Jeopardy: The Fourth Quarter Quell

Heights - Chip

Chip

Watson always did eat like a pig. Now he eats as though he'll never eat again, shoveling meat and bread rolls into his mouth and spilling crumbs all over the table that my fingers itch to clear up. Lucia glares at him every time he swallows but it's half-hearted. She's not that mean, she's only trying to be. Every so often she can't help smiling and it makes me smile too, even though if I want to live she'll have to die and that's not something to be happy about.

Lucia's friend is quiet and pale and I keep forgetting she's there.

There's nothing to say so I dig the lump out of my pocket and hold it up to my eye, looking. Tiny gold threads trace their way over the solid green surface, like writing to me. This writing is like two sentences that don't join up, like a semicolon in the wrong place. It doesn't work.

I don't know why and it's annoying me. It should work. Everything goes to where it should go, all the components are soldered in place. But when I tried it with a battery at home, it doesn't work. And then I got brought here and I don't have a battery, but I still need to find out why it doesn't work. It's my job. Nobody has told me that I don't have to do my job anymore.

"No," says the man with the golden nails. It's the first bit of conversation all day so it catches my attention and I look up. Watson and Lucia and her friend carry on eating as though nothing has happened, though Lucia glances at me and nods.

I am the one being addressed here.

"What?"

"Pardon, not what," the man drawls, flipping a tiny coin of bread between his fingers. He shouldn't play with his food like that; it's disgusting. I bow my head. I've annoyed him and I don't like annoying people in case they punish me for it.

"Pardon?" I echo obediently.

"No," he repeats.

"No what? No, wait. No, pardon," I stumble, not sure which words he wants me to use.

"No, I don't have a battery. Or a solar cell, or any other way of powering that blasted device."

I didn't ask for any. For a moment I think of arguing with him, but if he heard it than I must have said it without realising. So I look back at the lines again, trying to work out why they don't work.

Even while I'm concentrating, I can hear Watson eating.

"Chip! Oi! Get your head out of that thing and give us a hand!"

Watson is up a tree. How odd. He's looking very pale, arms and legs gripping around the branch with his eyes squeezed shut. "How did you get up there?" I shout.

"I’m not sure, I was climbing and…!"

"Why?"

He gives me a look that indicates it's a stupid question and the girl who has been hanging around the Careers – Aspen - laughs. She's perched on a mossy rock thing nearby, watching and laughing. Not in the way Lucia laughs, but with one snappy noise that is obviously expressing the opposite of amusement.

Her muddy brown eyes are looking up, at Watson. She doesn’t seem to see me at all. She sits very scarily upright, not even a slight hunch to her back, and the twist of her mouth is terrifying. I’m glad she’s not looking at me. As is it she looks like she'd happily rip an axe through my back.

Cold sweat breaks out over my neck. Everything here is designed to cause pain and hurt and death. Even the things that aren't sharp. About the only thing that doesn't look dangerous in some way is the machine with the plants on it. The circuitry must be basic enough; I could probably make something similar in forty-eight hours, assuming no sleep or food. And assuming that I had all the pieces and no other work to do.