S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (117 page)

“
Not yet, brah,” Reggie whispers. “You're in no shape.”

“
Come on!” Shane says, a little less forcibly. “Hurry up. I haven't got all day.”

I can feel my blood pressure rising, but there's nothing I can do. Kelly's in no shape to fend for himself if Reggie and I decide to try and fight. Three against two; I doubt Ashley would be much help.

Reggie looks past Kelly's slumped head and throws me a look that says,
Not now. Now's not a good time
. I know he's right, and I know he has to be struggling hard to control his own instinct for self-preservation, but it doesn't make my own struggle any easier.

So we carry Kelly down the stairs, Reggie holding onto the railing attached to the wall and me gripping the one in the center. Every time I look down that angular spiral, down into the depths, I get a little dizzy. It doesn't help that I can't see out of one eye, screwing up my depth perception.

Each step is painfully slow, and the force of that muzzle pointing at our backs is painfully strong. I find myself imagining falling over the side, just suddenly disappearing. With my luck, I'd only break my neck and paralyze myself on the flight below.

There are moments when it seems Kelly is recovering. Either I or Reggie slip and Kelly catches us, but his head still lolls and a sticky line of drool stretches from his bottom lip. When we're halfway down, I know he's carrying most of his own weight, though he doesn't appear to. And when I ask how he's doing, his words come out all slurred. I don't know whether to be worried or heartened. I can't tell if he's acting or not.

When we get to the bottom, Shane grunts and gestures for me to take Kelly into the main room with Jake. He tells Reggie to stay.

“
What are you going to do,” I start to say, but Reggie waves me away with a thin smile.

“
I'm cool, Jess,” he says. “Don't worry about me.”

I get Kelly settled on the floor against the wall and then go over to check on Jake on the table. In the gloom, he looks like he's already dead, but after a few seconds of watching, checking for any sign of life, I detect the slightest rise and fall to his chest. Heat rolls off of him and bakes my skin, and I realize that even if we had another syringe of the treatment and gave it to him now, it wouldn't be able to reverse whatever damage the fever has already done to his brain. It's probably mush by now.

Shane sets Reggie to work barricading the stairwell door. I can hear him bending pieces of metal around the handle, grunting as the metal squeals. He talks as he works, asking Shane questions. His voice sounds hollow and flat. But Shane doesn't answer, just grunts.

“
What's that bitch want with Ashley?” Reggie asks after several minutes of this, the frustration clear in his voice.

“
Better watch your mouth, asshole,” Shane replies. “Just shut up and keep working.”

I don't know if Reggie's trying to antagonize Shane on purpose or not, but I worry either way.

Kelly tries to stand up. He slips sideways against the wall, stumbles and catches himself.

“
You should sit down, Kel.”

He winces. His face is pale and waxy. “I'm fine,” he whispers, giving me a weak smile. “Most of that upstairs and on the steps coming down was an act. It's not as bad as it looks.”

I help him over to a chair, where he collapses with a loud exhale. Most of it may have been an act, but not all of it. That much seems clear enough.

“
Got anything for my head?” he asks, holding it in his hands.

All I've got in my pack is a bottle of aspirin that expired seven or eight years ago. I think about the pill Casey gave me, about how well it worked to ease my own headache, and wish I had one of those to give to Kelly. But I thumb off the cap and tap out a half dozen aspirin tablets and hand them over. He sticks them in his mouth and chews, cringing at the bitter taste.

“
We need to get out of here,” he says, whispering. I see him glance cautiously through the curtain of his hair. Reggie and Shane are still barricading the door. The elevator's still upstairs, and I'd be willing to bet anything Novak is holding the car with the door propped open, making sure we don't call it down to us before she's ready. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he concludes, stating what is painfully obvious.

“
Me, too.”

When Shane is satisfied with the job of blocking the door, he and Reggie join us in the main room. Kelly immediately droops in his chair looking for all the world like he's about to pass out again. Shane fumbles for the light switch and flicks it on. I wince against the glare.

“
Looks like your friend is fucked,” Shane says. He stands over Jake and stares, his face twisted with revulsion. After a minute or two, he bends down, lowering his face until his eyes are at chest level. “Fact, I think he's beyond fucked. He's dead.”

I jump to my feet and run over. “Jake!”

Nothing. No breathing, no movement.

“
Check his pulse,” Reggie says.

I reach over and place a shaking hand on his neck, digging a finger in. The flesh is boiling and it feels soupy, like a sac filled with liquid, like all the muscle inside has dissolved. I can't help but shudder. I feel for a pulse, my heartbeat racing ever faster with each second I can't find it.

But then, there it is, rapid and weak. Thready. Jake's chest rises ever so slightly, and then it falls again.

“
I don't know why you don't just put him out of his misery,” Shane says, sneering. “He's going to die. And when he does—”

“
No thanks to you!” I shout, and he jumps at the sharpness of my voice.

“
Hey, don't blame me, bitch! Why don't you blame yourself?
I
know who you are and who your family—”

“
Shut up,” Reggie growls. The fury on his face is intense. “Everybody in this room is as much responsible as anybody else. Just as responsible as every other citizen. So just shut the hell up.”

“
Citizen, right.” He laughs.

“
That's right!”

Shane doesn't push the issue. He turns back to me. “Just say the word,” he says. “I'll make it so your friend doesn't have to come back. I can be merciful.”

“
You don't get to touch him. You don't even get to talk about him.”

“
Yeah, back off, asshole,” Kelly says, coughing weakly.

Shane fingers the trigger of the rifle, his eyes flicking between the three of us. Finally he shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

His boots make jarring clicking noises as he circles Jake's table, careful not to let us out of his sight.

When the elevator finally dings, he backs his way toward it. “Go stand over there,” he tells us, pointing to the back of the room.

“
Kelly's too dizzy to stand,” I argue.

“
Do you think I give a shit? Go stand over against the wall.”

We all do as he says.

“
Good. Now, turn around.”

“
Why?”

“
Just do it. Palms on the wall. Above your heads. Don't look at me, look at the wall. Turn around!”

The three of us stand there, our faces pointed at the wall. Out of the corners of my eyes, I can see Kelly's jaw working. Reggie has his eyes closed. I can feel the world pressing against my back, and I brace myself for what might be coming next.

But the elevator dings and we just stand there in silence, waiting. We listen to the slow arrival of Miss Novak and our fate. I wonder what she asked Ashley. I wonder what Ash told her. Did she tell her where Heall is? But then I remember she doesn't know, not exactly. I remember that it doesn't matter because Micah will have told them already. Or at least Ben. Maybe Novak doesn't know.

The elevator keeps on dinging and every so often Shane slaps the magazine on his rifle. He laughs each time one of us jumps because of it.

After what seems like hours, the elevator doors swish open. I hear Miss Novak ask Shane why we're standing like this.

“
I don't know. Just screwing with them, I guess.”

Silence. My mind runs through a gallery of possible reactions—amusement, confusion, patient tolerance. I expect her to start scolding him, but she doesn't.

“
Turn around,” she commands.

“
Where's Ashley?” Reggie says. “What have you done with her?”

“
Get back!” Shane orders. “She didn't say you could step away from the wall. She told you to turn around, that's it.”

“
Good,” Novak says, her voice calm and quiet. “Now, sit down.”

Shane moves off to the side of the room so he can keep a clear line of fire.

“
I don't know what the hell is happening with Ben,” she tells us. “That shit he had me give him pretty much fucked him up something good.” She stares at me for a moment, as if waiting for me to confess something. “He was jabbering away for a while, but now he's just lying there staring at the ceiling.”

“
So?” I ask. “Why are you telling us this? Do you think we give a crap about him? That medicine wasn't for him. He took it even though we tried to stop him, and now, because of that, my friend is going to die. And maybe him, too.”

“
And what of
my
friend upstairs?”

I can't help laughing bitterly. “Your friend? What a load of crap. Tell me you're not happy about what happened and I'll call you a liar.”

“
Jess,” Kelly whispers, warningly.

Novak smiles, but it's about as fake as her sincerity. “You're right. I'm not exactly
un
happy, but it is inconvenient. Ben's problem was he always thought of this as a game, and a game can have only one winner. He thought he could win by cheating.”

“
Life isn't a game.”

“
No, sweetie, it isn't. I'm glad you realize that. Because neither is this.” She exhales heavily and shakes her head. “Your pretty little girlfriend upstairs told me what happened to Stephen back there. She said he'd injected himself with something and then he went through the same kind of reaction that happened to Ben.”

“
It wasn't the same.”

Novak ignores me.

“
What I want to know is what happened to him afterward.”

“
Why didn't you ask her?”

“
She wasn't with him when Stephen died. She doesn't know, does she?”

I purse my lips.

“
Did he turn?” she asks.

“
Yeah,” I reply, and Miss Novak looks surprised. “He turned into a complete asshole,” I finish.

Miss Novak barks out a laugh. “How did he die? Did he say anything to you before he did?”

“
What do you mean? Like, did he scream?”

“
Christ, you really are a stubborn little priss, aren't you, Daniels?”

I don't answer. I just glare at her. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Reggie fidget. On the other side, Kelly just sits there staring at his feet. I sure hope they're coming up with a plan to get us out of this, because I don't have one.

“
If you're wondering if Ben will die because of the injection,” I say, “sorry to disappoint you. What killed Stephen wasn't anything he might've put into his body. He died because of the steel we shoved into his neck.”

I expect Miss Novak to look shocked, but she only looks disappointed. She frowns, the lines in her face deepening. “I was afraid of that. Ah well, he's still a loose end.”

“
Ben?” Shane asks. “We need to kill him?”

“
He's already dead, Shane,” Novak says.

“
You don't know—”

Novak's glare silences him.

“
Look,” Kelly says, still slightly slurring his words, “that doesn't concern us. Just let us go.” His head is cocked to the side and he's still straining against the brightness of the overhead lights. He doesn't look like he's acting. And now a new rush of fear passes through me that he might really not be, that his head injury might actually be more serious than he's letting on. He could have a concussion. He could be bleeding out into his skull. “Please, just let us go.”

“
Let you go?” Novak answers. She sighs. “But you know I can't do that.”

“
Why?” I ask. “What do you want from us?”

“
Well, we've wanted several things actually, sweetie. Some of which you've already delivered.” She smiles. “But mostly we wanted the man who made the medicine in those syringes. Do you know how long we've been looking for him? We knew he was here on the island, but not where he was hiding. We couldn't exactly go traipsing around searching for him. You know? Arc doesn't look too kindly on that.”

“
Why us? We didn't even know about him until yesterday.”

“
Not all of you.” She looks at me. I don't know why.

“
You're wrong,” I tell her. “Arc isn't hiding him. He hates Arc. He's at war with them. That's what he told me.”

She nods. “Yes, I'm sure he feels that way. And I'm sure Arc returns the sentiment. But despite all that, they are hiding him. They brought him here and they're keeping him here, not because they like him, but because he's as much use to them as he is a danger to everything they stand for.
Keep your friends close
, as they say.
Keep your enemies closer
. They don't want him running around loose in the real world where he might do something like actually cure Reanimation. That would be a tragedy now, wouldn't it?”