S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (118 page)

“
He doesn't have a cure.”

“
No? After what we witnessed upstairs, I guess he doesn't. Not exactly. But then again, he's got something, doesn't he? Just look at Casey. He's got something that no one else has been able to replicate. A real cure can't be too far off.”

“
I still don't understand,” Reggie says. “Who the hell are you with? And why are you so hell-bent on finding Heall?”

“
You should've asked your friend those questions when you had the chance.”

“
Micah?”

Miss Novak laughs.

“
The SSC,” Kelly mutters. We both look over at him in surprise. He raises his head and there's a sharpness in his eyes that wasn't there before. It dispels any doubt in my mind that he's recovered from being hit in the head. “You're not even from New Merica, are you?”

“
What are you talking about?” Reggie asks. “The Southern States Coalition? Are you crazy? Why would they—?” But then understanding dawns on his face and I know the same thought crosses his mind that has been niggling away at mine: Micah.

“
Smart boy,” Novak says, but she actually looks a little startled. “When did you figure it out Mister Corben? Was it because of Ben's accent? I knew that would—”

“
That wasn't it.”

“
Or did you figure it out when Shane and Casey tried to bring you back to LaGuardia?”

“
That
was Casey's fault, by the way,” Shane mutters, “not mine. I told him to watch—

“
Shut up, Shane!” Novak shoots him a sharp look before turning back to Kelly. “Well?”

“
I figured it out right now,” he says. “All of it.”

Miss Novak stands. “Somehow, I don't believe you. But I guess I can't afford to take that risk, can I?”

“
What do you mean?” I ask.

She turns to me and says, “No loose ends.”

 

“Get in the elevator,”
Miss Novak tells Shane.

The three of us look at each other, confused and worried.

“
What are you going to do with us?” Reggie asks.

“
Did you fix the door to the stairwell?” she asks Shane.

He nods. “But it won't hold them for long.”

“
Doesn't have to.” She reaches into a pocket and draws out the canister Shane had given her earlier. “Just has to hold them long enough.”

“
For what?” I ask.

“
For your infected friend to die, of course.” She pulls a knife from her belt and cuts the straps binding Jake to the table.

“
You can't leave us here with him!” I shout. “He's going to die and then turn!”

Miss Novak shrugs. “Exactly. You see, I can't have you alive, but you're useless to us dead, too. This is a perfect solution.”

“
They'll get through the door before that. Ten minutes at the most,” Shane tells her. “That's how long it took the ape to tweak it closed.”

“
Ten minutes is about seven minutes too long,” Novak replies. “But just in case, that's what this is for.” She lifts the canister up to her mouth and bites down on the ring.

“
What is that?”

“
Knockout gas,” Shane says. “You won't feel a thing. You'll just fall asleep, and when you wake, it'll be to an endless nightmare.”

“
No!” Reggie roars, and tries to charge, but Kelly holds him back. For just a split second I fear that Reggie's going to toss Kelly across the room. But he stops, panting. Rage reddens his face, and his fists clench and unclench.

“
We just want to go home,” Kelly says, pleading. “We don't care about the SSC or Arc or any of that.”

Novak's eyes narrow. She drops the can from her lips without pulling the pin. “You still don't get it, do you? Arc was using you for guinea pigs. We
saved
you!” She shrugs. “Okay, we saved you for our own purposes, but you'll be glad to know it's all for a greater good.”

Each of us thinks we're on the right side,
Father Heall's voice whispers.

“
And what about Ashley?” Reggie says.

“
Oh, I wouldn't worry about her. I'd worry about yourselves and that boy lying there on the table. That's what I'd worry about.”

“
What are you going to do with her?”

Novak smiles. “Don't you mean, ‘What
did
I do to her?'”

“
No!” Reggie shouts. This time he jumps up and lunges. At the same moment, as if expecting it, Shane raises the rifle and fires. Reggie stops in mid leap, swiveling on his heels. There's a look of surprise on his face before he falls. Both Shane and Novak step quickly onto the elevator and push the button. Just before the doors close, the gas canister comes flying out, small and black and heavy-looking. It lands with a
thunk
and rolls to Reggie's side.

Hissing and spewing its noxious poison.

Kelly runs forward and tries to kick it back into the elevator, but he's too late. The doors close and it bounces off and rolls back into the middle of the floor. The room begins to fill with smoke and my eyes tear up.

Somewhere in the haze I hear Reggie coughing. I try to stand up, but my legs don't seem to want to work as well anymore.

“
Get to the stairs!” Kelly shouts.

But I know there's not enough time to get it open, not without Reggie's help.

I tear at the backpack, trying to get it off my back. My fingers feel thick and waxy as they fumble with the zipper, but I finally manage to get it open. Deep down inside, near the bottom, I finally find what I'm looking for, and I yank it out and tear the wrapper off with my teeth. The rebreather canister clatters to the floor and begins to roll away, but I scramble after it, my lungs screaming for air and the tears pouring from my eyes. I don't have a mask, so I plunge the end of the canister into my mouth and exhale into it. With a wheeze, the bag inside inflates, then deflates as I inhale.

Two more breaths and the fog around my thoughts stops thickening. It doesn't lessen, but it doesn't grow, either. Crawling on the floor, I make my way to Kelly. He's bent over Reggie, turning him onto his side. Both their faces are red and Kelly's cheeks are puffed out. He doesn't have more than a few more seconds before he'll need to breathe again. I grab his arm and gesture frantically at the cartridge in my mouth. He doesn't recognize it right away, but then he does and he shakes his head.

I point at Jake. Then at my back. Kelly's bulging eyes flick over to the wall. He pushes his hands against his mouth. I scramble over on the linoleum and manage to rip Jake's bag open on the first try. Behind the tattered
Playboy
magazine from the old fueling station in Long Island City I find what I'm looking for. I throw it to Kelly and he rips the wrapper open and shoves the canister into his mouth and exhales explosively into it.

By the time I've returned with Jake's mask, Kelly has recovered enough for me to attach it to the canister. He slips it over his face and collapses, spent, his face against the cool floor, tears streaming down his face. He gestures at the stairs.

Reggie's handiwork on the door ends up being a lot easier to undo. I manage to get the braces off in just a couple minutes and wrench open the door. I use one of the pieces to prop it open for fresh air. After returning to give Kelly my rebreather cartridge and switching the mask over to Reggie, I start the long climb up the stairs. First, I'm going to get Ashley back.

Then I'll deal with Novak and the others.

 

By the time I reach
the top of the stairs, the walls are spinning and the floor is heaving and it's everything I can do to keep from passing out, so I lean against the door and close my eyes just inside, hiding and listening and waiting for the dizziness to pass. Except for a regular knocking noise coming from somewhere inside, the building is eerily quiet—no voices, no sounds of movement. No nothing.

But as soon as I step into the hallway, I know they're still here.

I spot Shane first, his body just inside the door leading outside. Novak's knife is plunged to the hilt into the soft spot under his chin, up through his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He stares at me with glassy eyes, his face frozen in surprise. Blood covers the floor around his head like a ghastly aura, spreading as I stand there. I reach over with shaky hands, fingertips still numb from the knockout gas, and feel for a pulse.

Of course there isn't any. He's dead. Beyond dead.

But not beyond Reanimation.

I doubt he'll turn—he shouldn't, not without one of the government's injections of Q-Artie or a bite from an Infected—but I won't take a chance with him, not after Nurse Mabel. I grab the handle of the knife and wrench it free. It slips out with a sticky
shlup
. His head bobs and nods at me, like he's agreeing with my decision.
Do what you have to.
Then it rolls back, exposing the mauled neck and the gash underneath the chin.
Go on
, he seems to say.
Make it quick.
But I need the back of his neck, not the front.

If anyone had suggested two weeks ago that I'd be doing this, I'd have laughed in his face. I've done it probably a million times in
Zpocalypto
, each time relishing the thrill of killing…what? Something that never existed except in some programmer's imagination. In mine. A bunch of electrons and pixels. Ones and zeroes.

But this?

This is different. It's different because no matter how much I hated this man, no amount of hate will turn him into a bunch of numbers or code. It's different because when I'm finished, there'll be no resetting the game or rebooting. Done is done. Game over.

And yet it's no different than the game. Because of what he did to my Kelly. What he did to Reggie. I will relish finishing him. I know I shouldn't, but I will.

Does it matter how it makes you feel? It still has to be done.

Yes, it matters. I know I'll pay a price for it later on. A little piece of myself will die.

A sob crawls up my throat and leaks through my lips. I can't think of any reason why I should feel sorry for this man. Perhaps worse still, I can't think of a reason why I shouldn't.

The whole process—from the moment I first come upon him to the moment the blade slices through the cord—probably takes less than a minute. It feels like an eternity.

The thrill was there for just a moment. But it faded too quickly.

When I'm finished, I wipe his blood from the blade, turn around and head deeper into the building.

I expect to find one other body—Ben's—so when I see the crumpled shape in the black uniform lying in the corner of the hallway, boots sticking out past the overturned metal chair, pigeon-toed, I think it's him. How he got all the way here, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. I remember my vow earlier this morning to kill him. I remember the fury I'd felt after he'd hit me, the indignity of his arrogant words and his condescending attitude. I can feel the same fury reborn, rising up inside of me. He was mine to kill. Now that has been stolen away from me.

But it's not him.

It's Miss Novak.

I turn her over and find the left side of her face caved in, as if a giant squeezed it in its fist, and with a sickening sense of recognition I realize that the smudged dirt and the pattern of bruises on the skin of her cheek and forehead are from the bottom of a boot. Someone stomped on her head. Hard. Her left eye protrudes from the socket, the bundle of nerves and blood vessels torn and stretched taut but apparently still functioning. As the eyeball flops over, the pupil contracts from the light.

The other eye, the intact one, is fixed, unreactive.

“
Jesus—”

A gurgling sound issues from her throat, but it's nothing coherent.

“
Damn it!” I growl at her. “God damn it. Why couldn't you have been dead already, like Shane? It would've been so much easier.”

She gurgles again. I don't think it's an answer, or even an attempt to answer. There's not a single coherent thought behind it, none that I can detect. She's way beyond that now. Unfortunately, it seems that death is beyond her ability to grasp as well. She'll need my help reaching it.

“
Why? Why did Ben do this to you?” Because it's obvious by now he's the one who's responsible. I just can't see Casey doing it. Ben must've recovered and taken Casey and—

I jerk my head up. “Ashley!” My voice is loud in the stillness of the building. But there's no response, just that strange, regular, knocking sound.

“
Gahhhh…
,” Miss Novak answers, sighing. Bloody froth bubbles up from her lips and also, oddly enough, from the corner of one of her eyes.

“
You're not going to make this easy on me, are you?” I say as I reach down and take her head in my hands.

“
Gahhhh…
”

Of course not. It's never easy. It's never as easy as it should be, except when it is easy. Like with Nurse Mabel. Like with Shane.