The Kill Factor, page 23
“That is my biggest secret,” Emerson continued. “I stood in that school, in the science classroom where Mr. Abernethy would call me stupid, where Claire Tavernier and Travis Chalk would hit me with their physics books if I fell asleep, where I fell behind, where I felt like I didn’t belong … I stood there and I hated every person who had laughed at me, called me names, made fun of me behind my back. I hated that they had families that looked out for them. That they had credits that had value, and fathers who weren’t obsessed with fame, and opportunities to get out of the Burrows and make something of themselves.”
She had wanted the school to burn, and all her bad experiences with it, as though a baptism of fire would purge the trauma away. It had been a silly act of childish destruction that had led to tragedy. “I turned the gas taps on and I walked away. I didn’t ignite the gas, and I kept telling myself that it wasn’t my fault because I didn’t ignite the gas, but it was my fault. I killed Marvin Tzu because I was angry and I was jealous and I was weak. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I don’t deserve your vote. I don’t deserve to stay in this game, but I want to. I want to be a better person, and I want to try to make amends for what I did somehow.”
Emerson stopped talking. For the first time since Agent Dern had told her that a man had died in the fire, she replayed the events in her mind exactly as they had occurred: There were no blank spots or omitted facts. She was to blame for a man’s death. She had accepted that.
Emerson’s three minutes ended. She looked to Kodi, who had hatred etched onto his face. She didn’t blame him.
Everyone stood in perfect silence as the one-minute time delay passed, and then the Producer spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the results are in. I can now reveal that the contestant in second place got 906,192 votes when the lines closed, but the person in first place got 1,285,205 votes. Ladies and gentlemen, the person leaving the games tonight is …”
The Producer left the required dramatic pause, and the audience held their breath.
“… Imelda Fleet.”
For perhaps the first time since Emerson had met Imelda Fleet, she observed genuine emotion as it took hold of the girl. It was a look of complete devastation. But to Emerson’s shock, she felt nothing in return. Not sympathy, not even triumph.
Okay, Emerson thought. Let’s get the hell out of here.
Dawn broke on the day of the sixth game.
There were five bedrooms left. Imelda’s bedroom would be dismantled while the remaining contestants were competing in game six, so time was running out. She had to act fast. It was the only remaining room with a mirror.
Everything was in place. Emerson had spent the night slowly and carefully collecting Tiger’s game stones and arranging them under her pillow to spell out her plan. There were only enough letters to write three simple words: GLASS. CUT. POISON. But if Tiger and Kodi understood, and she could keep the information away from the drones somehow, then it was all they would need.
Once they had cut the poison capsules out of their wrists, they would have to take their chances and swim to the Calypso. Then it was all about luck. They’d have to find their way to the ship’s control room, start up the engines, and pilot the enormous thing out of there. All of this relied on there being no remote kill switch that would shut off the ship entirely, or armed guards hidden somewhere on the beach who would kill them before they got near the boat, or Kill Factor employees aboard the ship who would apprehend them as soon as they boarded.
It was impossible. Emerson knew that, but impossible seemed so much more beautiful than the inevitable.
The sun was still crawling up into the sky as morning came to life on the island. Emerson watched the few remaining contestants as they roamed around the beach aimlessly. She glanced at the leaderboard.
Place
Contestant Name
Contestant #
Follower count
1.
Gwen Perez
7
2,478,811
2.
Tiger Quinn
11
1,919,944
3.
Kodiak Finch
1
1,687,441
4.
Emerson Ness
16
1,523,016
Four left. Four people fighting for freedom and for their lives. Emerson wondered if she was being selfish, if her plan was taking away an opportunity from Tiger and Gwen, who actually stood a chance of winning, but she dismissed the thought. There was no winning in this game.
It was time. No point in putting it off any longer.
“Kodi, Tiger,” Emerson called out.
She watched Tiger, her red eyes meandering over the beach and finding Emerson. She had aged ten years in the short time she had been on this island. Her sense of humor had been killed, her enthusiasm euthanized, her personality sedated and subdued until it was a ghost of what it had been.
They came over and sat next to Emerson. Kodi did not make eye contact with her. Thirty or more camera drones hovered around them, revolving and canting to find interesting angles.
She had to show them the stones without the drones seeing. Emerson’s only thought was to pull the blanket over all their heads and show them the words beneath her pillow before the drones could react, but she didn’t get a chance. Before Emerson could even open her mouth to speak, the island began to revolve.
Emerson’s heart stopped.
The Producer knows, she thought.
“What’s going on?” Tiger asked, getting off the bed and out of the room so she could walk along with the revolving ground.
“I … I think this is my fault,” Emerson said.
“What do you mean?” Kodi asked. “What did you do?”
“I tried to …”
But the Producer’s voice echoed out over the beach from the hidden speakers.
“Contestants,” he said. “The final game is about to begin.”
Every step along the rotating sand was a step closer to death. Emerson was certain of that.
Emerson reached for Kodi’s hand, but he pulled it away and walked faster. Her heart hurt, but she understood that she was not the girl he had thought she was. She was a killer.
The competition side of the island came into view. Four chairs sat on the beach in a horseshoe shape, all made of thick and solid-looking planks of wood, all with heavy-duty leather straps on the armrests and legs of the chair.
The Producer arrived, walking toward them through a heat haze, like a bleak vision of evil.
Emerson waited for his eyes to meet hers. She waited for his look of disappointment, his words of judgment, and then the feeling of the poison being released into her body, the pain, and then the nothingness of death.
Instead, the elderly and youthful man stood before them, beaming his Hollywood smile. Finally, he spoke.
“Welcome, contestants, to the sixth and final game. In this competition, you have the opportunity to learn Restraint. The game is simple. Kill one of your fellow competitors, and the games are over.”
Waves rolled against the shore. A cloud rolled over the sun.
“I don’t understand,” Gwen said cautiously.
The Producer turned his hellion eyes on Gwen, and smiled with such ferocious delight that Emerson felt cold just watching him.
“Take the life of one of your peers,” the Producer clarified, “and the project comes to an end.”
The silence seemed to come up from the ground, surrounding the remaining contestants.
“What if we just choose not to kill each other?” Kodi asked.
“Then you will have shown great restraint, and proven that you have truly been rehabilitated,” the Producer said.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Gwen said, her voice filled with cautious hope. “We’ll just wait it out until the game is over and we’ll all be in the final, right?”
“Excellent,” the Producer said, clapping his hands together. “Nothing would make me happier. This is a marvelous opportunity to prove that you have truly changed. Show restraint, and prove that you could be a worthy winner. Take a life, and the game ends with one less person competing for the coveted top spot on the leaderboard! It is up to you. There will be no more diaries, no more viewer votes. This is it. Play this final game, survive, and you will be in the final group. If you could all take a seat in one of the chairs, we will begin.”
“Wait,” Emerson said, and the Producer’s dark eyes rolled over to hers.
“What is it, Ms. Ness?”
Emerson swallowed. “Why now? The games always happen at night. Why is this one starting in the morning?”
The Producer smiled. “Ah yes, there is one final thing I forgot to mention. There is no time limit on this game except the time limit enforced by your own will to live. You will not receive food or water until one of you kills another. As to why the game is beginning right now … well, some decisions are proactive, others are reactive, Ms. Ness.”
“So either one of us dies or all of us die,” Kodi said.
The Producer nodded.
And with that, Emerson knew two things: Someone would have to die in this game, and the Producer had seen her hidden message. Why he didn’t just have her killed, she didn’t know, but she suspected that the more people involved in his final game, the more interesting it would be for the viewers.
“Ms. Perez, this seat is reserved for you.” The Producer gestured toward the seat nearest to him. Gwen swallowed hard and sat down. The Producer tightened and secured each of the four straps one by one until Gwen was fastened to her wooden chair, no way of escaping at all. “Ms. Quinn, this one is for you.”
As Tiger sat down on her chair, Emerson saw in the young Topsider’s eyes that she felt very much as Emerson did: broken, lobotomized, gone.
Emerson was next to be restrained in her seat, and finally, Kodi. Emerson watched as the Producer tightened the straps around his arms, and then patted him on the hand.
The chairs were angled in an arc that allowed all the contestants to see one another. Emerson looked into the fearful eyes of Gwen, the lost eyes of Tiger, and the determined eyes of Kodi, and she wondered what the others saw when they looked at her: Terror? Disenchantment? Confusion?
“And now,” the Producer said, sounding eerily like an old-timey circus ringleader, “the means by which to win this game.”
A mechanical whirring emanated from behind each chair. The sand beneath their feet began to shudder and displace. Emerson watched as a metal arm rose up from behind each chair. Attached to each was an ancient-looking wooden crossbow with a fearsomely barbed arrow loaded into each. The one above Gwen’s head was pointing right at Kodi’s chest. The crossbow above Kodi’s was pointing at Gwen, the one above Tiger’s chair was aimed right at Emerson’s own heart, and she could only assume that there was a fourth weapon above her own chair pointed right at Tiger.
“From now on, you should all watch your words,” the Producer said, barely able to hold back his glee. “Say the name of one of your peers, and the corresponding bolt will fire from the crossbow, killing the named contestant and ending both their life and the competition. The game has begun, and it will not end until one of you has killed another. Good luck.”
The Producer turned, leaving them to stare at one another, allowing the reality to sink in. The cloud finally moved on, and the sun beat down upon them once more.
No one spoke for a long time.
Gwen bit at her lower lip. Tiger’s half-lidded eyes gazed at the sand. Kodi shook his head solemnly.
“I know what you’re all thinking,” Gwen said finally, looking at the bolt that was aimed at her and then back to the other players of the game. “I’m at the top of the leaderboard, right? So it makes the most sense to kill me.”
“No one’s thinking that,” Kodi replied.
“Why not?” Gwen asked. “I’d be thinking that if I was in your shoes. Kill the leader and maybe you’ll win the games.”
“No one is going to kill anyone else,” Tiger muttered.
“We have to,” Emerson said quietly.
“What?” Tiger asked.
“We have to. You heard what the Producer said; no food or water until one of us kills another. You can only live without water for about three days, and we’ll be losing our minds long before that. Someone has to kill someone else.”
The waves rocked against the beach. The sun sat stoically in the sky. The contestants waited.
“You want to know something?” Kodi asked, offering a smile that was filled with sadness. “I’ve known since before the show began what it was going to be. I knew it was going to be pain and suffering and torture. I decided before we boarded the ship that I wasn’t going to make friends with anyone. In fact, I was going to make enemies. I was going to be the worst version of myself. That way I would be able to let everyone around me suffer and die and I wouldn’t have any emotional attachment. That was the only way to make sure that you got out of here alive.”
Emerson’s eyes rose to meet Kodi’s. He was looking right at her. There was something wrong.
“What do you mean?” Emerson asked.
“I’ve been lying to you from the start.”
Emerson felt the skin tightening around her body.
“I knew who you were before we met at the docks. I came here to make sure you lived,” Kodi continued, staring into Emerson’s eyes.
“What are you talking about? You didn’t know me before all this.”
“Yes, I did. I was there the night you robbed the school,” Kodi continued. He held his eye contact. “I followed you. I knew what you were planning to do, and I was going to steal the money off you when you left. It’s how I make money. How I made money, at least. Followed thieves, and mugged them for their take.”
Emerson was crying now. The words seemed to circle around her consciousness, refusing to sink in, refusing to be real.
“I was the one who lit the gas in the school. It was taking too long, so I decided to smoke you out. The cops showed up so quickly, though, and I left. When I found out what had happened to Marvin Tzu, I felt … I hated myself. I still hate myself. I never wanted anyone to die. I don’t want to be my dad.”
“It’s not true, it can’t be,” Emerson whispered. She still didn’t understand.
“It is true. My father and I, we’re from the Burrows, but I hadn’t seen him since I was six years old. He went to jail for murder. I never knew the details of his case, but I hated him … I hate him so much. When the real producers of this show made him the presenter, I convinced him to get me onto the island with you. Nepotism at its most pitiful.”
“I don’t understand,” Emerson said. “What are you talking about?”
“The Producer,” Kodi said, a film of tears in his eyes now. “His name is Lester Finch. He was a serial killer on death row. He’s my father.”
Emerson’s mind spun. She shook her head. “No. No, that doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s true,” Kodi replied. “And I need you to know, before … before the end, that I really do love you.”
“Don’t,” Emerson choked out, suddenly knowing what he was about to do. “Don’t.”
More tears rolled down Kodi’s cheeks, and he smiled once again. “I grew up terrified that I would be just like my dad: something missing inside me, but I knew when I met you that I was all right. I love you, okay? Always remember that.”
“Listen to me,” Emerson said, but words stuck in her throat.
“I always hated my name,” Kodi continued, looking up at the clouds as they strolled calmly over the blue sky. “My psycho father named me after a type of bear because he wanted me to be fierce and strong and brave. I suppose I tried to be those things at times, but I never liked the name … Kodiak Finch.”
“No!” Emerson screamed as the crossbow above Gwen’s head let out a hollow thunk sound as the wire that held back the arrow let go.
The bolt hit Kodi in the heart.
There was a moment, as Emerson stared at the growing patch of blood on Kodi’s white shirt, when her fractured soul told her it wasn’t real, that she could undo it, that she could make it so that nothing had happened, but it passed like the second hand on some infinite clock ticking away moments of hope in a world full of bad things.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Kodi whispered, the words coming with great effort. Please make it off this godforsaken island.
His beautiful eyes closed. His head fell forward. His hair spilled over his face, and he was gone.
“I love you,” Emerson managed to say through the earthquake of pain that was ripping her apart inside. “I love you, Kodi. I love you.”
For some time after that, the world seemed to fade away from Emerson Ness.
Emerson was seven years old and Kester was dying.
The old-fashioned phone had to remain plugged into its charging cord or it would die instantly. It was slippery in Emerson’s sweating hands.
“I’m sorry, madam,” the emergency services operator was saying in curt tones, “but the ambulance will not go any farther than New Third Avenue. You’ll have to meet them there.”
She wanted to scream at the bad woman on the other end of the phone. She wanted to say, I’m little! I don’t know what to do! My brother is just a baby. Why won’t you help me? But Emerson was seven, and you have to be polite to adults, so she just said, “Okay, I’ll go there now.”
The walk through the Burrows at night with a rasping and horribly warm little baby was like walking through a vivid nightmare.
There were users plugged into old electric car charging ports with ancient VR headsets on. A burning delivery vehicle sent flickering shadows into the darkest corners, where milky and hopeless eyes watched the roads. All around her were the worthless: people whose brand credits were just meaningless numbers in their virtual accounts. Nobody followed these people. A group of young boys, most of them with no shoes or shirts, came running out of a house with boarded-up windows. One of them had blood on his hands; all of them were laughing.
