Z 2134

by Platt, Sean

  She wasn’t sure if she’d been successful or not. As Ana sat in the van with the four other girls, silence cloaked the air.

  She thought more about the possibility that they might be playing a Special Edition Darwin Games, where the network changed the rules seemingly at random. A Special Game could be shortened to a single day or extended to two months. It was anybody’s guess, and they might never be told the rules until they needed to know them.

  She tried to keep her rising terror in check, not wanting to be seen as weak and an easy target, or too strong and therefore someone who should be eliminated immediately. It was far better to fly right down the middle and under the radar for as long as she could.

  Ana wondered if the additional contestants were a blessing or a curse. More players meant her odds of her winning were slimmer, but it also increased the odds that someone else would be targeted at The Halo when The Games began, meaning she might be able to slip away, as most smart players did, before chaos erupted.

  She tried to avoid eye contact while discreetly sizing the competition. None were familiar, which wasn’t surprising. City 6 was the second-largest of the half-dozen Cities, but social circles inside the City were small.

  Across from her sat an oversized brunette, who looked to be in her 20s and was so big she looked like she could have been Bear’s daughter. Beside her was another brunette, tall and skinny, who wore a smile that said she knew more than everyone else in the van added together even though she looked all of 14. Last was a raven-haired woman, in her early 20s if that, who sat beside Ana. While Ana was sure she didn’t know the woman, she looked oddly familiar.

  Ana wanted to know her story.

  The raven-haired girl spoke. “What’s going to happen when we stop?”

  She earned no answer the first time, but her second attempt saw a response when the partition between the driver’s cabin and the cargo bay opened and an older man with longish hair stared at the girls through the slit with his shadowy tired eyes and said, “Haven’t you girls ever seen The Games?”

  “Of course I have,” Raven said. “But everything happens so fast. What are the rules? Why do some people fight and others run?”

  The man laughed, then said, “Are you kidding? Sweetie, there are no rules.” He shook his head. “You run or you fight, that’s up to you. Just don’t let those zombie fuckers near you; they’re faster than they seem on the screen.”

  Ana swallowed, then spoke. “How do you stay alive?” She stared past the partition and into the man’s eyes. “I’ve never heard of TV crew members getting killed,” she said. “How do you all manage that?”

  “We’re producers for the show. They give us body armor when we’re in The Barrens,” the man said as he patted the thick, layered body armor that made him look like the dog trainers Ana had seen when her father took her to visit the K-9 Unit at City Watch, back when she was 10. “Mostly,” he added, “you learn to stay away, and to never miss a shot when you need to take it.”

  “You kill the zombies?” Raven said.

  “We’re not supposed to,” he said, then shook his head. “And usually don’t. But sometimes it’s them or us, and we do what we gotta. We get great training. All producers have a mandatory two-weeks training, twice per year. I’ve been taking mine for twenty years, so I’m used to the ugly fuckers. But you all, I assume none of you have ever seen a zombie up close?”

  Nobody said a word.

  The old man shrugged, then with no warning or ceremony, the partition closed and the back of the van was draped in another blanket of silence. Ana circled her worst fears for another hour or so, waiting until they finally arrived at The Halo.

  The Halo was littered with so many fallen bodies, and so frequently, the zombies had learned to hang around, like birds at a feeder, waiting for the next drop-off of fresh meat. One Game didn’t even last an hour because after the initial scrum for weapons, there were only three people left — with 40 zombies to manage.

  Ana shivered, wondering how long she would last.

  Would she get a chance to make it to the woods?

  Or would someone in the van, perhaps from one of the other Cities, target her immediately?

  Being a girl in The Games was doubly worse. You not only had to worry about murderers and zombies, but sometimes the male contestants would rape the females. Ana hoped this would be an all-female edition of The Games.

  Just as a chill ran down her spine, the van stopped, and with barely a pause, the man from the other side of the partition — or perhaps the driver, it was hard to tell since they were both now wearing helmets and fully armored — threw open the door and yelled, “Get out, and when you hear the cannon fire, get to running if you want to live!”

  Ana was grabbed by her arms and pulled roughly from the van, with two girls before her and one immediately following.

  The man yelled again, pointing to a shed about 200 yards off, in the center of a clearing stacked with boxes of supplies and a small swarm of zombies in front, feasting on the raw meat set there to bait them. “Head over there if you want weapons and food,” he jabbed his finger toward the forest, “or over there if you wanna live a few minutes longer.”

  He spun from the girls, then turned his eyes to a small glass card in his palm and swiped his fingers across the top. A pair of orbs flew from on top of the van, then hovered above them, high in the sky.

  There were maybe two dozen zombies scattered across The Halo, with most lingering around the meat and all the supplies surrounding it, with many more pouring into The Halo from the forest to the right. Another five black vans were emptying passengers from their cargo holds, four players per van, all too far off for Ana to clearly see.

  Five other vans were letting contestants out beside them, forming a line in front of the field, which was surrounded on all sides by thick woodlands. Ana noticed, to her disappointment, that the other groups were varied in sex and age, which meant this wasn’t an all-girls Game.

  As the contestants eyeballed one another, and some even started shouting threats, trying to psyche out their opponents, another van suddenly pulled up, drawing everyone’s attention.

  What’s going on here? Another surprise for The Games?

  She wondered what the producers had in store. Were they going to open the door and set free a group of already-armed contestants, like they had a few years back?

  The passenger-side door opened, and a producer jumped from the van, his helmet already on. He ran up to the two producers who’d driven her and her fellow City Sixers, and began moving his arms wildly through the air. Ana figured they were talking on radios inside their helmets, which no one else could hear.

  Whatever was happening, the excitement was thick.

  Once the new producer finished speaking, one of the men who had brought them to the Halo approached their group.

  “We’ve got a last-minute addition from City 6. Do any of you wanna go back?”

  The youngest ran forward, crying, “Please, can I please go back?”

  “Hop in,” the man said, jerking his thumb toward the back of the van they’d just arrived in.

  The girl climbed inside the van, and the producers closed her door and then got into the front of the van.

  All eyes turned to the fresh arrival as the new producer pulled the doors open, then reached inside the van to pull the replacement player out.

  Ana gasped as Liam was shoved to the ground.

  “Good luck, anarchist,” the man behind him said.

  Ana met Liam’s eyes.

  She hadn’t seen him since they got into the argument and he told her to get out of the apartment. She wondered if his anger was enough to paint a bull’s-eye on her back.

  Or did it make more sense to stick together and fight as one?

  They looked around the clearing, taking in the other clusters from each of the Cities as the vans kicked dirt into the air at their departure.

  Six groups, four people each.

  And an army of
zombies surrounding the weapons stash.

  The woods, which seemed so close on TV, looked a quarter mile off, at least.

  A long way to run in the snow.

  Ana eyed the weapons in the center of the field, then Liam.

  In the distance, a cannon fired.

  The Darwin Games began.

  EPISODE 2

  CHAPTER 10 — Anastasia Lovecraft

  Run, girl, run!

  The cannon blast erupted in the distance, sending the players onto the field known as the Halo. In the mad rush, Ana was thrown to the ground, back first, as several people trampled right over her.

  She cried out, throwing her arms over her face instinctively. Once the crowd passed, she moved her arms and looked up to the cloudy gray sky, watching as the orbs zipped overhead, seeming to track individual players for the audience back home’s viewing pleasure.

  She rolled over, putting her elbows into the cold snow, and looked up to see as half of the 23 other players immediately raced toward the shed where supplies and weapons waited in the center of the Halo for anyone brave enough to fight through the zombies that lingered in the area. Around the shed there were a few crates with supplies, though sometimes the crates were filled with nothing, or a nasty surprise.

  This was the Opening Rush, and usually one of the bloodiest parts of the competition.

  The Opening Rush was considered one of the true “can’t miss” moments of each Game. Even as a viewer, she couldn’t imagine that so many people were willing to risk their lives in order to get to the weapons first. Not only would they have to fight past the zombies, but they’d also have to contend with any other player who got ahold of a weapon. It was suicide.

  In person, actually on the field, it seemed an even more suicidal feat.

  There were at least 50 zombies around the center of the field. And as she watched, a zombie took its first victim, a chubby guy who should have headed to the woods with the remaining players who split up, some going to the right of the Halo and some to the left, heading to the woods roughly 200 yards away.

  That’s what the smart players did. That’s what the weakest players, who wouldn’t survive a scrum in the center of the field, did. That’s what Ana needed to do — head for the woods. She got to her knees and then to her feet, and turned, desperate to find where Liam had gone off to.

  Did he leave me all alone as I was trampled?

  She turned to her right and was surprised to find him standing just inches away. She flinched, wincing, almost expecting him to attack her right there in the opening seconds of The Games.

  She thought of one of the show’s many taglines: “Keep your friends distant, and your enemies close.”

  Their eyes met, and Ana felt foolish and a bit guilty when she saw the deep look of concern in his eyes.

  Darwin was a battle to the death, and that meant Liam would eventually have to kill her if he wanted to live himself, but for now, his eyes swore nothing but her safety.

  “What are you doing here?” Ana asked through panicked breath.

  “Same as you!” he said.

  “You were arrested?”

  “Yeah. I’ll go get us some weapons,” he said, pointing toward the Halo’s center, where a handful of players were tearing through the weapon crates.

  A gunshot thundered from the same area.

  Wonder if it’s someone shooting a zombie, or another player?

  Liam must have had the same thought. He wrapped his body like armor to shield Ana, then spun his head around the Halo. “It’s a player taking down a zombie,” he said. “They haven’t turned on one another. Yet.

  “I’m going to get weapons now,” he said. “I need you to run. I’ll catch up, OK?”

  Liam wouldn’t waste breath or seconds on needless explanation. She knew if he didn’t get to the weapons soon, he wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting one from the stash. She wanted to argue with him, plead with him to go into the woods with her. They could get weapons later, somewhere along the way.

  “Wait, Li — ” Ana said, but before she reached her second syllable, Liam had already released his grip and launched himself toward the chaos. Ana stood frozen until another gunshot, louder than the first, sent her spinning around and racing toward the forest.

  Ana wanted to vomit at the source of the second shot — a middle-aged bald man standing over the dropped body of the heavyset 20-something brunette she’d ridden in with, her head busted open like a dropped melon.

  Ana looked up to search for any sign of the people she had seen going right. She wanted to make sure she didn’t follow them too closely into the woods. Nothing would be worse than running into them and getting killed five minutes into The Games. Not seeing them, she ran toward the trees as fast as she could, ignoring the sounds of gunshots and the screams of players and zombies alike.

  She reached the woods, her heart pounding while her eyes scanned ahead for signs of others, not daring to stop or even slow until she felt as if her lungs were on fire. A lifetime of nowhere to run behind The Wall of City 6 turned a few hundred yards into a gauntlet she was not in shape to run.

  Ana made it a hundred more yards into the forest before she halted in her tracks to catch her breath. She leaned forward, hands on knees, looking around. The snow gave way here and there to bits of brown earth, branches, rocks, and undergrowth, with the trees spaced closer and the canopy casting the woods into cold shadows. On the plus side, there were plenty of places for her to hide while she waited for Liam to return. On the negative side, that meant more places for the other players to hide, and perhaps attack her from.

  As if worrying about the other players wasn’t bad enough, the woods were always crawling with zombies. A lifetime of previous games strobed through Ana’s mind as she pictured one gory surprise kill after another. The network loved the gory kills, routinely airing specials such as “The Top 10 Most Surprising Kills!” during downtime of the live Games.

  Ana didn’t want to make that kind of highlights show.

  After watching who knew how many seasons of Darwin, Ana was certain the producers had ways of keeping zombies from the forest and elongating tension. Her father had speculated a few times that he was sure the network had laid out hidden gates, false walls, and other obstacles, which it used to funnel zombies and players to the spots they most wanted them. When the games began, most of the nearby zombies were already in the Halo, meaning players were usually safe in the woods until after the initial battle for weapons took place.

  Still, the most consistent thing about the Games was their inconsistency.

  Ana looked around, trying to decide where to go. She could head back toward the Halo, but that seemed like the stupid option seeing how fast she had run from that direction. She could climb a tree and hide, which might keep her safe while waiting for Liam, or she could keep going just in case Liam didn’t make it back with weapons.

  The longer she waited where she was, the more danger she was putting herself in. Soon enough, other players or zombies would start heading into the woods. And without a weapon, she was as good as dead.

  Paralyzed by indecision, Ana begged her body to move.

  Most of her wanted to wait for Liam. He said he’d find her and she believed him, but it wasn’t like they’d coordinated a plan. The Barrens were sprawling, and sudden danger could send you running in any direction, and at any time.

  Suddenly, a thought bubbled to the surface, which made it even harder to decide what to do.

  What if Liam was lying? Maybe he just told me to go so he wouldn’t have to be saddled with me. Maybe he’s already off on the other side of the Halo.

  The Games were about survival of the fittest, after all. There was always exactly one winner. Sure, people formed alliances, especially in the beginning, but those alliances always ended in bloodshed. Maybe he was doing her a small mercy, she figured, by leaving her now, before it was too hard.

  Run.

  Forget about Liam.

  Cut th
e cord and run, girl.

  NOW!

  Her mind flashed back to hiding under the floorboards in the church as The Watchers stormed in and murdered the woman and child. How Liam had held his hand over her mouth and kept her safe — for a bit, anyway.

  If he was risking his life to get weapons for them, she owed it to him to wait like she said she would.

  FUCK!

  She shook her head, feeling stupid, as she ignored her first instincts and began to trace her path back towards the Halo.

  He’s not gonna be there.

  He’s probably gone.

  Or dead.

  Ana ignored her inner voice and pushed herself forward until she reached the edge of the woods, staying hidden behind a cluster of trees, as she peeked out at the Halo.

  The shed at the center of the Halo was on fire, smoke pouring from it and trailing into the sky. Ana could make out several players surrounding the shed and fighting off zombies, of which there were even more than when the cannon went off. There were at least 30 surrounding the players, and that didn’t include the 20 or so dead in the snow.

  By Ana’s count, there were only three player casualties so far, and none of them was Liam. But she also didn’t see him among the survivors, though there were some people on the other side of the fire that she couldn’t see from her angle.

  Ana scanned the field, spying a heavyset man swinging a two-handed sword at four zombies who were backing him toward the woods. He made several wide-arcing swings while falling back in retreat. After a half-dozen steps, the man suddenly roared, then charged toward the swarm, bringing the edge of his blade crashing down into the closest zombie’s head, raining blood like a bucket of dark-red paint over the others. With a second bellow, he swung the sword in a wider arc, shearing a pair of zombie heads from their shoulders before pulling the blade back, then plunging it deep into the fourth zombie’s chest like a knife into pie.

  The final zombie twitched on the ground as the heavyset man thrust the blade one more time into the creature. Ana stared in both horror and a sort of admiration, wondering how the man had grown so skilled with a sword.