Dangerous Game

Perimeter Alert

Everyone looked down at the plate to avoid the gaze of Ms. Venable who stood behind Coco. Gallant drunk from his wine to watch Coco turn around and realise what Venable had heard. Venable slapped Coco, the noise echoing in the room. The woman fell into Timothy who helped Coco stand up. Everyone stared at Venable and Mead in shock.

“I'm going to be very clear so there will be no misunderstanding,” Ms. Venable said. Coco turned to face Venable, holding her hand on her cheek. “We have enough nutrition for the next 18 months. And if our situation doesn't improve, you can count on less and less.” Coco sat back down, realising she wouldn’t get an apology.

“Situation? What is our situation?” asked Gallant. For once, Lucy was glad he spoke, asking what she thought.
“We had a perimeter alert this morning. Something penetrated the grounds,” said Ms. Venable. “It was a carrier pigeon, delivering a message from our benefactors.”
“Wait. A pigeon? Can we eat it?” gasped Coco, hopeful for something better to eat that vitamin cubes.
“It was contaminated by the fallout,” replied Ms. Mead.
“Can we boil it?” asked Evie. Lucy nodded in agreement, the could decontaminate it, right?

“There are no more governments,” said Venable, ignoring Evie’s question altogether. “Only rotting mounds of corpses, too many to bury. Starving people kill for a piece of bread. Three outposts have been overrun. We are the last vestiges of civilized life on the planet. Be vigilant.”
“Everything we know is gone,” said Mead, making everything slightly worse for Lucy to process.

“How could everything fail in two weeks?” asked Jaz. “There was no back ups or anything? How was it that fragile?”
“It was always fragile,” said Mead. “They made you think the system was a rock. It was a water balloon.
“A water balloon?” Lucy heard Coco mutter and roll her eyes.
“One prick of the needle and…” Mead popped her lips to imitate the sound of a balloon popping, “that's all it took.”

“We will only survive if we follow the rules.” The tall woman of the staff whispered to Mead. She looked concerned for a moment before turning to Venable.
“There's a problem,” she loudly told Venable. “We've detected a spike in the background radiation, centered in this room.”
“It's them,” said Gallanted as he pointed to Timothy and Emily. “They just came from the outside.
“No, no,” Emily said defensively. “We were checked when we got here. “We're clean!”
“We went through decontamination. We were cleared.”

Mead was handed a Geiger counter and Lucy turned to Jaz.
“How could someone get contaminated?” she asked. Jaz shrugged.
“It’s not you, is it? You spend the least time around everyone,” she said. Lucy shook her head, surprised her friend would accuse her of doing such a thing.
“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to risk contaminating everyone.”

“Place your hands on the table,” ordered Mead. “And don't move.” The Geiger counter was clicking. “Radioactive contamination is a grave risk to our entire community. The clean rule is there to protect all of us. A single stray gamma particle can cause skin lesions. Your DNA breaks apart, your body disintegrates.”
“Sorry, did you just say ‘gamma particle’ cause gamma radiation is a ray,” said Lucy.
“Silence,” said Venable, hitting her walking stick off the ground. Flinching, Lucy shut her mouth and stayed quiet.

“You'll wish you died in the blast. But someone here decided that their individual needs were more important. Someone went outside. Touched something dirty.” The Geiger counter carried on clicking. It got louder as Mead neared Venable. “It makes me sick to think this person was selfish enough to risk contaminating us all.”
“No,” said Gallant, his eyes wide with fear. “No, no, no no, no. That's a mistake, because the only thing I've touched is Coco's hair.”

But Coco was clean.

“She's clean,” said Mead, a frown on her face. “You're dirty.”
“No.” Gallant had been in the room with all the others though, how could he have left with no one noticing? “This is impossible! That machine is wrong.”
“This is outrageous!” exclaimed Evie with a look of indignation.

Lucy zoned out from everyone as they shouted for everything to stop and to bring back Gallant. She wasn’t sure how he had gotten outside but if he really was contaminated, it was better to be safe than sorry. As Gallant and Stu were dragged from the room, Lucy hoped they would be okay.