S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (101 page)

“How are you going to test it?”

“Our animal facility in Seattle. Please, Lys— Anne.”

“Animal studies,” she said, grunting with dissatisfaction. She was clearly not impressed. “You've spent years doing animal studies and learned nothing. When will you test it in humans?”

“We can't, and you know why. It's not ethical. Not until we're absolutely sure.”

“I thought you just said you were sure.”

He nodded. “Please.”

She frowned. “Fine. I'll get you that blood.”

He watched her walk out into the hallway and, as soon as the door shut behind her, he leaned back against the wall and let out a long, deep breath, feeling the tension which had been building up finally slip away. After all these years, he'd feared she would still hold a grudge and refuse his request on principle. He had long ago forgiven her for what she'd done to their daughter; whether she forgave herself was another question.

She returned with the blood ten minutes later, the frozen tubes tucked away into a small box filled with dry ice. He'd have to add more to it to keep it safe until his arrival in Seattle.

“Make sure you call him,” he reminded her, as he stood up to leave. “Remember, hold the broken button down for ten seconds.”

“Your shot?” she said, holding up the syringe with a smirk on her lips.

“I don't need—”

“It's just flu vaccine. Appearances, remember?”

He rolled his eyes at her then allowed her to pull up his sleeve.

* * *

The plane lurched as the chock blocks were pulled away from the tires, causing him to open his eyes. He blinked a few times and looked out his window. The tarmac shimmered from the day's sweltering heat. Coming out, he'd been hoping for a respite from the East Coast weather, the heat and humidity. But he'd not found it here. And the mosquitoes had been especially ruthless, eating him alive in his hotel room.

As the engines whined and they began to taxi, he thought again about how their luck finally seemed to be shifting in their favor. It was becoming increasingly difficult fighting against the megalithic, quasi-corporate, and deeply political organization known as Arc. But the new studies had started without a glitch, and they were all optimistic they'd have preliminary results within a few days. If successful, they could topple Arc in a single blow.

He had even considered extending his stay so that he could follow the results in person, but then he'd received a ping from the hospital where Lyssa —
Anne, not Lyssa
, he reminded himself — where she worked. Alarmed that something bad had happened to her, he'd taken the call.

He was told that he'd somehow been identified as a match for a little boy desperately in need of a bone marrow transplant. Could he come immediately?
Yes
, he'd replied, though he couldn't remember ever signing anything. Or maybe it was automatic. In any case, how could he refuse a chance to save a dying child? After all, he'd dedicated the past eight years to trying to save lives with the aim of saving his own. He told them he'd be there early the next morning.

And afterwards, when the marrow harvesting had been done, he thought he'd ask Lyssa —
Anne, you idiot!
 — he thought he'd ask her out to dinner. It was time to put the pain of the past away for good.

He just hoped these aches from the flu vaccine didn't get any worse.

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

END OF
A DARK AND SURE DESCENT

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Part One
:

1
   
2
   
3
   
4
   
5
   
6
   
7
   
8

9
   
10
   
11
   
12
   
13
   
14
   
15
   
16

17
   
18
   
19
   
20
   
21
   
22
   
23

 

Part Two
:

 

24
   
25
   
26
   
27
   
28
   
29
   
30
   
31

32
   
33
   
34
   
35
   
36
   
37
   
38
   
39

40
   
41
   
42
   
43
   
44
   
45
   
46
   
47

48
   
49
   
50
   
51
   
52
   
53

 

Part Three
:

 

54
   
55
   
56
   
57
   
58
   
59
   
60
   
61

62
   
63
   
64
   
65
   
66
   
67
   
68
   
69

70
   
71
   
72
   
73
   
74
   
75
   
76
   
77

78
   
79

 

Redux

‡ ‡ ‡

 

 

 

 

All the world's a stage,

and all the men and women merely players.

William Shakespeare

(
As You Like It
II.vii.139-140)

 

FOR IMMEDIATE TRANSMISSION

FROM
: Padraig Harrison, President, Arc Properties

TO
: Qi Jacque Ma, Chairman and Founder, Abalila HG

DATE
: August 6, 2043

SUBJECT
: RE: Gameland   Long Island

Dear Jacque;

I am thrilled that your executive board has chosen to syndicate our flagship product into your Indo-Chinese market. At this point, I'd like to offer you an advance peek at some exciting new features that our development team is set to launch into our premium gaming package over the next several weeks, including the
in situ
insertion of live assets into
The Game
and a new immersive, fully haptic, biointerfacing body suit. I look forward to knowing your thoughts as we continue our demonstration.

Warmly yours,

Padraig

When Jessie Daniels woke up that morning in an unfamiliar house on abandoned Long Island, her dead hapkido instructor rattling around a potting shed in the back yard, she already knew the day ahead was going to be fucked. And if she was lucky enough to survive it, the next day was bound to be even worse.

Before her lay miles of broken highway, which she'd have to navigate on foot through some of the most perilous urban terrain on the planet. Above her was an unrelenting sun; and behind her, hot on her heels, were at least a half dozen Live Players pissed off as hell and looking for revenge because she'd made them look like incompetent pussies.

Then, at the end of her trek, Micah Sandervol, the former friend and fellow gamer she'd believed had hacked into their neural implants after faking his own death and resurrection.

And yet, despite all this, despite having to practically drag Kwanjangnim Rupert's reluctant corpse along, hand in cold, lifeless hand, there had actually been a few brief high points during her day, moments when she didn't feel the crushing weight of the world on her shoulders, when she felt like maybe — just maybe — she could actually pull this off.

Like the moment she realized her best friend, Ashley Evans, was still alive.

Ash's sudden reappearance could not have been more propitious. Jessie had gotten herself pinned down by a ravenous horde of the Undead at the gate to Arc's mainframe compound, no hope of escape and every expectation that she was going to become their next meal. Like an angel sent from Heaven, the tiny firecracker of a redhead had swooped in and saved her sorry ass, which was more than she could say about Master Rupert, who had been about as useful as a sack of salt.

That high point was soon followed by an agonizing crash back down to reality.

The first sign that something wasn't right with their reunion came shortly after the gate closed and Jessie was safely out of the clutches of the Undead. Instead of being joyful, Ashley was clearly not pleased. And, okay, maybe the resentment was understandable given that Jessie and the other survivors had left her behind in this land of the walking dead with no intention of ever coming back. They'd assumed that Ashley had become one of the Infected herself, just as Jake had.

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being totally unforgivable, the misunderstanding rated somewhere just shy of that extreme. At least in Jessie's estimation. There was always room for forgiveness.

But forgiveness was the furthest thing from Ashley's mind. Despite saving Jessie, what she wanted was to see her and the others pay with their lives.

Which was why the girl was now a corpse lying in a pool of mud and blood outside, her dead eyes staring at the puffy white clouds high above. The day had, indeed, turned out pretty damn screwed after all.

Jessie could've argued that putting the bullet in the girl's chest was self-defense, but the truth of the matter was, after discovering that Ashley had been the one to hack their implants and caused her mother's death, not Micah, she'd gladly done it. And she'd gladly do it again.

Ash had apparently been nursing a grudge for quite some time, even before Reggie proposed the whole idea that they break onto the island. It was a grudge based on some twisted belief that Jessie was somehow responsible for Ash's grandmother's early conscription. With that in mind, it was easy to see how there'd been so many mishaps. Ashley had been sabotaging their efforts from the very beginning.

All her life, Jessie had been vilified for being the daughter of the man who invented Reanimation technology. People called her Zombie Girl. Zombitch. Everyone seemed to think that she was just as much to blame as he was, as if she had been there and contributed. As if she actually wanted society to sanction the murder of its citizens just so it could reanimate them as civil servants later on. These people were so disconnected from reality that even as they condemned her, they defended the very system which was truly to blame.

The sins of the father revisited upon the child.

The real irony of that was that her
real
father had spent years secretly working to destroy Arc Properties, the company which now owned and profited from the technology.

The fight with Ashley and its inevitable outcome had left Jessie in a state of near-catatonia, numb to what she'd done. Numb to the crushing world.

The bitch deserved to die.

That numbness had been the only thing which kept her from collapsing into a blubbering heap of self-pity. And it was in that state that she sought out and found the shovel leaning against a shed near the back fence, the one marked
EMERGENCY GENERATOR
. It was in that state that she decided to—

hide the evidence

—bury Ashley.

Anger and betrayal aside, it felt wrong to just leave the girl like they'd left all the others she'd watched die.

Besides, it felt good to use the shovel to slice into the world that wanted to only do her harm. It felt right to put Ashley inside of that hole and seal her up.

So Jessie wouldn't have to see what she'd done.

So she could—

be at peace

—forget.

The hole was just deep enough when Kelly pinged. And now Jessie wished she hadn't answered it, because what she learned then stole that blessed numbness away from her, leaving her spirit even more crushed and bleeding.

Rather than show gratitude for her efforts in exposing a vulnerability to their system, Arc had publicly branded Jessie as a traitor. What was worse, they invited others to hunt her down, like she was just another bit of code in their morbid game, another of their bought-and-paid-for Players.

It didn't take a genius to know what goal her death served. It would shut her up so Arc could go on acting as if nothing were wrong. It would boost their ratings. It would keep the money flowing into their glutted coffers.

“Fuck it all!” she screamed in anguish. She hurled her Link against the far wall and buried her face in her hands. She just wanted to crawl into a corner and die. Tears of rage spilled down her cheeks. “Fuck them! Fuck Arc! Fuck everyone to fucking hell!”

The voice inside her head kept nagging at her to move:
Get going. Get the fuck going! They're going to be here soon. They're going to kill you.