Brad Meltzer - The Zero Game

“Viv!” I call out, crawling into the room. The whole world is tar. “Please, Viv — are you there?!”

I hold my breath and listen as my plea echoes down each of the tunnels. It rumbles everywhere at once. The original surround sound. Holding my breath and digging my nails into the dirt, I wait for a response. No matter how faint, I don’t want to miss it. But as my own voice reverberates and disappears down the labyrinth, I’m once again buried in underground silence. I look around, but the view doesn’t change. It only adds to my dizziness. The merry-go-round’s started, and I can’t make it stop.

“Viv!” I cry again in the opposite direction. “Anybody! Please!”

The echo trails off like the wispy tail of a ghost in my old childhood nightmares. Swallowed by the darkness. Just like me.

There’s no up, down, left, or right. The world teeters sideways as dizziness flips to vertigo. I’m on all fours but still can’t hold my balance. My forehead feels like it’s about to explode.

With a crash, I fall on my side. My cheek rolls into the rocks. It’s the only thing that tells me where the ground is. There’s nothing but ink in every direction — and then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot tiny, tiny flashes of silver light. They only last a second — bursts of sparkles, like when you shut your eyes too tight. But even as I turn my head to follow the glow, I know it’s just my imagination. I’ve heard of this before… when your eyes are deprived of light for too long. Miner mirages.

“Harris…?” a voice whispers in the distance.

I assume it’s another trick of my imagination. That is, until it starts talking back.

“Harris, I can’t hear you!” it shouts. “Say something else!”

“Viv?”

“Say something else!” Her voice echoes through the room. It’s hard to pinpoint the direction.

“Viv, is that you?!”

“Keep talking! Where are you?”

“In the dark — my light went out!”

There’s a one-second pause, like there’s a time delay on her voice. “You okay?”

“I need you to come get me!”

“What?”

“Come get me!” I shout.

The pause is still there. “I can’t!” she yells. “Just follow the light!”

“There is no light! I turned too many corners — c’mon, Viv, I can’t see!”

“Then follow my voice!”

“Viv!”

“Just follow it!” she pleads.

“Are you listening?! It’s bouncing through every tunnel!” I stop and pause, keeping my sentences short, so the echo doesn’t interfere. She needs to hear what I’m saying. “It’s too dark! If I take the wrong turn, you’ll never find me!”

“So I should get lost with you?!” she says.

“You have a light!”

“Harris…!”

“You have a light! We’re running out of time!”

Her pause is even longer. She knows what I’m getting at. The longer she waits, the less likely we’ll be alone down here. We’ve been lucky so far, but when it comes to Janos, it can’t last.

“Don’t be afraid, Viv! It’s just a tunnel!”

This time, the pause is her longest yet. “If this is a trick…!”

“It’s not a trick! I need help…!”

She knows I’m not playing around. Besides, as the Senator always says when he’s talking about our top donors, “Even when they tell you the well is dry, if you dig a little deeper, there’s always a little something tucked back in reserve.”

“You really need me to come there?” she asks, her voice shaking.

“I can’t move,” I call back. “Viv… Please…”

As I lie in the darkness, the cave once again goes silent. Just the thought of heading into the darkness… especially by herself… I saw the pain in her eyes before. She’s terrified.

“Viv, you still there?!”

She doesn’t answer. Not a good sign. The silence keeps going, and I can’t help but think that even the reserves are long dry. She’s probably curled on the ground and-

“Which of these tunnels do I take?!” she shouts, her voice booming through the caves.

I sit up straight, my hands still in the dirt. “You’re the greatest, Viv Parker!”

“I’m not joking, Harris! Which way do I go?”

Her voice is far off in the distance, but there’s no mistaking her desperate tone. This isn’t easy for her.

“The one with the freshest mud! Look for my footprints!” My voice echoes through the chamber, fading into nothing.

“Did you find it?” I ask.

Again my voice fades away. It all comes down to a seventeen-year-old girl with a flashlight on her head.

“You have tiny feet!” she calls back.

I try to smile, but we both know she’s got a long way to go. Back by the cage, there’s still the big industrial light up by the ceiling. Not for long. That light will be out of her sight any-

“Harris…!”

“You can do it, Viv! Pretend you’re in a fun-house!”

“I hate fun-houses! They scare the crap outta me!”

“How about the Tilt-A-Whirl? Everyone likes the Tilt-A-Whirl!”

“Harris, it’s too dark!”

The pep talk’s not working.

“I can barely see…!”

“Your eyes’ll adjust!”

“The ceiling-!” she screams. Her voice gets cut off.

I give her a second, but nothing comes back.

“Viv, everything okay?”

No response.

“Viv…? Are you there?!”

Dead silence.

“VIV!" I shout at the top of my lungs, just to make sure she hears it.

Still nothing.

My jaw tightens, the silence sinks in, and for the first time since I left, I start wondering if we’re the only ones down here. If Janos caught a different flight-

“Just keep talking, Harris!” her voice finally rings through the air. She must’ve entered the main stretch of tunnel. Her voice is clearer… less of an echo.

“Are you-?”

“Just keep talking!” she shouts, stuttering slightly. Something’s definitely wrong. I tell myself it’s just her fear of being trapped underground, but as the silence once again descends, I can’t help but think it’s something worse. “Tell me about work… your parents… anything…” she begs. Whatever else is going on, she needs something to take her mind off it.

“M-My first day in the Senate,” I begin, “I was riding the metro to work, and as I got on board, there was an ad — I forget what it was for — but the ad said, Reach Beyond Yourself . I remember staring at it the entire-”

“Don’t give me locker room speeches — I saw Rudy !” she shouts. “Tell me something real!”

It’s a simple request, but I’m surprised how long it takes me to come up with an answer.

“Harris…!”

“I make breakfast for Senator Stevens every morning!” I blurt. “When we’re in session, I have to pick him up at his house at seven A.M., go inside, and make him Cracklin’ Oat Bran with fresh blueberries…”

There’s a short pause.

“You serious?” Viv asks. She’s still wavering, but I hear the laughter in the back of her throat.

I smile to myself. “The man’s so insecure, he makes me walk him to every vote on the Floor, just in case he’s cornered by another Member. And he’s so cheap, he doesn’t even go to dinner anymore without bringing a lobbyist. That way, he doesn’t have to pick up the bill…”

After the pause, I hear a single word from Viv: “More…”

“Last month, Stevens turned sixty-three… We threw four different birthday parties for him — each one a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser — and at each one, we told the invitees it was the only party he was having. We spent fifty-nine thousand on salmon and some birthday cake — we raked in over two hundred grand…” I sit up on my knees, shouting into the darkness. “In his office, there’s a homerun baseball from when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series a few years back. It’s even signed by Jimmy Carter — but the Senator was never meant to keep it. They asked him to sign it, and he never gave it back.”