Prologue[]
The wail of air raid sirens was not quite commonplace in Bellington, but it also wasn’t far enough out of the norm to arouse particular shock. Fear, of course, was a different story. While the American planes made their runs quickly and at a relatively high altitude, the damage was still real. There had been deaths—not many, but all it took was for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. More than that, the bombing runs provoked a sort of tired resignation among the populace. Even if the vast majority of the ordnance failed to make contact with anything of note, someone’s house would be partially destroyed or some business would be wrecked or some little area of peace, a pond or a bench under an old tree, would be obliterated. Every time the planes came, life became just that little tiny bit worse.
Saint Editha Academy was no stranger to this process. The school had sustained damage in bombing runs before, and in fact some parts of the building were still undergoing repairs. The evacuation process was familiar to all the students. As the sirens screamed throughout the town, classrooms emptied one after another, clusters of students making their way in quick yet orderly fashion towards the bunker built into the bottom of the school, below even the gymnasium. The teachers shepherded them, demeanors grim but stoic, shouting clipped corrections to any who strayed or took the process anything less than perfectly seriously. It was efficient, practiced, safe.
For the most part, anyways.
Two classes faced a slightly more chaotic process. Due to lacking classroom space because of the damage, a few courses during the busiest times of day had been relocated to an old stone outbuilding across campus from the primary facility. When the sirens began, a maths course and an English course were in progress there, a few dozen students either doing their best to focus on their lessons or to avoid doing so. The outbuilding was a fairly popular location, in part because the greater distance from the main campus provided ample excuse for a measure of tardiness and in part because the instructors exiled to it tended to be lax.
Mr. Shaw, in charge of English, was an oddly cheerful, careless sort, and in fact when the racket began he almost sprang out of his chair, clapped his hands, and beckoned his charges after him as he set out across the open field with long, loping strides. By contrast, Mrs. Horton let out a little shriek, though quickly took to yelling for order.
The populace of both classes merged into one big mass, absent the careful coordination of their peers indoors. This, too, was not uncommon. Haste was the order of the day, but still the threat did not feel overly real. The early warning system was advanced, and sometimes the Americans just buzzed the town. Bellington was not a high enough priority target to really justify heavy expenditure of ammunition.
Today, though, something went wrong. Mrs. Horton was leading the charge, less an inspiring leader and more the one most concerned for her own safety. Perhaps that was why, when she stumbled and dropped to the ground, Mr. Shaw giggled. He didn’t realize what had actually happened, didn’t notice the puff of blood that exploded from her chest, until a second later. He didn’t hear the gunshot over the keening. He didn’t know what was happening until he, too, was under fire. Two quick shots caught him in the throat and temple, and this was harder to misunderstand.
Some of the students screamed. Some turned to run. Nobody got far, though. The span between outbuilding and school was wide open grass, lined with hedges, and over these hedges now hopped a dozen heavily armed, armored figures. They shouted to each other, accents all-too-familiar from movies and the news. Americans.
“Freeze,” the man who must have been their leader called out. “You all are coming with us. Any resistance, you’re dead. Hands over your heads. Now.”
One boy decided to chance it. He made it two steps before he was cut down by gunfire. After that, nobody had much resistance left.
The Americans marched the students away. Though they did not yet know it, they were bound for a pair of helicopters, and thence to a United States facility in Ireland, where they would be drugged into unconsciousness and across the ocean. There was no discussion—their captors made it clear that would not be tolerated—but private speculation ran high. Were they to be hostages, prisoners of war offered up for trade? The Americans were known for underhanded tactics that defied the typical rules of warfare, but this was a whole other level. Were they to be grilled for information? Used as propaganda pieces?
Nobody, of course, figured out their true fate. Not until they woke up again, lined up loosely, guarded by a different dozen soldiers as a man in fatigues with a loose, easy manner told them all of their doom.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to welcome you to the United States of America!"
A harsh and blinding light flared to life, glaring into the faces of the group of teenagers whose last waking memories had been of terror and anticipation, a subdued and powerless flight aboard military helicopters. This, clearly, was no helicopter. Each of them sat at a plain wooden writing desk, their right hands ziptied to the crossed metal structure which fed down to the desk legs.
The industrial light was dazzling, fierce enough that it was almost impossible to discern what lay behind it, pinpoint the source of the voice. Instead, the Saint Editha abductees had to take stock of alternative surroundings. The wooden floor of their new abode was almost aggressively clean, bereft of any charm or life. The walls were bare and windowless, the ceiling high and raftered. Perhaps once this had been a warehouse. Now, it was something else.
"You're all looking a little squinty. Let's see if we can't... ah, there we are!" The strip light was extinguished and immediately replaced with two more, these overhead rather than front-on. The area ahead of the teenagers was illuminated by a spotlight, as were their own rows of desks. A blonde man wearing olive drab trouser fatigues and a white t-shirt stood bathed in the light. One hand rested on his hip and an easy grin adorned his face.
"I've come to know you all in the past twenty-four hours, so let me return the favour. My name is David Adams, but you can call me 'Sir'. I'll be your master of ceremonies for this, the all-new, all-British edition of the Program." He paused. "Apparently a couple of you aren't actually from sunny England originally. How lucky for you."
He surveyed them for a long moment. "See, Her Majesty the queen decided that rather than keep our war on the up and up, she was going to launch an attack on our soil, murder our children, then try and claim the moral high ground against this great nation's great Program." Adams smiled, broad and cold and vicious. "So, really, if you're going to blame anyone, blame your own military. The US won't stand for such cowardly attacks, and you, kiddos, are the living proof." He paused. The edge of his mouth twitched. "Well, figure of speech."
"For those of you unfamiliar with how this works, listen up. Outside of these four walls is a little piece of American paradise, a town which the locals have kindly donated to us for our great work. That town is your battleground. Each of you will receive a pack with provisions, some basic gear and a randomly assigned weapon. Guns, blades, tools; remember it's not about what you get, it's how you use it."
He cast his arms wide with theatrical flair. "And the task we're setting you to is killing. Specifically each other. The last one standing gets to go back home to jolly old England, isn't that nice?"
Adams' expression stilled, losing even his dead smile's facsimile of good humour. "Now I'm sure you're all thinking 'our army managed to pull one over the US before! They'll come save us!' No. No they will not. If British aircraft come within a hundred miles of the US, they'll be blown out of the sky. Shipping? Sank to the bottom. Land? They're not even clearing the border. Nobody is coming for you."
He let that hang in the air. "I'll keep the rest simple, don't want you straining yourselves. Get cute with the cameras and we'll shoot you. Try to leave the town and we'll shoot you. Attack the soldiers, your exciting prize will also be a bullet. Rest assured, we're packing much heavier hardware than anything we put in your packs." The smile returned. "In any case, I'm sure we'll have a much better relationship than that. Think of me as your mission control, your eye in the sky, keeping you posted with regular updates about the progression of our game. Every twelve hours I'll give you an announcement detailing the dead and who killed them and any other important information you need to know. Any questions? Eh. I'm sure you'll figure it out."
Adams fired off a lazy salute. "Tally ho, chaps. See you in twelve hours."
Thick white gas flooded the warehouse, obscuring everything from view.
The First Announcement[]
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. That was what Major Daryl Yancey was thinking as he made his way, slowly and with trepidation, to the announcer's booth. This was all wrong. This wasn't what he'd signed up for.
And yet, orders were orders. He'd been there in the command center, supervising both the team keeping tabs on the captured Brits and the team keeping an eye on the skies in case any surprises manifested, as Brigadier General Adams compiled his notes and readied himself for the first announcement of the session. The man seemed full of energy, perhaps even relieved to be back in charge of his pet project, and that had been good for Yancey's morale as well.
The truth was, he personally felt rather differently about The Program than Adams seemed to. It was important for security and national unity and such, yes, but it was also a waste to fritter away key military resources upon it. Adams, Yancey, and the others here now were soldiers, and damn good ones, so why were they administering what was effectively a combination execution and glorified field exercise? And it had seemed the higher-ups were beginning to understand that too, right up until Colonel Ammerman and his whole crew had gotten themselves killed and lost hold of a couple dozen of their charges. The repercussions of that blow were still echoing, in the US and around the world, and so it was back to the primary team.
But Adams was a man who knew what was best for the country, and if he was engaged and focused and prioritizing The Program then it couldn't be all that bad.
And then, twenty minutes before the announcement was set to go live, he'd been summoned for a direct personal call from The General. Adams had kept a straight face, but everyone else in the room had, as the news was delivered, made faces like they'd just bitten into lemons. The distraction at a time like this could mean something was going very wrong. On the other hand, however, it could signify nothing more than a fit of pique from high command, a needless moment of micromanaging or a poorly-timed intrusion to discuss some less-than-vital business.
Of course, Yancey would never express such an opinion publicly.
But in any sudden change of plans, someone had to suffer, and today that someone was Yancey. Adams had handed him a small bundle of papers, covered in scribbled yet remarkably legible notes on potential jokes, jabs, and wordplays, and had congratulated him on his field promotion to acting commander of The Program for the next hour or so. And with that, Yancey was on his way, desperately trying to remember how the few announcements he'd ever paid attention to in the past had gone.
"Good evening, British nationals."
In the booth, Yancey had a very hard time imagining how his voice would sound, amplified and twisted by distortion, coming out of speakers seeded throughout the whole arena miles away. His mouth was dry, his hands shaking, but his discipline held and kept his voice clear.
"My name is Major Yancey, and I'm here tonight to give a casualty and action report. Despite a slow start, you have done well embracing the nature of our exercise, and over a tenth of your number have now perished. In Roman times, they would have been referred to as decimation, and would have ended the disciplinary exercise, but for you it is just the beginning.
"First to fall was Cedric Isaacson, shot down as he struck at Yian Griffiths."
Adams had apparently planned some quip about Griffiths' absurd weapon, but it was all Yancey could do to try to pronounce "Yian" properly and he was pretty sure he'd still come only close enough to be comprehensible.
"Next, Lena Bianchi displayed some real gumption in carving up Calista Carpenter. Be careful who you take meals with, or you may end up the prey.
"In a similar reversal, the hunter became the hunted as Rue von Schroeder struck out at Victoria Amaro and then fled, only to be shot in the back by her target. Learn to double-tap to avoid such surprises in the future.
"Finally, in the middle of a struggle, Morton Bishop's knife got turned around and jammed into him by Michelle White. It reminds me of an old joke: how do you tell who won a knife fight? The loser dies in the street, and the winner dies in the ambulance. Not that White is dead yet, of course.
"Keep up the good work. Remember, the last one standing will be allowed to return to jolly, dreary old England should you so choose. The rest will be dead. Keep an ear out for a further update in twelve hours' time. God bless America. Major Yancey, signing out."
The moment the tech signaled that the line had been cut, Yancey slumped forward resting his head on the papers in front of him, most of the material upon which had gone unused. The perspiration on his forehead made the top sheet adhere to it. His decorum was out the window, but in this one moment he couldn't care.
"Thank fuck," he mumbled to the room at large. "I don't know how he does it."
The Second Announcement[]
As Captain Jerome Gunnarsson read through the after-action report that had landed on his desk, he felt the makings of a tension-headache coming on. It was that small knot that started in the front of his head, sitting there and waiting for the opportune time to spread its wings, digging in beneath his eyes and flashing agony throughout his whole skull. It had been one of the pitfalls of getting promoted and earning more responsibility; he had the foresight to see when someone's hasty decision would end up in a mountain of paperwork and meetings to explain it all. It hadn't been on him personally, but when you had a battalion of men under your leadership, every decision had to go up the chain-of-command, and in this particular instance, that ended with him.
For a Captain in the United States Armed Forces, Jerome was younger than most of his peers. His rise was in great deal due to his uncanny ability to know the perfect time to play the political game, balanced with an equally innate understanding of when to shut his mouth and become part of the wallpaper. It was due to his youthful countenance and the fact that he was a career officer that he was often reticent to truly come down on the men under his command. Some of the other battalion leaders would at times yell and scream with a fury that would strip the lacquer off the floor and risk waking any dead that happened to be nearby.
Since he had been assigned to the Program, Jerome had never seen any need to enact strenuous discipline upon any of his officers. Had someone in the upper echelon of command not had the genius idea to take a mulligan of this quarter's program using foreign students as a form of retaliation against the Brits for their interference, he surmised he would have had to break that streak. Things had gotten messy, and mistakes had been made. The last man who had commanded the patrol units on that fateful day had been "reassigned," though word through the grapevine said that his new assignment was at the bottom of a ditch somewhere.
The General didn't tolerate failure, and that meant that they could not afford any mishaps. Not again.
Which also meant that when some obnoxious British student decided that wrecking cameras was a good idea and your superior officer instructed you to "eliminate the offender," the superior officer expected an appropriate amount of force to be used.
Employing a grenade launcher to kill one student was like using a flamethrower to kill a cockroach; not exactly what Captain Gunnarsson would have considered "an appropriate amount of force."
Scanning over the report in his hands one more time, he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, already feeling the knot that was starting to form. Use of rocket ordinance was specifically against regulations unless absolutely necessary, and this report's justification of its use was flimsy at best. Opening his eyes, he read over the last lines of the report once more.
The student had been ensconced within the structure with little hope of retrieval without a ground incursion. Sergeant Brown believed that a ground incursion would present an unacceptable risk to the air company and authorized use of heavy ordinance. Heavy ordinance requested at 1531. Sergeant Brown approved use of heavy ordinance at 1532. Target was eliminated at 1535 without other casualties.
Ensconced. Jerome scoffed to himself and rolled his eyes. That was a great six-dollar word that Sergeant Brown had dug out of a dictionary to justify the fact that he was too lazy to take the helicopter in and wait for the target to present an opportunity. Perhaps he'd been talked into it by one of his men; he'd seen Brown fraternizing with his subordinates on numerous occasions, breeding a degree of familiarity that was inappropriate for day-to-day operation. Jerome ran his fingers through his thick blonde beard. On days like this, he was glad for its presence. Without it, he looked as baby-faced as ever, and his youth was on full display. While looking youthful may have been a gift from his Scandinavian ancestors, when demanding more comprehensive answers than the target was ensconced, it helped not to look like you were fresh out of the academy.
The fact of the matter was that the whole operation had been sloppy. One shot had been taken at the target, and Brown had very quickly authorized the flyover when it had missed. No waiting, no patience—nothing. It was that kind of overzealous behaviour that was the reason the Brits had been able to take them by surprise the first time.
Zealousness leads to sloppiness, and sloppiness lead to mistakes. Mistakes got people killed, and Jerome Gunnarsson didn't plan to be one of those casualties.
Picking up the phone on his desk, he pressed the button to connect him to his assistant. The young woman answered quickly and assertively, a style that he'd come to appreciate since she'd been assigned to him.
"I want to see Sergeant Brown in my office at 1800."
The gears set in motion, Captain Gunnarsson set the phone's receiver back down upon the cradle and once more rubbed his temples. The headache's tendrils were starting to set themselves throughout his head properly, and his now-imminent meeting with Brown was liable to set them off into a migraine were he not careful. Opening the drawer of his desk, the Captain reached in and retrieved a small bottle of Motrin. Giving it a small shake, he turned the cap but hesitated.
Ensconced within the structure.
Grunting in annoyance, Jerome tossed the pill bottle back into his desk. No, for this particular meeting, it was best that he feel the twang of irritation that a headache brought on. To dull his senses would render him ineffective and could sabotage his authority. After all, the whole point of this exercise was not to illustrate how effectively the American military power could strike down upon its foes. They'd been doing that for years already. No, this was far more of an insidious show of force—one that Jerome personally approved of. Brown needed to be reminded that the children needed to be the cause of their own undoing. Explosions looked pretty, but they were messy and attracted attention. To watch a teenager actively submit to the basest urges? It was like something out of a documentary. It was something fascinating; something glorious.
If he needed to be reminded of that, then perhaps Captain Jerome Gunnarsson might have to ensconce his foot firmly up Brown's ass.
God, he hated that word.
"Good morning, British nationals. This is Major Yancey once again."
The voice that echoed from the speakers remained clear and disciplined, but there was something else behind it, a note, perhaps, of weariness or deeply suppressed irritation.
"You have continued on-pace, further reducing your numbers and bringing us closer to a conclusion and to the release of the ultimate victor, should they so choose. Allow me to read the roll.
"Penelope Franklin was impaled with a farm implement by Tiny Sterling, though she did not go into death alone; as she fell, she fired her gun and fatally wounded bystander Barry Taylor.
"Shortly afterwards, Fleurette Lussier decided to ignore our instructions to avoid damaging monitoring equipment, and was eliminated by our forces. If you heard the helicopter or the explosion, that was why.
"I have been asked to remind you all not to sabotage any equipment, and to note that doing so will not represent either a hindrance to our operation's ongoing function or an effective form of ideologically-barbed suicide. Lussier, being the first, was allowed to go fairly quickly and painlessly, but any further vandals will be dealt with in increasingly protracted and agonizing fashion. You don't want that, and neither do we, so do play nice.
"A rather abrupt exit was what fate had in store for Lena Bianchi who fell through a weak point in the pier and plummeted to her demise. Awareness of your environment is the hallmark of a good soldier, and negligence can so easily lead to death.
"And then we returned to some more violence committed by you all upon each other. Cassandra Argent made use of what she could scavenge, and stabbed Daniel Newhouse fatally and repeatedly with a shard of glass.
"Finally, Oliver Davies took onboard my advice about double-tapping, and lit up Anvi Parekh with an entire cylinder's worth of bullets.
"We will now offer a moment of silence for the fallen."
For two seconds, the broadcast consisted of nothing but faint, hissing static, before it was broken by the unmistakable sound of a door opening and shutting. A second later, a buzzing, humming sound cut through the air, taking a moment to resolve itself into Taps, played mournfully on a kazoo.
"Hey there, kiddos," said a different, but recognizable voice. "This is Brigadier-General Adams, stopping by to pat the good ol' major on the back for the wonderful job he's been doing while I've been occupied making sure that we won't see any interference. Heard you've been committing some lovely violence upon each other. Very good, very good.
"I just wanted to make sure you knew I hadn't forgotten about you. Keep up the good work, pip pip cheerio, and all that. You'll be hearing from us again in twelve hours, unless you mess up and die."
With a click, silence returned to the arena.
The Third Announcement[]
Adams missed the days when the General didn't feel the need to conduct briefings with him every three hours.
He got it, of course. There was a lot going on and this was a major operation. More major than normal, actually, given he was pretty much sure this counted as an ongoing act of war. The thing about that was that Adams was good at running this show. He'd spent literal years iterating upon and then executing it. Program went wrong when he wasn't at the wheel, not when he was large and in charge. Every big fuck-up had been when they'd put someone else at the reins. General didn't appreciate "I'd have done betters" and Adams wasn't usually much for them either, but on this occasion? Yeah, he'd have done better. This was why you didn't take away his baby and give it to an amateur.
He didn't do well with micromanagement. Give him a task within his capabilities and he'd fulfill it; lean over his shoulder the whole time and he was probably going to do exactly as instructed. Adams had a good memory and a better sense of just how much rope he had. Seasoned by the appropriate amount of guile, malicious compliance was a wonderful thing.
Thankfully, the General knew him well enough not to tell him how to run the Program. The status reports, though, he could very much do without. Adams had considerable resources here, enough men, artillery and vehicles to fend off a good-sized naval landing, let alone a commando assault. He had state of the art technology pointed at land, sea, and air. If a fish sneezed fifty miles off the coast, Adams was going to know about it. However, he doubted in the extreme that the British were going to come around for another pass. Given the activity in the South American theatre, Adams was confident that the Brits were focused on abetting those operations. They'd shot their shot when it came to interfering with the Program, and while Adams admired the huge brass balls it had taken to enact that sabotage, no sane commander was going to order a repeat of the trick. It would be a suicide mission, and even if they did decide to employ some kind of idiotic "it's the last thing they'd expect!" type of logic, that's why Adams had all his friends with all their heavy ordnance.
The counter-operation had been a masterstroke, if he did say so himself. Flush off victory, the British were prepared for a retaliatory attack, not a surgical strike. In an instant, they pivoted from brave rescuers to provoking a kidnapping, and on their home soil no less. Anything you can do, the USA does better. How's that for a kick in the morale dick?
Still, not being in that announcing chair really fucked with Adams' good mood from being back in the saddle. Come on, now, it just wasn't the same without being the one to give the kids their half-daily dose of levity and crushing depression. There was a reason he tried to make every single opening game briefing and every announcement; it was part of the whole thing's identity, and the optics just looked better both in and out of game to have a consistent, steady presence. The announcements were once every twelve hours, General, how hard was it to plan around that?
But now, at least, all was well again, and so Adams slowly broke into a smile as he entered the broadcast trailer.
"Hello again, my patriots!"
A long beat.
"Wait. Hold on. Can't call you that. You're British."
A clearing of the throat.
"Hello again, citizens of haitch arr haitch's most British of Empires! If you're listening to this broadcast, then congratulations are in order; you're still alive!"
You could hear the grin, the faux doe eyes.
"I have to admit to some disappointment, though. I was pulling so hard for all of you to score just one more kill before this check-in of mine. Heck, I even pushed it back a few minutes—don't worry, I won't tell if you guys don't—to see if you'd maybe get over the line and take us to halfway, but alas, not to be."
Adams gave a dramatic sigh, then rebounded back into enthusiasm like a rabbit on speed.
"So, if you're doing the math...s, you'll have put together that another five of you are dead and gone. Wanna hear how it went down? Get comfy then, kids, it's story time.
"Freya Nygourd picked the wrong fight at the wrong time with the wrong person. Pippa Andolini, to be exact. Pippa retaliated with a knife to the stomach. To borrow a phrase, she had it coming.
"Next, Yian—" Adams broke off into an undignified snort of a laugh. "Sorry, sorry. Reading it brings back memories and just—damn, improvisation is a wonderful thing, kids. Yian Griffiths brought a water spout to a gunfight. Victoria Amaro shot him. Obviously. So Yian was the one who wound up hosed. But wait, there's more! Samuel Rosen got way too curious about the aforementioned shooting, decided to get a closer look, and was rewarded with the bonus prize of more bullets! That's three on the slate for your Vicky now, kids. Careful not to fall behind!
"I'm going to tell you a little allegory now, everyone. Once upon a time, a girl saw a boy. The boy had hurt other people, so the girl decided to pick up his weapon and stand around like a lemming until the boy strangled her. The girl's name was Lucy Arkwright, the boy's was Tiny Sterling. I'll expect your essays on the deeper meaning of the story by next announcement, kids!
"Rounding us off, Pippa Andolini picked up her second kill of the afternoon by shooting Kian Banks point blank in the chest. A convenient lesson in firearms by Pippa there; can't miss if the barrel's touching.
"That's all for now, kiddos. Remember, one more death and you're halfway home. Think on that tonight.
"See you in the morning."