S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11)

by Tanpepper, Saul

Two headless pals.

  Two headless drug pushers.

  And the darkness . . . .

  The darkness pushed harder at Eric now, smothering him.

  He tried to ward it away.

  The cell door swung open and another set of feet came into view. They stepped over the corpses and stopped above Eric. He felt someone grabbing his ankles and drag him out from beneath the bed.

  “ ‘Bout time,” he said, when he saw who it was.

  * * *

  For Eric, their escape from the prison was shrouded in smoke and nightmares, images of half-eaten bodies strewn about them and those less consumed walking everywhere. Eric remembered Officer Gilfoy pushing a pistol into his hand and saying, “Shoot at anything that gets within ten feet of you.” But he couldn’t remember much else.

  The man practically had to carry him out of the prison, out into a world that had completely changed in just the few days he’d been locked away from it.

  Now, the dead openly roamed the streets. Buildings burned. The roads were all but impassable. There were no rules, no laws in this new place, no one to even try to uphold the old ones. There was only fear and death and chaos.

  “Where is Arc?” he whispered, as they drove away in the car. He didn’t ask where they were going. He didn’t care. All he wanted to do was get away. “Why aren’t they stopping this?”

  “Arc’s gone,” Gilfoy replied. “Abandoned us all for parts unknown. Traitors, not that anyone’s left to bring them to answer for their crimes. The Stream is down. Even the black streams aren’t transmitting. The network has completely collapsed, and the outbreak is everywhere. All of New Merica is under siege, and we can’t stop it. Nobody can.”

  “Why did you come get me?”

  “I needed to know.”

  “What?”

  “Before he died, my father made me promise him something. It had to do with your father’s death.”

  Eric looked over. The jostling of the car was making him nauseous, even with the painkillers Gilfoy had given him. “My father?”

  “My dad was the reporting officer on his death and lead investigator on the case, at least until he was removed and the case was closed. It was officially classified as a suicide, but he was never satisfied with that explanation.”

  “What was the promise?”

  “To find the truth.”

  “Nobody knows the truth.”

  Gilfoy looked over. “Someone does. I think it’s you.”

  Eric closed his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath and held it and, for just a moment, he heard the voice again, telling him to shoot: Pull the trigger, boy.

  Halliwell’s face floated up out of the well of his mind. The man had been there that night, fifteen years ago. Eric was sure of that now.

  All these years he had dismissed the rumors that the man had come in and eaten his father’s brain. After all, how could it be possible for someone like that to make it halfway across the country in such a short amount of time without leaving a trail?

  And yet he must have. He’d been in that room, his father’s office, the night his father died. Halliwell had been there and they’d spoken. He’d tried to get him to shut the program down. There had been shouting.

  Do it now. Kill him. Don’t be a coward like your father. Kill him!

  Eric had been watching from the safety of the hallway, hidden behind a large plant, the shadowy figures of his father and the man he and his grandfather had spoken so vehemently about that very same afternoon.

  Something had drawn him out of his hiding place. He didn’t like to hear his father angry.

  He remembered standing there at the door and feeling a presence behind him. And there was his grandfather, whispering in his ear that it was all going to be all right. “Don’t be afraid. We’ll take care of this, won’t we? You’re going to be a man.”

  And they’d quietly opened the door so that the two men didn’t notice, and the pistol was in his hand. Shoot, boy. Shoot him.

  So he had. He’d raised his hand and aimed. But the bullet—

  The bullet hadn’t gone where he’d told it to go. It had hit his father as he stood at the desk, exploding his brain against the back wall. And his grandfather had shouted in—

  ecstasy

  —dismay.

  “Again, boy! Quickly!”

  But Halliwell was already gone. Like a ghost, he’d fled out through the—

  locked

  —open French doors.

  I killed my father. I killed him.

  “I did it,” he whispered. He looked over at Gilfoy.

  That’s why he’d always hated guns, why he’d hated it when Grandpa took Jessie to the range to teach her how to shoot. Because he knew what they could do, and he never wanted to kill anyone ever again.

  He’d known, somewhere deep inside his mind where the conscious part of him dared never go, he’d known that Halliwell had always been innocent. It was he, Eric, who was guilty of murdering his own father.

  “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it.”

  He looked over at Gilfoy, but the man was shaking his head, frowning. He never took his eyes off the road— or what passed as the road now.

  “I did it,” he repeated.

  Finally, the man who was no older than Eric looked over. But there was no blame in his eyes, only exoneration.

  “My father wanted to question you at the time. You were old enough to understand what happened. But your grandfather was adamant about protecting you. Dad did manage, however, to secretly swipe your hands and clothes for gunshot residue that evening. The only trace he could find was from your left shoulder. You’re right handed. You didn’t shoot that gun. The person standing behind you did.”

  “But I held it.”

  “You may very well have, but you didn’t shoot it.”

  Eric was silent for several seconds. “Are you saying my grandfather killed my dad?”

  “He refused to be swabbed. So, yes, I think so.” He reached over into the back seat and grabbed a folder with a bunch of papers in it. “Read the first one,” he instructed.

  Eric was having trouble focusing. He needed to be seen by a doctor. He needed intravenous nourishment (his stomach wasn’t going to allow anything be taken orally), and maybe even a blood transfusion. He needed to sleep for days.

  With numb fingers, he pried away the cover. The sheet on top was a letter on official stationery. The header said:

  From the desk of

  RICHARD M. DANIELS, PHD

  Special Advisor to the President of The United States of America

  “It’s a copy of your father’s resignation from the Omegaman Project,” Officer Gilfoy told him. “The papers underneath include his recommendation that the program be dismantled, something your grandfather would have resisted.”

  “I’ve never seen these,” Eric said. “I’ve never even heard about any of this. Where did you get these papers?”

  “From a friend, a former senator by the name of Lawrence Abrams who also believed the project was too dangerous to exist. That letter and many of the other papers were never circulated because your grandfather stole them and destroyed them. What he didn’t know was that your father also sent copies to Abrams.”

  “Why weren’t these made public before?”

  “Abrams meant to, but, unfortunately, things sometimes don’t turn out the way you plan. Even for people like your grandfather, who have the unique skill to think five steps ahead of anybody else, circumstances can sometimes strip away our ability to influence things.”

  They turned down an alley between warehouses and machine shops. Tall, featureless buildings lined both sides of the road, their windows dirtied by dust and grease. The other end was shrouded in darkness.

  “Where are we?”

  “Shortcut,” Officer Gilfoy explained. “I’m taking you to your mother.”

  The throbbing pain in Eric’s wrist had started to come back as the effect of the pain medication was already beginni
ng to wear off. He clutched the arm to his chest and concentrated on not being sick.

  “Shit,” Gilfoy muttered. He slammed on the brakes, throwing Eric forward against his seatbelt with a pained cry.

  The darkness ahead of them was moving, taking shape. Out of the shadows came a crowd of people, dozens. They were running, screaming.

  Gilfoy threw the car into reverse and started to back up. “Shit!” he repeated, much louder this time.

  Eric spun around in his seat. “Out of the car!” he said. He tried to shout, but everything felt wrong. He felt like nothing was working. His fingers were clumsy on the door handle.

  Both ends of the alley were blocked with terrified people, all running straight toward the police car and screaming for help.

  Right behind them came a river of the Undead.

  Chapter 53

  Brother Walter pressed a hand against the bullet wound and winced as he tried to sit up. A sour smell rose from the bandage, musky and rancid, the stink of infection. Jessie realized that, without antibiotics, his chances of recovering from the injury were slim. At the moment, she wasn’t sure if she cared whether he did or not.

  He asked for some water.

  Reluctantly, she gave him the last bottle they had between them, then scratched impatiently at the scab on her shoulder while he took several small sips. Finally, he wiped his lips against the back of a shaking hand and set the bottle down on the floor beside him.

  “What makes you think my grandfather would use me to destroy Arc?” she demanded, unable to wait any longer. “And you’d better be quick about it!” She gestured at the walls surrounding them. “There are Infected waiting outside wanting nothing more than to get inside at us. In your state, I doubt you’d last very long against them. Maybe I’ll just open the doors and let them have you!”

  The clamor in her head rose, as if invoking the Undead had roused them from their torpor. Until that moment, the voices had been little more than an annoyance. White noise. But now . . . .

  Now they demanded her attention. Now they were more than just a few easily ignored whispers. They had grown into a tangled cacophony of cries, startling her with their intensity almost as much as her threat alarmed Brother Walter.

  But still she shoved them away. She needed to know. She wouldn’t leave until he told her.

  “Your grandfather resented Arc for shutting him out after the government transferred everything to them,” Brother Walter said.

  “But he’d never use me to get even with them. He wasn’t like that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You didn’t know him like I did. He was a hard man, but he cared about me.”

  “Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think. Don’t you think he resented you, resented the fact that you were not his son’s daughter?”

  “He wasn’t like that!”

  Brother Walter gestured weakly at the back of her neck. “The firewall inside your head? It wasn’t written to prevent people from accessing your Link. That was just a consequence of the devices sharing the same programming.”

  “Then why?”

  “Your grandfather had it installed to hide something else, a virus of the firmware.”

  Jessie shook her head. “Impossible! Everyone knows implant firmware can’t be altered.”

  “Except when it’s being connected to a new Link communication device, then the firmware is reprogrammed with the new identifier code. Four years ago, while you were in Seattle, your grandfather arranged to have your Link stolen so it’d have to be replaced.”

  Jessie backed away in surprise. “How do you know about that?” It felt like the air around her was suddenly too thick to breathe. It pressed against her skin, buffeting her, trying to shake her to bits.

  “Is it true?”

  “No,” she said. “I— I mean I got it back. They caught the guy and recovered my Link. My implant never had to be recoded.”

  “The thief wasn’t supposed to get caught. He was supposed to simply destroy the device, but he decided instead to try and sell it, which is how the police tracked him down. In fact, it very nearly derailed your grandfather’s plans. After you returned, he convinced your brother that the device had been compromised and needed to be replaced anyway. Eric’s always been very protective of you, so it didn’t take much urging.”

  “They never told me.”

  “Because you’d been so traumatized by the whole ordeal.”

  “You’re telling me Grandpa was responsible for what happened to that man?” Jessie cried. “I had to watch them put him to death and then conscript him!”

  Brother Walter nodded. “Now do you understand what I mean when I say he was ruthless?”

  Jessie trembled with rage. “How do you know this? How do you know so much about me?”

  “The thief who stole your Link tried to sell it to an agent of the Southern States Coalition, a man by the name of Edmund Constipole.”

  “Why?”

  “Why him?” He shrugged. “Just happened to be in the right place at the right time. What matters is that it made them take a closer look at you, and at the new Link. And that’s when I found out about the virus.”

  Jessie frowned. “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with you?”

  He sighed. “I suppose I need to explain who it is I work for.”

  “Father Heale.”

  He shook his head. “The telephone call back at the house, that was from a man by the name of Lawrence Abrams.”

  “Never heard of him before.”

  “The name isn’t important. It’s what he and others like him, including myself, have been striving toward for years that is.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Breaking Arc’s stranglehold on New Merica. Our primary mission has been to gain access to Reanimation and implant technology, to give it back to the people it belongs to: everyone.”

  Jessie remembered that Father Heale had mentioned there being multiple factions — armies, he’d called them — each fighting over the same thing but for different reasons, some attempting to steal Arc’s secrets, others trying to destroy them.

  “Exactly what was your relationship with Father Heale?”

  Brother Walter closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “It— it was complicated. There was both trust and distrust. He knew I split my loyalties between him and others, which is why he was always careful not to share all the details of his operation with me. But our objectives overlapped significantly.”

  “He wanted the technology destroyed. You didn’t?”

  Brother Walter pursed his lips, but he neither denied nor confirmed it.

  “Did Father Heale know this Abrams guy?”

  “Not personally. Not that it would’ve mattered if he had. Abrams is just one man, a cog in a very large machine. Just as am I. And Heale, and your grandfather. Even you. We’re all just tiny pieces.”

  “And what machine are you a part of?”

  “I told you. The Southern States Coalition.”

  Jessie felt herself go numb. “You son of a bitch! Do you know what the Coalition did to us?” She grabbed his shirt and shook him hard, ignoring his cries of pain. “They wanted us all dead!”

  “No!” He tried to push her away, but he was too weak.

  “Don’t you fucking tell me no!” she shouted, and shoved him back to the floor. “They tried to execute us. They left us to die! Fucking murderers! And when that didn’t work, they sent CUs in to kill us! If you’re with them, then—”

  “None of that was supposed to happen,” he struggled to tell her. His face twisted in agony, blanching to a sickly shade of gray. Sweat rolled off his forehead. “The agent, Benjamin Wolfram,” he said, panting, “he went totally off script.”

  “Because he was a psychopath!”

  “He was one of the Coalition’s best agents. We suspect Arc took control of his implant and was manipulating him.”

  She could almost feel Micah’s surprise inside her own h
ead.

  “Ben didn’t know about you, not the details anyway.”

  “He was supposed to find and kill Father Heale!”

  “Not kill. To take him to safety. I promise you, none of what happened was supposed to!”

  “Oh really? Then what about my brother Stephen? He wasn’t supposed to create the failsafe program, the one that prevented us from escaping the island? Was that part of the script or did Arc control him, too?”

  “No, that was real. The Coalition needed to keep you here. With your grandfather’s virus in your head, you were too much of a threat, not just to their plans, but to yourself, the codex, and the rest of New Merica. I swear to God the failsafe was only meant to be a temporary measure until—”

  “Temporary?” she shouted. “It’s become fucking permanent! If I hadn’t figured out a way to bypass it—”

  “If you hadn’t bypassed the failsafe, then maybe what’s happening out there now might not be.”

  Jessie jerked back in shock. “I had nothing to do with that!”

  “For years the virus remained quiescent, sleeping, doing nothing, and so we didn’t know what it did. Arc didn’t know about it, but we knew. We just couldn’t do anything about it.” He reached for the bottle of water, then changed his mind when he saw how little remained.

  “We feared it. So, we devised this plan to counter whatever it was with our own firewall. We drew you here so it could be installed. The only way to do it was to make your grandfather believe it was Father Heale’s life’s work. We knew he’d want access to it.”

  “The file,” Jessie said, breathlessly. “But then I left my Link behind when we escaped.”

  “Your grandfather began to suspect. He was going to activate the virus. We had to bring you back to prevent it from spreading outside of Gameland.”

  “We?”

  I’m sorry, Jessie.

  She turned to look at Micah. “You?”

  Yes.

  “You were the Coder?”

  Yes.

  “The failsafe was meant to keep you here until we could figure out a way to stop the virus.”

  “But Micah helped us escape.” She turned to him. “You took my idea to defeat the failsafe and made it work? Why?”