by Chad Leito
Bite stepped forward and opened the door. His protruding jaw was relaxed; he didn’t seem ready to force Baggs into anything. “Want to take a ride, Baggs? Want to see how some people live?”
When the limousine door opened, the lights came on inside, and Baggs could see two people sitting against the far wall. The first was a clean-cut black man who smiled with impeccably white teeth. In contrast to Bite, this man gave off warmth, instead of a frosty lack of compassion. Sitting next to him was a female who had to be a professional model. She had hair the color of fire that ran down to her shoulders. She was wearing a sparkling white dress that revealed a lot of her body. Everything on her was both slender and filled out at the same time. Her cheeks were healthy and not gaunt, but slender, all at the same time. The same rule applied to her breasts, her hips, her calves, and her neck. Her figure was a genetic anomaly, something that could not be achieved from dieting and exercise. She was somehow amazingly slender, but retained a healthy plumpness. She was stunning—breath-taking—beautiful.
So he wasn’t lying about the models, Baggs thought.
“Baggs! Get in here!” the redheaded model squealed. Her cheeks were flushed. She leaned forward and her dress fell some so that Baggs could see more of her breasts. She grabbed Baggs’s hand and tugged him into the limo. Her hand was small, warm, and sweating slightly. Baggs did not resist her pull. He ducked his head and got inside.
Bite laughed, and climbed in behind them. He shut the door. It locked. The engine rumbled and they began to roll through London.
10
Thirty three year old Baggs thought, damn it, Maggie. Turn the lights off in the living room when the bedroom door is open. You’re going to wake Tessa and me.
For a moment, Baggs was too tired to get up and do anything about it; he had just been deeply dreaming about The Shepherds and did not feel like returning to consciousness yet. Maybe she’ll shut the door, he thought. Light beamed in from the bulb above the kitchen table and fell upon Baggs’s eyes. He wanted to sleep more. He felt terribly tired and groggy. What did I do last night? Why am I so tired?
“Maggie…” he called into the other room. He didn’t want to have to get up.
There was no answer.
“Mah-gee!” he called again. His voice was tired and raspy.
There was still no answer.
Maybe Tessa is up and in the living room, Baggs thought. He reached his hand over beneath the sheet to feel for her body on the right side of him. Tessa always slept on the right side of him. But as he reached, something peculiar happened—his hand reached the end of the bed.
His eyes shot open. He never slept that close to the right side of the bed.
Instantly, he knew that he wasn’t in his apartment. The walls that surrounded him weren’t covered in cracks and a hodgepodge of different colored paints. The air smelled fresh and clean. Instead of the ceiling above him being eight and a half feet tall, it was thirty feet above him with great wooden beams crisscrossing through the air. White ceiling fans spun above him.
He sat up.
Where am I? How did I get here?
He was scared. Why wouldn’t I be in the apartment?
He looked around the room. There were seven twin-sized beds lining the walls, similar to the setup in an orphanage. He was sitting on one; each of the beds had thick red bedspreads and soft sheets.
It started to come back to Baggs as he looked at the person in the twin bed beside his. She had a face covered in piercings, and even in her sleep, her dark eyes scowled in a hateful manner.
Tonya Wolf. Tonya Wolf is a murderer. She’s on my Outlive team, the Boxers.
Baggs felt sluggish. Thinking was like wading through mud that morning.
Do I have a hangover? What happened last night?
After a long moment’s consideration, he remembered the Contestants’ Dinner, and that he hadn’t drunk any alcohol the night before. Then he recalled Mobb Harvey climbing the bars of their cage and coming after Hailey Vixen. He recalled defending her and getting into a fight with one of the best boxers of all time.
Baggs frowned, and then winced. His face hurt. He lifted his big hands and felt his cheeks and nose. Both of his cheeks were swollen, and so was his nose; he didn’t think that Mobb had fractured any bones last night, though, thankfully.
Baggs remembered how the night had ended with him getting injected with a sedative from his Choke. So that’s why I feel so groggy, he thought. I was drugged last night.
He reached his hands up and felt his neck; there was no device wrapping around his skin, just finely trimmed hairs from where Caballas had groomed him the night before.
Baggs looked around and located the light source that he had mistaken for the living room light in his apartment. Over to his right there was an open doorway that led out to a well-lit, spacious room. He could hear someone walking back and forth in that room, and the sound of glasses tinkling together.
“Look at you, alive and well,” came a whisper from his left. Baggs turned, and in the dim light he could see Larry Wight’s face grinning back at him. His teeth were yellow. His gray hair was a mess. His eyes looked smaller without glasses on. “I thought they might have killed you last night with that injection.”
“I’m certainly not in tip-top shape,” Baggs said. “Where are we?”
“Byron Turner’s house.”
Baggs looked around at the paintings on the wall and the hand-carved nightstands beside each twin-sized bed. “Nice place.” Baggs looked at Larry and saw that he was wearing a t-shirt. He looked down at his own body and found that he was still wearing his suit, coat and all.
“Wondering where your new rags are? In the nightstand. You’ll have some shoes, too. That room back there’s a bathroom if you want to go change.”
Baggs nodded. He still felt groggy. He wasn’t yet ready to get out of bed.
“Not to pry,” Larry said, “But who’s Maggie? You were calling that name in your sleep.”
Baggs ran a hand over his short hair. “It’s my daughter.”
“Were you dreaming about her?”
“Yeah.” Baggs frowned. He wished that he were back at his apartment with Maggie, Olive, and Tessa. Waking up in Turner’s mansion with the coming death match in the Colosseum was depressing.
Sensing that Baggs didn’t want to talk anymore, Larry stopped asking him questions. He lay back down on his pillow, relishing all the sleep he would be allowed to get. From the other room, someone was still shuffling around. Wanting to wake himself up some before the day began, Baggs opened up his nightstand. The compartments had a lot of clothes, all in Baggs’s size, XXL. There were multiple pairs or underwear, socks, athletic pants, athletic shorts, t-shirts, and athletic hoodies. In the bottom drawer, Baggs found brand new tennis shoes. Baggs took a pair of athletic pants, underwear, socks and a t-shirt, which had the symbol of the Boxers on it, and walked to the bathroom. He dressed slowly, still groggy. He wondered what they would do today. Train, I guess. He didn’t really have a good idea of what that would entail.
“Jeez,” he said as he looked at his bruised face in the mirror. He had dark bruises beneath both eyes and his nose was swollen. At some point last night, he had also busted his lip. There was dried blood in one of his nostrils. He smiled at his reflection. “You were never that pretty anyway,” he told himself, and washed his face with cold water. This helped him to wake up some.
When Baggs returned to the bedroom, everyone had been woken up and Byron Turner himself was walking around the room with a tray of drinks, placing them on the nightstands. “Good morning,” Turner said. His voice was deep and loud; he was moving quickly, as though he had already had breakfast, a pot of coffee, and done calisthenics. Turner was wearing a black suit; he looked to be ready for a day’s work on the council. “You made quite the stir last night, Mr. Baggers,” he said.
Baggs stood there for a moment, trying to think of something to say. Turner’s tone was flat, unreadable. Am I supposed to apolog
ize? Did I embarrass him? “Sorry,” he said, finally. Although, he was not sorry for what he had done. He was glad that he had intervened and stopped Mobb Harvey from having his way with Hailey Vixen.
Byron Turner placed the last two drinks on Tonya Wolf’s nightstand. “Sorry?” he said to Baggs. Again, it struck Baggs as odd that the man had such a strong lisp, and yet it came across as intimidating instead of weak or childish. Turner’s face widened into a gap-toothed smile. “There’s nothing to be sorry about! You made a splash, but I’m not getting fined for it or anything. You’re on the front page of the national paper, James. We’re going to be raking in the bets! Now come, drink your smoothie. It’s healthy. I’ll be back.”
Turner left the room, his quick steps echoing down the corridor. Baggs went over to his bed and sat on the edge of it. Two glasses sat on his nightstand—one held a pink smoothie, and the other held a clear liquid. Before Baggs had time to try either of these, he heard a cascade of footsteps returning, indicating that a group of people was about to enter.
“Okay, listen up!” Turner began to say even before he was in the room. He entered and was followed by seven people, all in black tank tops and pants. Each of these people was incredibly fit, with toned muscles bulging everywhere. Turner put his hands on his hips and looked around at his contestants. He stared for a long time at Baggs. “Training starts in thirty minutes. These are your trainers; each trainer will be assigned to a trainee. We only have a week to get each of you in great shape, and so if you want to live, you better work hard. You need to drink your smoothie and energy booster on your nightstand before the workout starts; trust me, you’ll need the energy. Any questions?” Turner asked. He looked around the room with his tiny eyes. His huge hands were clasped together in front of him. A brown K9 padded out of the hallway and into the room. He lay down against the back wall and surveyed the contestants.
Turner is more relaxed inside of his own home, Baggs thought, looking at the rich man.
Another woman came in after the K9. She was dressed in pink scrubs and had a stethoscope around her neck.
“This is Doctor Strant, we worked together at London Heart Hospital when I was still devoting most of my time to cardiovascular surgery. She will take some blood samples and inject you with a course of vitamins to ensure that you have all the nutrients necessary to begin a strenuous exercise regimen.”
Dr. Strant didn’t speak as she came in. She carried a small tackle box beside her and wore sterile gloves. She knelt beside Tonya Wolf, listened to her heart, her breathing, took blood from her, and then injected her with a purple substance, intravenously.
Baggs was next up. As she came around to him, his heart was beating fast. Why would she have to inject me with vitamins? he thought. That didn’t make sense; You don’t need to inject someone with vitamins! You can take vitamins orally! What are they giving me? Steroids? But there was nothing that he could do. If he refused the injection, Turner would probably have his K9 hold him down while Dr. Strant forcibly injected him. And, maybe if I just act like I believe that I’m getting vitamins, he won’t feel the need to kill me if I win.
Dr. Strant listened to Baggs’s heart, and lungs. She talked into a little machine clipped to her scrubs as she worked. “Patient has a one out of six systolic murmur. Clear breath sounds bilaterally.” She ran her hands over his left arm. “Uhhhh… there is a non well healed distal radius fracture of the left arm. Squeeze your hand, sir. Limited range of motion, secondary to wrist deformity.” Then, she reached into her tackle box and took out a cotton ball. She dabbed it with alcohol; the smell stung Baggs’s nostrils. Then, she wet his forearm with the alcohol; the liquid was cold. She wrapped a rubber tourniquet around his arm and then used a butterfly needle to withdraw blood. Baggs watched as the blood was pumped through the thin tube and filled up a plastic vile. Dr. Strant applied pressure to the end of the butterfly needle with the cotton ball, and then withdrew it. She swiftly put on a band-aid. Without pausing, she then withdrew a syringe filled with the same purple liquid that she had injected Tonya Wolf with. “Forearm,” she said. Baggs showed her his forearm. She flicked his skin a few times. “Good veins,” she remarked, and then she pierced his skin with the needle and injected the mystery substance into his veins. She removed the tourniquet, and then moved on to Larry.
Baggs looked at the spot where she had injected the mystery substance. I don’t feel any different, yet, Baggs thought.
“Don’t forget to drink your smoothie. If you drink it too late, you’ll throw up during the work out,” Turner said. It was more of a command than a reminder.
Baggs drank the smoothie and the clear liquid beside it. The smoothie tasted like strawberries and bananas; the clear liquid tasted like what Baggs thought gasoline would taste like; he could feel heat running down his throat and slipping into his stomach after he swallowed the stuff. When he was done drinking the smoothie and energy supplement, he propped himself up on the head of his bed and reclined his back against the wall.
The energy supplement works fast, Baggs thought. He felt alarmingly wired. His hands were shaking. He was having trouble sitting still.
When Dr. Strant got to Spinks, she refused the injection. Turner came around, held her down by the neck, and Dr. Strant forcibly injected her. When Spinks sat up, she had thumbprints on her neck from where Turner had held her down. Her eyes were indignant, red, and watering.
Turner stood in the middle of the room and sneered at Spinks. His small eyes were alight with pleasure. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that if you disobey me, I’ll be your judge and jury and instead of being forced to take a healthy dose of vitamins, you will be injected with potassium until your heart stops.”
Spinks wiped her red eyes with the backs of her hands. She had tears, but they were angry tears, not sad tears. She looked at Turner between her pinks bangs. Her expression said, I’m going to kill you.
Turner looked at his watch. “Well, it’s been fun. I’ve got to go to council now. These are your trainers; they’ve already been assigned to you. Do as they say, or I’ll hear about it.” He turned to Spinks and glared at her again. “And if I do hear about it, I won’t hesitate to use my power to execute.” He gave another nasty smile. “Very good. I must be off, now.” He turned towards the hallway.
As soon as Byron Turner left the room, the middle trainer, a short blond man, stepped forward. He was traditionally handsome with broad, toned shoulders and a wide-set jaw, but he had obtained an odd aesthetic surgery; he had two small, sharp horns protruding out of his forehead; the effect was to make him look somewhat like a devil. “Alright! Everybody up, and we’re jogging into the room behind me. C’mon. Let’s go. Up, up, up! Your first workout starts now!”
Baggs, Larry, and Tonya stood up on Baggs’s side of the room and began to jog. On the other side Hailey Vixen and two of Baggs’s teammates he did not yet know obeyed the orders as well. The two teammates looked so alike that they could have been siblings. One was a male and the other a female. The male was six feet tall and gangly with big joints. His front two teeth protruding from the roof of his mouth were long, crooked, and made him look like a rat. The female beside him was also gangly with pale brown hair. Exactly where her male counterpart had the large rat teeth, her teeth were gone, leaving a pink, gummy gap.
“Get up, now!” the man with the horns shouted, but one of the Boxers was not yet listening—Spinks. She’s so defiant, Baggs thought. Is defiant the right word? Is she merely stupid? She sat still, her hateful eyes locked upon the trainer’s eyes. Baggs and the rest of the Boxers jogged into the opposite room, leaving Spinks behind.
The next room was a training facility. It was big enough to train a small army, and it sprawled across an area the size of several soccer fields. Along the rubber floor there were hundreds of metal exercise machines, sets of free-weights and machines for cardiovascular training. Baggs thought, We’re only here a week; we won’t even have time to use all of these machines.
“L
ine up against the wall,” a dark-eyed female hollered at them. The six Boxers who had obediently jogged into the workout room did as they were told and lined up. Baggs ended up beside Larry, who was gazing up at the ceiling.
“It’s still night time,” he said to Baggs. He had put his gold-rimmed glasses back on.
Baggs looked up and saw that he was right. High above, there were skylights that revealed the night sky. “I wonder what time it is,” Baggs said. He had no idea. His internal clock was completely thrown-off by recent events. Last night he had been given a sedative, and just a moment ago he had drunk that clear energy drink along with his smoothie. He was perspiring just from the small jog into the other room. And, odd as it was, he wanted to work out. He felt like a young dog that’s been trapped for hours in a kennel; he wanted to exert himself to exhaustion. The feeling was alarming to him. He tried to think of a substance that could have such an effect, in order to determine what he had consumed. Caffeine? It didn’t feel like caffeine. Meth? Glass? Baggs wouldn’t know; he had not tried either drug. Whatever is making my heart pound like this and giving me such an itch to exercise can’t be legal. And whatever Dr. Strant injected me with can’t be vitamins; it was probably steroids. If it was something legal, why lie about it?
The Boxers had only been at Byron Turner’s house for a few hours and he was already cheating.
Baggs stood there, along with his teammates as they waited for more instructions. The horned trainer was still in the bedroom with Spinks.
Baggs thought, I wonder if there are any long-term effects from using these drugs? He supposed that to Byron Turner, it didn’t matter. By the time any of the consequences came to the participants, the Outlive competition would be over and he would no longer need them.
Baggs hoped that the clear liquid he had drunk hadn’t been some form of synthetic glass. He had seen a lot of people on that stuff—it was awful. The best way to describe the effects of glass was that it made its users look like zombies. Meth was mild in comparison.