S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (164 page)

“
Did you figure out the problem?” Audrey asks him.

“
Interference,” he replies. “Some sort of software glitch. Doesn't happen very often.”

“
So it was a defective implant.”

“
The glitch was in his Link. See, the scanners function by querying the implant every six milliseconds, just like the network. His Link had a faulty program running on a perpetual loop, preventing us from querying. I'm working on a fix. In the meantime, we simply shut down his device and replace it with this.”

“
So, we're ready?” Audrey asks.

“
Good to go,” he replies.

I put a hand on Reggie's arm. I can feel him shaking. I can't tell if it's anticipation or trepidation. I can't tell which of those I'm feeling, though I know I'm shaking too. Reggie places a hand over mine, but he doesn't look away from the window.

Audrey flips a switch on the machine and the air fills with a high-pitched whine.

Micah's eyes go wide and he starts to struggle again, but he's too tightly bound now to do much. Audrey wraps the remaining straps around his chest, then reaches down and pulls another set from under the head of the table. These she wraps around his forehead.

“…
please…
” Micah begs. “
…no…scent…
”

“
Still claiming his innocence. Should we gag him?”

“…
luh…luh luh luhv…
”

“
Can't you shut him up?”

“
I would if I had a bite stick!” Audrey snaps. “Damn it. Whoever used the cart the last time didn't restock it. I'll be right back.”

She hurries out, leaving the orderlies and the Arc engineer. The door stands open. For some reason, this fills me with anxiety.

“…
luhver…
” Micah says, gagging. “
Ah ah ah…luhver…
”

“
Sounds like he's saying he loves her,” one of the orderlies says, chuckling.

“
He said, ‘Oliver's my lover,' ” the other one jokes.

“
Fuck you,” the first man says.

The engineer snickers and asks if Oliver is his name. The orderlies sneer at him.

“…
jag…go…
” Micah mumbles.

“
Shut up.”

“
Da jag grode.
”

Audrey returns carrying another strap and pulls it under Micah's jaw. This seems to snap him out of his daze. He twists out of the head strap and starts screaming and trying to bite her. “
Nonono! I wooont tray tray…not tray.
”

“
Damn it,” Audrey shouts at the orderlies. “Give me a hand here.”

“
Look for the jaggerco! Look for the jaggerco donner link!
”

“
I told you to shut the fuck up!”

“
Jagger scoe!
”

The three wrestle with Micah for a couple minutes. When they step back, Micah's back in the head restraint, unable to move. Audrey is untangling the strap that will hold the bite stick in place.

Micah moans once. The fight seems to go out of him. “
I lover I love you IloveyouilovejejejessJESSIE—
”

The first needle hits him in the neck and starts emptying.

 

“It was just babble,”
Reggie whispers to me, after it's all done.

After the first injection, the clear one, when Micah's eyes had rolled back in his head and his body had seemed as if an electric current was running through it, I'd realized I was biting my lip so hard that I'd made myself bleed. I don't know how long that part lasted. I was in shock. I think we all were.

“
Just another of his tricks,” Reggie says.

We're back in his garage and he's pacing again, wearing a hole in the thin carpet his father installed a couple summers ago.

It's just the three of us again. Mom had dropped us off. She hadn't said a word on the ride back, and neither had we. I was afraid she'd try to tell me to come home with her, but I guess she'd seen the looks on our pale faces and somehow knew that we needed to sort this out ourselves.

“
He was just trying to screw us over.”

We'd all heard what he said. It was unmistakable. It wasn't babble.

“
You heard what that Arc guy said,” he continues. “He said Micah had a ‘glitch' on his Link. That wasn't a glitch. That was something he wrote so the network couldn't control him! And to think, if he had died when we were with him, guess what? No fucking control!”

Neither Kelly nor I remind him how ridiculous that is to focus on, especially given what we had to deal with on Long Island. But we don't have the energy to do it.

Reggie rages on for another half hour, but I stop listening to him. I can't stop hearing Audrey announce the time of death. Strangely, I can't for the life of me remember what that time actually was.

Then the second injection, the green one. The virus.

Then waiting.

And waiting.

Hours, it seemed. Days.

Until a finger twitched.

I'd gasped, not sure I'd seen it.

Another twitch. No question that time.

Reggie exhaling next to me, squeezing my arm. Relaxing. He'd been holding his breath the whole time, or close to it. Breathing shallowly, lungs already full of air. Holding for just that moment when Micah came back.

Kelly was still on the floor against the wall, still hiding his face. I think he was crying.

Time of Reanimation,
Audrey said,
three-oh-six.

I remember that. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

By the time they took him away, he was struggling against the straps again. The engineer, messing with something inside of his case, didn't even seem concerned. We watched as the straps came off. He watched as Micah—dead Micah, Undead, blank-eyed, slack-jawed Micah—sat up, stood up. Snap of the fingers in his face, a momentary sharpening of his gaze, as if his eyes were focusing, a switch coming on inside. A low moan, a step toward Audrey. The other orderly—the one not named Oliver—had shied away reflexively. Both Oliver and Audrey had laughed at him, yukking it up. He'd turned a little red in the face and chuckled good-humoredly. Micah turning toward the sound of their laughter, moan turning to a rabid hissing. Another step, sudden stop and a quick step back, as if he'd been jerked on an invisible chain.

“
That was me,” the engineer announced, fiddling with something inside the case. “Looks like we've got full control.”

They walked him out then, both orderlies joking now. Audrey cleaning up. The engineer hanging back, discretely checking her out. His Link pinged and he jumped with surprise.

“
Bought? Already? Damn, that was quick.” Drifting out of the room, carrying his conversation with him.

Bought?

Audrey leaving.

The lights snapping off.

Our door opening.

Mom standing there.

“
He didn't love you,” Reggie says. “He only loved himself. Fucking liar.”

Kelly looks at me. He knows what he heard. He's thinking, thinking back over the past twelve, thirteen months. To when we broke up.

You don't deserve to be treated like that, ignored.
Micah's words to me, right before.
Kelly's ignoring you. You have needs, Jessie. You can do better.

He was talking about himself.

I love her. I love you, Jess—

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Would never betray her.

Would never betray me is what he meant.

What have we done, Micah? What did we do to you?

 

I confess everything
to Mom the next day, starting with my doubts about Micah's guilt, his last words, right before—

we

—
they killed and reanimated him. I tell her about his Link and the program and how obsessed he was with trying to hack into Arc's systems. She listens. She doesn't ask very many questions, but I can tell she's trying to understand, trying to be a good mother.

I tell her about the tracking app and about Micah hacking into our Links. I want her to tell me we didn't make a terrible mistake.

Look for the Jacker's code on her Link.

Did he mean me? Ashley?

I still have her Link.

“
He deserved it,” Mom says, trying to reassure me. “He betrayed you. That boy came to this town and he found you and he used you. He betrayed your trust and your friendship.”

I tell her about Ashley and Jake and Tanya, and Mom holds me, cries with me, even though she only knew Ash, not the others who had also died.

“
I'm just so glad you're back,” she says. “With me.” And the guilt crashes down over me.

I tell her about Stephen. “Enoch, rather. I guess his real name was Enoch. Enoch Bloch. He was Halliwell's son.”

I feel her stiffen next to me.

“
What is it?”

She doesn't speak for a moment, then takes in a shaky breath and says, “I knew him, though only when he was a little boy. I knew his mother Geena. She was so pretty. Beautiful, actually.”

“
Eric says you were all friends once.” I'm relieved to be talking about something else, anything else, even if it's this.

“
We were close. All of us. Gene—Professor Halliwell—was Richard's best friend.”

“
What changed?”

She sighs. “Richard changed,” she says. “Your grandfather…” She shakes her head. “I don't want to talk about it. That was all in the past.”

“
He killed Dad. Halliwell did. That's what everyone says. That's what Eric says. Did you know he saw what happened?”

She draws away, but continues to look at me for a moment. Then she nods. “Yes, I knew. We found him. Well, your grandfather did. In a closet in the old house. I wanted to take him to the hospital, he wasn't talking or eating. But Ulysses insisted we stay home. He said it was too dangerous. He didn't want anyone talking to us.”

I don't know why, but all this feels strange, like something she's simply reciting.

“
Kelly and I are getting married tomorrow. We want you to come with us when we register.”

“
I'll be there. I promise, honey.” No surprise. No argument. No nothing.

We hold each other at arm's length, and I try to believe her. I
want
to believe her. But after coming home late from Reggie's last night, I'd found her sprawled on the couch, empty beer cans littering the floor. I remind myself that she is trying. So she slipped back a little, it happens. I just need her to keep it together through tomorrow.

“
Honey, are you sure about this?” she abruptly asks. “Are you sure it's not because of everything that happened?”

I've been asking myself that for the past few days, but now I've come to the conclusion that it's a moot point. “Kelly's dying,” I tell her. “He was bitten. We managed to buy him a little time, but… I want to do this. I do.”

“
How?” she asks, her eyes narrowing. “How did you buy him time?”

“
Halliwell's blood.”

Her face blanches.

“
I know. It's terrible to think about. But he was immune.”

She looks away, tears pooling in her eyes.

“
That's not all.”

She waits, touching her shaking fingers to her quivering lips.

“
I was bitten, too.”

And now she pulls away from me and stands up, not from disgust or fear, but what seems like indecision. I can see it in her eyes, the struggle with something deep inside.

“
Mom?”

“
I…” She shakes her head, starts to say something else, then stops and runs her hands through her hair. “I should have told you sooner.”

“
Told me what?”

“
The truth about your father.”

“
What about him?”

“
I'm so sorry,” she sobs.

“
Mom, you're scaring me. What about Dad?”

“
Not Dad. Your father, Gene Halliwell.”

 

We're still going through with it.
I'm still marrying Kelly. Now that I know I'm immune too, and not dying. My blood can save him, but what good is that if I don't know how to prepare the activator? Halliwell's dead. The only other people who might know how to make it are hiding somewhere on Long Island.

Do we go back? I don't know. I don't know if I could face that again.

Then again, how can I not?

I don't tell Kelly. He'd panic. The first thing he'd assume is that I'll go back. He'll tell me not to. He'll say he's made his peace, tell me it's not worth it. So I don't tell anyone. I need time. Time to process. Time to plan.

I'm not even sure I understand it all yet.

“
You had an affair?”

“
It was a long time ago, honey. Richard was dean of students at Harvard Medical School, working night and day. He was so ambitious. Gene was a professor at Royce State in Montana. They'd won the Nobel Prize—them and Geena, shared it—and we were all in Stockholm for the ceremony. It just… It just happened.”