163. The Interview
163
The Interview
V alor
I haven’t felt this bad since I was hit in a firefight on Trichor years ago. It’s taking all the effort I have to force my lids open.
Ah, but it’s worth it. My family is here. The female I love, her lashes still spiked with her tears, is only a breath away. My arms weigh a thousand pounds each, but I manage to lift them and tug her into my embrace.
“I was so worried. So worried about you, my love,” she whispers into my ear, then pulls back to look at me.
I may have been hurt this badly on Trichor, but my convalescence was filled with jeering guards and that awful punishment I received for saving my comrades. If this convalescence will be filled with Willow looking at me like that, like I was responsible for strewing the sky with stars, I’ll be better in minutes.
No. How stupid. If I can stay on the receiving end of that loving gaze, maybe it will take me weeks to recover. Although that’s a foolish thought. I don’t need to bribe or cheat her into loving me. She’s happy to bestow it just for who I am.
And there’s Braveheart, standing behind her, his arms around her. I don’t know where my alpha urges disappeared to, but the only emotion I feel upon seeing this is relief. Relief that he was here to care for and support my beloved in one of her darkest hours.
I love you both, is all I have the energy to say.
“You’re on the mend,” Balric says. “If you can get off this blasted asteroid, you’ll have a good, long life.”
Willow
I never thought this far. Other than wishes and hopes, I never believed we’d get off this asteroid. But where are we going from here? I don’t trust Zedd as far as I can throw her. I’m not even sure she’s going to let us live.
“You owe me an interview,” she says, her mouth pruned into a disapproving pout after she made a big fanfare of presenting us with our certificates of pardon and manumission. The cameras must not be rolling. She’d never allow herself to wear that expression if she were being filmed.
Maybe my promise of continued exclusive interviews is a good thing. She’s going to have to let us live if she wants to interview me after I produce a miracle geneslave baby that I never even thought of until a few minutes ago.
She beckons me over to sit next to the flagpole. The Game flag has been lowered so it can be seen waving behind us. If I do get off this forsaken rock, I’m going to buy one of these just to burn the fucker.
“So tell me, uh…”
She actually has to look down to consult her pad to find my name! She tried to kill me in a hundred ways over the last few days and never even gave my name a thought. I hate this bitch.
“Willow. Tell me what it was like on that last lap to the finish line.”
Really? She wants me to tell the viewing audience what it was like to have a cadre of armored guards trying to kill us with laser rifles? All the other stuff she threw at me wasn’t enough?
“I—” I cut myself off from telling her to eat shit and die. I take a moment to think.
First of all, I do want to get off this blasted asteroid. Second, by the way I answer her questions, I might be able to do a smidgeon of good in the galaxy.
I may not have a college education. I was a mechanic, albeit a damned good one, not a psychologist. I don’t know what her actual psych diagnosis is, although I’m sure she has one—or more.
What I do know is that she’s without normal emotion. Under her beautiful skin, she’s more reptilian than humanoid. Our viewing audience, though, is probably different. Mistress was kind, until her loyalties were divided between her grandson and me. When her friends came over to play cards, they were actually nice to me. I believe there are a lot of good people out there. I need to tap into that.
“How did it feel on that last lap? I’m sure your audience can only imagine what it was like to think winning, getting off this asteroid, was finally within my grasp, only to see yet another insurmountable challenge come my way. Didn’t you?” I look straight into the camera. “Didn’t those of you at home put yourself in the driver’s seat along with me and wonder how terrifying and demoralizing it felt to be so close to winning that you could taste it only to have a small army shooting lasers at you?”
Yes. This is how you win the hearts and minds of people. You don’t tell them how to feel, you urge them to use their empathy. To think—really think—about what it would feel like if your life was not your own. If you were at the mercy of powers incapable of mercy.
“Hmm,” Zedd says, obviously unable to put herself in my shoes.
“Let’s go back to that moment you were on your way to the flag a few days ago. One of your males was injured, and you and your teammates decided to give up and return to the top of the crater, believing you wouldn’t make it. Roll the footage.”
I watch, grief seizing my heart, as I see the pain on all three of our faces as we realized we could never get to the flag on time. The vid captures the exact moment we saw our futures disappear. Everyone in the audience must be seeing it too. Those capable of it must be experiencing some compassion.
“Yes, Miss Zedd.” I don’t want her to realize until later that I’m not cooperating but working at cross purposes to her. “I’m sure the audience can see the hopelessness. There.” I point. “Go back and show that again. The audience can only imagine what it must have been like to realize you were going to die in a matter of minutes because one of the males you loved had the misfortune of being bitten by a poisonous animal.
“We sat on the top of the crater knowing our lives had a very quick expiration date. Perhaps,” I offer brightly, “the audience would like to see the night before where we had to barter our self-respect to have the medic treat Braveheart’s xellenex bite?”
“You mention you love these males…” She makes a scandalized face, as if loving two people was far more upsetting than killing 297 people in cold blood like she just did. “Do you want to take this opportunity to thank The Galaxy Network and the producers of Down to Three for introducing the three of you?”
“Oh, Miss Zedd, perhaps you’re forgetting the three of us were already in the same cell when you placed us in the game. For the introductions, I have Judge Harcourt Fenton Mudd to thank. He sentenced me to five years on a male prison planet of all things. All because of the unproven allegation that I ate a pie in the home of my Mistress, Blenara Chine.”
Billions of people are watching. I hope that little factoid was unsettling. I can only hope someone looks into the nefarious goings-on in Judge Mudd’s courtroom.
Zedd’s nostrils flare as if she’s sniffing something rancid. Like she was smelling that awful snake tank I had to stick my head in last night. She didn’t like my refusal to thank her for the privilege of almost dying in her so-called game.
“That’s all we have time for, uh…” She again consults her pad to remember my name. “Willow, but don’t forget, you’ve offered us a lifetime of future interviews.”
Yes! After persecuting me for days, I think I finally bested the evil bitch.
When I walk toward my guys, I see Valor sitting on the table. He’s still a pale, sickly blue, and looks weak, but he’s not the type of guy to remain lying down. He and Braveheart are deep in conversation with the medic.
“Are you packed?” my purple lover Braveheart asks. He has a big smile on his face, which is something new. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him smile before.
“Packed?”
“Yes. All your valuables? Mementos? I’ve collected some for you. I’ve got…” he rummages in one of his numerous coverall pockets. “Some sharpened pieces of metal.” He pulls out a handful of spiky nuts and bolts to show me. “I have one of these bottles.” He holds an empty Molotov cocktail bottle. “And I saved the best for last,” he says as he shows me the heinous xellenex head—the one Valor carried with him that allowed the medic to save his life. “We could make a shrine.”
“How sweet. Keepsakes. I’ll treasure them always.” Oddly, I’m smiling, too.
I don’t allow myself to get too optimistic. I won’t believe we’re getting off this hellhole until we’re actually flying away from it and it’s in our outer space rear-view mirror.
“Medic Balric has arranged our exit strategy.”
I raise an eyebrow, silently requesting more information.
“While you were giving Zedd your exit interview, I was explaining about the Resistance movement,” Balric explains. “I told them how the winners of Down to One created the spark that set the flame to bring the Resistance from a small band of secret cells to something many people throughout the galaxy are now aware of.
“I pulled up some pictures of President Alcantar from Marentine saving the winners of Down to One and offering them sanctuary on his planet. I also showed them how the winners from that series swooped in to save one of the winning teams from Down to Two .”
“We were surprised to see ourselves on some of the vids,” Braveheart says. “It was Valor and I who were under orders to kill them off-camera. I never quite understood what we were doing on that mission. It’s only now that I see how it all fits together. Xzavic and Blaze, the ones who saved season two’s Sadie and Anubis from certain death at our hands, rescued the three winning pairs of the second season.”
“Yes.” The medic nods. “I accepted the job to be the medic on this show not because I’m a believer in killing innocent contestants on galaxy-wide vid, but because I wanted to be of some small help. The Resistance isn’t big enough to stop abuses like this, but I took copious secret vids of the travesties I observed. And I saved all three of your lives.”
He’d made no secret of his sympathies toward the Resistance, and I knew he risked his own life to help us, but now this makes a lot more sense. He’s not just a Resistance sympathizer. He’s in the Resistance.
“A vessel is only hours away. We knew today would be the last day of The Game and I’d need to be extracted and returned to planet Marentine. The happy news is that the three of you are coming with me. That is, if you want to.”
If I want to? Is he crazy?
“I’d love to get off Blanterra as soon as possible. Starting a new life on Marentine sounds like a dream come true. That is…” I pause for effect. “If pie theft is no more than a misdemeanor there.”
“I assure you, you’ll be pardoned at the highest level for your egregious misdeed.” He cocks a conspiratorial eyebrow at me.
Jahzara Zedd
I climb into the vessel that will take me back to my home. I can’t wait to get off this miserable hell hole, although I have no one to blame but myself. I’m the one who picked this place.
I sit at my desk, not bothering to watch as we fly away from Blanterra. I’m too engrossed in the reviews coming in from all over the galaxy.
“5 Stars! Jahzara Zedd does it again! From choosing the location to picking the male and female competitors to devising some of the most inventive competitions ever seen on vid, this series has it all!”
“I hope Miss Zedd doesn’t take too long to recover from her grueling shoot on Blanterra. The galaxy simply can’t wait for the next in the Down To series. Will it be Down to Four , or does she have something even more diabolical up her sleeve? Can’t wait to see the next season.”
I continue scrolling, but can’t find a single negative review.
Tapping my nail on my desk, I begin searching the Intergalactic Database for my next location. The critics may have loved it, but in my opinion, some of the challenges were a bit tame. I wonder what I can come up with next.