Chapter 9: Ambition

Topher and I went out to the beach where I had frequently reflected. He didn't know that was my spot of choice for burning off stress, but I was here now regardless. I was almost a bit excited to hear what Topher had to say, since he was probably the biggest mystery here. "What's the big idea?" I asked him bluntly. "You spend your first two days fanboying over McLean, and now you're gunning for his job?"

Instead of being taken aback by my harsh tone, Topher simply smirked at me. "Oh?" he asked me, "so you did think I was doing that...I guess it worked." That was not fair. Topher was supposed to be answering my questions, and he was not supposed to be giving me these stupid cryptic riddles.

"You're not answering me," I demanded from him. "If we want to keep working together, you're going to have to tell me why you're bouncing between this smooth schemer and some obnoxious brat!" I meant that too. I was more than willing to leave Topher in the dust and keep powering through with what I needed to do. I had Ella, Jasmine, and probably Leonard. My allies were vastly growing.

Topher shook his head. "Amy, the reason I looked like I was gunning for Chris's job, was because that's what I'm doing." Oh, that came as a shock. My view of him completely shifted at that moment. He wasn't doing all of this stuff to become McLean's lapdog, he did it all so he could be McLean. Topher shook his head in a fit of despair. "My emails to the producers have all gone unanswered," he said, "I figured this was my only chance."

Okay, well, to be honest, I didn't expect any of this. If I knew that he was playing up McLean so he could later back stab him, I would've been on board with it. That was annoying. I wished that he had just told me straight up. I have had my fair share of people who have done that. One of my old friends used to play teachers like that all the time, and she got away with it too. "So...you're here now, so how do you go about it?"

Topher smirked. "Well, I've already tried cutting to a few commercial breaks, but Chris walked in on me doing it." He gestured around to the area we were at. "That's why I took you here," he explained. "The cameras are everywhere but the very edges. Since nothing happens here, it's never important." That was news to me. That meant I was able to keep coming back here, especially when I knew that no one would bother me. Topher kept explaining. "I want to try and grab hold of Chris's phone, and try and call the producers directly. They'll pick up for sure if it's his phone."

"Okay," I said hesitantly. His plan definitely worked on paper, but I wasn't sure he'd be able to successfully pull it off perfectly. Plus, McLean was just as crafty as the top players, so he would probably catch on. I wasn't sure if I was in the right spot to tell him all that, though. Although, he did tell me this, probably because he wanted to seek out my aid. Eh, I decided to help him. "But what if McLean finds out?" I asked, "He's a master strategist too, and he'd probably personally take you out of the game."

Topher shook his head. "That wouldn't happen," Topher countered, "Chris has never personally eliminated someone."

I shook my head at him, since he still didn't understand. "He hasn't yet," I reminded him. "You've seen him pull some crazy stunts before. Remember when the punk was brought back in World Tour? McLean made sure he stayed in the game." I pointed at him. "The instant you run off with that phone, you lose."

Topher looked like he actually understood me that time. Thank goodness. "Okay, we can think of something else," he admitted. "That plan does have a couple of flaws to it. But we need a plan for Sugar," Topher reminded me.

Ugh, Sugar. I very much didn't expect her of all people to be my trouble person. It didn't matter, I could probably handle her. "You said to do nothing," I reminded the wannabe host, "but I'm not sure that's right."

"Sugar's a pageant queen," Topher reminded me. "Her entire life has been surrounded by bribes and trickery. The instant you put her in that cannon, she'll out you for getting rid of Dave." He sighed. "The best option would have been to not get her vote at all, but we're past that. You need to take her far enough so that when she exposes you, you're still safe."

"That will be never," I countered, "so what do we do?"

Topher laughed. "Looks like we both have something to think over. Meet back here tomorrow night?"

"Fine," I agreed bluntly, "but only because I have to save you from yourself."

The host wannabe laughed at me again as he turned around to leave. "Well I have to save you from something you already did. Good luck." He then walked away, seeming very confident with himself.

That entire interaction put me a bit more uneasy. On the one hand, I had Topher back as an ally, who would vote with me while I run the game. But now, because I jumped the gun on a vote, I wasn't invisible anymore. Sugar said I was safe for now, but I didn't really trust her on that. Although, most of the team knows that I switched their votes around.

The only one who didn't at this point was Shawn, but if he knew, he'd tell Jasmine, and then I would be in a worse spot. But, if I eliminated Shawn, then Jasmine would be upset with whoever did it and try to find the culprit. Ugh, I really dug myself into a hole this time. I should have let Sugar just vote for Ella. Everything would have been solved if I just didn't try and talk to her.

I started to walk to the confessional, hoping to vent out some of my frustrations.

It shouldn't have mattered that Ella went through the same stuff I did. It shouldn't have mattered to me that her team treated her poorly. The reason I was in this spot now was all because it did matter to me, which is annoying, and I wished that wasn't the case.

I had to find away to turn this around. I always had, so this shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Sugar was clearly gunning for Ella, and Sky was willing to pity me for an Ella-related vote before. If I got rid of Sugar early, I'd be outed, and I'd have Sky still in the game. Perhaps Sugar was willing to agree to a cross-team alliance. I didn't know, it was all screwing with my head.

I was glad that I wasn't Samey. That loser didn't see what was coming to her, and paid the price for it. She let her guard down around me, and I took advantage of that. Hopefully I'd be able to take advantage of everyone else left.

I reached the confessional and went in, leaning up against the wall, since I was so tired. "Everyone's probably rooting for me now," I said, smirking at the camera. "Sugar thinks she's so smart, but she doesn't know that I easily have the means to get rid of her. Now that she's trying to be the big bad guy, I'm suddenly the hero." As I said the words to the confessional, I started to believe them myself. Actually, they made sense, and it finally helped me discover what I was lacking. The reason Samey let down her guard. Confidence.

"I have to lay low for now," I decided, telling everyone my game plan. "The game must run its course for a bit, but once Sugar lets her guard down around me, I can punish her!" I slammed my fist down into my hand in excitement. Oh, the hammer was going to fall onto her. The only difference was that Samey had no confidence, and Sugar had a lot. The fastest route would be to take her out when her confidence was the highest, instead of trying to knock her down a few pegs.

In order to properly trick her, I'd have to let myself mess up. I'd have to purposely mess up. I began walking out of the confessional, thinking about all of the various ways I could take her down. If I continued to mess up enough, there would be a solid chance that Sugar would forget about what happened with Dave. As far as she was concerned, I was sticking up for my friend, and that was a solid alibi, since I told it to multiple people. However, my team would easily doubt me on that.

As I thought about it more, it occurred to me that my team would be the biggest issue. I had solid allies in Jasmine and Topher, but Scarlett and Max still evaded me. Actually, Scarlett had been hanging around Max much more often recently, which is something I did notice. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to approach them. Perhaps I needed to take my time tomorrow to try and get to know them better. After all, it was the only way that I could manipulate them in the future.

I thought back to Samey again, who was the first pawn in my schemes. She didn't know that she was going down, and she paid the price for it. Using that on Sugar would work, but Scarlett was smart. Getting her under my control would help me out a lot.

Once I arrived back at the tree fort, I went straight to bed. I decided that I had schemed enough for the night, and sleep would help me out the most for the future.

I once again awoke to Jasmine falling on top of us. I got up and very groggily got up to go forage with my pawn. She seemed happy to see me, and I guess I was happy to see her at my disposal, but I knew today was going to change the course of the game a lot. "Morning!" she told me happily as I slowly made it down to the bottom of the fort.

"Yeah, yeah," I said, still tired. "Let's do this." I understood that she was awake, but that didn't mean that the rest of us were.

I went down with her to the forest, but today was...different. "You're seeing it again, right?" she asked me, pointing around at the wildlife. "There's definitely something going on." As much as I hated to admit it, the giant had a point. The way the trees were placed was different than it was in the past. What was even worse to admit was that Samey the Path Whisperer was probably right all along. But, there was no way I'd tell anyone that.

"No sense in dwelling on it," I told her, grabbing some berries that were much closer today. "We should just get this done." I wanted to move really quickly this morning to try and learn more about Scarlett, but I was a bit nervous that my chance to get that done was about to be hindered. Shawn had shown up again, and he was eager to speak with my personal pawn.

I made myself scarce as they disgustingly tried to flirt with each other. I figured that I would grab enough berries for the team and head back myself. The lamb from last night was enough to keep me not as hungry, so they should all have been fine too.

Once I got what I thought was enough I started to head back. It seemed like Jasmine saw me go on my own, because she saw me and almost instantly turned around to follow me back. She was too persistent for my liking, but that was okay, since she wasn't actually my friend.

We got the towel out again and everyone ate with us. "The fruit appears to have stronger value today," Scarlett noted. "It's almost like the overall nutrients have improved from the first day." She continued inspecting what we had found. "Oddly enough, it doesn't appear that there were any drastic differences to the physical species of berries that you have picked."

"Is that so?" I asked. "I haven't really noticed." I took a bite of the berries. Oh, she was right. These were juicier. I was thinking about telling them what Jasmine and I discovered, but it didn't matter anymore. Besides, Samey speaking up got her eliminated, so it was definitely best that I stayed silent. Hopefully I could use whatever challenge we had today to get closer to Scarlett. With her, I'd only have Rodney and Max against me, if they dared, and well, Rodney was easy if I ever needed a vote.

"It's probably due to me becoming more evil recently," Max declared. Well, I hadn't heard anything about that, but I was interested to hear more. "Just the other day, I devised a trap that would blow up balloons from a safe distance so I could defeat them before they had a chance."

"I was present at the time," Scarlett defended, "It was truly wonderful." Something definitely told me that Scarlett was playing him and dragging him along, which meant that she was probably a very solid manipulator. It shocked me that she was doing the exact same thing to him that I was to Jasmine. I really needed to keep a closer eye on her.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't have time to play with the red-haired nerd today. I had to convince Sugar that I was simply an adept leader and not trying to run the entire game, and at the same time, still win the challenge and command even more respect from my team. I had lucked out that they were very gullible, but it turned out that Sugar was my big problem.

My time for idle thought was cut off, as was our breakfast. The sirens gave off a piercing screech, which meant that our day was about to get worse. "Morning, campers!" McLean shouted. Topher perked up at the hosts voice. I still wasn't sure if he was doing that on his own or if it was all still an act. I had to know. "It's time to start today's fun activity. So, get your butts over to the meeting area!" Ugh, I was hoping for some break at some point. We were being barraged with challenge every single day. One day off would have been nice.

The walk over for the entire team seemed to show off what I was thinking. All of us were very tired, and it was taxing us to the extreme. Even Jasmine looked like she needed a break. As I began to walk over, I noticed that today looked different. Naturally, I wouldn't speak up about it, but I was definitely seeing that something was off. The area that we used before was higher up, but the cliff ahead of us was now lower to the ground. Maybe it was just the challenges getting to me. I decided to not say anything still, because that would make me a path whisperer.

We turned a corner in our path, and saw a giant scoreboard up where McLean was. That was not good. But, it also meant this challenge might be less physically taxing, which was relieving to a point. Regardless, I still really didn't want to know what we had to do. Topher led the charge for our team, and Jasmine followed closely behind me. Topher made sure he got himself right up to where McLean was, and I sat down next to him to make sure he didn't blow his chances of staying in the game.

As I looked across, the bears were gathering, and Leonard and Sugar were chatting up a storm. Leonard seemed very proud of himself at the moment, and Sky looked a tad annoyed, as did Shawn. But, the two of them were easily handling the team better than Dave. It sucked that one of them couldn't go, but at least I got to do something. Today, I'd reverse my mistakes, and I would convince Sugar I was not a threat. Maybe I could take her out in Ella's name. She wouldn't mind that, right?

"Step right up, players!" McLean told us. He told us which benches each team could sit on even though half of us were already there, still using the ridiculous Cree names.

Topher seemed to note this as he watched the host do his thing. I was busy looking at Ella try and get Sugar to sit next to her. To mine and to many others' surprise, Sugar responded by pushing her to the side, saying something about camera time. That was...really mean. Like, seriously, I wouldn't do that to anyone who wasn't Samey, and even her, only like three times a day.

"Nice try, Ella," McLean commented, "but save your power plays for the game." He chuckled as he said these lines.

This was clearly not a physical challenge, but I was still going to best them. And I'd make sure both of those losers suffered. Topher needed my help to knock McLean down, and I'd make sure that happened.

I would take them all out. Nothing could stop me.

My mind quickly changed course as I saw Chef bringing in something small near us. It was a...chicken.