Day 62 - Darwin's Game - Chapter 11 (2796 words)

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DARWIN'S GAME

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 11

Episode 3

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. ~ Charles Darwin”

The blackness of the quote faded away and showed a view from the top corner of a corridor, looking down it's length from the assumed position of a security camera, at the door at the far end. The scene stayed looking at the door for about thirty seconds before the door opened and someone came through it.

John Vargas was coming through the door and he looked scared and was limping, leaving a spotted trail of what looked likely to be blood behind him as he closed the door carefully, slowly and backed away. There was no soundtrack again and after taking a few steps he stopped and knelt on the floor, trying to wipe up the blood spots there, taking his shirt off and wiping at the spots, smearing them on the floor. Frustrated he threw his shirt at the wall and watched it impotently bounce off. He picked it up and hobbled he walked as best he could down the corridor and out of sight.

The scene stayed focused on the initial door and it opened slowly outwards, one hand visible as the door swung out. Then the scene blacked out again and the caption came up.

EARLIER

The scene faded in again and the players were in the same room as in episode two, all sat in chairs around a big table. In front of each of them this time was a circular object, like a ring or a circlet with a clasp of some kind, open and hinged so it could assumably be worn around the neck. If there were instructions being given it was impossible to hear them, but you could easily guess it was an command to put the circlet around their necks like a collar.

All ten of the people around the desk put on the collar, at various stages and rates and you could see some having difficulty with them. There was impatience from some of the quicker players, it was obvious from the gestures and silent shouts to hurry up that there was some demand to get them on. When each collar clasp was connected it lit up, a connected circuit obviously displaying that it was correctly positioned and secured around the neck.

When all ten were lit up then something changed in the room and each of the men leapt out of their chairs and into the room suddenly free and motivated to move. Some of them were clutching at their necks in apparent discomfort and pain, and writhed about. One of the men reached over to assist one on the ground only to arch back and claw at his own neck.

Every man stood a few feet apart at a minimum, no one going anywhere near the deathly chairs at the table or towards any of the other men. When they managed to get to close to each other you could see that both would set of come kind of feedback mechanism that shocked or inflicted some kind of pain in each other. When they separated again the pain subsided and they looked much worse for having experienced whatever it was that was set upon them.

The ten men stood around, waiting or listening and then stood back from the table all at the same time, reacting to some unheard instruction to do so. In the middle of the table a circle appeared, opened like a sliding door a few inches wide and then through the resulting hole came a small cylinder with what looked like ten spikes sticking randomly out of the top of it. The arrangement could not have been bigger than an inch or two wide and the spikes were thin but distinct from each other.

Julio Suarez's collar blinked and he tried to crane his neck downwards to see it, though it was bright and casting enough of a shadow for it not to be missed by anyone with even partial sight. He stepped forward and through the men near him, one or two edging out of his path in case he set off whatever was in the collars that was hurting them. He came to the table and reached out to the spikes, looked at them his hand hovering over the top of them, deciding to pick one over any other. He looked upwards to the ceiling, made the sign of the cross on his chest and then selected. He pulled out a straw, it was a long and thin spike of some material and he looked at it, it looked long enough that he thought he had not drawn 'short' but having no comparison he was still unsure. He stepped back and held it up to the others, still unsure of the outcome.

Evan Jacobsen was next and he strode to the table with confidence and spent no time thinking or vacillating about his choice, he pulled a straw that looked to be the same length as the one that Julio had selected and he looked at it, sneering at the straw before turning to show the others with a contemptuous look of victory on his face. He casually threw the straw back on the table and then immediately fell to his knees, his face contorted in pain, screwed up tight and reddening every second. Still kneeling he scrabbled backwards and grasped at the table top to try and get the straw back in his hands. It took him longer than it should have because of what appeared to be excruciating pain around his neck. When he finally picked it up again and he shouted something through spittle and tears upwards the collar relented and his body, tensed beyond all sense in pain relaxed visibly and he sank down into his knelling position before firmly holding the straw aloft, walked back in tentative steps to the group of men around the room.

Garth Parker was next and he confidently approached, took a moment to examine the straws, could see nothing that could give him any advantage and so shrugging his shoulders he picked at random and pulled a length of straw the same as the previous two. He was followed by Wynton Washington, who was sweating as he chose, the look on his face showing how much he desperately wanted to bust free of the collar and take control of his situation, but he was a prisoner of the system and the game.

John Vargas was next and he came to the desk quickly and reached forward to pick a straw. Then he stopped and looked around the room, trying to calculate his odds on his fingers and looking more panicked at each moment that passed. Like Garth he looked all over the straws and even tried testing them by wiggling them where he could, but they looked solid and impervious to his investigations. Eventually he too shrugged and like Julio he looked upwards and mouthed the word “please” to whatever God he hoped still loved him and made his choice.

He came up short and his collar blinked a couple of times and them the clasp popped open and the circlet came apart and fell to the floor. He stood in the middle frozen in fear and then a couple of the men rushed towards him, trying to get to him at the same time, and setting off their collars and dropping themselves to the ground and moving erratically around the floor trying to get out of rang of the other man, setting off a few more of the people standing about. All of the men moved even further away from each other and back from John who was still immobilised and staring at the straw and then the collar on the ground.

Wynton stepped forward when it was apparent no one was making a move and took a swing at John catching him on the side of the head and sending him flying towards another of the men, Mark Rowlands, who caught him by the arms and held him firmly as Wynton came closer to swing again but pulled up short. He was working out the distance between him and Mark to see if they would set off the collars if he came in for a hard blow on John Vargas.

In that moment of indecision Vargas twisted away from the grip around his arms and swung backwards and around to the left, pivoting in place and throwing Rowlands at Wynton, setting off their collars and making them dance away from each other, while carefully avoiding the other men all spread out evenly enough through the room.

Vargas was in the middle of a human mine field, it was a stalemate of sorts as they worked out how to get to him and he worked out how to stay safe. He gravitated towards the men that were older or smaller than him and as they were less of a threat he used them as a buffer to keep the bigger and more dangerous men in the room at bay.

Everyone stopped and listened to something being announced and the looks on two faces told the viewers what it was being said in the context of the game. Wynton's face split open into a beaming, predatory smile and John Vargas went pale and shook slightly at the news. Slots in the table like the ones the straws had come through opened in all the positions around the table and through them came knives, long bladed and short handled, curved and thick enough to cause death if hacked at the man now looking about him with a serious panic setting in.

On the wall behind him, where it had been featureless and a part of a screen in the second episode the outline of a door became visible, inset itself and then opened by sliding away. Two things happened in quick succession then. Vargas bolted for the door and Wynton darted to the table and grabbed a knife and threw it at the departing John Vargas. It caught him on the arm and did not wound him, but did upset his movement and he slammed into the door frame, banging his head on the opening and falling down, tripping on his own feet and the knife bounced away to land at the feet of Mark Rowlands. Mark pounced, picked up the knife and jammed it downwards with all the force he could muster into Vargas lower leg, which was just in reach as he dove forward.

Vargas opened his mouth and screamed, no sound was heard but the pain and biting fire of being stabbed came across loud and clear. With the stabbed leg he kicked out at Rowlands, catching him in the face. None of the others could get near Vargas with Rowlands lying right there stunned and clutching at his now bloodied cheek. The other men started to pick up knives as John stood up and limped out of the door and into the space outside.

The scene changed and a corridor not dissimilar to the one in the first scene, but with no end door, and with Vargas appearing half way down the length, looking backwards to the opening he had come through and suddenly darting forwards as two knives ricocheted off the wall and falling on the ground. They were in the opening and he looked at them and decided to not go for them in the heat of the moment and expose himself to further throws. He limped away instead and out of site.

The scene came back and again to the original view of him opening a door, limping through bleeding onto the ground and trying to cover it up. Then as he disappeared and the door opened once more it was Wynton who came through first, saw the blood smeared on the ground and hefting a new knife in his hands set off running down the length.

The scene changed again and this time the door opened in a wall and through it came a limping Vargas, and he stopped and looked shocked at something in front of him. The camera, no longer a static security cam, pulled back and showed a maze from on high, where Vargas was he was lower than the maybe ten to twelve foot high walls, with no ceilings. There were many doors on the outside of the maze and it was a big warehouse type space, the maze section taking the width of the room so that the only way was through it.

Vargas looked behind him and the door slammed shut and he limped forward and took one of the entries, and darted inside. The camera switched to a view from above and like looking at a rat in scientists maze Vargas was visible and was heading inwards, still dripping blood. He saw the trail he was leaving and took his shirt off again, this time tying it tightly around the would to staunch the flow and prevent the clues he was leaving behind from bleeding him to death.

He moved in and then Wynton came through the door grinning at the blood trail and following Vargas inside. Behind him came Rowlands and he too went into the maze, taking a different route, either not seeing the blood trail or taking a different tack to not run into another collared player. One by one the remaining players came into the maze and Vargas painfully moved about the maze slowly and carefully obviously not trying to make any noise.

Vargas was being pushed into a blind alley, it was obvious from the above view that there was no way he could get out that way and there was Jackson Jones III heading the same way he was, nervously twisting the knife in his hands and swinging it side to side as he walked, waving it like is was a metal detector or had an equal use of some kind.

He came to the dead end and turned back to head the way he came when Jackson saw him and brandishing the knife came forward. Vargas was trapped and could not get past him, had no weapon of his own and was not going to get any mercy from Jackson who slowly and deliberately came forwards to kill him. Vargas looked desperately around for any means of escape, but there was none apparent. He flattened against a wall and Jackson came closer and closer to him, the frustration in Vargas's eyes giving way to tears. That made Jones smile and he came in for the first blow, slicing at him and cutting his arms, causing Vargas to scream in pain. Jackson swung again and blood flew out but it was not yet the fatal blow, and Vargas fell to the ground sobbing and bleeding.

Jackson stood over him and Vargas looked up at him, accepted his fate and waited for the release from the pain and terror of the game in death. In the corridor next to them Thomas Somerset walked past and must have heard something as he leaned against the wall and put his ear to it as Jackson leaned in for the killing blow and they set each others collars off and they both reacted violently to the pain brought by proximity.

Vargas, weak and bleeding opened his eyes and saw Jacskson falling backwards, the knife dropping from his grip as he pulled at the collar and he jumped backwards and out of range of the wall. Vargas had a reprieve, and a split second took the opportunity for all it was worth, adrenalin powered him forward, scooping up the knife and jabbing it forcefully upwards into Jackson's rib cage in one fluid, final stroke.

The surprise and shock on Jones' face was captured from above as he gazed sightlessly at the ceiling, the camera and whatever else was there in that space that the viewer did not see from any angle. Blood bubbled on his lips and flowed freely down the knife and over Vargas's arms and the Trust Fund Killer died in less than a minute, as John Vargas twisted his grip on the knife and an obscene amount of red came out of a wound torn open and exposed in the man's chest.

Vargas fell backwards and then around the corner came Wynton, his knife raised as he surveyed the carnage, listened intently to something and then raised a middle finger and flipped the bird, presumably at the unseen Darwin, then dropped his weapon disappointedly and walked away, the light blinking on his collar.