Whoever our attackers are, they’re walking away. They’re still talking, but their voices trail off.
Wen whispers, “How do we turn on the television?” As if in response, the screen flickers to life.
Today’s Weather Forecast:
In 37 seconds, you will have no more than 5 seconds to get to room 203
Await timing to move on to room 201
Wen says what we’re all thinking. “We’re backtracking.”
“Leapfrog,” Su-shun says.
“But room 203?” I ask. That’s the room Wen and I were in, the room the soldiers just assaulted. My head is spinning. It seems we’re caught in a shell game—the tiny silver ball disappears beneath one and then another upturned cup as it’s shuffled around a flimsy table on a street corner. Across the road, another street hustler’s flipping cards, switching them around, weaving magic before us. Don’t blink. Keep your eye on the cards. Where’s the lady? Where did she go?
“Why so precise?” Wen asks in a whisper. “How can it be so precise? ”
Su-shun is confused. “When does the thirty-seven seconds start? Has it already begun?”
Weather Update:
32 seconds. No sooner. No later.
There are voices directly outside our room. The television turns off, plunging us back into the eerie half-light coming in from the street. The crack of gunfire sounds from another floor, reverberating through the ceiling. Boots pace back and forth in the hallway. I’m not sure how many soldiers there are, but at a guess, there’s maybe ten in our immediate vicinity.
Through the door, we hear a muffled voice. “Flight time from Andrews is eight minutes. They’ll need at least ten minutes’ prep, so we have to be on the move in fifteen—max.”
Another voice says, “Local law enforcement is on the scene, securing the outer cordon. They have no idea.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Wen is mouthing numbers, not daring to speak. In the darkness, I have no idea what the count is, but the words we saw scare me—No sooner. No later.
Su-shun has his hand on the door. His eyes are on Wen, waiting for her to nod. If there’s one thing astronauts are good at, it’s precision. Su-shun will open that door as soon as Wen signals the count is complete. He won’t hesitate.
There’s more talking from the hallway, but it’s faint. We hear doors being busted open, but it sounds as though they’re either on another floor or in one of the adjacent corridors. The hotel was built in the shape of an H, with two wings joined by a central corridor. Our rooms are in the middle, but these guys are clearly thinking we’ve been shifted and housed elsewhere.
“. . . five, four . . .”
I’ve been on seven spaceflights. I’ve heard easily a dozen countdowns when I stop to consider aborts and holds, but I’ve never known the last five seconds of a launch to unravel as slowly as Wen’s count. I’m on the verge of begging her to speed up. I desperately want to grab the handle and rush out into the corridor. How do we know she’s got the right timing?
“. . . three, two . . .”
My confidence in her count isn’t high. Given our nerves and the stress we’re under, I wouldn’t want to risk my life on a verbal estimate of time elapsed, and yet here we are.
Are we moving too soon? Are we already too late? Who are we trusting? How good is their estimate? We’re blind to whatever’s going on out there in the corridor. How do we know the circumstances haven’t changed? We could open the door and come face to face with our pursuers.
“. . . one.”
There’s only one way we’re going to find out.
Su-shun cracks open the door, peers out, and slips through the gap into the corridor. I’m right on his heels. There’s shouting somewhere behind us. Shotgun blasts. Boots kicking doors. I don’t look. If there’s a soldier coming around the corner with a gun leveled at us, I don’t want to know. In my mind, there’s one focus: room 203.
Wen closes the door to room 205 quietly behind us, which, given the constant slamming echoing down the corridor, seems redundant, but I guess they’re aware of their own chaos. Any sharp noise outside of that routine would grab their attention.
Five seconds is all we have. Whereas before that felt like an eternity, now time is accelerating far too quickly. We slip down the hallway, hugging the wall, darting into our old room. The door hangs from its hinges. Scorch marks, dents, scratches, and boot prints cover the mangled remains, with the buckled edge caught on the carpet. A shadow falls over the fire door at the end of the corridor.
“Hurry.” Again, Wen reads my hesitancy and pushes me on.
Hall light spills into our old room. The door is stuck, wedged open. The television is off. If it turns on, it’ll be visible from the corridor, so I’m not expecting any more messages, not until the hallway is clear.
The door to the stairs at the end of the corridor opens and closes with a thud. There’s a soldier coming down the hallway. Did he see us? As the curtains in our room are open, the streetlights form a distinct silhouette around Su-shun.
“Get down,” I whisper. He ducks beside one of the beds.
“In here.” Wen grabs me, pulling me into the bathroom. She’s right. It’s pitch-black within the tiny room; though, as some of the soldiers are wearing night-vision goggles, the darkness is deceptive, misleading. Wen crouches on the far side of the toilet while I press myself against the tiled wall, flattening myself beside the door. In infrared, we’ll be laughably visible, but we have to at least attempt to hide.
The butt of a shotgun hits the door, striking it like a steel drum. It’s all I can do not to scream. A soldier pushes on the half-open metal door, trying to shift it wider, and my heart leaps in my throat.
A hand grabs the doorframe leading into the darkened bathroom. Fingers grip the wood just inches from my head.
I can’t breathe.
18
Three-card Monte
Heavy boots kick at the carpet, but something’s wrong. The soldier staggers. He’s wounded. This isn’t one of our attackers. A familiar figure creeps past the bathroom, stumbling on the carpet.
“Colonel?” I rush out and grab him as he falters. The shotgun hits the dresser. Colonel Wallace is struggling to stay upright. He lets go of the gun, leaving it on top of the dresser. Bloodied fingers grab at the smooth wood.
“I’ve got you.” I hoist his arm over my shoulder and help him to the bed. Wallace collapses on the crumpled sheets. Su-shun rolls him over. Wen grabs his legs, raising them up on the mattress.
“D-don’t,” Wallace says. I hold his hand, unsure what he means.
“Easy.”
“This is not good.” Su-shun peels back the colonel’s vest. Blood surrounds three distinct holes in the colonel’s chest, leaving no doubt as to his internal injuries.
Wallace whispers, “Don’t worry, Liz.”
“I won’t.” Tears flood my eyes as I try to comfort a dying man. Wallace is delirious. His head lolls to one side as he looks around the darkened room.
“Don’t.” He swallows, choking back the pain as he squeezes my hand. “Worry.” He’s repeating himself, trying to tell me something important, but I don’t understand. Don’t worry? Right now, I wouldn’t categorize my mental state as one of worry—more terror. Wen stacks pillows beneath the colonel’s legs, trying to raise them up to help keep his blood pressure from falling. Su-shun tries to stem the bleeding. “We—won’t—let—anything happen—to you. We won’t.”
I straighten in surprise. He smiles, seeing I understand. These were the words on the screen when I first entered the hotel. This is what the A.I. told me.
“You? You’ve been helping them?”
He clenches his lips, forcing a half-smile.
I whisper. “You planted those magazines on the plane? You . . .”
His grip loosens as his fingers fall from mine. I’ve seen this look before—on Mars, from Jianyu staring past me as he lay on the chair beside my bed, from Harrison as he stared into my eyes in
the shattered remains of the hub and then peered somewhere beyond. My heart sinks.
Su-shun has been talking in hushed whispers, but for the past few seconds, I’ve been shutting him out, wanting to focus on the colonel.
“If only we had some plasma, we could stem the bleeding and fight the shock, but right now, CPR is only going to cause more blood loss. I’m sorry. We’ve lost him.”
I cry. In the darkness, I doubt either Wen or Su-shun notice as tears stream down my cheeks, but I can’t help it. I breathe deeply, steeling myself for what’s to come as the television flickers to life.
Housekeeping
Move on to room 201
“Is that all you have to say?” I raise my voice far too loud. It’s irrational, but I’m hurt. I’m scared. “He’s dead. Don’t you get it? Do you even know what death is? He’s gone. Dead. Forever.”
Message from the Concierge
They’re all dead
Keep moving
Stay alive
“Just who the hell are you?” I march up to the television. I swear, if there was a person standing before me, I’d slap them and feel no remorse.
“Liz,” Wen says, pulling me away.
I fight against her. I want answers, but she drags me to the door. “We have to go, or all this will have been for nothing.”
The television turns itself off. I sniffle, wiping the tears from my cheeks. I’m struggling to retain my sanity. I hate this. I never wanted any of this. All I’ve ever wanted is to learn, to explore, to help humanity advance. Right now, all I want to do is to curl up in the corner and wait for this nightmare to end, but I follow Wen.
Su-shun pauses by the half-open door. Like me, he has no desire to go back out into the corridor, but we’re out of options.
He shakes his head, saying, “It was wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Wen asks. There’s gunfire coming from somewhere in the hotel, but I’m numb to it. I hear Su-shun and Wen talking with each other, but it’s as though I’m caught in a dream.
Guest Services Announcement
Go now!
Su-shun ignores the message. “It had us hide from Wallace. It didn’t know. It thought he was one of them. It’s so precise on one point, so wrong on another, and yet we’re trusting it implicitly—without reason. It could be wrong yet again.”
He’s right. I want to say something, and I stumble over a few words, but I’m not making any sense.
“Ah, we—maybe.”
My mind is dull, still reeling from what just happened. It feels wrong, abandoning the colonel. Even though I know he’s dead, emotionally I haven’t reconciled that yet. I feel as though there’s something I should be doing for him. I need to help him. This is all wrong.
“What choice do we have?” Wen asks.
“None.” Su-shun creeps around the corner. “Come.” He peers around the edge of the corridor, looking both ways before moving on.
The door to room 201 has been propped open with a red rucksack. The lights are on. The room is a slaughterhouse. Blood soaks into the carpet. Dead soldiers lay strewn on the floor. I had previously noticed the dark stains and boot prints on the carpet outside, but nothing prepared me for the mangled bodies lying piled on the floor. I’m weak, on the verge of collapsing. Voices drift down the corridor. They’re close. Muffled radios squawk softly. Su-shun shifts the backpack and starts closing the door.
The television is on. There’s another message.
Message from the Day Spa:
Hide. Leave the door propped open.
Wen sees the message.
“Su.”
Su-shun turns. He’s already easing the door shut. Whoever’s out there is almost directly in front of the door. We can hear the rhythmic plod of their boots.
“I—I can’t cope.” I step between bodies on the carpet, horrified by the massacre we’ve stumbled upon. Most of the soldiers are lying face down, but a few have been turned over. Throats slit. Deep wounds to the back of the neck. Mangled arms abandoned, bodies dumped. Blood squelches beneath my shoes. I hold on to the walls as I stagger forward, doing all I can not to fall on them. Mentally, I’m coming apart.
From outside, we hear, “Circle back around. Meet in the rear fire stairs in five. One last sweep, then we pull back.”
Su-shun kicks at a loose glove, pushing it into the gap between the door and the jamb, preventing the door from closing. It’s all he can do. To open the door would give us away. But why do we need to leave this particular door ajar? Who is our mysterious guide? And why do they want this room to remain open? The lights are on. There’s nowhere to hide.
Wen slips around the corner, with her back against the wall. I’m over by the television. I grab the remote and turn it off, ducking and crouching behind the far bed. The curtains swirl with my motion.
“Has Foxtrot-Two reported in?” one of our assailants asks, still in the hallway.
“Not yet.”
The barrel of a shotgun edges the door open. I catch the distinct metal cylinder in the reflection coming off the darkened TV. Shit. If I can see him, he’s going to see me. I should have turned off the light. That television screen is acting like a mirror. I try to slip beneath the bed, but the base extends to the floor. The clearance is barely an inch. I panic. What the hell can I do?
Su-shun presses his back against the wall immediately behind the door. Depending on how far it’s opened, he’s busted. Like me, Wen is horribly exposed. I try to back up, wanting to get into the shadow of the heavy drapes, but there’s a body there, lying slumped against the wall.
Wen creeps backwards, trying to make herself smaller, and crouches in the corner by the wardrobe. She bumps the telephone. The handset slides off, clattering on the nightstand.
Fuck.
“Did you hear that?”
The door edges open.
The television turns on by itself, bathing the room in a soft, warm glow. The scene is of a tropical beach. Azure waters, golden sands, and tall palm trees line paradise. A topless woman runs her hands through her hair, then slowly down over her voluptuous breasts, moving her fingers over to her waist and out of shot. She’s moaning, groaning softly. On the screen, the caption reads:
Enjoy our selection of premier adult movies in the quiet of your room
For your privacy, movie titles will not be shown on your bill
I hold my breath.
“What have you got?” someone asks from further down the hallway.
“Nothing.”
The door creaks as the soldier pushes it further open.
I look. I have to. I must know. I peer around the corner of the bed, hoping the fallen soldiers lining the floor will hide me from sight. Su-shun is doing all he can to disappear into the wall. He’s flattened himself, with his head turned sideways. Inches away from him, the soldier holds the door open with his shoulder, peering in with a shotgun leveled in front of him. Su-shun stares at the barrel, watching as gloved hands appear before him.
The soldier stands there for a moment. Silent.
The images on the television hide my reflection, while the motion of the naked woman rolling her hips and turning slowly for the camera seems to hold the soldier transfixed. Another soldier appears behind him.
“Quit messing around,” the second soldier says, slapping the intruder on the shoulder.
The first soldier backs out of the room as someone else yells, “Fucking Jeebes is watching porn!”
“You can get a hard-on later, you fucking idiot.”
The door swings back in place, catching on the glove and not closing entirely. All three of us can breathe again. Down the hall, we hear soldiers moving in from the other direction, systematically kicking in doors or blowing off hinges with their shotguns. They’re close. By now, they’re probably in room 205. I look at my hands. They’re shaking like leaves in a storm.
The screen goes black. No instructions.
One of the soldiers lying on the floor groans. I step over the bodies, mo
ving in full view of the doorway. If our horny friend comes back, I’m busted, but I can’t leave someone to die piled beneath dead bodies.
“She’s alive,” Su-shun whispers. He has his back to the door.
“She?”
“Get her up.” Wen peels away the bodies, finding Lieutenant Cassie Chalmers lying crumpled against the wall of the narrow hallway leading into the room.
I’m manic, running my hands through my hair.
“Easy.”
Carefully, we pull her up and lay her on the bed.
Lieutenant Chalmers has the bolt from a crossbow embedded in her chest. Blood seeps around the wound. Her breathing is labored. She grips my hand, squeezing my fingers, but her strength is failing.
The noise from the corridor is indistinct, meaningless now. Our desire to help her overrides all other concerns, but our electronic friend doesn’t agree. The television comes on.
Early checkout instructions
Take the fire stairs down to the kitchen.
Hide in the pantry.
Leave in 25, 24
“We’re not leaving her,” I whisper. Wen nods. Su-shun rummages through a backpack. I turn, unsure where the cameras are, but repeating my point. “We will not leave her to die here alone; do you hear me?”
Message from the Parking Attendant
Probability of detection in Room 201 in the next two minutes, 98%
Probability of detection in corridor, 18%
Probability of detection in stairwell, 12%
Probability of detection in pantry, 2%
Leave in 18, 17, 16
Reentry Page 14
