The Games Page 19

  It was after ten now, and the party was in full swing. Silas had come straight from his room when he’d gotten off the phone. He scanned the crowd.

  The guests stood in loosely shifting clusters around the room, as homogeneous in their affluence as they were diverse in every other conceivable way. They were Congolese, and Canadian, and German, and Indonesian, and three dozen other nationalities, all of them patting one another on the back, trading the same stories back and forth, laughing at each other’s jokes—and all of them training their glossy smiles on him as he passed through the crowd. They came from points around the world, the people in this crowd, but really they all came from money. That was their ethnic group.

  The members of this crowd didn’t point—they were too sophisticated for that—but all had smiles for him. He knew their type well, knew they were excited by their opportunity to brag of being at a party where Silas Williams was present. That’s right, they’d say later, the head of U.S. biodevelopment was there. The man of the hour.

  Silas wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. He still wore the casuals he’d had on for the neural relaxer appointment earlier in the evening, and the gray sweats stood out in sharp relief against the angular penguin suits of the other men. It didn’t really matter, though. They probably thought he was making a fashion statement. Among the ladies, low necklines were apparently in style this season, and necklaces of pearl and diamond bobbled across the tops of the women’s breasts while they bantered with their power dates.

  The vise on his head had finally begun to ease its grip somewhat, and now the pain had subsided to a kind of dull, throbbing ache at his temples. “Toxins” aside, he had to admit he’d been a little nervous there for a while. He didn’t know what a brain aneurysm felt like, but it couldn’t feel much worse than the headache he was finally climbing out from under.

  He turned sideways, sliding between several groups of people that had gathered near the enormous window that comprised the larger portion of the south-facing wall. Beyond the glass, the sky was blank. There were no stars hanging in the distance, only the lights of cars, and buildings, and glowing neon signs that spread below in a carpet of illumination. Standing alone, looking out into that inverted sky, was Baskov.

  The old man didn’t look happy to see him. “How nice of you to join us,” he said. “I was afraid an oversight may have left you without an invitation.”

  “I never got an invitation,” Silas said. “I’m here to see you.”

  “Consider me at your service. What can I do for you?”

  Silas decided to take the direct approach. “The gladiator can understand spoken words.”

  Baskov’s eyes skipped toward the crowd and back again. People were taking notice of the conversation. Baskov turned toward the glass, casting Silas a look that bid him do the same.

  “So does my cat,” Baskov said softly. “So what?”

  “I’d bet a thousand dollars you don’t have a cat.”

  “That’s quite beside the point.”

  “It’s not just simple commands. I think this thing understands English, or at least bits and pieces. It understands how the word ‘don’t’ modifies a verb, and that implies an understanding of grammar.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? It doesn’t imply anything. What do you want, Dr. Williams? Really?”

  “I want you to reconsider using the gladiator in competition.”

  “This again? Now?”

  “This isn’t some animal we trained to understand commands. Whatever this thing knows, it’s picked up on its own. Do you understand what that means? This thing either is smart enough to learn English just by listening to it or has some kind of hardwired grammar—but either way, we’re going to throw it in the pit tomorrow with a bunch of animals.”

  Baskov smiled. “You’re talking about sentience.”

  “That’s a word that has lost some of its meaning over the last few decades.”

  “In no small part due to your Ursus theodorus project.”

  “There are shades of gray. But yes, I think we need to at least investigate the possibility. There’s a point past which we can’t just throw a being to the wolves.”

  “So now it’s a being?”

  “I don’t know what it is. I never did.”

  Baskov turned toward the window again and took a deep breath. He was silent for a moment, then leaned closer to the glass, looking down. “Do you see the protesters down there?”

  Silas didn’t bother to look. “I saw them when I arrived.”

  “There are more of them at every new competition. I can see them from here. They wave their signs at the cameras and yell for the traffic to honk their horns. They want us shut down, but they have no problem at all accepting the benefits that come from research directly linked to the program. You never hear of them refusing a gene therapy procedure on moral grounds if it is going to save their lives.”

  “I’m not one of your contributors, and this isn’t a sponsor event. I’ve heard this all before.”

  “So what would you have me do, hmm?” Baskov turned to face him, and there was anger in his pale blue eyes. “Call the whole thing off? Tell everybody to just go home?”

  “I told you before. Withdraw. The world will go on.”

  “And I told you before that if you were unwilling to deal with the realities of the situation, then you would be replaced.”

  “Realities of the situation? That’s a joke. This isn’t reality; it’s the twisted dream of a computer nobody can even see.”

  “Then it’s a dream you may find yourself waking from very soon.”

  “You can’t honestly think you’re threatening me? You do.” Silas stopped himself from laughing but couldn’t filter the mirth from his voice. “You greatly overestimate my attachment to this job.”

  Baskov threw a furtive glance toward the audience that had slowly and subtly begun to gather around them. Silas had noticed them, too. They weren’t staring, weren’t crowding too close, but nevertheless, they were there, watching in sidelong glances from the corners of their eyes, drinking it all in from a respectable distance. Their conversations were pitched low and moved in a conspicuous rhythm, voices dropping off when Silas or Baskov spoke.

  “You greatly overestimate my patience for impudence,” Baskov softly responded.

  “If you can’t tell the difference between impudence and common sense,” Silas said, voice rising, “then you’re as addled as the man you put in charge of design.” He no longer cared who watched. Let them gawk. Whose reputation was he trying to protect, anyway?

  “You forget yourself, Dr. Williams. If I hear one more word of dissent, one more single word, then your career is over. I won’t hesitate. The choice is yours.”

  Silas leaned forward. “Fuck you.”

  He was pleased to see not a single glossy smile pointed at him on the way out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Silas opened his eyes to bright sunlight pouring through the window of his hotel suite. Vidonia was already gone. His arms wandered across her side of the rumpled bed, and it was still warm. The pillow still cupped the delicate negative of her head.

  “Vidonia?” he called.

  The suite’s answer was silence. He swung his feet to the plush carpeting and ran a hand through his curly hair. Damn, he felt good. Far too good. He tried not to inspect the reasons closely. It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and that was good enough.

  He took a long, hot shower, and afterward, while he was toweling himself dry, there came a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Ben.”

  Silas wrapped a towel around his midsection, walked to the door, and twisted the knob. Ben stepped inside. He stepped over to the freshly made bed and promptly threw himself back on it, blasting the covers out at the edges. He laced his fingers behind his head, and the smile that came to his face was odd, almost admiring, if a smile could be such a thing.

  “What?” Si
las said to the strange look.

  “I’m trying to decide if I want to kiss you or punch you.”

  “You’ve already punched me once. That was your freebie.”

  “That’s true. Okay, I’ll kiss you, then.” Ben sat up.

  “No, that’s okay, I’ll pass. It’s too early in the morning.”

  “It’s noon.”

  “It is? Shit, I haven’t slept this long in months.” Silas stepped into the bathroom. “Now, what has you so emotionally aroused this morning?” he asked, through a mouthful of toothpaste. “Has you showing up at my door with kissing or punching on your mind.”

  “As if you didn’t know,” Ben said.

  “You heard, then, about last night.”

  “Yeah. Everybody’s heard.”

  “The media?”

  “Yeah, but Baskov’s people are playing it down.”

  “Have they said who my replacement is going to be?”

  “No, I didn’t hear anything about you being replaced.”

  Silas stuck his head out the bathroom doorway, toothbrush jutting from one corner of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “People are talking, but nobody has said anything about you being fired.”

  “Shit,” Silas said, sliding back into the bathroom. He spit in the sink. “Nothing about a replacement? Nothing about me being fired? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, so far.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “What’s strange about it?”

  “Well, I guess that means I’m still in charge of this program, then.”

  “That seems pretty unlikely.”

  “Hmm.” Silas kept brushing his teeth.

  “You can’t usually tell your boss to fuck off and still keep your job,” Ben said. “That sort of thing almost automatically infers a termination of employment. Are you sure Baskov’s people haven’t called you yet?”

  “No.” Silas walked out of the bathroom and hit the button on the vid-phone. “The phone still works.”

  “Maybe you are still the boss, then.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.”

  “You’ve got to pick one. Then just go with it.” Silas didn’t smile.

  “I myself usually prefer relief to disappointment,” Ben said. “Particularly where matters of unemployment are concerned.”

  Silas sat on the edge of the bed. That yoke that had lifted from his shoulders slowly shifted back into its familiar position.

  “What are you going to do?” Ben asked.

  “I guess I’ll just continue on until somebody says I shouldn’t. Where’s Vidonia?”

  “Haven’t seen her. Breakfast, probably. Speaking of, let’s grab something.”

  Silas pulled his jeans on, feeling for his wallet. He hit the switch on the way out.

  AS THE day progressed, Silas was made aware of several wildly divergent and sensationalized accounts of what had transpired between him and Baskov the night before. The break between the program head and the chair of the Olympic Commission was huge news, and it was covered to varying degrees of accuracy by all the major networks.

  In one of the accounts, Silas was described as actually throwing a drink into the old man’s face. Silas shook his head in disbelief as he watched the news programs from his hotel suite and decided that he hated the media even more than he hated cocktail parties.

  As Ben had told him earlier, Baskov’s people were definitely putting a minimalist spin on things. In the accounts played during the pre-show special, Silas and Baskov were said to have simply shared a heated discussion over differences of opinion. “Anyone who says otherwise,” Baskov’s planning commissioner said during a televised interview, “is simply attempting to manufacture a story for their own ends. This was a nonevent. The fact of the matter is that these two men are friends, remain friends, and look forward to working with each other in the future.”

  “Does this mean that Dr. Williams will remain head of Olympic biodevelopment for the next games?” the blond interviewer asked.

  “Dr. Williams has expressed some interest in pursuing other ambitions in the future, but right now he is completely focused on seeing that the U.S. gladiator brings home a gold medal for us all tonight.”

  Lying fuck.

  For his own part, Silas decided it best to simply stay out of the public eye altogether. He didn’t trust what he’d say if asked a direct question. It was apparently not politically expedient for Baskov to fire him on the very eve of the competition, so for the time being, Silas still held the reins of the project, however tenuous and temporary his grip. With the situation being what it was, he reasoned his efforts could best be utilized behind the scenes.

  Expressing great regret, he canceled all his interviews and instead pushed Ben to the forefront, encouraging the networks to render all their questions to him. The young cytologist took to the limelight like a duck to water, and Silas wondered why he hadn’t made the change earlier.

  Silas gave no instructions to his young protégé, but when asked tough questions by interviewers, Ben gave the company line on the relationship between Baskov and Silas. There was no breach, no problem at all. And all’s well that ends in a gold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Olympic arena was a steep bowl of stone and iron eighteen stories tall, within which more than one hundred and thirty thousand people could be crammed, safely or otherwise. The fighting pit lay inverted at the very bottom, a deep oval depression one hundred yards long by twenty-five yards wide. Although the floor of the pit lay a full dozen yards beneath the upper lip of the oval, the arena organizers had taken the precaution of spreading an enormous net of carbon fiber across the opening at the top—a barrier between spectator and spectacle that didn’t sacrifice visibility.

  The bowl-within-a-bowl construction allowed for maximum visual access while also providing the security of heavily reinforced walls. The sides of the pit were perfectly smooth except for the narrow creases that outlined the edges of the many doors. There were dozens of them equally spaced along the walls, and on each was painted a different national flag. The floor of the pit was sawdust two feet thick.

  It was easy to pick out the weakness of the setup.

  “And the tensile strength?” Silas asked.

  The engineering supervisor smiled indulgently. He stood at the very lip of the pit, one foot resting on the carbon-fiber cable, one finger casually advancing the clip screen he held cradled in the nook of his right forearm.

  “I don’t seem to have the figure here with me, but I can assure you, nothing is going to get past this web.”

  “Your assurances aside, I still need to know the specs on this wire.”

  The engineering supervisor sighed and looked out over the webbing. There was no doubt which TV network version of Silas this man believed in. He obviously considered Silas to be a pain in the ass, and worse, a whining diva who was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He gave the cable a solid kick, and it twanged harmoniously for a long second. “I suppose I can dig up the numbers from somewhere. But these things were meant to tow barges. Even if a gladiator did manage to get this high up the pit walls, there’s no way it could snap one of these lines. I don’t care what kind of muscles you gave the damned thing.”

  Silas looked through the mesh and down onto the killing floor. “Get me the numbers as quick as you can. Big muscles. Huge. You wouldn’t believe it.”

  IT WAS late afternoon, and Silas was in the catacombs beneath the arena. Even through all the distance of cement above him, he could hear that the crowd had begun to gather. He could feel their voices in the soles of his feet. The walls themselves reverberated with their restless energy.

  The gladiator was pacing now. It moved in slow figure eights, like a panther confined too long in a cage too small. Like a predator eager to be set free.

  Did it know what was coming? Did it yearn for it?

  Down the long hall, lights drooped on chains from the ceiling, c
reating pools of brightness that swayed slightly between segments of subtle shadow. Silas could hear the grunts of the others. He could smell their animal musk. Now and then, handlers, and trainers, and scientists from other teams would pass by on their way from somewhere to somewhere, and they would glance at the black thing that paced in the cage with the American flag on the door. Sometimes they would stop and stare for a moment, these men and women, as if trying to believe what they were looking at. Other times, they would quicken their pace.

  Silas felt no curiosity about their creations. He had no desire to take the lap around the catacombs and see what his fellow geneticists had made for their countries.

  As time passed, the thrum of the crowd slowly built. More than a subtle vibration in concrete, it was audible now, or at the edge of it. The gladiator kept pacing.

  Silas stood well back from the bars, arms folded across his chest. The creature would very likely be dead before the night was over, and he felt, standing there, as if he were witness to something. Some great thing that had gone wrong even now, and he was powerless to see it clearly. So he watched, hoping to recognize what he may have missed.

  Silas recalled Baskov’s amusement at his use of the word “being” in reference to the gladiator. Silas wasn’t sure how to think of the creature anymore, but he had no delusions. “Being” or not, he knew exactly what it would do if it got loose. People would die. Maybe a lot of people. Maybe a huge number of people.

  Five minutes later, when Vidonia touched the back of his neck, he didn’t jump. He’d seen her coming in the gladiator’s reaction. He’d seen her in its crouch, its predatory stare into the space behind him.

  “Did you get it?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She handed him the papers, and he flipped through them one by one. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” she said. “The tensile strength of those cables would probably stop a freight train going fifty miles per hour. Nothing in the competition even comes close to the kind of mass that would be required to snap one of those lines.”