S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus

by Saul Tanpepper

I shake my head and push the Link away. “It’s just my boyfriend. He can wait till I get home.”

  She nudges me like we’re old friends. “That’s right, Jessica. Make the poor bastard suffer! Make him appreciate you more.”

  I cough uncomfortably and am glad to see my stop coming up.

  “Make sure you get your Link updated,” she tells me as I get up. “And check out that Player on Survivalist. You’ll see what I mean!”

  Chapter 6

  After getting off the bus, I decide to go by Micah’s place to see if Kelly has come back yet. I’m kind of hoping to find Jake’s van there and Kelly inside playing Zpocalypto. But instead of the van, there’s another car sitting in Micah’s driveway that I don’t recognize. I figure it probably belongs to Mr. or Mrs. Sandervol.

  I’ve never met either of them—they’re always out of town—so I’m curious to see what they’re like. But after today, the last thing I need is to get all wrapped up in the whole ‘meet my folks’ circus and them asking me about school and future plans and all that crap. I’m not up for acting all normal. Plus, I want to get over to Kel’s, so I just hurry on past without stopping.

  I see the police car when I’m still a block and a half away. Two officers are just coming out the front door of the house and Mrs. Corben is standing there with her hands clasped together up by her chin. She’s clearly upset, and the officers are trying to console her.

  I quickly turn up a side street and come home the back way. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t even ping Ash or any of the others to find out what’s going on. All I can do is guess that he’s still not home.

  “There you are!” Eric barks at me when I walk through the front door. He gets up from the couch and tries to block my way to the stairs. “Where have you been all day?”

  I brush past my brother without saying anything. I just want to go up to my room and scream into my pillow.

  “What’s the matter with your Link?” he demands. “I tried pinging you all afternoon, but all I got was this strange mess— Hey! Jessie, I’m talking to you!”

  He grabs my arm and twists me around. I shake his hand off of me. I could flip him onto his back in a second, but what good would that do? It would just make me feel like shit and humiliate him. It won’t bring Kelly back.

  “Jessie, please. What happened to you today?”

  “Someone stole my Link,” I say. “Okay, Eric?”

  “What? Again?” He exhales and shakes his head disapprovingly.

  “I’m tired, Eric. I just spent the day in Hartford registering for a new one and the past hour on the transit with some crazy woman with a morbid crush on a Player on Survivalist. I’d rather just go lie down.”

  I turn and head for the stairs.

  “Oh, and we’re going to be getting a taxation bill for three hundred and forty six dollars in the next cycle.”

  Eric chokes. I use his momentary surprise to escape into my room so I can think about what to do next, but he chases me up the stairs. He doesn’t even grant me a minute to myself. Two seconds after I’ve shut the door, he’s pounding on it. “Jessie?”

  “Don’t worry,” I shout out at him. “I’ll pay the stupid bill. I’ll figure out a way to get the money.”

  “I—I don’t care about that, Jess. Just… Why didn’t you tell anyone about your Link? Why did you just go off to the capitol without telling anyone where you were going? There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not ashamed, Eric. Go away.” I flop onto my bed, wondering if it’s possible to sneak one of the others’ Links so I can talk to someone who knows what I’ve been through. Ash, for example.

  “I would’ve taken the day off and driven you, you know. You didn’t have to take the transit.”

  “It was fine.”

  “Damn it, Jess, I was worried about you. We all were. Mom said you got some official ping this morning on the house Link, but then you just disappeared. And when we couldn’t get a hold of you, I back-traced the ping to the capital.” He stops and waits. “Mom was worried you’d gotten into some kind of trouble or something. She had no way of reaching you. She was frantic.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “She was,” Eric counters. He sounds hurt, like I’m really blaming him for her being so fucked up all the time. I don’t know why he continues to defend her after all these years, after how crappy of a mother she’s been to us both. It just blows me away. Especially because he keeps his feelings about our father so private. “She just has trouble showing it, Jessie. You know that.”

  “Yeah, sounds familiar, like you and Dad.”

  He doesn’t bite. “There’s something else, Jess. Were you with Kelly today?”

  I turn over on my side, turn my back to the door and wish he’d just go away. But my wish doesn’t come true.

  “Jessie? Did you two break up or something?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to ping—”

  “No. I said leave me alone.”

  “Come on, Jessie. Let’s not do this.”

  “You’re the one ‘doing this,’ Eric! What part of leave me alone do you not understand?”

  “Mrs. Corben has been pinging my Link all day. She’s been asking about you and Kelly. She said the Stream couldn’t find his Link. The same as yours. How does that even happen?”

  And there it is. He wasn’t really worried about me. It’s all because of Mrs. Corben freaking out about Kel and Eric’s inability to understand why we weren’t on the Stream. Damn cops, always trying to solve mysteries, regardless of whether or not they need to be solved.

  “She pinged Mom, too,” he continues. “I don’t know if she tried Grandpa. I haven’t spoken with him yet. He’s been out all day.”

  I highly doubt she would’ve pinged Grandpa. She’s afraid of him. Most people I know are afraid of him.

  “She said Kelly left early this morning in a strange van,” he goes on. “Said she hasn’t seen him since. Was he with you, Jess? Did he go with you to Hartford?”

  “I told you I was on the transit, sitting with some whacko.”

  “Okay, then. So you don’t know where Kelly is?”

  “No.”

  “Because she pinged again about twenty minutes ago and was going to call the police. I tried to talk her out of it. I said he probably just lost track of time, but she wasn’t rational. I thought he might be with you.”

  Christ. “I said I wasn’t with him.”

  “Maybe if you spoke with her.”

  I get up and walk over to the door and open it.

  “Fine. But the Link they gave me won’t connect to anything but Media and Government.”

  Eric exhales, like he’d been holding his breath. He’s three inches taller than me, and yet he seems smaller, shrunken. I hold out my hand. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his Link. I wait for him to leave, but he just stands there.

  “I need to call Ash and Micah first,” I tell him, “see if they know. No reason to make her even more scared.”

  I close the door. He shuffles around outside it for another minute or so before telling me that dinner will be in less than an hour.

  I try Ash first. While I’m waiting for her to connect, I squeeze my eyes closed and try to keep myself from screaming Kelly’s name out the window.

  “Jess?” Ash asks. Her face is tiny on the screen, but the distress in it is clear.

  My mind screams at me to disconnect.

  “Jessie? You okay?”

  “Are you… Any word from the boys?”

  She shakes her head. “Micah said Kel’s mom has been pinging him and Reggie all day. She didn’t try me. I don’t think she likes me. In fact,” she says, getting that haughty look in her eyes, “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t.”

  “Maybe it’s because of your reputation for corrupting Greenwich’s boys,” I tease.

  “So you’re saying she’s paranoid? Or, like, overprotective?”

  I smile in spite of myself. I don’t know
why, but just seeing Ashley like this, all indignant, even though I know it’s just an act, calms me down. Even if she’s really on the verge of crumbling and just hiding it.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  She twists her face. “I know Kelly’s off limits,” she assures me. “I’d never do that to you. I’m— Hold on a sec.” She turns her head away, disappearing from view. I can’t see what she’s looking at, but when she returns, she leans into the Link and whispers. “Did she call the police?”

  “Yeah. And unless Kelly shows up on the Stream again soon, I have a feeling we’re all going to be in deep shit.”

  She shakes her head. “I tried pinging Kelly and Jake just a few minutes ago. All I got was that same message.” She pauses, then asks, “How’d your appointment go?”

  “Sucked. Like being stripped naked, slapped silly with a rubber hose and verbally abused by a nun for six straight hours. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom.”

  She turns again. “…sucks.”

  “What do you keep looking at?”

  “I’m with Micah.”

  “I gathered that. Are his parents there?”

  She shakes her head, looks perplexed. “No. Why?”

  It’s like a game with us now. None of us have met Micah’s elusive parents. We joke that they don’t really exist. But, of course, they do. They’re just never around.

  “I thought I saw a car in his driveway coming home.”

  I hear a voice now in the background. Ash turns to listen, then turns back. “We’re not actually at his house. I mean, we were earlier. We were working on the codex, but I got hungry so we went out to get some Golden Dragon to bring back.”

  She rotates the Link so I can see where they are. Micah flashes by, then the view stops spinning. I’m looking down the street toward his house. They’re a couple blocks away and the image is tiny, but I can see enough to recognize the cop cars parked outside his house. Their lights are flashing.

  “That’s not good,” I mutter, my worry suddenly multiplying a hundred-fold.

  Ash comes back into view. “We thought it might’ve been from the hacking.”

  She’s talking about the hack last week, when they first broke into the government computers on LI using whatever still remained of the old internet. They were looking for maps of the tunnels. Ash was in the middle of doing a search when she’d quickly yanked the wires from the old tech tablet they were using. She thought someone was trying to track her. But she was sure she’d pulled out before they did.

  “They’ll probably be coming around to your place soon, Jess,” I hear Micah say in the background.

  “They don’t know anything yet,” I assure them. “They’re just fishing. And I won’t tell them anything.”

  Ash nods. “I think if we can avoid them till morning—tomorrow afternoon at the latest—then Kelly and Jake’ll be back and hopefully they’ll leave us alone. And if they do ask about the hack, we should just keep saying it was for a school project.”

  “Hacking the LI computers? Right,” I say. But I know she’s right. Once Kelly and Jake are safe, then who really cares about a couple kids breaking into some old, outdated computers? Even the ones on LI. It’s not like we’re trying to hack someone’s personal Link stream.

  “What about Jake’s uncle?” I ask. “And the van? Did Micah say something to Mister Esposito?”

  Micah leans in so I can see him. “Hey, Jess,” he says, winking. Same old Micah, even when the cops are pounding down his door he’s cool. “I fixed it so Mister E will be staying in Albany for a couple more days.” He laughs. “So we’re good there, at least.”

  “I don’t even want to know.”

  “Good girl. It’s better that way.”

  “What if he tries to call Jake?”

  “He’ll be too busy. I sent him a few…presents. Of the female persuasion. Very persuasive females, that is. They’ll keep him busy.”

  “Prostitutes,” Ash says, rolling her eyes.

  “Where the hell did you get the money to pay for them?”

  “Yeah… About that.” He shrugs, but doesn’t elucidate.

  I shake my head.

  “Look,” Micah says, “right now that’s the least of our problems.” He glances away. “Looks like they’re leaving, Ash. We should get back in there and clean up. Next time they return, pretty sure they’re going to want to see more than just the front door.”

  “Ping me if you hear anything,” I say. Then, realizing I still can’t receive yet on my temporary Link, I tell them that I’ll get a hold of them instead. “I need to talk to Mrs. Corben.”

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “Got any ideas?”

  They don’t.

  “I figure maybe I’ll just tell her Kelly was planning a surprise for me and that I’m pretty sure his being gone has something to do with it.”

  It’s all true. I won’t be lying. And hopefully it’ll calm her down. At least until nightfall. Then…who knows.

  I just pray Kelly gets back before then.

  That’s what I plan on telling her, but when I get off with Ash and Micah, I don’t. I just lie there on my bed not moving. I just can’t face speaking with Kelly’s mom yet.

  When Eric calls me down for dinner forty five minutes later, I consider not going, but that would just cause more of a problem. Besides, I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. I need food. Two days in a row of not eating and I’m starting to feel the effects. And assuming Kelly and Jake are back tomorrow and everything’s returned to some sort of normalcy, I’ll have hapkido. I don’t want to get my ass kicked because I’m too weak.

  How can I even think of hapkido now? How can I think of anything like that ever again?

  Act normal. Micah’s last words come to me again. We’ll get through this, you’ll see. Just act normal.

  Easier said than done. I just wish everything would go back to the way it was. Maybe it wasn’t exactly normal, but at least it wasn’t…this.

  I sigh and get up. Grandpa’s already at the table, waiting. So is Mom, which surprises me. She gives me a weak smile when she sees me, more than her usual self-pitying smile. At least she’s trying, but she looks uncomfortable doing it, awkward. She even did her hair up, and her clothes are clean. More surprises on a day when I don’t need them.

  “Everything all right?” I ask. I hand Eric his Link back.

  “Just have a seat, young lady,” Grandpa says. “We’re going to have a nice dinner with all of us for once.” He looks over at my mom, holds her gaze for a moment. It’s a neutral stare—he’s a master of hiding his emotions.

  “I hear you lost your Link again,” he says, after we’ve sat. It’s not an accusation, though it sort of feels like one. “You need to learn to be more responsible.” Yup, definitely an accusation.

  Mom puts her hand on his arm and says, “Ulysses.” She’s the only one who ever calls him that. She’s the only one who can get away with it. To everyone else, he’s simply “The Colonel.” Or Grandpa.

  He raises an eyebrow at her, just a fraction of an inch.

  After the food is dished out and we’re starting to eat, Grandpa turns to me. “Where did you lose it, young lady?”

  “I didn’t lose it. It was stolen.”

  The eyebrow raises another fraction of an inch.

  “So they’ll catch whoever has it. I assume they put a trace on it. They’ll find it, just like they did that last guy.” He stares at me for a moment. “I’m sure no matter where it is, they’ll find it.”

  My face feels brittle, like if I move a muscle, it’ll crumble away and show everything I’m trying to hide.

  I turn my gaze to Eric, who’s also just sitting there, watching me, watching the both of us. I wonder what he’s thinking. He has to know something’s not right. He tried pinging me. He saw the message. He knows the Link’s outside the Stream, meaning either beyond the reach of our communications network or physically destroyed. But why would someone steal i
t just to destroy it? They wouldn’t, leaving only the other possibility.

  Speaking carefully, he says, “It looks like her Link’s been disabled.”

  “Strange indeed,” Grandpa says.

  He stares at me. From somewhere far away, I’m dimly aware of Mom asking, “Why is that strange?” But Grandpa just sits there, thinking his own thoughts. And I sit here wondering what they are.

  Thankfully, Eric’s Link buzzes right then, startling us out of the moment. I blink and look over.

  “My bad. Thought I’d turned the audible alarm off.” He looks at his screen and frowns. Then he jumps to his feet. “Damn it,” he says. “Got to go. Sorry, Mom.”

  She smiles tenderly at him, and I think I can see some of the mother inside of her peeking out. “It’s all right, dear.”

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “It’s my boss. He needs me to come in.”

  “Why, dear?” Mom asks. Now she looks worried. It’s amazing the emotions she can suddenly express when she’s not numb with alcohol or drugs.

  “There’s a…problem,” he says, shoving another bite of meatloaf into his mouth while he simultaneously tries to scroll through his screen and put on his jacket. “Down in New York. They’re calling in all NCD within a hundred mile radius.”

  “A problem? What kind of problem?”

  “I can’t really say.”

  Mom gasps. “Another outbreak?”

  He shakes his head. “I need to go.” He bends down over Mom and kisses her cheek.

  “Be careful, honey,” she tells him.

  “I will. And, guys, not a word about this to anyone,” he says, holding up his Link. “It’s not made Media yet.”

  “How can we tell anyone something if we don’t know what it is?” I ask.

  Grandpa’s still looking at me, still watching me. His face is a blank slate. Almost a blank slate. Over the years I’ve learned to read of few of his emotions. The slight tilt of his head, for example, just like he’s doing now. I know what it means. He says to Mom, even though his eyes never leave mine, “Well, we know it has something to do with Zulus, don’t we? Otherwise, why would they call Eric in?”

  Mom winces. She hates that old term, Zulus. Hates it even more than ‘zombie’ and ‘CU’ and ‘IU.’ She hates any reference to the Undead, in fact. But especially Zulu. It was the term in use when her husband was taken away from her.