The Chase

by Bradley Caffee

  “Yeah, I’m up, but I don’t want to wake the others.” He winced as his whisper sounded louder in the small space than he’d intended.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Jaden chimed in, “or about Kane over there.” Kane was breathing heavily, already asleep. He seemed able to fall asleep instantly and could sleep through anything. “I don’t expect that many are sleeping well.”

  Perryn pointed to herself, a nervous quiver in her voice. “Is it me, or does Antonio seem stronger this year?”

  “Imagine training for a year knowing you’d be the first racer to ever get a second chance as a Chase runner,” Willis said.

  “I guess.” Perryn turned her head to study the ceiling.

  “Something bothering you, Perr?” Jaden inquired. He rolled over to look at the two of them.

  “I never pictured the race being this close.” She sat up. “With Antonio racing last year, no one was supposed to be able to compete with our Alliance.”

  “Every team wants to win.”

  “I know. It scares me. What if we don’t win? What if one of you doesn’t get the chance to change the Law tomorrow?”

  “Perr, Willis and I are ready to do what we need to do tomorrow. Don’t worry about it,” Jaden assured her.

  Willis held his breath. He’d been dreading this conversation all day. He could feel the battle inside of himself beginning to boil over.

  “What if we’re wrong?” Willis grimaced, unable to catch his words before he asked them.

  “Wrong? Not funny, Willis,” Jaden said, his annoyance shining through his words.

  “What do you mean, Willis?” Perryn leaned forward, apparently not wanting to let the comment go unanswered.

  Willis had done it now. He would have to make them understand.

  “I mean, did you see them today?” He pushed up on his elbow. “All those people crazed over their own alliance? How is peace in the world possible with so many people pulling for their own interests?”

  “Yeah, it’s what the Law has done to them, remember?” Perryn tapped the side of her head.

  Willis’s mind fought the idea. He tried to remember why he’d agreed to their plan, but it wouldn’t come to him. It no longer felt right. He couldn’t send the world into anarchy, could he? Could he allow Jaden or Perryn to do it?

  “I know we talked about it, but I think that freedom might be a bit dangerous. Imagine everyone making their own choices to do what is right or not. Do you think people will do anything other than look out for themselves?” The words tasted so agreeable as they crossed his lips. They have to see the logic.

  “Are you serious?” Jaden sat upright on his bed. The room was too dark to see, but Willis could feel his anger in the blackness. “Do you know who you sound like?”

  “Willis, what has gotten into you?” Perryn said, showing more deep concern than anger.

  “All I’m saying,” Willis said, realizing he was losing this argument. “Is that our plan could be too risky. What if we send the world into anarchy? What if we destroy everything? I think there might be another way to preserve what is good about the current Law.”

  “Okay, Mr. Chairman,” Jaden mocked as he flopped backward onto his pillow. “I can’t believe this. Did they do something to you?”

  “No.” The lie tasted sour on his lips.

  “Willis?” He could hear the sob in Perryn’s voice. “Please tell me you’re joking. Please tell me you’re not seriously considering this.”

  A war waged in his soul. Willis sensed he was breaking her heart, but the chairman’s plan was so clear. Everything would make sense. They would see it soon, even if they didn’t understand now. “Perryn, you have to trust me.”

  His words were met with silence for a moment, broken by the hushed sobs from Perryn’s bed. Willis started to rise to go to her.

  “I did trust you,” she finally whispered.

  “Perryn, I—” he started, pausing as his feet found the floor.

  “Don’t talk to me, Willis.” She scrambled out of her bed. “Don’t talk to me ever again.” She ran for the doorway to the outdoors. Willis rose to follow her, but a hand caught his shoulder.

  “Let her go,” Jaden said firmly. “You’ve done enough.”

  Willis’s heart ached. He knew they felt betrayed. He watched her unlock the doorway and disappear in the blackness outside. He sat down on the edge of his bed. He and Jaden sat in silence in the darkness.

  Seconds later, he could hear hushed voices outside the still cracked doorway. The tones were very intense. The voices approached the door.

  Oh, no! The Coalition officials have her. Willis pieced together a defense on her behalf. Confirming his fear, Perryn’s form appeared in the door flanked by three people who were dressed as Coalition officers.

  “Didn’t want to let this one get too far before we arrived,” one of the officers spoke into the darkness.

  Willis shot up out of his bed. He knew that voice.

  “Sheila?” he said.

  One of the other two officers closed the door, while the third lit a small portable light. The florescent glow cast an eerie white blanket through the room, creating elongated shadows and dark corners.

  “Willis, I brought someone to see you,” Sheila said, stepping into the light to reveal her face. She grabbed the light and held it up. The two officers behind her removed their helmets. The faces of a man and woman stared at him in the pale light.

  He studied them transfixed. They appeared familiar, but he didn’t know them.

  “Willis?” came the voice of the woman. The face was foreign, but he knew the voice. He once again tried to pry the reason out of his subconscious, but he could barely connect that he remembered her voice.

  “Who are you?” His eyes searched her face, hoping for a clue.

  “You don’t remember us?” The man gestured to himself and the woman next to him.

  Willis studied his face. “Should I?”

  “Willis,” Perryn spoke, tears still fresh on her cheeks, “they’re your parents.”

  All at once, Willis gasped and staggered, his knees unable to support him anymore. He grabbed at the bed to keep from falling. Wetness clung to his cheeks, but not until he swiped at the tears did he realize he was crying.

  “What? Who? I mean—?” Willis’s head swiveled as he took in Sheila and his parents.

  “My dear son,” the woman said, “what have they done to you?” She rushed forward to embrace him, but he retreated, freezing her in her tracks. He could see the hurt on her face, but he wasn’t ready to be that close.

  “Give me a second,” he said, hardly able to breathe.

  “Of course.” His father joined his mother and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Willis sat down on the bed trying to collect himself. Thoughts flooded his mind as he gazed at the floor. The Chase. The Law. Jaden’s mother. Perryn’s tears. Anarchy. The chairman. His parents. Once again, the memory he couldn’t recall earlier creeped forward in his thoughts.

  His desire to help the chairman railed against the memory, and he believed he might go mad trying to sort it out.

  “Willis,” his father said, “Ms. Kemp has brought us to you. She’s concerned the Alliance has done something to you.”

  “I knew it,” Jaden exclaimed, startling everyone.

  A grunt came from the corner revealing that Kane had been watching and listening for some time.

  “What do you mean?” Perryn spoke, her concern hopeful.

  “We don’t know,” Sheila said. “All I know is that Willis wasn’t there when I came to visit you guys last night.”

  “Willis?” Perryn looked at him. Her eyes showed fear.

  “Son, did they do something to you?” His mother’s voice pleaded.

  The room spun, his wooziness making their voices sound muffled. He thought his mind might break from the war waging inside. The suggestions in his mind were so strong, he almost ran from the building. Slaves. Emergency powers. Antonio DeLuca. The neuro-stimu
lant.

  His father knelt to gaze into his eyes. The strong, impressive figure before him wore an air of compassion. He allowed several moments to pass between them silently.

  “Son, I know. Your mother and I have been there. We know what it’s like to serve the Alliance and then question everything. We know how powerful they are and what they’re capable of doing.” His father spoke calmly. The words sounded so comforting, and yet so foreign. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had spoken to him like this. “Whatever has happened—whatever you feel compelled to do—you need to know it doesn’t change that you are my son.”

  Willis studied his father’s eyes. Even in the dim light, he could see the sincerity. He wanted to scream. His mind wanted to throw them out the door, but his heart longed to embrace them. His soul was tearing in two, and it was almost more than he could bear.

  “Willis, we love you, and we’re so proud of you.” His father’s deep voice betrayed a hidden gentleness. He reached out and placed his hand on Willis’s knee. The firm grip of this powerful man sent a shockwave of emotion through Willis. For a moment, the clouded memory cleared and the image of his loving father gripping his leg as a child came into focus. The tears in his eyes. The jerk of his arm. The sobs of his mother. The pain in his leg.

  “Dad?” Willis whimpered. In that instant, the real memory shattered the artificial suggestion in his mind, and Willis crumpled into his father’s strong arms. His mother fell next to them sobbing and wrapped her arms around both of them. For several minutes, the family embraced and wept.

  “You tried to save me.” Willis finally pulled back to examine their faces. Perryn stood near, crying. Jaden stood, his jaw hanging open. Sheila and Kane looked on silently. “I remember. You tried to keep me from all this.”

  “A racer’s life is no life, Willis.” His father gave him a warm smile. “Your mother and I lost our childhood. We were forced to train. We were forced to marry. We were forced to have a child. But even with all they made us do, they couldn’t prevent your mother and me from falling in love. And they certainly couldn’t keep us from loving you.”

  “We’re so sorry we couldn’t keep you from this.” His mother had stopped swiping at her tears.

  “Forgive us, Son,” his father said, squeezing his shoulder. “I wasn’t able to protect you in the end.”

  Willis placed his hand on his father’s. “But you did. Just now.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Thomson,” Sheila suddenly spoke. “I’m sorry, but we need to be going before we’re noticed.”

  “What do I do?” Willis was suddenly afraid, feeling like a small child in their presence. “What they did to me is still there, still fighting to take over. Maybe I should withdraw.”

  “No!” Perryn cried out. “You can’t. No one has a better chance of beating Antonio than you.”

  “Your friend is right,” his mother said, “You have to fight it.”

  His father nodded. “Willis, you will know what to do. We trust you.”

  “Time to go,” Sheila reached for the door handle. She extinguished the light they’d brought.

  “Goodbye, Son,” his father said.

  “Goodbye, Dad.”

  “We love you.” His mother squeezed his hand.

  The three embraced one more time, and Willis held his breath to control the welling tears as they slipped out into the darkness with Sheila. Sheila risked a great deal getting them in here, and he promised himself he would not forget.

  Perryn slowly approached him from the side. She wrapped her arms around his chest and buried one side of her face in his shoulder. He returned the contact, not feeling a shred of embarrassment with Jaden and Kane looking on.

  “And now we’re supposed to try to sleep after all that? Yeah, right.” Jaden spoke, breaking the silence.

  Kane grunted a laugh and rolled over, and the others chuckled.

  They each climbed into their beds and drifted into sleep. Willis stared at the dark ceiling. What should he do? The conflict was still going on inside of him. The Alliance had done their work well. While they hadn’t counted on his parents sparking his memory, the suggestions inside him were still there.

  Win. Support the chairman. He shook his head trying to clear the jumble of ideas, but it wouldn’t go away. It was as if he knew the truth, but his mind was not his own.

  How can I trust myself to do the right thing tomorrow? It was the last thought before sleep finally took him.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The gate was much narrower than Willis was used to, but this was his first individual race in years. Along the new starting line, forty-eight individual gates stood side-by-side. The team had agreed that Perryn and Kane would be on the outside of their foursome. They wouldn’t be able to keep up with Jaden and Willis in an individual run, so their first job would be to keep other racers away in the initial dash out of the gates.

  Willis’s thigh muscles trembled. He was trying to calm himself after the countdown restarted. A runner from another alliance broke through their gate early in anticipation of the starting tone, prompting massive ‘boos’ from the few who hadn’t gathered at the finish and an immediate disqualification for the offending runner. Most of the crowd preferred to view the start on the screens rather than venturing into the jungle. The runners had to stand for several minutes as things were reset.

  Breathe, Willis. He hadn’t slept much, having spent hours battling the two opposing forces in his mind. Willing himself to focus, he took deep breaths and imagined the aches in his sleep-deprived body melting away.

  “Willis, perhaps you would start early too, no?” came the thickly accented common language from Antonio DeLuca. Willis glanced over to his right. DeLuca’s gate was two down from Kane’s.

  Willis pointed a thumb at his chest. “You mean disqualify myself and let you have it easy?”

  “The Western Alliance will not be celebrating a win today, I assure you.” He smirked. “Maybe you and your girlfriend should go home?” Antonio’s teammates all laughed at the comment.

  “Whatever, DeLuca.”

  “Willis, don’t bother with him.” Jaden shook his head.

  “I have to, at least in the race. Remember, I lose to him, and the chairman still wins.” And if I win... He shook his head to interrupt the chairman’s suggestion.

  “Then, it’s up to one of us to stop him, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  But who will stop me? Willis was still plagued by doubt. He didn’t mind the desire to win except that it was so interlaced with the desire to support the chairman. He didn’t want to worry the others, so he’d pretended to be completely clear-headed that morning.

  “Chase runners, take your mark.” The announcer’s voice called them to attention.

  The countdown. The tone. Coming in first on day one meant the Western Alliance gates turned green first. A second later, the Mediterranean gates did the same. Other teams waited longer, but the top teams were seconds apart.

  Willis pumped his legs as hard as he could. Racers were going down everywhere. The individual race was so different and collisions even more commonplace. A grunt to his right drew his attention, giving him a chance to see Kane throw a runner to the side. The blue and white uniform tumbled to the ground having misjudged the behemoth size of Kane. Antonio had probably instructed his teammate to take a dive at him.

  Two hundred meters later, the elite racers emerged from the pack uninhibited by needing to wait for their slower teammates like the day before. Antonio was a stride behind to his right. He could hear Jaden keeping up to his left. The corners of his eyes caught sight of a few other elite leaders, but they would not last. Barring a fall, this was a two-alliance race.

  The track took a familiar bend into the trees. Willis suspected that the first obstacle lay beyond. What he didn’t anticipate was how abruptly it would appear. Meters beyond the bend, the track disappeared, revealing another set of pillars similar to the previous day. These were smaller and further apa
rt. He made his way to the narrow beam connecting the first two pillars in front of him and tiptoed across.

  Whirr! Willis’s stomach dropped as the beam gave way beneath him. He pushed off what was left of the beam’s support and flung himself at the pillar. He grabbed at the edge, his fingers barely holding on. Pain shot through his fingers as they held his weight. He glanced below to see the beam fixed to supports that allowed it to raise and lower suddenly. A net filled the pit below.

  “Willis, you okay?” Jaden shouted behind him. He and Antonio had stopped short of the pit. A second later, the whirring sound came again, and the beam shot up underneath Willis. He flexed his knees to prevent getting too much upward momentum as the beam supported his feet and he stepped onto the pillar, relief washing over him. He scanned the pit to see beams between the pillars rising and lowering in intervals.

  Looking down, he timed the next beam and jumped forward to meet it before it rose fully in place. He ran to the next pillar, stopping again. Runners all over the pit crossed in staccato motions behind him. He may have nearly fallen, but his initial leap had given him a one pillar lead over everyone.

  Jump. Stop. Wait. Breathe. He spoke instructions to himself as he crossed post to post. He could hear Antonio cursing to himself as he was forced to continually wait one pillar behind. At last, the other end of the pit came close, and Willis jumped off his beam, thankful to be on solid ground again.

  “I will see you at the next stop, Willis,” Antonio shouted confidently behind him. Willis ran, ignoring the comment.

  I’m actually winning. Some part of him was surprised. Most of his nineteen years were spent preparing, and yet he still was in disbelief that he was winning the Chase. Trees and occasional spectators blurred by as he moved his legs trying to extend his small lead over the other racers.

  He was the best in the world.

  He was made for this.

  Made for this. The thought scared him. I am the genetically chosen and manipulated tool of the Alliance. He shook his head to get the idea out of his mind, but he couldn’t deny it. Even now, the will to win was overpowering. How overpowering would the will to support the chairman be when the time came?