The Wheel

74. Veronica

In my head I'm still in the moment when Chris 'shot' at me: I will never get over this kind of shock. It's bad enough one asshole fired a 'bullet' in my head, the other one was using me and my friends!

"I don't wanna talk to you anymore," I said to Sam angrily.

"Your wish will come true very soon," he replied.

"We also use another neural network Doppleganger to analyze the voice of each of you," the host of the show for rich sadists continued matter-of-factly. "Thanks to the recordings of the microphones on your phones, Doppleganger was able to imitate the voice of any of you. Anyway, a public instrument of this kind already exists, so there is nothing to be surprised about."

"So my mother's call was real?"

"Yes," Max nodded, "while you were in our cubical room it was important that your friends and families wouldn't suspect that there was something wrong with you. There were situations when our participants got more than twenty calls: Doppleganger pronounced the needed text, so that the person on the other side of the phone would be calm. Also, you should be aware that we answered some of your familiar people on Facebook who asked about your whereabouts or well-being: we didn't text anything compromising, I promise – it was important that nobody bothered you."

"It doesn't change the fact that you're crazy people!" Chris shouted.

"It's our way of making money," he answered indifferently.

"What else do you do?!" I asked. "I doubt 'The Wheel" is the only show you've got. I bet you have your own version of 'Saw' with inhuman tortures."

"We have a lot of stuff going on," Sam answered.

"Shut up!" I shrieked. "I'm not talking to you!"

"Yes, we have our version of 'Saw'," Max said calmly, "and it's exactly how it's named: there is no point in changing the name – our subscribers know right away what kind of show they are facing."

"So you're saying we are lucky we didn't get on 'Saw'?!" I was overwhelmed with fury. "You mean we could be dead for real?!"

"Ms. Spears, only special people get on 'Saw', for example, those who were spreading the word about DarkHOLEnet or criminals who managed to escape their punishment for major crimes: theft of money, hacking our data base or killing a member of administration of DarkHOLEnet – if those people win at 'Saw', I mean if they survive, they'll live, but they'll be compelled a completely new biography with the help of hypnosis: new name, new family, new job, new country – these people will have an ordinary life – they'll die, not even remembering they had been connected to DarkHOLEnet. If it's necessary those people get facial plastic surgery or sex reassignment surgery so that nobody would recognize them. They can also get into out TV series: they have a choice."

My brain somehow was processing incoming information, and I was more and more surprised there was that sort of secret structure that the majority of people don't even know about! Is it really true? These programs, the details of how people get in there – it's crazy!

"What the hell do you mean by TV series?" my state of shock continued.

"Ms. Spears, you like TV series, don't you?" Max asked formally. "'Game of thrones?' 'American horror story?' 'Twin Peaks?' 'Black mirror?' And maybe you prefer reality shows? 'American idol?' 'Fear factor?' 'America's next top model?'"

"Yes, yes, I do," I grumbled, because his enumeration was getting on my nerves.

"So," Max pressed his palms together, "we also have that kind of TV shows, but almost everything there is for real: emotions, love, worries, deaths, murders and so on – of course, our actors play some characters with fictional names, but what they're going through is real. In those TV shows of yours everything is so factitious! But not in our case! For example, your own stories, actions, thoughts weren't histrionic at all!"

"Do you really kill those 'actors'? David asked, shocked.

"Well, if according to the script a certain character has to 'leave the show' then yes, they die," the psycho answered calmly once again, "if their character has to leave the show for other reason, apart from death, then they just move to another TV series – plain and simple! The scripts, by the way, are written, based on the relationships between the actors, so that the emotions would be real! If one actor falls in love with the other, they'll probably have a love story, and if one actor hates the other, they will be enemies on stage, too."

I put my hands to my face and started asking questions in my head "Where am I?", "What's going on?" "How is this possible?"

"We're not as bad as you think, Ms. Spears," Max tried to explain. "A part of our profit we give on charity, we kill our people painlessly: when we know for a fact that a certain person won't survive a trap in 'Saw' or will be killed in one of our TV series, we inject them a painkiller, so nobody dies in agony. Why didn't anyone ask what is the reason some people who survived 'Saw' agree to be the actors in our TV shows, instead of live an ordinary life with a new memory?"

I simply put my hands on my face and keep silent: I don't want to ask any questions - I want to go home.

"Our actors live as royals," laughed the one who called himself Sam. "Yes, they may suffer on stage, but the rest of the time they spend enjoying a rather luxury life in a golden cage."