The Island (3 page)

He set his cup down, then shuffled off his stool. “Anyway, we better be on our way. You take care, son. And do yourself a favour. Forget all about that place. Shutting it down was the one good thing Damien Lomar has ever done.”

With that, Earl and Roger disappeared, soon becoming lost in the crowd. Despite their warnings to forget it, the island throbbed in Chase’s mind like a rotten tooth. The idea of what it could represent to him and his family would have been tempting had it been an active game. He wondered if perhaps the two old me were right, and playing Russian roulette with his own life was hardly the best way to help his family. Even so, as he started back through the crowd on the long walk back home, the words of the old men reverberated around his head and refused to go away.

REBOOT

NECKER ISLAND, BRITISH VIRGIN ISLES

DECEMBER 2
nd
2043

Crystal clear waters lapped at the golden sand beach of the seventy-four-acre Necker Island located in the British Virgin Isles. Once purchased by Richard Branson for less than two hundred thousand pounds, it had later been sold to Lomar for almost nine million US dollars just a year after the merger between Branson’s Virgin brand and Bill Gate’s Microsoft. The new company, VIRSOFT was, for a long time the world’s biggest brand until the Lomar corporation had in turn bought out VIRSOFT for a deal worth a staggering fifty billion dollars. For a short time, the three of them, Branson, Gates and Lomar were known as the biggest, most wealthy names in the world. Now, only Lomar remained following Branson’s death when one of his low-earth-orbit commercial shuttles he was riding in exploded on re-entry into the atmosphere. Gates went via heart attack in 2022, leaving just Lomar behind.

Now aged fifty seven, Damien Lomar had aged well. He had retained much of his athletic build and although starting to go a little soft around the stomach (perfectly acceptable at such an age) he still had all of his own hair and teeth, the former dyed black, the latter bleached white twice a month. He couldn’t complain, unlike some of the people he knew, rather than kick his ass, father time had eased him gently into the second phase of his life. He got out of bed, leaving the Brazilian model whose name he couldn’t remember sleeping on her side, brown curls draped across the pillow. He pulled on his robe (finest silk), slipped into his loafers (Italian) crossed the room (custom marble with gold inlay) opened the balcony doors (hand carved) and breathed in the clean air and took in the spectacular view of the ocean. He squinted, pleased to see that the sky was completely cloudless. He reminded himself that those were the kind of views that made the price tag for The Island worthwhile.

To call the building a house would be a gross understatement. The decadent mansion in which Damien Lomar lived boasted fourteen bedrooms, an indoor and outdoor pool, a private dock and helicopter landing pad on the roof. It had been built from scratch and oozed modern luxury. Clean lines, shimmering chrome and crèmes and whites. The beauty of his surroundings aside, Lomar was agitated. He had dreamed of something spectacular, the vision so vivid that it had woken him with a mixture of agitation and excitement. He walked back through the huge bedroom, out of the double doors and made his way down the grand staircase to one of the open-plan reception rooms, this one housing a full-sized snooker table, the cloth blue and emblazoned with the Lomar corporation logo. He found what he was looking for. His jeans, which he had hastily stepped out of the previous evening when things with the model got a little heavy. He fished in the pocket and took out his phone, then perched on the edge of the snooker table and punched in the number for Maurice Gilbert, the chairman of the telecommunications arm of the Lomar Corporation. He waited for the line to connect, absently rolling one of the snooker balls around the table and catching it as it came back towards him. On the fifth ring, a tired and grumpy sounding Maurice answered.

“Maurice, it's Damien. Listen, I know it’s early, but I have an idea that just can’t wait.”

“Of course, Mr. Lomar. What can I do for you?”

Lomar loved the way people feared him. He knew that if anyone else had called Maurice at home on his private line when it was five thirty in the morning would have received a hell of an ear bashing instead of the snivelling passiveness which he could hear on the other end of the line. “I was thinking about The Island.”

Silence
. The most obvious way to show caution. Lomar went on. “I was thinking more specifically about the game and how it wasn’t the success it should have been.”

The word he had wanted to use was failure, but Lomar would never saddle himself with such an admission of underachievement. Even so, Maurice still responded with silence. Lomar could imagine the fat fuck’s shifty eyes dancing all over as he tried to think of something to say. “Are you there, Maurice? You haven’t gone back to sleep have you?”

“No sir, I mean, yes sir, I’m here. I haven’t fallen asleep.”

“Good. Then you heard what I said? About The Island?”

“Yes sir, I did.”

“What if we brought it back?”

This time, Maurice knew silence wouldn’t cut it, and so settled for half formulating a word as he tried to figure out a way to respond to his employer.

“You can speak freely, Maurice, I’d like your honest opinion.”

“Well sir, I don’t think it’s a good idea. With everything that happened last time, I think it would be better to leave it alone.”

“We can do it better this time,” Lomar said, rolling the ball across the table and sinking it in the corner pocket. “Things have changed.”

“It’s your company, sir, you can, of course do whatever you like. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Ahh but it does, Maurice because this time I want to televise it.”

This time, Lomar let the silence hang, determined to give his spineless employee a chance to answer. To his credit, the radio silence lasted seven or eight seconds before Maurice spoke again, his voice high and shrill. Lomar thought to himself that if he had been half asleep before, Maurice was definitely wide awake now.

“Mr. Lomar, if we set aside the logistics for a second, which alone would make shooting on The Island difficult if not impossible, there is also the moral angle to consider. I’m not sure the company needs that kind of publicity again.”

“Times have changed. The public have become far more desensitised to such things. The intrigue of what lurks behind The Island walls still holds strong. Imagine it. A group of contestants rigged with cameras, their every move tracked as they try to win the ultimate prize, knowing that failure will mean death. The public will be right there with them as they discover what lives out there.”

Lomar stood and started to pace, making slow laps around the snooker table. “Reality television isn’t what it used to be. People don’t want to see people playing for money, or living in a house with strangers for three months at a time. They want danger. They want excitement. What if we could give it to them? What if we, the Lomar Corporation could guarantee a show that everyone would watch? The sponsorship alone would be worth billions.”

“And what about the backlash from the families, sir? Of the ones who don’t survive.”

Maurice paused as the Brazilian model whose name still escaped him sauntered downstairs and disappeared into the kitchen, giving him a glimpse of her smooth thonged behind as she went. “The families won’t complain. The world is a desperate place filled with desperate people who are looking for an opportunity to get out of the gutter. You think the families will have anything to say if we have the contestants on camera talking about why they are doing it or how much it means to their families? It would capture the imagination.”

“I’m not so sure,” Maurice said, which Lomar knew actually meant
, I’m close to getting on board, sway me a little more.

“Think about this, Maurice. With ratings through the roof and billions of dollars in sponsorship in the bank, a media executive that was wily enough to take such a risk might be rewarded with a promotion. Say on to the board of directors of the entire company rather than just the media arm.”

Lomar, of course, had the power and authority to demand the show be put into production no matter what Maurice thought; however, he also knew that having staff who worked with him rather than against him made all the difference, and even if it meant dangling the carrot of a promotion that probably wouldn’t ever happen, so be it. “Well? Do I have you on board?” Lomar said, rolling another snooker ball across the table where it ricocheted off some of its companions.

“What about costs? I mean rigging the contestants up for TV will be easy enough, but The Island is huge. Not to mention the danger involved with the…things that are in there.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m giving unlimited budget to this. I want it to be spectacular. I’ll make sure we have camera coverage of the whole island, don’t you worry.”

Lomar expected Maurice to be excited, or at least a little enthusiastic. Instead, that annoying silence greeted Lomar from the other end of the phone. “What is it now, Maurice?”

“Sorry, sir, this is all a little bit much to take in. I was just thinking about the contestants. What if nobody applies for the show?”

“They will. You mark my words. People are desperate.”

“Desperate I understand, especially with the poverty and unemployment so high. But desperate enough to risk their lives? That I’m not so sure about sir.”

“Let me tell you something about people, Maurice,” Lomar said, enjoying the irony that he was about to advise his employee about the same techniques just used against him. “You give them something they want, or an opportunity to get something they want, and you would be shocked at how far they will go. Trust me, if they get desperate enough, and they want the chance to change their lives bad enough, they will do it no matter what the potential risks might be. Now what I need from you is to make it happen. Can you do it?”

“It’s going to take time. Planning. When were you thinking of going to air with this?”

“Spring.”

“Next spring?”

“
This
spring. Early summer at the latest.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible, Mr. Lomar.”

“Make it possible. At all costs.”

Lomar hung up the phone then basked in the quiet. He could hear the Brazilian model in the kitchen moving things around in the fridge. He wasn’t sure if she was expecting to stay, but she was about to be disappointed if she did. He had used her for what he wanted, and now had more pressing matters at hand. The more he thought about it, The Island was an all-consuming idea, the perfect way to get the one blemish from his business history, to rectify the one thing he had got wrong and banish the ghost of his father’s voice as it chastised him for it on a daily basis. He couldn’t wait to get started.

PREPARATION

THE ISLAND, ATLANTIC OCEAN

JANUARY 19
th
2044

The armoured truck cut through the undergrowth, the wet leaves of overhanging plants and trees leaving streaks on the bodywork as the cumbersome vehicle navigated the terrain. In the back, with only the light from the narrow post box windows high on the vehicle sides to illuminate them, sat the eight heavily armed mercenaries, five on one side of the truck and three on the other, each of them cradling their M16 machine guns as they prepared to disembark. They were guns for hire, paid to fight for whoever was the highest bidder. All, that was, but one of them.

Nicholas Ingleby was sweating as he sat on the bench in the corner furthest from the door, cradling the brown bag he had brought with him. Unlike the mercenaries, he was neither a fighter nor particularly brave and had no problem admitting that he was deathly afraid even after two weeks of following this same routine. He wiped sweat from his eyes, staining the blue boiler suit he wore a few shades darker. The truck came to a halt, wheels struggling for purchase as it skewed into a half turn. The second its forward motion had ceased, the rear doors opened, letting the light flood in as the mercenaries exited, fanning around in a protective half circle around the rear of the truck, weapons drawn and pointed away from the vehicle, all of them tense and ready.

Nicholas climbed out of the truck, the brown bag in tow. His eyes rattled around his skull as he stared into the dense undergrowth around him. He was still unsure if the tension within the soldiers was a good or bad thing, and then remembered why they are all there. Dropping the bag into the long grass next to the muddy gouges left by the trucks tyres, he returned to the rear of the truck. He dragged out a ladder, every scrape of metal on metal making him wince and grit his teeth as he slid it out into the open. He set it down beside the bag, then unfolded a map from his jumpsuit and studied it. He glanced around, then picked up the ladder and propped it against a tree, folding the map back into his pocket.

“Hurry up, fella,” one of the mercs said, whispering over his shoulder. Nicholas complied. He hurried to the bag and reached in, taking out the small HD camera. He clipped it onto his belt and began to climb the ladder towards the upper branches of the tree, unable to resist the occasional glance over his shoulder as he told himself that every sound he heard was just birds or some other form of non-threatening wildlife, even if he had already seen something that told him he was probably way wrong. He reached the top of the tree and unclipped the camera from his belt. Equipped with infrared, night vision, and 10K hyper digital resolution, the all-weather, shock proof camera was attached to a thick strap reminiscent of a belt. Nicholas hooked the belt around the trunk of the tree, threading the loop back through the other side and attaching the camera to the trunk. He powered it up, adjusting the angle so that it pointed down towards the floor. Satisfied, he took the map out of his pocket and the stubby pencil from his breast pocket, when a roar, deep and powerful cut through the air, causing Nicholas to almost fall from the ladder. Below, the mercenaries moved a little closer together as Nicholas clung onto the tree and watched, staring out over the treetops to try and see what made the sound and knowing that it could have come from anywhere.

“Are you done up there?” one of the mercs half-whispered.

Nicholas nodded, and then marked a cross on his map through one of the numerous red dots that covered it.

“Come on then, let’s move,” the merc said.

Nicholas didn’t need to be told twice. He scampered down the ladder as quickly as he could, trying not to think too hard about the roar and what might have caused it. He folded the ladder down and slid it into the truck, then grabbed the bag, peering inside as the Mercenaries fell in around him.

One of them clapped him on the shoulder. “Just fifteen more like that and you can go home, fella.”

Nicholas felt sick as he dragged the brown bag back into the van and took his seat. The mercenaries followed suit and closed the door. As the truck set off, they sat in silence, all wondering the same thing about the creature that had roared and if they were moving closer to it or further away. Either way, all of them wondered if the money they had been paid was worth the danger they were in. The vehicle lurched into gear and they moved onto their next destination where they would repeat the entire process again in the hope that they would remain undiscovered and get out alive.