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THE GATES TO SECOND EARTH automatically opened when the shuttle was detected nearby. Without looking at the number painted on the wall, I knew this was level eighty — aerospace. All incoming ships entered through this hangar, which was located on the opposite side of where I was usually scheduled.
The hallways were eerily quiet. It was as if the entire population of Second Earth had disappeared. I checked my side of the aerospace department, and nobody was there. Not even Pallas, who spent most of her time working at her desk. In fact, her desk was cleared out entirely. The room felt empty without Vesta and Juno’s usual ridiculous cackles.
The drop pods were still operational, so I took one to the players’ dorms on level ninety-five to find someone. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I arrived back home, but it definitely wasn’t this. I hoped there would be a celebration, although I was unaware of the procedure because I was the first winner in over thirty-five years.
The door to the dorm I had shared with Jaaspar opened automatically, and the entire room was empty. All my belongings had been cleaned out, just as Jaaspar’s things were removed after he died in the fourth game. The room was spotless and smelled fresh as if it was sanitised only moments ago.
Something sinister was going on in Second Earth. I felt it deep in my stomach, churning and twisting. I just needed to figure out exactly what it was before something terrible happened.
I remembered the path to the rooms where the gazers had taken us for the first game and made my way there to look for clues. Like the dorm, the preparation room emitted a strong smell as if it had been freshly cleaned. Laser guns hung on the wall, and gazer helmets were placed on the shelves beside them. The room had been turned into an armoury, and I was unaware as to why.
I placed a helmet over my head and attached a belt to my waist to magnetically holster a gun. The armoury door shot open, and I hid behind the helmet shelves. It was only one person, a gazer, who came in to replace his gun.
I did something completely stupid, but it was pivotal for my survival. I waited for the door to close behind the gazer, grasped my gun tightly in one hand and pointed it at him. I’d never used a gun before, and I’d picked the worst time to learn.
“Where is everyone?” I demanded as I slowly come out from behind the shelving.
The gazer was too stunned to speak. He tried to grab a gun but fumbled his grasp and knocked a few of them down. He gave up and surrendered to me because I had the gun pointed towards him. He raised his hands and pleaded for his life.
“What happened to everyone?” I repeated, slowly this time.
“They’re... in the atrium,” he answered.
The atrium was only used to announce the winner of the Exogames, and it was always the same announcement: that nobody had won.
I fired the gun without looking, and a small white laser beam was shot into the wall by the door. The gazer flinched, so I fired another shot, with my eyes open, into his upper thigh. He fell to the ground with a loud smack and held his wound tight as blood bubbled out.
“So you don’t follow me,” I justified, before running out of the armoury and taking the nearest drop pod to level forty-seven, the bottom of the atrium.
The atrium expanded at least fifty floors up. It was illuminated by an enormous light strip, which curved horizontally across the wall. The entire population of Second Earth filled up all levels to the very top, and there was no room for anyone else.
Four of the High Judges were seated on the balcony, which was an extension of level sixty-eight. The fifth High Judge stood near the edge and addressed the audience. He was the oldest of the five and most likely the wisest.
“Citizens of Second Earth!” he announced without a microphone.
The atrium was designed in a specific way so that the speaker’s voice would echo right to the very back, to the very top and to the very bottom. This meeting only occurred every other year; it was basically the event everyone cancelled their plans to attend.
The drop pod that brought me here was one of the closest ones to the High Judges, so my view was the best anyone could get. Since I wore the helmet of a gazer, people moved out of my way, not because they wanted to, but because they were frightened. Gazers had a lot of authority on Second Earth, and it felt good to possess it for a while. Although, the power went to my head quickly so I had to remind myself that too much of it would have been dangerous.
“Today marks the end of the ninety-ninth Exogames,” the High Judge continued.
All eyes were on the High Judge as everyone waited eagerly for him to announce the winner. Luckily, I was close to the front, so I could be taken to the balcony to accept my freedom. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to go up there beforehand or if someone would take me there after my name was announced, but it all happened so suddenly. Nobody congratulated me on making it back to Second Earth when I arrived, and Moirai was nowhere to be seen. Surely, they knew I was here because my nanobots would have connected to Second Earth’s systems by now, and the drop pods had scanned my body multiple times.
“It is a well-known fact that there have been no champions in over thirty-five years, and this was the year we hoped that would change.”
The entire atrium was dead silent. Nobody breathed or moved a muscle as they anticipated the announcement. The High Judge raised his arms and let his bony hands droop on his wrists.
“Unfortunately, that has not changed,” he announced as if he already knew all the players were dead.
The uproar from the audience was thunderous, and disappointment filled the entire atrium. The High Judge’s announcement made no sense. I was alive and well. I made it out of the final game. I won the ninety-ninth Exogames. But nobody knew, and something deep inside me told me not to reveal that I had won just yet. The gazer helmet stayed on my head, and my mouth remained closed.
“Settle down!” the High Judge yelled as he raised his palm to stop the commotion.
The people listened and shut their mouths.
“The next Exogames will be the one hundredth since the first, and we plan to make it worth your while.”
Suddenly, the people of Second Earth seemed to forget the disappointing news and cheered as the announcement for a better game was revealed. Every Exogames was the same, with the same rules, but there were minor tweaks like the introduction of the advantages. There was no telling how difficult the hundredth Exogames would be. The High Judges had the capabilities to put on a stunning show, which was what they wanted, to entertain the audience. Without a doubt, if the High Judges wanted it to be a show-stopping Exogames, they would do everything in their power to make it possible.
“We will see you again in two years for another wonderful Exogames.” The High Judge concluded his announcement.
I took the drop pod up to level ninety-three, the floor of the game makers, in hopes of making them aware that I was alive and that finally there was a winner of the Exogames.
Technically, there were more winners from previous games. They were all living on Titan, but I wasn’t about to risk hundreds of lives by sharing their secret, especially because Libra warned me not to reveal it.
The entirety of level ninety-three was empty and quiet, except for beeping noises from the computers. The floor was enormous. Perhaps it was because there were fewer walls to make spaces feel small. The light strips on the ground moved in one direction through the entire level. I had been here before. This was the floor where we had our examinations prior to the commencement of the games. It was the level where our initial briefing was given.
I followed the lights to a spacious room with a white circular desk in the centre. On a billboard-like screen embedded into the wall opposite the entrance were portraits of all the players in the Exogames I’d just won. They were listed in alphabetical order with a red strike through all photos except for mine. Beside all the portraits was the word ‘terminated’ in bright red letters. Beside my portrait, however, was a countdown with zero hours, forty-two minutes and nineteen seconds remaining.
I had no idea what would happen once the timer reached zero, but I suspected it wasn’t anything good.
“You’re supposed to be dead, Fate Artemis.” Moirai’s voice emerged from behind me like a ghost long-awaiting its haunting.
Second Earth had its fair share of ghosts, none of which I believed in, and they roamed around, forgotten as quickly as they revealed themselves. But Moirai wasn’t one of them.
I slowly turned around and took off the helmet. There was no point in keeping it on since he already knew who I was. I went to reach for my gun, which was magnetically attached to my belt, but he already had a gun pointed at me.
“How did you get off Titan?” he asked, angry and confused.
I couldn’t reveal that the expedition crew had survived and that the previous players were living there, so I lied and used Libra’s explanation.
“The expedition from many years ago. I found their shuttles and used one to come back here,” I said.
He shook the gun towards me as if he were about to fire a shot. I flinched and took a step back to maintain as much distance as possible between us.
“The shuttle still worked after thirty-five years?”
“Yes. I was just as surprised as you. What do you mean I should be dead?” I asked.
“The games were difficult. Nobody’s won in thirty-five years. The High Judges just announced no winner,” he hesitated between his sentences.
“Don’t lie to me. Why did you say that I should be dead?” I repeated with more frustration.
“In thirty-nine minutes, you’re going to explode, so I might as well tell you. You’ll be dead either way,” Moirai said as he pointed to the billboard with the gun in his hand.
The timer was a countdown until my death. There was no way I was getting out of the situation alive because either Moirai was going to shoot me, or the nanobots would explode.
“There is a reason the final game is never broadcasted,” he began. “There is a reason why the final game is impossible. Nobody wins the final game; nobody gets off Titan.”
Thankfully, he was unaware of the surviving players.
“Why leave me stranded on Titan with no possible way of getting off? You’ve rigged the games,” I said, infuriated at his meagre excuses.
“The games were never meant to be won. All of you were criminals who needed to be killed off one by one. Once we realised that nobody returns from Titan, we changed the meaning of the games and made sure nobody survived.”
“None of us were guilty. I was framed,” I yelled. “Jayde, Jaaspar, Thebe, everybody in these Exogames was innocent.”
“No,” he said softly. “None of you were innocent. Especially you, Fate Artemis.”
I furrowed my eyebrows at him and shook my head.
“Do you think we were unaware that you and Jayde snuck around this floor? We knew what was going on, but we didn’t penalise you for it. But we did make sure that eventually, in one of the five games, you would all die. See, you weren’t innocent. Just like your father.”
“You’re wrong!” I shouted as my blood boiled through my veins.
“Let me explain it to you,” Moirai said. “Your father, Scorpius, is responsible for the death of seventy-seven passengers and crew. He took out the stop switch and prevented the Comett from beginning its journey. He delayed it by eight years.”
He was right about one thing at least: my father’s crime.
“That wasn’t my fault though. Why punish me? My father prevented the extinction of the human race. The Comett would have exploded inside Second Earth if he didn’t take out the stop switch,” I defended.
“Your father wasn’t a hero. He was a coward who tried to run after he knew he made a mistake.”
“Don’t talk about my father like that,” I said angrily.
“You are the legacy of a criminal, and so were the other players. Crime flows through your blood, and Second Earth has no room for criminals.”
“So the Exogames are a way of removing criminals from Second Earth? You gave us false hope of regaining our freedom. Why not round us up and kill us all at once?”
“The High Judges wanted a show, and the Exogames are a way of cleansing Second Earth. I just do what they command,” Moirai said. “We have to teach criminals a lesson, and if they die along the way, then so be it. The Exogames work; crime rates are low, lower than they have ever been.”
“Then you’re a puppet. They’re using you for their own gain.”
“Nobody uses me. The Exogames are for criminals, just as they always have been. But we made these Exogames different. The ninety-ninth Exogames were for all you legacies. That was the theme. When Kuiper asked what the theme was back at the dinner, I couldn’t reveal it to all of you. It was a surprise.”
“That is so cruel! Most of us were so young with our entire lives ahead of us.”
“Hey!” a female voice shouted from behind Moirai.
I couldn’t see who it was because I was standing on a lower platform, and Morai was blocking my view.
“This is for messing with my friends,” she said as a laser was shot through Moirai’s body.
He fell to the floor with a loud thud, and Halley stood at the entrance with a gun in her hand and her hair messily fallen in front of her face.
“Fate, you’re alive!” She ran to me and threw her arms around my neck.
“I got your message about the wireless network before the fifth game.”
“The fake message was sent from here,” she said as she let go of me.
“Why aren’t you in the atrium?” I asked.
“I had to find out who sent that message. While everyone was distracted by the announcement, I snuck up to this floor to look through their systems. It’s been difficult to crack. Even when I came up to see you after the third game, I struggled to get the drop pod to go any higher. I’ve been planning this for more than a week. I’m so glad you’re alive.”
“Barely,” I said as I looked over at the countdown. “I’m going to die in half an hour. Once that timer ends, the nanobots in my blood will explode.”
“There might be a way I can override that timer,” Halley said. “I can try adding more time to the countdown. It should be easy. I managed to get into the system to look through the cameras and see who sent the message.”
“Did you find out who it was? Do you know who framed me?”
Halley looked at me with a glint in her eye as if she’d solved the investigation all on her own. She pretty much had, because I was too busy trying to survive the games. She turned and looked at Moirai, who coughed out splotches of blood. My father wanted me to be the one to kill him, but I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to do it.
“Moirai framed you,” Halley answered. “He framed all the players. The game makers are responsible for the deaths of everyone who played.”
“Liar,” he tried to scream but blood filled his lungs.
“There is one thing I’m not, and that’s a liar,” she said as she fired another shot at Moirai, this time through his beating heart.