Win

by Vera Nazarian

  “I don’t think it’ll do her any good, Gee Two,” George tells me, leaning in to my right ear, then stands back and examines me with a light, crafty Cheshire-Cat smile.

  George!

  “Oh my God!” I cry out, and this time kick my bag and a few gadgets with a clatter as I spring up with impossible emotion.

  “Careful, there,” my older brother says, crouching next to the bag and running his fingers over its material, so that I can almost imagine the touch of his strong familiar hand.

  “What is it now, Lark?” Brie says.

  Hopelessly wishing for privacy, I turn my back to everyone as I face George—who is now for some reason several feet away, when only a second ago he was messing with the bag near my feet—and step toward him, ending up at the very edge of the Safe Base slab.

  “George. . . .” I whisper, and the back of my throat starts getting thick, so that I can barely breathe with swelling tears.

  My brother George looks exactly the same as he was a year ago, wearing one of his grey shirts and dark jeans, his dark brown hair sticking up a little on one side.

  “Hey now,” he says, folding his muscular hands at his chest and giving me a crafty smile. “Don’t go all mushy on me, sis. Good to see you, by the way. It’s been months!”

  “Oh my God, George, you—you—I miss you so much!” I mumble. “You’re not real, I know that, but oh, I’ve missed you! Please, be okay! Tell me you’re not dead and not a ghost! And Mom and Dad too! Are they—are all of you still down on the surface? Or did you get rescued? Oh God, please tell me yes! Tell me—”

  George grins at me, and his handsome angular features light up. “Gonna see you very soon, Gee Two! You know how it is, these rescues are complicated, and we’re all ready to see you. Soon, I promise! Very soon!”

  I bite my shaking lip, and stare at my impossibly wonderful older brother George. “Please, George. . . . Please. . . . You better!”

  “We Larks stick together,” he says.

  “We sure do,” says Gordie.

  Holy crap! When did Gordie come back? Because now my younger brother is standing right next to George. And they’re both looking at me.

  “So, Gee One, how do you like all these huge boulders?” Gordie says, pointing around us with both hands outspread.

  “Not a bad setup for a mummy-filled Haunted House, knucklehead,” George says. “Just in time for Halloween, off by a few months.” He then reaches over and finger-snaps Gordie’s forehead.

  “Oww!” Gordie yelps.

  “Guys!” I say. “What about Gracie? Is she—is she coming too?”

  “Oh, no way,” George says. “Not here. These hellish Games are entirely not a good place for our little Gee. She’ll only get all emo-weepy and clingy, and you know you don’t want that—you don’t want her here now in this awful hole, Gee Two.”

  “Yeah, maybe later,” Gordie says.

  “But now, nature’s calling, and so we need to leave,” George says, waving at me casually. “Gotta give you and your bladder some privacy.”

  I blink . . . and my brothers are gone.

  And wow, oh yes, I realize, I really need to pee.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say to my teammates, who’ve either tactfully ignored my last few minutes of mutterings or were too busy with their own crazy apparitions to care. “I’ll just go around the corner.”

  “You sure?” Brie says. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, thanks,” I reply, seeing Avaneh frozen like a doll, with her eyes closed.

  Meanwhile, Chihar is lying on his side in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. At the same time, ignoring the surveillance task, Lolu has taken out half the contents of her equipment bag and scattered them all around on the floor and in her lap. She’s now obsessively picking up and examining items, while humming to herself.

  “Tried that, doesn’t help,” Brie remarks, glancing her way. “Nothing shuts them up.”

  I try to ignore all of them, and the five or six Egyptian god-shadows around the Safe Base, as I pick up my equipment bag and sing the command to make it hover, so that I can use it as a prop for ease of movement while jumping from stone to stone. In my weakened state I can’t risk a fall. . . .

  “Really?” I say to myself, as I wrap my arms around the bag for a better grasp, and levitate across the chasm . . . past Anubis and Horus, and then over by Bastet and Khepri with his super-weird scarab beetle head and its creepy little pincers . . . ugh.

  “Do I really not want Gracie here?” I mutter, ignoring Sobek’s long crocodile snout. “What does it say about my state of mind, not to mention our sibling relationship? Should I feel guilty that I’d rather not be haunted by my baby sister? Granted, it’s for a good reason, for her sake—”

  A few stone blocks and chasms later, with the Safe Base out of sight, I find the same spot I’ve used before, and start pulling down my clothing.

  The shadow of Anubis emerges immediately to my right, as I settle down into a crouch. . . .

  I close my eyes and void myself, trying not to hear their whispering voices.

  When I’m done, and my clothes back on, I straighten up . . . and see an entire Ancient Egyptian pantheon watching me.

  Horus, Sobek, Bastet, Khonsu, Anubis, Khnum, Thoth, Khepri . . . and now, Hathor, voluptuous figure of the love goddess has joined them . . . followed by the dark and terrifying animal-headed Set and his graceful brother Osiris with the plumed crown, and his consort Isis the healer goddess with the throne headdress . . . and beyond them, finally, hawk-headed Ra the sun god himself with the serpent and the grand sun-disk. . . .

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” I exclaim. “Seriously? Is this why you’re here? My punishment for peeing on the stones? I know! I know! I’m so sorry! But I—I don’t know what else to do right now! Okay? I’m sorry!”

  I grow silent and gulp. . . . I blink and blink, squeeze my eyes shut. . . . And then once again I stare at the wall of gods pressing at me from all sides, crowding me, encroaching upon me in their shadowy lineup.

  Their slithering alien voices fill my head.

  I grind my teeth and grab my bag, to return to the Safe Base.

  Not a moment too soon—even as I approach, I hear a whole bunch of new voices.

  Chapter 67

  Apparently the rest of our team has returned. Kokayi, Zaap, Kateb, and Tuar—they’re all here, alive, unharmed, and absolutely crazed!

  I am greeted by everyone’s frantic shouting as I float across the final wide chasm between the perimeter stones and the main slab.

  “We have to go!” Tuar roars, waving a knife. “All of you, get up, now!”

  “Why? What?” Lolu looks at them with a fevered gaze, tearing herself away from the sprawling contents of her bag.

  “Yes, do it!” Kokayi says, standing next to him, and rapidly shifting from foot to foot with sleek elegant motions, as though repeating an intricate dance step.

  “He’s not joking, move!” Kateb says, echoing everyone else. I notice his limbs are also shaking in fine tremors.

  The others ignore the newcomers, in completely opposite dull stupor.

  “Where have you been?” I exclaim.

  “For the past several hours, going around in circles,” Kateb says, looking at me with energy-filled eyes.

  “Yes, you can thank us for not leading them here,” Zaap says in an excited voice, tapping his fingers against his torso in quick neurotic movements. “We’ve been all around the pyramid for hours!”

  Kokayi nods. “Yes, yes! We’ve kept them off our track for as long as possible, but now they’re coming here! So we need to go!”

  “How do I know you’re really here?” Brie says in a forcefully calm voice. “You know what I think? I think you’re just a stupid hallucination, and the real Entertainer and the rest of you clowns are all dead and ghosts right about now.”

  “You can see them too?” Lolu mutters. “Maybe then—maybe they really are here.”

  “Right. . . . I
t’s not very likely we’re all hallucinating the same thing,” I say, looking at the new arrivals and blinking hard just in case.

  “Yeah, what are the chances?” Brie says, glancing around.

  Right in that moment, it becomes officially evening. The artificial night lights must be turning on all around the Game Zone and up on the cliffs. . . . We know this because a small light orb that has recently floated into our area now blooms with illumination, casting a warm golden light on every stone—which does nothing to dispel our hauntings.

  “I really don’t see why we need to be going anywhere,” I say, keeping my breathing as calm as possible, despite a rapidly pounding pulse, sweat soaking my forehead, and Anubis looking at me from three feet away. . . . Did I mention I’m getting really sick of Anubis and his pointy little jackal head?

  “I agree,” Lolu says, resuming her methodical equipment inventory. “We stay here. It’s safe. . . . It’s a Safe Base.” And then she turns around sharply and snarls at an invisible someone, “Shut up!”

  “Stupid . . . Technician! It is . . . not . . . safe!” Zaap says, with ragged breaths between each word.

  “Okay, then explain who is following you?” I say. “If they are following you, how come no one is there? You’re all just hallucinating—as we all are—so I really think it’s best that we all stop and take deep breaths and calm down—”

  “No, no, no!” Chihar sits up very suddenly, and slaps himself with both hands over the ears, pounding his head. “This is not real, none of this is real . . . I refuse!” he says is a hard calm voice, and then forcefully scoots over to the unattended surveillance screen. “My turn,” he says to no one in particular, and starts to rapidly scroll through the feeds.

  “Wait, stop! Go back!” I say, also moving in close to the screen, because one of the pyramid views catches my attention.

  Chihar flips to the previous feed channel, and there’s the view of our own pyramid slope (left side, if facing the cliffs) from which we access our Safe Base.

  On the outer stones, no further than five block levels above the entry “path” to our Safe Base, is an army of Contenders. . . .

  At least fifty of them—an out-of-control mob in uniforms of all colors, not affiliated with any clear-cut teams—are rushing down the slope, and slowing down only to enter the pyramid interior precisely at our own “secret” spot which leads to our Safe Base.

  In fact, as I perch on the slab, I can hear them coming—echoes of noisy footsteps as they jump and land, hard knocks of metal weapons striking hard surfaces, and many clamoring voices, as they move from stone to stone. . . . Someone must’ve noticed the faint rainbow light of the four-color beacon reaching the outer stone in this spot on the pyramid slope, and they figured out that it’s coming from a Safe Base.

  “Not a hallucination!” I exclaim, springing up with my bag in my arms. “We have to go! This is real!”

  “Told you!” Zaap cries, pointing at the screen. “They’ve been all over the Game Zone, gathering the most insane hostiles into their crew, and killing anyone in their way!”

  This time, it’s unmistakable. Avaneh stirs and opens her eyes, and Brie stands up, wiping her forehead. Lolu begins stuffing her things back into her bag. Next to me, Chihar gets up in a dizzy stumble, almost losing his footing, and quickly sings the command to make his bag hover so that he can hold on to it.

  “Move it!” Tuar roars again. “They’re here!”

  In seconds we gather our stuff, and shove and push the dazed Avaneh and Lolu with us as we make our escape deeper into the interior of the pyramid.

  The next hour is a hell of non-stop climbing movement, alleviated—for the less agile among us—only by our hovering equipment bags.

  We climb and jump and run from block to block, stumbling, deeper and deeper, lord knows where, into the guts of the pyramid, trying to outrun an unruly crazed killer mob—an enemy that’s both hallucinating and out for AG points.

  We know they’re still after us, because whenever we stop for a few seconds of rest, just to catch our breath, we can hear their clamoring noise upon stones, coming from not too far behind us. . . . And because the Games audience roar swells in distant waves of excitement.

  At some point, the sound of bells indicates the hour, and the pyramid begins shifting around us. Except, we’re no longer in a Safe Base, so technically we can be crushed at any point.

  Oh, crap. . . .

  The deep rumble of slowly grinding rock surfaces fills me with terror, and for once I can sympathize with Brie’s claustrophobia. In my heightened hallucinatory state, panic comes easily, so I cry out mindlessly as I jump and claw my way up random stones. Frequently I’m pulled up by Kateb or Brie, or someone else, as we try to get out of the way of the huge deadly blocks, in addition to our relentless pursuers and an army of personal ghosts.

  “Are you sure they’re still coming after us?” Brie’s breathless, ragged voice comes from up ahead as she lands on the next upper tier stone.

  “Pause and listen,” Avaneh says, breathing equally hard.

  We stop momentarily to listen, but it’s hard to hear anything when we’re all panting like fish out of water. We’ve been on the run for over an hour, moving at a brisk pace.

  And oh yes, we’re still surrounded by relentless ghostly visions and ever-present whispering voices.

  “How can you tell if it’s real or in your head?” Lolu moans.

  “If it cuts you up and kills you, then you’ll know it’s real,” Brie retorts.

  “Shhh!” I hiss at them. “Listen!”

  We grow silent again, and after a few seconds, it’s a consensus that we seem to have temporarily lost our pursuers.

  “We rest . . .” Chihar says.

  And so, for a while, we collapse on our various stones in exhaustion.

  I lie on my back and close my eyes . . . and feel my head going round and round in a dizzy spell, while the Egyptian gods whisper at me from all directions. At some point I hear George and Gordie again, and I open my eyes, but they’re not there.

  Instead, on a stone block, across a two-foot chasm from me, is my Dad.

  At once, I bolt upright, sitting up and almost hitting my head against a nearby outcropping of another hovering stone. “Dad!” I exclaim. “Oh my God! Dad!”

  Charles Lark, my father, is sitting with his legs dangling over the precipice. He is wearing one of his slightly dowdy, old-fashioned suit jackets over a tweed vest and beige shirt without a tie, and dark slacks with sensible shoes. His brown hair is the same wavy stuff as mine, except for the grey at his temples, and those familiar rimless spectacles. He appears to look around him with soft wonder before focusing his gentle, slightly distracted look on me.

  “My sweet girl, what a place this is! What an amazing place!” Dad says, with a smile of affection.

  “I know, Dad!” I reply, nodding and breathing fast to hold back tears for the second time today. “I still can’t believe we’re inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, of all crazy places!”

  “Oh, yes . . . what I’d give for some quality time here, to really look around and explore, without all this needless violence,” Dad says. “So much to study and discover in every stone, now that the mortar has been cracked apart and all the surfaces are revealed and accessible to an archeological antiquities team, just incredible priceless material all around us. . . .”

  “Dad . . .” I say, edging closer and leaning in, as if I could reach him across the chasm. “Are you and Mom okay? Is everything okay? Please tell me you are both safe—and George too! When will I get to see you? How is Mom doing? Is she feeling well enough to—”

  Dad smiles and chuckles softly, in that familiar way he always does when he’s got something fun up his sleeve and is about to surprise us with good news or a curious story. “Well, you can ask her yourself, she’s right there, next to you.”

  Just then I feel a soft touch on my right arm, and suddenly there’s Mom’s warm solid presence against my side, absolutely
tangible against my knee and the side of my body as she sits beside me, legs pulled up sideways, her arm and hand resting against mine. . . .

  Mom! I cry out inside my mind, silently, not even moving my lips. Mom!

  But somehow she hears me, and I feel my mother’s left arm curve around me, squeezing my shoulder, pressing me tightly to her as we sit together, flush against each other. “I’m right here, honey . . . my sweet girl, Gwen,” Mom says in my ear, and her beloved voice is strong and warm, and her breath caresses my cheek, smelling like minty lemon, ginger, and chamomile, her most frequently consumed tea.

  I turn my face to the side, and there she is, Margot Lark, my mother.

  The last time I’ve seen Mom for real was when she was bitterly crying, breaking down in grief after saying goodbye to us, Dad holding her, just as the screen went dark, making that Earth surface-to-orbit phone call from our living room smart wall. . . .

  But now, here she is, smiling gently at me. Her face looks profoundly tired, her skin showing the same unhealthy color as I last remember, but her blue eyes glisten with loving energy. She’s wearing one of her casual dresses, and a large soft scarf over her head that wraps loosely so I can’t tell if her hair has grown back, or if it’s still missing after all that chemo. . . . I choose to think her silky dark hair is all there (exactly as it used to be, years ago), but now it’s simply pulled back, and the scarf with its fine wavy curlicue and dots pattern is there for decoration.

  Why am I wasting time, thinking about these stupid little details on a scarf?

  “Oh, Mom!” I say, and lean my head sideways, straining toward her, feeling it rest against her chest. “I’m so happy that you’re here! No, wait—what am I saying? I know you’re not here, not really, and I’m so afraid for you, so worried! Sick-to-my-stomach worried! It’s been far too long now, they keep telling us they’re still working on it, to get you out of there! Oh God! Please tell me you’re feeling better, your health is okay! I know that once you’re rescued, the Atlantean technology can fix everything, so all you need to do is just hold on a little longer—”