by Cameron Jace
Orin’s face is heating up. Like all of us, he tries to free himself, but can’t. He keeps pulling the trigger of the bow gun at me, as if it will unlock itself if he pulls it again and again. Only mine works, and I have every reason to eliminate Orin and save the day. I will be saving ten of us. What more can I ask for? What better excuse do I need?
But I can’t. I won’t. I pull away from the trigger.
The crowd is sad and confused. Timmy is going crazy, waving his hands around his head nervously. “Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Buzzer nutter!” he swears.
“I think you lost this round, Timmy,” I tell him. “What will you do? Kill us all, and lose your airing for tomorrow’s show? I will not shoot anyone, even if some of them were mean to me. Not under these circumstances. We’re all losing here.”
“Don’t you ever think a Monster is smarter than a Trickster,” he yells, showing his angry side. “This is so easy to solve, you wouldn’t believe it. And it will prove you don’t deserve the number ten.” He pushes a button.
I am expecting the ground underneath me to part, causing all of us to freefall into the net. It doesn’t happen.
I look around fiercely, wondering what that button Timmy pushed actually does. What did he activate or deactivate? My eyes lock with Orin’s. He is smiling wickedly at me. His finger is on the trigger. Timmy has unlocked Orin’s bow gun to eliminate me.
27
I’m watching the arrow spring out toward me. I don’t have enough time to reach for the trigger and shoot Orin.
I close my eyes, thinking it might not hurt so much that way.
Nothing happens. I open my eyes again.
I don’t know what is happening. I can’t see the arrow, or what happened to it. As a reflex, I pull my trigger anyway, counting the milliseconds it takes to reach Orin. It should be soon, but it feels like days. All the time the arrow takes to reach Orin, I am holding my breath. I don’t think I will be able to let it out if the arrow fails to hit him.
Orin takes my arrow in his neck with a surprised look on his face, as if wondering, like me, why his arrow never reached me. Maybe I am invincible.
The crowd celebrates Orin’s death, standing up and shouting, like in football games. The audience is so unbelievable. All they want to see is blood.
I look for Orin’s arrow around me, thinking he was a lousy shot.
Leo points at my left side. Orin’s arrow has hit one of the skaters next to me.
The crowd is going crazy. The ground underneath me opens abruptly, and the nine of us freefall safely downward into the net.
The fall is long. Being in the air with nothing to hold onto feels like sinking into a dream with the rare possibility of waking up. My stubborn mind refuses to accept that I have no control of anything here in the air. I keep trying to reach for something to hold on to. The screams of others are faint and distant, but I glimpse Vern drop like a fly before me. He is shorter than I am, but he is heavier. Even though I don’t see clearly, I am concerned about how I will hit the net. Things are blurry in front of me. I am not sure if I am upside down or what. While falling, the sky and the ground look similar. I have recognized Vern from his clothes. How will I hit the net? On my back? On my face? What does it matter?
I gasp for air, before I finally bounce onto the net. I fall on my face, my hands clawing the net, so I don’t fall farther down. Looking to my right, Bellona lands on top of Leo. I wonder if it is coincidental.
I need to stop thinking of Leo. I have more important things to do. You and I need to talk, brain-to-heart, off camera. That’s me talking to myself.
The net stretches to the max, leaving us safely about three feet above the creatures in the pool. They are ugly and scary, and want to eat us alive. That’s all I know.
There is a catch though. There is still that opening in the middle of the net that looks as if it was cut with scissors.
We hang on tight, clawing at the net, hands and feet gripping. The net keeps swinging and stretching, responding to our weight shifts and hysterical movements.
“Stop moving,” Leo demands. “If you keep moving, we’ll fall.” He tilts his head from under Bellona’s arm, looking at me. “Are you all right?”
I pretend I don’t hear him. It’s not like I am not happy with him asking me, but it feels awkward when Leo acts like a big brother on live TV, with over five million people watching. I don’t know why I feel that way.
Vern is the one nearest to the hole, and the crocodiles. I catch my breath, asking if everyone is all right. Leo asks me if I am all right again, with Bellona still clinging to him, like a monkey on his chest. This time I say yes.
Tall iron poles hold up the far sides of the circular net. I can see that the net looks like an inverted cone from down here. If I let go for a second, I will trot my way down to the center, to the hole, and eventually the open mouths of the crocodiles.
“I am alive!” Bellona screams, hitting the red button on the iAm.
I feel jealous. I hit my red button as fast as I can and say, “I am alive!”
I guess we’re still kids. Death games or regular games, we still have the enthusiasm to compete and play. Maybe this is what they can’t take away from us. The power to play.
The Summit might be full of grownups, older and more experienced. But they don’t have the energy, or the magical love for life we possess.
Vern is the last to say he is alive.
“Indeed you are,” Timmy replies enthusiastically, which worries me. Why would Timmy feel good about us surviving? My fears are confirmed when I hear the following sentence... “But only because it is still summer.”
I roll my eyes. What does he mean by that?
“Let’s test your survival rate in winter time,” he says.
What?
The screens show a close-up of the creepy Dame Fortuna, rolling the Wheel of Fortune one more time. The smirk on her face shows awful yellow teeth, with a golden one in the middle that scares the kitty-kats out of me. The noise the wheel produces is deafening, squeaking and crackling slowly as it rolls. I feel like some evil creature is scratching its long nails against the wall, to scare us all before it attacks.
The wheel turns, and it’s winter again…
The Artificial Sky changes. In a flash, it is raining heavily from above. I hate this.
I spit the pouring rain out of my mouth. It’s getting harder to hang onto the net in the rain. It’s irritating, and we might get a cold if it doesn’t stop soon. Other than this, I don’t see the danger of it. The net is just getting a little slippery. That’s all. What does Timmy have in mind?
The rain falls onto the Zeppelins too. The audience likes the scenery, shielded behind the glass. Some walk out to the balconies, holding umbrellas. So classy, I must say! This must be the pinnacle of entertainment for humankind in all their history, watching people die up close and personal, in such an unimaginably fake and artificial atmosphere. It’s even better than movies. And in the past, they thought 3D was the pinnacle of entertainment. Life itself has become an enormous, deadly 3D movie already. Anyone for a sequel?
But that’s not all. One of the iScreens shows a boy wearing the ClairVo, feeling so excited, standing out on the balcony without an umbrella, shivering in the cold. The ClairVo, strapped around his head and covering his eyes, is all white, looking cool and fashionable. One of the iScreens shows his friends sitting miles and miles away in their homes, wearing their own ClairVos, connected to the boy standing in the rain. His friends at home are as excited as him. They are shivering exactly like him, as if they were standing in the rain alongside. Whenever he feels anxious, they feel it too. It shows on their faces. Whenever he shudders, they shudder. What is this ClairVo thing? Can I send someone else my feelings from miles away?
Suddenly, Pepper shifts her position, lending a hand to Vern, who is about to fall into the pool. She is hanging upside down, with her legs close to my face.
Stupid me. I see Timmy’s dangerous trick now. The rain will raise t
he water level in the pool, which has walls high enough to meet with the hole at the bottom of the net. It’s only a matter of minutes before the crocodiles surface on the rising water, and reach for Vern.
I don’t know if I should support Pepper, and help Vern. I couldn’t shoot him because I believe no one has the right to end anyone’s life. But when it comes to him dying on his own because he can’t save himself, I don’t know if I should risk my life for him. It’s a survival game, after all. I’ve done all I can.
Pepper tries harder, stretching her arms. “You can do it, Vern,” she spits out, not mentioning that the crocodiles behind him are only two feet away from his legs. She amazes me sometimes, believing she is destined to die, yet having the will to save others.
“I don’t like this game at all,” Vern shouts. “Where is my bonus life?”
I crawl on all fours like a spider, to shift my weight, until I am upside down like her, hooking my legs through the gaps in the net to hold on, while I stretch my hand out to help. The crocodiles are so close to Vern. There is no way he can make it. I stretch my arms and they hurt, but I get a grip on Pepper’s foot, my other hand, like my feet, tangled in the net.
“Stop thinking you are disposable!” I scream at her in the rain.
I am sure the viewer meter is picking up. The viewers must be having the time of their lives in their homes, with the popcorn and beers on their laps. You won’t see this kind of stuff in your latest Zpiderman movie.
“Life is precious. You could have an amazing life,” I scream at Pepper.
She doesn’t listen to me, trying to kick my hand away. “You can do it, Vern. You can do it!” I hear her scream. She doesn’t preach about life being precious to him. “You can do it. Take my hand!” That’s all she says.
“It strikes me as odd that life is still precious.” Timmy’s voice is barely heard through the rain. “To a Monster, a Bad Kid, who will eventually die in a day or two, I say life is entertaining.”
The crowd has mixed feelings about this. I can tell from their voices. It’s not all hailing and clapping anymore. Something has changed. Just a little. That tiny voice of reason we love to kill like a cockroach, has started crawling into their heads.
Still, most of them are surely entertained.
“Stop the rain,” Bellona screams. “Turn back to summer.”
I have never imagined hearing such a sentence. It sounds as if Bellona is talking to God. She is only talking to the Summit, who has sewn the fabric of a nation, pretending to be gods.
Pepper succeeds in shaking my hand away. I wriggle, managing to keep my balance on the net, with her one left shoe in my hand. It’s her and Vern now. How many people will shout “I am alive” when this ends?
Pepper risks crawling closer to Vern. Their hands finally meet.
The audience in the Zeppelins moan. Most of them stand up again.
Holding onto Pepper, Vern climbs up finally. Clumsy and helpless as he is, he climbs past Pepper without even thanking her, using her like a stepping-stone. Raindrops run out of his ears. The crocodiles down there are getting frustrated, trying to stretch up to catch Vern. Then they turn their bad breath toward Pepper, who is now last in line, a foot away from their open jaws.
I climb down to her, trying to get hold of her feet again, but she is too far. Soon, the water will rise high enough for the crocodiles to reach her.
Some boy from the audience shouts Pepper’s name. “She doesn’t deserve to die!” he rants.
It strikes me as a one-in-a-million voice that no one would listen to. “She saved Vern!” The single sound keeps screaming in from the audience and his iAm.
In the middle of the mess, I remember Bellona again. They need us. The fact that they remember our names after just two days is something I don’t think has happened in previous games. Are they growing attached to us? Can we really use this? Can you use your enemy? Can we persuade them we are not the enemy?
I tilt my head and look at one of the iScreens soaked in the rain. The boy is short, grumpy, with thick sunglasses, wearing overalls with a famous construction company’s logo on them. He looks like a Five to me. He is about seventeen.
“The game is over!” the boy says. “You have to stop the game now, before she dies. I need to talk to her.”
Timmy isn’t paying attention.
I remember Pepper mentioning a boy last night, one who’s been raised like her, prepared to die at sixteen, but was surprised he got ranked a Five a year ago. They have been separated ever since.
28
The audience’s hearts stop…
The rain stops…
The crocodiles are suddenly locked behind bars in the pool.
The crowd is not looking at us anymore. They are all looking at the boy who claims he loves Pepper on the iScreens, and on the iAms, in front of more than five million viewers.
“You love her?” Timmy raises an eyebrow. “Her?” The camera closes in on Pepper, tangled in the net, with her once-stiff-and-dirty hair clinging to her temples. With her bad teeth, braces, and missing eyebrow. “Her?” Timmy repeats his question. “Don’t you see what she looks like? She is bad. She is useless. What could you possibly love about her?” Timmy shakes his head.
“I love her!” the boy insists.
“Mmm. That is an awfully bad-looking Monster you love,” says Timmy.
I adjust myself on the net, lay on my back, and catch my breath. Looking at an iScreen from down here, I see all the Nines, Eights, Sevens, Sixes, and Fives; they all seem human for a second. Something glows in their eyes. An invisible aura — I convince myself that I can see it — surrounds everyone. Imagine Faustina and her Teen-Gene friends. They have never experienced a moment like this: a boy from the ranked side of the world declaring his love to an outranked, a Monster, in public, on TV, and after such a heart-wrenching moment during the games.
The Wheel of Fortune turns back to normal and summer shines through again. Real summer, artificial-free. The sun warms my wet face from the rain. Even Dame Fortune has a single tear rolling down her ugly cheeks.
Imagine all of the Teen-Genes, the Nines, the Eights, and even the Sevens, watching this precious moment belonging to Pepper, in her honor. It doesn’t matter that the boy is a Five, bad-looking, or low-status according to the shallow rules of Faya. All that matters is the precious, ethereal emotions of this moment.
Whatever Timmy and the Summit will do to the boy, they can never erase this incident from the mind of the public, or from the books of history — I hope they won’t change Pepper’s name to Zepper. But if they do alter the truth in history books, how will they erase it from every ranked young girl’s memory, heart and soul? One day, they will be grandmas, and they will tell it to their children’s children.
“Did I ever tell you about the story of the boy who gave up his rank for the love of a Monster?”
Boy, this makes a better story than Cinderella.
The camera shows Prophet Xitler in distress, smoking his pipe, fidgeting on his throne impatiently. Timmy feels the tinge. He will crush the boy as punishment and revenge. I know it. It is the only way to keep his job. The only way the audience will not wake up tomorrow questioning the system.
“Well, I guess love carrots — I mean conquers all,” says Timmy sarcastically, biting on one of his carrots. “I say if you love a Monster that much, you might need to join her.”
We find out that the boy is already on his way to the Playa, having asked to join Pepper to tell her that he loves her. He had been watching the games from home. It will take him less than a minute to arrive in one of those speed planes provided by the Summit.
“To love a Monster, you must be a Monster,” says Timmy. The audience suddenly agrees, most of them. They have woken themselves up from the state of trance called love. “Our records show that this boy has bribed the interviewer into manipulating the iAm, and giving him a rank.”
I knew this would happen. Their system can’t be wrong. They will forge the b
oy’s history, and claim he is bad to please the crowd. The screens show the boy’s worst moments, sleeping in the gutter, footage of him in fights, holding a knife in public. Of course, the fabrication makes sense to the audience. From where he comes from, the same as Pepper, he can be easily mistaken for an outlaw. The audience doesn’t question how the boy from the poor neighborhood got his hands on enough money to bribe anyone. How could the invincible iAm possibly be manipulated? Nah, they wouldn’t use their heads on this one. They’d prefer to stay in the dark.
Should I expose myself now? Should I tell them that I am the one who switched the iAms?
I was mistaken. The Summit doesn’t play God. It’s the iAm. The illusion and misconception that you can know all you need to know about humans by gathering their data.
I am not my heart rate. I am not my skills. I am not my sleeping problems. I am not my stress. I am not my fears. I am not how I look. I am the very essence of me. I am my will. I am my passion. I am my beliefs. I am how much I can give and receive love. I am infinite and possible. I am my soul. How can the iAm ever measure this?
Most important of all, I am not that predictable.
It is this moment when the idea fills my head. After two days as an outranked, I feel so strong. If you want to rank me, if you insist on ranking me, I will show you what ranking is about. I will not be a Five, a Six, a Seven, an Eight, or even a Nine. I will be human. I will become a Ten, which everyone in the Faya thinks is a myth, because they are far from being human.
The boy’s name is Woodsy. Woodsy Brown. He is transported in a steel cage, rolled down from a plane into our battlefield.
Having left the net, standing on the asphalt on the streets, Pepper looks at me while we are waiting for Woodsy. She is mesmerized. She averts her eyes from me, and looks at the boy standing in the middle of the street, holding a single red rose.
Six million viewers are watching Woodsy and Pepper. That’s better than a royal wedding. Who wants to watch a prince and a princess, when they have Monsters in love?
