The Immortality Game

“Security is coming. We need to do something.” He saw the smartwaiter, its door still open with the tray sitting in an aperture that often held big broken mechanical items and looked barely large enough to hold both of them. “This might be crazy, but let’s try it. Come on.”

“The smartwaiter? You’re kidding, right?” Zoya stuffed her bread, salami, and cheese into her pockets.

“What else can we do? If it won’t carry us, perhaps we can hide there.” He tossed the tray into the corner with the pitcher and clambered into the hole. He squeezed into a corner and held a hand out to Zoya. “Here, I think you can fit.”

Zoya grasped his hand and Marcus pulled her in with him. It was tight, but the door looked like it could slide shut.

«Papa? Can you get us out of here now?»

The smartwaiter door hissed down and everything went dark. Marcus normally hated the dark, but now his body felt electrified by the overwhelming feelings that washed through him—the heat and softness of Zoya’s trembling body pressed against his; the faint smell of her perfume mixed with smoke and perspiration; the sound of her breath. Then his stomach lurched as the smartwaiter suddenly dropped faster than any elevator. He felt Zoya tense.

“I think I’m going to vomit,” she whispered.

“Just hold on.” Without thinking about it, he hugged her tighter.

The plunge seemed to last forever, though it couldn’t have been longer than a minute before it slid to a stop.

“Thank God,” Zoya murmured, a hint of panic in her voice.

The door slid open to reveal a dimly lit room as small as the coat closet in Marcus’s apartment. The walls were painted an off-shade of red. Zoya slid out onto the floor and Marcus took a couple deep breaths and joined her.

“More fire bots,” Zoya said, indicating six silvery bots in racks on either side of the exit door.

«Is it safe to go out, Papa?»

«I don’t know. This is the lobby level. This door opens next to the banks of elevators, and there are exit doors in all four directions.»

«I guess that’ll have to do.»

Marcus looked at Zoya and saw that she was pale and her dark hair was slicked to her forehead. “Are you okay? The building exit is right out here.”

She nodded. “Let’s go. I want out of this place.”

«All right, Papa, open the door.»

The door slid to the side. It took a couple seconds for Marcus’s eyes to adjust to the brighter lights of the elevator lobby. He saw about a dozen people either walking through the lobby or waiting for elevators. Corridors ran in all four directions, each leading to glass exit doors. Sunlight glittered on the glass of the doors straight ahead. He began to walk that way, but Zoya grabbed his hand.

“Not that way. We need to go east,” she said.

“What does it matter?” he asked, following her lead. “We just need a taxi.”

“This way is a smaller street. They’ll be less likely to be—”

Zoya crashed to a halt and Marcus ran into her. He was about to ask what was wrong, but then he saw it. Two men stood across the corridor, leaning against the wall. One of them was enormous. The other’s eyes were bulging with surprise as they looked directly at Zoya.

“Run!” Zoya yelled.

Marcus’s feet seemed plastered to the floor, and Zoya’s hand jerked hard against his as she tried to pull him along with her. The smaller man punched the huge one in the arm and then started to run toward them.

Pain blazed in Marcus’s face as Zoya slapped him. “Now!” she screamed.

Marcus could move again. He ran after Zoya, still holding tight to her hand. Other people kept getting in their way, some of them shouting incomprehensible words. He saw Zoya glance back over her shoulder, her eyes widened.

“This way,” she cried, jerking him toward a doorway that loomed on the left.

Marcus just had time to wonder why they couldn’t have made it to the exit before he followed Zoya into the gloom of a cavernous room. Lots of small tables and chairs lined the edges of the room, but there were no people that Marcus could see. The center of the room was a large empty space with a hard floor, and across the way was a long bar lined with stools. A club? he thought. Zoya ran straight through the dance floor with Marcus close on her heels.

«Why didn’t you warn us about them, Papa?»

«I lost their signals some time ago, so they must have turned off their wireless. I hadn’t seen their faces. I’d only spoken with them. I had no way of recognizing them through the cameras, and voice recognition software is iffy at best, especially in crowded areas.»

“Zoya, stop!” came a shout from behind them. “We won’t hurt you!”

Zoya continued to run, and now Marcus saw there were other people in the room, and Zoya was leading him right to them. There was a small platform to the right of the bar, and four young women dressed in skin-tight black outfits, their hair glittering with neon, were setting up equipment for some kind of musical show. All of them had stopped what they were doing to watch as Zoya raced up to them.