Nice Day to Die (8 page)

The Trickster

Leo is standing, showing his tense sealed lips, in front of the Playa’s entrance. The Battlefield is dug twenty feet below ground level. You can still see the upper parts of the fancy rollercoasters and the domes and so many other colorful features from up here. In another world, you would think this must be a great place for having fun, not a place to kill kids.

“Wow,” Roger This says, standing a couple of rows behind me. “The Battlefield looks awesome.”

Leo must be somewhere in front of me. The audience goes crazy when they see him, especially the girls.

“Yes. A Monster!” the older boys in the audience say. “For betraying us. Redeem yourself. Survive the games.”

“This is going to be entertaining.” Xitler chuckles. Bringing a Nine to the show promises more excitement and viewership all around the world. It means more money.

I should approach Leo. He is the only one I know from before the Rankings. Not that I really know him – and for some reason, he wants me to stay away from him. But it feels better seeing someone I met before being outranked. He is also a Nine, so he might be helpful.

Teenagers are screaming in front of me. I can’t see why. The audience continues throwing things at us. “We shall start our games,” says Xitler. “And what a game we shall
have this year. For the first time in nine years, we have a new Trickster.” Xitler opens his arms. The audience hails. “May I present to you this year’s Trickster…” Prophet Xitler raises his hands in the air like a magician, proud of his latest trick. He is holding a long snake-shaped cane in one of his hands.

The Trickster is what we call the host of the Monster Show. Caleb Crux was the Trickster for many years, but he was getting old. The younger audience asked for someone their age to host the games. Prophet Xitler liked the idea of the Trickster being a sixteen-year-old.

“Did you know that the Trickster is chosen by the iAm?” Roger This educates me. “It is said the iAm identifies someone as a Trickster, like game designers find a bug in a computer game. You know when the game you purchased has a bug preventing you from playing it properly? Somehow, the same thing goes for humans. The Trickster is the bug in the game.”

“You mean the new Trickster is going to be mentally unstable?” I ask.

“They put it this way: a genius who is mentally unstable. Whatever that means,” says Roger This. “He has to be cruel but funny to entertain the audience, like a joker in a king’s palace. He is the direct link between the Monsters, the audience, and the Summit, and he’ll be extremely motivated to make us suffer since his rank depends on it.”

I live in a world where you get outranked because of bad grades or genes, and become a Trickster if you are mentally unstable, since you’ll be considered useful.

“Please welcome our new Trickster,” says Xitler. “Timothy Rabbit.”

It’s Timmy!

Speed Exploding School Bus

I see Timmy on the screen.

“Wazzup, Faya?” Timmy smirks on the screen in a head shot. His nose is long and too close to the camera. His eyes glitter with evil ideas and a touch of mascara. His lips are lipstick-red, and his face is covered in silver glitter. He looks like a total loon. He is a loon. Actually, the role suits him perfectly.

The audience welcomes the Trickster.

“In the name of the Burning Man, let the games begin,” Timmy screams. His squeaky voice is like that of a small lab mouse, trying to be as big as an elephant. “Play and die!” he follows up. “We’re starting with a couple of warm-ups to eliminate as many Monsters as possible,” the Trickster explains. “You know there is no fun in tracking three thousand Monsters.” He laughs like a mouse again, as if his head is buzzing with electricity.

“Dear clownies — Oh — I mean Bad Kidz. Argghh. I mean little Monsters.” Now he is talking to us. “May I call you Monsters?” He smirks again, and the audience laugh. “I hope you know the rules. We’re tracking you by your iAms. We use it to make sure you do attend the games when announced. Even though this was not allowed, we’ve changed the rules a bit this year. You can certainly use it if you want to contact us or your families, but only with our permission, which will be granted according to how well you play your game.” He rests his palms on a podium and grins.

“The games are deadly. That is the point of it. We want you to die. But we don’t want you to die fast. The slower, the more entertaining.” He licks his lips. “You’re allowed to use any strategy that’ll keep ya alive—” He stops again and acts as if thinking, putting his index finger on his lips and staring upward. “— as long as possible, of course,” he adds, winking at the audience. The audience wink back at him, and nod to each other about how cool Timmy is.

“After every challenge, you have to push that red button on your iAm and scream as loud as you can. I repeat. As loud as you can. You know what to say of course.” He puts his hands behind his ears, pretending to be listening to the audience.

“I AM ALIVE,” the viewers say in one breath that rocks the ground underneath us. This is the rule of the game. You have to report repeatedly that you are alive, after every challenge, and sometimes when they ask you to.

“The game only ends,” Timmy explains, “when there is no one left to scream ‘I am alive’ anymore, or if you survive for the next three days, long enough to be worthy of meeting the legendary Carnivore as your last challenge. If you beat Carnivore, you’ll be the first to ever do it.” Timmy knots his face and claws his hands against the screen, imitating an angry tiger. The audience gets crazy in a way I have never seen before. They love the Carnivore, the genetically mutated white tiger.

“The record for the
most time ever survived is three days. That was one year ago. Only the sucker — urgh, I mean the Monster — died in the very last game at the paws of the vicious Carnivore. That Monster’s name was…” Timmy fumbles through some papers. “Ah — here it is. His name is Woo. I mean
was
Woo. Because Woo, after meeting Carnivore, has gone
whoooo
, woof with the wind.” The audience laugh. I grit my teeth and swallow my anger. You never make fun of Woo in front of me, but how am I going to kick all those viewers’ asses? “Who names his son Woo anyway?” Timmy adds absently as if he is talking to me precisely. Timmy used to pretend Woo was his idol a year ago.

The camera shows a cartoon of Timmy running in a field, wearing sneakers. He is sweating. When he stops to take a breath, he wipes his sweat away and says, “Whoo.” The audience laugh more and more. I feel helpless, unable to stop the world from laughing at Woo, my best friend. “Oh — that was how his mother came up with the name,” Timmy says, showing his claws like the paws of a tiger again. So repetitive.

“Let’s see if you can do better,” Timmy says to us. “Let’s see if we have a Six coming out of the Monsters for the first time. Or better, maybe the audience will vote for you to become a Nine! Or maybe a Ten!” The audience boos at him for mentioning a Ten. No one’s ever a Ten. “All right. All right. I know there is no Ten. I just want to encourage them. That’s all,” says Timmy. “And remember, Monsteries and Monsterellas, you have the right to remain silent because anything you say or do will not even be considered in the court of
bfweeert.
” He makes the sound of a fart with his mouth.

Suddenly, someone squeezes my hand.

It’s Leo with his sealed lips, still not saying a word. I don’t expect him to talk. He is pushing me forward against my will. Where is he taking me?

“We’ll start with a brand new opening game the likes of ehich you have never seen before. The SEBS game,” announces Timmy. The audience is excited and happy. What is a SEBS game? I wonder. This was never played before. What is going on? Are they changing the games this year. “For those of you across the seas who might be watching for the first time and don’t know what the SEBS is, it’s the Speed Exploding School Bus game. And yes. This year the games are all fresh and new. The things you will see, you will not believe your eyes,” Everyone is extra-excited. I don’t bother correcting him that the abbreviation should be SESB, not SEBS. All I can think about is that I am toast. Toast! All my plans went out the window. Why would they change the games this year? I am not prepared for this. “We all wanted to blow up our school bus so we could sleep the day away when we were kids, didn’t we?” he adds cheerily.

I try to listen to Timmy as he explains the game but the noises around me prevent me from hearing clearly. Also being pulled against the crowd by Leo is very distracting.

“Did you hear the rules of the game?” I ask Leo. He doesn’t reply of course, dragging me behind him and pushing everyone aside. “What is the Speed Exploding School Bus?” I ask the teenagers around me. No answers me. Didn’t anyone hear the rules of the damn game? “It’s a nine-minute-long game where we race on every vehicle possible,” another girls explains. Thank God someone listened to Timmy’s words. “We’re not allowed to drive or ride a vehicle slower than fifty miles per hour. We have to survive for nine minutes at that speed. The first ride is on a school bus that explodes after only three minutes. The last six minutes, you have to figure out for yourself. Anything you ride with a fifty-miles-per-hour speed will explode after three minutes, so you have to prepare your next ride beforehand. Nine minutes, three rides, never under fifty miles per hour.”

As I am dragged along, not fully understanding what she just said, I ask someone else, “Did you here the instruction? What will you do? You have any idea how to survive this?”

The girl smirks. “As if I am going to tell you. Huh?”

I see a ramp sloping down into Dizny Battlefieldz, I mean the Playa. It is very steep and it’s the one and only entrance to the Playa.
There is no way we can climb up again. The Playa was built that way to make it harder for Monsters trying to escape. At the bottom of the ramp, I can see tons of yellow school buses lined up, the ones we will have to drive fifty miles per hour for three minutes before we explode.

Leo isn’t dragging me toward the slope. We are walking diagonal to it. Oh my God. We are walking toward a soldier standing in front of his Jeep close to the starting point of the descending ramp.

“Where are you taking me?” I try to free myself from Leo’s firm grip but he is too strong. I hate feeling weak.

Leo doesn’t reply as he approaches a soldier. He hits the soldier hard in the face with one hand,
takes his rifle, still dragging me behind him. He throws the rifle into the open Jeep, lifts me up with both hands, shoves me into the passenger seat and starts driving the car down the slope as the soldiers start shooting at us.

Okay. First the roses. Then the tomatoes. Then the bullets. I think I have had enough. Thank you very much. Can we switch the channel?

Leo shoves me to the floor. My eyes are wide and my neck is twisted. I wonder why he is driving down the slope with the teenagers screaming around us. I guess there is no use in trying to escape the games with thousands of military soldiers surrounding us. The car is going to be useful in the field. We have immunity from soldiers in the Playa battlefields. They are not allowed inside.

As the car slides down, pulled by gravity since Leo doesn’t have the keys, I try not to bump my head on the inside of the Jeep. Isn’t Leo supposed to be able to use the wires to turn the engine on? I’ve seen it in some old movie.

Instead of driving faster, Leo is using the brakes to slow down. Other students are trying to hop inside for a ride as I crawl back up in my seat. I see the battlefield from this high point. It is huge. A city of its own. I can’t see its end. There is an amusement park in the distance. I can see a rollercoaster. There is a forest, a lake, a huge glass dome, a monorail, an area full of industrial buildings, and a main street where the buses are lined up ready for the race.

Leo looks angrily at me. He doesn’t want anyone else riding along, which I find mean. If we’re all going to die, we might as well die together. I don’t see the difference, Jeep or no Jeep. We are all going down to the yellow buses.

The Jeep is full once we reach the end of the slope. Everyone runs to the buses, arguing about who is a better driver. Ironically, this game should be illegal since no one is old enough for a driver’s license yet — except Leo. Their parents must have taught them how to drive. Well, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them stole cars for a living.