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It takes me several minutes to work my way over to the empty bean can, but after some effort, I’ve finally got it in my hands. I won’t humiliate myself by checking for spare scraps of food. Instead, I run my thumb around the rim, hoping to find a sharp edge. But it’s completely smooth. And Jo was careful enough not to leave the lid attached.
I can feel my blood beginning to boil. Who the hell are these people to treat me like this? What did I ever do to them? Are they like this to other people, so sadistic? It makes me sick to my stomach.
The metal crimps as I crush the can in my fists. I squeeze harder, channeling my fury and driving it deep into myself. This latest incident just adds to all the other indignities I’ve suffered at Jo’s hands — my shoulder, face, hip and thigh — but the fury keeps rising and threatening to explode out of me. I know I can’t let it. I make foolish decisions when I’m driven by my rage.
I try to beckon Rupert’s teachings forth from my mind. I struggle to recall the three principles of hapkido — hwa, won, and yu — but other than the words, now meaningless to me, nothing comes. All of his wise teachings have died with Master Rupert. It’s all gone from my mind, just like his steady, gentle voice.
The can flattens. Without thinking, I bend it back into shape and crush it again. I can feel the metal crimp cutting into my palms. An idea comes to mind, so simple I curse myself for not thinking of it sooner. I tweeze it open and squeeze again, working the metal one way, then the other. The stressed can begins to warm in my fingers. The stiffness of the can relents. The crimp weakens. I feel the moment when the metal separates. I run my thumb over the edge. This one is sharp. I keep at it until the tear has worked its way completely through and the can is split in half.
Now I have my knife.
Palming the flattened top half of the can, I reach down and run the edge over the plastic tie around my ankles. After some struggling, the band snaps, releasing my legs and relieving the cramp building in my side.
After a brief rest, I start on the bindings around my wrists. It’s an awkward angle, and I fear I won’t be able to cut through before tiring out. Or alerting the women to my activities.
They’ve stopped arguing, stopped talking altogether. In fact, I’m wondering if they’ve fallen asleep. I can’t imagine both of them sleeping without someone to keep watch, but there’s not a sound from their direction and hasn’t been for several minutes now. I suddenly have this fear they’re both awake, both listening to me trying to break free. The sound of the metal abrading the plastic is uncannily loud in my ears. Will they wait until I’ve just about done it, then stop me? It would fit Jo’s pattern of tormenting. That woman is far too cruel for her own good. I’d hate to be her children. Or her spouse.
Forget about them. Just focus on getting free.
I keep at it, half my attention on the plastic band encircling my wrists, the other half on the campsite some twenty feet away. What will I do when I get free? Should I just slip away? Should I kill them? I have to stop them from coming after me. But neither option appeals to me. I keep telling myself I’m not a killer, even though that rings hollow— has rung hollow now for a very long time. All I can say is that I’m not the kind of killer they are. I’ve never done it for sport, only for self-preservation. Whether that truly distinguishes me from them, I don’t know. A part of me knows there’s no difference. Murder is murder, regardless of the justification. I should just accept that this is who I am now and move on. I need to get over my queasiness.
Kill them, Jessie. It’s either you or them.
I know I should’ve been more proactive in eliminating the threat they’ve posed. This failure has cost me dearly, cost Brother Walter his life and taken Micah from me. Without him, hacking the codex and stopping the contingency will be far more difficult. Maybe even impossible. I’m not sure I can do it by myself.
Second guessing and stalling isn’t helping. You do what you have to do.
Or, as Reggie always likes to say, quoting someone from some movie he once watched: “Do or not do: there is no try.”
But what good will it do to keep killing people? Arc will just send more. They’ll never stop until I’m dead.
Then I’ll just have to stop Arc before that happens. I have to kill the women. I have to get out of here. I have to fix the codex. I have to get off the island. Hell, that’s not asking for much.
In other words, I’m screwed.
I run a finger along the plastic tie to check my progress. The edge is rough and starting to fray, but it’s far from snapping. The angle is so much harder, making my progress slower. With a sigh, I resume sawing.
The metal can is starting to cut into the skin of my wrist. It’s painful, but it can’t be helped. But the pain grows worse with each attempt. Each new stroke delivers an electric shock-like pain even worse than the last. Yet I keep at it, pressing the metal harder into the plastic, wincing and trying not to whimper from the pain, trying not to make any more noise than necessary. It’s already taken too long. My arms are exhausted.
“Pretty resourceful, aren’t you?” someone whispers.
I freeze. My heart stops and my hope dies all at once.
Rosie kneels down beside me. “Not a word out of you,” she warns in a voice so low I can barely hear her speaking. She presses a cold blade of blackened carbide steel against my nose. I go cross-eyed trying to focus on it.
Beyond it, in the distance, I notice the sky has begun to lighten. It’s close to dawn. I’ve been so focused on my escape I hadn’t realized how much time has passed.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say. “Please.”
She shoves her free hand against my mouth and glares at me. “I told you not a fucking word!”
I nod.
We stare at each other for another second or two, then she flips the knife deftly in her hand and reaches behind me. The bindings snap, freeing my wrists. She gives me another warning look. The she yanks me to my feet. “Your pack is over there, under that tree,” she whispers. “Go.”
“Why are you doing this?”
She turns away for a moment, her lips pursed. “Grant.”
“He told you? When?”
“Go,” she repeats. “Get the fuck out of here before Jo wakes up.”
I rub my wrists. The skin on my palms is tacky; I’ve bled, although the cuts are minor compared to everything else I’ve suffered.
“What will you tell her?” I ask.
“I’ll think of something. All I can do is buy you some time.”
“She’ll kill you.”
Rosie chuffs. “She can try.”
“You could just kill her first.”
“I could. But I’m not going to. That’s not why I’m here. I didn’t come here to kill people, just the dead.”
“And me,” I add.
“You were part of the game,” she admits.
I nod. “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”
I thrust my arm up and to the side in an arc, flicking my wrist at the last possible moment into the narrow space between our faces. The bean can slices clean through Rosie’s carotid. The woman’s eyes widen in surprise. I guide her silently to the dust.
“The dead are people, too,” I whisper into her ear, as she takes another dying breath. I let go of her when she lets it out. “You’ll soon find that out.”
Her fingers relax and drop the knife. It thumps softly to the ground. I stick it into my belt.
* * *
I might’ve gotten clean away if I hadn’t been trying to retrieve my katana. I should’ve just done to Jo what I’d done to Rosie, but I’d wanted to make sure she couldn’t grab the sword first. If it wasn’t for the soft shing of the blade as it passed across a stone, Jo might not have woken up at all. But she did. She was awake in an instant, springing up from her sleeping pad as if launched upright by an invisible catapult.
And maybe she wouldn’t have screamed when I thrust the sword into her belly and brought the undead. I wouldn’t have had to fight my way out of the mess. But that’s what happened. It makes no sense to replay and second-guess my decisions.
But that’s always what I do, isn’t it? As I find myself once again on the road, the sky beginning to lighten, and my face and arms covered in those two women’s blood, I find myself going back over what I might’ve done better. One thing I do not regret, however is for wishing the woman suffered.
I hate myself for feeling that way. But that’s part of the package. I guess I’m not happy unless I’m hating myself.
But I don’t regret it.
I was lucky enough to find my Link still in my pack, along with the EM pistol and the book I’d taken from Brother Walter. I’d hoped to grab the other gun, but there hadn’t been time before the dead came. The gun and the food, even if it was just beans. I could’ve used both.
“That’s six,” I mutter to myself. “Six of them dead. And I’m still alive. So fuck you, Arc. You and your goddamn Live Players.”
I turn down the next aisle inside the small bodega I’m scavenging, rummaging for something, anything, I can use. The place had obviously been looted, probably many times. How many more of them are coming for me? How long before Arc sends in another team?
Maybe they already have.
The headache’s gone, which is a relief in more ways than one. I hadn’t realized that until after I’d gotten free. My neck doesn’t hurt like it had during the night. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, whether the activation has been aborted or if it hadn’t yet actually started. Maybe it comes and goes, steadily getting worse, until something finally snaps and BANG! I’m dead. All I know is that I’m still alive right now. I still have time to stop them.
The store shelves have been all but stripped bare. The most useful stuff is long gone, which is surprising, given that I’m inside the arcade. But then I remember the Gameland wall wasn’t built for several years after the outbreak. This part of the island hadn’t always been filled with just the undead. The military had a presence here for a while.
I sift through what remains. It’s mostly useless items, like unopened decks of playing cards, plastic cutlery, batteries that lost their juice years back. I stick a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste into my pack, then turn down the next aisle.
On my left are racks of greeting cards. It’s an odd thing to see, since paper was banned years ago for use on such banal items as birthday and get well wishes. One section is dedicated to the upcoming Halloween, which never happened. After reading a couple, I’m tempted to stop and check the rest, finding the stupid humor and sappy sentiments a welcome distraction from what I know I should be doing and yet have no idea how I’m going to do it. But I can feel the passing minutes pressing on me. I walk by and leave the rest untouched.
But I have to stop when I get to the magazine section. I’m not consciously aware of what I’m looking for until I find it. I pluck the issue from the rack and stare at the topless figure of Playboy Magazine’s Miss March 2032.
“Good old Tatiana Lovinescu,” I say. It comes out as a croak, because my throat’s dry.
Titty Lovin’. That’s what I’d called her, all those weeks ago, as I teased Jake for being a virgin. God, I was such a dick to him.
And now he’s dead. They’re all dead. Just me and Reggie and Kelly left, and who knows where they are now or even whether they’re still alive. Maybe what’s happening on the mainland is why the Stream has been down for so long. Maybe the situation is a lot worse than Brother Walter had intimated.
Or maybe it’s a whole lot better. Maybe they shut down the Stream and arrested Arc’s senior management.
Either way, I need to finish what I came to do. I toss the magazine to the floor. I wonder where Tatiana is now. I hope she’s lovin’ wherever she is.
I find a stack of cans in the next aisle over, an entire undisturbed display of white asparagus. I wrinkle my nose, but decide it’s better to eat something than nothing at all. I crack one open and pull a spear out for an experimental taste.
“Nope,” I say, gagging. But I try another bite. Then another. I make it halfway through the can before it all comes back up again.
I leave the rest of the cans where they stand. Let the next scavenger have them. If there ever is one.
There’s a water cooler in the back with a little water still some left in the glass jar. I fill up with as much as I can drink, then dump a bunch of snack-sized packages of sunflower seeds into my bag. I don’t know if they’re any good. I guess I’ll find out.
The beer display is completely empty. No surprise there.
With no more reason to dawdle, I set out for Jayne’s Hill.
