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“You’re referring to the Wonderland program. But you’re forgetting that we are more than the sum of<br />
our experiences. Human beings can be marvelously unpredictable. Your rescue of Ben Parish during the<br />
fall of Camp Haven, for example, defied logic and ignored the first prerogative of all living things: to<br />
continue living. Or your decision yesterday to give yourself up when you realized capture was the little<br />
girl’s only chance to survive.”<br />
“Did she?”<br />
“You already know the answer to that question.” Impatiently, like a harsh teacher to a promising<br />
student. He gestures at the board: Play.<br />
I wrap a hand around my fist and squeeze as hard as I can. Imagining my fist is his neck. Four<br />
minutes to choke the life out of him. Just four minutes.<br />
“Teacup’s alive,” I tell him. “You know the threat to fry my brain won’t make me do what you want<br />
me to do. But you know I’ll do it for her.”<br />
“You belong to each other now, yes? Connected as if by a silver cord?” Smiling. “Anyway, besides<br />
the serious injuries from which she may not recover, you’ve given her the priceless gift of time. <strong>The</strong>re is<br />
a saying in Latin. Vincit qui patitur. Do you know what it means?”<br />
I’m beyond cold. I’ve reached absolute zero. “You know I don’t.”<br />
“‘He conquers who endures.’ Remember poor Teacup’s rats. What can they teach us? I told you when<br />
you first came to me; it isn’t so much about crushing your capacity to fight as it is your will to fight.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> rats again. “A hopeless rat is a dead rat.”<br />
“Rats do not know hope. Or faith. Or love. You were right about those things, Private Ringer. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
will not deliver humanity through the storm. You were wrong, however, about rage. Rage isn’t the<br />
answer, either.”<br />
“What’s the answer?” I don’t want to ask, don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I can’t help it.<br />
“You’re close to it,” he says. “I think you might be surprised how close you are.”<br />
“Close to what?” My voice sounds as small as a rat’s.<br />
He shakes his head, impatient again. “Play.”<br />
“It’s pointless.”<br />
“A world in which chess does not matter is not a world in which I wish to live.”<br />
“Stop doing that. Stop mocking my father.”<br />
“Your father was a good man in thrall to a terrible disease. You shouldn’t judge him harshly. Nor<br />
yourself for abandoning him.”<br />
Please don’t go. Don’t leave me, Marika.<br />
Long, nimble fingers clawing at my shirt, the fingers of an artist. Face sculpted by the merciless knife<br />
of hunger, the infuriated artist with the helpless clay, and red eyes rimmed in black.<br />
I’ll come back. I promise. You’re going to die without it. I promise. I’ll come back.<br />
Vosch is smiling soullessly, a shark’s smile or a skull’s sneer, and if rage is not the answer, what is?<br />
I’m squeezing my fist hard enough to force my nails into my palm. Here’s how Evan described it,<br />
Sullivan said, wrapping her fist in her hand. This is Evan. This is the being inside. My hand is the rage,<br />
but what is my fist? What is the thing wrapped up in rage?<br />
“One move from mate,” Vosch says softly. “Why won’t you make it?”<br />
My lips barely move. “I don’t like to lose.”<br />
He pulls a silver device the size of a cell phone from his breast pocket. I’ve seen one before. I know<br />
what it does. <strong>The</strong> skin around the tiny patch of adhesive sealing the insertion point on my neck begins to<br />
itch.<br />
“We’re a little beyond that stage,” he says.<br />
Blood inside the fist that’s within the hand clenching the fist. “Push the button. I don’t give a shit.”<br />
He nods approvingly. “Now you’re very close to the answer. But it is not your implant linked to this