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

by Tanpepper, Saul

  “Damn it! I’m getting really sick of doing this!” she hissed, and she yanked the katana out, slashing hard while doing it. The left half of the monster’s skull separated, and it fell motionless to the ground. In the same sweeping movement, she redirected the blade downward and sliced through the other’s neck. It, too, fell silent.

  She raised the sword and pointed it at Micah once again. Her arm was shaking badly, and for a moment she wasn’t sure she even had the strength to finish him off. “Stay out of my head!”

  He stepped toward her, reaching out with his lifeless hands. She stepped back, keeping the distance between them constant.

  “Please. Just get out of my head.”

  Listen to me, Jess.

  “Fuck you. Stay away from me.”

  I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t. He stepped forward, pressing his chest against the point of the sword. He pushed harder, forcing Jessie’s elbow to bend.

  “No, please. I don’t want to.”

  The tip dug into his chest, and soon a dark red stain began to bloom there.

  You have to hurry, Jessie.

  “I can’t.”

  Tie me up. Chop off my arms. Please, Jess. You have to stop me.

  “You’re already dead.”

  My body, but not the part that matters. I’m still me inside.

  He pushed harder and the tip pierced deeper into the flesh. It stopped when it hit bone. Once more, there was no knowing by the look on his face if it hurt him.

  I can’t feel a thing, Jess.

  She twisted the sword a quarter turn, heard the edge of the blade scrape against bone. She watched it sink even deeper. Two inches. Four. He didn’t stop pushing. Finally, she relented and pulled away.

  “You can’t feel that?”

  No. I can’t feel anything. I can’t control anything.

  Jessie whimpered. She didn’t want to hear him. She didn’t want him in her head. She didn’t want to believe he was still alive.

  “I’m going crazy.”

  You’re not, he told her. He stepped forward; she stepped back. I’m still me, Jess, but this body isn’t mine anymore.

  His hand swiped clumsily at the blade, trying to bat it away. She forced her arm to go rigid again, burying more of the metal into his chest. This time, she knew it had pierced his heart.

  I was supposed to be yours, Jessie.

  This time, she didn’t laugh at how corny it sounded.

  “I’m sorry you loved me, Micah, but—”

  Your Player. I was supposed to be your Player.

  She frowned. “What? I don’t understand.”

  It was the only way to make sure. And now I know, just like you need to know, Jessie.

  She shook her head slightly, then again more firmly. “No!”

  This is bigger than you. Bigger than me.

  “No.”

  It’s about Arc and the battle to control us, control our minds.

  He pressed forward. She could feel the sword meet some new resistance, a back rib, or maybe his shoulder blade. The front of his uniform was gummy with coagulated blood.

  “I could kill you now, Micah. I should. You’re an abomination.”

  This body, maybe. And when it comes time, I hope and pray that you will, but not just yet. Right now, you need me.

  With a cry, she thrust the sword forward with all her strength. Micah fell back a step. But then whatever bone the sword was caught up on slipped and the tip ripped through his back. He sunk toward her, stopping only when his chest met the guard. He reached for her face.

  Even with her arm fully extended, he could reach her. He was taller than she, his arms longer. His palm brushed her cheek, fell to her good shoulder. He began to squeeze and the strength in his grip was incredible.

  She twisted away with a yelp, this time withdrawing the sword completely. Off balance, Micah stumbled past her, exposing the back of his neck. She raised the sword and aimed.

  But she still couldn’t kill him. How could she? What if she really wasn’t crazy?

  She spun around and knocked him to the ground, then fell on top, pinning one arm beneath him and wrenching the other up to his shoulder blades. If he were alive, the move would’ve incapacitated him. But he wasn’t alive, or at least he couldn’t feel pain. He squirmed beneath her.

  She dropped the sword and reached back and removed the laces from his right boot and used them to bind his hands. Then she used the other lace to tie his ankles to his wrists so he couldn’t get up.

  Only now did she return her attention to the first two zombies, the ones that had fallen on her. They were still on the ground, and she realized that they were impaled onto some sort of long, flat metal object that had become embedded in the ground. It was a piece of a helicopter blade. The first zombie must’ve been carrying it around in its chest for the past couple of weeks. She was lucky it hadn’t landed directly on top of her when they fell.

  “What about you two?” she said to them. “Are you going to speak to me, too? Are you in there somewhere?”

  They are, but they can’t.

  “That’s right, and neither can you, Micah, because you’re all dead!”

  Trapped, Jessie. We’re all trapped. They can hear you, they just can’t speak to you.

  She turned to Micah, frowning.

  “They’ve been dead for a dozen years! Are you saying . . . ?”

  Trapped all this time.

  A whimper escaped her lips. “They’re dead.”

  Only their bodies.

  “And so are you.”

  We’re connected, Jessie. You and me. That’s why you can hear me. I programmed our implants to connect in case I died.

  “You knew this would happen?”

  There was a long pause before he answered. I wasn’t sure, but I needed to know. I needed you to know.

  “So you allowed yourself to be conscripted on a theory?” Her voice rose, despite knowing she needed to keep quiet. She couldn’t help herself. “You died just to prove you really hadn’t died? That’s fucked, Micah.”

  I was right, wasn’t I?

  “Don’t sound so smug.” She kicked at the two stuck zombies. “So, Jake? And Master Rupert? Am I connected to them, too?”

  Micah didn’t answer.

  “I heard them.”

  No. Your implants aren’t connected.

  The zombies on the ground were still struggling, and by now the chopper blade had sliced open their abdomens and spilled their guts onto the road.

  You’d do them a favor killing them, Jessie.

  “You don’t know that!” she snapped. She turned to the thing that still looked like Micah, still spoke to her in his voice. “You can’t know that.”

  I do. And when this is over—

  “It is over.” Jessie lifted the katana over her head. But she still couldn’t do it.

  Jessie.

  “No!” She bent down over him and sliced away the laces she’d just knotted up. “Get up.”

  Jessie, I think the Stream is coming back. You need to know something. It’s about the person who’s my Operator.

  He lumbered to his feet. At first his movements were clumsy, but then something seemed to shift inside of him, as if a switch had been flipped. He raised himself up to full height, and he was different than he was just a moment before. Now he looked almost alive. His movements were more fluid. He seemed stronger, filled with purpose.

  “Micah?”

  The Stream’s back. My Operator, Jess, she wants to kill you. I can feel it. I’m sorry. You need to run!

  He began to circle around her, instead of lunging straight at her as one of the Uncontrolled Infected would do.

  “I’m not done,” she said, keeping out of reach.

  There’s no time!

  She dropped the sword, let it clatter to her feet.

  What are you doing, Jessie? Jessie, you need to keep away from me!

  Still keeping her eyes on him, she shrugged the pack off her back and hugged it to h
er chest. Micah stepped forward.

  “This thing better be fully charged,” she muttered, pulling out the EM pistol.

  She didn’t have time to check, just squeezed the trigger as he leapt.

  Chapter 12

  “Noooo!”

  Siennah Davenport hurled her goggles to the floor, then gave them a kick. They flew across the room and crashed into the far wall. Despite being a large room, the equipment didn’t break. Arc’s VR gaming gear was built to take abuse.

  “This is so unfair, Daddy!” she wailed.

  “Honey, please,” her mother said, reaching for her. “Your father’s busy right now.”

  “No! I don’t care. It’s not fair!” Siennah bent down until her face was as close to her mother’s Link as she could manage without the tiny image of her father blurring. “I want you to ping Arc right now and tell them to stop this nonsense! I bet they did that on purpose, cutting the signal in side Gameland like that. They didn’t want me to catch her so fast.” She growled in frustration. “I was so close to getting her.”

  “Calm down, baby,” her father said.

  “I’m not going to calm down! First they cut the feed right after I find her. She could’ve killed my Player while I was off-line! And now this? I wanna know where the fuck she got an EM gun! She’s not supposed to have those in there! I bet it was that freak of a brother of hers, the cop. They should arrest him and put him in jail for aiding a known fugitive.”

  If Henry Davenport, the mayor of Greenwich, Connecticut, knew that Eric Daniels was, at that very moment, sitting shackled to an interrogation table at the police department, he didn’t say anything about it to his daughter.

  “I told you I wanted one of those new immersive suits Arc developed, the one you can wear anywhere.”

  “It hasn’t even been released, babe,” her father replied. He was only half paying attention. There were other things on his plate to be worried about, most of which had to do with Arc. And, yes, he was already on the line with his contacts there, demanding — politely, of course — an explanation for why the network had suddenly dropped out for nearly twenty minutes, putting his publics work people at risk so soon after giving them the all-clear.

  His daughter’s obsession with that silly little game of hers just didn’t seem as important as keeping the citizens of Greenwich safe.

  A dead citizen is a non-voting citizen, he thought wryly.

  “Daddy? Are you even paying attention?”

  “Of course I am, honey.”

  To be perfectly honest, he didn’t really know how he felt about The Game anymore. It was such a violent thing, all that beheading and neck-breaking. Maybe he’d feel differently if it wasn’t real people, like that game the poor kids played, the one that was purely digital. What the hell was it called? Zombiepocalypse or something like that. He wasn’t sure.

  His “friend” at Arc kept trying to tell him that it was all good. “Your daughter’s not killing real people. How can she? They’re already dead.”

  “Well, I know that. But this new Player of hers is—”

  “Dead.” He’d laughed and given the back of Henry’s neck a reassuring squeeze, and he could’ve sworn the man was checking to see if he’d gotten his implant. “They’re all convicts anyway, scum of the earth. When we throw them into Gameland, it’s like we’re doing society a favor by publicly shaming them for the serious crimes they committed. Letting people watch them being hunted down and ended serves multiple purposes.”

  “I’m just not sure it’s healthy for my daughter to be—”

  “Henry, Henry, Henry. It’s fine. Trust me. You just worry about you, okay, my friend?”

  Henry Davenport was a smart man. He didn’t become Mayor of Greenwich because he was stupid. He knew what his “friend” was doing. Trust had nothing to do with anything.

  But, of course, in the end it always came down to his little baby’s happiness. Even if he hadn’t become a politician, he would’ve acquiesced to Siennah’s demands eventually. She was his little girl and anything she wanted, well, she got.

  He overextended himself getting her the best equipment that money — and credit — could buy. And when she told him she wanted a new Player, and not just any Player but one she’d actually known in real life and had gone to school with, he said okay. Even though he knew it was wrong.

  She was his little girl, after all.

  Besides, she was good at it. And the money she brought in was nothing to sneeze at, either.

  Not killing anyone. It’s just a game. They’re already dead. Criminals.

  She hadn’t even noticed when he stopped transferring her monthly allowance into her bank account, which was a good thing, because he didn’t have it. Nor did she notice that he’d begun skimming from it to pay off his own debts.

  His hobbies were even more expensive than hers.

  “I want my money back, Daddy. I thought this Player was going to be a lot better than the last one, but he’s just a big stupid idiot.”

  Henry Davenport felt the muscles in his hands cramp as he gripped the arms of his leather and mahogany chair. Behind him, one on either side, were the two flags of his administration: the State of Connecticut and the City of Greenwich. In the far corner by the door was the New Merican flag, and it was to this that his eyes now traveled, or, more accurately, to the woman sitting in the chair beneath it.

  His mind automatically calculated the hundreds of dollars it was costing him for every minute he was paying attention to his daughter instead of her. Thousands of dollars, in fact.

  “I should never have listened to you, Daddy. Getting him was a bad idea.”

  He sighed and wondered what it was with the women in his life, how he could never seem to satisfy them when he, himself, was so easily satisfied. How they seemed to forget that it was they, not him, who always wanted more more MORE!

  Procuring the new Player had cost an arm and a leg. But he’d done it, because it was for his little baby. And the way she’d gushed and hugged him when he told her had almost made it all worthwhile.

  It sure didn’t last long, did it?

  Ungrateful little bitch.

  He looked over at the woman and tried to smile. He could tell she was getting antsy. One minute, he mouthed, holding up a finger.

  One minute and another hundred dollars, just for sitting there with her shirt undone and her sloppy breasts hanging out all over the place like that.

  His hands began kneading the armrests again.

  “Can we talk about this when I get home, honeybunch?”

  “No, Daddy, I— Wait a sec.”

  He watched her look away from the screen. Then she disappeared completely. “Almost done,” he whispered over to the corner where the New Merican flag was hanging.

  “Never mind,” Siennah said, returning. She had her goggles on again. “He woke up. But, I swear, if she’s done anything to him, I swear I’m going to kill that fucking bitch and eat her whole fucking corpse until there’s nothing left but her head.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said, smiling weakly. But she had already disconnected.

  “Now,” he said, carefully standing up and reaching for his own set of goggles. He was feeling a little shaky after that conversation.

  He enjoyed the way the woman’s eyes traveled over his body, which was naked from the waist down. (All except for his socks, which he kept on for luck, as he was a suspicious man.) At least the medically-assisted erection he’d been carefully nursing hadn’t abandoned him.

  “Where were we?” he asked.

  She smiled charitably at him, then donned her own goggles.

  “I believe your Player was just about to fuck mine,” she purred.

  Chapter 13

  “Get up,” Officer Castle grunted. “You’re being moved.”

  Eric’s head was pounding from an EM hangover, and his neck felt like it had been used for a punching bag. But it was the new bruises on the side of his body that concerned him now. They’d clearly
been inflicted after he lost consciousness. Undoubtedly, the squad that had cornered him in the hospital took out their frustrations by delivering a few kicks each.

  Fortunately, they were all on the side opposite his healing ribs.

  Castle stepped into the room and jerked him to his feet. “I said get your sorry ass up!”

  “Cuffs,” Eric coughed. He’d spent the night manacled to the cold steel table in the interrogation room and his back and neck were stiff.

  The officer bent down to unlock his ankles. “Don’t try anything.”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  Castle released one of Eric’s wrists and threaded the chain through the ring on the table before recuffing him behind his back. “You can piss yourself for all I care.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “You’re taking me to lockup? I want to see Harrick.”

  “Captain’s got a lot on her plate, now that she’s had to pick up your slack.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Castle led Eric out of the room and through the middle of the department. The officers called it “running the gauntlet.” Both sides of the aisle were lined with workstations. One by one the officers looked up as he passed. Most sneered at him, no longer masking the disdain they had privately held for the man who led the Necrotics Crimes Division. “Zombie-lover,” some of them spat. He did catch a sympathetic eye or two, but most now viewed him as no different than the common street thugs they dealt with on a daily basis. Maybe even worse.

  “Harrick’s had your NCD idiots out all morning mopping up a few hotspots. Fucking network glitched out for about a half hour.”

  “How?”

  “The fuck do I care? Probably because of the storm.”

  “Any outbreaks?”

  “That would just make you happy, wouldn’t it, asshole?” He shoved Eric toward the stairs. “Down. And no funny business. This time it won’t be an EM pistol but a bullet I put in the back of your head. And don’t think I’d hesitate for a minute to do it either.”