by Cameron Jace
“Stay away from me.” Leo grits his teeth. I have to tiptoe to look him in the eyes. Suddenly you don’t want to have anything to do with me? Boys will be boys. He feels like a monster to me. Ariadna says that all boys, sooner or later, turn into monsters.
I am shocked and confused. The blood returns to my once-numb hands. It’s like waking up from a beautiful dream with a twist, or even worse, a bad ending.
One of the soldiers storms in from behind Leo, and presses a button on a remote control in his hand. Leo snaps, and something happens to his mouth again. His lips are sealed again. His cheeks are tense. He is angry but can’t do anything about it. His eyes are still fixed on mine.
The soldiers drag him back. His hair falls over his eyes again. I think he does it on purpose. He does not want to communicate or be seen.
Ariadna and Sam run back toward me. Leo is out of sight.
“What happened to you?” Ariadna holds my hands. “You look like you’ve been struck by lightning.”
“Of all the girls,” wonders Sam, “Leo is talking to you?” He checks me out all over with his cold eyes.
“Believe me,” I say. “It wasn’t flattering.”
The doors open again. Faustina comes out and says it as loud as she can. “I am a Nine!”
“No shit. I am so happy for you I am going to explode,” murmurs Timmy. “In fact, I am Timmy’s so-surprised lack of excitement.”
Faustina comes running toward Sam. Kiss-kiss moment. Sam is a living statue.
There are also five Fives, one Six, one Seven. One Monster. Eva comes out screaming that she is an Eight.
I was going to be an Eight!
Everyone in the hall looks at her suspiciously.
“What?” Faustina wonders. “An Eight? I am surprised she came out of the room in the first place. What’s wrong with this stupid iAm?” She claps her device against her palm as if it will answer her.
They announce the second round, calling my name.
While Eva comes running at me, wanting to hug me, I ignore her and enter the ranking room. I did it on purpose. I hope she will forgive me. Even though I am glad for her, congratulating her would be like killing myself twice.
Inside the room, there is a digital screen in front of me.
“Pick up your iAm and plug it in the wall, please,” a pre-recorded woman’s voice requests.
I do as she says, and plug my iAm with Eva’s data into the slot in the wall.
It only takes seconds before the pre-recorded voice talks back to me.
“Congratulations,” it says. “You’re a Monster.”
Congratulations? Some sarcastic machine.
“You’ll attend the Monster Show and die in the name of the Burning Man,” the machine follows up. “We appreciate your cooperation and wish you a good death. Have a nice day… to die.”
“No shit,” I mumble as the floor underneath me parts. I find myself sliding down into the Dizny Battlefieldz.
That’s the time when teens usually scream.
I don’t.
Chapter 5
Down the Rabbit Hole
The door leads to a tube-like tunnel, all the way down.
The tube I am sliding through is made of corrugated metal sheets. I grit my teeth, opposing the pain in my back, but still managing not to scream. Even though I asked for this, I am still shocked. No matter how much I complain and kick the air, there is no going back now. Dreaming about the nightmare is one thing, and living the nightmare is a totally different thing. Especially a nightmare as bitterly real as this one.
At the end of the slide I fall into a container, splashing into thick brown mud.
I pick myself up, wipe the mud from my eyes, and look around. It’s a square room with another sealed metal door. There are about twenty students like me inside, most of them standing closer to the door, screaming for help.
The rest of them are standing next to me, paralyzed with shock. They look like they have lost the game already. I try to move, but the mud is thick, up to my knees.
A girl with bad yellow teeth and ear-to-ear dental bracing, calls for me, holding out a box in her hands. I manage to take a slow step backward in the mud, trying to stay as far away from her as possible. She looks weird and homeless.
As I try to move farther, I notice that one of my heels is missing, and the other is broken. I bend over and reach for my heels in the mud, not trusting whatever hides underneath, but I have no choice. I take off my other heel, and stand barefoot. I wish I wore my other outfit with pants and boots, the one I had prepared for entering the games, but my mom didn’t allow me this morning, saying I looked weird – Ariadna said I looked suspicious and I didn’t want to attract attention to me.
That bad-looking girl approaches me, insisting on offering me the box. I don’t want her to touch me. All I can think about is that she is a Monster. As if I am not.
The girl smells bad; her hair is awful, her dress is cheap, and her teeth — oh no. How did she even make it to the interview? She has Bad Kid written all over her face. Eva is a princess compared to her.
I take another step back, which brings me closer to another homeless-looking boy. I am in hell.
“You’ll need these,” the girl insists with sincere eyes. “Once the door opens, we don’t have time.” She opens the box for me and I see a pair of cheap sneakers inside. They have the word Monster written on the side and the logo of a golden tiger with strange eyebrows, like the one I saw on Leo’s shoulder.
The other teens, although not as ugly as this Shoegirl, nod their heads. A boy points at the camera in the upper corner of the room. I tiptoe in the mud and wave my hands for help. I think I can’t do this. It’s my destiny, but I can’t.
“Ariadna,” I yell. “Dad. Anyone! I made a horrible mistake.”
“She is still in shock,” one boy tells another.
“Give her some time. We all were at first,” the other replies.
“No one is coming to help,” the girl says to me. “Take the shoes, please. We’re on our own now.”
I refuse to take the shoes. I try to dial Ariadna’s number on my iAm instead.
“That won’t help,” Shoegirl says. “We’re not allowed to call anyone. The iAm is only used to track our moves. Now put on your damn shoes. We’re all wearing them. We found them in the mud. I guess if we search again, we could find other things.”
I am not going to search for anything else in the mud. I need to get out and confess what I did. Suddenly, I hear the sound of an engine.
“We’re in a vehicle! Some kind of a bus,” someone suggests.
The opening I fell from has been sealed with iron bars. It’s just a part of the ceiling now.
The room starts to move.
We can hear someone outside say, “Twenty,” We are twenty students in the room. “You take those and come back for the next lot,” that someone says.
Sunlight splays into the room through the bars in the ceiling. I am caged like a monkey in a zoo. They’re right. This isn’t a room. We’re in the back of some vehicle, and we are driving away.
“I think we should try to break those bars,” a boy says. He holds a joystick in his hand and he’s wearing a t-shirt that says: Roger This.
“No use,” another boy, crouched in the corner, replies. “What do you think you could do if you get out? There is nowhere to run. We’re all Monsters now. We have to play the game. Lose and die, or win and get ranked.”
“That’s so cool,” says the Roger This t-shirt boy. “It’s like Saw, the movie franchise. ‘I want to play a game,’” he imitates the sick killer in those Amerikaz’ movies.
What’s wrong with this Roger This boy? I think I am going to have one of those heart strokes my dad used to have from smoking.
“We have to wait and see where they’re taking us,” says Shoegirl. She acts as if she is some kind of a leader.
“Shut up!” another girl says. “You know where they’re taking us.”
“Where?”
I ask immediately. Forgive my ignorance, but since it looks like we’re going to die, can you tell me, please?
I get slapped with their irritated looks back in my face, as if I am out of this world.
“To the DB.”
“Oh, that explains it.” I roll my eyes.
“The Battlefieldz. The Dizny Battlefieldz,” the girl says. “Or what the Summit likes to call the Playa, where we attend the Monster Show.”
“— and eventually die because no one’s ever survived the three days of the game,” the boy in the corner says. “What have I been saying all day? No one ever listens to me.”
“Hey. Be cool,” the boy with the Roger This t-shirt says. “We might find extraterrestrials in the Playa. I heard that they exist.”
Everyone averts their eyes from Roger This. Who is that boy? Doesn’t he get it? We’re going to die if we don’t do something.
I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am ready for this. I have been planning a whole year for it. I know each game and how it’s played, including the last epic part about Carnivore. It’s just that being in a horror movie is so different from watching it from outside. There is no remote control button I can push to stop this from happening now.
My mother used to say that I’d start to appreciate the moral of the games after I get ranked. That Faya is such a fair nation, rewarding those who work hard and deserve a rank. That there is redemption in punishment and sacrificing the Monsters. She said that I would understand how much damage Bad Kidz can cause to our nation, symbolizing the laziest, most worthless and most harmful to our society. The fact that none of them ever survived the game never bothered her.
When I think of Mom’s words, I really don’t understand why Woo helped me to avoid becoming a Monster. But then, even when I was saved and was about to become a Seven, I chose to become a Monster.
“I hate Dizny Battlefieldz,” a girl says. “My brother died there five years ago.”
“A lot of my friends did, too.” The Shoegirl bows her head as if she is ashamed. “But this is for the greater good of our nation.”
“What?” I burst out. I can’t believe she said that.
“Yes, you know, Prophet Xitler’s plan is to motivate the nation and make an almost-perfect society,” she says. “In a short time, there will be no Bad Kidz like us, and society will be safe. They call it Utopia. A society where everything is just perfect.”
“I agree,” the pessimistic boy in the corner says. Why do I think that he and Shoegirl would make a great Romeo and Juliet who would end up stabbing each other on Valentine’s Day? “Look at how the rate of Monsters has decreased in only nine years. We’re the tenth year. Six years from now, all Monsters will be gone. I agree with the plan. I just wish I wasn’t one. We’ll sacrifice ourselves for the Burning Man.”
“What are you loonies talking about?” a boy yells at them. “This is all wrong. Everyone has the right to live. There is no Utopia. It’s a myth. We’re one nation. We live and rely on each other. This ranking thing is all wrong. We’re not Bad Kidz.”
“Look at me,” a girl says to the boy in the corner. “I’m ill. How can that be my fault? My IQ is one hundred and twenty.” This girl is also good-looking.
I shrug, putting a hand over my heart, wondering what they would think of me if I told them that I am practically a volunteer. I fight the tears that threaten to fall and force myself to inhale in four counts. I take as much air as I can into my lungs, and let it out in two counts, slowly. I learned this from Woo.
The vehicle stops and the door opens. There are two soldiers at the door and one woman: Eliza Day.
It suddenly hits me that if my parents had sold everything they owned and gotten me a Teen-Gene, then starved for sixteen years, I would have been a Nine.
Eliza holds a round object in her hand. She stamps us with it on our shoulders as we walk through a corridor. Students shiver when she stamps them.
“This is permanent,” says Eliza coldly. “Consider it a Tattoo… and your rank.”
I walk through, and she stamps me. Before I can complain, she pushes me forward.
Once I walk out into a big white hallway lined with mirrors, I check out the stamp on my shoulder. It’s a tattoo of a golden tiger, the same tiger as on my shoes and on Leo’s arm. What does that mean? And who is Leo? A Nine or a Monster? Is he like me, a foolish volunteer? Is that why he knows who I am?
I ask Mr. Pessimistic about the stamp. Pessimists always know a lot about everything, yet never do something positive about anything.
“It’s because of Carnivore,” the boy explains.
“How is the stamp connected to Carnivore?” I wonder.
“The Monster Show runs for three days. Whoever survives that long has to play a deadly game with Carnivore, the most dangerous and genetically-mutated creature on earth. It takes its life from the pain of the people it kills. It’s a new technology—”
“Okay, I get it.” I stop him from elaborating. “Spare me the details. What it is the meaning of the friggin’ stamp?”
“It means you only win if you kill Carnivore at the end of the games,” Mr. Pessimistic says, walking through the crowd. “The tattoo lets Carnivore know your butt belongs to him. Some silly propaganda to sell more airings of the show. You know how much money the Summit makes airing this show worldwide, right?”
“But I saw that tattoo on a Nine,” I say, remembering Leo.
“Wake up, girl.” Mr. Pessimistic shakes his head at my naivety. “That’s impossible. I say wake up from this dreamy world you live in and prepare to fight. I am Glum, by the way.”
“What?” Glum? No wonder.
“Peter Glum,” he adds. I am not interested.
The hallway leads out to a vast park surrounded by the Faya’s military. They are all Sixes. My dad could have been one of them.
“Smile,” Glum says.
“What?”
“We’re live on TV. I have never been on TV. I’ve always imagined myself smiling at the camera when I am on TV, even if I am about to die.”
“What are all those Zeppelins for?” I ask Peter.
“The game can also be seen up close from the Zeppelins, as long as we haven’t entered the battlefields. The Zeppelins can’t follow us into the Playa. It’s too dangerous for them. Zeppelin tickets are sold out two months in advance. Did you know the games used to be called Bad Kidz Games in the past?”
“I know.” I nod while I walk. Peter is starting to get on my nerves.
“It was changed due to protesters claiming the name was shocking to the good kids, since it had the word kids in it. Sending teenagers to the death games isn’t a crime, but the name is an issue. Welcome to Faya.” Peter claps his hands as if he is protesting against himself.
If I don’t find anyone sane to talk to, I won’t be able to think clearly.
The park is full of Monsters. How many are there? Two… three thousand?
I try to push my way toward the soldiers, but it is not easy.
The Zeppelins hover above us. Peter explains that these are the VIPs’ Zeppelins. Either they’ve paid for the entertainment, or they are Nines and Eights who have complimentary tickets. That means Ariadna and Faustina could be watching me. If Ariadna sees me she can help. Did Madame Delacroix wake up yet?
I am going crazy pushing the students again, getting as far as possible from Peter Glum. As I push my way toward the soldiers I notice that the Zeppelins above me aren’t that high. They have balconies to watch the games from with their expensive binoculars.
As I walk, I see Roger This instructing other teens how to play the game in the Battlefieldz. Is this guy cuckoo in the head or what?
At least he is not gloomy like Mr. Pessimistic, Peter Glum.
“Wow,” Roger This says to the teens, looking up at the Zeppelins. “I wish I had one of those ClairVos in here.”
I look up where he is looking. The rich kids in the Zeppelins watch us with their ClairVos.
ClairVos are
the latest technology invented in Faya. They’re 3D glasses, except that they are not only 3D, like in the time of the Amerikaz. They’re now 10D, or as some call it, XD. The ClairVos are magical. Let’s say I am driving my car, wearing my ClairVo, and you sit in your home, eating popcorn and wearing another pair of ClairVo glasses. If so, then you can see and feel exactly what I am experiencing while driving the car. If I get scared, you get scared. If I feel the wind in my face, you feel the wind in your face.
The ClairVos are ridiculously expensive. Only Eights and Nines can afford them. Those rich kids watching us from the balconies of the Zeppelins have their friends at home watching them watching us up close, transmitting the same excitement and feelings to them.
“I wish I had one of those ClairVos down here so I can show them how scary it feels in here,” I mumble, getting Roger This’ attention.
“The games can be watched on the iAms too,” he says to me, holding that joystick in his hand. “There are the extended versions of it broadcast on iScreen or TV, where the audience can comment and discuss the events of the games, and vote for their favorite Monster. Like that boy, Woo, last year. He was the audience’s favorite Monster before Carnivore killed him.”
I don’t comment about him knowing Woo. I keep pushing through the crowd. Roger This decides to accompany me.
“Sometimes,” Roger This says, playing with his joystick while looking up at the sky again, “if the audience sympathizes with a Monster, the votes are taken into consideration. It could spare your life in a certain game level. It’s like extra bonus ammo in role-playing games.”
Who is this guy? He treats this situation as if it’s another new computer game.
“In a world without movies, this is the movie of the year,” Roger This elaborates, still playing with the joystick, looking up. What’s he looking for? “No box-office speculation, no Oscar nominees, and no editor’s picks.”
The thing he says about the movies rings a bell. Movies are prohibited in Faya. The whole movie industry is on hold. Woo taught me that the Summit is afraid of rebellious messages conveyed in movies. So the three days of the Monster Show are actually the Movie of the Year in Faya. The one and only movie. With all the side stories of the Monsters and tragic kills in the game, they can keep selling recaps and spin-offs all year long. This is a totalitarian government where even the winning movie is predetermined. The audience gets entertained, raising bets on who is the public’s favorite Monster, or who will die last, then spend the rest of the year gossiping about it.