3 days remaining.

  It was late morning on the third day when John finally awoke. Groggily donning his duster and jeans ensemble, he staggered towards the bar with half closed eyes and dropped heavily onto a well-worn stool.

  “Breakfast?” Buck asked, though he was already in the middle of cooking a fry-up. The delectable smell of sizzling bacon had been the smelling salts that had woken him from his disturbed slumber.

  “Please,” John grumbled, rubbing furiously at his eyes. “We need to talk.”

  “How ominous,” Buck commented sardonically. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “The gate isn’t in Canberra like you thought it was. I’ve made a map and there are three cities left where it could be. Failing that, the only other locations are random islands and the entire fucking outback.”

  “I never said that it was. I said that if I was going to put a gate somewhere, I’d choose the capital city.” John eyed him wearily; his eyes were bloodshot and distant. Buck sighed. “Can I assume that you don’t have enough time left to search all three cities?”

  “You can.”

  “And you’re certain it’s not in the capital?”

  “I am.”

  “Then I can only think of three possibilities,” the dinosaur sighed as he slid a plate of greasy breakfast meats towards John. “Option one: it’s in one of those three cities you mentioned. Option two: it’s somewhere completely random where you have no chance of finding it.”

  “How motivational,” John commented through a mouthful of fried egg. “And option three?”

  “This one’s a long shot, but a few seasons ago the showrunners trialled a free for all, PvE, gate system. That season they transported every surviving contestant and mob to the gate on the final day. It was utter carnage. Only three contestants survived. They haven’t tried it again since because they need enough contestants surviving each round to make the game last long enough to get in the green. It’s expensive to produce a season of Battle Royale and they get a higher return on investment the longer each season lasts.”

  “And you think they’d try that again after such a monumental failure?”

  “Maybe?” He shrugged, “I can’t know for sure, but typically the gates are placed in easy-to-find locations. There’s nothing more boring for an audience than watching their favourite contestant die simply because they couldn’t find the gate to the next round. It’s anticlimactic, there’s no drama. It’s the same reason you can’t get sick in the game unless it’s a debuff from a mob or card power. If you’re saying that there’s no gate in the capital, no gate in the majority of the cities in this place, then it stands to reason that the IPSC have something else planned.”

  John took a few moments to savour his mouthful of bacon as he stared idly at the diminishing food on his plate. Washing it down with small glass of bottom shelf whisky, he eventually looked up at Buck with an evil grin plastered on his face.

  “If it’s PvE, then I don’t need to go looking for a new card do I?”

  “For a guy who just gave up a card to save a kid, you never struck me as a murderous psychopath. Though I’m sure your views would go up,” he said, shaking his head slightly in that disapproving way John’s mum always used to. For the first time in his life, he was thankful that she’d died from cancer a few years ago.

  “I’m not talking about murdering everyone,” he said, standing up forcefully. “But one person who deserves it will be there for sure and I promised her that she’d die the next time we met.”

  “Hmm,” the dinosaur said, fiddling idly with the brim of his fedora. “That’s not a bad backup plan, but I wouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. We don’t know for sure that it will be PvE and you still have three days left to keep searching.”

  “Well I do have another idea, there’s something on this ship I need to check out.”

  ***

  The area below deck was about as dark and dingey as you’d expect. A rhythmic dripping sound echoed throughout the hold and John’s every step cascaded in an ominous metallic clang that prevented any chance he had of subterfuge.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A putrid fishy smell clung to the thick air, John’s clothes, and the hairs in his nostrils.

  I’m gonna be a social pariah for the rest of the game, he thought with a slight chuckle. Fish Boy, that’s what they’ll call me. Like that one guy at the office who microwaves tuna for lunch.

  He’d been wondering around the cargo hold for the last hour, trying desperately to avoid the people who had made their beds down there. It was a pretty depressing place to sleep, but in times like this safety trumped comfort, so at least it was a smart choice.

  Sodden sleeping bags lined the ship’s interior, lit only by the occasional flashlight or oil lamp. John wondered where they’d found such old technology, but he had no intention of asking anyone. As far as he was aware, he shouldn’t have even been down there.

  As he trapsed carefully through the open plan cargo hold, pressing his body closely to the rusted shipment containers held within, he finally spotted the place he was looking for.

  A bulkhead door with a single guard posted outside.

  Here goes nothing.

  Stepping out of the shadows, John marched purposefully towards the guard. An older man, bald with an unkempt beard, wearing brown leather armour and holding a loaded crossbow, blocked his path.

  “Halt,” he said, holding out his palm. “No one’s allowed back here. Sorry pal. Boss’ orders.”

  “The Captain sent me,” John said, mustering up the most unconcerned voice he could manage. “I’m to interrogate the prisoner. We’re making a map of all the locations people have been, trying to narrow down the location of the torii gate. Prisoner’s the last person on my list.”

  “Oh?” The guard replied, “you’re the new guy right? We spoke briefly last night on the bridge.”

  John nodded once.

  “Well… I’m not really supposed to but if it’s Captain’s orders then I guess it’s alright. You’ve got five minutes, and don’t think I won’t be checking with the bossman later. Got it?”

  “Five minutes is all I need,” John replied with a half-smile.

  I can’t believe that actually worked!

  “Really?” The guard grinned, “I bet you’re a real hit with the ladies.”

  New Skill:

  Acting

  Huh, John thought, that could come in handy.

  The bald guard heaved open the bulkhead door with a few difficult twists and an ear-splitting creak.

  “I’m gonna have to lock it behind you, knock when you’re done.”

  John nodded his thanks and stepped into the darkness beyond. The door closed with a solid clank as the locking mechanism clicked back into place and he was left in complete blackness.

  “It might take a few minutes for your eyes to adjust,” a distinctly feminine and alluring voice called out sweetly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Digging around in his duster’s right pocket, John pulled out a flashlight he’d liberated from one of the nearby sleeping bags. “Why are you in here?” He asked, flicking the switch and shinning a spotlight through the nearby jailcell bars.

  Holding up a pale hand against the sudden influx of light, a stunningly beautiful woman in a 1920’s style red dress gazed back at him. Her slender waist was accented by her bust and she wore a slightly loose garter on each leg. Had she been using them as holsters for some kind of weapon?

  “If you don’t already know that, then I’m guessing you’re not supposed to be in here,” she replied, slowly lowering her hand from her face as she got used to the dazzling torchlight. “Who exactly are you?”

  “The guy asking the questions here,” John shot back. “And the guy holding a gun.”

  His revolver materialised in his free hand and he pointed it loosely at the woman. The runes that were etched into the barrel were unlit, but she wouldn’t know what that meant.

  “Got any smokes?” She asked, seemingly unphased by the pistol. She strutted across the cell, hips swaying purposefully, and took a seat on a cold-looking metal bench which was attached to the wall by two rusted chains. Crossing her legs, she leaned forward resting her chin on her hand, slender fingers and painted nails curling around her lower lip.

  “And just where would you expect a guy to find cigarettes in the apocalypse?”

  “Inside pretty much any store on the planet,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “You look like a smoker, but if you don’t want to share then I guess I’ll have to go without.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “That makes two of us,” she smiled, though it didn’t reach her piercing, discerning eyes. “That’s a pretty interesting card you’ve got there. Summoning a gun, I bet that comes in handy.”

  “It’s kept me alive so far,” John replied, taking a step closer to the bars, revolver trained on the irritating woman. “What kind of cards do you have?”

  “Only an idiot shows her hand before the flop.”

  “I could just kill you and take them, if The Captain locked you up in here I doubt he’d be too upset.”

  “If you were going to do that we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we? I’ll happily tell you whatever it is you want to know, but first you’ll have to do a little something for me,” she twiddled a curl in her hair with a single finger.

  “I don’t have the key-”

  “It’s not that,” she interjected. “I want you to kill The Captain. Bring me his head and I’ll know the deed is done. Then we can get off this rust bucket together, or we can go our separate ways. I don’t really care which.”

  John paused for a moment. He kinda liked The Captain, and since his goal was simply to acquire another card, if he was going to kill the guy then he could simply pilfer his cards. No, playing into the whims of this femme fatale wasn’t the right call.

  “I’d back myself in a fight,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “But I doubt I can sneak a dude’s head past eleven carded adults. What if I bring you something easier to hide? That way I can kill him quietly and we can get out of here before anyone realises what’s happened.”

  The woman began to smile, but it quickly petered out as if she’d caught her poker face slipping and corrected it consciously. She took a few minutes to think about John’s request, winding her thick curls tightly around her index finger.

  “His machete,” she eventually said. “He never takes the damned thing off. He even sleeps with it. There’s no way you could get it without offing him. Bring me that and we have a deal.”