Read Online S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) by Saul Tanpepper - Free Book Online

The smoked blown-glass lamp that had occupied the spot for as long as she’d known him was gone. The thing had been the very definition of ugly, with its garland of black metal chains and its yellowed lampshade, but for some strange reason Ashley had developed an attachment to it and Reggie refused to throw it away.
    The game gear was turned on. She could see the ghost image of the Player standing motionless in the projected hologram. She recognized Reggie’s Link in the controller base, the dent on one side where it had stopped a bullet. The Game ’s status light blinked green, indicating that Reggie was connected, but play was paused.
    So where is he, taking a potty break?
    Finding the gaming gear yesterday had been a complete surprise. Though Jessie immediately intuited what Reggie was using it for, she couldn’t help but redirect the anger already seething inside of her toward it. Why hadn’t he told her?
    To protect you.
    Eventually, her curiosity took over and she found herself geared up and connected. The experience left her sick to her stomach, and yet, for some reason, she couldn’t leave.
    It didn’t take long before another Player found her. And it didn’t take long for her to feel good about killing it.
    Last night, as she lay awake in her bed, she had promised herself never again. Going back had been way too easy. It had drawn out the worst part of her, and that frightened her. But what terrified her most was that, for the first time since coming home, she had felt alive.
    Not alive. That isn’t living.
    Maybe Eric was right and she should see a shrink.
    She glanced over at the Player standing motionless in the center of the hologram, waiting for its next command. She hadn’t bothered to look at it at all yesterday.
    What’s the harm in looking?
    The zombie’s chin was raised toward the sky. Jessie could barely make out the clouds through the haze of static cast by the old projector. If the bulb died soon, she wouldn’t be surprised. The thing was clearly long out of warranty.
    Standing there, not two feet away from the apparition that represented all she loathed about the world her family had created, she found she could feel nothing but pity for the thing. What had he looked like before he’d been conscripted? Had he been admired? Had he been a father? A brother? A husband? Or was he one of those prisoners, the first Omegas?
    Could somebody still be wondering about him the same way she wondered about Ashley and Jake? Or Ashley’s grandmother, G-ma Junie?
    Probably not. This zombie was very old. Maybe someone had once wondered where he was, but they’d almost certainly have stopped years ago.
    The plastinated skin was stretched tight over the bones of its skull, pulled taut like the membrane of a drum. Its eyes bulged from their sockets. A thin strip of rubbery flesh dangled from one cheek, a recent wound, from the looks of it, as it was still weeping a brownish-yellow discharge along the edges. Through the hole in its cheek, she saw the stained and pitted pebbles that were its remaining teeth. The blackened shadow of its tongue inched forward, probed the opening before disappearing back into the darkness again.
    Jessie shivered and looked quickly away.
    â€œReggie?” she called, feeling suddenly anxious.
    Her backpack was on the edge of the couch, its contents spilling out.
    â€œYou in here, Reg? Time for school.”
    Silence.
    She found a crate in a corner of the floor and pulled it over and stood on it. She leaned in closer to the flickering, transparent image. Through the glow, she could see the faint shapes of the video arcade games glittering in the faint light.
    A murkiness filled the Player’s dark eyes. This was the characteristic stare which always drove her thoughts to the blown-out windows of the abandoned East Harlem tenements they’d drifted past in their rented rowboat, just before the bombers sent them to New York