Authors: Stuart Keane
Delta pushed a button on his keyboard. His archives appeared on his monitor screen, replacing the live feed of The Game. He adjusted the screen so he could view both panes. Now he could see The Game whilst he trawled back through the archives.
He started to scroll down, searching back through them. Meanwhile Kieran and Heather made their way through the loading bay doors.
THIRTY
“What do you mean, there’s no control? How are we on our own?”
Kathryn was perplexed. Iain loaded his weapon. They were still perched behind the tables, ten minutes after their arrival in the room. They had remained silent for much of this time, taking in the sounds and feel of the space before them. They were anxious not to alert the enemy to their presence, and so far they hadn’t heard any sounds of pursuit or footsteps.
Regardless of this, Kathryn knew that they couldn’t escape their prison, at least not yet. To do so they needed to be on the fourth floor, and without using the lifts, that wasn’t going to happen. Deep down, she knew her pursuers knew this too, which would explain the lack of urgency to chase them. They could hunt around this building all night long and still eventually find her, or rather, them. Iain and Kathryn were seriously outgunned and outmanned. It would take some clever thinking to survive. Kathryn hoped that Iain knew as much about this place as possible.
Iain continued to explain: “The control is the Chronicle. They have the final decision on everything. The type of guns to be used, the colour of the walls, if and when certain people attack you, in fact, everything that happens in their part of The Game. However, The Game has three rules that can’t be broken. You cannot kill your Choice too quickly. The aim is to entertain, so they break The Game into phases. Each phase increases the intensity of danger, but killing your Choice – in this case, you – is a no-no. They can torture you, shoot at you, hassle you in any way they wish – but they aren’t allowed to kill you. The second rule is that after Phase Five all bets are off. This is when they
can
kill you. Only then can the Chronicle pile on the pressure, it’s basically sudden death. At that point in The Game, whoever is left is permitted to kill you as quickly as possible. This phase normally takes days to reach, though. And most people do survive up to this point. Now—”
“—You said there are three rules? What’s the third?”
“Well, the third rule is this. You can’t, under any circumstances, go into The Game yourself. Meaning that The Chronicle is not allowed to enter The Game personally and confront their Choice. The only way you can do this is if the Choice requests it. Or if Phase Five is in effect and you just want to make your Choice suffer for the fun of it. The problem is, if the Chronicle does enter into The Game, then he
has
to kill the Choice. Otherwise it’s an instant loss. The rules are a bit strange, but they’re made mainly for the sponsors’ benefit. If people are pumping in millions of dollars, they want their money’s worth.”
“I see. Some of the rules seem stupid in one way, but it makes sense though. If I was paying money to see this kind of spectacle, I would want to get the most out of it.”
“Anyway,” Iain continued, “because of these rules, the people sent into The Game are restricted by an oath. Part of it means that the people we just ran into are not allowed to kill you. The fact that they fired those automatic weapons indicated two things to me. One: they don’t have anyone giving those orders anymore, and all bets are off. And two: they are not getting paid so they know that their time in The Game is up, for this episode anyway. Which means that they have free rein to do whatever they want. Which is pretty bad for us.”
“Great. This is going to be a fun night.”
“You don’t know the half of it. When I played The Game before, I used Sputnik. He’s an outright savage. A Chronicle’s wet dream. He will do whatever you tell him, and he has absolutely no scruples or reservations, which makes him a dangerous man. You can only imagine what he is capable of without his puppet master.”
Kathryn bit her lip. “That’s not good. You said that you know the way out? Or do you know some way to get out of this place?”
Iain nodded. “I do. First, you have to get out of here. When you get down to the street, you should notice the theatre nearby. You can’t miss it, there are bright red neon lights.”
“Yep, I saw it on the way in. It’s straight in front of this building.”
“That’s the place. Anyway, next you head past the theatre, turn right, and carry on up that road. That takes you to the outside wall – that’s the end of the built-up area. It’s a long straight road, about ten minutes’ walk. Do you know the layout of this area? I imagine that it’s just your office building interior that they replicated, it could hardly be the whole street.”
“I’ve never seen this street before,” Kathryn replied. “This building yes, the street no. We can find our way though, it shouldn’t be hard. If we can use this building to take those fuckers out, we should be home and dry. It will take some work, though.”
“We should be fine. But underestimating these guys could get us killed. Remember, there's no one to call them off, so if we go to war, it’s them or us. We only have one pistol. We must try to avoid them and get out quietly—”
“—The lifts take us to the fourth floor,” Kathryn interrupted. “Up there is a fire exit that takes you across the roof and down the other side of the building via a fire escape. If we can get up there, we're home free. As you said yourself, Iain, there's no control. If we can get past these guys without being seen, they won’t be able to call reinforcements.”
Iain agreed. “It sounds like a plan. One thing: Phase Four. We haven’t seen it yet. It could be anything. Phase Three was all of the guys at once, that’s what I believe anyway. However, when the guy went ‘all in’ that could mean anything might happen. Getting out of here will be a big step, but just don’t expect it to be easy. There could be more foes on the outside.”
Kathryn smiled. “Nothing is ever easy. So what’s the first port of call?”
Iain didn’t respond. He nodded forwards. “Looks like fate has decided this for us.”
Kathryn gazed ahead. Boyd emerged from the door in front of them, but he hadn’t spotted them yet. In unison, Iain and Kathryn ducked behind their cover. Boyd was limping, wincing as he moved, and he was sweating. He had wrapped a dirty rag around the wound in his leg. Blood had soaked it, turning it a pinky brown colour. His greasy hair was hanging, unkempt, and fell across his face, he kept batting it out of his eyes with the back of his hand. Once, it even looked as if he was trying to tuck it behind his missing ear. His knife was in his waistband and he was muttering to himself.
“Where are ya? Ruin my leg, will ya? When I get my hands on ya, you’ll be
dead meat
!”
Boyd turned his back to them. Iain leant over and whispered to Kathryn, “We need to do this quietly. If we alert them all that we’re on this floor, we’ll be cornered. We need a big enough distraction to allow us to get into the lift without being seen.”
“So that’s the gun out of the equation,” Kathryn replied.
Iain looked across at Boyd. He was heading further into the room, away from them. Iain noticed a number of desks between them and Boyd that might provide cover. “Kathryn, follow me. Keep low and be quiet.”
Iain moved behind Kathryn and they went behind the next desk. The office’s furniture was arranged so as to form a series of L shapes, thus allowing Iain and Kathryn to cross the room without being seen. Iain moved along behind one of the desks. Staring ahead, Iain calculated that he’d be able to make it halfway across the room, and Boyd would not know. After a few seconds, he moved behind the next desk. He was slowly inching towards Boyd, the desks providing excellent cover, and silence was guaranteed, because the carpet muffled his approach.
Kathryn caught on to what he was doing and followed suit, crouching and following on behind her new friend. Boyd was slowly moving further into the room, then he stopped to survey the situation. As he turned, he was rubbing his chin, as if it was still painful from when he’d crashed into the desk earlier on. Kathryn smiled, remembering the incident once again.
Iain grabbed a stationery organiser from the desk beside him. He took the pens out and laid them on the ground, then peeked over the edge of the desk and watched his enemy. Boyd still had his back to them, and Iain was hiding behind the last of the desks. Where the other man was standing, there was plenty of space beside him, enough for an ambush. But if he moved, he would be in plain sight of Boyd. Watching his foe, Iain held the organiser in his hand and took aim. He looked at Kathryn and whispered: “One. . . Two. . . On the noise, you move with me.”
Iain threw his makeshift missile. It flew across the room, behind the couple, and bounced off the wall, making a loud clunking noise. Iain crouched down and watched for Boyd’s reaction. The man spun round immediately, turning towards the noise. He smiled and licked his lips. He pulled his knife from his belt and moved towards the other side of the room. Iain crossed into the space where the other man had been standing, and Kathryn followed. Iain raced forward, no longer trying to hide, heading straight for the lifts.
They made good progress until Kathryn knocked over a lamp, her foot catching the cable protruding from under a desk. She was only aware of a tug on her ankle, as the reading lamp was dragged sideways, toppled off the desk, and fell to the floor. There was a loud crash as the lamp’s heavy china base smashed as it hit the floor.
“Shit!” Kathryn’s yell was instinctive.
Boyd turned around. Kathryn and Iain were caught in full view of their potential killer. Boyd licked his lips again. “My. I’m gonna have fun with your arse, little lady – all this chasing is turnin’ me on, yeah!”
Boyd bounced athletically towards them, his knife was held up at a deadly angle. He was stabbing the air with it, anticipating sinking it into hot flesh. For a few seconds Kathryn and Iain merely watched the ludicrous performance.
He was nearing them when Kathryn grabbed a chair beside her and pushed it towards the enraged knifeman. Unable to stop in time, Boyd’s momentum carried him forwards, so that he tripped and landed with his knees on the chair’s seat, careering along on the chair’s castors. Then his badly balanced weight caused the chair to overbalance, tipping him off as he lurched forward. Instinctively pushing his hands forward to protect himself when he crashed forward into the ground, the knife he was holding had been forgotten.
At the point of impact, his knife had been forced back against his neck, its blade sinking deep. Nothing happened for a second. Then blood started to spray outwards. As he rolled sideways, the crimson liquid spurted down his front, staining his chest and shorts. His eyes bulged. Gurgling noises came from Boyd’s mouth.
The injured man tried to pull the razor-sharp blade free, but its point had entered his throat at an obtuse angle. Now crouched on all fours, Boyd attempted to use the chair to pull himself upright. But as he reached out his hand, fumbling blindly, he missed the chair’s back rest and fell forward once more. As he did so, he landed face first and the end of the knife’s handle struck the chair’s seat, and was driven even more deeply into his neck. A fountaining spurt of blood swept upwards, coating the desk beside him. Boyd’s dying body started to twitch in its death throes. He tried rolling over, but didn’t have the strength. His arms flailed helplessly as he died face down on top of the chair that had killed him. After a few seconds, his body stopped twitching. Then all was still.
Iain and Kathryn looked on in shock, relieved at their good fortune. Overall the whole incident had only taken a minute. Luckily there hadn’t been much noise, and already blood was pooling on the carpet, litres of it, soaking into the deep pile.
Iain grabbed Kathryn by the arm. “We should go. It won’t take long for the others to realise he is missing.”
Kathryn agreed. This was their one chance to get to the roof. Kathryn followed Iain around the corner, and Iain stopped outside the lifts. After a second, he pushed the call button. The silver circle lit up red. Kathryn noticed the numbers were descending from four to three: the lift would arrive in several seconds.
“Iain,” she said, worried now. “It’s going to make a noise when it arrives. At work no one even notices the noise of its arrival because there’s so much other background sound. But in this building it will be heard. So be prepared to run in and hit the ‘four’ button. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Kathryn edged towards the stairs. She looked down them and listened intently. She couldn’t hear anything. Looking ahead she could see Boyd’s dead legs partially in view through the doorway. Even from here, she could see the splattering of blood everywhere. She couldn’t see any movement from below.
One down,
she thought,
but three to go.
DING.
Kathryn turned and leapt through the doors, closely followed by Iain, who pushed the ‘four’ button. The doors didn’t close. Agonising seconds passed as the door remained open. Iain hammered the button with his thumb. As it started closing, a huge arm reached through and the fingers grabbed Kathryn by the hair, yanking hard.
“Argh! Get the fuck off me!”
The hand was pulling Kathryn towards the door, which wouldn’t close because the arm was blocking it. Kathryn’s head smashed into the metal door as he jerked her towards him, and her rucksack became entangled in the door, jamming it open even more. The automatic safety mechanism rolled the door fully open, while Iain frantically pressed the ‘close door’ button, but to no avail: the muscular arm was precluding closure. Pulled along like a rag doll, Kathryn’s head was smashed into the door time and time again. Despite Kathryn digging her sharp nails into the enemy’s relentlessly gripping hand, no way could she get him to let go. Kathryn’s head felt as if it would split apart, as her hair was being torn from her scalp.