by Nathan Allen
Alice was still none the wiser as to the circumstances surrounding all these deaths. Was there a single person going after the money, bumping off each contestant one by one? Or were there multiple killers, like Detective Olszewski suggested, where the most frightened and weak-willed struck out at the ones they deemed the biggest threat? There didn’t appear to be any discernible pattern to the killings. And how did they get to Abigail Tevez, the woman found dead inside her prison cell?
Maybe god was striking them all down, punishing them for their sins of stupidity and greed.
Whatever the true cause, Alice knew it wouldn’t be long before her own photograph occupied a space on the wall. It was only a matter of time. Nobody can outrun their fate.
In those first few months when the contestants started dropping off, she lived in a constant state of apprehension. She feared she might be taken out at any given moment. But she couldn’t keep that up forever. Living that way was like trying to drive a car by looking only through the rear view mirror. She had to let her guard down eventually and go about her life as if nothing was wrong.
She had come to accept her fate. If someone was going to get her, they were going to get her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Her only hope was that it would be quick and painless.
The Eliminated Contestants
NAOMI DUKE (2032-2066) Found dead near her home on 7 September. Cause of death was massive head trauma. Reported to have been struck by a falling component that had come loose from a surveillance craft. ASE Industries, the owner of all surveillance crafts in the area, strongly deny any culpability. Investigations are ongoing, and a lawsuit is currently in progress.
VICTORIA MALSEED (2033-2066) Died 12 September after falling from the twenty-first floor of her apartment building. Following a brief investigation, police ruled her death as accidental and are not treating it as suspicious.
ROQUE FENTON (2040-2066) Died 14 September from multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck. Carson Dowling named as the prime suspect in his murder.
CARSON DOWLING (2028-2066) Died 15 September from a single OBL-IV gunshot wound. The chief suspect in the death of Roque Fenton, Mr. Dowling was shot by police in the apartment of Alice Kato after charging at them with a deadly weapon. An inquest later cleared the police of any wrongdoing, ruling that they acted appropriately under the circumstances.
JORDAN BRADLEY (2020-2066) Died 29 September. Surveillance footage shows an unidentified male pushing Mr. Bradley into the path of an oncoming truck. Police are yet to identify the assailant, who fled into a nearby subway station and remains at large.
IRVINE HALPERN (née LEWIS SASSMANNSHAUSEN, 2041-2066) Died 21 November from electrocution. His body was discovered submerged in water in a motel bathtub, alongside an electric heater. Police are treating his death as a homicide, although no arrests have been made.
ANTHONIE BYRNE (2019-2066) Died 10 December from strangulation. A coroner later ruled his death to be accidental, a case of autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong.
LUCILLE CRENSHAW (2022-2067) Died 20 January from injuries sustained during an automobile accident. Her car was discovered at the bottom of a steep embankment after veering off the side of the road, crashing through a barrier and rolling several times. Police speculate that Mrs. Crenshaw may have fallen asleep at the wheel, although a witness claims she was run off the road by another vehicle.
JAXON SCHEFERMANN (2038-2067) Mr. Schefermann’s body was discovered on the banks of the Milton River on 29 January. An autopsy revealed he had suffered severe blunt trauma to the head, and was likely to have been dead or unconscious before being dumped in the river. Investigations are ongoing, but police currently have no leads.
ARASH AMIRPOUR (2028-2067) Died 4 February from an overdose of counterfeit Xylox. An autopsy reveled he had ingested more than seventy pills. Coroner ruled his death as a suicide, although the deceased left no note, and neighbors reported hearing a struggle in the hours before his body was discovered.
BRANDON HIRST (2022-2067) Died 23 March. Suffered fatal injuries after being struck multiple times with a claw hammer whilst walking his dog. Abigail Tevez pleaded guilty to his murder and was sentenced to thirty-five years imprisonment.
ISABEL HUME (2041-2067) Died 1 May from from carbon monoxide poisoning. Discovered in the front seat of her car, parked in her garage with the engine running. An apparent suicide, although police have not ruled out the possibility of foul play.
MIA GORDON (2030-2067) Died 17 May from smoke inhalation. Discovered in her home by fire fighters after a blaze broke out late one night. An investigation blamed the fire on a faulty power board.
ABIGAIL TEVEZ (2044-2067) Found dead on 29 June in her cell at the O’Hara Women’s Correctional Facility, where she was serving a thirty-five year sentence for the murder of Brandon Hirst. Prison authorities have ruled her death as a suicide.
LIANNE LEVY (2036-2067) Believed to have died on 11 July after her identification and personal belongings were found in a carriage of a fatal train wreck that claimed the lives of twenty-two people, although no body was recovered. She was later found in a dumpster seventeen miles away on 29 July. Cause of death was ruled to be strangulation. Police are unable to explain the circumstances surrounding her death, which was the focus of an episode of the popular television program Unresolved.
STEPHEN PORTER (2043-2067) Died 14 August from injuries after being attacked by a pack of savage dogs. Mr. Porter’s body was found chained to a power pole, with over three hundred lacerations to his face, neck, arms, legs and groin. Police said the death displayed all the hallmarks of an underworld hit, although the victim was not known to have had any involvement in criminal activity.
TORY WELLER (2042-2067) Struck by a car while crossing the road on 22 August. Died from her injuries in hospital three days later. The car was later discovered abandoned by the side of the road after being set on fire. Police are still searching for the driver.
CHADWICK LYONS (2034-2067) Died 25 August from asphyxiation. An autopsy revealed a large volume of PVC glue had been poured down his throat, blocking his airways. Police are treating his death as suspicious.
The Remaining Contestants
REID CHATHAM (2031-)
MORGAN COMPSTON (2036-)
FRASER DUNN (2029-)
HARRISON ESTER (2017-)
CHRISTOPHER GIBSON (2025-)
ALICE KATO (2040-)
BOURKE NATION (2028-)
NICOLA ROCHE (2030-)
MELISSA SIEBEL (2038-)
Chapter 22
At five minutes to nine on a wet Tuesday night, the stretch limousine pulled up outside the Japanese restaurant. Alice saw the unusually tall man step out of the vehicle and enter through the front door.
Two months earlier, she was riding the bus when she spotted the same man leaving the same restaurant. She jumped off at the next stop and hurried back, only to find that he had vanished. She asked the staff if they knew who he was, but none could offer any clue as to his identity. A waitresses told her the man was a semi-regular diner, but other than that she knew nothing about him.
So Alice returned to the same place night after night, shivering and sweating through every type of weather event, watching and waiting from the bus shelter across the road in the vain hope that she would see him again.
Now, at long last, he had returned.
A slight feeling of panic set in, like she almost didn’t know what to do next. After waiting so long, she could barely believe he was actually there.
She crossed the road and pressed her face against the window, just to make sure it really was him.
There was no mistaking it. This was the man she was looking for.
This was the Messenger.
It felt strange seeing him in this context – sitting alone at his table in the corner, perusing the menu and behaving very much like an ordinary citizen.
An image of the Messenger, the enigmatic go-between she briefly encountered all those mo
nths ago, had lived inside her head for so long that she thought she may have dreamed him up.
She wasn’t quite sure of the best way to handle the situation. For the past two months, she had formulated different plans as she watched the customers come and go, rehearsing what she would say if she ever saw him again. Now the time had arrived, and her mind was an empty void. None of it seemed appropriate.
But she’d waited too long to let this opportunity slip away. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to overthink it. She simply had to walk inside the restaurant and take a seat opposite.
And so that was exactly what she did.
The Messenger glanced up from his APhID when Alice sat down at his table uninvited.
The first thing Alice noticed was his dark eyes. They were about as close to black as eyes could be without actually being black. Alice saw that she had been mistaken – the Messenger wasn’t the slightest bit ordinary. His appearance was otherworldly, not quite human. Something closer to a pod person.
Seconds passed without either one opening their mouth.
The Messenger held the stare for a small eternity, looking down at her from his elevated vantage point, before finally ending the awkwardness.
“Is there something I can help you with, Alice?” he said.
Alice froze. He knew her name. He knew who she was. Presumably, he knew why she was here. At least that would save her some time.
She took a breath, and forced herself not to blink.
“Take a look under the table,” she said in a low voice.
The Messenger didn’t move a muscle. It was as if Alice had spoken to him in Latin. She was beginning to call her whole strategy into question.
“Take a look under the table,” she repeated. She colored her words with as much force and menace as she could summon.
Still nothing.
And then the beginnings of a faint smile. The Messenger remained inanimate for a moment longer – long enough to let her know that he wasn’t particularly intimidated by her performance – then lifted the corner of the red and white checkerboard tablecloth.
He peered underneath and saw the barrel of a homemade firearm looking back at him.
He returned to his upright position, a picture of calm.
He looked back at Alice, sizing her up from the other side of the table. He knew she meant business – even if she was overdoing it slightly. But he could see the fury behind her eyes. If she was reckless enough to carry an illegal firearm around with her in public, she was far beyond caring about the consequences.
“I’m just a messenger,” he said. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Another volatile silence hung in the air.
“Are you familiar with that saying? ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’. That’s one phrase that has always troubled me. It implies that from time to time, messengers actually do get shot.”
Alice was thrown by this reaction. It barely seemed to bother him that an unhinged woman nearing the end of her tether was threatening him with a deadly weapon.
This scenario was turning out a lot different to how she imagined it.
“The gun works, by the way,” she said.
Alice regretted saying this almost as soon as the words passed her lips. Why would anyone state that a gun worked unless it didn’t? She supposed it was technically true. The gun did fire bullets when the trigger was pulled. Just not in the intended direction.
“Where did you get that?” the Messenger said. “Did that pervert on Carling Crescent make it for you?”
Alice could feel whatever upper hand she had rapidly slipping away. She had to wrest control of the situation and remind him that she was the one in charge.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said. “You and I are going to leave the restaurant in a calm and orderly fashion. Then you’re going to–”
The Messenger held up his hand, and Alice immediately fell silent. She didn’t know how or why this happened. That was just the kind of power he had over her.
He held his gaze for a moment. The longer his stare lasted, the further Alice shrunk in her seat.
“What’s your plan here, Alice?”
“My ... plan?”
“What do you think you can do to get out of this? Force me at gunpoint to contact the client and order them to remove your name from the lottery?”
Alice opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her plans were something along those lines. It was only now, when they were spoken aloud, that she realized it sounded a little silly.
“I was just thinking, if you–”
She choked on her words at the worst possible moment. Her ordeal was only getting worse. She prayed for the ground to open up and swallow her whole.
When that didn’t happen, she cleared her throat and pressed on.
“If you could have a word with your bosses, and ask them to–”
“For a start,” the Messenger interrupted, “they are not my ‘bosses’. They are the client, and I am a freelance employee. They have no control over me.”
“But you work for the Consortium, don’t you?”
She noticed Messenger’s eyebrow twitch almost microscopically.
“You’ve done your homework, well done. Yes, the Consortium have hired me in this particular instance. But they are not my only client. Anyone can hire me. You could hire me, if you could afford my fee. What the Consortium and I have is nothing more than a simple business transaction. No loyalty exists between us. The client does not particularly value my wellbeing, nor do I value theirs. So threatening to harm me will do nothing to affect the outcome of the lottery. And you turning up here, acting crazy, waving a gun around in public – keep that up and you’re on a fast track to elimination. You’ll need to fly under the radar if you’re to stand any chance of surviving.”
A stack of plates smashed in the kitchen. Alice’s already frayed nerves were jarred even further. An argument filled with raised Japanese voices soon followed.
“You may think I have power, but I don’t,” he continued once the commotion had died down. “I’m a minor cog in a much larger machine. I have no say in any of this. If you want my personal opinion, I don’t particularly care for these contests, nor do I agree with them morally. But my role is not to ask questions, or to form moral judgments. I only do what they pay me to do.”
There was a drawn-out pause as Alice took this all in.
“So why do you do it?”
The Messenger blinked twice as he mulled this over. “I’m not sure I understand your question.”
“I was just wondering – if you object to these contests, if you find them barbaric, then why are you still involved with them?”
The Messenger shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I wasn’t given much of a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice! Nobody forces you to do it, do they?”
“Nobody put a gun to my head, if that’s what you mean. But I’m just an ordinary person. And when ordinary people are presented with extraordinary amounts of money, free will becomes something of an elastic concept.”
A waiter appeared at the table, and a bowl of miso soup was placed before the Messenger.
The waiter then vanished as quickly as he appeared.
“Just like nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to enter the lottery. And nobody forced any of the contestants to start killing one another. But you know how it is. Money makes people do strange things. Everyone has their price.”
Alice’s feelings of helplessness only intensified with every passing minute. For perhaps the first time since the lottery began, it finally dawned on her that there was nothing anyone, anywhere could do to avoid the inevitable.
The lottery was going to be the end of her, and that was that.
She rose slowly from her seat, in some sort of daze.
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said, fighting the onset of wooziness. She stashed the gun inside her jacket, the bulkiest item of clothing she owned, before anyone else coul
d see it. “Enjoy your meal.”
She turned and hurried for the exit. The room tilted as she lurched towards the door. Her stomach convulsed and her face burned up. A toxic combination of humiliation and dread.
She pushed the door open, and was hit in the face by a blast of cold air.
A few facts about the Messenger:
The Consortium employed the Messenger to take care of the various duties with regards to their gambling-related activities. As head coordinator for all their contests, it was his job to ensure everything ran smoothly and without incident.
He acted as a liaison between the Consortium and the contestants, outlining the rules and ensuring they were being adhered to.
He kept the thirteen Consortium members up to date on the progress of each contest.
He oversaw the monitoring of each contestant, employing a small army of private investigators, surveillance experts and hackers to follow their movements and keep a close eye on each one.
When a contestant was eliminated, the Messenger delivered the news via the brown envelopes to the remaining participants once the death had been verified.
The current Messenger was the third person to hold this position.
Messenger Number One was employed by the Consortium shortly after the group’s inception in 2052, and was responsible for the management of the first and second lotteries. He remained in this position until his retirement due to ill health in 2059.
His replacement took over the contests for the next three years, until he was killed by a disgruntled participant while the 2062 lottery was in progress. This participant had been pushed to breaking point by the contest, and resorted to desperate measures when attempting to have his name removed from the list of participants.
Following Messenger Number Two’s death, three members of the Consortium were awarded bonus prizes of $150 million for correctly predicting that this would occur.