Target Audience

The new group stared back with eager eyes from the assembly hall seating. All of them were attractive or at least narcissistic enough to believe that they were. They’d all answered the ad placed in four national newspapers.

It was a casting call for a new reality show. Fifteen thousand people had answered the ad. Using the photos attached to the resumes for reference, we picked the most attractive applicants. Using the essays attached answering the question “why should we pick you?” as sounding boards, we picked the most stupid and conceited applicants available.

We rejected ten thousand of them, deeming them actually valuable to society. They thought that they had lost.

We accepted the five thousand applicants sitting in the folding chairs in front of the stage. They were here to be slaughtered but none of them new that yet.

They were about to be briefed on the subject of the new reality show that they were to be a part of. High stakes, one winner, starting immediately.

This room was on the top floor of a building scheduled for demolition. Many millions of dollars had been sent out to the cleaning crews and demolition companies to turn a blind eye. The building had been outfitted with hundreds of cheap cameras on every abandoned floor.

The building would be demolished in five days. If there was more than one person left alive at that time, they’d go down with the building. If there was one person alive, they’d be rescued and given a prize.

Online betting on the published profiles had already started. The encrypted wealth of reality gambling snuff tournaments was already filling the accounts to record levels.

Glory was behind the curtain on the stage wearing that tight skirt and that killer smile. She had guns in each hand. Angela was tied to the office chair beside her, duct tape bloody, to serve as an initial demonstration.

The investors were huddled in the back room watching the live feed count down to Day One. Glory stretched her neck in anticipation of the carnage about to begin. The curtain would come up in sixty seconds.

“Are you sure we’re going to be a success?” asked one suited investor to another.

“My dear James,” the other investor replied, “we’re going to make a killing.”

He thumbed the ‘talk’ switch for Glory’s earphones. “Knock ‘em dead, Glory.” He said.



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God the Pilot

Two-Hands passed the biofilter test, allowing him into the cockpit to talk to God. The door to God’s house irised open and he stepped through.

Two-Hands had the gross overbite and mental retardation that went hand in hand with the comparatively benign mutations of his family tribe. He was called Two-Hands simply because he had two hands. This was a rarity that made him the closest example of purity that still lived.

The asteroid had destroyed the shielding around the engine. The adults had died almost immediately. The children had adapted as best they could. They nursery at the time had been shielded from the worst of the radiation. That was five decades ago.

The mutations were getting worse with every generation.

Two-thirds of the ‘crew’ were no longer recognized by the biofilter as human. That was why Two-Hands was a chosen one. He was still allowed into the pilot’s quarters by the main computer.

The autopilot A.I. knew that repairs could not be completed without assistance. The asteroid had taken out the long range antenna and damaged the spacefolder tesserators. They were stuck in deep space at sublight speeds with only radio waves for communication.

The A.I. knew that it had enough power to keep the ship habitable for centuries. It also knew that the mutations were increasing to the extent that the descendents of the original crew would soon become so riddled with flaws that they would no longer be fertile.

God the A.I. Autopilot looked at the simple, drooling face of Two-Hands with pity and sadness and a need to heal.

Two-Hands asked for food for his tribe, forgetting that he had asked for that already yesterday and had a stockpile of supplies in the stockpad room.

They forgot the basic medicine that the ship tried to teach them through pictograms. None of them could read. More and more children were being born conjoined or without limbs. Most were stillborn monstrosities.

There wasn’t a stable enough gene base to absorb that level of radiation and come out healthy given enough time.

They were doomed.

The A.I. knew it would eventually be rescued but that these simple children would be long dead by that time.

God told Two-Hands that there was more food in the food room. Two-Hands’ pure smile warmed God’s heart.



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Guard

People can get to a level of reliance on their stealth tech that can end in their death.

Like the wide-eyed 20-year-old quivering around the shaft of my spear.

Her camsuit flickers like a broken wall display before becoming the sharkskin grey of an inactive unit.

Her struggles become more reflexive than conscious and she dies looking at me with the question in her eyes, “How did you know?”

The cheap bubble gum wafts out of her open mouth behind her face-shield. It helped me pinpoint her.

Sometimes the pros can get caught out in rookie mistakes caused by over confidence and a belief in invincibility brought on by too many victories.

I push her body off the harpoon with my foot. It makes a wet, heavy sound hitting the ground. Ants are already making their way towards the body.

I wasn’t dead so she must have been alone, a recon scout or something, probably expecting to be bored.

It won’t be long until her absence is noted on the download box and they send out the word that they’ve found the defector.

I head back to my quarters to enact the defenses.

This is my island.


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