by Cameron Jace
The audience agrees again. Timmy is right about Orin. He didn’t save me. He would have shot me cold-heartedly by now if it were his turn. He has already tried to shoot me once with the bow gun. He is trying it again now, but his trigger is still locked. He grins at me, sweating evil all over his forehead.
My mind is about to explode. I know I have told myself that everyone stands for themselves in this game, but I think I meant everyone taking responsibility to survive, not killing someone else. Why would I be a weapon to end their lives?
I am suddenly aware of how the game is changing me. I have certainly learned a lot in one day, but changing is different from learning. I want to grow. I want to be better. I don’t want to be brainwashed by the Summit. I want to be who I want to be, not who they force me to be. I want to be who I am.
I remember Woo telling me he wished he could see through my eyes. He was fascinated with my eyes in a strange way. He said that he only saw the dim and grey in the world, but I saw the stars hiding beyond the fabric of the midnight sky.
My eyes are dimmed now, Woo. I see in blood shades and flames. What can I do? But I remember Woo told me to never let them change me. To become what I am. What I really am. What I want to be. It’s my choice. I want to be part of everything. I want to have my shot at the world while everyone else has theirs. Is it so hard to ask for a fair world? I don’t want to win this game and become part of the Summit. I don’t want to win this game and find myself a lonely winner. I want to have my friends cross over and win with me. I totally understand now how this iAm world is so wrong, with everyone living alone within the crowd. Everyone is living for his number. I am not a number. I am part of the whole. I am going to find Woo eventually.
“My patience is wearing out,” Timmy bluffs. “Pepper. How about Pepper?”
When he mentions her name, I look at her straight in the eyes. She looks back at me without the slightest fear. All her life, she was brainwashed that she deserves this. She will not complain if I shoot her now – well, no one really complains when they’re dead.
“Do it,” she says, pointing to her chest. “At least I will know I’ve died for saving the others.”
“How sweet.” Timmy is faking tears. He isn’t funny anymore.
“I can’t,” I scream with closed eyes, worried that my fingers will betray me into shooting someone.
“How about the skaters?” Timmy suggests. “You don’t know anything about them. They don’t mean anything to you. You can save yourself.”
“Why would I hurt someone I don’t know?” I have discovered that my hands are already on the trigger, fiddling with it.
“What is she talking about?” the girls in the audience ask each other. “You kill anyone to save yourself. Why don’t you do it?” the ranked girls from the Zeppelin scream at me.
Five million viewers are watching the show; some are screaming and cursing; some are driven to tears. The camera shows shocked moms with knives, preparing dinner in their kitchens; a gas station where everyone has stopped working to watch the game; cars parked in the middle of the streets watching on their iAms; people watching from France next to the Zeifel Tower, from England, next to the Big Zen, Africa, next to the Zyramids. And from Asia, next to the Zaj Mahal. Every viewer has his or her mouth wide open in disbelief, wondering why I am not shooting someone else to survive. What is wrong with me, they ask. How does a Monster have mercy, emotions, and the ability to hold back their anger?
“I suppose that there is no point killing Don Zuan.” Timmy means Leo. The audience boos at Timmy, especially the girls. “Okay. No hassle,” Timmy waves his defensive hands at the audience. “But he has to die at some point, you know.”
“Shoot Bellona!” someone suggests in from the audience. They are a bunch of rich blonde girls with their pink-yellow-cyan makeup on, all Nines, all Teen-Gene. It’s a merry-go-round all over again.
I am not surprised that Faustina Flare is one of them, standing behind the glass of a Zeppelin with Sam Shades next to her.
“I won’t do it.” I have made up my mind.
“But someone has to die, so we can survive,” says Leo. I won’t argue with his do-or-die attitude, although Bellona backs him up, Pepper too.
“What if I tell you that Orin is the one who sold you out and told me about the details of your conversation yesterday?” Timmy exposes him finally. “He told me all about every one of you, about Leo, about the Rabbit Hole, and about the Breakfast Club.”
I stare at Orin, my hand fiddling with the trigger. I should have known.
“Shoot him,” Leo says angrily, his Terminator attitude.
“He is lying,” Orin says, meaning Timmy.
“I am sorry to shock you, Orin,” says Timmy. “But this is exactly what I do for a living.”
“What could you have possibly asked for in exchange?” Pepper wonders.
“He asked me to spare his family too,” says Timmy. “Which I did, but—” Timmy is looking up and to the left, trying to remember. “Yes. Surprisingly, all of them died in a bus accident this morning. What a shame.”
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.
Now it’s only Orin and me, and he has pulled the trigger already.
Chapter 21
Love Knows No Numbers
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 shooter.
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 re
ach 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 and we are 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 kittykats out of me. The voice 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, wearing 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 just it. One of the iScreens shows a boy wearing the ClairVo, feeling so excited, standing out in 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 like him. Whenever he feels anxious, they feel it too. It shows on their faces. Whenever he shudders, they shudder. What is this ClairVo thing? I can 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 the 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 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 any more. Something has changed. Just a little. That tiny voice of reason we love to kill like a cockroach has started crawling into our 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.
Th
e audience in the Zeppelins moans. 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 madder, 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 an overall with a famous construction company’s logo on it. 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.
“I love her!” he shouts out of the blue.
Chapter 22
A Kiss Before Dying
The audience’s hearts stop…
