"Corporeal" he said finally, as if confirming something. His voice was grating, menacing, and not entirely pleasant.
"No, Senior Detective," Elliot replied and with a sigh, the Justin burst out laughing.
"He means...human. Not your rank. He said..."
"I know what he said," Elliot said, running through one of the checklists in his kit. He didn't look around, but he could feel all three of them watching him. He stopped, turned languidly and said "Here's the deal. I won't call you walking violations, and you won't call me Corporeal. Or Corporal, or meat-bag or any other quaint concept you've had programmed into your hard drive. It's impolite, it's unnecessary, and I tell you what, it gets on my nerves." Elliot said with a smile. Behind him, Justin took a breath.
"Detective," the Mk2 said, neutrally.
"Yes?" Elliot said, sweetly.
"I will be tracking 1 through 12. She has 13 to 25, and he has the rest. We will not change assignments without your permission," he said. There was a glint in his eyes – coding fettered and held in check. Elliot nodded.
"Define tracking please?"
"We are responsible for making sure that the lanes don't cross," she said. Elliot nodded. "And if they do, we extrapolate the safest area for those that need to escape..."
"Got it," Elliot said. "Good people to have in a pinch," he added.
"Yes. But all we're doing is ensuring the prisoners don't go near the survivalists. No one is designated..."
"I'm watching them," Justin said quietly.
Claudia stalked back into the room, talking on a small headset.
"Yes, I am aware of the stakes Madam President...this show..." She paused, a look of distaste crossing her face, pulling her mouth out of shape.
"Yes Ma'am, I understand," she said, pulling the headset off in disgust, then snapping something at Justin that Elliot couldn't quite catch. She'd said it in a language he was sure he should recognize. It slipped again, and he blinked, shaking his head.
"Yes Claudia," Justin said back meekly. Elliot rubbed his eyes. The clocks had jumped 55 seconds and it was disquieting. He only even caught it out of the corner of his eye. Blinking again, it rocked back 30 seconds.
"Are you all right, detective?" Claudia asked sweetly. Elliot nodded.
"Yes, just..."
"Two minutes to show," Justin barked. Claudia strode to the center of the room, and stood in the area where the prison walls were still flickering and randomizing - Elliot could see the feed being parceled and sent to the onscreen talent - he suspected it was running live.
Prisoners were pacing - the survivalists doing their best to fit in, but one or two of them looked genuinely scared. One was kneeling by his bed and praying, the other sitting quietly by his door, tightening his jumpsuit bottoms.
At one minute to show time, a final, louder klaxon sounded and all of the techs gathered up their information and moved out. The stairs didn't retreat as Elliot had expected - there was no retraction. Instead, the last pass-gate by the top of the stairs, where the logo had been, as Elliot had first entered, locked off. Cerys returned and stood by the door.
She looked like she'd been crying. He turned back, not seeing Claudia step out of the shadows and grab her arm.
"You WILL do this, Cerys," Claudia said, pulling her to into a small alcove. Cerys inclined her head.
"Obedient pet," she added, her voice softening slightly. "My orders are...?"
"...to be obeyed," Cerys parroted flatly.
Speakers crackled.
"And we're live in t-5, 4, 3...."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Elliot's eyes were glued to the monitor in front of him - in the center of the room, the presenter was doing the intro for the game. The competitors were already growing wild and shouting and screaming. The hooting and catcalls sounded like the first riot he’d put down, oh so many years ago. In a blink, it was almost as if he was back there, the red and yellow flicker of a prison on fire. For that one second, the coppery smell got worse, stronger, and he thought he could smell burning flesh. One of the worst things about all of this was that he could see things going from bad to worse already. There was a jarring element – a tiny piece just not quite right. Something that was going to cause so many problems for everyone and he just couldn't define what it was. He'd seen a little and still couldn't place it.
Cerys had warned him the shots would disorient him, but he was sure there was another layer to this. Something he didn't quite have yet. It came and went in waves.
Three of the prisoners were still lounging indolently in their cells, till one by one they jumped up, startled and angry - cameras off them though, Elliot shot a quizzical look at the producer.
"Mild electro-kinetic shocks. No one is interested in watching people that aren't doing anything," she said, flicking her smart pad almost indolently, her finger tilting and rocking each page past at speed. He tutted and shook his head and she glared at him. "The agreement was..."
He rounded in his chair. "Lady, your agreement means nothing to me," Elliot snapped back suddenly. "Nothing here is as I expected, and though I'm aware I can't do anything about it now, I will on return to Darkness. Now please," he said, as the last of the color drained from her face, and he returned to gazing at the screen banks in front of him, "let me do my job."
He rolled his shoulders, waiting for the crack when he tilted his head to one side, then the other, and then moved back to his screens, watching as they drifted out into the rooms beyond. She shot him a dirty look.
Elliot saw several techs tracing routes and feeding that to the survival experts, and then the lights suddenly came up, and the doors all dissolved and shattered or collapsed in on themselves. Elliot saw the panning camera taking in every door giving way, the cameras slamming past at lighting speed and the footage slowed down as they traveled.
Each of the twenty four prisoners emptied into a hall - possibly a recreation room. Each of the prison cells were generously sized, double occupancy units, and Elliot realized he was looking at the long term prison areas, or what had been at one time. Each of them moved with their own pace.
Justin was up, in the middle of the room, offering commands and information to each of the teams, who in turn seemed to feed that to the in show talent. Elliot felt as if he was useless and suddenly realized that he'd had everything taken off him. All of his tech was surveillance - he had no control over anything, except - perhaps - the kill switches.
The first people to leave their cells first were the survival experts, which marked them out more than anything else. Elliot saw them cautiously step out, look at one another then disperse, like someone had caught them peeping. The biggest of the three scuttled off to the main floor, while the other two scattered in either direction.
Behind him, Claudia snapped instructions at the watchers, now sprinkled around the room, watching the smaller rendered map. Camera three took the primary broadcast for a couple of seconds, then she barked orders at camera two. Elliot watched as the feed dropped into Camera 3, the wide shot of the prison, from above, lighting cells as it swept past. The computer overlays pinged as they passed the perspective markers. He knew that each of those blocks would ping to smart devices, letting people 'stack' records to read.
It was tech that encouraged lack of attention span - and Elliot knew why. When you COULD have all of that information at your fingertips, the person supplying it was Almighty. Information was provided, at first, by fan groups. It was amazing how quickly that slid into being controlled by the shows. And when that happened, a subtle form of propaganda took hold.
One of the major propagandist elements of working with government sanctioned shows was that they had their own subtle take on everything. So, the shows provided it, feeding into the beliefs of their watchers, and each watcher could tailor the things they saw. Tailor everything from their leanings to their beliefs. And with smart tech being almost as pervasive as warm bodies, it was easy to see why the format was the way it was now.
It didn't change the cores of most shows though - but, the right slant of wording - the right phrase in the bio, and the person could be saved - or sacrificed. Elliot had seen the neutral bios, and the bios being issued based on up and down votes. It was amazing. And subtle. A change of word there - a phrase that updated here. Some people might notice, but, caught up in the rush, he doubted it.
Claudia was still barking instructions, as Justin passed Elliot a pad - notes on three prisoners who hadn't left their cells yet. One was a petty thief - with a penchant for clones. He stayed huddled in his corner, and had activated the lock on the door - which only remained current for ten minutes, per body, per cell.
The other two were predators. Panther nasty, and sleek, they moved through their cells methodically investigating all of the fixtures. They didn't use their ten minutes of free time to lock the cells yet - and Elliot thought he knew why. Pulling and pushing they investigated every fixture and fitting in the room, they were looking for weapons.
Each room was bare, save a bed with a mattress, and a toilet/sink. The toilet/sink retracted as the show was starting up - there had been a t-10 warning.
"Fix it!" Claudia barked suddenly, and Elliot whipped around to look at the man Justin was watching. One of the prisoners was pulling at the beds - trying to loosen one of the legs. Elliot knew, from the notes, that there was 'stage set' furniture in the middle of the jail - where the prisoners would meet and possibly fight. It would be a brawl, but the 'set pieces' wouldn't break into dangerous weapons. It was possible they'd beat one another to death with their bare hands, but he'd been in the room for one of the lectures three days ago. Those lectures were the first indication things weren't quite right, and he knew it, but the more he thought about how wrong it was, the less he actually cared. And that didn't feel right, but his brain didn't seem to be absorbing anything. It was as if it was skidding off the problems - as if his morals were under glass, not the prisoner. He thought back to talking to Morri and realized he hadn't said anything near what he'd wanted to. And then, his mind was off again, skidding off the edges.
Why haven't the beds dissolved?" Elliot asked.
Justin waved at him distractedly, "Not now," he said, sniping, and shooting another look at Claudia. “Use the mild force button please,” he said, and Elliot hesitated.
“Elliot, if you don’t hit it, I jump right to the higher one. Do it, he’s managed to sneak something in that could cause a problem,” Justin said. There was another look at Claudia. Elliot hit a button and the prisoner went rigid. He twitched slightly, as Claudia barked to get footage from another area of the prison, and then he continued, trying to pull the bed apart. Elliot hit the button again as Justin inclined his head, turning the dial up next to it slightly. The prisoner winced and went rigid again. Elliot could just about swear he could see the suit go damp as he lost control of his bladder.
Claudia came over, watching angrily. "Not good. He's one of the primes,” Justin’s head snapped up.
"Claudia," he warned, and Elliot looked over curiously.
"What? There are some people we've had strong feedback on," she said, the snap in her voice not quite committed. She looked at Justin, mouthed something, then continued, "Subdue him, send someone in to remove the bed from that back wall," she snapped, then arranged for a different feed that wouldn't show any of that area.
"People are locking the channel," one tech called and Elliot turned around to see a surge of people 'bumping' the adverts, to stay on this footage for as long as they could. That cost money, money which the company would infinitely increase. It was always an option, of course not to bump, but with the action playing out beneath them, Elliot was surprised that more people weren't.
He realized there was no way to pull the plug on this now. It was successful – the numbers were just rocketing, as more and more people tuned in. There was a surge of people fast forwarding as they joined, a huge surge as a stadium came online and Elliot knew that was the end of it, from an objective standpoint. Sweet little revolutionary, Harper’s voice was clear, Take my hand and follow me into death…. Elliot shook his head, hard and tried desperately to grasp at something else in his head. Anything but think of his partner in his own pool of blood, telling stories in the dark as the quarantine took far too long to lift. Trying to tell him to lie still, and listening him lilt and talk to death as if she were his lover. Watch him cry out for Beth, and Morri, and the spreading pool under his legs as his hand slipped and couldn’t close the wound properly.
Morri…He wondered what she was doing. Wondered if she'd swing by the flat and check on Beth. He swallowed, mouth drying, and wondered if he should call again.
The prisoner was still shaking with the bed edge, pulling harder and harder - a frantic edge moving through him as he yanked and pulled. Another prisoner was charging up the hall, and could see him, and before Elliot could blink, they were wrestling, the man still trying to pull the bed leg off while the other brought down one solid fist into the side of his head.
Blood sprayed - it was automatically tagged on screen, and the techs began feeding back the footage to give it some treatment.
Claudia clapped and jumped on the spot, suddenly ignoring the fact that three minutes ago, she was trying to put the man down, and squealed, "Perfect! Expand the room!"
"Mark it on the clock," Justin said, "and tell the smart-cams to pull footage leading up to this so we can build a montage."
On air, the on screen 'talent' was discussing the stats on the prisoner, then pretended they were being interrupted.
"We're going live now to the first fight," one suddenly broke in, and the crowd watching roared their approval.
The room expanded slightly, the walls collapsing empty cells on either side, along with the cell that was back to back with this one. The bed pulled with it, slowing dissolving into the floor. It was dissolving slowly though, as if it had been salted with something.
Justin typed frantically. “How can his inert nanites…never mind. Flag his blood for retrieval please, don’t collapse the room until we have,” he hissed then turned to Elliot. “You can’t stop this – I wasn’t expecting blood this early on in, but…” he smiled, and there was a wistful edge to it. “Means the event is a success. Your account has already been credited. All we can do now is watch.”
The bed continued to dissolve, as if it were a ruin instead of a piece of furniture, collapsing into a couple of jutting points. While it did, the prisoner punched, kicked and shoved, sprays coming off every point of contact in jetting, splattered arcs. He kept looking behind him though, a furtive quick movement as he shoved the weaker attacker off him. His face was veiled in blood, his pale white skin covered over with a mask of blood. Here comes the Red Death, Elliot thought, a dollop of anger in red, get your heart going! That wasn’t Harper. That was Cerys, but she’d never said that. But it was her voice.
‘Red. Red death. DJ’, he heard it, clear and precise as a lightning strike. He blinked, feeling the edge of something pushing at his consciousness, then receding. It felt like a migraine. It felt like something was growing in there, somehow. Eroding something.
His attention slipped back to the fight he could not get involved in. It was unnatural; he didn’t like watching, but he had to. Watching the other players in the maze, he saw there was a second scuffle, between two survival experts.
“Justin…” Elliot said, pointing.
“Secondary filming,” he said, “they’re faking it so one of them can leave – he sprained his ankle.” Elliot split his attention between the contestant being apparently burked, and the lurid, bloody fight before him. The interloper had gained some ground and was pushing the first man, with the red mask back. The man burking the other one moved off, leaving the corpse lying quite still, and for a second, there was a black band around a name, till Justin slapped something. While Elliot turned away, the original occupant of the cell, designated Krezz, had grabbed the second prisoner, and was hauling him towards the ruined edge of t
he bed. It looked more like a jutting iceberg now, with a sharp point on the very far edge, where he’d been tugging. Claudia was hovering right behind Elliot, breathing fast.
“First death imminent,” one of the Mk2’s intoned and Elliot jumped.
“How can you…?”
Justin reached over and flicked a band, and the final panel of Elliot’s buttons were there.
“If you think he’ll suffer, kill him outright. The audience won’t know the difference if you do it just at the right time. The Mk2’s know because they’ve extrapolated. Though, I think you can see it too. You’ve got a disgusted look on your face.”
The man’s face was driven down onto the spike as a final smack, and Elliot hit his button as fast as he could. He convulsed once, and then collapsed to the floor, the victor raising his bloody fists in a Champion’s stalk.
I should not be this powerless.
The next four fights played out much the same – the murderer claiming that he’d been framed by a clone taking out two more people, while another looked on. Once he was finished, a small, lithe man jumped out from behind a corner wall and smacked him into the farthest edge of the next wall with a satisfying thump. Elliot hit all of their kill switches when he was sure there was no saving them, each press making him feel more and more loathsome. While the on-screen talent looked at the footage in slo-mo or other treatments, including at one point, the bones of the competitors showing as they broke while two kickboxed their way down a grey marked hall, one falling to his knees as the second kicked his head so hard it separated from his spine. Once the carnage was over, the cameras shot different areas of the prison, while they cleaned up.
“X-ray glass is a success!” Justin yelped and got up and danced for a second before he remembered where he was. “Ooops, sorry. The algorithms on that one though…”
Elliot drew a shuddering breath, then sighed. “This isn’t right. I lodge another formal complaint…”
Existence Oblivion Page 11
