Death Game: Extra Talent

[The Man in Red]

"No no no, this simply won't do at all."

The Man in Red shoved a mess of paperwork off his desk with a single sweep of his arm. "So many options, but they all lack something....vital. They lack that connecting string, that theme, which ties them all so nicely together. The rest of the dreck out there signing up of their own volition can be any old thing, but these..."

The motley collection of staff that had gathered in their scarlet-suited superior's office shifted nervously in place, glancing between each other. "Ah, well sir, there...are still more options? Your old contacts and friends are even now still shipping more and more dossiers and files over to us."

"Yes, yes, of course they are, I never had any doubt. But they had best start sending something useful soon." He splayed his hands over the table, leaning forward to peer closely at the assortment of gathered fools. "Perhaps a different tactic is in order. You!" And he suddenly pointed out one of their number, making the others quickly shuffle away to leave him suddenly isolated from his peers. "Pick out someone from those files you have there. Make it random as can be, pulled from thin air."

"I, uh...b-but..." He started, before quickly trailing off with an audible gulp and rifling through the files and randomly picking one out. "H-Here you go, sir, this one!" And he tossed it uncertainly forward onto his boss's desk, where it spun and slid across the smoothly polished surface to rest before him.

"Hmmm...." The Man in Red simply gave the folder a spin before plucking it up and opening it. He leafed through the contents in silence for what felt like hours to the increasingly tense underlings in the room with him. Finally, however, he gave a brief little chortle. "Oh, yes, yes, yes, indeed, this one will do nicely. Just look at him there, so bold, young and spritely!" He tossed the folder's contents haphazardly out, turning what had once been a single photo of the highlighted individual into several, even as a hidden projector within the desk flickered to life and displayed a three-dimensional image.

"The most delightful of choices to be singled out first. A low enough standard, so no others can be worse." He rose from his chair, arms slowly curling up to fold together behind his back. "Every game needs a stage. Every stage needs a boss. And what does every boss need for its stage?" The red-suited man leaned forward, tilting and turning his head expectantly, as if listening for something carefully.

There was much hushed murmuring and quiet whispering between the others in the room, before one brave soul ventured to speak up. "Uh...a mid-boss, sir? F-For the stage, before they get to the actual boss?"

"Ahahaha! Yes, yes, correct and true!" And the Man in Red sprang back to attention, with a delighted clap of his gloved hands. "A stage needs a boss, and a mid-boss, too!" He inclined his head forward, hands shifting to interlock fingers as he lowered down into his chair again and let his elbows rest upon the desk. "And with this one here..." His yellow eyes gleamed behind the porcelain-white mask, leering at the slowly revolving image of the scarlet-eyed hologram as it swept a hand through the well-kept violet locks adorning its head. "...we have the perfect pick, indeed. Why, it's even in his very name!"

He laughed with glee, and spun in his chair. Then gestured to the other hapless staff. "Collect the file, and go see to collecting that one for the game. Then go to each department, and have someone from there pick out another contestant. Present their choices to me when you have them all!"

"Y-Yes, mister Rosa." One of the workers spoke up.

His mirth suddenly shifting to dead silence, the Man in Red lifted one hand. "Ah. And send whoever just spoke to the cleanup department, won't you?"

The remainder of the workers said nothing, though the room had suddenly gone cold as everyone slowly began to file out.

 

[The Man in Red]

"This is but one, where are the others? I said 'all', not 'one at a time'!" The Main in Red waved the folder in his hand impatiently as he spoke. "Ah, simple directions, how they confound the mind...clearly better helpers and staff are what I must next find." He spun in place, turning to pace to and fro among the piles of assorted paraphernalia littering the research lab. He flicked the folder open with one hand, his long spider-like fingers keeping it splayed wide and steady as any book stand might.

"Regardless of your inability to follow simple commands, let's see what you've found and pray it is not...bland." He chortled as he flipped page after page with his thumb, reading and scanning over the contents with only a faint 'hmm' and 'oh!' here and there.

After several minutes of this he stopped stock-still in his tracks, closing the folder with a resounding snap and tossed it. It spun through the air like some oversized manilla shuriken, hitting some poor scientist in the gut hard enough to take the wind out of his sails and leave him doubled over. "Most excellent! This one I like. A bit of predatory gleam, and properly monstrous too." He curled his outstretched hand from its flung-open state into a fist with only his index finger extended, leveling it at the still-wheezing scientist.

His nametag clearly bore the name of 'Jefferson'.

"You there, my good Rogers. We have this one on standby here already, do we not?" the rubied ringmaster spared not even a glance toward him as he spoke the question.

"I-It's...Jeff-fferson, sir..." the man wheezed, tenderly rubbing his exceedingly store gut. "I think that drew blood..." he whispered to himself.

His only response was that outstretched finger slowly lifting until it pointed straight up. And then wagging side to side, like a parent scolding a naughty child.

Instantly the scientist stood bolt upright, clutching the folder-turned-weapon with clammy hands tightly to his chest. "Ah, yes, r-right sir! We have this one on hand in holding bay seven. We've kept it cryo-frozen and out of commission, due to some issues with—"

"Splendid!" The mood in the room lifted with the single word, the lights brightening and the ambient air losing an icy weight that had nearly gone unnoticed. "See to it that this creature is slowly brought out of its hibernation carefully and prepped for participation in our coming game." He folded both arms behind his back. "And gentlemen...do make sure you are careful in your work, and make this pitch your most dedicated and heartfelt sell." He turned to look over his shoulder, the leering smirk on his mask matching, they suspected, what must have rested on his actual face beneath it. "It needn't be said what consequences may come, if this lovely little bug has had harmed even a single...solitary...cell."

And his mirthful, tinkling laugh echoed through the sterile scientific chamber, like the lingering feeling of broken glass on one's skin, long after he had hopped, skipped and danced out of the doors.

 

[The Man in Red]

"Tell me more of this one. You say he is a...survivor, yes?" The Man in Red was seated in the booth of a restaurant, opposite a pair of individuals who had brought a small bundle of files and reports.

"Yes, sir, he is." One of them spoke up, a man with slicked back, salt and pepper hair and a positively electrifyingly-sharp beard on his chin. "Never failed a mission or task in his entire career. Always came back alive, even when the rest of his team was completely lost or killed in action."

"There's not much concrete evidence on him; someone went to a lot of trouble to cover his tracks and erase records," the other of the duo spoke up, a rather slight woman dressed in plain working clothes and a pristine white scientist's labcoat. She adjusted her glasses before fishing out a small holo-projector and laid it on the table, activating it with the press of a few buttons. "We were able to dig up a few things, however. His skills for one..."

The scarlet-clad host let his masked gaze fall on the flickering image of the hologram as the target of their discussion came into view. He was highlighted in a faint orange outline, for convenience sake. There was nothing particularly...outstanding about him. Perhaps some kind of mercenary, or secret military operative from his equipment and attire. Part of a four-man unit, all dressed similarly and geared similarly.

There were several quick jump-cuts and static-filled transitions, showing the unit traversing a ruined city, sewer system, and underground science facility of some sort. The three others were all swiftly reduced to memories, but the man of the hour pushed on and made it through the the entire ordeal. His only losses would be replacing damaged equipment; it didn't even seem as if he had suffered major injury.

"Former military of some sort, we suspect. Hired on to a pharmaceutical company's private security and secret military outfit," the woman went on. "We can't dig up anything for certain on how long he was with them, but he went on...dozens of operations just like that one."

"He earned himself quite a reputation and a good number of nicknames," the bearded man cut in again. "People were wary to go with him, and sometimes even resigned themselves to not coming back if they wound up on a team with him. They didn't send him out for just anything, after all, so..."

"If it was enough to warrant his assignment, then it was going to be very...lethal," the crimson conductor chortled. "Yes, yes, yes... This one. This one I like. With all the death going on in this game, we were in dire need of a reaper of our own, were we not?"

"Indubitably, sir," the man agreed.

"Definitely, sir," the woman agreed.

"Excellent! He is cleared to partake. Send him a personal invitation, won't you?" The Man in Red laughed in delight as he rose up from his seat. "Consider your lunch paid for in full, on my behalf. I look forward to seeing our friend's performance, when he arrives!"

And off he strolled, leaving the veiled threat behind his 'when he arrives' statement to settle in on those two whenever it would.

 

[The Man in Red]

"I was under the impression you had an actual candidate to show me, not some...digital recording." The host of this entire affair, seated at his before a computer, lightly drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair.

"Well...yes, sir, we do. This one's a bit complicated. We had to isolate him in a very peculiar way." One of the techs nearby was fiddling with something as he spoke, while several others were busy watching and adjusting several other computer terminals nervously.

"If it takes so much hardware to keep him isolated, then my interest remains at an acceptable level. Do tell more!"

"Yes sir." The lead tech straightened up, fruitlessly smoothing out his rumpled labcoat. "This one is some kind of...machine. Or android, maybe. We're not entirely sure what to call it, but it's completely mechanical and has a fully constructed and realized human-like consciousness and personality. Programming more complex than we've been able to decipher or crack, and it's..." He fidgeted. "...evolved even while we've had it captive. Almost broken out and returned to its original body a few times, hence the need to keep manually updating security details and altering the encryptions and methods for keeping it locked down."

"My, my...that sounds terribly complicated. It doesn't seem as if he likes being imprisoned very much at all, does it?" The Man in Red let out a whisper-quiet chuckle. "What else is it capable of?"

"It's...intelligent, sir. Not just whatever it was programmed with, but it can learn. Fast." The lead tech shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing nervously back at the terminal. "It doesn't have any really special properties, except...it can spread. Almost like some kind of virus, and grow beyond its initial body to infect and eventually dominate or control nearly any other kind of machine, making it...hostile. Doing things normally impossible."

"Ooooh? So it's naturally violent, then!" This drew the crimson-clad organizer's full attention, making him sit fully upright in his seat as he peered at the snarling, viciously angry green wireframe skull leering out from the computer's screen. "Tell me of what capabilities this original body possesses."

"We didn't have time to really study it properly, but... Well, it's got some seriously amped up physical output levels. Definitely designed for some kind of combat; stronger, faster and tougher than any other kind of similar machine or robot I've worked with before. The amount of calculating and processing it can do is..." He sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head. "S-Suffice to say, sir, it's a combat monster. There's other systems in there we couldn't identify, but we think they were for high-speed analysis and response and...some kind of energy projection."

"Wonderful!" The Man in Red clapped his hands together twice. "This machine has my clearance to take part in our little game. See to it he is returned to his original body, and prepared for participation. But do make sure he is isolated from any easy escapes, won't you? That will have to wait for his victory prize, if he can earn it!" And with a mirthful chortle, the lights in the room flickered out.

When they came back on, the host of the event was gone, and the wireframe skull on the monitor had now twisted into a grin, as it bobbed in silent laughter.

 

[The Man in Red]

"You said this one was actually a request to join the game, and not one of our scouted candidates?" The Man in Red was...for once in his life, somewhat confused and taken aback. He stood on an observation deck, overlooking one of the many hangars that allowed conventional access to the drifting facility. It had been hastily cleared out to make room for the arrival of their unexpected guest, leaving only a few maintenance machines and a skeleton crew of workers behind to greet them.

"Yes, sir. Apparently they're a displaced individual from far out in space, stranded here in the Crossroads without a way to return home." One of the attendants checked through a file in hand, flipping quickly through the pages. "They...caught wind of the game, and all but demanded a chance to take part. The rewards could be of immense use to them and their, er...organization. Or returning to it, at least."

"I see, I see. How interesting, to have such an eager volunteer!" The host laughed in child-like delight, twirling in place on the toes one mirror-polished shoe before coming again to an abrupt halt. "His arrival should be any moment now, yes?"

"Y-Yes, sir. I think that's...them now." And the nervous attendant pointed out the viewing window down to the hangar, where the distant lights of an approaching ship could be seen.

The craft slowed down immensely as it drew close, the whining drone of its engines coming to full prominence as soon as it cleared the rippling barrier between pressurized atmosphere and empty space. All composed of pale blue, steel gray and void black, even the windows of the craft heavily tinted and obscured. The blazing blue glow of its engines slowly faded to dull embers of white as they disengaged and it creaked down to a landing with a heavy metallic whump.

For nearly a full minute there was nothing...then a pressurized hissing noise as steam jetted from the underside of the craft, and a ramp slowly descended. Heavy footfalls reverberated tremendously as a figured slowly descended the ramp. And the deep, mechanical rasp of regulated breathing started to echo throughout the chamber. An entirely black-clad figure slowly paced down the ramp, onto the floor of the hangar bay. Without missing a beat, the skull-faced helmet slowly lifted, the obscured gaze behind it sweeping slowly over the chamber until it settled on the viewing window that the Man in Red stood behind.

A silent stare, as the two masked entities locked eyes for an uncomfortable length of time.

"He is certainly an imposing presence," the scarlet-clad host finally spoke up. "He is cleared to take part! See to it he has everything he needs until the games start!"

And with that proclamation, the newcomer lowered his gaze and strode forward once more as if he had received the message himself. The doors leading out of the hangar opened at his approach, and one of the attendants hastily rushed forward to serve as guide.

 

[The Man in Red]

"Sir! Sir!" The doors to the observation platform burst open, amid a scattering of papers and folders and loosely-clutched handheld digital displays. Everything went everywhere, fluttering and clattering to the floor as one of the recruitment staff rushed through it all. His suit was disheveled and worn, from a long time out in the field, but still recognizable. The fact he had lost or discarded his mask somewhere was far more telling. "We...we found another..." He wheezed, stumbling to a stop and leaning forward to put his hands on his knees. "...con...contestant!"

The host of the event slowly turned his head, from gazing out over the island below to glance over his shoulder at the unexpected arrival. "That isn't exactly news all on its own," he noted, lifting a hand to lightly wag one finger disapprovingly. "I've more important things to do than listen to you drone."

"B-But sir, it's..." The winded man forced himself to suck in a huge gulp of air. "We...we got him."

The Man in Red paused for a moment, his head swiveling further around to let a gleam of yellow be seen sparkling through the eye of his mask. "...him? You mean...the hero?"

"Yes, sir..." The rushed man took a few more deep breaths before straightening up. He clutched at his side with a claw-like hand, wincing as his breathing continued to come in ragged gasps. "The...the hero. The strongest...the one at the top...j-just like...like you asked, sir!"

"Oooooh, how wonderful!" The crimson-clad conductor turned about fully to face his unexpected guest, pacing over and clapping the man on both shoulders. "Wonderful news, indeed! What is a game without a hero to its name? And such a mighty one too, so well known, shall bring such great fame!" He laughed uproariously, in such great mirth, that the shivering and winded man began to quietly laugh in spite of himself.

"Make sure to it that we keep the truth of the matter regarding him a secret, yes? The public must know only what is publicly available. He must be the strongest; the most infallible and unflinching champion the worlds have ever known!" He spun away, folding one arm behind his back and lifting the other above his head with fingers splayed wide, as if holding something aloft. "A hero to be a bright, shining beacon for the other contestants, and everyone watching...and to be cheered for and root for his victory. Or else..." And his raised hand curled into a fist, with the sound of shattering glass. "...to scream and cry in disgust at his failure, and have just that many eyes glued to the event to venomously spit and jeer at his killers!"

He laughed a merry, whooping laugh like the chaotic tolling of mismatched bells. "Yes, yes, yes! It is perfect! Make it so; bring him here, immediately! To the facility, to the best room we have in our lovely barracks."

"Y-Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" And the man, still wheezing for his lost breath, turned and half-ran half-limped out of the room, right through the harried crowd of haggard workers struggling to pick up the mess he had made with his entry.