by Stuart Keane
“I don’t believe you,” Heather said flatly.
Delta laughed. “That’s not even the best bit. And here is the happy coincidence. Man, you couldn’t script this shit if you tried. Get this. Take it or leave it—”
Heather frowned, not saying anything.
“—I’m your father. The day Kieran walked into that bar, all my ducks were in a row. Luckily, we knew you would be there. The coincidence is that you two got talking. To be honest, we would have snatched you both anyway.” Delta paused, swigging from his flask.
Heather shot a look at Kieran. He knew what it said was: I didn’t get you into anything. We were both screwed.
Delta continued: “The thing is, and here is the kicker, our Kieran here is your brother.”
Silence.
“You see, you’re both my children.”
THIRTY-NINE
“Wake up! Kathryn, wake up!”
Kathryn didn’t recognise the voice at first. Her eyes resisted the urge to open. It felt like she’d slept for days and Kathryn had no desire to wake up from the slumber her body so desperately needed. Her vision was hazy, and, as she opened her eyes, she felt a resounding pain. Her jaw ached. The throbbing was rhythmic, pulsing from the bottom of her neck to the top of her head.
Her eyes opened. She blinked several times to clear the vision and got to her feet.
A woman’s face came into view. It was blurred at first, then the image cleared. She could see short hair, piercings with metal studs and a heavy bosom. The woman even had a tongue piercing.
Who was this strange woman? she wondered.
Then Kathryn remembered.
Her eyes widened with rage.
She swung her right fist hard. The shot went wide, knocking her off balance and she collapsed to the floor in a heap as the woman stepped out of the way. Kathryn realised she was in no fit state to fight anyone. Her body screamed out in agony as she landed on the ground. She turned over, awaiting another attack.
“Whoa, whoa, Kathryn,” said the other woman. “Calm down.”
Kathryn leapt to her feet. She steadied herself and shook her head from side to side to clear the cobwebs. Kathryn held her fists out in front of her, stumbling towards the other woman, who was a few feet away. Kathryn was about to take another swing, when the mystery lady yelled, “Stop it, calm down.”
The raised voice hurt Kathryn’s ears, but she took notice. The strange woman came up beside her and held her tight, whispering in her ear. “This isn’t what it looks like, don’t make a fuss and I’ll explain.”
Kathryn swallowed. The grogginess was all but gone, but her head was pounding and shooting pains ran up and down her spine. “You hit me, you fuck! You hit me with a baseball bat! You bitch.”
The big female grimaced. “Yeah, I am sorry about that. I didn’t have a choice.”
Kathryn’s eyes widened. “How about the choice of not hitting me? It’s just as easy.”
She nodded. “Yes, but it would’ve got us both killed. And my orders were to bring you out alive.”
Kathryn said nothing, eyeing her enemy with distrust.
As the woman smiled she licked her lips, her pierced tongue briefly on display. Kathryn noticed that the heavyset lady was sweating, and her surprise was apparent in her face.
“Sorry about the sweat. See, I have been carrying you for the last ten minutes. Didn’t have a choice really.”
Kathryn looked around, finding a low wall a few yards away, on which she sat down. Gradually she began to feel normal again, though her head still pounded. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Hannah. My name is Hannah.” She came closer.
Kathryn tried to move her throbbing head, aware that any sudden movement would hurt. “Tell me why you hit me with a baseball bat?” She touched the side of her face. Dried blood came off on her fingertips.
“Iain sent me.”
“Iain?” Kathryn stared into space, recalling her friend who’d so recently fallen to his death. “How do you know Iain?”
“I was his contingency plan. He knew that coming in here was suicide. In the event he was chosen as a Goodwill Gesture – someone who could help you - he wanted to ensure his efforts weren’t wasted. He knew there was a chance you could die in The Game. If you didn’t, well, I was under instruction to get you out. And here you are.”
Kathryn felt parched. “Hannah, I need some water.”
Hannah stepped forward with a bottle in hand. Kathryn looked at it, still feeling stunned and confused, then opened it and took a long swig. After half the bottle was gone, she pulled it away from her lips. “Right, I can’t get my head around this. You were here to help me. So why reconstruct my face with a baseball bat?”
“To bypass the checkpoints.”
Kathryn stood up. “What checkpoints?”
Hannah took the bottle from Kathryn. “Depending on how The Game is played – and I only know this because Iain told me – the Chronicle can choose the level of security. That’s not quite right, let me change my words there. The Game Area – you know, where it takes place – can be manufactured or legitimate. The Chronicle in this game was a fucked up and really powerful mother. He closed off an entire town and constructed your office in one of the buildings. Unfortunately, when an area is built, they can stick a dome over it, because what people can’t see, they won’t interfere with. However, when you’re closing off a town, that’s a whole other story. So on this occasion the Chronicle built a perimeter boundary – a wall around the Game Area. To keep people out.”
Kathryn sat down, stunned. She’d been right. An entire town had been cleared of life, citizens and freedom. She looked at Hannah. “That still doesn’t explain the baseball bat.”
“Well, the perimeter is guarded. I couldn’t just walk up to the gate with you, they would have shot us both. Likewise if you’d arrived alone. So I pretended you were against me, that I was one of the criminals in the game – you may have met them?”
Kathryn nodded. She remembered them all too well.
“Anyway, I approached the gate with you on my shoulders, fireman’s lift style. Just as the criminals would have done in the same situation. When the guard came down to make sure it was you, well, my baseball bat made a new friend. Twice.”
Kathryn couldn’t help but smile at the fact that Hannah, who’d seemed like such a threat, had just saved her life. This stranger, who knew nothing about Kathryn, had gone out on a limb for her. Because Iain had told her so.
Faith, it seemed, still existed.
“Thank you. Thank you, Hannah. I really don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I rearranged your face. Why don’t we call it even?” Hannah winked.
Kathryn said nothing. Her head was still throbbing as she tried to take in her surroundings, all the time aware that time was ticking by. Hannah picked up on her uneasiness. “I didn’t kill that guard – just so you know. He might have a bit of a headache, though, when he wakes up.”
“As long as he doesn’t come after us.”
Hannah shivered, the smile vanishing. “Well, that’s the other thing I was going to tell you. That was only the first checkpoint. Don’t worry, though, it’s the only guarded one. We have one more to get through. But only the Choice can open that door. That’s why I woke you up.”
“How can I open it?”
Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. But if you don’t open it, then we’re both going to die in here.”
***
Rupert knew he was living on borrowed time. Ever since he had heard the first lift descend, he knew it would be mere minutes before he was discovered. By process of elimination, if someone came up to John’s office, there was only a limited number of places they could go.
The office.
Or HQ.
Maybe there were more places to go on the lower floors, but if you’re travelling upwards it’s a moot point. Rupert knew that someone was coming for him, it was an issue he was ready to address. He just hadn’t exp
ected the timeframe to be so short.
As he stepped out of the lift, he covered his eyes. Unlike the office suite downstairs, this room was decorated completely in white, and bright lights showed the way. This interior was circular, like a small lobby, and was sparsely furnished. There were no desks, no plants, and no pictures on the walls. It had all the hallmarks of privileged access. The light fixtures were simple, unshaded bulbs sticking out of the wall. It looked like a place that was reserved for essential personnel only.
Technicians, probably.
It looked as if ordinary workers in the building weren’t supposed to come in here, and it certainly wasn’t the most welcoming of places. HQ, it seemed, was only for very important people. Rupert guessed that only a handful of top personnel had the keycards to the personal lift behind him. He heard the lift doors close. But it didn’t descend.
Yet.
Time to move.
Rupert followed the only pathway, which headed left. The hallway before him held several doors that were the same colour as the walls, consequently almost camouflaged out of sight. An archway was at the end of the hall. Beyond this, the room curved into an unseen space. He came to the first door. There was no handle. He checked two of the other doors; they were handleless too.
Rupert looked closer and noticed a small black screen, no bigger than a credit card, and he could see that every door had one. He took the card from his pocket and swiped it. The door moved back two inches and then slid completely into the wall access. Inside this new room there appeared to be nothing but electronic boxes with blue lights blinking on them, in no kind of discernible sequence. He could hear the loud humming of fans, and the interior felt chilly. Near the furthest wall, several yards away, was a small computer terminal. The entire interior space was no bigger than the average bathroom. Rupert realised what it was immediately.
A server room.
As he exited, the door closed behind him automatically. Rupert scanned the card on the other five doors and found that all the rooms contained servers. All had a master computer and the same humming background noise. The six rooms were identical. Rupert stepped into the arched hallway, following it along until he came to a second archway. This one was blocked by a door. The now familiar small black screen was on the door itself. Rupert scanned the card again and waited for the door to open.
After a minute, it did.
Rupert knew his jaw had dropped. His eyes widened.
“You have got to be shitting me!” he said out loud.
The room before him was absolutely huge, in fact, it was vast. On the rear wall was the biggest TV screen he had ever seen. On it were several different feeds, all showing different shots and different camera angles, and pictures in pictures. This screen appeared to act as a hub for many others. In one corner, the BBC 24 news channel was playing in silence, and under that, CNN. Rupert counted eighteen different feeds, each the size of a small TV set, lined up in the corner. They all showed various news channels from around the globe.
The main feed was static. Rupert instantly knew this was where John had been when Rupert had called him out. He must have left immediately. Around the static, he could see the same feeds that Rupert had seen on John’s monitor. They were laid out like a film strip, one on top of the other. His feeds were all static minus one or two, the same as before. Three more strips were lined up. Rupert guessed that they were for viewing the activities of the other people he’d recently found out about.
He stepped towards a huge mahogany desk with a glass surface. On it stood a telephone, a keyboard, mouse and a touch tablet. Rupert recognised these as iPads or Kindles or something, devices he was already familiar with. The tablet’s screen was alive with a blue light. He moved closer, to see that the tablet was a miniature version of the vast TV screen. Rupert could touch the screen and the action he’d initiated would be mimicked on the TV. Looking at the screen, he tapped the static in the centre and it disappeared. It was immediately replaced by the next static image.
Rupert smiled.
He tapped one of the other reels. It replaced the static. It was the one with the clones, who had surrounded two people. The difference from the scene he’d seen earlier was that now a third man was standing with the young couple, talking to them. Rupert tapped the screen again and the dead Asian man appeared on screen. Nothing had changed there. He tapped the final strip. This picture was of two women talking to each other. One of them was slim and shapely, the other much more buxom.
Three groups of people.
The other contestants in The Game.
Damn you, John.
Suddenly a screen flashed into focus from the left side. The rim around it was flashing red. Rupert stared at it and immediately recognised the scene. It was the lift. Three men were exiting it.
On this floor.
They were coming.
Rupert was about to hide when a large buzzing noise filled the air.
And then everything went black.
***
Kathryn was tapping her teeth with her fingers. She was thinking.
If what Hannah had said was true, then they might be doomed.
If not, then this nightmare would soon be over.
“Where’s this door?” Kathryn asked her new friend, without expecting her to know.
Hannah whistled, turning around to observe her surroundings.
Kathryn did the same. For the first time, she realised they were still on the street. They were in a small parking lot, allocated to a three-storey building. It was like a small alleyway that led between two smaller structures, shaped like a small rectangle. The wall she was sitting on faced the road, which was behind her. Kathryn swung her legs over the wall and stood on the street.
Several small shops lined the pavement: a sandwich shop, a shoe shop and a chemist. Kathryn looked down the hill. It ended in a dead end, a huge wall abruptly blocking the road. The wall was directly in front of a now-abandoned Tesco store that was itself blocked from any access by the wall. The road angled off to the left. Three cars were piled against the wall.
“The road leads off to a one-way system,” Hannah explained. “The gate is just around the corner. That’s where I brought you in. The other door is this way.”
Hannah set off, followed by Kathryn.
The road led to a giant roundabout. It looked odd and strangely isolated. Beyond the roundabout was a huge building with ‘BTI’ written on its walls. A disused Mercedes garage was next to that. Funnily enough, no cars were parked anywhere. Across the road there was a nameless warehouse, a huge white block of a building. Parked outside it was a green bus, its windows and doors gutted. Kathryn assumed that this had once been a bus station.
“Where are we?” Kathryn asked.
“I am not sure, to be honest. But I think we are somewhere in Kent. The Wells, I think they said. This town was bankrupted by The Company so it could take it over for its own purposes. It took them a month to do it. They closed down businesses, put the house prices up, and ensured that the crime rate rose. It was only a matter of time until it became empty and abandoned. They bought it and turned it into their own personal playground.”
Kathryn said nothing. A chill ran up her spine. Was this all for me? she wondered. The sheer scope of the project rendered her speechless.
“I don’t come from here,” Hannah went on. “I’m from up North, Leeds born and bred.” She continued walking at a fast pace across the empty road. Kathryn looked on in surprise.
She seemed quite lithe for a big girl, she thought.
Past the BTI building was a block of new apartments. Despite the chaos around them, they looked untouched. A small garden was in front of it, its trees and shrubs intact. The white warehouse was opposite. An abandoned dentist’s surgery was on the corner, adjacent to a side road.
Kathryn looked across. “So where’s this door?”
Hannah pointed. “This way, it’s just up the road. Not long now and we’ll be home free.”
Kat
hryn hoped that would be the case.
They passed the apartments. The road continued for several yards. In the distance, Kathryn saw a yellow glow. As they pressed on, Kathryn noticed it was a Shell petrol station. The canopy still burned bright, the familiar red logo a beacon in the night. The shop underneath it was intact, but closed. It hadn’t been touched by the blight that affected so much of the rest of town. Kathryn wondered if they could still take petrol from the pumps.
Hannah walked under the canopy and approached the shop’s entrance. Cupping her hands to the window, she looked through the glass. She pulled away, a grimace on her face. “No luck, this place is locked up. Are you hungry?”
“I could certainly do with something to eat. Should we break in? Have you seen anyone around here at all?”
Hannah chewed her lip. “No. But it’s a risk. If someone is hiding, all they need is a warning to come and hunt us down. We’d make a heck of a lot of noise smashing this glass.”
Kathryn nodded in agreement. The silence seemed unbearable, and she realised that even the slightest of sounds would travel a long way, alerting anyone nearby to their presence. “I think we should continue. If we can get through the door, we’ll be home free. And in a worst case scenario, if we can’t leave, we can always come back.”
Without a word, Hannah stepped out from under the petrol station’s canopy and Kathryn followed. The Shell garage behind them, they were now on a road with several abandoned stores. The windows were shattered, their contents strewn all over the pavement. Clothes, teddy bears, empty alcohol containers and a mannequin created a bizarre tableau on the ground. A toilet roll had unravelled across it unevenly. Some of the objects were damp, stained yellow. Kathryn grimaced at the thought and gave the items a wide berth.
To their right, across the road, stood a church. Its churchyard was untouched, apparently immaculate. Several stone statues stood proud, their bases incorporating lights which cast a glow upwards, creating eerie shadows across the smooth curves and angles. This green area was perfectly kept, which Kathryn thought was odd, considering the circumstances in the rest of the town.
