Countdown

"Did you sense anything?" he asked breathlessly. "I felt you … I felt you in my mind."

"Did it hurt?"

"No, it was a curious feeling, but it wasn't pain. Perhaps you're not as low-level as indicated in your records. Are you well?"

I pushed his hand away. "Well enough, I guess."

I pulled at the sheets that covered me and bared my legs for him.

He undid the bandages and inspected my right thigh.

"Very good. It has healed as well as I'd hoped."

I frowned and looked down. Where I expected to find an oozing bullet wound was only a soft, bright pink mark that had already nearly healed over. It didn't even hurt when he touched it gently.

Rogan had said I'd been out for eighteen hours. But even eighteen hours wasn't long enough to heal a bullet wound.

"How-" I began.

"We have a great deal of technology at our fingertips here, Kira. The company I work for has always had a hand in research-be it computers and artificial intelligence or medical research. That is why I originally came on board ten years ago. Unfortunately, due to recent rules and regulations, I'm unable to share this research with anyone outside of the corporation at this time."

I touched my leg, running a finger along the wound. It was flat. I was healed. From a wound that felt as if it had torn my leg clean off.

"What kind of a company is this, anyhow? And who is this Gareth guy? He has people doing secret medical research? He's the one who's in charge of this game? He sounds horrible."

"He wasn't always." Jonathan's eyes glistened and he turned away, took in a shuddery breath, and then turned back to me. "Now I am to fill you in on the reward level of The Countdown!'

Tears pricked at my own eyes. "But I can't keep playing. You need to help me. Please, Jonathan."

His jaw clenched. "Kira, please. The only way you can escape the game is to win it. You read me. You must know that there is nothing I can do to change what is."

I had read him. The overwhelming feeling I'd gotten from him before my head nearly exploded was hopelessness. He was despondent about his lot in life.

We were silent for a moment.

"Jonathan …" I began. "If I win … if me and Rogan both get through all six levels-"

"It doesn't have to be both of you anymore," he said.

"What?"

"I know the rules were never properly explained to you. The fact is, after Level Three, if you make it to the end together or separately, then you will be considered the winner."

I let this information settle over me. "And if either or both of us do finish successfully … we can ask for whatever we want?"

He nodded. "The champion or champions get to choose his or her own prize."

I licked my dry lips. "I'd be able to ask for a one-way ticket to Offworld?"

The smile reappeared on his face. "A first-class one-way ticket. Definitely."

"First-class," I repeated. "I like the sound of that."

Jonathan smiled. "I think you'd do very well on Offworld, Kira."

I let all the wonderful possibilities, the dream of freedom and a brand-new life, drift through my mind. "Maybe Rogan would like it there, too."

He frowned suddenly. "You said that you believe he's innocent."

I nodded and arranged the sheets back over my legs. "That's right. One hundred percent."

"Did you use your psi ability on him?"

"A little. But not fully. I haven't had time to concentrate long enough to use it. I asked him. He told me. I believe him."

The grim expression on Jonathan's face was not setting my mind at ease.

"I see." He rubbed his fingers against his small black goatee, his forehead furrowing into a deep frown.

"You see what?" I looked over at the door. Was Rogan still waiting outside? Had those men taken him away? He couldn't have gone too far, since my implant wasn't giving off a signal.

Jonathan didn't say anything for so long that my anxiety grew into a tight, dark ball in my stomach.

"You see what?" I said again, louder this time.

"It is not my place to say. In fact, I've stayed with you too long already. I was to check your leg and inform you that the next level is a reward level."

"I don't care about any reward unless it's a shuttle to Offworld and out of this game." My voice had gone shrill and harsh. "What are you keeping from me? What do you know about Rogan?"

He shook his head. "I should say nothing else, Kira. Time is running out. I must leave soon."

I touched his arm and forced my gaze to soften. I commanded myself not to cry. "I got a read on you, Jonathan. I know you're a good man inside, no matter what this Gareth guy is making you do. But if there's something I need to know about Rogan … He's … he's not really guilty of those horrible crimes, is he?"

I was afraid to ask the question and open myself up to the potential that I'd been an idiot to trust him, to trust my heart, which told me that he wasn't evil or capable of such terrible things. I felt something for him. I knew it was fast, but I felt a … a softness for Rogan. My heart, which had been closed up tight ever since my family had been murdered, had opened up just a little. I believed in him. I wouldn't believe in an evil man.

"I knew Rogan," Jonathan began, "before any of this insanity began. We were friends once."

"I knew you knew each other," I said. "I could tell earlier, when you helped him with his wound."

He nodded curtly and began pacing the sterile white room, wringing his hands in front of him. "We were both only children when his parents died and he was sent to live with an uncle. The uncle … he wasn't a good man. His cruelty led Rogan to experiment with Kerometh as an escape from the abuse."

I inhaled sharply. Kerometh had been the drug of choice ever since the plague. Expensive, but easy to acquire, easy to take. I'd never personally experimented with it, but I'd heard that it put you into a state of disorientation. A deep, mindless bliss. But it lasted only a short time-a few hours, tops. After that you immediately plunged into the painful withdrawal that could last weeks unless you got another hit. If you didn't, then violence and anger- they called it Kerometh fury-took over.

"There's a reason you were chosen to be Rogan's partner, Kira," Jonathan said, his expression twisting into one of pain.

I shook my head. "He didn't kill those girls. He couldn't have." I swallowed hard past the thick lump in my throat. "Please don't tell me he was lying to me."

Jonathan shook his head. "No … he was telling you the truth. The murder of those nine poor girls was not his doing. He was charged and convicted of it, but he didn't do it."

I let out the breath I hadn't even known I'd been holding, and a great sense of relief flooded over me. "He's innocent?"

Jonathan was so still I thought that somebody might have hit his pause button. "He's innocent of those murders, Kira, but he is a murderer."

Something in his tone made me tense up. 'The … the robot said that he'd killed two inmates. But it was in self-defense."

Jonathan shook his head. "There are more."

I shook my head. I didn't want to hear what he was going to say next.

"Kira," Jonathan continued, his face a study in despair, "I know you've grown to care for him. That's why it's vital that I tell you this now, before it's too late. You have the right to know." He hesitated, as if summoning something inside of himself to speak the words that followed. "While he was in the throes of Kerometh fury seven years ago, Rogan … Rogan is the man responsible for murdering your family."

The silence that followed that statement was deafening.

"What?" I managed. My heart pounded, a thundering sound in my own ears.