Strive For Success
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“I don’t know where to start,” said Kip. He was on the phone with the man who had given him his name, but he couldn’t think of a polite way to end the call and go back in time. “I mean… I’m not even sure how you found me.”
The man on the other end sighed. “We’ve been keeping track of your progress since we first discovered you at that little restaurant on Long Island. We wanted to make sure that nothing happened to you during the course of those events.” His voice was very serious. “You understand?”
Kip nodded quickly. It’s hard for anyone to get away from someone like this, especially if they’ve already gotten away once before. “Yes…”
He tried to figure out what kind of information could help them keep an eye on him, but he only knew about the places and people he’d seen while playing the game: a woman at work, a guy in college, a guy in New York.
None of these sounded like the kind of person who might want to watch over him, which meant that they were probably watching someone else. Maybe they just wanted to be sure no one messed up their precious timeline by killing themselves when things got too bad.
But maybe they really did have something more interesting going on. What if he told them everything he’d experienced so far? Would they let him go then?
That wasn’t fair – it would take him hours to describe the game. He shook his head, wondering if there was some way he could just give them whatever he’d picked up, hoping they’d accept it as proof that he hadn’t lied.
“…and you remember the girl, Lila? Well, she’s doing fine; she’s moved here now, with her father and mother.” The man paused. “It looks like she’ll live to see another day.”
“Thanks!” Kip said. His voice was still shaking. “You can put me down now.”
When the phone went dead, he looked around the room, trying to remember exactly where he was. He had been on top of a skyscraper, but now he seemed to be somewhere inside the building itself. Was that part of the same game? He didn’t think so… There was a woman sitting at a table, looking straight at him. She wore dark glasses.
“Who are you?” Kip asked. If he was stuck in some kind of real-world simulation, or if she was a ghost or something, he needed to know right away.
She smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “I’d rather show you than tell you.” Her voice was soft and musical.
Kip felt himself smile. So she could hear him after all. “Why is your skin changing color?”
She tilted her head, examining the way her flesh was shifting. “I haven’t had anything to eat today. I feel sick.” Then she took off her sunglasses, and Kip saw that she was blind.
So this was real: a girl with her face painted white in exchange for an empty socket. And the woman, who sat next to her, had the same eyes and the same pale lips. They must have worked together to bring Kip here… Did they want to use his mind somehow, or had they decided to help him because they wanted to know more about their friend, the blind one?
Whatever they were doing, though, he didn’t want to stay and find out what it was. He needed to escape, and he couldn’t do that unless he figured out how he’d ended up in this place.
He reached for the door, thinking to leave through the front entrance. But there was a woman blocking his way, wearing a long black dress with lace sleeves that covered up most of her arms and legs. This time she had a gun pointed at him.
“Don’t try to run,” she said, but her voice sounded different, less musical than before. Now that he could see her better, he noticed that she had a lot of wrinkles, like an old tree trunk. “You’re under arrest.”
“Arrested?” Kip frowned. What did she mean by arrested? Why should he care? The world wasn’t real. “For what? Are you arresting me in some kind of virtual reality?”
“No…” She hesitated for a moment. “…that’s a funny thing to say.”
What? Did this woman have some kind of special knowledge that made her different from the others? “Look…” Kip stepped forward carefully, feeling his way across the floor with his hands. He was afraid he would break something delicate, but the woman didn’t seem to mind. “I’d love to chat and all… but I need to be on my way.”
The woman laughed suddenly, sounding surprised. “How strange that you think you’re free.” She lowered her gun a bit. “I’ve come to take you away. To prison.”
“Prison?” Kip shook his head. “But why? For what crime? Is there something about me you don’t want other people to see? You think I’m going to ruin your secret?”
The woman laughed again, but this time the sound was bitter. “We know about you and your friend… and we will make sure you both disappear.”
A chill passed down his spine. What kind of people could know something like that? The answer came in a sudden burst of memory. A man he’d seen once, on a boat: a short man, with gray hair. His name was…
“…Sigmund! That’s his name! Sigmund, the scientist! We met him on board Queen Anne – that’s what we call the ship!”
His heart hammered. He had been talking to someone aboard a spaceship? And Sigmund must be the one who’d taken him into space. “You mean, I went outside the ship?”
“Yes, that’s right. And we followed you all the way here.” The woman shook her head. “That boy has been very bad, and he needs to pay for it.”
Kip felt as if a bucket full of ice water had just dropped over his head. “But what happened to him?”
“Your friend, he died. On Mars.”
“Died?” Kip tried not to show the fear and horror in his voice, but it was hard not to feel betrayed. “He died? How did he die? What did you do to him?”
“It was an accident… but don’t worry. We won’t tell anyone about what we found on Mars. No one needs to know.” She smiled.
Then, abruptly, the door opened behind them, and three men walked in carrying a stretcher with a body between them. The first man wore dark-blue coveralls, with a white lab coat thrown over them. As soon as the stretcher passed him, he turned around, looked straight at Kip, and then started yelling for help.
The woman put up her hand, silencing the man’s shouts. “Don’t be alarmed,” she said, still smiling. “This isn’t what it looks like. It’s an experiment.”
“Experiment?” Kip asked. There was no need to ask which one. They must have seen him and his friend inside the spaceship. “Are they dead or alive?”
“Dead,” the woman said. “They’ve already had their blood drawn.” She gestured at the second man now standing beside her. He was tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. “These two are our doctors. They’ll be taking the samples to examine. Just relax. Everything is going to be fine.”
Something inside Kip snapped. He grabbed the woman’s arm with such strength that her face turned pale and her mouth fell open. “No! Don’t touch him! I’ll stop you!”
“Please—” she gasped. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs as Kip pushed her against the wall, knocking the gun from her grip. “Stop! Stop!”
The doctor rushed toward them, shouting at Kip to let go of her and get away from him. But Kip couldn’t move. He was shaking. Not only because of the woman’s screams. Something in him knew that this was wrong; it told him that he was about to hurt these men for a crime they hadn’t even committed.
The doctor drew a small device out from under his lab coat. It was a gun—and when the doctor raised it and aimed it at Kip’s chest, it seemed like it would make no difference whether he fought back or not. The man pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
“You can’t kill us!” The doctor threw his hands up to shield his face, and the gun fired. It struck the ceiling. The metal casing flew off, and the weapon broke into pieces on the floor.
All of the others stopped moving immediately. Kip saw the woman look from Kip’s hand, to the broken weapon, to her fallen gun, to the other man with the stunner. “What are you doing?” she cried.
For the first time since he had entered this place, Kip found himself looking at something that belonged to him. He’d known this gun, this stunner, for years. This was his father’s pistol.
The woman’s lips quivered, and her eyes were wide with fright. Her hands fluttered in the air as though reaching for anything she could use to defend herself.
She’s scared of me now, he thought. All she wants is to get rid of me before I find out everything. “Where’s my dad? Where’s Sigmund?”
“Who knows…” the doctor said slowly. “We’re not sure… We found him last night, and he was unconscious.”
“I want to see him.” Kip pointed at the woman with the gun. “Give me the gun.”
“No! Wait—”
“Do it!”
As she reached across her body to take it from the doctor, the doctor took advantage of the distraction to grab her shoulder with his free hand, pinning her to the wall. “Let go! Let go of him!”
Her fingers trembled violently, as though she was trying to fight someone stronger than she was. “I don’t know where he is,” the woman cried. “Don’t you understand? We’ve been looking for him!”
Kip’s stomach was churning like an ocean. He had never heard this woman speak so desperately before. He didn’t believe she knew exactly who Sigmund was. He didn’t think he needed any proof. But there was one thing he wanted to make absolutely certain: “Where is my father?”
“In the hospital,” said the woman, still clutching her gun. “He has severe burns all over his body. His clothes caught fire.” She looked down at herself. “My skin’s burned too. I’m covered in blisters.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in. A fire… “What did you do to him?” Kip shouted.
“We gave him medicine,” said the doctor. “Some of the people here are very sick.”
“Medicine?” Kip yelled.
Both the woman and the doctor nodded at once. “Yes. Medicines. For some of our patients.”
That explained how my father had escaped. But what did it mean if my mother was lying to him? Was this really happening or just a nightmare? He had no idea anymore. “How badly was he burned?” he demanded. “Tell me!”
The woman shook her head and looked down again at her arms and face. She began to sob quietly. “His back…” she whispered.
And then another thought hit Kip like a brick through the face. The doctor, who had been holding the pistol, stepped forward to point it at Kip’s head.
“Look what we found,” he said coldly. “Your parents had their hands on each other’s backs, touching with such passion, we decided to keep you alive after all.”
“What?” Kip screamed. He tried to lunge at the doctor, but he couldn’t break the hold the man had on his shoulder. “Did you say that? Did you actually just call my father a whore?”
The doctor’s lips curled up. “You must have noticed.”
“What are you talking about? What are you talking about?” Kip struggled against his grip, but the doctor kept him pinned.
“You were sleeping with your mother,” said the woman. “So was he.”
Kip froze. That was true. There had been so many times he could remember his mother’s naked body pressed to his father’s. When they slept, he’d sometimes hear them whispering to each other. And when they fought—they always seemed to fight about Kip’s mother. “Stop!” Kip roared. “Don’t tell me anymore! It’s all lies! My parents aren’t like you. They aren’t like anyone else—”
“They’re right,” said the doctor, stepping close to stand between Kip and the woman with the gun. He spoke softly but angrily. “When we found Sigmund, we were surprised by his appearance. He was much younger than we’d expected. So young. Your mother is older than us. Older than you are now. We didn’t realize at first that we’d discovered two of your parents.”
“What are you talking about? How old am I?” Kip demanded. “Tell me.”
“Eighteen,” said the woman. “Nineteen.”
“Why are you lying to me?” Kip screamed.
“Because… because…” Her shoulders shook with sobs, and tears spilled from her eyes. “This is our home,” she wailed. “You have to let us go.”
Kip felt a sudden wave of despair. If I was eighteen years old, then I wouldn’t be a child anymore, which meant this whole situation was even more messed up.
But Kip wasn’t going to let it slide. Not after the way this woman had talked about his parents. “What kind of ‘home’ are you living in? You can’t keep my father prisoner and torture him for information about me, just because of who he is.”
“We’ll give you everything if you just let him go,” said the woman, crying harder.
“Everything?” Kip asked. “What exactly would I need?”
A smile broke across the doctor’s face. “All kinds of things. Drugs… food… weapons—”
“What does he need to know?” Kip yelled. “Are you threatening me with him?”
“No! No, I’m not threatening you,” said the woman. “Just telling you the truth.”
And then Kip realized why he had come alone. He understood why the woman hadn’t brought his friends along: Because they weren’t coming. They wouldn’t help him. And now he knew who and what they really were.
I’m not a person. Just someone like them—only different. And they hate that.
He glanced around, looking for something he could use as a weapon. Nothing except the knife in his hand and the gun in the doctor’s hand. He’d already lost control of one gun, there was no guarantee he could win another one of these people.
“Let us go,” he shouted. “My friend is out there somewhere. Let her go too. I don’t care what you do with me, but please save my friends—”
The woman looked over at him, but Kip ignored her and fixed his gaze on the doctor.
“… but you won’t have to worry about them for very long,” the man said. His eyes were dark and hard, a look that reminded him of the soldier who had told them they were prisoners, back at the base. Like he had nothing left to lose. “We’ll kill them all.”
The End