The plane landed on a tiny airstrip fifteen minutes after the final contestant had dropped out of the plane. Smitty rose from his seat near the back of the plane, stretched his arms over his head, and rolled his shoulder muscles, only to be greeted by the sounds of creaks and pops. Previous injuries both on and off the field of battle had made his life one of near-constant pain. From his crap knees, a knife wound to his midsection, the resulting scar tissue, to the metal plate on the left side of his head. He was a walking and talking example of a man who had tried to die too many times to count.
Smitty shoved a pair of Oxy down his throat while he strutted toward the exit because he hadn’t had the opportunity to slip into a bathroom. But he was good and used the brush of his hand across his close-cropped beard to cover his motions. He crunched both pills then swallowed the bitter paste.
Smitty checked the television screen and found that the action was off to a quick start. At least two players had already met their ends and Smitty couldn’t wait to get on camera to offer his expert opinion.
The engines wound down for the first time in a few hours, giving his ears some relief. A doctor had suggested that he consider small and unobtrusive hearing aids. All that gunfire, not to mention public appearances, attending concerts, and being invited on stage, had left him with a case of tinnitus. The ringing was constant, and right now it was louder than ever.
As the engine died, and the rear door opened, he was greeted by a whole lot of nothing. This damn chunk of land had a distinct lack of birds and wildlife. Even bugs seemed to be too scared to nest here. Smitty had heard rumors that the location had been used to test the effects of chemical attacks, and he thought there was some truth there. Other, more sinister rumors, insisted that the former inhabitants of the once-thriving island had all met their end thanks to an experiment gone wrong. That would explain the buildings and signs from the seventies, as well as the cars that littered the street, rusted-out hunks that weren’t fit to piss on.
It had been his idea, after his first game, to drop in a few vehicles that actually worked, and it had made a difference. Being able to hop in a car and drive to a hot zone, instead of watching a stream of an individual running for half an hour, had increased viewership likability a great deal, and that’s what the sponsors loved. Hooking a viewer for more than a few hours meant more advertising dollars.
Gretchen waited for Smitty at the bottom of the stairs.
The wind whipped across the tarmac and tossed her hair around her head. She pushed a lock off her face and then crossed her arms. In one hand she carried a tablet. The device was similar to those carried by the players, but it was larger, and it offered a host of extra features. He could track the players via their GPS signals built into the unremovable harnesses.
“Did everything go okay during the drop?” Gretchen offered a tight smile.
“More or less. Had a few scaredy cats, but they all went out the door.” He nodded as he switched the tablet’s view to a random player.
On the screen, a room came into view. The player had found a location to camp from, and he, or she, knelt next to the door while they slid a scope onto a Ruger Mini-14. The lightweight assault rifle was one of the better weapons to be found on the ground. Good for them. The scope would make them a killing machine if they could find a perfect position. Only the sound of the 5.56 rounds would give them away.
“Here.” Gretchen handed him his earpiece.
Smitty slid the little device into his ear canal and touched the side. The person on the screen panted as they poked their head out of the doorway. They ducked back in and emptied a box of shells onto the ground. Smitty touched the screen in the corner and the player’s name and stats appeared.
Player: Turner, Arnold
Location: Grid 217.44
Kills: 0
Idle time: ten minutes
Zone time remaining: six minutes
“Damn, brother. You need to get to moving out,” Smitty said as he continued toward the command center.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He switched to another view and found a guy raiding a two-story house. He touched the screen again and found stats.
Player name: Garcia, Dustin
Location: Grid 118.6
Kills: 1
Idle time: 3 seconds
Zone time remaining: 32 minutes
“He’s in a good spot,” Gretchen said as she looked over Smitty’s shoulder. “And he has a kill. Who bit it?”
Smitty touched a button but the information didn’t appear on screen.
“Don’t know. The crunchers haven’t had time to find the dead guy yet.”
“Or dead woman,” Gretchen said. “Equal opportunity and all.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you still a grumpy about letting girls into your game again?” Gretchen asked.
“It’s good for ratings. I don’t know. I feel like it should be a game for testosterone-pumped assholes. Most women don’t fit the profile.”
“You said it,” Gretchen frowned, “not me.”
“You know what I mean,” Smitty said.
“I don’t, but I also have no desire to put my life on the line. Even if it was me against one other player, she was old as shit, in a wheelchair, and dying of lymphoma, there’s still a chance I would do something stupid and end up getting killed. Twenty five million dollars isn’t worth my life.” Gretchen shrugged.
The nondescript gray building rose before them. Constructed for the game, there were no windows, but satellite disks, radar disks, and radio towers sprouted from the roof to create a multimedia feed powerful enough to reach the entire world. The producers took the roof off of the building each year for Chicken Dinner. Then, after its completion, it was reconstructed from metal slats to keep the location secret. Generators in long rows lined the back of the location and fed tens of thousands of watts of energy to the hungry team inside.
A fifteen-foot tall razor-wire topped chain link fence lined the entire airbase. The only way in or out, on foot or in a vehicle, was a single gate, well-guarded by a pair of watchtowers. The other way off the base was by helicopter or plane.
It was overkill, but there had been glitches in the past. Equipment breakdowns, harness failures, and the like had put some of the staff on edge. They were sitting ducks for a bunch of well-armed individuals who didn’t give a damn about anything except fame and fortune. The law on this little plot of land allowed for legal murder, and the staff did not have a free pass. If one of them left the compound, they could be a sitting duck.
“How you living?” Smitty roared as he flung open the door.
Cheers met him as heads popped up from behind rows of computer screens.
The building had been stripped of everything except the equipment necessary for running the game. Long tables, racks of computers, cables all over the fucking place. Smitty had always been impressed that this place could be brought online in a couple of days. It took an army to set everything up, but it was a well-paid army of civilians, and all of them had signed enough NDAs to last a lifetime. “Yeah. I work on Chicken Dinner,” being the only thing they were allowed to say in public.
Of course, this had led to other issues, like an angry family member kidnapping and, attempting to murder, a woman named Kathy Fearnley, who had worked as an IT tech on Chicken Dinner. The family member, a disgruntled husband whose wife had joined the game without his knowledge, had blamed the entire organization for her death. But there was the video of her relinquishing all blame, and the signed documents agreeing that this was her choice. The lawsuit had died in a state court and it had set the precedent for future would-be lawsuits. After they had negotiated Kathy’s release, the man had gone to prison for a long time.
The largest screens carried the game streams. They had been set up in a matrix of five down and ten across. Most still had feeds, but a few had been shut off. Each of the blank screens represented a death. Above each one a printed placard bore the player’s name, place of birth, and their game rank, a number that ranged from one to ten.
Days before the big show, a show called Kill Zone that ran nightly, and on prime time, featured videos of the players, their likes, how they trained for Chicken Dinner, and their family members speaking up for them. Of course, most players were loners. Some refused to appear onscreen and insisted their faces and voices be covered until it was game day. But it made for terrific hype and Smitty, a frequent contributor to the show, weighed in on some of the favored players.
Smitty took up station before the matrix. A pair of green arrows marked the spot he need to stand in. A woman approached and dusted his face with a little makeup, while a man fixed a microphone to his shirt. The camera crew rotated lights until they had him in the perfect shot.
He glanced up at the big green ticker hanging over the middle of the room. Words scrolled by, the same that were carried to the millions of people streaming the game. The data provided kill counts, players likely to get in a firefight in the next few minutes and, of course, advertisements.
Smitty cleared his throat and put on his game face. The dour look. The twinkle in his eye that he had learned from a politician. The knowing narrowing of his eyes he had picked up from a televangelist. It was all part of the persona. A man who had survived no less than two games, and was ready to entertain the masses with his insightful commentary.
The producer lifted his hand and extended his fingers. They came down one after another as he counted.
The red light went on; Smitty lifted his hands and spread them wide.
“Welcome to Chicken Dinner,” he said with a grim smile.