In my dream, I floated in a room with black walls, black tiles, and a sea of circular white tables which faintly glowed with a soft light. My friends floated around one of the tables with me, looking around but not speaking to one another; actual speech was rare in my dreams. My vision was blurry, focusing and unfocusing on the glossy tabletop. An eerie hum filled my ears as the background noise gradually manifested.
“Why the fuck didn’t I get KFC?”
My head snapped up to look at the speaker. Addy was gesturing at the plate in front of him, which was half chips, half an orange creamy substance.
I blinked hard. Not a dream - reality. I was in a black cafeteria, sitting at a round white table.
Blaine unfolded a box with the Kentucky Fried Chicken logo. Brad and I had similar boxes on the table in front of us.
“Maybe because you’re a Jew?” Brad joked, tearing into his box of chicken.
“I’m not a practicing Jew! Damnit! Also, they gave me buffalo chicken dip! Which contains chicken!”
“It might be made with kosher chicken?” I supplied, staring into my own box’s contents, “But I have another idea. What’s the last thing you ate yesterday?”
Addy squinted his eyes, flicking a hand in circles as he considered, “Huh. My mom made buffalo chicken dip. Are you proposing a conspiracy theory?”
“No, not every theory is a conspiracy. But the three of us got KFC on the way back from Walmart. This is the exact meal I ordered,” I explained.
“Same. That’s creepy as hell,” Blaine said, staring into his box.
“This chicken is dope!” Brad added, ripping at a chicken breast with his teeth.
I began separating the components of the meal across the table, wondering what had become of my meatloaf. The actual event of being drugged and transported somewhere else didn't bother me nearly as much as it should.
Addy spoke between crunches, “This tastes exactly like how my mom makes it!”
A note of dread touched my conscious. It might have been an irrational question to ask, but had Ted or Ted’s captor kidnapped Addy’s mom as well? Were our families safe? Did they know we were gone? Were they in on whatever was happening here? I began organizing my thoughts so that I could ask the others for an opinion.
Before I could finish, a fist slammed the table and Addy snarled, “So. Who the fuck sabotaged my stocks?”
I turned my head to the side and put my hands up in protested innocence. Brad mumbled that it wasn’t him and Blaine said, “Woah, man, take it easy. Wasn't me, either.”
Addy swept an intense glare over each of us individually. When our eyes met, I shook my head at him, and he moved on to Brad.
Would he figure it out? That the colored X’s matched the colors of our cards from the day prior? I didn’t want Addy for an enemy in this game.
“Whoever did it is going to fucking die,” Addy promised, “There’s a nine-minute delay on my ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ buttons now. In financial economics, we call that a fucking atrocity!”
“Dude, it wasn’t me,” Blaine said, patting his chest for emphasis, “I can’t even afford a power move yet!”
“My X’s are green,” Brad said, “Blame Alec,”
My eyes bugged out, an alarm sounding in my head, and Addy’s hand came down on the table, harder than before, “Why don’t you explain how you stole twelve-thousand dollars from my vault, Blaine? Your goodie-two-shoes act is fooling no one!”
“That wasn’t me, either!” Blaine cried out, “Check my money. I haven’t even broken 110! Brad and Alec are the two you should be looking at. They're both loaded!”
Addy’s eyes challenged Brad and me, then turned back on Blaine, “I don’t buy it. You probably gave some to Brad so you could appear innocent.”
My mouth made an ‘O’ shape. I hadn’t considered that, and it was plausible. Still, Blaine didn’t seem like the dishonest type.
I breathed with relief then, as it appeared that Addy had forgotten about his previous line of questioning. So long as the topic wasn't broached again, I was in the clear.
“Dude, that’s ridiculous,” Blaine said, “I wouldn’t do that. It’s a cheap tactic and twelve-thousand dollars ain’t worth it.”
Addy didn’t break eye contact with Blaine. I went on eating my chicken fingers in silence.
"Give me a break," he groaned, "It's a game! You're allowed to pull 'cheap tactics.' Try again!"
"Try what again?" Blaine asked.
"Convince me it wasn't you! Give me an alibi! Where were you at the time of death?"
"What are you talking about? The death of who?"
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"American capitalism!"
"Yeah, okay."
This flavor of ridiculous went on for a few minutes. No resolution was reached.
When they were finished and some of the tension had subsided, I started a new conversation, "Can we talk about what is going on here? Not about playing the game, but about the game itself?"
"Yeah, Alec, that sounds like a more constructive way of utilizing our time," Blaine agreed.
Addy scoffed, "Don't 'utilize' big words for no reason. Just because you can talk like Alec doesn't mean you're on his level."
Woah.
So much for playful banter.
I spoke fast, cutting off Blaine's reply, "There aren't levels, and if there were, they aren't worth discussing. Can we please talk about the game?"
"Yes, let's do that," Blaine said after a moment's hesitation. He was smiling at me and I didn't know why.
"Alec-just-agreed-with-me-and-also I'd like to put the Addy conspiracy back on the table," Addy said.
"If he's doing that, can we also talk about alien gods potentially fucking with us?" Brad proposed.
"No. No, I want real ideas," I explained, "Why the four of us? And why are we playing these games?"
"Well they certainly didn't choose us based on diversity," Addy remarked, "Four straight white dudes competing in an office building. Do you think there'll be a golf challenge?"
"I'm not white. I'm Hispanic," Brad corrected.
"Could've fooled me," Addy smirked, "But what about your dad, Alec? Isn't he an engineer?"
"Yes," I confirmed, "Why? Is being an engineer a white thing, too?"
"Just let me explain," Addy said, "We have to remember that our entire friend group got taken. So either our captors know us in some way, or it's important that we are familiar with each other."
"That's... actually a good point," I admitted.
"Yeah, you jackass, I'm full of them," Addy chided, "So what if your dad is secretly an engineer working for Ted Lax. And Mr. Laxy boy thought it would be a good idea to have some kids test his freshest technology. Maybe to see how intuitive it is? So he asked around for volunteers, and your dad nominated us!"
"You raise a few good ideas. It's possible?"
Addy continued, "Just wait. What if Laximus Maximus's new auto-steering technology failed and drove us off the road. So he had to use time-warped bullets to fire at our past selves to prevent the board members from ever seeing his failure. Only, killing us would have caused a paradox, and so the bullets failed to kill us!"
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Blaine said, visibly unimpressed.
"But we can work with some of the core ideas," I reassured, "For example, I think it's safe to assume that us knowing each other is important to these games. Let's run with that."
"And take it where?" Brad asked, "We don't really know anything. These are all guesses."
"Yes, they are," I agreed, "But building a reliable model of what is going on will give us an advantage in the long run. Anyway, I still strongly suspect that this is some kind of social experiment. When I talked to Ted, he refused to answer my most trivial questions. Therefore, our role here is supposed to remain ambiguous. Four test subjects working together on an ambiguous problem? Sounds like the setup for a sociological experiment to me."
"Four test subjects who are white and male," Addy added.
"So what are the sociological implications of earning money in an ambiguous business?" Blaine asked.
No. Stop.
I twisted my lip, knowing what was coming.
"And here we go again," Addy said, "Big bad Blaine pulling out the big boy words."
"Will you shut up and focus?" Blaine demanded, stabbing a plastic fork into a biscuit.
"Moral high ground. Classic," Addy snarked, "Yeah, I'll shut up and focus after you stop trying to earn points in social dominance. Or is that too ambiguous for you?"
"You're one to talk," Blaine fired back.
"Guys. Chill!" I commanded them.
But neither listened and the conversation inevitably disintegrated into pointless bickering. Addy was pissed, because of his stocks, the stolen $12,000, or something else I wasn't aware of. Once he had momentum, there was no stopping him.
Blaine had also pushed some of Addy's buttons. Likely on purpose. Was that a ploy? Getting Addy riled up for some future plan? Was it all an act?
Probably just two friends being stubborn together. With a roll of the eyes, I turned my attention back to the food spread out in front of me.
I regretted that my productive conversation had been side-tracked. But I hadn't expected much to come of it.
Guess I'll just solve this one on my own.
Lunch dragged on for an uncomfortable sixty minutes. Addy argued with Blaine for most of it, while Brad and I made meaningless small talk.
I had to adjust my jeans every few minutes. They were uncomfortable, tight, and were constantly pulling the sides of my briefs in irritating directions. Part of me wished that society wouldn’t discourage going commando in a pair of loose pajama bottoms; that was my ideal world. Pajama bottoms, no shirt... a soft bed...
Too late did I realize that it was happening again, a subtle drowsiness creeping in from the fringes. My panic meter spiked.
And then calmed down.
The last time this had happened, I had awoken in front of a delicious box of food. Could I trust that I would once again be safe - and alive - when I woke up?
I looked to the others. Addy's head was lolling in a lazy circle. Double vision caused me to perceive two Brad's simultaneously dropping sideways off of their bench. Blaine looked between the three of us, alert and confused.
Yeah, I'll be fine...
I mentally shrugged, and the darkness displaced me.
♦
I awoke in the elevator, slumped in the corner next to a broken plate. Meatloaf and sauce were smeared across the carpet of the tiny room, and I felt a twinge of sorrow for the loss of my savory creation.
Fortunately, I was no longer hungry. I breathed in the stale office air and got back to work.
When I reached the power moves pedestal in my office, there were two yellow cubes waiting for me. I also noted a fresh green X occupying the square for ‘Addy-Scams.’ Sabotage from Brad.
It took a few moments to get back into the right headspace. Lunch had forced me to chill out. I needed to regain that antsy feeling. The desire to always be doing two or three things at once. My spirit of productivity.
I'm going to fully apply myself and earn the most money, because I work the hardest. I'm smart, efficient. The others don't stand a chance.
Hyping myself up. Not a strategy I employed often, but I could imagine others leaning into it hard. Still, it served its purpose, and I could feel my heels bouncing once more, itching to move.
I moved to the computer and quickly assessed the rankings.
Brad was my nearest competition, lagging $20,000 behind me. Unlike the rest of us, Brad was not receiving a constant trickle of capital into his account, meaning he wasn’t conducting sales pitches. I couldn’t see him being good at stocks nor scams, and he could not have reached a total of $142,000 from theft alone. Therefore, ‘Services’ was the correct choice. I placed a cube on 'Brad-Services'.
Addy was no longer a concern. His investments were fucked. My other cube went to ‘Blaine-Sales.’
Power cubes spent. Time to move.
As I departed for another service task, every speaker in the complex echoed an inconsequential alert.
“Blaine has entered the Tower of Joy.”