Gamerunner

by B. R. Collins

He knew immediately, from the way she looked at him, that she didn’t know about Asterion. She’d got an armful of food and a thermocup balanced precariously between the topmost packet and her chin. She said, ‘Rick . . . I just came to see how you were. I heard about the — about your getting punished . . . I can’t believe they did that. You’re only a kid, for gods’ sake. Those cells are — grown men have gone insane, from being down there too long —’ She stopped.

  Rick took a deep breath. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘Good.’ She bit her lip and looked round for somewhere to put the packages of food. Her movements weren’t quite right; she looked like an actor who hadn’t rehearsed the scene enough.

  ‘Perdy —’

  ‘Listen —’ she said, at exactly the same time, and they looked at each other and smiled.

  ‘You go first,’ Rick said. He watched her put the food down on the floor and even though he knew he had to tell her about Asterion he could feel the numbness in his stomach starting to thaw, a little.

  ‘OK,’ she said. She passed the thermocup to him. ‘Green tea with lemon, supposed to be calming, worth a try, I thought, even if it’s nonsense.’

  ‘Is that what you came to say?’ He almost laughed.

  ‘No.’ She waited until he had a firm grip on the cup. ‘OK. I wanted to say . . . I’m sorry about what happened in my workshop. I know you were — you are upset, and you have every right to be. Of course. But I promise, no matter what happens, I’ll do my best to protect you. When — if something happens to Daed, you won’t be alone. I couldn’t give him what he wanted, and I don’t expect you to understand that. But please don’t think I don’t care about you, because I do.’ She sped up at the end and then stopped, like her battery had gone.

  Rick looked down at the cap of the thermocup and swallowed. He said, ‘Perdy . . . the files, in the cupboard . . .’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘They were just ideas, old ideas. I’ve used most of them, anyway. There wasn’t anything irreplaceable. Don’t worry.’ Her mouth twitched. ‘Anyway . . . the thing about paper, Rick, is that you can tape it back together.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. He put the cup to his mouth, but he didn’t drink.

  ‘OK?’ She crouched and came up with a green-grey box, glinting with old-fashioned lettering.

  ‘The files in the cupboard,’ he said again. If he said it often enough, she might understand, without him having to tell her.

  ‘Macaroon?’

  He didn’t know what that meant. It sounded like a place, somewhere a long way away. He thought: I’d like to live there. He said, ‘Perdy, there’s something I have to —’

  ‘Have a macaroon. It’s going to be OK,’ she said. ‘You’re not on your own. Don’t worry.’

  He sucked a mouthful of burning liquid through the thermocup and felt the water well up in his eyes, automatically.

  He said, ‘No, you don’t understand, when I was ripping up the files in your —’

  ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Hello? No, I’m just — yes, all right —’

  For a second he thought she was still talking to him. Then he realised her earpiece was flashing, and she was grimacing at him, apologising.

  She said, ‘No, just for a moment, I’ll be right back —’

  A pause.

  She said, ‘What?’

  Rick filled his mouth with tea, and swallowed. It hurt. He felt the heat run all the way down his oesophagus.

  ‘On whose authority? But I — there’s no one else who is even in the same — no, you listen to me! Who the hell —’

  Silence.

  ‘Is this a joke?’ she said. ‘Because if it is, I think it’s in decidedly bad taste.’

  A murmur from the earpiece, as if it was starting to lose patience.

  ‘I don’t believe you. Why would he — no, this has to be Paz, this is mad, you’re —’

  And then nothing; just silence. The earpiece flickered and the light died. Perdita looked down at the box she was holding and made a strange noise. It was like a laugh; but it wasn’t a laugh.

  Rick was afraid of the silence, but he was more afraid of saying something.

  Perdita didn’t move. She looked like a screenshot: ugly face, with a trace of green and silver light reflected off the box in her hands. She didn’t even blink.

  Rick heard himself say, ‘Perdita? Are you . . . all right?’

  ‘I’ve been sacked,’ she said. It sounded as if she wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘By Daed. Daed has — sacked me. For no reason. I’ve got twelve hours’ notice. I have to leave. I —’ She stopped.

  ‘Twelve hours?’

  ‘Generous.’ It must have been sarcasm, but it didn’t sound like it. ‘It could have been one.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘He’s mad. He needs me.’ She wasn’t really talking to Rick. ‘Even if he’s angry . . . it’s stupid, it’s mad, Daed’s a lot of things, but not stupid . . .’

  Rick looked at her hands squashing the silvery pattern on the box, and tried not to think. She was right. Daed did need her; he needed all the help he could get. Or — he had needed her, before . . .

  ‘He’s lost his mind,’ she said. ‘He’s not dying, he’s self-destructing.’

  I can’t say anything, Rick thought. I can’t tell her now . . .

  ‘I understand,’ she said, ‘I do understand, if he wants to punish me for not giving him Asterion, if he hates me for that . . . I understand . . . but . . .’ She swallowed. ‘Surely he can see — if he sacks me, he’s on his own. There’s no advantage. What does he think he’s going to achieve?’

  She said it as if she really wanted to know. Rick pressed his lips together; and then bit down, to make extra sure.

  This was his fault. If he hadn’t stolen Asterion . . .

  But why sack her? He thought it so loudly he was afraid she’d hear. It didn’t make sense, even if . . .

  She said, ‘He doesn’t trust me any more, I suppose.’

  ‘Perdita . . .’ In the Maze, sometimes, if you said exactly the right thing, you could change a hostile NPC to a friendly one, or open a locked door, or disable an enemy. Change the world. Rick wished he could do that now.

  She seemed to see him, suddenly. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked round, taking in the room. Her gaze went down to the box in her hands. She said, ‘Can I keep these?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The macaroons. They’re worth a bit. I might be able to get a refund from Housekeeping. Worth a try. You don’t mind, do you? I’m sorry, I wanted to —’ She stopped. She put the box on the bed. Then she grimaced, and bent over at the waist, very slowly, like the air going out of something.

  And then she started to cry.

  Rick knew, just from the way she was sobbing, that she wasn’t going to survive, outside. And she knew it. They both knew.

  Daed must have known, too.

  He said, ‘Perdy . . . do you want me to talk to Daed? He might change his mind . . . he’s pleased with me at the moment, I could try —’

  She didn’t even bother to answer. Rick didn’t blame her. Tears ran down her face and into her mouth. There was moisture dripping off her chin. A long plumb-line of spit swung and stretched towards the carpet.

  ‘Perdy,’ he said again. ‘Please don’t cry. Look . . .’

  He knew how she felt, now, when he was in her workshop, when he wouldn’t even answer her. He wished he didn’t. He thought: My fault.

  He said, ‘Look — it’ll be OK, I promise.’ He was lying. He couldn’t promise. But he needed to say something, because it was Perdita, and even if she’d refused to help Daed, she was still Perdita, she’d still brought him breakfast and waited for permission before she came into his room. He said, ‘Listen, I reckon it’s only a misunderstanding. All I have to do is tell Daed that you gave me Asterion, and you don’t mind him using it, and then —’

  ‘I won’t give you Asterion!’ The w
ords were thick with saliva. She shook her head, and flecks of water speckled Rick’s sheets. ‘If he’s trying to blackmail me into giving it to him, then tough, because I’d rather die. He can put me in one of his cells and leave me there and he won’t get it. He knows he won’t get it, he —’ She put her hands over her face, pressing as though the flesh would come away from her skull if she didn’t. ‘Gods, I don’t even know where it is . . .’

  She was still crying, but silently. Her body was shaking as if someone had put an electric current through her spine.

  Rick said, ‘No, I mean . . .’ He was such a coward. She was getting chucked out of the complex, and he was scared of owning up. ‘Perdy . . . he’s already got Asterion. The file was in the cupboard. I found it. And —’

  She looked up. Her hands slipped down to cover her mouth. Her bottom lip bulged in the gaps between the fingers.

  ‘He was dying, Perdy, and I don’t know what Asterion does but it can’t be wrong, can it, not that bad, and now he’s going to be OK, he can keep working on the Maze. If he’s immortal then, it’s just that, I’m sorry but, don’t you —’ But all the sentences were dead ends.

  She went on looking at him.

  ‘Please don’t be angry, I know it was wrong to steal it, but you wouldn’t give it to him, and he needed it, and now if I just say to him that you let me take it, then he’ll let you stay, you can help with the new expansion —’

  ‘Rick,’ she said. It was like a bolt snicking into place.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and almost wished he meant it. ‘Sorry.’

  She’d stopped crying. She straightened up and stared at him. She had a look on her face like she was listening. She said, ‘You stole the file on Asterion and gave it to Daed. Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She blinked. Her eyes were an odd colour; against the red of her eyelids the pupils looked lustrous, like oil. ‘Do you know what Asterion is?’

  ‘No, I —’ He remembered her saying: evil. ‘It’s something to do with . . . Daed said it would stop him dying. That it would make him immortal. Perdy, that’s not wrong, how can that be wrong —?’

  She laughed. He wished she wouldn’t; it was worse than when she was crying. She said, ‘You think it’s some kind of medicine, do you? A cure for cancer? Sure, I may design computer games for a living, but I’m into biochemistry as a hobby . . . And it’s sheer bloody-mindedness that stopped me giving it to Daed of my own free will, is it?’

  He tried to shrug. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t give it to him.’ Evil . . .

  ‘Immortality,’ she said, and the laugh was like something leaking. ‘Oh, Rick, gods help us. You really have no idea what you’ve done.’

  ‘Then tell me.’ But he didn’t want to know. He wanted to go on thinking she was overreacting, or just crazy.

  She opened her mouth. Her face was gleaming wet, as if she’d been out in the rain: it looked painful.

  Rick wished he could look away. He wanted to log out, once and for all.

  She said, ‘Where is he?’

  It took him a second to understand. ‘Who?’

  ‘Daed. Where is he?’

  ‘In his office, probably.’ The answer came automatically, before Rick’s brain caught up with his mouth. Then he thought: But Asterion? She was going to tell me about Asterion . . .

  ‘OK.’ She turned on her heel and walked towards the door.

  ‘Wait —’ Rick stumbled after her, through a grey fog of fear. He didn’t know what he was scared of, but he was shaking. ‘Perdita — tell me, at least tell me —’

  ‘Daed can tell you,’ she said, and then took a deep breath and turned round to face him. ‘Rick. I’m not going to let Daed use Asterion. So it doesn’t matter, does it? There’s no need for me to explain, because it’s entirely irrelevant.’ Her eyes slid away.

  ‘But —’

  ‘Goodbye, Rick.’ She swallowed, and met his eyes again. ‘Good luck.’

  He thought: I’m never going to see her again. ‘Perdita —’

  She hesitated for a moment and then walked towards him, until there were only a few centi-ems between them. She put her hands on his shoulders. They were too heavy; it felt like she was trying to force him to his knees. Then she kissed him lightly on both cheeks. He wanted to put his arms round her but he couldn’t.

  ‘Rick,’ she said, ‘one word of advice. Stop doing stupid things.’

  They looked at each other.

  Then she slapped him, hard, across the face. She was gone before he’d blinked the tears away. There was nothing but the buzz-hiss of the door, closing behind her.

  Chapter 16

  He didn’t know what to do. He stood in the middle of his room like a lemon. His cheek was burning, and his eyes were watering from the pain. Perdita might not have been state-of-the-art designed, but she had a lot of strength in her arm. Rick felt faintly surprised.

  He sat down on his bed. The mattress subsided underneath him and the box of macaroons slid down into the dent. He opened it — he’d never seen a box made of cardboard before, and it took him a while to work out what to do — and looked at the macaroons. They were round, with a diameter the length of his thumb, and all different colours, like they belonged in the false sunlight of the Maze, not here. They didn’t look edible. Maybe they weren’t; maybe they were some kind of drug. Maybe you smoked them, or snorted them. Or injected them. He picked one up — it was turquoise — and considered it. He concentrated on it, trying not to think about Perdita.

  He thought: Why would you eat something turquoise? What are these things, anyway?

  He thought: The People’s Republic of Macaroon . . .

  And then he shut his eyes, and thought: What is she going to do?

  He imagined her in Daed’s office, demanding Asterion back. But she didn’t have a hope; Daed would just laugh. Then he saw her in the glass entrance hall next to the Nucleus, putting her hood on, tightening her out-clothes, taking her time, because she knew that as soon as she stepped out into the rain . . .

  He opened his eyes. His fingers had tightened on the macaroon, squashing the middle. He put it into his mouth, chewed, and shoved another one in before he had time to swallow. His teeth bit down on sweet crumbly dust. He bolted another one, almost choking, and another: violent pink, pale green, yellow. He wondered why they were expensive. When he tried to force another one down he sprayed wet crumbs of rainbow-coloured spit over his sheets. He wasn’t going to think about Perdita. He focused on the taste of sugar, and the odd hint of other things, mint, bergamot, something flowery. Revolting.

  The rain, he thought, in spite of himself. Outside even the rain can kill you. How could Daed —

  Another macaroon. He felt sick. He wanted to feel sick.

  But it’s not my fault that she’s been sacked, he thought. It’s because she refused to give up Asterion — it was her choice, if she’d only agreed —

  He was going to vomit. He threw himself towards the bathroom, smacking his elbow on the door frame, and got to the loo just in time. A saccharine, technicolor soup swirled and sank in the toilet bowl. He felt more tears seeping out of the corners of his eyes. Gods, what a mess, what a mess.

  If I went and talked to Daed, he thought. If I pleaded . . .

  Stop doing stupid things.

  He leant his head against the sweaty mirror, and giggled weakly. But if I stop doing stupid things, what am I meant to do?

  He wished he could see inside Daed’s office, right now. He made his way shakily back into his bedroom and stared out of the window, even though Daed’s office was in the other direction. The grey knot of Undone was spread out below him, smoking slightly. But the rain had stopped; that was something.

  Maybe it was possible to live out there. Well — it was possible, obviously, there were millions of people who lived outside the complex, he knew that. But maybe it would be possible for Perdita; or for him . . .

  He felt a surge of something he didn’t u
nderstand. For a moment he thought he was going to be sick again. But it wasn’t nausea; it was envy.

  Suppose —

  I could —

  Suppose, when she left, I went with —

  He rocked back from the chemiglass, feeling a new flush of cold sweat on his skin. He was afraid: but not just afraid.

  He couldn’t leave Daed. It would be mad. Daed was his father, probably. Daed protected him from everything he needed protecting from. Daed . . .

  If I went with Perdita, he thought, I’d never be able to come back. It’s not like before, when I just wanted to have a look, to know I could leave if I wanted to. If I go now, that’s it.

  For no reason, he thought of Athene. He’d never know what she looked like, in real life.

  And he saw his own face, in the mirror-walls of the cell.

  His trousers were crumpled on the floor beside the bed, and pulled them on, then his socks, then his shoes. Then he went to the cupboard where his hood was kept, in case of emergencies; he didn’t expect it to be there, but it was. Someone must have put it back. Part of him wished they hadn’t. He picked it up, turned it over in his hands. Was this enough to keep the rain off?

  But right now it wasn’t raining.

  His heart was swollen and racing. But it’s OK, Perdita, he thought. I’m not going to do anything stupid.

  Well. Not that stupid.

  He looked around. He could see the shark’s shadow at the bottom of the swimming pool, moving restlessly back and forth. The sickness had changed to something else: a kind of oozing, uncomfortable heat. The blood was fizzing in his temples.

  He thought: If this is the last time I see these rooms . . .

  He looked at the bed — four ems wide, enough for three people — the space, the open door to the bathroom, the wall of chemiglass, the flicker of reflected water-light on the ceiling from the pool. Luxury, even for the complex.

  But there was nothing here he could take away with him.

  So he stared until it was all printed on his retina. He turned to the cameras, one by one, and gave each a deliberate V-sign.

  And then he took his hood and went.

  . . .