The Kill Factor, page 12
“Carter Boyd,” Emerson said.
“Huh?” Alasdair said, looking up from the sand.
“Number 36. His name was Carter Boyd.”
“Oh, right,” Alasdair said, nodding slightly.
They sat in silence for a while, contemplating what Alasdair had said.
“What do you think the game will be tomorrow?” Teller asked finally.
“I don’t know,” Emerson admitted, but she thought she knew someone who might. She looked over to bedroom number 1, where Kodi lay on his back, looking through his invisible roof, up to the stars above.
At some point, they had all drifted to their own bedrooms. Teller had stayed the longest, talking nervously and holding Emerson’s eyes for extended periods of time. She thought he must just be scared, like all of them.
Emerson had lain back on her bed, watching the moon drift slowly across the sky, and tried to think about anything other than being buried alive.
During the night—Emerson thought it must have been about three a.m.—a flock of drones flew over to the sand dunes, picked up all the bodies that had been laid out there, and carried them out to the ocean. She did not know what would become of them as she watched them disappear into the darkness. She didn’t know if those who had died below the surface of the sand were still there, or if the drones had dug them out.
Eventually, she did sleep, and was haunted by nightmares of being buried among the half dead, the burning corpse of Marvin Tzu. She had dreams of watching Kester grow old in front of a camera drone, putting on a fake laugh as his hair grew long and gray in front of her eyes. She had restless thoughts of the Producer silently smiling at her as she slept. And when the three beeps of the public address system sounded, she awoke from her shallow sleep instantly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your second day of The Kill Factor. Breakfast will be served in ten minutes.”
Emerson sat up and looked around. All the other contestants were waking up, remembering where they were. All the other contestants except Kodi, who was already up, dressed in a new suit jacket and black shirt, wandering around on the beach, kicking at plastic shells.
Emerson got up and walked over to him.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Sorry?” Kodi replied.
“How did you know that the games were going to be … you know, dangerous?”
“I just did,” Kodi replied, going back to nonchalantly kicking at the sand.
“You can’t just know something, you’re not a psychic. Tell me.”
Kodi sighed. “It just made sense.”
“How did it make sense?”
He looked out to the waves for a moment, and then spoke. “Because we’re criminals, Emerson. We’re the lowest of the low. People don’t care about why we steal or cheat or join gangs. They only care that we’re punished for it. If someone invents a game show where they promise rehabilitation and fame, you can bet that their real reason is humiliation, abuse, and eradication. This is nothing new: They used to offer criminals the key to their cells if they fought on the front lines of wars. They used to promise inmates reduced sentences if they took part in medical experiments. They have always used convicts, told them they can win prizes if they put their lives on the line. Now they’re offering us fame and freedom if we take part in their game show? It was obvious from the start that we’d have to offer more than just a winning personality—we’d have to offer our lives.”
Emerson looked at the boy for a long time. “And you just figured that out?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It seemed pretty obvious to me.”
Emerson nodded slowly. “Sounds exactly like something my brother would have said.”
“Your brother sounds like a smart guy,” Kodi said, and smiled enigmatically.
“Kester,” Emerson said. “That’s his name. He’s a genius. He’s only nine years old and he’s cracked every cybersecurity program out there. There’s this one company, Expansive Universe, that wanted to hire him to restructure their security from top to bottom, but the contract was nothing short of indentured servitude. My dad wanted him to sign, he thought it would be excellent exposure, but I told him to finish school and wait for a real opportunity.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Kester doesn’t think so. He always says that what he has is just luck, like being born with perfect pitch, or an eidetic memory. He thinks hard work is more impressive than natural talent.”
“Are you sure he’s only nine? He sounds far too wise.”
“He’s only nine,” Emerson confirmed. “He’s the reason I agreed to do this stupid show. I need to make my brand credits valuable so I can get him through college.”
“You need to stop getting follower bans,” Kodi pointed out.
Emerson nodded. “You’re probably right.”
There was a moment of silence between them before Kodi spoke.
“It’s not going to happen, you know?”
“What isn’t going to happen?”
“This action movie ending you’re imagining where your genius brother hacks into the system and frees us all.”
“What? I wasn’t imagining …”
“Yes, you were,” Kodi said, and smiled sadly. “So was I. As soon as you mentioned your tech prodigy brother, I thought what if? But it won’t happen.”
Emerson felt an all-too-familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. “Why not?” she asked.
“Tell me something: When the Producer first came to you, where were you?”
“I was in an interrogation room.”
“Right, and what kind of person can just walk into an interrogation room? Who has access to places like that? This whole thing is funded by the government, Emerson, and governments cannot be found to be running something like this.”
“No way,” Emerson said, shaking her head. “The government wouldn’t do something like this.”
“No?” Kodi replied, looking out to the rolling waves. “The same government that purposefully infected people with diseases to study the effects? The same government that secretly dosed people with drugs to see if they could control their minds? The same government that has committed genocide over and over again in order to install leaders in other countries? That government?”
Emerson felt tears forming in her eyes. “Is anything the Producer said true?” she asked. “Does one person get to walk free in the end?”
Kodi thought about it for a while. He turned his face up to the morning sun. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
Emerson was about to walk away when a thought occurred to her. “If you were so sure that people were going to die, why did you sign the contract?”
Kodi looked at Emerson and for a second there was a look of … something: guilt? Sorrow? But then he gave her that half smile that made you question whether he was telling the truth or lying. “Maybe I crave fame more than life.”
Emerson rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because being a corpse with a million followers is just the best.”
“At least you’ll die a legend,” Kodi replied, still smiling.
“Influencers don’t die legends,” Emerson said, suddenly very serious. “It takes real world-changing talent, or genuine genius, or the type of hard work that people who show off in front of a camera can’t imagine.”
Kodi laughed. “You sound like some old person who doesn’t understand that the world has changed. Not all influencers are selling their souls for followers. Some are sharing their scientific knowledge, or teaching others how to do difficult things like coding, or animation, or—I don’t know—accounting! There are people sharing skills that would cost years of brand credits to get a qualification in, and they’re doing it for free. Hell, I learned how to skateboard by watching Daisy-Kickflip videos.”
Emerson knew that he was right, but it didn’t change the way she felt about the type of influencers who came down to the Burrows to demonstrate their courage, or the ones that would offer homeless people brand credits as long as they told the cameras how grateful they were and what an amazing and generous person the host was. “You skateboard?” Emerson asked, smirking.
Kodi’s smile widened. “Not anymore. I used to.”
“That kind of takes away from your mysterious guy vibe.”
“Mysterious guy vibe? Is that what I have?”
Emerson laughed.
“Em, hey, Em,” a voice called out, and Emerson turned to see Teller running along the sand toward them in his ungainly way.
“Hi, Teller,” Emerson said.
“What are you guys talking about?” Teller asked, putting his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“Oh, just this whole situation, you know?” Emerson replied.
“Yeah, well, in case you forgot, this guy threw me off the deck of a cruise ship and left me to drown, so … maybe he’s not the best person to be making friends with?”
“Teller, I don’t think …” Emerson started.
“It’s cool,” Kodi said, half laughing and shaking his head. “I’m not here to make friends anyway.” He turned and walked toward the gently crashing waves.
Emerson watched him walk away, and then turned to Teller. “What the hell was that about?”
“Em, he’s not a good guy! You saw what he did!”
“Listen to me,” Emerson said. “I don’t need you, or anyone, telling me who I should and should not be making friends with, do you understand?”
“What, do you like him or something? He’s a psycho, Em!”
“I can talk to whoever I want.”
“Sure you can. I just don’t know why you’d want to talk to him.”
Emerson thought about arguing back, but in the end decided it wasn’t worth it. “Whatever,” she said, and walked back to her bedroom, wishing it had real walls instead of the make-believe ones.
An army of drones had lowered three long tables onto the beach, followed by trays of the most incredible food Emerson had ever seen.
They had all eaten like they hadn’t had food in a week. The mental and physical exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours had hit them all like a train. The only person to not eat was Imelda Fleet, who kept on saying that she wasn’t hungry, and that she was watching her figure.
Emerson had rolled her eyes at this while shoving a third bread roll into her mouth.
The next few hours had been, frankly, boring. Despite being on a man-made island in the middle of God-knew-where, competing for their lives, it was still boring. There was nothing really to do. After what had happened to Zach with his jellyfish, most didn’t want to go into the water. Imelda and her crew took the opportunity to sunbathe, and 48, 49, and 50 had found plastic sticks in the fake forest and spent hours sharpening them to points using glass from a picture frame in one of their bedrooms. They were using their makeshift spears to silently hunt fish in the ocean despite the fact that food was provided for them. Most people sat in the shade of the fake forest, shielding themselves from the burning sun.
“How far do you think we traveled?” Emerson asked, sitting in the shade of a large plastic coconut tree with Tiger and Never. Teller sat four trees away on his own, still sulking after Emerson had shouted at him.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Never replied, fanning herself with an enormous plastic leaf. “I mean, it’s the middle of December and we’re sitting in ninety-degree heat trying to stay out of the sun. It doesn’t make sense.”
“How long were we passed out before the first game began?” Tiger added. She had rebraided her hair and looked like herself again after yesterday’s ordeal. “I mean, maybe we were unconscious for days!”
“Must’ve been about twenty hours,” Emerson said.
“How do you know that?” Never asked.
“I had a twenty-four-hour follower ban that started about four hours before we drank the champagne.”
“What did you get the second follower ban for?” Never asked, looking at Emerson’s name on the screen with the countdown beside it that read 9 hours 54 minutes. She had to be careful not to be issued with any more follower bans.
“I refused to record a video diary,” Emerson said.
“For someone who’s supposed to be building their brand, you’re doing a pretty poor job of it,” Never replied.
“Yeah, I know.”
There was a commotion in the shallow water, and Sadio Sarr, number 48, came splashing out to the beach with a huge fish flipping and struggling on the end of his spear.
“Take a look at Harlow and Gwen,” Tiger said, pointing to numbers 26 and 7.
Gwen, a Topsider with pink hair in enormous pigtails, was pretending to sleep on the sand while Harlow, a Burrower with a shaved head, had filled a fake plastic coconut shell with cold water from the ocean. Harlow snuck dramatically up to Gwen, pretending to stifle laughter, and then poured the cold water onto her. Gwen screamed, showcasing some melodramatic acting before chasing after Harlow and pretending to fall over a rock pile. Harlow ran away screaming about how it was just a prank, and Gwen vowed to get revenge.
“People don’t behave like that,” Emerson said. “It’s not real.”
“No,” Tiger agreed. “But how is it any different from a TV show or a movie?”
“I don’t know,” Emerson said. “It just feels … disingenuous.”
“Fancy word,” Never said, watching as Gwen and Harlow got together to discuss their next fake prank.
“Hey, 16,” someone said, and Emerson looked up into the glaring sun to see two Topsiders standing over her, a girl and a boy. She looked at their numbers: 21, Delilah Scattergood, the tall, dark-haired girl who wore a lot of shadowy eye makeup, and seemed to exclusively wear black. She was the one who had laughed when Carter Boyd had been poisoned; and 18, Steele Sawyer, a muscular seventeen-year-old with a military haircut, who perpetually wore aviator shades.
“Yeah,” Emerson replied tentatively.
“We’re thinking of setting up a love triangle situation. You know, two girls fall in love with me. Lots of tears, lots of fighting, lots of … tension. Delilah and I think it would work better with a Burrower, you know, really add an underdog vibe. People would follow us just to keep the storyline going—what do you say?”
Emerson furrowed her brow as she looked from one beautiful Topsider to the other. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t want to pretend to be in love with you … at all.”
“Your loss,” Delila said, smirking at Emerson. Emerson shuddered; there was no emotion behind those dark eyes.
“Hey, I’ll do it. You need a Burrower to get all freaky with,” Never said. “I’ll be that Burrower, baby.”
Steele looked at Never over the tops of his sunglasses, let out a short bark of laughter, and shook his head. “You’re too fat.” And then the Topsiders walked away to find a Burrower who fit their narrative.
Emerson looked at Never, who—for the first time since Emerson had met her—seemed to have had the confidence knocked out of her. She was about to get to her feet and have a word with the arrogant Topsiders, but Tiger was already running over to them.
Emerson watched as the little girl ran up behind Steele Sawyer and kicked him as hard as she could between his legs.
“Learn some manners,” she yelled at him as he lay writhing on the sand, before walking calmly back to Emerson and Never.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Never said, and her voice sounded deflated.
“I wanted to,” Tiger replied, and put her arm around Never. “And you’re not fat.”
“I am,” Never replied. “But I’m not upset about that. I love who I am, and I love how I look. I’m annoyed that people look down on me for being fat. Normally, it doesn’t bother me, but here, on this crummy little island, it might mean that I end up in prison for the rest of my life, or worse, it might mean that I get buried deeper than everyone else and end up dead.”
“Then you’ll just have to make sure you outlast both of those condescending losers,” Emerson said, putting her arm around Never too. “So you can smile at them when they get taken to prison.”
48, 49, and 50 stood around the dead fish. Eventually, they left it sitting out in the sun, and threw their spears into the forest.
Hours dragged on.
More planned pranks were pulled: number 23—the boy who had run naked into the sea—appeared to have taken up Zach’s mantle as person willing to hurt themselves for followers. He was jumping out of the fake trees, landing awkwardly, and then climbing higher to do it again. Teller seemed to have forgotten how to wear a T-shirt. Imelda and her crew were doing ab workouts on the beach, Imelda leading the workout with her brand-new lighting drone following her closely, and numbers 48, 49, and 50 were trying to melt plastic palm tree leaves using the lens of 48’s glasses as a magnifying glass.
The numbers beside each contestant’s name steadily rose as more and more people followed them. Imelda remained at the top of the leaderboard by a comfortable margin of around a hundred thousand followers, and her five disciples remained right behind her, having overtaken Kodi and Never on the leaderboard.
Emerson looked at the top ten names:
Place
Contestant Name
Contestant #
Follower count
1.
Imelda Fleet
33
198,434
2.
Levi Russo
17
109,777
3.
Delilah Scattergood
21
81,040
4.
Decker Shimada
25
80,571
5.
Steele Sawyer
18
76,209
6.
Kodiak Finch
1
50,338
7.
Never-Again Jones
47
46,104
8.
Cobalt Skiba
15
43,832
9.
Alasdair George William Tremblay-Birchall
42
43,603
