He advances on her, and part of her retracts internally. She knows she’s important to the job, but she is perhaps not that important if she proves too difficult. The rewards for her are huge but the losses as she knows could be substantial.
“Going forward,” the broad man tells her, looming over her now, “wear this under everything.” He hands her what looks like a medical alert bracelet.
She takes the bracelet in carefully, studying its screenless face.
“It’s an ECG, it tracks your heart rate. If you’re doing exercise press the side button. If not then we’ll come,” he tells her with a tight smile.
“But it won’t happen again?” she asks.
“It won’t, no.” There is a finality to his words. The discussion is over.
“And they want me to source another one?” she asks after slipping the band onto her wrist.
“They’ve sent you three new options. We need a choice by the end of the month. The house needs to be prepared; they want to start implementing the relevant information into the rooms.”
“Tell them I will do it, but this will be my last. We discussed an exit strategy after the third, and now I would like to action that.”
Behind the man the doctor stands to leave. The two other men who were present earlier have already gone.
“I will pass that on. If it’s something you have discussed then I’m sure there will be a resolution soon.”
“Okay, thank you,” Lucinda answers, her gaze falling now on Maria’s abandoned hat and coat, draped across her kitchen table. “And what will you do with her body?” she asks vaguely, certain she won’t get a satisfactory answer. And she does not.
“Let me do my job and I’ll facilitate you doing your job,” he tells her, not without warmth, before picking up the coat and hat and disappearing up Lucinda’s staircase. The sound of the front door shutting above her an almost physical release.
She squeezes her eyes shut in the silence that follows and tries to reset. She has reset after much worse.
Penny lets out a muted yowl from her bed. She is hungry. Lucinda rises and goes through the motions of filling Penny’s bowl and settling her. Her own thoughts are on what must be done next.
—
LATER THAT NIGHT, LUCINDA SWITCHES on her desktop computer, pulls in her seat, and makes her way through the layers of security on the encrypted platform before finally opening a folder with three labeled files: PERSON P, PERSON Q, PERSON R. The next intake.
Person R’s label has an asterisk next to it.
CHAPTER 33
LUCINDA
L ucinda settles into her seat and takes a fortifying sip of coffee before opening the first file.
Person P: Kidney disease, transplant incompatible,
degenerative. Palliative care.
Current estimated life expectancy: -3 months.
Person P has clearly exceeded the expectations of their doctors and lived three months more than predicted. Lucinda reads on, and it’s clear from a quick glance at their medical information that the condition is now, finally, deteriorating rapidly.
She is used to this. She has seen a lot of these files.
All the non-consensual participants, like Maria and the ones before her, were chosen this way. Each person chosen for the house was the sole remaining next of kin of a terminally ill relative.
This was how they found them, their participants: they were people specifically selected as least likely to be missed within a certain demographic.
Lucinda is sent the data, and she researches the solitary next of kins to find the perfect fit. The potential participants would not be Persons P, Q, or R. They would be their remaining next of kin.
Lucinda knows what she’s looking for, what the remit is, and she reports back her findings on her chosen candidates with suggestions on how to package them as participants and suggestions on room and game content.
