Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators) (20 page)

“
Why? Why did you do it?”

“
Because you chose my father over me.”

“
I didn't — ”

“
You chose him, when you chose to kill. You chose him, when you agreed to become what you are now,” he spits. “A monster.”

“
No.” She strains against the nanobots. “They drug me. I can't stop it. I want to stop. I don't want to be the way I am now!”

“
That makes two of us.”

“
Catan, please. They're going to cut me if you leave. They're calling it nullification, but they're going to cut into me — to tear pieces of me out.”

He is walking away.

“
Please! Don't let them do it!”

He doesn't stop.

“
Catan!”

No response.

“
I loved you.”

He's gone.

“
I could make you kill him,” the creature in purple says. “The way you killed all the others.” He doesn't realize that he's already played his trump card. Sometimes, when you have everything, you are no longer in a position to gain. She no longer cares. About herself. About Catan. About anything.

“
Tell me you want me.”

“
I want you,” she says and as he leans in, she tears off his head.

And as the blood spatters her face from the severed arteries, the face turns back to the frightened young man who was dragged from his jail cell, lured by the promise of freedom for slaying a monster.

The audience roars in approval.

She lets the head fall to the ground.

When she drops to her knees to join it, she hits smooth floor instead of earth and finds herself in a large room surrounded by flashing light. She bristles, like a cornered beast, and then she remembers where she is. Who she is. What she is. And then she throws back her head and laughs.

11.

(You have three days to decide…whether you wish to live — or die.)

Catan fastens her into her seat. Vol stares straight ahead and avoids looking at him. “You are not going to die,” he says, letting his fingertips feather down her cheeks from the electrodes he has affixed.

“
I don't want to speak to you.”

He presses his lips together and nods. She only raises her head when she is sure that he is gone. Catan Vareth. The Regent's son on the wrong side of the sheets. She feels ill-used. Is this what their relationship is? A mere display of power, of possessing the unattainable?

Soon it won't matter. None of it will.

Program: Voluntary_Eradicators_2.exe

Class: N/A

Summary: N/A

The floating words scorch her eyes and Vol cries out in fear when she realizes she cannot turn away.

“
Stop struggling, Vol,” someone says coolly. “The pedestals are set on a time-release. No cheating.”

Choose an item
, the game flashes at her. Impatiently, it seems. She accepts, and a large gray box immediately pops up to fill her entire field of vision. Inside the box are forty smaller boxes, each holding a pixelated item designed in 8bit style and labeled in all caps.

Vol stares at them. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to the collection. Some are beauty products (MIRROR, PEARL NECKLACE, PINK RIBBON, PERFUME); some are tools (HAMMER, SCREWDRIVER, BUCKET OF PAINT), some are toys (BAG OF MARBLES, SLINGSHOT), and some are just weird. She shakes her head over WHITE FLOWER, EMPTY METAL CAN, and CUT DIAMOND, wondering what purpose they could possibly serve.

As she wavers, she notices several of the boxes — GUN, MYSTERIOUS VIAL, LIGHTER, SWITCHBLADE — have gone black. When she tries to select one of the items, she gets an error message.
Looks like it's one per customer
.

She tries for CUT DIAMOND, figuring she can use it as currency or in trade, but it disappears before she can even complete the thought. Same with KITCHEN KNIFE, LARGE KEY, and PEARL NECKLACE. Frustrated, she snatches out at MIRROR.

Finally
, she thinks, as it's added to her inventory.
What now?

Mission objectives: KILL THEM ALL.

“
What?” She tries to access the archives and a painful shock bursts from the nape of her neck, to sizzle down each and every one of her nerves. Pain — real, unadulterated pain — slices into her knees. She's fallen to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust.

ACCESS DENIED.

Vol goes back to the player data and gets the same screen as before.

Program: Voluntary_Eradicators_2.exe

Class: N/A

Summary: N/A

Mission objectives: KILL THEM ALL

She tries to tap into the class and summary data and is rewarded with another surge of pain for each attempt, and that glowing red chastisement:
ACCESS DENIED.

“
Fine, then,” she growls, and gets to her feet. A desert wasteland surrounds her, but it's different from
The Dying Moon
. Dolorian was dying. This place, whatever it is, is already dead. The earth is a blackened scorch mark, all traces of civilization — and any other kind of life, even rural vegetation — simply … eradicated.

The title of this game is Voluntary Eradicators. I wonder ….

She receives another electric pulse that makes her see flashes of light in the corner of her eyes.

THIS IS WHAT REMAINS OF EASTERN BASTAN TODAY.

Vol freezes.

TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO, THE EASTERN BASTANI WERE COMISSIONED TO DESIGN THE ULTIMATE KILLING MACHINE. THEIR SUCCESS WAS THEIR FAILURE.

AT FIRST THE REGENT WAS SATISFIED WITH THE BASTANI. HE USED THIS NEW RACE OF SENTIENT BEINGS AS TOYS, PITTING THEM AGAINST SOLDIERS AND CRIMINALS, TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR HIS OWN ENTERTAINMENT.

BUT THERE WERE PROBLEMS.

AS WITH ALL LIVING CREATURES, THE NEW RACE WAS SELF-AWARE. AND IN SPITE OF THE PROPAGANDA RELEASED BY THE REGENT PROCLAIMING THAT THEY WERE NO MORE CAPABLE OF SENSATION THAN ROBOTS, THE NEW RACE SUFFERED. THEY WERE FULLY COGNIZANT OF THE PAIN THEY WERE INFLICTING AND IT WAS AGONIZING. WHEN THEY CEASED TO COOPERATE, THE REGENT USED CHEMICAL AGENTS TO FORCE THE NEW RACE INTO COMPLIANCE. DURING THESE PROCEDURES, THE NEW RACE WAS FULLY CONSCIOUS OF THE HORRORS THEY WERE FORCED TO COMMIT
AGAINST THEIR OWN FREE WILL
.

WHEN THE BASTANI PEOPLE LEARNED OF THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY THEIR SCIENTISTS, REBELLIONS ENSUED AS PEOPLE FOUGHT TO LIBERATE THE NEW RACE. FEARING THE REPERCUSSIONS IF THE NEW RACE WAS EVER ALLOWED TO BECOME FREE, THE REGENT HAD THE ENTIRE AREA DESTROYED. HIS EXCUSE WAS TREASON: THAT HE HAD DISCOVERED A PLAN TO DISRUPT PEACE AND UNITY.

THE SORROW OF THE BASTANI PEOPLE AND THE NEW RACE WERE BURIED BENEATH THE RUBBLE OF THEIR CIVILIZATION, AND THEIR STORIES BURNED TO ASH —

UNTIL NOW.

WITH YOUR ONE ITEM, YOU WILL BATTLE TO THE DEATH AGAINST YOUR OWN PEOPLE. YOU WILL LEARN WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE FORCED TO TAKE HUMAN LIFE, AND TO LEARN THAT YOUR WILL IS NOT YOUR OWN.

I HAVE PROGRAMMED THE GAME TO SEND AN ELECTRONIC PULSE TO THE BIOFEEDBACK LOOP UPON STARTING. THIS HAS RAISED THE PAIN THRESHOLD OF THE GAME. YOU WILL NOW EXPERIENCE SENSATIONS WITHIN THE GAMESCAPE THE WAY YOU WOULD IN THE REAL WORLD.

WHEN YOU DIE IN THE GAME, YOU DIE FOR REAL.

FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN SHOCKS TO THE BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD, CAUSING PAIN IN STEADILY INCREASING INCRIMENTS, EVENTUALLY CULMINATING IN DEATH. YOU ARE THE 'VOLUNTARY' ERADICATORS.

HAPPY HUNTING.

The screen goes blank. Vol imagines the other players are receiving similar messages. As if in confirmation of this a gunshot rings out from somewhere in the vast emptiness.

Val shudders and forces herself to keep walking.

Her boot hits something soft. She sees Tash, collapsed on the ground. Her lips are parted, and something is sticking out of her mouth. It's the white flower, no longer in 8bit but in all its three-dimensional glory. She feels a chill; it's oleander.

“
Oh gods, Tash. No.”

She encounters Drove a few paces later, his throat punctured by a pair of scissors. Kira has the pink ribbon wrapped tightly around her throat, like an inappropriately festive garrote.  Jade is beside her and seems all right at a glance, though when Vol attempts to move him she realizes that the back of his head is bashed in.

All around her, people she has worked with for years — people she likes, people she hates, people she might even one day trust with her life — are dead. Forced to kill each other, to fight for the one basic right everyone with a soul should be entitled to: life.

Footsteps crunch on the earth behind her and Vol belatedly remembers her mirror. She smashes it on the ground and turns — only to see her own face leering back at her with more wickedness than that which she thought herself capable.

And then, she is falling — falling into the jagged cracks of the mirror, slashed by glass, and old memories, and fear.

It is difficult to say which hurts the most.

She is in a chamber surrounded by mirrors. Twenty pairs of eyes regard her from every angle. As Vol flicks her own from reflection to reflection, she realizes something horrible. All these images of her have silver eyes and strange yellow scars running up and down their arms like the striations in poor-quality marble. She recognizes the marks because now she remembers. She used to have some of her own. Vol stares down at her pale forearm and sees the ghostly track marks, glowing with light.

“
Oh gods,” she whispers.

Laughter echoes piercingly off the cold stone and colder glass.

The Vol that steps out of the mirror is dressed as she is, in lightweight armor that molds to her body like a second skin. She has the same easy, loping stride as a predator and Vol finds herself backing away instinctively, filled with a dread that borders on being physically ill.

“
Oh, Vol, why are you so frightened?” That horrible laugh again. “You've seen worse in your own bedroom mirror. There's no escaping what you are.”

“
You're not real.”

“
I'm real enough to do this.” She fires her weapon and one of the mirrors explodes. Vol screams and ducks, covering her face with her hands. She cries out as the glass slashes through her leather gloves, shredding bare skin. It hurts.
If I die here, I die for real
.

Vol does the first rational thing that comes to mind. She runs.

“
How does it feel, Vol, knowing that you're in love with the son of the man responsible for the death of your kin and countrymen?” Vol presses herself against the back of a mirror and hears the echo of not-Vol's boots come perilously close to her hiding place. “He's the reason you're here in this dumping ground of the human race. Did you know that? But like a worm, you keep crawling back.”

No, no, no, no
.

“
We ran. When the country was destroyed, we ran. And Catan Vareth found us. He's a smart boy. He recognized us fairly quickly. But he didn't like daddy much, so he strung us along for a while, trying to figure out how to use us to his best advantage. But then pretty boy started to fall, hard and deep.”

Not-Vol falls silent. Vol nearly says something, remembers just in time she's the one being hunted.

“
He thought he knew sorry,” says not-Vol, and now her voice is bitter. “A life of disgrace and dishonor is better than a half-life, or, worse — no life at all. Oh, but he understood at the end. When he caught the girl he thought he was protecting in bed with the man he thought he was protecting her from. Then he lost it, and we were installed in the Colosseum parlors, killing fools in two worlds as once. They started to prod at us with medical implements, to see if we could be cloned, or bred.

“
But the Regent didn't like sharing his new toy. He began to remember why he had Bastan destroyed in the first place. Powerful, genetically-engineered humans, with eyes tuned to see on the wavelength of human emotion and the strength of five human men. And he came to a simple conclusion: get rid of the advantage that makes us such a threat, that makes us more than mere brutes with super-strength.

“
Blind us. After all, one doesn't need vision to kill or fuck.

“
I couldn't let him do that to us. I had plans, you see. And when the scientists tried to disfigure us, I killed them all. I tore them apart. Their screams were music to my ears, Vol. Their blood on my hands was my benediction.”

Vol feels something warm on her face. Tears. Tears for the loss of a nation, for a world that has grown so horribly corrupt that genocide is a more acceptable solution than freedom. She raises a hand to dry them and an iron-strong hand closes around her throat.