Chapter 18.
As they leave the tents, a guard posted outside the door hands each of them a card with a letter of the alphabet written on it.
“Line up by letter,” one guard says. “Face the stage.”
Twenty lines. A through T. Fifty people in each.
Reg Drummond walks toward his line with a B in his hand and feels a little bit like it’s the Olympics all over again. He’s just marched into a stadium along with the other athletes for Opening Ceremonies.
Except there’s no cheering here.
Just the red tents behind them, the armed perimeter, and a stage that sits empty except for a microphone stand and speakers.
He assumes he must have been one of the last to be interviewed, because as he gets to the field, he sees that most of the other contestants—or dreamers, or fools, or both—are already in their lines.
What am I at this point in my life, he asks himself, a dreamer or a fool?
Or both?
Suddenly, he fully understands, because of the tightness in his chest—or his heart—how much he wants this.
How much he does not want to be sent home, not today.
Not yet. As much as he’s accomplished in his life, he’s really felt since he retired that he’s meant to do more.
That he has the potential to do more. He’d always loved that the Olympics could bring the world together, and this stage feels even bigger.
Reg had just done his best in his interview to make that argument, for himself and about himself. He’s about to find out how well he did.
“This is your moment,” Kyra, his fiancée, had said before he left home.
Reg spots Rupert and falls in beside him. The kid keeps his eyes forward like he’s trying not to blink.
He’s a sweet kid, obviously bright, and probably quite remarkable if he’s here at his age. There is no point in asking the kid how someone so young ended up in this isolated field in the middle of nowhere, because he’s certain the boy has no idea either.
“I feel I’m being marched to the headmaster’s office,” Rupert says. “I just don’t know if it’s because I’ve done something good or bad.”
Reg forces a small smile. “That’s the trick,” he says. “They keep you guessing.”
Rupert looks down at his letter, a card with B on it, same as Reg. “How do you pass a test,” he whispers, “if you don’t even know what the test is?”
They take their places at the end of the line, and before Reg can answer, the speakers crackle.
“May I have your attention please,” The Host says.
Reg feels the field tighten. A thousand bodies going still at once.
Marcelo, the jiujitsu champion from Chile, is lined up in front of them. He turns and says, “Does he not think he has it already?”
“One hundred of you are about to learn that you have been selected to remain in this competition,” The Host continues. “The rest will be dismissed.”
A ripple runs through the lines—shock trying to become sound—then dies. No one dares to react too loudly. Reaction is a target.
Marcelo says, “I feel the way I do when the judges are about to tell me whether I just won or lost a decision. But at least in a fight, you know the rules.”
“The only rule is that they’re always watching,” Reg says, making sure to keep his voice low, because The Host hears everything. Or wants them to believe he does.
Reg takes another look around the field. Everyone in the other lines seems frozen in place now, facing forward, eyes on a stage that remains empty except for the speakers and a single microphone stand.
Reg thinks of The Host’s voice as belonging to a man, knowing it could just as easily be AI generated. Might make as much sense as anything happening so far today.
“The interview was not for your answers,” The Host says. “It was for your tells. Your instincts. Your appetites. What you reach for when you’re afraid. These are what convinced us those moving forward should stay while the majority of you will now be asked to leave.”
Reg’s mouth goes dry. Breath too fast. Heart hammering like it wants out. He hasn’t felt this level of helplessness since right before the gold medal game in rugby.
No, since he was a rookie staring at a clock he couldn’t control. Only this time, there is no clock. That was sports, where he always felt he was in charge of the narrative.
Not now.
Who’s in charge of this narrative?
Just a voice and a microphone waiting on an empty stage.