Panic Button

by Frazer Lee

  The door clicked open, rousing her from her thoughts, and she watched as Dave emerged. To her surprise, the skin around his eyes was red raw with tears. He moved to the back of the aircraft, footsteps dragging on the floor, and leaned against the hull. Gwen craned her neck to glance back at him. He was sobbing into his shirtsleeve. Maybe she had been too harsh in her assessment of him. He was human like everybody else. She felt a little sorry for him.

  Just then, Dave glanced back at her, his eyes streaming. He returned her pitying look with a hateful glower that made her break eye contact.

  “Gwen. You are up next,” Alligator said.

  She shuffled in her seat nervously, then gathered all her strength and walked quietly to the bathroom. Please help me God, she thought, terrified of what she might face beyond that door.

  The bathroom had lost all of its earlier glamour, feeling like a cold, threatening place to Gwen now. She sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, hands trembling slightly as she place the headphones over her ears.

  “Actions speak louder than words, Gwen,” Alligator intoned, “So I have something to show you.”

  His grinning green face disappeared from the big TV screen opposite her, replaced by a video-feed. The camera lens view revealed a drab concrete room, like a storage unit. Audio of muffled cries kicked in over the headphones. The sound disturbed Gwen gravely. And then she froze in her seat, recognising the figure the cameraman was closing in on.

  “Emily? No!”

  Her sister was tied to a heavy wooden chair. Perversely, the chair was beautifully upholstered, designed for comfort, not the torture for which it was being put to use now. Emily had thick gaffer tape wrapped around her mouth, preventing her from screaming as she struggled against her bonds. The rough rope keeping her arms tight to those of the chair had broken her skin, making livid red bracelets of her wrists.

  “Emily... please don’t...” Gwen pleaded.

  “It is time for you to take someone else’s advice for once,” Alligator responded harshly, “So I suggest you listen closely.”

  On the screen Emily bucked in her seat, terrified, as the cameraman poured petrol from a canister all over her.

  “They say being burnt alive is an agonising death,” Alligator continued, matter-of-factly.

  “Stop! Please stop!” Gwen sobbed.

  “I will let her live only if you manage to complete one simple task...”

  Gwen listened intently, her eyes widening with horror as Alligator described what his task would require of her.

  Eleven

  Max looked on as Gwen returned to her seat in the cabin. Her hands were shaking as she tried to wipe the torrent of tears from her face. Jo and Dave sat in stony silence, lost in whatever dark thoughts Alligator had provoked with his one-on-one ‘chats’.

  Whatever it is, it isn’t insurmountable if we stick together, Max thought, chewing on the knuckles of his right hand. He’d made a fist without realising it. They would be good for the fight if they could just operate as a team.

  Max looked around at his fellow ‘team members’. Dave looked borderline psychotic; Gwen and Jo ready to top themselves. Yay, go team, Max joked to himself bitterly. He cleared his throat. Someone had to say something. Might as well face it - it was going to be him.

  “Whatever’s going on, we’ve got to stick together. We can’t let them beat us, okay?”

  Gwen looked at him with swollen eyes. She looked like she was trying her best to believe his words. Jo avoided his gaze, however, staring at the floor with a guilty look. Dave just shook his head, troubled, taking no solace from Max’s words of encouragement.

  “Max. You’re next,” Alligator boomed.

  Max stayed stubbornly where he was. Jo glanced up at him, nervous, as he remained sat in his seat.

  Dave let out a pained sigh. “Look mate, just fucking go will you?”

  Max looked to Gwen for support, finding only regret in her eyes.

  Outvoted, Max tousled his hair, headed for the bathroom - and prepared for the worst.

  He sees me, thought Max.

  The Alligator’s face looked somehow more sardonic in the close confines of the bathroom. Its computer-generated skin and white-fanged sanguinary smile were reflected in the glass of the shower cubicle, the chrome of the taps and the mirror above the sink. Reptilian forms multiplying into a legion of reflected orange eyes, their black slits watching Max from every possible angle within the cloying, clinical space.

  Max glanced at his own reflection in the mirror. He could tell Alligator his secret, right now - throw a spanner in the workings of his twisted game. He rehearsed the revelation in his head, his methodical mind mapping possible outcomes if he were to utter the words. Perhaps it would it be better to wait, until he had no other option. And what if their captor already knew - what then?

  “I have a very special assignment for you.”

  Alligator’s voice penetrated Max’s ears. It felt like the reptile was burrowing through the headphones into his very thoughts.

  “Failure to complete it will result in the death of Mike, your brother...”

  Max glared at the Alligator on the screen, then looked up at the mirror again.

  He sees me, thought Max, but he doesn’t know me.

  The engines droned on, sounding louder than ever, the winners rooted to their seats in dread contemplation. Dave’s eyes darted across the cabin as Jo got up out of her seat suddenly and marched across to the bar area. She turned her back on him as she leaned her hands on the bar, glasses and bottles twinkling in the bar’s built-in mood lighting.

  Jo and Dave looked over at the bathroom door as it burst open. Max swayed back into the cabin, tight-lipped. Gwen sat still in her seat, grimacing as the computer screens flickered to life again with the Alligator’s face grinning at them, all white teeth.

  “Now that you all have your personal assignments,” he announced, “you have forty five minutes to complete them.”

  Max stopped in his tracks, whirling around to look at the monitor nearest to him.

  The Deppart Airlines flight path map appeared on their screens, little aeroplane icon showing their position relative to the European landmass.

  “As you have already deduced, this plane is bound for Oslo,” Alligator stated casually, “Where your journey will end as you crash into the All2gethr.com headquarters...”

  Shock and disbelief resonated around the cabin, all colour drained from the passengers’ faces.

  “What the hell...?” Max began.

  Alligator’s voice betrayed no sign of any emotion. “You will all die, along with everyone in the building.”

  “No, no, no! Wait, please don’t do this - you don’t have to do this!”

  Jo grabbed hold of her monitor screen, fingernails scraping against the artificial warmth of its plastic casing.

  Gwen looked punch-drunk, leaning against the arm of her chair, head reeling.

  “This isn’t real... it’s just a game... just a game...” she murmured, her voice trailing off into silent terror.

  The plane lurched, losing altitude in a pocket of air, and Gwen cried out in fear.

  They each caught their breath as the jet righted itself with a discernable whine of its engines.

  “That sinking feeling,” Alligator quipped.

  Dave’s face was red with rage. “Listen you prick, this joke stops now! Right now!”

  “On the contrary Dave, ‘this joke’ starts now.” The Alligator sounded on the verge of laughter, enjoying himself. “Are we having fun yet?”

  Max shook his head in abject frustration, before dropping his head into his hands.

  Gwen glanced across at him, seeing the tears he was trying so desperately to hide. But there was no room to hide such things in the brightly lit confines of the tiny jet. Gwen began to cry too, despair seeping from her eyes.

  “Hold it together, please!” Jo said.

  She clenched her fists, pushing her arms down each side of her body. It was th
e only physical act of control left to her. Raising her head to the ceiling, she shouted at Alligator.

  “You can’t do this! What about my baby girl? What about...”

  Dave regarded her with an impatient look. “Banging on about your kid again. You think that just because you’ve got a daughter, we’ve got less at stake than you?”

  Jo’s voice faltered. His words were harshly spoken, but true. They all had someone special to lose from their friend list. Her thoughts turned to Maddie. The last she’d heard of her sister, via a collect call to Dawn, she was in Thailand. Jo hoped she was safe. She should be - Maddie was possibly the only human being alive not to be an All2gethr user. Hell, she didn’t even own a mobile phone.

  “Nothing can save you now,” Alligator said, as calm, firm and clear as an onboard safety announcement. “But you do have a chance to save your loved ones’ lives. Discuss your assignments and they will die. Fail your assignments and they will die. Complete your assignments successfully, to the letter, and they will live. You each have your instructions. No conferring.”

  The screens fizzed with digital noise, distorting the Alligator’s jaws into a vile gash, before snapping off again. His words hung in the main cabin like a sickness, their weight bearing down on the frayed sanity of the passengers.

  “What do we do now?”

  Jo looked around the cabin in panic. Dave fixed her with a look, catching a glimpse of guilt in her eyes as she looked away.

  “What choice do we have?” he asked, “We have to do what we’re told don’t we? Or else...”

  “Why me, what have I done to anybody?” Gwen sobbed.

  “Why any of us?”

  Dave’s question was loaded at Jo. That flash of guilt in her eyes was the real thing; he hadn’t imagined it. What was she up to?

  Jo shifted her weight from one foot to the other, feeling Dave’s gaze bearing down upon her.

  “What did he say to you, in there?” he asked, his voice lowered but pregnant with accusation.

  “Nothing.”

  “Rubbish. You’ve been acting weird since you came out of the bathroom. What did he say?”

  Dave closed in on Jo, intent on an answer. She turned her back on him, leaning on the bar again for support, a sea of alcohol inches from her nose. Dave grabbed her wrist, pulled her arm forcing her to face him.

  “Get off!” Jo wrestled free from his grasp, rubbing her wrist. “Keep away from me, you have no idea what I’ve got at stake.”

  “We all have,” Dave said, “If you’ve got the impression that I don’t care about my fiancée, then you’re dead wrong!” Rage crept into the blacks of his eyes.

  Jo swallowed. She’d seen anger like his before, been on the receiving end of a man’s uncontrollable temper - never again.

  “He’s got my little girl,” she protested, her voice choked with emotion, “She’s just a baby...”

  Jo’s eyes filled with tears.

  Dave glared at her coldly, as if assessing her feelings and checking they were genuine.

  “No, no, no, no!” Gwen made a fist around her scarf, tugging at it in frustration. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this, don’t you see? He said no conferring.”

  Dave ignored her wild eyes. “He said we can’t reveal our tasks, that’s all.”

  His eyes bore into Jo’s again. “What did he say?”

  Jo slowly shook her head in defiance. “Nothing,” she snarled.

  “Bollocks! I don’t trust you.”

  Jo took a step back from Dave’s sweaty bulk. Then it struck her.

  “You know what I think? You’ve got something to hide and you’re trying to cover up by pointing the finger at me.”

  Gwen tried to be the voice of reason. “Guys, please, we should be thinking about how we can get of this...”

  Engrossed in their argument, they didn’t notice Max retreat quietly to the crew prep area behind the curtain.

  Max bit down on his lip as his eyes scanned the little metal cupboard compartment doors. It had to be there somewhere. He looked again, and saw it, high up above the others. Recalling Alligator’s grim words in the bathroom, Max reached out and popped the catch on the metal door. It read: ‘EMERGENCY USE ONLY’.

  Back in the cabin, Dave’s mood had escalated. He looked desperate, cornered by Gwen and Jo who were both trying to reason with him, to make sense of their predicament. But Dave could only see as far as his own concern for Sarah.

  “We’re rats in a cage here!” he yelled. “We are fucked! And if we don’t play by his rules, a lot of people we know will be too!”

  Jo levelled her gaze. “You give up if you want. But I for one am not dead yet...”

  Max burst through the dividing curtain, back into the cabin, with an angry roar.

  Jo and the others recoiled.

  Max was brandishing an emergency crash axe, swinging it above his head like a berserker charging into battle.

  Bang! He smashed the heavy metal blade into Gwen’s touch screen. It broke away from the cabin wall, showering Jo and the others in sparks.

  They all backed off as Max continued smashing with the axe, not stopping until the screen was shattered and its wiring severed like an umbilical cord.

  “Jesus!” Dave exclaimed.

  Max looked up them, panting. He looked crazed clutching the crash axe, eyes red from stinging tears.

  Jo looked at the axe - the main blade formed a ‘P’ shape, with an ice pick protrusion at the back. It looked lethal.

  “Where... did you get that from? Jo asked.

  “He told me where to find it...” Max moved toward Jo’s touch screen. “Stand back!” he commanded.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Dave asked.

  “Cutting them off. These things are rigged. Webcams, microphones... so I’m de-rigging them.”

  Seeing Dave take a step towards him, Max held the axe aloft.

  “I said stand back!”

  “Don’t...” Gwen started.

  As Max glanced at her, Dave used the opportunity to step forward, blocking Max from attacking Jo’s touch screen.

  “For fuck’s sake, sit down,” Dave said. He sounded almost weary.

  “No!” Max protested, “If they can’t see or hear us, then the game’s over.”

  Careless of the axe, Dave pushed his face right into Max’s.

  “Don’t you give a shit about anyone other than yourself? Sit down, now, or I’ll knock you out you little prick!”

  Max swallowed dryly, Dave still right in his face.

  “I can’t do this...” he muttered, “My task...”

  Gwen covered her mouth with her hands.