She nodded. “Mhmm.”
“How much?”
“That will depend on where you place on the leaderboard, hon, though I’m not sure of the exact amounts yet. They’re pretty generous, though, from what I’ve heard—we’re talking four to five figures. The scoreboard leader will receive the most, of course, second and third place less, while the rest I believe will also receive coins for participation. But, in any case, you needn’t worry.” She flashed me a conspiratorial wink. “I intend for us to be at the top.”
I swallowed, my nerves tightening.And how will we get there?
“What does this Course involve exactly?” I asked.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t have exact details,” she replied with a sigh. “The GICFF is a fairly new initiative and details are kept secret for obvious reasons.”
We reached a set of brown elevator doors, and she pushed the button on the wall beside them. They opened and we stepped inside.
“What I can tell you, however, is this…” She pressed the button labeled 31, then reached into her bag and pulled out her tablet when the elevator started to rise. She tapped at the screen several times, before presenting it to me.
I found myself looking at a photograph of… an island. Yet, it didn’t look like any island I’d seen around Fairwell. This one was surrounded by a great, dark metal wall—so high that even though the photograph had been taken from a raised angle, I still couldn’t see over it. The only clue I really had to go on about the place was that it was an artificial island, as the shores were too even and without rocks.
“What is this?” I asked, my voice fainter.
“That’s Old World Isle,” Anna replied. “An artificial island created and owned by Fairwell, about fifty miles out in the ocean. It was constructed specifically for training purposes and it is where the Course will be held.”
“Old World Isle,” I repeated uncertainly, still staring at the picture. “What’s on it? What’s behind the wall?”
“I’ve told you as much as I’m able to at this point,” Anna replied.
A silence followed. Even the sounds of the elevator seemed to fade out in my ears as I stared at her.
“That’s all you can tell me?”
She nodded. “Yup. We’re both in this blind to a certain extent, at the moment. But don’t worry. I’ll ensure you are prepared.” Something hard then glinted in her eyes, and her lips twitched, before pressing together in a firm line.
“How will you make sure I'm prepared when you yourself don’t know what to expect?” I managed.
She cast me a considering look. “I…” she began, then pursed her lips again and smiled. “You’ll just have to see.”
The elevator doors pinged open a second later, and Anna strode out onto Level 31. I stumbled out behind her, struggling to keep up as she picked up speed. Neither of us said a word for several minutes, until we reached the end of the curving hallway and stepped through a set of double doors that led us back into the reception area. She strode right across it, past the main desk, and toward another set of doors on the opposite side of the large, oval room.
“The Course will be challenging,” Anna went on, her toneturning thoughtful as she pushed the doors open for us. “That much I can tell you. It requires much of the organizers’ time and thought in set-up and preparation, which is one reason why, so far, we’ve only been holding it once every three months. The initiative is still sort of in testing, though, and we plan to increase that in the future, to open the opportunity to more people.”
Three months.
My brain stalled on the words and I barely registered the sentence that followed them.
Was the Course what Hayden did to fast-track his earnings?
A coldness settled into my stomach as we strode through a new, wide hallway. The painted gray wall to our right gave way to clear glass, behind which extended a large hall lined with counters and small crowds of people waiting behind them.
Anna stopped in front of a revolving doorway leading into the hall. Engraved into the glass above the doorway was the word “FairBank”.
“And we’re here,” Anna announced as we stopped in front of the doorway. “I’ll see if we can’t get a priority appointment with a clerk to speed up the contract.” She pulled out her phone and dialed a number. “Ah, Jeanine,” she said half a minute later. “Hi, yes—Anna here. Can you make time to see me now? I’d really appreciate it. I’m just outside. Excellent. Thanks so much.”
She cut the call and gave me a bright smile, excitement gleaming in her eyes that I simply could not share, despite what I knew this meeting would mean for my parents.
I tried to focus on them only as she led me through to an office at the back, and a gray-haired woman in a stiff off-white suit greeted us.
I tried to convince myself that this was all for the best, as Anna negotiated the funds transfer, and Jeanine pushed a pieceof paper in front of me whose numerous clauses not only sealed my fate to Anna for the foreseeable future but also bound me to confidentiality.
I tried to shut off the alarm bells ringing in my ears as I signed it.
