“Good morning, Challenger Red,” she said formally.
“Where have you been?” I asked, trying to sound as irked as I felt.
Her answer was a quick glance to the dados. I got it. She was saying, “Don’t talk in front of the robots.”
“We must go right to the trustee chambers,” she said. “Veego and LaBerge are already there.”
“Sure,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to keep Pete and Re-Peat waiting.”
Nevva started for the front door. I followed. The dados didn’t. I figured their job was done once they handed me off to Nevva.
“Bye, kids,” I said cheerily to the robots. “Go get yourselves an ice cream, on me.”
The dados didn’t react. We entered the building through a grand revolving door. Inside was a massive lobby that soared three stories high. On the wall directly in front of us was another huge silver sign that said: BLOK.
“What’s with the big signs?” I asked. “Are they afraid they’ll forget who they are or something?”
“The trustees like to maintain an impressive presence,” Nevva answered without breaking stride.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”
Nevva took a quick glance around. I wasn’t sure why; there wasn’t another person to be seen. The place was huge and empty. Our footsteps echoed back at us.
“Everyone is observed. Always,” Nevva said under her breath. She didn’t look at me as she spoke, in order to give the illusion we weren’t talking. “The meeting here will answer some of your questions. Did you bring the item I gave you?”
“Item?” I didn’t understand what she was talking about at first. She gave me a quick, stern look . . . and I remembered. “Oh yeah, right. The item. Yeah, I’ve got it.” She was talking about the blocking diode.
“Good,” she said. “You’ll need it.”
“Want to tell me why?” I asked.
“No,” she answered flatly. “I told you, we’re being watched.”
Okay, I figured it would be best to play it her way. We were on her turf. She was a Traveler. I had to believe she knew what she was doing. She led me to an elevator that was already open, waiting for us. Usually in big buildings like that there’s a whole line of elevators. Not there. There was only one. We got in and the door closed instantly. I saw that there were no buttons to push. The elevator rose on its own.
“How does it know where we want to go?” I asked.
“This elevator only goes to the chambers,” Nevva answered.
“So anybody could come in here and head on up?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “As I have told you now three times, we are being watched.”
Oh. Right.
“What’s your job here?” I asked. “You can answer that, can’t you?”
“I am the special assistant to the trustees of the company,” she answered professionally. “I schedule their appointments, handle their correspondence, and generally make sure that their every need is met while they are working.”
“Company,” I said, my mind spinning. “Working? Blok is a business? I thought it was, like, the government or something.”
Nevva chuckled. “Blok is the largest company on Quillan. It is larger than any government on the territory, and far more powerful.”
“Wow,” I said. “A company that’s more powerful than a government. That’s . . . scary. What do they do? I mean, what’s their business?”
“Blok has many enterprises,” she answered. “But above all else, it is a store.”
The elevator doors opened and Nevva stepped out. I didn’t. Had I heard right? Blok was a store? A store? Like, where you bought stuff? I remembered back to the plates I’d found in that warehouse. They were all marked with the Blok logo. The products on the shelves of the stores had the Blok logo as well. I couldn’t get my mind around the concept.
“Please follow me, Challenger Red,” Nevva said firmly.
I drifted out of the elevator, trying to make sense of what Nevva had revealed. We were in a bare room that had no furniture and a single door on the far wall across from the elevator. On either side of the door were big Blok logos, no surprise. Nevva hurried over to the door and turned to me.
“Don’t ask questions,” she said. “Answer only if you are asked directly. This shouldn’t take long. Do you understand?”
I said, “Understand? You’re kidding, right? I don’t understand anything.”
Nevva leaned in to me and said softly, “You will.”
With a quick wink she opened the door and stood aside for me to enter and meet my future . . . and the future of Quillan.
JOURNAL #25
(CONTINUED)
QUILLAN
It looked like a courtroom. The first thing I saw was a group of people sitting on the far side behind a high, long bench-like desk that faced into the room. The bench was black. Very imposing. I had to believe these were the trustees. There were ten of them. Five men and five women. They were adults, though I couldn’t guess how old they were. They sat there wearing the same kind of dark suits that Nevva wore, looking every bit like supreme court judges. They faced an audience that sat in rows. It looked like there were about fifty people in all. They were mostly dressed in the same gray, drab clothing that I saw on the people out in the city.
There was a center aisle that cut through the audience, and a space of about twenty feet between the trustees and the onlookers. In the middle of that space was a small platform with a podium on it. Right now a man stood on this platform, facing the trustees, giving a speech. Nobody else spoke. For as many people as were in the room, it was amazingly quiet. Nobody fidgeted or coughed. I wasn’t even sure if anybody was breathing, that’s how still it was. They were all focused on the guy giving the speech.
Before I tuned in to what the guy was saying, I caught some movement off to my right. Looking, I saw LaBerge waving for me to join him. He was in the audience with Veego. He was the only guy dressed in something colorful. It was a suit that was cut like everybody else’s, only it was lime green. Clown.
I looked to Nevva. She nodded for me to go, so I left her and made my way toward Veego and LaBerge. My footsteps sounded like thunder in that quiet room. I got a lot of dirty looks. Veego was sitting next to LaBerge and didn’t look at me as I sat down next to her. LaBerge gave me a big smile and a thumbs-up. I scowled at him. He shrugged.
I turned my attention to the guy on the platform. He looked nervous as he spoke to the trustees. He kept shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“I need to point out how difficult it has been for the last three quads,” he said. “The weather has been unusually warm, so the demand for thermal outerwear has dropped considerably. Combine that with the fact that the last shipment of product we received was far more than we requested—our profit margin has suffered. Now if—”
One of the trustees, a man, interrupted him and said gruffly, “And why exactly did you receive more goods than you knew you could sell?”
The guy on the platform was sweating. I could tell that from as far back as I was sitting. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “Well,” he began nervously. “I was told that the manufacturing facility hadn’t met its quota and they were, uh, requested to increase their production.”
Several of the trustees shared glances. One of the women said, “And this is what you are blaming your failure on? The fact that a manufacturer was able to step up and fulfill their quota? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Uh, no, um,” the guy stammered. “I’m very proud of how they were able to meet their requirements. It’s just that the need for the product wasn’t calculated accurately—”
The first trustee guy said, “You understand that the trustees set the quotas for manufacturing?”
The guy stiffened. It was like a full-body wince. “I do,” he said softly.
“Excuse me?” the trustee said, more forcefully. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, I do,” t
he guy answered. “But—”
“So you’re saying that the trustees aren’t capable of making a sound decision as to what is best for Blok?”
Oh man, the guy was caught in the middle. It looked like he was supposed to sell a certain amount of jackets or something, but couldn’t do it because the trustees told the manufacturer to make too many. It wasn’t his fault; it was the fault of the people who told the manufacturer to make too many. The trustees. But they were double-talking the blame back onto him.
“No, I would never question the wisdom of the trustees,” the guy said. He was really sweating now. “Of course you know exactly what is best for Blok. All I’m saying is that even in your absolute, unquestionable wisdom, there was no way for anyone to predict the weather and—”
A third member of the trustees said, “The terms of your employment are simple. You are expected to increase sales by 20 percent each quad. You have failed. You are relieved and reassigned to the lower sector.”
“No!” the guy shouted in horror. “That isn’t fair! It was out of my control!”
The trustees didn’t look at him. They were too busy shuffling papers on their big desk. One of them said casually, “Security, please.”
The guy lost it. “Listen to me! I have successfully run Blok’s outerwear business for thirty quads!” he cried. “I can make up the difference, I know I can!” Two security dados marched up to the platform, grabbed the guy, and dragged him away. It was like he had just been convicted of some horrible crime, and all because he didn’t sell enough jackets.
“I worked too hard,” the guy shouted as the dados pulled him across the room toward a side door. He now sounded angry. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. More so! I will not go back to the lower sector! I refuse!”
The dados were about to pull the guy out of the room when the first trustee raised his hand and said, “Stop!”
They stopped. Nobody in the room said a word.
“Are you refusing reassignment to the lower sector?” the trustee asked.
The guy’s eyes darted back and forth in panic. “No, I didn’t mean that,” he said, desperately backpedaling. “I’ll do whatever I have to. My family needs me. I’ll gladly go wherever—”
“Send him to the tarz,” the trustee said flatly.
“No!” the guy screamed. “This isn’t fair! I have a family!”
For the first time I heard sound coming from the audience. Several people exchanged surprised looks. Some even gasped softly.
I whispered to Veego, “Tarz?”
Veego put a finger to her lips to shush me. Whatever the tarz was, it wasn’t good. Looking at Veego gave me another surprise. The woman was normally ice, but at that moment she looked nervous. It wasn’t obvious, but I saw it in her eyes. Having that poor guy sent to the tarz, whatever it was, frightened her. Note to self: Avoid the Tarz.
The guy was now in hysterical tears. The trustees didn’t care. Nor did the dados. They dragged him out a side door that slammed shut after them. I could hear the guy whimpering for a few seconds until they got him farther away. In moments all was silent again. My mouth was dry. What had just happened? I stole looks at people and saw the same fear in their eyes that I saw in Veego’s. How twisted was this? Nevva Winter said that Blok was a store. What kind of store sentenced their people to some horrible fate if they didn’t meet a quota? For that matter, what kind of store was run by a group of cold-looking judges who terrified everyone, right down to the people on the street?
As I sat there, trying to make sense of what I had seen, Nevva entered from a door behind the trustees and silently placed papers in front of each. She looked very efficient as she quickly went about her business. She said she was a special assistant . . . whatever that meant. It seemed kind of dull to me. The other Travelers all led interesting lives, beyond the fact that they were Travelers, I mean. Loor was a warrior, Alder a knight. Gunny was the bell captain at a swanky hotel; Spader was an aquaneer; Aja Killian controlled an incredible virtual reality generator. Patrick from Third Earth was a teacher and a librarian at the most incredible library ever. Kasha had battled dinosaurs in the jungle as she foraged for food to feed her city. Each and every Traveler seemed to have an interesting, unique life, except for Nevva.
And I guess me. I was just a regular kid. I went to school; I played sports. End of story. I was thinking that I was the loser of the bunch, until I met Nevva. She was like a slave to these scary people. I could see by the way the trustees ordered her around, barely looking at her, that they had no respect for her. She ran around filling up their glasses with water and taking notes and basically doing simple tasks that these guys couldn’t do for themselves. Or wouldn’t do. It looked like a thankless job. But then again, she was close to a group that held a lot of power here on Quillan. I couldn’t help but think that as bad as the job was, she was in the right place for when Saint Dane made his move.
While Nevva scurried around, attending to the trustees, nobody in the audience said a word. I didn’t blame them. If the trustees had the power to banish them to some horrible fate on a whim, their guts must have been twisted with fear. Looking to Veego and LaBerge, I saw that they weren’t any different. I already told you how Veego looked scared. Well, if she looked scared, LaBerge looked absolutely nauseous. For a change he wasn’t smiling. I saw his lips tremble as if he were going to cry.
“Miss Winter!” one of the trustees barked. “We’re behind schedule.”
“Forgive me,” Nevva said, bowing her head. “It is entirely my fault. We are ready for the next presentation.”
Wow, Nevva treated them like royalty. Obnoxious royalty.
“Then why are we still waiting?” a woman trustee barked.
Nevva cleared her throat and announced to the group, “We will now hear the report from the gaming group.”
A murmur went through the crowd. I wasn’t sure if it was because they were excited about hearing from the gaming group, or just relieved that they weren’t the next victims. Veego cleared her throat and stood. LaBerge stood too, but Veego shot him a look and he quickly sat back down. If she was going to make a report to these creeps, she didn’t want LaBerge saying something stupid that would get them shipped off to the tarz. Smart move. Veego brushed off the front of her jacket and walked to the podium. She stood straight, like a soldier, but kept her head bowed. It felt like she didn’t want to look cocky in front of the trustees. I’m sure that was tough for her because, well, she was cocky. She took her place at the podium and stood with her hands behind her back, waiting for the go-ahead.
“We’re waiting,” one of the trustees said with an obnoxious growl.
“Thank you,” Veego said promptly. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to be here today and thrilled to present to you a report that I’m sure you will—”
One of the trustees interrupted, “Spare us the theatrics that you are so well known for. What is your response to our request?”
It looked to me like Veego had to stop herself from snapping back at the guy. I didn’t think she was used to being treated like a turd, but she was smart enough not to complain. As much as I detested Veego and her gruesome little operation, I felt sorry for her then. Not a lot, but still. Nobody should be treated like that.
“I understand,” she said in total control of her emotions. “My partner and I are very aware of and respect the trustees mandate to increase profits by 20 percent each quad. A challenge, I must point out, that we have never missed since taking over the gaming operation.”
“Yes, we’re all satisfied with your history,” one of the woman trustees said. “But it is history. With the resources we have provided, we feel as if you should be doing better.”
“Better?” shouted LaBerge, jumping to his feet. “How can we do better than perfect?”
The crowd gasped. LaBerge felt the hot eyes of everyone in the room on him, including those of the trustees. He flinched and smiled. “Forgive me,” he said meekly. “Pay no attention. I’m a f
ool.”
He sat back down and put his head in his hands. “I’m doomed,” he said to himself.
“Please forgive my overzealous partner,” Veego said, doing damage control. “It is that very passion that is necessary for the inspiration to create such interesting and successful games.”
LaBerge looked up, hopeful. Did the trustees buy that?
“Continue,” the woman trustee said.
I could feel LaBerge’s relief. He had dodged a bullet that he fired himself.
“Thank you,” Veego said. She turned and shot a quick glare at LaBerge that said, “Shut up, idiot.” She then continued, “As you know, the success of our games depends on many things: New and provocative contests that will generate excitement for those who wager; a tightly run organization that keeps expenses down; and perhaps most importantly, talented and athletic challengers who will provide us with well-fought games. It truly does not matter who wins, so long as the competitions are close. That is the only way to maximize wagering on both sides, since Blok benefits either way.”
However the games worked, Blok profited no matter who won. And from what I saw, lots of people bet on the games. Blok must have been making a small fortune by putting on these games. Or maybe a huge fortune.
The woman trustee said, “Challenger Yellow did not live up to expectations.”
She was talking about Remudi. The Traveler. I looked to Nevva, who stood behind the trustees. She looked to the ground.
“We blame ourselves,” Veego said. “He was not adequately prepared and should never have been matched with Challenger Green. Perhaps he should have first battled a dado. That was our mistake. You provided us with superior talent, and we failed.”
That’s not what she said a few days before. She was all sorts of ticked that the trustees told her to put Remudi in the games. I guess she was being politically correct . . . or a weenie. Maybe that’s the same thing.
“But I am pleased to announce that we have learned from our mistakes,” Veego declared.
She made a motion to Nevva. Nevva pointed a small black remote control at the ceiling. Instantly two big screens lowered on either side of the room. The lights dimmed. Moments later both screens came to life. One showed a challenger running the gauntlet they called “Hook.” The challenger was me. It was a replay of my battle with the dado as I ran through the piston-thumping death chamber. While the crowd watched one screen, the other screen flashed numbers.
The Quillan Games Page 22
