The End Games (32 page)

What if Bobbie had been right about there being Something that could help you? What
if . . . what if he had misunderstood why the deer made him feel safe and good? What
if it wasn’t some deep
yes-yes
aspect of himself that controlled things, but some other Power?

What if he
did
pray?

Please
, he thought.
Please . . . God. Please—Universe, whatever—if you’re there, you’ll help me! Please
help, please let me not be infected, please save me, please
make Jopek stop!—

—and Captain Jopek, at that very instant, got out of his Hummer.

The captain threw open the roof hatch and climbed out onto the vehicle’s roof: the
gunslinger, stark and great against the stars.

“
Oh-my-God
,” breathed Michael. A dizzying hope raced through him.

Only for a moment.

Captain Horace Jopek of the United States 101st slammed a clip into the SAW atop the
Hummer and tugged back the machine-gun’s slide. The snout barked, hurling deadly fireflies
into the gas tanker staged between the Hummer and Michael’s window. Flame, gory-bright,
pyred up and out of the tanker. Bellows tossed and Bellows flew.

Please God.

The window roared in. Solid heat found Michael.

He lifted, watching his own feet rise over his eyes, like a kid zooming on a swing.

Please no.
It was the last thought he remembered. And if anyone did answer his plea, he didn’t
know it. Michael soared, and when his head struck the corner of a senator’s desk,
the world went funny, upside down, back-asswards, game over good buddy, try again
with your eyes open, newb: everything tumbling up and up into his own starless void;
everything falling lost and gone, like the worldscape of a game board that has been
overturned by a very mad man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Rock-a-bye . . . Rock-a-bye . . . 
Mom hummed
. Rock-a-bye . . .

Her bracelet, the one with the fake acorns, tapped on Michael’s ear as she placed
the damp washcloth on the back of his neck.

“Any better? Do you want more saltines, baby?”

Michael tried to answer, but felt too weak. Oh, pizza line. Why oh why oh why had
he gotten in the pizza line? Bad call, newb. That stuff was famous for making stomachs
stand straight, salute, and go kamikaze. Seventh grade sucked enough
without
puking lava, thanks for asking.

Mom had called in sick to work to take care of him, and she had her hair in a ponytail
and was wearing an N*SYNC T-shirt and jeans. She smelled good, too: like soap and
hot water, not like too much makeup. And her boyfriend wasn’t here.

“No more saltines, baby?” Michael shook his head. “That’s good. Because I ate ’em
all. That was a joke. Do you think you’ll laugh later?” She snorted: he felt her breath,
cool and good, on his neck.

“Upboy . . . ,”
someone called.
“Get up. . . .”

Michael’s heart fell a little. He tried to open his eyes . . . and he found he couldn’t.
Sweet mother of crap, I am siiiiick.

“Upboy!”
called Ron’s voice.

Michael opened his eyes.

A shocking, thin blue in the sky. The sun ate up his vision like a white bomb. He
blinked and looked away, the stalks of his eyes aching.

Michael tried to sit up, and saw he already was. Fell asleep sitting up? Huh. Hadn’t
done that in a long time. Not since the night before Halloween, when he’d stayed up
so late putting the finishing touches on his wonderful and 100 percent foolproof escape.

His arms were stretched above his head.
Reeeeach fer the skyyyy,
he thought dimly. And when he tried to lower his arms, he couldn’t. There were glittering
loops on his wrists. Metal.

He was handcuffed to a wicker pole that stretched above his head.

Jopek, across from him, blew smoke in his face.

“God!”
Michael shouted. He tried to dance back. The wall behind his back was solid, but
shifted
at his push; the floor swayed.

Jopek said nonchalantly, “I get that a lot.” Behind him, clouds dipped and nodded.

He sat on a short stool across from Michael, his hand draped over his crossed legs,
his flak jacket casually open, his presence impossible. This couldn’t be real. Michael
had been scratched, and the captain had left him behind. Michael’s bad blood was now
just showing him a nightmare, that’s all, because he was in the Capit—

Not the Capitol.

Balloon,
Michael thought.
I’m in the balloon.

“So, soldier—”

“What’s going on? Where’s Patrick?”

“—hope you’re rested up ’cause—”

“What happened?” blurted Michael. “Am I still infected?” He recognized the desperate
hope in his voice: it was the same that Bobbie’d had in the moments before her death.
That feeling made him sick, but he could not stop it.

“I know I said it before, but shoooo,” Jopek replied as if to just make conversation,
“you sure sleep like the dead.

“So Mike, did I pick the right size? Hope it ain’t uncomfortable—just gotta make sure
you don’t bite or scratch nobody.”

Size?

Jopek indicated the space suit Michael was wearing.

In his shock, Michael had not even noticed. He had seen such things in newspaper photographs
before: a camouflage, full-body biowear suit. His breath bounced off the plastic faceplate
and hissed back on his cheeks. The sleeves were clammy and tight, an alien skin pasted
on his own. When Michael jerked in surprise, Jopek threw back his head and laughed.

“Boyyyyyy, you’re funny, but you’re sure not sayin’ much today. You learn that stealthiness
from the soldiers you saw?
You like tryin’ to sneak up and kill people?
”

A single cloud shaded the sun, then fled.

Michael gulped, dizzy with confusion and fear. Where was Patrick? Where was
here
? The view over the top of the basket’s walls was only empty sky, the balloon so elevated
he could see neither buildings nor coal company–blighted mountaintops. He sniffed,
desperately searching for any clue . . . and what he smelled made him nearly gag.
Even inside the suit, the scent of the Bellows—amplified, at least quadruple the worst
he’d ever smelled—was overpoweringly, sickly rich.

“Where . . . where are we?” Michael said.

Jopek took a final drag and flicked his cigarette out of the basket.

He’s gonna do that to me.

Michael held Jopek’s gaze. He held it as carefully as he would hold a bell jar filled
with poison gas that could cause a nightmare death at the slightest mistake.

“Why am I here?”

The edges of Jopek’s grin hardened. “’Cause you and me got business, Mikey.”

He drew out from within his jacket a handgun, tugged back the slide then let it bite
forward, chambering a round from the banana clip. “Would you like to talk? I’d love
to talk.”

Michael had precisely zero idea what he should say: He wasn’t sure about anything
with Jopek just now. He had believed, before, that he understood the captain: that
Jopek was nothing more than an army-issue Ron who only wanted to be worshipped and
in control, and God help anyone that got in his way. Yet by that logic, Jopek should
have abandoned the skinny kid who had aimed a gun at him last night.
But I’m still here, strapped in the freaking sky with this psychopath
. Michael did not even try to feel his blood;
yes-yes
and the Game Master had failed him last night; they had been shredded by the cry
and claws of an impossibly resurrected boy who carried a virus that now quite probably
lived inside Michael. No, Michael couldn’t decipher the captain, not any more than
the field mouse can fathom the lion.

But he had no choice: he nodded.

Jopek returned it.

And the air between them electrified.

“What I want to talk about,” Jopek said, “is a game. I reckon that may sound fa
mil
iar.”

“Where’s Patrick?”

“We’ll maybe get to that, but answer me first: Are you good at games, you bet?”

“I’m okay,” replied Michael.

“Don’t lie, now.”

“I’m . . . very good.”

“We’ll see, won’t we? Now, as to why
are
ya here? Last night, I could’ve put a bullet in ya. I could have left your ass behind.
But I dragged you outta Hell, ’cause you and me still had business.”

“What bus—”

“So here’s the rules,” interrupted Jopek. “The captain asks questions. The kid answers.
If you lie, it’s a strike. White lies, half lies, fibs—strike, strike. Three strikes
and we find out what that space suit looks like with brains on the front plate and
oh, Ramboy, you are in
troub
le, you know that?”

Jopek’s eyes glittered.

“Question number
uno
: What’s your favorite color?”

Michael tried to calm his thunder-some heart
.
“Purple.”

“Gay, a little bit. Two plus two?”

Michael answered.

“Where are ya right now?”

“I don’t know,” said Michael.

“No idea? That scare ya?”

“Yeah, but I’ll live.”

“That’s your opinion, I guess,” said Jopek. “So where’s ‘Bub’ Faris?”

Without even thinking, Michael heard himself reply, “Safe.”

Jopek put a dumbstruck hand against his own cheek. “And how,” he said, “would you
know
that
?”

Michael breathed deeply—still scared, still bewildered. But for just a second, he
felt his brain stretching, searching, and holy crap, did that feel good right now.
“Because I think you want something from me.”

“What the hell could
you
help me with, you reckon?”

“‘Business.’ But that’s the only reason I’m still alive. And I wouldn’t do anything
for you if Patrick was hurt.”

Jopek’s mouth slanted into something like disgust. “’Cause you’re
such good brudders
.

“Here’s a easy one: you never saw no soldiers. Did you?”

Michael hesitated. Then shook his head.

“And you don’t know nothin’ but nothin’ about other units.”

Had Jopek come back because he wanted Michael’s “information” on where other soldiers
were?

“
I
ask the questions,” Jopek said, seeing the thought on Michael’s face.

“No.” Michael shook his head. “I never saw any soldiers. It was just me and Bub.”

Jopek asked, “Then how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Coulda swore I said I ask the questions! Coulda
swore it
!” Jopek said, giving a vicious, bitter laugh. “How did you
live
in this world, all the way to Safe Zone?” Jopek asked.

Why is he asking this?
“I don’t know.”

“Well. Hey. Strike one.”

Michael’s eyes flicked to the gun, any
yes-yes
feeling he’d had falling away. “I just . . .
did
,” he said. “I kept us pretty safe. If somebody was just watching us, they might have
gotten worried. But just because they wouldn’t have known.”

“Known what?”

“What I could do.”

“Which is?”

Michael hesitated again. He saw himself through Jopek’s eyes right then: trapped;
outplayed; the loser.

“I thought—think—I could just breathe and like, understand things. Almost feel what
was coming.”

“Is that how you knew the answer about where your screwed-up brother is?”

It felt like pushing on a bruise. But Michael nodded.

“And why do you play The Game?” said the captain.

“To help pass the ti—”

“Strike two!”

—Jopek’s hand, huge and meaty on the pistol—

“—to protect him! To protect him.”

“What from? Boo-boos? Diarrhea?”

“No—look, you know everything, you know all this, why do you want me to say it?” Michael
blurted.

“And what do you think would happen at The End of The Game?” asked Jopek, ignoring
Michael’s question . . . and smiling.

What the hell? Had Jopek returned because he wanted to understand
The Game
?

“We win,” Michael said falteringly. “There’s a party.”

“Search party?”

It was as if Jopek was forcing him to read his journal aloud. “An . . . Ultraman party.”

“Except it didn’t work that way, huh?”

“No.”

“Why?”
Jopek said. He looked eager.

I can’t lie.

Michael said: “Because of you.”

“
Now
here we go!” crowed Jopek suddenly. “Speak it.
Say
that shit, Michael!”

He leaned forward: his stool was about to tip, supported by only thin blades of wood.

He’s pissed.

A whisper of thought, coming from the back of Michael’s brain: . . . 
keep making him pissed
 . . . .

What? NO!

“SPEAK IT—”

“We all would’ve been safer without you, Jopek.”

What are you doing? Look at him! He’s not just pissed, he’s freaking deadly right
now!

Good!

What? Why?!

Because you’re right about Jopek: he’s just like Ron. Jopek isn’t a genius; he just
got lucky last night. Piss him off, like you did with Ron, and Jopek will get sloppy,
yes-yes.

Michael did not totally trust
yes-yes
, but he could not help but think,
Maybe this is The End—Beat Jopek, beat the final Boss, and I can save everyone.

Jopek’s composure shattered. “You think you’re so smart?”

Michael made himself smile. “You don’t want me to answer that.”

“When did you start thinking that?” Jopek growled.
“When did you start thinking you were better than me?”

Oh my God, is this why he kept me alive?

To try to show me—and himself—that he’s “special”? That he
didn’t
just get lucky last night?