Ted Kosmatka - The Games

When the change came, it was not what he’d expected. The morning was just beginning to assemble itself in the windows when he heard it. It was faint, at that razor’s edge between imagination and perception. Again, he chose to believe. The screen was still dark and gray, but now, through the speakers, the muffled crash of waves could be heard.

Chandler smiled. He’d done his part. Pea would have to do the rest.

THE FIRING team took up their positions. After what had happened to Tay, Silas was taking no chances. They wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating the gladiator again.

The creature moved around the pen in a storm of agitation, kicking up tufts of straw as it strode the enclosure. Its wings were folded back out of the way, like the ears of a hissing cat. It didn’t like all the new faces on the other side of the bars.

When Silas gave the signal, the first shot was fired. The gladiator was fast, but it wasn’t that fast. The dart struck it in the lower torso just beneath the line of the rib cage. The problem, however, with tranquilizing an animal with opposable thumbs is that a dart can then very quickly be plucked free before the medication has a chance to insinuate itself into the tissue. The gladiator howled in rage as it flung the half-empty dart back at them.

The second dart struck the creature low on the side of the hip. It howled again and spun away, tearing at the projectile. As its back became exposed, a third dart struck it high between its shoulders, just inside the curve of a wing. This dart the gladiator couldn’t reach. There were a few moments of tension when Silas actually thought the gladiator might hurt itself in its rage.

It flung itself against the bars again and again, reaching through toward them and raking the air with its blood-red talons. Spittle flew from its mouth. It screeched. Slowly, then, the drugs took effect, and the creature began to calm. It sat.

Among the crowd of staring faces, the creature’s eyes somehow found Silas. They bore into him, looking for an answer. Silas met the gaze head-on and did not falter. You killed a man , Silas thought. It was an accusation.

I am what you made me , Silas imagined the reply.

The creature slumped to the floor.

“Not yet,” Silas said. “Let’s make sure.”

Another dart was pumped into the gladiator’s side. Vidonia had told him it could metabolize three darts without a problem. Four would be pushing it. And five—well, five darts and the gladiator might not be waking up, ever.

They waited a full three minutes before entering the cage, and even then, the shooters were cocked and loaded again, four shots or no. The lift rolled in, and the straps were attached. The creature was raised slowly off the floor, and its head lolled back, dragging through the straw as it was wheeled toward the waiting truck.

Here and there, thick globs of blood stuck to the straw. Probably more than could be accounted for from the darts, Silas thought. He stopped the lift with a raised hand. The gladiator’s black skin had hidden the blood well. Dark on dark, its legs showed dried flakes of crimson that flicked away with the stroke of his hand. It wasn’t much, but it was there. He inspected the creature closely, looking for a wound that could explain the presence of dried blood. The creature stirred groggily, and the guns came up again, but Silas held his hand up. He didn’t want to risk another injection unless a life was in danger.

He continued his inspection, going over every inch of the unconscious body. Nothing.

A black hand flexed. That was enough. The shooters eyed Silas, and this time he motioned for the lift to continue. The wail of the lift’s backup indicator eased the tension on the firing team’s trigger fingers, if not their faces.

The transport truck was sleek, white, and enormous. As the lift approached with its load, the men standing behind it stepped away.

The panel walls had been reinforced with interlocking steel beams, and the interior cage door had a triple-locking system. No doorknob. Silas had made sure of that.

The lift eased its payload inside and lowered the truss to the floor of the cage. Men with grim faces and fast hands removed the straps. They jumped to the cement, and the door slid shut with a loud clang.

There was a collective sigh of relief from the men. Job well done.

Silas checked the lock, and when he found it secure, he stepped back inside the gladiator enclosure for a better look at the blood-spattered straw. It didn’t make a trail of a kind he could follow but instead seemed to be scattered randomly around the enclosure, as if the creature had been bleeding sporadically for some time. He sifted through the straw with his legs, scanning with his eyes. It didn’t help that he wasn’t sure at all what he was looking for. He gave special attention to the area against the far wall, where the creature tended to sleep, but he found no evidence of blood. He searched until his eyes were tired and his fingers chafed from scooping through the coarse piles. He stopped. He may not have known what he was looking for, but he knew it wasn’t here. When he turned, the loaders were staring at him.

“Is everything buttoned down?” he asked.

“Nice and tight,” James Mitchell answered in a voice so low and gravelly that it hurt Silas’s throat just to hear it.

Silas looked over at the man standing near the cab of the truck. James was tall and broad and square, seemingly built of repurposed cinder blocks; and blown vocal cords aside, he was the man running the show. It was upon his capable shoulders that the responsibility of transport fell. He was serious and technical, ex-military, and he looked at every contract assignment as special ops. Which was exactly the way Silas liked it.

“It looks like we’ve got our hands full with this one, Dr. Williams,” James said, as Silas approached.

“Can’t disagree with you. A little heavier than last time.”

“We can handle it. We’ll be taking all the necessary precautions. Your baby will be arriving safe and sound sometime tomorrow evening.”

“Not my baby,” Silas said.

“I tried that once, too,” James intoned. “Didn’t work for me, either.”

So tell me why we’re driving again?” Vidonia was busy blow-drying in the bathroom, bent at the waist, lush hair alternately dripping to the floor and flying away as the hot air blasted over her scalp.

“Precaution,” Silas said. “And security. We’re expected to fly, and there have been problems in the past. This year we’re trucking the gladiator to the location. We can bring along a bigger support team that way, and the whole thing is much less conspicuous.”

“Is that what we are, support?”

Silas sat up on the bed, looking for his pants. The alarm clock said five-thirty, and the shades were still dark.

“No, we’re the talent; hasn’t Ben told you?”

“He said they believed in keeping the talent happy around here.”

“They do.”

“A three-hundred-mile road trip in a sports car isn’t my idea of happiness.”

“Not even with me at the wheel?”

“And you aren’t the talent, anyway,” she said. “Well, at least not in that way.” She gave him a mischievous look. “I thought you were the boss.”

“Do you usually find yourself waking before the crack of dawn in your boss’s bed?”

She flung her hair behind her, showering him with a mist of tiny droplets. “Well, not typically. Only about every third boss or so.” She smiled as she stepped back into the bedroom.

He pulled a fresh white shirt from its plastic sleeve in the closet and pulled the triple-extra-large over his head, buttoning the sleeves but leaving the collar loose. He wrapped his wrist in a gold Rolex, a conflicted concession to his status.