by Buffy Brown
“But how about the families of the members of the Breakfast club?” I wonder. “Weren’t they affected by their sons and daughters becoming members of the revolution?”
Bellona swallows and gazes at the grass beneath her feet. “They had their parents clear their names,” she says.
“What is that?” asks Pepper.
“It means they are no longer considered sons and daughters to their parents,” I explain. Finally, something I know about. Clearing someone’s name means that you don’t belong to the family anymore. By doing this, your family will not be downgraded if you get a bad rank, and they are not responsible for you anymore. Also, you’re not allowed to meet with them ever again. I know this because I’ve researched it before. I was going to use it, but you’re not allowed to clear your name if your father is a Six and served in the army. I don’t think that Woo cared enough about his father to clear his name.
“You can do that?” Roger This asks. For the first time, he seems infuriated. He covers his face with his hands, letting out a strange noise, like the moaning of a cat.
“What’s wrong?” Bellona asks him. Hell, even Leo turns his head.
“I could have saved my family,” Roger This says. “I knew previously that I’d be outranked because I am a game addict.”
“No, you couldn’t have saved them,” I explain to him. “Only the parent of a ranked teen can do this. The parents have to approve.”
Roger This removes his hands, raises his head, and looks at us. “That makes me feel better. A little. All day I’ve been thinking about what will happen to my parents. They are both Fives.”
“They play games, too?” Leo asks him, wrapping his arms around his knees pressed to his chest. Of course, he is still holding the rifle. We all turn to Mr. Mysterious, finally speaking.
“Yes,” Roger This says, a little intimidated by Leo.
“Zeragon 5. Eh?” Leo mutters.
“Yep.” Roger This nods.
“Cool game.” Leo slaps a small insect crawling on his face. He doesn’t brush it away after it sticks to his flesh. Roger This winces. “I couldn’t figure out how to open the Dudgeon Dungeon,” Leo remarks.
Dudgeon Dungeon? Bellona and I exchange open-mouthed looks.
“That’s easy,” Roger This says. “You just pick the berries from the forest, give them to the Lady in Black, and she gives you the password.”
“Password?” Leo wonders. “The Dudgeon’s gate opens with a password?”
“Or you find the Rabbit Hole,” Roger This says.
“Yeah? What’s up with all that hype about the Rabbit Hole?” Leo asks.
Suddenly, we’re all blocked out, watching the two most unlikely characters talk about the most unlikely subjects.
“We shouldn’t talk about the Rabbit Hole,” Pepper says.
“I heard about this Rabbit Hole thing,” says Bellona. “I mean, I don’t play computer games, but is this Rabbit Hole you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about?”
Roger This nods. He seems reluctant to say anything about the Rabbit Hole.
“Why is this Rabbit Hole so important?” I ask.
“It’s rumored that there is a way out of the Playa,” a skater boy explains. “It’s called the Rabbit Hole.”
“Seriously?” I almost jump from my place. “So why aren’t we looking for it?” If this is true, and Woo survived, then he is already out of here. But if he is out, why didn’t he contact me?
“It’s never been confirmed,” says Pepper. “Someone keeps sending secret messages and codes through the online games about the Rabbit Hole in the Playa. That’s about it. How do you not know about that? It’s like, an urban legend.” Again, I seem to be the only one ignorant of this.
“Not just someone,” says Bellona. “It’s Wolf who sends the messages. We trust him.”
“Who is Wolf?” I wonder.
“The leader of the Breakfast Club,” the boy says. “It’s his nickname. He encourages teens to look for the Rabbit Hole. It’s a way out that even the Summit doesn’t know about.”
“So seriously, why aren’t we looking?” I say.
“Because we are going to face another deadly game tomorrow,” says Bellona. “And we’ll need all the sleep we can get now. We don’t have the time to look for a myth like that. Be real.”
“Stop it, girls,” one of the skaters demands. He is heavily tattooed and is lying on his back with his hand behind his head, chewing on some grass. I remember him. He is the one who left me behind on purpose in the Breathing Dome. Strangely, he has his name tattooed on his arm, under the Six: Orin.
“Since you have spoken, Orin…” I can’t help myself. I have to express my anger. “I want to tell you that you could have saved me today. You killed the Bully next to the Breathing Booth I was trapped inside, and I was dying. I was screaming for you, and you didn’t save me. You didn’t even look at me. I can’t imagine you didn’t hear me. You were so close.”
“I heard you,” says Orin bluntly. “It’s just I am not here to save anybody. I am not in the military anymore. This is me taking care of me.”
There are two or three minutes of silence, except for the sound of a flickering fire, and me gulping water. The eleven of us are still. What Orin said needs little explanation. Are we going to be there for each other, or is every one of us on their own? Is this going to be a fight within a fight, or should we stand united?
Orin is a soldier. His mind is more tuned to the situation than most of ours. He is practical.
“Hey,” Leo interrupts the tension, talking to Roger This. “I didn’t get your name, fellow gamer.” Leo has his chin up, not smiling.
“I am Vern,” Roger This says, looking at all of us, suddenly remembering he never introduced himself — and none of us asked. “Don’t worry. I know all of your names from the Breathing Dome.”
“What’s your nickname in Zeragon 5?” Leo says. It still boggles my mind how and when Leo had time to play computer games.
“I am RogerThis.” Vern points proudly to his clean t-shirt with two fingers. He looks flattered that Leo asks him. “RogerThis007, actually, since Roger This was taken…”
“I get it,” says Leo, chewing on a match. “If we survive the Monster Show, I’ll nudge ya.”
Chapter 3
“So why did you dedicate your song to the Monsters?” Pepper asks Leo, dropping the real question no one dared to ask until now. “You know, you being a Nine, coming from an all-Nine family… It doesn’t make sense.” Pepper is forward. I like her.
Leo looks like he has a sudden lump in his throat. Since I met him, I haven’t seen him hesitant and embarrassed, until now. “You’ll be surprised to know that I am no hero,” says Leo. “I did it because I wanted to make myself look like a rebel. I was sixteen, you know. Talking about Bad Kidz was prohibited. So I, in my rock star mode, wanted to do something outrageous. To sell more records, and win the Burning Idol. But I have to admit, I am glad I did. My life took such a crazy turn since then, especially when Xitler and the Summit banned me. I understood then what kind of a dictatorship we were living in. I turned against the Summit and went searching for the Breakfast Club everywhere, wanting to join them. But like Bellona, I never found them.”
“So, you’re just like every one of us,” says Bellona.
“If Leo is just as hopeless as we are, what’s the point of playing the game?” Pepper says. “We are all going to die.”
“Especially if none of us has a reason to form an alliance with anyone else.” It’s the first time I agree with Pepper. Not that I feel like giving in, but I need to see where this is going.
“The more we try to live — and eventually die — the more the audience is entertained,” explains Pepper. “Like in a horror movie, you can’t kill all the actors in the first scene.”
“In a horror movie, the hero never dies,” I beg to differ. I don’t know what kind of horror movies Pepper watches.
“The Monster never dies,” says Vern, with his kn
ees pulled up to his chest, and his head buried between his legs. He thinks we didn’t hear him, then raises his head, surprised we’re all staring at him. “What? It’s a Stephen Zing quote.”
“King,” Leo sighs. “Stephen King, not Zing. Zing sounds as if he were a Samurai or something.”
“What’s a Samurai?” I ask.
Leo rolls his eyes. He is not going to answer me. Mr. I-come-from-outer-space.
“I am just messing with you. We killed the Bullies with Samurai swords, remember?”
“I agree with Vern,” says Bellona. “The Monster never dies. Not that I like them calling us Monsters. But since they do, let’s show them how strong-willed us Monsters can be. Let’s bond together and show them that this year, at least, one of us will survive. We have to teach them that the Monster never dies.”
“How are we going to do that?” I ask. I am not here to win. I am here to find my friend.
“Military style,” answers Bellona, looking at the skaters.
“You sure you want to do it that way?” a skater boy asks.
“Yes,” Bellona says. “But no one else can know about this but us.”
“What’s going on? What does military-style mean?” asks Pepper.
“First, I want your iAms turned off now.”
Pepper nods. She seems convinced or is playing along. We all nod too. How is a Monster never going to die?
“What I am going to ask of you is a technique we use in the army,” explains Bellona. “It is called La Roche: a tactic for survival in extreme situations.”
“Yes?” I prompt her.
“We will have to create an internal ranking that no one knows about but us. A ranking from one to ten. One is the one we sacrifice first, ten is the one we sacrifice last.”
“What does that mean?” Pepper asks, with a furrowed brow. She only has one eyebrow; the other is missing.
“When we go back to the Battlefieldz tomorrow, the Summit will try to turn us against each other with all the psychological tricks they have. They will push us as much as they need to, so we lose the games.”
“Okay?” I say.
“If we want at least one of us to win the games, here is what we will do. We will give each other numbers that will tell us who sacrifices themselves for the rest. It’s going to be our secret code.”
“This is awful.” I can’t believe my ears.
“We are likely to die anyway,” says Pepper. “And don’t worry. I’m ready to be number one. I was raised with the idea that I am going to die to save others for sixteen years. It’s going to be easier for me.”
“It is going to be our internal rank, to know who is worth the risk to save, and who is to die for the rest of us at any given moment,” Bellona repeats.
“How are we going to choose?” Orin asks.
“We vote,” Leo answers. He likes the idea.
“No,” Vern says, raising his hand. “We toss. If we vote, I will be number two.”
“And Decca will be number three.” Orin grins. This guy hates me.
“I saved all of you in the dome today,” I yell at him.
“Hah.” He shakes his head.
“Okay. We toss,” Bellona says. “But leave Leo out of it.”
“Why?” Vern asks.
“He is the strongest and most experienced,” says Bellona. “If he dies, I don’t see how we can make it.”
“And if I don’t like my result?” Orin asks.
“Then you are not one of us. You leave and play on your own like you did with Decca in the dome,” Leo explains firmly.
None of us asks Leo to participate. We all know that with him around, as silent and obnoxious as he is, we feel a little safer.
We all agree. Leo takes the lead and carves our names on big leaves with his sword. He collects them in his bag. We start picking our numbers.
Vern is number one, the first to be sacrificed. Pepper is two. I think she is okay with that. Orin is three. I would have wanted him to be one. Four, five, six, seven, and eight are skaters. Bellona is number nine.
I am number ten.
I wonder.
Did Leo cheat in my favor?
Chapter 4
The next morning, we pack the water caterpillars we need and bury the rest under a tree in the forest. Leo marks the tree with a letter D using his knife. He says D stands for Decca, which is the number ten in Greek.
“Are you saying my name is a number in some old language?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Not exactly. The number is written as Deka in Greek, pronounced as Theka, but the resemblance is very close.”
When I ask him who those Greek people really are, he says, “Interesting people with too many gods.”
“Ah,” I muse. “You mean like the Burning Man?” I am just teasing.
“Burning Man isn’t a God,” he sighs. “He is just a man who…got burned.”
“Call me D from now on,” I say to Leo, swooshing my sword in the air and posing like a warrior. Sleep has put me in a great mood, I guess.
Leo shakes his head. Sometimes, he looks insulted by my existence.
“Goooood morning, Faya!” Timmy cheers in our iAms. He is posing theatrically with arms outstretched and plastering that devilish look on his face. “With four million viewers yesterday, this was the best opening day in ten years!” he announces proudly.
Right now, only one million viewers are watching. People need to wake up, eat breakfast, wash their hands, check their iAms and then go watch some kids fighting for their lives. Life is so hard for them. Duh.
We gather and sit by the edge of the forest, closer to the main street, waiting for today’s game. Leo looks irritated, pointing his rifle at Timmy on the big screen.
“Yesterday in the woods,” Timmy says to the camera, “the Monsters awarded themselves numbers.” Wait. How did he know about the numbers? We shot all cameras and tuned off the iAms. “Numbers like ours,” Timmy starts mocking us. The audience is making jokes about us wanting to be cool like them. “You know, like seven, eight, and nine.” Timmy counts on his fingers.
“Booooooo.” The audience is insulted. How dare we Monsters call ourselves by numbers?
“They have even given one of them the number ten.” Timmy cries bubble tears. They look like they’re causing him great pain as they come out of his eyes. The tears are rolling down his cheek, then they float in thin air, turning into shampoo-like bubbles. “A ten,” he repeats dramatically. He sounds torn apart by the appalling news, slamming two fists against the floor, bending his body dramatically. “Aahhhhhh!” It amazes me why the audience is offended by our actions. They are just numbers.
Leo is signaling for us to move toward the main street. Then he whispers to us, saying we need to go out into the open, in case something crazy happens after Timmy’s speech. Although we don’t know who sold us out yet, Leo is scanning everyone with sharp eyes. I grit my teeth, feeling his anger. When he figures out who sold us out, he is going to do something crazy. Who is it? The only one Leo doesn’t look sharply at is me. I am surprised he doesn’t consider me among the suspects.
Timmy dries his tears and sips green tea in the garden with legs crossed. He calms the audience down. Within two minutes of nonsense and crying, we have one million three hundred thousand viewers watching us. People surely love crap. “But it’s okay,” says Timmy. “Their misbehaving gave me an idea. Something that has never been done before in the Monster Show. It’ll be such an entertaining game today.”
I imagine the next game will be extra brutal. It’s going to be punishment again. We are standing at the edge of the forest, waiting for instructions. Wherever I go, I remind myself to look for a clue for the Rabbit Hole, or the girl I saw yesterday. Where could she be? What is the Rabbit Hole? Is it a real hole? A portal? A vehicle? An opening hidden behind something? Is it a hole we have to dig in the earth for? Will I find Woo beyond it?
Timmy gives the audience time to text each other on their iAms and spread the word about today’s
“supertastic show.” Pepper is amusing herself, checking out Monsterpedia.com. She says we’ve become famous, our names shining like stars on the website.
“Today, the name of the game is…” Timmy whispers to the audience, sticking out his fat and bubbly lips. “Choices and Priorities.” He backs away from the camera. “I know, I know. How genius of me. Life is all about choices and priorities, so let’s see if our Monsters have got what it takes to choose and prioritize.”
The counter shows two million viewers.
“Monsterapocalypsers!” Timmy is knocking on the microphone. “Pay attention, please. We would like you to walk toward the Monorail station. In the meantime, I have secrets to share with the audience.”
Suddenly, we lose connection with the outer world as our iAms stop broadcasting.
I feel a soft shudder go through my body. The feeling of being disconnected is unpleasant, as if I am grounded for the weekend with no internet or iAm, locked up in a dark cellar.
“How can they just disconnect us?” One skater boy freaks out, rubbing his arms with his hands as if he is cold. The sun is scorching.
“Wow,” says Vern. “This is like the game Zombocalypse 8, where you play the last teen on Earth.”
“They can do whatever they want,” Pepper answers the skater, ignoring Vern. She steps ahead of us on the asphalt of the main street. This is where we survived the speed exploding buses yesterday. It’s all cleaned up now. The street looks empty, abandoned, and creepy. I remember hearing the military choppers yesterday, sent to clean up. None of us dared to approach. They have the right to shoot us if we do. “Here we are,” shouts Pepper with open arms, looking at a flying camera above. “What are you waiting for?”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” says Bellona. “It feels like a city of the dead.”
“It is,” I say, looking at the sun shining in the sky. On any other day, this would have been beautiful.
There is a silly sign on the left that says, “It’s a Nice Day to Die.” I believe it’s a part of the Summit’s mockery. Cautiously, we follow Pepper, crossing the main street. We should be looking for the Monorail station, but we’re distracted by the loneliness the situation imposes upon us. Walking the vast, spacious streets on our own makes us feel lost, as if we’re the last bunch of friends left on Earth. Too many choices, too many directions. None of them feel safe.