S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11)

by Tanpepper, Saul

  The only way you’ll get Kelly to do what you want is by convincing him that you’re willing to hurt his little brother. If that’s what it takes, then so be it.

  She cursed Kelly, hated him for making her think this way. She had always loved little Kyle. The sweet boy had had nothing but trouble his whole entire short life.

  “We could try and leave New Merica,” Eric said, surprising Jessie. She sat up and could see the turmoil in his face in the mirror. “We could turn the car around right now and head for the Canadian border.”

  She shook her head. “You’d leave without Mom?”

  He frowned at her, then turned away when his personal Link pinged on the seat beside him. “What is it now?” He grabbed it and jammed his thumb onto the connect button.

  Kelly’s face appeared on the screen. “Is Jessie with you?” His gaze shifted over, and relief flooded his face when they locked eyes. “I’ve been trying to ping you for the past hour! Where are you?”

  “We’re in the car coming back from Hartford,” Eric said. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Hartford?” Alarm flickered over Kelly’s face. “What are you doing there?”

  Eric turned to Jessie, frowning. “You didn’t tell him?”

  She snatched the Link out of her brother’s hand. “We went to Citizen Registration,” she snapped. She wasn’t ready to have this discussion with him yet.

  Eric stared at her for a second, clearly confused by her behavior. Kelly also managed to look perplexed.

  “I went to get my devices replaced,” she added in the same terse voice.

  Kelly was silent for a moment. His mouth hung slightly open. “You’re okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay! Did you expect me not to be?”

  Eric’s frown had tightened and he mouthed at her: What the hell is going on?

  “Why are you pinging us, Kelly?” Jessie growled.

  “It’s— I tried your Link, but you didn’t ping back.”

  “Yeah, you said that already. It’s because I was in surgery getting my implant replaced!”

  “Jessie!” Eric hissed. “None of this is his fault.”

  “Yes, it is!”

  She glared at her brother, at the muscles churning in his cheek and neck. He lifted his eyes to the mirror. The confusion she saw there only made her angrier. She didn’t have time to explain.

  “It’s about Reggie,” Kelly told them. “Something’s happened, some kind of accident.”

  “Reggie?” Jessie pushed aside her fury as concern pierced her heart. “Is he okay? What happened?”

  “We’re at the hospital. He’s unconscious. How far out are you?”

  “Did you say unconscious?” Eric turned, but Jessie screamed at him to watch the road. He looked back just in time to avoid hitting a car that had just cut them off. “What the hell is going on there?”

  “Nobody’s been able to wake him.”

  “Can’t wake him?” Eric repeated. He was staring at Jessie again — in the mirror this time, one eye on the road ahead, monitoring the slowing traffic. She knew what he was thinking, that it was just too coincidental— first her, now Reggie.

  “Did you check his Link?” she asked, recalling the way Reggie had hurled it against the wall. “If the transmitter’s broken—”

  “That’s the first thing I looked at,” Kelly interrupted. “It’s not that. It’s communicating just fine with his implant.”

  “Who’s there now?” Eric asked.

  “Just me and his parents. The cops are in talking with them right now. I think they’re going to want to speak with me next.”

  Eric sped up and passed a line of cars waiting for the next exit. They were still a few miles outside of Greenwich. “Tell us what happened.”

  “I’m actually not sure. Jessie wasn’t home after school.” He shifted his gaze to her. “So I went over to Reggie’s to see if you were there. I wanted to, you know, talk.”

  “Oh, now you want to talk.”

  “Reggie,” Eric said. “Remember?”

  Kelly nodded. “I found him lying on the floor inside the garage. He was convulsing. I pinged an ambulance as soon as I could.”

  “We’re almost there,” Eric informed him. He signaled for the off-ramp that would take them into downtown Greenwich and to the hospital.

  “Was he in The Game?” Jessie asked.

  “Game?” Eric asked. “What game? Zpocalypto?”

  “He was geared up,” Kelly answered warily. “Why?”

  Kelly’s lack of surprise confirmed Jessie’s suspicion: he’d known about the gear all along.

  “What did you do to it?” she asked.

  “I took it off of him before the ambulance came.”

  “That’s not what I asked, Kelly! I said what did you do to the gear?”

  “I I don’t understand.”

  Eric turned to her, frowning, the question clear in his eyes: Why are you asking about that?

  “I think you do understand, Kelly. You messed with my Link. And you did something to Reggie’s gear. Why are you doing this to us?”

  “Jessie!” Eric hissed.

  “You want to know why I’m asking him this?” she said, facing her brother. “The other night, Reggie told me there was something wrong with the equipment. I didn’t believe him. He was having these — I don’t know — these episodes or something. He’d be somewhere and the next thing he’d wake up somewhere else. I told him it was the Zoners.”

  “What Zoners? You’re not doing drugs, are you?”

  “Never mind the Zoners. It’s not them. And it’s not sleepwalking, either. I thought it might be, because the only other logical explanation was that he was going crazy. But he kept saying it was the gear, that it only happened when he went into The Game. He’d connect, then black out and find himself wandering around in some other part of town, sometimes hours later. That’s what happened the other night.”

  “What?” Kelly asked, his voice rising in alarm. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Where the hell did you guys get the money to buy an invite?” Eric demanded. “I can’t believe you’d go back there! After what we all just went through, what the hell is wrong with you kids?”

  Kelly glanced away from his Link for a moment, then turned back. “The cops are here. I have to go. Just get here as quickly as you can.”

  The screen went blank.

  “He sabotaged the gear,” Jessie told her brother. “Kelly did this. He messed with my Link. I have proof. That’s why my implant is acting the way it is. And now he’s messing with Reggie. I don’t know why, but he’s responsible for everything that’s happened to us since we got back.”

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Chapter 25

  They arrived at Sisters of Mercy Hospital and parked the car in the visitor’s lot. Kelly was sitting on a bench outside the emergency room door. He jumped to his feet when he saw them hurrying up the walk.

  “How is he?” Jessie gasped.

  He looks worried, she thought. And then, He’s acting.

  Kelly was good at lots of things, but he’d never been a good liar.

  “They got the results of the brain scan,” Kelly told them. He hustled them in through the bullet-proof glass doors and past a crowded waiting area.

  Babies were crying and a television was blaring from a mount on the wall. Jessie caught a glimpse of scenes from an abandoned Long Island on the screen. Crumbling buildings standing in stark contrast to the lush green beauty of the de-urbanized wilderness. In the distance rose the stark Gameland wall. And even though she knew it was just her imagination, she could almost feel it pressing on her mind, the low EM signal that irritated the brain and prevented the zombies from getting too close to it.

  “What did the report say?” Eric asked.

  When Jessie had shown him Kelly’s photo on her Link in the car, he hadn’t been convinced it was “proof” of anything. And it was clear to her that he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In any case, right now his only concern was finding out what had happened to Reggie, not trying to interrogate him to see if there was anything to Jessie’s unbelievable claim.

  “No damage,” Kelly answered. “But he’s still out cold, and the doctors can’t explain why. They’re unable to wake him.”

  Again, Eric stopped and turned to stare at Jessie, his face blanching, his eyes dark with concern. The details were eerily similar to what Jessie had experienced in Hartford.

  She grabbed his arm and held him back as Kelly plowed through the crowd ahead. “It’s him,” she hissed. “It’s Kelly’s fault. I know it.”

  “There’s no outward sign of trauma,” Kelly was saying, not noticing he’d lost them. “No injury to his skull.” He turned and frowned at them.

  “And the police?” Eric said, coughing under his breath.

  “Gone,” Kelly replied. “They only had time to ask a couple questions — drugs and such, for the most part — before they got called away. They took off right before you pulled in.” He turned to Jessie, his eyes narrowed. “You sure you’re fine?”

  “Never mind about me,” she muttered. “Where’s Reggie?”

  “In ICU.” Kelly led them over to the elevators.

  As they stood and waited for the car to descend from the fifth floor, Jessie knew she’d have to confront Kelly eventually. But this wasn’t the time. Her anger simmered as she stood and stared at the brushed gray of the metal doors.

  “Did you check the holo playback?” Eric asked.

  Kelly nodded. “Replayed the last minute or so after the medics took him. I thought it might tell me what happened. All I saw was that he’d gotten the Player up to Jayne’s Hill. I could see that ugly orange building off in the distance.” He turned to Jessie. “You remember that one?”

  Another bolt of surprise shot through her. The orange building was the same one she’d seen in her own vision that afternoon. But how?

  “—just standing there at the fence,” Kelly was saying, “like it was waiting. Right before the holo recording stopped, there was a white flash. After that, nothing.”

  “He touched it,” Jessie whispered.

  “Excuse me?” Eric said, turning to her. “What did you say? Who touched what?”

  The scene from her mind dissolved, and the elevator doors returned. She became acutely aware of Kelly standing close beside her. “The fence around the compound,” she said, carefully. “Reggie touched it.”

  Eric shot Kelly a confused look.

  “The Player touched it, I mean. That’s what happened. Reggie was electrocuted.”

  The elevator dinged, and they all jumped. The numbers above the door began to measure the car’s descent from the fifth floor.

  “Okay, let me see if I’ve got this right,” Eric said. He was trying desperately to catch up. “Reggie was playing The Game and he took his player up to Arc’s mainframe complex in Gameland?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Why? Why would he want to go back . . . ?”

  But then his eyes widened. “Ashley?”

  Jessie nodded.

  “And you think he touched the fence, electrocuted his Player?”

  Another nod.

  “It doesn’t work that way. Whatever happens to an avatar doesn’t happen to you. Everyone knows that.”

  Kelly was shaking his head, too. “Besides, Reggie knew that fence was wired, Jessie. Every single one of us knew that. He wouldn’t have done something so stupid.”

  “Not unless he was trying to kill the Player.”

  “Why would he want—”

  “To destroy the equipment.”

  Kelly’s face blanched.

  “It’s messed up, isn’t it?” She glared at Kelly, daring him to challenge her, to deny the accusation. To confess what he’d done.

  But Eric was still stuck trying to work out Jessie’s theory. “You’re not understanding the physics, guys.”

  “I know that’s what happened,” she insisted.

  The elevator doors slid open and spit out a young couple. The woman was quietly weeping and the man was holding her with his arm around her shoulders. Jessie and the others stepped to the side and waited for them to pass before slipping into the empty lift. Kelly pushed the button for the fourth floor. The elevator doors began to slide shut, cutting off the soft clatter of the television and the voices of the waiting patients.

  “Jessie, I didn’t—”

  The doors juddered just shy of closing, then reversed. Two more people got on. Kelly snapped his mouth closed, but continued to stare at Jessie. The car rose, stopped at the second floor, and let the strangers off.

  As soon as they were alone again, Jessie said, “I know that’s what happened to Reggie, Eric.”

  Her brother frowned. “What are you talking about? How could you know that?”

  “Because I saw it happen. I don’t know how — I’m sure Kelly could explain it — but I was there, with Reggie. He was the—”

  Deceiver

  “—Operator. And I was with him inside the Player.”

  † † †

  The elevator lurched to a stop on the third floor and the doors opened, revealing an empty lobby. They heard the patter of small feet running away. No one was waiting to get on.

  “Pediatrics,” Kelly explained. His hands and voice were shaking. “The kids like to play ding-dong-ditch.” He leaned forward and looked out, as if expecting to see someone there. There was a dazed expression on his face, like Jessie’s revelation had fried a circuit or two inside his head.

  Eric jabbed the button and the doors closed. “What you’re saying is impossible, Jess. But either way, we should check out that equipment. It seems to be the obvious place to start looking for answers.”

  He turned to Kelly, an eyebrow raised, to see if he had an answer for Jessie’s accusation.

  Kelly stared hard at the numbers on the panel. “I stowed it away. Figured the police might try to confiscate it.”

  “Of course you would,” Jessie snapped.

  Kelly turned to her, a pained look in his eyes. “Jessie, I didn’t—”

  She lunged at him, grabbing his shirt and shoving him up against the back wall. The car rattled as it slid to a stop on the fourth floor. Eric pulled them apart, whispering at her to stop acting crazy. There was a loud ding, and the doors began to slide open. A doctor and two nurses stepped in, giving them all curious looks before haltingly resuming their conversation. Kelly quickly unruffled his shirt and stepped past them out of the car. She could see his hands fumbling as he tried to redo the buttons that had popped.

  Jessie hurried after him with Eric on her heels. “You need to calm down, Jess,” he whispered at her. “This isn’t the place to be having an argument.”

  She whirled over to him. “If Reggie dies, it’s because he killed him!”

  “Nobody’s going to die,” Eric muttered. “Just— Wait a minute, Jess! Listen to me.” He grabbed her arm and spun her around. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I do know this: Reggie needs us. We’re not helping him by fighting amongst ourselves.”

  She leaned into him and whispered, “Get that equipment from Reggie’s garage. I don’t care what Kelly says, how much he denies his involvement. Get it, and don’t let it out of your sight. Don’t let him touch it!” She was staring at Kelly when she said this last part. “I want to check it myself.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Jessie scowled at her brother, her eyes flashing, then spun away and marched off without answering.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Chapter 26

  The boys caught up with her at the reception desk for the intensive care unit. A nurse was telling her that Reggie could only have visitors from family.

  “I’m—”

  “Reggie’s fiancée,” Kelly said, interrupting.

  Jessie turned to him, frowning. He shrugged.

  The nurse gave the three of them the once-over. She looked ready to argue, then apparently
decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. “Kids,” she huffed. “Fine, whatever.”

  She pulled a VISITOR badge from a basket on her desk and handed it to Jessie before scanning her Link. “Pin this to your shirt. Mister Casey is in room eleven. But you two,” she said, leveling her eyes and her finger at Kelly and Eric, “you’ll have to wait here. That is, unless you’re all engaged to Mister Casey. No? Then have a seat over there. And keep quiet.”

  Jessie gave Eric a warning glance, then went in. The nurse muttered to herself about children being “too young to get married.”

  Jessie knew to expect Reggie’s parents in the room, though she didn’t know what she’d say to them. In a way, she felt responsible for what had happened. It hadn’t been she who had provided the gear, and it certainly hadn’t been her sabotage, yet she was just as guilty because she’d refused to listen to him when he told her something was wrong with it.

  Another thought came to her as she made her way slowly down the hall: If Kelly’s plan was to get rid of the Gameland survivors, then Eric was also in danger. But why would Kelly do it?

  Witnesses.

  She pushed the thought away and entered the room.

  Reggie’s parents were standing by the side of the bed, their heads bowed and their arms around each other’s waist. They looked up when Jessie walked in, but they didn’t seem surprised to see her. In fact, they didn’t even seem to recognize her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and she crossed to the other side of the bed.

  The anger pouring off of them was palpable, but Jessie didn’t get the feeling it was focused at anyone in particular. It was more like a smell that hung around them, leaking from their pores, as if they’d been breathing it in for years and years and it had become a part of them.

  The sense of giving up reminded Jessie of Ashley’s grandmother, of the hopelessness she’d carried around with her those final days of her life, right before she was conscripted.

  A nurse came in and whispered something to the Caseys. Jessie watched discretely as she tapped on the screen of a tablet and showed it to them. They nodded, then turned and followed her out, leaving Jessie alone with Reggie.