AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He tried to grab my hand but I’d already raised them to address our adoring crowd.
“I appreciate you guys and your support!” I said. “But what we’d really like is to be let out of here so we can go home.”
Quus glared at me. His eyes flickered over to Chax and then back to me again. His smile faltered and then grew wider on his face.
“Of course!” he said. “And that’s just what you’ll be doing once you’re out of that stuffy old room and traversing the landscape of ancient Grimaldon!”
The crowd roared. Chax grabbed my hand and pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“I’m trying to get us out of here!” I said.
“They’re not going to let us go!” he said. “Not ever! Don’t you get it? These are Changelings. They have no sense of mercy, no sense of decency. Not a single shred in any of them!”
There was a flash of something in his face. A flash of horror, of desperation. He knew a lot more about these creatures than he was letting on.
“Play along if you want to live,” he said. “And if we’re very, very lucky, we might just survive.”
I gulped. Survive?
What sort of show was this?
He raised a hand to the crowd and smiled. I hesitated, feeling sick to my stomach at his warning. Then I followed suit and shared in the wave.
“On the tabletop in front of you, you’ll find your equipment for the journey ahead,” Quus said. “These items are what you’ll take with you. Where, you ask? To your shuttlecraft!”
The image on the screen shifted and displayed a small spaceship. I’d never seen a real one before but I’d seen plenty in science fiction movies. It was larger than a private plane, but not by much. It had a shorter wingspan and the engines were located in the belly of the ship and not on the wings. It was perched on a flat field with a raised slope around it.
“Reach the shuttlecraft and you’re free!” Quus said. “But you’ll have to be quick! You have only twenty-four hours to reach it. After that, you’ll be disqualified from the show.”
Disqualified from the show? Didn’t that mean we’d get to go home?
No. In this topsy turvy world, “disqualified” had a very different meaning…
“But don’t forget,” Quus said. “You won’t be alone out there. We’ve dispatched some of our finest trackers to hunt you down. So, you won’t only be trying to escape, you’ll be fighting to escape with your lives! Are you ready? Are you steady?”
The crowd was going nuts. Thousands of them, all with my or Chax’s appearance, screaming and waving their placards in the air.
“No, wait!” I said.
“And away you go!” Quus said.
The lights flicked off. The roaring crowd and holographic presenter faded away and disappeared in an instant. For a moment, we were left in total darkness.
And then a finger of light spilled from a new doorway. It crept open, spilling the morning of a new and alien world into the room.
I blinked against the sudden bright light. I blocked it with my hand over my eyes. Beyond was a cloudy sky and trees waving in the wind.
Chax was already stripping off and slipping on the suit on the table. It was tight and clung to his muscular frame. He picked up the electronic device and attached it to a special hook at his side.
I was in a daze.
“I… I don’t understand what’s happening,” I said.
“It’s the Changelings,” Chax said. “This is what they do. They abduct people and play games with them. Trials for their entertainment. They use them any way they want, like slaves, because as far as they’re concerned, we belong to them and we’re worth nothing. Still, we’re lucky to be here.”
“Lucky?” I said, barely aware of my rising voice. “How is this lucky?”
