by Guy Morpuss
I was concerned that she seemed to know more about how schizos worked than I did. ‘Even if I agreed, how would that help you?’ I asked. ‘Your mind dies with your body. Only your time passes to me.’
‘Not so.’ She gestured across the street. ‘My friends have made special arrangements for me in that arena. With your consent to access the sixth space, when I die my mind will move there. Tomorrow you will be contacted and told where to find my new body, and they will make the transfer to the dandi. I have to trust you to do so since you will already have my time. But I imagine you will want to be rid of me anyway.’
This sounded dangerous, and I was far from convinced it was legal. She seemed genuine, and I felt sorry for her. But if we agreed and got caught there was a risk of some serious time fines. Then again, twenty years is twenty years.
She turned to me and put a hand on my arm. ‘Will you help me, Ms Weston? Please?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to ask the others. It will need a vote so you’ll have to wait one cycle. I make no promises.’
‘No,’ she said, and her grip on my arm tightened. ‘There’s no time for that. Charlie knows I’m here, and he has people who will follow me and bring me back. This offer won’t be here at the end of your cycle. I can’t risk waiting that long. If you can’t do it I’ll have to try another schizo.’
I looked into her artificial eyes but could read nothing. I’ve never trusted andis. Who chooses to give up being human? Sure, I gave up my body, but I was still a person. Different sex, different race, but living, breathing flesh. Not something grown in a vat with a brain stuck inside.
Was I being scammed? This was a big decision that ought to be put to the group. But I knew what would happen if we voted. Mike and Sierra would be blinded by the amount of time on offer, and would say yes. Ben would be cautious, want to know much more, and would delay so long that we missed the chance. Alex would agree to do whatever I suggested. So it would come down to me anyway.
But I would have valued their counsel.
Twenty years.
If I said yes we could pack up and leave with more time than we knew how to spend. And it would all be down to me.
I hesitated. ‘Why me? Why not wait and go to Mike, or Sierra?’
‘I need you,’ she said. ‘You’re first in the cycle, you have the admin access codes, and are the only one who can let me into the sixth space without a full vote. There’s no time for a full vote.’
She was right. Again, I was disturbed by just how much she knew about how schizos work.
‘Give me a moment. I need to think.’ I shook my arm free, stood up and walked away, circling through the long grass around the playground. I wanted those twenty years. I wanted to help her. She’d been wronged, and revenge sounded good.
Why was I having to make this decision alone? I knew what Mike, Sierra and Ben would have said. That didn’t help. What would Alex have advised? He’d have told me to forget revenge and focus on the time that we could win. He hadn’t wanted to come here, so he would have seen a chance to win big and get out. He would have told me to ignore the emotions and take the deal.
I walked back to the bench.
‘All right, Ms Bird. I’m not sure I trust you, and if this is all part of some elaborate scam then we will come after you. But let’s do this before I change my mind.’
•
The arena was unlike any I had ever seen. The door was rusty, and it screeched as Bird pulled it open. There was no one inside, just four rooms with faded numbers: 1 to 4.
‘Are you sure this works?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t look very safe.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve made special arrangements for us to use it free from interference. I’ll use Room 1; you use 2. Once this is over, leave straight away. My body will be removed later, after you’ve gone.’
‘All right.’ I swallowed hard. This no longer seemed like such a good idea. Maybe I was being tricked and she was actually after our time. I again regretted not getting the others’ views.
‘How’s this going to work?’ I asked. ‘You say I’ll win your time, but how do we guarantee that?’
‘You will still need to play. It needs to look real in case anyone ever checks. However, all you need to do is beat me. I’ll make sure that you do.’
It was too late to go back now. I had agreed to the game. It was play or forfeit. I stepped into Room 2.
While the rest of the building was decrepit, the game booth looked normal and functional. The door slid shut behind me, and a screen lit up.
Welcome, Ms Weston
Game:
The Search for Cupid
Objective:
Win the board
Stages:
One
Location:
Rugaard Castle, Denmark
A countdown appeared on the screen.
5:00
Then I received a message from Amy Bird:
Ms Weston, before we begin I need access.
With some misgivings, I sent her the codes.
•
I am standing with my back to a rough stone wall. My arms are above my head, my wrists shackled to an iron ring. The room is dimly lit, circular, unfurnished apart from a wooden desk and two chairs. There is a single, narrow window opposite me – too high for me to see anything other than a sky filled with black clouds. It is open, with a cold wind blowing through.
Amy Bird is seated at the desk.
‘Kate,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t sure you would fall for that.’
‘What do you mean?’ Fear rises in my throat. This feels wrong. ‘What is going on? Is this the game?’
‘This is the game,’ she says, gesturing to a wooden box on the desk. The lid is closed, so I can’t tell what it is inside. ‘This … and that.’ She points to the window and holds up her hand, as though for silence. From outside I hear a loud thump, wood striking wood, a scream, and then a cheer.
‘What was that?’ I ask.
‘The gallows. Seventeenth-century Denmark is a barbarous place. They haven’t yet mastered the art of the long drop. So death tends to either be by slow strangulation or the head being ripped off. From the crowd reaction that sounded like a ripper to me – a quick death, at least.’
‘What’s all this about? What’s the game?’
She ignores me. ‘Did you know, people sometimes paid for others to pull on their legs to make death quick? Or got their relatives to do it.’ She walks over the window and looks out. ‘I was wrong. It’s a strangler. A shame you can’t see this, really, because that’s what you are trying to avoid. The kicking legs are particularly evocative.’
‘Let me go,’ I snarl, pulling against the chains. ‘I didn’t agree to this.’
She turns back to me. ‘Interesting that you have lived for twenty-five years in a man’s body but manifest here as female. As the young Kate. More pleasant for me, I suppose.’
I glance down and realise that she is right. At least as far as I can see. I appear to be in the body of young woman, dressed in a rough brown shirt, dark leggings and muddy leather boots.
She, in contrast, is dressed as she was in the park. She doesn’t seem to be fully in the game.
‘What do you want from me?’ I ask. ‘Was that story outside all a lie?’
‘Not entirely. Mostly what I want is what I told you – access to your minds.’ She walks across to me, and stops with her face inches from mine. I try to shrink further into the wall. I turn my head away but she grips my chin with one hand and turns it back.
‘There are things I’d like to do to you,’ she says. ‘But we’re going to have to wait.’ She strokes my cheek with one finger, and looks me up and down. ‘Not just female, but a seventeen-year-old girl. I mustn’t be misled by your apparent innocence, attractive though it is.’ Her thumb runs lightly across my lips. She stares into my eyes. Her hands move lower, down the front of my shirt and come to rest on my waist. She leans in closer, her lips brushing mine.
A spark runs down my spine. But this is all wrong. She’s an andi. I jerk back and my head strikes the stone wall painfully. ‘Stop it,’ I say angrily. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Her tongue flicks across my upper lip. I have nowhere to go. I close my eyes.
Then she steps away, and laughs. ‘Don’t pretend you aren’t interested, Kate. But you’re right, we don’t have time for this now. We need to play the game. There are things I need to do first.’ She gestures to the box on the desk. ‘I suggest you spend your time learning the rules.’
She moves back towards me, and for a moment I think she is going to try to kiss me again. Then she reaches above my head, clicks something, and steps away. My hands are free. My arms fall to my side, throbbing painfully as the blood returns to them.
‘Where are we?’ I ask.
‘I told you,’ says Bird. ‘Denmark, in the seventeenth century. Rugaard Castle, to be precise.’ She steps over to the door. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’ She opens the door and passes through quickly. I hear it lock behind her.
I rub my arms and the pain begins to subside. My back and shoulders feel stiff.
I walk over to the window and look out. I appear to be in the tower of a small castle. Below is a stone-flagged courtyard, dominated by a wooden gallows. The trapdoor is open, and a hooded body hangs by its neck, swinging in the wind. No longer kicking. The body is small and looks to be that of a woman, hands tied behind her back. The crowd I heard cheering has dispersed. The courtyard is empty apart from the body and a masked man whom I take to be the executioner. As I watch he unties the rope supporting the body and carefully lowers it to the ground.
I shiver. I have seen enough. I reach out to pull the window shut. It catches the wind and closes with a bang.
The executioner looks up from where he is crouched over the body with a knife. He sees me in the window and mimes drawing the knife across his throat. He smiles at me.
I step back quickly, out of sight.
This isn’t helping. I try the door, but it is firmly locked.
I turn to the desk. The box contains a pair of dice, small metal figurines of men and women, and a hinged wooden board. I open the board and set it down on the desk. It is headed The Royal Pastime of Cupid, or The Entertaining Game of the Snake. The board is dominated by a brightly painted coiled snake, its crowned head at one end, its tail at the other. Its body consists of sixty-three numbered spaces, starting at its head and spiralling into the centre of the board. The path ends at a formal garden containing a statue of Cupid, poised with bow and arrow, couples walking arm in arm. Every seventh space contains a smaller picture of Cupid. Other spaces contain a bridge, a fountain, a wood, and an image of Death standing next to a coffin.
The rules are printed down both edges of the board. As far as I can tell it seems entirely to be a game of chance, depending upon the luck of the dice. If I am to play Bird at this I don’t see how she can be sure that I will win.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the door being unlocked. It opens, and Amy Bird steps through, followed by a priest in a black robe and a skullcap. Bird is now wearing rough clothing that matches mine. Unseen by the priest, she winks at me and sits in the chair opposite.
The priest stands next to the desk. His hands are folded in front of him, clasping a copy of the Bible. His expression is grave. He looks from one to the other.
‘Mistress Weston, Mistress Bird,’ he says. ‘You have each been tried by Baron Arenfeldt and found guilty of witchcraft, consorting with the Unnamed One. In his generosity the Baron has sentenced you to be hanged, not burned at the stake. In yet a further sign of his generosity, and against my advice, the Baron is prepared to offer clemency to one of you. Whichever one of you defeats the other in this game will be spared. I am here to ensure fair play. May God’s mercy be with you.’
‘Let’s get this done,’ says Bird.
I take a female figure, Bird a male one, and we place them at the serpent’s head.
‘You start,’ says Bird, handing me the dice. As I roll them she turns to the priest. ‘It’s stuffy in here, Father, could you open the window for us?’ He nods and steps over to it.
I roll a one and a three. As the priest’s back is turned Bird reaches over and changes the one to a four. I am about to protest but Bird puts a finger to her lips, for silence. The priest turns back and raises an eyebrow. ‘A lucky seven,’ he says. ‘And four and three. You must be blessed.’
I look at the rules again: ‘He that throws first of all 7 must take notice of what he hath thrown for if it be 1 and 6 he goes forward to 16, if it be 2 and 5 to 25, if it be 4 and 3 he goes to 43.’
Surprised, I move my figure to forty-three. With one throw, and some help from Bird, I am already two-thirds of the way round the board.
She throws a five, lands on a bridge, and moves her piece to a chair on the twelfth space. It’s too quick for me to follow, but I look up at the priest, who nods.
I roll a six, and land on a Cupid at forty-nine. This one I do remember: ‘He that throws upon Cupid, must not rest there but go as many forward as he hath thrown.’ I move forward another six, passing over a tangled wood.
Bird rolls an eight. She is still a long way behind.
My biggest risk now is Death standing next to the coffin: ‘He that throws upon 59, where the coffin stands must give way to the corpse, pay for the grave and begin the game again in his turn.’ I hold my breath as the dice bounce around, settling on eleven. I move my figure to the garden at sixty-three, and sit back, relieved. I am finished. Bird was right – this was easy.
‘Not so fast,’ says the priest. He points to the final rule printed on the board: ‘He that comes first into the delightful Garden of Cupid where 63 is, he hath won the Game, but if he throws above the Number 63, then he must go so far backward as he hath exceeded the number.’
Cursing under my breath I move my figure back to sixty, one away from Death.
Bird rolls an eight, lands on a Cupid and moves a further eight.
As I pick up the dice again a squall hits the window and raindrops blow in. Bird catches my eye. ‘Sorry, Father,’ she says, ‘but we’re getting wet now. Would you mind closing it?’
The priest sighs but steps over to the window again. I throw the dice. Before they have finished moving Bird has turned them to a two and a one, giving me the three that I need. Once more I move my figure to the garden in the centre of the board. Bird may be helping me, as she said she would, but I still don’t trust her.
The priest turns back, seemingly surprised that it has ended so quickly. He lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘You are truly blessed, Daughter. It is not God’s will that you die today.’ He turns to Bird. ‘You, my child, must come with me.’
She looks across at me, and smiles. ‘Well done. You beat the bad guy. Sort of. Now I must go and die. Enjoy the rest of your lives.’ She and the priest leave the room.
The door is left open. It seems I have won. Why has Bird done this? Why did she behave so strangely at the start of the game?
A spiral staircase leads downwards. A door at the bottom opens into the courtyard containing the gallows. Rain is being driven into my face by a gusting wind. It’s a grim day to die. The corpse that was on the ground has gone. Amy Bird and the priest are standing by the wooden steps at the foot of the gallows. The executioner is behind her, tying her hands.
I’m not staying to watch. I can still taste her kiss, stale on my lips. Whatever she is really up to, I don’t want to see her die. I turn my back on them and walk out through the gate to the courtyard.
•
I was back in Room 2, damp from the rain, but alive. I was struggling to understand what had happened to me. It was all very odd. Bird had had me at her mercy, but instead of taking advantage she had fixed the game so that I won. And then she had died. It didn’t make any sense.
A message appeared on the screen.
Victory
Congratulations, Ms Weston.
/>
You have been credited with 20.5 years.
You have five minutes to leave the booth.
I might have won, but something was wrong. What had Bird meant when she said that she wanted to do things to me? There was something strangely intimate and familiar in her behaviour. I felt as though I had been double-crossed, but she had done what she promised and let me win. I had got all her time. I was confused and slightly afraid.
Something wasn’t right.
I left the room quickly and went over to Room 1. It was locked, but rusting, and I easily wrenched it open.
The room was empty. No body. No Amy, alive or dead. She couldn’t have been removed that quickly. The room felt unused. It had been raining in the game, but the floor and walls were dry. Had she really died? Had I even being playing her at all? But if not, how had we got a credit of over twenty years?
I checked the other two rooms, but there was no sign of her there either.
09:28 – I had thirty-two minutes left, so no time to look into this. I needed to move fast. It was pointless to ask Mike to do anything, as he had a race to run. Equally pointless to ask Sierra. For other reasons.
I left the arena and headed back towards the centre of the death park, where I knew I could find a cheap bed and safety. It might have been free but I was not going back to Alex’s stupid high-rise.
As I walked I composed a message to Ben. He was going to have to work out what had just happened to us. And more importantly, why?
MIKE
DAY TWO
10:00–12:28
I was in a locker bed with just enough room to sit up without banging my head. Typical Kate, never spending any more time than necessary.
My electrolyte drink and protein smoothie were by my side. Reasons to be cheerful.
I stretched, feeling the ripple of muscles loosening from my head down to my toes.
This always was the perfect body.
I was in great shape when we all met, twenty-five years ago. There was never any doubt who we were going to choose as host. For all Kate’s angular charms, and Sierra’s sensuous curves, they were never in the running. And Alex was a joke. As wide as he was tall, and most of it fat. Ben the opposite, beanpole thin and without a muscle in sight.
