Arthur Conwell took another nervous swig from the can in his hand, drinking deep the lukewarm liquid courage it contained. And he certainly needed it, given the decision he was about to make. If what he had been told was true, then this would indeed be a choice that would determine the rest of his life.
His gaze was fixed firmly on the two objects on the table in front of him.
One was an unassuming black box just about the size of his palm, a smooth cuboid that bore no symbol or decoration. On its face was a small, curved indentation – like someone had pressed their thumb into the dark plastic as it was settling. But alone the box meant nothing; if that was all Arthur had been sent in the mail, he’d have thrown it out and gone about his day like normal.
It was the other object that commanded more of his attention. A single sheet of paper, with a few short paragraphs explaining what the box was for. Arthur couldn’t explain how he knew, but he had immediately clocked the slightly yellowed paper as some high quality grade stock. He wasn’t exactly an expert on paper-making and such, but it was the feel of the material across his fingertips. Not quite rough, per say, but… regal.
Like it had come straight out of a fairytale.
~~
A SHOW FOR ALL AGES
Greetings MR ARTHUR CONWELL,
My salutations to you, good sir; and congratulations! You have been hand-picked from an extremely limited pool of candidates to participate in the 75th Show! A magnificent honor, I should think. However, I do understand that you might not be entirely… familiar with our, shall we say, enterprise. As such, I will endeavour to explain it in as succinct a summary as possible!
A Show for All Ages is in simple terms, a gameshow! Put on for the amusement for our wealthy patrons who have grown weary of the paltry entertainment that the humble planet we call Earth has to offer. Participants – or contestants, as we like to call them – will go through a number of challenging tasks and activities designed to rivet and enchant the audience!
~~
Gameshow, Arthur had scoffed the first time he read that word. I’m already struggling to make ends meet – I don’t have time to enter some stupid gameshow. And it’s not even going to be aired on the telly; just for some rich old blokes sitting around in their massive mansions, having a hoot at our expense. Why in God’s name would I do that?
But as he read on, standing out there in front of his battered old mailbox dimly lit by the lampposts that lined the street, the last dregs of winter snow falling all around him, his face slowly began to tighten. He read and re-read the last block of words on the page, and his eyes grew wide with shock. Instinctively, Arthur had brought the sheet of parchment closer to his body, as if to hide it from curious strangers. He furtively glanced about his surroundings, his gaze urgent and panicked.
Then with all the haste he could muster, Arthur retreated back into the small six-by-six room he called home, the strange black box and accompanying info-sheet clutched firmly in hand.
Not that there was anyone about that could have caught a glance of the thin sheet of paper in his hand; it was two in the morning, after all. His work – a stint at the local iron mill – demanded a gruelling time commitment on a daily basis for little to no pay, so he often left work in the wee hours.
And Arthur knew this time most of all. The silent dark, he had dubbed it. A time where only rats and ghosts roamed the streets; and of course, poor fools like him.
Yet despite knowing all this he had still scampered back into his cramped flat, locked the door tight and drew the tattered blinds across the window. With shaky hands he had plucked a can of cheap alcohol from the fridge, before finally sitting back down at the tiny wooden desk.
And for the past ten minutes he had run his eyes over and over the last paragraph on the page.
~~
“What’s in it for me,” I hear you ask? Well… plenty! Every contestant’s name will be etched in eternal letters on the hallowed Leaderboard of the Show; a legacy that you can be proud of leaving behind! Think about it; we’ll be literally enshrining you in the annals of history! How exciting! But we here at the Show believe in proper encouragement. So in addition to the addition of your inscription to the Leaderboard, the sole winner of A Show for All Ages gets to walk away with a jaw-dropping seventy-five million dollars!
Inclusive of tax, of course.
Simply push your thumb into the little black box to register your agreement, and we’ll take care of the rest.
And remember; all you have to do… is win.
Good luck!
Signed with all well wishes,
The Game-Master.
~~
Seventy-five million dollars.
That was seventy-five million more dollars than Arthur had ever had at any point in his miserable life. With that… why, he could quit that soul-sucking job at the mill! He could buy one of those fancy mansions in the city – not rent a shabby little shack out in the countryside like he had been doing all this time. No longer would he be forced to scarf down tasteless porridge mixed with bland, grey mince; he’d have steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
He could even buy a yacht!
Arthur didn’t know what he was going to do with a yacht, but what he did know was that if he won whatever this mysterious gameshow was, he would have all the time in the world to figure it out.
He picked up the black cuboid, turning it about in his hands.
Seventy-five million dollars. I can swallow my dignity for that. Prance about like a clown for the amusement of a couple of old geezers; swallow a couple of live bugs – anything. For that kind of money, I would do anything.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Arthur found the indentation on the cover of the box, and steadying it with his left hand, placed his right thumb over the grape-shaped dent.
But for a moment he hesitated. To tell the truth, this was all sounding a bit fishy. If there was something as lucrative as this offer, something so mind-bending… surely he’d have heard about it somewhere? On the news or something? It was an absolute fortune, after all.
However, that moment of hesitation didn’t last long. He wasn’t exactly employable, having spent the better part of the past fifteen years behind bars for grand larceny. Call it the impulse of a younger, more reckless teenager. He’d nicked some old lady’s ring off the dresser next to an open window; how could he have known she was the grandmother of the Attorney General?
Slim as it might be, this was a lifeline out of the mess of the life he had found himself in. And damned if he was going to let this opportunity slip by.
All I have to do is win.
With grim determination, Arthur pushed down onto the box, feeling the tiny indentation of the cuboid give way to the pressure exerted – and immediately pulled his hand back in pain, the box tumbling to the ground. The damned box had pricked him!
He brought his thumb to his eyes, anxiously surveying the wound. As expected, a tiny bubble of blood was beginning to grow where he had been pricked. With well-deserved fury, Arthur angrily picked up the box where it had fallen and examined the indentation that he had been led to believe was some sort of new-fangled thumbprint scanner.
Apparently there had been some sort of mechanism hidden beneath the surface of the plastic that poked upwards when you pressed down on the dent, since the glint of a metal needle was now visible, clear as day.
Great, Arthur grumbled to himself as he stared at the block in his hands in disgust. This was all some sort of… sick prank. A youngster getting his kicks. Should have known there’s no such thing as a free seventy-five million. Well, haha, very funny, you bratty lil’ shit. You got me. I oughta- why, I oughta-
Is the room starting to spin?
And as the designer neurotoxin finally begins to take effect, Arthur Conwell, 36, falls unconscious in his tiny flat in the countryside. The injected serum is a proprietary mixture of chemicals, specifically concocted to induce a deep hibernative state, and only dispelled by the subsequent introduction of the correct matching reagents.
As a result, without proper knowledge of how this concoction is formulated, even the best doctors would be hard-pressed to revive those that have imbibed this serum.
An hour later, a black van rolls up next to Arthur’s doorstep, called to his location by the activation of the Invitation Beacon. The middle-aged man is discreetly and expertly bundled into the back by masked individuals in full black suits, each donning matching wired earpieces, like what one might imagine a secret agent from the movies might wear.
Which would be a surprisingly accurate assessment of what the jobs of these individuals entailed – that of being a secret agent for the gameshow put on by the Game-Master.
The Agents, directed by the energetic voice chattering in their ears, take extreme care to ensure the safety and viability of their asset. An on-site medical examination, by way of extraneous scanner, is conducted on the comatose contestant to confirm that he is fit for the activities he will be taking part in.
After the asset is confirmed to be in the pink of health – besides the induced coma he has been placed in – the Agents strap the unconscious contestant in to prevent him from banging any particularly tender areas about when in motion, and await instructions to move off.
Inside the abode, two gloved Agents are meticulously arranging the scene to prevent any from discovering their presence. Their goal is not to clean up the apartment, but to maintain the general look and feel of the home – to prove to potential pursuers that any unexplained disappearances are of the inhabitant’s own doing, and not interference from any nefarious third parties.
The curtain blinds are carefully pulled back. The beer can the inhabitant had recently drunk is collected and deposited into a black trash bag that they will bring with them. The black box and accompanying info-sheet is also retrieved at this time. And as per the directions by their handler, the Agents take Arthur’s wallet and keys from their place on the kitchen counter. They lock up behind themselves.
Within a span lasting only seven minutes, there is no longer any trace of an abduction having taken place here. The sudden disappearance of the iron mill worker would become another unexplained statistic buried in a spreadsheet somewhere, forgotten by all but the most diligent of cops – and those were hard to come by in this rural countryside.
The last two Agents click on their seatbelts, and the one at the wheel turns around to visually confirm their presence. Good. Time to go. As per procedure, he taps the button on his earpiece twice, abruptly cutting off the Game-Master's jovial banter about the latest batch of G.O.B.L.I.Ns he'd cooked up in favor of switching the communications channel to that of the administration team.
"Stagehand Team One to Show Stage," The Agent speaks. "Confirming receipt of last contestant for the 75th Show. Contestant 10, Arthur Conwell. Request for permission to move off."
There is a moment of mild confusion from the staff member on the other end, who immediately requested further clarification. The Agent rolled his eyes at the sound of rustling paper as the staff member frantically rattles off a quick description of the Show that they were briefed on; one that only had nine contestants. Nine contestants that were already in the compound. The Agent sighed as the voice began to take on a more accusatory tone - labelling his excursion as an unauthorized trip not within the schedule.
Typical desk jockey screw-ups. Probably hadn't even seen a Show before, judging by how they didn't even know how the Game-Master operated.
"No, that was version four." The Agent replied patiently. "The Game-Master decided to go with version two. It isn't your fault; it was a last minute substitution. He felt that this would be more impactful. Yes; the one with all the old ladies paired up. All cleared up? Good."
With confirmation given, the Agent starts the engine of the van. No one notices the strange vehicle leave the area. It was, after all, a time where only rats and ghosts roamed the streets.
The next time Arthur would open his eyes, what he would be greeted with would not be the dingy but familiar surroundings that he has spent the last four years becoming accustomed to. It would instead be the colourful and fantastic world of the gameshow known only as
A SHOW FOR ALL AGES