The Aftermath (10 page)

He cocks an eyebrow. Sipping his water, he walks slowly around me, taking in the bar. He runs one of his fingers across a dusty vinyl stool, and then squats down to study the broken jukebox in one corner.

“I prefer we figure out what we’re going to do quickly,” I say.

He sighs and rises to his feet. “Sorry, I just find history...interesting. There’s nothing like this in the U.P. Not anymore.” He continues to stare at the machine for a moment, leaving me to wonder what’s so historical about a broken jukebox.

“Why not?” I finally blurt out.

“Because this game represents an era from over half a century ago. The year 2036 was when the city we’re standing in was actually vacated.” He presses his palm over the jukebox’s coin slot. “We christened this new world The Aftermath. There are the cannibals—flesh-eaters. And then there are—”

“And then there are people like myself. Survivors. We possess honor and loyalty. We scavenge for food, not flesh. We’re willing to die or kill for the safety of our friends. And we choose our clans with care because they must be prepared to do the same for us—one must be so careful these days,” I whisper in sync with Declan. When I close my eyes, I can almost hear a woman’s voice saying those words with us in one of those dramatic, woe-is-me voices.

“Impressive and slightly creepy. You know the promotional log line for The Aftermath.” Declan lifts his shoulders. “If you ask me, LanCorp could have done much better. The setting is perfect, though. Authentic. Spooky.”

“So this was once an actual place?”

“Before this state was condemned in 2036 after the war, yes. But like I said, that was sixty-three years ago. It’s 2099, Virtue.” He scoops his other bottle of water from the top of the bar and gestures to the door leading to the basement. “Come on—let’s set up my luxury accommodations.”

We go down the narrow staircase. As he picks the lock, I ask him about the game’s point system. To my surprise, he explains without an argument. “You’ve got to get a certain number of points and finish all twelve main missions to win. Main missions are the same for every gamer and character and have to be done in order. After the first mission, though, only team leaders can accept the big quests.”

As he tells me this, I feel my hand move to the right side of my face. Running my palm over the top of my ear, I tremble as I touch the flesh that was mutilated three years back. Hearing that I was hurt in a mission that hundreds of other characters must go through makes me furious. How many of those people were injured, killed? All for the sake of a game? “What about the side quests?” I hear myself ask in a tight, high-pitched voice.

“Way less points. And each moment in the game determines side quests. If the clan down the street is captured, then the system offers you and every other clan a mission to save them. Or LanCorp makes a modification to a main mission and you get a chance to find a character that’ll give you a tip on it. Side quests are optional, but each gamer is required to do at least one a week. You get the most points for the ones where you help Survivors—‘playing a saint’ is what they call it in The Aftermath’s gaming community. Robbing and taking out flesh-eaters gets you points, too, but usually not very many because most of those quests are unmarked.”

Before I have a chance to ask my next question, he adds, “They’re not listed on the mission menu, but if a gamer stumbles on one, he gets points. Like I said, they’re not worth very much. The only good thing about them is they’re like side quests—gamers don’t have to complete them with their clan if they don’t want to.”

I shift and the back of my wrist skims his arm. I pretend I don’t notice the way his muscles tighten. “So what do you have to do to lose points?” I ask softly.

“Isn’t it obvious? Break the rules, just like with any other game. You screw over Survivors or your clan or yourself and, best-case scenario, you lose points.” He leans in closer to the padlock and growls something under his breath. I consider pushing him aside so that I can unlock the door for him. Being in such a tight space with this boy makes me nervous.

I link my thumbs through my belt loops and press my back against the coarse brick wall. “How so?”

“I mean, the goal of the game is to off the bad guys and learn how to work together as a team, to learn how to be responsible and control your impulses. The game’s philosophy is that if you’re robbing or hurting Survivors, you’re not learning any of those things. Whenever you raid the good guys or refuse to accept a mission to save a member of your team who’s been captured, you lose points. And if you kill a Survivor—well, you start over from the beginning of the game, no matter where you are. You lose all your points and have to find a brand-new clan. Same thing goes if you get yourself killed. You say goodbye to your points and start over—with a new character.”

Now Olivia’s frequent Survivor raids make sense. She wants to lose points so that she can continue to play The Aftermath with Landon. I wonder if Jeremy’s and April’s gamers realize what Olivia and Landon are up to.

Finally, the lock opens and Declan turns the doorknob. I’m reluctant to go in first, but he nudges me inside and comes in after me, shutting the door. There’s only one window in here, and I immediately start breathing heavily, even though I’m probably inhaling mildew. This reminds me of the bloody room I woke up in three years ago. It feels as though it’s shrinking by the second, suffocating me.

I draw as much oxygen as possible into my lungs, but it’s still not enough.

“Don’t worry. I won’t keep you long,” he says. He sits his bag at the back of the small room and pulls a few things from it. Bundling them in his arms, he sweeps past me and kneels down by the door. I take a step closer as he sits the two small dome-shaped objects on either side of the entrance.

“I’m making a second save point in this building,” he explains as he pulls out his tablet. He rapidly punches a succession of buttons until a bright green light emanates from the two things on the floor and washes over the room for a few seconds.

My heart skips a couple of beats. Part of me is curious and the other part expects the whole building to blow to pieces if I so much as sigh.

When the light dies down, Declan faces me. “It’s a crude version of the technology used in the save points that protect characters when gamers log off. Except I’ve reconfigured this one to be active at all times. If anybody even touches that door, they’ll be shocked, which will give me enough time to get out of here while they try to figure out what’s going on.”

That explains what happened when I first tried to open the door on the second floor after all the gamers left—someone must have changed the save settings. I run my fingertips over my wrist, recalling how the electricity spun painfully through my body as I pushed myself out the doorway. I don’t tell him how impressed I am that he’s managed to make his own safe room.

“What happens if they decide to come in anyway?”

“The current is twice as strong as a normal save point. Besides, only an idiot would keep picking himself up off the floor just so he can be shocked all over again.”

Well, thanks.

“But,” he says, “if that does happen, even if I don’t get out in time, they’ll see nothing but an empty room.” At my wondering look, he adds, “Characters are expensive. LanCorp takes every precaution to protect their good name and reputation, so that means taking care of their gamers’ investments.”

I feel as if he’s slapped me in the face. I’m an investment. The expensive belonging of a girl who lacks the decency to feed me enough food. The inner corners of my eyes burn and my vision blurs. I look away from him, at a dark smudge on the wall. At a centipede racing across the floor.

At anything other than Declan.

Taking a deep breath, I slide past him but pause before I try to open the door. I already know I’ll be shocked when I return to the room upstairs. The last thing I want is for it to happen multiple times in the course of a few minutes. “Is it safe?”

The AcuTab beeps a few times. Then he says, “Now it is.”

I go through the door and turn around to look at Declan. He leans against the doorway, rubbing his finger around the opening of his water bottle and staring closely at me. I fidget, tuck a stray strand of hair behind my left ear. “You’ll come back as soon as it’s safe?” he asks.

He knows I will. He knows I want out of this place more than anything. But I nod anyway.

“Be careful,” he says as I walk slowly up the steps. “And be smart.”

I clean myself up as much as possible in the privy on the first floor with a jug of water and some harsh soap that burns my chafed skin. I study myself in the grimy, shattered mirror. A red-faced girl with blond hair, green eyes. A recognizable stranger.

Three hours of rest is all I’m given in the room upstairs before Olivia returns. Much of that I spend staring directly across from me at Ethan’s open-eyed, blank face and fighting off the tremors that still shake my body from the electric shock I received when I came in—apparently what Declan did downstairs to the basement door failed to disable the shock in this Save.

And the first thing Olivia has me say after she awkwardly manipulates my movements is, “Wake up—wake up. I want to go on a mission.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

We’re going on a rescue mission. From what I’m able to see when Olivia accepts the side quest on her mission screen, our objective is to save two captive Survivors from a flesh-eater den a couple of miles from here. We’re supposed to speak to one of the cannibals—a boy named Reese—to obtain critical information about the final game mission. And we’re supposed to leave him alive or forfeit all points from our last three side quests. My heart sinks as my clan plots the mission. More walking. More senseless violence. And more of me getting knocked around for no good reason.

Someone is bound to die today, and I hope I’m not on the giving or receiving end.

Jeremy pulls me aside as soon as I’m done speaking to the group. “I can’t stay for long,” he says quietly. “My family is hosting a party for my grandmother’s birthday at—”

He stops speaking as Olivia shrugs me out of his grip. She turns my head in his direction, and I stare him down for a moment. Aside from his vacant brown eyes, he looks healthier than I’ve seen him in months. After he accidentally swallowed a mouthful of tainted water when we went on a mission to liberate a bunch of Survivors from the ruins of a showboat, he was nothing but skin and bone for nearly a year.

“Okay...how much of your time do you plan to grace us with?” Although my voice is steady, I’ve no doubt Olivia’s tone is sharp enough to slice through metal.

“Two hours.” Jeremy takes a cautious step closer. I press one of my hands to his chest and shake my head from side to side, pursing my lips together. There’s too much force behind my touch, even if Jeremy does tower over me. I wish I could do something—tell him that his grandmother is more important than Olivia and this game. He gives me that shaky, out-of-place smile. “Maybe three or four. Or, I don’t know, maybe I can just cancel. My parents might be upset at first, but they’ll get over it.”

Olivia maneuvers my lips into a grin and makes me say, “That’s better.”

My stomach twists into painful knots. I’m not sure if I should feel empathy toward a gamer, but I do. Whoever controls Jeremy is playing the game because he wants friends—he’d basically said as much the night he and April’s gamer were discussing my fate in The Save. And Olivia will take that need and exploit it as much as possible.

Olivia plays the other gamers, her friends, just as often as she does me. My chest coils so tight I’m afraid it will rupture from the fury and panic coursing through me.

None of us mean anything to Olivia but entertainment.

“They’ve just recently moved in. We should get a move on. We’ve only got three hours to finish this mission,” I hear myself say just as I’m drawn into Olivia’s mind.

We’re in her ten-sided gaming room again, but she’s seated, not standing like usual. She’s also not flicking her hands near as much. The only time she moves is when she swipes her fingers through the empty space in front of her to switch to a different menu or zoom in or out of the screen.

Despite her lack of motion, I know she has me busy preparing for the side quest inside The Aftermath. It’s still stunning that she’s able to move me about while I’m inside of her head, but then, I’m certain it doesn’t matter what my mind is focused on—Olivia is in full control of my body.

On one of the screens, I’m pulling a few protein bars and a couple of bottles of water from the storage closet. My arms are mottled from the five days I spent in the blistering sun. It’s so visible on the gigantic displays that I’m terrified she knows where I’ve been, what I planned to do, especially when she grips the armrests of her cushioned white seat and stares intently at the display. But then she moves her hand and changes the screen to look at my inventory. She lingers for a moment, studying the list, before returning to the view of the game.

Black text flashes across the bottom of the screen. Then twice more. This has never happened before and the words are blinking so rapidly that I’m unable to comprehend what they say until the fourth time.

The Aftermath

Mind Experience

Trial Version 1.2.0

On-screen, I whisper something to Ethan, brush a strand of his golden hair out of his hazel eyes and touch my lips to his. The entire time I’m doing this, Olivia remains as still and as quiet as a statue. A terrifying thought worms its way into my head. Maybe Olivia doesn’t need to move any longer to control me. Maybe this trial version is a form of the game where her mind alone manipulates my body and words. A new level of power.

Something new and even more dangerous than before.

Is Trial Version 1.2.0 what Declan was talking about a few nights ago?

“Why do you have my things?” a voice demands angrily, launching me back into my own head as my gaze snaps toward April.

“What in the world are you talking about?”

She dangles her weapons in my face, and my heart skips a beat. Oh, no. Somehow, in my exhaustion and frustration, I’d forgotten to return the knives to her backpack, where they belonged.

“This was in your stuff. Why was it there?” she asks.

Somehow, Olivia makes me narrow my eyes into tight slits. “Why the hell were you going through my bag?” There’s an edge to my voice that catches me off guard. Everything I say is typically dry and emotionless when I’m Olivia’s puppet. But maybe Trial Version 1.2.0 changes all that, too.

April’s blue eyes don’t even blink as I rush at her. Buckling her belt, she says in the even voice I’m accustomed to, “My knives were gone. I needed them for the raid and—”

“Here’s a suggestion, April.” Olivia moves my hand so that it locks around April’s throat, and I shove her against the wall so hard I hear the air being knocked out of her body. “Stay out of my belongings before you find yourself seeking a new clan. And I guarantee you’ll be nowhere near as lucky.”

Olivia doesn’t give any further explanation. No denial. No wondering aloud about how April’s knives ended up in my bag in the first place. Olivia offers absolutely nothing but a cold glare before having me loudly declare to everyone else, “That goes for the rest of you, too.”

A million emotions run through me as I threaten the people around me with words I’d never use. Fear that Olivia will find out where I’ve been and punish me horribly. Fury because no matter how bad I want to make myself shut up, I can’t do it, because she’s stronger than me. She has such a hold on me that I’m lost completely when she wraps her mind around mine.

And I also feel hope.

Hope that one day I’ll meet Olivia face-to-face and I can tell her everything I’m dying to say—all the horrible words I’ve learned from her.

* * *

The flesh-eater den is underground, inside an enclosed parking garage. Exactly the type of building I hate because it reminds me of the one I woke up in years ago. Part of me feels as if I’m the same as I was then. Still unaware of everything that’s happening. Still trapped. Still the loneliest person in the world. The little bit of safety and camaraderie I’ve allowed myself to feel over the past three years disappeared the moment I realized what my friends are.

What I am.

I give the orders as we huddle across the street from the entrance. April and Ethan will storm the cannibals outright, taking the elevator. It’s the perfect distraction. Just enough for Jeremy and I to sneak in, release the captives and snag a bunch of supplies. “It’s foolproof,” I say confidently when I’m done explaining the plan, and everyone else agrees in unison.

This plan is anything but foolproof.

It’s stupid. Someone’s going to die. Some poor soul, some character who eats other humans just because she’s linked to a sick, twisted player, is going to lose her life. Or maybe somebody in my own group.

Possibly even myself. Then Olivia will have to find a new Claudia Virtue.

Jeremy and I enter through the garage door at the back of the building. It’s already cracked. I lie on the ground, crossing my arms over my chest. Carefully, I roll under the door. The sharp, rusted metal at the bottom scrapes my raw shoulders. I come out on the other side gracefully, but my body is on fire. Jeremy comes through next. When he stands up, there’s a thin cut on the tip of his nose.

You’re bleeding, I want to tell him, but Olivia has a different idea. “Come on—their gear is this way.” She pushes me onward, farther into the flesh-eater den. It doesn’t have the usual stench of decay and waste. It smells surprisingly clean. Like bleach.

A scent that terrifies me for some reason.

But no matter my fears, I continue on. After all, Olivia compels me to. The parking garage is like a junkyard. There’s so much stuff. A few weeks ago, I’d have attributed the random couches and lamps, the gutted car, to years of people seeking shelter here. Now I wonder if moderators strategically placed the scrap throughout the place to make the game more exciting.

Jeremy and I crouch behind an armchair that’s more stuffing than fabric. He places his hand on my shoulder, and grins down at me. “Have you started your research paper for history?”

“Shut up and stop breaking character.”

“Sorry.”

He’s quiet as we wait for Ethan’s signal to start the mission. My thighs hurt from the position Olivia’s put me in. I try to flush out the pain by thinking about how long Olivia would last, hunkered down like this at such an awkward angle. Or how irritated Jeremy’s gamer’s family must be that he’s shunning his grandmother’s party in favor of playing The Aftermath.

Ethan’s cue comes loud and clear. Two gunshots. Did he put them into a flesh-eater or just fire at the ceiling? I wish I could close my eyes to it all, but Jeremy and I slink quickly through the piles of junk, heading toward the reason why we’ve come here.

Two Survivors—a boy and a girl, both of them as young as the boys I met on my trip west—sit unguarded with their backs to either side of a pillar. Metal chains are wrapped around them. The girl glances up when I kneel in front of her, and if her face could show relief, I’ve no doubt it would.

“You’re here.” She sighs. “I thought we were done for. The last thing I want is to have to restart my treatments with a new character and have my points reset and—”

My hand claps over her mouth. “I’ll reset your points myself if you don’t keep your mouth shut,” I say, and they both bob their heads. I let go of the girl’s mouth. It takes a minute to pick the locks and two more to unravel the metal—quietly, so that the flesh-eaters don’t hear us.

When I’m done, the pair hobbles to their feet and Jeremy tells them how to get out of the parking garage. The boy takes off, but the girl lingers behind, staring at me. I wonder if her gamer logged off. Or if there’s a problem with her chip, too. But then she moves toward Jeremy and me.

“I hope to be as good as you one day,” she says. “There’s a whole gaming board about how your clan won the third main mission in less than half the time of any other clan. And you’ve done so many rescue quests that—”

Olivia shrugs my shoulders. “Can you stop the hero worship before I decide to chain you back up?”

The girl takes a step forward, shaking her head. “But—”

“Why are you still here? Me saving you doesn’t make us friends. Now run along, before I decide to leave you here, after all.”

The other character clenches her fists and takes another step closer to me, but Jeremy moves in her direction. He shakes his head menacingly. He could kill her with just his hands, I realize. And his character would make him do it if it meant protecting Olivia. His friend.

Luckily, it doesn’t come to that. Without another word, the girl turns and leaves, making as much noise as possible.

“What an ungrateful little idiot,” I hear myself say. “Come on—let’s fill our bags so we can finish up here and get out of this dump.”

This is one of those rare moments when I actually agree with my gamer.

These cannibals don’t have a supply of packaged food, something that many other flesh-eaters keep. What they do have is a gratuitous amount of ammunition and medicine. Steel and opiates. A stupid reason to risk our lives, especially when the storage closet at the bar is overflowing with weapons. “Jackpot,” I say.

I shrug the three empty bags I’m carrying off my arms and drop them on the floor in the middle of the stash. I start loading one of them with a group of knives hanging up in a steel closet. I can hear the erratic sound of gunshots echoing through the building. I should be used to this. It shouldn’t bother me.

It does.

My fingertips flick across a curved blade that’s caked with blood and something else, and my stomach heaves.

“Evening, ladies,” a male voice says. I’m up on my feet with the Glock drawn before my brain even registers that Jeremy and I have been found out. The flesh-eater lifts his hands above his head in surrender. “Holy cra— Are you serious? You’re Virtue. The guys in training won’t believe this. I’m getting a chance at Claudia Virtue.”

There are many things that I’ve not been able to explain about The Aftermath, but I do recall everyone I’ve encountered. And I’ve never met this guy. He’s redheaded and freckled all over and at the most a couple of years older than me.

“There’s no chance of that happening since I’m about to shoot you, love,” I tease, pulling the Glock’s slide back. It springs forward, and the boy just stares at it.

“Wow,” he says. “This is epic.”

I’m scared for so many reasons right now. Someone I swear I’ve never met knows me by name. But then again, hadn’t the female Survivor mentioned how Olivia was well-known in some type of game boards? Claudia Virtue and Olivia are popular in the gaming community. Maybe that’s all this is, some game-obsessed weirdo who follows my actions online?

“Good luck with your next job.” I pause for a moment, not moving. Olivia must be looking at a different screen. “Reese. Try to last a little longer than a couple months.”

What does she mean by job? I don’t ponder on this for long, because Olivia has me inching closer and closer to the boy. She aims for me to kill him. This important part of our mission, the boy that we’re not supposed to harm. I should have known this would happen; Olivia’s itching to lose as many points as possible.

Just two months in this game and Reese will die today by my hand. I’m livid. His player seems so gleeful and ready to die. Why should Reese be the one who suffers?