"Hello?"

"Courtney, it's me."

"…"

"Courtney?"

"…Duncan? Are you okay?"

"Courtney, I don't have much time…"

"What happened to you? Where did you go?"

"Courtney, listen to me…"

"Why haven't you contacted me?"

"Courtney…"

"Why did you walk out on me?"

"Courtney… Please listen. I love you. And I love those kids."

"…"

"Courtney, I need you to write something down for me. Get a pen…"

"…Okay."

"Now, write this down." He gave her a bank code.

"Duncan, what's this for?"

"I have some money saved up, and I'm afraid I won't be there to withdraw it for you. I know it's not much, but…"

"Duncan, a year ago you said you were leaving for work, and you never came back. I thought you had changed, but I guess I was wrong."

The punk turned to the window. Guard dogs. They knew he was here.

"Listen, Courtney, I have to go. I…"

"Duncan… I spoke to the RCMP. I know about the game. They don't know where you are. Please… tell me something."

Duncan understood. He turned to a computerized map of the island. On the map were the coordinates. "Okay…" He managed to say the latitude, but before he could say the longitude, the power went out.

He cursed himself. "They know more than I thought," he said to himself, knowing that if they didn't know he was using the phone, they wouldn't have cut the power. He knew he had to leave, but before he did, he took a few gifts from the tower, including a roll of duct tape.

Duncan left the tower and spotted the face of evil on the ground staring back at him.

Chris.

As the punk turned to go down the steps, he spotted another familiar face making his way up. It was Noah… with a machine gun.

"Oh, crap."

Duncan ran back into the tower just in time before bullets started flying at him. The punk climbed onto the windowsill and made a leap of faith as the know-it-all ran into the room and fired. Luckily for Duncan, he happened to be high enough to just make it over the barbed wire on top of the fence, yet low enough as to not get hit by the bullets of the machine gun.

Fortunately for him, the punk landed on a pile of leaves, and he quickly got up as fast as he could. It was a good thing he did, because Noah wasn't finished yet. The know-it-all ran out of the tower and continued to fire at the Mohawk. Duncan was still able to make it out alive, but there was no way he'd want to go through that again.

"Dammit!" Noah shouted. He pushed a guard out of his way as he ran down the stairs. "Move! Move!"

-X-

"What's a girl like you doing on death row?" DJ asked as he and Leshawna hid in the plane wreck.

"I could ask you the same thing," Leshawna replied. "You don't seem like the dangerous type."

DJ nodded. "You'd be right. Personally, I think the jury was racist. I just never thought this kind of thing would happen to me."

There was a long pause before DJ continued. "We're going to die…"

"Don't say that."

"Wake up and smell the coffee, Leshawna! We got bombs on our ankles!" He rubbed his shoulders.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah… I think I landed wrong when they threw me out of the chopper."

She nodded. "Yeah. Just because it's water doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."

"Who said I landed in the water?"

"…Ow."

"Yeah."

"Here, let me." She started massaging his shoulders.

DJ sighed. "Sometimes, I wonder why this happened to me. I mean, I know I killed a cop, but… that guy attacked me first, you know? Isn't that, like… self-defense or something? Leshawna?"

He looked around. She was gone.

Then he became aware of a beeping sound.

"Oh, you've got to be sh – "

-X-

"OOH!"

Beth and Harold were loving this.

"Very clever," Harold said, giving his props to the ghetto girl.

Cody walked in. He had been observing Noah's unsuccessful manhunt. "What just happened?"

"Another one bites the dust," Harold replied. "Deej is gone."

Cody looked at the smoldering rubble that was once a plane wreck and frowned in disgust. "Put on something else. Now. Change it." He flipped a switch, only to find an image of two figures assaulting a defenseless man. The tech-geek took a closer look.

The figures on the screen were Eva, Izzy, and Trent.

"Yes! Good call, Cody," Harold retorted.

"The Sun's not even up and the musician's having another bad day," Beth responded.

Cody looked away from the screen. "Uh…Cover for me, please. I'll be right back." He walked out of the room. On the way, he passed Lindsay, who was watching him leave.

Harold shrugged and found himself a bag of chips. He opened it and pulled out a chip. "Hey Beth. 28 million."

"Nice."

-X-

Lindsay stepped out of the studio to find the tech-geek leaning over the rail, barfing.

When he heard her approach, he turned just enough to see her in his peripheral vision, and then looked down at his shoes. "He's… my boss… and he's one of the only few friends I have." He paused. "And, he's a genius. He could sell dirt to a grave digger."

"I know, right?" the blonde giggled, but then she remembered why she was out here, and the anger quickly came back. "Corey, we have to stop this."

Cody looked up and nodded.

-X-

They found him in his own private little office. He was watching the feed on his laptop to see how it looked to his viewers. It looked pretty sweet to him.

He heard the two approach and smirked. "Let me guess… more sob stories?"

Lindsay had had it. "Please, Kyle, have a heart. That poor man saw his wife…" She was too furious and too upset to finish the sentence.

"…blow up," Cody finished reluctantly. Lindsay looked at him. She could see him dying inside.

Chris ignored Lindsay. "Hey, Codester. Check it out: 28 million users."

Lindsay gave Cody a stern look. Cody, knowing the look well, sighed. "It's too much."

Chris stared at the tech-geek. "Not you, too."

Cody nodded. "I…I knew what this was at first, but… I think that we have crossed a line that… that is beyond the line that I thought we were going to cross."

Chris sighed and gave in. Sorta. "Okay, I'll admit that some of it is difficult to watch, but it's essential. To create drama, you need heroes, villains, and victims. It's called story-telling."

"No, this is not a television show that you are writing for," Cody explained. "This is real. It's too frickin' real, and I can't keep my lunch down!"

"No, it's not, 'cause nothing is real. Every network you watch, every advertisement you see, every documentary, every interview, every news report, everything is manipulated and manufactured in the same way that I have manufactured this, and for the same reason: to entertain." He took a short pause as he watched Eva and Izzy continue to assault Trent on the screen. "Cody, do you think this guy really had more dignity while awaiting lethal injection?"

Cody nodded. "Yes, in fact. I do."

Chris stood up and stormed toward Cody. "You ungrateful little punk. I made you very rich. You do NOT come in here and team up with her against me. Do I make myself clear?"

Cody was silent.

"You knew what you were getting into." He turned to Lindsay. "You did, too."

Lindsay was silent, too.

"So, it comes down to this, Cody. Either you're with me or against me." He walked back to his chair. "So what's it going to be?" he asked, not even looking up from the screen.

Silence.

"I want your answer now."

Silence.

"Right now!"

Silence.

"Cody?"

Cody slowly stood up, and Lindsay glared daggers at him. "Don't…" she said silently.

The tech-geek sighed. "I'm gonna finish the show."

Lindsay's eyes widened. "Cody!"

Oh, great! NOW she gets my name right…

"Cody, please! You can't…" Lindsay started.

"NO! No. I don't want to hear it, okay?" He sighed again. "I'm going back to my post."

Lindsay felt betrayed when she heard Cody's decision. She turned… and walked right into a slap from Chris.

"Do you know how ridiculous you have sounded in the past 12 hours?" he asked before sitting back down in his chair. "Trying to save some whore?" he added, glad that Cody was out of the room when he said it. He took a sip from his glass of water.

The blonde's rage subsided into a cynical state as she said the most cryptic response Chris had ever heard.

"No, I was trying to save you."