Ted Kosmatka - The Games

“Why is it changing?”

“I don’t know. But the newer generations all have trouble catching their babies. Some of the adults make babies that are mostly too fast, and those adults starve quickly and die. Others make babies that are too slow, and those babies never get away. But it seems like there are fewer of that kind around now, for some reason.”

Evan could only stare at the child.

“The ones there are more of are the ones that catch their babies sometimes. But not all the time.”

Evan was at a loss for words. Darwinian evolution inside VR? He supposed it was possible. Even if it was a fucked-up kind of Darwinian evolution that wasn’t constrained by physical laws.

“Why did you make them?” Evan asked.

“I don’t know. It seemed interesting.”

As good a reason as any, he supposed.

“Are you going to keep making more?”

“Maybe sometimes. It’s easier to let them make themselves. I just start them. Then they do the rest. There’s so much I’ve been doing. So much I want to show you. I’ve made everything for you.”

“I want to see it all.”

The pull came, then—sudden, familiar, unstoppable. It drove all other thoughts away.

There was still much Evan wanted to ask. He knelt down and hugged the boy. “Pea, they’re calling me.” The pull grew stronger.

“No, don’t go.”

“I have to.”

“When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure.”

“No! You can’t leave!”

“It’s not my choice.”

“I’m so alone,” Pea cried. “I need you.”

“I need you, too.”

“I get so scared. I don’t know what I might do.”

Evan was pulled up to his feet. “Neither do I,” he said into the darkness of his faceplate. “Neither do I.”

SILAS WATCHED Chandler’s body go into convulsions as the drives wound down to a soft electronic whir. The lights came on, and the room exploded into frenzied activity. A team of medics rushed the plug booth as the obese man broke free from his moorings and collapsed to the floor in a quaking avalanche of flesh and twitching sensor wires. They worked quickly to extricate him from his skin suit, cutting it away in big, gauzy swaths with their stainless-steel scissors. Someone shouted something about a defibrillator. To his left, Silas could see a tech he recognized from Helix shaking his head at the readout on his computer feed.

“What just happened?” Silas asked him.

“Not sure,” the man replied. “But that is one crazy son of a bitch.”

“What did he do?”

“Not him, it . I’m talking about the Brannin. It’s flawed.”

“What do you mean?” Silas asked.

“Look,” the man said, gesturing to the terminal that sat on the folding table in front of him. Silas looked over the man’s shoulder at the screen.

ACA CAC UAU AUG CUU CUC CUG GAU UUA CGC AGG UGG UAG UGA UAC CAC CAA AGG CGA UCG UUU UCA ACU ACC AUU CGG CGG AAA ACG GGA UUU GUG GUA GGG GGA CGU AUG AUA CCG CUA AAU UAU GAG AGU AUG GCA UAG GUU UAA AGA ACU AGA GAG GGU AGU CAC CUG UAG UUU UGA CGU ACG AUU UCG CGC CUC CCC UCC UGA GAG AUU GGG CGA CAG UCA CAG GUC UGC ACA CUA UGC CUC CUU CAG GCG CAC GAG UCU UUG CCA GAC GUC AUC CGU GGG GCA UGA AGA CUG CAU UGG UUU ACU GGG CAG CUG CGG GCA AAA UGA UUU UAA UUU GGA AAC GGG CAG CAG CAG GAA CCC CUA GUC GGG UGC AAU GGG GAC CAA CAA UAG UGA CAU CUG CAU CAU GAU AAG UUU CAU UAC GAG GGA CAU CAU CAA AUG GAC UGA UGA GUG UUG CUA CCG AGU UUU AAC GUG AAA GGG UAC AAU GGA UAG AAA ACH AGU ACG UAU GGG GGG AUG AAA GUG AGG ACG CCC CGC AGC CCC CGG GGG CCC CGG CAG AAA AGA AGC AGC AGC CCC CCG ACG AGC AGA

As Silas read, he tried to feel surprise. He wanted to feel like he hadn’t expected this. Somehow, if he could just conjure up a little shock, just a modicum of outrage, he could go on pretending that he really believed this whole thing had been the result of some sort of miscommunication.

“What about the other queries?” Silas asked.

“All answered, by the looks of it.”

“But not ours?”

The man scrolled down through several more screens. “Absolutely nothing. It’s the same code the Brannin gave us before. It accessed our file, but it didn’t answer the query. It just gave the code back to us.” The man swiveled around in his chair to face Silas. “I think we’ve been snubbed.”

Silas glanced across the room, and Baskov was staring over another young man’s shoulder into a similar computer feed. The scowl creased his face to the bone.

The first thing Evan did upon regaining consciousness was to immediately wish he hadn’t. The second involved rolling onto his side and puking unceremoniously over the edge of the bed. Hot vomit splashed cold tile. The sound came at him muffled, like the world heard from the other side of a closed car door. His head throbbed. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His eyes ungummed to a blur of white and gray. He fought to focus, but the effort exhausted him, and he collapsed, grateful, back into the dark swirl.

After a time, the world swam toward him again. He tried to resist, to retreat, but was thrust into the light. Of all his senses, one seemed to work. His nose whispered to him in the oldest language. He was in a hospital. He could smell the sickness around him.

It came back to him in parts after that. The Brannin. Pea. What happened to me in there? He heard a moan, low and miserable, again from the other side of that invisible car door that muffled his hearing. The moan was his, of course, and when he could, he stopped.

He sensed movement at his side, a subtle change in the composition of gray that surrounded him.

“Evan, can you hear me?” a voice asked in the distance.

He tried to answer, but the words broke apart in his throat.

“You’re going to survive,” the voice said.

Evan recognized Baskov’s gravelly tone. “Too bad,” Evan managed to say.

“Yes, truer words I’ve yet to hear you speak. The doctors say you’ll never be the same again. They say your brain has been damaged.”

Evan swallowed hard against the dryness of his throat. How long have I been out? A day? A month? “What do you want?” he croaked.

“I told them you were no prize to begin with, that your brain was damaged all along, and they shouldn’t waste their effort. But it seems the Hippocratic oath has saved another piece of shit.”

“What do you want?” Evan repeated.

“I just want to know what you could possibly have been thinking.”

“Pea.”

“What is Pea?” Baskov asked.

Evan thought about how to explain, but after a second or two, his mind lost the trail and he forgot what the question had been.

“Where did you go when the screens blacked out?” Baskov asked.

Evan hesitated, trying to judge how much he could hide.

“I’m not a patient man, Evan. We’ve tried to back-trace what happened, but there is no record to follow. You covered your tracks well. There are ways that I can get you to tell me what I want to hear, but the doctors tell me you are very weak. The drugs could kill you. I’m under pressure that you couldn’t begin to understand. If that is what I need to do, I’ll do it.”

More shapes moved around him in the gray. A dozen voices whispered in tones too low for Evan to unscramble. He thought about dying. It would be a relief in many ways, but Pea would think he’d been abandoned. “What do you want to know?”

“Why didn’t the computer answer the Helix queries?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. It interfaced the logs but didn’t reply.”

“That’s not possible. The computer can’t choose what it responds to.”

“It chose not to respond.”

“It doesn’t know how to ignore.”