The Games Read online

  He handed back the papers, wondering why he didn’t feel relieved.

  “But there’s something else you should know,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The protesters have begun to organize outside. They’re planning a march of some kind.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Not real bad. Not yet. But I thought you should be made aware.”

  “And the police?”

  “They’re a presence. A very solid presence. I don’t think you have to worry yet, but I figured you’d want to hear about it. It’s not going to play well on the news.”

  “I could give a shit about the news,” he snapped. “What kind of numbers are we talking about?”

  “Maybe three hundred, college age, mostly, but there’s a behind-the-scenes constituency running the group.”

  “There always is.”

  “They’re doing all the usual noise and bluster, but they’re at least preaching nonviolence.”

  “So far,” Silas said.

  They watched as the gladiator began to pace again.

  “What time is it?” Silas asked.

  She looked at her watch. “Two hours,” she said, answering the question he was really asking.

  “Time enough for a few more precautions.”

  “ON WHOSE authority?” The man’s voice on the line was shrill, alarmed. There was no video link to go with the voice, but Silas could imagine the man perfectly—short, spare, nearing the end of a career that had gone alarmingly off the tracks somewhere.

  “Mine,” Silas said.

  “It’ll frighten people,” the voice said.

  “I don’t give a damn who it’ll frighten,” Silas said. “The U.S. contestant won’t compete without it, and don’t give me any shit about time constraints. The ice blowers are already being used in the catacombs. Some of the teams are using them as ‘motivational devices’ right now.”

  “I know that. The ice blowers I have no problem with. We already have plans to use them. It’s the live rounds that have me worried.”

  “Do it.”

  “Just during the U.S. events?”

  “Yeah, just us. That’s fine.”

  “It would make a lot of people nervous.”

  “It’ll add drama. Think of the ratings.”

  “I think I’ll have to get verification for this from the commission first.”

  “Listen to me. I’m head of the U.S. program until someone tells me otherwise, and as head, I’m telling you that I need these security measures.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “I’ll take care of the commission, and I’ll take full responsibility. If you don’t start on this immediately and something does go wrong, I’ll see you receive full responsibility for the consequences.”

  There was silence on the line. Another vote for the pain-in-the-ass, drink-throwing network TV version, Silas thought.

  “Okay,” the man said, finally. “You want it, you got it.”

  Dial tone.

  “Do you think he’ll really do it?” Vidonia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Silas said. “But it was worth a try.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Baskov tried to buttress his display of calm with a drink. He sipped his scotch with deliberation, staring out through the holo-glass. “When did he call?”

  “About five minutes ago,” said the security foreman. He was a short, hawk-faced man with a dark comb-over splayed across a pale gleam of scalp. His agitation showed in his stance—bent forward, awkward, arms flailing in gestures too dramatic for any self-respecting man with a decent-size pair to dangle. Baskov had known something was wrong the moment he’d shuffled his way into the skybox.

  “What did you tell him?” Baskov asked.

  “I told him I was going to talk to the commission.”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “He said he’d deal with the commission, and I should just do as he said.”

  Baskov put a hand on the man’s thin shoulder; he could feel the narrow bones beneath his jacket. “Thank you for bringing this to the commission’s attention. You did the right thing. Dr. Williams has been having some emotional problems lately, and he’s prone to overreaction.”

  Baskov released the man’s shoulder and took another drink.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Go ahead and provide the extra icers. I don’t see what that could hurt.”

  “And what about … the guns?”

  “The icers are part of why we don’t need guns.”

  “So no guns?”

  Baskov considered this for a moment. “We’ll indulge Dr. Williams’s paranoia. One armed guard in full regalia. I want him dressed sharp, though, stationed somewhere conspicuous. If we try to hide him off to the side, spectators will get jumpy. I’d rather dress him up for display so they assume it’s ornamental. Which, I guess, it is. But I want him standing there for all of the contestants, not just ours. And no other weaponry. I don’t want to start a panic down there.”

  The security foreman nodded and scuttled toward the door.

  “Wait,” Baskov said. “One more thing. I want radio contact with the guard. I’m not sure how much I trust this situation, and I’d hate to have him do something rash. Get me a transmit into his ear, something subtle. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  The security foreman left quietly, closing the door behind him.

  Baskov turned back to the glass. It was an amazing view. After all these years, he still hadn’t grown tired of it. So far, this particular view of the arena had always meant victory. A gold medal. Tonight he wasn’t so sure.

  His informants in the warren had disturbing news about the Chinese contestant. Over the last several months, the Chinese had done their best to keep their gladiator away from prying eyes, but now that it was caged below the arena, a number of the arena handlers had seen it. The description was not encouraging.

  Night fell, and the lights of the arena came on one cluster at a time, pushing the shadows ever higher up the stands.

  Baskov smiled as the stands collected their asses. People flowed downward into their seats in colorful trickles of bright clothing. Yellows and blues and greens and reds. Tiny rainbow ants. At the base of the pit far below, prep teams combed the sawdust with giant rakes, evening out rough spots on the killing floor as a last preparation for the competition.

  Banks of speakers arranged at intervals around the arena chirped loudly in unison as the announcers powered up their system for the show.

  The door swung inward as the first group of guests arrived in the skybox. Baskov had handshakes for them, and smiles and nods. Twenty minutes later, the skybox was brimming.

  The competition was at hand. It was zero hour.

  “Where’s Silas?” someone asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Evan sat and stared at the glowing screen. He sat until his legs cramped, then grew numb. He climbed to his feet only when dehydration drove him to the faucet for a long, gulping draft of cool water. He drank greedily and splashed his face and neck.

  This was a test, he was sure of it.

  He sat again before the screen, racked by the possibility that he might have missed something. Some flicker on the screen, some hint of a message.

  Hours later, when the urge to evacuate his bladder became too much, he stood and relieved himself into the garbage can, never taking his eyes off the screen.

  He stood vigil for what was to come.

  He listened to the sound of the waves.

  Sometimes it was just static, but other times, the waves were unmistakable. The most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

  Pea was close. He could feel it. Right on the other side of the plasma screen.

  He could feel other things, too, though he didn’t understand their meanings. Remnant echoes left behind in his skull during his last trip inside. Flashes in his head. The world was on the verge of some great change.
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br />   The gladiator, he knew, had something to do with it. And that bastard Baskov. He couldn’t be sure what, but the time was fast approaching. He didn’t know how all the pieces fit together.

  Pea was the one. Pea was the one who knew all the secrets.

  All Evan knew was that the world would soon be different.

  Baskov would pay for what he’d done. Pea would have a plan.

  Pea must have a plan.

  Evan crouched in the darkness and waited.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The crowd.

  Protesters congealed at street corners. Black asphalt, white concrete. Streetlights translated distance into discrete pools of illumination. The Olympic arena rose like a blister, glowing up at the night sky, circled by parking lots and low gray buildings. And circled beyond that by larger Phoenix itself, the city and its suburbs, and finally by the mountains.

  Because it is necessary for a march to begin at a remove from its final destination, the crowd of protesters gathered here, on Seventh Avenue, some distance from the arena. Here traffic had stopped, a given-up thing. Cars were abandoned in the throng.

  From above, the crowd appeared as a living organism, a single amoeboid mass, pseudopodia curling down city blocks, bunched into muscular potential.

  Only at street level was the crowd’s multicellular nature manifested. Men and women in T-shirts and sandals and hats and backpacks—the new protester class. They were young, for the most part, this proletariat; they were educated and considered themselves enlightened and kind. They were turgid with righteousness. They had many solid and steadfast views about the world and their place in it—about science and religion, and about themselves—and they were going to disrupt this Games if they could.

  Men in dark ties directed from the sidelines, gray bullhorns clutched in fisted hands. These men in ties also thought themselves enlightened, also thought themselves righteous, though they harbored few misapprehensions about their own kindness—and each of them, to a man, understood that the difference between a crowd and a mob was defined simply by the presence of a nervous system. And they were that nervous system.

  Uniformed police watched it all from a distance, a safe some-blocks-off distance, positioned between the crowd and the arena, clutching riot shields. Phoenix was a clean city, a modern model of neatness and efficiency, and the police took comfort in the knowledge that there wouldn’t be much to throw if the crowd turned ugly. There were no rocks in the streets, no bricks, or cinder blocks, or chunks of wood. All the garbage cans and benches had been removed days ago. If the crowd was going to throw things, it would have to throw things it had brought.

  Muffled in the distance, a cheer went up in the bright lights of the arena. The opening ceremonies. The Games were about to begin.

  The men in dark ties lifted their bullhorns. Slogans were shouted, amplified.

  In the distance, another voice rose as if in response—a commentator’s voice broadcast from a thousand speakers, booming from the arena walls, rising into the hot Phoenix darkness: “Welcome, everyone, to the gladiator competition of the thirty-eighth Olympic Games!”

  In the street, the crowd convulsed and began to move.

  The march on the arena had begun.

  THERE WAS a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?” Silas said.

  “Open the door,” came Ben’s voice.

  The door swung inward, and Ben stepped through.

  “They’re starting,” Ben said.

  “Then you’re going to be late,” Silas said.

  “You mean we’re going to be late,” Ben said. “Hey, what the hell are you wearing?”

  “I’m all about comfort tonight,” Silas answered.

  Ben looked down at his own tuxedo, a pained expression on his face. “I’m that overdressed?”

  Silas was wearing faded jeans and a white tee. Bare feet. “No.”

  “You’re not going,” Ben said, realization dawning.

  “Exactly.”

  “You have to go.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’re the program head.”

  “I’m also persona non grata among the upper echelon of the commission, remember? Besides”—Silas flipped Ben’s collar up—“you make this look good.”

  Ben smoothed the collar back down. Against the far wall of the hotel room, the holo-screen was quietly babbling the pre-show, handsome talking heads talking, point and counterpoint, men calling one another by their first names the way people never do in real conversation. Back to you, John. Thank you, Rick.

  “I’ll have a better view from here, anyway,” Silas said, picking up the controller. He hit the button, and the image on the holo-screen changed, showing the arena from a different camera angle. He ran through several more before settling for a close-up of the battle floor. Ben could almost count the individual shavings of sawdust.

  Just then Vidonia emerged from the bathroom. Ben looked her up and down. Slacks. Blouse. No dress. “You, too?” Ben said.

  “Best seats in the house are right here.” She rubbed the foot of the bed.

  “I can’t believe you guys are throwing me to the lions like this.”

  “Go get ’em, Tarzan,” she said.

  “Helix is proud of you,” Silas added.

  The overzealous voice of a commentator broke in on the TV: “Welcome, everyone, to the gladiator competition of the thirty-eighth Olympic Games!”

  “Better hurry,” Silas said. “It’s starting.”

  “—OF THE thirty-eighth Olympic Games!”

  Baskov tuned out the commentator’s voice and focused his attention on the people eddying within the skybox. They were men in suits, for the most part, with pretty women at their elbows. They were businessmen, moneyed men, politicians. Many he knew personally; others were strangers, but nearly all made a point of shaking his hand and congratulating the commission on bringing another gladiator program to fruition.

  “It’s going to be quite a night,” he assured them. His hand was sore from it, his smile worn thin.

  Still no Silas. He looked at his watch. Good. The doctor had apparently known enough to stay away. Having to deal with Silas would have been just another irritation he didn’t need.

  Baskov turned back toward the glass to stave off further rounds of salutations and looked down to the floor of the arena a hundred and twenty feet below.

  He touched the glass with his index finger, and the pane in front of him opaqued slightly. A holographic image of the pit zoomed toward him, magnified a dozen times. His eyes had a choice now. They could focus on the close-up image in the glass or through it to the actual fighting pit far below.

  The crowd in the stands cheered as the commentator’s voice modulated upward. Baskov didn’t bother to understand the words being spoken; their meaning was clear. Two flags rose on opposite sides of the oval.

  The matchup was decided by a complex system of ranking and lottery. The winner of the first round would advance into the second, and so on, and so on. A classic pyramidal elimination. He looked at the flags and saw Argentina and France would be first.

  Icers stood at intervals around the periphery of the oval. Near the commentator booth, he saw the armed guard, light glinting off his chrome helmet. Baskov touched the dial of the two-way clipped inside his breast pocket. “Can you hear me?” he said softly.

  The guard shifted, and his arm came up, touching the side of his helmet. “I can hear you,” said a voice from Baskov’s pocket. Too loud.

  Baskov turned the knob. “Just stand there and look pretty. Don’t do anything unless I explicitly tell you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” the voice came again, softer now.

  “Do nothing.”

  “Yes, I hear you.”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Yes, I hear you.”

  The flags were at the top of their poles, and the crowd was on their feet. Inside the skybox, people shifted toward the windows, jockeying for visibility. Th
e glass was soon blotted with gawkers, except for a two-foot gap on either side of Baskov, where no one dared encroach.

  Voices in the skybox grew louder, faces pressed to glass, staring down.

  Baskov had been here, at this moment, many times. He watched the faces. There was a unique thrill that pervaded these nights—even Baskov felt it—that stretched back through time to something older, more basic. The Romans had only discovered, not invented, it. When all the artifice fell away, what remained was this: two living creatures trying to kill each other. It was nothing less than the original sport.

  A few weeks from now, the other Olympics would begin. Men jogging in tracksuits. But this now—

  —this was the real shit.

  The noise of the crowd spiked. They knew it, too.

  Baskov smiled.

  Distant movement, and down in the pit, a door began to open.

  SILAS SAT on the bed next to Vidonia, their eyes locked on the TV. A graphic of the French flag flapped in the lower-right corner of the screen.

  The spectacle of it washed over them. The beautiful fucking spectacle, tens of thousands of people on their feet.

  It was a science competition, Silas reminded himself. Not some competitive athletic event. It was surreal—a science competition that hundreds of millions of people would watch. There was only a single rule: no human DNA. All else was wide open. The most profound endeavors have the fewest rules: love, war.

  The event was many things. Some good, some barbaric. But among them, this: it was the greatest show on the planet.

  Silas reached for her hand.

  BASKOV TOUCHED the window again, and the spot in front of him zoomed even larger until the floor of the pit spread across his entire field of view.

  The door with the French flag slid up into the wall. At first there was only darkness there, a shadowed rectangular hole eight feet wide by ten feet tall.

  Slowly, a shape moved color into the shadow.

  Something green and scaly and covered in sporadic tufts of hair.