S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (10 page)

“Since when?” she asked.

“Mom filed the documents a couple months ago.”

“What the hell?” Jessie shouted, slapping the countertop with her palm. “You're not my parent! And why didn't anyone consult with me?”

He straightened, but didn't turn. “It's better this way, Jess. I thought you'd agree with that, at least.”

“How is this better?”

“I can do a better job—”

“That's a pile of crap!”

He turned to look at her over his left shoulder. “It's a step in the right direction. Anyway, it just means the school pings me when you're not in class.”

“Great, so now Mister Undead Policeman is a truant officer, too.”

“Hey!”

“Are you happy, now that you can spy on me?”

“I'm not spying on you! Look, Jess, the reality of it is this: if they can't clear an absence in three days, it goes to the state for assessment. And sentencing. If Mom's not around—”

“So let it go for assessment. I don't care. Let them add time to my LSC. Big whup.”

“You should care, Jess. We're not talking about detention or something trivial like that, we're talking about your life! Early conscription! Is that what you want?”

“My life?” she barked. “What do you know about
my life
?”

She tossed her cereal bowl onto the table. Milk and corn flakes splashed across the surface. She sat down, her back to him, and started to eat.

“You need to start acting like everything's normal,” he told her. “Like we're going to get through this, because if you don't, then we won't.”

“That's the problem right there, Eric. Nothing's normal.” She turned and regarded him, realization suddenly dawning over her that he knew this was all a charade, that what they were doing — going to school, going to work, going through the motions — was nothing but a big fat lie.

“I didn't say it was, Jess,” he told her. “I said—”

“What do you mean we won't get through this? What are you talking about?”

“Forget it. Just . . . forget it. Okay?” He threw up his hands. “Please, just stop skipping school. For once just do something for your own good.”

“School's useless. They're not teaching us anything. Nothing useful, anyway. And the rest is lies. They don't know that half the crap they teach us is completely wrong. Or worse, maybe they do.”

“Jessie—”

“And since we're on the subject of our dear old Mum, where the hell is she anyway? Off drinking and whoring, just like old times, is she? If that's acting normal, I don't want anything to do with it!”

Eric froze, his arm in mid-thrust. “I haven't heard from her,” he answered, carefully watching Jessie. “She hasn't answered any of my pings for a few days. You?”

Jessie made a disgusted sound, threw her spoon into her bowl. She'd lost her appetite.

Eric straightened but didn't turn. She held his stare, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but his face was a mask. This trick of hiding his emotions, he'd learned it from their grandfather. It was something she'd always hated about the old man, and it gave her something more to dislike about her brother. Eric took in a sharp breath, then went over to the sink to rinse out the sponge.

“She's not . . . .” His voice trailed off. Once more, he stood with his back to her. “Mom doesn't mean it, to hurt you. She just doesn't know how else to act.”

Anger rushed through Jessie. How many times had she heard him saying exactly this about her? How many times had their mother betrayed their loyalty and disappointed them both?

“I don't know why you continue to stick up for her.”

“Because she's our mother.”

“She's a stupid, uncaring, selfish bitch!”

Eric whirled around, his fists clenched. He looked like he wanted to strike her. Jessie jumped to her feet and stepped toward him, making it all that much easier. She could see him shaking, could see the rare emotion in his eyes.

And the pain.

He looked away. The muscles in his cheeks throbbed. “I don't have time for this, Jess.”

“Five days,” she said. “Six, actually! And not a single god damn word from her. Not even an, ‘I'm okay.' Nothing!”

“Jessie!”

“Fuck her! And fuck you, too, for sticking up for her. You always take her side. You never take mine!”

She stood her ground. She realized she
wanted
him to hit her. She wanted to see the pain in his eyes when he realized how much their mother had hurt her. She wanted him to know what it felt like, the pain the woman had inflicted, because then he'd never be able to defend her again. But his own anger just seemed to leak away from him, to fizzle out like a campfire in a heavy downpour. His shoulders slumped and he sidestepped to get past her. “I have to go to work.”

“How can you?” she asked quietly. “After all this? After . . .  after what happened in Gameland? The promises she made to me afterward. She said she'd be there for me and Kelly.” Jessie felt the tears coming, red hot and stinging. “How could you even find one single solitary thing to defend about her?”

He raised his face and looked into her eyes, and for the briefest moment she saw the truth in them: he couldn't defend her, not in any logical way. And yet he did. He was going through the motions because that was what he was supposed to do, because he was their mother's son, and they were supposed to love and cherish her. That's how families were supposed to work.

But Jessie was tired of waiting for her mother to remember her responsibilities, tired of waiting for her to come home and start being the parent she'd never been. Jessie didn't care anymore what happened to the witch. She could go straight to hell.

“Just go to school,” Eric mumbled. He turned, and she let him go.

She could hear him climbing the stairs, quieter and much more slowly than usual. That's how she knew how upset he was.

Well, so what? She was upset, too!

She sat back down and stared at the soggy cereal in her bowl. She picked up her spoon and tried to drown the flakes still stubbornly floating in the milk. But like the damn zombies in Long Island City, they kept popping back up to the surface.

† † †

“Jess?”

Eric appeared in the kitchen doorway, startling her. He held out the house Link. “It's for you.”

Jessie's eyes widened.
Could it be her? Could her mother
finally
be returning her pings?

“It's Citizen Registration.”

Her heart nearly stopped then. Her cheeks went cold and her vision tunneled. “What do they want?”

You know what they want.

“I don't know. They asked for you.”

They'd pinged the house Link because she'd left her personal Link upstairs and hadn't answered when they tried that one first. She couldn't keep hiding from them.

“Hello?”

“Is this Jessica Anne Daniels?” asked a genderless voice. After Jessie confirmed that it was, the voice recited a Link identifier code and her street address and asked her to confirm those as well.

She did.

“You have been assigned an eleven o'clock appointment this morning for an implant device check at the main Citizen Registration office in Hartford. You must appear in person with your personal Link device. If you fail to appear, or you appear without your Link device, you will be subject to LSC review. Do you understand these instructions? Please say yes.”

She did.

“Do you understand the consequences of not appearing at the assigned time?”

“Yes.”

The androgynous-sounding clerk — Jessie was almost sure it was a woman — provided her with the number for the earliest bus from Greenwich. “You are not required to pay the fare. Just swipe your Link upon boarding.”

The ping disconnected, leaving her sitting with a stunned look on her face.

Eric came over and gently pulled the Link from her fingers. She could tell he was angry she'd missed the school screening, but he didn't mention this. “I'll drive you.”

“I thought you didn't have time for this.”

“Damn it, Jessie! Can we just not fight over everything?”

When she looked up at him, she could see the worry etched in his face, and this seemed to break whatever spell had taken hold of her.

“I'll be fine. Really. I mean, it's just to check my implant. What are they going to do, put a new one in right there? You go to work. I'll take the bus. I promise.”

He made as if he was going to continue protesting, then reconsidered. “Straight there, Jess. Then you come straight back. And if there's
any
problem, ping me. Don't let them do anything to you without consulting me first.”

“They're not going to do anything. Besides, those people at CR are all zombies anyway, and we all know I can handle them just fine.”

He grunted unhappily, but she could see the tension ease up a tiny bit. Then, quite unexpectedly, he stepped in and gave her an awkward hug. Before she could react, he'd already let her go.

‡ ‡ ‡

She hated the bus. Hated the hard, grungy seats and the smudged, greasy windows. Hated the way the outside always stunk of burnt oil and plastic and the inside always reeked of tired, broken people, not quite dead but definitely well on their way. She hated the way the passengers looked at her when she got on, as if they feared she might pick a seat next to one of them.

It was just like being in school. Everyone was just putting in their time, going from one nowhere place to the next.

As she sat and watched the scenery drift by, in her mind she replayed the argument she'd had with Eric that morning. She knew he didn't deserve her wrath, but he always seemed to push her buttons. Too often he took the brunt of her anger, especially when it came to their mother, and it pained her because she knew he didn't deserve it. It pained her that she couldn't help herself.

Why was it so easy for her to hurt the people who loved her the most?

Because the ones who hurt you the most don't stick around long enough to take your shit.

If she kept this up, she'd drive everyone away: Kelly and Eric, even Reggie. She couldn't afford to lose any more people in her life. She'd already lost her best friend.

She pulled her Link from her pocket and fingered the button. Gathering her nerve, Jessie thumbed in the quick-code for Eric's Link. But when she got his voice mail, she almost disconnected.

Almost.

“Eric, listen,” she said in a halting voice. “About this morning. I'm sorry. You're right about Mom. I know I shouldn't blame you for her. It's just that . . . .” She sighed. “It's just that she promised to try harder. And I believed her and—”

She was close to tears, vaguely aware that people around her might be watching, and yet not caring if they were.

“I just want you to know I appreciate you being there.”

When you actually are
, the spiteful voice inside her whispered. She pushed it away.

“I tried to ping Mom—”

a hundred

“—a few times, but she hasn't answered me, either. I don't know why she won't. Even in the past she's never gone more than a couple days, and I don't know what to think. I  I'm worried about her.”

She swallowed and wiped the tears from her face with her thumb. She was finished crying. Like last night's storm, this one had been long in coming but, when it finally burst, had been brief.

“Anyway, let me know as soon as you hear from her. I promise I won't be angry.”

Shouldn't make promises you can't keep.

She disconnected and pushed the Link back into her pocket, then slid further down in the seat so that her knees were level with her eyes. She chanced a glance around her, but no one seemed to be paying her any attention.

They're already dead. All of them. All of
us
. They just don't know it.

She sighed and turned to stare out the window. God, how she hated the bus. Hated the hour-long ride.

But she dreaded even more what waited for her at the other end.

† † †

As she had on her previous visits to the stark monstrosity which housed Citizen Registration, Jessie stood for several minutes eying the shambling crowds as they squeezed their way in through the narrow double doors. Finally, after delaying as long as she could, she inserted herself into the line and shuffled forward along with them.

The interior of Carcher Tower was as austere as the outside: stone pillars, undecorated walls, a high glassed-in security desk that also served as the reception area. Everything was painted an off-white color, but had yellowed over the years from sunlight, smog, and, before they were made illegal, the smoke of cigarettes. The floor was scuffed and dull. A single large black ceramic pot had been positioned near the screening gates to help direct flow; planted in the bone-dry dirt was the petrified skeleton of an ancient shrub, probably from the Pleistocene era.

When she reached the desk and had given the clerk her name, Jessie was told to report to room 412. “I'm here for an implant screening,” she said. The clerk waved her aside without emotion, repeated the room number, then looked past her to the next person in line. Jessie hesitated a moment before going over to the security line to be scanned.

The last time she had come, she'd expected the scanner to turn her away, to send her back to reception to be scheduled for implantation. Or replacement. After all, the device inside her head wasn't functional insofar as her body had rejected it when Arc replaced it after the bombing. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it had really only been a few weeks. But they had simply waved her on. Clearly, the handheld scanning device only registered the presence of an implant, not whether it was intact and connected.

Logically, she understood
why
the device was so vital. In the event of an outbreak, the implants of infected individuals would be activated. By doing so, Arc would be able to control the victim by suppressing their need to feed on the living, and so prevent transmission of the disease between individuals. But Jessie was immune. She didn't need an implant. She might die if the wounds inflicted on her by an Infected were severe enough, but she would never reanimate.