Z 2134

by Platt, Sean

  “Out!” one of two Watchers said in a crisp warble coming from the mask. Both Watchers aimed their sticks at Ana, as though a 98-pound girl was a serious threat.

  They were in the underground parking of the City Watch Tower, packed with trucks, cars, and a few motorcycles. Ana had never seen so many vehicles up close, or in one place. Most people didn’t own, or even ride them. She’d only been in a vehicle three times before, back when her father was assigned to chauffeur some visiting official from another City and was able to bring the vehicle home.

  “Go!” The order was followed by a stick’s jab at her back. Thankfully, they hadn’t delivered a shock with the blow.

  Ana wanted to turn and yell but was cuffed and alone. She did as she was told, stepping through a sliding door and then into a long hall.

  Ana crossed the hall, then was thrust into a room where she was surrounded by four Watchers, all of whom held her down and ripped the clothes from her body like the husk from an ear of corn. She screamed, fighting with her feet, sure they were trying to rape her.

  The pair of guards who had brought her in stood behind Ana while a new pair in front shoved her face down to the ground, pulled her underwear past her ankles, then cast them without ceremony to the floor. Her head was shoved down, so she couldn’t see as they spread her legs apart. Gloved fingers were suddenly invading her, inside and rooting around, searching for God knows what.

  She screamed at the violation, kicked, and cried, but nothing would stop them.

  They flipped her over, and she cried out, staring at her reflection in their helmets as they moved their hands from her middle to her mouth.

  Ana gagged, nearly puked, until the four Watchers were finally satisfied that she wasn’t hiding anything in her body.

  “Get up!” one of them barked, then roughly shoved her into a small chamber where she was hosed with scalding water, so hot it made her scream, thinking she was being set on fire.

  She was yanked from the shower, then thrust into another room and ordered to put on a pair of bright orange coveralls before being marched into a slightly nicer-looking suite where she was photographed and scanned for processing. From there, she was led to a tiny cell, where Ana spent the next 12 or so hours, cold, wide awake, angry, and terrified.

  Her cell was just long enough to hold a thin bed and wide enough to squeeze a toilet beside it. Fortunately, Ana wasn’t claustrophobic, or she would have suffered insanity within minutes. Even so, the walls felt as if they were closing in around her, like the clenched fist of her life squeezing her future to nothing.

  Her cell didn’t lock like the van door and wasn’t like the cells she’d seen on TV and old movies, with the rows of thin metal bars. Her prison was made from a large, paneled alloy wall, with a thin and rather long rectangular window resting at the top. Her cell was small, but no smaller than the many others running along either side of a stretching hallway. She wasn’t sure if she was alone but had yet to hear anyone else in the block since her arrival. All the walls were an ugly muddy gray, so dull they had likely once been white but had absorbed the millions of molecules worth of pain from the wretched souls trapped within the walls before her.

  Chimney Rock was City 7 in comparison to the prison.

  After an eternity, the alloy wall finally parted, and Ana’s cell was opened. A man in a vaguely official-looking gray uniform stepped inside, and the paneled wall closed behind him. Unlike The Watchers, the man wore no helmet. He was tall, with a long, square face, and looked close to her father’s age. His hair was cut short and severe up top, with a splash of silver on either side highlighting his jug-like ears. His jaw jutted from his face like a hardback book, and his nose was long and sharp like the blade of a knife.

  He was both the ugliest, and scariest, man Ana had ever seen.

  And as he stepped into her cell, and his icy dark eyes met hers, she felt a chill run through her entire body.

  “My name is City Watch Chief Keller,” he said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me? I was once your father’s boss.”

  “No,” Ana said, shaking her head.

  The chief was apparently in a hurry for answers. He cleared his throat and said, “How do you know Liam Harrow?”

  Part of Ana’s silence was defiance; most was fear. The little she had left was simply because she had no idea what she should say.

  Chief Keller continued. “What do you know about Liam? And most importantly, Ms. Lovecraft,” he cleared his throat, “where is he?”

  Duncan had told her to tell the truth. But Duncan could be dead for all she knew, and Keller wasn’t wearing a helmet to help him detect her lie — though his icy eyes promised that his gaze was probably enough.

  “I’ve known Liam forever,” she said. “We went to academy together years ago, before he went to the orphanage.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Not well,” she shook her head.

  “But you know him well enough to attend church together, is that correct?”

  Ana couldn’t swallow, or speak. She could barely breathe. “What do you mean?” she finally managed, choking on her saliva and coughing, surely giving herself away as a liar.

  “You know exactly what I mean, Ms. Lovecraft. The church where you were seen together is a known sanctuary for anarchists.” Keller said it like it was a fact, without any room for defense.

  Ana shook her head, then stared into his icy eyes. “You have me confused with someone else,” she said. “Maybe a friend of my father’s.”

  Keller held her stare, still calm. He said, “I don’t know why you’re protecting him, Anastasia. He’s an anarchist. He killed eight people in the church, including a child. In cold blood. You must know your friend is a murderer?”

  Ana tried to hide the anger that must’ve been painting her face. Keller was lying — Ana had seen The Watchers open fire. That was NOT a planted memory. Her upper lip twitched, begging her mouth to cry foul on his lie, hating him most for using the word anarchist to define The Underground, something her father had been a part of.

  Her father wasn’t an anarchist. He believed in the law.

  But perhaps not The City’s law.

  “I don’t know him well,” Ana said. “But that definitely doesn’t sound like Liam from the little I know.” Ana held his eyes.

  “Ah, well then,” Chief Keller said, his voice pleasant. “You must not know him that well at all. For he, and all the rats who scurry beneath the hard-working feet of the rest of us, are precisely what’s wrong with the world. They are the vermin who destroy The City from within. Their corrupt thoughts, their evil deeds, and their devotion to their anarchic cause, no matter what the cost.”

  Keller pursed his lips, turned, and left her cell for a moment.

  He returned holding a thin, sleek black pad, the kind that people with homes read, played games, and watched TV on. It began to display photos of dead bodies from the church — starting with The Watchers, their helmets all removed, showing the faces of young men who didn’t look nearly as sinister as their helmets suggested. Ana wondered if the Underground had removed the helmets to get rid of any video recorded by them, a smart move she’d not even considered.

  “Anarchists have no respect for rules, or doctrine, or laws. Democracy, totalitarianism, socialism, capitalism — everything is ‘evil’ to them. And order is always wrong. Anarchists abhor rules, Anastasia. But no rules means no safety, and in the year 2134, no safety means certain death.”

  As he said death, the final photo showed Iris, turned up, clothes stripped, and a huge, gaping hole in her chest. Her eyes were open in a permanent gaze.

  Ana looked away.

  Keller cleared his throat.

  “So, you do have a heart, then? You don’t agree that any action is worth the cost then, right?”

  She said nothing.

  “Anarchy will never work because humans will never earn their Utopia, and all ideals ultimately end in selfish exploitation. Nine years ago, my eight-year-ol
d boy Joshua, my only son, was murdered by The Underground rebels — a bomb blasted shrapnel into his skull, killing him and 16 others instantly. We had been watching the parade just a moment before; he was squeezing my pinky like he always did when he couldn't wait to see what was about to happen.”

  The horror of Keller’s memory, frozen in his icy eyes, made Ana wish she were anywhere else in the world, maybe even outside The Wall.

  “Joshua would be 17 now,” he continued, the emotion gone from his voice, fading as fast as it had appeared. “That’s how old you are, correct?”

  Ana nodded.

  He cleared his throat, and the inner interrogator was suddenly back. “You were seen going into the church,” he said. “Do you deny this truth?” He cut Ana with a second question before she could respond to the first. “People are willing to testify that you were there, and that you were with Liam. Do you deny this truth?” he said again.

  Ana held his eyes, hating herself for trusting monsters more than her father.

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t me.”

  “We’re not interested in keeping you here, Ms. Lovecraft.” The officer sighed. “Do I have to beg you to keep you from making this difficult? Tell us what you know, and you can return to Chimney Rock tonight. Or don’t,” he shrugged. “But then we have a problem. A big one.” He held both palms to the air. “So, what’s it going to be?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t there. That wasn’t me.”

  Keller leaned down, and his head thrust forward like a striking snake. He was suddenly centimeters from her face, close enough for Ana to smell the sour bubbling up from his throat. In a low growl, Keller said, “I’m giving you one more chance to save yourself. Don’t lie again.”

  His vinegar-like breath made Ana want to vomit.

  “Were you at the church with Liam?”

  Ana shook her head, holding his eyes even though fear ran cold through her blood.

  She said, in almost a whisper, “That wasn’t me.”

  Keller smacked Ana so fast across the face, she had no idea his large hand was on its way until pain splintered her cheek and rang through her left ear.

  She shook her head, reeling, trying to blink through the stars, as fat hammers slammed the walls inside her head.

  She fell hard against the wall on her tiny bed, where she lay curled up, staring up at Keller, determined not to cry.

  He pulled her up roughly by the hair, forcing her to stand.

  “Let’s try this one more time, OK, dear?”

  If Ana told the truth, she was dead.

  The only thing keeping me alive is their uncertainty.

  Keller said, “I really don’t want you to be here. I want you to have a hot meal, and I want to help. You and Adam both.” He shook his head. “But I can’t help either of you if you are unable to tell me the truth.”

  He’s going to kill me.

  His mention of Adam worked like a screw of doubt, twisting away at her plan to keep quiet.

  “Were you at the church with Liam?”

  Ana paused, then shook her head again.

  “That wasn’t me.”

  Keller gritted his teeth, then squeezed his fingers into Ana’s arm, pinching hard into her flesh. He stood above her, glaring down. “You know, you and your mother have a couple of things in common,” he hissed. “You’re every bit as pretty, and just as stupidly stubborn.”

  “How do you know my mom?” Ana cried, suddenly twice as scared and at least three times as angry.

  Keller ignored the question, then leaned into Ana, giving her nostrils another blast of his rancid fog as her eyes swallowed the icy heat of his burning stare. “I’d hate for you to end up just like her, too.”

  He’ll kill me, no matter what.

  He said, “I’ll give you until lunchtime to consider.”

  The door opened and Keller was gone, though the chill he left in the room only grew colder.

  It was several hours past lunch before Keller returned. Ana spent the entire time swimming in indecision, wondering what she should do, whether there was any way out, and most importantly, what would happen to Adam if there wasn’t.

  Keller was smiling as he entered the cell, his hair slightly damp and his face freshly shaved. “So, have you given any thought to the truth?”

  Of course she had, though Ana was certain her definition of the word truth was a sun to Keller’s moon.

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”

  Instead of growing angry like Ana had been picturing through most of the many hours she’d been kept waiting, Keller simply laughed.

  “OK then,” he said, falling into his chair and resting a hand on his knee. “It’s decided then. This is how it shall be.”

  Each word sounded more threatening than the one before it. By the time Keller whistled the end of the be, Ana was shaking.

  Change your story.

  Tell him what you know!

  Save yourself — it’s not like you know where Liam is. He’s a big boy. He can handle this a hell of a lot better than you or Adam!

  Just tell Keller what he wants to know!

  Ana, suddenly proud to be her father’s daughter again, for the first time since the bottom of his boots were covered in her mother’s blood, shook her head. “I told you everything I know.”

  “OK, Princess,” Keller stood. “Looks like we have our newest Darwin Games player. And good thing, you’re just in time. A new game starts tomorrow.”

  “What?” Ana said, falling back in her bed.

  “You don’t want to cooperate with us,” Keller shrugged. “That’s fine, we understand. But there are examples to set, and we must set them. So we’ll be putting you somewhere where your poor decisions are on full display for the benefit of the entire City to learn from.”

  “I told you!” she screamed. “I don’t know anything. I wasn’t in that fucking church!”

  “I’m sure,” he said, turning from Ana and stepping through the sliding door.

  “You can’t just put me in The Games, you have to try me in court first!”

  Keller turned back, smiling.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I don’t. Suspected traitors can’t be put on the stand without compromising City security. You’re guilty as charged, declared by me.”

  She screamed, “You can’t do that!” as Keller turned halfway through the door and smiled.

  “I can and did. Enjoy your final night of freedom, Ms. Lovecraft. Tomorrow we have a daughter following in her daddy’s footsteps for the first time in the history of City 6. Fans will love that, and you. Who knows, maybe you’ll even make it to City 7, so you can reunite with your murdering daddy. I bet you two have so much to catch up on.”

  Keller left laughing, while Ana stayed inside her cell screaming, at first into her pillow, and then at the walls, which echoed her anger.

  Even when she stopped screaming out loud, Ana couldn’t silence her mind.

  Who will protect Adam?

  CHAPTER 8 — Jonah Lovecraft

  Two days earlier…

  Jonah imagined the clean efficiency of the City 7 hospitals and smiled. No waiting, no assembly-line medicine — true rest and whole-body healing was just another short van ride away.

  Every part of Jonah’s body ached from its inside-out beating, but there was solace in knowing that was now part of yesterday’s worry. City 7 had soft beds and strong medicine. Jonah would be healed, back to himself, and better than ever in no time. He might even feel something close to normal — or as normal as he could following the murder of his wife and destruction of his family.

  While Jonah was thrilled that he’d won The Darwin Games, he wasn’t entirely surprised.

  He had seen enough Games from beginning to end to believe he would make it to the middle rounds at least, and had believed it from the second he was tossed outside The Wall. Once Jonah made it to the middle, he figured there was a reasonable shot of his seeing the Fi
nal Six. Once there, Jonah knew he would eventually be facing off against Bear.

  But he never believed he could kill Bear, at least not until he knew that he had to.

  He had, and his life was saved. Jonah had earned a new dawn at City 7.

  It’s what he had fought for, bled for, and what he deserved.

  What Jonah didn’t deserve was the reputation that would follow him into the coveted City, where he would be forced to live the remainder of his life without any hope for repair. He could never return to City 6 or prove to his family, friends, and loved ones that he wasn’t a monster.

  That made City 7 a prison, despite its presentation as a paradise. No one ever left City 7. You lived in luxury but never returned. Leaving was impossible, at least according to legend.

  Jonah had never been to City 7 himself but knew its history well, like everyone else. Much like the Australia of the old world a half millennia before, City 7 was initially settled by convicts — all of them former winners of the Darwin Games.

  Rehab facilities inside City 7 were the best in The State, turning many of The City’s convicts into productive members of the almost-Utopian society.

  The entire City was practically one giant Arcade, and despite the one-time criminal population, or perhaps because of it, City 7 was said to be freer than any other City in The State even though there were some rules and it still operated within The State. It was such a paradise that many lined up to willingly enter the Darwin Games in hopes of winning a new life in City 7.

  Jonah was heading into City 7 carrying a handicap none of the other winners had to tote behind them. He was former City Watch, which meant he’d put thousands of citizens away during his decorated career. Some of those citizens had entered The Games, and a few even made it out alive and into City 7. Jonah had lost track of the winners over the years, mostly because he didn’t want to know.

  Now he had to.

  He would be a marked man.

  He figured The Darwin Games were aired in City 7, and word of his exploits, and past, had undoubtedly made their way to prior City 6 winners.