Michelle Maddox - Countdown

He slowly brought Rogan's chair back to its normal position. He patted Rogan on the top of the head as one might do to an obedient dog.

"Colin," he said, "tell Rogan what I plan to do with his reactivated implant."

Colin pointed at himself. "Me? You want me to explain? Wow. Okay." He pocketed the receiver. "Mr. Ellis has requested that I-and the team, of course-upload an artificial intelligence program into your implant. Not sure if it'll definitely work, but the reading I just took makes things look pretty positive. So … uh, I think that's about it."

Gareth grinned. "Thank you, Colin." He put his arm around Rogan's shoulders and crouched down to whisper, but still said loud enough for me to hear, "So you see, Rogan, we will be brothers again. That's why The Countdown is so important. The testing is over, and now I shall take the game to a much wider audience."

Rogan wrenched away from him. "Why? Why would you do this? You're not my brother anymore. Why would you want to share this with me?"

Gareth's grin widened. "Perhaps brothers is the wrong terminology. When part of me is uploaded into you … we will think the same. We will be the same. It will be as if we are one entity in two bodies. With my power multiplied thus, soon everything from this city to Offworld will be mine. And why you, specifically? You share the exact prototype implant that I have, and that is what makes it all work so beautifully. Without that implant you would be useless to me."

"You're insane." Rogan's face contorted with disgust.

"I'm no longer prone to human ailments such as insanity. Nor will you be once you are … improved?"

"Improved?" I managed, my stomach twisting and turning with each word he spoke. "How can you see this as an improvement? You're no better than that robot from Level Three."

That earned me a truly withering look. "Kira, if you can't see how I am obviously the next evolution of the human species then I cannot help you. One day very soon all humankind will be fitted with one of my implants. They will feed us, and we shall become the gods of a new race."

"You're right, I don't see that. All I see is a computer virus a few pixels short of a full program."

'Then that is your unfortunate oversight. The robot you fought earlier was just a meager experiment in artificial intelligence. My intelligence is no longer artificial. I have a soul.. you said so yourself."

"I didn't say that. I said maybe I saw your soul."

He took a menacing step toward me.

"Gareth!" Rogan's voice was rough. "Don't hurt her. just… just spare her. Please. I won't fight you on this. You can do whatever you want to me, but please let Kira go."

My eyes widened. "Rogan, no!"

Gareth laughed. "Brother, that's so terribly noble of you. The memories I can access of you do not lead me to believe that gallantry was ever one of your virtues. Has prison turned you into a gentleman?"

Rogan glared at him. "Prison did change me. I was a thoughtless and selfish asshole before."

"A thoughtless, selfish asshole who didn't know good entertainment like The Countdown when he saw it."

Rogan's expression darkened. "I can't condone murder."

Gareth sighed. "The murder of a human, especially a criminal, is meaningless. In the world I envision, there are no criminals. There is no crime. It will be a perfect place to coexist and to thrive. And every time this body wears out, I will have developed the proper technology to be able to upload my very essence into a new body."

"Immortality," Rogan said. "That's what this is all about."

"Be thankful I wish to share it with you. Perhaps there is a small part of the original owner of the body that still feels a brotherly bond with you. Otherwise I would have already killed you for ruining my game. You have no idea how angry the subscribers are. And when the subscribers are angry, they stop watching." His eyes narrowed. "You have no idea how hungry I am right now."

"Spare her," Rogan said again. "And as I said, I will do what you want."

Gareth cast a dark look at me. "Was it was your idea to shoot the cameras?"

I glared at him defiantly. "That's right."

He nodded. "You ruined what would have been a very interesting finale."

"What, our deaths on camera? You sure have a twisted sense of what's interesting."

"I'm not entirely convinced that you wouldn't have shot him to save your own skin, Kira."

If my mouth weren't so dry I would have spit at him. Crude, sure, but definitely an effective way of showing somebody what you were thinking.

"I wouldn't have killed him," I said evenly.

"Perhaps. But now we'll never know for sure."

I heard a whirring sound, and a small hatch in the wall up in the top right corner of the room opened up and a camera slid out. It swiveled around so that it pointed toward the table.

"What the hell is that?" Rogan growled.

"You ruined my game. I can't have fifteen thousand angry subscribers. Now I will make it up to them."

Colin moved forward. "You said that you wouldn't hurt her!"

Gareth put a hand on his shoulder. "I meant every word."

Colin appeared to relax a little. He dared a glance in my direction. "See, Kira? I'm not as bad as you're probably thinking. I refused to help if he was going to hurt you. He promised."

I didn't reply. I was afraid of what I might say to thank him for his "help."

"Come with me." Gareth led him toward the door. "I'm sure the new ending I have planned for The Countdown will be very well received."

Colin moved with him but was frowning. "I don't understand. You promised-"

Gareth nodded. "I promise that her death will be completely painless."

"Gareth!" Rogan roared. "What are you doing? I said that I'd cooperate if you let her go!"

Gareth shook his head. "You have no choice but to cooperate. Now I will leave you in private-other than the cameras, of course-to say your good-byes."

The door shut behind them, leaving Rogan and me in the white room all alone except for the whir of the camera.

Rogan's gaze shot erratically around the room. He strained against his bindings.

I felt the pounding of my heart in the backs of my eyeballs as I waited for something horrible to happen, and the fear I'd been trying to repress flooded over me again.

The metal cuffs restraining my arms behind me released and dropped to the floor. I rubbed my wrists and looked at Rogan with wide eyes.

"What the hell just happened? I'm free."

I shakily got up from the chair and began to move toward Rogan.

"No." His gaze moved up toward the ceiling "Wait. This room … Don't come any closer-"

A thick sheet of glass slammed down from the ceiling to the floor, cutting the table cleanly in half, the force of it blowing the hair back from my face. If I'd taken one more step it would have done the same to me.

I looked at it dumbly, not believing what had just happened. I put my hand against the cold glass and stared through it at Rogan, who had been knocked to the floor when the table fell apart. His hands were still bound behind him.

I glanced up at the camera that taped us and imagined the subscribers watching greedily.

I stalked over to the door and realized that there was no handle.

"Kira!" Rogan shouted. I could still hear him, even if he was a bit muffled on the other side of the glass barrier. He wore an expression of pure shock.

I promise that her death will be painless, Gareth had said.

I had to wonder what he meant for only another moment.

That was when the gas began to seep through the air vents into my side of the room.

The gas slid out of the vent in the upper left comer in a translucent white, slithering line. It trailed down the wall and onto the floor, where it dissipated. But I could see it coming. More and more of it, moving through the room like blind fingers searching me out. When it reached me it