Chapter 59: Chapter 59 - The Grovelling Guillotine

Cold water splashed onto Zoe’s face. She looked up at a nervous-looking but familiar young man in a stagehand uniform. He white-knuckled an empty bucket. A single droplet fell from the brim.

“Please, are you awake? He said he’ll eat me if you don’t wake up.”

Zoe blinked. Focused. Why was this man familiar, something about his nose…

“Ronnie McAdams?”

He nodded quickly.

“They call me Sparkles now. Please get up Dr. Chambers. You must get up.”

She wiped the blood from her upper lip. The cacophony had died, but she still felt woozy. She held out her hand.

“Can you help me up?”

Ronnie shook his head.

“I’m not allowed to touch you. He said he’d —”

“Eat you, right,” Zoe sat up. “Who’s going to eat you?”

“The Gambler. I’m one of his pets.” Ronnie picked up another bucket of water and dumped it on the unconscious Anton. In the distance, another stagehand did the same to the other contestants. “I’m lucky. My neighbor came with me to the tutorial and he ended up —”

“That’s enough, Sparkles,” said the Gambler as he moseyed over and leaned on the tan, grit-covered podium. “My audience is enthusiastic, that’s for sure, but that just goes to show what a quality show I run.”

He offered Zoe a hand, and she let him haul her to her feet. She swayed, unsteady, and leaned against the podium. At the other two podiums — marked 2, and 3, respectively — other people leaned. The three of them were the only humans alert and awake while their companions lay in the sand.

The man at podium 2 was bald with a large beard dyed the color of hot Cheetos. He wrung the water from it with thick-knuckled hands and nodded at Zoe.

“Howdy,” he drawled. “Who did you piss off?”

Zoe shrugged.

“Just one of those days.”

He laughed.

“I’m Xavier,” he thumbed over his shoulder at the young woman and middle-aged man rising behind him. “This is Stella, my girlfriend, and Trent, my boss. You’re American?”

“I’m Zoe, and yeah. Los Angeles.”

“Houston.”

“That’s Bella and Anton. We were on a plane.”

“You a pilot?”

“Plastic surgeon.”

Xavier whistled.

“Congrats on making it this far.”

“And you.”

They eyed each other for a moment, a sense of mutual appreciation passing between them before a short, matronly woman shook her head over at podium 3. Water dripped from her gray hair. She eyed Xavier and Zoe.

“My name is Yvonne Berg,” her accent was faintly Nordic. “I was a cruise ship captain.” She gestured to the two people rising behind her: an old couple, perhaps husband and wife. “This is Mark and Lila Rosenthorn. We are the only survivors of the Allure of the Seas…” Her voice trembled, and she gazed out at the hungry eyes of the audience. “We are in hell.”

“Actually,” the Gambler strode into the middle of the stage as the final contestants wobbled to their feet. “Your idea of hell does not exist. Your god was not powerful enough to create pocket realms, though he could certainly lie about them.”

Zoe blinked.

“Our god was real?”

Did that mean the system killed god?

The Gambler laughed, as though he could read the question in her mind. Which, Zoe realized, he could.

Yes, yes I can. But let’s speak aloud for the sake of the audience.

“Zoe Chambers with an excellently pointed question. Exactly the behavior we expect from someone with [The Burden Of Being Interesting] resting on their shoulders. I would answer your question, but that would spoil round four and I’ve already said too much!” he winked at the audience, who rolled in their seats with laughter. “Let me ask you, Zoe, how have you dealt with the quest Rue gave you?”

Yvonne gave her a sharp look at the question. Xavier mouthed the word “Rue” under his breath, but he looked like he knew at least something of the beings who now ruled Earth.

But how was Zoe supposed to answer a question like that?

“I’m not sure I can put it into words…”

“Please, try,” the Gambler grinned gold. “Do not worry about the consequences. While we cannot guarantee your party’s lives beyond this show, I am more than capable of protecting them from Rue’s little quest.”

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Bella leaned close to Zoe’s ear.

“What is he talking about?”

A hidden microphone picked up her words and played them out for all to hear. Bella stepped back, blushing, but Zoe turned to her.

“It’s been hard,” she said. “The hardest part was keeping the secret. Because I picked Metal, the alien god who took over our world, Rue, decided I was interesting. He gave me a quest to reach level 20 within a week or… or you would die,” she gestured to Anton. “Both of you. Joel and Cassy as well, but, I guess that doesn’t matter…”

Saying the quest aloud… it felt so small. The pressure burned at the back of her mind for so long that now she felt…

It was so pointless. Just another meaningless horror stacked on top of the apocalypse.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Bella asked.

“If I did, you would have died. It was the consequences of the quest.”

Anton rolled his eyes.

“She would have if she could. Is Zoe a bull in a china shop? Yes. Is she two-faced? No.”

“It’s good to see you too, Anton.”

He gave her a mocking salute.

“Boss.”

Zoe opened her arms to give him a hug when the Gambler snapped his fingers. Nothing happened, but she flinched and froze out of instinct.

“Well, we’ve all woken up and said hello. The lights are on, the cameras are rolling, and it is time to play. Who’s ready for round 1?”

The audience screamed, and the horror began.

###

The three teams of humans stood behind their podiums like children cowering behind mothers. There was a fear that passed beyond the flesh and blood and into the ontological. Do people fear the dark because it holds tigers? Or is it the dark that grows claws and snatches friends away?

Do not ask the soul, because it does not know.

And this deep, rankling fear settled upon the nine as they faced the Gambler’s golden smile. Why did he choose to appear like that? Why did he pluck them from their life-or-death struggles only to put them in another?

The show, the game, the thrill of chance. He strutted before his audience — who knew if the crowd in the stands was real or just another conjuration of the cosmic trickster — and he crowed and cajoled.

The nine stood with their hearts pounding, as round 1 rolled over their fates like a steamroller over an egg.

###

A desk stood at the far end of the stage. It was an elegant, retro-futuristic thing of pearl and gold shaped like a swooping piano. The Gambler placed his boots atop the surface. They were albino snakeskin with gilded spurs. He tapped his toes and sand fell from the soles.

“Now, round one. The first round. The alpha. The beginning. Some say the big bang was merely the ringing of a bell before the universe tore itself apart in a grand battle royale. But how demented, how disturbed, how vain and insecure to think that conflict is the root of all the madness in our lives? No, I put to you that fun is the key and the lock. All we want is fun, and what is more fun than uncertainty? Well, some might say certainty is more fun, but those people will encounter the actual hell I have spent countless millennia perfecting…” he tittered, and the audience laughed like parrots. “I get away from myself,” for a second his body ballooned out, clothes tearing, gaping holes in his skin lined with fangs and eyes in the dark maws, but he snapped his fingers and all was as it was. “But, getting back to the point at hand. Round one is about uncertainty. Round one is — in honor of Zoe Chambers, the first person on Earth to receive an invitation to the Mountain of Faith — a game of salvation. Are. You. Ready. For the Grovelling Guillotine!”

Applause washed over Zoe like a colosseum’s worth of rage and love. She felt sick but forced herself to listen closely as the Gambler explained the rules.

“Listen up contestants because I won’t explain this twice,” he smiled as the humans leaned forward. “Weak people hate to die even more than strong people. Unfortunately, the weak cannot save themselves. That is where beings such as us come in. On the screens before you,” he snapped his fingers, and a screen appeared in front of each podium. “You will see a group of survivors lost in your world. They are barely hanging on, and each of them has only a 25% chance of surviving the day.”

On Zoe’s screen, she saw a group of pudgy, middle-aged suburbanites clinging to each other in the dark confines of a treehouse. The branches shook, and she could see one woman whimpering, but no sound came through. One of them had a bloodily bandaged stump where his foot should have been. Vitality should heal all injuries, so that was a recent wound or his level was woefully low.

Though Zoe wasn’t in a position to judge that.

No.

Zoe flinched as the Gambler invaded her thoughts.

You are strong. The strong are the only ones who can judge. Never forget that, Zoe Chambers. Now, stop being introspective and start being extroverted. The only thing worse than a hungry audience is a restless audience.

“Now,” said the Gambler. “I have muted the sound because really, who wants to hear the weak pray to a god who failed them? Nobody! But we can still help, by giving them a god who listens! Contestants, here is the game. These survivors are praying to live, but what they don’t know is that a Mubilashi is about to spawn in their very location and rend them limb from limb. They will receive a warning and a countdown, but will that be enough time for them to escape the coming horror?”

He raised a cupped hand to his ear.

“Who knows!” the audience bellowed. “Let’s find out!”

“That’s right! Contestants, we will give you a puzzle to solve within a time limit. The faster you solve the problem, the more time the survivors on your screen will have to escape their coming doom.”

He snapped his fingers, and a gilded box appeared on each of the podiums. It was the size of a soccer ball, six-sided, with intricate carvings and patterns that defied all senses of logic. Dried blood marked the edges of the grooves.

“Don’t touch the boxes just yet!” The Gambler laughed. “First, we need to know the prizes. So let’s go over to the loveliest lady luck you’ll ever lay your eyes on! Me!”

Zoe felt her eyes yanked from one side of the stage to the other. Her neck clicked with the force. If she was a mundane human, it would have snapped her neck. She saw the old woman with Yvonne wince with pain.

The far side of the stage lit up. Though it was more accurate to say it suddenly came into being. There, in front of a long table, stood a female Gambler. She wore a shining gold and white bikini, a matching cowboy hat, and spurred heels. Her grin was rubies and pearls, like a mouthful of bloody teeth, and she gestured to the table behind her as a spotlight turned on overhead.

“Out first prize,” her voice was atrociously seductive. “Is a unique title. As yet unnamed, we will award it to every human currently on earth and grant them a single level. You all know how much one level can change things,” she winked. “And what’s more, we will name the title after the winning team! So, everyone you encounter will have you to thank for the level that may very well have saved their lives!”

The Gambler gave polite applause.

“Wonderful! I’m sure everyone wants that prize! Let’s see how badly they want it. Your time starts now: three minutes before we announce death and doom to the survivors under your care!”

[3:00]

[2:59]

Zoe grabbed the box.

It was heavy in her hand — the weight of four lives — and it refused to budge. She turned, feeling a panic rise as a countdown ticked inside her mind.

[2:58]

[2:57]