Chapter 3 #3
Just like the first ring, as soon as he’d fully withdrawn the ring, its tag disintegrated into nothing.
The robot moved to the next contestant, and the tag on the ring he retrieved had ‘green’ written on it.
Next, the robot moved to Kyle, and when he looked inside the box, I saw a wide grin spread across his face, like he’d just heard a hilarious joke.
He reached down and pulled out a ring labeled ‘black.’
Then he smirked at me.
When the robot moved on to me, and I was able to look inside the box, I understood why.
There was only one last ring left, and it was labeled ‘pink.’
Seriously, there were no other options for colors? What the hell happened to red, orange, or even purple?
Kyle had a wide, shit-eating grin spread across his face, and I knew it was because he felt he’d bested me. He’d gotten the ‘manly’ color, and I was left with the ‘girly’ one.
The joke was on Kyle, though. Only a man deeply insecure in his masculinity would think pink was the girly or weaker color, and I wasn’t an insecure douche like my competitor.
So, I reached into the box and pulled my ring out with pride.
The grin never fell from Kyle’s face, but I could tell by the expression in his eyes that he was disappointed by my lack of reaction.
Good.
Fuck Kyle.
I ignored him and studied the ring in my hand.
Similar to the others’, the color tag disappeared immediately once I’d pulled it from the box.
The ring was much lighter than I’d anticipated, and I quickly realized the materials I’d originally thought were plastic and glass were actually something foreign to me, and they felt far more durable.
The little robot sped away and disappeared into the same opening as the other one had, and then the panel slid back into place, and it looked like an ordinary wall again.
The voice came back on at that moment.
“Place the ring on your neck,” it instructed.
What?
I glanced down at the ring in my hand.
First off, I wasn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of sticking anything around my neck, much less some foreign piece of alien technology.
Secondly, the ring was too small to fit over my head, and I didn’t see a way to open it. The material was smooth all the way around, and there weren’t any divots, clasps, or hinges to imply a way of opening.
“Um…” one of the girls said. “How exactly are we supposed to ope--”
Suddenly, all of the rings snapped open with a sharp mechanical sound.
A few of the guys jumped at the sudden movement, three of the girls screamed, and the first woman in line dropped her ring in surprise.
Even I flinched at the sudden feeling of motion in my hands.
Who wouldn’t?
“Place the ring on your neck,” the voice instructed again.
I really didn’t want to, but I’d seen what happens to the people who refused to comply. I slowly lifted the ring and fit it around my neck, and I watched as the others did the same.
They all instantly snapped closed.
The ring had shrunk to fit my neck more securely. It was still loose enough that I was comfortable, and I wasn’t at all at risk of being choked by it, but it fit snug enough that I didn’t have a prayer of getting it off again.
I lifted my hand and gave my new collar an experimental tug.
Nope. That wasn’t going anywhere.
I glanced around at the other contestants, and they were all tugging at their collars, too.
It was actually comfortable enough that if I didn’t think about it, I could easily forget it was even there. I was more concerned with what the collars were for.
Were they a sort of tracking device?
I suddenly had thoughts of the collar slowly growing tighter if we refused to obey, or spikes coming out of the long panels to skewer us whenever the aliens saw fit.
It was already on my neck, so there was nothing I could do about it now, except perhaps hope that in all the aliens’ research of our world, they hadn’t taken any form of inspiration from the Saw movies.
“Each contestant has been specially chosen,” the disembodied voice explained. “Each male is perfectly matched to one of the females in the group. As you participate in the games and earn points, when you come near your perfect match, both of your collars will vibrate and light up the same color.”
So, that’s what the colors on the collars were for.
But what did that even mean? Perfectly matched?
I still didn’t understand what this game actually was, and based on the description the robotic voice had given us, it almost sounded like some sort of dating game.
But that couldn’t be right.
Why the hell would aliens invade Earth just to play a dating game?
There had to be more to it than that.
I glanced at the other contestants again.
Most of the guys suddenly looked more enthusiastic to be here, and a few of them were even actively checking out the women, but most of the women looked apprehensive.
Which was how I felt.
I tried to wrap my head around what was going on.
Okay, so we were each ‘matched’ with another contestant, and we had to play some games and earn points to figure out who our match was?
The more I tried to process it in my head, the less it seemed to make sense.
“The first game will begin in sixty seconds,” the robot voice announced. “Please move to the transporter pad and await further instructions.”
Transporter pad?