S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (77 page)

“
Did you check there?” Reggie asks.

“
Check for what?” Kelly asks.

Jake says, “I opened it and looked down the steps. It didn't go down there.”

“
Wait. Are you saying the IU got
inside
?”

Reggie turns back to Kelly. I can see him chewing on his lip. He takes in a deep breath and lets it out before answering. “We lost track of it outside. Jake and Ash were running away from it. We looked in here. Didn't find it. It has to be outside still.”

“
But it might've gone downstairs?” Kelly turns to Jake. “What kind of handle—” He winces and clutches his arm for a moment. “What kind of handle is there on the door?”

“
Push bar.”

“
Shit.”

“
No, no. Listen” Reggie says. “It's not so bad. A push bar on the outside of the door means there has to be a thumb latch on the inside. Even if the zom got into the stairwell, it won't be able to figure out the thumb latch. It'd be stuck inside the stairwell.”

“
If
it's even there,” Ashley counters.

“
Well, it's not up here, and it didn't go down the elevator—”

Kelly snorts. “You thought it took the elevator?”

Ashley's face twists, then she cracks up and starts giggling. Pretty soon Reggie is laughing, too.

“
I don't see what's so god damn funny here,” I say. “You nearly gave me a stroke, Kelly.”

He sobers up, sniffing and wiping even more bloody snot across his face.

“
And you've got a bloody nose and it's all over your face.”

Reggie hands him the wet paper towels, but I can see the wry smile on both their faces.

“
And don't laugh at me!”

Kelly cleans himself up, then innocently asks, “Better?”

“
No, it's not better! You almost killed yourself, you've got severe burns. We know you're infected and Reggie touched your blood.”

“
I'm not infected,” Reggie says. “And, frankly, I'm not convinced Kelly is, either. I don't think a single thing Stephen told us was true. The guy was a sociopath.”

“
He was right about Tanya's implant.”

Reggie frowns.

“
Never mind.”

I remember his last words, just before Micah knocked him off of me in the hallway—
Now we will be the same
—and I can't help but wonder what he meant by that. If he was a sociopath, what does that make me?

“
Besides,” Reggie goes on, “we were both covered in Nurse Bitch's blood back there and she was a hundred percent zombie. Kelly's just—what?—twenty percent? Thirty, tops. Same as he ever was.”

Despite myself, I have to smile. I feel the tension leave me. Reggie always seems to find a way to do that, to diffuse my worry and my fear. I feel a twinge of jealousy. Ashley's lucky to have him, warts and all, bad manners and childishness notwithstanding. He may be a bully sometimes, especially around Kelly, but he's really kindhearted deep down.

Even with Kelly.

Kelly reaches over and grabs Reggie's shoulder. “Help me up.”

“
You sure?”

Kelly nods. “Let's get Ashley's program uploaded onto the mainframe and see what happens. I don't think I'll be able to rest until we know it works.”

I think I see something cross Ash's face, but I can't be sure. She's turned mostly away from me. I expect her to say something, raise her doubts, but she doesn't.

Micah clears his throat. “Maybe we should wait a couple hours. Let you rest.”

“
If you have something to say, Micah,” Kelly says, wincing, “let it out now.”

Micah doesn't.

“
He's right,” Ashley whispers. “Maybe we should wait. Think about things.”

Reggie turns to her. “I trust you, babe. I know you. If this doesn't work, then waiting a few hours isn't going to make any difference. It'll just make us know a couple hours later than we will if we just go now.”

I can see the familiar flame of defiance rise up in her eyes and I know she's about to lay some heavy crap on him. But he doesn't let her. He pulls her face to his and presses his mouth against hers. She struggles for a moment before relenting.

When the kiss goes on longer than the rest of us deem necessary, Kelly clears his throat noisily. The couple separate with a loud smack. Both their faces are flushed. “Seriously, guys,” Kelly says, “as soon as we're done escaping the Undead and overthrowing the largest corporation in New Merica, you guys need to get yourselves a room.”

Reggie swallows. He stands up and helps Kelly to his feet. “Ready, brah?”

Kelly nods weakly. I can see him trembling. He waits while Ashley retrieves the tablet, then he leans closer to the Link and says, “I'll be back in a few minutes, Jess.” He winks and adds, “Don't go anywhere.” Then he turns to Reggie and tells him he'll give a shout when he's swapped out the programs and gotten the new one running.

“
We'll wait about ten minutes for the signal to propagate through the system. Shouldn't be more than a few seconds, but let's be sure.”

“
Leave us connected,” I tell Ash, when she reaches for the Link. She pauses, then nods.

“
I'll take the stairs,” Kelly says. He reaches for the bolt cutters where Reggie dropped them earlier. He intends to keep it for a weapon.

“
You sure, brah? If the zom is down there—”

“
I don't trust the elevator, and neither should you. Stand by the door. I'll go down slowly. When it's your time to come down, go slowly, a flight at a time.”

Ashley picks up the Link and carries it as she follows the boys to the stairwell.

“
Where'd Jake go?” Reggie asks.

Nobody answers.

“
Damn him.”

Kelly pauses at a door, then pushes on the handle. I can see his face twist in pain. He tries to hide it, but I see it. Reggie props the door open and they listen for a moment before Kelly disappears down it.

The minutes pass, slowly and inexorably, like the sunlight waning from the sky, until at last Reggie announces that Kelly has gotten the programs uploaded. We wait another ten minutes.

“
You don't feel anything?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. No difference.”

Micah lets out an exhale that matches Ashley's. I think they both held their breath the whole time.

Then, from somewhere far away, sounding empty and echoey, I hear Kelly's voice: “Everything okay up there?”

“
Yeah,” Reggie calls from inside the stairwell. “I'm starting down now.”

“
Go slowly,” Ashley says, following him down a few stairs.

And he does go slow, at least at first. He takes it a step at a time, pausing on each one, resting for a good ten seconds on each landing. He calls out the steps, his voice fading the further down he goes. The last number I hear is fifty-three.

 

“Did he make it?”
Micah asks after several minutes pass without a sound.

I realize I'm holding my Link so tightly that my hand has cramped up. “Ashley?” I say into it. “Are you there?”

No answer.

“
Jake? Anyone?”

Still nothing.

“
What the hell is going on?”

Micah's lips tighten and his forehead crinkles.

Then I hear Kelly, his voice a million miles away, shouting Jake's name.

Micah and I exchange worried glances. Why is he calling for Jake? Where's Ash?

As if on cue, we both begin to scream into our Links. We shout Jake's and Ashley's names over and over again. But nobody shows up in the screen.

“
Kelly?” I whimper.

“
He can't hear us,” Micah says.

Something smacks against the outside of the house and we both jump.

“
Shit,” I whisper under my breath. A scratching sound comes from the door, followed by a moan. It grows in volume until there's a chorus of moans, rising and falling and rising again. Now it's all around us. I repeat the oath, quieter this time, as if it's a spell that can ward away the Undead.

“
No more yelling, okay?” Micah says. He gets up and hurries through the house, turning lights off and checking doors and windows. When he returns a few minutes later, I haven't moved a muscle.

Through my Link I can see into the stairwell of the building on Jayne's Hill, but nothing has moved for at least five minutes now. I can hear random, indecipherable noises—sharp, mechanical squeals and thumps and something that sounds like talking—but no recognizable speech.

“
Where the hell is Ash?”

“
Where the hell is Jake?” I reply.

Micah shoots me another impatient glance. He thinks I'm harping on Jake because of what happened here earlier, but I'm not.

We wait without speaking for about another minute, waiting for something to happen. I pray it's good news, but as each moment passes, I feel that hope slip away. Thankfully, the noise outside the house here soon begins to subside.

Then we hear Kelly, calling for Jake again, louder this time, closer, his voice sounding echoey. A few seconds later, his head and shoulders appear through the doorway, then his whole body. He stumbles through, landing on his hands and knees and looking like he just ran a marathon.

“
Jake!” he shouts. “Esposito, where the hell are you? I need your help down here, now!”

“
Kelly?”

He looks up and over at the Link. Using the door frame for support, then the wall, he makes his way over to Ashley's Link.

“
Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. “Reggie passed out, fell down a flight and bloodied his nose. The fix wasn't working, but he refused to stop.” He shakes his head. “Damn fool!”

A mix of emotions comes over me: relief that it's nothing worse than that, bitter disappointment that Ashley's fix didn't work, guilt for letting them go ahead and try anyway.

“
Where's Ashley?” I ask.

“
She came down to help, started having problems herself. Luckily she backtracked. She's okay—waiting on one of the upper landings. I had to drag Reggie up to her. He was having trouble breathing. He's still out cold, but breathing easier. That bastard's heavy as hell.”

Micah turns away, bringing his hands to his head. I can see the disappointment in his body, the frustration at not being able to do anything. They mirror my own feelings.

Kelly steps back to the doorway and calls down. Ashley replies, her voice weak and shaky. I hear her say that Reggie's starting to come to.

“
Tell him to climb back up if he can. I'll come down and help in a sec. I just…I need to get something to drink, I think.” He turns back to me, his legs giving out for a moment. His face is ashen. “Christ, I'm shaking like a leaf.” He lifts his bandaged hand to show me.

I want to chastise him for pushing himself so hard and starting too soon after nearly electrocuting himself. I want to tell him to take a rest. But instead I give him an encouraging smile and tell him it'll be okay. “Micah and I will take another look at the failsafe program. Maybe we missed something the first time.”

He sighs and shakes his head. He knows it's no use. Without a baseline or any idea how to reset the implants, it's starting to look like Ash and Reg and Jake might be stuck here on the island much longer than we'd hoped.

“
Where the hell is—” I almost say “that jerk” before stopping myself.

Kelly shakes his head.

“
Honestly?” I say. “I never understood why Ash and Micah got Jake involved in the first place. Dumbest thing I ever— Um, sorry, Micah.”

Micah shrugs. It was he and Ash who had invited him, back when we were trying to figure out how to break in. “Ashley knew this guy. I only met him for the first time that day we went over to his uncle's shop.”

“
Well, you remember that part, anyway,” Kelly says, before turning back to the stairwell again. Micah frowns, as if he's sensed more to Kelly's words than he's said.

“
I'm going back down to help Reggie,” Kelly says at last.

I lean back, pinching the bridge of my nose. It's something I've seen my brother do and when I realize I'm repeating his habits I stop. It gets me thinking about home.

I wonder what Eric is doing right at this moment—sleeping, probably. I wonder what all of our families are doing. What about the police? Do they know? They must. We've been gone for over a week now. Are they even looking for us? Have they given up searching?

It troubles me. Somebody has to know we're here. They would've traced our Link signals down to Manhattan in the days before we disappeared, to where the IUs were getting through. Why hasn't someone not made the connection that we might be here on LI?

Or, what about that last checkpoint we went through, down in Port Chester? The guard there was so chatty, telling us where to get fishing gear and boats.
Use the bloodworms
, he'd told us.
A hundred for a buck
. He'd laughed and told us that he liked to bring his sister's kids down there to go fishing, then warned us against eating anything we might catch. The fish in that part of the East River are too contaminated. Chemicals or no chemicals, anyone who eats the fish that close to the island has to be a little crazy.