The Game Read Free

engulfs his friend. Luckily, as soon as
the flames explode outward, the fire extinguishes itself—as if it
used all the oxygen and died, like a living thing. Crowe and the
others hit the dirt and wait a few beats before moving. He expected
gunfire, but none came.
    “ Booby trap,” someone whispers
behind him. Evan shifts position so he can look to the rear. His
sergeant gives him a go on gesture. He doesn’t hesitate. He
scrambles up the hill to Rob’s still body. Still no gunfire, and
that’s a good thing. He leans over his friend, expecting the
worse.
    Rob’s body is not a pretty sight. His left arm
is missing at the elbow. Most of his left leg is also gone. The
heat melted most of Rob’s skin on that side, the tender flesh
fusing with his uniform. There’s no way he could have survived
that , Crowe thinks, searching the side of Rob’s throat for a
pulse. He’s surprised at how little blood is on the ground. He
checks Rob’s wounds. The heat of the explosion may have blown off
his arm and leg, but it also cauterized the blood
vessels.
    Dodger slides out from behind a tree and says,
“Come on man, that explosion’s goin’ to draw ‘em down on us
something fierce. We gotta’ get out of here.”
    Crowe snaps at him, “We’re not leaving
him…alive or dead, he’s coming with us.”
    Dodger snarls, “That’s all well and good but
none of us ‘er goin’ to be alive for very much longer if we don’t
high-tail-it out of here.”
    “ Well quit yappin’ and give me a
hand.”
    Dodger spits a stream of tobacco onto the
ground, slings his rifle over his shoulder, and helps Crowe
half-carry, half-drag Rob’s body down the slope and into the
valley. Sergeant Westborough approaches. He doesn’t say anything,
but the look on his face conveys his concern. “He’s alive,
Sergeant, but not for long. He needs medical assistance—and
quick.”
    “ I’ve already called for e-vac. The
explosion jeopardized our mission and we’re being pulled out.” He
points to the south, deeper into the valley. “There’s a clearing a
half-mile away…that’s our pickup.”
    Crowe grabs a handful of Rob’s uniform and
hauls him up. Dodger takes his leg and together, they carry him to
the evacuation site.
* * *
    The basement is dark as pitch. The stale air
holds an acidic smell—an accumulation of dry rat urine and roach
droppings. However, when Singleton finds the breaker and flips on
the lights, the entire floor is surprisingly spotless, dry, and
clean as a whistle.
    Paul expects to see a warehouse full of
games—mazes of them. Instead, a large sphere fills a quarter of the
room. The surface is milky white and semitransparent. Inside the
sphere is what looks like an airplane cockpit. A framework of small
metal beams surround the cockpit, like the skeleton of a giant
cube. Tiny, black projectors, fixed upon both the vertical and
horizontal beams, point inward, toward the sphere’s pale surface.
There appears to be dozens of cameras, each of them fixed on a
different section of the sphere.
    The entire contraption sits on a two-foot tall
stage. Paul bends down to look underneath. Wires and cables spill
from the cockpit in the center. More cables snake to the metal
framework, supplying power and digital information to the
projectors. A set of hydraulic arms connect the stage to the
cockpit—he assumes the arms mimic motion.
    “ What do you think?”
    Paul jumps. He’s so engrossed that Singleton’s
voice startles him. “It's...it's...amazing,” he finally says, even
though he has no clue what the contraption is supposed to do. “What
is it?''
    “ This is my baby,” Singleton says.
He runs a hand across the sphere’s smooth surface like a lover
caressing his partner. “This is the game to end all games. This is
the next evolution in high tech video games.” He turns a serious
glare toward Paul. “New video game systems are keeping kids at
home—and that is destroying the arcade industry. This…” he