by Clark, Mark
Leslie marvelled at the vision. All three of them were bones with meat attached. All three were bearded and grimy. All three were so much older. He knew that they all stank, just as Johannes had stank all those years ago, but he was well beyond smelling it.
‘You’re lucky,’ smirked their tormentor, ‘while you’ve been relaxing in incarceration, I’ve been working endlessly to structure the new world. And not just in Corporate City, God no – all over the planet. I’ve been co-ordinating imports and exports and . . .’ He stopped. He saw the utter disinterest inscribed upon the faces before him. ‘But, I see that I’m boring you. So, I’ll get to the point.’
He stood and stared out across the great wide harbour. Behind him, the three captives watched his silhouette with silent attention.
‘I’m offering one of you a chance at life.’
The men looked from one to the other.
‘Just one,’ Viles continued. ‘I have some games scheduled here for tomorrow night. If you’re lucky, very lucky, one of you may walk out of this place tomorrow night a free man.’ He paused for effect. ‘You see, this city has been transformed in your absence. It seems that if you give some men a hundred dollars they’ll be rich within a year, whereas others will be poverty stricken within a week. Such are the vagaries of free choice. And so it is that there are those in this city who have traded their I.Q. unwisely, while others have profited from the foolishness of their fellow man.’ He turned and moved closer to his audience. ‘I cannot, of course, allow a great flourishing of mind because it would impair my ability to govern, so I’ve limited I.Q. to 300 points; but neither can I afford to preside over a city full of idiots, so conversely I must dispose of those who sink to idiocy because of, well, their idiocy.’
As Leslie listened, the hatred grew within him.
‘So I’ve come up with this idea. I call it the I.Q. Games. I won’t go into the details. However, I have a special guest visiting tomorrow night and I wish to impress him. You all have a choice. You can remain in your cells for the rest of your natural days, or you can take part in this great sporting event tomorrow evening.’
‘Go on,’ said Damien. He spoke for all of them. Better to die in some sporting contest than to languish, barely alive, in the semi-darkness in a rabbit’s cage for the rest of one’s years.
‘Very well,’ Viles replied. ‘Stand.’
And they did.
‘Look here.’
They moved back towards the window.
‘The spot we occupy now was once a great zoo. Can you believe it? A great zoo. Where animals were given the best view in this city. Animals! Creatures even more pathetic than you!’
If Viles wanted a response from these three weakened animals he had to do better than that.
‘Look down upon this arena,’ stated Viles with a nod towards the area the men had been looking at before. ‘And look very closely.’
Viles pushed a button. Vertical slats of metal simultaneously thrust upward; some were parallel, some were at right angles to the three men’s point of view.
Viles explained, ‘This maze has a multitude of configurations. This is the one we will be using tomorrow night. I want you to look at it very carefully, gentlemen, because this is the only time that you will see it before The Games begin.’
Edgar, and Damien looked hard at the configuration of metal. Leslie also looked out, but he looked beyond the maze to the grounds leading down to the harbour on the far side.
‘Tomorrow, just before the contest, I will show this same configuration to another five men. Each of these men is an I.Q. 300. Each of these men wants to gain power under my wing. I have promised the man who walks from that maze power second only to my own. But only one man will walk from that maze tomorrow night.’
He turned and looked closely at the three. ‘Remember what you can of the labyrinth, men, because I can assure you that each of the men I show this to tomorrow will instantly remember its every turn.’
A young boy of seven or eight burst his way into the room and dived upon Viles’ leg. Viles appeared embarrassed. He removed the boy as one might extricate a leech.
‘Ah Christopher,’ he said, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘Mummy’s here,’ answered the boy and sure enough the door opened and in walked Elizabeth. She was elegant in a white summer frock and matching wide-brimmed hat. She was a little older, perhaps, but still beautiful.
She looked at the three men without recognition.
‘You remember Damien and Leslie?’ asked Viles.
‘Vaguely,’ she replied.
Leslie felt tears well up into the corners of his eyes. He watched Elizabeth move as if she was in a slow-motion dream. Gone was the powerful presence; gone was the charismatic leader. His tears made their way down the deep creases beneath his eyes and dropped upon the unforgiving floor.
‘I’m hardly surprised,’ Viles continued, ‘it was some time ago. And they have lost a little weight. Now take Christopher and wait for me downstairs. We have people to meet.’
‘Yes, Sebastian,’ she replied obediently. She nodded to Leslie as she left. ‘Come, Christopher.’
‘Are these men all going to die tomorrow night?’ asked Christopher, as his mother took his hand.
‘Probably,’ replied Viles.
‘Oh good,’ he trumpeted.
And they left.
‘That’s my boy,’ said Viles.
Chapter 13
The summer evening fell and the tired sun cast its surreal light across the harbour at the tail end of a hot Australian summer day. A southerly had mercifully blown in and it swept its cool relief through the heads and up the hill towards the crowd gathering in the arena. A large banner was plastered at the back of one stand proclaiming the occasion: ‘The Taronga Park Games’. Men wore hats, shorts and collared shirts; women wore bright summer hats and light cotton dresses which were blown alluringly by the blustery wind. The sun was coming to rest behind the hills, well beyond the great Coathanger Bridge. The lights were taking over, and the crowd was settling.
The expensive seats were carved into the hill on the northern side of the arena. These looked down upon the harbour and the greater part of the city on its southern side. For the first time though, money was not enough to buy an individual a seat in this area. It was expensive, yes, but the determining factor was I.Q. A sign at the entrance to the stand clearly stated 1.Q. 200+ and a group of heavily armed guards were at the entrance checking the relevant documentation. One 150 did try to sneak in but he was caught. He was later drained 10 I.Q. points as a fine.
Viles entered, followed quietly by Elizabeth and Christopher who took up their seats to one side. There was great applause as Viles waved to the crowd. He had already learned the lessons of the dictator: keep the masses happy with meaningless diversion; control the press; keep your army happy; and destroy all potential enemies before they even realise that you think they are a threat. So the masses waved and yelped; the press was limited to reporting the bare facts, embellished with some hyperbole for President Viles; the army was out in force, well-fed, rich in money, but poor in 1.Q. (by government regulation) and any opposition that had come to the attention of the president, vaporised and stored as I.Q. in black boxes in consol rooms throughout the city.
As the cheers went up for the president, he heralded in his guest for the evening and the crowd responded as they knew their president wished, by cheering for him also. His name was Benny Jong Il – one of a long line of Jong Ils. He was a small but rotund man of Asian appearance. His cheekbones were high, as those from farther north. His face smiled but his eyes were dead; he waved his hand but the gesture was empty. He was here to do business with Viles and this sideshow was a necessary business obligation. He sat next to Viles.
‘How do you like my city?’ asked Viles in Korean.
‘Too many flies,’ Jong Il replied in his native tongue.
Viles tried again, ‘I trust you will enjoy tonight’s games.’
&
nbsp; ‘A waste of I.Q,’ was the reply.
‘If you purchase the quota of transference machines you have pledged to buy then you will never have to waste any I.Q. again,’ said Viles. ‘Instead of wasting all that I.Q. in your gas chambers you will be able to store it. You will be able to kill your people but their I.Q. will still bring you profit.’
‘We shall see,’ was the reply.
Benny Jong Il sat stiffly like a regent condescending to be present. Viles loathed the pompous little prick, but business is business.
‘I have looked around the streets of your city. You have many poor,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ replied Viles. ‘What of it?’
‘Too many poor mean too many trouble,’ replied Jong Il. ‘Better you support the middle. Give them necessities. Keep content through ignorance. Like religion. Control through I.Q.’
Viles stiffened with thought. ‘I understand,’ he replied. And a light turned on in his mind. Then he added, ‘Your forefathers were renowned for malnourishing their people whilst maintaining their total allegiance. I believe that even by the early years of the twenty first century the people of the north were several centimetres shorter than the people from the south, even though they were originally from exactly the same genetic stock?’
‘You are well read,’ replied Jong Il. ‘I am proud to say that my people grow smaller every decade.’
Viles laughed but secretly wished the little turd would disappear up his own arsehole. And so the unpleasantries continued until, at eight o’clock, The Games began.
At this stage the arena was nothing but an open dirt floor, perhaps one hundred metres by fifty and levelled for the contest. The maze was below ground, waiting for its chance to jump to life.
Five fine young men stepped into the arena, rapturously applauded by the crowd. They were all in their prime, between twenty and thirty, all of strong build and all had purchased brilliant minds. Each wore a different coloured lightweight jersey, the colours of the spectrum from red to blue, so they could be easily distinguished by the spectators. As one, they saluted the president and his guest. Then each held up the gun they were about to use in the upcoming contest. Again, the crowd roared.
Leslie, Damien and Edgar looked down upon the arena from the room in which they had spoken to Viles the day before. They had just been reunited and they were still dressed in the grey uniform of Corporate City criminals.
‘It looks like this is it,’ said Damien, turning to the others.
‘I hope you remember the maze configuration,’ said Edgar, ‘because I sure as hell don’t.’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue,’ Damien replied. ‘What about you, Les? You’re the only one of us smart enough to remember the maze.’
Leslie, who had moved apart from the other two and who was staring at something below, replied absent-mindedly, ‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t have a clue. I wasn’t even looking at it.’
‘You weren’t looking at it?’ repeated Damien. He moved towards Leslie. He was followed by Edgar. ‘Mate, your life depends on it.’
Leslie turned on them urgently. ‘Listen to me. It doesn’t matter about the maze. There’s no way any of us are going to survive.’
‘But . . .’ began Damien.
‘No. You must listen,’ interrupted Leslie. ‘In the unlikely event that any of us is alive at the end of this thing, Viles will kill us anyway. Now, look here.’ He pointed to the far side of the arena. ‘Take note. The far stand is a temporary one, built for this occasion. If you look closely you’ll see that there is a small breach in the fence about half way along. See?’
Damien and Edgar squinted and eventually saw the spot. They nodded.
‘Good. Now, listen. We don’t have much time. I know this place. Behind that stand there’s a hill sloping down to the harbour and if my memory serves me correctly there’s a wharf at the bottom. If we’re lucky, there might be a boat moored there.’
‘How do we get there?’ asked Edgar.
‘We work as a team. We don’t stray too far from one another and we make a bolt through that cavity whenever we get the chance. If there are guards, we surprise them and knock ‘em out of the way. Simple as that.’
‘What about the maze?’
‘If it’s in the way we’ll have to make our way around the outside.’
The others looked uncertain.
‘Look. This is our only chance.’
‘And if there’s no boat?’ Damien asked.
‘There’s a vast bushland further south, down towards Bradley’s Head. There’s another wharf there. Listen. They won’t be expecting this. Viles is expecting us to be trying to blow each other’s head off and they won’t have any guards down there behind that temporary stand. Why would they? We’ve got the element of surprise on our side.’
He looked hopefully towards the two men. Though far from convinced, they both agreed that it was their only hope.
‘Good,’ said Leslie. ‘Just remember to stay alive long enough to make a run for it. These other men will be very smart.’
‘But you’re smart too,’ said Edgar.
‘Thanks, mate,’ Leslie replied with a smile, ‘but I only come in somewhere in the 150s.’
‘So each of those men is twice as smart as you?’ asked Edgar, despondently.
‘Unfortunately not,’ Leslie replied. ‘I.Q. is exponential. Each point increases your intelligence by a lot. They’re hundreds of times smarter than me.’
‘Great,’ said Damien.
The door burst open and a dozen guards herded the trio back through it, down a long series of corridors and out into the floodlighted brightness of the arena. It was twilight now, as the three men joined the other five in front of the president. Each was given a gun.
Viles’ mind was alight with the movement and counter-movement of hypothetical men in the hypothetical maze he was viewing in his mind. He played at possibilities in his visual cortex at such speed that the five colours of the contestants melded into a rainbow of possibilities, like ten thousand time lapse vehicles in New York, viewed from above. The three grey prisoners were so insignificant that he did not even bother to factor them in to his computations.
Behind the eight combatants, with an enormous ‘whoosh’, the metal slats sprang skyward and the maze was up. The crowd exploded. All eight men were taken to separate places around the arena on the outside of the maze to await the starting siren.
There was great anticipation in the crowd and a silence fell upon it. But the tension was released into laughter when ‘The British Lion’, departing for northern waters, sounded her horn in the harbour and some in the audience thought that the bout had begun. After this prematurity and much laughter from the crowd, the siren did eventually sound and The Games began in earnest.
Immediately the five 300s entered their nearest entrance to the maze. Each, with the mind of a genius, realised that they must first kill off the serious competition before they bothered mopping up the criminals Viles had thrown in as, as they saw it, a kind of carnival curiosity. No, first they must survive the onslaught of the other 300s. Then they could worry about the other three also-rans. Inside each of their minds was a blueprint of the labyrinth and, as each saw an overview of the map in their mind, each played out the various routes that the others might take and assessed the ramifications of those moves. Like five master chess players, the five armed men moved noiselessly within the metal walls, each watching the configuration of the maze from a bird’s eye point of view within the fluid compartments of their lock-step minds.
Meanwhile, Leslie, Damien and Edgar, who had watched the 300s enter the maze, chose not to enter it. They ran around its outside and met up on the far side of it to Viles. They stood as a group, each with his gun pointed outward. Slowly, under Leslie’s guidance, they were shuffling towards the area of the fence where he had seen the breach. This small knot of men shuffling along the outside of the maze and its contrast to the stealthy movement and counter movement of the five men within it began t
o cause a rumble in the crowd.
Some members of the audience saw the farce in it and pointed this out to others. Many crowd members began to titter and even to laugh openly at the contradiction between the behaviour of the geniuses in the maze and that of the lower I.Q.s on the outside. This sheer juxtaposition was funny enough, but when the red and blue 300s managed to find themselves face to face within the maze and managed to blow each other’s heads off, the contrast became apparent to all, and hoots of laughter permeated the arena.
‘It seems that your idiots are smarter than your geniuses,’ the interpreter translated for Benny Jong Il.
Viles nodded and smiled at Jong Il but he was highly embarrassed, a fact that the Korean dictator well realised – and he was dining heartily on schadenfreude.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Christopher of his mother, but Elizabeth was hardly there. Gone were the flashing eyes, gone was the passionate potentate. She was a shell; an ornament; an empty thing; a child.
Leslie, Damien and Edgar reached the small breach in the fence. Damien had a quick look, so as not to make their intentions too obvious.
‘There’s a small gap we can fit through one at a time and there’s a passageway behind it leading through the grandstand, but there’s a problem.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Leslie who had not taken his eyes from the maze in front of him for fear of the sudden appearance of a 300.
‘There are about seven or eight guards on either side of it.’
‘It figures,’ said Edgar. He was breathing heavily and sweating profusely. Damien steadied him by the arm.
‘It’s okay, boy. We’ll get you through. Les, how many bullets do we have?’
‘These are six shooters, I think.’
‘We have eighteen bullets,’ said Damien.
The three men looked one to the other.
‘Better make ‘em count.’
Behind them, in the maze, a barrage of shots rang out and a high-pitched scream told that another 300 had been hit. This galvanised them into action.
