Z 2134 (5 page)

“What are you doing?” Ana cried. “Those
are ours!”

The Watcher closest to her explained that
they could each take two personal items. Everything else belonged to The City
and would be auctioned to pay for the trial and their care at the Orphanage.

Though Ana would have loved to keep
something from her mother, or one of her few childhood toys, she took nothing.
She wasn’t sure what the orphanage would be like, but if it was as bad as the
kids in school whispered it was, she wanted no weakness to enter the walls with
her. Her something of value was a bull’s-eye for another.

Ana would never give anyone that sort of
power over her.

Adam was different, though. A sensitive
kid even before their lives went to hell, he would need reminders of his past
to carry him through.

It was hardest on Adam when they took his
books — relics from Before, which his father had collected and read to them
both, but which Adam had taken a deeper interest in. Books were the only thing
Adam had ever taken an interest in. He would spend hours lost in the old
stories, so their father spent even more time, money, and general attention
building their collection and giving Adam something he could call his own.

As City Watch invaded their reservoir of
treasured words, Adam tangled himself in sudden tears, scuffing his knees as
his heart broke against the floor, begging the two Watchers in the tiny library
to please let him keep some of his books.

“I have nothing,” he sobbed. “My mom is
dead and my dad is in prison. Please.”

“No way, kid,” one of The Watchers said
with a shake of his dark helmet. “These will fetch decent credits at auction.”

Adam cried out, grabbed the box from one
of The Watchers, then turned to run away, though clearly he had nowhere to go
and hadn’t thought out his actions.

The Watcher reached for his stick, and
Ana screamed, “No!”

She thrust herself between the two
Watchers and Adam, who was clutching his box of books and crying.

“He didn’t mean anything, officer,” she
said, staring into herself reflected in the man’s black glass mask. “He’s been
through a lot, and this is all he has.
Please
don’t hurt him.”

She didn’t cry, though she wanted to. She
had to be strong for Adam.

Both Watchers were silent.

Ana turned to Adam, “Please, just give
them the box,” she said. “I promise, I’ll get you more books the second that
I’m able.”

She thought Adam would cry or argue, or
point out that she couldn’t possibly afford to buy books, but his eyes met
hers, and she could tell that he was afraid of The Watchers. Once they pulled
out their sticks, they could probably do whatever they wanted.

Adam handed the box to Ana so slowly that
she thought he might change his mind, and then she handed it to the nearest of
the two Watchers.

The Watchers continued to say nothing,
just stood there with their faces invisible behind the black glass. Ana was
certain Adam had pushed things too far — The Watchers would be forced to
respond by making an example of him. Rarely did Watchers allow a citizen to
usurp their authority.

She looked into The Watcher’s mask, her
eyes pleading. “Please,” she begged. “He didn’t mean anything. He’s harmless, I
swear.”

The keeper looked down into the box of
books, reached in with his black gloved hand, and pulled out two, then handed
them to Adam and left without a word.

Thinking of the moment, and the anonymous
Watcher’s kindness, always sent Ana near to tears.

That was the last day they lived in a
place someone could rightly call a
home.

Chimney Rock was
one of the largest buildings in The City, and maybe the ugliest. With a dark
brick exterior, iron bars on every window, 30 stories, a large set of black
iron double doors that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds each, and the
spiraling chimney that twisted to nowhere and gave the dungeon its name, the
outside of the orphanage was the stuff of nightmares.

Inside was worse.

Someone had decided the halls should be
painted black, since according to the State, other colors seemed to inspire “ill
tempers.” And as if black didn’t lend to the darkness enough, the lighting in
the hallways was often neglected, seemingly in a perpetual state of flickering.

The bottom five floors were devoted to
classrooms — orphans were taught in separate schools from the other children.
To call what Chimney Rock offered school, however, was a mockery of education.
It taught little more than basic skills to be a better worker, and little to no
critical thinking. The sixth floor housed the kitchen and dining hall. The
remaining floors were divided between boys and girls, grouped by sex and age.
There were no bedrooms. Instead, there were giant rooms lined with two rows of
beds, 20 on each side of the room, with each child given a trunk and a lock for
the foot of his or her bed — the small box meant to harbor every one of their
earthly possessions.

Ana rarely saw Adam any more, except at
dinner — when she returned from work in time — and occasionally on Sunday, when
their schedule was mostly free. This wasn’t a kindness to the children so much
as it was for the adults wanting a day away from the orphanage. While the
schoolmaster and a few of the counselors lived on the upper floors of the
orphanage, most of the staff was away on Sunday, doing whatever it was adults
did when they didn’t have to work.

Ana pushed through the heavy iron doors,
eager to get upstairs and alone, so she could read her note.

She went to the main desk to sign in. As
she waved her wrist, and the chip inside it, across the black square glass in
the large reception desk, she was greeted by Merta, a large, unfriendly woman
who seemed right at home in the long, black, shapeless dresses the staff were
required to wear.

Tonight, however, the woman greeted her
with a rare smile.

“Congratulations, your father really
pulled off a stunner!” she boomed.

“Yeah,” Ana said, trying to be friendly
and avoid explaining how she’d wished The Darwin Games were over already, and
whether that meant her father dying or winning, she didn’t really care. She
just wanted to stop seeing his face on TV every damned day. Ana smiled,
suddenly meaning it because she thought about how Michael said her smiles
seemed like she was trying to keep her gas in.

“To Jonah!” Merta said, raising her fist —
one of the more annoying ways fans of the show celebrated their favorite
contestants.

“To Jonah,” Ana repeated, playing along
and raising her fist halfheartedly.

Ana smiled again, then left the main
desk, went to the elevators, and pushed the up arrow button. From behind, Merta
said, “They’re out of order again.”

Ana closed her eyes.

Of course.

Ana began the long trek up to the 25th floor, eager
to reach the restroom on her level, the only place where she could find the
privacy she needed to read the note. As she ascended the stairs, Ana wondered how
Adam was doing.

He said he’d made friends with a group of
boys a bit older than he, and she was happy to hear it. She also knew that her
baby brother was too trusting and could be easily taken advantage of. She
planned to meet the boys on Sunday and check them out for herself. Ana hoped
they’d be as nice as Adam insisted they were. She hated the thought of someone
having fun at her brother’s expense, like what used to happen back home and in
regular school all too often — kids making fun of the daft kid because they
figured he didn’t get it.

Adam wasn’t daft. He was damned smart.
Just quiet, and had some trouble communicating with others in a normal way.
That didn’t make him stupid.

If Ana found out these kids were messing
with him, they’d have hell to pay — even if it meant her getting thrown into
The Rock’s basement for a spell.

Ana pushed open the door on the 25th floor and
passed two girls chatting in the hall, ignoring their cries of “To Jonah!”
along with their fist salutes, and headed straight for the restroom and a
private stall.

Ana went to the farthest stall, sat to
pee, then slid the note from her pants pocket and carefully opened the note.

It read:

874 Stone Street Church

Sunday

Come alone

And don’t let The Watchers see you.

It was the
address of the small church with the slightly crooked sign, across the street
from Ana’s old apartment.

The Barrens

the next
morning

J
onah felt like his heart would burst.
Then it did.

He stopped, clutching at the burning in
his chest. Once he realized nothing had erupted, and that it only felt as if he
were going to die, but he wasn’t yet dying, he pushed himself to run faster.

It had been a while since Jonah had heard
any zombies, and even longer since he had felt them. After another 20 minutes,
he stopped again, just long enough to catch his breath, sucking fresh, cold air
into his lungs like the last swallow in a canteen. Once he caught his breath,
Jonah looked behind him, scanned the snow-capped tree line for zombies, then
turned back and started walking quickly toward the Final Area.

He passed a lake, walked the long way
around the same wooden shack that had been used as a makeshift hospital, a
camping ground, and a last stand more times than he could count, or at least
remember, in the more than 36 years since he first started watching The Darwin
Games. Jonah didn’t go inside the shack, but as he passed, he smelled something
inside that made him want to vomit. Past the shack, Jonah reached the large
black wall surrounding a clearing — two empty acres in the middle of the
forest.

Jonah wondered how much longer he could
continue breathing. His heart was still beating like a jackhammer and
threatening eruption. His lungs were a bucket of magma. His throat was dry and
raw, and his eyes dry and tired, but he couldn’t risk letting his guard drop
now, of all times.

This was the staging area of the Final
Battle.

Jonah found the gateway into the clearing
and then swallowed as he saw the goliath that had beaten him there.

Bear stood on top of the Mesa, heaving.
Massive shoulders rose and fell with the silent threat of a sleeping lion.

Bear was too far off for Jonah to see his
smile, but he was no less certain the giant was wearing one. For a man Bear’s
size, who crushed skulls like fruit in his palm, he wielded a surprising amount
of mirth. Jonah had caught the screen captures from the orbs on the replays
each night. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Bear was the first survivor in
history to get his own spinoff show — if he beat Jonah.

Three days before, Bear had survived a
midnight zombie attack by wrapping his arm around a monster’s neck, squeezing
it tight enough so that the zombie couldn’t bite him.

Bear was sleeping soundly when the first
zombie made it into his camp, so he wasn’t able to grab a weapon before the
first zombie was on him. Bear used the zombie’s body as his only weapon until
he tore an arm from another charging zombie, then used that as a bat to fend
off the approaching swarm long enough to get his store of weapons, starting
with a gun that he fired to empty before switching to an axe that left a
littered heap of zombies in piles all over his campsite.

After just two hours’ sleep, Bear figured
it was time to hit the trail again, so he crept through the dark, axe in hand.
The axe was still in his hand, three days later, as he stood like a king at the
top of the Mesa.

The Darwin Games started at the Halo and
ended at the Mesa. Sometimes no one made it. Most often, and fittingly for an
audience surveyed to greatly prefer a one-on-one showdown, there were two
survivors. Occasionally, there were three. Once, seven fought to a bloody death
at the top of the Mesa.

The Mesa, a raised metal platform 50 feet
high, was surrounded by a large steel cage. There were only two ways to leave
the Mesa: dead or by way of the winner’s trip to City 7.

Bear stood inside the cage, waiting,
smiling, and holding the same axe he had sent through the bodies of
who-knew-how-many humans and zombies alike. He slapped the flat side of the
blade hard into his left palm, then flared his nostrils.

Bear’s axe was sharp, instead of dull
from battle, and his wounds were mended. Of course.

The first to the Mesa claimed the Bounty —
a foot locker-sized box that harbored everything from medicine to food to fresh
weapons. Jonah had no idea what other weapons were in the Bounty, but Bear
clearly preferred his battle-tested axe. He was, however, fully garbed in a
full suit of thick leather padded armor, loosely covering his massive body.
Jonah wondered if there was a second, smaller suit inside the Bounty tailored
for him, if only he’d been fast enough to reach it. Or if they knew Bear would
reach the Bounty before him in enough time to only make one.