The Kill Factor, page 3
Emerson watched her brother to see if he would say any more. She was divided. On the surface she was angry; she wanted him to take it all back, to say that he would never send her out there to dance in front of cameras for millions of people to see. But … but part of her wanted to go, didn’t it? Yes. Part of her had wanted to go from the moment the Producer had told her about the stupid show.
What if you’re wrong? Emerson asked. What if they do put me away in solitary for the rest of my life? You’ll never see me again.
When have you ever known me to be wrong? Kester asked, and smiled. I won’t let them send you away forever, Em. I wouldn’t let that happen.
You’re nine, Kester! What could you do?
Kester gave her a knowing smile. It’s your decision, Em. And for the record, this is your choice completely, I would never hold it against you or try to make you feel guilty. I just think it’s important to weigh the odds.
Emerson thought about how, only a few hours ago, she had been certain that it was her father who would push her into the game show, and her brother who would beg her not to go, but instead, the opposite had happened.
I think we’re going to need a whole new bottle.
No. No bottles, no lids. I’m on your side no matter what. Kester removed the bottle from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and handed it to Emerson.
Emerson turned the lid over in her hands, then put it in her pocket. I don’t know, Kester, Emerson signed. I don’t know what to do.
You could win, Em. You know that, right? You could win, and then I wouldn’t be alone.
You won’t be alone, Emerson replied. You’ll still have Dad.
They looked at each other for a few seconds before they couldn’t stop themselves from laughing. It was a laugh that felt to Emerson like breaking the surface of a deep pool, just as your lungs start to strain.
Emerson had always loved Kester’s frankness, his willingness to speak the harsh truth. Only now, that hard truth might result in her signing away her life for a game show. She looked at her brother, and for the first time she could see the man he was going to become instead of the boy he was.
The one thing she had kept from him was exactly how the fire had started in the school. She wasn’t ready to think about the janitor, Marvin Tzu.
Finally, Emerson shook her head. I still don’t know what I’m going to do, Kester, she told him, and then looked at the old analog clock on the diner wall. You’d better go. I don’t want you to miss your appointment.
Kester glanced at the clock and then looked deep into Emerson’s eyes. If you do decide to sign the contract, remember that people fall in love with honesty. Be honest and you’ll win them over. A look of regret seemed to flash across his young face for a moment. I’ll be back in an hour, Em. Do not make a final decision without me. I was just spitballing. Don’t take what I said seriously.
Emerson actually felt relief when she saw the fear in his eyes. Suddenly, it was real to him. He might lose his sister, and it scared him.
He had to go to the audiologist for his annual hearing checkup, where they would conclude once again that there was no improvement to his congenital sensorineural hearing loss, a condition he had been born with. Once again, they would tell him he didn’t qualify for a hearing aid, but if he didn’t attend, they would suspend the measly fourteen dollars a week in benefit money. Physical money was the lowest form of currency, close to worthless. Brand credits had been the most commonly accepted currency ever since social media companies started pushing it in the late eighties and, soon enough, it was accepted everywhere. But fourteen dollars was something.
Emerson put her hand on top of her brother’s and smiled at him. He smiled too, but there was nervousness there. He got up and walked slowly toward the exit of the diner.
Emerson watched him go, a small boy in an unfair world. A boy who would be pushed and pulled by the currents of a cruel society until his will gave up and his potential died. He had asked her to do something so foolish and dangerous that it seemed like a heartless request, but his request had come from a place of belief: belief that a person really could claw their way out of the Burrows and into the self-cleaning, air-purifying apartments of the Topside so long as they had the credits, worked hard, and played by the rules. He had not yet been beaten down by the realities of life.
Jesus, Em, she told herself, shaking her head as she watched Kester disappear around a corner. You’re sixteen, not sixty.
But she couldn’t help the weariness that bore down upon her. It came from all places at all times. She hated the way the Topsiders talked about the lazy, useless Burrowers, and she hated the fact that some of those who lived down in the Burrows actually came to believe this about themselves. But not all of them, not even one in twenty of them were like that; most were trying like hell every day to get out of there.
And she remembered then that Kester was different. He had been born with a strength everyone else seemed to lack, a brilliant mind that looked at numbers the same way a normal person might look at a child’s jigsaw puzzle. It was all so elementary to him, all so simple. If only the world still valued doctors, scientists, mathematicians; perhaps then he really could end up in one of the photocatalytic buildings, riding in Cubes, sipping expensive wine on his way to somewhere nice. But in a society where each citizen was given one hundred credits a week—ninety to spend and ten to save—and the value of those credits was based on your popularity, it was more likely that he too would turn to content.
She made up her mind.
She had to sign the contract. If Kester was right, and he could get her out of a life sentence, then great. But even if he was wrong, she would try her best to stay in the game as long as she could, gain as many followers as possible, and then transfer all her social accounts to her brother.
She couldn’t see him again, though. She couldn’t put into words why, but she could not speak to her father or her brother before she left. She had to keep it in the bottle and simply slip away before she changed her mind.
Emerson stood up. The sun was starting to set outside, a light dusting of snow was falling, and she thought that she wouldn’t go home again, not ever. She would spend the rest of the day walking around, looking at the places she once knew. Enjoying freedom while seconds ticked away.
There were six other contestants at the docks when Emerson arrived at three a.m., three hours early. They sat around in the darkness of the early morning hours in their hand-me-down clothes, hands shoved into pockets or wrapped around themselves to keep warm. They watched the boats that came in and sailed out, the cranes that were fixed to the port lift containers from freight ships, the drones that loaded crates onto driverless trucks. They didn’t speak.
Emerson wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to warm herself against the chill of the wind.
Life, she thought. Life in prison. No contact from the outside world. Not even contact with other prisoners. Life in solitary.
She tried to remind herself of Kester’s words, of his certainty that she would not be forced into a cruel and unusual punishment, but she had to accept there was a possibility that it could happen.
Life, she thought again. Solitary.
She refused to let the finality of it, the totality of it, sink in. She was taking part in this exploitative show to increase her value. If Kester could get enough money to get through school, she would have done her job.
“You another one?” a voice asked, and Emerson turned to see a tall, muscular girl of about seventeen standing beside her.
“Huh?” Emerson said, surprised to hear a voice in the silence.
“Another one, another contestant for this stupid show?”
“Oh, right, yeah, I guess I am.”
“Sucks, huh?” the girl said, turning her head to face the horizon, where a massive cruise ship was materializing.
“Yeah,” Emerson agreed.
“I’m Never, by the way,” the tall girl said.
“Never?” Emerson repeated. “Never what?”
“No, that’s my name. My name is Never. Actually, my full name is Never-Again Jones, because after my mom gave birth to me, she vowed never to have another kid again. I know, it’s weird.”
Emerson smiled. “I like it,” she said, and shrugged. “It’s cool.”
“Thanks,” Never said, and then a silence stretched out between them. “You gonna tell me your name or … ?”
“Oh,” Emerson said. “It’s Emerson, Emerson Ness.”
“Cool. Well, this is strange, huh, Emerson Ness? At least one of us is going to go to jail for the rest of our lives, probably both of us.”
“If you’re lucky,” a male voice to the girls’ right said.
Emerson and Never turned to see a boy seated on a low wall, his head lowered and his sandy blond hair hanging over his face. He was a Burrower, that much was obvious, but he was wearing a white shirt and black suit jacket. They were ill-fitting and discolored, and the jacket had a rip up the back, but it was still a hundred times more impressive than most Burrowers clothes.
“What do you mean, lucky?” Never asked. “How is life imprisonment lucky?”
Slowly, the boy raised his head. He was beautiful in a waifish kind of way, with intense and intelligent eyes, and a half smile that left you wondering if he was lying to you.
“I mean this show isn’t going to be just a popularity contest, it’s going to be about survival.”
Never looked at Emerson and raised her eyebrows. “How do you mean?”
“Like surviving,” he replied, half laughing. “Staying alive.”
“Sure,” Never said, rolling her eyes.
“Believe me, don’t believe me, it doesn’t matter.”
“And how come you know so much about it, skinny?” Never asked.
“I just do.”
“Whatever,” Never said, turning away from the boy.
“Whatever is right,” the boy said, standing up and brushing dust off his suit jacket, shouldering his backpack. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
He began to walk away.
“Wait,” Emerson called. “If you know something, you should tell us.”
“Why?” the boy said, not turning around. “Once the game starts, we’re not going to be friends. It’s everyone for themselves.”
He walked away then, one hand holding on to the strap of his raggedy backpack, and he stood on the edge of the dock, watching the enormous ship come slowly in, his baggy black trousers rustling in the breeze.
“Weird dude,” Never said.
“Yeah,” Emerson agreed, but she felt unnerved all the same.
Time passed slowly as the docks filled with young contestants. Most of the kids who showed up were Burrowers with torn clothing and emaciated faces, but there were some Topsiders too.
When 5:30 a.m. came around, it became clear that the “boat” they would be boarding was the enormous cruise ship that was being stocked up by drones and automatons.
The ship was gargantuan. When it had come to a vertigo-inducing stop beside the silent crowd of fifty or so young contestants, Emerson felt dwarfed by it, almost scared of it. It was at least five hundred feet tall and so long that Emerson couldn’t see the far side from where she stood near the bow.
“It’s … big, ain’t it?” Never said as she walked up beside Emerson.
Emerson nodded. “It’s pretty big, yeah.”
“Can’t believe this is for us.”
Emerson nodded again. Despite the looming specter of the show, despite the possibility of life imprisonment, she could not help but be excited at the prospect of boarding this colossal ship, of sailing out into the open water for the first time in her life.
“Hi, my name is Tiger, and I’m thirteen years old, and I like singing, and I like collecting traditional board games like antique Scrabble sets and things. What’s your name?”
Emerson and Never turned around at the sound of the machine-gun-like speech of the little blonde Topsider with her hair in uneven braids who had sidled silently up to them.
“She talking to us?” Never asked.
“I think so,” Emerson replied, and then spoke to Tiger. “Hi, Tiger, I’m Emerson and this is Never-Again Jones. Are you a contestant?”
“I also like writing songs too, and I like winter, it’s my favorite season.”
“She all right?” Never asked out of the side of her mouth.
“Yeah, she’s fine,” Emerson said, and crouched down to speak with Tiger. “You nervous, Tiger?”
Tiger pushed her thick glasses up her nose, made brief eye contact with Emerson, and then nodded. This simple act of acknowledging her dread caused her to burst into floods of tears.
“Oh … shoot,” Emerson said, and gave a clench-jawed look of what do I do?! to Never, who only gave a wide-eyed shrug in return. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” Emerson said, patting the young girl stiffly on the back.
“Can someone shut her up?” A harsh male voice came from somewhere among the group, who had now all gathered close to the docked ship as crates were moved in through enormous bay doors.
“Ignore him,” Emerson said, and for some reason this caused the girl to wrap her arms around Emerson and hug her fiercely. “All right,” Emerson said, and hugged the girl back.
“I like content creators too,” Tiger whispered through her tears. “I was trying to build a channel about singing and writing songs before … before I got chosen for this show.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of songs do you write?”
“Rock songs, and country.”
“Cool,” Emerson said, and then asked the question that had been on her mind since she had first laid eyes on the young girl. “Why are you here?” Emerson pulled away from the hug, but still held the younger girl by the shoulders.
There was a short silence.
“Murder,” Tiger replied, and a dead-eyed look of nonchalance came over her.
“Oh,” Emerson replied, and looked around for Never, but she was already talking to someone else.
“Just kidding!” Tiger exploded with glee. “It was just boring old forgery!”
Emery felt a bewildering mix of relief and confusion but couldn’t help laughing. “Right,” she said, putting a hand to her beating heart.
“Yeah, I got a loan of six Eyes-On-Cassidy coins by using some rich old guy’s biometrics. So, I guess it was identity theft too.”
“Eyes-On-Cassidy, has he still got the most followers?”
“Nah, it’s Prisha Reddy now. Cassidy has fallen way down, which is why it was so easy to trick his finance team.”
“And they were going to send you to jail for that?”
“Well, it wasn’t the first time I’d done it.”
“Why did you do it? You’re a Topsider, right?” Emerson looked down at her neatly pressed clothes. “You don’t need the money.”
Tiger thought about it for a while. “It’s definitely psychological. Maybe I was trying to get my parents’ attention or something? I mean, my younger sisters—they’re identical twins—they’re super popular and have like two hundred thousand followers, so … yeah, it’s probably that.”
Emerson blinked at the oddly mature diagnosis. “Wow, okay,” she said, but before she could ask any further questions, a booming voice echoed out from speakers on the deck of the vast and luxurious ship.
“Contestants of the inaugural Retribution Island, prepare to embark. Form an orderly queue at bulkhead door one. Thank you.”
“Retribution Island, that’s the name of the show?” Emerson said, not really talking to anyone.
“That’s what they’re calling it,” the skinny boy with the backpack replied, walking past. He was the only one who seemed to know where he was going.
A shiver went through her as she joined the line.
Emerson took one last look up at the ship and felt as though it might swallow her whole.
“47?” Never said, looking down at the numerals that had been burned onto the inside of her wrist by a laser as she had boarded. “I was the last to board, so why aren’t I number 50?”
“I’m struggling to keep up,” a boy with a gap in his front teeth said. “You were last to board, but you’re only number 47? What does that mean?”
They sat around a pool on the top deck of the cruise ship. Forty-seven kids whose ages ranged from about twelve to about eighteen. They had boarded through a bulkhead door one at a time while each of them had their number burned into their wrists by a drone with a laser.
It hurt like hell.
Emerson looked at her number—16, the same as her age—and tried to ignore the itching pain there.
After she had been branded, Emerson had walked into an immense entrance hall with a sparkling chandelier hanging down above a polished wooden staircase that curved upward. Two glass elevators flanked either side of the staircase, climbing up and up through the center of the ship.
Once all the contestants were branded and inside the boat, the bulkhead door had slammed shut. Screens had come on all around them, with arrows pointing to the staircase. They had all hesitated except for the boy with the backpack, his branded number 1 still an angry red color. He had shrugged and walked confidently up the stairs. Emerson had followed, and then the entire crowd had begun climbing the staircase.
