Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

Gloria didn’t talk. I said, “What’s an advance man?”

“Gets us a place, and the juice we need,” said Kromer. “Softens the town up. Gets people excited.”

It was getting dark. I was pretty hungry, but I didn’t say anything. Gilmartin’s car led us to this big building shaped like a boathouse; only it wasn’t near any water. Kromer said it used to be a bowling alley.

The lugs started moving stuff and Kromer made me help. The building was dusty and empty inside, and some of the lights didn’t work. Kromer said just to get things inside for now. He drove away one of the vans and came back and we unloaded a bunch of little cots that Gilmartin the advance man had rented, so I had an idea where I was going to be sleeping. Apart from that it was stuff for the contest. Computer cables and plastic spacesuits, and loads of televisions.

Fearing took Gloria and they came back with food, fried chicken and potato salad, and we all ate. I couldn’t stop going back for more but nobody said anything. Then I went to sleep on a cot. No one was talking to me. Gloria wasn’t sleeping on a cot. I think she was with Fearing.

GILMARTIN the advance man had really done his work. The town was sniffing around first thing in the morning. Fearing was out talking to them when I woke up. “Registration begins at noon, not a minute sooner,” he was saying. “Beat the lines and stick around. We’ll be serving coffee. Be warned, only the fit need apply-our doctor will be examining you, and he’s never been fooled once. It’s Darwinian logic, people. The future is for the strong. The meek will have to inherit the here and now.”

Inside, Ed and the other guy were setting up the gear. They had about thirty of those wired-up plastic suits stretched out in the middle of the place, and so tangled up with cable and little wires that they were like husks of fly bodies in a spiderweb.

Under each of the suits was a light metal frame, sort of like a bicycle with a seat but no wheels, but with a headrest too. Around the web they were setting up the televisions in an arc facing the seats. The suits each had a number on the back, and the televisions had numbers on top that matched.

When Gloria turned up she didn’t say anything to me but she handed me some donuts and coffee.

“This is just the start,” she said, when she saw my eyes get big. “We’re in for three squares a day as long as this thing lasts. As long as we last, anyway.”

We sat and ate outside where we could listen to Fearing. He went on and on. Some people were lined up like he said. I didn’t blame them since Fearing was such a talker. Others listened and just got nervous or excited and went away, but I could tell they were coming back later, at least to watch. When we finished the donuts Fearing came over and told us to get on line too.

“We don’t have to,” said Gloria.

“Yes, you do,” said Fearing.

On line we met Lane. She said she was twenty like Gloria but she looked younger. She could have been sixteen, like me.

“You ever do this before?” asked Gloria.

Lane shook her head. “You?”

“Sure,” said Gloria. “You ever been out of this town?”

“A couple of times,” said Lane. “When I was a kid. I’d like to now.”

“Why?”

“I broke up with my boyfriend.”

Gloria stuck out her lip, and said, “But you’re scared to leave town, so you’re doing this instead.”

Lane shrugged.

I liked her, but Gloria didn’t.

The doctor turned out to be Gilmartin the advance man. I don’t think he was a real doctor, but he listened to my heart. Nobody ever did that before, and it gave me a good feeling.

Registration was a joke, though. It was for show. They asked a lot of questions but they only sent a couple of women and one guy away, Gloria said for being too old. Everyone else was okay, despite how some of them looked pretty hungry, just like me and Gloria. This was a hungry town. Later I figured out that’s part of why Fearing and Kromer picked it. You’d think they’d want to go where the money was, but you’d be wrong.

After registration they told us to get lost for the afternoon. Everything started at eight o’clock.

WE walked around downtown but almost all the shops were closed. All the good stuff was in the shopping center and you had to show a town ID card to get in and me and Gloria didn’t have those.

So, like Gloria always says, we killed time since time was what we had.

THE place looked different. They had spotlights pointed from on top of the vans and Fearing was talking through a microphone. There was a banner up over the doors. I asked Gloria and she said “Scape-Athon.” Ed was selling beer out of a cooler and some people were buying, even though he must have just bought it right there in town for half the price he was selling at. It was a hot night. They were selling tickets but they weren’t letting anybody in yet. Fearing told us to get inside.

Most of the contestants were there already. Anne, the woman from the van, was there, acting like any other contestant. Lane was there too and we waved at each other. Gilmartin was helping everybody put on the suits. You had to get naked but nobody seemed to mind. Just being contestants made it all right, like we were invisible to each other.

“Can we be next to each other?” I said to Gloria.

“Sure, except it doesn’t matter,” she said. “We won’t be able to see each other inside.”

“Inside where?” I said.

“The scapes,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Gloria got me into my suit. It was plastic with wiring everywhere and padding at my knees and wrists and elbows and under my arms and in my crotch. I tried on the mask but it was heavy and I saw nobody else was wearing theirs so I kept it off until I had to. Then Gilmartin tried to help Gloria but she said she could do it herself.

So there we were, standing around half naked and dripping with cable in the big empty lit-up bowling alley, and then suddenly Fearing and his big voice came inside and they let the people in and the lights went down and it all started.

“Thirty-two young souls ready to swim out of this world, into the bright shiny future,” went Fearing. “The question is, how far into that future will their bodies take them? New worlds are theirs for the taking-a cornucopia of scapes to boggle and amaze and gratify the senses. These lucky kids will be immersed in an ocean of data overwhelming to their undernourished sensibilities-we’ve assembled a really brilliant collection of environments for them to explore-and you’ll be able to see everything they see, on the monitors in front of you. But can they make it in the fast lane? How long can they ride the wave? Which of them will prove able to outlast the others, and take home the big prize-one thousand dollars? That’s what we’re here to find out.”

Gilmartin and Ed were snapping everybody into their masks and turning all the switches to wire us up and getting us to lie down on the frames. It was comfortable on the bicycle seat with your head on the headrest and a belt around your waist. You could move your arms and legs like you were swimming, the way Fearing said. I didn’t mind putting on the mask now because the audience was making me nervous. A lot of them I couldn’t see because of the lights, but I could tell they were there, watching.

The mask covered my ears and eyes. Around my chin there was a strip of wire and tape. Inside it was dark and quiet at first except Fearing’s voice was still coming into the earphones.

“The rules are simple. Our contestants get a thirty minute rest period every three hours. These kids’ll be well fed, don’t worry about that. Our doctor will monitor their health. You’ve heard the horror stories, but we’re a class outfit; you’ll see no horrors here. The kids earn the quality care we provide one way: continuous, waking engagement with the datastream. We’re firm on that. To sleep is to die-you can sleep on your own time, but not ours. One lapse, and you’re out of the game-them’s the rules.”