While the students at St. Helier were what some would call a close-knit community (there were only forty-four people in the tenth grade, and that number would most likely have dropped after the school year ended), there, like all schools, seemed to break itself up into the cliques and groups that you found at all schools. The athletes, the nerds, the weirdos, the list of potential stereotypes went on. One group tried to not make themselves like that. They wouldn't be labelled as basket cases, athletes, princesses, nerds or criminals.

Three girls. Wendy Olsen (Female Student #7), Hayley Hernandez (Female Student #9) and Heidi Chester (Female Student #19) had all been best friends for as long as they could remember. Preschool, primary school and now high school. The only time in their lives were one was away from the other for an extended period of time was when Hayley briefly moved back to Spain for the year. Hayley found that fascist Spain was no better than Australia (in fact, it was worse), and she didn't want to make new friends when she was perfectly happy with her old ones, and when that didn't require her to learn a whole new language.

Right now, in Hour 5 of the 11th Annual Program of Australia, these three friends, the group without a label were staying in a two-year old display home in Dardanup's suburban area.

It was a fairly fancy house, what Wendy would call a McMansion, a large house with no eaves which relies solely on ducted air-conditioning to keep it at a moderate 23 degrees Celsius.

Wendy didn't let the ugly and un-environmental design of the house deter her from sleeping in it. Beggars couldn't be choosers in a Battle Royale. Wendy slept in a bedroom that was adjacent to a living room where Hayley and Heidi kept guard. They would take turns and sleep for a few hours each and then they would make tea if the house's gas still worked and they could find some matches.

Wendy didn't exactly slept in peace. She kept jolting awake at the slightest sudden noise, only to be soothed back to sleep by the voices of Heidi and Hayley in the next room. She had absolute faith in her two best friends. They wouldn't let anything bad happen to her while she slept. And then thoughts of others harming Wendy and her friends accompanied by any sound would wake her. She knew there were people playing the game. A little less an hour ago she had heard gunfire that came from not too far away. She counted at least three different types of gunfire.

Her routine of jolting awake and going back to sleep every 10 minutes, was definitely not helping Wendy's tiredness. In fact, it was making it worse. The constant worry of everything around her was making her increasingly more anxious.

Wendy finally decided to get up from the comfortable double bed in the bedroom with cream walls. She groggily stumbled to the living room and sat down on a lounge where Heidi was sitting and Hayley was facing.

"Hey," Heidi said, "did you have a good sleep?"

"Ugh," Wendy gave an exasperated sigh, "no. Find any matches for the stove?

"No, sorry. I've looked in every possible place."

"I'm tired!" Wendy whined loudly to the amusement of the others.

"Well then," Hayley said, "go to sleep."

"Ugh, I can't. I'm not able to. Do you want to sleep now?" she looked at Heidi, as it was her turn for some rest.

"Nah, not just yet. Me and Hayley –"

"Hayley and I," Hayley corrected jokingly.

"Hayley and I," Heidi sarcastically emphasised, "were just talking about what we're going to do in this."

"Oh," Wendy replied. "What are we gonna to do?"

"We think we'll just hide out," Hayley said. "I mean, I couldn't kill anyone. Could you?"

"No," Heidi and Wendy responded in unison. Always some of the friendliest people in Year 10, the trio of friends despised disharmony of any kind, whether it was bullying, violence or arrogance.

"We can beat this," Hayley said. "We're just going to do nothing. If we all did nothing at all, then their plans of studying us for "research" would be completely ruined. We're going to be pacifists and we're not going to give in to this country's fascist ways. If it means we die, then so be it. But it'll be together."

After Hayley's small speech, an awkward silence filled the living room. Until Wendy spoke up.

"Yeah, okay," Wendy said fervently. "Down with the fascists, huh?"

"Yeah!" Hayley said. There was one person who hadn't cast their vote. "Heidi?"

After several moments of thinking Heidi resignedly said, "Okay. I'm with you. If we're going to die, we'll die on our terms, not theirs."

"Well that's all well and good," Wendy began, "but will you – pinkie swear by it?"

Heidi and Hayley both laughed at this mock question. But they did it anyway. The three girls were held together by their friendship, and they vowed to not let it be shaken by the Program.

How naïve this pact would turn out to be.

Allison Silverman (Female Student #11) was angry. Her stress had been concentrated not into panic or sadness, but anger. Allison was often moody. But never like this. She was so angry she felt as if she could burn down the council building and laugh as that fat bitch Albion and her soldiers. Then she would have fucked their skulls them with a strap on. However, she had no idea where she would get a strap on penis. A quaint little town like Dardanup contained families with young children and retiree couples, not seedy sex shops and red lamps.

Allison had seen the girl she grew up with, Esther Reid, shot before her very eyes. She couldn't stand Esther herself, but they shared memories together. Before their friendship deteriorated.

It wasn't the fact that supposedly, or at least according to their parents, they were best friends, that aggravated Allison. It was the fact that she felt on some level responsible for Esther's wellbeing, even though they disliked each other. If Esther had been lost somewhere in the streets while drunk, it would've been Allison's phone number she remembered, not the street that she lived in.

Allison's hypothetical of burning down the council building would be impossible. Even she knew it. She could be violent, but she definitely didn't have the smarts to deactivate the collars so one could get close to the council building.

Luckily for her, Allison had someone who would undoubtedly try and stop her from making stupid decisions. Erika Willai (Female Student #17) stood by the curtains of the small house they had settled. Always a sensible thinker, Erika would always consider the rationality and risks of things before she would get involved. Parties? Only if she knew the bogans in her year weren't going. Drugs? Never on her life. Sex? Not for a while now. Especially not now.

The fact that Erika was a virgin (and proud of it, unlike some people) and had wanted to commit herself to it until she was in a really long relationship with someone who she would seriously consider marrying could've been an impairing factor for her choice of career. Relationships counsellor. At least, that's what she wanted to be back in the world where the Program wasn't a concern. How could she advise couples who were having crappy sex lives on what to do if she had never actually experienced it?

But that aside, she did have a knack for advice. She had helped various relationships that she knew of in SHAC, and for her friends outside of school. Ben and Ewan. Phoebe and Hunter. Janice and Sarah. Clyde and Hannah. Gregg and Alyssa. Gregg and Holly. Gregg and Kate.

Wow, Gregg sure has dated a lot of the girls in the year. Seems they all ended in shit.

Erika knew that at one point in the Program, she would have to try and use her common sense to stop Allison from doing something stupid. She hadn't known Allison that well back at school, them being mutual acquaintances, but she did know that Allison had had a history of acting impulsively without thought. Screaming at the deputy principal at her old school that he was a paedophile (which actually later turned out to be true) had gotten her expelled according to Esther Reid. But Erika certainly didn't trust her word. So many times Esther had tried to make up stories that would rival the level of bullshit that that feral chick from Kings Cross in Sydney who made up a false account of a nightclub shooting to TV cameras.

The sound of Allison scraping a chair along the timber floors of the house shocked Erika back into reality.

"Hey," Erika started, "how you feeling?"

"Shit," Allison immediately snapped back. "How do you think I feel?"

Erika simply sighed at her response.

"Sorry. Do you want anything to drink? The drinks in the fridge might not have gone off just yet."

"Fine." Allison grumbled.

Erika walked from the dining room into the kitchen of the house. The fridge was old and small, with a big Jack Daniels sticker emblazoned on the front of it.

And lo and behold, Erika didn't find any soda or juice in the fridge like she had wanted, but bottles and bottles of alcohol. Beer, whiskey, rum, vodka, bourbon and some bottles she didn't recognize.

Sighing, she grabbed the last two bottles of beer from a torn six-pack. She walked back into the dining and slowly handed one of the bottles to Allison. The expression on her face quickly contorted into a quick smile. But her tone of voice could still be described as angry.

Allison opened the bottle and downed the beer as if she was in a race. Erika watched with open eyes at the speed of her drinking. Within six seconds, the contents of the longneck had disappeared.

"Whoa," Erika said.

"Thanks," Allison said, exhaling to cool her oesophagus, "it takes the edge off. You gonna have that?"

She gestured towards the other beer bottle that Erika limply held in her hand. Erika didn't want Allison to get completely trashed, especially in a game of strategy, skill, life and death. For Allison's sake and not her own, Erika refused to give her the bottle. Instead, she had her first alcoholic drink in over a year. Sure, she didn't drink it as fast Allison did, but she did it.

When it was gone, Erika gently put the bottle on the dining table and chuckled.

"You're right, it does take the edge off."

Allison and Erika laughed at this remark. Amazingly, after just one beer, Allison was already in a better mood.

"Cheers," she said as she raised her empty bottle.

"Cheers," Erika replied. She rose her bottle and clinked it with Allison's.

For just a few minutes, a sense of optimism washed over Erika. It might've been the alcohol, but Erika, for the first time since she stepped out of the council building into the town, felt opportunistic about the outcome of the Program.