Game Slaves by Gard Skinner

Author:Gard Skinner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Level 23

I told Mi, “I think the old guy I was working with was doing it for more than just chits.”

“What do you mean?”

We talked about the horde in the desert. “I get the feeling everyone trying to seal off the city is working for their right to stay inside once the job is done.”

She weighed that, then asked, “Like there’s some really big pestilence out there on its way to wipe them all out?”

“It wouldn’t be a bad move by BlackStar. To make them think a horrifying threat is always looming. It’d keep them in line. Keep them from revolting.”

Mi and I were up front, just like the old days, leading the team, with Dakota about ten paces back. York and Reno were on our six, watching out for the BlackStar troops.

Mi said, “The whole time I was hauling rivets, I kept wondering how this’ll work out for us out here.”

“How did you expect it to?” I tried to smile at her. “Long days of labor? A family? Living in a scraped-out building like everyone else?”

“At least we’re together.” She grinned, but I knew we were both just putting a good face on it.

“Right, if we have nothing else . . .”

“And trust me”—she put her arm in mine; it felt great—“we have absolutely nothing else.”

“No food.” I went along.

“No money.”

“No home.”

“No identity.”

I pointed. “The area around my skull port is getting infected.”

She pointed too. “I keep getting stabbing pains in my chest.”

“Our kids have stopped doing everything we order them to do.”

She chuckled at that, then added, “I never thought the day would come, my mighty Phoenix, when you and I didn’t have one single, solitary bullet between us.”

My hand clasped hers. Wow. On those terms, I sure had let her down. I had let them all down.

But these were different terms now, right? Out here, combat rating didn’t mean a thing. Just surviving day to day, that was the true test. I guess maybe Hal, that old-timer, was actually one of Earth’s real winners. He was still alive.

“Where did we come from?” Mi asked suddenly. “I mean, am I all the way from Florida? Kidnapped off a street, away from my family?”

“I think Dakota suspects she got here like that. From up north. Some kind of slave trade. Like they take the best, apple-core their brains, slide in the cable port, and drown them for the rest of their lives.”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t completely add up.”

I realized how easy it had become for the world to control a population. Especially if that population had no transportation. “Seems like there’s really just one way in or out or around these days: through the unfinished wall. And then we go until we get somewhere. Or run out of fuel.”

“But the monster tires. Those tracks. What could have made those?”

I nodded. “They push a big machine.”

“No planes, though? I find that odd.”

“If they can barely come by a few gallons of regular gas, jet fuel can’t even be a consideration. Helicopters are too short on range, no good for the long haul.

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