"Not everything can be solved with trust, honey. In this game, the only currency is cold, hard cash. After being cheated so many times, it's high time you learnt that."
She left.
He fingered the cheque in his hand. Huh, no argument about giving it back to the rightful owner?
His mother had been cheated by a pyramid scheme, which caused her to take her own life when he had just graduated. Fresh out of college, he began to use his knowledge to take down the organisation from the inside. Eventually, the organisation collapsed while he was carted off to jail for a ten-year sentence. And now, here he was, caught up in this….game?
He wasn't sure how he ended up here. How was it possible that she had waited for him at the void deck for so long without realising that he wasn't going to turn up? He shook his head. She was one strange girl. One who somehow believed that he was going to help her despite being just released from prison – any sane person would naturally be wary but there she was, bowing to him and begging for his help. It began as a mild curiosity to hear her out, but it had now grew into genuine intrigue. Who were the people behind this huge set-up meant to entrap thousands of citizens?
She had received an invitation to a game – The Liar Game, it was called. The only members of the organisation they had come into contact with thus far were all wearing masks, and impossible for him to identify any of them. He had started off by helping her, then becoming a representative to try and stop her, but now he was truly a part of the game in his own right. He wasn't sure how he should be feeling about it though.
He had no qualms about cheating people of their money throughout the course of the game, but she did. Every round, she proposed cooperation as the solution for all of them to win the round without incurring any debt. Every round, her plans fell through. Every round, he had managed to trick someone into digging a hole for himself without their realising. He believed that it was their own fault for being gullible enough to trust him in a game that revolved around lying, but she reproached him for being cynical and jaded. People are naturally nice, she insisted. They wouldn't doubt others unless given reason to. He had laughed at her idealism and naiveté, but –
Could she be right after all?
He scanned the people in the room. Their expressions were all varying degrees of panic. They were all desperate to win, for if one were to lose, he would be saddled with a debt of 100 million. That was a hefty price to pay, and a price that many could not afford. He formed a steeple with his fingers and looked at the cheque again.
He stood up. "I have a plan. It involves every one of us working together."
He ignored the confused mutterings and focused on the pair of eyes that were looking straight at him.
She was smiling again, and that was all that mattered.