S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus by Saul Tanpepper Read Free Book Online

difference. One mile or ten, scuba gear or not, Kelly’s right. If the tunnels aren’t open, we might as well be talking about swimming through concrete.
    By rights, they should all be filled. Or at least gated. And for all we know, they could be caved in. It’s a hundred years old, for chrissake. And despite Ash’s assurances to me last night, I still seriously doubt they’d just leave the openings unblocked.
    Micah asks where the Manhattan opening for the Queens tunnel is.
    Ashley taps the screen. “The old midtown,” she says. “Between what used to be East 34 th and 35 th Streets.” She opens another file. Nods. “Yep. It’s totally underwater.”
    â€œ Okay, then,” Kelly says, holding up a gaming controller. “Now that that’s resolved, how about we—”
    â€œ Check it out?” Reggie says, straightening up. “Good idea. I mean, we won’t know for sure what it looks like unless we see it for ourselves, right?”
    Ash turns to me. “Did you bring it?” she asks.
    I nod and pat my Link. “Uploaded it last night, after Eric went to bed.” Kelly frowns at me like I’ve betrayed him.
    â€œ Woohoo!” Reggie shouts. “Road trip!”
    â€¡

Chapter 4
    The five of us pile into Micah’s beat up old Ford. It’s so ancient that it even has a docking station for the old Apple iCorp storage devices rather than getting music from the Stream.
    Micah drives. Reggie takes shotgun. The rest of us sit in back. We head down Route 95, which is the quickest way to Manhattan, even though it means having to pass through about a half dozen checkpoints, including the ones at each interstate border crossing.
    After about twenty minutes, we pass through the first. The guard looks bored. He scans our Links and doesn’t speak.
    I see the abandoned Teterboro Airport off in the distance. The moss-covered hangars poke out of the water like giant eggs that never hatched.
    Finally the guard waves us through. He doesn’t even bother to ask where we’re going.
    â€œ There’s the Meadowlands,” Reggie says, pointing off to the side a minute later, and I think about how the old football stadium looks like a giant concrete nest to go with the eggs.
    â€œ Don’t you mean the Swamplands?” Ashley remarks, making us all laugh.
    This leads to a discussion by the boys about the banned sport of football, with Reggie arguing that they should bring it back and Kelly saying it was a brutal sport that has no place in our world today. I want to slap him and ask what place zombies have in our world, and isn’t the television show, Survivalist , or The Game , on which it’s based, just as brutal? But I don’t. I feel like we’re already treading on thin ice today.
    We come to another checkpoint just before crossing the new elevated bridge that will take us into Manhattan. Here, the guard asks us where we’re going and what we’re doing. “School project,” Ash pipes up. The guard gives us a doubtful look and she quickly adds, “Summer school.”
    â€œ College track,” he says, sneering, but he scans our Links, then asks if we all have implants. After recording our IDs, he lets us pass.
    â€œ School?” Reggie asks, once we’re clear. “Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”
    Ash laughs and shrugs and says she just got nervous. “You know me. I don’t think well under pressure.”
    Soon we’re zooming right over Central Park. Looking down is enough to make anyone queasy, but Reggie sticks his head out the window and howls like a wolf. The wind whips the spit from his lips, and I’m suddenly glad I’m sitting in the middle of the backseat. If anyone gets sprayed, it’s Kelly, but he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there glowering out the window.
    I elbow him and give him a smile. He sighs and offers me a half