Walking Ghost Phase (15 page)

At 18:43, a repetitive thud of footsteps in the hallway announced that the time to leave had arrived. Maggie stood and buttoned her shirt to the top.
“You're going to die early.”

Emily nodded. Half her mind tried not to think about it; the other half pondered the punishment
if she stayed in her room.

“
The darkness after can be hard to deal with.”

“
How do you do it?”

“
I imagine myself at home. I dream of my friends.”

Emily sighed.
“I would if I remembered them.”

“
Try to believe you are anywhere but here, and don't let go. It's all you have to stay sane.” Maggie stepped through the door with Emily right on her heels.

A shoulder-to-shoulder congregation of soldiers packed the hall, each walking forward in a pied piper
's death march. Emily slipped into line and followed the procession until she reached a wall of forty silver elevator doors. When the bell chimed, every soldier flinched. The doors slid open, and Emily crammed inside between two husky guys. She glanced at the weight limit warning sign—
2500 Pound Maximum
—and ran the numbers through her head, calculating how many more warm bodies would lead to a violent death. The elevator doors closed before anyone else entered.

No
longer than a minute into the ride, a bitter odor of ammonia rose to her nostrils. Her eyes began to water, and she glanced down. A puddle of glistening urine rolled across the floor, zeroing in on her. She pressed her back in the corner, but the puddle grew larger, creeping around her boots. The ride lasted four minutes—four minutes of standing in someone's bodily fluids.

When the doors glided open, a cloud of white vapor seeped aboard the elevator, and a dull hum emanated from somewhere in the distance. Emily
's boots squeaked as she stepped inside the chamber, where the first row of vats blurred in the haze. Lab-coat-wearing men and women, disappearing and reappearing behind the wall of steam, hustled around to assist soldiers into the gelatinous substance—soldiers who were dressed in skimpy, white spandex.

“
First timers,” a gruff officer shouted. “Head to the locker rooms, find your name, change into the gear and report to your designated simulator. Move it.”

Emily
shuffled along the wall to the lighted rooms on the left of the chamber. Inside, what appeared to be a mile long wooden bench separated a sea of black lockers, so Emily went down the left side until she found her name etched in metal. The locker contained three items: a pair of white spandex shorts, a white spandex sports bra and a piece of paper with the number 4700 typed in bold letters.

After changing, Emily stuffed her fatigues inside the locker and returned to the Sim chamber
, joining a group of girls who scanned the white-on-red numbers hanging from the ceiling. The deeper into the chamber she looked, the higher the vat numbers went, which meant she would soon be near the back wall, far from the elevators, far from an exit to freedom. By the time she reached the 4700 sign, her knees wobbled and teeth chattered.

A graying man with a bright smile approached her.
“First entry?”

Emily nodded, too nervous to answer, and stared at the electronic devices attached to the vat. Steam rose to her face, drenching her
cheeks and forehead.

“
Relax. You'll do fine.” He held out his arms. “Let me help you.” Then he groped her thigh and grinned.

Emily
checked around the chamber, immediately noticing two MPs standing twenty feet away and talking with each other. They probably wouldn't appreciate her justification if she slapped the pervert, so she simply brushed aside his hand and climbed the vat stairs without his help.

Staring down at the crystalline liquid, she lowered her foot. Her toes broke the surface first, creating a ripple across the gel. Then she froze. Her eyes bulged as a thousand lightning bolts crawled up her spine.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch.” Emily jerked her foot out of the gel and hid it behind her other leg. “That's hot.”

“
Once you get in, the computer will adjust the temperature so you don't overheat or become too cold. Can't let you get hypothermia.”

“
What about third degree burns?”

The pervert checked his watch.
“I'm on a schedule here.”

Emily dipped her toe in the gel and spun it in a circle, creating a ripple of waves.
Looks like you're going to have to wait
.

“
In you go,” a strange voice said.

Pain shot through Emily
's heels. The soles of her feet lifted off the edge of the vat, and her legs flung above her head. She flailed her arms, reaching for something, anything, anyone to stop her descent. The chilly air rushed against her back until the gel slapped her skin. Heat surged up her neck, and her tailbone cracked on the vat bottom. It seemed as if a blowtorch washed over her. She screamed.

An MP looked down at her
and laughed. “That never gets old.” He walked along the outside row of vats, whistling a country music song, probably searching for his next victim.

The pervert pressed a sequence of buttons.
“Ready?”

Emily shook her head furiously.
“No.”

“
They all say that the first time.” He shoved a tube through her lips, either doing his job or trying to shut her up but succeeding at both. Another flick of his wrist sent a rush of oxygen into her lungs, forcing her mouth to clamp down on the plastic tube. Pressure built behind her eyes, which worsened when he slapped two quarter-size, tan sensors on her temples. He waved his hands in the air. “Ready on 4700.” Green and red lights blinked from the vat side. “We have full power. Good luck.” He dunked Emily's head under the surface, leaving her with the blur of his sickly wink.

The world faded.

Once Emily opened her eyes, the Sim chamber had disappeared. She was somewhere else. Somewhere unfamiliar. Threadlike beams of sunlight cast the room in a polka-dot pattern, revealing overturned chairs, shattered tables and pink and green walls. A painting of dogs playing poker was lying torn on the floor, where shards of broken wine glasses and plates crackled under her boots.

A muffled so
und of ricocheting bullets pierced the walls, and Emily crouched, burying her head between her knees. Now something stabbed at her ribs. She threw out her arm and knocked the object away from her body. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the rifle rattle on the ground, but when she reached out to grab it, her hand brushed her now clothed knee. The shirt, pants and boots were black, the vest full of gun magazines. A knapsack hung across her hip.

“
Let's go,” a strange voice said.

Emily
spun, almost bumping into the three soldiers. A sleek helmet and visor covered their faces, and a letter and number floated supernaturally above each of their heads: A1, A2, A3. Remembering what Colonel Moore said, Emily thanked everything holy.

She wasn
't in command.

The soldiers ducked low and crept through the broken door. Without hesitating, Emily followed them into the daylight, where she gazed at the towering high-rises.
Corner chunks of concrete were missing, the debris from which had fallen to the streets. The noon sun warmed her shoulders, and a breeze gusted between the high-rises. A tingle of euphoria raced up her spine. She could stand there all day. Then the zing of a ricocheting bullet zipped past her ear.

“
Move,” A1 shouted. Emily grabbed the back of A3's shirt, and he dragged her across the street, into an abandoned store. There, her boots slipped over a thousand tiny gumballs, but as she steadied herself, her hands still trembled. A1 knelt in front of a boarded-up window and peeked through a slit between the wood planks. “Did you see them?”

“
No. Nothing,” A2 replied.

A1 pointed at Emily.
“What about you?”

See who?
She only remembered the bobbing rear end of A3. Of course, she wasn't about to say that to her commander. “No, sir.”

A1 edged closer to the window.
“I think they're nested on the roof of that gray tower a few hundred yards from us.” He dropped to his chest and slid along the floor. “Come here. See if you can find them.” A2 and A3 gathered around him, blocking any space for Emily to look for herself, so she stood near the door, acting as if she guarded it.

“
I think I see movement,” A2 said.

Then Emily
's eardrums collapsed. A deafening blast of fire and cinders launched her in the air. She flailed her arms, feeling only dead air, until her back slammed against the wall. Her bones crackled, and brilliant white streaks raced across her eyes as she crumpled to the ground. A low whining moan passed through her lips. The sound of gunfire soon grew sporadic and then went silent.

Emily tilted her head. About six feet away, the bodies of three soldiers lay under a plume of smoke.
The stench of burning flesh filled the air.

Run. Get up and run
. The voice of her mind seemed distant, foreign even, of someone with whom she didn't dare argue, but her brain refused to listen. She could only pull the rifle against her chest and squeeze the barrel. “I don't want to die.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “This isn't real. It can't be.”
It's not fair.

The clink of glass and a whisper came from somewhere close. At the base of th
e blasted-out hole in the wall, A1 was moving his fingers. Emily crawled to him and grabbed his hand. “Are you okay?” Her head throbbed with each word.

A gur
gle of breath escaped his throat. “Kill three. More sleep.”

“
How? What should I do?”

He didn
't answer. The gurgle was now gone, and his hand went limp. Emily stared at his dead body, at the three lifeless soldiers. They could have been her. If she had moved to the window. If she hadn't hesitated in the street.
But they will be you
, her mind answered.
Unless you do something.

Emily took a deep breath, rolled over on her chest and inched past the bodies.
Okay. Focus. You can do this.
At the door, she poked her head into the outside air and surveyed the buildings up the street. As A1 had said, defenders patrolled the rooftop of a gray high-rise. Round after round ejected from their rifles, and they seemed to enjoy their task, high-fiving one another as they picked off the ill-equipped and less-experienced soldiers. One defender even danced on the building ledge in full view of the entire city.

She pulled the rifle stock against her shoulder and held her breath, slowing the gun
's sway.
What am I forgetting?
The dancing soldier bobbed up and down but still stayed within the sighting notch at the end of the barrel.
Just pull the damn trigger.

Emily did.

Nothing happened.

“
What the—? Oh, no, the safe—”

Her thoughts found terror first. Pain took hold soon after. A blistering sting ripped across her face, and she screamed—or thought she did. Nothing came out of her mouth.

The world faded.

Crimson words flashed in her visor.

You Are Dead!

Overall time:

Seven minutes, twenty-two seconds.

State of death time remaining:

Six hours, fifty-two minutes, thirty-eight seconds.

Stinging heat radiated
across her cheeks as if someone held her by the earlobes and dangled her head over an open flame. She tried to close her eyes, move her legs, arms, even breathe; her mind told her all those things were possible, but nothing responded. Now the crimson timer stood out, forcing her to see each passing moment. She finally understood what Maggie meant, what Damon described.

For the first time since she signed that paper in Washington, she asked herself why she did it. She wanted to cry, needed to cry, but no matter how hard she thought about he
r suffering, tears never flowed.