by Guy Morpuss
‘It’s not that easy, Kate,’ he says. He takes one key and slides it into the pocket of Alex’s trousers. Then he reaches behind me and I feel him doing something to my hair. ‘I hope you lose, bitch,’ he hisses into my ear. Then he steps away with a broad smile.
‘The key to Alex’s cuffs is in his pocket. The key to Kate’s is hanging at the back of her head,’ he says. ‘Careful how you move. If you drop them on the floor you won’t be able to reach them. You need to find a way to get both keys, unlock yourselves, and get the key to the box.’ A timer flashes up on the screen behind him. He stands to the side of the box. ‘Your time starts … now!’
The door closes.
I look up at Alex. ‘How are we going to do this?’
‘You need to get unlocked first,’ he says. ‘Then you can get my key and unlock me. Turn your head to the left.’
I do so. He pushes through my hair with his mouth. It feels as though he’s chewing my hair. Then he starts pulling violently, and I suppress a cry as hair is torn out by its roots.
‘Got it,’ I hear him mutter through clenched teeth. He twists back in front of me, and I can see the key – and some of my hair – between his lips. He wriggles down until his mouth is level with mine. His lips press against mine. This is horrible. Like kissing your kid brother in the school play, with all your friends laughing and giggling. Alex is struggling to get the key across to me. For a moment our tongues touch. I feel sick. I bite down on the key and pull away from him.
‘Move down,’ I mutter round the key. I’m trying to focus on what I need to do, rather than my nausea. I only have one chance and I need to be able to see what I am doing.
Alex slides down further. I am uncomfortably aware that his face is buried in my cleavage, pulling my already low-cut dress even lower. Great. But I don’t have time to worry how this is looking to the array of camera drones circling the glass box. If we don’t get out we’re going to die.
I lean as hard as I can into Alex until I can see my hands cuffed behind his back. I twist my arms and cup my hands as best I can. Taking a deep breath I grip the key between my lips and let it drop. It catches a fold on the back of Alex’s shirt and spins sideways, away from my hands. I pull hard at Alex’s belt, twisting him round, and catch the end of the key between two fingers. Cautiously I transfer it to my thumb and forefinger.
I breathe out again. ‘Got it,’ I say.
‘One minute left!’ I hear Jackson announce to the crowd.
I twist the key around and insert it into the lock to my cuffs. The chain is still through the loop of Alex’s belt, so I have to waste time undoing both cuffs before I can free my hands.
I reach into Alex’s pocket and grab the key to his cuffs. I reach behind me, feeling blindly for the lock.
‘Let me have it,’ he says. He takes the key from me and after a moment’s fumbling has his hands free. We step away from one another.
‘Thirty seconds,’ says Jackson. ‘One key to go.’
I look up. ‘You need to boost me up there,’ I say. Alex cups his hands, I put a foot into them, and he boosts me hard towards the roof of the box.
Too hard. My head cracks against the glass roof. I manage to touch the key, but can’t get a grip on it. It remains in place as I fall painfully back.
‘I missed,’ I gasp. ‘Again.’
‘Twenty seconds!’ Jackson yells.
Alex lifts me up. This time I manage to get a proper grip on the key. But it’s stuck. I twist it and use my full weight to pull it free. I crash down, Alex half catching me.
‘Quick,’ he shouts.
I push the key into the door lock.
Jackson is standing on the other side of the door. He has a smug grin as I try to turn the key. It doesn’t move.
‘Five seconds,’ he says. ‘It’s now or never.’
The audience is screaming as I try to turn the key again. It’s in the lock, but I can’t get it to open. My hands are slippery with sweat.
‘Zero,’ shouts Jackson, turning to the audience.
Alex slumps against me, his head on my shoulder. ‘Shit,’ he mutters. ‘We failed.’
Then the door opens, and we stagger out, sweaty and dishevelled.
The audience has gone quiet.
Jackson turns back to us, arms outstretched. He shakes his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Alex, Kate,’ he says oozing false sincerity. ‘So close. You had the key, but Kate just couldn’t get the door open at the end.’
He walks over to us, ignoring Alex, kissing me on both cheeks. His hands slither up the side of my dress as he pulls back, pausing for a moment as he reaches my breasts.
I’ve had enough of this.
‘You bastard,’ I say, pushing him away from me. ‘You stopped the door from opening deliberately.’
He grabs me by the upper arms, pulling me back towards him. ‘There’s only ever one winner here, bitch, and it’s not you,’ he hisses.
Who programmed him to be such a dickhead? And why? Has Amy Bird made the game glitch?
I’d like to get my hand on the programmers, but he’s all there is. I half step back, and as he follows me I bring my knee up hard into his groin.
Jackson releases me and staggers back, his face white.
Someone grabs me from behind. For a moment I think it’s Alex, but as I turn to shout at him to let go I realise it is one of the stagehands.
He drags me back to the door we came in.
Someone is shouting, ‘Go to the break! …’
The audience is screaming and cheering.
The last thing I see before I’m hauled off stage is Jackson writhing on the floor, moaning. He looks as though he’s about to throw up.
At least he’s finally lost his smug grin.
But it’s small comfort.
We lost.
BEN
DAY FOUR
13:10–13:22
‘I’ll leave you to it. Make your choice, Ben,’ says Amy Bird.
She walks behind me and a moment later sound returns. I can move. I spin around and see a door sliding shut. I fire a rapid spread of shots through the gap, more in anger than in hope of hitting her. I suspect that it would be pointless to kill her here anyway.
I hear movement behind me. Marine 3 is walking towards the centre of the room.
‘What are you doing?’ I shout.
‘We need to hit the switch to save ourselves,’ she says, and reaches for it.
Typical 3. I shoot her through the head, and she folds to the floor. ‘You don’t even exist,’ I mutter. I turn and shoot Marine 4 before he can react. I’m on my own now.
I drop the gun and approach the button. How much do my friends love me? Are they even my friends? Do they even care for me, let alone love me? We share a body, that’s all. In fact I probably know them less than anyone else. But I don’t have any other friends. Only a list of gamertags identifying allies and enemies that I’ve never met outside a game booth. Angelofdeath27985 – would you die for me in real life? 101Terminator42 – we may have spent days fighting through the Caverns of Euronia side by side, but will you even notice that BarbarianBen22 is gone, let alone miss him?
The question is whether Alex and Kate will sacrifice themselves for me. There are two of them and one of me, so logic says that I should be the one to make the sacrifice. But if we are all selfless, and no one presses their button, then we all die anyway. Better to at least have a chance of life. But if we all think that then we press both buttons, and we all die.
I try to message Alex. But, unsurprisingly, I’m blocked. That would have been too easy.
What if Alex and Kate don’t even finish the game? They aren’t as good as me. They might never get to the end. Bird said that they would. But Bird lies.
Logic, not love, is what finally drives me to my conclusion. If I don’t press the button there is a chance that two live and one dies. If I do press it there is a chance that we will all die. I can’t quantify the chances, so I must treat them equally. And logica
lly it is better that two live than one. Even when the one is me.
I question that. If I’m the one making the decision should I give more weight to my life? Can one ever be greater than two? No, that’s not possible. This is not a subjective judgment. I must be rational. My life has been ruled by numbers, seeing patterns in long lines of computer code. Now my life will be ended by numbers. It feels right.
I walk over to the captain’s chair and sit down. I stare out at the star field, distorted by the nearing presence of the black hole.
There is an irony in the fact that I’d come to the death park to play the latest state-of-the-art games, and ended up dying after winning one of the lamest space shoot-’em-ups I’ve played in years.
Now I’m the last living occupant of the ISS Makaira. That was stupid of me. I should have kept one of the marines alive. Not 3, obviously.
But 4 would have been good. Then there would be two of us.
ALEX
DAY FOUR
13:15–13:22
We find ourselves hustled back the way we came, through the ante-room and down the narrow corridor leading to the Level 2 lobby. Kate is being half-dragged, half-carried by one of the stagehands, kicking and cursing.
I follow, another of Jackson’s assistants behind me, hand in the small of my back, pressing me to keep up.
Heads turn as we are virtually thrown into the lobby. Kate’s escort steps warily back as she aims a final kick at him. I’ve never seen her so cross.
I’m trying hard not to laugh.
As the stagehands scuttle back through the door she turns angrily to me.
‘What the hell are you grinning at? You were useless in there. Leaving me to deal with that slimy git. And we lost. There’s nothing funny about any of this.’
I look around. Half the passengers in the lobby are staring at us. This is not the right place.
‘We need to find another way to the bridge,’ she says. ‘How long have we got left?’
‘About eight minutes. But we don’t need to. Come with me.’ I take her hand and she reluctantly allows herself to be pulled towards the lift. Away from prying eyes.
‘We know this won’t work,’ she says. ‘We tried that before.’
I wait for the lift doors to close. Then I turn to her, triumphantly showing her the keycard hidden in the palm of my free hand.
She stares. ‘What? Where did you get that?’
I grin. ‘Sorry I couldn’t help you, but while you were busy getting vengeful on Jackson I saw the chance to liberate the card. It was a nice diversion. They’ll realise eventually, but we’ll be gone by then. Maybe this was how the game was meant to play out. To see how we coped with the jammed door. Whatever the reason, we need to move fast.’
I use the card and this time the lights for Level One go green.
Yes.
Kate takes a deep breath. ‘Nice. I get to beat up the slimeball and we still get the prize. Good one. But let’s get this done before they come after us.’
The bridge is vast and appears to take up most of the level. We have to step over an eviscerated body to exit the lift. The crew member must have been trying to escape when something attacked her from behind. There are other bodies scattered around, none moving. It is obvious that at least one has had its skull ripped open.
The aliens that did this seem to have left. Which is good, as we are unarmed.
There is a large U-shaped console in the centre of the bridge, with three chairs in front of it, one larger than the others. I walk over. The chair appears to contain the bottom half of what used to be the captain. There is a heavy smell of blood.
‘So what do we do now?’ I ask. ‘How do we get this thing to change course?’
Kate comes to join me, and we study the console. Most of the controls look incomprehensible, but there is one panel marked ‘Autopilot’, with a red on/off button. It is presently turned off.
‘Let’s turn the autopilot on,’ I say. ‘Presumably it’s designed to avoid crashing into black holes.’
Kate scans the screens. ‘I don’t see anything else obvious. We’ve got about five minutes left, but there doesn’t seem much point in waiting. If the autopilot doesn’t do the trick we have still got time to look for something else.’
She reaches towards the red switch.
And freezes.
‘I wouldn’t be quite so hasty,’ says a voice behind us.
I try to turn, but I am frozen in place. I try to say something, but I can’t speak.
Amy Bird steps into view.
‘Kate. Alex. Fancy seeing the two of you together. I enjoyed the game show.’ She leans back against the console, where we can both see her. To my surprise she is bleeding heavily from a head wound, and limping.
‘That little bugger, Ben. His reactions are far quicker than I expected. I hadn’t realised quite how much a laser beam would hurt.’ She touches the wound on her head, and studies her bloodstained fingers dispassionately. ‘We’re going to have to make this quick. I need to get this fixed.’
She looks up at us. ‘I’ll give you the short version. You aren’t just playing against the game. You’re playing against Ben. He’s just finished a similar scenario on a different spaceship. Rather quicker than you, I must say. He’s now staring at a similar red button, trying to decide whether to press it. The rules are simple. If you both press your buttons you all die. If neither of you presses your buttons the games carry on, you are sucked into the black hole, and you all die. If one team presses their button and the other doesn’t then the team that pressed the button wins, and lives. The other team dies.
‘It’s that easy. Don’t waste your time looking for a win–win outcome. There isn’t one. You can’t all survive. It’s a test of self-sacrifice versus self-preservation. Do you think Ben is selfless, and will let you live? Or does he think that you are? Or will he just press the button anyway to give himself a chance of life? Or to make sure that you die if he does?’
She pushes herself off the console and limps past us. ‘Have fun – but you only have four minutes left to decide.’
I hear the bridge door open and close, and then we are free.
For a moment Kate’s hand continues towards the red button, then she jerks it back. She looks at me.
‘Do we believe her? What do we do?’ she asks.
I breathe out sharply. ‘How do I know? I don’t see what the point would be in her lying to us.’
‘We don’t know what control she has over the games,’ says Kate. ‘She can clearly interfere with them in some way, but maybe she can’t stop us finishing them. So the only way is to persuade us to make that decision ourselves. She’s lied to us enough times before. And we know she’s working with Sierra, who lies about everything.’
‘True,’ I say. ‘What if she’s not lying this time, though? If what she told us is true, are you willing to kill Ben so that we can live?’
‘If it’s true. Which is a big assumption. If we all do nothing then we all die. The safest thing is to press the button because odds are that Bird is lying or that Ben doesn’t press his.’
‘But if he thinks the same then we all die.’ I’m conscious of my voice rising in panic.
‘Get a grip. At this rate we’re going to run out of time arguing about it,’ says Kate. ‘We have to press the button.’
‘I don’t want to kill Ben.’
We stare at each other, neither moving. There is grim determination in Kate’s eyes.
We both jump as the bridge lights turn red and start flashing. ‘Collision warning,’ a voice announces. ‘Event horizon detected. One minute to intersect.’
‘Fine,’ says Kate. ‘You don’t have to do it. I will.’
Before I can react she steps forward and presses the button.
ONE YEAR EARLIER
MONTREAL
There are two things that schizos don’t do well: travel and relationships.
Travel messes with the schedule. Cross too many time zones and everyone
is out of place. The barfly becomes a morning person. The athlete is trying to find somewhere to run in the middle of the night.
Relationships that come in four-hour slots are difficult. Most non-schizos want more commitment than that. If you get lucky you can find another schizo and match with someone in the same time slot. Even then the practicalities are difficult. How do you ensure that you are both in the same place at the start of your time?
Which was why Alex counted himself as twice lucky, strolling beside the Lachine Canal, holding hands with Emily.
Things had changed for all of them since coming to Montreal. Kate now operated in the middle of the night, but claimed she didn’t mind. Mike could be found in the early hours of the morning running up Mount Royal or alongside the St Lawrence Seaway. To Ben it made no difference where he was, or when, provided he had access to a game centre.
It was Sierra and Alex who were most affected.
Sierra now had the afternoon. The clubs that she would normally have frequented weren’t open. Bars that were open tended to be quiet. For a social creature like Sierra it was difficult. But it got her off the new drugs she’d been on before the trip. Although she grumbled about it, she seemed calmer. Mike had suggested that seeing the midday sun for the first time in years might be helping her moods.
Alex had the evening slot. It changed his life.
They had rented a small house in Little Burgundy, near the Lachine Canal. It was surrounded by restaurants and clubs, and even Alex, never the most sociable of people, began to find himself drawn outside on the warm summer evenings. He would sit in a bar by the canal, beer in hand, watching couples strolling along the towpath where ten hours earlier Mike had knocked off a quick ten-miler. He didn’t have a problem being alone. That was, after all, the lot of the schizo, and he liked just sitting and watching people.
Until he saw Emily.
She was a waitress in a café on Rue Charlevoix, on the walk back to their house from the canal. It was a wide, pedestrianised boulevard, mature maple trees down the centre, cobblestones on either side. Alex had been walking down it at least once a day for the last month, but had never paid much attention to the little café with the red-striped awning nestled on a street corner.