Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators)

by Campbell, Nenia

  It takes a moment to get the words — any words — out. “Yes, — and more. I think — I think he hacked the game.”

  Ariel glances from Tash to Vol and back, frowning. “Wait. Who hacked into the game? And why?”

  “Some asshole is stalking her.” Tash pats Vol's shoulder and Ariel's eyes track the movement.

  “What's his name?” she says. “I can check the registry. See if he logged in.”

  “I don't know his name,” Vol says. “He wouldn't tell me.”

  Ariel rubs at her temples. “Then I'm not sure what we can do.”

  “Don't feel bad.” Tash turns to Ariel. “Maybe he managed a manual override.”

  “I don't see how. That room is encrypted with a pass code. Only the MoGs know it.”

  “Could he have gotten the code from someone? Or sneaked in?”

  “I doubt it.” Ariel sighs. “But I'll add a tracing algorithm to the archive data files just in case. If someone adds code, it'll log the user ID and the time of the change. But it'll have to wait until next time. Kira, Catan, Suryan, a couple of the Weavers and Spinners, and I, all made changes at various times throughout the day to repair various bugs and glitches.”

  “Thanks.” Vol scratches at the back of her neck. She realizes she is still wearing the ice-blue dress and the silver mask and suddenly has the pressing urge to take a shower. She thinks she might have a pretty good idea who they are from now. “I think I'm going to call it a night.”

  “Goodnight,” Ariel says.

  “Are you sure?” Tash looks disappointed. “Ariel and I were going to go to the Spider after her shift.”

  “The Spider?”

  “It's a bar.” Ariel's eyes dare Vol to comment. Tower residents aren't supposed to drink.

  “At midnight, all the drinks are half-off.” Tash grins at the prospect. “Want to come with us?”

  One glance at Ariel's face says accepting is out of the question.

  (She thinks you're just golden — and you're going to break her heart.)

  Vol smiles tightly. “No. Thanks, but I don't think that's going to help.”

  “Too bad,” Ariel says cheerfully. “Maybe next time — if you're feeling better, that is.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Tash whispers, too quietly for Ariel to hear. “Are you all right?”

  Light flashes before her eyes, forming complex designs of swirls and dots that stand out in relief against the background of agony. Vol stumbles back from the black-haired girl and digs the heel of her hand into her eyes, wishing it would flip that magic switch inside her head that shuts off the pain.

  “I have to go.”

  She thinks Tash might have called after her.

  Then again, it might just be an echo.

  Vol runs to the elevators and collapses against the interior wall. The metal feels cold against her feverish bare skin, and she cradles her head in her hands as she sinks down to the floor. The mask slips from her face and splits neatly in half with a quiet tink. Vol doesn't notice.

  Her brain feels like rotten fruit, cracked and ready to burst. And all the ugliness inside that has been locked away for gods know how many years — all the festering unpleasantness that she can't and won't remember — all of that is growing stronger and more putrescence, and oozing out blackened memories like pus from a half-healed wound.

  A wound that will never heal if she doesn't let herself remember.

  A wound that might kill her if she does.

  I'm damned either way. She can feel her thoughts receding like the tide. I'm already infected.

  And there's no cure.

  The elevator slides open. Vol staggers to her feet. Somehow, she manages to get her shaking hand to slide the card through the lock of her room. She steps inside, tearing off the ice-blue dress without a thought for the delicate fabric. She pulls on a nightshirt, threadbare and worn, and huddles under her quilt. Even if there is a cure, she thinks, sometimes the treatment can be worse than the disease.

  And then, slowly, she sinks into the quicksand of dreams.

  The stone floors are slick with rivulets of bloods and the rancid stench of death.

  Over the sounds of wild cheers, she hears a few people screaming and retching and crying. Some are doing all three. Their fear is almost as nauseating as the smells rising up from the coliseum floor, and she finds herself stumbling, as though her feet are stone blocks. Clunky, unwieldy, she finds herself knee-deep in muck and ends up emptying her own stomach.

  A short stocky man dressed in purple robes embossed with gold claps once, twice, three times. His paunch makes him stand out from the scrawny commoners and sinewy guardsmen. She doesn't know who he is, but she knows who he is supposed to be.

  Only the Regent is allowed to wear purple.

  His eyes are an extension of the smoke curling around the cheap lights of the bar. They slide over her like warm honey and a faint smile curves his lips in response to something she has just said. It must have been about herself, because he says, dryly, “You don't look like a nice girl to me.”

  And her heart aches because it's true, because, of course, she would love to be nothing more than a nice girl — a girl to take home, a girl to come home to — but that option was closed to her long ago. Her contacts feel like thorns in her eyes. She blinks and smiles back. He thinks she is being coquettish; he has no way of knowing she's holding back tears.

  “I could be persuaded to be,” she says.

  “Oh?” he replies.

  All she can do now is pretend.

  The last few hours have passed in a blur to which she has tried to make herself blind. A few details have wormed their way through, like maggots gnawing at a corpse. Cuts spilling out like streamers. Offal and pieces of flesh, some recognizable and others mere bloody pulp. Each shrill cry of pain and terror seem to mirror her own until the walls between them grow so fine and thin that she feels she is tearing at herself.

  The Regent speaks to the man beside him and she catches the words, “only an amusing parlor trick,” and she knows immediately that he is referring to her. She stares at her hands, at the blood worked so deeply under the nails that no matter how many times she rinses them in scalding water it never seems to come off.

  For the first time, it occurs to her that one can hate one's existence without wanting to die.

  One can hate the person that one has become.

  His mouth crashes down on hers, and he tastes of sage and smoke and alcohol. She feels his pulse racing beneath her fingertips when she slides her hands around his neck. She returns his kiss, sighing into his mouth as his hands slide down her back. In this moment, she has never known anyone more alive.

  “Who are you?” he breathes, his voice hot and heavy with desire.

  “No one in particular.”

  “Well, Miss Particular, anything else I should know?”

  And she shudders when his fingers slip beneath the hem of her shirt. She slides off his lap, primly smoothing out her clothes. As if she isn't still on fire from her touch. As if she doesn't want him just as badly as he wants her.

  “I live in the Tower,” she says. “On the fourth floor.”

  And as she walks away, she feels his eyes on her, infusing her with a warm, red glow that settles low in her belly and simmers quietly. She quickens her step, giddy with adrenaline and anticipation. She already knows he will follow her. He was fumbling to pay the bartender even as she turned away.

  “Why do you make yourself so helpless?”

  The voice, and the sharpness of it, give her pause.

  She stops, tilts her head. The question has startled her. “Maybe,” she says lightly, “It's a trick.”

  The creatures approaches her. It is holding a needle filled with a honey-colored fluid. She knows what that fluid does. It is the drug that will turn her into a monster. She struggles — but nanobots pin down her arms. They move as she moves, fluid, but as tight and confining as steel.

  The visor catches the bright-burning light as
the creature tilts its head to regard her. Her skin is glossy with a sheen of sweat. She begs — she pleads — she threatens — all the while knowing it will be of no use. This has happened before. She knows it. Her body knows it.

  But she cannot remember.

  And then all coherent thought dissolves as her mind is drowned out by a new voice. A voice that hints at impossible cruelty, at killing for the sheer pleasure of it, a voice that fills with glee even as it speaks of causing pain. She shrieks in horror and all around her the shadows seem to laugh.

  “A trick so good you can fool yourself into believing it?”

  She shrugs. Why not? Those are the only kinds she knows.

  Vol shoots up in bed, covered in sweat and tears and the crust of last night's makeup.

  Her eyes roll around wildly, and she regards the room like an animal that has found itself trapped. The four walls puzzle her. For a moment, she expected — no, too late, the thought is already fading even as she reaches out for it. She lets the thought go. Whatever it was about, it is the type of thought that will reach back — with claws.

  She freezes. Someone is outside her door, milling about. An early riser, getting a drink from the cafe below perhaps. She buries her face in the sheets and sobs, though she can't remember why.

  “What's happening to me?” she whispers to the quilt. “I'm losing my mind.”

  Though that implies that I had one to begin with.

  The quilt says nothing back. It is, after all, a quilt. But her clock chooses that moment to announce itself with a loud and piercing scream, startling her so badly that she tumbles right out of bed. It takes her a moment to remember what that sound represents. It seems part of a different world.

  It is. Shit. She is late for her game.

  “No, no, no. Why? Why today?”

  Her usual runs are bad enough. Jillain adheres firmly to that old adage “the customer is always right.” No excuse is tolerated for leaving a Mark waiting. Not even death. If one of the Players should happen to be inconsiderate enough to die, Jillain would probably ask why their ghost wasn't on time.

  Today, though, is even worse. Games are always recorded on weekdays so Marks who are too stupid or lazy to participate in the VR services can participate in the fun vicariously. Vol hates the idea of people, especially men, watching her get her ass handed to her on a holladrama. But since they provide the bulk of the revenue that pays her salary, her opinions are never solicited.

  Oh, gods. What if she has another run-in with that jerk? A hot flush creeps down her face and throat as she imagines thousands of viewers watching her, and him —

  No.

  Vol splashes her face with water. No, she's made that mistake once. It isn't going to happen again.

  After washing under her arms she shuts off the tap and, with her damp hands, rakes her hair back into a tight, unforgiving braid that makes her cheekbones jut out like knives. Black leggings and a green tunic complete the ensemble. She slips in her contacts and applies enough gloss to her lips to keep them from looking like dry parchment — more for the sake of her own comfort than from any sense of aesthetic appeal. Vol regards herself in the mirror unsmilingly. A green-eyed creature stares back, all sinew and resentment, like a half-starved alley-cat. She feels like she's gearing up for battle. And in a way, she supposes she is.

  Nobody is going to mess with her today.

  Especially not him.

  6.

  “Everyone wishes that they could reinvent themselves at least once. In Karagh, all that — and more— is possible.” Drove eyes his rapt audience. Though a Player through and through, he doubles as a Walker and gives the Marks tours of the Tower because he is both good-looking and has a penchant for theatrics. Several of the women are eying him with undisguised interest, and a few are even adjusting their clothing so that their features are displayed to their best advantage.

  Breast advantage, Vol thinks, and giggles.

  The sound draws Drove's attention. He glances her way and then winks, displaying the camaraderie those permanent residents of the Tower feel when they find themselves facing the Marks. Vol smiles in sympathy and several women, misinterpreting the exchange, glare at her.

  Drove clears his throat. “Originally invented in Bastan, VR technology changed hands during their civil revolution when they needed to sell in order to save their district from descending into bankruptcy. As you can see, the technology has blossomed in the capable hands of the Karaghassians.

  He gestures broadly, encompassing the entire city.

  So many games exist now that you can't possibly fathom them all. Games so real, players lose the ability to distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction. Games so deadly the casinos have backed them, inviting their patrons to bet on who will live and who will die. Games so dangerous, that they inflict real wounds.”

  The audience shuffles nervously, and the people mutter amongst themselves.

  Drove bares his teeth in a nasty grin that has at least some of the women reconsidering their interest in him. “A joke, just a joke. You won't be playing any of those. Not here, at least.” And his face is friendly again, and Vol can almost hear the collective sigh of relief. “Now if you'll come this way—” His eyes flick towards Vol again.

  She takes the hint. Time to leave.

  The door to her cubicle hisses open with a rasp of displaced air. She sinks into the chair, stiffening when she feels the cables shift to ensnare her limbs. This process has always given her the creeps, though it keeps the Players from receiving injury when the electric stimulation causes their limbs to spasm.

  She affixes the electrodes to her skin. As she is finishing up, the door opens and a tall, muscular man walks through and begins to examine the equipment. One of the new MoGs, she supposes. She tries to remember the names Ariel recited but can't, because she didn't care. She still doesn't, but it's rude not to try.

  Above, the lights change from green to yellow. The game is about to begin. Vol closes her eyes. Hopefully it's not another of the hunter and hunted variety.

  The God Mod bustles around. Try as she might, she can only get a glimpse of black, shiny material. She hears his heavy footfalls cross the room as he checks to see that she has hooked herself in correctly. Which she has. Obviously. This is more protocol than anything else, a final line of defense. It has been a long time since Vol has fumbled the VR sensors.

  So when she feels his warm hands in her hair, she comes close to jumping out of her skin. Only the cables hold her back, keeping her in her chair, and Vol grits her teeth. Though he makes no sound, the way his breath stirs against her skin suggests he is laughing at her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You fastened your temporal electrodes incorrectly. I'm adjusting them.”

  “They seemed perfectly fine to me.”

  “Aren't you lucky I'm here, then.”

  The lights blink several times in rapid succession and then begin a slow pulsing sequence that denotes the start of the thirty-second countdown. The man's voice, which started as a whisper, rises with his amusement, and her eyes shoot open in recognition at the familiar burr of accent.

  “Son of a bitch,” she hisses. “Don't you dare — ”

  With a devastating smile, he pulls the switch that sends her plunging into darkness.

  Her body jerks. For a moment, she is completely rigid, the pupils of her eyes wide and unseeing. Then, with a sharp inhalation of air, she goes limp, and the hand she had clenched around his wrist falls to her side.

  “I apologize for stabbing you.” He frees her braid from where it is trapped behind her back so that it flows neatly over one shoulder. Lightly, he drags the knuckles of his hands against her cheek. “It was rash. Foolish, even. But then, so are you, you infuriating girl.”

  She doesn't answer, but he can imagine what she would say if she could.

  His eyes drop, regarding for a moment the body he knows as well as his own, and sighs. He takes the hand she had poised to hit
him, motionless now, and squeezes it gently. “Since you are so intent on not engaging me in our world, I'm going to pursue you in yours.”

  Just as she pursued him so long ago, tearing out his heart and leaving it on the line to dry.

  He brushes a light kiss over her unmoving lips, and while it is gentle and sweet, his jaw is taut, and his hand leaves her abruptly as if he no longer trusts himself enough to touch her. Pulling back a little, he pushes a few wisps of her hair out of the way and whispers in her ear, “Ready or not, here I come.”

  A string of curses spills from Vol's lips, unheeded. How did he get in? How? And why is he a God Mod? She hopes the censors bleep out her curses before they are transmitted to the general public and end up getting her fired.

  Sand crunches beneath her knees. Vol rises slowly, taking in the yellow sky and wind-whipped horizon. The landscape is utterly unfamiliar, flat and dusty with skeletal trees that twine closely together as if seeking comfort. Desert plants pepper the golden sand, all of them dead — cholla, creosote, cactus, sagebrush. Their desiccated corpses are bereft of water, their leaves a scorched white.

  Everything here, even the ground, is dead. She sees no soil. Only rock.

  Loose trousers hang from her hips and she is wearing a tunic shirt that doesn't fit right (as if I stole it). A kerchief is tied around her mouth, as much to disguise her identity, she guesses, as it is to keep out the dust and sun. She has a holstered pistol hanging from her belt and a knife rests in her boot.

  I better not be a bandit again, she thinks angrily. I'm nobody's little bandit.

  The ground rumbles beneath her feet, sending her back to her knees. Her fingers sink into the sand as she grasps for purchase. Vol looks up. A spurt of smoke is rising off in the distance treating a column of ash that swirls as prominently as a twister. This game can't possibly be Kira's and Jade's. Neither of them is fond of natural disasters or westerns.

  Vol shoves herself upright and accesses the archives to figure out what the hell is going on.