The Immortality Game

«No!» It took all his willpower not to run to the stairwell. Marcus breathed heavily and forced one foot in front of the other. He felt dizzy and stopped with one hand on the wall to steady himself.

«It’s okay,» Javier said. «It’s going to be okay.»

«No,» Marcus said. «It’s not.» He took another step and froze, as a bulky man with a crew-cut, a fleshy red face, and a coat that no one should be wearing in summer stepped through the doorway from the stairs. The man paused a moment and glared at Marcus, then clomped forward on heavy-soled boots.

The man looked like he might walk right by, so Marcus turned his eyes to the floor and started walking slowly toward the stairs. He glanced up as they drew near each other, and he saw the man staring at him with a smirk on his face. Marcus couldn’t help himself and sped up, hoping somehow to put the man behind him, but the man reached out and snagged him by his solar coat, shoved him against the wall.

“Who are you, cocksucker?” The man loomed over Marcus like a giant, and squeezed his hand around Marcus’s larynx.

Choking for air, Marcus had trouble reading the phonetic translation of how he wanted to reply to the man.

«Papa! He’s gonna kill me!»

«Who?»

Marcus had forgotten that Javier had no means of seeing what had happened. «A big man is pinning me to a wall, looks like he wants to kill me.»

«Tell him you’re a diplomat.»

«I don’t think this guy will care!»

Regardless, he choked out, “Dip-di-diplomat.” He realized he’d spoken in English, then saw that the translation was exactly the same, except the stress should have been on the last syllable.

“Diplomat?” The man hawked and spat on the floor. “Foreign pig! Why did you come here? Tell me now.”

Blood pounded in Marcus’s ears as he struggled to breathe. It was difficult to read the translation. “Looking for…‌something.”

“In that apartment? What could you be looking for in that apartment?”

“Can’t…‌breathe!”

The man relaxed his grip slightly, and Marcus gasped for air.

“Tell me now, or I’ll break your fucking neck!” Marcus had never been in a physical confrontation before, and he’d never seen anything like the brutal expression on the man’s face.

“A…‌a card.”

The man’s stare turned cold. “Did the general send you? How do you know about the cards?”

“What general? I’ve never seen a general.”

“Fuck your mother, start talking.”

Marcus’s mind scrambled for something to say. “I…‌I don’t know. I was just told to come here and pick up this card.”

“What card?”

«What card?» echoed Javier.

«How are you hearing what I’m saying?» Marcus said to his father.

«I can’t hear you,» Javier said. «I’m reading the translator card.»

“It’s in my pocket,” Marcus said, flapping his right hand at his coat.

“Pull it out.”

Marcus stuffed his hand into his coat pocket and fished out the card he had found below the broken window. He held it up so the man could see it, and saw the man’s eyes widen.

“Where did you get this?” The man snatched the card from Marcus and held it up to his eyes to read the label. “Was this in the apartment?”

«Don’t say yes, Marcus. Tell him you found it.»

Marcus shook his head. “I found it…‌on the floor over there.” He pointed to the end of the hall past the open apartment door.

“Who sent you here?” The man reached into his coat and drew a gun, stepped back and pointed it in Marcus’s face.

Moscow

Sunday, June 8, 2138

3:03 p.m. MSK

Such warmth, soft blankets, snuggle in further and try to forget the bad dreams. They had been so vivid. Why is the lamp near my feet? It’s at the head of my bed. Zoya squinted down at her feet, the part of her body she despised most. So stumpy and wide—she always hid them in boots or closed shoes. The blankets were all wrong, smelling of unwashed bodies. That’s not my lamp…

She shoved herself up as everything came back to her, and dizziness made her drop down to the blanket again.

“Hey, careful there. You’ve had a rough time.” An emaciated blond woman of perhaps her own age knelt next to Zoya and placed a hand on her forehead. “Temperature’s down, at least.”

Something about the woman’s face… “You…‌you’re Sveta, aren’t you?” Zoya asked. It was so hard to tell after all these years, but the woman reminded her of the young Trog girl she’d played with a few times.

The woman smiled crookedly, one of her incisors missing. “You remember my name. I wasn’t sure it was you, at first. You look so different now. Please forgive me…‌I don’t think I ever knew your name.”

“Zoya. I remember the guards saying your name the first time you brought me here. It was all so strange. I couldn’t forget it.”

She slowly pushed herself back to a sitting position and looked around. A globe lamp near her feet held back the darkness. At her back was one of the square pillars of the metro platform. A meter beyond the lamp was the drop-off to the tracks. Dark-cloaked people shuffled about in the gloom.