"I am Unnamed. My title is dead."
In the World, the Planet, and the Base, it's either be number one or die.
The alternative to dying, however, is to become an Unnamed. Turning eighteen means that you will compete for your name. Come out on top, you...
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"Underground tunnels?" the Elite Solver asks in disbelief. "What was down there? And where is it?"
"There's a passageway outside of the fencing," the Runner explains hastily, grabbing a large paper and a pencil. He starts to draw the World, a big round circle on the left-hand side of the page. Then he draws the gate and the Runner's building he lives in. "There's an entrance out here," he says as he draws a little 'x' outside the wall. "It's a hole in the dirt. And in that room, at first, there are three hallways, all leading to the other cities. And then there's one that opens up back here," he draws a solid line. "And that turns this way and, and that way."
The pencil makes a soft sound as it glides across the paper where the Runner makes it go. He finally finishes the line and draws the underground city, a big oval.
"This is where they stay. It's an underground city, and people of all sorts live down here. It's amazing, actually."
"And dangerous," the Master sighs as he leans against the table with the Runner. The basement around them has seemed to grow smaller with each visit. "How many people are down there?"
"I don't know," the Runner admits. "A lot, though."
"How many would be able to rebel, to fight back?"
"Most of them. They'd make a heck of an army." The Runner looks up and then back down at his drawing, picking up the pencil again as Mortimer the Elite Solver sighs heavily. "And there's another entrance in the Runner's building. It leads back to the entrance outside the fence."
"Do you know how long we... I have to tell the other Elites."
"No!" The Runner cries. "Not yet! I need to figure out more before we alert anybody. Please don't tell anyone."
Mortimer the Elite Solver looks at the Runner with wide eyes. Not from shock or with anger, but with confusion that slowly turns into understanding.
He laughs and shakes his head, looking down at the map. "What do you know?" He says, picking up the paper and bringing it closer to his face. "The Servant teaching the Master. Who would have thought?"
+ + +
The Runner missed the morning warm-ups, so he decides to run around the World once more. He's lost count of how many times he's done it the past year, but he knows he's been doing it a lot lately. The thoughts about the two girls that died have weighed on him tremendously, and he just can't seem to shake it. The only difference between then and now is that he has even more questions than before.
People all around him are running back and forth from house to house, walking from building to building, baking, building, solving, thinking, doing what they need to do, doing what they're supposed to do.
The Runner feels a sudden pang of loss as he looks out at them, the steady breathing of his voice drowning out their sounds, their laughter, their voices.
