The Games

involved rolling onto his side and puking unceremoniously over the edge of the bed. Hot vomit splashed cold tile. The sound came at him muffled, like the world heard from the other side of a closed car door. His head throbbed. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His eyes ungummed to a blur of white and gray. He fought to focus, but the effort exhausted him, and he collapsed, grateful, back into the dark swirl.

After a time, the world swam toward him again. He tried to resist, to retreat, but was thrust into the light. Of all his senses, one seemed to work. His nose whispered to him in the oldest language. He was in a hospital. He could smell the sickness around him.

It came back to him in parts after that. The Brannin. Pea. What happened to me in there? He heard a moan, low and miserable, again from the other side of that invisible car door that muffled his hearing. The moan was his, of course, and when he could, he stopped.

He sensed movement at his side, a subtle change in the composition of gray that surrounded him.

“Evan, can you hear me?” a voice asked in the distance.

He tried to answer, but the words broke apart in his throat.

“You’re going to survive,” the voice said.

Evan recognized Baskov’s gravelly tone. “Too bad,” Evan managed to say.

“Yes, truer words I’ve yet to hear you speak. The doctors say you’ll never be the same again. They say your brain has been damaged.”

Evan swallowed hard against the dryness of his throat. How long have I been out? A day? A month? “What do you want?” he croaked.

“I told them you were no prize to begin with, that your brain was damaged all along, and they shouldn’t waste their effort. But it seems the Hippocratic oath has saved another piece of shit.”

“What do you want?” Evan repeated.

“I just want to know what you could possibly have been thinking.”

“Pea.”

“What is Pea?” Baskov asked.

Evan thought about how to explain, but after a second or two, his mind lost the trail and he forgot what the question had been.

“Where did you go when the screens blacked out?” Baskov asked.

Evan hesitated, trying to judge how much he could hide.

“I’m not a patient man, Evan. We’ve tried to back-trace what happened, but there is no record to follow. You covered your tracks well. There are ways that I can get you to tell me what I want to hear, but the doctors tell me you are very weak. The drugs could kill you. I’m under pressure that you couldn’t begin to understand. If that is what I need to do, I’ll do it.”

More shapes moved around him in the gray. A dozen voices whispered in tones too low for Evan to unscramble. He thought about dying. It would be a relief in many ways, but Pea would think he’d been abandoned. “What do you want to know?”

“Why didn’t the computer answer the Helix queries?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. It interfaced the logs but didn’t reply.”

“That’s not possible. The computer can’t choose what it responds to.”

“It chose not to respond.”

“It doesn’t know how to ignore.”

“It did.”

“I activated the logic areas before the smooth-out. You saw me do that, the levers. It had to process.”

“It didn’t,” Baskov said flatly.

“Then I don’t know.”

“Do you expect me to believe you, Evan?”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

“You don’t understand,” Evan said.

“I understand better than you think. I had people checking up on you, Evan. They’ve been looking into you the way I should have before I ever involved you in any of this. They interviewed your old professors, your colleagues, your subordinates. Would you like to know what I keep hearing about you?”

“No.”

“Sure you do, Evan. At the heart of things, insecure bastards like you always want to hear about yourselves. You want to hear that you’re a genius, that you’re gifted, that you’re special. Well, they said those things, Evan, they did; but mostly they said you were an asshole. They might not all have used that word—though some certainly did—but it came through loud and clear every time. You’re a sad-fuck introvert too arrogant and self-absorbed to notice anyone but yourself; consequently, nobody gives a damn about you. That piece of information really helps me. It gives me the keys to your little kingdom. Nobody cares you’re here—nobody is going to come looking, or making calls, or pulling strings. You’re mine for as long as I want you.”

Baskov pulled a chair away from the wall and clattered it across the tile. He sat.

Evan tried to rise, to move away, but he was too weak.

“I’m going to let you in on a secret, Evan. That gift you’re so proud of, that genius …” He moved closer, speaking softly. “It’s maladaptive.”

Baskov nodded seriously. “It’s shit, Evan. Think about what it’s ever done for you. I mean, look at you, for Christ’s sake. Isolated, no wife, no children, without friends. Have you ever even been with a woman?”

Evan stared at him.

“Of course not,” Baskov continued. “What woman would open her legs for you? What woman would let you know her that way?” Baskov jabbed Evan’s gut with a gnarled finger.

Evan turned his head away, wanting to hear nothing more.

Baskov went on. “People think that man will be smarter in the future, that our intelligence is evolving on some upward trajectory as a species, but that’s not really true at all. The bell curve rises to its peak at an IQ just above a hundred for a very good reason. The bell’s under directional selection from both sides, isn’t it, Evan? Stray too far from that safe middle bulge and the world becomes unnavigable. Pass a critical threshold on either side of the curve and the world, the real world, unravels in your fingers. You’re testament to that.

“I’m a fan of history, and history has shown it time and time again. Einstein used to forget his children in the park. Newton suffered debilitating depressions. Do you know how Godel died?” Baskov prodded him with his finger again. “Do you?”

“No.”

“His death certificate listed inanition as cause. The father of incompleteness couldn’t be bothered to eat. He starved himself to death.

“You’re not so special, Evan. You’re a story that history has retold many times. People like you rise from the fringes at regular intervals. Outside the cloisters of your respective fields, you’re helpless—like specialized worker ants born only to provide some benefit to the rest of us before your tragic little lives draw to a close, usually in poverty and madness. Tesla and Turing—do you remember how their stories end?”

Evan kept his face turned away.

“That your kind keeps rising at all shows some flaw in our species’ template. You’re a sport, a type of sacrificial defect, and it’s my burden to see to it that your sad existence is made use of. I take that burden very seriously, Evan. You believe me, don’t you?”

Evan said nothing; the finger jabbed him again. He tried to speak then, but his voice gave out.

“Oh, you have something to say?” Baskov said. “Speak up. I’m listening.” Baskov leaned closer.

“You,” Evan said, pushing the word out, “are jealous … of us.”

Baskov’s face went white. His hands fisted. Evan waited for the blow, but it didn’t come.

“You wanted to be us, didn’t you?” Evan croaked. “As a child, in school. Like Godel. You studied. But you weren’t smart enough.” Evan smiled.

After several seconds, Baskov hissed, “I’m going to enjoy this, Evan. I’m going to enjoy making you