The Games

a variety of reasons, I had nearly settled on engineering when I saw the photo in my textbook. It must have been fourth grade.”

Her finger traced his jaw again, encouraging.

“It was in a history book,” he continued. “I was sitting in class, flipped the page, and there it was. I still remember the page number: one-ninety-eight. The photo was dated 1920, two men smiling side by side on the African savanna. The shorter man wore khakis, a safari hat, a rifle slung over his arm. The taller was bare-chested and had a face remarkably like the portrait hanging in my mother’s living room.”

Silas gave her a moment to say something, and when she didn’t, he went on. “Some of the soft parts were different: the mouth, the nose, but the angles of the face were the same. The cheekbones were the same. The man who looked like my father had a red cloth draped around his waist. The caption under the photo read: On Safari, Ernest Stowe and Maasai warrior. I studied that old picture until I thought I’d wear my eyes out on it. After that, I took an interest in anthropology.”

“Are you saying the guy in the picture was some sort of long-lost relative?”

“No, nothing like that. Not in the way you mean. More like a lateral connection to a whole people. At the time, scientific periodicals were the only outlet for my curiosity, and almost by accident I became a kind of amateur expert, reading everything I could find.”

Silas’s eyes sifted through the darkness as he recalled the scientific journals. It had seemed he couldn’t take it in fast enough, and the data went back thousands of years. As one of the deep-clade African lineages, the Maasai were an ancient people, in many ways as divergent from other African populations as they were from all the relative cladistic homogeneity found north of the Red Sea. And this is one of the secrets of Africa: that it is as divergent from itself as it is to the rest of the world.

Like many of the tribes of Africa, the Maasai made their share of involuntary contributions to the burgeoning gene pool of America. It was no surprise, really, that now and again evidence of that contribution could be seen.

“So what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why aren’t I lying in bed with an anthropologist, instead of the world’s most influential geneticist?”

“The problem with anthropology—at least the branches I was interested in—is that it’s a finite endeavor. I learned everything there was to learn, but ultimately, once I had this knowledge, I realized there was little I could actually do with it. Most of the populations I was interested in existed only in pictures and in bits and pieces of people like myself. From anthropology, it was a simple step up to population genetics, and finally to genetic engineering.”

“Where you could actually do something.”

“Yeah.”

“An interesting story. So all this started as an attempt to understand where you came from.”

“That’s where all science starts.”

“And all religions.”

He looked away from the oval of her face and lay back on the pillow. She nuzzled against him, the sharp bone of her nose angling into his neck.

He shut his eyes. He waited for her to speak again, but she didn’t speak; she traced circles across his chest with her fingers. After a while, he slept.

HE AWOKE sometime later, driven from sleep by sheer anxiety. By dreams that weren’t dreams but extensions of his waking self, circular thoughts that he couldn’t get out of his head.

Vidonia’s leg was still draped across his, her arm still lingering on his torso. He was surprised his beating heart had not awakened her. Every nerve in his body crackled.

The gladiator wouldn’t leave his thoughts, an image burned in his mind’s eye, partly seen, partly invented. So much blood, but it was different this time, in his mind. This time the gladiator stood at the bars over the same torn body, Tay lying in blood, but there were more bodies, too, scattered at its feet. A multitude of people who had paid a price for what Silas had done.

He tried to shake off the image but knew he wouldn’t be sleeping for a long while.

He glanced down at Vidonia. The welcome distraction of her body. He could lose himself in that. Retreat to it, forget his fears for a while.

Instead, he slithered out from under her and stepped to the window. The night was still deep in itself, and a breeze shuffled the branches of the trees in his backyard. He looked up into the sky and concentrated but still couldn’t see the stars. Somewhere up there, the archer was still shooting blind.

Silas padded down the hallway to the kitchen phone. He dialed the numbers.

“Hello.” The voice was groggy.

“Ashley, it’s Silas.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I had to call. Listen, you still have the tickets, right?”

“Yeah, we haven’t lost them. Your nephew practically sleeps with them under his pillow.”

“Rip them up. Throw them away.”

“What? Why?”

“Please, Ashley. I can’t really explain. I just don’t want you to go to Phoenix. After the competition, I’ll come by your house and I’ll stay a month. I’ll stay until you kick me out.”

“Silas—”

“I’ll make it up to Eric—get him a great souvenir like nobody else has. Something that he can show his friends. But please don’t come to Phoenix.”

“Okay, Silas.” Her voice was soft, careful. “If that’s what you want.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you as soon as this is all over.”

“Are you in any kind of trouble?” He paused.

“I don’t think so. No.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Don’t worry. Now get back to sleep.”

“Good night.”

“Night, Sis.”

“Take care of yourself.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Evan connected the last fiber-optic cable and stood back to admire his handiwork. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly pretty. The liquid-crystal screen was bulky and primitive—almost three feet tall and two across—but it would work. Of that he was certain. Or at least he hoped he was certain. The holographics could come later. Right now, time was the limiting factor to be dealt with.

Multicolored coaxial bundles sprouted from every orifice of the assembly and coiled upward into the plug booth like vines climbing the trunk of an old oak. The plug booth itself had been partially disassembled and now stood as a skeletal frame, drooling tangled cords across and behind the screen. It was sad to see it so reduced, but he’d needed the parts; and after the stink the economists had made after the last run, he knew they would never let him fire up the booth again, anyway. They had yanked his funding, cut his staff. The facilities would be next. He was working on borrowed time, and he knew it.

Evan sat at the console. There was no fanfare, no hesitation, no moment of quiet introspection. He simply placed his finger firmly on the button, depressed it momentarily, then waited for what came next.

Nothing.

Seconds ticked by.