I walk over to Jake’s side. His skin is as pale and husky as someone who has been dead for a week. I sense him breathing more than see it, sense the tiny spark of life inside, masked by so much death. Is it just fatal optimism? Or dread? How easy would it be to snuff out that last ember? I reach a hand out, and for a moment my hand hovers over his face. I half expect him to wake, to open his eyes, to speak.
I totally had a crush on you last year.
His words to me, the day we first broke into the island. Now, just a memory. It feels like ages ago, years. A lifetime. How many weeks has it been? Two? Three? I can’t even remember anymore. It hurts my head to think.
Crush on you.
He was just a kid. Sixteen. Ashley’s age, I remind myself. A kid who thought he knew more than he did. A kid who desperately wanted to fit in, to be liked. Who looked up to us gamers and hackers.
Jackers.
I frown and my thoughts stutter to a halt. The first time I’d ever heard the term was when he’d spoken it back in the dojang, the day I’d first met him. He was talking about how he knew Ashley:
She’s a jacker, right?
Jacker? I’d never heard the term before.
Game hacker. That’s what the kids call her and others like her.
Like Ashley. And me.
I’d actually liked the sound of that word, even though it didn’t really apply to me. I was never that much of a hacker, not like Reg and Ash and Micah. I’m a gamer, a programmer. I always preferred nascent coding, creating new protocols, building new things. I wasn’t into undoing, destroying. I’d told Jake that too, that day, but he’d just nodded smugly, as if it was our little secret, a game we were playing. Coded dialogue. Say one thing, mean another. He believed I was more than just a good girl, sticking to the safe side of the law. He thought I was a—
Jacker.
—hacker.
I’d totally forgotten about it. After that initial flush of pleasure over being admired for something I wasn’t—not because I wanted to be a hacker, but because it seemed to impress Jake—I’d dismissed it from memory. Especially after the effect it seemed to be having on Kelly.
Until now.
Ben had used the same word this morning: She’s one of those jacker kids Lena’s team is tryin to find. He’d called me the queen of the jackers.
Coincidence?
Now I look down on Jake’s face, the shadows spreading over it like bruises. “Who are you really?” I ask. But he just lies there dying. Dying and not dying. Suspended in that thin horizon between life and afterlife. He’d said he had a crush on me. Did he really?
Or maybe I just heard what I’d wanted to hear.
I lower my hand and touch his face. His breath is hot, but his skin does feel slightly cooler than it was. It’s only been thirty minutes or so since the injection. The fever still rages on inside of him, burrowing down deeper, trying to hide from Father Heall’s blood. Virus swimming inside his bloodstream. Virus leaking into his blood. Virus entrenched within his cells.
I wonder, how can an injection into his spine save his body, if the treatment injected into his bloodstream can’t save his brain?
Brother Matthew hadn’t explained that. There hadn’t been enough time.
Now I wish I’d asked Father Heall more questions when I had the chance. But I’d been so tired, so overwhelmed. So…comfortable and drowsy and—
He drugged you.
No, I don’t believe that. I simply hadn’t wanted to ask questions. I didn’t want to know. And the things I did know, I’d wanted to forget.
A groan escapes Jake’s lips. Not the first. It’s happened before, but it startles me nonetheless. I wait for more, but his chapped lips don’t move. They’re graven, still as stone, unspeaking, unwhispering. The air passes dryly through them, making not even the slightest whistle of a sound. A teaspoon of air. How he manages to survive baffles me.
I watch his eyelids for movement underneath, but they too are quiet. I wonder, Do zombies dream? And it makes me think of a movie we once watched in Micah’s basement about fake humans pretending to be real. Micah had told me it was based on one of the banned books he always seemed to have lying carelessly around, as if daring the police to come and arrest him, daring them to add to his LSC. What was the title of that book? I close my eyes and picture the cover, the faded paper, the well-worn corners.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
That’s what it was. I wonder then, as I press my hand against Jake’s skin, do zombies dream? What would they dream about?
But then I silently chastise myself. First of all, zombies don’t think or feel. How could they dream?
Except, maybe they do.
Secondly, Jake isn’t dead. He hasn’t turned. He isn’t one of them.
Not yet.
I remember that day at the studio, that first sparring match. Jake had thrown me onto the mat with a cheap shot. Completely disrespectful of the art, and at that moment there had been a spark. I’d felt a thrill underneath the humiliation and anger. He’d made some lame excuse about his old dojo, of course, the philosophy of his old master. He’d been so nervous, had stumbled his way through the conversation. I really enjoyed you this morning.
Had he misspoken?
Was any of it real or was it all just an act?
I’d actually been a little nervous, too. I’d never really had a boy flirt with me before. Kelly had never flirted with me. We’d just started being together. We never really did any of that dating stuff. We just…were. It had been understood: he was my boyfriend, and I was his girlfriend. I’ve always been his girlfriend.
Except for those six weeks last year.
We’d needed time apart. I’d needed time away, or so I’d thought. Micah had suggested it, after an particularly rough patch between us. Kyle was suffering badly, dying, and Kelly was constantly on edge. Kyle almost did die and probably would have if they hadn’t gotten treatment. But it was Kelly who fell into some dark hole. I couldn’t be around him; I couldn’t stand to not be around him. “I can’t abandon him now,” I’d told Micah. Empty words? Micah had replied that I didn’t deserve to be treated like that, ignored. I had needs, and Kelly wasn’t meeting them. That’s what he’d said.
Now I feel my anger taking over again. I push it down, away, but not too hard. I’d let that traitor come between us. He’d almost wrecked our relationship.
But now…now I can’t even remember why he would’ve said something like that, what he’d meant, or why I would’ve believed it was even true. Kelly had always treated me well. A bit overprotective at times, but he never—never—stopped caring about me or placing me above himself. Just like he never placed himself above Kyle.
I was a fool for listening to Micah. He’d suggested I see other guys. Ashley set me up with a few. They were never anything serious. A blurry few weeks marked by bad dinners and awkward walks in the moonlight. Christ. Ending with even more awkward kisses or attempts at kisses. The kinds of guys who felt entitled to me, who gave me the sense that I was lucky to have them.
I went back to Kelly. He was there all along. He never left.
But then Jake came along, and he was different. I’d sort of liked the attention that day. In my own nervousness I’d teased him back, accusing him of hitting on me. I’d informed him that I already had a boyfriend, not because I was trying to warn him off, but because I knew—I had hoped—it would make him jealous.
He was right in calling me a jacker. I’d jacked him around. I’d jacked Kelly around.
“Who the hell are you?” I ask again, but this time he doesn’t answer.
Who the hell are you? the voice inside of me demands.
I’m a Jacker.
Chapter 3
“What are you doing?”
I look up, blinking my thoughts away from me. It’s like opening the floodgates: reality comes rushing back into my consciousness, overwhelms me. How much time has passed? A few minutes? An hour? I see the worry on his face and su
ddenly I want to apologize to him. He doesn’t deserve my criticism. I don’t deserve him. I see the exhaustion and the pain there and I notice how it’s changed him, and suddenly time becomes this meaningless construct. There is only now. There is only us. I want so badly to go to him.
“What are you doing?” he asks again. His eyes drop down to my hand resting on Jake’s face and a darkness crosses his.
I jerk my hand back.
What were you doing?
“I was just checking Jake’s fever,” I mumble.
We stare at each other for a moment. I want to read his thoughts. I want him to know mine. But there’s a silence between us that extends beyond our ears. It fills our hearts.
Somewhere in the ceiling the air conditioner hums away, blasting cool air into the room, keeping the computer and Jake from overheating. It strikes me that they’re both just bundles of nerves and connections. Their brains wired to control complex systems. Both of them have become breeding grounds for evil. Is there a cure for Jake? Is there one for Long Island and the Undead?
“Where’s Reggie?” Kelly says. “He’s not back yet?”
I notice his hands are empty. “Did you get the tablet?”
“I need Micah’s password. I don’t want to disconnect while there’s programs running.”
“You know Micah’s password. Everyone does.”
“He must’ve changed it, then. Maybe Reggie knows it.”
“I’ll go find him,” I say. “I have to go to the bathroom anyway. The one down here reeks.”
Kelly sighs. His spine seems to curl inward, collapsing upon itself, and he nods and says fine. It’s better this way anyway. He knows he and Reggie don’t always agree, and the tension between them now is thicker than it has ever been.
I feel like I’m always in the middle.
“When you find him,” he says, exhaling noisily, “can you just remind him that I want Ashley back as much as he does?”
In other words, don’t mention what he said earlier about leaving her behind.
I nod, but as I wait for the elevator and ride it up, I think about that. Had he ever stopped hoping for Kyle? Was there ever a point when he said, “Let’s cut our losses?” I find it impossible to fathom. So why now? What’s different?
I reflect on how tightly knit we always were—not just him and me, but all the others, including Micah—despite the tensions that always conspired to tear us all apart. I think about how loose and comfortable we were with each other, even as forces conspired to crush us together.
All of that is gone now: gravity and electricity, magnetism. We’re all floating free, drifting.
The elevator dings and rises and I rise and think about all the dings our friendships have suffered in the past couple weeks, and I become all the more resolved to bring us home again, to bring us back to what we had before, the friendship and the bonds. I know it’s hopeless. Micah is gone. Even Jake—no matter how tenuous his association with us was—is also gone. He’ll leave a hole. And now, Ashley.
See, even you believe it.
But Kelly isn’t gone. And I’m not. And neither is Reggie…
Maybe Kelly was right. Maybe he just sees a little more clearly than I do.
The elevator dings one last time and bumps to a stop and the doors swish open. I brace myself, but there is nothing waiting for me outside, just the old pools of blood, caked and sticky, black, and the coppery smell of gore. The bodies are hidden away with all the rest.
The doors begin to close before I move. I reach out and stab the OPEN DOOR button, but they keep closing, so instead I stick my arm between them. They bump me gently, then reverse. I step out.
“Reggie?”
Nothing.
A quick inspection tells me he’s no longer in the building. I half expect him to be gone, to have gone after Ashley despite Kelly’s warning not to, despite Kelly’s promise we’d go instead. But then I see him outside sitting on his haunches, his back against the building and his head buried in his arms. I see his shoulders hitch, and at first I think it’s a trick of the lighting. But then I hear his sobs.
I stop. I don’t know whether to approach or not. He wouldn’t want me to see him crying.
But he must sense me because he raises his head and looks over. His arms are up around his ears and he’s holding his Link in his hand. His eyes are dry, but his face is pale.
“You okay?”
He exhales and leans his head back against the stone wall and looks up at the sky. It’s considerably brighter now. It’s stopped raining and the sky is still gray, but the sun is stronger coming through the thinning clouds and the grass is an impossibly intense shade of green, so intense that it looks almost fake. I want to sink down into it. I want to lie down and be swallowed up by all that lushness.
“What are you doing?” I ask. I give the Link in his hands another meaningful look, then swivel my eyes back to his face. There’s a flicker of guilt. “Did you try to ping Ash?”
He swallows, looks away.
“Reg?”
He nods slightly.
“What?” I shriek. “How could you!” Panic fills my chest. I can’t believe he’d do something as stupid as that. He has to know that we can’t let Ben know we’re still alive. We’ll lose our advantage. “Damn it, Reg. Kelly was right! You—”
“It didn’t go through,” he whispers. “I tried, but…”
“But what?” I ask, afraid to hear his response. “What happened?”
He shakes his head. “My Link froze. When I hit SEND. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess somebody up there is looking out for us after all. God protects fools and children, right?”
“You didn’t think about what would happen if that psycho answered? He thinks we’re dead.”
I reach over and rip the Link from his fingers. I don’t want him to see how much my own hand is shaking. He should’ve known better than to try and ping her like that. Kelly knew. He warned Reggie. He warned me. And yet he let Reg come up here anyway. Alone. With his Link.
“You were supposed to ping Micah’s Link.”
“Tried to. Same problem: froze when I tried to connect to the Stream.”
I exhale a shaky breath. “Did you try rebooting?”
He nods.
“Well, it’s not stuck now. And it looks like there’s nothing in your OUTGOING box, so I think we’re safe. The ping to Ash never got sent.”
I hand it back. I can feel the groove left by the bullet, and it amazes me that it’s still working. These things really are almost indestructible.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go back down. Kelly’s waiting.”
He looks up and what I see in his eyes I don’t like. I can see he’s lost hope. I don’t know if he’s reached the same conclusion Kelly had, if he’s realized the same thing about Ben.
“We’ll save her,” I tell him.
The muscles in his cheeks ripple as he stares at me. Finally nods and he gets to his feet.
Chapter 4
“How’s your head?”
He looks over and gives me a tentative smile. “Good,” he says. “Better, anyway. Still feel like I’m a little hung-over.”
“More like withdrawals,” I say, smirking, trying to make light conversation.
His eyes lose focus for a moment. He licks his lips and says, “Great, now you’ve got me craving an RB.”
“I meant you’re having withdrawals from Ash, not Red Bull.”
The smile slips from his eyes. “Oh. Yeah.” He sighs. “You know it’s funny. We never really talked about us being together before. But being here…” He pauses. “Everything has changed.”
I nod, hiding behind him so he won’t see my tears. Everything has changed.
He reaches over and pushes the elevator button. It dings, but the doors don’t open.
“Did you take the stairs?”
“Elevator,” I manage to croak out.
“Huh. Strange. Kelly must’ve called it back do
wn then,” he says, distractedly. “Wonder why he did that.”
Then he turns around and sees me. I try to hide my face, but I’m not fast enough, and he immediately comes over and wraps his big gorilla arms around me and says, softly, “It’s all right. Everything’ll be all right.”
I laugh-cry and push him away, sniffling. “I should be the one comforting you. Your girlfriend is the one who’s missing.”
He stiffens, then smiles, trying to cheer me up. “Nobody ever called her that before.”
The elevator dings, drawing our attention away from our awkwardness. I’d never imagined he and I would ever be this close, but here we are, and I can sense that he’s uncomfortable by it. So am I. I reach over and jab my thumb at the button again, wondering when it was that I became so emotional. I never used to be like this. I don’t like it. I don’t like not being in control.
“Thing’s a piece of crap,” Reggie mutters. He gives the doors a resentful look. After several more dings, he flaps his arms and starts to walk away, still limping. “Let’s take the stairs.”
“Just be patient, Reg. It’ll be here soon. You’re leg won’t—”
“Never mind my leg,” he says. “Damn elevator’s taking too damn long. We could’ve been down there already.” He pushes through the doorway to the stairwell and starts going down, half hopping, half sliding, leaning his weight on the banister.
“We all want her back, Reggie,” I say, when I catch up to him.
“I know. Right now, though, it’s Kelly I’m worried about.”
This surprises me.
“I mean,” he goes on, “why would he call the elevator when he knows you’re up here?”
I frown. A bubble of fear rises up inside of me. “Maybe he’s getting Jake ready to go.” I look back the way we came. “We should’ve taken the elevator, Reg. It was almost there.”
But he ignores me. He just keeps going. He won’t be stopped. He’s actually moving pretty fast for someone who nearly got their leg shot off.
“I do feel bad about Jake,” he pants, when we reach the halfway point. “Honestly.” He pauses to look at the blood splatter on the wall from the implant Micah tried to remove from the CU. “But you… I mean, if anyone should want him to, you know, die, it would be you. I’m not saying you do,” he hastily adds. “But nobody would blame you if you did, especially after the way he treated you back there the other night. He was a total jerk. I just can’t figure out why he’d act like that.”
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 89
