Are you there, God? It's me, Jodi.

[MethodicalSlacker]

[Jodi walked until nightfall.]

It wasn't easy, avoiding all the points of contact and interest that the producers set up. Each boat large enough to need more than a singular sail had paths running around and through it, connective tissue of wood and metal set both to steady the vessel and to draw contestants inside. Nobody was supposed to hang out on the pathways, or to avoid the large beacons of potential loot and goods. She hadn't played video games much herself before, but in elementary school she had the distinct memory of being at a friend's birthday party as they unwrapped some adventure game about a boy in a green hat and spent hours in the first dungeon, wandering dark forested corridors and avoiding any opening or doorway that looked like the 'correct' path—a clearing fit for an ambush, a small doorway ready to close with iron bars behind them, a rocky ledge that would crumble under one footfall—skirting the surface, ever careful not to sink through.

On one hand, this was a boon for Jodi. She didn't run into anybody as the hours ticked on and she slowly made her way from plank to plank, from each small wayward craft to the next. Most had already been picked clean, though. There was nowhere for her to find a replacement for her lost gun, or stock to refill her rations or water supplies. As she rounded the stern of the great cruise ship, rounding the corner of its hull, Jodi collected small bits of metal, washers and thimbles and pins, in large enough quantities to turn a small pocket of her bag into a junk drawer, and small enough to not cause much additional jingle-jangle as she walked.

As night deepened, Jodi came upon a small sailboat floating just south of the now off-limits cargo floats. From what she could see across the water in the dark, the cargo float looked like a death-trap anyway, so she wasn't too sad about it. All that meant was in the morning, she'd have to turn around. Then it would likely be time to board the cruise ship, to try and make heads or tails of its vast possibilities for treasure, for treachery, and for tragedy alike. The jetty upon which she stood bobbed slowly on the calm waters, a light caress on the surface of the ocean. It made her uneasy. But then, that was nothing new.

Jodi planted her feet parallel and firm in the middle of the jetty and straightened her back. If she drew a line from her shoulder, she'd be perpendicular to the side of the boat, her back to the mammoth cruise ship behind her. Her injury still hurt, but over the course of the day she'd taken painkillers⁷⁹ and applied what gels she had to soothe the spot. It ached now, with the swelling increased by her state of unrest, but it was far better than before. Enough that she could move on it. Her face still stung with the wood grain of the cabin floor, but her nose wasn't broken. In short, Jodi was fine. Fine enough to keep moving, to make it to the next sunrise.

Fine enough to take her bag off, swing it like a pendulum back and forth to gain momentum, and finally on the fore swing to put her whole weight with her and throw it across the short gap, above the water, onto the deck of the sailboat. It landed here with a thud, tumbling off-center on the deck. Jodi soon followed—she took a step, two steps, three backwards to give herself clearance, and then burst forth in a short explosive five step sprint and jumped and cleared the gap with herself. There was no tumble this time; Jodi landed on her feet, bounced a step forward, and skidded to a stop. Then, dusting herself off⁸⁰, she picked up her belongings and took the few steps down into the cabin of the sailboat. Behind her, she closed the door, which she was somewhat surprised remained firmly and near-silently on its hinges.

The floor of the sailboat was covered in loose sheets of yellowed paper, strewn about from an open drawer at the navigational desk of the vessel and from a wastebasket turned on its side⁸¹. An empty picture frame hang crooked on the wall, its bare glass pane cracked with time. Out the front of the sailboat, Jodi could see the jetties trail off in the distance toward something on the edge of the flotilla and then stop. There was a captain's chair, propped up on just one leg, at the front of the cabin. Jodi walked to the front navigational desk, put her bag down and slid it underneath out of sight. With that out of the way⁸², Jodi turned her attention to the chair.

On closer inspection, the one leg that propped up the chair looked like merely the trunk, a central spoke for four or five smaller wheeled legs to jut out and let the thing roll around on the ground. Which sounded like a stupid idea to Jodi, given the rocking of the boat even in these relatively calm waters, so it was good that the wheels were sawed off. Maybe that was something the owner of the boat did before the producers got their hands on it, but that was only speculation. It was just as well that they could have taken the wheels off to keep it from accidentally shooting through the front window in case there was a hurricane out of nowhere.

A loose screw was all that connected the seat back to the cushion. Jodi wrapped her fingers around and spun it outward, her other hand on the back of the chair to keep it from coming apart. Eventually the screw slipped and something inside fell and the back of the seat came off of the chair and Jodi's arms, which carried it to the side wall of the room and set it down on its side. Next came the cushion, which was slightly harder to remove, but in turn lighter to carry two feet to place next to the seat back on the floor. Lastly, Jodi tried to heft the chair base up. It was light, but the weight felt weird. She tried to get a few good swings with it to see if maybe it could make for a weapon. But then she put it aside—it was getting late, and she didn't want to go to bed dreaming about whether or not a piece of plastic with a bit of metal inside it was going to be enough to keep her alive⁸³ the next morning. For now, she'd settle for sticking it into the handle on the door to see if it could hold it closed. Or at least it would have to do as an alarm to wake her if an intruder showed up.

Her eyes passed over a camera in the corner of the room as she turned back toward the front of the boat. It was mounted surveillance style on a small arm with just one elbow below the ceiling in the corner of the room next to the door, and followed Jodi as she moved.

Jodi made no outward indication that she noticed the camera. She walked to the side with her bag and dragged it out with her foot; reached down, unzipped the top, pulled out three small somethings⁸⁴ and then kicked it back under the desk. She turned over what she had in her hands for a few seconds before she took off her yellow hat and put it inside. With an unpleasant look on her face, Jodi folded the hat closed with the somethings inside. Then in a more hurried posture and pace than before she walked to the cabin door and stepped out and up the stairs.

It was only a few steps from the door to the side of the sailboat. She sat starboard, facing the cruise ship and the jetties she had walked on to arrive at the ship. The cool night breeze soothed her brow and ruffled her hair, though her nose wrinkled at the smell of salt and fish. She wasn't going to be concerned about that for very long, though. The water looked more like oil as it caught the black of the night, set with sparkles from the shining cruise ship. Jodi didn't know when her classmates planned on going to bed, but it felt pretty late. Jodi wasn't sure. She didn't wear a watch, and if she did they might have taken it anyway. All she had to keep time by were the announcements and the movement of the sun and moon and planets in the sky.

Well, that wasn't exactly true.

Jodi did have one other thing.

She looked down at the crumpled up hat in her hands. The thin black string at the back, meant for adjusting the hat to the size of the wearer's head, looked like a rat's tail. Bits of gray lint and dust clung to the mustard yellow in various places. With shaky fingers, Jodi plucked one clump of lint from the back of the hat; then, another from the front; then, some crusted something on the bill. She sat and worked with her hands on the hat all the while keeping its contents safe underneath.

"Stephanie," she said. It was her first word since the fishing boat, and it made her throat feel tickled and dry. She had to fight a cough into her throat as she rasped her next words.

"What time is it? What time is it, right now?"

---

[+] Footnotes

[79] Pills, from her medkit. There was no euphemism in this thought; she'd taken the medically advisable things for her medical injury, and nothing else.

[80] Force of habit. She hadn't done anything to get herself dirty in the last several hours, besides crawl all over the floor in a few places. So okay, maybe there was a reason she dusted herself off, even if it wasn't one she was conscious of.

[81] None of the pages were legible, whatever writing reduced to ink smudges and finger stains. Jodi would have loved to read them; whatever banal records the previous owners of this boat kept would make a good sleep aid, moreso than the 'reading material' she had already picked up. But it looked like what she had would have to do.

[82] When did the mistake end and the learning begin? Where did the learning stop and the mistake stop?

[83] Don't think about this one too hard.

[84] Small, as in small enough to be covered almost wholly something no wider than a dinner plate. Somethings, as in Jodi tilts her neck camera away from what she's holding and looks down with her eyes at what she's holding to keep it hidden for the time being.

[Wham Yubeesling]

A voice comes out of Jodi's collar:

"It's 10:14 PM. At least according to this computer clock.

"Are you asking me this because of your gun? Because, um, I don't really think you need to be worried about that."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Tension left Jodi's shoulders at the sound of Stephanie's voice. Her shoulders loosened, and she sunk a little lower in her seat, still diligently picking at the lint on the front of her hat. It was late, but not quite as much as she had felt like it was. Maybe that was the ocean's doing, as it shimmered balancing the blackness of the sky within its warbling waters. Getting to sleep soon wouldn't be too bad of an idea, she thought. Just the other day Jodi fell asleep late, around eleven, worried sick in cramming for a test the next day⁸⁵. She woke up the next day feeling depleted, unwell—many a war won on a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, she recalled. It made all the difference then, and it would make even more of a difference now.

So this would be it. The last conversation Jodi would have before she went to sleep. Probably.

"The gun is gone," Jodi said, "I'm... not okay with that. It sucks, and I want it back. But I can't even really lift the rest of my stuff, and carrying around that thing probably would have just made me more of a target than anything, so maybe I should be glad it's gone."

Jodi turned her hat over in her hands. She put what she'd taken with her down on the floor next to her in a neat row, making extra sure to point the camera on her collar well at each one so that Stephanie could get a good look.

A water bottle.

A lighter.

The pack of cigarettes.

"I don't want to die," Jodi said, "I'm a minor. I'm seventeen years old. I was abducted against my will, unlawfully⁸⁶, along with at least forty other people, I don't know, I couldn't tell how many there were earlier, probably a lot more than that?

"This place is huge. I don't know what to do, where to go, who's here, and even then I guess it doesn't really matter, huh? I didn't spend my time making friends. I wasted my school years on school. And now I'm here. With my first smoke between my index finger and my thumb.

"Mom told me that I'd never become a smoker if I didn't start. She told me that sitting behind a full ashtray of butts and stubs and, uh, ash. I guess this is no different. You're going to sit on the other side of this microphone and tell me not to give up hope, when you've staked a large salary on this show airing and being just as successful as ever. And that means me dying in the television. Shit. That means me dying on T.V. For you to get paid. Unless I win, but I won't. I don't have my gun. I don't even have half of my stuff!

The cigarette shook in fingers. Her thumb scraped against the sparking wheel of her lighter in the other hand without success, again and again. The safety was still attached, and that made it hard for the fat flesh of Jodi's fingers to do much more than slip off the spinning wheel, the only sign of possible success the slight 'flick' sound she heard on each pull.

Fwip. Fwip. Fwip. Fwip

The water bottle was uncapped. Jodi did that before she picked out the cigarette⁸⁷.

"I don't need to get my old things back," she said.

"I just need to know the next test to study for."

Fwip. Fwip. Fwip.





"Please.

Tell me.

What do I do now?"

---

[+] Footnotes

[85] None of that time had amounted to anything. How many hours had she wasted at that desk, with her pencils and pens in her hands, deluded into believing that there was a future for her? It was all beginning to feel like a sick joke. Her life had been wasted. Every single moment.

[86] Jodi hoped silently that she wasn't wrong about this one. 200 excess deaths a year, all around the ages of seventeen and eighteen, could not possibly be legal. Obviously that wasn't enough to stop this from happening, and besides, the United States was unlawful all of the time, but it was worth saying, aloud, so that someone out there could hear it and know. But it was still a guess. It was on faith that she assumed her parents hadn't signed some release to have this happen. Behind her back. Could they? She'd spent her whole teenage life sucking up, deferring to her parents, reigning it in for them, only for them to let this happen to her. They weren't fighting hard enough to stop it. But what could they possibly do?

[87] But not until after she started with the lighter.

[Wham Yubeesling]

A voice comes out of Jodi's collar:

"You keep being you. I know you, um, don't exactly have a lot of confidence in yourself, or your hopes of making it through this, but... there have been at least five girls just like you who managed to make it through this. People might say they, um, didn't really deserve it because they weren't a type-a or there were other characters bigger than them who fell short but... a win is a win. If you make it out, then... you've earned it.

"I'm, um, getting sidetracked though. If you want advice on how you can possibly make it out, then I suggest...

"You were good at hiding, right? Being invisible? Back at school, I mean."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"I don't know," Jodi said, "I don't think I do it on purpose. I don't know if I can be good at something that I'm not doing on purpose."

The pad of her thumb felt raw as it stroked the unyielding metal wheel. Jodi had the urge to switch hands, give her non-dominant a fair pre-collegiate try. She held firm as tongues of water lapped the side of her errant sea craft and rocked gently a siren lullaby in the night, as a sweeping gust of wind bore billowing against the curtain sails of the tall ships rippling echoes in the dark.

"But, whatever I'm doing, or trying to do," she admitted, "I usually find my way into the margins some way or another."

Fwip. Fwip.

A little more pressure this time,

Fwoosh.

and suddenly Jodi's hand was cast in light, golden and shivering, cresting the lines of her palms in holy gold. Her shoulders went taut and her grip tightened around the lighter. It wasn't clear what had changed. Jodi didn't know if she could get it to light a second time. With overzealous hands Jodi pushed the flickering flame into the end of the cigarette, rolled it over the end, twitched and blew out the flame as it crept up and took past its bounds tickling the tips of her fingers. Orange-red heat cracked at the end of pale ash as the musky fumes of nicotine rose and mingled with the odor of the sea.

"One minute I'm there, and then the next, without even trying, I'm already gone."

Jodi let the cigarette and time burn a few more seconds before she asked God her next question.

"Where should I go?

"I mean, in the morning, I can't stay here when people can see my boat, and me on it. Otherwise if I do I'm just like and no better off than a sitting, stationary, totally unswimming duck."

Jodi picked her hat up from the floor with her offhand and set it tightly on her head. Under her yellow bill, the unswimming duck put her cigarette to her lips and drew in a thin curl of smoke.

[Wham Yubeesling]

"Hm. Maybe... cruise ship? Floating restaurant? Either of those would work, maybe. They're big enough that you could, um, vanish. Kapoof. If that's... what you really want. I told you to be you, and if you can... do what you do without even trying for it...

"Then maybe that's who you are?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Jodi pulled the cigarette from her lips so fast her bicep cracked as heavy gray smoke billowed out in a haze before her face. She opened her eyes and waved her free hand out to dispel the smog before it found its way beneath her eyes, and found herself dizzy as she did so. Between her teeth and tongue was a mouthful of crumbling soot, or the taste of one, a crunchy bit of ash between each tooth. The cigarette burned between Jodi's fingers as she the water to her lips and drank a full swallow to wash away the taste, to dispel the air of vertigo in her hands, in the inside of her mind. In the dark nobody could tell it was her, but all the same Jodi felt the cold fingers of shame and the vile tongues of nausea wet on the inside of her throat.

But Jodi felt good, too. That was the most disgusting part; the wave of relaxation that burbled in her core and spread out gently, quickly, to the ends of her fingers and toes. Once the excess heat had left her mouth, either still down her throat or hanging as curtains in the air before her face, she felt in her jaw a subarctic metal cold. The empty black sea provided no comfort, so Jodi turned and stared up at the cruise ship upon which so many lights burned as hot cinders in the mild summer night.

She took another drag. Coughed, spewed. Then another, and another, until there was nothing to light but ash, and as Jodi ran the ash against the side of the sailboat and watched it come off of the cigarette and float down into the dim gold ripples she understood that she had drowned a part of herself just then.

"Maybe that's who I am," Jodi repeated⁸⁸.

Jodi lit the cigarette again and pressed it to her mouth for another pull, this time drawing in air and pushing out smoke at the speed of a whistle. She coughed, still, but it was a little easier this time. She didn't feel as though she was going to throw up quite as much. The wobbling of the boat meant she was always going to feel a little bit like she was throwing up, so at least she was getting acclimated. There was that rush again, from her chest to her hands and feet, and now to her head, crowning at the top with a sensation she could only perceive as a gust of internal wind. The quicker she was with the cigarette, she realized, the less it hurt, even if she couldn't quite stop coughing, or thinking about coughing.

Soon enough it was down to the orange stub. The 'butt,' she'd heard it called before. Never in front of her. Nobody she knew smoked. Nobody she didn't know smoked, either. It wasn't something normal people did anymore, even though you could once do it on a plane or in any restaurant in the country. Smokers were outcasts, not to be looked upon, dirty and sluggish and always cavorting with each other under dim lights in the dark. Vaping was different, even if both had nicotine involved. It was gentler, watered down. A new smoke for a new age, smokeless, bodiless, but bigger and cloudier. Jodi always hated walking into the bathroom and having to put her head down and walking through clouds of Juul smoke or vaped weed or whatever new instrument her classmates had decided to try.

Now she was with them. Except she wasn't. She was alone, and she was doing the unthinkable. Real smoke curled from her wheezing lips.

Then, she must be with the margin walkers. Except she wasn't. She was alone, adrift at sea. Unaccompanied and untaught her autodidact diaphragm panged and warbled with fire as the water rose on whorls and swells. She flicked the cigarette butt to the ocean and watched it skip against the waves.

"Thanks for the advice, Stephanie," Jodi finally said between gasps, "I'll try... one of those.

"Wish me luck. But not if you can't say anything else now. I don't need to actually hear it."

It hurt to try to stand. Her hat, her crown, was back on her head. She had to remember not to sleep with it on, or else she'd wake up with a greasy mess of hair more tangled than she could bear. Jodi tucked the water bottle, pack of cigarettes, and lighter under the bottom of her shirt, rose on weak knees from her corner of the boat, and shuffled to the door.

At the handle, hunched over to open the door, Jodi stopped. There was a noise coming from one of the other boats. It sounded like there were people talking, and it sounded like they were getting angry. She couldn't see them in the dark, but she didn't know if they could see her, or if they had seen the orange burning light of her cigarette. Sharp points rose on her skin and a shudder ran down her spine.

But Jodi didn't panic. Where earlier in the morning she found panic in her chest, there was only smoke now.

And open the door swung, and in Jodi went.

[And when the dawn broke, Jodi split the scene.]

---

[+] Footnotes

[88] She didn't feel good when she said it. She didn't feel bad either. But she wasn't sure that this was who she wanted to be; somebody who had taught herself how to disappear by accident.