by Tim Heath
All that did await those who exited were directions and a photo taken of a lottery ticket located in that place. They then still had to get there.
As there were ten Contestants, there were two sets of instructions for each ticket, and the information shared randomly––they thought––fate seemingly pitting one Contestant directly against another. Though they should have known, in an association, an organisation even, so closely guarded, a group so secretive, nothing was ever left to chance. It was always orchestrated, aiming for maximum enjoyment, maximum conflict and maximum risk. It was why so many of Russia’s mega-rich kept coming back.
Foma Polzin
Known within the Games as: Eleven
Polzin had approached the latest event knowing he was being moved down to the T20, effectively the second tier of Russia’s wealthiest gamers. He didn’t mind.
He’d made his $8.7 billion fortune by being a man who got involved in many businesses. There were few industries across Russia and increasingly globally in which Polzin didn’t have some interest. Within the new group of men he was joining, he was by far the richest. He’d gone from the smallest fish in a much more significant ocean to a shark in a pond.
When Svetlana Volkov, known only as The Chair within their little world, had mentioned what was expected for the New Year event, it made for an exciting introduction to the new group of relationships before him. He had brushed past many of the people before, men who were considerably less well off than he was, despite the fact they too were all billionaires.
How prosperous any one person was, especially mattered at the very top end of wealth in Russia.
He’d, therefore, had little to do with them outside of the Games, and even now that he was within their circle, they were still apparently keeping their distance. They were most probably afraid of the new boy in town who had such resources––he liked his new position.
Their set-up within the T20 was somewhat different to what he’d been a part of in the T10, though this latest event was something altogether different. It excited him the moment he heard about it.
Though not told all the details of what would happen, they were told enough to know that a Contestant with street skills, reliable and able and not afraid of a fight was what was needed. Having never required the sourcing of such a person, this being his first event in the new group, he’d pulled some of his team to one side, tasking them with finding him the perfect type of person.
Nationality didn’t matter, though it was apparent they would have to be European. While none of them knew which winning lottery tickets were going to be obtained for this event, nor where they were from, it was clear they would all be from Europe––they all had been so far, anyway, given the time factor involved.
A week into the search, his team had presented their boss with three possibilities, and Polzin had read through the information in front of him carefully, always digesting the details of anything given to him, not wanting to make a rash decision. He’d instructed them to recruit the guy they’d listed from the UK.
Talbot Riley was twenty-eight, and a professional cage fighter. He’d grown up in East London, been around gang life since before he could remember. A man raised on the streets of East Ham. He was an intelligent fighter, especially good with his hands and elbows, very savvy. His next professional fight, a title fight against a Mexican guy, wasn’t for another four months.
When the Russians first approached him, bundles of money on show, he’d taken very little time to agree to step into things, though the details were a little vague at the early stages, which he took as meaning the whole business wasn’t entirely legal. Nothing new there for him then.
Polzin had never met with Talbot personally, the details always dealt with via intermediaries, which was standard practice. Should things go wrong at any point, which was highly likely with this latest event, deniability was their trump card. Despite never meeting face to face, Polzin was a keen admirer of the man he had recruited to be his Contestant in St Petersburg.
Talbot, for his part, was keen for an early payday, and the extra training he would put in for such an event would only help him ahead of his April title decider.
He’d never been to Russia, had never given it a second thought, despite the money on offer in similar cage fighting arenas, but this offer was too good to turn down. He’d not fought a contest, even a title one, that had paid half what he’d been offered to take part in this event over New Year.
He was on a plane Polzin had personally provided for his star Contestant two days before the end of the year, taking in the city, its sights and sounds, as well as understanding as much about getting around as he could. He’d marvelled at the city’s grandeur and the way everyone came together to see in the New Year.
He’d not slept at all that night, the fireworks and drugs he was using daily doing nothing to allow his body to relax, though he didn’t need sleep. He wanted to be as pumped up as possible come kick off, approaching the event and day before him like any of the fights he’d been involved in during his seven-year career to date. He wanted to make those employing him that upcoming week proud––and success promised an even more colossal prize, eclipsing anything he’d thought as sizeable winnings up to that point. It was time to deliver.
Talbot Riley had not said a word as he sat in the van that morning. Some chick was in the row of seats at the back of the truck, but he ignored her. It was like another cage fight to the man who’d only ever been knocked down once in an organised event; even then he’d got back up to win that particular contest. The difference was that the person in the van with him was a woman––he’d never fought a female before––and there were going to be eight other opponents, besides her, into whatever arena he was about to arrive.
As the van pulled off the road into what appeared to be a largely abandoned industrial area, he knew they were approaching their destination––it made perfect sense. Up front, two men sat in silence, one driving, the other watching. Talbot assumed they were Russians––he’d not said anything to them nor had he heard them make any noise––but it fitted.
The van came to a standstill alongside a vast looking red brick building. There was a sliding door that stood partially open, inside only darkness. The side of the van slid open as the vehicle came to a stop, the passenger up front having jumped out to perform the task. He motioned to the two in the back to come out, which Talbot did first. He didn’t even glance at the other person, his mind already in fight mode.
He was motioned forward, no words used, but it was obvious where they were heading. The warehouse that stood open in front of them was drawing them into a world they had never experienced before. Just inside the building, as the outside world gave way to the gloomy and dark interior of the central ground floor space of the vast structure, the shadowy outlines of one or two other figures could be made out in the darkness inside, but already the light was playing tricks with his eyes.
He went in, sensing no one around him and stood, waiting. He knew the game started once the doors closed. They’d been told that much.
Until then, he would wait, standing there, taking in all that he could without giving away anything about himself, besides his appearance. He was controlling his breathing, thinking through his first moves. Speed was his advantage. He worked out there were about four others already in the space with him, as far as he could see, though with what limited light there was and that only coming from one direction––the open doors––it made everything around him that much darker and more sinister. At least when he was in a cage he could see his opponent, look him directly in the eye before the referee started the contest. Now, there was no referee, as far as he could tell.
Over the next ten minutes, two more vans were seen pulling up, a total of four figures then seen emerging through the doors and finding their way into the darkness.
So they’d all arrived.
He’d only failed to lay eyes on one of the opponents, assuming there were, in fac
t, ten of them as he’d been told the night before when the information had been given to him about the morning pick-up. But they’d been right about everything else so far, so he assumed this unseen tenth person was hiding somewhere, deep inside the space.
The doors shut.
Talbot heard movement, unclear how far away, though he stayed still for a moment––seeing if his eyes would adjust any more––having been avoiding looking out through the entrance the moment the last van had been seen pulling up. He knew then that it was all about to start, and would therefore soon go very dark.
It had worked, and though his eyes had adjusted enough not to have the image of the sunshine through the doors burning across his retinas, there was still no light to guide anyone. Nothing but pitch darkness. He’d mapped out where some of the walls were while he’d been waiting, that much had been to his advantage at least. Quite what the late arrivers would make of it he didn’t know––didn’t care, either. Of the four he’d seen walk through the doors, two had been male and two female. That made at least three women, and it was reason enough to assume there might be five. Therefore it was a fight between five men, Talbot seeing the other four as his principal rivals. The women could have their own contest for all he cared.
So he ran away from the last known position of the two men he’d seen, not through fear, just tactics. He needed to understand the building a little first, to find his way around.
Two people were heard crashing into one another. That was something he wanted to avoid, but should it happen, he knew his opponent would come off worse.
He ran into a wall, his shoulder crashing hard against the brickwork. He’d now gone as far in as he had been able to see from the time before it all went dark. Still, there was no light, the building becoming increasingly disorientating. He needed a new plan.
3
Arseni Markovic
Known within the Games as: Twelve
Arseni had been a part of the Games since their inception a decade before and had spent most of that time––eight years in fact––as top dog in the group. That was until Polzin had arrived, the Chair announcing the change at their annual gathering in Luxembourg, and his subsequent demotion to Twelve.
He’d made most of his $2.4 billion, as well as a place on Russia’s rich list, through metals, owning considerable interests in both the mining side as well as the production side for the construction and food packaging industries. By being able to control the whole process he’d been able to corner specific markets, though he was far from the only oligarch to have made his money in that way.
He’d been given the final leg up in the last few months of the Yeltsin reign when the country’s state-owned companies were stripped out and handed to those who had the know-how, people who could turn them into profitable businesses, which they had done. They’d also become mega-wealthy themselves as a result through the years, and that had landed him a place within this group of oligarchs that formed its unusual gathering.
A relatively successful Host within the ten years of events held up to that point, his team of Spotters had a long list of suitable people they were looking at for future events, but what had been proposed for the big New Year celebration had come as some surprise.
He’d needed to rethink his approach entirely and restart the search. That would have happened had it not been for one of his team suggesting someone from their list that might still fit the bill, turning what they had from a probably losing candidate into a successful Contestant for them. Arseni glanced through the information.
Leona Chase was thirty-five and from the UK. She had a particular skill with the blade, something only a man from the metal industry could appreciate. She’d spent most of her twenties and early thirties inside a prison cell, convicted of a series of knife related attacks at the age of twenty-three and had only finally been released two years ago.
Rumour had it that she’d spent most of her time in prison perfecting her abilities with the blade. Unconfirmed reports linked her to two stabbings during various prison disturbances, though nothing was ever pinned on her. The victims had said nothing, either.
She had a drive, which Arseni liked the look of immediately, that and her ability to fight dirty. The only photos he had of her didn’t make her appear the most attractive of women, but he was sure she would scrub up well given enough effort. At five feet six, she was a powerhouse of pent-up rage and often raw emotion. There had been no meaningful relationships reported––no reasons given as to why––though she had spent a long time in prison. She hadn’t yet settled into a job since her release, and the temptations of the criminal world were already knocking at her door once more.
His men had got to her just in time, Arseni suspected.
Initially, when his men first approached her, she’d been a little resistant. She didn’t like being given any orders from a man. Later it was confirmed that she’d been raised by her single mother and had left home aged sixteen without even a qualification to her name apart from a few sporting accolades collected throughout her brief years of schooling. She’d been expelled from two schools and only just made it through the final one.
Hitting sixteen had been a big thing for her. She could freely, and legally, do any number of things, besides voting and learning to drive; she could easily fake her way into any place that told her she was too young to be otherwise admitted.
As always, money had piqued her interest. For a girl with nothing going for her and a growing list of criminal convictions, she had little option but to accept the challenge the Russians were putting in front of her.
A passport was arranged, Russian Visa applied for by proxy, and within a matter of months, she was ready. What awaited her, she as yet had no idea.
Leona Chase––always just Chase to her friends––sat in the back of the van as it drove through endless streets, what she could see out of the windows suggesting they were heading away from the city, the buildings thinning out noticeably. Two rows forward sat a man who had barely registered her existence there––typical, she thought. She would soon show him.
Her van was the third to arrive at the building, though she wasn’t to know that. Nor did she figure it out once the final two vans had come. Numbers were not her thing.
As the sliding door on the side of her van was opened, she followed out behind the tattooed man, walking into the approaching darkness––always edgy––watchful in case this was some grand set-up.
She moved away from the man she’d followed in, going another twenty metres or so directly behind him, to be able to keep watch on his position, the light now beyond him, his silhouette visible. She wasn’t aware of who else might be around her, nor the fact cameras were watching all of the Contestants at that moment, their positions recorded and fed to those watching live on the Games Room floor in a central St Petersburg mansion.
Over what seemed like the next twenty minutes, but which was much closer to ten, the final four Contestants arrived, Leona mainly ignoring the men and women as they walked in, keeping her eyes on the light coming in through the sliding door and the silhouette standing in front of her.
Around her feet, she had kicked some loose debris on her way in, and she slipped off her shoes to feel around in the darkness. They had been told––given strict instructions in fact––that they were to enter the building, a warehouse, and to stand there silently; that the contest only started once the doors were firmly closed.
Her toes caught something metal, and carefully she moved her foot into a better position. The object was loose enough to move, and it made the faintest of sounds as she did so. It felt large enough to do a little damage, maybe a bolt or large screw, perhaps something more industrial. She kept her big toe on it, not looking down for a moment, though there was no way she would have been able to see anything because of the lack of light.
The doors suddenly swung shut, and locks heard secured into place. Darkness descended. Leona dropped to the ground, reaching for the piece of meta
l she had found, listening for any signs of movement, as her eyes were utterly useless at that moment. She heard a sound in front of her––the man she’d been watching no doubt. He was making a run for it.
She moved after the sound, picking up some speed before crashing into a body. Occurring in the darkness like that, it was something else. She lashed out at the person’s head with the metal object, the person hitting the floor, though she had no sense of where they had fallen, nor could she then find them as she stretched out her hands. It didn’t matter. She hoped she’d done enough damage to take that loser out of the event for good. She reached the sliding door that had been closed, searching for anything that might hint at a way out. There was none.
Some moments later, though she had lost her sense of time, she heard an explosion, a brief flash of light illuminating two figures somewhere in the distance before darkness descended once again. Then a gun fired. For the first time in her life, fear started to creep in.
“What have I got myself into now?” she said quietly but audibly, only the outside observers able to make out what was said, the sound picked up, as was every other movement, by one of the hundreds of microphones inserted in the building. Her comment brought some jeers from those standing in the Games Room. Had Arseni got a duff one, for once?
4
Rurik Sewick––Mr Grey
Known within the Games as: Thirteen
While not the only member of the T20 who didn’t live in Russia, he was the only non-Russian involved. Rurik was Ukrainian, something that had brought his role amongst so many of Russia’s elite and powerful into question following the unrest in his homeland. He’d moved away from Kiev during that time, though still kept his properties there.
He was worth $2.1 billion, and much like his counterparts had done in Russia, had come into most of his wealth as the Soviet Union had become unravelled. He was very well connected within Ukraine and had a good reputation with others further afield too. Those that knew him called him only Mr Grey, if not using his number, of course, a strict rule applied during all game events––numbers not names. It was less for security than to remind the Hosts it was all just meant to be a game.