The Kill Factor, page 7
“No one pushed me,” he said. “I fell.”
Emerson could barely see the Producer for the glare of the light. He was merely a silhouette rising and falling with the swells of the water, and yet she knew he didn’t believe Teller.
“It seems our friend Mr. Sanderson hit his head on the way down. What about you, Ms. Ness? Did you see who is to blame for this? Bear in mind, lying to me could result in your dismissal, and perhaps I already know the truth of this matter; perhaps this is a test. Think on that, and answer carefully.”
Emerson was cold, too cold to think straight. The Producer’s personality seemed to have flipped altogether. She did not know why Teller had protected Kodi. She tried to figure it out, tried to deliberate, but her brain wouldn’t work. Until the moment she opened her mouth, she did not know what she was going to say.
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Yes, you did, Ms. Ness. Now, tell me,” the Producer demanded.
“Really, I didn’t see what happened. I saw Teller in the water, and I dove in. If he was pushed, I didn’t see who did it.”
No one spoke for a long time. More lightning cracked down, and for a fraction of a second, the face of the Producer was illuminated in an evil mask of contorted anger.
“I think you’re both lying, and for your dishonesty, you shall both receive a punishment. You will find out what the punishment is once we arrive at our location,” the Producer said, and then the boat began to move slowly toward them.
“Climb aboard,” the Producer called out.
It was ten p.m. when Emerson finally stopped shaking.
She had been out of the water for two hours, checked over by medical drones, and sent to her room, where she had taken a long shower.
She sat on her bed and allowed a thought into her mind that she had buried ever since Agent Dern had spoken to her in the interrogation room. She thought about Mr. Marvin Tzu, the man who had died in the school. She had recognized his face as soon as the officer had set the picture down in front of her. She’d known his name before the agent had said it out loud.
Without warning, she burst into tears. She cried until her body was convulsing and her throat hurt. She thought about the poor man, a janitor who had just been doing his job. She thought about the possibility that he had a family. She thought about the fear he must have felt when he knew he wasn’t going to get out alive.
And it’s all your fault, she told herself. Maybe you should’ve died in the ocean. Maybe that’s what you deserve.
“No!” she said. “No, it is not your fault! It is not your fault! The fire was not your fault!” She spoke the words aloud, using their power to begin burying the man’s name once more, burying the emotions that sparked inside her when she thought about him. Burying the truth.
Emerson looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot. The tears had left streaks down her face. She took three deep breaths, letting them out slowly, and was beginning to get ahold of herself when an announcement came over the ship’s speaker system.
“All contestants, please meet in the dining hall in fifteen minutes. All contestants, dining hall, fifteen minutes.”
Emerson sighed. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and be still. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but just to lie still and let her mind drift away, to think of nothing at all, would be a kind of bliss.
There was a sudden rush of panic inside her, and she ran to the bathroom where her soaked clothes lay on the floor. She picked up her jeans and dug her hand into the back pocket. It was still there: the bottle cap. It was still there. Emerson didn’t know why it meant so much to her.
Emerson walked over to the bed, where the backpack filled with her new clothes from the Infinity Suite lay, and she took out a brand-new pair of jeans, underwear, a dark green T-shirt, and black boots.
When she was fully dressed, bottle cap in her back pocket, Emerson looked at herself in the mirror and tried to ignore the faraway look in her own eyes. She put a smile on her face, and then let it fall away.
“Okay,” she said to her reflection. “Let’s go.”
On the short walk to the dining hall, Emerson saw numbers 48, 49, and 50: two boys and a girl, all around fourteen years old, walking hand in hand, looking shell-shocked by their sudden change in circumstances. She could hear 38, Vintage Patel, telling whoever would listen that the average human blinks ten million times every year. She saw the boy with the gap in his teeth who had been talking to Never on the top deck just after they had boarded. She ended up walking behind her cabinmate, number 33, whose name she didn’t even know yet.
As soon as she got into the large, dimly lit dining hall, surrounded by circular windows that showed raging waves and pouring rain, she looked around, searching for Never and Tiger, but instead her eyes fell upon Kodi, who was now dressed in a brand-new suit. The suit still didn’t fit properly, but somehow it worked for him that way. He was leaning against a wall, arms crossed. His lip had been split by Levi and had already begun to scab over as he scowled into the darkness.
Emerson felt a moment of anger and resentment as she stared at him. He was reckless and stupid and he hadn’t cared when Teller went overboard. If Teller hadn’t been so … so forgiving, so altruistic, Kodi would be gone, sent home to face the courts for whatever he had done to end up on this ship. She found herself wishing he was gone.
Kodi seemed to sense he was being watched, and he looked at Emerson. She held his gaze for a moment and then looked away.
“Hey, Em!” a voice called out, and Emerson spotted Tiger waving, sitting beside Never at a big round table. She joined them, sliding in beside Tiger.
“Where have you been?” Never asked. “I heard there was a fight on the top deck. Did you see it?”
“Uh, no,” Emerson said, not wanting to talk about all that had happened in the last few hours. “I was just in my room.”
Emerson saw Teller sitting at a table with two other people. He was talking to them and laughing along with their jokes, but Emerson could see that same look of vacancy in his eyes that she had seen when looking in the mirror.
“What do you think this is about?” Tiger asked, looking around the big room with its enormous plant pots with full-sized palm trees growing out of them.
“I don’t know,” Emerson replied.
At the table beside them, a group of five boys were whispering. Never leaned over and got the attention of one of them. “Hey, Jorgensen,” she called. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said. He had a scar that curled around his left ear and over and through his eyebrow, stopping just short of his eye. “Alfonso thinks the first game is going to be on the boat. He thinks the show starts tonight.”
Emerson looked at the boy named Alfonso, who shrugged as if to say it’s just a guess.
“Hey, Burrower,” a voice said, causing Emerson to turn and face her silver-haired cabinmate. “This isn’t over. I’ll be waiting for you in the room tonight. Count on it.”
Emerson was caught off guard, her mind still foggy from the events of earlier.
“What?” she said uncertainly.
“I said …” 33 started, but didn’t get any further.
“Hey, mind your damn manners!” Never said, standing up and leaning threateningly close to the tall girl. “If I ever hear you speaking to my friend like that again, you’ll find out what it’s like to digest your own teeth!”
The Topsider’s eyes grew wide in a moment of shock and fear.
“Yeah,” Tiger said, standing up too, but this actually made her shorter, as the seat of her chair had been elevating her. “If I find out anything has happened to Em, I’ll … I’ll tell Never!”
“I … I …” the Topsider sputtered.
“What’s your name, girl?” Never demanded.
“It’s … I …”
“It’s a simple question. What is your name?”
“It’s Imelda,” the girl said, her confidence drained.
“Well, Imelda, it’s not nice to go around threatening people, is it?” Never said, leaning even closer, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
“She … she stole my stuff!” Imelda muttered.
“If you don’t get the hell out of here right now, I’m gonna eat everything you own and make you watch me do it.”
The Topsider nodded, her silver hair bouncing and then falling back into place. She turned and walked away, sitting at an empty table on the other side of the room.
“Eat everything you own?” Emerson repeated, a smile spreading across her face.
“Yeah, I don’t know where the hell that came from,” Never admitted, and all three of them burst into fits of laughter.
It took another five minutes for all fifty contestants to make it into the dining hall, but once everyone was inside, the doors slammed shut, and the Producer walked into the center of the room.
“Contestants of the first-ever season of Retribution Island, please, raise a glass, for when you next wake up, the competition begins.”
Fifty-one drones, each carrying a flute of champagne, flew out of nowhere and hovered in front of each contestant and the Producer.
Hesitantly, each contestant looked at the tall, thin glass with bubbling liquid inside.
“It’s okay,” the Producer said, smiling widely at everyone. “I know you’re all underage, but it’s just one glass, and it’s a celebration.”
Never was the first to take the glass, holding it by the rounded top and smelling it. Emerson took hers, and—for no reason at all—looked over at Kodi, who was pouring his champagne into a nearby potted plant.
“To each and every one of you,” the Producer said, holding his glass aloft. “And to your freedom.”
He held the glass to his lips, and drank it all in one go.
“Ah, what the hell,” Never said, and drank hers. Emerson shrugged, and poured the champagne into her mouth. She had never tried champagne before. It was sharp, almost sour, like green apples. The bubbles were intense. It was nice.
Emerson watched as Tiger’s face screwed up at the taste. “Gross,” she said, and pushed her glasses up her nose.
“And now, the truth,” the Producer said, the smile gone from his face.
Emerson put her empty glass down on the table in front of her. The drone took it and flew away.
“Truth?” Never repeated.
“As I said, the games begin when you next wake up,” the Producer continued. “And at that time, it is your job to gain followers and win tasks, but it is also your job to stay alive.”
The room suddenly felt hot, as though the boat had sailed out of the storm and into a tropical climate.
Emerson had heard the words coming out of the Producer’s mouth but did not fully register them. A shocked silence tore around the room. Friends shared disbelieving glances; nervous smiles formed on the faces of the more skeptical contestants.
… it is also your job to stay alive. That was what he had said. Emerson looked back to Kodi, who had told them before they had boarded this ship that this show wasn’t just a popularity contest. It was about survival. She noticed that, while everyone else’s champagne drone had disappeared, the one hovering beside Kodi was still there.
“That’s right,” the Producer continued, seeming to reply directly to the stunned silence. “I asked you a question earlier: I asked, how do we get people to tune in when every format has been done before and there’s nothing new under the sun? The answer is, you find a way to make it real, to make the emotion authentic, the desperation to win genuine. Everything I have told you about the games is true. You will require the most followers to win. You will need to win games to stay out of the public vote. The only thing I failed to tell you is that we cannot … will not guarantee your safety or survival. The emotions will be real because you will be fighting for your lives.”
Emerson’s heart was hammering in her chest now. Her breath was heavy. She watched as Kodi’s drone produced a hypodermic needle and injected him with something.
Emerson got to her feet and ran over to him. “You were right!” she said. “You were right, they’re going to … they’re going to …”
She felt herself growing drowsy. People were falling all around her. The champagne. It had been drugged. Of course it had. She looked around and saw the girl from the mall who had been pretending to film herself slump forward on her table. She saw the boy named Skiba with the blocked nose try to stand up but then fall forward onto his face, lying still on the floor. She saw Tiger sprawled out on the bench of the booth she had been sitting at.
“What do we … what do we do?” Emerson asked.
Kodi’s eyes were fighting to stay focused. “I think … I think the Producer is the only other person on this ship. If we can … if we can get to him now, maybe we can overpower him … maybe we can …”
But that was all the boy in the suit could manage. He fell, sliding down the wall, his legs buckling.
Emerson turned to the Producer, who stood in the center of the chaos, smiling with his mouth but not with his eyes. No, in his eyes there was only malice.
She walked over to him, feeling the effects of the sedative trying to take over.
“You,” she managed, swaying on her feet.
“Ah, Ms. Ness,” he said, “I’m so glad you changed your mind back in the interrogation room. Can you believe that was only two days ago? Baffling how time flies, isn’t it?”
Emerson knew she was too weak to do anything but speak. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell everyone watching what you’re doing.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he replied, wagging a finger at her. “That would be breaking the rules, and you would be punished accordingly. Besides, the show is pretaped and edited. We’d simply cut it out of the final broadcast.”
“I’ll find a way,” Emerson said, but she was no longer aware of what she was doing. The world was growing dark. The last thing she was conscious of, as the muscles in her legs gave way, was the sound of the Producer laughing.
She was inside the school as it burned.
The dream was senseless, and yet, while Emerson was in it, she understood it completely.
In the real world, she had broken into the school through the common room window, smashing a pane of glass and carefully removing the remaining shards, but in the dream, she had crawled headfirst down a chimney and into the science room (which didn’t have a chimney in real life).
Three people had been huddled around the gas taps at the center of one of the tables: Mr. Abernethy, her high school science teacher; Claire Tavernier, the girl who used to mercilessly bully her; and Travis Chalk, who had found her old Content-Plus channel and shown all her old videos to the whole school. They were switching the gas on and off, striking matches near the flammable vapor.
“Hey, don’t do that,” Emerson had said, her voice echoing in the dream world.
All three looked up at her. She took two steps back, the soot from the chimney falling like black sugar from her clothing. The gang of three laughed, and then Mr. Abernethy struck another match. This time the gas caught. A bright orange flame shot across the room.
“No, no, no, don’t do that!” Emerson said, a sudden burst of fear exploding inside her. “Don’t do that, someone’s going to die!”
But the three people from her past only continued to laugh until champagne began to spill out of their mouths, and they dissolved into a sparkling puddle of bubbles right in front of her.
Emerson ran over to the gas tap and tried to spin the valve that would shut it off, but it refused to move. She looked up and saw a figure standing in the doorway, watching her. A memory sparked—one that echoed through to her half-awake brain: Had there been someone else in the school that night?
“Emerson!” A voice from nowhere screamed out her name, her dad’s voice.
Emerson ran out of the science department, trying to get a closer look at the figure in the doorway, but it evaporated into smoke. She took one last look back at the deadly flame that had turned from yellow to green. As she stepped out into the corridor, she was no longer in the school, but on the deck of the enormous cruise ship known as the Calypso. Her dad stood, his knuckles white as they gripped the guardrail.
“What is it?” Emerson asked.
Her father took one hand off the rail and pointed to the violent ocean waves below. “It’s Kester! Your brother, he’s drowning!”
Emerson saw her brother’s arms flailing in the water; she saw him come to the surface, gasping for air and then sinking beneath the water once more.
“Save him!” Emerson screamed at her smiling father.
“Wait!” he said. “Just let me get my footage first.”
And when Emerson looked back, she saw three camera drones hovering around her struggling brother.
“Will you please just help him!” Emerson begged.
“I can’t save him,” her dad said, only it was no longer her dad, it was Never, who was looking at Emerson with regret in her eyes. “I can’t swim.”
“You can’t save him either,” Teller said as he stood beside Emerson and looked out at the stormy sea.
“Yes, I can,” Emerson said, trying to climb up onto the rail so that she could jump overboard and reach her brother, but her hands wouldn’t move from the rail. She looked down and saw that they were handcuffed.
“You’re impulsive, aren’t you, Ms. Ness?” a voice asked from behind her. Emerson craned her neck and saw Agent Dern standing there, her arms crossed over her chest, the hint of a victorious smile on her face. “You don’t think before you speak, and you don’t think before you act. That’s why you burned the school to the ground, isn’t it? That’s why Marvin Tzu is dead. He was just doing his job, Emerson.”
Emerson tried to put her hands over her ears, but the chains rattled against the rails and her arms were forced to halt in front of her face.
She looked back to the ocean, panic now welling up in her. Someone had to save Kester, someone had to … the water had turned into millions of bags. Luggage of all shapes and sizes: suitcases, backpacks, garment bags, duffel bags. And from all of them spilled the incredible, beautiful clothes from the Infinity Suite.
