The Games by Ted Kosmatka Page A

so instead he pressed his lips together and followed her.
    It didn’t take long to attach the probes and strap him into the booth. The cloth pinched a little at his crotch, but by shifting his weight, it was tolerable. The nice-teeth woman in the jumper lowered the faceplate, and his vision lost its reds. He caught Baskov’s critical eye in the crowd just before the visor opaqued. Well, to hell with him; he wasn’t going to ruin Evan’s day. The old gimp could glare all he wanted, but Evan would still have his two minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Almost an eternity .

    F ROM SOMEWHERE a buzzer sounded briefly. Then the noise from the crowded anteroom began to fade, as if he were receding from it.
    Silence.
    Silence.
    Silence.
    Chandler opened his eyes to whiteness.
    A flash like a snapped photograph, like lightning, like quick death, and then he saw it: a long, empty corridor. The corridor’s edges were broken only by a gathering of switches protruding from the wall in the distance. He walked. It was the ultimate clean room. No dust in here , he thought. He moved quickly to start the programs, curling his fingers around the switches and throwing them one by one as he came to them. Each switch activated a different part of the computer, waking it up in bits and pieces. He could hear the thrumming of the drives now.
    Evan paused at the final switch, the one Baskov didn’t know about. This switch was very, very small, little more than a tiny white toggle, actually. No, it was smaller than that even. The more you looked at it, the smaller it got, receding from your inspection—an interesting sort of camouflage he’d developed. He squinted, feeling for what was barely there, and then he flicked it. The lights went out.
    Time for a little privacy .
    He chuckled, and the sound was booming and happy in his ears. It was the sound of a god laughing.
    His body was firm and full of energy. His mind was clear. He swung his arms as he walked and whistled a tune he remembered from a vid-show he’d seen as a child. He was Hercules. He was an athlete, a sprinter. He was rage a thousand feet tall, with muscles that rippled as he walked. When he finally stepped from the confines of the corridor and out into the secret place, he paused and took a deep breath of the fresh, clean air. Sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy high above, casting a warm greenish glow on the floor of the forest.
    The forest swayed.
    “Pea?” he called loudly.
    It’s what his mother had called him as a child when she tucked himin at night. It was one of the few things she’d given him that he’d been able to hold on to, that name, and it had seemed only right to pass it on.
    “Pea?” he called again.
    A name is important. It can stamp you for life, so one has to be careful. Naming someone carries with it a lot of responsibility. Pea Chandler. Named for his grandmother’s love. Born ten months ago. Father, Evan Chandler. Mother, unknown.
    A giggle .
    It was supposed to be the father unknown, not the mother.
    Something moved.
    “Papa?”
    There was a rustle of leaves as a small arm parted the bushes at the edge of the clearing. The small dark-haired boy stepped into sight. Evan surged across the clearing and scooped the boy into his arms, hugging him wordlessly against his broad chest. He’d grown so much, lengthened out. Evan guessed him to be about four years old now. Has that much time passed in here?
    “Papa, where have you been?”
    “I’ve tried to come back, Pea. I thought of you every day.”
    “It’s been so lonely.”
    “I missed you, too.”
    Evan carried the child out of the forest on his shoulders. When they came to the first dune of fine white sand, he paused and lowered the boy to his feet. Then, laughing together, they raced up and over the other side of the dune and across the tidal flat into the rolling surf of a warm inland sea.
    “You’ve been busy,” Evan told the boy.
    “All for you, Papa,” the boy said. “I made