Countdown

Suddenly the lights began to flash, and an alarm sounded, so loud that I instinctively clamped my hands over my ears.

“What’s happening?” I yelled.

Rogan’s gaze darted around the room.

And then I heard something else. A metallic, computer-generated voice that seemed to come from every direction.

“60...” it announced. “59...58...57...”

Rogan began struggling hard against his chain. “Kira, throw me that key. Right now! Do it!”

“Why? What’s happening?”

“It’s the countdown!”

Okay, I’d figured out that much all by myself. If I hadn’t been scared out of my mind, I’d have taken the time to roll my eyes at him.

“Which means what?”

He craned his neck to look wildly around the empty room as the lights continued to flash, plunging us into darkness and light like a strobe light in a dance club. “We’ve wasted too much time.”

“52...51...50...”

“What happens when it gets to zero?”

He stared across the room at me, his gaze panicked. “When it gets to zero, we die. Do you understand? If you don’t throw me that key, in less than fifty seconds we’re both going to die!”

My stomach dropped. “What do you mean, die? How do you know that?”

“There’s no time to explain. I know you don’t trust me, but, please. Just do what I say so we can live.”

I stared at him. No. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t trust him. If I threw him the key, he’d unlock himself and leave me here. He was a murderer. He’d admitted it. He’d told me that there was no reason he could give me to trust him. And I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone but myself.

“Come on!” he yelled.

“35...34...33...”

I stared blindly around at the metal-walled room. Who would want to kill us? It didn’t make any sense. None of this made any sense.

Rogan swore so loudly it hurt my ears over the alarm and countdown.

“Fine!” he yelled. “Take it! You go first.”

He threw his key at me, and it landed by my feet. Without thinking twice I grabbed it and worked it into my lock. The shackles popped open and I scrambled to stand up.

Just as my bindings unlocked, a door to my left swung open into more darkness. I eyed it before I took a step toward it.

“Wait—” Rogan held a hand out to me. “What about our deal?”

I hesitated. He was a murderer bound for maximum security prison the second he turned eighteen. I should leave him here, wherever here was.

“19...18...17...”

“Forget it. Leave me. Whatever.” He slumped against the wall and looked away, his chest heaving with each labored breath. He wasn’t going to beg.

He’d given up just like that?

He thought he was going to die—honestly, truly die—when the countdown ended. I’d seen it in his eyes. You couldn’t fake that. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter. He believed it.

I swore under my breath and ran back to grab my key off the ground. I sank down beside him and worked the key into his lock. It snapped open. I quickly got to my feet and turned to go, glancing over my shoulder at him. He was struggling to get to his feet. It was the shoulder wound—it slowed him down. He could barely walk.

“10...9...8...”

I turned back and grabbed him around the waist, practically pulling him through the room with me. He leaned heavily against me.

“4...3...2...1.”

We were through the door on the last count and it slammed shut behind us with a deafening, metallic crunch that shook the ground.

Rogan groaned and collapsed to his knees. I frowned and reached toward him to touch his shoulder to find it was knotted with tension.

“You’re seriously hurt.”

He blinked at me. “You thought I was faking?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Thanks for the help.”

I was about to say “anytime,” which would have been the typical response, but I stopped myself. There was no “anytime” with Rogan. This was it. We’d escaped the room and I was so out of there.

However, I still wasn’t sure where we were.

We’d entered another room. This one didn’t look much more interesting than the first one, but I could see the outline of a door with no handle. I walked to it and kicked it as hard as I could.

“Let me out of here!” I yelled. My voice echoed against the metal walls.

“That’s not going to do anything,” Rogan said.

“We’ll see about that.” I kicked the door again. And again. I finally stopped when my leg started to hurt and the door didn’t look any worse for wear. I hadn’t even made a dent.

Panting and sweating buckets, I turned toward Rogan and thrust a finger in his direction. “Start talking. I want to know everything you know.”

He blinked at me, holding one hand against his wound. “You came back for me.”

“Yeah. I did. Don’t make me regret my decision.”

“I thought you’d leave me to die.”

“You still think we would have died if we stayed in there.”

He nodded. “The grinding noise was the ceiling slamming down on the floor. I’m just guessing that might have killed us on contact.”

I stared at him blankly.

“How do you—?”

Before I could finish, I was interrupted.

“Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing level one of Countdown.”

The disembodied voice came through unseen speakers, just as the countdown had. It was almost as if the voice was inside my head. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact direction, and the sound of it physically hurt, like something literally being pushed into my brain.

Unlike the countdown, which had had a metallic sound that had betrayed it as a computer-generated voice, this one sounded very human. Very male. And very smug.

“You son of a bitch,” Rogan growled. “Let us out of here!”

“Level one—” the speaker continued as if he hadn’t heard Rogan’s comment or was choosing to ignore it “—was to test your abilities of reason and compatibility. You have won the chance to continue on to level two, and due to your performance thus far, we have teamed you as partners.”

My heart slammed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t sign up for anything like—”

Suddenly, what felt like a bolt of lightning ripped through my brain. White-hot pain tore through me, and I screamed, clamping my hands on either side of my head as I fell to the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rogan do the same.

The pain vanished as quickly as it had come, and I stared around the room, numb and in shock.

“Wh-what—?” I managed.

The voice continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Your implants have been activated and tuned to each other’s frequency. Kindly keep in mind that you are playing as a team and to separate more than ninety feet from your partner will lead to immediate disqualification.”

I scrambled to my feet and stumbled over to brace myself against the cold metal wall.

“I want to know what is happening,” I demanded, my voice hoarse. “I want to be let out of here immediately or I’m calling the police!”

It was an empty threat. The police wouldn’t give a crap what happened to somebody like me. I didn’t even have ID. They’d probably throw me in St. Augustine’s for causing a disturbance.

I was on my own.

Rogan was struggling to get up from the floor as I moved toward the door and kicked it again, knowing it wouldn’t help but feeling the desperate need to do something—to do anything! “Come on! Come on, you bastards. Let me out of here!”

I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye and turned around slowly. The lights in the room dimmed and a holoscreen appeared out of nowhere, showing an overhead view of the city.

The only time I’d seen anything like it was when I’d snuck in to see an old sci-fi movie at the only theater in the city that was still open. I hadn’t thought technology like this existed in real life. Could it be real?

Obviously it was, because I was looking right at it.

I walked around the screen, trying to see where it was projected from, but there was nothing. I touched it, and the image flickered and morphed as if I’d dipped my finger into a shallow pool of water. It was partially transparent, and I could see Rogan on the other side.

He looked at me and shook his head. “It begins.”

“What begins? What is this?”

On the map a round, white glow appeared at an intersection that was otherwise unmarked.

“Level one has been completed successfully.” The disembodied voice sounded enthusiastic. There was a creepy singsong quality to the words. “There are six levels to Countdown. Complete them all without suffering disqualification or elimination and you will be considered the winner. Your next challenge is to reach the marker you see on the map by the time the clock runs out. If you are not successful, you will be eliminated. Do not delay. You have thirty minutes to complete this level. Your time starts now.”

The map faded into the image of a ticking clock. Then that also disappeared, leaving me staring directly at Rogan. The lights came up, and a draft of cool air brushed my bare arms.

I turned to see that the door I’d been kicking had slid open. Beyond it was the outdoors. The city. Familiar territory.

“Kira!” Rogan called after me.

But I barely heard him. I was too busy running.

LEVEL TWO

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