by Robin Roseau
"Because you only won by cheating. Jasmine told me."
She spoke. "She asks me if this is true, that I accused her of cheating. Ms. Fletcher, you are mistaken. I never told you that Bronze cheated. Perhaps you should stop speculating and tell her only what you know. Your justified anger is clouding your judgment. Revert to facts."
She turned to face Bronze. "Humans. So quick to jump to conclusions."
"Fuck you," I said. That phrase was getting a lot of work, but I couldn't come up with anything better. "You said-"
"I never said or even hinted that Bronze was involved in any cheating."
I stared at her.
"Stick to facts, Ms. Fletcher."
"Fine."
"I believe a good place to begin is during the late evening during your challenge. You had an effective hiding point. She nearly found you once but never came close after that. What happened?"
"You and your damned game," I said. "You told her where I was."
"No. What did I do?"
"You told her how far away from her I was, and it wouldn't take very many of those before she'd find me."
"Ah, but there was a price for that information. She had to answer my questions."
Bronze spoke. Jasmine translated. "She says she wouldn't have agreed to play if I weren't already telling you the distance to her."
"I didn't need to know! I was happy to hide. I only agreed to play because Jasmine was already giving away my location, and with that kind of help, I had to leave my hiding place."
Bronze and I faced each other and then at the same time, we slowly turned our heads towards Jasmine.
"I may have lied to both of you," she said sweetly. "You both refused to play my game until I told you the other was already playing. In fact, you both seemed a little offended at the suggestion I'd help you unfairly. You were both feeling quite competitive at that point."
I turned my head back towards Bronze. We looked at each other, and then she nodded.
"Ms. Fletcher, do you believe either of us feigned our concern when you tumbled into the stream?"
"I don't think she did. I don't know about you."
"All right. After that, what happened?"
"She went back to her starting point, or so you said."
"She did."
"And then I returned to the stream, traveled down it until shortly after the twenty minutes was up."
Bronze interrupted.
"She said you mean an hour."
And then we both turned towards Jasmine again. She shrugged, a gesture I was sure she picked up from me. "I may have lied about that, too."
After that, I stopped watching Bronze. Instead I watched Jasmine. "I found a new hiding place, just far enough from the stream that I didn't think my bell would reach. Administrator Brighteyes promised me she wouldn't tell you where I was, so I felt comfortable sleeping there. In the morning, I decided if you'd had the entire night to look for me and hadn't, you weren't likely to. I only needed seven more hours. I was bored, but I could last seven hours."
"But then what happened?"
"You told me she was on my trail and was on the verge of finding me."
Bronze spoke. Jasmine didn't translate.
"Don't bother," I said. I looked at Bronze. "You had no idea where I was, did you?"
She shook her head slowly.
"That's what she said this morning. She told me she'd lied, that you couldn't find me, but during the challenge, she assured me repeatedly you were certainly going to find me but suggested I could sneak past your traps. I was sure I couldn't. You'd had all night to set them. Once I moved, I was only trying to drag out the inevitable. But I would have stayed there if she hadn't lied to me."
I turned back to Jasmine. "I have to hand it to you. You know how to manipulate naïve humans. You may be a lot smarter and more experienced than I am, but when it comes to morality, you are bankrupt."
Bronze was looking at Jasmine, and it sounded like she was growling, deep in her throat. It was about to get worse.
I looked at Bronze. "She admits to lying to me. You won the challenge because she lied and cheated. I have no idea how deep her lies go, but I have been lied to, cheated, betrayed, and deceived since this all began. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, every single one of you aliens has been lying to the humans. What I don't know is what other lies you've told. I don't know how many you've told today. I suppose I haven't caught you in any because you aren't actually talking to me."
I shook my head.
"You won because she cheated on your behalf."
There was near silence for perhaps five seconds. Near silence, broken by my pounding heart and Bronze's increasing growl. The sound turned into an all-out roar.
Faster than I could even blink, she was out of her chair and had Jasmine by the throat, lifting her from her chair and rushing to the wall, slamming her backwards, her toes a good two feet from the floor.
Bronze continued to roar and to snarl.
Jasmine clasped Bronze's wrist with both of her hands, but even I could tell she wasn't trying to free herself; she was only taking some of the weight from her neck.
And she gazed calmly at Bronze. She was seconds from death, I was sure, and she appeared utterly calm.
Bronze snarled at her, and Jasmine turned her head towards me. As calm as anything, she said, "Bronze has declared you the winner of your first challenge." Bronze snarled again. "She concedes she wouldn't have found you." Another snarl. "She says you have won as many points as you would have if you had remained hidden." Snarl. "She wishes style points for the very first trap you triggered."
Bronze shook Jasmine then turned to look at me.
"She says you are the aggrieved party and accepts any penalty you deem fair for my interference." Another shake and snarl. "She has offered to snap my neck if you ask her to."
I stared for a minute before climbing to my own feet. I stepped towards the two of them, then around Bronze until I was looking at Jasmine. Then I turned to Bronze. If I could, I would have set my hands on her arm, but they were shackled and so I shuffled forward and used my chin. I looked into Bronze's eyes.
"Put her down."
Bronze looked into my eyes for a moment then slowly began to lower her arm. Jasmine regained her feet, but Bronze didn't release her neck.
"Let her go, Bronze."
Bronze nodded and slowly released Jasmine's neck.
Then, and only then, I dropped my gaze and took two steps backwards.
"Before you come to any conclusions," Jasmine said, her tone as if nothing had happened, "Will you let me say something?"
"This should be good."
"Bronze knows my anatomy. I know she knows my anatomy."
I turned to her and lifted an eyebrow, then wondered if she would recognize what was to her an alien facial expression. "So?"
"You taste and breathe through the same orifice."
"So?" I repeated.
"I also taste and breathe through the same orifices."
I shifted raised eyebrows. "She wasn't choking you."
"No."
"Is your brain in your skull?"
"Yes, and if she had squeezed, she would have cut the blood supply, just like you. But she didn't squeeze."
"You tell me this because?"
"You do not need to fear her. Frankly, she is emotionally incapable of hurting you."
"She seems to be quite capable of hurting you. She offered to snap your neck."
"I choose to have faith."
"In her?"
"In you."
"You don't know me very well. I am well motivated to kill every last one of you."
"Perhaps I know you far better than you realize. You didn't, after all, ask her to kill me. You're not a murderer, even in your anger at the situation."
I turned back to Bronze and took two steps straight into her. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me.
"Administrator," I said. "Bronze has declared me to have won the seco
nd challenge."
"First," she said. "We count it as the first."
"Fine. But I believe it is your decision, not hers."
"I accept her terms."
"I don't." I pulled away from the hug. "I accept the win and the resulting points. She gets style points for every trap I encountered and failed to defeat, but I get points for every one I effectively avoided."
"Then she gets points for the ones you were supposed to find, as if you had triggered them, and you do not."
I turned back to Bronze. She offered a brief, human smile.
"She also gets points for the tricks she employed that drove you more deeply into her traps."
"What tricks?"
"Perhaps we should review the entire event. We can watch what your sports commentators might call the highlights reel."
I thought about it. "All right."
"Then let us sit together," Jasmine said, gesturing to three chairs beside each other. "The naïve human in the middle."
I let Bronze get me settled, and then the two of them sat on either side of me. Then Jasmine gestured, and a screen seemed to appear in space over the table.
"How are you doing that?"
"Your visor."
"How are the two of you supposed to see it? Neither of you is wearing your own visor."
"Our eyes are augmented. We are all seeing the same thing, but you have the best seat."
I looked over at Bronze. "Do you take back your gifts?"
She growled, and I recognized the 'no'.
I smiled. "Then after I kick your ass and go home, I get to keep the visor?"
She let out a throaty laugh, and from my other side, Jasmine offered her Catseye laugh.
"That gift was the gift of a privilege," Jasmine explained. "The physical visor itself is not hers to give, and it is technology we do not allow loose at this time."
Then Bronze spoke.
"When I finish kicking your ass," Jasmine translated, "and take you home with me, I will acquire a far superior model. And when I have finished seducing you and you have become my forever mate, I will offer enhancements similar to my own."
"Bribery won't work. The visor is nice, but not that nice." Then I turned to look at Jasmine. "Do you aliens recognize teasing?"
"The two in this room do," she replied. "Shall we review?" She gestured.
"Of course."
There were really several screens. Half were focused on me; half on Bronze. One final screen was a map with moving dots representing both of us. I watched as we both studied the map and reviewed our supplies. Bronze was more efficient than I was, and then she was running.
She ran very fast.
From that point, the images jumped ahead. Bronze reached the first of the equipment sheds while I had barely moved from my starting location. I watched as she searched the shed and then as she set the trap. The entire process took her two minutes.
"Was it the same trap in each?"
"Yes."
The shed I'd visited was her second, but she was at the third before I arrived. The image slowed, and we watched at normal rate while I approached the shed, stepped in, and then got caught by the trap. Beside me, both women chuckled, but when I glanced at Bronze, she was looking away.
"It's all right," I said. "It was pretty funny." She looked back at me. "You trapped each shed?" A nod. "You went back later and added more effective traps." Another nod. "That one was a warning." A final nod.
"Thank you for making it humorous."
She gave me a quick hug.
We went through the entire event, start to finish, although much of it was done at high speed, a clock displaying elapsed time. Bronze held up her hand at one point and reached to the screen.
"Yes," I said. "You heard me. I waited you out."
She rumbled, and then spoke. Jasmine translated. "Two style points for winning this encounter."
We watched my fall into the river. Bronze reached over and clasped my hand.
"I wasn't hurt," I said.
But she pointed to the screen and made a sort of keening noise.
"Bronze," I said. "I just had the wind knocked out of me. Pressure against a human stomach can paralyze the diaphragm. It's distressful, as I couldn't breathe for a half minute, and difficult for a while after, but then we get over it. Every human does this from time to time, although I admit it's been years for me. Didn't Jasmine explain?"
"An explanation and a video of you gasping for air are two different things," Jasmine said quietly. "I thought you were dying. It was worse than when you stabbed yourself. That I understood. But this-" She gestured. "I didn't know if she'd get there in time, and I was sure I wouldn't. I had an ambulance in the air seconds after you began gasping, but I should have had them closer."
"I'm fine," I said. "Can we move on?"
Jasmine continued the reply. Bronze sat up straight when she saw me circle around and then double back to the stream again. She said one word.
"Clever," was the translation.
In high speed, I watched her search for me as I hid, but then she moved off, and I watched her begin to set traps. She spent hours and hours at it.
The jungle was quite full of traps.
But then Jasmine slowed for one, and I watched as Bronze set one little trip wire that was attached to a cowbell on a rope.
"A cowbell?" I screeched. "There were cowbells in the shed?"
Bronze chuckled.
"You can skip most of this part. But how does this work? Do you have video after I tripped it?"
"I do," Jasmine said. "Normally I wouldn't, but I dispatched extra monitors. I knew you'd trip one eventually."
And so she skipped ahead. I saw that I had stepped on something that released the trigger, and the trigger released another trigger, and then the cowbell went sliding along a line through the jungle, ringing, convincing me Bronze was there. And I took off in the other direction.
"I laughed. I concede those style points. Good one, Bronze."
After that, two of the traps I hadn't actually triggered; Bronze was watching me from the moment I entered the clearing with the equipment shed, and she was able to control them herself. She drove me into the final net.
"I knew you'd catch me if I left my spot," I said. "Thank you for being gentle."
She spoke and Jasmine interpreted. "I almost caught you in the corral. The net was funnier, but the corral was safer for you."
"As far as I can tell, you had traps on all the trails except the one around the perimeter."
"I didn't have time," Jasmine translated. "But yes."
"And I suspect once I started hitting them, they all drove me towards that shed."
"Yes."
"Then in a way, we both won, didn't we? Jasmine, what is the final score?"
"If you truly are letting her have the style points after I cheated you, then it is 31 to 48 in Bronze's favor."
"Is that a very high score?"
"31 is good. On the first challenge, humans win less than a third of the time. The average score is seven. There are a lot of zeros. 31 is good. I've never seen a human score higher than 39."
"And her 48?"
"It would be a mistake to think about an average for the challengers. Many take a quick win, and they gain only points for the win. Amongst those that pursue style points, 36 is average, and scores can exceed 60 with some regularity. Personally, I think pursuing such a high score is a strategic mistake. The humans tend to feel abused and humiliated from the experience. It is not enough to win the challenges. Wooing the humans begins with the first encounter, after all, not at the end of the challenges."
"So 48 is good?"
"If I hadn't cheated and she really was on the verge of finding you, would you have felt abused the way this turned out?"
"No."
"Then 48 is very good."
And then the replay disappeared.
"We should talk about today's challenge. This is a non-physical challenge."
I climbed from m
y chair, which was somewhat awkward, and moved away. I stared at the wall. "No."
"What?"
I didn't turn around. "I don't trust any of you, with exceedingly good cause." I began to raise my voice. "Maybe I had fun in the first one, but these events are rigged, a sham. I refuse to partake. I am done."
"Sapphire?"
I turned. Bronze was looking at me, and the pain in her eyes was clear.
"Jasmine has displayed she is willing to cheat for you to win. You both have already told me there is no way I'm going to win the third one, the one that matters. I believe she's going to stack the deck so completely I couldn't possibly win."
"I don't have to. Bronze has enough points to ensure a competition that fits her obvious physical advantages."
"Like she did for this one?"
"This. One. Fun," Bronze said slowly. She looked at Jasmine and spoke for a while.
"Don't bother," I said. "You told her I felt alive. She's reminding me."
"Yes," Jasmine agreed. "You'll absolutely know you can't win the third, but she'll spend all her points ensuring that, and you aren't going to waste any on that one. You're going to save yours for the fifth or seventh challenge."
"You're trying to manipulate me," I said. "I don't know why you bother. If it looks like I might win, you'll change the rules again. I don't even know why we're doing any of this. You could just throw me over your shoulder and force me."
"No!" Bronze said. "No."
"Frankly, I don't believe either of you." I turned my back on them. "I concede the next two challenges. You won, and by the rules you have thrust on me, I am obligated to go with you. And in three months, I get to go home. If you aren't lying about that, too."
"No," Bronze said. "Must."
"We must hold the challenges," Jasmine said. "You cannot concede them."
"I can refuse to participate," I said. "I can sit there and do nothing. You can have all the points you want. You'll have to torture me to make me participate." I turned around. "And we already know how I'll respond if pushed into an inescapable corner. I maybe didn't want to die in that cage, but I was willing to, and I think I amply demonstrated it."
"No!" Bronze keened.
I tried to cross my arms, but the shackles prevented it. So instead I stuck out a hip, which I could do. "I'm done competing. I concede. Do whatever you want. If you drag me to the events, I will sit down and do nothing. Plan accordingly."
