The Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

gurney.
    She gently caresses his hand and thinks that
maybe they will fail for the last time and they can abandon this
Godforsaken experiment.
* * *
    Singleton has his doubts too. He stands at the
darkened window, looking out over the warehouse. Below, Paul pilots
the virtual star fighter toward the blue planet. Singleton waits.
He’s a patient man and waiting doesn’t bother him.
    Here he goes.
    Singleton leans toward the glass as Paul exits
the sphere.
    “ Mr. Singleton?”
    Paul takes a few wandering steps toward the
door leading to the other room, stops, glances around, and then
sets off at a more determined pace. Singleton moves down the glass,
keeping pace with Paul as he moves from one room into the
other.
* * *
    The dull roar has stopped. Replaced by sounds
of bubbles and dripping water, but that sound ends soon after it
begins. He’s surprised too; he can hear muffled voices. It’s a
woman’s voice. Must be an angel.
    The line of light has not grown, but dark
shadows pass back and forth. Maybe I’m not dying. Maybe I’m
waking up . He tries to speak, but once again, his voice only
echoes through the darkness of his own mind.
    Suddenly, blinding light floods into his eyes.
It is a girl; she’s shining a light into his eyes. First one
eye, then the next, using her thumb and index finger to pry his
eyelids open. She’s talking, but he can’t make out the words—as if
a thick sheet of glass is hindering her voice. She shifts position.
There’s a name badge attached to the pocket over her right
breast—G. Cobb.
    “ Hello?” he screams. “Can you hear
me? Miss Cobb?”
    Nothing. There is no recognition in her
face.
    He whimpers, “Please. Please help
me.”
    He’s lying down, that he can tell. When the
woman finishes her examination, she moves away, giving him a view
of the ceiling. She must be out of earshot because several men
appear—they put a shirt over his head and talk quietly amongst
themselves. They are talking about Cobb. They call her Georgia.
They talk about how pretty she is. They discuss in hushed whispers
the things they’d like to do to her if they ever have the
opportunity. If there was ever a time Rob wished he wasn’t
helpless, this was it. He’d enjoy teaching them a lesson on manners
and how to treat a lady—even when she isn’t present.
    Then the ceiling begins scrolling by above him
and a few minutes later, he’s outside. The sky is a deep,
penetrating blue. He feels as if he hasn’t seen a sky that blue in
ages. They raise him upright—whether he’s standing or sitting, he
can’t tell. He thinks he’s standing. The ground seems like a long
way away. The men move out of his field of view and the pretty
woman in the white lab coat reappears.
    “ Are you in there?” Her lips move
slowly—each word enunciated as if she is speaking to a
child.
    Rob screams, “Yes! Yes! I’m here.”
    “ If you’re in there…”
    “ I am! I am!” He tries to raise his
head, to move his arms, but nothing works. He wants to beat against
the barrier separating them.
    Her head jerks upward as if something has
caught her eye. When she finally looks back down, the intensity of
her gaze sends a tingle of ice through his
consciousness.
    She says again, “If you’re in there, please,
please go easy on the boy.” She leans closer, and her next words
send another chill through him. “This next part is going to
hurt.”
* * *
    “ This next part is going to hurt,”
she says—and it will. Behind his left ear, just below the port
where she unplugged the computer cable, is a small switch. It’s not
a power switch—no, the power is already on—but the connections from
the brain to the body are off. This switch activates those
connections and from previous test subjects, all lab results
indicate that when those nerve endings begin to send and receive
signals to the brain, all the trauma and pain of the subject’s
injuries flood through like a burst damn. It’s a phantom sensation,
but