CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SURVIVAL

There is one moment of worry for Valentina Marin – have they killed the girl? Did she crash herself completely and did this Game to an anticlimactic end? But then she opens the door and looks into the girl's green eyes, awake, aware, intelligent and immediately diving for her guns, and she knows that she shouldn't have worried.

“Don't even try it, Summers,” she says, aiming her guns at the other girl.

And to Valentina's surprise, despite the fear that radiates off the girl, the Summers girl tells her a cheeky “Hi”...

If I could have crawled into the smashed door, I would have, I think. Anything to get away from her. I was very near to soiling myself there and hated myself for it. Valentina Marin stood there, silhouetted by the afternoon sunlight from outside, for all the world with still with sunglasses in her hair and wearing shorts as if she'd walked straight off some beach somewhere, but the light was glinting on her guns and she was looking downright menacing. I cringed and waited for her to fire her guns, but she didn't.

No bullets exploded my head like Johansson's. I took another breath that I never thought I would, and my heart beat a beat I thought it would never get to. I wasn't dead yet, and it surprised me.

What was she waiting for? For me to soil myself after all and die in disgrace? The anger, which had been boiling inside of me the whole time, took over again. “Come on then, shoot me,” I spit defiantly. “Be done with it. Let's end this madness for once and for all.”

Valentina laughed. It sounded nice enough, as if she was completely relaxed with the situation. Maybe that was what happened to you after seven League Wins, a World Champion title under your belt, and just having survived a severe illness due to extended exposure to radiation during your latest League match. I hated her a little for it. “What,” she said, chuckling, “after this whole goose chase through Cidade you'd give up this easily? We blew up half the city to get to you, and now this?”

I balled my fist at her disdain. It felt like disdain, at least. I didn't know what else it could be. My fingernails dug into the blistered skin on my hands, but I didn't care about the pain. It wasn't like I wasn't hurting on other places all over my body. “I might as well,” I said softly, meeting her blue-grey eyes squarely, without flinching. I'd show her, goddammit. I would /not/ be afraid! “You got me pinned, I'm severely wounded and can't get away, and you're between me and my guns. It's over.”

She grinned at that. “You were a hell of a lot feistier during the Survival Game.”

That was unexpected. My mind was racing. She seemed to be reluctant to kill me outright – what did she want from me? Did she want answers? My story? What?!

“What,” I sneered, “do you want me to try and shoot you like Berntsson?”

“You could try,” answered the World Champion sunnily, completely self-confident in her own abilities. It radiated off her. “It wouldn't happen though.”

I bit on the inside of my cheek. Of course it wouldn't. “That's what I thought,” I said. “So what are we still doing here, then? You're not Berntsson, and this is not the Game.”

“Isn't it?” she retorted, raising an eyebrow. “You sure could have fooled me. Contestants shooting one another, mad chases through the city. Bullets flying everywhere, explosions, crashes. Very spectacular stuff, great for the ratings.” She grinned. “It sure sounds like a Game to me.”

I shook my head. So what if it was? “If this is the Survival Game, then you can kill me right here and it will be all over.”

She cocked her head and smiled a strange little smile. “It only is a Survival Game if you want it to be, Dani.” Her blue eyes seemed to be assessing me, looking for an answer.

“But...”

And that was where my mind started racing. I saw flashes of the past day before me: myself before the mirror again, grinning up at the camera (“Do your worst, you motherfuckers. I'll survive. I promise..”), the ride to the Arena, sitting in the vehicle with all the other contestants. Contestants. Eight of us, all very different, all very eager to get this show on the road. I remembered Mégane de la Croix' excitement and how I'd shot her in the back. Diaz' quiet confidence – and how he had killed Johansson from that high window. Johansson, so menacing, with those pale empty eyes, he'd gone so easily. Aykut, who had died a horrible death under Jovanovich's plasma gun, as had Diaz. Jovanovich had been a menace – a trueblue League contestant. I'm sure his death had been a severe blow to all the people betting on him. I'd seen the stats, my own bet would have gone for either Jova or Diaz if I had been one of the viewers at home and still contently living out my life fixing up networks and having beers with friends. I'd probably have gone for Jovanovich though, because technically he would have been better equipped for a melee situation. And well, I'd done the melee thing with him. It had been /very/ close, and it'd taken the two of us to take him out after he'd embarked on his killing spree.

And then... Raoul; remembering our alliance and afraid we'd be turning on him, when it was just the three of us left. I remembered Walter and me, allowing him to use the regen point, and then teaming up.

Alliances were very common during League battles. They usually fell apart by the time it was just two contestants, but there'd been love and sacrifice in the Arena as well. I could still very clearly remember one of those first Fortress matches, where May Lesters had gotten herself killed by trying to revive her fallen rival. Everyone had pegged the two of them – I couldn't remember the guy's name, it was Zach or something – to take each other out at the end of the Game, but in the end May had tried to save his life. She'd paid the ultimate price for it though. She'd been spending her credits futilely on a regen point, trying to revive Zach, when Peter Delmont had shown up and killed her mercilessly, winning the Game.

Still, it had been an unexpected alliance that had lasted. Just like Walter and I had lasted, refusing to take out each other. There hadn't been a love relationship between Walter Lane and myself – the shadow of Lannie hung between us too heavily, but maybe if I would have met him under different circumstances a couple of years ago, I might have been able to fall for him. But things went as they went, circumstances were as they were, and we hadn't been given all that much time together. We had ended up in a death match together and we'd been bound together by fondness, sympathy, and an understanding of each other's pain. It had been one look, but I knew the look in the eyes of someone who has had everything that meant anything to him snatched away from him, and who was suffering the consequences. I saw it in the mirror every damn day.

Valentina had not completely right when she'd told him off, and Walter had not been specific enough when he shouted his reasons for participating at her. What he blamed the Corporation for was not Lannie's death, because he knew very well that she'd chosen her own death. He was just convinced that he would have been able to talk her out of participation at the last moment, with that one last phone call. And that /possibility/ of talking her out of it, that was what was eating away from him. That possibility of having her come home... and if he really wouldn't have been able to convince him – then there had been the matter of that one last goodbye that had been snatched away from him. And he'd been hurting over that so badly. It was painful and horrible and so very understandable, because he'd loved her so much. It shone through in everything he said, everything he did.

Still, he'd signed up for the League. He'd participated for love, as many people had done so in the past. Love, money, glory, or because they were sentenced to either death or death match like... well, like me. I'd been sentenced to participate in the Southern League and for better or for worse, I'd participated.

I blinked.

Realization was dawning.

It was heart-wrenching, it felt like a punch in the face, but despite our refusal to take out one another, both Walter and Raoul had died, leaving just me as the last of the participants. Mégane, Johansson, Diaz, Aykut, Jovanovich – all the others – they had died. Some by each other's hand, others by mine. All taken out in the line of fire, while the world was watching us, glued to their screens, betting on the outcome, cheering for participants, cursing about others. Betting stations were running in overdrive, merchandise was being sold.

So all fanciness, redeemers, and exploding metro stations aside... if you would go back to the basis, then it turned out that this might not be a Survival Game after all. “If this is a LEAGUE Game, then I've won, haven't I?”

Valentina smiled. “Well, lookie here. All this time you were so busy trying to survive, that you were forgetting what kind of Game you were actually playing.”

I blinked again, my breath catching in my throat. “If this is a League Game, then I am not dying. I'll probably be screwed over royally in another way, but it means that you're not allowed to kill me, right?”

“I could kill you anyway if I wanted to, whether I am allowed to or not,” Valentina grinned, and it seemed like her face was aglow with mischief and possibilities. “I just don't think one should /shoot/ a League winner. And you just happen to the be the winner of the Southern League. Congratulations, Dani.”

/I know you can win this, Dani,/ Walter's last words had been. He told me I had to survive, that I had to win. And this was exactly what was happening now. Valentina Marin was handing me the victory on a silver platter. All I had to do is accept it. I couldn't believe it. “Walter...” I sighed.

Valentina shrugged. “You can dedicate your win to him, if you want to. Now come on, let's leave this vehicle. I don't think it's going to blow, but I'd feel better if we'd go outside.”

She reached over to me and pulled me up easily, as if I weighed nothing. I clung onto her like a child, wondering whether to laugh or cry. For a moment I just hung onto her, squeezing my eyes shut against the golden sunlight shining over a city that had seen way too many explosions today.

“Come on,” Valentina Marin said, right before I fainted. “There's a whole world out there for you, waiting to meet the new winner of the Southern League.”

“What the HELL did you do, Val?” Stender says incredulously in her earpiece while she stands on the edge of the roof, asking him for a pickup vehicle and some medical personnel. Daniella Summers is lying on the ground behind her, slipping in and out of consciousness from pain, dehydration and exhaustion. It's a wonder that the girl has even held out this long.

Valentina shrugs. “I'm giving the League a winner for the Southern League. If Young can put his dick back in his pants and thinks about it for a second, then he'll see that this is the best thing for the League. Let him put a spin onto things, use what footage that we have, and turn it into something that the League can use. He should be glad that I'm saving his ass this way. Just treat the Summers kid in a hospital, fix her up, pay her prize money, and then leave her the fuck alone.”

“You think she will be quiet then? And stay quiet and out of her way?”

Valentina walks over to the younger girl and sits down next to her. She watches Daniella breathe evenly, unconscious or sleeping. The lights have gone out and the girl fell over, just like that. She's not bleeding horribly anymore, and her heartbeat is stable. Exhaustion and pain had just taken their toll the moment they were out of the car and she'd deemed herself out of immediate danger. She smiles and wipes the girl's hair out of her dirty face. “I think she will. Dani Summers wants to be left alone. It shouldn't be that hard to give her that, don't you think?”

She can hear him smile on the other side of the connection. “I could never refuse you anything, Val.”

It is three months later on a late summer afternoon when I enter the graveyard. The sky is dusty and golden and warm. The graveyard is still lush and green and heady with the scent of flowers everywhere. I haven't been at Walter's burial, simply because I was still in the hospital. I've been told that it was a small, quiet affair. Media and impromptu fans that had popped up after the game had been banned from the gathering. It had mostly been friends and ex-colleagues who'd been there, Ruiz told me, sitting on my bed and asking me if I wanted to see the vids of it. I respectfully declined, surprised that he had been there. He told me though, that Walter and he had had taken up some sort of friendship while he was recovering from his World League injuries, and Walter'd had his surgery. Despite everything that had befallen between them as announcer and participant, Ruiz had still wanted to pay his respects.

And so do I. I haven't been able to let it go all summer, during surgery on my foot, revalidation and avoidance of the media. I am here now to pay my respects to him with brightly coloured flowers in my hand, because I want to do it my own way, at my own time. It's taken me some time to gather up courage to talk to him because everything is still so fresh on my mind, still so bloody painful.

There are butterflies dancing through the air between the graves. It's so sweet and pretty and peaceful here, here in the middle of old Amsterdam – a city lost in fumes and pollution and industrialization. I never imagined that there could be such a beautiful place here on the edge of the Dregs, but apparently there is and I'm absurdly grateful for it.

There's no one else on the graveyard today. It's a Saturday and I suppose that most people are outside in parks or something, because the day is beautiful and nobody should be toiling around in graveyards on a day like this, gorgeous and peaceful as it might be.

And there it is, then. Under the leaf shadow of a large oak tree I find the grave that I was looking for. With a shock I realize that he's been buried together with Lannie, and I find myself tearing up over it. I wipe the tears from my eyes and I just have to laugh a little as I lay down the flowers. There are more flowers lying there. I don't know whose they are and I don't care, but I'm also grateful for that as well.

“Well then,” I say, trying to be strong and sitting down on the grass next to the tombstone. /Finally together forever,/ it says. /Lannie Williams-Lane and Walter Lane/. My hand trails over the smooth stone and I can't keep it dry anymore, tears are rolling over my face. “I guess I can talk to the two of you, but I really came here for Walter...” I pause for a second, searching for words. “There were some things I wanted to say to you, things that were so rudely cut off by that godforsaken bullet. I wanted to tell you that I survived, like you wanted me to. The Corporation still exists, I have to admit, and the situation has been resolved in a rather unsatisfying manner. Stender has sent Young on an extended vacation while he's taking back control over the Corporation and is cleaning up the messes. They put a spin on things. You've been shot down for insubordination during a League match, and they declared me the winner of the Southern League.”

My fingers tighten around the smooth headstone. I have to close my eyes for a moment, blinking away hot tears of guilt. “And somehow it seems as a betrayal to you, because I never wanted it to end this way for you. But I've been thinking a lot, and talking a lot to people. I talked to Valentina Marin. She allowed me to live. She could have killed me but didn't, and she's the one who arranged me to live. Young would have killed me, I think, but she didn't. And I have to let it go, I have to move on, but I'm having these dreams and all this guilt flying around and I have to settle this with you somehow, I have to talk to you. I wish I could really talk to you or Raoul and explain things, new insights. I wish we could sit down in that fucking bar again and I could tell you what I've learnt.” I sigh deeply before I can continue. “Because you know, the Corporation is a bastard because the world wants it to be. And Young and Berntsson are bastards because the world wants them to be. They're paid to be bastards, because pain and violence sells. Fuck, you and I and Lannie were avid League fans before this whole thing went to shit. And everybody is. That's just the way of the world right now. And I hate it, but there's not much we can do about it. We did make our point though, we did make our stand.”

I smile a little, lifting my face to the sun as if it can dry my tears. “Everybody watched us while we refused to kill each other. And I don't think there's going to be a League anymore in the way they used to be. That has ended. The Corporation still exists and I think that they're going to try to do something else now, but the League as it was is over now. They can't pull this shit off anymore. And we accomplished that for a part. So it was not all in vain.”

More tears trickle over my face. It seems that I cannot really stop it. It's all coming out now, all the pain, all the turmoil I've been in during the past months, no, year even. “Because you know... you're with Lannie now. You made your stand and I'd like to think that you're together now somewhere. I don't really believe in Heaven, but I do feel as if you're finally together again and that makes me cry... see?”

I laugh softly. “I cry because it makes me happy for you, even though I'm going to miss you. You changed my life. You saved my life. If not for you I would have probably died under Jovanovich pulse gun, or later because of that fucking sniper in the parking garage. That bullet was meant for me but you saved my life and I survived because of you, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.” Again I have to wipe my tears.

“Because of you my life goes on, and hopefully we've made the world a bit of a better place, even though the Corporation is still in it, even though humanity is rotten and lusting for blood still. But you and I, we were there when it counted. And I'm not ashamed of that. I am proud of that, and that's what I wanted to tell you. You and Lannie, take care of each other. And keep a place for me when I'm finally done surviving.”

I have to laugh again. The sound rings through the summer air. It sounds unguarded, happy. Like someone else. I haven't sounded like this in such a long time. “It might be a while though. I am kind of starting to enjoy this living thing again, and I'm a survivor through and through. Like you wanted me to be. So thank you.”

I slowly rise from my place in the grass, leaning on the marble tombstone, my fingers tracing the inscription. /Finally together forever/. I might join them some day. But not yet.

Not yet.

Lanfir Leah

5 November 2007