by Guy Morpuss
‘Years ago, before my time, they staged a live chess tournament that lasted a month. Paid for, it was said, by the doctor. A board was painted on the floor – you can still see traces of it. Two players at either end, and the pieces were live humans. The doctor always played white. Every time a piece was captured they got taken to the side of the board and had their heads chopped off. People came here instead of playing in the game booths. The potential rewards were much better. You could choose which piece you wanted to be. If you lived through the game there were big rewards. Apparently the trick was to study the players and try to work out which pieces were most likely to survive. Do you choose to be a lowly pawn, skulking around the edges of the board hoping you’ll be overlooked? Or go for broke and be the queen? Ultimate power, but everyone’s gunning for you. A bit like life, really. By the end of the month the bodies were stacking up round the back like empties. It drew too much attention and the owners decided it was a one-off.’ He paused again, and looked at me.
‘But you’re not here for a history lesson, Ms Weston. What do you want from me?’
‘I want to know what this is,’ I said, reaching into my pocket and passing over the packet containing the pill.
He glanced at it and put it on the table next to his drink. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Someone gave it to me in a bar last night. They said I should take it if I wanted a good time.’
His smile vanished, and his voice became hard. ‘That seems most unlikely, Ms Weston. Where did you really get it?’
I hesitated. What could I safely tell him? ‘Someone … someone I know acquired it.’
‘Where? Only one group that sells this stuff in the park. There’s a rumour going round that someone knocked off one of their dealers last night. Then you show up asking questions about their product. Where did you get it?’
‘I can’t tell you any more than that,’ I said. ‘If I’d killed a dealer I’d hardly be going round the park asking people to identify their merchandise, would I? All I want to know is what it is. If you can tell me, fine, I’ll pay you for that information. If you can’t then I’ll be off.’ I reached forward to pick up the pill.
He put his hand on mine to stop me, then sat back.
‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to know where you got it. You’re mixed up in some serious shit here, and the less I’m told the better. I’ll tell you what you want to know. But the price has just gone up. I’m going to need to pay off a couple of people here to pretend they didn’t see me with you. It’ll cost you four months.’
‘Four months?’ I said. ‘I’m not trying to buy your first-born child. This information is worth a few days, at most. I’ll find someone else to tell me.’
‘Fine with me. You go out and keep asking these questions, and I’ll be along later to collect your body. I could probably get more than four months by selling you out, but I don’t want anyone to know I’m involved in this. That’s the price.’ He picked up the packet and tossed it back to me. ‘Have your pill back if you don’t want to know.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I pay you afterwards. If what you tell me is worth it.’ Although Godfried seemed nice enough, in an immoral sort of way, I didn’t like dealing with him. What he was doing was illegal. Mike, or Sierra, shouldn’t have put us in this position.
‘You’ll pay me afterwards or be leaving here in a body bag. I have friends here; you don’t. How much do you know about andis?’
‘As much as anyone, I suppose. They tend to be cold, unemotional freaks, driven by logic and little else. What have andis got to do with this?’
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘No one would have given you that pill, and they certainly wouldn’t have told you it would get you high. That’s not what it is. And anyway, it only works on andis. The whole point of andis is that they’re low-maintenance. They consume almost nothing. But they can mimic us if they want to. They can eat and drink, although they don’t need to. If they do they need to excrete it. They can sweat. They can cry. All of that leads to mineral imbalances in their bodies over time. These pills correct that. If you’re an andi you need to take one every month or so. Why this couldn’t just be fixed with some trickle gland I don’t know. Some say it’s CGov’s way of controlling the andis, since they’re the only official source of these pills.’
‘So why are people selling them illegally in the park?’ I asked. ‘Is there a shortage?’
‘No. Not for official andis. They get given them free every month from authorised clinics. For unofficial andis it’s a different story.’
‘For what?’ I asked. ‘I’ve never heard of an “unofficial” andi. I thought you made your choice at seventeen and that was it.’
‘They only exist in places like this. They can never leave. As I said, there are a lot of desperate people in the death parks. Not everyone is here to play in the games. Or they come here to play and then they get scared. Too frightened of death. Strictly speaking, if you don’t work in the park you can’t stay here unless you regularly compete. But that’s a rule that only tends to get enforced against players with big credit scores, to keep things interesting. Like the doctor, I’ve been here for years. And there are plenty of others like us. Some people use their remaining time to buy a second-hand andi body, and their mind is moved into it. I don’t know how it works, exactly. Whether someone manages to skim off the occasional body from the arenas before recycling. Or they’re somehow converting dandis. One way or another they have access to andi bodies.’ He paused and knocked back the last of his rum.
‘It’s just another form of death sentence,’ he said. ‘A slower one. They can’t leave the park because they have no status and they’d immediately be picked up and erased. They no longer have an expiry date, but they also don’t have much credit left. And a death park is a pretty grim place to be without credit. So they usually end up dying somewhere like this. In the meantime they need to buy these pills to stay alive. That’s why there’s a black market for them. Whatever your choices, you get screwed from every side in the park.’
‘Are you sure that’s what it is?’ I said. Why would any of us have been buying pills for andis?
He stood up. ‘I know what that pill is. Hundred per cent. I’ve told you all that I can. Please transfer the time and we’ll be done with this. I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, but good luck.’ He reached out a hand to me.
‘Thanks.’ I transferred the time. It was expensive, but he’d done what he’d promised.
He picked up his coat and suitcase, and made his way towards the door. Then turned back to me with a broad smile. ‘You can settle my bar bill on the way out.’
I nodded, my mind on other things. I was more confused than ever. There was no neat answer to this. Mike hadn’t been buying illegal boosters, and Sierra wasn’t using again. Why would either of them – or Alex or Ben, for that matter – have been buying pills to treat a condition they didn’t have? We didn’t know anyone in the park, let alone any andis, so they couldn’t have been buying pills for someone else. Unless they were for Amy Bird. But why would any of us have been buying pills for an andi who clearly already had her own connections to the park underworld? We’d only just arrived.
This Guskov might have had a strong interest in protecting his secrecy, but why would Mike or Sierra have had anything to do with him?
And we still weren’t any closer to knowing where Mike was. Was he dead? Was it even possible for one part of a schizo to die? I ran a search to try to find out if one mind in a schizo can be erased, and if so what happens. There was nothing useful, which suggested it wasn’t possible. In the end I gave up and posted a question to CGov on an anonymous message board. I wanted to know the answer, but I didn’t want them knowing it came from me. We had enough difficulties already without having the authorities breathing down our neck.
What should I tell the others? Which of them could I trust? I’d never seen eye-to-eye with Sierra, but there was nothing to suggest s
he was behind any of this. If she had been, why would she have told us that Guskov seemed to have dealt with one of us already? Unless it was some elaborate double-bluff. All Ben lived for was the game booths, so why would he want to be rid of any of us? Or Alex? It was hard to see why, or how, he’d have done anything to Mike.
In the end I messaged Ben and Alex with an update, leaving Sierra out of the loop. I had to trust someone.
Ben/Alex. I’ve found out what the pills are. They’re something andis need to take to stay alive. None of us would have needed that, so I don’t understand why we would have been buying them off Guskov or Bird. I’ve got nowhere towards finding Bird. Hopefully, Ben, you’ll be waking up after Mike, and everything will be back to normal. If not, the two of you need to find Bird somehow. She needs to be made to tell us what she did and how we unwind it. K.
As I got up to leave I heard my name called quietly from across the room.
‘Ms Weston.’ It was the doctor. His voice was a soft hiss, barely audible. He curled a long finger, beckoning me over.
I crossed reluctantly to the booth. He looked me up and down.
‘It is a pleasure to meet you in person, Ms Weston,’ he said. His eyes looked excited, greedy almost. ‘Such a pleasure.’
‘Have we met before?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘Nothing. Yet. I wanted to wish you well with the rest of your games.’
I was being dismissed. Which I didn’t mind. But creepy as he was, maybe I could learn something from him. Confirm what Godfried had told me. I dug in my pocket for the pill.
‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Can you tell me what this is?’
He didn’t even glance at it. His sharp blue eyes remained fixed on mine.
‘I can’t help you with that,’ he said. ‘Not my speciality.’
‘Which is?’ I asked.
‘Pathology,’ he hissed.
BEN
DAY THREE
11:00–16:00
It was 11:00. I was in Mike’s time again. So it hadn’t been a glitch last cycle. He wasn’t just keeping quiet. I didn’t like this time. I don’t like change.
I had a message from Alex telling me that Sierra hadn’t managed to find Bird, and speculating that Mike or Sierra had been buying illegal drugs. Then one from Kate saying that the drugs were something to do with andis, so there was no reason for any of us to be buying them. They didn’t seem to be any further forward. All that we knew was that we were somehow mixed up with a drug dealer.
Given Sierra’s history, and her inability to tell the truth, my instinct was that it must be something to do with her. But if so, why had they gone after Mike? That suggested that he was the one that knew something. How did they know that he had not shared it with the rest of us? Did that mean we were all at risk? And I still didn’t understand why Kate had allowed the andi Bird to access our minds. That in itself was suspicious. And what about Alex? He was quick to blame Sierra for everything.
Still too many questions. The one person who could tell us something useful was Bird. We needed to find her.
I checked the searches that I had set up in the previous cycle. There were two alerts.
The first was at 20:14 – there was a short clip of Amy Bird emerging from a narrow alley next to the Death’s Head. She turned away from the bar, seemingly in a hurry, and I lost her. That couldn’t be a coincidence. If Sierra was telling the truth, that was when she had been in the bar talking to Guskov. Had she also met Bird and not told us?
I traced the original feed and let it run on. At 20:26 I saw us – Sierra – leave the Death’s Head, heading in the same direction as Bird.
The second alert was almost an hour later – 21:14 – around a kilometre away. It came from a ParkGov drone that had been passing down a deserted street, razorwire fence on one side, a crumbling warehouse on the other. As it raced past, a figure emerged from the warehouse. The drone stopped and circled back, a spotlight snapping on. Amy Bird glanced up, then quickly down, one hand shielding her eyes. She stepped back through the door into the warehouse.
The drone hovered for a long moment, seemingly hesitating over whether to follow her inside. Then its AI evidently decided that it had seen nothing suspicious, and continued down the street, accelerating hard.
I rewound the clip. There was no question it was Bird. What was she doing there? I scouted round for other cameras, but there were none.
I relaxed my criteria and started getting more hits. But after watching my thirtieth clip of an andi that looked a bit like Bird but wasn’t, I gave up. She had gone to ground somewhere.
Out of interest I went back to the clip of Sierra leaving the bar. Number of views: 110. Whereas the drone’s clip of Bird had been viewed only twice. That was consistent with what I had observed in the previous cycle. Who was watching us? And why?
I turned my attention to Guskov. With his distinctive appearance and bodyguards he ought to have been easy to find. I started near the Death’s Head, since we knew he had been there recently, and that was where I had first picked up Bird. Nothing. He must have had a more discreet method of entry and exit than she did. I widened the search.
An hour later I had a whole lot of nothing, plus tired eyes and a headache. Guskov knew how to avoid leaving a trail.
We had a choice. Pack up and leave with our time before the end of the cycle, to avoid having to fight any further challenges. Or stick around and try to find Mike. I didn’t want to abandon him until we had lost all hope.
We were running out of ideas, and I wasn’t sure where to go next.
But before I did anything I needed to eat. Kate seemed to have forgotten that. Or maybe she normally left it to Mike. It was the first time I had ever followed her. She had left me in a cheap locker motel which was so old fashioned it didn’t even have a room printer.
I headed out, cutting across an overgrown lot between two high-rises to get to a diner. It was deserted outside. People who go to death parks don’t tend to go for walks for their health.
Our body moves gracefully and quietly, even when I am controlling it, so I heard the movement behind me moments before a slab-like hand landed on my shoulder. I tried, and failed, to shrug it off.
A deep voice rumbled behind me. ‘Mr White. We need you.’
The hand released me and I turned quickly, backing away.
I recognised the two of them immediately from Sierra’s description. Vincent and Stas, Guskov’s bodyguards. I tried to scan them: nothing. I tried to send a call for help but realised I was blocked. And who would I call anyway?
The thick features of the first andi crumpled into a smile.
‘No one’s coming to help you. Don’t run away.’
‘What do you want with me?’ I asked.
‘I have an invitation for you, Mr White. Our employer would like to ask you a few questions,’ he growled.
Whatever the reason for Guskov summoning us back, I wasn’t keen on answering his questions. I didn’t have much choice, though. Given a head start, I was confident I could outrun these hulks, but they were too close and I didn’t rate my chances of out-fighting them.
‘Well,’ said the first andi. ‘Are you coming with us? Or,’ he smiled again, ‘are we going to have some fun first? I’d enjoy breaking that pretty nose of yours.’
‘What does Mr Guskov want to talk about?’ I asked. ‘And where are we going?’
‘You’ll find out when we get there. It’s not far.’
I resigned myself. They walked close on either side, with no chance for me to escape. There was no one around to help, but even if there had been I didn’t imagine a passer-by would get involved.
After five minutes we turned down an alley lined with rubble, cutting between two streets, and I realised that we were heading back to the Death’s Head. The lead andi pushed through the doors and into the empty bar. His colleague followed close behind. I was led along a passageway, up some stairs –
fourteen, which was a good number – and stopped outside a wooden door. The first andi opened it.
‘After you.’
Guskov was seated behind a large desk. He looked up as I entered. The window behind him provided a view of a small park with a dried-up lake. I pondered my chances of diving through the window before the andis got to me. Not high. Besides, there were three panels of glass in the window. That didn’t bode as well as the stairs.
‘Back so soon,’ said Guskov. ‘Please. Sit.’
I gave up on the idea of escape, and sat down. One of the andis shut the door.
Guskov looked me up and down. ‘So, Mr White. You schizos aren’t easy to deal with. We don’t get many of your sort here. Was it really Ms Summers that I spoke to yesterday?’
I didn’t see much point in lying about that. I didn’t know why he had called us back, but I doubted it was to offer afternoon tea. ‘Yes, that was Sierra.’
‘So was she the one who lured one of my employees into an abandoned warehouse and murdered him?’ he asked. ‘Or was that you? I have a reputation for many things, most of them not good, but one thing I am known for is protecting my people.’
Oh, God. As if we didn’t have enough problems. None of the others had said anything about a dead dealer. Then again, Alex had said something about Karl ‘not troubling us again’. Was that some cryptic reference to him being dead? If so, who killed him? Alex? Sierra? Why would either of them have done that?
I realised that my chances of getting out of this room alive had dropped dramatically. Or rather, our chances of getting out alive. Die in an arena and if you are schizo you move on to your next life. It’s inconvenient but not deadly. Die anywhere else and that’s it. Real death for all of us. There’s no machine around to catch your minds and preserve them for transfer to a new body.