Darwin's Quest: The Search for the Ultimate Survivor (21 page)

“Mr. Cone, Rebecca here will brief you. Mr. Laurence, if you’ll follow me?”

Günter led me to a small waiting room. “Mr. Laurence, you’ll…”

“Corter,” I interrupted. “Call me Corter.”

He smiled slightly. “Very well, Corter. You’ll be waiting here with Ms. Foster. This room is cammed, so please don’t say anything nor do anything which might give it away that you won. Look pensive, it you can.” He smiled encouragingly. “Don’t worry, though, you’ll be on a seven-second delay, so if you slip up, we’ll catch it and switch feeds.”

“Once the intern signals you, you, and only you come out and walk straight to Mr. Silver. Your mark will be the silver tape to his left. He’s going to announce you, give you the trophy, then ask for your comments. Keep it short, please, if you can. Ms. Foster will come out behind you and congratulate you, then the rest will be free to come on the array. Da-da-da, da-da-da, and we’re done. You’ve got that?”

“Sure, that sounds pretty easy.”

“OK, let’s go walk through it.” He keyed a mic on his collar. “OK, we’re ready.”

He looked back to me. “OK, Mr. Silver is talking. You’re looking pensive. No, Pensive, not constipated!”

He probably used the same line every season, but it worked. I smiled, despite my still smoldering anger.

“OK, that’s better. Now, he’s about to introduce you…and go!”

I walked out the door, looking for Mr. Silver. He wasn’t around. A short girl, even shorter that Ratt, motioned me forward.

Günter stepped beside me. “That’s Mr. Silver, there,” he told me, pointing at the girl. “Go to him.”

I walked down to the girl and saw my silver mark. The girl was grinning, as were the other staff watching.

She lowered her voice in a fake baritone and pronounced, “Corter Laurence, our cutest winner!” The observers broke out in laughter at that.

“Steady! Do you want to have to go through this again?” shouted out Günter. They quieted a bit, but only a bit.

The girl, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty, handed me the trophy. It looked like the actual one, the crystal box standing on one corner, the eternal flame within. It had been designed for the first season when fire was considered to be the most important thing going. When subsequent cast members became experts at making flame and its importance faded, they didn’t want to change the trophy.

“Mr. Silver” asked me in that same fake baritone, “Anything to say to us, Mr. Hottie-tottie?”

I got into the spirit of things. “Well yes. I am a hottie, true. And I’d like to thank all the little people who made this win possible, but to be honest, I can’t think of anyone.” I was still angry, but not at this group of interns and underlings.

They all laughed, and at some unseen signal, the other “cast members” rushed the stage, shaking my hands.

Günter survey the scene. “Well if you are all finished with your little fun, can we get back to work?” He sounded gruff, but a twinkle in his eye belied the truth. Everyone rushed back to their real jobs to be ready for the actual broadcast.

I was feeling happy for a moment, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to hold onto my anger. As we walked back to the ready room, I reached out and stopped Günter. “You know, a lot of the cast, well, we’re pretty angry at being used like we were.”

Günter stopped and looked around, then admitted. “Yes, I know. That isn’t surprising. I shouldn’t tell you this, but many people were against this whole idea from the beginning.”

“Were you? Were you against it?”

I could see the warring emotions inside him. “I can’t really say. But I can say that I do think it was cruel and inconsiderate.”

I knew that was as close to an acknowledgement from him that he wasn’t onboard with it. “But some people pushed it through?”

“Well, at the top, certain people have more pull. Their opinions are like
precious metal
to the producers.”

So it was Baako Silver who had pushed this through, who put us through our misery. I decided to see how far I could take this. “What about the lawsuits. Several of us plan to sue.”

He hesitated. “Look, this was a shitty thing, granted. But they knew some of you would feel this way. And GBC has resources, including the best lawyers, ones who would spit on your little winnings. So they boiled the contract down to the bare minimum. Basically, you agreed to come and bear anything the show threw at you. The show agreed to pay the winner one million unis, and the Viewer’s Choice half-a-million. And they agreed to medically treat all of you for physical injuries. Not mental, so no ‘suffering’ or ‘mental anguish.’ The best lawyers seem to agree that there isn’t much any of you can do.”

“So, I agreed to come on the show, and the show agreed to resurrect me and pay me the prize money.”

“Yea, you could say that.”

“And have I completed my part of the contract?”

“Well, sure. You won.”

“So I could leave right now, just go home, and you’d have to pay me.”

“Yes, but I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“What if I don’t want to hit the talk show circuit? What if I don’t want to promote the next season?”

He seemed perplexed. “I guess you wouldn’t have to do that, but why not? No winner has ever wanted out of that. You get fame, appearance fees…you get the star treatment. All the other winners have lapped it up. Isn’t that why you signed on? To become famous?”

I really wanted the money, but yes, fame had its allure. And yes, I wanted to be seen as a success. “I don’t know. And could I refuse the money?”

Now he really seemed lost. “The money is yours. It will go into the account you gave us. Heck, it’s probably there already. I guess you could give it all away, but why?”

“Why? Maybe just to show the Baako Silvers of the world that not everyone can be bought. That you can’t treat everyone like shit.”

“But you can be bought. You signed the contract on the mere hope you would get paid. And despite what you think, he did succeed in treating you like shit.” He paused and looked at me, a worried expression on his face. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you? I never should have said anything.”

I forced a smile. “Don’t worry Günter, I am not going to make a huge stink. I was just wondering, venting, if you will.”

He looked only slightly relieved. “Well, we’re getting close now. I’ll leave you here. I’ve got to get in position myself.” He shook my hand and moved off.

I sat in one of the chairs in the small room. Would I refuse to cooperate? Would I refuse the money? Was principle that strong a factor in life? I was pretty angry, and more than that, I then had a target. Baako Silver. He did this to us. I could focus on him. But was it worth giving up the fruits of the spoils?

The far door opened and Lindadawn came in. I stood, and she rushed into my arms for a hug.

“The others told me what’s going on. I still can’t believe it. Those sons-of-bitches. You know, I really thought I was dying out there?”

“I know. They treated us like shit, and now they want us to play nice and smile. I found out it was our dear Baako Silver who honchoed this thing. Others thought it wasn’t right, but he wanted the ratings, I guess.”

She let go of me to sit down. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

The holo came on, and we could see the other cast members sitting in chairs around the array. Baako Silver walked on to his mark and started giving a recap of the show. Each person’s death, including my own, were replayed and commented upon. In the corner of each holo, the killed person’s head was superimposed on the actual death scene. Most looked squeamish as they watched their death.

“Are you OK now?” I asked her.

“Upset, but glad to be alive. Glad the others are alive, too.”

“Yea, I know what you mean.”

“So you’re going to be able to pay your mother now. Any other plans?” she asked.

“Yea, and that’s the real reason I signed on. I might start another business, but I might just go back to working at the spaceport. I can buy a house, and live comfortably. Maybe a few endorsements after the initial thrill wears off.”

Baako Silver’s voiceover on the holo caught our attention. “…and with bravery perhaps never seen before on
Darwin’s Quest
, Hamlin Cone went to his sure death. Not a temporary death, like all other seasons’ cast members. But in his mind, a terminal death. No more life. No more going home to his kids.” The holo switched for a few moments to what had to be Hamlin’s children, sitting on a couch in what was probably his home.

“Hamlin Cone was Season 32’s natural leader.”

The holo showed me sitting on the ground, Hamlin shaking my shoulder and yelling “How dare you say that! Do you think Borlinga would’ve quit?” That didn’t make me look good, and I saw they didn’t broadcast the subsequent somewhat disparaging remarks he had said about GBC. Then they showed a few snipets of him taking charge at the fishing challenge, directing us in the task.

“And his personal bravery was unquestioned.”

Two scenes were selected: him driving his spear into the big bird and into the Albertosaurus. Despite having been there in person, the holo angle made it look even more impressive to me than the real thing.

“But simple ferociousness is one thing. Bravery is another. Despite knowing he would die, Hamlin Cone saved the lives of his two surviving castmates.”

The holo switched to Hamlin on the bridge. He seemed to look back right into the holo, right into the viewers’ hearts. “I said get back. There’s not enough room on the bridge for more of us, and I want to stop them before they can jump onto this side. So for the last time, back off!” he shouted at the two of us. The holo flashed to him taking down the first dinosaur, then the second one, Horatio at the Bridge. Then, it jumped to “Just get back!” before he turned and tackled the snapping theropod, physically picking it up and throwing it off the bridge. We could see as the jaws closed around his arm at the last second and they both fell down into the river. That holo faded to be replaced by a smiling Baako.

“For that bravery, for killing a phousrhacidea, or Terror Bird, as you know it, for killing an Albertosaurus, the viewers have voted Hamlin Cone the Viewers’ Choice. Come up here Hamlin!”

Hamlin bounded up to the array to stand beside him. Baako presented him with an old-fashion over-sized check, although as with me, the money was probably already transferred. Another interposed shot of Hamlin’s kids jumping up and down was projected into the holo’s corner.

“You should be giving this back to me, though,” he joked. “We paid DreamWorks quite a bit for those constructs, and you ruined them! The beancounters at GBC are pretty upset!”

Hamlin eventually went back to his seat where the others congratulated him. Baako looked right into the main cam. “And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. The culmination of this, perhaps the most exciting season we’ve ever had. You saw them. You lived with them. You bled with them. But who is our winner? Is it Lindadawn Foster, our business owner from Merry Old England, or Corter Lawrence, only the second Outerworlder to reach the Final Two?”

Short montages of both of us flashed on the holo. It looked surreal to see our last few weeks get winnowed down like that.

“I won’t keep you waiting any longer. The Season 32
Darwin’s Quest
winner is…”

An intern motioned me forward. I took a breath, then walked out.

“Corter Laurence!” Baako shouted.

As I walked down to him, a holo flashed how I had won, how Lindadawn had died. I was somewhat dazed. The walkthrough hadn’t prepared me for this. I managed to stop on my mark where Baako Silver shook my hand,