We struggle for a moment, the needle shifting back and forth between us. Mother is stronger than I imagined. But as strong as she is, I am stronger.
She makes one last effort to plunge the weapon into my flesh.
She fails.
I counter her movement, pulling her wrist across her body, and pushing the weapon through the cotton weave on the arm of her sweater, until the needle makes contact with her skin.
It pierces for a second and a half. No more.
Enough time for me to depress the plunger, for the poison that was meant for me to enter her body.
She drops the weapon. She looks at me, stunned. She falls to her knees, immediately fighting for breath.
The poison is fast. It moves at the speed of blood.
“Son,” she says.
“I’m not your son. I never was.”
Three seconds later Mother’s eyes close and she collapses at my feet.
I lean down and check her pulse with two fingers on the side of her neck. The skin is still warm there, my touch strangely intimate.
I resist the impulse to pull away. I leave my fingers there until I am sure her heart is no longer beating. Only then do I stand up.
Mother is gone. And with her, the leadership of The Program.
I stretch and look toward the sky. It is a clear bright blue, unmarred by clouds.
I lean my head back and breathe deeply. I feel my lungs fill and release.
I am alive. I am free.
Almost.
Because the children of The Program are everywhere, their numbers having increased while Mother and I were talking. There are at least fifty of them now. Some watch from the doorway, others peer out from the windows of the farmhouse above me. The majority stand around the yard in a large circle.
Their faces tell a story. They are in shock.
I slowly back away from Mother’s body. The soldiers’ eyes follow me, as do their gun barrels.
I can imagine how it might play out. I would fight with Tanya by my side, and many of the soldiers would die, but not all. Their numbers are too great, and eventually they would overpower us.