Countdown (3 page)

“There are twenty minutes remaining in this level of
Countdown,
”
the voice said from out of nowhere.
When I didn’t immediately start walking, Rogan raised an eyebrow at me.
“Let’s get going,” he said. “I’m not in good enough shape to keep running. Better make it a brisk stagger, so we need to move
now.
”
“Okay, yeah. Then let’s go.” I frowned and tried to recall the map. Damn. I should have paid more attention. Fingers of panic dug deep into my stomach.
As if he’d read my thoughts, he forced a grin. “Don’t worry, kid. I know where we’re headed.”
I scowled at him. “I’m no kid, I’m sixteen. And the name’s
Kira
.”
His grin widened a fraction. “No nicknames. Got it.”
I studied him for a moment longer. That scar across his left eye. I wondered how he’d gotten it. Probably at St. Augustine’s, in a scuff le with another loser. Or maybe his victim had attempted to fight back before he’d mercilessly snuffed out his or her life.
Scumbag.
He caught me staring at his face and turned away so I could see only the good side. “Let’s get going,
Kira.
”
Vain, was he?
We walked. Slower than I would have liked, but it was fast enough to keep some of my panic at bay. With every step, I felt the clock ticking down the seconds we had left. What if we didn’t make it in time? Would they really kill us? Just like that?
I was finding it easier and easier to believe.
“Countdown,”
Rogan began as we trudged along, “is just what it sounds like. A series of challenges with a set time frame and a win-or-lose outcome. It’s a game.”
I glanced at him and kept walking. My heart pounded in my ears. “I didn’t agree to play any game.”
“You didn’t have to.
Countdown
plays to the fringes of society over a top-secret televised network. That’s what makes it so appealing to the Subscribers.”
“Subscribers?”
“Bored rich people who haven’t headed to the Colony yet and want to be entertained by a modern Roman Colosseum. Death matches. There are a few other twisted games on the network to hold their interest. This is only one on the list.”
My gut started to churn with disgust. “How is this even allowed? It’s illegal.”
“I know that. You know that. But, like I said, it’s a secret. Even if it wasn’t, do you really think cops would give a damn about what happens to criminals, no matter how young those criminals might be? Makes their jobs easier in the long run, doesn’t it? Subscribers are fitted with cranium implants so they can watch in their heads. It’s like virtual reality, only they’re just watching, not participating. Safer that way.” His expression soured. “Bunch of rich cowards who get off on violence.”
“How do you know all this?”
He didn’t look directly at me. “I just know. The players used to be older prisoners recruited from Saradone, but recently it seems like the Subscribers prefer younger meat. I knew a couple kids who disappeared one night a month ago. The rumor was they were offered the chance to play the game.”
“Why would they agree to something like this?” I hadn’t been given a choice.
He shrugged. “At least with the game there’s a possibility you can win. A fresh-faced eighteen-year-old transferring to a prison like that—no matter what his crimes are…” His jaw tightened, and he finally offered me a sidelong glance. “His days are numbered.”
“That’s how they got you. You didn’t want to go to Saradone if there was a way to avoid it.”
“Basically.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to. The bottom line is that it exists. And we’re right in the middle of it now.” He eyed me. “I don’t get
you,
though.”
“Right back at you.”
“No, I don’t understand why you were recruited. You weren’t in detention. You haven’t been arrested. You’re into low-end crime, and you have no family, but still. Only sixteen…” His brows drew together. “You’re too young. Too soft.”
“There’s nothing soft about me.”
His lips twitched. “I don’t know about that.”
“Keep walking.” I put one foot in front of the other. “You’re sure you know where we’re going?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s not far from here.”
This was insane. All of it. “So, if we finish—how many levels again?”
“Six.”
“If we finish six levels like the voice said, we’ll win. What does that mean?”
“Freedom. Money. I don’t know what else. It depends on the player, I think.”
“And if we mess up—”
“No freedom, no money and a bullet in the brain. That’s if we’re lucky.”
My stomach lurched. “Who would want to watch this?”
“You’d be surprised. A subscription to the Network isn’t cheap, and it’s based on how much they watch. And the cranium implant that gets them access has to be surgically implanted. It’s not easy to do. The Subscribers expect to get their money’s worth. Maybe that’s why they had you join the cast. I don’t think
Countdown
has had a female contestant before.”
That wasn’t terribly comforting. “Lucky me. Maybe they think we’ll be a good team.”
He glanced at me. “Maybe we will.”
“Don’t bet on it.” I looked away. “Are we almost there?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“You
think
so? I thought you were sure where we were going?”
“I’ve been out of commission for a while. Things change. Do you know this neighborhood?”
“No.”
I took a good look around. Gray on gray. No trees, no parked cars. Even the street signs were broken off the poles on the corner ahead. Nothing was familiar.
Something f lew out from behind a corner ahead of us. A silver ball. It f loated in midair and headed straight for us at lightning fast speed. I ducked so it wouldn’t hit me, but it stopped three feet in front of my face and bobbed at eye level.
A f lying digicam. Yet another thing I’d never seen before in real life. It ref lected me in the black iris of its lens.
The voice spoke again in my head.
“Level two for Rogan and Kira is well under way. Let’s take a moment to get to know these two contestants….”

It was an implant. That was what the voice said earlier, didn’t it? They’d put one of the implants in my head. I reached into the tangle of my dark brown hair and felt around until I found the stitches over a two inch cut in my scalp. The area surrounding it was numb. They’d put the implant in my head. That’s why I’d been unconscious in the metal room. I’d been recovering from surgery.

Outrage swelled inside me.

We didn’t have time for this. I attempted to get past the digicam, but it blocked my way.
“Kira Jordan, sixteen years old, was left an orphan two years ago after her family was brutally murdered. But don’t let her sob story or good looks fool you—she’s made her way in the world by becoming a street thief and pickpocket who would steal from her own grandmother if she still had one. And she isn’t afraid of using her body to get exactly what she wants. This girl’s as cold as ice.”
I felt the color drain from my face, and I glanced at Rogan.
“That’s not true,” I said.
His expression was guarded, but there was an edge of curiosity in his gaze. “All of it or most of it?”
“Most.”
The camera then whirred over to block Rogan’s path.
“Rogan Ellis, seventeen years old, is guilty of nine counts of firstdegree murder in what is now known as the Dormitory Murders. After a one-night rampage that left nine female university students dead and dismembered, he was sent to St. Augustine’s Detention Hall for dangerous youths until his eighteenth birthday, when he was to be transferred to Saradone Maximum Security Prison to serve a life sentence with no chance for parole.”
Rogan glanced at me with an unfamiliar expression playing across his face, but I’d gone cold and silent.
“That’s not true, either,” he said, his voice suddenly void of emotion.
“All of it or most of it?” I asked shakily.
“Most.”
Nine girls. Dead and dismembered.
I felt ill. I could have dropped to my knees on the cold, hard pavement and thrown up, but there was nothing in my stomach. It was one thing to imagine what he was guilty of, but another to have it sent across the airwaves directly into my brain.
He was horrible. He was a monster, like the man who’d murdered my family.
And if I didn’t stay with him I was going to die.
The thought made me feel even sicker.
Maybe they’re lying,
a small voice in my mind insisted.
Why would you believe what they say? They totally exaggerated who you are. Maybe he didn’t do it.
Why would I even think that? Because he had nice eyes? Because he was vaguely charming and injured, and I wanted to make it out of this alive—and to do that, I needed him?
Yeah, something like that.
“Tell us, Rogan Ellis, do you feel any remorse for what you’ve done? And how do you feel your sociopathic tendencies will serve you in
Countdown,
especially now that you’re teamed with Kira—a girl who lost her own family to a brutal murder?”
I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me, instead staring daggers at the camera, refusing to answer any of the “get to know you” questions the voice was asking on behalf of the audience.
“Ten minutes now remain in this level of
Countdown
.
”
The time update was like a slap in the face.
I grabbed Rogan’s shirt again. “We have to get going. Now.”
The camera moved to block our way, and I swatted it with the back of my hand.
“We’re not far,” Rogan said.
“We better not be.”
“You didn’t tell me your family was murdered.”
“Forget it.”
His brow furrowed as we hurried along the road. “Kira, what they said about me…”
“Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t care who you are or what you did. I just want to live. And if it means that I have to put up with a piece of garbage like you, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
“I understand.”
“And one more thing—” I squeezed his shoulder hard, under the collar of his shirt just above his wound, and he let out a gasp of pain “—you try anything or you even look at me funny? I swear to God I’ll kill you myself.”
He knocked my hand away, his gaze fierce. “Sounds fair enough.”
I wiped a drop of his blood off my hand and ignored the mild f lash of pain in my head. I’d touched him. Touched his skin. I’d concentrated as best as I could considering the situation I currently found myself in—
And I’d tried to feel something, some feeling. Some clue to help me.
There wasn’t time to get much more than a headache and a jumble of confusion.
All I knew for sure was that there was more to Rogan’s story. Much more. But right now there was no time to figure it out.
If we didn’t hurry, in less than ten minutes, we were going to die.

“HOW MUCH FARTHER?” I TOOK A QUICK LOOK over my shoulder to see that Rogan was about twenty feet behind me. I ran fast. Currently, he didn’t. Since I couldn’t let him lag too far behind—thanks to the brain implants from hell—it was becoming a problem.
His already strained face creased into a deeper frown. He stopped walking and looked around the gray, deserted street.
“We should almost be there” was his final proclamation, but he sounded uncertain.
“We better be,” I muttered. “Which way?”
“Take a left at the next intersection.”
I took the left along the street up ahead. None of it looked familiar to me. The area was desolate; there was no one around—unless you counted the spherical silver digicam whizzing around that I already hated enough to fantasize about smashing into a million little pieces.
I’d taken a swipe at it a minute ago when it got too close. The thing was faster than it looked—and it looked pretty damn fast.
This whole situation was so bizarre I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that it was actually happening to me. But it was. If my heart wasn’t pounding so hard that it hurt and if I hadn’t already experienced enough stress and pain to fill up five lifetimes, I would have sworn that I was dreaming.
Rogan cursed.
I looked back at him with alarm. “What now?”
He scanned the dead-end alley we’d just walked into. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?” I didn’t try to hide the hard edge of panic in my voice. “And hurry up, because we’re almost out of time.”
As if in reply, the voice in my head announced,
“There are two minutes remaining in this level of
Countdown.
”
Rogan brought a hand up to his wound and swayed on his feet. I ran to his side to support him before he keeled over.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“I heard it.”
“So?”
“I could have sworn this was the right turn. I know this neighborhood. At least, I
used
to know it. It’s been a while, though. Things change.” His dark brows drew together.
I was now bracing his full weight against me to keep him from toppling over. “Yeah, you’re a whole lot of help.”
“I guess we won’t be winning the grand prize, will we? Knocked out at level two. It’s embarrassing.” He said it so wryly that I knew he was joking.
Joking. At a time like this? He was even crazier than he looked.
He was also very pale, and there was a sheen of perspiration on his grimy face. My hand was pressed to his chest to hold him steady, and his heart beat erratically. I pulled at his shirt to take a quick peek at the wound underneath. It looked raw and open, as if it had been inf licted with a sharp object like a big butcher’s knife. Definitely not from a gun. I’d seen bullet wounds up close and personal before—the image seared into my brain forever, along with my father’s glazed, unseeing eyes.
Blood oozed steadily out of Rogan’s shoulder.
“You’re a mess,” I informed him.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You stink, too.”
“Again, well aware. Like I said, they didn’t give me a few hours at the spa before locking me up in that room so I could smell like a f lower for you.”
My throat thickened with panic. “You really think this is where we should be? Are you sure?”
“I was. But there aren’t any doors. There’s nothing. And if we’d reached the finish line, you’d think there’d be some sort of sign.” His words finally betrayed a sharp edge of strain.
“I’m going to let go of you now,” I said.
“Thanks for the warning.”
He eased back against the concrete wall behind him, and I stepped away to stand in the middle of the alley. I turned around slowly, trying hard to ignore the ticking that was potentially counting down the last seconds of my life.
“I used to watch TV shows like this,” I said. “Not
exactly
like this one, of course, but they have the races and the puzzles to solve. Usually at this early level of a game, it’s still fairly easy. Or at least, not insanely impossible to figure out.” I glared at the camera hovering in the air four feet from my face.
“You don’t know the people who set this game up. It’s all about the losing, not the winning, for them.”
“I’m just saying that it can’t be the end. Not yet. What’s the fun in eliminating contestants in level two?”
I scanned the alley. Two brick walls. One concrete wall, gray and unyielding, behind Rogan’s hunched-over frame. I looked up. A sliver of slate-gray sky showed above the thirtystory buildings that surrounded us like cold, emotionless sentries.
“What did you think we were running toward?” I asked. “What did you see on that map?”
He looked around. “It was an office. I remember it from before I got sent away. I could have sworn it was right here.”
“One minute remains in this level of
Countdown.
”
“59…58…57…”
There was a Dumpster to the side of us, full to overf lowing. Strange, considering that the neighborhood was deserted. A rotting apple core lay to the side of it, the fruit turning brown. No f lies, though. It didn’t seem as if anyone or anything lived here anymore, but that piece of fruit didn’t seem as old as it should have, considering the surroundings.
“What kind of office was it?” I asked.
“What?”
“What kind of office?” I repeated, loud enough to be heard over the countdown.
“It was a…a doctor’s office. A psychiatrist.”
“Let me guess,
your
doctor?”
Rogan’s expression shadowed. “I had a few appointments there, yeah.”
“Obviously he wasn’t very good at what he did if you went psycho, anyway.”
He glowered at me.
A doctor’s office. Right here. But now it was gone? Was Rogan tripping out, or was he remembering something important?
I sure hoped it was something important. We didn’t have time to be wrong.
I went toward that Dumpster and jumped in.
“What are you doing?” Rogan demanded.
“Trying very hard not to die.”
I plunged my hands into muck and filth. Rotting food, discarded boxes, plastic bags filled with rancid garbage. Living on the streets had given me a necessary talent for Dumpster diving. You could find some really good stuff if you had the time and motivation to go searching.
Currently I didn’t have the time, but I sure as hell had the motivation.
I didn’t know what I was looking for. Even when I found it, I still wasn’t sure.
“24…23…22…”
It was a bell attached to a sign that read:
Please ring bell and the receptionist will be right with you.
Okay, it was something.
I held my breath and rang the bell.
Nothing happened for a moment, and what little hope I had started to fade, but then I heard something. A heavy, metallic sound.
“Kira. Look.” Rogan pointed at the ground.
I looked over the edge of the Dumpster to see that a door in the ground had slid open. I hadn’t even noticed the edges of it before.
“10…9…8…”
I launched myself out of the garbage like somebody possessed and grabbed Rogan’s arm. There was a f light of stairs leading down. I pulled him with me, and we quickly descended into the semidarkness below.
“3…2…1…”
The door above us slammed shut with the force of a guillotine. When nothing else happened, I quickly continued down to the bottom of the stairs. A short hallway led into a white room.
Rogan met my gaze. “I don’t feel dead yet. Should we be celebrating?”
I thought about that as I tried to bring my breathing back down to a normal pace. “If we’re dead, then death wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing level two of
Countdown.
”
I rubbed my temples, finally allowing myself a measure of relief. “Is he going to say that every time? Because that’s going to get old really fast.”
Another camera appeared and whipped past my face. I watched my eyes narrow in the shiny surface. By no stretch of the imagination did I look happy. My dark brown hair was matted and tangled, and my long bangs were slicked against my forehead. My jaw was clenched tightly, and my dark eyes f lashed with anger. I hated that digicam. Hated it more than I remembered hating anything for a very long time.
“You shouldn’t look directly at it,” Rogan advised, touching my arm with the hand that wasn’t clasped to his injured shoulder.
I shrugged away from him. “Why not?”
“You don’t want to give the Subscribers more than their money’s worth. They
want
you to look at them that way. It gets them off to see you suffer.” He pulled me away so that I wasn’t staring right into the lens anymore. “How did you know to ring the bell?”
I finally looked at him. “Lucky guess.”
“Yes,” a voice said. “Very lucky indeed.”
I turned to see that a door had opened and a man had entered the white room. He was tall and skinny, with short black hair and a trimmed goatee. He wore wire-framed glasses and a white doctor’s coat and he held a clipboard.
“Who are you?” I forced myself not to step backward. He was the first live person I’d seen other than Rogan since this nightmare had begun.
He stopped walking. “My name is Jonathan. I’m your liaison to
Countdown
.”
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead, his gaze f licked to Rogan. “You’re injured.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t know that already, being our liaison and all.” Sarcasm mixed with the pain in Rogan’s voice.
“It’s worse than I thought it would be.” Jonathan let out a long sigh and shook his head. “We will have to wait a moment first.”
I looked around the room. He wasn’t moving, just staring straight ahead.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked.
Jonathan held up a finger. “One moment.”
Every muscle in my body was tense and ready to run, but instead I waited, standing silently in place. After a couple of minutes, a small door in the wall to my right opened up, and the silver ball camera left the room. The door closed behind it.
“What happened?” I said.
“
Countdown
is now on an official break,” Jonathan explained. “We have a little time to prep you for your next level.”
“I won’t last another level,” Rogan said.
Jonathan nodded. “I know. I’ve been monitoring your vitals.”
He left the room brief ly and returned with a white box.
“Sit,” he instructed, and Rogan sat down in a white chair next to him.
I swear, everything in the entire room was white and scrubbed immaculately clean. It felt like a hospital—or, at least, the kind I’d once seen in an old movie.
Jonathan pushed away the material that covered Rogan’s wound. Then with no sound from the murderer other than a pained groan, Jonathan cleaned the wound and sprayed it with some sort of colorless substance. The skin around the cut turned a sick shade of green.
“Ah,” Jonathan breathed, peering closer. “The knife they used on you was tipped with calcine poison.”
“That would explain why I feel like my insides are melting,” Rogan grumbled. “Because they are.”
“What’s happening?” I demanded again. My fists were clenched so tightly at my sides that my fingernails dug painfully into the palms of my hands. Instead of relaxing, I let it happen. The pain helped me stay focused.
“What does it look like?” Jonathan asked, glancing up at me.
“Why are you helping him?”
“Kira,” Rogan growled. “Didn’t you hear the part about my insides melting?”
“But—”
“I can’t play this damn game if I have melting insides. Do you get that?”
“Of course I get that. But why is he helping you? Doesn’t he work for the damn game?”
“I do.” Jonathan nodded. “But that doesn’t mean I always agree with their idea of entertainment.”
With a syringe, he injected a blue-colored solution into Rogan’s shoulder. Rogan clenched his jaw. “That should be enough antidote to halt the damage and hopefully reverse it. You’re not going to feel great, but you’ll feel a lot better than you have.” He peered at the now clean wound. “The antidote will also help the wound knit rapidly. You shouldn’t require any stitches.”
“Thanks.” Rogan pulled away from Jonathan the moment he was finished.
He seemed oddly at ease with the man—as if they’d already met.
Jonathan closed the box. “Are you well, young lady?”
“Am I
well?
” I repeated. “No, I am not well. I want out of this game right now.”
“That’s not possible. But you’re doing fine so far. I anticipate that you will last several more levels.” He looked away.
My breath hitched. Could I fight him to escape from this place? If I had to? “I don’t belong here.”
“None of us belong here, Kira,” he said wearily. “Sometimes we need to do the best with what we’re given.”
“I would have to disagree with you there,” Rogan said.
Jonathan looked at him sharply. “Time has a tendency to change many things, Rogan.”
“Not as many as you might think. But time does have a way of making things a lot clearer.”
“If you say so.”
Rogan glowered at him. “I do.”
I watched their exchange with growing certainty. “Do you two know each other?”
Rogan f licked a glance at me. “No.”
Like hell they didn’t. I wasn’t that blind. Before I could ask any more questions, he turned to Jonathan.
“Are you going to get in trouble for fixing me?”
Jonathan didn’t answer the question. “We need to talk about level three.”
“I’d rather have a long nap in a comfortable bed,” Rogan said with a humorless snort.
“I’m sure you would. And you’re partially in luck. Since the broadcast is on a break, you’ve just entered a mandatory rest period.”
Rogan’s throat worked as he swallowed. “That’s not necessary.”
“I thought you said you wanted a nap?”
“On my own terms, yeah.”
Jonathan pressed a button on the wall and another holoscreen appeared in the middle of the room. The image of an average-looking man f lickered into focus. “This is Bernard Jones. He is forty years old, has been married for fifteen years, and has one child. He makes his living as an accountant. He has dreams of moving to the Colony with his family and opening a restaurant there.”
My heart jumped into my throat. Another mention of the Colony. I was starting to believe it really existed—somewhere. Sometimes I wondered if it might just be a rumor.
“Sounds like a fun guy,” I said, trying to shield my interest in the secret city. “So, what are we supposed to do, get him to do our taxes?”
“No. To successfully complete level three you are required to assassinate him.”
My mouth dropped open. “
Assassinate
him?”
“That’s right. There will be no weapons provided for this level. You will have to use whatever means are available to locate and eliminate this target. You will be informed on your timeline once the level begins. That’s all I can tell you. I wish you good luck.”