Page 38 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

38

Wear Red, It’s Time

B laze

“Slayer! Titan! Wake up!” Sprout’s excited voice yanks me from a sound sleep. “Watch the vid! Watch the vid!”

There are antique vid screens everywhere in this messy, tech-strewn living room. I don’t have to strain my neck to see one on the wall in front of where I’m lying on the couch.

“We have less than two minutes before the authorities can track our signal. Here is the truth,” says the same distorted voice we heard last night.

It’s Xzavic’s handsome face when we were on the road outside the ruins our first full day of The Game . “Slavery should be outlawed,” he says. I remember how impassioned he was as he spouted his revolutionary views to the drone camera. “Every being in the galaxy knows no person should own another, should have the power of life and death—” His face distorts in pain as he receives a shock so powerful he can’t stand upright as he breathes in and out through his teeth.

Zedd isn’t her normal self. Her face isn’t beautiful and emotionless. It’s stark and hard and evil as she says, “We’re not playing. The next misstep will result in punishment to the female. Got it?”

She looks off-camera and says, “These gladiators don’t have the brains the gods gave a rock.”

“This is the face of the evil masters of our planet,” the distorted voice says. “They don’t care about you. They want to keep things as they are. They don’t want change. They don’t want us to rise up. They want to keep us enslaved.”

The screen is showing a scrolling montage of Xzavic and I being shocked, writhing in pain, pulling at our slave collars to no effect.

“Some of us are truly enslaved and wear shock collars. We’re moved like pawns at our owners’ whims. But do not fool yourselves. Those of you watching who believe you’re free, whose necks aren’t encumbered with collars, are just as enslaved as your collared brethren.

“Do you have enough food in your bellies? Adequate shelter? Have you or someone you loved been forced to fight in a faraway war for a cause you didn’t understand? Have you ever paused from your day-to-day scrambles to earn enough credits to feed and house your family? Have you had the time or mental energy to wonder why we fight these interminable wars? It isn’t for the cause our government explains.

“It’s for money. And that money isn’t to make your life easier. No, it’s to allow the ultra-rich to have enough credits to buy their sixth vacation home, or their second yacht, or buy another slave.”

The picture pauses on the moment Xzavic, after being brutally shocked in the cave the other night, from his position in a tight ball of excruciating pain, reached behind him to find me and try to comfort me.

My body responds with sympathy pains to the pictures of me clutching my collar, knees tucked to my chest as I writhed in torment. My heart bleeds for the Blaze up on the screen. And to see Xzavic, his big, perfect body spasming in pain, makes me throw an arm around him as I try to soothe him.

“We’re strong. Powerful,” the video says. “There are so many more of us than them.”

Thankfully, the screen stops scrolling pictures of Xzavic and me. It fills with a picture of Red, sitting still except for slow blinks of its huge, blue eyes.

The screen then fills with two white words on the black background. “Wear Red.” Then… “It’s Time.”

When the broadcast stops abruptly and the network takes over, they are obviously unprepared. Zedd’s back is facing the camera, and she’s screaming at someone behind her.

“Fucking fix it! How have those idiots managed to take over the broadcast from one of the galaxy’s most powerful corporations?”

“Uh. Miss Zedd,” an unidentified and obviously terrified female voice interrupts. “The cameras are rolling.”

Zedd’s metamorphosis is striking as she swivels to the camera, pulls her expression from harsh lines of fury to the emotionless face she usually wears for the camera. “I see we’re back.” She attempts a smile.

Altair mutes the vids and rolls to us from his work area. Xzavic pushes our couches apart so we can both sit up to speak with him.

“The Resistance. Have you heard of it?” Altair asks.

Titan

I had no idea. I’ve been in a slave barracks learning my craft for the last fifteen years. All my energy has been focused on keeping fit and staying alive. I hate slavery and think it’s an abomination, but I never thought free people were slaves in a way, too.

Of course, I never knew they lived in underground bunkers like our hosts, or square tin shacks like their neighbors. I’ve never been in an inner city like where Blaze and I were hunkered down last night. I didn’t know about homelessness or people who had to gather around burning trash barrels to stay warm at night.

“The way of the galaxy isn’t fair,” Altair says. “Does it strike you as right that some should have so much, and others have so little? I have no argument with wealth. People should reap the rewards of their labor.

“I want them to have their houses and their summer houses and even their houses on another planet. I want the rich to have their hovers and their interstellar runabouts. They can have fleets of them for all I care.

“I also want the rich to pull their own weight. I don’t think it’s right for the factory worker to pay more tax than the factory owner because the laws are written to protect the wealthy.

“Those credits should help people like me.” He pauses and gestures toward his missing legs. “People like me should be able to feed themselves and their families and have a decent house. And no one should have to lose half their body in a war fought a galaxy away in order to accomplish that.”

I reach out and grab his hand. I wasn’t sure he’d allow it. He’s a proud male, that’s to be sure. And gruff. But he lets me clasp his hand for a moment after his impassioned speech.

“The Resistance wants to change things,” he pierces me with his gaze.

“And Xzavic and I are their unwitting poster children. And Red.” I notice he’s on the kitchen counter rummaging for a snack among the crumbs.

“It’s time we had a talk,” Zedd’s furious face and voice have invaded every TV in the living room. If her eyes were lasers, we’d be dead. It looks like she’s staring straight at me.