Apollo scanned his eyes across the room.
“You three.” He pointed to Kieran, Leya and Ali.
“Where are your nametags?”
Ali looked down slightly. “We… didn’t know where they were until we were told when we came up here, and it was far too late for us to-”
“It’s fine. What matters is that you made it in time.”
Kieran awkwardly clapped and whispered “Yay!” but nobody actually joined in.
“Shut the fuck up!” A man, with the nametag reading “Steve”, shouted to Kieran. “So what do we gotta do to get these bag-”
Apollo put his hand up and Steve immediately stopped talking.
“All of your questions will be answered at the end.”
Apollo got up out of his chair and walked over to a large computer, turning it on. Suddenly all the screens lit up, the headsets flashed purple and orange and the Lunar logo appeared on the centre screen.
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“Ezra, headcount please.”
“13, boss.”
“Names?” Apollo sat at the computer and opened a register.
Ezra cleared his throat before naming everyone, looking at their nametags.
“Crescent.”
“Call me Cres, please.”
Apollo typed Crescent into the computer, and a large tick appeared. Nobody else could see the computer except Apollo himself, and every time somebody’s name was entered, a colour would flash. Cres flashed purple.
“Evangeline.”
“Eva.”
Flashed green.
“Soleil.”
Flashed yellow.
“Robin, Steve, Ciara, Sable, Vera, Felix, uh…”
All of those six names flashed green. Kieran stared at Ciara as she looked cunningly. They seemed to know each other.
“…You have no nametag.” Ezra raised his eyebrow slightly.
“Kieran.”
Kieran’s name flashed bright red.
“Selene.” Ezra read out the final name with a nametag. Selene flashed dark red.
Ezra walked over to Leya who also didn’t have a nametag, so she pointed to the name on her blazer.
“Leya.”
Flashed green.
“And finally… you are?”
“Ali. Or Alistair. I don’t really mind.”
Ali’s name flashed blue.
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“I suppose before we do anything I should congratulate the thirteen of you for making it here. Being accepted in itself was a challenge. I had one thing I was going to make you do for the money but we lack the necessary… minimum people for it.”
“So what are we meant to do?” Selene questioned.
“There is something we have never tried before.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that then?” Vera adjusted her nametag.
“I’m getting to it. Patience.” Apollo opened an extremely large piece of code and displayed the code on the centre screen.
“This must be what it feels like for non-english speakers to hear English. What is this?” Robin adjusted their glasses. Everyone except Kieran looked confused.
“Are we supposed to understand what any of this means?” One of the candidates shouted.
Kieran walked up to the screen and pressed his finger on it as he scrolled down slowly, reading the code. Apollo went to a corner of the room and opened a drawer of pens. A lot of them didn’t seem to work as he scribbled on his hand to test them out.
“You understand this, Kieran?” Ali looked bewildered.
“Yeah, actually. I’m the owner of an indie game studio, Eclipse, you kind of have to understand it.”
“So what is it?”
“From what I can understand so far, our names have been entered into a random generator and each of us has been assigned a Role, whatever that means.”
“So is this some kind of game or something?” Steve asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Yes, people. This is essentially… a game.” Apollo handed out the contracts. “It’s a very nice game that you will all enjoy, hopefully. It’s a game in which you’ll have to trust each other. A game of deception and lies. A game of clues and a game of murder.”
Kieran finally realized.
“This is some kind of murder mystery game?”
“In a way, yes. But there’s a lot more to it than just that.”
The contract didn’t have many important details but many things stuck out to the candidates.
“You must acknowledge that no matter what role you receive you must fulfil your role objective. Failure to play fair will result in a disqualification. The roles are split into three teams. The Civilians, Psychic and Sheriff work in one team, the Murderer and Deceptor work in another team. The Hunter works alone. The following role objectives are:
Civilian: Help the good team and survive until the end.
Psychic: Receive clues from The System and survive until the end.
Sheriff: Using the help of your Civilians and Psychic, kill the Murderer, Deceptor and optionally Hunter or survive until the end. Killing someone on the Good Team results in you also dying and the role being re-assigned to another Civilian.
Murderer: Kill everyone excluding your right-hand, the Deceptor. You may choose to kill the Hunter if you wish, but it is optional.
Deceptor: Get the option to mess with clues and make sure the Murderer does not get killed.
Hunter: You only need to kill one person to win before you need to survive until the end. You can choose to kill more people if you wish to increase the prize money, as it will reduce the amount of people you’ll need to share the investment with. The Hunter could win alongside the Good Team or the Evil Team and will share the investment alongside the other people who won.”
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“W-wait! How are we playing this game?” Kieran put his hand up.
“It seems you’ve failed to notice the numerous fucking headsets around the entire room?” Robin sighed before signing the contract.
“We can only begin once everyone has signed it.” Apollo scanned his eyes across the room as he saw everyone sign it one by one.
“What does it mean by… survive until the end?” Sable questioned.
“The Murderer only has a certain amount of time to fulfill their objective before the game ends.”
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There was additional notes near the bottom of the papers which read:
“Please be aware that we are using L32 Pro Technology. Everything you feel in the simulation will feel completely real, including pain. Everything you see will look just as they would in real life, like people. Food and drink will be present in the simulation, and eating and drinking in the simulation will use L32 Pro Technology to provide your real body with the nutritional benefits. They will also taste the same as they would in real life. Injury and death in the simulation will not cause injury and death in real life. Any real injuries are not Lunar’s responsibility.”
“Wait so, how will each role kill?” Ali looked up at Apollo as the tip of the pen slightly touched the paper.
“The Sheriff will be supplied with a revolver with an infinite amount of bullets. The Hunter will be given a shotgun and the Murderer will have to use whatever they can find to kill. Oh, and another thing. The Sheriff and Hunter will be given this tiny disc in the simulation to generate their revolver or shotgun into the simulation and use it, and they can be hidden if you click the button on the side of the weapon. That way, your identity can be hidden if you wish. The Psychic will also have a disc, when they press it, they will be given a clue as to who could be the Murderer, but they can only receive a certain number of clues and the Deceptor can use their disc to manipulate those clues.”
“That’s… so convoluted.” Leya sighed.
“What’s so convoluted about it? This is gonna be fun, and hopefully if I win, I’ll be able to save them.” Sable signed his contract.
“Save who?” Ali wondered.
“Oh, I… I work at a research company who finds ways to cure… different kinds of conditions and diseases. We need the funds to afford the research required, the equipment, the attention and awareness and the requirements for cures.”
“So you could save lives with the money.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“And there's me wanting the money for my own needs.” Ali looked slightly guilty.
“What if we lose disc?” Felix asked. He sounded French, and his English seemed slightly broken.
“I’ll answer that at the end.” Apollo looked at Ezra and nodded his head.
“Sorry, wait. Why do we have to do something like this instead of something… I don’t know… normal?” Leya walked up to Apollo slightly. “This feels… wrong.”
“It’s too late to say that now because you’ve already signed the contract, Leya. I’m choosing a deal like this because this is simply how I find… exceptions in society. Has everyone signed?”
Ali stared at the very bottom, the small text which read:
“Death of candidate(s) is not Lunar’s responsibility, but their own. Anyone who signs this contract will agree to this.”
“Uh, excuse me. Apollo.” Ali raised his hand.
“Go on.”
“At the bottom of this contract. I don’t get it. Do we… actually die? I mean, it’s a simulation so it's not like we will die in real life, right? I’m really confused. And the fact that the writing is so small-”
“Nobody’s making you sign it, you’re free to leave. Makes the competition smaller anyway.” Vera said, pointing to the door.
“I just want some kind of explanation.”
“You’re creating a huge nothingburger, just sign the damn thing so we can play!” Eve shouted.
“Huge… what?” Leya looked clueless.
“They’re all waiting on you, Ali.”
“I…”
Ali looked up to Kieran. He smirked softly.
“You’ll be fine.” Kieran walked up to him slightly. “Sign it.”
Ali looked at the bottom of the paper again, and sighed.
“Fuck it.”
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Ezra collected all of the pens and slotted the papers into a small box.
“Does anyone have any questions?”
“What’s the headphones for?” Leya pointed to the headphones near the headsets.
“They cancel out all kinds of noise except for what you’ll hear in the simulation. That way, you can’t hear me or Ezra, nor will you hear anyone who you won’t realistically hear in the simulation in real life. In other words, if someone whispered to someone else far away from you in real life, you wouldn’t hear it, so the same thing still applies in the simulation.”
Robin raised her hand. “How long will the game last? You never really specified.”
“Depends. The Murderer could kill you before the time limit, in which the time limit is twelve hours, but will increase the more people are killed. Or it could end in minutes if the Sheriff hypothetically killed the Murderer.”
“Right.”
“Twelve hours is long, no?” Ciara raised her hand. Kieran gave her a dirty look as she spoke.
“Tell me about it.” Kieran muttered.
“What?”
“Uhm, nothing.”
“What if we need to wizz?” Robin raised her hand again. A few candidates chuckled and stifled their laugh slightly.
“Wizz? Just say piss.” Steve rolled his eyes.
“Why, what’s wrong with wizz?”
“It just sounds weird. I don’t kn-”
“We’ll give you a pill if needed, which will delay your need to use the toilet for any reas-”
“Periods?” Vera put her hand on her hip.
“Don’t interrupt me.” Apollo’s eye twitched slightly. “Is there anyone here on their period?”
Nobody put their hand up.
“Then there you go. Don’t ask questions you don’t need the answer to.”
Vera looked slightly nervous. There was a tiny awkward silence until Apollo clicked on a button that said “Continue”. It switched to a black display which read “Waiting for Players: 0/13”.
Ezra went up to Felix and attached a tiny badge to his shirt, before Apollo mentioned:
“We’ll also be attaching badges to each of you which will connect to the simulation. They are green right now, but if you die in the simulation they’ll turn red so me and Ezra know who dies and when. It makes it easier for us, so we can disconnect you from the simulation as soon as possible. They can also turn orange in the occurrence that roles that require a disc end up losing their disc somehow, so we can immediately add one back into your pocket. If you don’t have pockets it will simply appear in your hand, so you’ll have to find a way to hide it.”
Ezra attached them to the rest of the candidates before escorting them to the headsets.
“You’ll know your role when your headset turns on.”
“I really hope I’m not getting anything evil, I’d rather not strip away the opportunity from anyone else.” Ali whispered to Kieran.
“This might sound… crazy but it is just a game, and I’d love the adrenaline of killing and getting away and…”
Everyone was looking at Kieran with concern.
“Uh, yeah, I wouldn’t… want that either.”
All of the candidates sat in the chairs as one by one, everyone put their headsets and headphones on, as their body completely transferred to the simulation. Including Ali, as his role displayed in front of him and his mind was transported to what looked like the town centre. He was right outside of the Lunar Tower.
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Everything was completely empty. No birds filled the sky, no traffic lights were working, because there was no need for them. The only people that were there were the candidates. Everyone else appeared in different areas around the centre. Ali paced around before walking off and bumping into Cres.
“Oh, sorry.”
“No, no it’s all good.”
“Cres, right? Leya mentioned you.”
“Y-yeah, I founded the Blackrose Charity. What about you?”
“I need funds for my music career. Well, my bands’.
Someone shouted “Hey!” from across the road, as they crossed.
“Selene, nice to meet you two.”
“I’m Ali, and this is Cres.”
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They talked for a while. Mainly what they’re here for, until more people started to gather into one group as they walked.
But Ali was still bothered.
Something kept bothering him, every time someone joined.
Every time he put his hands in his pockets he could feel the tiny, transparent disc in his hand.
As if they were watching him.
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and then Add to home screen.