SAVE GREER — X

HEAL EIRLYS —

DISCIPLINE BECK —

They paused, but the number wouldn't. From stillness came Haralda's pen to scratch away at her clipboard. The chamber flickered with shadows cast by lanterns and screens all while Greer lay dead in the centre, pain on her face. What had Beck done?

Faust pressed a finger to her temple and hung his head, letting his metre-long hair mask his expression. That was all the room needed to know, yet still they froze. Some vice-like sentiment gripped Haralda, a dread that locked up her muscles and kept her eyes fixed on the reality of the corpse before her, an unquestionable proof that the game they were playing was very, very real. Eight of them would die.

Beck. Haralda's stomach lurched. It was her fault for not being firm enough. Her experience with children taught her that if you didn't stamp down on little weeds that refused to show respect, they'd soon spread to become unmanageable, and she'd find them smashing windows or assaulting staff. The only language those miscreants understood was power — an adult to stand up, tower over them, say 'Yes, I'm bigger than you', and administer a caning. The deputy head.

"I know what you're thinking." Beck sported a shit-eating grin as he backed into the elevator and kneeled to brace against the rifle. "How could you possibly do that? Are you even human? Yadda, yadda. Am I right or am I right?"

"Beck," snarled Haralda, reaching around to pull the dart gun free from her skirt.

"Beck. That was your name, wasn't it?" Saheel uncurled Greer's hand to claim the ice pick, then stood up, glowering at him.

"You look like you want to fuck me up real bad," said Beck. "Let me tell you why that's a dumbass idea. See, all I have to do is pull this here trigger and I put you on your ass like your friend."

"Think you can get all seven of us?" asked Connie, hefting the axe onto her shoulder.

Beck laughed a hollow laugh. It was pitch dark in the elevator, and all Haralda could make out were his eyes and his smile. "Yes, why don't you just rush me? I can pump, let's see now, five of you full of lead before you get to me (assuming Kari lifts a finger to help). So let's say there's five of you bleeding out, full of holes but not quite dead — who's going to heal you? Cause I'm not voting to heal anyone."

"What's happening?" mumbled Eirlys. "It's so bright..."

Tarquin cleared his throat, and held his hands up in a dithering, sheepish manner. "I'm sorry to butt in, but if we're not going to heal the young lady, I think we should take her to Connie's bed and try to warm her up, don't you? Faust, could you get her legs?"

Faust's voice cracked as he tried to say something, so he simply nodded and hefted her up with the old man.

"Feel free," said Beck, mock shooing them off. "Run off to play house while the grown-ups talk about real shit."

"Guys!" Connie dragged the axe along the marble, leaving a trail of sparks. "Where do you think you're going? I can't let a remark like that go unanswered. What fucking planet are you on right now? That guy just murdered someone!"

"Ah, yes, Connie," said Tarquin, expression unreadable as granite. "I suppose this young lady would highly appreciate getting CPR from another young lady like yourself rather than one of us two, wouldn't you?"

"So I should just run away?" she said. "Act the coward?"

"Yeah!" jeered Beck from his fortified position in the elevator. "Fuck off with your tail between your legs, yellowbellies!"

"How can you just sit there and take that, man?" demanded Connie. "Don't you have any shame? Don't you want to show him who's boss?"

Tarquin smiled. It was the first time his eyes sparkled as he did so. "He's dead set on being the most interesting, isn't he? Rather starved for attention, I find. Ask yourself — what's the one thing he doesn't want anyone to do right now?"

"I..." said Connie, "Fuck him right up in the face before he can explain himself?"

"Not quite. He doesn't want anyone to walk away, because that would make him less important to the story. He needs a platform to be interesting, so we'll just take away his platform, won't we? Now — I don't think you've shown Faust your flat. Did you know Connie does just the best coffee? She's got an ExPressoMaker and everything — doesn't that sound nice, Faust?"

Faust nodded.

At the same time, Connie was tearing up. "Tarquin... Faust... man, you did notice! Okay, let's go and heal up this ‘young lady’."

And they strolled towards the stairs as a team.

"Wait, you fuckers, come back!" shouted Beck. "The moment you turn your back on me is the moment you get a bullet in the brain!"

"No, it isn't," said Haralda. "How many stories have you read where the villain randomly kills the heroes? That doesn't make you interesting, Beck, that makes you a brash, uncouth, ruffian!"

"Are you sure? Huh? Are you really gonna bet your life on it?"

Faust turned his head briefly, and just about let out a word that sounded like "Yes."

Haralda fired a dart above Beck's head to force him to duck and keep him pinned down while they left the room.

HEAL EIRLYS — CHECK

"Oh, you still have that little peashooter, do you?" said Beck, training his gun at her. "Is that how you're going to treat a fellow member of Team Rage, you husbandless spinster? As for you, priesty boy, hasn't all this been enough to make you realise god doesn't exist? Why aren't you running away with the others?"

"Brother," said Saheel. The way he was shaking, Haralda wouldn't have been surprised if he'd straight up rush him now. "We have a score to settle."

"I can tell you're not the smart one," said Beck. "The smart ones are thinking now — why is he doing this? And once they've realised, they're kicking themselves for not doing the same thing!"

"You probably think," said Saheel, "That the audience would get bored if there wasn't a constant trickle of tension and threat of dying. You think they'd stop reading, and we'd all cease to exist. This is basic undergraduate Idealism and brother, it is flawed. If you think a story can only be interesting if people are dying, let me tell you something."

He smashed his ice pick into Beck's podium, shattering the glass and sending it flying. The screen sparked and gave off a thin stream of acidic smoke.

"People don't root for villains. They root for the heroes who know better than to kill.”