I Am Alive (17 page)

“Shoot him,” the audience yells at me from the Zeppelins. “Shoot him.”

Am I their favorite now? What about when it is my turn to die, will I still be their favorite?

I will be just like Vern, ordered by someone else to be shot dead.

I can’t. I can’t.

“Okay. Shoot Orin,” says Timmy, trying to make it easier for me. “He is absolutely unloved. He is number two. The crowd doesn’t love him, and he didn’t even try to save you in the Breathing Dome. In real life, he would be the bully in your school, who just wants to hurt everyone else because he is big and brainless. He left you to die. If it was Orin’s turn, he would have shot you already.”

The audience agrees again. Timmy is right about Orin. He didn’t save me. He would have shot me cold-heartedly by now, if it were his turn. He has already tried to shoot me once with the bow gun. He is trying it again now, but his trigger is still locked. He grins at me, sweating evil all over his forehead.

My mind is about to explode. I know I have told myself that everyone stands for themselves in this game, but I think I meant everyone taking responsibility to survive, not killing someone else. Why would I be a weapon to end their lives?

I am suddenly aware of how the games are changing me. I have certainly learned a lot in one day, but changing is different from learning. I want to grow. I want to be better. I don’t want to be brainwashed by the Summit. I want to be who I want to be, not who they force me to be. I want to be who I am.

I remember Woo telling me he wished he could see through my eyes. He was fascinated with my eyes in a strange way. He said that he only saw the dim and grey in the world, but I saw the stars hiding beyond the fabric of the midnight sky.

My eyes are dimmed now, Woo. I see in blood shades and flames. What can I do? But I remember Woo told me to never let them change me. To become what I am. What I really am. What I want to be. It’s my choice. I want to be part of everything. I want to have my shot at the world, while everyone else has theirs. Is it so hard to ask for a fair world? I don’t want to win these games and become part of the Summit. I don’t want to win these games and find myself a lonely winner. I want to have my friends cross over and win with me. I totally understand now how this iAm world is so wrong, with everyone living alone within the crowd. Everyone is living for his number. I am not a number. I am part of the whole. I am going to find Woo eventually.

“My patience is wearing out,” Timmy bluffs. “Pepper. How about Pepper?”

When he mentions her name, I look at her straight in the eyes. She looks back at me without the slightest fear. All her life, she was brainwashed that she deserves this. She will not complain if I shoot her now – well, no one really complains when they’re dead.

“Do it,” she says, pointing to her chest. “At least I will know I’ve died saving the others.”

“How sweet.” Timmy is faking tears. He isn’t funny anymore.

“I can’t!” I scream with closed eyes, worried that my fingers will betray me into shooting someone.

“How about the skaters?” Timmy suggests. “You don’t know anything about them. They don’t mean anything to you. You can save yourself.”

“Why would I hurt someone I don’t know?” I have discovered that my hands are already on the trigger, fiddling with it.

“What is she talking about?” the girls in the audience ask each other. “You kill anyone to save yourself. Why don’t you do it?” the ranked girls from the Zeppelin scream at me.

Five million viewers are watching the show; some are screaming and cursing; some are driven to tears. The camera shows shocked moms with knives, preparing dinner in their kitchens, a gas station where everyone has stopped working to watch the games, cars parked in the middle of the streets watching on their iAms. People watching from France next to the Zeifel Tower, from England, next to Big Zen, Africa, next to the Zyramids. And from Asia, next to the Zaj Mahal. Every viewer has his or her mouth wide open in disbelief, wondering why I am not shooting someone else to survive. What is wrong with me, they ask. How does a Monster have mercy, emotions, and the ability to hold back their anger?

“I suppose that there is no point suggesting Leo.” The audience boos at Timmy, especially the girls. “Okay. No hassle,” Timmy waves his defensive hands at the audience. “But he has to die at some point, you know.”

“Shoot Bellona!” someone suggests from the audience. They are a bunch of rich blonde girls with their pink-yellow-cyan makeup on, all Nines, all Teen-Gene. It’s a merry-go-round all over again.

I am not surprised that Faustina Flare is one of them, standing behind the glass of a Zeppelin with Sam Shades next to her.

“I won’t do it.” I have made up my mind.

“But someone has to die, so we can survive,” says Leo. I won’t argue with his do-or-die attitude. Bellona backs him up, Pepper too.

“What if I tell you that Orin is the one who sold you out, and told me about the details of your conversation yesterday?” Timmy exposes him finally. “He told me all about every one of you, about Leo, about the Rabbit Hole, and about the Breakfast Club.”

I stare at Orin, my hand fiddling with the trigger. I should have known.

“Shoot him,” Leo says angrily, his Terminator attitude showing.

“He is lying,” Orin says, meaning Timmy.

“I am sorry to shock you, Orin,” says Timmy. “But this is exactly what I do for a living.”

“What could you have possibly asked for in exchange?” Pepper wonders.

“He asked me to spare his family too,” says Timmy. “Which I did, but—” Timmy is looking up and to the left, trying to remember. “Yes. Surprisingly, all of them died in a bus accident this morning. What a shame.”

Orin’s face is heating up. Like all of us, he tries to free himself, but can’t. He keeps pulling the trigger of the bow gun at me, as if it will unlock itself if he pulls it again and again. Only mine works, and I have every reason to eliminate Orin and save the day. I will be saving ten of us. What more can I ask for? What better excuse do I need?

But I can’t. I won’t. I pull away from the trigger.

The crowd is sad and confused. Timmy is going crazy, waving his hands around his head nervously. “Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Buzzer nutter!” he swears.

“I think you lost this round, Timmy,” I tell him. “What will you do? Kill us all, and lose your airing for tomorrow’s show? I will not shoot anyone, even if some of them were mean to me. Not under these circumstances. We’re all losing here.”

“Don’t you ever think a Monster is smarter than a Trickster,” he yells, showing his angry side. “This is so easy to solve, you wouldn’t believe it. And it will prove you don’t deserve the number ten.” He pushes a button.

I am expecting the ground underneath me to part, causing all of us to freefall into the net. It doesn’t happen.

I look around fiercely, wondering what that button Timmy pushed actually does. What did he activate or deactivate? My eyes lock with Orin’s. He is smiling wickedly at me. His finger is on the trigger. Timmy has unlocked Orin’s bow gun to eliminate me.

I’m watching the arrow spring out toward me. I don’t have enough time to reach for the trigger and shoot Orin.

I close my eyes, thinking it might not hurt so much that way.

Nothing happens. I open my eyes again.

I don’t know what is happening. I can’t see the arrow, or what happened to it. As a reflex, I pull my trigger anyway, counting the milliseconds it takes to reach Orin. It should be soon, but it feels like days. All the time the arrow takes to reach Orin, I am holding my breath. I don’t think I will be able to let it out if the arrow fails to hit him.

Orin takes my arrow in his neck with a surprised look on his face, as if wondering, like me, why his arrow never reached me. Maybe I am invincible.

The crowd celebrates Orin’s death, standing up and shouting, like in football games. The audience is so unbelievable. All they want to see is blood.

I look for Orin’s arrow around me, thinking he was a lousy shot.

Leo points at my left side. Orin’s arrow has hit one of the skaters next to me.

The crowd is going crazy. The ground underneath me opens abruptly, and the nine of us freefall safely downward into the net.

The fall is long. Being in the air with nothing to hold onto feels like sinking into a dream with the rare possibility of waking up. My stubborn mind refuses to accept that I have no control of anything here in the air. I keep trying to reach for something to hold on to. The screams of others are faint and distant, but I glimpse Vern drop like a fly before me. He is shorter than I am, but he is heavier. Even though I don’t see clearly, I am concerned about how I will hit the net. Things are blurry in front of me. I am not sure if I am upside down or what. While falling, the sky and the ground look similar. I have recognized Vern from his clothes. How will I hit the net? On my back? On my face? What does it matter?

I gasp for air, before I finally bounce onto the net. I fall on my face, my hands clawing the net, so I don’t fall farther down. Looking to my right, Bellona lands on top of Leo. I wonder if it is coincidental.

I need to stop thinking of Leo. I have more important things to do.
You and I need to talk, brain-to-heart, off camera.
That’s me talking to myself.

The net stretches to the max, leaving us safely about three feet above the creatures in the pool. They are ugly and scary, and want to eat us alive. That’s all I know.

There is a catch though. There is still that opening in the middle of the net that looks as if it was cut with scissors.

We hang on tight, clawing at the net, hands and feet gripping. The net keeps swinging and stretching, responding to our weight shifts and hysterical movements.

“Stop moving,” Leo demands. “If you keep moving, we’ll fall.” He tilts his head from under Bellona’s arm, looking at me. “Are you all right?”

I pretend I don’t hear him. It’s not like I am not happy with him asking me, but it feels awkward when Leo acts like a big brother on live TV, with over five million people watching. I don’t know why I feel that way.

Vern is the one nearest to the hole, and the crocodiles. I catch my breath, asking if everyone is all right. Leo asks me if I am all right again, with Bellona still clinging to him, like a monkey on his chest. This time I say yes.

Tall iron poles hold up the far sides of the circular net. I can see that the net looks like an inverted cone from down here. If I let go for a second, I will trot my way down to the center, to the hole, and eventually the open mouths of the crocodiles.

“I am alive!” Bellona screams, hitting the red button on the iAm.

I feel jealous. I hit my red button as fast as I can and say, “I am alive!”

I guess we’re still kids. Death games or regular games, we still have the enthusiasm to compete and play. Maybe this is what they can’t take away from us. The power to play.

The Summit might be full of grownups, older and more experienced. But they don’t have the energy, or the magical love for life we possess.

Vern is the last to say he is alive.

“Indeed you are,” Timmy replies enthusiastically, which worries me. Why would Timmy feel good about us surviving? My fears are confirmed when I hear the following sentence... “But only because it is still summer.”

I roll my eyes. What does he mean by that?

“Let’s test your survival rate in winter time,” he says.

What?

The screens show a close-up of the creepy Dame Fortuna, rolling the Wheel of Fortune one more time. The smirk on her face shows awful yellow teeth, with a golden one in the middle that scares the kitty-kats out of me. The noise the wheel produces is deafening, squeaking and crackling slowly as it rolls. I feel like some evil creature is scratching its long nails against the wall, to scare us all before it attacks.

The wheel turns, and it’s winter again…

The Artificial Sky changes. In a flash, it is raining heavily from above. I hate this.

I spit the pouring rain out of my mouth. It’s getting harder to hang onto the net in the rain. It’s irritating, and we might get a cold if it doesn’t stop soon. Other than this, I don’t see the danger of it. The net is just getting a little slippery. That’s all. What does Timmy have in mind?

The rain falls onto the Zeppelins too. The audience likes the scenery, shielded behind the glass. Some walk out to the balconies, holding umbrellas. So classy, I must say! This must be the pinnacle of entertainment for humankind in all their history, watching people die up close and personal, in such an unimaginably fake and artificial atmosphere. It’s even better than movies. And in the past, they thought 3D was the pinnacle of entertainment. Life itself has become an enormous, deadly 3D movie already. Anyone for a sequel?

But that’s not all. One of the iScreens shows a boy wearing the ClairVo, feeling so excited, standing out on the balcony without an umbrella, shivering in the cold. The ClairVo, strapped around his head and covering his eyes, is all white, looking cool and fashionable. One of the iScreens shows his friends sitting miles and miles away in their homes, wearing their own ClairVos, connected to the boy standing in the rain. His friends at home are as excited as him. They are shivering exactly like him, as if they were standing in the rain alongside. Whenever he feels anxious, they feel it too. It shows on their faces. Whenever he shudders, they shudder. What is this ClairVo thing? Can I send someone else my feelings from miles away?

Suddenly, Pepper shifts her position, lending a hand to Vern, who is about to fall into the pool. She is hanging upside down, with her legs close to my face.

Stupid me. I see Timmy’s dangerous trick now. The rain will raise the water level in the pool, which has walls high enough to meet with the hole at the bottom of the net. It’s only a matter of minutes before the crocodiles surface on the rising water, and reach for Vern.

I don’t know if I should support Pepper, and help Vern. I couldn’t shoot him because I believe no one has the right to end anyone’s life. But when it comes to him dying on his own because he can’t save himself, I don’t know if I should risk my life for him. It’s a survival game, after all. I’ve done all I can.