The Aftermath

by Jen Alexander

  Next comes an image of some gamer girl smiling in her white screened room with her thumbs up. She wears a shirt that says, “Honor, VIRTUE, Loyalty: The Aftermath.”

  The video flips to a cut scene of a girl with short blond hair, green eyes and a deformed ear turning a Glock on two flesh-eaters. My mouth freezes midbite. I feel as if my stomach is balling up on itself as I rub my fingertips across my ripped ear.

  The last image is the side of a building that’s been transformed into an enormous promotional glass poster for the game. The same thing that was on the girl’s shirt is written on it, except at the very bottom of the poster, it says, “Choose Your Clan with Care.”

  And in the middle of it all is a picture of me, holding a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. Eyes narrowed into slits. Hair flying around my face as though I’m in the middle of a fight.

  Now, the blond moderator’s words and Declan’s initial surprise when we met and some of the other characters’ reactions to me all make sense. Claudia Virtue is the face of The Aftermath. And I’m the last to know.

  I nearly fall out of the chair when the door swings open and my two guards enter.

  “Mr. Lancaster will see you now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  They take me to the room that reminds me of a black diamond. The one with the windowed walls that show game footage. I’ve seen this room before in Olivia’s mind. “Don’t try anything stupid,” Bennett warns, shoving me into one of the thin metal chairs.

  There’s not much damage I can do in here. Aside from the table and the chairs, the room is bare. “I’ll try my best,” I say. I consider making a joke about jumping out the window, but he starts to leave, and I decide I’d rather not have him stick around. Besides, the windows are outrageously thick. I can see that even from where I’m sitting.

  The door locks behind Bennett. I wait about a minute to make sure he won’t return; then I pace the room, from column to column, up one set of stairs and down the other, like erratic connect-the-dots. Every few moments, my feet snag the hem of my starched white pants and I have to roll the waistband again.

  “You’re looking well, Claudia.”

  I twist around, pressing myself to the side of a column. Lancaster stands above me at the top of one of the stairways, a serene smile on his face. He glides down the steps toward me. My eyes flick to the open door, but he wags his finger to one side. “You know you’ll make it no further than the elevator. Why try it again?”

  An image of Thomas Lancaster, surrounded by a group of men and women in business attire, slithers through my mind. His hand was cupped over the left side of his face and he was cursing. “I’ll kill you,” I had said as guards pinned me to the glass wall. My voice was scraped raw from screaming. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”

  Blood oozed through his fingers as he bellowed, “Sedate her.”

  I shake the memory from my head. I want desperately to hold on to it—to try and remember more—but there’s too much at stake right now, I have to keep focused on the present. “I’ve no plan to try to escape,” I say. He’s so close I can see the scar I put on his face. And every curve of the electroshock gun in his hand. It looks much more lethal than Declan’s. I’ve no doubt he’d be willing to use it on me. “I’m not going to attack you, either.”

  “Compliant, are we?”

  “No. Just tired.”

  He chuckles, motioning me to approach him. I dig my nails into my palms, raking them back and forth, and fight back the bile in my throat before I obey. He smiles down at me. Placing a hand on my shoulder, he says, “Would you like to see the newest testing programs?”

  “In here?”

  His eyebrow lifts in surprise. “No, dear. Out there.” He points to the open door.

  There must be some type of catch. Why else would he take me around the facility? “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I promised you last time you were here that I would and I didn’t follow through. We had certain...distractions. And, after all, you deserve to see this,” he says. He holds out his arm and jerks his head toward the door. “Your friends are excited to see you, my dear.”

  I go completely still. My heart pounds violently in my ears.

  Boom.

  Boom, boom.

  BOOM.

  “What?” I demand.

  He casts a satisfied smirk at me and nods. “Yes, they’re here. Wesley, Mia.”

  Wesley and Mia are alive. I let out a sigh of relief, and then I whisper, “Anyone else?”

  “Are you referring to Declan Hastings?” I look up at him helplessly, and he continues, “Because he’s facing imprisonment and likely death.”

  “Declan’s here,” I croak.

  Mia and Wesley—Declan—are all still alive.

  Thomas points to the door again. “Shall we go?”

  I keep my face down, but I watch him carefully as we walk into the hallways. He wears a tranquil smile, one that makes me cold and nauseous. It makes me want to knock him down, but then I catch a glimpse of beige out of the corner of my eye. My guards are right behind us.

  We stop at the elevator. He presses his fingertips down on the reader and then types in a numeric code: 951208. The steel doors fly open. Thomas places his hand on my elbow, squeezing it, and guides me inside. I yank away from him and slink to the corner of the box.

  Bennett nudges my shoulder with the tip of his electroshock gun. My eyes jolt up to his face. He nods to the back wall of the elevator. “Turn around, Virtue.” His hand is on the opening to the door, so that it won’t shut. I don’t think he’ll let go until I turn to face the wall.

  Like a prisoner.

  I follow Bennett’s directions because I just want to get whatever horrible thing that’s going to happen over with as soon as possible.

  The elevator comes to a stop on the fifth floor. I hear Thomas punching in his code and the doors reopen. This hallway reminds me of Olivia’s original gaming room. It’s warm and empty and pristine white. And it makes me feel dead inside. “What’s with all this white?” I ask.

  “It promotes peace and pure thoughts,” Thomas replies.

  Maybe that’s why he seems so passive when it comes to his line of work. He surrounds himself with a sterile white space so he doesn’t feel guilty about creating The Aftermath, selling humans to other humans for the sole purpose of entertainment. No, that’s not what he calls it. Rehabilitation and therapy.

  “You’re a monster, Lancaster.”

  “You’ve told me that before, right before you tried to kill me.” Shrugging, he stops in front of another door and opens it. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “If I hadn’t made the games, someone else would have. Now, no more questions. Welcome to The Aftermath facility’s deletion chamber.”

  I feel as if someone spit in my face. This is the last place I want to be. “Why are we here?”

  “So you can see a deletion,” he says. He smiles over his shoulder at the female guard. “Initially, I planned to show you on a screen upstairs, but I want you to see what you’ve done. You’ll watch from the other room.”

  No.

  Please, no.

  Bennett presses me forward into the windowed room on the other side of the deletion chamber. It’s freezing, and I rub my hands up and down my arms to warm up. I’m surprised I don’t exhale condensation. “Enjoy, Claudia.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t need to see it— Take me back upstairs. Take me anywhere else.” Just please don’t make me watch this. Please. But Bennett closes the door behind them, leaving me.

  A moment later, the door opens again and the sound of footsteps thud across the hard floor. “Claudia?”

  My eyes fly open as Declan stumbles toward me. He’s wrecked and battered, with bruises and cuts covering his fa
ce, but he’s alive. I race toward him. “You’re all right. Thank—” he starts.

  I throw myself into his arms, knocking the air out of his lungs. “I thought you were dead. I thought—” But then I remember Thomas’s words about all my friends being excited to see me, and fear claws through me. “What about Wes and Mia?”

  “They’re fine. We’re all fine for now.” He covers my lips with the tips of his fingers. “But, Virtue, you’ve got to get out of here. You’ve got to go now.”

  “What?” Then something hits me. “Declan, are you being deleted?”

  A strangled noise comes from the back of his throat, and I feel my chest freeze up. Before I can say a word, something flat and rectangular presses against my stomach, and when I glance down between us, I see that it’s Declan’s tablet. “I stole it from the guard,” he whispers. “As soon as you get out of here, you need to enter the code 734598. Find the file with your name—it will tell you everything.”

  I shake my head. “But what about you. What about—”

  “I’m sorry, Claudia. For lying to you. For getting you into this mess.” I gasp when he spins me around and his forearm locks around my neck. “I’m sorry for this.”

  “What are you—”

  “Shut up. Just be quiet—and when we reach the lower levels, run.” He drags me over to the observation window. “Hey!” He bangs on the glass with his free hand. As all the faces in the other room turn toward the sound of his voice, I feel cold metal press against the crown of my head.

  “Declan,” I plead.

  “Struggle,” he orders in a soft voice. So I do. I scream and flail, kick against him until finally the doors on both sides of the room open.

  Thomas Lancaster races into the room, his face a mask of fury. “Put the gun down, son.” He puts his hands up defensively and takes a few steps toward us, two guards following right behind him. “Put it down.”

  Declan moves us closer to them. “Not on your life, Lancaster. What you’ve done to her—to all of us—is sick. She’s better off dead than having you sticking her back in that game just so you can make even more money.”

  “Put the gun—” Lancaster’s words are cut off the moment the current hits him in the chest, and he crumbles to the floor. Declan releases his hold on my neck as one of the guards fires his own electroshock gun at us. The jolt hits me in the knee, and I stumble away as Declan takes down both guards.

  “Get their weapons, Virtue. Hurry. They’ll get back up at any moment and we’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Grinding my teeth, I limp toward the bodies on the floor and grab the guards’ guns—and one of their knives. I hand one of the guns and the knife to Declan as he joins me at the door. Grabbing my arm, he jerks me into the hallway, firing at a guard who rounds the corner. “The entrance to the building is on the first floor. As soon as we reach that staircase, you keep going until you’re out of this building.”

  “What about you?” I rub my hand across my neck where he had gripped me. “What about—”

  “I’m going back for Wesley and Mia. But I need you on the outside.”

  We race down the hall, firing at anyone we come in contact with until we reach the staircase. The loud pounding of boots follows us as we race down the steps, but we keep running. It’s ironic when I think about it—that the same people who put us in a game where we were molded into mindless, deadly creatures are feeling the effects of that now.

  “Almost there,” I choke out, struggling to breathe, dragging in so much air that my lungs burn.

  When I drop my gun as soon as my foot hits the final step and turn to pick it up, Declan pulls me in the opposite direction. “No time to stop,” he wheezes as we burst through the parking garage door.

  Declan kicks out one of the back windows of the third car we find—a sleek black sporty thing that looks as if it could fly. He opens the door and unlocks the rest, resting his electroshock guns on the floorboard. As he dusts glass onto the concrete, I say, “What am I supposed to do?”

  He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, shaking his head. Something loud crashes behind the parking garage door. “Nothing if we don’t hurry up,” he says.

  “Get out of the vehicle!” a voice says.

  I turn to see a guard standing several feet away from us. His gun is positioned right at my chest. “Surrender, Virtue. Then nobody gets hurt,” the guard says. He takes a hesitant step in the direction of the car. “No sudden movements, either.”

  I have no way to fight. The electroshock guns are in the car. I’d have to bend over to reach them and by then the guard will have fired at Declan or me or both of us.

  Declan catches my eye and he shakes his head slightly. He lowers his eyes, and I see his knife where it has fallen on the ground...right next to my feet.

  “Virtue, step away from the car, or I’ll be forced to shock you.”

  I slip my toe under the knife and kick it up. I catch it, wrapping my fingers around the hilt, keeping my eyes focused on the guard.

  “Where are the rest of you?” I demand.

  He sneers. “Oh, they’re coming.”

  I blink away tears, and, just as I open my eyes, I see his trigger finger move. I act without thinking. I act like Olivia. The knife sinks into the hand holding the electroshock gun and he drops it, screaming.

  The car engine comes to life and Declan jumps out. “Go, Claudia,” he orders, shoving me into the driver’s seat. “I’ll be...I’ll be fine.”

  “What do I do?” I shriek as he closes the door, leaving me alone in the car. He’s condemning himself, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  “The code is 789312,” he says quickly. It’s not the same code he gave me in the building, but I say nothing as Declan continues, “Type it in and hit the Chauffer button. It’ll take you where you need to go.” He looks down at me, his gray eyes full of emotion, and I lose my breath. “And, Virtue? I’m so sorry.” The sound of more guards rushing into the parking garage pulls him away from me. “Go!” Declan yells.

  Trembling, I touch the flat screen, swiftly entering the six-digit code. “Welcome, Phoebe Coleman,” the AcuSystem’s robotic voice says as a menu appears on the screen. I jab the flashing Chauffer button, and the engine revs. The words Park and then Drive flash across the screen, and a second later, I feel the car lurch forward.

  As the car speeds off, I see Declan crumble to the ground in the rearview mirror.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It takes several minutes for my sobs to subside long enough for me to remember the tablet that Declan gave me while we were in the holding facility. As the car speeds down the road, passing gleaming skyscrapers and turning on its own down wide, winding streets, I shakily type in his code.

  I scan through the files, dragging my fingers across the screen slowly until I find the file he told me to look for. It’s labeled “Virtue.”

  As soon as I place my finger on the icon, text flashes across the screen telling me to set the tablet down. The moment the tablet makes contact with the seat beside me, a life-size hologram pops up.

  “Declan?” I whisper, and he turns his face toward mine.

  It’s prerecorded, and judging from the concrete walls behind him, it was made while he was staying in the basement at the bar shelter. “If you’re listening to this, Virtue, I’ve either been captured or killed or both.” He smirks. “But for your sake, let’s hope I’m not dead.”

  “You’re not funny,” I snap, bringing my knees up to my chest. I wrap my arms tightly around them.

  Rubbing his hand over his face, Declan sighs. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you. I’m not a moderator. I’m a former character.”

  I listen closely as he recounts to me everything that I already know. How he escaped LanCorp just before being deleted a year ago, how he broke int
o the game and how he tricked me into helping him save his brother, Wesley. But then the hologram of Declan tells me something that turns my blood to ice:

  “The truth is, Virtue...I was sent into the game to find you.”

  “What?” I whisper, even though I know he can’t hear me.

  “I was hired to break into The Aftermath to recover you. I...was supposed to grab you from a mission and take you right to the border. You should have been alone—you were supposed to be alone—but you weren’t that day. I panicked, tried to knock out the kid you were with, but things didn’t go so well.”

  I sink my teeth into my bottom lip until I taste blood. So that day in the courthouse was no coincidence. He was coming after me with a purpose, and Ethan stood in the way. But why?

  Who hired Declan to come into the game to get me?

  As this thought tumbles through my head, the car turns down a narrow alley and comes to a stop in front of a small building at the end. Shakily, I gather all my belongings and stumble out of the car. I walk to the front door of the building, hobbling because my leg is still burning from the shock I received back at the holding facility. The moment I reach for the doorknob, I hear the screech of tires behind me, and I whip around to see the self-driving car speeding off in reverse down the alley.

  No. Please...no. Despite the pain racing through my body, I chase after the car. With each millisecond that the car gets farther away from me, my heart pounds harder, faster. And then the car is gone, and I’m left alone, watching as it speeds down the street. Holding my breath so I won’t release the sob threatening to come out, I return to the building in the alley.

  If this isn’t where I’m supposed to be—if Declan has held anything else back from me—I’m screwed.

  But the doorknob turns easily for me and the heavy metal door swings open. Hesitantly, I step inside, into the darkness. I keep walking until I reach the center of the room, and then all the lights come on.

  “Hello?” I call.

  “Back here! Just have to put in the code and then we can go.” I spin around to see a girl standing by the front door. Her back is turned to me as she types in a code on the security panel, but once she’s done, she turns to me.