The Kill Factor, page 2
She was aware of the seconds ticking away as she considered the Producer’s offer. Finally, she came to a decision.
“No,” she said.
The smile on the Producer’s face melted away like spring ice. “No?” he repeated.
“That’s right, I said no.”
“I …” He laughed. “I wasn’t expecting that. Can I ask why?”
“Your show, whatever it’s called, is disgusting. It’s exploiting people. You’re using people’s darkest moments as entertainment. You’re using people’s desperation to amuse others, and I … I can’t be part of that.” She lifted her chin. “Besides, if I don’t win—which is likely—I’ll be exchanging fifteen years in prison for life in prison. That’s no prize.”
The Producer kept his expression of amusement. “We’re offering people an opportunity.”
“Then offer it,” Emerson interrupted. “Don’t dangle it in front of people’s faces and make them dance for it.”
He laughed, sat back in his seat, ran his hands through his hair, and laughed again. He swiped his hands over the documents, and they disappeared. “Well, I’m not going to beg you, Emerson. I respect your decision, but this is an opportunity that thousands of kids in your situation would bite my hand off for. If you don’t want it, someone else will.” He stood up and pocketed the virtual notebook. “Your father will be disappointed, though.”
Emerson sat up. “What do you mean?”
“Huh?” the Producer said, and turned back around to face Emerson. “Oh, just that we need consent from a parent or guardian in order to validate your involvement in the show. Your father gave us that signature less than an hour ago. He seemed very happy to give his permission.”
“You’re lying,” Emerson said. Her dad was a mediocre parent at best, sure, but she couldn’t believe he’d go so far as to practically consign his only daughter to life in prison.
The Producer put the virtual notebook back on the table and scanned it. The documents reappeared between them, and the Producer pulled out the final sheet. Her father’s name, Markus Ness, was scrawled across the bottom.
“He cares about you,” the Producer said. “He wants to give you a chance to walk free. That’s a good dad in my book.”
Emerson traced each letter of her father’s name with her eyes, feeling her stomach sink. “He doesn’t care,” she said. “All he wants is—”
But there was no time to finish her sentence. The door to the interrogation room flew open and the two officers entered.
“All right,” Agent Dern said. “That’s time.”
All he wants is a famous daughter so he can grow his own brand, Emerson finished her thought. She pictured Kester in her mind. Kester, who was more intelligent than both of them. Kester, who was born deaf in a society that had given him next to no support.
Emerson looked into the eyes of the Producer. How could someone so benevolent make such a cruel offer?
“I can’t do it,” Emerson told him. She felt a moment of dizziness, as though her entire future had just taken a step off a high and sheer cliff.
“I’ll tell you what,” the Producer said. “I’ll post your bail. You’ll be out of here tomorrow and I’ll give you one more day after that to decide. We can even add a clause stipulating that all of your social media and credit accounts will be transferred to your brother in the event that you are incarcerated.”
Emerson opened her mouth to tell him that she didn’t need any more time, that her mind was made up, but the words wouldn’t come.
The Producer put a big, papery hand on her shoulder, offered her one last smile, and then left her to be escorted to a holding cell by Agent Dern and the silent Officer Bannon.
Emerson had not slept at all. She had lain awake on the small and uncomfortable bed in her cell and thought mostly about her brother, Kester.
She thought about how, at only five years old, he had programmed his first rudimentary game. She thought about how complex mathematical theories seemed elementary to him, how he had been moved up to the highest level of high school when he was only nine years old, and she thought about how—once high school was over—education would stop. There would be no one left to push him, no one to guide him and show him the way. You needed brand credits to get into college, and no one in the Ness family had enough followers to be worth anything … but now, the Producer had come along with an opportunity.
“Don’t talk yourself into it, Emerson,” she whispered.
Perhaps it didn’t matter. In her video-link court appearance, the judge had set bail at $40,000 or the equivalent in brand credits, and she supposed that amount would have put off the Producer, who would be looking for a more suitable candidate.
Maybe I should have just signed the contract.
Night seemed to last forever, and it wasn’t until the sun had just begun to creep over the horizon that her cell finally opened and a tired-looking police officer with a raggedy beard told her that her bail had been posted.
“Really?” Emerson asked.
“Yes, really,” the officer muttered.
Emerson stepped out of her cell and into the corridor. At the front desk she signed an electronic document that allowed her to be reissued with the laces of her shoes and the contents of her pockets, which were a piece of string and single stick of chewing gum.
“And this,” the desk sergeant said, holding out a folded piece of paper between two fingers. Emerson took it, opened it, and read what was written there:
We leave from the docks tomorrow at six a.m. If you show up, I’ll know that you changed your mind. If you don’t, your fate is out of your hands and you’ll be left to the “justice” system. It’s your call.
The Producer
Cold rain fell from the polluted December sky, bouncing in puddles that reflected the clean white buildings of the Topside.
Emerson walked alone through the freezing dawn. Driverless street-sweeper vehicles glided by, and personal advertising boards scanned her, but most did not bother showing their ads as her credits were worth so little. Security holograms stood on pristine street corners, eyeing her suspiciously, but there were no people around. Just her and the rain.
The street began to slope downward toward the entrance to the Burrows, and Emerson felt tears in her eyes. She was in a lose-lose situation. She wanted to stay out of prison so that she could look after Kester and ensure he stayed on the right path, but she didn’t want to become the thing she hated the most: a spectacle, a pawn in a game of manipulation, a puppet. She had always hated the fakeness of the content creators who melodramatically strutted around, followed by armies of camera drones filming their every move. And if she was to take part in this cruel game show, she would have to become one of them.
Stop it, Emerson! she scolded herself. You’re not signing the contract … are you?
It seemed to Emerson an obvious truth that in this world of content, people worshipped two things above all else: wealth and celebrity. Over and over again she witnessed fame being bestowed on the most beautiful, the most willing to court controversy, and the most eager to sell their privacy to the highest bidder. And their behavior was justified time and time again as the public consumed their products, tuned in to their feeds, liked their posts, and became followers. An industry thrived while talent, intelligence, and ambition were thrown by the wayside. Instead, an army of vapid promoters took their place, heralded as geniuses and innovators. The definition of those words seemed to become so diluted that they’d come to mean something else entirely. Scientists, teachers, writers, doctors, nurses, professors, engineers, all ignored in favor of empty vessels with favorable bone structures who fit the modern idea of beauty.
Sometimes Emerson wished she could delete every single one of her accounts until she was completely untethered, floating free from the mother ship of her nonexistent brand. But that wasn’t an option. Not if you wanted to eat. She had forty-four followers. This made her own digital brand currency worth slightly less than dollars and cents, but it was enough to keep her, her father, and her brother fed.
And yet, despite all her hatred of the modern way, she couldn’t deny that there was a secret part of her that was jealous of the influencers who became worth millions by putting on an act and tuning in to the zeitgeist.
Emerson wrapped her arms around herself to fight off the cold as she began the long downhill walk to her home in the dark, subterranean village, imagining just how desperate the first Burrowers must have been. It was only fifty years ago that the Burrows were just a series of tunnels dug by homeless people. They would dig beneath the homes in the wealthy part of town and sleep up against the underside of their heated floors so they wouldn’t die of exposure. As more and more of the city’s homeless sought warmth beneath the modern houses of the Topside, the homeowners began to complain and demand arrests. Ultimately, the rich changed their floor heating to wall heating for no other reason than they didn’t want the homeless to gain warmth for free.
Eventually, the unsafe system of tunnels was funded by the government, monetized by building cheap housing. After all, it kept the unsightly lower classes off the upper streets.
About one in five streetlights worked down in the Burrows, and the buildings that were illuminated showed their barred windows and graffiti walls. A dealer stood beneath one of the lights, muttering something about how he could sell her a thousand followers for eighty dollars. Emerson ignored the dealer and walked farther down the dirt tunnel, supported by ancient and rusting scaffolding. She passed the tiny homes crammed together, illegal and burned-out diesel vehicles in the patches of gardens with sad plastic greenery, dust-covered windows distorting the shadows that moved inside, sounds of arguments, parties, children screaming, babies crying.
It was never quiet in the Burrows.
Up ahead she could see the glare of a lighting drone and hear the familiar intonation of an influencer trying to get footage of themselves down in the Burrows.
“I’ve never been more scared in my life, you guys,” the girl was saying as her drones filmed her, careful to keep her two bodyguards out of the shot. “If this video actually comes out, if I actually make it out of here alive, make sure you like and subscribe …”
The girl gave a melodramatic look at her surroundings before screaming at nothing. She then yelled “cut,” and the security guards escorted her toward the exit. Emerson rolled her eyes as she passed by.
Finally, she made it to her own front door. It scraped along the ground as she pushed it open, sending an agonized yowl along the short hallway of the four-room home at 2331/19 The Burrows. Emerson took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before entering.
“Em, that you?” her father’s voice called out into the dark hallway.
For a moment she didn’t reply. She just listened to the sound of the rainwater dripping from her hair onto the scratched vinyl floor. She imagined running from this home, waiting it out on the streets until it was time to board the boat or go back to the police station. The idea of never speaking to her selfish father ever again sparked a jaw-clenching joy in her, and if Kester wasn’t in the picture, she would have turned right then and walked away.
“Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”
He came ambling out of his bedroom, where the buzzing light of his ancient laptop glowed hungrily through the doorway.
“Editing,” he said, shrugging, his long, thinning hair moving like seaweed as he let out an uneasy laugh.
I’m nothing like him, she thought as she watched her slump-shouldered father moving restlessly from foot to foot. Kester is nothing like him. How did he produce two children who are so different from each other, and nothing like him?
“Hey, what a break, huh?” he said, his eyes lighting up. “You getting this TV gig? It’s awesome, Em, just awesome! Think of the exposure! Think of the followers we’re going to get! You and me, famous!”
“I’m not doing it, Dad,” she said, telling herself to look him in the eye. Telling herself to kill the pity that rose up as the hurt registered on his face.
“What … what do you mean you’re not doing it? Why not?”
Emerson searched her mind for an answer that sounded more compelling than because I don’t want to. “Because … I can’t win, Dad. There are fifty contestants and only one prize. When I lose, I go to jail forever. And it’s not a normal jail, it’s solitary confinement. With no contact from the outside world. You’d never see me or hear from me again.”
Her dad looked at her for a long time, expressionless, and Emerson steeled herself for the worst.
“Oh, Em, they didn’t tell me that. Those dirty producers, they didn’t tell me that! No, of course you can’t do it! Of course you can’t!” He held her then, wrapping his bony arms around her and resting his head on hers.
For a moment, Emerson felt an almost unbearable need to push her father away, but it was replaced quickly by something close to gratitude. Yes, he had signed his name to the Producer’s document without knowing anything about the show, but at least he had the common decency to draw the line at selling her into a life of solitary confinement.
“Thanks, Dad,” she muttered.
He ruffled her hair. “We’ll figure this whole thing out, Em. All of this. We’ll get a lawyer somehow and … you know … we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
Emerson nodded. She didn’t know how to reply. The situation was hopeless and they both knew it. Her father nodded, the smile on his face faltering for a moment, and then he disappeared back into his bedroom to work on his footage.
Emerson stood for a moment in the dim hallway, trying not to feel. Finally, she took a deep breath and made her way to her and Kester’s bedroom.
Her brother lay on his side breathing long, deep breaths. He was half-covered by the thin, moth-eaten blanket. The boy was nine, but when he slept, he looked much younger.
How am I supposed to tell him that I’m going to prison for years? How am I supposed to tell him that he’ll be okay while I’m not here to look after him? Emerson felt tears pooling in her eyes.
There was no time to think, though, as the young boy stirred and then woke. Emerson smiled and waited for him to notice her before she raised the fingertips of her right hand to her chin, moved them away, and then scooped them back around to say good morning in ASL.
Kester smiled and returned the gesture, adding the sign for her name at the end: Good morning, Em.
Kester then stood up, ran across his bed, and leaped into Emerson’s arms, laughing as his sister struggled to hold on to him. Emerson peeled him off her wet clothes and put him down so that she could speak to him.
You’re getting way too heavy for that. You need to lay off the snacks!
Kester laughed and then replied, his hands moving like lightning as he spoke: As if we can afford snacks!
Emerson laughed too. You look tired. Did you get much sleep last night?
Working on a big heist. Synergy-2025 claims to have the toughest encryption and anti-hacking systems in the world. They say no one can hack in because no one knows the physical location of their head offices, but I found it.
How? Emerson asked, happy for the distraction.
They may be the most modern credit-trading company in the world, but they use out-of-date servers: twenty thousand out-of-date servers that give off a huge electronic signal from their location in …
Kester fired up his ancient laptop. It hummed and whirred until the screen came to life.
… Luxembourg. Or to be more accurate, the small town of Wiltz in North Luxembourg.
Impressive, Emerson replied, smiling at her brother.
What about you? Kester asked. You didn’t come home last night. Where were you?
Emerson hesitated, unsure of how she could possibly explain everything that had happened in the last twelve hours. Finally, her hands began to move, and she spoke, starting at the beginning and ending at the moment she had come home.
They decided to put their argument, the entire reality of the situation, into a bottle and put the lid on tight.
This was something Kester had invented a few years earlier. Both of them hated it when they fought, and so one day when they were having a big argument about Emerson being expelled from school, Kester had picked up a bottle from the table beside his bed and signed, I’m putting this fight inside this bottle. It had made them laugh, and they were able to put the argument away for a few hours and be friends again.
So, the argument was in a bottle, and the bottle was in Kester’s pocket. They had spent the day wandering around the Burrows and then the Topside. For hours they had pretended that Emerson wasn’t awaiting trial for manslaughter. Instead, they talked about school and how Kester had been pushed up three grades in almost all subjects except English, about how their dad’s six hundred followers would be enough in brand-credit value to provide food for the family if he would just stop reinvesting it into his videos. They spoke about how Kester’s favorite e-sports team was doing.
Emerson spent the last of her weekly credits on two burgers at Ingleby’s. After they had eaten, they sat in silence at their table in the window, watching the content creators emoting on the streets, the advertising boards projecting their pitches, the driverless Cube vehicles gliding by with their passengers laughing and drinking expensive wine inside. They watched the Topsiders as they glared at the Burrows kids who decided to come up for some sunlight.
Em, Kester finally said, his hands moving slower than usual, cautiously.
Yes? Emerson replied.
I think you should … He paused, his hands suspended in the air as though he had run out of words, but he continued. I think you should sign the contract.
Emerson felt her heart freeze in her chest. Her eyes had played tricks on her, that was what had happened. What did you say? she asked.
Hear me out, Kester signed. I’ve thought about this hard, and I’ve looked at it from all angles. There are three reasons why you should go on this show. The first is: There is no way they can legally lock you away in solitary confinement for the rest of your life. I know the world is a mess, but cruel and unusual punishment is still something that this country does not stand for, so any decent lawyer could get you out of it, and at worst you’ll end up serving the sentence you would have been given anyway! The second reason is: You could win! I know you have very little faith in yourself, but you’re smart, and you’re likable, and you’re normal! You’ll stand out. The third reason is … well, it’s me being selfish. I love you, Em, but you’re getting locked up either way. One way, you get nothing but prison time; the other, you could gain millions of followers. Even if you lose, you could still help our family make a lot of money. I could use those credits, Em. By the time you got out, we could both be … somebody.
