Extinction Game

by Gary Gibson

  I flipped back to the beginning with shaking hands, finding the same sparse, barely descriptive passages I remembered making in the days immediately before my retrieval: a few brief words about necessary repairs to my home and observations about the weather.

  I moved on to the newer, unfamiliar entries. I began to read, my heart racing in my chest.

  It’s been nearly a year since I first came here, I read, and maybe it’s time I started writing in this thing again.

  I slammed the notebook shut and threw it on the floor. That other Jerry had sat on this couch, slept under this roof, eaten in the kitchen I had seen through the door on the other side of the hallway.

  I felt my skin crawl, literally crawl, the hairs on the backs of my arms bristling with terror.

  ‘We lived here together,’ said a voice from behind me. ‘I guess you figured that out by now.’

  I whirled around, to see Chloe Wicks standing at the entrance to her living room. She held a paper bag full of groceries from the commissary. I had not even heard her come in.

  She put the bag down on the floor, then walked past me, dropping into a chair opposite the couch. ‘I’ve been meaning to do something about them,’ she said, nodding towards the notebooks. ‘Stick them in the attic, maybe burn them. I hadn’t really decided.’

  ‘It must have been hard,’ I managed to say, ‘seeing me walking around the island, like . . .’

  The words faltered in my mouth, and I let myself sink onto the couch. Despite everything, my mind at that moment was filled with the memory of that one, fleeting kiss before I knew anything about her.

  ‘Like a ghost,’ she said. ‘I heard about what Oskar said to you. Winnie told me just now, down at the commissary.’

  There was a moment’s awkward silence. ‘It’s been hell, actually,’ she said finally. ‘You look like him, talk like him . . . but you’re not him.’ A perplexed look came over her face. ‘I–I don’t know. It’s confusing.’

  ‘There must be some differences,’ I said.

  I saw the flicker of a smile. ‘Well, you’re a couple of years younger than him, for a start. You’re the same age he was when they retrieved him.’

  ‘You almost make it sound like time travel,’ I said.

  ‘Weird physics, more like,’ she said. ‘It’s how they can sometimes visit alternates before, as well as after, an extinction event. That’s how Casey got that footage he was showing everyone that night we . . .’

  I nodded. She didn’t need to say which night. ‘So I’m the same age he was, when he first arrived here?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘I spoke to Rozalia this morning.’

  Chloe stared at me, alarmed. ‘Oh God. How is she doing?’

  ‘Pretty much as you’d expect. She told me you might know a few things about the . . . the other Jerry.’ I looked around again, at the diaries, the photograph. ‘But I think I’ve got it pretty much figured out.’

  ‘So you came here,’ she said, ‘to see if it was true.’

  ‘There’s another reason.’ She looked at me, waiting. ‘Rozalia came to see me because she thinks Nadia’s death . . . well, she seems to think it might not have been an accident. That it might somehow have been connected to what happened to your Jerry.’ I shrugged. ‘She talked about him carrying out some kind of, I guess, investigation, for want of a better word. Does any of this mean anything to you?’

  Instead of laughing at me or telling me I was crazy, she merely asked, ‘Was that all she said?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  Chloe’s hands twisted together in her lap. ‘I guess there’s no reason not to tell you. Back when he was still alive, me and . . . and the other Jerry had a bad argument because he’d been disappearing for hours or even days at a time. I knew he must be taking trips to other alternates, because he was nowhere on the island. But if he was, they were clearly off the record, and that got me worried. Why would he be going on secret trips? And who was responsible for sending him on them?’ She looked past me and out of the window. ‘In the end, I was only able to get him to talk by threatening to tell the other Pathfinders he was up to something behind their backs.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He confessed he’d been trying to find out about what was causing all the equipment failures and accidents.’ Her eyes briefly met mine. ‘He swore me to secrecy, said I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even if something bad happened to him. Especially not then.’ She shook her head. ‘I could tell something had frightened him, and then . . . then he was gone.’

  ‘And that’s when Nadia came to talk to you?’

  ‘Rozalia told you that?’

  I nodded.

  She sighed heavily. ‘Goddam him. The other Jerry, I mean. I understand why he turned to Nadia – you know she used to be a cop?’

  I looked at her, surprised. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, it hurt that he felt he could share secrets with Nadia, but not me – even after I just about blackmailed him into telling me at least part of the truth.’

  ‘Did you think about telling someone in charge about all this? Someone like Bramnik?’

  She sighed and shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She picked at a loose cotton thread on her jeans. ‘Where I came from was a bad place, Jerry. Things you probably took for granted, like free speech and being allowed to mind your own business, just didn’t exist there. The last thing you’d ever want to do is trust anyone in authority. And people like Agent Greenbrooke remind me much too much of those days.’

  ‘Surely Bramnik himself isn’t that bad? He clearly despises the Patriots.’

  ‘There are rumours the Patriots have spies among the civilian staff. Did Rozalia mention that?’

  ‘She didn’t. She did say, though, that Nadia was cautious about talking to Bramnik herself.’

  ‘Well, now you know why. It pays to be careful who you speak to around here.’

  ‘I’m worried about Rozalia,’ I said. ‘When she says she thinks Nadia’s death is connected to all this, she’s saying what happened last night wasn’t an accident. But it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can’t figure out how any saboteur could possibly have been able to pull off so many things all at once. They’d have to simultaneously shut down our communications, screw with the surveillance drones and lead the bee-brains towards us. Can you imagine someone arranging all that on their own? Because I can’t.’

  ‘So why does Rozalia think that?’ asked Chloe.

  I spread my hands. ‘I guess she’s grief stricken. It’d hardly be surprising.’

  She eyed me sadly. ‘Do you want my advice?’ She shifted on the edge of her seat, her expression intent. ‘Drop all of this. Forget about it. You met Greenbrooke, didn’t you? I’m prepared to think he’s not even the worst of the Authority. Don’t make the same mistake your predecessor did. Don’t draw their attention.’

  She stood up then, and I could sense she wanted me to go. I had thought of asking her about the kiss, but I knew now that it had not been intended for me. It had been for him – my predecessor, the man in whose shadow I now walked.

  I stopped at the open front door, hit by a sudden thought. ‘After he died,’ I asked, ‘what did they do with him?’

  ‘He’s buried just outside of town,’ she said, ‘in a graveyard just past the runway—’

  I ran out and into the unkempt garden. Rozalia’s half-cooked eggs came surging up the back of my throat and onto the unmown grass.

  ‘Oh God,’ I heard Chloe say from somewhere behind me. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry. I should have thought, before I said anything. I just . . .’

  I heard her rush back indoors, then come back out seconds later, shoving a wad of tissues into my hand. I wiped my mouth before pulling myself upright.

  Somewhere within walking distance was a grave with my name on it. In that moment, I hated the Authority nearly as much as I had the pe
ople who’d wiped out everything I had ever known and loved on my own alternate. Bramnik and his ilk had brought me to this place without a moment’s consideration either to the people I would be living among, or to how I might cope once I learned the truth, as I inevitably would.

  ‘A favour,’ I said. I tried to swallow some of the bad taste away. ‘I’d like to borrow one of his diaries. The last one he kept, in particular.’

  She glanced back inside the house. ‘I . . . guess that’s not a problem.’

  It had occurred to me that if there might really be something suspicious about the first Jerry’s death, and if he had continued writing in his diary after his retrieval, there might then be some clue in his diary entries – some hint of the truth, at least, if not an outright accusation.

  Chloe went back inside, returning moments later with the notebook. I took it from her, holding it tentatively, as if it might burn me. I tucked it under my arm and stepped out past the gate, feeling dizzy, disconnected from my body. I wondered if I was in shock.

  She followed me, stopping at the gate. ‘You ought to know that I’ve asked for extra mission time – anything that’ll take me away from the island for a while. I thought I’d had enough time to get over things, but I think maybe it’s still too soon after all.’ She looked at her house, then back at me. ‘If you want to get hold of the other notebooks for any reason, feel free to just walk in and take them.’

  ‘Maybe once you’re back . . .’

  ‘If I’m back,’ she said, ‘it’ll be barely, if at all, for at least the foreseeable future.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Please don’t take it the wrong way, but I’d rather you kept your distance for now.’

  I watched her retreat, closing her door without looking back. I made my way home, feeling chilly despite the afternoon sunshine.

  THIRTEEN

  Seventy-two hours later I heard a knock at my front door and found Rozalia standing on my doorstep.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, despite a whole welter of misgivings, and pulled the door wide.

  She stepped past me and walked into my kitchen for the second time that week. I turned and followed, feeling irritable and tired from a lack of sleep. I’d been having some pretty bad nightmares the last couple of nights.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ she said, turning to face me. ‘I need your help. Are you scheduled to go on any missions any time soon?’

  I scratched my head and yawned. ‘Only the big one we’re scheduled to take part in tomorrow morning,’ I said. I had spent the best part of the last three days taking trips into Government House in the centre of town, to give recorded statements in Kip Mayer’s office regarding the circumstances of Nadia’s death.

  Rozalia nodded. ‘Great. I need you to go back with me to where Nadia died. Tonight. It’ll be quick, I promise. In fact, we’ll be finished in time for the morning’s mission.’

  I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times before I understood she really was asking what I thought she was. ‘Tonight?’ I shook my head. ‘Not a chance in hell. You heard me when I said I had a mission in the morning, didn’t you? How long is this going to take, exactly?’

  She stepped closer to me, a beseeching look on her face. ‘Not long. This is important, Jerry. There’s no one else can show me just where . . . everything happened.’

  I shook my head fervently. ‘I don’t ever want to run into one of those night patrols again.’

  ‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘It’s late at night here, but it’ll be morning over there. They’ll all be back in their Hives.’

  ‘Did the Authority actually give you permission to go back there?’

  She looked furtive. ‘Not exactly.’

  I sighed and sank onto a kitchen stool. ‘Explain “not exactly”.’

  ‘I bribed someone. A rig technician,’ she blurted.

  I shook my head. The idea of ever going back to that particular alternate filled me with a sense of crawling horror. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Absolutely not. Why don’t you ask Oskar instead?’

  ‘Because I already know exactly what he’d say. Oskar doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself, and I don’t know if I could even trust him to be discreet about my asking.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I said hotly. ‘Well, he cared about that damn dog of his. And, besides, Nadia died in the water. If you’re looking for her body, I have no idea what happened to it.’

  I saw the look on her face and softened my voice. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  She sank down onto a kitchen stool, her expression intent. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, her voice filled with a determination that told me that nothing I said was going to make her change her mind. ‘Anyway, it’s not her body I’m looking for. I just want to see that SUV you abandoned.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve seen some of the initial reports about what happened,’ she explained. ‘I also read some of the transcripts from the statements you’ve been giving Mayer over the last couple of days.’

  I looked at her in surprise. ‘They let you see those?’

  ‘I wanted to know the exact circumstances around Nadia’s death. I guess Kip took pity on me.’ She shook her head. ‘Not that there was any reason not to let me know, but there are parts of the overall story that frankly don’t make sense to me.’

  I shifted on my seat. ‘Like?’

  ‘Like the fact that the bee-brains attacked you the way they did.’

  I remembered Nadia’s own confusion on that exact point. ‘They’re supposed to be aggressive at close range, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, but the way they came after you is something I’d associate more with warfare between Hives.’

  ‘It sounds like you know a lot about them,’ I said.

  ‘I worked with Winifred on the first mapping and observation expeditions,’ she replied. ‘We studied hundreds of hours of remote drone surveillance that show what happens when communities of bee-brains from rival Hives encounter each other. They always attack. There’s good evidence they can tell friend from foe in the same way they know where to go around the city – by scent. Based on the transcripts, it seems to me that they were reacting to you as if you were from a rival Hive – which means far more aggressively than normal. Otherwise, their behaviour runs completely contrary to everything we’ve observed.’

  I lifted my shoulders. ‘All right, then. But that still doesn’t explain why it happened the way it did.’

  ‘I know.’ She patted her backpack. ‘But that’s why I want in particular to take a look at that SUV you were driving, maybe even carry out some tests on it if it proves feasible. But I can’t do that unless you guide me there.’

  I rubbed at my face with my hands. ‘Do you know how much you’re asking?’

  ‘I do,’ she reassured me. ‘I know this is a lot to ask, Jerry. Maybe even too much. I can’t say I didn’t have my doubts about how you’d react.’ She leaned forward, putting a hand on my knee, her eyes searching mine. ‘But if what happened to you and Nadia is anything like what happened to your predecessor – or what Nadia thought happened to him – then maybe there’s some way to find the proof. Maybe somebody found a way to make those creatures attack you the way they did.’

  I groaned out loud. ‘And what about everything else that went wrong? The failing drones? The inoperative communications equipment? How are you going to explain all that?’

  She leaned back and swallowed. ‘I can’t. But I have to try. I have to.’ A note of defiance crept into her voice. ‘Tell me honestly: do you believe that what happened was really just an accident?’

  I shook my head wearily, cursing myself for a fool. ‘I guess, if I were to be honest, I’ve been having my concerns. So many things went wrong, all at the same time.’

  She nodded as if satisfied. ‘Then the only way to be sure is to go there and see what we can find.’

  I closed my eyes, suddenly regretting my good nature. ‘If I do this, you will owe me forever. For t
he rest of time, Rozalia.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back for it somehow. We need to be at the hangar at midnight.’

  I groaned. ‘And it has to be tonight? Not tomorrow night, maybe?’

  ‘Yes, it has to be tonight,’ she said, bristling slightly. ‘I already said this wasn’t an official trip. Do you know how many bottles of purloined Chivas Regal I had to find to make this happen?’

  ‘There’ll be a guard at the stage. What about him?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure the rig tech is splitting the booze with the guard.’ She stood up. ‘Meet me at half eleven, my place?’

  ‘Sure. What the hell.’

  She got up and, to my surprise, hugged me. ‘Thank you, Jerry,’ she whispered. ‘This means a lot to me.’

  ‘I know,’ I replied, feeling guilty for my earlier recalcitrance.

  I made the mistake of trying to catch at least some sleep before I had to go to meet Rozalia at eleven-thirty, and suffered the inevitable nightmares. Mostly they revolved around drowning, or of feeling sodden hands reach up from beneath to drag me down, and mouths that gaped too wide to be human. When I woke, I decided I’d tell Rozalia the deal was off. Then I changed my mind, then flip-flopped from one side to the other about a hundred times before I finally set out for Rozalia’s on foot.

  When I got there, I found her waiting by her front door with a pair of mountain bicycles and a heavy-looking rucksack. ‘What are those for?’ I asked, nodding at the bikes in confusion.

  ‘A jeep would make too much noise,’ she explained, ‘and more than likely someone would see us driving up there and wonder why. This way is better.’ She nodded at one of the two machines. ‘You can have Nadia’s.’

  It took us twenty minutes to cycle to the main stage. When we got there, I saw a lone guard standing outside the warehouse doors, looking as jumpy as hell as we rolled up to him.

  ‘Hey,’ Rozalia said casually as she dismounted her bicycle and lifted her rucksack from her shoulders. ‘Dom around?’