I see three gladiators in the room. The rest are all bottom-feeders, prison scum, military AWOLs, and perhaps a few hapless fucks like myself who pissed off the wrong people.
I don’t want to run with any of them. Although I don’t know how people earn points inThe Game,I can only imagine it will be quite a coup to kill a gladiator. Whichever of these groups I choose to run with will be the first to try to kill me.
I was going to go it alone, but this human is right. Perhaps my brain is still addled from the drugs, but I think it might be good to take her as a partner. She’ll be an easier target. If she draws the eye as an easy kill, it may get me through the initial mayhem and help me find a place to watch, recover, and re-group.
I rub my chin and look at her like she’s an insect to make her worry that I won’t agree. When her shoulders slump and her gaze flicks from mine, I say, “Don’t slow me down. I won’t stop for you. I’m in charge. Don’t question my authority and never disobey an order.”
She gives herself away when her brown eyes spark with surprise, but she doesn’t say anything, just puts her hand out toward me, thumb up, little finger down.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s a handshake, an Earth custom. It means we have a deal.”
I knew she wasn’t Morganian. “Our deal is you can run with me. I’m not helping you. I’m not saving you. I’m not risking my life for you. I’m in charge.”
There are large vid screens on each of the four walls. They spark to life and spotlight a red Halckon female. Through a trick of photography, it looks as if she’s in the room with this sweaty mass of losers about to enterThe Game. In reality, she’s nowhere in sight. She’s somewhere safe, I’m sure.
Halckons tend to be a pretty species—both their males and females. Their red skin is pleasant, and their features are even. This one is beautiful, although it’s hard to tell how much of her looks have been enhanced by cosmetics and computer graphics.
“Welcome! I’m Jahzara Zedd. Welcome to The Marentine Network’s world premiere ofThe Game!TMN is breaking ground. There has never been anything like this in the history of the universe!”
Spotlights flash through the room, stopping for a few seconds on various males, then roving on.
“We’ve assembled quite an interesting group of contestants for this event. We’ve got a tote board that will tell you about each one, but we didn’t want to bother your heads with all that information until they narrow the field a bit. That should happen in about an hour.” Her pretty face contorts into a vicious smile, showing far too much of her teeth. She’s going to enjoy announcing the death toll, I can tell.
“The rules are simple. Here is a map of Corinthus. Right here…” A red dot lights up on a digital on-screen map, “is where our entrants are housed. And here,” a green dot flashes northeast from here, “is the goal. It will be marked by a flag withThe Gamelogo.
“As you know, this program is calledThe Game: Down to One, and that’s exactly what we mean. Only one person can claim the prize of one million credits along with manumission papers if they are a slave or exoneration papers if they have a criminal record. In order to do that, all others must be officially and verifiably dead.
“We have hordes of drones that will follow our contestants to validate and confirm every kill.
“We’ve designed this game to be ever so exciting for you and we’ll run it around the clock until we have a winner. If you have to tear your eyes from the screen, we’ll have recaps available for only a few credits per hour.
“We reserve the right to change the playing field, change the rules, bring in fresh new contestants, and provide food and arms for those we deem worthy, providing you, the viewers, have voted the contestant of your choice enough credits. We’ll be asking you to vote for your favorites for only one credit per vote. Look!”
A tote board lights up with numbers flying next to one hundred names. The screen is scrolling fast, but there aren’t many votes next to my name. People like to vote for the underdog, so I’m not surprised to see they’re not inclined to vote for a male with arena experience.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Slayer.”
Slayer? Perhaps there’s more to her than meets the eye, or maybe someone has an interesting sense of humor.
“I’m Titan.”
She doesn’t need to know more about me. We don’t need to be friends, nor are we going to know each other long enough to need more than first names.
She’s got three times the number of credits as me and seems to be one of the leaders on the tote board.
“You’re doing well,” I tell her as I reassess my strategy. If she’s going to get enough votes to earn a weapon or food, maybe I should make sure she lives, at least for the next hour.
“Good luck to each and every contestant,” Zedd says as the doors fling open along the far wall. “Remember, it all comes Down. To. One.”
