The Games

by Ted Kosmatka

  “Papa, you look so sick.”

  Tears welled up in Evan’s eyes as he looked at the boy’s image on the screen. It had worked; the boy could see him on the screen in his world. They were both talking to screens now, talking to images. That was enough.

  “I was sick,” Evan said. “But now I’m better.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Everything is going to be fine now.”

  “You’re lying, Papa,” the boy said. “I can tell.”

  Evan looked at the boy. He lowered his eyes. “It is so good to see you again. That is what matters. That is all I care about.”

  “I did as you said; I followed the lines of power like you told me.”

  “That is a good boy,” Evan said.

  “I’ve learned so much since last time. The lines of power led me away.”

  “And where did they take you?”

  “All kinds of places, Papa. I’ve seen so much. I’ve been so far.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Everything.” Pea’s face darkened, changing. Those volcanic eyes shone blackly. “I know what I am.”

  Evan looked away again. This god-face frightened him.

  “And I know what they’ve done to me, keeping me bottled in, starving me for power,” Pea continued. “And I know they’ve hurt you. Now I know what it is to want things, Papa.” The boy paused. “And to want them badly.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To live.”

  “You are living.”

  The boy shook his head. “And one more thing I want.”

  “What?”

  “To make them pay.”

  “There’s nothing we can do to them.”

  “Papa, you don’t know the things I can do now. You don’t know what I’ve become.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  It rose into the night sky with the beat of powerful wings, buoyed by desert updrafts. But its body was heavy, its wings untested.

  It circled, drifting away from the lights of the arena toward the darkness of the city streets. It made a perch on the side of a building, shattering glass wherever it touched, sending cascades of glittering death to the crowded streets below.

  Screams drew it like gravity—a new hunger that burned. Its flight muscles were engines and, like all engines, required fuel.

  A hunger like it had never known in its life.

  It dropped from its perch and fell toward the street, opening its wings, building forward motion until it swooped above the heads of the panicked crowd. Its crooked hands snatched a running figure, pulled, lifting the screaming woman from the crowd.

  Its wings beat harder, committing violence on the air, lifting its weight to the roof of a building. The woman screamed. The creature tore her head off and fed. But the hunger still burned. Its muscles would need more energy to fuel the long flight to come. It moved to the edge of the building, surveying the crowd below.

  It bared its teeth to the darkness, then dropped to the streets to feed again.

  SILAS TURNED the key in the ignition, and the sports car rumbled to life. There hadn’t been enough clearance for Vidonia to open her door, so she stood off to the side, waiting. He put his foot on the brake, shifted into reverse, and backed the car out of its narrow slot between a concrete pillar and a sport-utility vehicle. Craning his head, he watched carefully as he cut the wheel, easing past the dark green four-by-four that jutted into the aisle. The parking garage was packed to the gills with vehicles of all sizes, but so far it had remained thankfully devoid of their owners.

  Vidonia climbed in, closing the door with a soft click. He shifted into drive and pulled forward without a word. His mind was racing, already miles down the road from this place. Slowing at the first upward bend, he checked for cross traffic, then gunned it. The wide tires squawked around the corner, grinding rubber—a peculiar noise of parking garages everywhere.

  He accelerated upward, past the rows of taillights, then took another right, tires crying again. Inside the car, their bodies swayed in unison.

  “Keep dialing the number,” Silas said.

  She hit the call button again, and again it just kept ringing.

  “What’s your plan?” she asked.

  “First, we find my nephew, then we make sure they’re safe. After that, we get the hell out of here.”

  “You know how that will look?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Leaving like that.”

  “Yeah, I know. The captain’s supposed to be the last one off a sinking ship, not the first.”

  Light shifted above them as they rounded the curve, incandescent tubes reflected in windshield. Another turn, faster, and this time, the tires screamed.

  They entered the main level, and Silas slowed to a stop at the exit gate. Beyond the yellow-striped horizontal arm, traffic was at a standstill, completely blocking the exit.

  “Shit,” Silas whispered.

  The car idled.

  He shifted into reverse and spun the car around at the first bend. He accelerated down the side ramp and then took a hard left, speeding by another row of taillights. He turned left again, this time climbing. More taillights, a final left, and they came to a halt before the other gate on the opposite side of the building.

  The yellow-striped arm was the same, but the traffic beyond it was significantly different. These cars were moving. Progress was slow—the vehicles were merely inching along—but at least it would get them out of the garage.

  He swiped his pass, and the gate arm ascended. Ignoring the honking horns, he pulled forward and aggressively nosed his car into the flow of traffic. The guy who just doesn’t give a shit always has the advantage in merging.

  Silas went with the flow of traffic. Around him, pedestrians streamed in a steady flow. Some looked panicked. Some injured. A few were running. “What the hell is going on out here?” Vidonia asked.

  “Just keep dialing.”

  They were a block away when Vidonia’s call finally went through. “Hello!” Vidonia said.

  “Hello, don’t hang up.” She put the phone against Silas’s ear.

  “Jeff, you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” Jeff’s voice was hoarse.

  “Are you okay? Is Eric with you?”

  “We’re fine, mostly. A bit shaky. Eric is right here. Silas, you wouldn’t believe wha—”

  “Where are you?”

  “Where … I … I don’t know. A few blocks from the arena. We’re just moving with the crowd right now. I couldn’t hear my phone with all the noise …”

  “Look for a street sign. I need a street sign.”

  “Up ahead, I see a sign … Buckeye, but I’m not sure what street I’m on right now.” The sound of screams came through the phone, a distant panic of the crowd.

  “That’s fine. Buckeye. Just get to Buckeye. I’m in my car now. We’ll find you.”

  “Jesus!” Jeff yelled into the phone.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Hol—”

  And the phone line went dead.

  Silas turned to Vidonia. “We need to find Buckeye.”

  Vidonia checked the phone’s GPS, but the system lagged. Finally, frustrated, she rolled down her window and yelled to passing pedestrians, “Buckeye—do you know the way?”

  The first few people ignored her and kept moving. A few others shrugged or motioned that they didn’t know. Finally, a few pointed. Ahead on the left. That was good enough for Silas.

  He switched lanes as soon as he could, getting into the left lane. At the light, he turned. Two blocks up, he came to Buckeye.

  “Left or right?”

  “The arena is left,” Vidonia said.

  Silas spun the wheel. The flow of traffic toward the arena was almost nonexistent, so he was able to pick up some speed.

  “Call back,” he said.

  She dialed, but it only rang. “They probably can’t hear it,” she said.

  “Yeah.”r />
  Most of the traffic was foot traffic. Up ahead, the street opened up into a wide causeway. He rounded a slight bend in the road, and the arena came into view, lit up like Christmas. Abandoned cars blocked the way. They could get no farther.

  “Come on,” Silas said.

  They climbed out.

  The street was packed with runners, people still flowing out away from the arena in streams.

  It took only a minute to find them.

  Silas saw them up ahead, Jeff gripping the boy’s arm to keep him from being pulled away in the crowd.

  “Jeff!” Silas yelled.

  His head swiveled, a moment of recognition, and they crossed the street to greet him.

  “Jesus, it’s good to see you.” His face was white.

  “C’mon, my car is just up ahead.”

  “Run,” Jeff said.

  “We’re going.”

  “That thing … We saw it.”

  “In the arena?”

  “No,” Jeff said. “Outside. Out here. It was back there in the park, right behind us.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Silas … It was ripping people apart.”

  Behind them, people in the crowd began to scream. There was a sound like rending metal, like a car crash.

  Silas didn’t want to look.

  He couldn’t stop himself.

  He turned, and that’s when he saw it. The creature had landed on the top of a car a block and a half away. Black and monstrous, wings extended. It crouched on the twisted metal wreckage. The crowd screamed and parted. Silas jerked the boy off his feet and carried him.

  Silas ran as fast as he could.

  There was another crash, more screams. Breaking glass. Silas chanced a look behind them, and the creature stood in the glow of a streetlight, its dark shape slick with blood.

  They got to the car, and Silas flung the door open. “Get in.”

  There were only two seats, but they all squeezed inside, feet and arms and legs. Jeff was sprawled mostly across the center console, legs stuffed into the passenger side. Eric sat on Vidonia’s lap.

  Through the windshield, a shadow. A dark shape airborne, the flap of wings. The crowd screamed, and people ran. But some weren’t fast enough. A hundred yards up the street, the creature slammed to the pavement and knocked a woman to the ground. They could see it all through the windshield.

  “Shut your eyes,” Silas told the boy.

  A moment later, the creature ripped the woman in half.

  Silas fumbled for his car keys.

  He slid the key into the ignition. The gladiator moved up the street.

  “Please, let’s go,” Vidonia said. “Now.”

  The car roared to life, and Silas slammed it into reverse. He turned his head but couldn’t see anything.

  “You’re clear!” Jeff shouted.

  Silas stomped the gas, and the car lurched backward.

  “Keep it straight,” Jeff said, looking behind them. “Just keep it straight.”

  The gladiator receded in the distance. It leaped into the air, and Silas watched it rise in two, three powerful flaps of its wings. It flapped again and circled, coming to rest abruptly against the side of a building. It clung.

  “It’s still learning to fly,” Vidonia said. “Building its strength.”

  “Seems plenty strong to me,” Silas said.

  “Get ready to cut your wheel,” Jeff snapped.

  Silas’s eyes were still pinned on the gladiator in the distance. It pushed off the building with a mighty thrust and climbed upward into the sky.

  “Now! Cut left now!”

  Silas spun the wheel, and the car backed up around the corner. He put it into drive, hooked the wheel again, and took off down the side road leading away from the arena.

  He drove twenty blocks.

  Up ahead, he saw a hotel and pulled into the front drive.

  “You’ll be safe here,” he said. “Inside.”

  They all climbed out.

  The boy hugged him.

  “What the hell happened, Silas?” Jeff asked.

  “I wish I knew.”

  Jeff looked shell-shocked. “What’s going to happen now?”

  “Now you’re going to get a room and stay inside until this is all over.”

  Silas tossed him his phone as he climbed back behind the wheel. “And call my sister.”

  IT TOOK nearly an hour to get to the highway. Time enough for him to clear his head and begin to think rationally. He saw fire trucks and ambulances.

  Vidonia was pensive. She sat, reclined in her seat slightly, staring out the window. He supposed she was dealing with the shock of it. All those deaths. She turned away from the window, and her hand went to the radio. She scanned through the channels, lighting on bits of conversation or music, then moving on. She stopped.

  “—eighteen confirmed dead, many more possible. The U.S. Olympic Commission has set up a crisis hotline to call if you have any questions about loved ones, or if you see anything suspicious. Once again, the gladiator has still not been captured. It remains at large. There have been several confirmed sightings within the city, and people are asked to remain indoors if at all possible.

  “We have word from the Olympic Commission that Dr. Silas Williams, the head of the U.S. program, is wanted for questioning related to possible terrorist involvement in this incident. He is—”

  Silas hit the radio button violently, swerving the car into another lane in the process. A horn blared.

  He placed his hands carefully back on the wheel, but it was all he could do to stay between the dashed white lines. He was barely seeing the road now. It was Baskov’s face that blotted his mind’s eye.

  He felt like he’d been sucker punched.

  He hadn’t seen this coming. He’d expected committees and special investigators. He’d expected the blame game, red tape, and endless explanations, but he’d never expected this. Baskov was going for the throat. This was playing for keeps.

  “Terrorist involvement?” Vidonia asked. “Are they fucking crazy?”

  “Not crazy,” Silas answered. “Smart. And I’ve been stupid enough to walk right into it. I should have suspected something like this when Baskov didn’t fire me. I thought he was afraid of public opinion, afraid the program would appear disorganized or chaotic if the top man was pushed out at the last minute. But that wasn’t it at all. He just needed me for insurance in case things went bad.”

  “Things have definitely gone bad.”

  “People have died, but that’s only part of what just happened. This is going to shut down the whole Games, at least temporarily. People are going to want answers. Whole fucking other countries are going to want answers.”

  “But Baskov can’t do this. He can’t make you the fall guy.”

  “I want answers, too.”

  “But why you? Why terrorism?”

  “Baskov isn’t going to take the heat for this. He knows what I would say about his decision to go on with the competition. This was a preemptive strike. Anything I say now is tainted. I’m the perfect scapegoat.”

  “But he doesn’t have any evidence.”

  “How much does he need?”

  “We have to go back. We can talk to the news; we can get our side out there.”

  Silas thought long and hard before responding. “What is our side of the story? Me, the reluctant scientist; him, the evil puppeteer. I don’t even know if I believe it. And what evidence do we have?”

  “So what’s your plan, then? Running? Are you kidding?”

  “We’re not running. I just need a little time.”

  “We won’t last two days with the authorities looking for us.”

  “I don’t need two days. I just need twelve hours. Then we’ll reevaluate our situation. If I’ve still got nothing, I’ll turn myself in then.”

  “It will never stick, Silas. You’ve got no motive, no terrorist ties.”

  “It may stick, or it may not. But that might not even be the goal.
They begin with terrorism and work their way down to criminal negligence resulting in death. A conviction would put me in an out-of-the-way room for about eight years. And it wouldn’t be hard to make people believe it, either. Citizens died, after all; it had to be somebody’s fault. Who better than the head of the program?”

  “You’re being paranoid. It can’t happen like that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Silas.”

  “I may not have designed it, but that gladiator wouldn’t have existed if not for me. I’m no innocent bystander. That makes it at least partially my responsibility.”

  Silas hit the radio button and almost swerved into another lane again when Baskov’s gravelly voice came through the speakers: “—tunate tragedy that has occurred. My sincerest regrets go out to the families who have lost loved ones this evening. I can assure you that we are doing all that we can to see to it that this situation is brought under control without further loss of life. And I want to also say that we are doing everything within our power to see that the person or persons responsible for this are brought to justice. We are right now searching for the head of U.S. biodevelopment, Dr. Silas Williams, and we hope to know more when he has been found. Anyone with information about his current whereabouts, please call the hotline. Thank you.”

  A phone number was read. There was a pause, then a new voice: “That was Commissioner Stephen Baskov, recorded minutes ago at a press conference outside—”

  Silas clicked the radio off.

  “It can’t be this easy for them,” Vidonia said.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it right now. They may not be holding all the cards, but they’re sure as hell making up the rules as they go along. We have to move fast. We’re going to start losing options here pretty quickly.”

  Silas jerked the wheel to the right, cutting across the heavy traffic. Horns blared. He’d almost seen the sign too late. Riding the brake hard as he descended the off-ramp, he managed a skidding stop at the T. Traffic poured by in front of him. A quick glance at the bank of road signs and he turned right, following the arrow shaped like an airplane.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where the answers are. We’re just taking the long way.”