He set down his knapsack and leaned his rifle against it, making sure the barrel didn’t get fouled with dirt. As the sun intensified, he removed the first-aid kit and the duct tape. He glanced toward the dogs. Their attention was riveted on him.
Shoot them, he thought.
But although his knapsack was heavy with ammunition, he needed to use it sparingly. It was better to blast the cameras apart… or kill the Game Master, he thought… than shoot two dogs he maybe didn’t need to. Later, he might want to give anything to get those two shots back.
Let’s see how smart they are.
He lifted the gun and aimed at the bigger dog, the one that looked like a German shepherd.
It raced away, its partner following. He tracked the bigger dog, tempted to squeeze the trigger, but hitting a target that got smaller and lower as it receded in the distance wasn’t easy, and he finally set down the gun.
He untwisted the cap on a bottle of water, sipped the unpleasantly warm liquid, and poured some over his knee, wiping away blood and dirt. The puncture wounds were circled with red, probably already infected. He opened his first-aid kit, took out an antiseptic packet, and tore its edge. The sheet inside smelled of alcohol. He rubbed it over the holes and winced from the pain. He tore open a packet of antibiotic cream, smeared it over the holes, and covered them with gauze. Finally, he used his knife to cut strips of duct tape and secured the gauze to his knee, creating a pressure bandage that he hoped would stop the bleeding. Duct tape. He remembered what some of the security operators he’d worked with in Iraq called it. The gunfighter’s friend.
He scanned the grassland, looking for more cameras.
When the BlackBerry vibrated again, he pulled the Kleenex wads from his ears and pressed the green button.
“Stop destroying the cameras,” the voice said.
“I thought the idea was for me to be resourceful.”
“Except for the vandalism, you’re doing everything the way I imagined I myself would.”
“Then why don’t you get down here and play the damned game yourself?”
No reply.
“Come on!” Balenger shouted into the BlackBerry. “Be a hero!”
“But someone needs to be the Game Master.”
“Why?”
Again, the voice didn’t reply.
“Think about it a different way,” Balenger said. “We talked about a flaw in the game, the fact that you couldn’t keep track of me. How about the flaw in the universe?”
“The game and the universe. Both the same. What flaw are you talking about?”
“God became lonely and created other beings, magnificent ones, angels, and that’s how evil got started because some of those angels betrayed Him. Then God became lonely again, but He thought He’d learned His lesson and created lesser beings, humans, so insignificant that they couldn’t possibly have the pride to betray Him. They betrayed Him, nonetheless. Is that your problem?”
“That people betray me?”
“That you’re lonely? You want someone to play with?”
In the distance, a hawk cried while the phone became silent.
“We’d be delighted to play with you,” Balenger told the Game Master, “as long as you don’t kill us.”
“Sometimes,” the voice said.
“Yes?”
“You confuse me.”
Balenger felt a surge of hope.
“How can I possibly come down and play with you? You’re not real.”
The transmission went dead.
“The rounds in this Mini-14 are real,” Balenger murmured. He put the BlackBerry in his pocket, looked for more cameras to destroy, and moved forward.
5
Hands bleeding, Amanda lifted the door at one end, Ray at the other, and helped carry it from the shelter that she and Viv had built the previous night. She recalled Viv sharing water with her and saying that they needed to work together if they were going to survive.
And now Viv was dead.
The shock remained numbing as she worked with Ray to carry the door. Her knees felt limp, her boots heavy. Hunger made her sluggish, but she wouldn’t allow herself to give in to weakness. Not long ago, she’d heard yet another shot, still closer, and if Frank was coming, as the Game Master promised, she wouldn’t let Frank see a quitter. She would do everything she could to help. She would work until she dropped.
That almost happened. Her boot struck a rock. She nearly fell with the door, but she regained her footing and plodded on, coming to the walkway she and Ray had constructed in the mud.
“This ought to do it,” Ray said.
He moved backward down the slope, holding his end of the door. Amanda followed, taking short steps that helped her stay upright on the downward-tilted boards.
When they reached the precarious bottom, they lowered the door to the walkway, setting it on its side so that Ray had room to shift along it, moving higher, reaching Amanda. The boards below them wavered on the mud. Around them, the stench of decay was nauseating. They upended the door so that it stood on its bottom. They walked it forward to the end of the boards, shoved it, and let it flop in the mud. Muck flew. Twenty feet away, a snake hissed.
The door landed next to the mysterious object whose rim was the only part that was visible.
The boards beneath them wobbled. Amanda and Ray held out their arms for balance.
“Too much weight.” Amanda bent her knees, trying for a low center of gravity. “We can’t both be in the same area.” She stepped onto the door, which settled but held. “I’m lighter. I’m the logical one to do this.”
Ray stepped onto higher boards.
Gradually, what they stood on became steady.
Amanda pivoted toward the rim of the object embedded in the mud. Four feet by three feet. Muck was inside it. “I still have no idea what this thing is.”
She knelt and peered warily into it, making sure a snake wasn’t inside. “So what am I supposed to do? Scoop out the mud and see if anything’s buried?”
She tugged out one of the rubber gloves. She put it on her right hand, hesitated, then sank the glove into the mud. She didn’t feel anything and groped deeper. The pressure of the mud rose almost to her elbow, reaching the upper limit of the glove’s sleeve.
“Find anything?” Ray asked.
“A lot of goo.” Afraid she might fall in, she knelt farther forward. “Wait a second.” Her fingers touched something hard. Round. The edges were rough. She closed her gloved fingers around it.
“Careful,” Ray said. “For all we know, there’s a trap inside. Something sharp.”
“No, feels like a…”
She strained her arm to pull the object free. The suction almost pulled the glove off.
“A rock,” she said, looking at the object in her hand. “Just a rock.” But she knew that seemingly insignificant objects often turned out to be important in the game, so she tossed it onto the bank. “I felt a lot of other rocks in there, also.”
“Maybe something’s under them,” Ray suggested.
“But I don’t know how to reach under them to find out.”
Ray checked his watch. “Twenty after two. Less than ten hours to go. We’ve wasted more time.” He frowned at something below her. “On the rim in front of you. The mud’s drying. Does it look like something’s engraved in the metal underneath?”
Amanda looked where he pointed. She rubbed the drying mud. “Numbers.” Although she tried to sound triumphant, her voice had the tone of the crust she broke away. “Two sets. LT before one. LG before the other.”
“Map coordinates,” Ray said.
Amanda wiped mud off the rim to the right and left. “Same thing here. I bet the numbers are on the opposite rim also — to guarantee we saw them, no matter which side we approached from.”