A/N:
I did not create this concept.
This is a work of fiction. All character similarities to real-life persons are completely coincidental.
If you'd take an author's suggestion, the best way to read this story is to get a few pieces of scrap paper, or a notebook, or open a Word document, and write down the names and numbers of the fifty contestants as they come along, as well as a brief description of their personalities or your thoughts as you see fit, so that you can avoid confusion.
This is the story of fifty American high school students chosen to compete in the first American Program.
Enjoy.
Prologue
Stacey Oneal (girl number twenty) throws the lit cigarette into the grass just as her history teacher comes around the corner of the bus. She covers her mouth to muffle her cough as her best friend Janie Ray (girl number three) does a piss poor job of waving the smoke away. Adam Caldwell gives Stacey the same stink eye he's been giving her all year long and his already militant facial features harden as if they were going to crack. Stacey, sitting on the rear end of the bus, pretends to look into the distance, past the service station, deep into the bowels of the surrounding woods.
"What did I say about leaving the bus?" Caldwell asks.
"I just wanted to get some fresh air," Stacey says, which is half true. The other half of the truth is that she wanted a cigarette, and honestly she still wants that nicotine fix. Janie stifles a giggle with her palm, looking away.
"You're extremely fortune that we're already halfway there," Caldwell says. "Otherwise, I'd have the two of you sent home for your disobedience."
"I promise it won't happen again," Stacey says rather contentedly. She raises two of her fingers. "Scouts honor."
He nods, then holds out his hand. "Cigarettes, miss Oneal. Yours too, miss Ray."
This knocks the grin off of Janie's face. "I don't have any, Mister Caldwell."
"Sure you do," He tells Janie. "Now you either hand them over or I will personally see to it that the two of you spend the remainder of your trip in your hotel rooms if I have to sit outside of the door myself." He looks at Stacey then. She sighs internally, gives him her already opened pack with faux disappointment. She's got another pack and even if she didn't, Nick Yang (boy number thirteen) would. When she enters the bus, making her way to the back, she garners the stares of some of her nosier classmates.
She flops down in a seat next to Nick, who is covertly rolling a blunt on his phone. Caldwell takes his seat at the head of the bus. As the bus pulls out of the service station, Stacey catches him glancing in her direction a few more times. He's never approved of her. Not many teachers do, she reckons. She's the only girl in the grade to have gotten sent to detention by every teacher in their year and she figures that she makes for hot conversation in the teacher's lounge. But Caldwell might be the most annoying to her. She's sent her out of class for her skull earrings and knife ripped shirts before. He never calls on her, although history is her favorite subject, and she gives minimum effort in class. Janie, sitting across the aisle in a seat next to Louis Eaton (boy number ten), takes a sharpie and starts drawing on the seat in front of her.
"Careful with that," Stacey whispers to Nick. "Hitler's going to catch us again."
"What's he going to do? Give us detention?" Nick smirks.
"No, but he send us to our rooms without supper." Stacey sinks into her seat and crosses her arms. Nick finishes and hides the blunt into a side pocket of his backpack. She catches a glimpse of Janie, who has rested her head on Louis's broad shoulder. Stacey nudges Nick with her elbow, then discretely nods in Janie's direction.
"Knew it," Nick says, his grin revealing a couple of missing molars and a chipped front tooth. "They're like magnets, I'm telling you."
"I seriously thought she was over him this time," Stacey admits. She should have known better too. Janie and Louis were like two alpha wolves trying to fight for dominance, allured to each others scents. Guys always hover over Janie like flies, and even though Stacey is Janie's best friend, she hasn't fully grasped why. Janie is crude, boisterous, and lazy, yet somehow she's never really had to try for a boyfriend. And Louis… well, he's not a prince charming but he's not exactly a hunchback either. Once upon a time, long before she started dating Nick, Stacey had harbored a bit of a crush on Louis. He knew how to ride a skateboard like the pros, due to his diligence, and although he smoked so much pot that he carried around in a deflated way, he wore a smile so bright it lit up the room. He came from a lot of money, although it wasn't obvious by the way he spent thriftily whenever the four of them went out to eat, but the veneer of wealth were on his mannerisms, the way he held the car doors open for the girls or the way he addressed adults respectfully when he wanted to. When it came to buying cigarettes, they always sent Louis into the stores because his proper speech, his charisma, and his politeness caused cashiers to refrain from asking for identification.
Had Janie known that Stacey liked him when she said yes to his date? Stacey didn't know. She liked to think that Janie was oblivious to Stacey's crush but Janie had a habit of swooping in under other girls' noses and taking their boyfriends to the backseat of her car. Look at what happened to Sidney Bowers (boy number eight), who'd gotten stuck between Janie's legs for two years before his girlfriend Nevada Bradford found out. Janie had laughed it off at the time and had even retold the story of the destruction of Sidney and Nevada at a party once as entertainment. When Stacey asked her why, Janie just shrugged her shoulders and said: "Because I could."
Although Stacey had to admit that Janie was a bit of a bitch, but wasn't a complete bitch. Stacey had cried on Janie's shoulder when her father had hit her for the first time and she was the one who convinced Stacey to key his car. She was also the one who helped Stacey study for their chemistry exam so that Stacey could stay on the chess team (Janie read Chemistry textbooks like some girls read Seventeen).
That's why Stacey had a hard time believing that Janie would have taken Louis from under Stacey's nose. Shortly after Janie and Louis became a thing, Stacey decided to develop her own thing with Nick, who at the time had done everything short of dropping down on his knees and begging her for a date.
Nick is a sweet guy. No, he'll never get into any good college and yes, he fights like a drunken sailor, but he saves his money from painting houses to take her out to nice restaurants once a month and
despite his lanky limbs and his awkwardly tall height, he is sort of handsome in a boyish sort of way. Stacey doesn't think that they'll be together forever but she also doesn't think that she can do much better.
Maybe if she lost twenty pounds, dyed her ash gray hair, refrained from getting another piercing (although she really wants to get a bull ring), she might attract some of the more American Eagle types of guys. She hasn't admitted it to Janie, but those guys stir something in her stomach. The American Eagle models, nicknamed by Janie, (none of them are really models but that's probably a mistake on their part) sit at the front of the bus, argue animatedly, in good nature, about the new Game of Thrones episode.
Stacey doesn't look in their direction, for Nick's sake. She takes out a book and flips to her most recent page.
She wakes up to stillness.
She yawns, tasting stale air, and rubs the crust from the corner of her eye. Are they at the hotel yet? She stretches, letting everything come into focus. She becomes unsettled by the rows of desks, sitting each of her classmates in collective slumber. It's not a familiar classroom. It's dusty and the air is a bit nippy. The lights a dim and she strains her eyes to take observation of her surroundings. The walls are bare, a dingy plaster slathered on all three sides. There are no hints, other than the barely legible words scrawled on the green chalkboard: "GET WITH THE PROGRAM."
There is a gnawing feeling pinching her stomach. Anxiety? Stacey tries to stand but her arms and legs feel shackled to the ground by gravity. She catches glimpse of Janie's bright pink hair in the front of the class. Above the other snores, Janie's is probably the loudest, a rippling cranking sound that could rival the annoyance of nails on a chalkboard. Stacey groans as she sits back, a dull throbbing knocking at the base of her skull.
This… doesn't seem right.
In the seat next to hers, Louis begins to stir. He opens an eye, looking directly at Stacey, and blinks slowly a couple of times. Stacey looks around again and it's then that she notices the dark silhouette standing at the doorway. Whoever it is, they're staring directly at her. Caldwell? No, it doesn't seem like Caldwell. This person is short, feminine, although just as militia as Caldwell is. But unfamiliar. A stranger.
"Louis," Stacey says, peeling her dry tongue from the roof of her mouth. "Louis, where are we?"
"Wha…?" As if pulled up by puppet strings, Louis whips himself back quickly, underestimating (or not aware) of the light chair beneath him. He and the chair clatter to the ground, startling a few others from their sleep. He hits the desk behind him, forcing Ainsley Vaughn (girl number twenty-two) to curse as she lifts her head.
"Where are we?" Stacey repeats, this time not addressing Louis, but directed to someone who would have answers.
The steady chatter of the others begins to arise, starting with similar questions. Stacey turns her head to the window, the bright moon like a spotlight in the sky. She sees a lot of green close up and then, as she begins to focus, the steady surface of water in the distance. Had they driven by the ocean? She didn't think they'd gone that far. But she'd fallen asleep reading, so maybe she didn't know. But what were the odds that everyone on the bus (and everyone here had been on the bus with her, she was sure about that) had fallen asleep as well? And if she fell asleep, how did she end up in this chair, here? Surely she would have remembered walking into a school and sitting at a desk, right?
"What's that?" Louis asks as he pushes himself up from the floor.
She turns to him and realizes that he's pointing at her. He's puzzled by something… on her neck? She reaches up a hand, her fingertips brushing against a cold metal. As her eyes widen in surprise and then in fear, she realizes that she's staring at a thin collar like contraption on his neck as well.
"Don't try taking them off." A voice from the unfamiliar at the front of the classroom says. The woman knocks on the door, opens it and says: "They're awake."
The dim lights brighten now, as if someone has turned up a dial. More and more students awake now. Janie, who moves slowly, looks around dazedly until she meets Stacey's eyes.
"What's happening?" Ainsley asks, shooting up from her desk, causing her chair to skid backward. Her willowy brown hair covers half of her face and her bangs stick to her forehead with sweat. Her glasses were pressed against her face so hard that they leave red marks on her nose as she adjusts them. She brushes the sides of her jeans rather frantically, possessing more energy than anyone else in the classroom.
"I don't know." Stacey says slowly. "I-"
"It's the Program!" Someone from the front of the room exclaims. "It's the Program!"
And although the words automatically entice fear in Stacey's heart, it takes her a second to mentally process what that could actually mean. The Program? Isn't that… that Japanese show? Of course it is, everyone has heard of the Program, but Stacey is having a hard time connecting this with it. The Program is one of those things you hear about on the news, like war in a third war country: of this Earth but so far away it might as well be on the other side of the Universe. Someone, Ainsley, begins to sniffle. Some others do too. Stacey looks around again, at the chalkboard, the collars, the woman who stands at the head of the class.
In the light, the woman looks much older than Stacey's grandmother but her posture indicates strength that comes from youthfulness or from taking very good care of her body. Her platinum colored hair, much brighter than Stacey's, is pulled into a strained bun and her hands are held behind her back, as if she's waiting for the panic that has begun to fade so that she can get to business. Stacey touches the collar again, feeling like a pet, letting the realization slowly sink in. She hasn't seen any of the Program (it's forbidden in America) but she knows the gist of it. This can't possibly be that…
It's when the soldiers enter the room that she lets out a loud gasp and puts her hands to her lips. Some of the students shoot up from their chairs, forming a mass toward the back of the room. Nick has joined that group, rubbing his palm across his scalp. He hasn't even looked in Stacey's direction, focusing mostly on the woman and the soldiers and the guns.
"Sit down in your assigned seats," The woman says. Some of the students obey. Others, like Nick, stand with dumbfounded looks, pushing against each other, burrowing closer toward the wall. Stacey turns from the crowd slowly, looking at the woman again. She meets Stacey's eye, gives her a wink that chills Stacey to the bone, then makes a hand gesture toward one of the soldiers. He lowers his weapon, pointing it toward the crowd of students. The silence is almost deafening. Slowly, the crowd begins to disperse, until only three students remain standing.
The woman coughs. "You came into this classroom as fifty, but you might leave as forty seven." She gives a lukewarm smile, nodding toward the empty seats. When the three don't move, she warns: "Don't have me make an example out of you. It won't be pretty. Or slow."
The three students shakily find the three remaining seats. Stacey holds her wrist to stop her hand from shaking.
"Now, we're all settled. Wonderful." The woman makes a hand gesture and the soldier lowers his weapon.
"Where is Mister Caldwell?" Naomi Reed (girl number ten) asks, her voice devoid of fear. She is sitting forward in her desk, her hands clasped together as if she's the most attentive student in the classroom. There is something despairing about her eagerness.
"He's dead," Louis says. "Isn't it obvious?"
"Yes, it's true." The woman says, almost as if it pains her to say it. "He did put up a good fight for you lot. I think he would have wanted you to know that." She sighs and the classroom is quiet for a moment. Then she gives herself a little shake, as if ridding herself of the awful feelings that will stick with the others, and thankfully, as she continues on, she spares them the details. "Anyway, let's get back on track, shall we? I can tell from some of your faces that you know exactly what is going on here. For the others, you'll have to:" She points to the chalkboard.
GET WITH THE PROGRAM.
"Is this legal?" Naomi, always the inquisitive one, asks.
"As of January, the bill for the Program has passed. You are the first class chosen to participate. You are survivors, and more than that, your contribution to this competition will help create a cleaner, orderly future for our youth. Those who are familiar with the Program may think of themselves as victims, but let me assure you that you are not victims. You are soldiers, just as these good men are and what happens during the next three days will shape America for the better. You will help make America wonderful. You will help America get with the Program."
"What if we don't want to?" Nick asks. His voice is raspy and Stacey watches him slap the tears from his cheeks. "I don't want to."
"I'm afraid that the matter is nonnegotiable, just as it would be if our country were somehow whisked into war." She shakes her head sadly. "It might seem a difficult concept to accept now, but by the end of the third day, the patriotism will blossom in one of your hearts. You will be regarded as an American hero. You will look back at this experience, maybe not with joy, but with a feeling of high esteem."
Darren Padilla (boy number twelve) maddeningly raises his hand, as if the lesson were merely some history lesson. It makes Stacey want to scream at him, to grab him by the shoulders and shake the truth into him. The woman nods toward him. "What is the Program?" He asks, calmly, and it occurs to Stacey that he may think that this is all some big practical joke. Perhaps it is, because it just seems so… impossible that this could be happening here, in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
"That is the million dollar question, isn't it?" The woman says. She takes a piece of chalk and writes:
3
50
1
She uses the chalk to point to the 3. "The Program, essentially, is a game. Like with most games, there is a time limit. Three days, or seventy two hours." She points to the 50. "Like with most games, there are teams. Sitting in this classroom, there are fifty students. For this game, there will be fifty teams." She points to the 1. "By the end of the three days, there should only be one winner. We're counting on there being a winner. The winner of this game is going to be the only person alive by the end of the seventy-second hour." She sets the chalk down.
Someone begins to sob loudly. Someone stands up. Some shout. Some scream.
Stacey looks around, at the zoo of her classmates. It's true then. This is the Program, isn't it? As she watches her classmates begin to unravel, she realizes that they are no longer her classmates anymore. They are her competitors.
The woman gestures toward the solider again. This time, he grabs one of the hysterical girls who stood up, Vivian Khan (girl number twenty five) and hits her in the head with the butt of his rifle. She staggers sideways, her screams becoming weak moans, and lines of blood begin to run down her forehead. She grabs onto the edge of one of the desks and takes it down with her as she collapses on the floor. A couple of the American Eagle boys come to her aid, holding her up on their shoulders. The room becomes silent once again and all eyes are on Vivian. Stacey begins to wonder if Vivian will be the first casualty. "If you haven't deduced the way to play the game, I haven't been doing my job properly," The woman gives them a sad smile again, tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You have three days to eliminate forty nine of your classmates. As soon as the first person has left this classroom, your game will begin. Each student leaves here with a survival pack, fully equipped with three bottles of water, a compass, a flashlight, spare batteries, a map, a towel, sanitary pads for the ladies and a randomly selected weapon."
A weapon? Like a gun? Stacey doesn't know if she wants a gun and at the same time, she knows she'll need one. She catches Janie's eye again, but Janie has this look of resignation and fear. Louis nods at Stacey, mouthing: "it's okay." But how can it be okay? What is he talking about? Stacey nods back, trying to be polite, and feels sick to her stomach.
"Vivian, dear, are you alright?" The woman asks, her voice sticky and sweet. Vivian doesn't look up. There is a small pool of blood, the length of an apple, forming on one of the desks. She's conscious, at least, and Stacey is thankful for this, even though she's never really liked Vivian. Behind her, American Eagle Reid Parsons (boy number twenty) is rubbing her back with one of his muscular hairy hands, glaring at the woman. His cheeks are spotted with a rosy pink and he looks like a bull ready to charge.
The woman claps her hands together, ignoring the fact that Reid isn't sitting in a seat like everyone else. "Well, then, are there any questions?"
"The collars," Naomi asks again. Is that glee in her voice? Stacey thinks that she may be mistaken. Naomi couldn't possibly feel glee in all of this, right? Naomi's expression is impassive but there is an obvious eagerness in the way she's sitting up, as if she wants to learn the mechanics of this game. "How do they work?"
"The collars," The woman says slowly, as if amazed by Naomi's forthcoming attitude. "The collars. As you also may have deduced, your collars are more than just collars. They may be the second most important factor of the game. They are also the reason why your maps may just be the most important commodity in your pack. Your collars are water proof, bullet proof and most other kinds of proof that you can think of. You are on an island, right now, in a disclosed location that even the President of the United States isn't privy to. The island is divided into sixty four quadrants, as noted on your map. Every two hours, a quadrant will switch from a safe zone into a danger zone. If you are caught in a danger zone, your collar will detonate. Calm down, c-calm down, please." She holds her hands up. "Do I have to make another example out of someone?"
A moment passes before everyone has settled down again. Some of the students don't stop crying though, Stacey among them, even as the woman continues to speak. "By the end of the seventy second hour, if there is more than one person alive, those still in the competition will be eliminated by collar detonation as well. Are there anymore questions?"
"Our parents?" Naomi asks.
"Your parents will be informed of your participation."
"And is this like the Japanese Program?" Naomi continues. "Are we going to be aired on television?"
"Yes," The woman says with a slight nod. "You seem inquisitive for someone who knows about the Program."
"I think it's good to know the details," Naomi admits. Is she blushing? Stacey makes a note to herself to steer clear of Naomi. Then she realizes that she may have to steer clear of a number of them. A much shorter list would be of those she can trust, like Louis, Janie and Nick. Nick's emotions seems to sway from hysterical crying to staring blankly in front of him. Janie's leg is jumping wildly underneath her desk, her hand opening and closing into a tight ball of anxiety. Only Louis seems to be the only one present, his attention divided between the woman and Stacey.
"There are cameras positioned all over the island. Try not to deface or dismantle any of them, or you will find yourself eliminated from the competition much earlier than intended." The woman looks at her watch. "Oh my," She says worriedly. "We're a bit behind schedule. Well, if there aren't anymore questions, I don't see why we shouldn't begin. I'm going to read your names off of this list," She touches a piece of paper sitting at the teacher's desk. "...one at a time, and when your name is called, you are the stand up and exit the classroom. In the hallway, one of our fine men will give you your pack and you are then to exit the school to begin your journey. I have faith in all of you to make America proud and to help us build our nation into the powerhouse it once was."
"I have some more questions-" Naomi begins but the woman calls out:
"Girl number one, Willow Yates."
Willow, scrawny and meek, stands up, hugging herself with her thin arms, not looking back at the others. Stacey watches Willow leave the classroom and a bit of resentment fills her, wishing that she could have been the first to leave. If she left first, she wouldn't have to worry about what, or rather who, lay outside of that door. Not that she fears Willow. Or maybe she should fear Willow. Stacey has been scared of the soldiers this whole time but maybe she should be scared of everyone else as well. Louis reaches over, covers Stacey's hand with his own and gives it a gentle squeeze. "I'll wait for you guys, alright?"
"I'll do the same," Stacey finds herself saying, although her voice feels like it's detached from her body, as if she's been programmed to speak these words, as if she's no longer in control.
And ten minutes later, after she's watched Janie, then Louis, then Nick leave the classroom, her own name is called and she wonders if her friends have waited for her. The woman says: "Good luck to you," as she passes her. Stacey ignores this and freezes at the door of the classroom. "Well, go on now. You don't want to eliminate yourself this early in the game," The woman says, almost kindly. Fat tears begin to roll down Stacey's cheeks as she takes a few tremulous steps into the dark hallway. Someone hands her a pack that much way at least twenty or thirty pounds. She clutches it to her stomach as the exit to the school opens and the rush of fresh air fills her lungs.
And then she hears a gunshot in the distance.
And like that, it's begun.
50 Contestants Remaining