by Stuart Keane
“We need to go, Kathryn, we can’t stay here. It isn’t safe.”
Kathryn stepped into Iain’s path, blocking him. “I need some answers. If you want me to help you, I want some fucking answers.”
Iain sighed. “I can give them to you while we move.”
Kathryn stood firm. “No, now! I just found out that my life is a fucking horror show and you expect me to calmly accept it? No way.”
Iain grimaced. “This is a mistake, Kathryn.” He paused; “Okay, fine, but not here.” He grabbed Kathryn’s arm and pulled her back towards an open door. Iain pushed her through the opening, and she found herself in a dark office with one solitary window. He followed her inside and closed the door. Through the window, the isolated street outside looked peaceful and quaint, completely unaffected by the incidents of the evening.
The room was in darkness and she could only make out dark shapes. Even so, Kathryn recognised the room from memory: this was one of the meeting rooms that they used for training. The shapes were a desk and multiple chairs and she knew a projector was present somewhere too. She sat in one of the chairs. Iain stood guard at the entrance. He took a breath before saying, “So, what do you want to know?”
Kathryn relaxed. “Well, first of all, why are you here? You say that you played this game in the past and decided to come back. Didn’t you say that you were punished if you lose?”
Iain nodded. “Yes, that is true. I was runner-up when I played. I made a deal with The Company – those are the guys who run the whole thing. I agreed to play the game on the next showing if they allowed me to live a normal five years beforehand. They were happy for that arrangement. I’m the first Chronicle who has ever played the game and then participated, let alone volunteered. For them, it was big money. For me, it meant I could live a normal five years with my wife. I accepted my fate, but it meant I could do it on my terms. Some of the shit The Company does is pure evil. I didn’t want them having that control over me. To be honest, I had an agenda for doing it this way. Turns out it didn’t matter anyway.”
Iain turned away. Kathryn looked at him, puzzled. Iain pulled the door ajar and kept a vigil on the rooms beyond. He was expecting trouble, which worried Kathryn. Surely they would have been safer on the move than cooped up in here, she reasoned.
You wanted to stop.
She realised that the dangerous situation she’d found herself in was her own fault. She moved towards him. Iain held up his hand, signalling for her not to come any closer. Kathryn saw movement beyond the door. She crept nearer to him.
“Who is it?”
“Not sure, I think it’s Sputnik…”
Kathryn stifled a laugh. “Sputnik, tell me you’re kidding, right? That’s the guy’s real name?”
“No, it’s an alias. These guys all have aliases, specifically for The Game. It keeps them from being identified. To be honest, a lot of people in here don’t have a life outside of it. The Company likes to keep a low profile with everything. Should footage of what’s going on get leaked to the outside, they need to eliminate all trails that lead back to them. By hiring nobodies and criminals and funding their habits they have a workforce that’s easy to control. No one fucks with The Company, especially if they keep you sustained with booze, drugs and women. Regardless, Sputnik is in the building…we need to avoid him at all costs.”
Kathryn looked at Iain. When she’d first met him, he’d been calm and collected. Now, for the first time, she could see that he was petrified. “It’s another story entirely being on this end of the chaos, isn’t it, Iain?”
Iain smiled. “You aren’t wrong. When I played The Game, I felt empowered and alive. It was the biggest rush I’ve ever felt. Having that power at your fingertips was really something else. Being on the receiving end only makes me realise what a fool I was to get involved in the first place. The Game was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“Why? You said you enjoyed being involved?”
Iain wiped a tear from his eye. “When I finished, after three weeks, I went home. The fourth rule of The Game is that you can’t have any contact with the outside world. You have to be one hundred percent committed to the cause. And I was, right up to the last minute. For three weeks, I left my mobile phone in a locker. No calls, no texts. My wife was aware of this, so we agreed it was to be done. After all, if I won, we would be rich beyond our wildest dreams. She thought I was on an overseas business trip. Turns out that it didn’t happen that way. As I mentioned, I planned accordingly. Anyway, when I got home, my wife was …” He paused for a moment, deeply upset. “She had taken an overdose. She called me, but of course I didn’t pick up the phone. I found her cold body on the kitchen floor, the phone in her hand. The last dialled number was that of my mobile. She had called me out of desperation. You see, my wife was suffering from severe depression and because I wasn’t there she, well…”
Kathryn sat there, stunned. Iain turned towards her. “You see? If it hadn’t been for this fucking game I would still have my Jeanette with me. We would have been happy for five solid years before I had to come in here. I know The Game, I know the nooks and crannies and intricacies – for instance, I know how to get out of here. I was going to play the wild card, so I could be used at random by a Chronicle. Depending on how they wanted to play The Game… . well, I would be put in either to help or hinder. And here I am, The Company got what they wanted.”
Tears flowed down his cheeks. Iain sniffled. “Five long, agonising, lonely years and here I fucking am. I have money. I could have bought a new identity and gone on the run, but no, here I fucking am. Fulfilling my prophecy – to help or hinder.” Iain wiped tears from his cheek.
Kathryn backed away. As she considered the implications of what he was saying, she became concerned for her safety. “Iain. Help or hinder. Which one are you? If you tell me hinder then you had better have a good fucking explanation for it.”
Iain turned. His eyes were wet with tears. He wiped them on the back of his hand and stood up. He sniffed. Kathryn backed away, but Iain approached her. “I’m here to help you, Kathryn,” he reassured her. “Turns out that your Chronicle, wise as he is, had a system malfunction and ordered an ‘all in’ on you – something that has never been done before. According to The Game handbook, it’s a cowardly move, an act of weakness. As I say, when he put the ‘all in’ plan into action, I was brought in to help you out. So don’t worry, you have nothing to fear.”
“What’s an ‘all in’?”
“The Game is played in phases. For you, Phase One was the psychos outside. Phase Two was running into them in the building. Phase Three hasn’t happened yet and Phase Four comes later. Now, your Chronicle ordered Three and Four at the same time. As I said, it’s a cowardly move. It shows the other Chronicles that he is either desperate or crazy. In the rules, either of these extremes is forbidden in a player – well, at least, it’s not recommended. Either way, it’s bad.”
Kathryn nodded slowly. Iain continued.
“So The Company have a failsafe built into The Game. Obviously the last thing they need is a ‘Choice’ – that means you – dying too quickly. They make no money from the sponsors and it’s not good for their reputation. So they insert the failsafe – that’s me – to even things out. Luckily I was due to take part in The Game anyway, in fact, originally I was supposed to hinder you: hence the guns. Now, I’m your saving grace; which for me isn’t that great. However, The Company tell me what to do and I have to do it. Once The Game is over, I can leave.”
Kathryn was surprised. She sat in silence for a moment. Iain was sacrificing a lot to help her, she realised. In the first scenario he could simply have turned up, shot someone, and gone home happy. However, because of his wife’s death, Kathryn suspected he wasn’t quite as compliant towards his employers as he made out. “You’re going to stiff The Company, aren’t you?” she asked. “They took your wife from you, so you are going to expose The Game? Either that or…”
Kathryn moved to the doo
r, stepping in front of Iain. “I want in,” she told him firmly. “Whatever your plan is to bring these fuckers down, I want in. Not because I’m pissed at them, or because what they’re doing is some crazy shit. I want to do it for Jeanette. I want to help you. You don’t deserve to be back in here after the loss they caused you. It’s some twisted shit, and I know that you are scared to defy them, since they’re so powerful. But if all that’s happened to me becomes public knowledge then The Company are finished. Let me help you take them down.”
Iain smiled at her. “I appreciate the suggestion. However, I can’t expect you to help me. You have a life outside of this place and I can’t take that away from you.”
“Iain, you’ve already endangered your life by helping me. The least I can do is return the favour.”
He stared at Kathryn. For a while his face remained stonily unresponsive. Then gradually his expression softened. Iain realised that for the first time in a long while he was feeling happy and somehow relieved. He squeezed Kathryn’s arm gently.
“Fine,” he thanked her. “But you follow my orders. You can’t help me if you’re dead.”
Iain stood up and opened the door - just as a bullet shattered the glass and blew the door backwards. It knocked Kathryn over as Iain collapsed to the ground beside her. The bullet appeared to have buried itself into the wall behind them. Kathryn looked at Iain. “Are you hit?”
“No, it went past me. Trouble is, it means that they know we’re here.”
“Woooooo…looks like we got us a couple of hornpigs here, fellas!!!!”
The voice that boomed out had a trace of a Russian accent, Kathryn thought, but on the whole, Sputnik’s speech sounded British.
Iain crawled behind the door and peered out. Sputnik and Genghis were standing in the office, about thirty feet apart. Boyd walked into view and joined them. There was no sign of the fourth person, Kathryn hoped he wasn’t hiding nearby. Sputnik was armed with one of the guns he’d used earlier on. He held it one-handed, leaning it against his leg. From here, Kathryn could see smoke rising from the barrel. He wore a pair of aviator glasses that concealed his one good eye, his hair was cropped tight and his muscles rippled. Genghis stood still, arms crossed. Boyd was bouncing up and down. He was nursing his chin. Kathryn smiled, remembering their earlier battle.
“Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in! Boyd, why won’t the fucking pigs answer? Did we turn them into bacon yet?”
Boyd smiled. “Fuck, no. I reckon that bitch is sucking him off rotten.”
Sputnik slapped Boyd across the face. “Language in the presence of a whore…Ha.”
Boyd smiled, blood oozing from his nose. He rubbed his face and laughed. “Bitch ought to be suckin’ me cock after the hurtin’ she gave me earlier.” Boyd continued rubbing his jaw.
Iain looked back at Kathryn, beckoning her close. “This could get messy. I’m going to see if I can take out Genghis. If I miss, be ready to run. There’s a door behind you that leads to the next room. We can go through there and gain some distance. It leads around the other side of the stairs. We can get to the emergency exit that way.”
“I’ll huff….And I’ll puff….And I’ll blow your house in!”
More bullets whizzed through the window. They peppered the wall behind Kathryn, missing their targets. Plaster and wallpaper dropped on their heads.
Kathryn assessed the building’s layout in her mind’s eye. She realised that Iain was wrong, saying, “No, no, that’s wrong. This is a copy of my office block. That room is a dead end. It leads to printer storage. We need to go through this door we came through and turn right. It loops around to the stairs, then we can escape. There’s only one stumbling block—”
“This is getting FUCKIN’ BORING….I’m giving you to the count of three! One…”
Iain calculated fast, then he nodded. “Okay. Watch this. Be ready. And watch out for Boyd. The cunt needs taking down a peg or two.”
“TWO…”
Iain stood up and walked to the doorway, holding the pistol behind him, out of sight. Sputnik didn’t raise his weapon. As Iain emerged into the enemies’ room, Boyd and Genghis tensed. Kathryn watched Iain’s progress from the darkness of the room.
“Hello, Sputnik. Remember me?” Iain asked, walking further into the hallway. His wrists were crossed behind his back. He had the full attention of his pursuers.
Sputnik removed his aviators and squinted at Iain. His one eye blinked. “Well, I’ll be a sonofabitch! Kappa, it’s been a while. Here, boys, this is Kappa from cycle three. He was in charge the last time I was here. Because of him, I got so much pussy I felt like opening a fuckin’ cattery. What the fuck are you doing here?”
Iain stopped moving and relaxed a little. So far so good. “Didn’t you hear? I bargained with The Company. I agreed to come in here if I could live five years as normal. They went for it.”
“You’re shitting me, really? You decided to come back? You volunteered to come into this shithole? That either makes you brave as fuck with balls the size of Spain or as stupid as ol’ Boyd over here. And your trousers seem a bit loose to me.”
Iain seemed calm and relaxed. “Brave or stupid, either works for me. It happened, though.”
Kathryn noticed that Sputnik seemed a little off guard. She felt the beginnings of hope.
Sputnik grinned, exposing teeth that were yellow with years of neglect. “So you are here for what reason, exactly? To help us? Did you capture the little bitch for us? You know we work alone.”
Iain tensed slightly. “Unfortunately not. On this occasion I’m here to help her. Rules of The Game and all, and you know what The Company is like for rules?”
Sputnik smiled again. He licked his lips. “Oh yes, I know what they are like, they sure are good to me. They gave Boyd here a job – and you know what a retard he is – and Genghis here, well, they hired him despite his addiction to all manner of drugs. Hell, I would be surprised if he could find a suit to fit to go to a normal fuckin’ interview. The Company have put my parents up in the most exclusive cemetery I could find. I killed them, so it’s only fair that they had somewhere nice to stay for all eternity. The fact is, they keep my friends in work and my family safe. I haven’t got a bad thing to say about them.”
“Me neither,” Iain agreed. “They gave me the time of my life – once. You remember five years ago?”
“I sure do. We had a riot. I always remember the time we get to pillage, rape and kill. It puts hair on my chest and a boner in my M and S Y’s.”
“Good times.” Iain tightened his grip around the pistol’s butt.
“I heard your missus died. Horrible story – I heard she choked on her own puke while trying to call you – making you a husband who doesn’t care. Pure movie stuff, that. Genghis? Remind me to write a screenplay about that: Kappa and his dead bitch of a wife. It’ll win all the Oscars.”
Genghis nodded, betraying no emotion.
Iain looked up. “Yep, she died. No need to muddy her name in death and all.”
Kathryn watched on in amazement. She assessed the room. There was still no sign of the fourth guy.
Sputnik stopped smiling. He spat on the floor. “So, let me work this out. If you are helping her that means you are a wildcard in this here game. And it’s not much of a stretch to assume you blame The Company for the loss of your whore wife. So helping the girl is your way of making amends?”
Iain tensed. “Something like that, yes. I can take her and be on my way. This doesn’t have to get messy.”
Sputnik laughed. “No, it won’t go down like that. If my calculations are correct – if you blame The Company for your loss – then that means you hate them.”
“That’s right, I do. My wife is dead and because of them I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.”
Sputnik smiled. “So that makes us enemies.”
“I suppose it does. Is there any chance of a truce? You know, for old times’ sake?”
Sputnik laughed. “Not a fucking ch
ance—”
Iain raised his pistol and fired at Genghis. The bullet cannoned across the room and tore into the big man’s shoulder. At first, there was no reaction. Then Genghis fell back, his weight carrying him over a desk and to the floor, the momentum of the blast sending him flying.
For a few seconds, everything seemed to go in slow motion. Boyd reacted first, but Iain aimed at him and fired. The bullet missed, shattering a monitor beside him. Iain fired again and the bullet tore through Boyd’s leg. The limb shattered, blood exploded in all directions. Boyd fell to the floor screaming.
Sputnik didn’t move, he seemed impervious to the bullets. Sputnik raised his gun. Iain fired once more at him and then darted right. Kathryn moved with him and within seconds they were clambering past lockers, through a door and up the stairs to the third floor. Bullets screeched into the lockers just behind them, raining sparks and metal. Sputnik had fired.
“YOU CAN’T RUN AND YOU CAN’T HIDE! DON’T EVEN FUCKING TRY!”
Kathryn estimated that they had about thirty seconds to put distance between them. They took the stairs two at a time. At the top, they turned right. The room ended with a wall of windows, just like the other floors. They darted to the end and crouched behind some desks. They heard no following footsteps. Taking cover, Iain removed the clip from his pistol and started reloading it with shells. Kathryn stared at the door. No one came through.
Kathryn was angry. “What the fuck was that about? I thought you said they don’t kill the Choice as it is bad for business?”
“They don’t. At least they don’t normally.”
“So, can you explain it?”
Iain considered for a moment before the revelation hit him. It churned his stomach and made him gulp. His shocked realisation must have been obvious to Kathryn. She grabbed his arm, demanding an answer, but he pushed her away. He completed loading the automatic pistol’s clip and slid it into the gun, ratcheting a shell into the breach.