The Danger Game

by Ian Bull

  Steven shifts. His fingers touch my neck. We roll onto our backs and hold hands.

  A weak, yellow light ekes through the dirty skylights high above. It’s past dawn. Metal creaks. Someone is on the catwalk above us. We’re being watched. Let them. I tell myself to fall asleep, and I almost do, until Steven squeezes my hand. I love you.

  That’s the message I needed. I pray it’s true. I love you.

  We’re in Baja. Close to water.

  How do we get out?

  Working.

  How is hand?

  Pain. Must change bandage. Infection.

  After they shocked Steven unconscious, I used the rest of the alcohol to clean the wound, then wrapped it with gauze and an elastic bandage. He woke up for part of it, then passed out again. Maybe the bandage is too tight and cutting off his blood supply.

  Sure about Baja?

  Yes. Others will learn. Find us.

  “Wakey-wakey eggs and bakey,” Heyman says through his loudspeaker.

  Lights snap on. Steven and I roll onto our knees and look up. The silhouettes of four men move on the catwalk above us like dark ghosts.

  Two buckets descend from the ceiling on ropes. One is full of food: warm chicken sandwiches, oranges, apples, cheese, and cooked vegetables. I unwrap the sandwiches and peel the fruit, so Steven doesn’t have to use his left hand. We devour it all. The other bucket has bottles of water, chocolate protein drinks, and ibuprofen tablets, which we wolf down. Why so much food? Maybe they want us to heal. Or, maybe they want to build us up, so they can just torture us and break us down again.

  “Quintana, stay put. Travers, go to the small door and wait. When it opens, follow the maze to your bathroom and shower.”

  I look at Steven. “Go,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”

  I kiss his lips then his wounded hand and go to the racquetball door. It opens, and I follow a new path through the wooden maze. The black shadows still hover on the metal catwalk above me. The bathroom is new and warm with white tile everywhere.

  There’s a real toilet instead of a bucket, which I use right away. I don’t care who’s watching. The shower is the best part. I strip down and step in and let the hot water pound onto my neck and shoulders. It hurts when it hits my belly. The black bruise has spread down my thighs and up to my breasts. Maybe a hot shower makes it worse.

  A huge warm terrycloth towel waits for me on the wooden bench along with new clothes: running shoes, tiny socks, new underwear, new bra, green track pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and green track jacket. It feels good to put them all on. Combine that with the warm feeling in my belly from the food, and it’s a like a rush.

  “Feel good?”

  “Only because you’ve taken so much away.”

  “You look happy in your close-ups. We got plenty of angles of you in the shower and getting dressed.”

  “I’m not going to thank you for it.”

  “You earned it. My employers are pleased with your performance. You still have fight. That makes them money.”

  “I’ll fight you all, until you kill me.”

  “There may be a way out for you.”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Betray Quintana. The offer still stands.”

  “Never.”

  “Then back to your cell. But the opportunity is coming.”

  The bathroom door unlocks. The maze leads me back to the tiny racquetball door, which opens on its own. I crawl through on my hands and knees. Steven sits on the floor on the opposite side of the room next to a new bucket.

  I rush to him. The bucket has a first aid kit inside. Scissors. More gauze. Neosporin. Surgical tape. Another elastic bandage. Steven’s bandages are damp. His hair is wet, too, and he’s wearing new track clothes like me, except his are blue.

  “They let you shower and clean up too.”

  “Yes. But I need help changing the bandage.”

  I grit my teeth and help unwind the elastic around his hand. It falls away, revealing a thick layer of burgundy-colored gauze stuck to the gash where his pinky finger used to be. It’s dried and crusted over and his whole hand is black and blue. He moves his fingers and winces. The color leaves his face.

  “I have to move them or I’ll lose mobility.” A fresh splash of red appears on the dried gauze stuck to the scab.

  “You’re bleeding again. Don’t overdo it.” I open a packet and add another piece of sterile gauze to the hardened tower that’s already there.

  He laughs a bit. “Don’t overdo it. That’s funny.”

  He holds the gauze in place while I attach surgical tape. My hands shake. Not too tight and not too loose. None of it matters, though, if they’re just going to make me cut off his next finger. “How’s that?”

  He hands me the new elastic bandage. “Good. Wrap it so I can still use my thumb and first two fingers.” I wrap it around his hand, while looking at his eyes. He nods that it’s good. I lock it into place. He smiles. I hold his right hand and squeeze.

  Love.

  Same.

  They say betray you.

  Fuck them.

  This will only get worse.

  Steven smiles and kisses me on the cheek, which is amazing. He’s been shot, beaten, stabbed, burned, drugged, and tattooed because of me. I even cut off his finger. He props up his aching left hand like he’s holding an invisible ice cream cone.

  “How can you smile right now?”

  “It’s amazing what a hot shower and a meal can do.”

  We look up at the rafters. Is there a new script coming? This feeling of calm only exists because the punishment has stopped. They let us sleep, bathe, drink, eat, they gave us new clothes, medicine, and first aid kits for a reason. But, why?

  “This is like combat. Waiting for the inevitable. At a certain point I just want their shit to start so I can deal with it.”

  “The next choice is here.”

  An explosion shakes the building. The green cement wall to our left collapses, sending cinderblocks tumbling around us like fifty-pound Lego bricks. Steven throws himself on top of me. Green dust gets into my ears and eyes.

  There’s a breeze. Steven feels it, too; he rolls off me and jumps to his feet. There’s a gap in the cement green wall, like a huge rat hole with twisting rebar metal coming out of it. Blue skies, clouds, and trees are just outside. I breathe in the clean air, which smells like freshly cut grass.

  “People want us to give you a chance.”

  Steven stares at the hole, then looks up at the black silhouettes in the rafters. “How do I know you won’t just shoot us?”

  “We will. Viewers estimate that we will kill you in three hours.”

  “Why not kill us now? Isn’t that what people want to see?”

  “Yes, but the longer you live, the more money we make.”

  “And you’ll broadcast all of it, you metal-face scum!”

  “If you both run, you both die. Julia, if you stay, you must act, but you will live. No one cares about you, Quintana, so go. Julia, your fans want you alive.”

  An air horn blares.

  “Your hour head start begins now. Decide.”

  Steven runs to the opening. I can’t get off my knees. Steven looks back at me. His brow furrows, confused. Then he walks back to me and offers me his hand.

  “He’s injured. He will fail you.”

  Our eyes meet. He blinks three times. I take his hand and he squeezes—Trust.

  I sob but can’t move. Steven grabs me by the wrist and flings me toward the hole.

  I run to the opening and climb through the twisted metal into bright sunshine, with Steven right behind me. We are on a packed dirt road that circles a massive warehouse in a sunken canyon. The hills are dotted with cactus, big green thorny trees, and brush.

  Machine noise hits my ears—above us are four hovering drones. Steven grabs my left hand with his right and whispers. “Now we run.”

  And he takes off. I’m only four steps behind him.

  39


  STEVEN QUINTANA

  Friday, March 15, Noon (PST)

  Baja California

  I run down the dirt road alongside the warehouse. Julia falls into place behind me. We’re too exposed. My eyes search for a trail in the thick brush and rock. There’s a narrow path that goes up between white rocks and I follow it, pulling myself up between granite boulders. Pain from my left hand shoots up my arm and into my brain.

  Julia was right; they fed and clothed us for a reason…so that we’d be strong enough to hunt. We reach flat ground and find an animal trail. Our legs run faster now. The thick brush, cacti, and palo verde branches whip my arms. Julia’s breathing and her footfalls are right behind me. The sound is steady. She is keeping pace. I remember how tough she is. We did this four years ago on Elysian Cay, through trees, grass, and brush in the middle of the night. She’ll keep up. Hell, she’ll do better than me.

  We’re in Baja, California for sure. Those are big cardøn cacti all around us. What do I know about Baja? It’s dry. Blazing hot in the daytime. Freezing cold at night. It has mountains. Desert. It’s a whole goddamn state in Mexico. No, two states. Hundreds of miles long, almost the length of California in the United States. How wide? Twenty-five miles in some places? A hundred? And we could be anywhere in it.

  We need water. We need to get out of the sun. We need shelter. We need better clothes. We need hats. We need to hide. I need to get a message to Carl. We need to be rescued. I need a strategy.

  A noise from above spooks me. A drone camera hovers fifteen yards above our heads, floating in front of us as we run toward it. Someone controls it remotely, like an Air Force drone pilot that bombs targets from a flight center in Arizona.

  We’re on a narrow trail of crushed white rock. We run through a forest of giant cardøn, darting between sharp ocotillo bushes and spiny acacia. It’s decent cover for hiding on the ground, but the drones can see us easily from above. Plus, we’re wearing brightly colored track suits. Shit, that’s why they gave us new clothes.

  The hill slopes up. A cool breeze comes down. It’s a strong enough wind that those hills may lead up to mountains on our right. We’re too close to know how high they go.

  “Water,” Julia says. “Look left.”

  Past the trees and rocks and across a long, flat, empty plain is a sliver of blue. It could be five miles away or fifteen. I can’t tell. Is it the ocean to the west? Or, is it the Sea of Cortez to the east? Are we closer to Tijuana or Cabo?

  It’s late winter, almost spring. It feels like it’s noon. The sun can help me figure out where we are. A damn drone whirs ten feet above. I can’t sit and watch the sun move for fifteen minutes and get my bearings. We run.

  “There’s a ship. We have to get there,” Julia says.

  There’s a break in the trail with a fork heading down toward a dry plain and a thin line of water in the distance. There are no roads in sight just this trail. Should we take it?

  I stop under a huge cardøn that’s over two stories tall, surrounded by bushes. We hide under the thick, twiggy branches. Our feet slip on the crumbly hillside.

  How do I remember the names of these plants? Photos flash in my brain. My parents took my brother Anthony and me on a camping trip to Baja when we were kids, and we had a guide book. We swam with turtles in the ocean.

  The drone hovers outside the branches. Then two more. I look between the branches and see water in the distance again.

  She’s right, there’s a ship down there. It’s just a dark shape. It could be a small cruise ship or a fishing boat or the Mexican coast guard or Bushnell’s yacht.

  Julia tugs me toward the new trail. “Come on. It’s this way.”

  My gut won’t let me move.

  Look. Analyze. Strategize.

  A black raven flies overhead and, higher up, a seagull flies the other way. Down at my feet, I see a scorpion, a hole for an animal that won’t come out until tonight, and dried, white scat marks, where some coyote shit weeks ago. If they can live out here, so can we. I grab her hand and squeeze. Too open. They want us to choose that.

  You don’t know.

  My training says we stay high. Get above them.

  But drones.

  We can make it.

  I tug her arm. She resists, pulling back. I come close and whisper. “You did your job, let me do mine.” She blinks, scared. She has no reason to believe; she hasn’t had the same training. She finally nods.

  We head off the trail and up the hillside. I want to get inside the big rocks above us, where they can’t see us. We crawl on our hands and knees through spiny chuparosa bushes with bright red flowers like hummingbirds. The sand and rock hillside crumbles under us as we move, and we slide back three feet for every six we climb.

  Can you get water out of these cacti? Some don’t have a lot of spines. The glass shards are still in my socks. I can cut one open….

  My left hand brushes a small cactus, and the spines go right through my bandage. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming.

  The steepness increases, which leaves us more exposed, but the climbing is easier. My hand is on fire. My pulse pounds inside the tight bandage as my hand swells to grapefruit size. Blood comes through the dirty bandage. Will I lose my hand?

  Julia passes me, taking the lead up the rock. She should. She has better balance. Lower center of gravity. Women are better climbers. She’ll pick the route.

  A buzzing sends a shiver up my neck. The drone is less than a yard away, over my left shoulder. I swing at it with my stumpy hand, but it rises out of range.

  “There’s a break in the rock. Up and to the right,” she whispers.

  The hillside tilts. My throat tightens. Asthma. Those cactus spines are doing a number on me. They must have toxins. My hand is in a dark tunnel like I’m looking at it on an old TV. It’s missing a finger. How did that happen?

  Julia tugs on my shoulder. She’s saying something because her lips are moving. I smile. I love her. She pinches me hard, pulling my skin off my forearm.

  “Focus!” she yells, from some faraway place.

  She points at a break in the rock. Can we fit in there? It’s higher up.

  Remember the drill. Get your toe on the rock. Twist in. Push up. If it’s a big as a quarter, you can climb. Right hand grabs hold. Forefingers dig in. Skin tears away. Left toe next. Jam it in, twist, and push. My left hand is worthless; I use it like a climbing stick, jamming it against the rock, and forcing myself up.

  Julia is up ahead. She looks down at me, panting. Her eyes say it all: Come on.

  Move right hand. Move right foot. Climb. Move left foot. Jam in left hand. Climb. A bird with a red-crested head flies by my nose. I’m by her nest and she’s dive-bombing me. That wakes me up. Julia is only ten yards ahead of me now. She gets to the ledge where there is a split in the rock. A drone hovers right above her head. She squeezes between the rock and disappears.

  My feet slip. My fingers bleed. I make it the ledge. Two drones hover just above me. The other two ascend and disappear over the top of the hill. Are they following Julia? I can’t fit inside the slot where she disappeared. She’s tall and skinny, and I’m thicker.

  Julia’s voice comes from behind the rocks. “Get low. Come through this way.”

  Down on my hands and knees, the slot widens. I reach out with my hands and shimmy through the dusty hole like a rat crawling into a sewer.

  “You’re halfway through. Come on.”

  My right foot gets stuck in the slot in the rock behind me. How did Julia get her whole body through? My shoe comes off. Shit. My shoulders and hips force their way into the dark hole. I need my shoe, but the cave is too narrow to turn around.

  I’m failing her.

  Julia’s butt is in front of me. She inches forward deeper into the cave. “Come on. There’s light above us and ahead of us.”

  A jagged line of light is far above us. We’re not in a cave. We’re in a narrow slot, about as wide as our shoulders, with air above us and steep walls on eith
er side. Either these rocks fell on each other or water carved it. Machines whine as shadows pass over. The drones are up there.

  The slot between the rocks widens. We pick up speed. Soft cool sand is under my hands. Is there moisture? Keep moving. The light gets brighter. Julia reaches the opening on the other side. She crawled right through the hill.

  “Shit. We’re fucked.”

  I reach her and stand up. We’re three hundred feet above the trail we left on an exposed ledge. We haven’t come very far, but we did get high. A half-mile away is the trench dug into the hills where the warehouse sits, our prison for the last four days. It’s long, tin roof is painted in desert camouflage to blend into the hillside. There are no power lines, just dozens of solar panels. Four all-terrain Humvees and a row of off-road motorcycles are parked on the dirt road encircling the warehouse.

  There is no road. No fresh water. No way out. The high-pitched whine returns. Three of the four drones descend from above and stop, floating ten yards in front of us.

  “I’m sure one’s getting the wide shot and the other two are getting our close-ups. You fuckers!” Julia says, and flips them the double bird.

  Another whine starts. I look down. Motorcycles. Four of them. They’re on the trail below, the one that we were on. That means we’ve been outside exactly one hour, and the hunt has begun.

  A thought screams in my cloudy brain: this was a stupid choice.

  40

  TINA SWIG

  Friday, March 15, 10:00 p.m. (CET)

  Sicily

  I like a glass of wine on the aft deck in the late evening. A warm, light breeze blows, sending ripples through the water. The moon is waxing full, and Mars is a tiny, red, solid spot close by. I like that about the planets. Their light is unwavering. No twinkling light emanates from the ancient gods as they follow their own patterns across the sky. Venus is the brightest light in the night sky, but she will show up closer to dawn.