All Against All

by Nathan Allen

  Calm down, he told himself. You’re not doing anything illegal. Nothing anyone can prove, at least. You’re just a regular guy in a late-model silver Volkswagen, minding his own business. Nobody has ever been arrested for sitting in his car.

  He slid down in his seat and held his breath while the cruiser passed behind him. He remained in that position until it was out of sight. A few seconds elapsed before he allowed himself to exhale.

  He knew he had nothing to fear, but he couldn’t be too careful.

  Alice Kato was fast becoming the lottery’s most frustrating contestant. When he first commenced his stalking of her a few weeks back, he assumed she’d be the easiest one yet to bump off. At little more than five feet tall, she was the least physically imposing of the remaining contestants. Not only that, he was fairly certain she was a Xylox addict. He had followed her to some of the seedier parts of town, where he watched her consort with questionable characters in secluded alleyways. Taking her out would be like shooting fish in a barrel with an OBL-IV.

  She should have been a pushover, but Alice was proving to be anything but. He had his chance last week, but somehow messed it all up. She was right where he wanted her, and then he lost her. He still didn’t quite know how she managed to escape so quickly.

  She disappeared, and he hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

  Maybe she had skipped town. But if that was the case, the people behind the lottery would have informed him of her whereabouts. He could only assume she was still residing at her current address.

  He took another deep breath and reminded himself to relax. Restraint and self-control were the keys to ultimate success. Impatience would lead to carelessness, and carelessness would lead to getting caught.

  Getting away with murder wasn’t anywhere near as hard as Bourke thought it would be. Most people who get caught do so because they kill in the spur of the moment. They end up making it worse when they panic and do a mediocre job of covering it up. So much trouble and heartache could be avoided if only they took a little time to plan.

  Bourke had already gotten away with offing four of the lottery’s contestants. He had cut the brakes on Nicola Roche’s car. He had run down Tory Weller in the street. He started the fire inside Mia Gordon’s house. He strangled Anthonie Byrne and made it look like an act of onanism gone wrong.

  He was methodical, and he was meticulous. He stalked his prey for weeks, studying them from a distance and identifying their weaknesses, before deciding on the best time to strike. He made sure every track was covered, and no loose end remained untied. He knew that if he allowed himself to become undisciplined it would undoubtedly lead to his downfall.

  The fact that the city’s police department was sorely underfunded also played to his advantage. They lacked the time and resources to look too deeply into every single death, and took an Occam’s razor approach to their investigations. If something appeared to be an accident, they simply assumed that it was.

  But now, his killing spree had ground to an unfortunate halt.

  Maybe Alice escaping would prove to be a blessing in disguise. It was a timely reminder that he not get too far ahead of himself. He hadn’t won the lottery just yet. There were six more contestants standing between him and the money.

  He hung around for another few minutes before he finally grew tired of waiting. He started his car and pulled out into the road.

  He’d catch up with Alice Kato, sooner or later. She couldn’t hide from him forever.

  Alice bristled as she sat in the front passenger seat of Morgan’s station wagon, watching Bourke Nation as he watched the entrance to her building. She thought she might have felt better to know that there really was someone out there trying to kill her, and the threat didn’t just exist in her imagination. But that wasn’t the case at all.

  It now felt like a line had been crossed. Bourke was outside her home. He was invading her life. This was a lot more personal.

  “Can we call the police now?” she said, folding her arms tight around her. The night was mild, but she still shivered.

  Morgan shook his head. “All he’s doing is sitting in his car.”

  “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  There was a slight quiver in Alice’s voice as she spoke.

  “Hey, I don’t blame you for freaking out,” Morgan said. “I’d probably freak out too, if I was in your position. But trust me, we have Bourke right where we want him. He doesn’t know we’re onto him, and that works to our advantage. If the police get involved, that will only scare him off. He might fly under the radar for the next five or ten years, and then reemerge when we’re least expecting it.”

  Alice nodded to herself. She knew this made complete sense, even if it did nothing to ease her anxiety. But she trusted Morgan. He appeared much more adept at handling this sort of thing than she could ever hope to be. She could barely formulate a single coherent thought with everything going on around her.

  Tonight was the third night in the past week she had gone along with Morgan on a stake out. He had continued to track Bourke’s movements, and he made sure to warn her every time Bourke was coming her way. He also chauffeured her to and from work, insisting that using public transport left her far too exposed.

  Bourke appeared to be going after the contestants one at a time, and right now he had Alice firmly in his sights. Morgan’s theory was that if Alice continued to elude Bourke, he would be frustrated to the point where he would slip up and do something reckless.

  The more time Alice spent with Morgan, the more impressed she was. She also couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit inadequate by comparison. Morgan had risen to the challenge when the pressure mounted. He had completely reinvented himself in the past year, almost to the point of becoming an entirely new person. Alice had gone in the opposite direction; she had crumbled in the face of adversity.

  Some more time passed as they waited for Bourke to make a move.

  Alice opened Morgan’s glove compartment to pass the time and absentmindedly rifled around inside. She unearthed a flashlight.

  “Careful with that,” Morgan said.

  Alice switched it on. A beam of light shot out. “I know I’m not quite as skilled as you at this sort of thing,” she said, holding the flashlight underneath her chin to cast an eerie shadow across her face. “But I think I can handle a simple flashlight without injuring myself.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  Morgan took the flashlight from her. He flicked a switch on the base, then handed it back.

  “Try it now,” he said.

  Alice turned the flashlight back on. A shock of electric blue current zapped out from the top.

  “Whoa!” Alice blurted out in fright. “This is a taser as well?”

  “Yep,” Morgan nodded.

  Alice examined the device. “Where did you get this from?”

  “I made it.”

  “You made this yourself?”

  “Well, you can’t buy them in stores, can you?”

  Alice smiled. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  She held the taser in front of her face and zapped it again. The smell of burnt copper filled the car.

  “Easy with that,” Morgan said, quickly pushing it down out of sight. “You’ll drain the battery. Besides, the law takes a dim view on people who manufacture homemade weapons.”

  “This isn’t legal?”

  “It might be legal somewhere. But not on this continent.”

  As if on cue, a police car drove by with its red and blue lights spiraling.

  They followed the car with their eyes, then watched Bourke as he slunk down in his seat to avoid being seen. Even from this distance, his nervousness was apparent. This brought a smile to Alice’s face.

  They lapsed into silence. It was a comfortable silence, the kind where neither one felt the need to fill the space with empty words.

  “Do you regret putting your name down for the lottery?” Alic
e asked several minutes later.

  Morgan was lost in thought for a moment as he contemplated this. “That sounds like a simple question with an obvious answer, doesn’t it?”

  Alice shrugged.

  “On one level, yes I do regret it. If I could go back and make my decision all over again, knowing then what I know now, obviously I’d take the money upfront.”

  A short pause followed.

  “But having said that,” he continued, “part of me is grateful that this has happened to me.”

  “You’re grateful?”

  “Its just that ...” Morgan let out a soft sigh. “You have no idea how much of a rut my life was in. I was living the same day, over and over. I hated my life. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t care about anything, and I didn’t feel anything other than trapped. Of course, the present situation is hardly ideal. But at least it’s given me some sort of purpose.”

  His words hung in the air for the moment.

  “That’s probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard, right? I’m not sure I explained myself all that well.”

  “Actually, it kinda makes perfect sense,” Alice said quietly.

  “So how about you? Any regrets?”

  Alice cast her mind back to her sensible, comfortable life of one year ago. It felt more like twelve years had passed than twelve months. She would give anything to be back there now; to be able to collect her strings-free two grand and escape the unremitting hell this lottery had imposed on her.

  But before she could put her thoughts into words, Bourke’s taillights lit up and his car reversed out onto the road.

  REID CHATHAM (2031-2067) The mutilated body of Mr. Chatham was discovered in the bathtub of the Traveler Inn Motor Lodge on 21 September. Massive blood loss was recorded as the cause of death. Several of Mr. Chatham’s vital organs had been removed, leading police to believe that he may have been the victim of an organ trafficking syndicate.

  The Remaining Contestants

  MORGAN COMPSTON (2036-)

  HARRISON ESTER (2017-)

  CHRISTOPHER GIBSON (2025-)

  ALICE KATO (2040-)

  BOURKE NATION (2028-)

  MELISSA SIEBEL (2038-)

  Morgan trailed Bourke for a further twenty minutes after Alice left, eventually following him all the way back to his inner-city loft. He parked outside and monitored the place for another two hours, before finally calling it a night.

  Bourke had become something of an obsession for Morgan. He wasn’t quite sure what had triggered this. There was the obvious answer of self-preservation. But it went beyond than that.

  When Morgan looked at Bourke, he saw someone who had always got what he wanted in life. Bourke came from money, and he never had to deal with any real hardship or adversity. He was good-looking, and he exuded confidence. He was the type who coasted through life while everyone else had to struggle. The type who always walked over guys like Morgan.

  Bourke had won first place in the lottery of life, but he lacked the class and decency not to shove his good fortune in everyone else’s face.

  Maybe this was what riled Morgan the most. If it had been any other contestant, it may not have struck a nerve the way it did. But this was Bourke, and Morgan refused to allow him to triumph. Not this time.

  Defeating Bourke wouldn’t just be a victory for Morgan. It would be a victory for the underdog. The nice guy would win for a change.

  The world was evolving. The betas had played second fiddle to the alphas for far too long. It was time to reverse the trend.

  Chapter 26

  Hi, my name is Georgina and I’m a full-time model and part-time escort. I just discovered I’m pregnant, and there is a one in three chance that Ethan Ulbricht is the father. I’m willing to sell my side of the story for $50,000. This will cover an exclusive interview, first baby photos, results of the paternity test, the baby’s first birthday, and an exclusive extract from my upcoming tell-all autobiography. Call me back if you’re interested.

  Three hours remained until the end of the working day, and Alice was counting down each passing second. She could barely tolerate her job now. Every day had become an eight-hour endurance test. It was as if she placed her head inside a vise at nine o’clock, and the screws slowly tightened as the day wore on.

  Her days of boundless enthusiasm and soaring ambition had left her long ago. Staying late, putting in hours of unpaid overtime in order to get ahead; that was back when she cared. Now she got by on doing little more than the bare minimum.

  By the time five o’clock rolled around she always promised herself that this was to be her final day, and there was no way she could possibly withstand another minute trapped inside this prison masquerading as a cubicle farm. But one thing always compelled her to keep coming back, and that was the money.

  She could have left and joined another news and media service by now – she’d had numerous offers over the past few months – but the money she was raking in at The Daily Ink was simply too good to give up. Every Needlemouse-delivered exclusive resulted in a sizable bonus check, and there had been thirty-one of these in the past year. These checks then ended up in Gidget’s pocket (who had welcomed Alice back with open arms following her relapse, despite his earlier warnings that he didn’t want to see her around his part of town again), and her ever-increasing drug habit spiraled further out of control.

  She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up. This was no way for anyone to live. Sooner or later, something had to give.

  Every day, she prayed for a way out of her situation. She dreamed of scoring the biggest story imaginable, then using the massive bonus check to quit her job and get herself cleaned up. But in the back of her mind, she knew the chances of this actually happening were slim to none.

  Dinah didn’t even try concealing her exasperation with Alice and her erratic behavior anymore. She wondered where the Alice she used to know had disappeared to. Her downward trajectory had been ongoing for months now. There were the constant unexplained absences, and the dramatic change in her appearance. She would disappear from her cubicle without warning, then slink back hours later cloaked in chemicals and shame. Alice tried to pass this all off as a bad case of flu, but that excuse had a fairly limited shelf life.

  She knew that Needlemouse was the only reason she hadn’t been fired yet. For the past year her mysterious source had supplied her with a constant stream of Goliath-related tip-offs, which had played a big part in helping The Daily Ink remain the country’s number one news and media service. Dinah would have fired Alice if she could have found a way of communicating with Needlemouse directly. But for reasons Alice never fully understood, Needlemouse insisted on going exclusively through her.

  She glanced up at the clock. Two hours and fifty-three minutes to go. Another small part of her died inside.

  She fought the urge to sneak off to the bathroom or the stairwell to finish off what was left of the Xylox she had purchased from Gidget earlier that morning. She had already done that twice today. A third time might be pushing her luck, even for her.

  She closed her eyes and let out a desperate sigh. She prayed for a fire alarm, or a bomb threat. An actual bomb, even. Any excuse to escape the oppression of the office for an hour or two.

  She opened her eyes a minute later and saw that her prayers had been answered. Her APhID glowed with a new message.

  It was short and to the point.

  Today is the day, Alice.

  I can get you Goliath. 100% certain this time. It’s going to happen.

  Await further instruction.

  Needlemouse.

  She was out of her seat and heading for the door before her eyes reached the final word.

  Alice hurried to make it to the agreed-upon location by seven o’clock.

  Needlemouse had instructed her to meet up at this particular car park, situated directly above a public housing building. These structures were known as “icebergs”; one floor was above ground, and fifteen to thirty w
ere below. This was the city’s answer to the problem of poverty – out of sight, out of mind. No one enjoyed looking at the above-ground towers of dereliction known as “felony flats”, and so burying them beneath the surface provided the perfect solution. If the rest of society couldn’t see these eyesores, they could simply pretend they didn’t exist.

  The car park was deserted by the time she arrived. She checked her watch, and saw that she was a couple of minutes early.

  Alice stood there and passed the time by pushing a few rocks around with her shoe. A swarm of butterflies soon took up residence inside her stomach.

  For the year-plus they had been communicating, Needlemouse had been promising her something big. Something huge. The prospect of a massive story had been dangled in front of Alice like a carrot in front of a donkey. And now, it seemed, that day had finally arrived.

  She tried not to spend too much time thinking about it, but she couldn’t help but fantasize about what this would do for her career. It would undoubtedly catapult her into the big time. The story would be huge – as would the accompanying bonus check. She would finally be able to leave The Daily Ink, she would have enough cash to sort out all her problems, and she could make a fresh start somewhere else. It wasn’t as if there was any shortage of demand for her talents.

  As excited as she was about what this could mean for her, she had to remind herself not to count her chickens just yet. Smarter and more accomplished journalists than her had been on Goliath’s trail before – not to mention the extensive police investigations – and yet he still managed to evade capture and keep his identity a secret. The Daily Ink had published so many exclusive “reveals” that it had turned into something of a running joke.

  But this time felt different. This wasn’t some stab in the dark, outing someone as Goliath on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence in order to provoke a quick spike in circulation. This was coming direct from her most trusted and reliable source. Needlemouse had an impeccable track record – thirty-one confirmed exclusives in the past year. They were either close to Goliath, or they knew someone in his inner circle. This was her best chance yet of landing something solid.