Day 54 - Darwin's Game - Chapter 3 (1911 words)

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DARWIN'S GAME

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 3

“Jesus, is that for real?” One of the interns spoke up in the back but as everyone else in the room was silent it was much louder than he had intended.

“Find out.” Blake was already starting the video again and was making notes, pausing and examining the shots to determine as much detail as he could.

Jacob waved the people out of the room as Blake scribbled furiously notes on his tablet, making observations and taking down the details of whatever he could find. Jacob corralled the troops and then started issuing orders.

“Right, you from IT – Jasper? Yes, you. Get a copy made as soon as he has finished this run through, then make multiple copies and get it on the server so we can access it. Get it converted and ready for upload to the website at the same time, but don't upload it until me or Blake clears it. Understand?” The IT guy just looked at him prompting a more definite tone from Jacob.

“Do You Under Stand?”

“Yes, yes – on it.”

“Good and while you're at it see if you can figure out anything about the source, what kind of disc is it, where was it manufactured, purchased, part of a pack, what kind of codec was used, is there any digital footprints etc... that's your job – find it all out and bring it back to us.”

“Yes, sir.” Jasper had been in IT support for them for about eighteen months and this was the first real story action he had seen. He was keen to be part of it it for once, not just making the infrastructure work.

“Right Susan, in a few minutes Blake will come out with his notes from the rewatch, if he has them already get those ten names and start working on them, I want to know who they are, and if they are real, where they are. Does anyone here recognise any of them?”

“I do!” A voice piped up and one of the interns was holding up his phone, they all lived and breathed the smart phone in a connected work place like this, and sure enough what looked like a picture of the large man from the video was on his phone.

“Who are you again? Sorry, not to be rude but do I know you?” Jacob was lost for a name, which was odd since he was on a first name basis with all their employees and volunteers.

“No, I uh... I just umm...” The poor kid looked a little lost and Susan stepped into save him from further discomfort.

“He's here for an interview for a new interns job, he was filling out the forms while I was checking your inbox and...”

“Is he any good? No, scratch that, does he look awful in any way?”

“No?” Susan look ed a little perplexed at the sudden shift in the conversation.

“Good, you? What's your name?”

“Tim Sir, I...” he started to introduce himself but was cut off by an impatient Jacob who had no time for the niceties, it was time to move as fast as possible.

“Shut up Tim, you're hired, who is this guy?” Jacob pointed at the phone.

“Evan Simpson, the guy from the gangs, Evan the Enforcer?” It wasn't really a question, it just sounded like one, Tim was nervous and young, with a tendency for High Rise Terminals in his speaking voice. It grated instantly on Jacob's nerves but he had just publicly hired the boy.

“Fuck me.” One of the other interns made the connection, they recognised the face now that there was a name on it.

“So it could be real then, where is he now, isn't he in prison?” Jacob was even more curious now that these were not actors but potentially real people.

“No, he was in a coma from a prison fight and was transferred to a care facility six months ago, it was in the news for a little bit and I guess people forgot?”

“Tim?”

“Yes?”

“When you have something to say, just say it please. If you have a question, feel free to frame it as a question, but if you are making a statement, an upwards inflection at the end of your sentences will confuse and annoy. We deal in facts, not questions, so it's an important distinction, do you understand?”

Tim looked like scared by the question and answered wrong but caught himself immediately. “Yes? I mean yes. Yes I mean.” Much more definite.

“Good.” Jacob's opinion was already improving. “You'll do fine, Susan get him processed and get an employee agreement and Non-Disclosure Agreement sorted please.”

Susan pulled another intern aside and delegated the tasks, sending her and Tim off to get processed, the day was going to be flashing by at this point.

“I want all the names on the list identified, I'd like to know as much about them as possible by the time the police get here.”

“Police?” One of the interns asked.

“We just saw a murder, on camera, or what looked like one and this is obviously the start of something big and serious. We have a duty to report this as evidence of a crime, but I want the story ready to post by the time we hand over the originals to the police in ...” Jacob looked at his watch as Blake exited the room the disc held in his fingers, Jasper the IT guy took it from him gingerly and raced away with it. “.. two hours?” He was asking Blake who nodded back at him.

Blake took over look from his notes.

“Who gets the names?”

“Me thanks, I'll take you three.” Susan was back and pointed at three of the employees to join her team, they lined up behind her as Blake tore off the list and hand it to her. She went straight to a copier and made several versions, scribbling notes on 3 pages, circling three different names on each one and handing them to her three helpers, keeping the last three names including Evan the Enforcer for herself.

Blake looked at the handful of people left and pointed at two of them, one male and one female. “You two in the conference room, you others need to take over the normal operation and manage the daily feeds, get some help in from the remotes if you need it. Lets' get on with it OK?”

Jacob and Blake went back into the conference room with the two staff that Blake had picked, Fiona and Ken, both experienced fact checkers and editors from the site that had the experience and common sense they needed to run with the bosses on a big story like this.

“What do we know? You – go!” Blake had pointed at Fiona and she stopped and thought for a second before carefully stating what she could assume from the video and what she had just heard.

“It's a game, one of natural selection, hence the quote and the name Darwin's Game. It is supposed to imply survival of the fittest I would have to say. We have 12 players in the game, each of them a criminal or a predator I guess you could say. The first fatality is the paedophile, that makes sense as they would be the natural lowest rank in the prison hierarchy. The mass murderers, the killers would like be the top of the list, they would be likely to survive the longest. The titles and episode 1 implies that there are more coming, and this is the start of it, there is a potential 11 more episodes and therefore assumably a winner. The fittest, so my guess would be the winner of Darwin's Game gets to live, “survival” being the ultimate prize. We can't hear the voices, so they probably know something or could say something about their location or the set up hence no clues to divulge location or anything that would help us figure out where they are. We don't see anyone except the … what do we call them? Contestants? Players? I don't know that I like the connotations of either of those – we need a non-biased, non-slanted name for them. We cannot condone or support the game in anyway when we report it.” Fiona held her head in her hands, the import of the game seemed bigger that she should be deciding in a meeting room with a few minutes notice.

Blake was thinking and tapping his fingers on his chin while she was speaking. “Agreed, the reason we were chosen is because of the way we do things, I assume that no one else has this material, how long has it been sitting with us? Does anyone know when it turned up or where it came from? Who is on that”

“No one saw it arrive, it could have been here hours or days, I don't remember it here from Friday, but here it is Monday afternoon at the only I happen to check my desk, it turned up on my desk in an unmarked envelope, delivered by hand to my attention. To me personally, but it could have arrived Friday, or any time over the weekend or today. I'll get IT to check the cameras and see if they can see anyone dropping it off, but unless it was today I don't think they'll see anything. They wipe the tapes after 24 hours, they're not really there for much help, they look more important than they are. They're a deterrent, and this is the second time in a year that we'd even considered looking at them.” Jacob cackled a little at the memory, “And the last time was hardly that important, it was who was smoking in the kitchen, and we know what a waste of time that was.”

Blake blushed, a rare occurrence, but it had been him smoking late at night in the kitchen and not confessing to it was a part of the problem. He had been having troubles with his partner, who had been giving him stress about the long hours he was at the office, smoking in secret was a stress reliever. He knew that he would eventually get caught out as the culprit, but he enjoyed the distraction of the office man-hunt for a few days before the evidence was eventually put in front of him and he owned up to it. And what were they going to do about it? It was his company, he could pretty much do what he liked, and breaking an office policy he had implemented when he wanted to give up that particular vice seemed liked a little rebellion against the world. It made him feel better then, and he had not smoked since.

He felt like one now though.

“Do we put it up? I mean that's why we were sent it right? Everyone else will take sides, but they'll get the facts from us and this Darwin gets instant credibility from it being us that puts it out there. Are we playing Darwin's Game too?”

That silenced everyone in the room.

Jacob broke the spell.

“How could we not?”