S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (21 page)

Drowns.

Yet she cannot die.

Not again. She can never die.

And that is the final, unbroken Truth.

‡ ‡ ‡

Jessie's body jerked itself upright, and she coughed as she tried to suck the thin air into her lungs. She gulped, gasping, as someone pounded on her back. Her fingers clawed at her throat. She would tear a hole in it if it would just allow the stingy air to pass through it more easily.

Eric was there, panic showing on his face. He grasped her shoulders and shook. She could see that he was yelling. His mouth was opening and closing, and his lips formed the sounds of her name and
Help her!
and
Please!
But she couldn't hear any of it, could only hear the high-pitched whine inside her head, the same whine she'd heard after she'd fallen down the stairs.

Someone shoved him away.

Jessie recognized the new face which came into view. It was the nurse who had been with her right before it started to rain.

She forced her hands away from her throat and reached around to the back. The skin beneath the hair was slick, and when she brought her hand forward again, she saw that it was smeared with blood. She puzzled over the sight, rubbing her thumb and fingers together and marveling at the stickiness of the ocher liquid. It was already drying in the cool, filtered air.

Is it done?

The whining inside of her head began to fill and rattle with other sounds— words and voices, the clatter of equipment, an urgent beeping. She blinked around at the others in the room, her chest still heaving. The demand for air wasn't as dire as it had been a moment before.

Jessie!

Her name. Not inside her head. It came from somewhere else. She turned.

It was Eric, still shouting, his face rising up before her, falling away, reinserting itself back into her field of vision. She was dizzy, tilting, and he was calling her name.

Jessie pushed the nurse away so she could go to him, but her legs failed and she started to fall. Her knees collapsed beneath her, arms like rubber. The table betrayed her, lurching upward toward the ceiling. The floor rising, too. Her brother took her and lifted her into his arms.
Get away!
he shouted at the nurse, at the others who had piled through the doorway into the too bright, suddenly white, noisy room.
Give her some space!

She was surprised when they obeyed.

“Can you speak?”

She turned her eyes to Eric, still gasping, and tried again to stand, and this time her knees wobbled, locked, held. The buzz in her head was dwindling. She nodded, but didn't try to say anything.

I'm alive. I was dead, but now I'm back and how can that be?

She raised her hands to her eyes and her mind registered that they were not the tattered, skeletal fingers she had expected. Her hands were as they always were, except one was sticky—

It's not blood.

She reached back again and there was no bandage, no incision. The sticky liquid was disinfectant.

“What happened? Did I get a new implant?”

Eric glanced up and toward the person behind her, then back down. He gave her a quick shake of the head, then helped her back onto the table. The nurse took the opportunity to wedge herself between Jessie and her brother, brushing him aside again. She muttered to herself as she scanned her implant for her vital signs.

“They couldn't proceed,” Eric said. “And they couldn't wake you.”

Jessie frowned. “It was the anesthesia, it knocked me out and—”

He shook his head. “They didn't give you anything, Jessie.”

She frowned. “B  but I felt it! I couldn't move or see.”

“You passed out.”

“What? I didn't pass out!”

The nurse shushed them both. “What was the last thing you remember?”

“You told me to roll over. I  I . . . .”

The nurse frowned and shook her head.

“They thought you'd fainted, Jessie,” Eric told her.

“I didn't faint! I don't do that!”

But of course she did, didn't she? Just the day before. She'd fainted down the steps.

No!

“I don't think it was a faint,” the nurse said. “We tried to wake you, but we couldn't.”

“I don't understand.” Jessie looked at the woman, pleading, then to a third person standing to one side, observing. She didn't recognize him. When they made eye contact, he stepped forward.

“Miss Daniels, I—”

“Missus.”

He blinked a couple times, processing the correction, then nodded his understanding. “Missus Daniels, my name is Doctor Hines. I'm a cybernetic implant specialist. I was scheduled to replace your implant this evening. It appears that you may have had some kind of neural episode.”

“A what?”

“A seizure. Has anything like this ever happened to you before? Any history of epilepsy?”

She shook her head, glancing cautiously at Eric.

What about when you saw your mother? In Manhattan, on the bus? Wasn't that—?

That wasn't the same thing!

And yet it felt eerily similar. Just like the day she'd imagined being in the woods.

What the hell is going on with me?

Eric's face was pale. He looked frightened and his eyes bulged. “She did faint yesterday.”

“That's because I forgot to eat!”

“You were throwing up.”

Jessie glared at him.

The doctor grunted and pulled a light out of his pocket and shined it into her eyes. He asked her to track his finger as he moved it from side to side. Someone's Link pinged while he was doing this.

“It's Kelly,” Eric told her.

“Give it to me!”

Jessie reached over for the Link.
This is his fault!
But Doctor Hines stopped her. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

He swept the penlight once more past her eyes, top to bottom this time, then tapped on her knees and elbows. He pricked her skin with a needle, asked her to count backwards. All the tests seemed to assure him the seizure hadn't caused any damage.

Finally, he leaned back on his stool and crossed his arms. He stared at his tablet for a long time, a puzzled look on his face, before finally standing up. “You appear to be fine, though I recommend you see your regular doctor, get a more thorough checkup.” He took a deep breath. “For now, though, we need to talk about that implant.”

He moved over to the machine on the cart and flicked it off. The whining in Jessie's head immediately began to fade.

“What about it?” Eric asked.

“In my ten years working with these devices, I've never encountered a fully functional device that we couldn't modulate. Granted, we don't do many replacements, but those we've done have been quite straightforward. Yours, on the other hand . . . ,” he said, looking at Jessie. The lines on his face deepened and he shook his head. “I'm honestly unsure how to proceed.”

Eric's face crinkled in worry. “What do you mean?”

Doctor Hines turned toward him. “The implant in your sister's head is clearly defective. It can communicate with her Link device and the streams. Where it's failing is when we attempt to modify its programming.”

“The firmware?” Jessie asked.

He shook his head. “All implants are designed with certain—” He paused, searching for the right words. “They possess certain safety mechanisms. We need to modulate these safeguards before we can remove the device.”

Jessie and Eric exchanged glances. They both knew that the doctor was referring to the self-destruct mechanism.

“Is there any reason she
has
to have it replaced?” Eric asked.

“Federal regulations mandate full compliance. That includes implant integrity. A faulty device is as bad as none at all. In fact, it's worse because we can't replace it.” He paused. “We have to think about what's best for our fellow citizens. In the event of an outbreak, you would represent a considerable security risk to the general population.”

Fear flushed anew through Jessie's body. She didn't like where the doctor was going with this.

“I think it might be best to put Jessica into a—” He paused. “Into a controlled environment. For her own protection.”

“There are tens of thousands of people walking around without implants right now!” Eric shouted.

“And we are working very closely with our military and civilian partners to remove that risk, Mister Daniels. In just a few short weeks, every man, woman and child over the age of ten months will be implanted. If even one person remains without a functional implant, then no one is safe. The federal mandates are very clear.”

“But she hasn't broken any laws! You can't hold her!”

“We can, actually.”

Eric pulled out his badge and shoved it into the doctor's face. “This says I'm taking her home!”

The doctor stared impassively at the identification for a moment, then shrugged. “In three weeks, the federal deadline will arrive. Any person not in compliance at that time must be taken into custody.”

“Then you have three weeks to figure out how to fix my sister's implant, because this isn't her fault. Until then, she's coming home with me.”

“You fully understand the risks?”

Eric glared at him. “Better than you know.”

“Then you also fully accept the consequences.” He turned to Jessie. “I'll work with our engineers to determine the cause of the bug in your implant. On the off chance we can't come up with a workaround, we'll have no other choice than to place you in protective isolation.”

‡ ‡ ‡

They were back in the car again, heading home. Another hour-long drive filled with smoldering silence. For the first half hour, Eric watched Jessie warily out of the corner of his eye. He'd open his mouth, as if he intended to say something, then close it again without uttering a single word. Jessie tried not to let it bother her, but it was really beginning to wear on her nerves. She had more than enough on her mind than to worry about his fragile state of mind.

There was no question that her implant problems and the file on her Link were connected. She was going to have to confront Kelly.

Eric cleared his throat, looked over, changed his mind and went back to focusing on the road.

If she had to resort to coercing Kelly to tell her what he'd done, and to fix it, then—

“You okay over there, Jessie?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake!” she exclaimed and climbed over into the back seat and tried to lie down out of sight.

“We need to talk about this.”

“Like that's going to solve anything.”

“And how is
not
talking about it any better?”

“Because it's a programming issue, Eric. And unless you have some sort of super secret computer coding expertise I don't know about, you can't fix this.”

Eric cleared his throat. “I won't let them take you away, Jess. You need to know that.”

She sighed and stared at the scuff marks on the back of his seat. “I know, Eric. Just . . . .” The old vinyl was cracked and torn along one corner. She started picking at it, pulling flakes of the material off with her fingernail. “Just let's go home.”

So I can deal with Kelly.

But she had absolutely no idea how she was going to do that. What was she going to say? “Hey, honey. So, I know you've been lying to me all these years. But it's cool. I just need you to do a little favor for me: This thing you put on my Link, would you take it off? If you don't, then I'm going to rot in prison. So, what do you say, chum? For old time's sake?”

Leverage. That's what she needed. Something to force Kelly to admit what he'd done to her.

The only thing Kelly ever really cared about is his brother.

But what could she do, kidnap Kyle? She didn't want to do that. The boy wasn't a bargaining chip.

You've got no other choice.

As long as Kyle doesn't get hurt.

The only way you'll get Kelly to do what you want is by convincing him that you're willing to hurt his little brother. If that's what it takes, then so be it.

She cursed Kelly, hated him for making her think this way. She had always loved little Kyle. The sweet boy had had nothing but trouble his whole entire short life.

“We could try and leave New Merica,” Eric said, surprising Jessie. She sat up and could see the turmoil in his face in the mirror. “We could turn the car around right now and head for the Canadian border.”

She shook her head. “You'd leave without Mom?”

He frowned at her, then turned away when his personal Link pinged on the seat beside him. “What is it now?” He grabbed it and jammed his thumb onto the connect button.

Kelly's face appeared on the screen. “Is Jessie with you?” His gaze shifted over, and relief flooded his face when they locked eyes. “I've been trying to ping you for the past hour! Where are you?”

“We're in the car coming back from Hartford,” Eric said. “What is it? What's the matter?”

“Hartford?” Alarm flickered over Kelly's face. “What are you doing there?”

Eric turned to Jessie, frowning. “
You didn't tell him?
”

She snatched the Link out of her brother's hand. “We went to Citizen Registration,” she snapped. She wasn't ready to have this discussion with him yet.

Eric stared at her for a second, clearly confused by her behavior. Kelly also managed to look perplexed.

“I went to get my devices replaced,” she added in the same terse voice.

Kelly was silent for a moment. His mouth hung slightly open. “You're okay?”

“Of course I'm okay! Did you expect me
not
to be?”

Eric's frown had tightened and he mouthed at her:
What the hell is going on?

“Why are you pinging us, Kelly?” Jessie growled.

“It's— I tried your Link, but you didn't ping back.”