“Fuck me mum!” Cillian curses, “Ye actually asked to e here? Are ye mad or stupid?”

  “A bit of mad, occasionally stupid, but this was a calcuted move,” I say.

  “Ye’r shit at math,” Cillian tells me. The San takes a swig of his drink and grimaces whetle only gives him a few drops. “I’m guessing you ae gimme the reason why you’re here?” he asks, assuming the answer.

  “Of course I ,” I tell the Scottish man as he lifts up his mattress.

  Cillian pauses at my words, and then frowns.

  “Is me knowin’ tha’ gonna to get me killed?” he grabs another bottle, of which there are many. “Cause I’d rather no’ die yet.” he uncorks the bottle and takes a happy swig, then b the taste.

  “Feck me, ‘is tastes like piss.”

  He takes another swig anyway.

  “Not implicitly. In fact, it might reduce your ces of getting killed.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. Corks the bottle, and then throws it. I catch it easily while he grabs another from his under-mattress stash.

  “Thanks,” I say. I uncork, take a whiff, grimace, and then take a taste.

  “Yup, this tastes rancid.”

  He shrugs. Lowers the mattress and then plops his butt on top of it. Then he looks at me as I sit on the only chair in the cell.

  “So what's your mad pn for bein’ here?”

  I lean bato the chair. “Well, I’m sure you saw the message about the God Games, right?”

  He nods slowly.

  “Well, first off, let me introduce myself. I am Quasi Eludo, summoned hero extraordi’s my job to get summoned by gods and plete whatever they request of me. In exge, they pay me, usually in millions of U.S. dolrs, though most retly in a trillion dolrs of mineral wealth— but I digress. I’ve met many gods, and one of these acquaintances in particur had not only heard of the God Games, but was also a part of several of them. He was more than happy to expin to me the gist of how the games are run.”

  Cillian uncorks his bottle and takes a heavy drink.

  “Right then, here’s a toast to your crazy,” he takes another swig, “So what’d yod-thing tell ye?”

  I grin at the Scot. “He told me that Pandora has a fetish for ‘testing’ rge poputioers, kidnapping the survivors, and then auing them off to the gods as pyers in whatever twisted test the God Games entail.”

  To my surprise, Cillian is listening to my every word with a smile.

  “The usual test is an apex predator drop. Pandora releases some predator that not only fahe testees for dinner, but is also resistant to whatever means of bat the test popution has at their disposal. And disposal is usually the result; only about one pert of tested species pass, eg., survive.”

  “Prison.” Cillian excims. “You’re thinkin Downside will be tested.”

  “It will be.” I state. “The popution here is iens of thousands and the density is greater than most cities. Downside is a perfect pce for the test, and I would argue it’s the best pce to be if you want to have any ce of surviving.”

  Cillian takes another swig. He then scratches his beard ihought. After several seds, he begins to speak.

  “You mentiohe tests are goin to create some monster resistant to what's avaible, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “So, what. Are you expeg to be fighting monsters strohan bears?”

  “What? No, this prison has no guns, so whatever gets summoned wouldn't be able to brush off the impact of a bullet- wait. Why did you mention bears?”

  He gives me the grin of a drunk that thinks he knows more than the suy in the room. Which is mostly true. The st shareholder reports I received are a bit dated and rather… unspecific.

  “The fightin’ pits in the ter of the prison have prisoners fightin’ other prisoners and animals.”

  No!

  “Fuck!” I yell, ed, “Is that why they listed funding for por bears? And since when do they even have a fighting pit?!”

  I throw the gold-trimmed book across the room. It smacks the wall beside Cillian and nds, open, on his bed.

  “Are there even any rules!” I yell, ed.

  Cillian g the bnk pages of the book o him, and then snickers.

  Bears. Why bears of all things?

  “Fuck.” I curse again. “How many bears are we talking about? Are they trained or just released? Who trols them? The guards?” I asked him rapidly.

  Cillian shrugs and takes another swig.

  “Don't know. I just stay in the gold district,” he taps his belly, “as you see, I’m a wee bit ’ in the muscle department.” He raises his bottle and swishes it, “I prefer ta stay still by the still.”

  I raise an eyebrow, “You have a still? They let you brew alcohol?”

  “Gold Ranks have many perks,” he taps the gold band on his leg, “we have access to nearly everything the guards do. So long as we ain’t selling it to the other ranks, we do anything we want.”

  A small grin rises up to my lips as an idea forms.

  “I don't suppose you have a workshop?”

  “We do. Basement level. Nobody goes there anymore ever sihe i.”

  I stop standing and take a seat ba the chair.

  “I?”

  He takes another sip. “Not sure. Jeff told me that some prisot electrocuted down there.”

  “And Jeff is…”

  Cillian taps the top bunk, “Jeffrey Epstein, my former roommate. Puy died of paicer st week. Terrible thing.”

  I go cross-eyed. “Didn't he kill himself?”

  Cillian snorts. “Bah, of course not. The gover just faked his death and then transferred him here.”

  “Really?”

  He nods, “Yup. They do it all the time. They did it with Hitler at the end of the sed war and evely Bin Laden. Elvis is a lie though.”

  Well… fuck. I khe gover liked to lie, but not to this extent.

  “So why keep them alive at all?”

  He taps the bottle thoughtfully.

  “Mostly for information, but really for any reason they want. I know with Hitler, they kept him alive to better trol the Nazi stists they abducted.”

  “Project Paperclip,” I murmur under my breath.

  Cillian chugs the rest of his bottle and then burps mightily.

  “Ahhh, that hit the spot. I think I need a nap.” the Scot yawns. He turns and ys dowhe bottom bunk.

  “We’ll talk more ter.” he announces softly.

  Not even ten seds ter, and the man is sn up a storm.

  I stare at the drooling Scot for several more seds, then stand up and walk out of my cell. As I traverse the halls, I meet several more prisoners, none of whom so much as give me the time of day. Eae has a gold band on their leg and all give off the vibe of those who are extremely wealthy. My stride eventually takes me back to the plush living area. Several prisoners lounge on the couch, eating snacks, and staring at a TV.

  OV are two prisoners with makeshift armor and ons. One prisoner has a massive metal club that looks like a sledgehammer and the other wields a makeshift spear, a metal stick with a shiv shed to the end, in one hand and a sb of metal with rope attached to his other hand. Linked scrap iron covers both of their bodies as they circle each other. I watch, both surprised at the makeshift onry, and a the fact that the onry is there.

  Eventually the cirg stops at the urging of the crowd and the sledgehammer guy engages with a probing stab. The spear guy dodges and stabs with his spear, but the sledge hammer guy is already tilting to the side. He dodges the stab with a spin, and thehe momentum to swing his hammer. The spear guy raises his shield and I’m already shaking my head at the wrong move.

  The shield intercepts the hammer, but the momentum tinues. I hear the crack of bone over the speakers as the spearman’s arm crumples and the shield plus hammer sm into his body. The man goes down with a cry of pain.

  As prisoabby falls, hammer guy follows through with his swing and brings his hammer down on his fallen foe just as the spearman screams I Yield. But it’s too te; the hammer sms down and crushes the prisoner's skull.

  At the explosion of brain matter, the crowd oV and the victs on the couch cheer loudly. They scream and yell with bloodlust as blood seeps out of the dead prisoners' leaking skull.

  Unbothered by the death, blood, and brain matter, I walk away from the TV to the elevator. o the elevator is a sign that says ‘Emergency Stairs’.

  I press dowton and await for the elevator to arrive. When it does, I enter and press the glowing button that says ‘Basement’.

  Music pys softly as the elevator desds. When it reaches the basement, the elevator thunks to a halt. The door opens onto a dark hallway dimly illuminated by flickering emergency lights.

  I step out of the elevator and proceed with caution. I smell the cloying st of old, dry blood. I e to a set of ed steel doors at the end of the hallway.

  Something exploded in there. A bomb of some kind? Goddam I hope not. Those damn spears and hammers, not to mention the fug bear, are already going to make this test difficult.

  I slowly open the right hand door. Darkhere, and nothing more. After a moment of anticlimax, I grope around for a lightswitch. When I find it, I press the switd the lights flicker on. Immediately, I notice fyed and open wires sizzling with electricity, and the st of ozone and burnial. Steadily walking inside, I find what is burning. Dried old blood on the ground near a workstation smokes from the charged electrical wiring ying on top of it.

  I guess this expins the I.

  I look around and memorize the room in its ey. I he exposed wires and other such hazards, then I double back to the entrand turn off the light. I re-ehe workroom and begin moving the hazards away. After a good half hour of ing and moving, I turn the light ba and grin at the retively more anized room.

  I thehe hour searg and noting everything that could be useful for my purposes. I also find the source of the explosion. Under some debris, I find a destroyed and partially melted chemical statioo said chemical station is what looks like a destroyed car battery.

  “Why the hell is there a car battery here? Do they have cars in this city?”

  Eventually, my question is answered when I cheder the workstation and find an old tig welder missing its equally rge powersource.

  I stare at the welder for a long moment, then I g the exposed wiring to the building. A grin rises up to my face.