Chapter 9
There were gasps from the other contestants, and even after the vibrations in our collars stopped, the pink light remained for a long moment before also dying out.
Had that really just happened?
Sadie and I were a match? But what did that mean? Was the game over for us? Did we win?
That was the supposed purpose for these games, wasn’t it? To find your match. So, what was going to happen now that I did?
And how come the others hadn’t found their matches yet? Did the match process require a certain amount of skill or favor points? Did it require a certain amount of interaction with the potential match?
A million questions rushed through my head as I stared into Sadie’s dark eyes, and I had zero answers.
But the announcer wasn’t finished.
“Congratulations,” it said again. “You have completed the trial, and you have both earned four favor points.”
I turned to look at the other contestants. Martin and Clarisse looked surprised but unaffected, while Kyle looked pissed.
I wasn’t sure if he was more angry that I’d successfully gotten my hands on the diamond ring, that I’d been the first one to be matched, or if he was more angry because I’d been matched with Sadie in particular.
Tyler and Claire both gave me supportive smiles, and as I glanced at Parker, she also smiled at me, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. She almost looked… disappointed.
I didn’t really have time to process much of anything, though, because my entire body began to hum and vibrate, and I barely had enough time to close my eyes before the bright, blue light pulsed around us.
When I opened my eyes, we were all back on the ship again.
“Males, line up against the wall,” the disembodied voice directed.
This wasn’t the usual routine I’d grown accustomed to, but I slowly shifted to press my back firmly against the wall, and the other men reluctantly joined me. The women moved to the opposite wall to give us space for whatever was about to happen, and suddenly, the wall to our left opened up.
I tensed when I heard the grating metal sound, and my thoughts immediately went to the viscerids and how they’d come out of the wall panels.
But instead of small, fleshy monsters, a robot came out of the opening. It looked identical to the robot I’d rescued at the beach, as well as the one I’d seen in the coffee shop, and I wondered if it was actually the same one, or just copies of the same model.
The robot moved forward and stopped directly in front of me. It beeped excitedly, and its eyes flashed in a way that made me think it was the same robot. Then it held up its arm to show me a syringe filled with a pearly-white liquid.
The syringe had a tiny needle attached, and the robot gestured to me with it.
“What the hell is that stuff?” Kyle expressed my own thoughts out loud. “Does he want to use that thing on you?”
I stared at the little robot, and it beeped again and held out the needle once more.
I wasn’t particularly fond of injections. Especially when I had no idea what was in them.
“Uh, I think I’m good, thanks,” I said as I eyed the needle nervously.
I wasn’t afraid it would hurt, not with a needle that small. But I was deeply concerned about getting injected with a foreign substance.
The robot continued its beeps and gestures, and I started to get the feeling I wasn’t going to get much of a choice here. I sighed and reluctantly held out my arm, but the little robot gestured for me to get lower.
I crouched lower to the ground, and then the little fucker jabbed me in the side of the neck with the needle and pushed down on the plunger.
“Ow!” I complained, and I jerked back.
The robot removed the needle and rolled back a few paces to watch me, and I straightened back up and rubbed at the side of my neck.
Even for such a small needle, that had hurt more than expected, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since the neck wasn’t a typical injection site.
“What the fuck did it do to you?” Martin asked, and out of my peripherals, I saw the others take a couple steps away from me and the robot.
I did a quick mental check of my body.
So far, I felt alright…
I didn’t have strange vision, I didn’t feel like my internal organs were suddenly shutting down. Truthfully, besides the fact that I was exhausted and my injured leg was burning, I didn’t really feel any differen-- wait…
Something was happening.
I focused on the burning pain in my leg, and I could feel the pain slowly begin to ebb away. It was like the fire was beginning to cool and ice over instead.
I bent down and quickly lifted my torn pant leg to look at my wound, and beneath all the blood, I could see the claw marks.
They slowly started to knit closed before my very eyes, and as the wounds disappeared, so did the pain, until they were both gone completely.
“He fixed my leg,” I murmured in amazement, and I could hear the others gasp in shock and disbelief. Then I glanced up at the little robot that was still watching me. “Thank you.”
It beeped cheerfully at me and lit up again before returning to the opening in the wall, and a few seconds later, it came back out with a fresh syringe.
One by one, it delivered the injection into each of the male contestants’ necks, and I watched in amazement as each person’s injuries were slowly knit back together and healed.
Tyler’s injuries in particular were especially fascinating to watch because he’d had entire chunks taken out of his arm, but those empty spaces filled back in with new and healthy flesh, as if the injuries had never even existed.
The mysterious solution even fixed Kyle’s eye and nose, though, he certainly didn’t deserve it.
I had half a mind to beat the shit out of him again, just to prove a point, but I restrained myself.
What could possibly be in those syringes? And what sort of good could our doctors and nurses on Earth do with that sort of technology?
What would our world look like if people didn’t have to deal with physical disabilities or premature death?
When the robot had finished delivering his last injection, he beeped one last time before he zoomed back into the opening in the wall, and this time it resealed itself.
Our group moved out of the transporter room and into the lounge where we found the familiar, massive spread of food across the table. This time, our food options consisted of fresh fruits and vegetables and various lentils and meats.
I filled my plate, sat down, and ate silently along with the other contestants. Nobody seemed to be in the mood to talk, and I couldn’t blame them.
After everything we’d just experienced, we were all lucky just to be alive.
We finished our meals, and then we were directed by the announcer to return to our rooms. I hadn’t really found an opportunity to speak to Sadie about the fact that we’d matched, and truthfully, I still didn’t even know what that meant for us.
I also hadn’t really had a chance to speak with Parker to see what she thought of everything because everyone sort of kept to themselves that evening. I wanted to know if I’d imagined the disappointment I saw on her face when she realized I’d matched with Sadie.
We all silently moved to our rooms, and I locked my door the second it closed behind me.
Kyle was probably still furious that I’d not only gotten the upper hand in our fight, but also that I’d received the diamond ring, along with its corresponding favor points, whatever those were, and matched with Sadie.
So, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I was exhausted from the events of the day, and even though the strange solution had healed my injuries, I was still physically sore from all the fighting, crouching, and climbing I’d done.
I needed a hot shower.
I pulled my shirt off, and I didn’t have my hoodie anymore since I’d left it behind in the arena. Then I instinctively checked my pockets before I peeled my pants off.
Inside one pocket was the velvet box the ring had been inside of, and I carefully set it on top of my bedroom’s dresser.
And inside the other pocket was the metal piece I’d found.
Shit, I’d almost completely forgotten about it, and in all the craziness, I hadn’t stopped to see if there were any more pieces like it.
Granted, the arena had been huge and chaotic, so the odds I found even this piece were pretty close to miraculous.
I moved into the bathroom and carefully retrieved the other metal pieces from their hiding place. Sure enough, the metals on all the pieces were identical.
I fiddled with the main piece and compared its protrusions and divots to the new piece I’d found.
I sat there on the bathroom floor for a good few minutes while I turned the pieces over and over again in my hands, and for a moment, I wondered if maybe these pieces weren’t actually supposed to be connected at all.
But then I turned the new piece at a different angle, and I found a spot where the pieces lined up. I pressed the two parts together, and there was a loud click as the new piece almost seemed to fuse itself to the whole.
I studied the little object in my hand.
I still wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be.
The object now had a very smooth and defined edge on one side, and it was almost perfectly rounded, as if someone had broken a large chunk off a metal sphere.
The strange object still had yet to actually do anything, but then again, there were still more protrusions and depressions left on its one side, so I probably still hadn’t found all the pieces yet.
I hoped there hadn’t been more pieces in the arena, but at least so far, there only seemed to be one per trial.
I turned the metal half sphere over and over in my hands as I tried to imagine what it would become. I assumed its final shape would result in a sphere of some sort, but then what?
Would I just end up making a metal ball? What good would that do me?
But perhaps that was the point. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be a useful tool at all.
But if that was the case, then why bother even hiding the pieces?