Drogan was chasing Milton with a snowball sling shot he'd made from a pair of bungee cords and a toilet cover, while Celia watched from the porch. Her insects didn't like the snow, so neither did she.
Until she could figure out the game, she decided to follow her previous actions. The snowball flew from her hand like a missile, and like that day, it hit Michael in the back of the head, turning his attention from Mouse. Milton, who was running full tilt while looking behind him as Drogan chased, didn't see Michael and caught his leg, spinning them both into a snowdrift.
Mouse started winging snowballs at Gabby. She ducked and knocked a few aside with her forearm, while scooping up enough snow for another. Gabby was about to throw the snowball when Michael tripped her into the snowdrift.
It was all happening exactly as it had that day. Gabby let herself be pulled into Michael's arms, while wrestling just enough to give the appearance of resistance. Mouse dove onto the three of them, Milton was still digging out of the drift, and Drogan followed and soon they were all stuffing snow down each others' shirts.
Once a truce had been called, everyone fell back into a pile. Gabby found her hand wrapped around Michael's. The accuracy of the memory almost made Gabby wonder if she was still dreaming and had never actually left her train car. And why had the Collector dredged this memory up? What was the game? What was the angle? What was that one truth?
Milton burst up and Mouse and Drogan followed with handfuls of snowballs, leaving Gabby and Michael in the snowdrift. Their fingers were still entwined.
Knowing it was a memory being replayed on her eye-screens, Gabby decided to do what she wished she'd done back then. Gabby leaned forward and kissed Michael. The warmth of his lips took her breath away. She knew it was only a trick of her sense-web, that she really wasn't kissing Michael, in fact, she was just kissing empty air, but her body filled with warm honey.
The kiss went on until she thought her heart was going to burst. Why didn't she do this back then? Gabby vowed the next time she saw Michael, she would kiss him. What would he think? Maybe she didn't care.
As the realization crept in that the Collector was watching, Gabby slowly pulled away, hesitating with her lips just a thought away from touching again. But why should she care if he knew she was in love with Michael?
Then something about it triggered another round of thoughts which drained the warm honey from her body. Suddenly she felt very cold.
Details from the previous day's game came back to her. The letters had spelled LOVE and she had put MICHAEL. Those weren't questions, he was profiling her.
Gabby snapped upright, staring at the fake Michael before her. Michael coughed into his hand. Gabby remembered that from the day in the snow. The memory had resumed from the moment she deviated. There was blood on the glove and specks in the snow.
That'd happened that day too. Why did she not remember it? She remembered it now, partially because she was reliving it.
"Are you alright?" she asked, hearing the echo of herself.
"Nothing, just a little flu."
Her mind back then had been focused on wanting to kiss him, she remembered that clearly. But she'd forgotten about the blood. Had she really seen it at all or just ignored it? Why did he cough up blood? And as she looked at him, she realized how emaciated he was back then. Since they'd broken out of the GSA, Gabby had thought his thinness had been a new thing, from not eating and the Flock's treatment.
Gabby was about to ask another question when she heard the voice. It was a voice she'd definitely not heard that day. It was the Coder, Mr. Johnson.
She got to her feet to find the pale, red-eyed Coder striding toward her from the snow covered trees. Gabby wanted to knock the knowing smirk from his lips and she knew exactly why he had it.
"You're on the train, aren't you?"
His eyes widened, followed by a grin. "That was quick, and yet another reason I'd be happy to welcome you back to the GSA. How'd you know?"
While she was talking, Michael had gotten up and joined the others in their snowball fight. Michael gave the Coder a nasty glance, but otherwise ignored him. Gabby checked back once, missing the innocence of that day. Maybe it was better she hadn't kissed Michael.
"I don't know..." And how could she know? Or is that what the Collector wished her to think? "Why are you here?"
"You know the answer, Gabby. For you. We need you in the Coders. There's a war coming and we need you on our side."
None of it made sense. If there was a war, they wouldn't be dragging an elite unit through the Freelands just for her. She was just a girl who'd been pretty good at LifeGame. She wasn't even sure it was the Coder. Maybe that was the point?
Find the one truth or face my reality. They were the Collector's words. Was the game to find out which of the players was real? Mr. Johnson stared at her. If he was real, she couldn't ignore him.
"What if I go with you? Will that get Zaela back? Will you tell me where the losers go?"
He spread his hands wide. "You know I can't do that. Not until you come with me."
The Frags had finished their snowball fight and wandered toward the farmhouse.
"Wait!" she called after them. "I need you."
Everyone but Celia wandered over. They stood apart with hands resting on their hips, watching her with tilted heads.
"One of you is real and the rest of you are fake, projections in a world of the Collector's devising." She paused, not to let them answer, but to check for clues. "No one is going anywhere until I figure out which one is real, so I can get out of this game and off this train."
The game should be easy as the rest of the Frags were supposed to be back at the Blood Farm, but Gabby wasn't willing to bet a year's service to the Collector on it. It seemed obvious that Mr. Johnson was the real one and the others were fake, but she had to be completely positive.
They each shrugged or looked indifferent to her announcement. Gabby swiped at a buzzing sound in her ear. A metal insect rested on her shoulder.
"Celia, you're a fake. You can go and take your insects with you. They don't work in this kind of cold anyway."
The pale girl nodded and wandered inside. Gabby examined them each in turn. She bounced back between Mouse and Drogan a few times before settling on Drogan.
"What will happen to the cradle, Drogan?"
He stared back dumbly.
"You can go too, big guy."
"I'm not sure why you're doing this," interrupted Mr. Johnson. "There is no game. I asked the Collector to let me talk to you. I'd prefer to have you come willingly rather than drag you back to the GSA."
"Then why am I in the middle of an old memory taken from my files? And what did the plaque mean?" she asked.
The Coder scrunched his face. "Plaque?"
His reaction gave her pause. What if he was telling the truth?
"Mouse," she said over her shoulder, while keeping her gaze on Mr. Johnson, "what was in the red box?"
"Nothing," said Mouse.
The real Mouse wouldn't even admit the box had been real. "You can go back to the farmhouse."
Eliminating the non-positives was a good strategy, until she ran out of them. The Collector had taunted her with the first part of his clue: The difference between truth and reality is perception.
Reality was whatever she chose to believe. That was the nature of the malleable world that lived on their eye-screens and through their sense-webs. Milton, Michael or Mr. Johnson? Who was real and who wasn't?
Gabby wondered if her questioning strategy was the right one. The Collector would know the ways she would try to reason through the game (if there was a game at all) and adjust accordingly.
"You're just wasting time, Gabby. I can take you if I want. The retrieval squad can take this train down in a heartbeat and the Collector knows it." He crossed his arms. The disappointed frown on his face bothered her.
The options appeared in her head as a diverging tree of decisions. Gabby thought of it like coding. If she co
uld envision the code correctly in her head, the answer would appear.
If there was a game, then she had to pick between the three of them. Gabby guessed she could pick between Michael or Milton next, leaving one of them versus the Coder. If it wasn't a game then the Coder was on the train and was actually making an offer that she had to consider. But if she was wrong, then she would lose the game by default, since it couldn't be the Coder.
Mr. Johnson regarded her with his imposing red eyes and tapped his foot. "Look, I don't have all day for you to decide. We're going back to the GSA with you either way. Just let us know if you want a chance to help your friend Zaela or not. If we drag you back, you can forget about her forever."
Gabby didn't know the answer, but at least she knew how to eliminate one possibility. "Milton, what's the best way to keep an axle from seizing up?"
"A good healthy application of grease will do the trick," he said.
"You can go." Her memories contained the projections of her friends, but it couldn't mimic their habits or tendencies. Milton would have never passed up a chance for sexual innuendo. Even Gabby had two dozen 'shaft' and 'lube' jokes flipping through her head.
Gabby checked back to the two remaining figures. Michael or Mr. Johnson? Game or reality? Zaela or a year with the Collector? Reality or the one truth?
"I'm not giving you much longer. Another minute and I'll have Unthar kick down your door and drag you off the train. He'll enjoy that."
Mr. Johnson seemed real and it was plausible that he was on the train. The Collector hadn't been there at the start of her game. Was the plaque a warning against the Coder? Michael on the other hand was supposed to be back on the Blood Farm. Her end goal had been to save Zaela. What would it matter if she joined the Coders to do so?
Gabby looked back to Michael. He looked bored while the Coder was practically impaling her with his red eyes.
Michael or the Coder?
She put her fingertips to her lips.
"You don't have much time left. Make your decision or I'll make it for you."
She looked back and forth. Tapping her lips. Why did it make her feel she was forgetting something?
The Coder started making interface gestures while his eyes had grown vacant. He was calling in the rest of the retrieval squad. She was out of time. Gabby racked her brain trying to think of a question that would reveal which one was the fake and which one was the real.
Then it hit her. The kiss. No projection could ever kiss like that without a real person behind it that felt that way. But that meant that, she'd actually kissed Michael, and that he was on the train. That scared her as much as the alternative.
"I'm not going with you back to the GSA. You're not real. You can go now."
Gabby's heart dropped as Mr. Johnson's face lit up in a wicked smile. Then his image faded out and before Gabby could turn back to Michael, so did he and the rest of the snowy farmhouse scene. Had she made the wrong choice?
Chapter Eighteen
The world drew back in as a clockwork throne room shimmering in brass movement, ticking like a million looming bombs. Even the pillars, stretching upward to hold the vaulted roof, rotated, ever so slowly.
The Collector strolled around the nearest pillar, looking like a fine gentleman in his tuxedo and coat, except for the rotating brass monocle on his eye.
"Why aren't you up there?" Gabby nodded toward the throne.
"Had the results been different I might have delivered my speech from up there. But, as it may, down here seems more appropriate."
Gabby kept her face as blank as possible. It occurred to her that they could still be in the game. She didn't want to give away any more than she had to, but the Collector eyed her with a playful smirk.
"You don't know if you've won or not, do you?"
Presenting a front of knowing resilience seemed appropriate, but the Collector's mocking smile deflated her mood. "I'm wondering if you're going to let me go."
The Collector placed his hand to his heart, making a heartfelt sigh. "You wound me, Gabriella DeCorte. Do you not believe I have honor?"
"Honor is just a perception of expectations. I don't know what to expect."
He chuckled. "Well played." And then after a nod of his head, "You won the game. You are free to leave my train and continue on your journey."
"You have to tell me some things first."
He gave her a graceful bow while his brass monocle spun wildly.
"What do you wish to know? My knowledge is yours."
"What happens to the losers of LifeGame?"
The Collector clasped his hands together. "A worthy question, but one I do not know the answer to—" When Gabby scowled. "—but I might know someone in the Double Eagle who might be able to help."
Gabby's heart leapt. Finally, she was getting somewhere.
"His name is Jaxon."
"Mario!" she cursed. "I already knew that."
"Well, I would hate for you to feel cheated. I will tell you all I know of him, might it help you. He's the unofficial leader of the Double Eagle. A fickle and precipitous man that you should tread carefully with. He believes in the laws of his land absolutely and will test you with every word. Accept nothing from him without careful vetting. You'll know him by his cowboy hat. He fancies himself as a man from the wrong age. A real hat, not a skin, like most wear."
Gabby nodded. "And what of a war?"
"That it's soon and the Southlands will win."
"Why?"
"Because despite the superior methods of the GSA and the quality of its people, the Southlands outnumbers the GSA by a large margin."
Gabby had heard her whole life about the Southlands' overpopulation problem. It was why the Southlands was always being reported to be on the edge of invading.
The Collector made a curious noise and pulled an ornate watch from a coat pocket. He held it out on a gold chain and gave it a serious look.
"I'm afraid our time must come to an end. My train has a schedule to keep and I do not want to tarry any longer than I have in the Land of the Double Eagle. But so you don't feel cheated about our agreement, I offer you a piece of information you would have not thought to ask about."
His face took on a serious cast. Gabby found herself leaning forward.
"Before the Southlands invades the GSA, they will invade their tiny neighbor to the north. The Southlanders are coming and they mean to take soldiers from the Land of the Double Eagle."
It couldn't be worse news. "How long?"
The Collector shrugged. "No more than a month, maybe tomorrow. It's why I don't want to linger here any longer than I need to. If I were you, I would get what I came for and get out, before you become a soldier in the Southlands army."
"Do the people of Double Eagle know?"
He shrugged. "They've been hearing these rumors for years. They won't lift a finger to stop them."
"That's crazy. They won't band together and defend themselves?"
"The motto of the Double Eagle is 'your own business is your own business' and now it is time for me to mind mine." The Collector gave her a pert bow. "Goodbye and don't be too hard on them."
Gabby barely had time to mumble a confused response when the clockwork throne room dissolved around her, taking the Collector with it. Pillars melted into brassy puddles on the street. The long black wall she was staring at began to slide sideways. Gabby spun around, disorientated by the sudden change in location. The bright blue word 'DISCONNECTED' appeared in her vision as the caboose was sucked into the distance.
Wind pushed her from behind, following the Game Train out of town. The haze of reality descended upon her. The Collector had led her out of the train, keeping the town hidden on her eye-screens, only to leave her suddenly. Gabby counted herself lucky that she'd survived his games. His mastery of the false reality on her eye-screens and sense-webs made her shiver.
As she was coming to the realization that she was in a quaint little town, she noticed three other figures standing at
intervals along the track. Gabby's face flushed even before she realized it was truly him.
"Michael!" Gabby ran over and threw her arms around his slumped shoulders as Mouse and Milton gathered around. Gabby released him when he gave an anguished cough.
"What are you guys doing here? I thought I left you at the Blood Farm? You shouldn't have come. It's safer back there."
Part of her was happy to see them, but she didn’t let them know. She'd risked a year of indentured servitude for the ride.
"We couldn't let you do this by yourself, Gabby," said Milton. Gabby was glad Milton had spoken, her resistance might have broken if it'd been Michael.
"You've put yourselves in danger. You don't understand, the Southlands..." Her voice trailed away as she realized there were other people on the street, giving them sideways glances. Strangely skinned people, some barely recognizable as humans, but people just the same.
Mouse spoke up, though Gabby had to lean in to hear, "We know the risk. We had to come."
"The Collector could have had you guys trapped on that train for a month!"
They each shook their head as she looked to them. "I don't understand."
"When we joined the train, we put our lot in with you. If you won, we won, if you lost, we had to stay on the train for a year, too," said Milton.
"But why?"
"Because we're a team, Gabby. And you're..." Milton paused, glancing sheepishly at his feet, "...our leader."
"I..." ...never wanted that responsibility, she finished in her head. "At least you had the good sense to leave Celia, Delilah and Drogan back at the Farm."
Milton gave her a pained look while Mouse and Michael turned away. "Yeah, about that. Celia and Drogan are on the Caterpillar making the slow ride here. They'll get here in a week or so, depending on the travel."
"But—Oh Mario! You guys couldn't have made this worse. Now we have no way to contact them since they probably still have the Blood Farm interface and we now have a Double Eagle one!"
Milton sighed. "Yeah, we didn't think about that one."
Frags Page 12
