Justin sprawled full-length and the sword clattered away. A moment later, he felt the kiss of steel on his Adam’s apple and looked into his adversary’s flat eyes.
He smiled and a tiny flicker of confusion flared in her gaze for only a second.
A moment later, Tina bulldozed into her from the side at high speed. She had daggers now but she didn’t need them. The sheer force with which she tackled her opponent catapulted the other woman into a tree. Callie struck the bark a few feet up, slid down to crumple in a motionless heap, and was immediately encased in a blue shield.
The two friends stared at one another, breathing hard.
“Sephith’s Bane wins Season Twelve!” the Master of Ceremonies shouted.
The stadium crowd erupted with cheers and Justin let his head fall back with an exhausted laugh. They’d done it. Against all odds, they had finally won.
“Er-hem,” the AI said.
“Oh, what now?”
“I only wanted to say one more thing.”
He rolled his eyes and waited, panting slightly. When the words flashed up on his screen, he barely had the energy to laugh but he couldn’t stop himself from doing so.
CLUMSY, the words read. MAX LEVEL ACHIEVED.
Chapter Eighty-Five
The reporters were gathering. Metcalfe could see them looking for Senator Williams.
He wondered if the man would actually appear. That might be amusing. He allowed himself a small smile before he stepped up to the podium.
“Thank you all for coming,” he told them. “I’m Dru Metcalfe. I understand that some details of Justin Williams’s care were released to the media in an expose by 360 News yesterday. However, there is a great deal of information that was left out, and I think you would all find it most illuminating.”
Tad bowed his head. His hands were clenched on his desk and he took the time to relax them. He wanted nothing more than to head to the chapel but there was no time. He had worked for twenty hours at this point, and only rehearsal and caffeine kept him upright. Even when he tried to sleep, all he could dream of was giving his speech.
Mary’s message had come in, telling him that the media coverage was good.
It might help. He had to hope it would soften some hearts and minds so that when he gave his speech, they were ready to listen to what he had to say. He stood, buttoned his suit jacket, and took his briefcase from the desk.
Out in the main room, his aides were clustered around a TV.
“Sir,” Kyle said. “You’ll want to see this.”
“Will it change the speech I’m about to give?” he asked. He paused. “It’s not Justin, is it?”
“No,” the aide said. He swallowed. “It’s not new information for you.”
“Then I’ll watch it later. I’ll need at least one of you with me.” He left and made a conscious effort not to listen to the words coming out of the TV. Whispers followed him and finally, Jared came to walk with him. Tad looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“You said you didn’t want to know, sir,” the young man reminded him.
“Indeed, I did.” He took a deep breath. “I tell you, I’m looking forward to sleep. Oh, I shouldn’t have thought of sleep. Oh, dear.”
“I’ll meet you in the chambers with a large coffee, sir.” Jared hurried away and Tad smiled exhaustedly after him.
He only had to get through this speech. He had thirty minutes to prepare—and thirty minutes to not think about why all his aides looked so deeply worried.
“A late-breaking news story might change or delay the vote on the pharmaceutical pricing bill up for debate in the Senate,” a news anchor reported.
Eric Snelling, surrounded by his aides and several fellow senators, looked up sharply. His heart sank. After yesterday’s news story, he had spent hours chipping away at his party’s junior senators—the ones most likely, he had to admit, to stand up and do the right thing.
What was happening now?
He went to the TV with the others, only to find another of his colleagues giving him a smug look.
“You haven’t been here long enough,” she told him condescendingly, “but where there’s smoke, there’s almost always fire.”
He gave her a look that he hoped might turn her to stone.
It didn’t work and she shrugged dismissively. “This will not go well for Williams. Whatever dirt there is on him is about to come out.”
“How do you know that?” Snelling asked.
“I know because that”—she pointed—“is Dru Metcalfe. Whatever skeletons are hiding in your closet, he’ll find them all, polish them, and show them off for the whole world to see. You’re lucky, Snelling.”
“Why?” He maintained a calm expression although his heart sank even more.
“He hasn’t made a demonstration of anyone like this in a couple years,” the other senator told him. “In fact, I haven’t ever seen him do one in person. Whatever he’s preparing to drop, it has to be so big that Williams, his family, and his entire hometown will be a smoking crater by the time he’s done.”
In the main chamber, Tad found a surprising number of people already assembled. Several were clustered around a few at their desks, all of whom held phones. Some looked at him, did double-takes, and glanced nervously at each other.
He sighed. His intention had been to take the time to practice, but it was clear he wouldn’t have the chance to practice on the floor.
Disappointed, he headed to his desk and arranged his papers before he tuned everything else out. His gaze traveled over the first few lines of his speech, and his lips moved as he read:
Nine weeks ago, at 11:15 at night, I got a call from the police about my son Justin…
Dru Metcalf wrapped his hands around the podium and looked at the assembled reporters. Now that it came down to it, he felt sick. He’d done many things over the years that he had to work to forget—the faces of the senators and their children when all the family secrets were dragged into the open were persistent ghosts.
He’d drunk some of those memories away and spent hours in the gym to banish the rest. Every morning, he reminded himself of how the world worked. He’d taken to looking at his bank account when he woke up.
It was all coming back now, though. No amount of zeroes at the end of his bank balance had made him feel better this morning. He’d looked at the latest deposit from Raymond White and wanted to throw up.
Would he actually do this?
Yes, so he might as well get on with it.
“Nine weeks ago, at 11:45 at night, I received a call from my employer,” he told the reporters, “a man named Raymond White, the CEO of IterNext Solutions. I’ve worked for him for the past eight years. He told me that Tad Williams’s son had been involved in a car crash and had been transferred to a nearby hospital by life-flight. His prognosis was not good.”
The reporters wrote furiously.
“White has worked in healthcare for his entire career,” he continued. “He knows intimately how costs have ballooned and how much pressure it can put on a family to face the costs of intensive care. For this reason, he asked me to pass along an offer to Senator Williams and his wife. Mr. White wanted to personally cover the costs of care for Justin Williams.”
He looked at his notes and swallowed.
“I met with the senator in person several days later. Justin’s condition was stable and Williams was back in DC to attend a vote. I arrived in time to hear Nicholas Ryn and Jacob Zachary pitching him on the treatment developed by PIVOT Laboratories, and I warned the senator that the treatment was untested. I passed along Mr. White’s offer to him. In response, he accused me of bribery.”
The reporters shifted and a new energy rose in the air. Metcalfe was getting to the good stuff now. This was what they were there for.
“I explained to him that this was an alignment of interests,” he said. “There were bills coming to the floor that Williams had shown no particular interest in, and I wanted to speak to him about the
negative impact they might have on companies such as IterNext. He disagreed strenuously with my characterization of the situation.” He took a deep breath. “So I showed him doctored photos I had made of him with a mistress.”
Total silence fell over the group.
“Williams was a junior senator,” he continued, “and so I had not worked with him before. He was shocked by the photos I showed him. In response, I told him that…he was not the first senator who had been determined to not play ball with my clients. I told him that the choice was his—either he could have all Justin’s medical bills paid, or not only would the bills not be paid, he would also be embroiled in scandal.
“I’ve checked my records. Tad Williams is the forty-second senator I have had a similar conversation with. Thirty-eight were persuaded, either by the initial offer or by similar methods of blackmail. Four, I made sure were not re-elected. I have been immensely successful in my line of work.”
The reporters’ jaws hung open.
“I leaked the story of Justin’s treatment to the media,” Metcalfe said bluntly. “I was the one who began the recall petition for Senator Williams. I told a reporter where she could find PIVOT’s original laboratories and tipped the FDA off that there was unapproved human testing being conducted. At each step, I offered Senator Williams the chance to end the game. At each step, he refused.
“Yesterday, I saw the piece on 360 News regarding Diatek’s creation and PIVOT’s treatment technique.” He looked up and focused on those present. “I have contacted federal prosecutors with the information that I can provide regarding why the FDA blacklisted the treatment pioneered by Jean-Luc DuBois, as well as information regarding the senators I have blackmailed. At this time, I cannot share specifics of any of those cases or confirmation of their names. However…”
He looked unwaveringly at one of the cameras. “I can tell you that several of them will be in the chamber today when they take their votes. I urge them to follow their conscience on this bill. The information I had on them is no longer in my possession and much of it was manufactured. They may consider themselves free of the chance of retribution. I will not be taking questions.”
He walked away through the din of demands to a car waiting for him at the base of the steps.
“Mr. Metcalfe,” a Federal Marshall said.
“Hello,” Dru told him. “I assume we need to go to the station?”
“We do.” The man held the door open and took a set of handcuffs from his belt. “You’ll also need these.”
Dru Metcalfe held his hands out and smiled as the words began. Dru Metcalfe, you are charged with…
Tad had hardly noticed the chamber filling. When he stood to speak, low murmurs rippled through the ranks. They were probably talking about how the junior senator was about to have his ass handed to him in the votes, he thought as he made his way to the floor.
In all honesty, he no longer cared. All that mattered was the speech and looking them in the eyes and telling Justin’s story. In his hands, a piece of paper crackled—the draft of the first letter he had sent to his son in the game. His wedding ring gleamed when he looked at it.
“You’ll never forget it if you let yourself down,” Mary had told him.
She was right.
The speech passed in a blur. Tad knew he choked up at one point, a fact that would have mortified him mere weeks before. In some ways, he hardly recognized the man he’d been then. He told the stories of the constituents who had reached out to him and shared Anna Price’s story. With quiet affection, he spoke about going into the lab to see Mary sleeping with her head resting on Justin’s pod.
When he finished, he expected only silence. Instead, senators rose to their feet and applauded. Tad stared at the group.
“Okay, what was going on with that press conference?” he asked over his shoulder.
The Senate Majority Leader, a man who had never liked him in the slightest, shook his head. “You picked a hell of a time to tune out.”
Chapter Eighty-Six
The landscape of the arena faded away and Tina pushed to her feet and offered Justin a hand. He let her pull him up and became vaguely aware of the noise beating at his consciousness in waves. The crowd continued to cheer.
Somehow, even his eyes could see Zaara and Lyle in the crowd. She was crying openly, while the dwarf harrumphed and tried to hide the sheen in his eyes. Both clapped enthusiastically and leaned against each other.
I’ll be back, He told them silently. Someday. He took his friend’s hand. “Shall we?”
She walked with him, her shoulders set.
“Are you shy?” he asked her.
“Shy is being in front of a dozen people. I don’t think it’s unusual to be unnerved by this many people cheering for you. It must be twenty-thousand or more.” She looked around. “I guess I only thought nothing like this would ever happen to me in real life.”
“You never know,” he said. “Maybe the world will start a live Battle Royale tournament.”
“I’ll be one of the hosts,” Tina said, “not a contestant. With really high heels.”
“That’s good. You’ll come all the way up to my sternum that way.” He dodged out of the way of a kick and laughed.
The Master of Ceremonies waited in front of the dais and smiled at them. He inclined his head as he walked closer in the dust and when he spoke, his amplified voice seemed far away and they could hear him speak as one person to another.
“I promised you an artifact of unimaginable value,” he said. “And now, I am pleased to present it.”
He held the final key out and Justin’s breath caught. He slid his hand into the pouch at his belt and retrieved the other two, placed them in his palm, and took the third. For a moment, he was afraid that he would fumble and be unable to put them together and it wouldn’t work, but the keys seemed to know one another. They slotted together perfectly and the seams between them vanished. He held it out to Tina, who put her hand over his so they held it together.
“They key between the worlds,” the Master of Ceremonies said. “The king has chosen his champions, citizens—champions to find us allies so that Insea will always prosper. Champions to end all threats and safeguard us against all foes.” He turned to them again. “Sephith’s Bane, are you prepared to be the Champions of Insea?”
In answer, the friends exchanged a glance before they lifted the key high. It gleamed in the sunlight as the official stepped back to gesture at the stone wall behind him. Now that Justin looked more closely, he could discern the pattern etched there, complete with a tiny, triangular hole for a key.
He looked at Tina. He couldn’t seem to think anymore. His head buzzed and the stadium seemed to fade.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“I’m ready.” He walked to the stone and slid the key into the lock until it clicked in place. With a creak and a rumble, the stone doors opened into blinding white light. “It’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” he asked.
He blinked reflexively and Tina was gone.
And a white light usually meant something else. Justin stared at it. He wanted to live. For so much of this, he hadn’t cared. He’d tried to avoid danger, stepped beyond that fear, tried to escape this place, and stepped beyond that, too.
Now, more than anything, he wanted to live. It was time to find out if that would be his future. With one last breath and his heart pounding, he stepped into the light.
Tad stared at the ceiling. He had told himself that all he cared about was the speech, but he now realized that wasn’t exactly true. With that stress now removed, he was desperate to know what had happened outside, and he was equally desperate to know what would happen inside.
Jared sat beside him and shifted from side to side. When he looked at the kid’s face, he could see that the aide hadn’t taken his eyes off the vote screen.
The Senate Majority Leader stood, and Tad leaned forward. His breath seemed to shudder in and out and he swallowed.
“The votes are,” the leader said, “sixty-eight aye, and thirty-two nay. The bill has passed.”
Buzzing swarmed in Tad’s ears. “Sixty-eight?” he managed to say. “Sixty-eight?”
Jared looked like he might cry as he nodded. “The press conference, sir—it was Metcalfe. Remember when you said it would really help you out if he told the truth?”
His jaw dropped. “You have to be kidding me.”
The young man shook his head. “You took the high road and now everyone knows that.”
“Holy shit.” Tad breathed in and out a few times. He pressed a hand over his mouth, aware that he might be under scrutiny, and startled when his phone rang. It was Mary’s number and he answered the call to the sound of sobbing, barely audible over the cheers and chatter in the Senate chambers. “Mary? Mary! What’s going on?”
“It’s…Justin,” she managed to say.
Tad sat hard. The phone slipped out of his grasp.
He’d been too late, he thought brokenly. Against all odds, he’d done all this and it was too late. None of it would matter for his son.
Regret was agonizing. He should have been there. All the times he’d left to come back here, and for what? He should have been at his son’s bedside or gone into the game with Mary. At least that way, he’d have had a chance to see his son again and hug him, and he hadn’t taken it.
Jared picked the phone up and listened. Tad couldn’t hear him talking but gradually became aware of the young man shaking him. “Sir? Sir? Your wife needs to speak to you, sir.”
He focused on his aide’s face.
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