Existence Oblivion

by Kai Ellory Viola

  He'd have preferred leave - he knew that now. But there was no way he could have agreed - no way to have shown that weakness. Instead, he looked over and around the room, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

  The two guards on the other door were chattering in low, even tones, but their eyes kept flickering back to Elliot every so often. Pity edged their mouths - and Elliot didn't want to try to decipher why. Between his father and the nanovirus that took him, and other issues, Elliot guessed he was almost as interesting as this TV series was rapidly becoming. But he was also old news, and he could soon see them looking over the prisoners. He could almost imagine them gambling on who might win - there was something in the whispers and the smiles that told him they didn't rate this set very highly.

  And these prisoners were the second set Elliot had sat in on the lectures for – and it didn't deviate much from the last lecture. It wasn't difficult to see they were skating the edges of what had been agreed – probably, Elliot thought to himself, because they're still appealing it.

  Elliot's attention snapped back to… "Now, I need you all to pay attention to this, or you WILL not get paid," there was a snicker of laughter, a wave of slightly less amused mirth and finally, some snorts that died back, before the man continued.

  "One," he said, pausing faux dramatically. Or at least, Elliot thought it was fake. The man in front of him looked serious, and almost...conspiratorial. "You have to survive to collect the bounty. That's pretty much an obvious and given rule. Immutable. If you die, your 'winnings' will be paid to your victim's fund. If you've got a garner on any earnings, they come off the top." there was a groan. Darkness had a garnish system. Prisoners that wrote books, made money in any way whilst imprisoned, including from TV shows, were 'garnished'. That garnishment came in the form of a percentage of everything, before taxes. Each prisoner paid something - depending on the extras though, the state - and their victims - made money back every year. Victim's families could expect quite a check from some of them.

  "Two, he said, when the groans and rumbles of dissatisfaction died down, pausing for just long enough that Elliot suspected he'd done this before, "injuries and maims that generate 'significant' discussion spikes on social media, and to our dedicated chat lines will earn you a bounty. In front of you is a document, which outlines thresholds and banding," Elliot switched off again for a little bit as the man in front of him went through several codicils and rulings that had been introduced after the trial focus group.

  He knew the bandings were quite substantive - the 'significant' bandings made up quite a lot of the ruling, and Elliot knew from experience that the opportunity to earn bonuses based on this was possible, but not probable. "....don't worry about getting it on camera, the whole prison is covered by multiple cameras. There is no angle that we can't see. It does however go without saying that if you're duplicitous, or sneak out of the shadows, you'll get a better 'shot' and that will provide a bigger bonus. Publicity footage also has a bounty for it - that is, if we use it, you get royalties for as long as we do. Those not putting up a fight will not be paid, so don't be shy gentlemen,” Elliot blinked.

  "And three," he said, and this one was accompanied by a genuine, broad grin. "Kill someone. The prisoner that is killed will receive half of his pay for the program, so even if you die, you're getting something out of it, which is more than can be said for the pittance they pay for filming rights at your execution." There were rumbles of pleasure at this thought, as he continued, "and the rest of your pay will go back into the pool to pay the other prisoners. There is also a last man standing bonus, not including the survivalists," he added.

  There was some stamping of feet and jeering at this and Elliot rifled through his notes. That was the first time they'd mentioned 'survivalists'.

  "There are twenty of you total. Ten prisoners, and ten men and women that have agreed to 'run' a separate maze to give us extra footage for those that want to see 'escape' rather than 'maim, kill, blood and gore. We have fourteen of you so that if we have anyone flunk, die, or otherwise get sick, we have extras, so simmer down. One rule that we do expect you to abide by and will automatically see your kill switches flicked - no rape. No sodomy. This is an all-male course for prisoners, though we do currently have up to three women signed up to ‘play’. We don't bundle to porn channels and we don't want to start now," he said, a modicum of distaste altering his face. "Now, if you'd like to look at the rules, there's a codicil I really would like to draw your attention to...."

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  At the edge of his screen, just in one corner, there was smear, or splatter of something - it kept drawing his eyes.

  He remembered the smell on entering and frowned. Instinct took over and he reached for his badge, looking for a way to radio back, before realizing - as it sat dead and tingle free against his fingers - that he'd already been disconnected.

  "What's the smell in here?"

  Claudia turned to him with a blink that seemed to move in slow motion. She rumpled her nose, but it wasn't to acknowledge the scent settled in Elliot's nose - instead it was almost distaste towards him.

  "What smell?"

  "Coppery?" Justin asked.

  "That's the one," Elliot said, quietly. Justin was typing and monitoring something, so Elliot waited, looking over occasionally. The walls were still mostly opaque, looked clear - except for that one smear.

  "One of the workmen fell, and there was splatter in one of the rooms - Cerys didn't make it to him quite fast enough and he bled like a stuck pig through the prison. We didn't get a chance to clean it properly. But, most people can't smell it..." he continued. Elliot paused in what he was doing and Justin reached over to the accident book in front of him and passed him two sheets. Pro forma reporting on an accident, where some of the fleximatter glass had not formed appropriately, and the person in question was speared through his hand trying to tighten the emitters. The accident shouldn't have happened at all, of course, but the paperwork at least made a bit of sense.

  "One of your cameras need cleaned," Elliot said, skimming the pieces of documentation in front of him.

  "Oh yeah?" Justin said. "Toss me the feed you're seeing it on."

  Elliot's hands thrummed across the keyboard - trying to keep the tension down, he casually watched the monitors. He could feel Cerys watching him - the tingle of her eyes on him, chilling him.

  Elliot remained quiet for a minute or two, and then said softly "Did he live?"

  "Yes," Justin said, though, from the other side of the room, Elliot heard a soft, almost inaudible, leaf whisper “no.”

  One screen of the 40 or so in the room showed the external feed - time shifted, Elliot could tell, by about 4 minutes and 12 seconds. He couldn't see the relevance of that, other than it was the average interrupt a policeman could expect on non-critical data uploads to CORETEX. That was burned in his head - every person using CORETEX knew that it was the case. Synchronism, or perhaps coincidence that it happened.

  On the non-live feed, the presenters - both well groomed, urbane and softly spoken - began chattering about the treat coming up for everyone tonight. The social streams at the bottom of the page spiked with mentions about the student tragedy and Elliot nodded carefully.

  "Good nod to history," he said. Justin grinned, without looking over, his face ghoulish in the light cast back.

  "Making something tie to the past or the future generates more mentions than pretending we invented the wheel. Might I add, your CORE press writers don't seem to get that," he added. Elliot shrugged.

  "They're not my writers," Eliot said. "Lowly policeman," he added with a soft smile.

  With a snort, Justin tapped his screen, one nearest the bottom, banded in blue.

  "We're betting he'll be voted off first of the prisoners. Very boring man, two murders, but he claims it was a clone, not him," Justin added, then rolled his eyes.

  Elliot looked back to the stairs. He noticed that the half lea
ding down to the main floor was now removed - and that the doors were sealed with a fleximatter plug, as thick as the door to a vault. But the second half didn't retract.

  "I thought the stairs retracted fully?"

  "No, that's just a promotional shot," one of the other techs said, looking back over his shoulder. "The prisoners can't get to the corridor that leads to those stairs, so it's OK. The prison is in a 'floating' fleximatter enclosure. We're trialing it for the 'new design' minimum security prison," he continued, typing something into the boxes in front of him. I keep just setting them up and knocking them down. If I get out of this, I’m going to really kick off about the stuff we didn’t know…Officially.

  Around them, the lights dimmed. The floor became slightly opaque, and Elliot realized they were above the central column room - with views over the whole of the prison.

  Justin looked over at Elliot.

  "The show will be starting in fifteen minutes. We'll have a three minute buffer at first, and then, depending on Claudia and the contestants, we'll either insert pre-filmed footage to make that buffer bigger or..."

  "I understand," Elliot said with a nod. “Does that mean that you’re…?” Justin waved him back.

  "Let me finish..." he said sharply, and Elliot subsided. “Due to the nature of the show, we're minimal staff for the majority of the project. There are people to cover our breaks, and one extra person, in case Claudia or you, or I get sick, but that's it. Everything and everyone else is either a sanctioned clone, or will leave. So we've got to use the buffers carefully, otherwise...." He spread his hands. "Otherwise, we'll be dealing with completely live footage, and that's no good - especially if they do something that requires us to use their kill switches."

  "And that's my choice." Elliot asked flatly. Justin pulled a face and looked over his shoulder.

  "Uhm..."

  "What?"

  "That was..." he swallowed and handed Elliot a clipboard. “Critical event order issue to allow the network executive to make those decisions. Critical event order issued to allow head tech to make that decision," he said, handing over the paper. He looked almost embarrassed.

  Almost.

  "What?" he said, flicking through the papers. They looked right. But Cerys' warning suddenly popped up.

  "I'll have to check these..."

  "You can't. We're on lock down. Complete comms blackout. We start in fourteen minutes...."

  "Then I'll read them and get back to you," Elliot reached for the forms. "I've got a high reading speed, it won't take me long," he added, trying to soften the words.

  Justin glanced behind Elliot to Claudia and Elliot heard her tut and spin on her heel, the swish of her dress jacket flaring around her as she stalked away then nodded slowly.

  “What were you going to ask me?”

  “Huh?”

  “I asked you to stop,” he said. “You were going to ask…”

  “Oh..duh,” Elliot said, slapping his forehead. “I was going to ask if you were shortening the gap already in place on the prisoner’s cameras.”

  Justin stiffened, knocking over his cup of coffee. It fell to the floor.

  “Shit!” he said. “Uh…there shouldn’t be a….oh. THAT delay. That’s the mandated delay so we can bundle pre-run footage. It’s in line with CORE.”

  Elliot nodded slowly. “I thought so, but…?”

  Justin watched him skimming the paper, took a deep breath and said, “I forgot to fix it, thank you for telling me.” He said it quietly, almost sullenly. Elliot chanced to glance up at that point. Banks of monitors suddenly switched off.

  “I’ll reboot. Hands off please,”

  The hands clear Klaxon sounded. Elliot smiled inwardly.

  Here fishy fishy…

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  At ten minutes to show time, a warning flashed on the screens in front of Elliot and Justin.

  "Start locking down guys. Line B techs, thank you for your support, we're looking good. Hold until the layout is confirmed please." Claudia said crisply and looked over at the techs that were designated line B. Terminals were beginning to cycle down, papers collected. Elliot looked around, and was surprised to see that there were only nine people remaining - the others were getting ready to leave. Another glance and he saw the furtive gazes that each of the people leaving gave him. Cerys was nowhere in sight, so he returned to his notes and continued counting down the checklists. She had said she’d leave around t-20 for a time.

  The people leaving were subdued. There was little chatter and talk but he was sure that he could hear everyone whispering. The environment wasn't...right for the achievement of getting the show set up. There was no ebullient celebration, no buoyed cheers. Elliot expected that they would be patting one another on the back, and preparing to celebrate. But there was none of that. Just tight gazes and subdued murmurs.

  Cerys finally crossed from the room at the back, where Claudia's office was, head down, moving as quickly as she could. She didn't glance at Elliot, but he was sure he could see a bruise on the side of her cheek. Soon after, Claudia joined them.

  "Has the final render check worked?" she asked, "and the auxiliary check to get everything online?" Justin stiffened and then nodded his head. Claudia seemed impatient, her foot tapping angrily. Elliot thought of the daft tom that his wife had kept for the first two years of dating, the way his eyes would narrow, he'd swish his tail, and suddenly he'd be a ball of fury in your lap; biting, snarling, raking claws before he'd jump down again and stalk off, the line of his back, the stiff-legged stalk making it clear he was dissatisfied.

  "I'll just make sure that we're clear to lock the floor..." she said, spinning on her heels.

  Justin leaned over and stage-whispered, as she walked away, "You see...we don't even know what the final layout is. There's multiple options, so..."

  "I understand. Once the prisoners are in their rooms, and as close to the launch time..."

  "Five minute klaxon," Justin said.

  Another klaxon sounded. Even though Justin had warned him, Elliot jumped slightly. The lights shifted from low, and almost intimate, to bright and clinical. On the floor, as each of the wave of lights came up, and the walls began to form, shift and solidify. It all moved with amazing precision, moving from the back walls, in towards the prisoners.

  The maze rendered out incredibly; as it did, a smaller one came up on the floor behind the bank of televisions - a scale map with dots and points of red, orange and green lights.

  Justin's auxiliary bank of monitors was popped into life - each showing a different view. The walls, as Elliot suspected, didn't occlude any of the cameras - in fact, they brought everything into sharp and clear focus.

  "Neat trick," he said, tilting his head. Justin laughed.

  "I designed it - it's got a focus factor based on dozens of variables, but each picture is as clear and crisp as if they were right in front of them. And we're using the vote system to let people collate their own views. Three free, and then...well..."

  Elliot nodded. "Many pre-orders?"

  Justin stood, pushing his keyboard and it...expanded slightly, spreading across the desk - breaking into different districts, each panel matching a monitor. He turned and gave Elliot a theatrical wink. "We're already in the black, put it that way. Even after all of the tech." He waved his hand over the keyboards. "And trust me, this didn't come cheap," he added. For each of the monitors attached to the prisoners, there was a red button, locked off under a fleximatter bracket. Elliot's keyboard flashed red.

  "Move your hands," Justin said, without turning around. "There's nothing that you're doing now that you can't keep doing after the new keys become available."

  Elliot looked down, lifting his hands. The keyboard shifted, turning liquid for a second, before popping into a different configuration, much like the fleximatter floor. As it did, there was a second, quieter pop from behind him.

  "Cells accepted," Justin shouted. "Clear the room! Great job guys, we'll take it from here
." Three techs remained, standing at their stations. Elliot looked over and realized that they were the mechs from the gate, and a severe looking woman whose eyes clicked and spun.

  "Be aware," Justin said, as people cleared the room, "that you will be required to stay in lockdown quarters until the show is over. Bonuses are, however, waiting for you in your rooms." There was a quiet cheer, and he tapped a few buttons.

  “Bonuses?” Elliot kept his voice low, watching them leave.

  Justin nodded and said “I really need that paperwork now.”

  Distraction worked then.

  He handed over the clipboards and Justin said, “Turn with me and sign off on the clearing of the room please.” He said it casually, but there was weight behind it. As if he needed to be facing the other way.

  “Shouldn’t one of us…?”

  “No, the quicker we clear and derezz these terminals, the less angry the Queen Bee is going to be,” Justin said. “It takes less than a minute with two,” he added, handing Elliot a split keyboard laid out like the terminals. “Collapse each in a bank,” he said, “and I can answer your questions. I’m not buying the dumb act,” he added.

  “Act?” Elliot said. Justin laughed.

  “You know Cerys isn’t legal, don’t you?” he asked.

  “I sorta suspected, but let’s face it,” Elliot said, dropping the first bank and turning the second see through, “Morri has bigger fish to fry.” Justin grinned. They flattened the rest of the consoles in silence, Elliot fumbling the last keys and looking at his fingers as if confused for a second, before turning everything off.

  Claudia's space shifted too, the floor popping up the grid, and tracking boxes appearing. He looked over at the three techs and nodded once. They made their way to the three closest terminals, the Mk 2 nearest him gazing at Elliot contemptuously.