Ted Kosmatka - The Games

He listened for the wail of an alarm, but there was nothing to hear. Not even the sound of crickets.

This building was dead.

“After you,” he said.

She gave him a look. He led the way; she followed.

The lobby was thankfully cool, but the air was redolent with the coppery flavor of overheated wires. It was the smell of an electrical fire. As they walked deeper inside, he noticed the plastic casings of lighting panels lying shattered on the floor. Above them, the ceiling was a starred pattern of black scorch marks and empty sockets. Here and there, darkened fluorescent tubes dangled by half-melted wires, turning slowly in the gentle air current flowing through the broken entranceway. It was a miracle that the entire building hadn’t gone up in flames.

They followed a hall to the left, leaving the glow of the headlights behind them. Vidonia’s hand curled into his.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“The stairs are ahead on the right. We can take them all the way up.”

The backsplash of illumination from behind them was just enough for Silas to locate the doorknob. He turned it and stepped inside the stairwell, expecting to be greeted with the soft glow of emergency lighting. It was a federal law or something, he was sure. But whatever had fried the lights in the lobby had also left the stairwells encased in blackness.

He took a deep breath and started up. Vidonia followed. Behind them, the door creaked, then knocked shut against the jamb, cutting off the reflected glow of the headlights.

Until that moment, Silas had thought he knew what dark was—the simple absence of light. He thought that he understood it. He even thought that he had experienced it before. But as he rounded the first riser of stairs and continued up, step by step, he and darkness were forced into new intimacy. He came to understand that darkness was not just a lack but a thing , that it possessed mass, that it can be felt on your skin, that it can be a burden you carry.

He knew then, with a certainty he could feel in his bones, exactly what had motivated his ancient ancestors when they first gathered around that very thing that the rest of creation fled from. It hadn’t been to cook, or to harden spear points. Those things had come later. Heat was just a collateral benefit. Man had mastered fire simply to push the darkness away.

He counted steps to focus his mind. Six steps, then turn; six steps, then turn; repeat. They were three flights up now. Or had he miscounted? What if the light in the window hadn’t been on the fifth floor? What then? He felt himself becoming disoriented and grabbed the railing for an anchor. The touch helped. Vidonia’s breathing was quick and loud in the closed space near him.

“Silas, I can’t.” Her voice was high, panicked.

“We’ll stop for a second.”

“No, I have to go back. This is—”

“Close your eyes.”

“That won’t—”

“Do it. Close your eyes.” Silas’s voice was harsh.

Silence.

“Now pretend the lights are on. They’re shining down all around you now. You can’t see because your eyes are closed, that’s all. This is a staircase like a million others you’ve climbed. Nothing new. You don’t need your eyes. Let’s keep going.”

Silence.

“Close your eyes,” he said again.

He waited, listening to the quick in and out of her breathing. Gradually, it slowed.

“It helps,” she said, sounding a little embarrassed. “You should try it.”

“One of us has to look where we’re going.”

Her hand squeezed a response in his.

He started up again, pulling her one step behind him. He felt better now, and realized that she had forced him into a role that didn’t allow him to panic. He’d been right at the edge of it. But then she’d needed him to be strong, so he was.

Up, one step at a time.

His hand counted the turns of the rail. When they rounded what Silas calculated to be the final riser, he guided her up the last six steps to the door. The push bar was cool metal in his hands, and for a split second, Silas was afraid of what he’d do if there was only blackness on the other side. Would he lose nerve and go back? A staircase is one thing; it has boundaries you can touch. It is directional. A darkened labyrinth of hallways was quite another thing altogether. If he got turned around and lost his bearings, they might wander for hours.

He pushed, and the flickering yellow glow beyond the crack of the door brought a relieved smile to his face. It was faint, at the far end of the hall, but it provided context. It provided the hall . Without it, they would be nowhere again.

Vidonia moved past him, grinning. “I guess you counted right.”

“I guess I did.”

“You think Chandler’s in there?”

“I do.”

“And you think he’s behind this power outage?”

“I don’t see how he could be. The blackout stretches way past this power grid.” He realized he couldn’t lie to her. “But yeah, somehow, still, I think he’s the cause.”

He started down the hall, walking softly, Vidonia close behind.

He stopped twenty feet short of the door when he heard a sound. He listened. Waves?

Then a voice was talking. A strange, deep voice. A moment later, another voice spoke, and Silas recognized Chandler’s nasal whine. But the words were lost in the sound of crashing surf.

“You stay here,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not sure what’s on the other side of that door.”

“I’m going with you.”

“You wanted to turn around in the stairwell. Those were good instincts.”

“I’m coming.”

“Stay here.”

“No way. If I stay here, and you don’t come back, that means I have to go back down that stairwell myself. I’m coming with you.”

“All right,” he said.

“Besides, everything I’ve heard about Chandler says he’s crazy, not dangerous.”

“I can’t believe you said that.”

“What?”

He turned and walked toward the light. “Stay close.”

The light hurt his dark-adapted eyes, and at first Silas wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Chandler was kneeling before an enormous glowing screen, rocking slowly back and forth. Something moved on the screen, and in the same instant that Silas realized it was a man—some impossible, beautiful man—shining black eyes fixed on him from across the room.

The figure on the screen stared at him.

“Who are you?” said the figure. The voice was soft and deep and musical. This wasn’t like any interactive protocol he’d ever seen before. This was something different.

“Silas Williams,” he said. The thought of not answering never entered his mind.

“I know that name. You’re the builder.” The figure was tall and powerfully constructed. It was impossible to guess his age other than to say he was a man in his prime. Thick black hair flowed around his wide shoulders, twisting in a breeze. “You’ve come to ask what it is that you’ve built.”

Chandler stopped rocking and turned. His eyes were red and swollen, as if he’d spent too long staring at the sun. Silas didn’t see much he recognized in those eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I have,” Silas said.

The figure’s shining black eyes shifted. “And what is her name?”

“Vidonia João,” she answered, stepping the rest of the way into the room.

The figure glanced up, as if lost in thought. “Xenobiologist at Loyola,” he said finally.

“How could you know that?” she said.

“Your name is in a thousand files. I know you a thousand ways. You were called in to examine what he built? To explain it?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Could you?”