Z 2134

by Platt, Sean

  As if to punctuate the threat, Kirkman practically screamed: “And here’s City 6 fan favorite Anastasia Lovecraft, daughter of murderer and winner of our most recent Darwin Games, Jonah Lovecraft, seemingly trapped inside a cave! What WAS she thinking?”

  Kirkman filled his delivery with the usual dramatic pause, then said, “What will Anastasia do next? Will she display her father’s derring-do and inventiveness? Or will she die a vicious death like her poor, dear mother?”

  “Shut the hell up!” Ana growled.

  A handful of zombies ambled into the cave as Ana fell several steps back, terrified, wondering how deep the cave went and how many minutes — if not seconds — she had before her inevitable death.

  Ana kept backing into the depths as the tunnel grew musty and murky and wet all around her. She turned around, staring into the darkness beyond the orb’s glow, then took a step forward as the orb floated beside her. She managed one more step before the floor beneath her disappeared.

  Ana screamed, fell flat on her ass, then spiraled down a sliding metal chute, spinning faster and faster, round and round for what seemed like forever before it finally spit her hard onto the ground and into darkness.

  Ana tried to stand, rubbing her head with her right hand while massaging her bruised ass with the left. Halfway to her feet, a row of red lights flickered above, then turned brilliant, fully illuminating her long and narrow glass-box prison, the bridge in front of her, and the enormous cavern she’d fallen into.

  Two orbs dropped from the darkness, one of them coming closer to her and the other moving ahead of her into the darkness.

  The box was placed on one end of a long and narrow bridge. A second light clicked on at the far side of the expanse, where the second orb had gone, about 200 yards away, bleeding crimson light on a second glass box. Inside the box stood a young man, whom she saw on the orb’s monitor, no more than a few years older than she, wearing the blue coveralls they wore in City 3.

  The guy on the other side looked enough like one of her oldest friends, Barnum, to make her uncomfortable. She swallowed the thought as a third row of lights lit a wide, round platform in the middle of the bridge. The center of the platform had a wide pedestal with a big red button on top of it. A short sword leaned against the pedestal, glowing red from the glimmering light above.

  Oh God, not The King of the Bridge.

  She peered down as bright white lights flared to life beneath the bridge, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  One hundred feet below them was The Pit, well stocked with vicious mutant boars, many of which were said to weigh more than 600 pounds. Even through the glass box, she could hear the boars grunting, waiting to be fed.

  Ana remembered cheering as Jeffrey Ramirez was torn to tatters about ten games before, after his expulsion from City 6 following his verdict of guilty for six counts of rape. The memory gave her a shiver. Ana hoped that if she lost her balance, the fall would kill her before the boars got the chance.

  The orb continued to hover beside her. Kirkman said, “That’s right, folks, it’s The King of the Bridge Challenge! What are the odds that two players would trigger the trapdoors so close together? How fortunate they are that they won’t have to wait!”

  Kirkman read the rules, which he probably knew by heart, “The rules are simple, but the challenge is anything but. In the center of the bridge is a platform that is actually an elevator to the surface. Whoever gets to the platform first gets the sword, which they’ll need to defend the platform once they press the button. Because in The King of the Bridge Challenge, there can be only one king! But be careful, contestants, because the bridge is narrow, and the fall is steep. And then, of course, there are the boars!”

  Kirkman paused as a third orb’s camera zoomed in up close to a particularly ugly boar with sharp, disfigured fangs. The audience roared in applause, which made Ana’s stomach roll.

  “Anastasia Lovecraft, are you ready?”

  Ana said nothing, but Kirkman laughed as if she’d cracked a joke.

  “Like father, like daughter; not very talkative, eh? Well, let’s ask our other player, Cody Samuelson, playing for City 3.

  “Cody Samuelson, are you ready?”

  The orb’s screen lit with the image of the boy who resembled Barnum. He was scrawny, with curly brown hair, just like her old friend. She swallowed, wondering if it would be harder to eliminate someone who looked like a friend than it would be to kill a stranger.

  The boy who wasn’t Barnum said nothing, so Kirkman loudly repeated: “Cody Samuelson, are youuuuu ready to kill?”

  Cody’s face twisted into an angry scowl. “Death to the murderer’s daughter!” he said, raising his fist as if in mock tribute to the “To Jonahs” Ana saw all too often while her father was playing The Games.

  Ana would have liked another minute, or even thirty seconds, to assess her situation, but both glass boxes raised into the rocks above as the lights burned brighter and the sound of the audience’s cheers filled the cavern, almost in sync with the horrible screeching and squealing from the monstrous boars below.

  “Run!” Kirkman shouted.

  Ana and Cody took off at the same time, tearing from their glass boxes, then moving as fast as they dared along the narrow bridge. Ana kept telling herself not to look back, knowing that doing so would likely bring death.

  Kirkman continued to talk, but Ana ignored his every word, like she ignored the strobing from the orb above and the screaming boars below.

  Ana held her arms horizontally to her side, turning her body into a “t,” focusing only on the certainty of her steps as she set one foot in front of the other, maintaining momentum and forcing herself not to consider Cody’s progress on his side of the narrow course.

  Don’t look at him. Don’t look at him. Just keep your mind on the path ahead. One foot in front of the other.

  Her mind raced faster with every step, wondering if she would be able to reach the platform before Cody, and if she could, whether she could actually bring herself to murder someone.

  Yes, it was in self-defense. But still, it was murder.

  Don’t look, don’t look.

  Nearly there, Ana succumbed to temptation and was shocked to see Cody was almost twice as close as she was to the platform. Realization fueled her doubt; doubt nearly caused her to fall.

  Ana gasped, thrusting her hands out in front of her, swinging wildly to regain her balance as the heel of her left foot planted itself hard against the ground, righting her body just seconds before falling off the precipice and into the pit of hungry boars.

  The orb hummed beside her, lending Ana mercy with silence, allowing her to focus. Unfortunately, her reprieve lasted seconds. Once Ana had righted herself, the Orb’s TV screen returned to vibrant life, the crowd loudly chanting.

  “Die! Die! Die!”

  Clearly, Ana wasn’t the crowd favorite her father had been. Being labeled a traitor in the Underground gave the audience fuel to hate her, and they were clearly rooting for her ruin. Her father was in the Underground, but the Network had said nothing of the sort, not even mentioning rumor, revealing only his wife’s cold-blooded murder, which, Ana supposed, was somehow more acceptable to the audience than treason.

  She glared at the screen, hating the orb and the horrible world inside it. Cody was maybe six seconds from the platform. Her death a given unless she started to run. Ana planted her heel harder against the bridge, then launched herself forward.

  Just then, Cody reached the platform, then slipped, screaming as he fell out of her view behind the pedestal. Ana wasn’t sure if she heard him scream, or if his cry was lost amid the squealing from the boars below, but she figured he must be dead. She took another long step toward the platform, feeling the pedestal within her reach.

  The moment her feet found the platform, she saw Cody hanging onto the edge of the platform by his fingers, his eyes and mouth both open wide in horror. Then he saw her, and his eyes narrowed in anger as he somehow managed to
swing his leg onto the ledge.

  She considered running toward him and shoving him off, but was terrified that he’d either get up before she reached him or grab her leg and yank her over the edge. Instead, she grabbed the sword.

  As she raised it, Cody found his footing on the other side of the pedestal and brandished a knife he must’ve had with him when he fell down the chute.

  He swiped the blade at her, but his reach was too short.

  She stepped back, then remembered she didn’t have but a few feet to move before she’d fall into the pit. She jabbed the sword forward, trying just to scare him back because she hadn’t quite committed to murder.

  “Go!” she shouted, gritting her teeth. “Go, and I won’t kill you.”

  “No way!” he sneered. “You go, and I’ll let YOU live!”

  “I’ve got the sword,” Ana said, taking a swing, again purposely missing. Part of her reason for not striking him was a fear that if she missed and the sword was close enough to him, he’d be able to wrest it away from her. Then she would be a dead girl.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think you’ll use it,” he said, taking a brave, or maybe stupid step forward.

  “Just go!” she screamed. “I swear I’ll kill you!”

  “You know I can’t do that,” he shook his head, holding his knife out in front of him. “If you go, they’ll leave me down here to die! We both know how it ends for whoever doesn’t take the platform back. So get off and let me on. You can take your chances with the boars and your sword.”

  Maybe Cody is right.

  Maybe she could make it up without the platform. It wasn’t impossible, though you did have to get through the boars and find the alternate route. It had been done once in Games history, she thought.

  She didn’t have time to realize the lunacy of her logic. Cody charged. Ana shocked herself by raising the sword, waving it in a wide arc, swiping him with a long gash across his chest, and painting the already-red button with a splatter of blood. He fell a step back, eyes wide and dazed, his mouth open in a capital O of surprise.

  Ana shoved the sword deeper, then hefted it up and through his guts as he screamed.

  She pulled it free from his body, as if his skin were its scabbard, then fell another step back, expecting him to fall, maybe even over the edge. Instead, Cody did the impossible by lurching forward, blood drooling from his mouth, and waving his knife madly through the air.

  He missed, but his surprise attack sent her sword to the ground. Ana ducked, then jumped at Cody, aiming for his waist and sending him hard onto the ground. She straddled him, curled her fingers into his hair, then lifted his head and sent the back of his skull into the platform’s metal bottom over and over as she unleashed her pent-up rage.

  Rage at City 6.

  Rage at The Games.

  Rage at the orb and Kirkman’s incessant chatter.

  And rage at Cody for forcing her to kill him.

  The orb hovered beside her, filling the air with a play-by-play.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Kirkman said, clearly giddy. “Little Miss Jonah Junior is 114 pounds of RAGING FURY! Look. At. Her. GOOOOO! City 6 might want to consider laying odds on our brand-new favorite!”

  Tears streamed down her face as blood spilled out, soaking the knees on her coveralls, as Cody’s dead eyes stared up at her.

  Applause filled the cavern, the fickle fans suddenly finding their new darling underdog. She didn’t dare turn to the orb and let the vultures see the tears in her eyes.

  She allowed her hair to fall into her face, masking her pain as she climbed off Cody and turned back to the pedestal and smashed her fist down onto the button.

  The platform lurched forward with an angry grinding sound as she headed back to the surface, sword in hand, hoping she could find Liam.

  After a long moment, she finally raised her eyes and met the stare of the orb, with Kirkman’s smiling face filling the screen.

  “What do you have to say for your fans back in City 6?” Kirkman asked.

  Ana stared into the orb, and then, to her surprise, she raised her fist and said, “To Jonah!”

  CHAPTER 14 — Jonah Lovecraft

  Jonah opened his eyes just as Father’s needle pinched his flesh of his neck again.

  A sudden rush, followed by a swimming mind, led to seconds that fell into minutes while he searched for a focus that didn’t want to be found.

  When his vision finally cleared, a man from Jonah’s past was sitting across from him — Charles Egan, who was staring at him with heavy lids over red-tinged eyes. Jonah wasn’t sure if the man’s eyes were red due to rage, tears, alcohol, or all three. Egan was thin, his dark hair thinning, and his face haunted looking. He looked like a shell of the chubby man of a decade ago.

  Jonah’s mind flashed back on the last time he’d stared into the man’s eyes, as Watchers were dragging him from the courtroom. Egan had been begging Jonah to just do one thing — tell the truth. The truth that Jonah had sworn to uphold as a Watcher. A truth that Jonah had turned his back on, no different than his corrupt bosses. Egan’s unfortunate end in City 6 ran in miserable parallel to Jonah’s own, honing a blade of guilt so sharp that Egan didn’t even need to wield it for Jonah to feel its edge.

  “I’m sorry,” Jonah said, swallowing hard and wishing he could disappear. He was almost willing to die if it meant not having to meet the man’s eyes.

  It wasn’t as though Jonah had anything to live for, not with Ana and Adam and the all of his life still stuck behind The Wall of City 6.

  Egan said nothing, keeping his gaze fixed on his enemy.

  Jonah tried again. “I swear,” he said, shaking his head. “I had no idea. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  Egan ignored him and started in with his line of questioning instead, as Father Truth stood behind him, arms again folded across his chest.

  “Who set you up?” Egan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jonah said, telling the truth, knowing that whatever was rushing through his veins would prevent him from lying anyway, even if that was where he most wanted to go. There was no longer any reason to lie. There was no way on Earth that Egan was a City Watch spy.

  Egan made Jonah stew in his guilt for another minute before asking his next question. “Why were you set up? Why would they need to silence you?”

  Jonah said, “I don’t know,” then whimpered another apology. His earlier euphoria was nowhere to be found, only a thousand pounds of shame and guilt. “I’m so, so sorry,” he continued to cry.

  “How does it feel to watch your life torn apart piece by piece?” Egan asked. “Oh wait, I don’t need to ask you, do I? Tell me, Jonah, why did you set me up? How could you lie, knowing your untruths were tearing a family apart?”

  “Because I didn’t know,” Jonah insisted. “I thought I was doing the right thing. They told me, Keller told me, that you were part of the Underground.”

  “I wasn’t,” Egan snarled.

  “I didn’t know! I wouldn’t have lied if I had known you were innocent!” Jonah couldn’t get his head to stop spinning. “I’m sorry.”

  “Tell my wife and son you’re sorry,” Egan said. “Oh yeah, you can’t, can you? My house was seized, and they were banished to the Dark Quarter, weren’t they? And we all know what happened then, don’t we?”

  Jonah shook his head, not wanting to remember, or stare into the eyes of his past.

  “Say it,” Egan said, his voice rising almost into a scream. “Say it out loud. What happened to my family? Tell me what happened to my wife and daughter!”

  “You already know,” Jonah said, only half understanding what Egan wanted him to say.

  “I want you to say it,” Egan said, almost whispering now. “I want what you’ve done to ring in your ears.”

  Jonah swallowed, then drew a fresh breath and said, “Your wife was raped and murdered.”

  Egan’s eyes met his. “And? My son?”

  Jonah swallowed the lump in his t
hroat, tears streaming from his eyes as the drugs continued to play havoc with his emotions.

  “Your son was sold into sexual slavery. He killed himself one year later. No one knows what happened to your infant daughter…Is that her? Calla? How did you get her back?”

  It took forever for Egan to speak, and when he did, he neglected the question.

  “I’ve hated you for so long,” he said. “I’ve wished you dead for so long that it had become as automatic as a daily prayer.”

  Egan fell silent while Jonah struggled to maintain eye contact, but more often than not, found himself staring at the ground.

  “I wanted to find you and kill you. What I finally chose instead, with the help of Father,” he gestured toward the dwarf standing to his right, “was to focus on the life we had together, before you conspired to take it away. Father helped me see that blaming you would never bring them back. And so I went, going about my life, almost forgetting you. But then, imagine my surprise when fate conspired to bring you here! Oh, what poetic justice, indeed, that you would be framed for your wife’s murder. That you’d be outcast! That you’d be put into The Games, and win them no less! And then you wind up here, as if God Himself hand delivered you to me.”

  Egan laughed, though the cackle sounded forced enough to be brittle. The swirling rush of drugs, thick inside Jonah’s blood, forced a ragged laugh from his mouth.

  Egan met Jonah’s eyes, holding his stare.

  Jonah suddenly longed to hear Egan condemn him further. He deserved everything he got. He wanted to hear how awful he was and how he deserved every horrible thing that had happened. He was ready for whatever punishment the man thought he deserved.

  It was time to pay for his sins.

  Jonah was ready.

  Deep inside Jonah knew it was true. Every word of it.

  Egan stood up, set a hand on Father’s shoulder, then left the room without saying a word, leaving Jonah alone with the dwarf.

  Father stood before Jonah, arms still crossed across his chest, saying nothing as Jonah wallowed in his guilt and misery.

  Egan returned a few minutes later, carrying an orb in his right palm. “Look familiar?” he said, returning to his seat across from Jonah. “It doesn’t fly or record any more, I saw to that. But what it does do, it does wonderfully.”