This man glanced at us, dismissed Lincoln and myself as insignificant, and then met my father’s eyes. They nodded to each other.
“In there?” the man asked Bruce.
Bruce waved at the registration office. “Seems like you have a compliance issue, Felix. Does the Tribunal need my assistance in the absence of the Gamekeeper?”
Felix glared at Bruce.
The air chilled in that minute. If it were possible to sink any further into my chair, I would have. The energy between Bruce and Felix was tangible. Their auras, invisible to anyone but me, sized each other up, testing the other’s strengths and weaknesses like two lions in the wild.
“You may have sway with Octavia, Urser, but you have no jurisdiction when it comes to Tribunal law,” Felix said.
Octavia must be another Tribunal member, and if he had sway with her… then no wonder my registration had been moved forward. What else could he get the Tribunal to agree to?
My father’s nonchalant shrug broke the tension and I breathed again.
The door to the registrar’s office opened and Felix and his soldier went inside. The door closed behind them.
I heard a lot of shouting. Felt a lot of auras becoming erratic with anxiety. Some banging followed a flare of metaphysical energy and then… quiet.
When the door reopened, Felix and the soldier stalked out followed by the woman in green scrubs. They all left the waiting room without a further look our way.
A glance inside the surgery showed the disgruntled patient was gone.
I never found out what had happened to him, but I could only guess. His aura was there one minute, and not the next. In an instant, he’d been canceled.
That could be me.
One wrong word. One false move. Piss off the wrong person, and I was done. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
After a few minutes, we were called and went inside.
Too many medical tools, monitors, and computers were in the room. It reminded me of the sterile place the Inquisitor questioned me in, long ago. Except, instead of buckets of water on the far shelf for my head to be dunked in, there were large glass containers about the size of a melon, full of pearlescent fluid. Eight containers in total.
A tall lady with silver gray hair tied at her nape, sat with her back to us scribbling in a notebook. When she heard the scraping of the door as it opened, she turned in our direction. She had a long sharp nose, high cheekbones, and wore aubergine lipstick. She took one look at my father through deep heavy set eyes, put her pen down, and bowed reverently.
“Sir,” she said, and then waved at her two male co-workers who were busying themselves on the far wall, checking various instruments and medical paraphernalia. Metal clinked in the silence.
“Prep the chair,” she added to her colleagues. “We have two today.”
“Wait.” My heart leapt into my throat. “Shouldn’t my mentor be here?”
No one answered me. I hoped for any distraction to stall the process. The needles didn’t look good. The woman’s flat lining aura didn’t look good.
“I’ll go first.” Lincoln offered and moved to sit in the chair. “It’s no big deal, really, Roo. Just a few blood samples.”
I looked over my shoulder to inspect the exit. Squid remained outside to guard the door. I inched backwards away from the chair and intended to run out, to find Cash, someone. I desperately wanted to get away, but the thought of being canceled kept my feet glued to the floor. My skin went clammy. A pressure began to build, starting in my middle and spreading to my prickly palms. If I looked down, I would see my hands fashioned into claws, the tendons in my arms bulging out. But I didn’t look down. I couldn’t pay attention to the fear. If I did, it would have power over me. I might do something I’d regret. Like explode.
I tried to focus on something in the room that was not frightening.
Why are there so many people here for a few blood samples? The Others asked.
Something wasn’t right.
Lincoln sat back in the reclining chair and had the crook of his arm swabbed, belted and a vein tapped. While the attendants discussed something, the lady—who I assumed was the registrar—flipped her book to a particular page, picked up her pen and looked down her long nose at my brother.
“What is your Player assigned name?”
“Lincoln Caleb Urser.”
She scribbled down a note.
“In the absence of the Gamekeeper, who will witness this registration?”
My father stood forward.
“I will,” he said. The woman held out a pen.
“Do you solemnly swear that you are a Watcher among the people—not a Player—and do so have the right to make an impartial judgment in the Game be it for truth, justice or in the essence of integrity?”
“Just give me the pen.” My father snatched the pen from the registrar’s hands. He used his large body to shepherd the lady away from her precious notebook. He pushed a button on the pen and jammed it into his forearm where it gathered blood in the nib. He didn’t flinch.
“Okay. Now, I’m assuming you're his mentor. Yes? Good. As his mentor, do you swear that this soul is the one he claims to be and that you are responsible for his education, results and welfare for the duration of his trials?” Her voice trembled and she leant away from my father. “And in failure to complete the trials to a satisfactory level, you are the one responsible for seeing the participant’s game canceled and returned to Purgatory?”
Bruce glared through slitted eyes and signed on the dotted line.
Cash should be here.
It was a cry of certainty from deep within my soul.
“Take his blood. Two vials,” she ordered the attendants.
They complied, pulling thick red blood out of his arms and into awaiting glass tubes. One green sidekick injected the blood into another larger vial, then added some pearlescent liquid from the jars beyond. He took the resulting concoction over to the computer and proceeded to test it with a machine. The other sidekick moved with clinical precision and swabbed Lincoln’s wound, taped it up and held pressure to it. Then he swabbed the alternate arm, strapped it and tapped a vein.
Lincoln’s brows drew together and he shifted in his seat.
“Are you taking more?” he asked.
Without answering, the registrar closed her notebook with a snap and stood up. She peered at the blood concoction near the computer and once satisfied with whatever readout flashed across the screen, lifted a glittering hypodermic needle and sucked up the pearly red mixture of Lincoln’s blood from the vial on the machine. She gave the needle a little squirt to remove excess air. A line of sparkling fluid shot into the air and landed on the floor in front of me in a blob. She approached Lincoln.
“What is that?” Lincoln shuffled a little more in his seat. “What did you mix it with?”
“Now Mr. Urser, you may feel a slight pinch as this goes in. Please relax and it will all be over in a minute.”
“What is that?” Lincoln’s voice took on a tightness, his eyes wide.
The registrar nodded to the two attendants and they held down Lincoln’s arms. He struggled, so they pulled out straps from underneath the chair and restrained him.
“You need to tell me what that is,” he said, pulling back from his captors.
I turned to my father, but he stood there with his arms folded and a bored look on his face.
The registrar shoved the needle into my brother’s vein and pushed the glowing liquid into his arm. Lincoln froze, seized more like it. His eyes rolled back into his head and he convulsed.
“Stop.” I stepped forward but my father placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“He’s been injected with nano-transmitters. They are essential for us to monitor vitals during the trials. Don’t interfere,” he said.
The shrill sound of a phone ringing filled the air.
It was Bruce’s. When he answered, his expression darkened. He turned his back on me and walked to the
corner of the room to speak quietly. In two steps I was by Lincoln’s side.
“Lincoln. Are you okay?” I placed a hand on his hot cheek.
In the background, I heard my Bruce’s voice take on an aggressive tone and his aura buzzed with irritation.
Lincoln murmured something. He looked so innocent with his eyes closed, long lashes splayed against his cherub cheeks.
“Are we receiving data?” the registrar asked.
“Yes. Loud and clear.” The attendant who answered her had removed his mask and gloves. He touched the screen in front of him and various boxes of data blinked at us. Lincoln’s face popped up too.
“Good. Lift him off and put him in the waiting room.” The registrar spouted orders to her crew. One of them helped a dazed Lincoln out of the room.
“La Roux, you’re next,” she said.
In a knee jerk reaction, I backed away and bumped into my father.
“Roo-Roo. The quicker you get this over with, the quicker you can go back to our rooms.”
“Our rooms?” I turned to face my father. “I never agreed to stay with you.”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a choice. You said you wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. Are you making a big deal?”
“I meant I would not make a big deal about coming here, to the Ludus. And I haven’t. I’m here. I never said I’d live with you once I got here.”
“You said, and I quote ‘I won’t kick up a stink about the rest’.”
“I didn’t say what the rest was.”
“Don’t be obtuse.”
“Oh, you mean like how you said I had six months to train, now I suddenly have days?”
Animosity boiled in his eyes. He glanced over my shoulder and motioned to the attendants.
“I don’t have time for this. Strap her down.”
There was no need to gather my energy, all I had to do was pull on my offender’s aura with my will and let it snap back like a rubber band. He jerked as though stung and rubbed his shoulders with alarmed eyes and looked to my father for help.
“That’s enough Roo,” my father barked, eyes burning with fury. “You have to be registered; otherwise your game will be over before it has begun. Just like the boy you saw before us. Is that what you want?”
We stared each other off for what seemed like an eternity but in the end I caved. He was right. I needed to be registered otherwise I would be canceled. Dead. I was only here to play the Game. If I didn’t want to do it, then I’d be killed. My soul would float to wherever the hell Purgatory was and wait until Marc decided he felt like taking a trip back to the Empire. I tapped my finger on my thigh. Register, or die.
“Fine.” I sat in the chair.
“What is your name?” the registrar asked.
“La Roux Elizabeth Urser.”
She scribbled down a note.
“I want my mentor here.”
“I thought Urser was your mentor.”
“Nope. Cash Samson.”
Her expression changed from condescending to downright comical. Her mouth opened wide and her brows winged up high. When she gathered her composure, she gazed down at her book and paused.
“We need the Gamekeeper here.” Her voice was shaking and she refused to look up. “I hereby declare this registration postponed until he is back from the Empire.”
A growl emitted from the base of my father’s throat and the room shook. I swear, the room actually shook. The air thickened until my eyes stung and it became hard to breathe.
Bruce grabbed the woman by the scruff of her neck, spinning her until she faced him. He jerked her chin up so their eyes met.
“Look at me woman.” He shook her like a rag doll.
She looked at him.
“I decide who gets registered. Not the Gamekeeper, do you understand, Andrea?”
“Yes, sir. You decide who gets registered. Not the Gamekeeper. I understand.” Her eyes glazed over, all zombie-like and her voice was monotone.
Bruce let go of her and took a step back. “Now take her blood.”
Andrea nodded and indicated to the remaining attendant to take my blood.
Everything inside me tensed. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. And this sure as hell wasn’t Oz. I sank in the chair.
Note to self: Do not look my father in the eyes.
Before I knew it, two vials of blood were removed from my right arm and mixed into another waiting vial of pearly liquid.
Andrea picked up her notebook and looked at my father’s chest. “Do you solemnly swear that you are a Watcher among the people, not a Player and do so have the right to make impartial judgments in the Game be it truth, justice and in the essence of—?”
“For fuck’s sake.” My father picked up the blood pen and stabbed himself in the arm.
A loud banging sounded at the door. Bruce ignored the knocking and moved to the registry book.
“Do you swear that this soul is the one she claims to be and that you are responsible for her education, results and welfare?” Andrea’s words rushed out in a panic.
“Wait,” I said and sat forward in the chair. I was certain those words were meant for Cash. He should sign for me, not my father.
But it was too late.
Bruce snatched the book off Andrea and signed away. To the remaining green sidekick, he said, “Get on with it.”
“No,” I said.
The attendant tightened the strap on my needle mark free arm and pushed me backward until I reclined. In the absence of the second attendant, my father held my other arm down.
Before I could blink, a burning, searing pain exploded at the inside of my elbow. In a daze I looked down and saw the needle sticking out—glowing red substance expended. I hadn’t even noticed them mixing the pearly stuff with my blood and testing it on the machine. The pain multiplied and spread throughout my body until it was like liquid napalm in my veins.
I screamed.
“Get it out. It’s burning. Holy crap it’s burning.” I rolled around and thrashed in the chair. Was this what Lincoln felt? My goodness, was this what everyone felt?
Someone must have poured rocket fuel into that syringe. It was the only explanation. I would combust.
Stop. I cried in my mind. Stop the pain. Stop.
“Strap her down.” My father’s voice swam through the haze.
But I couldn’t focus my energy, I couldn’t focus my mind. I heard sizzling and crackling and thought it was my skin on fire. There was a banging too. The noise was so loud it reverberated like a beating drum. I was burning up.
I screamed.
Stop. Just stop.
And then the room shook. Metal scraped against metal.
“Something’s not right,” Andrea said.
“It will pass.” Another voice.
“But the room.”
A loud crash echoed in my head. Maybe it was my brain bursting because the pain stopped.
I must have been dead.
I wasn’t dead. The sound was someone trying to break through the door. I tried to sit up but a wave of dizziness overcame me.
“Is the data received?”
There was a pause.
“Damien. Is the data coming through?” Andrea asked again.
“I don’t know. Something is coming through, but it’s all wrong. We didn’t have time to test the connection properly.”
The sound of a chair scraping back hit my ears.
“Give me a look,” Andrea said. “I see what you mean. Her vitals are duplicating and breaking up. The transmitters could be faulty, or picking up someone else’s signal.”
Bruce pulled me upright. Black spots danced across the insides of my eyelids, but at least I wasn’t burning. Now I was pain free, I felt the wrongness inside of me. Like a foreign object that needed to be pulled out.
“It’s time to go,” Bruce said and slipped an arm under mine to hoist me off the chair.
“Wait. We need to do that again. The product is faulty,” Andrea said.
CHAPTER FIVE
MY FATHER STABBED the button on the wall that activated the sliding doors.
Cash and Squid waited on the other side, in the middle of an argument, blocking our exit. Every muscle in both of their bodies tensed as though on the verge of snapping. The heat bouncing between them was tangible. Cash whipped his gaze to me. “Are you okay? I heard screaming.”
All the adrenaline in my body broke down and my bottom lip trembled. “I’m okay. The nano-things hurt, that’s all.”
“Jed’s gone to notify the Tribunal.” Cash pulled me from my father and into a sudden embrace. For a minute, I froze. Then I realized my father hadn’t stopped him, and despite my proclamation to do things myself, for a small moment, my head dipped to his chest. It was so much easier when he was around. My ear pressed against his shirt, eyes fluttering closed. He smelled musky, male and familiar. For a minute, I wanted to forget everything that had happened between us. To pretend he hadn’t thought about abandoning me, and he’d meant it when he said he was going to stay.
“I’m taking her back with me,” Cash said, presumably to my father because I wasn’t lifting my gaze. Two more minutes of avoiding the world.
“You are leaving her with us. She is my daughter, and now I am responsible for her welfare. I have signed for her registration. She is my concern.”
Cash stiffened.
“Your tricks won’t work on me. You know that. I am her mentor. She is my concern until she finishes her trials. I’ve already notified the Tribunal of your indiscretion.”
“Just because I can’t glamor you doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you, Samson.”
I held my breath. That information was new. Cash was immune to the influence of gods and witches. No wonder my father had such an interest in him when he discovered him all those years ago and took him under his wing.
“Give it up Bruce. She wasn’t what you ordered, so you left her behind and now you’ve seen what she can do, you want her back.”
“You have no right to speak to me like that. You are not even worth the spit to shine my shoes.”
Playing God Page 4