Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators) (18 page)

Surrounding the platform are a series of flat, white screens, also devoid of any supporting structure. Vol crawls towards the edge of the platform — at this point, she does not trust herself to stand on two feet — and sees nothing but blackness below. Shuddering, she scoots back into the center of the structure.

The platform is suspended in midair.

Vol stares into the darkness. At least it's quiet here, peaceful. She hasn't had much time for solace. Life at the Tower is always hectic, with new members coming and going out all the time, in addition to the constant ebb and flow of the Marks. When Vol first began, she averaged about one game per day. Now she often finds herself doing three, even four, games — and it never seems to be enough.

She is going to burn out quickly and soon at this rate. Especially if they keep cutting her pay. Which is bound to happen again considering all the times she's managed to get herself killed in various stupid ways this week. She wonders if Caleb and Bastien have even realized that she's missing. Possibly only as a loss.

A number.

Who am I kidding? We're all selfish. We'd sell each other out if we thought we could profit from it.

And what about before? What did she do before she came to Karagh? Has she always been as jaded as this? Having time for introspection suddenly seems more of a curse than a blessing.

Vol tilts her head back.

No wonder the Marks complain about being called m00bs. It's a strong incentive against carelessness, dying like this, but also discriminates selectively against weaker players. She'll have to talk to Jillain about this. It's wrong to blame the Players for slowing cash flow when the losers have to spend the gaming equivalent of eternity in purgatory. Who knows? If the change rakes in some extra tokens, Jillain may decide not to dock her pay after all.

Though, on second thought, maybe not.

The monitors flash. Vol bolts upright, remembering the flash in the stone halls that disabled her teammates. Images flood the white surfaces. In one, she sees the menacing silhouette of a castle crafted from black stone. It stands out like a storm cloud in relief against the watery sky.

The other castle is squatter, crafted from grayish-white stone instead of black, and the towers are coned turrets instead of the blocky cylinders that grace her own team's fortress. A tangle of trees surrounds the gray castle. A group of players is navigating through it, the green of the leaves in stark contrast to the red insignia on the warriors' suits of armor and the mages' bright red robes.

Vol wonders if her teammates know that the team's second wave is advancing. She looks for them on the monitors, but they are nowhere to be found. Have the walls swallowed them up, too? Are they in another place like this?

If only I could communicate, even just be heard —

“ —
get down form that tower and fight me, or you're a dead man — ”

“ —
take down their mages first. Our armor acts as a conduit for — ”

“ —
piece of shit! I'll kill you!”

“ —
get off me, you little m00bs — ”

“ —
Frag them!”

Vol takes a step back from the images — there are so many of them, she feels like she's in the multifaceted eye of a large, mechanical spider, and paired with the audio it is so much as to be completely overwhelming — and abruptly runs out of ground.

Her arms windmill as she struggles to correct her balance, but her weight is already shifted against her favor. She begins to scream, bracing her body for a fall that will last forever — a fall that never comes.

Her body is suspended, frozen, at an impossible angle. From the waist up, she is hanging over the yawning abyss. “My gods,” she whispers, and her voice trembles. She can't move, can't save herself, and her limbs are paralyzed, bolted fast to —

“
Yes,” an amused voice whispers into her ear. “I suppose I am. Your god.”

Her body jerks, or wants to, but she can't complete the reflex. An ineffectual tautness seeps through her arms and legs, like slow-acting poison, and she is left with the disconcerting and frightening sensation of being poised to run, but unable to act.

Now she can feel a hand, warm and steady against her back, and warmer breath on her face. But nobody is there. Gently, she is pulled to a standing position by the phantom. Vol wastes no time backing away, not sure which scares her more: the ledge or the one who saved her from it.

“
Who's there?”

It is a silly question. She is almost certain she knows who her so-called rescuer is. But she wants to hear him say it.

Silence greets her query. She looks over her shoulder. All the monitors have reverted to their original white blankness. Vol waits, quivering from adrenaline and panic, and screams when she feels the fingers brush ever-so-slightly against the nape of her neck.

Now quiet laughter floods the platform and somehow, instead of being swallowed up by the darkness, it is amplified. Without becoming any less frightened she starts to get angry as well, and scratches against her tingling skin and shouts, “Stop it — stop it, stop it! Don't touch me!”

“
Technically, I'm not.”

“
You know very well what I mean. I'm not going to argue about semantics with you.” Vol skirts away from the direction of the voice and again feels the sinister touch of the invisible hands as they pull her away from the edge, which she has edged perilously close to.

“
You're going to fall if you aren't careful — and I might not be able to catch you this time.”

“
Let me fall then,” she states boldly. “Kill me, like you did in the forest.”

Her shaky breath is the only thing that breaks the heartbeat of silence. At any moment, she might start sobbing. If not for his grip around her wrists, he might have vanished into the gloom — and this only adds to her terror.
He can do as he likes here
.

“
I'm very sorry about that,” he says, and to his credit, he does sound contrite. But then his voice becomes diamond hard. “I was merely repaying a grievance. I'm surprised you remember, actually.”

“
Remember? It happened a few days ago.”

She isn't quite sure how to describe what happens next. It's as if he melts back into existence, starting with his feathery black hair and ending with roughshod leather boots. Black pants tuck into the boots and he is wearing some kind of plate armor: an armor that glitters with thousands of colors as he shifts his movements, and reminds her of the alien ship that caused her game death and concussion in
Space Crusaders
.

“
Yes,” he says, and his eyes reflect the colors of his armor for a moment, before reverting to the cat-like amber. “It did.” And she is aware of his hands, encased in gauntlets of the same material, and how they are still wrapped firmly around hers, and of the large sword that hangs rather prominently from his left hip.

Overcompensating for something are we?

She doesn't speak the taunt, knowing he is capable of far worse. “Why are you doing this to me? The dress — the knife — the walls — the alien mother ship. You say you want to help me, to save me, but as far as I can tell, you're the only one whom I'm in any real danger of.” She pauses, giving him a chances to deny it, to defend himself, but he says nothing. Quietly, she says, “You could have killed me.” At his continued silence, she says, “You want to kill me.”

“
The walls wouldn't have killed you unless you wanted them to.”

“
What does that even mean? The walls won't kill me unless I want them to? Are you insane? Are you saying I brought this on myself?”

“
I'm saying that I'm only as evil as you make me, darling.”

“
Do not,” she hisses, “blame this one me. Ever. And do not call me 'darling.' Ever. This is not in any way my fault, and I am sure as hell not your darling. Now answer my questions! I've waited long enough!”

“
Have you? And what, pray tell, do you know about waiting?” He radiates danger. “Do you think you are the only one here who knows how to play games, Volera? Because you are not.” His face becomes pleasant and congenial once more, like a mask slipping into place, but the thaw has yet to reach his eyes. “My intentions are benign, whether you believe me or not.”

“
You're a psychopath, if you truly believe that.”

“
I know you're curious about these,” — he makes an expansive gesture, letting go of her wrists, — “bootlegged games. Who makes them, and all the associated hows and whys. I can take you to the Weaver and Spinner who designed them. They are one and the same.”

This is all being done by one person?
“Everybody's curious,” she snaps. “Not just me.”

“
And yet, don't the games seem to call to you, Volera?”

A chill ripples down her spine. “No. They don't. You want to make that bargain, talk to Kira.”

“
Hmm.” He walks a semicircle around her, pretending to think. “Well. What if I offer you something else? Something a bit more tempting?”

“
You have nothing that I want.”

“
Nothing?”

“
Unless it's getting me the hell off this platform right now, no!”

“
Oh, but don't you ever wonder what you do in those hours?” he asks, tilting his head, and she can tell from the expression on his face that he knows he's got her right where he wants her. “When you find yourself somewhere you don't remember being on your way to? Wearing clothes you don't remember putting on? Being greeted by people who seem to be strangers?”

Vol can't breathe. “How do you — what do you know?”

His suggestive laugh speaks volumes. “Enough to fill in those blanks for you. If you let me, that is.”

Then he kisses her. Leisurely. He kisses her as if he can stand there all day and kiss her if it suits him. His fingers comb through her hair, warm against her scalp, and cause not-unpleasant tingles to trickle down her spine. He parts her lips, deepening the kiss. Vol makes a small sound that doesn't sound like protest and feels him smile against her lips.

His hands slide down her face, her throat, down her arms and the curve of her waist, before coming to settle at her hips, and there he pulls her closer, erasing what little space remains between them. His armor, surprisingly isn't cold; it's warm, almost hot, to the touch.

And she feels the sting of his teeth in her skin as he inflicts a love-bite on her throat. Vol draws in an unsteady breath, and her hands tighten around his neck. Strange. She can't remember putting them there in the first place.
He did the same thing at the ball.

“
So,” he says, voice lowered to a teasing, intimate whisper. “I have nothing you want?”

Her eyes widen and then narrow in anger and understanding. She raises her hand to slap him and he disappears like smoke as her hand comes into contact with his swarthy cheek. “Son of a bitch — ”

She sinks to her knees, drained. She senses him moving closer and though she can't say why, she knows he's right behind her — which is perhaps the only reason to explain why she doesn't startle when he embraces her from behind. “Poor little Volera,” he murmurs, not quite mocking her. “You still don't remember me, do you?”

Vol remembers how close he got to her face when he had her cornered in the gaming parlor. Now that she thinks about it, really thinks about it, it is odd. A stranger feeling so comfortable in such close proximity to another stranger? Why did she hesitate? Why didn't she just kick him and run?

And then she thinks of that kiss — scorching, searing, seductive, which she can still feel on hers like a brand, like an echo of reality. You don't kiss strangers like that. You don't.

Maybe he isn't a stranger. Maybe I know him better than I want to admit.

In more ways than one.

“
I have these dreams — ” That sounds too suggestive. “They might be memories — ”

She waits; Catan says nothing. It's only slightly better than a taunt.

“
In some of them there's a man. I suppose he could be you.”

She draws in a deep breath.

“
I thought knowing your name would be the key, but it wasn’t. There's something more, isn't there? Something I'm missing. What are you? Where are you from? How did we meet?”

When his continued silence persists, she realizes she can no longer feel his arms around her. When she turns around, she finds herself in the stone corridor. As if she never left. As if the last few minutes
(hours?)
never happened.

And all around her, soldiers from both teams are dead, and the stone floors and walls are spattered with their blood. On the wall, written in red drying brown, is the number 529. Déjà vu returns
(I killed them all)
and then her mind is forcibly disengaged from the game before her body even hits the floor.

“
Everything all right?” Ariel asks. “Your brain activity was off.”