S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (50 page)

There was a thump and a cry behind her, and before she could spin around to look, the loud blast of a gunshot shattered the still air, followed by the clatter of something small and hard hitting the cement.

Jessie shrugged the straps off her shoulders and jumped to her feet. The Player was standing with its head cocked strangely to one side, and for a split second Jessie thought Ashley had shot it. She expected it to collapse in a heap.

There was a flash of movement off to her left. She saw it out of the corner of her eye. Jessie reacted by lunging after Ashley, and they both tumbled to the sidewalk. Ashley threw up an elbow, aiming for Jessie's neck, but her shoulder took the brunt of the hit. She felt Ashley's fingers tighten around her throat, and the image of Siennah's face turning blue popped into her mind. If she didn't extricate herself soon, Ashley would choke the last bit of air from her lungs.

Jessie tried to bring an arm up to get to Ashley's face. One was trapped between their bodies, and Ashley was forcing the other away.

Do something!

But she heard nothing from the Player.

Get the gun!

She pictured the pistol, pictured herself picking it up. She tried not to picture herself firing it.

Pick it up and bring it here!

A foot slid past beside their heads. Ashley's eyes flicked to it, then back to Jessie's face, widening in confusion and alarm. The momentary distraction was all Jessie needed. She untangled her arm and planted her hand on Ashley's face, hooking a thumb beneath her nose. Ashley jerked her head from side to side as she tried to dislodge it, but Jessie just pushed harder. Finally, with a grunt of pain, Ashley reached up and twined her fingers in Jessie's hair and pulled down, wrenching her head back.

The pain was exquisite, a searing, ripping, white hot pain that felt as if her scalp was lifting itself off the top of her skull. Jessie's hand slipped. Her thumb slid off Ashley's nose, then caught higher up on the bony ridge of her eyebrow. She shoved down and in, feeling the orb of the eyeball shift in the socket.

Ashley screamed and let go of both Jessie's hair and her neck and began to pelt her with her fists. Jessie pushed even harder, digging her thumbnail in, locking the knuckle, squeezing with all of her fingers. She could feel the skin ripping, the nails of her fingers digging in, tearing the thin flesh lining Ashley's forehead. A series of blows caught the tip of Jessie's ear, strong but weakening. Another slammed her just above her left eye.

Stars, whiteness.

Jessie lowered her head to avoid the torrent that followed. They landed ineffectually on her back and shoulders.

“You brought this on yourself,” she growled, her mouth close to Ashley's cheek. “I loved G-ma Junie just as much as you did.”

This only seemed to infuriate Ashley all the more. She cuffed Jessie on the side of the head, catching her on the temple. Jessie's eyes were squeezed shut, but she still observed another flash of white and felt the world lurch beneath her.

Ashley levered her hands under Jessie's shoulders and shoved forward with a scream. Jessie's thumb popped free of the socket and she rolled off. She tried to scramble to her feet, but stumbled in her dizziness and tripped backward over the duffle bag.

Ashley crawled in the opposite direction, whimpering like a wounded animal. She raised a hand to brace herself against the wall of the building and began to pull herself up. Blood streamed down her face from her swollen eye socket, from her forehead. The eye seemed to still be intact. Whether it was functional was another story.

Jessie turned to look for the Player.

Give me the gun. Bring it to me.

She reached out as it stepped toward her. Ashley crouched against the building and shot a glance at her with her good eye. Jessie couldn't tell what she must be thinking.

She stood up. The Player extended the pistol, its hand on the grip. She only saw its finger on the trigger after Ashley launched herself against the monster, pushing it on top of Jessie. The barrel of the pistol stabbed her in the belly, felt as if it was going to pass right through her. She tried to pull away, but the momentum of Ashley's body was too much and the three fell in a heap.

Get up off of me! Let go of the gun!

The skin on her belly tore as the pistol twisted between her and the Player, pinching, ripping as the end of the barrel angled to one side. But the pressure lessened.

“Bite her!” Ashley screamed, pushing herself off and kicking and punching the Player. “Bite her, you son of a bitch!” She grabbed the pack on its back and tried to pull it up, but the zipper broke and the bag ripped open, spilling the bottles of water and food Jessie had stowed in it onto the ground.

Get her! Squeeze her neck!

The Player planted a hand on Jessie's shoulder and pushed relentlessly down, shoving her onto the hot cement as it stood up. Panting, Jessie moved away and felt for the gun. It had slipped off of her body. Her hands were shaking terribly and they felt strangely numb. They skittered over her shirt. She raised them to her eyes and saw that they were bloody.

He shot me. He shot me!

She lowered her eyes and saw that she was covered.

Oh God. Oh God.

The Player stopped in midstride.

Ashley was standing a few feet away, one hand on her face, cupping her injured eye. The other hand was on her knee, and in it was the pistol.

But how did she get it?

The pistol was—

It was—

The world lurched before Jessie's eyes, tilted, closed in.

No, no NO!

Ashley stepped back, still panting and moaning in pain. She regarded the two of them warily, putting less weight on the hand with the pistol, straightening, getting ready to shoot.

Get her.

Nothing.

Jessie pictured squeezing Ashley's throat, and the Player suddenly lurched forward. Ashley stumbled back, tripped over the edge of the walk and tumbled.

Jessie tried to sit up. Her fingers curled around an object beside her and she pulled it up to her eyes and saw that it was the second pistol.

It's the other one. Ashley got the other one from the backpack!

The Player stepped forward again just as Ashley sat up and raised the weapon. Her hand shook as she took aim. The blast shattered the silence and the bullet entered Kwanjangnim Rupert's chest, exiting just below the shoulder blade in a spray of bone and flesh and blood, matching the hole six inches to its south.

Ash's arm jerked from the recoil and nearly knocked her back over. The Player advanced another step. Sobbing in fear, she swung the gun up and fired again. The bullet went wide.

There was no time for a third shot before the zombie that was once Kwanjangnim Rupert was on her.

‡ ‡ ‡

Jessie stumbled to her feet, pressing one hand to the hole in her stomach. The other still clutched her grandfather's gun in front of her. Ashley had dropped the second pistol and was now pinned beneath Jessie's Player, and it was only now, with its face just inches from hers, that Ash recognized who it had once been.

Jessie became aware of the power she now possessed, and it terrified her. Aware of how easily that power had been given to her, how difficult it had been to wield, and how easily it could be stripped away again. And for just a moment, she knew how suffocated and helpless Ashley felt as she was crushed by it.

One thought was all it would take to finish it. One passing wish, an image formed in her mind. When had she gained so much control?

Power is about desire.

Did she want Ashley to die?

The girl struggled beneath the immobile zombie, but Jessie could see that her fight was half-hearted. The dead man had fallen gracelessly on her, and it held her down with its hands on her shoulders, its knee thrust painfully — or so it appeared to Jessie — into Ashley's thigh. Ash grunted a few more times, then gave up as she realized it wasn't going to bite her. She looked over, and Jessie could see that the fire that had once dwelled there, the fire that had forged this new Ashley, was gone. This fire, just as the old, had been extinguished.

“How?” Ashley asked. “How are you controlling it?”

Jessie didn't answer. In fact, she was only barely aware of the question at all. But even if she knew, she was beyond providing any sort of explanation. Not because she wanted to deny her old friend the knowledge, but because of the grief that suffocated her now. Grief not for her dead mother — there would be time for that later — but for the fact that the girl she had loved as a sister saw her as the enemy.

“Get it off of me, Jessie.”

Jessie tilted her head, flashed an image, and the Player straightened, lifting its shoulders and releasing its grip.

So easy.

It rocked back and got to its feet. Ashley didn't move. She remained on the ground, gawping up at the monster. It stared disinterestedly off into the middle distance between the building and the fence.

Jessie lurched over to where the second pistol lay on the ground and kicked it away. Then she chanced a look at her wound. It appeared to have stopped bleeding. In fact, it appeared not to be bleeding at all. She lifted her shirt and saw the dark mark of a bruise and a scrape from the end of the pistol's barrel as it had gouged into the soft part of her belly. But no hole. And then she realized that the blood wasn't hers, but Kwanjangnim Rupert's, from the first bullet Ashley had fired.

“Get up,” she told Ashley. “It's time to go.”

But Ashley didn't move.

“Ash—”

“Fuck you.”

Jessie didn't move.

Ashley laid her head down on the ground and laughed bitterly at the sky. “You were always so soft. You never had the stomach, the will. You'd get just to that edge, the point of no return, and then you'd choke. That's why you could never be the best.”

“Being the best was never my dream, Ash. I always just wanted to be . . . .” She sighed, suddenly so tired. Bone tired. “I just wanted to be left alone.”

Ashley pushed herself up onto her elbows, grunting from the effort and the pain. She lifted a hand to her ruined face, and Jessie wondered obliquely if she'd blinded her. It didn't matter. The perfect little Ashley wasn't flawless anymore. She was broken. Just like Ben had said of Jessie. And he had been right, of course. The only difference was, Jessie had always been that way; being broken wasn't anything new to her.

She looked down without pity. “Get up.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Jessie stared.

She watched herself point the gun at Ashley's head and it was like she wasn't her anymore. She was still inside her mind, still somewhat in control because she could blink when she told herself to. She could breathe. But the arm raised and the gun came with it, and it was pointed at Ashley's head. All Jessie could do was watch.

don't do it

She waited to see if the girl would plead with her, tell her it was all a big mistake, apologize for what she'd done.

jessie, don't

The game would end then, because that's how the game was played, wasn't it?

if you kill her, a part of you will die forever

Jessie's finger twitched.

breathe

Her hand began to shake.

be water

The gun clapped in joyful release.

And it was only then that Jessie realized the voice begging her not to shoot hadn't been her own.

She turned and regarded Kwanjangnim Rupert for a moment. Then she instructed him to stay while she went to find a shovel.

‡ ‡ ‡

Eric stepped into the hospital lobby holding his Link to his ear, waiting for it to connect. It was ten minutes before four o'clock and he wanted to be sure Kelly was connected to Jessie when the announcement was aired.

He'd just received confirmation from Harrick that Arc acknowledged finding evidence of hacking in their systems, and that it had compromised some of their gaming streams. It wasn't everything he had hoped for. He'd wanted Arc to address the ongoing failures they were seeing with the broader stream network. But it was a start. As a sign of good faith, they had just recommended that Reggie be released, so there was that bit of good news. Now, all that was needed was to negotiate for Jessie's return back home.

The ping connected and Kelly answered almost immediately. “You watching this?” Eric asked.

Kelly nodded. “I just finished setting the gear up here and was about to switch on the television.”

When Eric told him what his captain had said, Kelly answered, “I never thought I'd see the day. They've been denying the network is vulnerable for as long as I can remember. This is going to be a huge blow to them.”

“They can't keep denying what they can't hide. At least now we'll be able to focus on fixing things.”

“I'd rather they got rid of it altogether,” Kelly grumbled. He bent down and flipped on the gaming console to warm it up. He'd even brought the holo projector back up to the living room, even though it was of no use to him.

“They'll never get rid of Omega technology, Kelly. We've become too addicted to it.”

“The cure will make it obsolete,” Kelly pointed out.

Eric's face darkened. “Or it'll force someone to develop a resistant strain. You see the problem? I don't like where we've come either, but the solution isn't to go backward. We need to find a way to live with the monsters we've created, not because of the convenience, but to make the technology safer.”

He could see Kelly's hesitation, and he knew a lot of the younger man's doubt stemmed from that one truth they both knew, that Jessie would never be happy until the world was rid of Reanimation technology once and for all. And it broke Eric's heart because he knew it was a battle she'd never win.

“I'm going to connect,” Kelly said.

Eric nodded. “Okay. Six minutes before
Survivalist
.”