The Zero Game

81

“Hit him, viv! Hit him now!” I shout.

Viv’s got the club up in the air. She still doesn’t swing.

“Be smart, Vivian,” Janos adds. “Regret is the worst burden to bear.”

“Harris, you sure?” she asks one last time.

Before I can answer, Janos squeezes my wrist, trying to break my grip. I can’t hold on to his ear any longer.

“D-Do it!” I demand.

With his back to Viv, Janos stays focused on my wrist, digging his fingers in deep. He doesn’t even bother looking back at her. Like all gamblers, he’s playing the odds. If Viv didn’t swing by now, she’s not swinging at all.

“Viv, please…!” I beg.

Her whole body’s shaking as the tears come even faster… She starts to sob, completely overwhelmed — but the golf club’s still up over her head.

“Harris…” she calls out. “I don’t want to-”

“You can do it,” I tell her. “It’s okay.”

“A-Are you…?”

“I swear, Viv — it’s okay… I promise…”

With one last stab, Janos jams his finger into my wrist. My grip pops open — but just as I slip, sliding down into the hole, he doesn’t let me fall. Instead, he grabs my fingers, crushing them together. A wide smile takes his face. He likes being in control… especially when he can use it to his advantage.

I dangle by my arm, watching Viv carefully. “Please… please do it!” I beg.

Viv swallows hard, barely able to speak. “J-Just… God forgive me,” she adds.

Janos stops. He hears something in her voice. Twisting slightly, he turns toward her.

Their eyes lock, and Janos checks again for himself. The rise and fall of her chest… the way she keeps readjusting her grip… even the way she keeps licking her bottom lip. In the end, Janos lets out a small, almost inaudible laugh. He doesn’t think she has it in her.

He’s wrong.

I nod at Viv. She sniffles up a final noseful of tears and mouths the word Bye. Turning back to Janos, she plants her feet.

C’mon, Viv — it’s him or you…

Viv pulls the club back. Janos again laughs to himself. And all around us, the air-handlers continue to chug. It’s a frozen moment. And then… as a drop of sweat leaves her nose… Viv puts all her weight behind the club and swings away. Janos immediately lets go of my hand and turns to pounce on her.

Janos expects me to fall back and drop to my death. But he doesn’t see the tiny foothold I’ve been balancing on for the past few minutes — a manmade divot that’s dug into the interior wall of the hole. The tip of my shoe grips the two-inch ledge. I flex my leg. And before either of them realizes what’s happening, I leap upward just enough to grab Janos by the back of his shirt. Lunging at Viv, he’s totally off balance. That’s his mistake — and the last one he’ll make in our little chess match. In any sport, especially politics, nothing works better than a good distraction. Barely able to hold the edge of the hole with my right hand, I yank him backwards with my left. He has no idea what’s happening. I give him a sharp tug toward the hole, duck down, and let gravity do the rest.

“What’re you — ?!” He never gets the words out. Tumbling out of control, Janos plummets backwards into the mouth of the hole. As he passes, he clutches at my shoulders… my waist… my legs… even the sides of my shoes. He’s moving too fast to get a handhold.

“Nooo…!” he screams, his final word echoing upward as he plunges and disappears in the darkness. I hear him bounce off one of the interior walls… then another. There’s a raw, scraping sound as he ping-pongs back and forth the whole way down. The screaming never stops. Not until the muted thud at the bottom.

A second later, a shrill siren wails from the depth of the hole. I’m not surprised. It’s the air intake system for the entire Capitol. Of course it’s alarmed. Capitol police won’t be far behind.

As the siren continues to howl, I clutch the concrete ledge and struggle to catch my breath. I peer downward, studying the depth of the darkness. Nothing moves. Except for the alarm, it’s a perfectly still black pond. The more I look at it, the more mesmerizing it gets.

“Harris, you okay?” Viv asks, kneeling down toward the edge.

“Get away from the hole!” a deep voice screams. Behind her, three Capitol policemen storm into the room, their guns aimed at both of us.

“Stewie, I need a lockdown on all vents!” the tallest officer barks into his radio.

“It’s not what you-!”

In an eye blink, the other two officers grip my armpits and haul me out of the hole. Tossing me facefirst on the ground, they try to cuff my hands behind my back. “My arm…!” I scream as they bend it back.

“You’re hurting him!” Viv shouts as the tall officer pins her down and puts her own set of cuffs on. “His arm’s broken!”

Both our faces are dripping with blood. They’re not listening to a word.

“Vents are going down,” a man’s voice squawks through the radio. “Anything else?”

“We got a body in the hallway and an unconscious guy up here!” the officer with the radio adds.

“Barry tried to kill me!” Viv yells.

Barry?

“We were attacked!” she says. “Check our IDs — we work here!”

“She’s telling the truth,” I stutter, barely able to pick my head up. My arm feels like it’s snapped in half.

“So where’s the attacker?” the shortest officer asks.

“Down there!” Viv shouts, flat on her chest and pointing with her chin. “Check the hole!”

“H-His body…” I add. “You’ll… You’ll find his body…”

The short officer motions to the tall one, who lifts the walkie-talkie to his lips.

“Reggie, you there yet?”

“Almost…” says a deeper voice that comes simultaneously from the radio and the opening of the hole. He’s down at the bottom. “Oh, man…” he finally adds.

“What you got?” the officer with the radio asks.

“There’s some bloodstains down here…”

“I told you!” Viv shouts.

“… all the explosive sniffers are crushed… the trail keeps going… and from the looks of it, he ripped the grating clear off the safety gate…”

Oh, no.

“That’s a forty-foot drop,” the officer with the radio says.

“Oh, he definitely did himself some damage,” Reggie says through the radio. “But I’ll tell you right now… I don’t see a body.”

I lift my chin off the ground. My arm’s the least of my worries.

“Jeff, make sure maintenance locks down those vents, and get Reggie some backup,” the shorter officer says to the one with the radio. “And Reggie…!” he adds, leaning over the edge of the hole and shouting as loud as he can, “… get outta there right now and start following that blood! He’s hurt, with at least a few broken paws. He couldn’t have gotten far.”