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MORAI SILENTLY USHERED US to a holding bay with a holographic viewing screen and a single metal chair for each of us. He shut the door and locked us inside. The last things I saw on his face were lowered eyebrows and growing suspicion. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Moirai, he looked far too dangerous to be in control of the Exogames.
Jaaspar and I sat on the seats first, followed by the rest of the players. There were only five of us left in the Exogames: Anyma, Jaaspar, Sol, Sapphire, and me. The glow emanating from Sapphire and Sol faded quickly, and their bodies returned to their original pigmentation. Heaters turned on above us because we had been stuck in the freezing water for so long, but that was probably the only generosity the game makers showed us.
“What’s going on?” Sapphire asked nervously. “They never locked us in after the other games.”
“Silence, please,” a non-robotic male voice announced through the ceiling speakers.
“Oh no, what is happening?” Sol whispered, panic-stricken.
Since we were not permitted to speak to each other, all I could do was twiddle my fingers and continuously restyle my hair. I counted the light strips on the floor — sixteen — and stared at the single faulty one that flickered every few seconds. After a while, I lost interest, and began to think about how we were here without Jayde or Thebe. But before I could reminisce too much, the door shot up, and in walked Moirai with Rubie by his side. She kept her head down, and her back was hunched over slightly, probably pulled down by her cuffed hands in front of her.
“Firstly, players, congratulations on making it to the fourth round of the Exogames,” Moirai said in a tone that suggested he didn’t care.
Sol clapped but quickly withdrew her applause when Moirai’s intimidating eyes locked onto her.
“But one of you, or more, will not proceed to the next round. Mark my words,” he continued.
My heart sank, and my breathing grew heavy. I glanced at Jaaspar beside me and saw his expression darken. When I looked back at Moirai, he was glaring at me. I dropped my head down and stared at my boots, which were scuffed from the two previous games.
“Exactly forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven minutes was the time it took you all to complete the third game. We thought by making your suits dissolve in the water, you would all die. When this game was played many years ago, before any of you were born, it took over four hours for the players to complete it. How is it that you lot finished so quickly?” he asked as he continuously fiddled with his usual gold string in his fingers.
Nobody answered his question, but it was even more concerning that Moirai revealed his true intentions on ensuring none of us progressed through the Exogames.
“You see, the one thing we attach to our announcers, like Rubie here, without their notice, is a microphone.”
My heart sank further below my stomach, further than where it had fallen before. Fuck, he knows Rubie told me the way out. I hoped I was wrong for my sake and for hers. But unfortunately, my thoughts were correct.
“It seems that Rubie here,” he touched her face with two fingers threateningly, “had provided the directions out of the maze to a player. The player in question... is one of you. This advantage will not be tolerated.”
“You don’t know who was given the directions?” Sol asked.
“We will investigate further. In the meantime, nobody leaves this room.”
A spare chair morphed from the ground, and Rubie filled its space. Rubie didn’t look at me, nor did I look at her. Even a sliver of acknowledgement could have been taken the wrong way. Nobody knew who Moirai was looking for, except for Rubie and me.
The game makers took cheating very seriously. About twelve years ago, a player’s identical twin brother played the games instead of the criminal. When the game makers found this out, they executed both of them without hesitation.
“Player Sol,” a robotic voice spoke over the loudspeaker. “Please follow the path to the interrogation room.”
Sol rose from her chair and made her way to the interrogation room using the moving lights on the ground as a guide. The viewing screen turned on and broadcast Sol’s movements. She entered a room that looked identical to the one Tethys had interrogated me in prior to my sentencing. Moirai sat opposite her and asked questions relating to the previous game.
“How did you get out of the maze so quickly?” he asked, skipping the pleasantries.
“We followed the warmer paths to the portal,” she answered.
“What do you mean ‘the warmer paths’?”
“The water was warmer as we swam closer to the portal.”
“How did you know that the warmer water would lead you to the portal?”
“Fate had said that the portal generated heat, and obviously, the closer we were to it, the warmer the water was.”
“Fate Artemis, correct?”
Sol nodded and pursed her lips.
“It is my understanding that you were all split up. Did everybody use the same technique?”
“I assume so. I was alone, and Fate was with the others, so yes, I suppose we all used the same technique.”
I was confused because Anyma had been with Sol the entire time. Perhaps she was changing her story to protect me. But she hardly knew me, so I couldn’t understand why she felt the need to do so.
Moirai interrogated Sol about the third game for another thirty minutes before he said something that confused not only me, but the rest of us watching. He threw a spanner in the works and there was no telling anybody’s true reaction. Moirai was actively changing the rules of the Exogames, and a part of me hoped that the High Judges would do something about it.
“Now, Sol, would you like to continue the Exogames or forfeit your position and return to prison?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she responded slowly.
None of us understood. The rules were crystal clear that once a player had entered the Exogames, there was no way of withdrawing their position. It was a verbal contract, and if broken, imminent death would be the only thing left for the player. My stomach churned and growled at me, and not because I was hungry, but because something inside of me didn’t believe Moirai’s words. The game makers had lied to us before — about the commencement date of the games and about the tracking system they had secretly put inside of us. If they could lie about all of that, then they could lie about giving us the opportunity to leave the games early.
“I’ll continue the Exogames,” Sol said before she was able to return to the rest of us.
“Player Sapphire, please follow the path to the interrogation room,” the robotic voice announced.
Sapphire’s eyes darted across the room when she heard her name, but it was as if she were glued to her chair.
“Player Sapphire, please follow the path to the interrogation room,” the voice repeated.
Sol nudged at Sapphire to get up before things got worse for her. She followed the lights to the interrogation room, and her interview was broadcasted back to us.
“Sol is your cousin, correct?” Moirai asked.
“Yes. My younger cousin,” she emphasised.
“Why did you enter the Exogames?”
“The only reason I entered was to get my freedom back.”
The angle of the camera didn’t allow us to see what Moirai was doing, but it looked like he was scrolling on his tablet.
“Please tell the audience what your crime was,” he insisted.
“The players already know what my crime was.”
That was a lie because I had no idea what she had done to end up in prison, let alone the Exogames.
“But the rest of Second Earth doesn’t,” Moirai said.
“Hang on a moment. Is this being live streamed to all of Second Earth?” she asked loudly.
“Precisely.”
Sapphire rolled her eyes and slouched in her chair. She stared directly into the camera with sharp eyes before speaking.
“Sol and I were sent to prison. Mind you, we were sent to different prisons. She was sent to Mars while I stayed here on Second Earth. What was our crime, you ask? Well, ask Moirai here and the Council of High Judges. I’m sure they’d love to tell you their version of events.”
Sapphire’s frustration was something I never thought I’d see. After all, she was a sweet girl and always saw the positives in every conversation. But something had clearly ticked her off.
Moirai signalled to somebody out of view to cut off the video feed, and the holographic viewing screen became a stream of uninterrupted static. Sol gasped, and I covered my mouth with my palm. Sapphire was a dead woman. Clearly what she had said wasn’t taken lightly by Moirai, and he had total control over the Exogames, and therefore, our lives.
Time passed slowly as we sat together in silence, but after a while, the viewing screen turned back on. We were relieved to see that Sapphire was unharmed, and Moirai was still interviewing her.
“Last question. Would you like to continue the Exogames or forfeit your—”
“Clearly, I want my freedom back. What a stupid fucking question,” she interjected angrily. “I’m continuing the Exogames.”
Sapphire stormed back into the holding bay and slumped into her chair. The heat of her anger warmed the entire room. Her cheeks were filled with red dots, and sweat covered her forehead. Her muscles were tensed, her veins were poking out of her neck and for a moment, I thought she was going to physically attack someone.
“Player Jaaspar, please follow the path to the interrogation room.”
Jaaspar didn’t hesitate to leave the room. He immediately removed himself once his name was called.
“You’ve made quite a few friends in these Exogames,” Moirai began.
Jaaspar didn’t respond. He simply sat in the chair and stared at Moirai with a blank face.
“Thebe, Jayde, Fate,” Moirai continued. “It’s unfortunate two of them haven’t made it as far as you. Why do you think that is?”
“Thebe and Jayde were good friends. I’ve never had friends like them before,” he said softly but didn’t answer the question.
“It’s my understanding that you tried to get all the players to work together, to form an alliance. Tell me more about that.”
“It was Jayde and Fate’s idea from the beginning. Thebe and I thought it was a good idea too. We concluded that if we all worked together, we’d be able to win the Exogames. We’d be able to give everyone a chance to win,” Jaaspar answered.
“Do you think it worked?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. Clearly, there aren’t a whole lot of players left for the last two games, are there?” Jaaspar said sarcastically as he waved his arms around then slammed them on the table.
“I want to talk about your future, Jaaspar,” Moirai said.
“Forgive me for interrupting, but I don’t think any of us are in the mood for these types of questions. Nobody cheated in the previous game. This is a waste of time, and what future do I have if I don’t make it through the next game?”
“Then I want to talk about your past,” Moirai said more seriously. “It is our understanding that your mother killed herself. Is that correct?”
“My mother didn’t kill herself. She drowned when I was young,” he answered quietly.
“In our reports, we have someone of relation to you who took their own life.”
“My girlfriend. She killed herself before my court hearing.”
“Young love, so tragic,” Moirai said without any consideration of Jaaspar’s emotional state. “It’s too bad Jayde died. She liked you. Really liked you.”
“Jayde’s gone, and there is nobody left for me,” Jaaspar said as his voice cracked and his eyes welled up with tears.
“Right then, the final question—”
“Don’t bother asking. I’m here to play. That’s what I signed up for,” he answered with so much seriousness in his tone that the melancholy in his voice disappeared, and he left the room without being dismissed.
Before Jaaspar returned to the holding bay, my name was called to the interrogation room. I crossed paths with Jaaspar in the hallway, but there were gazers lined up the walls, so I was petrified to even look at him.
“Fate Artemis,” Moirai said, almost apathetic as I entered the room.
I sat in the chair without touching the backrest and placed my hands together on the table.
“Legacies are a running theme in these Exogames. Sol and Sapphire are blood related. A few others were related to previous players, and your father, Scorpius, played ten years ago.”
“I don’t want to talk about my father,” I said.
“Because he didn’t win?”
“Because he entered the Exogames. He was never supposed to enter. I was never supposed to enter.”
“And I was never meant to be a game maker. Yet, here we are,” Moirai said as he swiped on his tablet. “You know he made it to the very last game.”
“Obviously, he didn’t make it out, so that is a meaningless comment.”
“He clearly entered the games so he wouldn’t have to serve the punishment for his crime. I can see here that your mother passed away when you were young, and you have no siblings. You have much in common with Jaaspar. Were you close with your father?”
“Yes.”
“He clearly tried to cut his sentence short by playing the games. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful and did not make it out alive.”
“We’ve established that he died. Can we move on please?” I said in annoyance.
“Thankfully, we don’t broadcast the final game, so you wouldn’t have witnessed his death. That usually scars a person. It certainly would have scarred his son.”
“Thankfully?” I growled. “The last moments I saw of him were on a screen, fighting for his life in the fourth game.”
“Ah, yes,” Moirai said as he scrolled further on his tablet. “The fourth game your father played was a showstopper. Sacrificing his ally to get to the shuttle in time was quite the move.”
“That’s not what happened,” I said, even though I didn’t remember that part in detail.
“Take a look,” he said as he flipped the tablet to show me the video footage of the exact moment.
“Are we done here?” I asked without looking at the footage.
“Not quite,” Moirai said. “Your department was responsible for many mistakes, mistakes like the expedition to Titan thirty-five years ago. Do you think they made a mistake having you work for them?”
“Firstly, I wasn’t alive when the Titan expedition took place, and secondly, their mistakes are not a reflection on my character,” I answered.
“Will you continue the Exogames or return to prison to serve the remainder of your sentence?”
I wanted to think about it a bit longer. I should have come up with an answer while I was waiting in the holding bay because time moved even more slowly in here. My sentence was lifelong, so I was guaranteed to die in prison if I went back. In the Exogames, there was a chance of surviving and regaining my freedom. Of course, my chances were extremely slim, but there was still a chance. I didn’t want to die a potentially slow and painful death in the games, but I also didn’t want to return to Mars.
“I’ll play,” I answered with too many doubts to my answer.
I returned to the holding bay to join the others, only to find that Rubie was no longer there. When I sat back down in my seat, Jaaspar was uncontrollably tapping his feet. His eyes were wide, but there were still dark circles around them, and his head turned as he glanced across the room.
“Dude, calm down,” I whispered to him. “Are you alright?”
“Quiet in the holding bay,” a regular male voice demanded over the loudspeaker.
Jaaspar inched closer to me and covered the side of his mouth before he attempted to whisper something into my ear, but whoever was watching us through hidden cameras commanded him to stop.
“Jaaspar, please move to the empty chair behind Sapphire,” he said over the ceiling speakers.
I chuckled softly, but quickly stopped because I didn’t want to get into any more trouble. Moirai entered the holding bay again with his tablet propped under his arm and stood underneath the door frame to allow the sensors to recognise that he was in the way. I kind of wished the door would close on him and squash his miniature body.
“Thank you all for your interviews,” he began.
They were more like interrogations. They were even announced as interrogations when our names were called.
“You will all be escorted back to your dorms on level ninety-five to rest before the fourth game. For transparency, Rubie will be taken to the prison on Mars to serve out a life sentence. Thank you all for your cooperation.”
Everyone was interrogated by Moirai. Everyone except Anyma. What if she took the blame? Perhaps she already spoke to Moirai prior to the other interrogations, but even if she did, the game makers didn’t punish her.
I stood at the back of the line, behind Anyma, as the gazer walked us back to our rooms.
“Why didn’t you have an interview?” I whispered into her ear.
“What are you talking about, Fate?” she answered as she snapped her head back.
“Moirai didn’t speak with you.”
“Stop it,” Sol, who was standing in front of Anyma, said aggressively.
I rolled my eyes at her and scoffed.
As we rounded the corner, my arm was immediately clutched by something, or rather someone, and I was tugged to the side, out of view of anyone walking by. The lighting was sufficient for me to see who pulled me there. It was Halley — my colleague from the aerospace department.
“Thank God you’re still alive,” she said as she threw her arms over my shoulders and didn’t let go for a while.
“What are you doing up here?” I whispered so nobody could hear us.
“Fate, I don’t know how much time I have, but I must tell you what I’ve discovered,” she began as she pulled out her afticuvos and gave me half.
The surrounding noises muted automatically. There was no more whirring or clacking from machinery behind the walls in Second Earth. The noises disappeared except for the sounds of our breathing.
“After watching you complete the second game — well done, by the way — I couldn’t imagine how difficult all of this was for you. I went back to all our messages,” she continued.
“Aw, how sweet,” I said genuinely but a bit confused.
“Not really. You are the only person named ‘Fate’ that I know.”
“Yeah?”
“Why the hell would you sign the bottom of the message with your full name?”
“I never do,” I said as I looked around the side to see if anyone was there before I remembered the afticuvos was activated. “I sometimes don’t even sign with my name at all.”
“Exactly right. So, I went through every single one of our messages, and the only one signed with your full name is the most recent one. That suggests two things to me. Either you were out of your mind when you wrote that message, or somebody else sent it from your tablet,” she said.
“You already know I don’t remember writing that message.”
“And I believe you, Fate. Now I do.”
“But nobody else does. Except for some of the players. You know, some of the other players think they were framed as well, and I believe them. These games don’t make sense.”
“The same thing probably happened to you. If you didn’t write that message, then somebody else did, but for what reason? Who wants you dead, and why?” she asked, not expecting me to answer.
“Not just me. Who wants all the players dead? If we are all innocent, then why were we taken to prison and given an opportunity to play in the Exogames?”
“I don’t know, Fate, but I’m going to sleuth my way to the bottom of this. I promise.”
“Don’t promise me. I have faith you’ll figure it out. But don’t promise me anything,” I pleaded.
Halley looked at me with one eyebrow raised and propped her head forward.
“I’ve made promises to people too,” I continued. “I promised my friends that we would make it out of the games alive. And now two of them are dead.”
“I’m sorry, Fate. Alright. I’ll find out the truth for you, I pr—” She paused. “I’ll do my best.”
I handed back her afticuvos after one last hug, and she disappeared through a narrow passageway hidden between two walls. A gazer rounded the corner and noticed me through the helmet that covered the top half of his face.
“What are you doing here, player?” he asked as he reached for his gun but never pulled it out.
“I... um,” I hesitated. “I got lost,” I lied and hoped he would let go of his gun.
“Back to your dorm,” he demanded as he grasped my arms behind my back. “I will escort you there.”
The gazer’s kept kicking the back of my ankles as he pushed me to my dorm. It was as if he was doing it on purpose and it became increasingly uncomfortable. It seemed far too long before we reached my room, but I was most likely just being impatient, and eventually we made it. Jaaspar waited up for me before he went to sleep; he couldn’t face the dark anymore, and I didn’t blame him because the dark was what took Thebe and Jayde from us.
I really hoped Halley would be able to uncover the truth. I was ecstatic she finally believed that I wasn’t the one who sent her that message. It only took her a few years. The dark grey fog that clouded the halls of Second Earth and concealed its mysteries was beginning to clear. But the closer the truth was, the more entangled those mysteries became, and I didn’t want to be the one to drown in them.