Running the Game

by P. A. Wilson

  Running the game

  P.A. Wilson

  Perry Wilson Books

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Also by P.A. Wilson

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1

  “Lieutenant Junior Grade Bryman.”

  Jocaster turned toward the loud and demanding voice. Lieutenant Xandry marched around the bulkhead to a stop inches from Jocaster’s face, his arms crossed behind him.

  It could have been worse, he supposed. Xandry was a loudmouth and a jerk, but he wouldn’t stick around long. It was Jocaster’s first assignment on the game. All of the command positions on the starship were reserved for winners, he’d won last session, and now he was in charge of monitoring the action.

  “Sir,” he said.

  Xandry looked him from boots to cap and back again, clearly finding him lacking. “You know the rules?”

  As if he could have forgotten in the three months since his victory. “One winner. Gamers are disqualified if they kill another participant. The bottom half of the losing contestants get assigned to the maintenance crew.”

  No one wanted to lose. The maintenance crews should have been called the shit crews. Anything that involved, dirty, dangerous, or degrading got assigned to them, and, in space, there were plenty of jobs that qualified. The life span of a maintenance rat was about five years.

  Xandry brought his left hand to the front. He held a sealed envelope. Whatever was inside must be important since paper was a luxury item on the ship. “When you observe, you need to pay special attention to this list of names.”

  Jocaster opened the envelope. Three names. None of them were familiar, but that wasn’t unusual. The starship was huge, and even the officers didn’t know all of their peers. “Attention how?”

  “You will participate in the game. Under a false identity. You will ensure that one of those three win.”

  “How? If I’m in the game, I’m supposed to be trying to win. If I don’t, the other gamers might suspect…” he didn’t finish his thought. When he’d been in the game for real, he paid little attention to the other gamers. “Fine, what happens if someone recognizes me?”

  His face wasn’t unusual, but he’d been told he was good looking. He kept his head shaved because his hair bushed at any length. The only really individual feature he had was the green eyes. With his black skin, he should have deep brown ones. Girls loved the oddity.

  Xandry sneered. “Don’t flatter yourself. No one remembers the winners because all they think about is their own game. Anyone who might recognize you will be too old to participate anyway.”

  The game was open to anyone between the ages of eleven and nineteen. Most winners were like Jocaster, eighteen. The younger kids didn’t have the stamina, and the nineteen-year-olds were too desperate to actually win. Everyone got assigned to a task on their twentieth birthday if they hadn’t won or lost the game.

  “So the game isn’t run fair?” He must have been on a similar list.

  Xandry snorted a laugh. “Nothing is run fair, Bryman. Your parents might have paid for you to be there, or someone owed them a favor. But if you weren’t on the list, you wouldn’t have won.”

  Jocaster handed back the paper. “What’s my identity?”

  “Use your own name, and get some contacts for those freaky eyes. You are from sector six, your parents are farm workers.” Xandry gave him that top to toe took again. “Any questions?”

  Jocaster shook his head, then, at the gleam of anger in Xandry’s eyes, barked, “No, Sir.”

  “Good.” Xandry held the paper up again. “Now, see this name?” He pointed to the first on the list. “She wins and you get a few steps closer to promotion. Any of the others, and you stay at Junior Grade Lieutenant for a couple of years.”

  The name was Nina Goya.

  “Relative of yours?” Jocaster knew he was bordering on insubordination, but if the game was fixed, then so was everything. A single demerit from Xandry would be easy to erase.

  “No.”

  “Does she have what it takes?”

  Xandry smiled. “She has what it takes to make me happy. And believe me, you want me happy.”

  “So, I should help her?”

  “You get it, Bryman. I’m impressed with your intellect.”

  There was nothing more to say. Jocaster waited for Xandry to dismiss him. If he was participating, he needed to get back to his berth, change, and get to the start of the game. He had enough time, but just.

  “Tell no one,” Xandry said. “Dismissed.”

  Xandry marched way leaving Jocaster with his thoughts.

  Finding out the game was fixed wasn’t as much a surprise as he’d expected. It seemed right. And maybe having any random winner get into the ranks was a bad idea. The winner needed to show skill to get to the end, but leading the ship needed team work, not individual actions. The officers were responsible for the whole ship, they needed to trust each other and maybe picking their fellows was a good way to make sure that happened.

  He turned to head down the passage that led to his berth, but stopped when he heard a scrape of boot on metal. Someone had moved in the starboard corridor. He ran to look and saw a flash of red clothing and a swing of blond hair as the person turned the corner. It must be one of the gamers.

  2

  The gamers were lounging around the entrance to the first obstacle. There were twenty of them this run. In Jocaster’s session, he remembered a crowded room, but he’d been so focused on winning that he didn’t care how many others were there.

  No one was wearing red. They were all dressed as he was, in shades of grey. You didn’t want to make a target of yourself in the game. It was against the rules to kill an opponent, but doing enough damage to take them out of the game was fine. So, you blended to make it hard to pick you out. He’d taken time to change enough of his appearance that his target wouldn’t recognize him. He couldn’t do anything about his lack of hair, so he’d painted a design on his face to mimic a tattoo, and his eyes were brown thanks to a set of contacts he’d bought for a costume last Launch Day.

  No one had long blond hair either, but there were six people wearing hats that covered their hair. He’d guessed that the spy was female. Long hair was unusual on a guy.

  So, his first task, other than getting through the obstacle, was to find his spy. Then find out what damage they were planning to do. And if they weren’t on the list, he’d have to slow them down while giving advantage to the three names.

  It was beginning to feel like this run was going to be more difficult than his real session. At least he didn’t have to win this time.

  “You planning on getting a partner?” The voice came from one of the hatted girls. She was cute. Blue eyes and fair skinned, she was another throwback in a world of brown haired, brown eyed, people.

  “Maybe. I heard it helps to work together until the last few obstacles.” He tried not to stare, because she might take it the wrong way. There was no stray lock of hair sliding from under her hat to help him.

  “I’m Pen,” she said. “Want to try this one together?”

  There was no Pen on the list.

  “Jocaster,” he replied. “Sure.”

  There would be an opportunity to get a look under her hat. If wasn’t blond, then he could try partnering with someone else until he found his person. There was no way the spy wasn’t in the game; he hoped.

  “Okay, Cas,” Pen said.

  An alarm sounded — Five minutes until they started. The gamers moved from their casual lounging into pairs. He’d had a partner on his first round t
oo. It was early enough in the game so you could trust the help. All of them alert tensed for the first run. Some of them must have run the game before. It didn’t help to have experience, the game changed each session. Now that he knew the truth, Jocaster wondered if that was to give an advantage to the chosen ones if they were new.

  “Have you run before?” Pen asked, interrupting Jocaster's thoughts.

  “Yeah, you?”

  She scanned the room before leaning in to answer. “My first time. Still want to partner?”

  He laughed. “Sure, what are you good at?”

  “Lots of stuff. I’m fast. I’m pretty strong, and I don’t give up. You?”

  In other circumstances, Jocaster would have enjoyed teaming with Pen. In this situation, they’d probably get through the first obstacle fast. Good. “Problem solving. I guess I’m as fast and strong as I need to be.”

  The ten second countdown began.

  “Okay, we can do this one together,” Pen said. “No promises for further along.”

  “Same here,” Jocaster said. How was he going to broach the subject of what she’s heard? He had to believe that if he knew what she was planning, he could deal with it.

  The final alarm sounded and the gamers ran to pass through an opening in the wall that hadn’t been there a second earlier. Jocaster reached for Pen as she moved to join the hustle. “No, let them go through. If we get hurt entering, we won’t have a chance.”

  A curse rose over the noise of running feet.

  “See,” he said, pointing to the boy who rolled out of the crowd, arm clasped to his chest. “He’s not going to make it.”

  “Huh, I guess they want us to show strategic skills?”

  For a second Jocaster thought she’d recognized him because she’s asked rather than simply said the words.

  “If the game is real,” she continued, “they want more than speed and strength.”

  The crowd was thinning. Jocaster started toward the panel. “What do you mean? If the game is real?”

  She pulled him through the opening. It slid closed behind them, cutting off three of the gamers. “You think they leave it to chance?”

  She was looking around the room now. It was small and crowded with gamers doing the same thing. All of the others gathered in the center of the floor.

  “The leadership would be insane if the criteria were only to win this stupid game. There must be more to it.”

  “Like you can’t actually win unless you have other leadership skills? Or something else?” Had he chosen the wrong partner? If she was asking so many questions, how much could she have overheard?

  Jocaster watched the other gamers. This test wasn’t quite the same as his session, but close enough.

  “You don’t think they have a list? The ones they want to win.” She pointed at the bottom of the wall where there were some words scratched into the metal. “People who get an advantage?”

  He looked at the scratches. The words were cryptic. No one else had seen them yet, most of the participants were searching the ceiling as if up was the only logical way out. He motioned for her to stand so she was hiding the words. He didn’t want to attract attention when he looked closely. “If there were a list, what would you do?”

  She bent to read over his shoulder. “Make sure I won the game.”

  Jocaster ran his fingers across the scratches, nothing happened. “You wouldn’t expose the secret?”

  “What for? If I win, I can lead. If I don’t win and complain, people will think I’m just a sore loser. Surest way I know to get on maintenance is to be a whiner.”

  He didn’t believe she’d keep the secret. And he couldn’t let her win, so he’d have to make the game harder than Pen expected. That would come later, for now, he focused on getting through the first obstacle before dealing with that problem. “Look, the answer has to be something we can do without giving away the solution too soon, but not so secret the others wouldn’t follow. If not, there’s only one obstacle. The first one to figure it out is the winner. It’s too early to do that.”

  Pen leaned on him and looked closer. “There’s only one way I can think of it working,” she said. “It reads, ‘not all is real’, so something is a hologram.”

  Jocaster smiled up at her. “Touch the wall,” he whispered.

  She leaned forward and he saw her fingers slip through the metal. She’d been smart enough to hide her actions. “Is anyone watching?” she asked.

  Jocaster looked around. The rest of the gamers were still testing the floor and ceiling. A couple of the pairs had formed bigger teams, but everyone was focused on their own attempts to escape.

  “Go,” he whispered.

  She slid past him and disappeared through the hologram. Jocaster glanced around again, and followed her.

  The room on the other side was lined with couches, and there were snacks on the table.

  “This is where we find out who our competition really is,” Pen said grabbing an energy bar.

  3

  By the time the countdown started for the next phase, there were fewer than half the contestants still in the game. Jocaster saw the other two people on his list were successful, although one of them had just made it as the time ran out. He’d been surprised on his own session that so many of the gamers could disappear without anyone noticing how they’d left. But few people took the time to watch what was going on around them.

  “We need to get through the next one fast, so we don’t get worn out,” Pen said. “It’s only going to get harder as the good ones get through.”

  “No kidding,” Jocaster said. “What about your imaginary list?”

  She glared at him. “Are you sure it’s not real? How would you know?”

  The countdown was almost complete, Jocaster stepped toward the only door in the room. “How do you know it is real?”

  The door opened before she could answer. Four people ran through ahead of them. Nina Goya, the one he was supposed to let win, was at the back of the pack.

  Did she know that he was here to help? Maybe she didn’t want it. Or she was saving it until later.

  Pen pulled him into the next challenge, carefully to avoid any traps. “Has anyone with totally the wrong skills ever won?”

  He thought about Xandry. He might be trying to skew the game, but he was a good man in the heat of battle. Well, the heat of simulated battle. There hadn’t been an enemy encounter for twenty years. Jocaster, like everyone on ship, hoped it was over. They might not be in the middle of battle, but other ships reported in occasionally, the war still went on. If you could believe the announcements.

  “Maybe we just don’t hear about failures.” He turned his attention to the challenge. This was a corridor and the exit was obvious. A hundred meters, maybe a little less, straight ahead the hatch stood open.

  Goya laughed, and ran toward the exit. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave it open when I’m done.”

  Pen sighed. “Someone like her? Is she really stupid enough to think the hatch isn’t booby-trapped?”

  Had Xandry put Goya’s name on the list himself? Or was the list Xandry’s idea. Jocaster felt his gut twist as he realized that the whole thing might be a test of his ethics.

  They watched as Goya hit an invisible barrier half way down the corridor. She bounced off it and landed on her ass. The rest of the group, Jocaster and Pen included, made their way cautiously to her position.

  She was winded, but not incapacitated.

  Pen pulled the woman to her feet. “I think this is something we work on together.”

  “Teams don’t win,” Goya said pulling her arm out of Pen's grip.

  Jocaster watched as Pen turned to the group, ignoring Goya’s attempts to push through whatever stood in their way.

  If he was being tested, he had the whole game to figure it out. If Goya did something to get herself thrown out of the game, he couldn’t be held responsible. At least he hoped not.

  “Yeah, I guess there’s only one winner,” Pe
n said to the group. “But, that gets decided at the end. If we don’t work together sometimes, we won’t get that far.”

  One of the older gamers stepped forward. “So, we cooperate until we’re through this one? I’m not agreeing to anything else.”

  “I don’t see how one person could figure this out without all of us seeing,” Pen replied. “Until we’re through and then we’re on our own. Anyone else have something to say? I’m guessing we don’t have forever to solve this.”

  No one else spoke.

  Goya continued to kick, and prod, and try to shoulder her way through the obstacle while the rest of the gamers stepped back to figure out a plan.

  Jocaster knew there were only a few solutions. His year on the other side of the game had exposed him to the real training for the elite. There was a purpose for this particular challenge, and Pen was right. All, or at least most, of the gamers needed to come together to get past. That meant either all of them touching it would trigger a release so they could run for the hatch, or they touched it in a specific order. He thought the first one more likely.

  The discussion got around to the ‘all together’ option pretty quickly. At the moment they agreed a countdown started. They had three minutes to get through the hatch, reminding everyone that despite the need to cooperate, this was a game with one winner.

  Pen grabbed Goya, who was still trying to force her way through. Two of the gamers held Goya so her hand was extended and they all leaned in; the obstacle dissolved.

  The chaos of the run for the hatch in the narrow corridor separated Jocaster from Pen. He was through the hatch when he saw her waiting for him. She must have been one of the first through.

  There was still thirty seconds on the countdown as Goya barreled through the opening, turned, and slammed the hatch in the face of the gamer on her heels. “Yeah, I don’t need you losers in this game.”