Authors: Cameron Jace
“The only problem is that there are eleven of you, and only ten numbers on the wheel,” says Timmy. “The audience has the right to spare one of you from this part of today’s game.”
This hasn’t happened before. The audience’s vote has never been taken into consideration.
The screen shows the votes. With the iAm, you can get results within seconds. The screen shows that the crowd has favored Leo.
“Zambo, the crowd’s favorite, will be spared,” says Timmy. “So let’s play. Let’s start with Pepper.”
I have a bad feeling about this numbering thing. Leo looks puzzled. We all do. What kind of crazy game is this? How much does this setting cost?
Pepper places her palm on the blue jelly. She doesn’t hesitate a bit. Sometimes I forget that she has a death wish. Dame Fortuna gives the wheel a slight push.
I could have imagined anything when Dame Fortuna pushes the wheel like the blonde host you see in lottery shows.
Anything.
All but what I am actually seeing.
How do they do something like that?
I can’t believe my eyes.
When the wheel turns, the seasons change.
Wheel of Fortune
“Boys and girls.” Timmy jumps up and down on his couch. “May I present to you Artificial Sky and the Wheel of Fortune.”
The cameras show Prophet Xitler in his Royal Tower, with Eliza Day and a bunch of senators next to him, clapping hands enthusiastically.
“I have experienced Instant-CGI,” continues Timmy. “I heard about weekends on the moon. I have seen the most breathtaking visual effects. But this?” He keeps jumping. “This is what you have never ever dreamed of. Artificial Skyyyyy.”
Every time the Wheel of Fortune rolls, seasons change. I mean it.
Dame Fortuna pushes the wheel for the first time.
The first change is from the sunny morning to autumn.
I am standing open-mouthed, unable to express my excitement.
The wheel keeps turning. Dame Fortuna gives it another nudge, and the wooden fortune wheel starts to creak its way to the second season…
It’s winter. Nighttime. Freezing cold. My nose is kissed by a slight touch of frost. White snow falls from the sky, lighting up the darkness. Naked trees, frosted leaves, and the snowflakes look like falling stars glittering in the artificial night. My cheeks hurt from the cold. I look at the camera and I see they are rosy. Vern sneezes.
“I can’t believe this,” Orin screams in disgust. “Rabbit hole my—” I can’t hear the rest because of the whirling wind.
“Again!” yells Pepper, sounding euphoric. “Give me spring. I love spring.” I wonder if Pepper has ever thrown snowballs at her friends in winter, chased butterflies in spring, or tanned at the beach in summer. “If this wheel rotates one hundred times, I am going to be a hundred years old, like no one in my family ever got to be.” Pepper spreads her hands in the air. Her stiffly curled hair circles around her, making her look like a witch.
The Wheel of Fortune turns one more time.
It’s spring: warm sunrise, flowers blooming out of the hole. Fresh air, clear sky. Birds are singing around us. There are butterflies fluttering next to pink roses at the edges of the ring.
The camera shows Prophet Xitler clapping. I wonder if it is the same weather wherever he is. I see it’s still summer where he watches the game from. This is only happening here, beyond the rabbit hole.
In one minute, we have experienced three seasons, and now we are back to summer.
The wheel stops, and its cursor settles on a number.
The cursor on the wheel of fortune stops at number three.
Pepper is number three. She shows up on the screen licking jelly off her hand. “It’s actually jelly. It’s delicious,” she says.
Now it is Vern’s turn to be numbered…
“Veeeerrrrrn, let’s tuuurrrrn!” Timmy wouldn’t miss out on such a rhyme.
The rest of us follow, one by one, seasons changing with every number.
Bellona is number nine. Vern is number one — again. Orin is number two.
Leo has immunity from this game’s level. He is the crowd’s favorite, so he doesn’t get a number.
I am last, and I know one number is left for me. I am number ten.
Is that good or bad?
After this is over, we hear the sound of buzzing machines from our balconies. A bow gun appears, attached to every balcony. Mine is set high enough that I can easily pull the trigger from where I stand. Orin is the first to reach for his gun. He points his gun at me and pulls the trigger.
What?
Why does he want to kill me?
Nothing happens. I reach for my bow gun and try it. It can swivel over a rotating base so you can choose your target. The trigger is locked. That’s why Orin couldn’t shoot me.
Timmy is the only one who can unlock the trigger.
Woo taught me how to use bow guns. How is this possible? Did Woo spend his life teaching me how to win the game?
“Is that it?” Bellona protests. “Are we going to end up shooting each other in this game?”
“This is brutal. You can’t do this.” Even Pepper, with her death wish, doesn’t approve of such cruelty.
“Who are these people?” Vern looks up at the huge iScreens around us. “What have we done? Why are they so happy killing us? I just played computer games, for God’s sake.”
A box with a round red button on it rises mechanically from the metal balcony. It is covered with dust and spider webs. I clean it with my free hand.
“So what are the numbers for?” asks Leo.
“Cool down, Zambo,” says Timmy. “I will explain in a minute.”
“All set, boys and girls,” says Timmy. “Before we play today’s fantastic game, and for the first time in history, we are happy to announce your UCP, Up Close and Personal tickets.”
An orchestral piece of music is played with marching drums somewhere. This is not a death game. This is a carnival of silliness. This is a circus of the damned. Hallucinations from the other side. The dark side of the loon.
We hear the drone of approaching airplanes. They roar in the air above us.
It’s the Zeppelins.
A New kind of Zeppelins I have never seen before, with power engines and glass balconies you can actually open. They are flying a little too low and getting closer, right above and around us. Everywhere. The game is going to be watched, not just on live TV, not just in real-time, but up close and personal, as if we are monkeys in a zoo.
Four million national viewers are watching. One hundred thousand UCP tickets are sold instantly for tomorrow’s show. This means we won’t die today. Not all of us. I remind myself of Bellona’s words. They need us. We are the monkeys. We are the Monsters.
“Now that we’re ready, let’s play,” says Timmy.
“Catch the kiss or die, Thor,” Bellona mumbles.
“I want to show you something, Decca,” says Timmy in the microphone. Why is he addressing me? “I want you to stay very calm when I show you this, because the first part of the game is about you.”
Why about me? I try not to look surprised. What’s going on?
“I want you to look at this.” He pushes a button. There is a new video being broadcast on the iAm. It’s showing on the iScreens everywhere.
The broadcast shows a woman who wants to talk to me.
It’s my mom.
Shoot Me Shoot Me Say that You’ll Shoot Me
My mom sits, talking into the camera. I can’t tell where she is, but it is a live feed.
“Hi, baby,” she says eagerly. She looks like she’s been crying.
“Hi, Mom. Are you all right?” I don’t need to count down from five to let the fear in and breathe it out. I have no fear. I am going to stay strong.
“I am,” she says. She is lying.
“How’s my brother, my—”
“Everyone will be okay.” She wipes tears from her eyes. “If you do as they say. If you play the game.”
Transmission is fading.
“Mom!” I want to jump out of the balcony, but I am buckled in from my waist up.
“We love you, baby,” she says lastly, hiding somewhere beyond the transmission’s waves.
Is that the last time I’ll hear from my mom? I turn to one of the flying cameras. “What do you want, Timmy?” I shout.
“Me not want anything, dear.” Timmy puts a hand over his heart. “The audience wants.”
“I am listening,” I say. “If I play the game, will you let my parents be?”
“Hey,” Timmy protests. “I am not the bad guy here. I am just a messenger.” The audience goes into an instant silence. What did Timmy just say? Did he call the audience bad? Was it a slip of the tongue? Those watching us all over the world think that we are the bad ones, the Bad Kidz, the irresponsible brats who will cause this nation to fall. They think they are good, but Timmy knows different. He knows that we are the good guys, and that they aren’t necessarily the bad guys. That they are brainwashed.
“What?” Timmy raises an eyebrow at the sudden silence. The iScreen shifts to Prophet Xitler, looking angry. “It’s good to be bad, isn’t it?” Timmy tries to force a chuckle. A few among the crowd breathe out in relief, but millions are still silent and angry with him. Timmy disappears from the screen.
He appears again within seconds, sitting on an oversized couch in a fun house, playing a video game, wearing a bandana that says, ‘It’s good to be bad when you’re dealing with the bad.’ He pushes buttons and kills zombies, vampires, and all kinds of real monsters in a huge TV screen. The audience starts to laugh. Then the monsters start to walk out of the screen at him, their faces changing into our faces. He keeps shooting, and we start to die, looking for brains. The audience laughs harder. Prophet Xitler laughs. The camera closes on him as he says, “It’s good to be bad.”
Timmy is forgiven. That’s what the crowd wants you to be: a clown. Although the incident has passed, I wonder how they will sleep at night.
“So back to you, Princess Decca,” says Timmy, sweating. “I promise you if you play the next game, I’ll let your mother go free.”
“No. That’s not enough,” I bite back. If I am going to risk my life for my family, I want the best for them. The best.
The audience makes a worrying sound, as if offended. I see them in the Zeppelins, faces plastered to the glass, with widened eyes, their breath sticking humidly to the inside of the windows, looking at me face to face.
They live up there in heaven. I live down here in hell.
“Do you think you’re in a position to bargain?” Timmy wonders.