The Game (4 page)

Georgia storms from the room.
The nerve of
him, calling him
it. Doesn’t Potter realize, this was once a
man—that he fought for this country—that he gave his
life
for this country? That he once had a name! He
still
has a
name.

She turns corner after corner through the maze
of corridors then finally enters a door marked
Research and
Development – Advanced Weaponry
. She swipes her clearance badge
through the card reader then presses her thumb to the lock. Once
identified, the security software automatically unlocks the steel
door, granting her access to the rooms within.

Several coworkers look up at the sound of her
entrance. She stops in the center of the room, drawing the
attention of those present. “Okay everyone, it’s time.” She crosses
to the far wall and runs her hand over the glass-faced cylinder.
Floating inside is a human body; a man, a soldier, once named
Robert Daley. The official word is that Robert Daley died in
combat, but that isn’t entirely true. His body suffered traumatic
injuries, and once on life support, medics were able to sustain his
brain and vital organs even though he would never wake from the
coma.

Unfortunately, for him, his condition was
perfect for this experiment. The reason she though it unfortunate
is because, somehow, she knows that somewhere inside that shell,
Rob Daley is still conscious, still aware of what is happening to
him—despite what the military doctors say.

She caresses the glass, expecting his eyes to
open and look out at her. She should feel repulsed by the sight
within—an abomination of flesh, metal, silicone, and computer.
Where he once had a left arm and leg, there’s now a steel framed
skeleton with fiber optic nerves hardwired to the spinal column.
Looking at him reminds her of movies she saw as a child, where
half-man, half-robot police chase down bad guys and bring them to
justice in their own brutal way. The science fiction of it all
excited and amazed her, but now, the scientific fact turns her
stomach.

Why couldn’t they just let him die—die a
hero?

She whispers, “I’m sorry, Robert Daley.” Her
trailing fingers leave a hazy streak on the polished glass. She
turns to a computer console and proceeds to input a series of
commands, knowing that General Potter would be watching her from
one of the many security cameras placed about the room.

The liquid in the tube begins to drain as
another coworker, Harold, approaches. He pushes a hospital gurney
and leaves it parked next to the cylinder.

Georgia enters a final command, presses enter,
and steps back while the software finishes uploading into the
microprocessors embedded in Rob’s skull.

“
What now?” Harold asks.

“
The software should finish booting
up in a couple of minutes. Then we get him on the gurney and to the
simulation area.” The computer chimes. “Okay, let’s get him out of
there.”

She flips a switch on the side of the container
and the glass cover slides open. Georgia reaches in and unplugs a
cable from behind Rob’s left ear. Harold signals to a couple of
other men and together, they lift Rob out of his glass cocoon and
onto the waiting gurney.

She gently caresses his hand and thinks that
maybe they will fail for the last time and they can abandon this
Godforsaken experiment.

Singleton has his doubts too. He stands at the
darkened window, looking out over the warehouse. Below, Paul pilots
the virtual star fighter toward the blue planet. Singleton waits.
He’s a patient man and waiting doesn’t bother him.

Here he goes.

Singleton leans toward the glass as Paul exits
the sphere.

“
Mr. Singleton?”

Paul takes a few wandering steps toward the
door leading to the other room, stops, glances around, and then
sets off at a more determined pace. Singleton moves down the glass,
keeping pace with Paul as he moves from one room into the
other.

The dull roar has stopped. Replaced by sounds
of bubbles and dripping water, but that sound ends soon after it
begins. He’s surprised too; he can hear muffled voices. It’s a
woman’s voice. Must be an angel.

The line of light has not grown, but dark
shadows pass back and forth.
Maybe I’m not dying. Maybe I’m
waking up
. He tries to speak, but once again, his voice only
echoes through the darkness of his own mind.

Suddenly, blinding light floods into his eyes.
It
is
a girl; she’s shining a light into his eyes. First one
eye, then the next, using her thumb and index finger to pry his
eyelids open. She’s talking, but he can’t make out the words—as if
a thick sheet of glass is hindering her voice. She shifts position.
There’s a name badge attached to the pocket over her right
breast—G. Cobb.

“
Hello?” he screams. “Can you hear
me? Miss Cobb?”

Nothing. There is no recognition in her
face.

He whimpers, “Please. Please help
me.”

He’s lying down, that he can tell. When the
woman finishes her examination, she moves away, giving him a view
of the ceiling. She must be out of earshot because several men
appear—they put a shirt over his head and talk quietly amongst
themselves. They are talking about Cobb. They call her Georgia.
They talk about how pretty she is. They discuss in hushed whispers
the things they’d like to do to her if they ever have the
opportunity. If there was ever a time Rob wished he wasn’t
helpless, this was it. He’d enjoy teaching them a lesson on manners
and how to treat a lady—even when she isn’t present.

Then the ceiling begins scrolling by above him
and a few minutes later, he’s outside. The sky is a deep,
penetrating blue. He feels as if he hasn’t seen a sky that blue in
ages. They raise him upright—whether he’s standing or sitting, he
can’t tell. He thinks he’s standing. The ground seems like a long
way away. The men move out of his field of view and the pretty
woman in the white lab coat reappears.

“
Are you in there?” Her lips move
slowly—each word enunciated as if she is speaking to a
child.

Rob screams, “Yes! Yes! I’m here.”

“
If you’re in there…”

“
I am! I am!” He tries to raise his
head, to move his arms, but nothing works. He wants to beat against
the barrier separating them.

Her head jerks upward as if something has
caught her eye. When she finally looks back down, the intensity of
her gaze sends a tingle of ice through his
consciousness.

She says again, “If you’re in there, please,
please go easy on the boy.” She leans closer, and her next words
send another chill through him. “This next part is going to
hurt.”

“
This next part is going to hurt,”
she says—and it will. Behind his left ear, just below the port
where she unplugged the computer cable, is a small switch. It’s not
a power switch—no, the power is already on—but the connections from
the brain to the body are off. This switch activates those
connections and from previous test subjects, all lab results
indicate that when those nerve endings begin to send and receive
signals to the brain, all the trauma and pain of the subject’s
injuries flood through like a burst damn. It’s a phantom sensation,
but nonetheless real to the subject.

“
I’m sorry,” she whispers. She
stares deeply into Rob’s eyes and flips the switch. She’s looking
for slightest indication of consciousness.

Nothing. The eyes don’t even flinch.

She looks up toward the observation deck where
General Potter glares down at her. He shrugs his shoulders and
spreads his hands apart as if to say, “Well?”

She takes one last look into Rob’s eyes then
turns to join the others on the observation deck.

He doesn’t know what she did, but it’s as if
all the suns of the universe have converged around him to bake his
skin—and yet he does not burn.
This is hell
, he thinks as
another burst of pain floods his consciousness.
I’m in
hell
.

In a flash, all the memories of
that
afternoon crash down on him. The hillside. The bird in the bush.
The hidden explosives. The flames…oh, God, the flames. The fire
lasted only an instant, but it completely overshadowed the
instantaneous loss of his arm and leg. He screams at the memory of
boiling, bubbling skin: turning black as char—cracking apart under
the relentless desert sun.

If he could just move, he thinks the pain
wouldn’t be so bad, but as it is, he remains motionless, forced to
endure.

Finally, whether it’s the pain actually abating
or he’s just getting used to it, the sensations slowly diminish.
His screams turn to gentle whispers. As hard as he screamed, he’s
surprised he’s not hoarse; but then he has to remind himself—his
internal voice would never fade or crack as his physical vocal
chords would.

The pain stops and he breathes a mental sigh of
relief.

He still can’t move, but he is aware of his own
skin now. He can feel his one leg, the way the wind tickles at the
hair. He can even feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. Something
(a mask?) covers the lower part of his face. Something else pulls
down and forward on his shoulders—a heavy weight strapped to his
chest.

And then there are his missing limbs. He’s
heard the stories before—from other veterans that have lost
appendages. They say that the mind remembers the missing arm or
leg. The mind will trick you into believing it’s there—and you’ll
reach over to scratch an itch, but good hand passes through empty
air.

Rob feels that now, but it’s completely unlike
how they described it. They called it a tingling feeling—like when
your foot falls asleep but never wakes up, no matter how hard you
stomp it into the floor. He doesn’t feel a tingle; he feels a
metallic cold—as if something is there
in place of
his arm
and leg.

She can’t stand being so close to Potter, but
the room is crowded and he hovers close to her in case he has a
question. That’s the problem though, isn’t it? He insists on asking
questions in which he already knows the answers—he is the project
leader after all. Deep down, however, she knows why Potter insists
on all the repeated questions—it’s mainly for the benefit of the
others in the room—the invited guests that have no clue how any of
this technology works.

“
What now?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes. Thankfully, from where he’s
standing, he can’t see her. “We wait. I’ve already linked the
programs. Now we wait for the initialization trigger.”

“
And that is?”

She cuts her eyes toward him, not bothering to
hide her dislike this time. “The boy presses the start button.” She
stresses the word
boy
. It’s one thing to use consenting
adults for this experiment—but it’s another thing to use a child
who has no idea what’s about to happen to him.

Potter turns to someone else and begins talking
quietly. Georgia is thankful; she might just have to throw up if
she has to speak to him anymore today.
Please let this be over
soon
. For the hundredth time, she considers quitting. In the
beginning, this project was supposed to support and protect
soldiers on the ground, but the General’s penchant for success has
taken them down a dark road—a road she never intended to
travel.

Behind her, his gravelly voice, though quiet,
still penetrates her core; it’s as if he’s speaking directly into
her ear. He says, “It’s so exciting, don’t you think? I’m confident
this is going to work this time.”

Georgia holds her doubts secret.

At first, nothing appears to happen. The sphere
remains dim—humming and vibrating but barely glowing. He examines
the plastic assault rifle to make sure he didn’t miss another
button somewhere. He’s about to press the start button again when
something flashes across the sphere’s surface.

Paul pulls the trigger.

He jerks involuntarily. “What the hell?” he
yells. If felt as if his upper body had just received an electric
shock. It only lasted a second, but it was enough to illicit that
involuntary curse—something he rarely did.

Above him, the words disappear, replaced by the
number ten—which changes to nine, then eight. He half-expects
another jolt of electricity, but thankfully, there is no
more.

The numbers fall steadily before him, and by
the time the countdown reaches five, he’s counting along—having
already forgotten the shock.

Out on the simulation field, yellow lights
begin to spin, throwing splashes of yellow light on nearby
surfaces. A voice announces through the intercom, “Initialization
complete—polarity achieved. Beginning simulation in
ten—nine—eight.”

Everyone in the room, including Georgia, leans
toward the glass to get a better view of Rob. He’s hard to look at,
but she can’t seem to turn her eyes away.

He leans against the same gurney that brought
him out here, although modifications allow it to stand nearly
upright. Now he pushes away and takes a few tentative steps. He
appears to test his footing but Georgia and the others know that
it’s not really Rob.