All Against All

by Nathan Allen

  The unpredictable nature of the lottery was the main reason why the members of the Consortium preferred it to regular gambling. Roulette and blackjack have a finite number of outcomes. The lotteries have an infinite number.

  No one can ever predict what a contestant will do, or how they will react. There was almost no way of guessing the winner based solely on their appearance.

  Alice clutched at her temples. Her vision skewed. She tried to stop the room from spinning. This was too much information – too much bizarre information – entering her brain all at once, and her head was starting to reject it.

  She had spilled everything to Lachlan, telling him the whole story from beginning to end – the invitation, the meeting, the lottery, and the recent deaths.

  Moments after Alice opened her mouth, Lachlan knew exactly what she had gotten herself mixed up in. He had heard all the stories about the Consortium, this thirteen-headed hydra and the twisted games they played, but he was never really sure how much of it was true and how much was inflated embellishment. But everything Alice had just described confirmed his worst fears.

  “What a total waste of money,” Alice said, once Lachlan had filled her in on everything he knew about the Consortium. “Throwing away a hundred million dollars on a stupid contest.”

  “A hundred million means nothing to them,” Lachlan said. “They’d lose that much in an average poker game.”

  “I still don’t get it. Why bother going to all that trouble? If they love gambling so much, why not just hit the big casinos of the world?”

  “Because casinos are for regular people. Mere mortals, like you and me. The Consortium regard themselves as advanced beings.”

  “And the normal rules of society don’t apply to them?”

  “More or less. When you reach that level of wealth and power, there isn’t much you can’t get away with. You live in a world free from consequences.”

  Alice shook her head. “This is so messed up. I still can’t believe anyone would do this.”

  “You have to understand the mindset of these people. They’ve already cleaned out the world’s biggest casinos. They’ve won and lost tens of millions on a single horse race. Conventional gambling doesn’t excite them anymore. They’re like junkies or thrill-seekers. They want something more extreme, something where the stakes are as high as they can possibly go.”

  “So the only way they can get off now is by watching strangers kill one other, like schoolboys watching seagulls fighting over a discarded sandwich?”

  “Hey, you don’t become obscenely wealthy by being a decent and thoughtful person. That kind of fortune is accessible only by losing all touch with humanity. These people are so far removed from the rest of us that they no longer view us as human. We’re like a different species to them.”

  This was almost too much for Alice to comprehend. The news just kept getting worse and worse. It was bad enough that she found herself trapped in an impossible situation, with her life rapidly spiraling out of control. But the fact that it had all been orchestrated for the amusement of a bunch of bored rich creeps playing their status games made her seethe with immeasurable rage.

  “So now you have some idea of what you’re up against,” Lachlan said.

  “Maybe I was better off not knowing,” Alice said. “You know, ignorance is bliss.”

  “That may be true, but ignorance won’t do anything to increase your odds of survival. And for the record ...”

  Lachlan used a pencil to lift up the gun that Alice had come perilously close to shooting him with. He took great care to avoid getting his prints on it.

  “This won’t either.”

  “Can I ask you something, Alice?”

  Alice’s eyes reluctantly blinked open. She was in the half-awake half-asleep zone, her head resting against the car window as they rattled towards their destination. It was just before five a.m.

  “Don’t ask if you can ask me a question, Lachlan,” she murmured. “Just ask it.”

  “Okay. What would you have done if I really was an intruder?”

  “I would have shot you.”

  “I figured that. But I mean afterwards. You’d have a dead body with a bullet inside it sitting in your apartment. How would you explain that to the police?”

  “Don’t worry, I’d already thought of that.”

  Lachlan waited for her to elaborate. “Well?”

  Alice stifled a yawn. “I would have told them the gun was yours. I’d say that you broke in, there was a struggle, and the gun discharged.”

  Lachlan didn’t say anything, but he had to admit he was impressed. That was actually a pretty convincing cover story.

  Alice closed her eyes and pulled her blanket up over her body.

  The two of them were on the lookout for a suitable place to test out Alice’s new weapon. Lachlan had tried to convince Alice to get rid of the illegal firearm, explaining that the risks of keeping the gun far outweighed any theoretical safety benefits, but his advice fell on deaf ears. Alice knew she would need something to protect her. Maybe not right away. But they’d be coming for her sooner or later, and she wanted to be prepared.

  Besides, the gun had cost fifteen grand. She wasn’t about to just throw it away.

  Lachlan then insisted that if she was going to keep it, she should at least make sure she knew how to use it, and that it worked properly.

  “You do understand how dangerous those things are, don’t you?” he said after a few minutes of tense silence. “People have had their fingers blown off by improvised firearms.”

  Alice responded without opening her eyes.

  “Yes, Lachlan.”

  “The people making them don’t really know what they’re doing. They just cobble together a bunch of parts using some old blueprints.”

  “I know that, Lachlan.”

  Another tense silence. Lachlan gripped the steering wheel and stared into the infinite stretch of road before him.

  “You know how much trouble you could get in? You don’t even have to have the gun in your possession for them to throw you in prison. Just fingerprints or DNA is enough for a conviction.”

  “I know that, Lachlan!” Alice snapped, a little louder than she had intended. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but you don’t have to keep explaining everything to me. I’m well aware of the risks, and I know how unbelievably stupid my behavior is.”

  “I’m only trying to help,” Lachlan said quietly.

  “Well, given that you’re currently wanted for kidnapping, I don’t think you’re in any position to lecture me on my poor life choices.”

  Alice flicked the radio on, then turned her body away and closed her eyes. She made another futile attempt at snatching a few more minutes’ sleep.

  Neither one spoke for the remainder of the journey.

  Theirs was the only vehicle on the road at this early hour of the morning. Vast fields of nothingness swept by on either side. The thin light of dawn peeked over the horizon.

  Half an hour later, they arrived at a secluded spot near an abandoned quarry.

  They now found themselves well and truly in the middle of nowhere. Alice thought Lachlan was being ridiculously cautious by driving almost three hours away from the city to test out the gun, but Lachlan insisted on putting as many miles between themselves and civilization as possible. They had to make sure they were out of range of any surveillance crafts; not to mention nosy farmers who might call the police after hearing gunshots in the distance.

  Lachlan assembled a makeshift stand by wedging a plank of wood in between two large rocks. He taped the handle of the gun to the wood, then carefully tied a length of fishing wire around the trigger.

  “Stand back,” he said, unspooling the fishing wire towards his car. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Alice couldn’t help but groan. Lachlan was being dramatic, making a bigger deal out of this than it needed to be. She knew he was well-intentioned, and that he was only doing what he belie
ved a protective “older” brother was supposed to do. But from time to time, this could come across as patronizing.

  She took a few backward steps and leaned against the hood of the car.

  “Further,” Lachlan said. “Go around the other side.”

  “I’m already standing fifty feet away.”

  “Just get behind the car. In case something goes wrong.”

  Alice let out a small huff, then moved around to the other side.

  “Is this necessary?” she said. “I mean really, what do you expect will happen?”

  “I don’t know what to expect, Alice. The whole thing could explode and send pieces of shrapnel flying. Anything could happen, which is why we have to take precautions.”

  Lachlan ran the fishing wire underneath the car. He came around and crouched down beside Alice.

  “Ready?” Lachlan asked.

  “Let’s do this,” Alice replied with minimal enthusiasm.

  Lachlan wrapped the fishing wire around his fingers, then pulled hard. Nothing happened.

  He tried a second time. Still nothing.

  He peered up above the car. The gun was exactly as he’d left it – taped to the plank of wood, pointing in the opposite direction.

  He ducked back down and tugged at the wire once more. Nothing.

  “Dammit,” he said under his breath.

  “What is it?” Alice asked.

  “I’m not sure. The trigger might be jammed.”

  A small part of Alice died upon hearing this. Fifteen thousand dollars spent on a gun that didn’t shoot.

  Lachlan gave the wire one final hard yank. This time, the gun discharged.

  A booming thunderclap exploded, rebounding around the hills and plains for miles and miles.

  A millisecond later, the car’s two front windows exploded.

  A shower of glass rained down on Alice. She threw her arms up over her head in an attempt to shield herself from the deluge.

  The echo of the gunshot faded, and an eerie silence took its place. A brief passage of time passed.

  The two siblings remained there a moment longer, both crouched in a tight ball.

  Lachlan was the first to raise his head. He looked up, then crawled across to Alice. She had weathered the brunt of the onslaught.

  “Are you alright?” he said.

  “I think so,” she replied.

  Alice carefully picked the fragments of glass from her hair. She ran her hand across her face and neck to check she hadn’t suffered any cuts.

  “Okay, what just happened?” she said.

  The two of them climbed to their feet and cautiously approached the gun. It was still intact. A thin ribbon of smoke trailed out from the end of the barrel.

  Lachlan knelt down for a closer inspection. “There seems to be an obstruction in the chamber,” he said, peering inside.

  He looked at where the gun was positioned, then to the two shattered windows directly behind.

  “Oh, Jesus. I don’t believe it.”

  “What is it?”

  “The bullet flew out of the gun in the opposite direction.” A burst of unintentional laughter escaped from Lachlan’s mouth. He shook his head in wonder. “This thing shoots backwards.”

  Alice was hit by a wash of cold air when she realized she had relinquished her savings in exchange for a gun that didn’t work properly.

  On a more positive note, any concerns she may have held about the gun’s lack of firepower were put to rest. The car’s windows had been completely obliterated.

  Lachlan tried not to smirk as he unwound the tape from around the gun’s handle. But he couldn’t help himself.

  “Looks like you’ve dodged a bullet there, Alice,” he said.

  The drive back home was uncomfortable, and not just because they were traveling inside a rental car missing its two front windows. Or that they were irritated by the tiny granules of glass on the seats that they weren’t able to remove completely.

  Alice was still fuming over the fact that she had emptied her bank account and risked prison for a gun that was more likely to kill her than the intended target.

  She had no idea what she was going to do with the useless firearm currently sitting between her feet. She wanted to get rid of it immediately by tossing it into the quarry, or in a body of water somewhere, but Lachlan reminded her that it could still be traced back to her through forensic analysis. She could remove her fingerprints from the weapon, but not her DNA.

  She could try taking it back to the place she bought it from. But she doubted Joel Ozterhauezen offered any sort of refund policy for his products. Besides, Carling Crescent was the last place on earth she wanted to revisit.

  She could attempt to recoup some of the money by selling it on the streets herself. But this would involve risking a lengthy prison sentence if she was caught – not to mention the potential retribution she’d face when the buyer discovered they’d been sold a dud.

  She was left with little choice but to hold onto it for the time being. She’d have to stash it away somewhere, chalk this whole episode up to a very expensive life lesson, and hope like hell it never gets discovered. Then, when the time was right, she would find a way to destroy or dispose of it permanently. Maybe she could try dismantling it piece by piece, or melt it down with a blowtorch.

  Until then, it would simply become another problem that Alice would have to learn to live with.

  They arrived back in the city, just as the morning traffic was beginning to swell.

  A police car drove by with its sirens blaring, and Lachlan was struck by a crippling attack of nerves. All he could think about was what would happen if he was pulled over. A wanted kidnapper, behind the wheel of a rental car with its two front windows shot out, and an illegal firearm in the front seat. He may as well have the words “ARREST ME” spray-painted across the hood.

  All Alice could think about was that she was exhausted before the day had even begun, and she still had a full day of work to look forward to.

  Chapter 14

  Lachlan didn’t stick around for too much longer after dropping Alice back at her place. He was visibly on edge the whole trip back, terrified of the potential ramifications of being stopped by the police.

  Alice knew he felt bad about leaving her in the lurch like this. But she also knew he wasn’t left with much of a choice. He was being pursued by a number of seriously aggrieved law enforcement agencies. Staying in one place for any length of time was far too risky. Besides, there was nothing he could do that would help Alice with the lottery. There was nothing anyone could do.

  They said their goodbyes, and then he was gone.

  A few minutes after Lachlan left, it dawned on Alice that today could have been the last time they would ever see each other. Neither one appeared to have anything resembling a bright future. Her participation in the lottery meant that she could be taken out at any moment. He could be arrested and tossed in a cell at any moment, never to be seen or heard of again.

  Alice went to work and sleepwalked her way through another day. Long periods were spent in a trance-like state, staring into the abyss of her screen and zoning out for minutes at a time.

  Dinah passed her cubicle on several occasions, but she mistook Alice’s stupor for intense concentration and left her alone.

  At around mid-afternoon, a time of day she struggled to stay awake even at the best of times, a sudden revelation descended on her from out of nowhere. It was as if the pieces from a jigsaw puzzle had been fed into her subconscious and rearranged to form a clear image.

  She didn’t know what made her think of it, but the article from a few weeks ago somehow floated back into her brain. The one about the lottery. The one that had been suppressed under mysterious circumstances. Dinah didn’t tell her who had ordered the suppressing, only that it was someone “higher up”.

  Now it all made sense. The more thought she devoted to it, the more she came to recognize just how high up this directive had come.

  It
could only have come from one person. And that one person was Solomon Turner.

  Alice’s boss, the owner of The Daily Ink, and the world’s tenth-richest man.

  Solomon Turner had personally intervened and ordered her story be put to death.

  And it didn’t require any great mental leaps to figure out why he would want to kill off a potentially high-rating article like that.

  It was because Solomon Turner was part of the Consortium. He was one of the thirteen betting on whether Alice would live or die.

  Alice slipped out of work a few minutes later. She invented an excuse about leaving early to follow up on a hot story, but in the end she simply left without bothering to tell anyone.

  She stepped outside, then put her head down and started walking. She didn’t know where she was going. She only knew that she had to get away from the office. She needed to clear her head before it collapsed under the immense weight.

  The realization that Solomon Turner was partly responsible for Alice’s present situation buzzed around inside her brain like a bumblebee trapped in a jar.

  How did she end up in this position?

  Was this all a huge coincidence, or had she been specifically targeted to take part in the lottery?

  Had she said or done something to attract her boss’s attention?

  These were all questions she knew she would probably never find answers to.

  She paced for another two blocks before coming across a crowd of people. There was some sort of commotion going on.

  She moved in closer, and saw that the road ahead was blocked off with a wall of flashing lights. Police, ambulance and media crews were all there, jostling for prime position.

  Alice stood back and waited, unable to move any further. It didn’t take long for the inevitable game of Chinese whispers to commence.

  “Some poor man was hit by a truck while crossing the road,” she heard one onlooker say.

  “He wasn’t crossing the road, he was pushed,” whispered another.

  “... it was the most horrible thing I have ever seen ...”

  “... he was just standing there minding his own business when this guy came out of nowhere and shoved him under the wheels of the truck ...”