“Yes, but I still feel bad. I promise it’ll be okay.”
Vivienne feels a sharp prick against her wrist and she startles, gasping. Erika keeps hold of her arm and whispers, “I’m sorry, Viv, but no one refuses an invitation to the Game. No one.”
Viviennewakes in a tiny room. She blinks and lifts her head, struggling to remember?—
Invitation. Sake. Erika. Game.
She leaps up, and she’s so certain of restraints that she stumbles when she finds herself free. She rubs her face and looks around.
Tiny room. Low lights. A single chair. Something on a shelf.
She’s walking to the shelf when a piped-in man’s voice says, “Welcome to the Game. Now that everyone has arrived, you have a moment to familiarize yourself with the other players.”
A row of screens clicks on. Four other players. One she knows. Two she can name. The fourth she’s only seen in passing.
The last one raises his hand in a tentative wave and says, “Hey, all,” then chuckles, “Or maybe I shouldn’t be so friendly with the competition, huh?”
“We don’t compete in this company,” the voice says. “We work together, as you will tonight.”
Vivienne looks around for a door and sees four solid walls.
“Tonight’s game is a puzzler, perfect for our executives, who are chosen for their ingenuity, not their quick trigger fingers.”
An obligatory chuckle from a couple of the others as Vivienne runs her hands over the walls, hunting for a way out. Even the screens aren’t really screens at all, but projections directly on a solid glass wall.
“And, no, Vivienne, the puzzle is not a room escape,” the voice continues. “But your initiative is commendable. You’ll be cooperatively solving a crime. A series of seemingly unconnected murders.”
She remembers the shelf and turns to see a virtual reality headset.
As if on cue, the voice says, “To your right, you’ll find a shelf with a VR set. Please put it on.”
Vivienne keeps hunting for a way out.
“It seems one of our players is having difficulty. Vivienne?”
The screens flicker. A live video feed appears on the far right one. It’s Marco pacing their living room, waiting for her. The screen splits to show her two sleeping children.
“No…” she whispers. “Don’t you dare?—”
“We appear to be having technical difficulties with Vivienne’s room. You’ll have lost her video and audio feed, but she is putting on her headset now.”
Three pictures—her husband and children. And then a fourth appears…of her gas stove, hissing.
She puts on the headset. The hissing stops.
“Thank you, Vivienne. We are ready.”
The virtual reality headset pops to life, and Vivienne finds herself in a bar, watching a middle-aged guy hitting on a young prostitute. The camera zooms in, and she realizes the john is the player she knew only by sight.
“What the hell?” the man’s voice booms through the room speakers.
“Please, we ask all players to observe without comment.”
“But that’s not me. I’ve never?—”
“Please observe without comment.”
The man and the prostitute move into the back alley, the camera following. He pushes her against the wall. Then he wraps his hands around her neck.
