Z 2134 (23 page)

Is she planning to attack me the same
way?

Ana wasn’t a killer, and couldn’t imagine
eliminating the child unless they were in the Final Battle. Right now they
weren’t, and Ana’s life wasn’t in immediate jeopardy. Ana couldn’t kill the
girl just because she
might
pose a threat at some point later in The
Games.

But she
could
scare her away and
avoid having to fight a child.

“I’ll kill you,” Ana said. “I already
killed one guy, twice your size.”

The girl stared, like she was savoring
her next words on the tip of her tongue, or maybe waiting for Ana to say
something else. Ana waited, hoping the girl would speak. It was too damned cold
to stand still for this long.

“Go!” Ana yelled.

It was growing colder by the second, icy
wind whipping through Ana’s hair. Standing here forever didn’t do either of
them any good. If Ana was cold, the child must be freezing.

The girl stared at her, with a creepy
look that both terrified and confused Ana. Her teeth were chattering.

Poor child. I should ask her to walk with
me.

She had no idea what such a small child
could have possibly done to get thrown in prison, much less sent outside The
Wall and into The Darwin Games, but there was something about her that made Ana
think she didn’t come from the Dark Quarters, or whatever equivalent stained
the back alleys of City 2.

The girl stood, holding Ana’s stare while
Ana held her sword.

Ana considered turning and running
herself, but didn’t dare — surrender in The Barrens was always a mistake, and
besides, the girl was probably faster.

The Network orb that had been hovering
above Ana for fifteen minutes suddenly descended as though dropped by a god,
spinning like a top through the frozen air and pouring brilliant blue light
into the forest below. Kirkman wasn’t on screen and was likely at home in bed,
but the orb was prepared for whatever was to come next, with an audience
watching, eager for bloodshed, even if it was a child’s. Or Ana’s.

Ana continued to stare at the girl,
wondering if her legs were as frozen as hers, standing in the snow for what
felt like eternity. The girl took a small step, almost tiny, slowly moving
forward with one tentative foot in front of the other — bold, brave, and almost
beautiful as she cautiously crept toward Ana, stopping a few feet in front of
her, silent.

What is she doing? Is she trying to make
peace or preparing to strike?

“Are you gonna say anything?” Ana asked,
confused.

The girl shook her head, then opened her
mouth.

Her missing tongue told Ana a long,
horrible story in one short, miserable second.

Ana had never seen a cut tongue but had
heard plenty of stories about the many atrocities that happened to the girls
and women in the Dark Quarters, often used in sex rings. Their pimps cut their
tongues off to prevent them from ever naming their “customers.” This also
served as a warning to any who might fight or flee — showing them how quickly a
blade could change their lives.

Ana winced, then whispered, “Oh God.”

She wanted to invite the girl to stay.

They could team up. She’d keep her safe.
She’d —

Blood erupted from Cal’s neck as Ben
danced across the stage in Ana’s mind.

You can’t trust her.

You’re NOT a team.

Even if you SOMEHOW made it to the end
together, you’d have to kill her at some point if you wanna win.

Can you do that, Ana? Murder a little disfigured
girl who’s been through God knows what?

Ana lunged forward, twisting her face
into an angry scowl. “GO!” she cried.

Ana swung her sword so close to the girl
that her blade came back carrying a bloody tatter of coverall. The girl’s eyes
widened, then she turned and ran back into the darkness of the woods.

Ana swayed in the snow, sick to her
stomach as she listened for the final fade from the girl’s retreat. She felt
horrible, but there was no time for feeling horrible. She had to get moving and
find Liam.

Once the child’s footsteps had trailed
into the distance, Ana began walking so fast it was nearly a run, trying to
spark her body back into warmth. She made her way through the darkness, still
freezing, slowing every few hundred steps as her brain begged her body to
pause. She rested for only a second, then pushed forward, knowing that to slow
was to stop and to stop was to die.

Eventually, she found herself back at the
Fire Wall, breaking into a smile, grateful for its promise of warmth. She was
just about to run from the woods and to the fire when movement stopped her cold
in her tracks. There were four orbs floating in the distance. And below them,
four players coming from the south.

Ana glanced up at her own orb, waving it
back so as not to give away her location. To her surprise, the orb came down
lower, resting just inches from her, and powered down its lights.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she dropped
to her knees and waited for the players to pass her by. As they drew closer, so
did their voices, chatter, and laughter.

She gasped in recognition of one of the
voices.

Liam!

She wanted to run toward him but didn’t
dare.

He was with others, and she had no way of
knowing if the other players would see her as friend or foe. She waited as they
walked past her. She noted that one of the players was a particularly pretty
blonde who was laughing at Liam’s every joke.

Ana felt a bitter taste in her mouth, a
mixture of betrayal and jealousy.

Did he even look for me, or did he just
fall in with the first group he ran into?

As the group passed, Ana felt more
confused than ever.

Should I follow?

Should I just go my own way?

The girl’s laughter carried back on the
wind, bothering Ana more than she knew she should let it.

Fuck that bitch.

Ana decided to follow.

It was Monday morning, by Jonah’s
estimations, and it had been many sleepless hours since Egan disappeared from
the room Jonah was being held in, leaving Jonah alone in the darkness to ponder
what was happening with Ana.

Why is she in The Games?

Is it to punish me, or is there something
more?

Did she get in trouble?

Where is Adam?

Who is taking care of him now that Ana
isn’t?

Is Adam next?

Jonah waited for someone to come and turn
on the tube lights above him, flickering though they’d been. Anything was
better than the darkness. He’d had enough darkness to last a lifetime. In The
Barrens, the darkness mocked you, reminding you that even though you should be
sleeping, you dare not, or you might not wake up.

Now the darkness only served to add to
the multiplying fears for his family. He had to get out and find Ana and Adam.
Until then, nothing else mattered. Nothing.

The same curse that kept him from
sleeping poured more memories forth, stacking the front of his mind with image
after haunting image of a life with Molly, Ana, and Adam and the old world the
four of them could never orbit again.

Remembering the holidays made him
saddest, since that was when he had spent the most time with his family. Being
a senior Watcher meant staying indoors while men with fewer credits, or no
families, were obligated to clock double and sometimes triple shifts.

Nativity was a favorite holiday, though
the Lovecrafts weren’t religious enough to enjoy the long weekend for more than
a light upgrade in rations and the exchange of simple paper-wrapped presents.
As much as he loved Nativity, Fertility was the family’s most loved, leaving
them with a memorable week each year, starting April 1. The children enjoyed
Fertility as much as he and Molly, though of course for an entirely different
set of reasons.

The children loved their baskets, filled
with two bars of chocolate and a bag of jelly beans each, left by the Fertility
Bunny. And though Ana always proudly proclaimed that “this year” she’d be
patient and make her candy last, it was always gone before nightfall.

He and Molly loved having an excuse to
fuck like rabbits, even if they weren’t allowed to conceive without a voucher.

Jonah closed his eyes, thankful for the
memories, even if they were painful reminders of all that he’d lost.

He could still remember the moment he’d
opened the door to the end of his life as if it were yesterday.

He’d been working on an endless stack of
forms to be filed when he got the call — Ana was sick and needed someone to
pick her up from school. Molly wasn’t answering the com at home, and he figured
she was likely sleeping since she’d stayed home from work with a virus and was
feeling like hell that morning.

So Jonah left work early, grateful for
the chance to care for his baby girl — for both of the women in his life. Ana
was growing too fast, and time was flying by. Before long, she’d be married and
starting her own family, so who knew how many more father-and-daughter moments
they had between them?

Jonah thought about pulling Adam out as
well, but knew Academy wouldn’t like it, even if his rank as a Watcher kept
them from argument.

By the time they were halfway home, Jonah
had managed to make Ana laugh several times, even though she insisted her
stomach was hurting and kept begging him to stop. It felt good to have a rare
moment alone with her, and he couldn’t remember the last time it had just been
him and her. Hell, he hardly remembered the last time it had been he and his
whole family, what with his busy schedule.

“I’m glad you got sick today,” he said,
as they walked down the hallway to their apartment. “Well, you know what I
mean.”

“Me too, Dad,” she said, smiling back at
him.

He opened the door to the apartment,
still laughing, and called for Molly to see if she was awake. Molly wasn’t in
the kitchen, family room, or anywhere else in the front part of their small
apartment. It wasn’t until Jonah made his way to the back of his apartment that
he found Molly — crumpled in the doorway to Jonah’s office, face down in a
river of blood.

In reality, they screamed at the
discovery together, but when The Watchers arrived on the scene, Ana’s story
changed, and she swore that her father had bashed her mother’s skull in with
his shock stick.

The Watchers, sure enough, found the
bloody shock stick in his office and arrested him immediately.

Though Jonah had known he could get
caught working with the Underground, he never thought the government would
murder his wife, frame him, and somehow implicate his daughter in the cover-up.
The only explanation that made any sense in the insanity was Duncan’s theory — the
City had somehow planted false memories in Ana’s head via a chip implanted in
her.

In all his years as a Watcher, he’d seen,
and done, many illicit things in the name of justice, but he’d never seen a
false memory planted.

And yet it was the only explanation that
made sense. Someone had discovered him helping “the enemy,” and rather than
expose him as a traitor and admit that one of their best and most trusted had
been compromised, they set him up for murder.

And if The City could do that, what else
were they capable of? What lengths would they go to in order to preserve their
power?

Now his wife was dead. His daughter, and
likely his son as well, hated him.

If they could get Ana, of course they
could get to Adam too.

But now Ana was in The Games. Had she
discovered their deception, he wondered? Perhaps the false memories weren’t
permanent, and now they had to clean up their mess before it got ugly.

They couldn’t reveal him as a traitor to
The State. It might embolden their enemies, or worse, it might cause other
Watchers to question their allegiance. If a kind, trusted man such as Jonah
Lovecraft had turned his back on The State, perhaps there was a good reason.

But to set Ana up as a traitor was easy.
She was young, and young people were easily implicated because the older people
feared them, feared change. Plus, she had legitimate reason to be angry with
The State. It had, after all, locked up her father, even if he was supposedly
guilty of murdering her mother. It seemed plausible that she’d be angry with
those who put him behind bars.

So they set her up, sent her off to die.
No more witnesses to their lie.

Except they hadn’t killed him.

And Ana wasn’t dead…yet.

He had to find his daughter and reveal
the lies the government had crafted. As he began to drift off, he wondered how
long his children had pledged allegiance to a lie.

Did she now know he was innocent?

Is that why she was put into The Games?