Play or Die

by Jen Cole

  Fitani stared at her. “Obviously I’ve failed to convey what our world is like,” he said, and a topographical map filled the elevator.

  Finding herself waist-deep in a mountain range, Jo yelped and leapt to press the close-button on the opening elevator doors.

  “This,” Fitani was unable to keep the pride from his voice, “is my Safe Place.”

  Jo studied the holographic map. A breathtakingly vast patchwork of fields spread out from the base of the mountain range. Diverse shades indicated different crops at various stages of growth, alongside occasional fallow fields of rich brown, all perfectly tended by tiny machines, which moved about weeding and harvesting. Fitani made a gesture and the map began to scroll. Kilometer after kilometer of fields scrolled by, unbroken by trees, housing or roads.

  “Before The Company, most of what you’re seeing was untamed forests and wild pasture,” he informed her. “The surface survivors grew few crops, having reverted to a mainly hunter/gatherer culture. They barely eked out a subsistence living. Now, thanks to The Company, we all eat well.”

  What happened to the animals, thought Jo, but refrained from asking. As the map scrolled on, a large area of blurriness, apparently several kilometers wide, and extending for many more, appeared.

  “There seems to be a problem with the holographic projection,” she said.

  “Some things are not for your eyes,” was Fitani’s reply, and eventually it scrolled by. For the first time a road appeared, extending from the end of the blurred section and cutting through the scrolling fields, to finally reach a curved row of about forty silos dotted along the fringe of the great patchwork quilt.

  Now the scene changed markedly. A somewhat hilly band of brown land extended beyond the silos for several kilometers. Moving over it were tractor-like machines. Beyond that band, everything was black. As far as the eye could see, the earth was black as though a huge fire had swept through wreaking such total devastation that nothing had grown back.

  “The black land,” said Fitani, “is all radioactive. Can you see the employees working at the Edge?”

  What Jo had taken to be some kind of thin white line on the edge of the radioactive plains, she now saw were thousands of human beings, each suited up in a kind of astronaut’s costume, bending shoulder to shoulder in unison.

  “They are cleaning the Earth,” he replied to her unasked question.

  A loud blaring sound added to Jo’s shock, and she realized she’d been holding the elevator doors closed too long.

  “Turn off the hologram,” she said, white-faced, releasing the doors as it disappeared.

  For the first time Jo’s heart cried out for the people of the future, for their compacted, restricted lives and their tiny, heroic attempt to save the Earth.

  “Can you see now,” said Danny as they stepped into the foyer, “why the idea of stretching one’s legs in the fresh air can never be more than a fantasy for my people? All our clean ground is taken up with food production, the barren hills of no-man’s land are in the final stages of cleaning by the machines and are hardly the place for a picnic, and beyond that are the radioactive plains, upon which no one can venture without a protective suit.

  “We watch you people playing in parks, climbing mountains, fishing in streams, swimming in oceans, even walking along streets and feeling the weather, and we curse that you destroyed all that for us.”

  Jo turned to Fitani. “I’m getting it. I’m beginning to understand the depth of your anger. I’d probably feel the same way if I lived in your world, but surely it’s rubbing salt into the wound, to be always looking back on something you’ll never regain.”

  “We can’t have the real thing, but you won’t even let us live it vicariously?” said Danny.

  “I don’t know,” said Jo. “I’m confused. I need time to think about it and right now I don’t have that time. The chauffeur is waiting.”

  She nodded towards a solid uniformed man in his mid thirties, standing by the reception desk. Fitani said no more and the two of them walked over.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Wiseman?” the chauffeur asked.

  “Yes.” Jo passed him the envelope with the money. “Could you please check the payment and provide a receipt.”

  The chauffeur took the envelope and turned to the reception desk to count the notes. Jo meanwhile pulled out the second envelope containing the keycard and pushed it through the slot provided for guests to drop their keycards while they were away from the hotel. The desk clerk glanced at the group, but deciding his services weren’t needed, continued working on his computer.

  Jo checked her watch. It was just ten-thirty. They were the only ones in the foyer. A sleek black Lexus sat gleaming in the pool of light outside the entrance. So far, so good.

  The chauffeur now turned with a smile, the envelope no longer in evidence, and proffered a receipt.

  “Everything is in order. I am George Vasiliou. Please call me George.”

  Jo took the receipt. “Thank you George, we’re ready to leave.”

  Nodding, he led the way across the foyer, and stood aside as the doors parted, to allow them to pass through. Then he sprang to pull open the back door of the Lexus.

  “After you dear,” said Jo to Danny, and turned quickly to distract George. She didn’t want him noticing Fitani’s dematerializing method of entering a car.

  “You’ve brought the laptop?” she asked.

  “Yes Mrs. Wiseman.” He pressed his key-remote to release the boot catch, and walking around, lifted the boot. He reached in and took out a small laptop with a broadband dongle already in its USB port.

  “Great!” Jo took the laptop. “We have some time to spare, so let’s take a tour of the city. You can choose the sights.”

  She slipped into the plush, leather interior and fastened her seatbelt.

  ~~~~

  CHAPTER 15

  The driver turned right, towards the city. In the hush of the back seat, Jo closed her eyes and exhaled. She’d done it. At eleven o’clock the Hunter would make the dismaying discovery that he hadn’t trapped her in Brighton after all. She melted into the soft leather, deciding she could ride like this for the rest of her life.

  Fitani’s voice shattered the tranquility. “Shall I continue now?”

  “In a minute.” Jo needed a break and played for time. “I have to check the laptop. George, how do I get onto the Internet?”

  “Double-click the broadband icon, Mrs. Wiseman. Enter chronis3 as the password and then just use the browser.”

  Jo followed his instructions.

  “It’s very irregular to be taking this long with the questions,” Fitani grumbled.

  “Go with the flow, Danny boy,” Jo muttered under her breath, and brought up Google Maps. Now to get some real addresses she could give to hotel clerks. For a while, Jo jumped from state to state, zooming in on streets and suburbs and writing down their names and postcodes.

  I need Melbourne suburbs too, she thought, dragging the map to bring Victoria into view. The screen momentarily greyed and as Jo waited for the refresh, her gaze wandered to the toolbar and froze. The time display said 10.58. Her alarm hadn’t gone off! She looked at her watch and saw the numbers change to 10.59.

  “George, pull over, quickly,” she yelled. “I have to get out!”

  A sign revealed they were on Nepean highway and she could see no place to pull over, but the chauffeur veered into a turning lane leading to a side street. Jo clawed off her black wig and threw it to the floor. Yanking the blonde from the bag, she fitted it hurriedly. They pulled into a curb and she leapt out before the engine had even stopped, sprinting for a large tree on the nature strip. Putting the trunk between herself and the car, Jo tore off the beige shirt and threw it behind her.

  Had she made it in time? The illuminated numbers on her watch read 11.00 p.m. but was that the beginning of 11.00 or the end? Panting, she watched the dial and counted. When she got to fifty-three, the numbers changed to 11.01. If her watch was accurate,
the Hunter’s new photo showed what she’d intended – her usual blonde self, though somewhat disheveled, in the familiar black shirt and jeans. At worst the camera had caught some part of the beige shirt and the Hunter may now know she owned clothing of this color. Well serve her right for forgetting to set the alarm.

  …

  In the car, George turned to his client in concern. “Mr. Wiseman, is your wife all right? Does she need help?”

  Fitani shrugged noncommittally. “She does things her way.”

  The chauffeur scanned the dimly lit street. She’d taken off before he realized she’d even left the car. “I could go and look for her,” he offered uncertainly.

  “She’ll be back,” said Fitani, closing his eyes to signal the conversation was over.

  George turned to the front. It was the party limo drivers who usually got the weirdo customers. The corporate types he drove tended to be pretty conservative on the whole. Well, these two had hired the car for a full shift and paid in advance, so if they needed to suddenly stop and leap out, who was he to argue? He glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed a blonde girl walking towards them. Darkly dressed, she was holding something light-colored in one hand and on reaching the back door, she opened it and slid in.

  “Hope I didn’t scare you George.”

  “Mrs Wiseman!” He was lost for words.

  “Did Andy tell you about my little quirk? It’s a bit embarrassing. Only my closest friends know about it, but since you’ll be driving us all night, I’ll have to let you in on my secret.”

  “No need, Mrs. Wiseman.”

  “Yes, there is George. I know my behavior can seem, well… odd, and I want to explain. I get anxiety attacks. What helps most when they come on is for me to immediately get away from wherever I am. Changing my look is something else that calms me down. I know it sounds crazy but…” Jo let the sentence drift.

  “It’s fine,” Mrs. Wiseman, the chauffeur assured her. “Thank you for letting me know. I’m happy to pull over whenever you feel an attack coming on.”

  “Thank you George, and I know you’ll keep this confidential.”

  “Of course Mrs. Wiseman. Discretion is the byword of Chronis Cars. Er, do you still want the tour?”

  Jo pictured the Hunter frantically sending out agents out to surround this area. No way she wanted to hang around here. In fact, anywhere this side of the bay seemed too close.

  “No, we’ll go straight to Geelong,” she said.

  “My dear,” Fitani interrupted. “I must insist we finish our conversation.”

  “Yes, we must.” Jo leant forward. “George, Andy and I need a private word.”

  “No problem Mrs. Wiseman, do you see the button in the armrest? Just press it to raise the screen partition. If you need to speak to me, press the button again to lower the screen.”

  “Thank you George.”

  Jo raised the screen and turned to Danny. “I do want you to finish telling me about your world, but before that, I’d like to jump to my final question. It’s what I asked you at Dandenong station this afternoon. How is it that two major competing detective agencies are both working together for the Hunter?”

  “An easy one.” Fitani’s old grin returned. “Your Hunter realized employing a single agency couldn’t work for long. The agency would quickly become suspicious if the Hunter was able to give them your coordinates every three hours, and might call off the whole deal. So, it organized a meeting with the heads of two agencies, posing as the representative of a billionaire. This billionaire, the Hunter told them, had a grandson – a baby who had been whisked away against court order, by his son’s junkie girlfriend. So desperate was the billionaire to get his grandson back, that he decided to put two agencies onto the job and offer a million-dollar bonus to whichever agency caught her first.”

  “That can’t leave much over for Hunter,” said Jo.

  Fitani laughed. “Oh I think the Hunter can spare a million dollars, given the prize pot is fifty-million.”

  Jo’s jaw dropped. “Fifty million!”

  Fitani brushed the air. “Easy to organize when you can manipulate data the way we can. Your financial institutions have so many holes it’s a wonder more people haven’t discovered them.

  “But I digress. When the Hunter receives your coordinates, it contacts one agency and tells them the other has sighted you in that area. It then does the same thing with the second agency. Both are willing to believe their rival’s resources could have tracked down the girl, so they ask no questions and head for that location.

  “Should any of the agents catch you they won’t harm you, but they will hold you for the Hunter, who no doubt has a plan for dispatching you without getting itself on the wrong side of the law.”

  Jo nodded. She had to admit the Hunter seemed to have worked things out well. But right now she wasn’t doing so badly herself. She’d found a way to get some sleep, and as long as she woke every three hours and got clear of the limo before her coordinates were sent, the Hunter wouldn’t know how she was relocating. Which reminded her, she needed to set a new alarm!

  A five-minute leeway might be safer this time. She set the watch alarm for 1.55 a.m. and noticed Fitani was getting fidgety.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to finish answering your first question right now,” he said. “It’s almost time to go to my work shift.”

  “You mean to finish your shift. You’ve been hosting this game for fifteen hours.”

  Fitani spoke impatiently. “No, no. Hosting isn’t work. I’m in Play-Time at the moment. When I contacted you this morning, I’d been in my tube just over five hours. Since then, I’ve been hosting and running commentary for the viewers, first from my tube and then from the studio Playroom. Now it’s nearly time for my shift at the Edge.”

  “You work at the Edge!” Jo couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

  “Everyone works at the Edge. That’s what we’re employed for.”

  “I definitely need to hear the rest of your explanation then, but now you’d better go to your shift. You can finish your answer tomorrow, say 8.30 a.m.” She checked her watch and did a quick mental calculation. “That’ll give you around five hours of Tube-Time before you return. Wow, I could end up getting more sleep than you. Somehow, knowing that makes me feel a whole lot better.”

  Danny smiled thinly. “Everyone sacrifices sleep during the game, but it’s seldom for more than a day or two.”

  As Jo swallowed, he continued. “There’s no rule covering this situation, but it feels against the spirit of Play or Die for Prey to be setting my appearance schedule. On the other hand this is the first time I haven’t been able to answer all three questions in a single visit.”

  “Perhaps you should consult your viewers.” Having said it, Jo was not sure how wise that suggestion had been.

  “I will.” Danny tilted his head and his hologram froze. Half a minute later it reanimated.

  “There are two schools of thought,” he reported. “Some feel that as I failed to answer all questions in a single visit, the prerogative of choosing a time to complete my answer should be yours. Others see your stalling behavior on several occasions as contributing to my running out of time, and believe I should retain the choice of when to return.

  “A vote has been organized and the results are… now in. You will be pleased to know your camp had the majority. Play or Die is moving in new directions, but viewer ratings have never been higher, so I bow to the viewers’ decision. I will return at 8.30 a.m.”

  “You can’t just vanish from a moving car,” said Jo quickly. “It would be impossible to explain. Let me get George to pull over before you disappear.”

  “You now want to control when I leave?”

  “I’m just trying to keep things sporting,” Jo appealed. “If you scare the chauffeur, he could end up calling the police or abandoning me the next time I get out of the car. You’d be giving the Hunter an unfair advantage.”

  Danny narrowed his eyes.
“Very well,” he agreed.

  Jo heaved a sigh and lowered the screen. “George, that service station coming up – could you pull into it? Andy and I need a chocolate fix.”

  The driver grinned into the rearview mirror. “No worries, Mrs. Wiseman.”

  He swung into the service station and parked in a well-lit space near the shop. Then he jumped out to open the back door. Jo smiled up at him, holding eye contact as she uncurled her legs slowly and took her time getting out of the car. Finally standing, she said, “Would you like us to get you something George?”

  “That’s kind, Mrs. Wiseman, but no thank you.”

  He closed Jo’s door and headed around to Fitani’s side, but stopped short on seeing the empty seat. Jo laughed. “When Andy gets a chocolate craving, he waits for no one.”

  She walked quickly towards the store, calling over her shoulder, “He’ll buy up half the stock unless I get in there fast.”

  Inside, Jo dallied at the candy counter and bought a couple of chocolate bars. As she returned to the car, George, who’d been waiting for her, opened the door.

  “I can’t believe it!” she told him. “Andy just got a call from the office. They need him back for some emergency or other. He’s called a taxi for himself. He thinks he can solve whatever the problem is and catch up with us later on. I sure hope so.”

  “You’ll be continuing on to Geelong alone then, Mrs. Wiseman?”

  “I have to,” she replied, searching for a reason. “I have a delivery to make.”

  As George eased onto the highway, Jo picked up the laptop. Who could she be delivering to? What places would even be open when they got to Geelong, way over on the western side of the bay? Probably only hotels.

  Jo googled “Geelong Accommodation” and found a hotel, which listed among its many amenities, 24-hour front desk.

  “Do you know the Mercure Hotel in Geelong, George?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Wiseman, big one on Gheringhap Street.”

  “How long to get there?”