The Administrator

The rumbling and exploding and crashing and booming went on for a full 15 minutes as all five hundred pits were filled to the brim with thousands of tons of rock. Once it died down, the 589 of us stood in complete and utter, deathly, stunned, silence. Nobody moved a muscle. Some of us were paralyzed in fear, others in shock, and other just didn’t move because they were expecting something else. We remained there for about five minutes, waiting for something to happen. And then, something happens.

"The Administrator is entering," The Voice suddenly tells us.

The Administrator?

I lean slightly forwards, and from the other end of the cave I can see a group of nine figures entering, walking briskly towards us. As the get closer, I get a better look at them. The strange procession is made up of eight guards, four on either side, heavily armed and dressed fully in black combat clothes, and they wore masks over their nose and mouth, showing only their cold, unfeeling eyes. Between the two rows of guards, a few inches shorter than them, there walked who I presumed was the Administrator. He too was wearing a mask, one that fully covered his face - a beautifully carved tiger mask, except the tiger's stripes were a glistening gold and the rest was ebony black. It's eyes were slanted and glowing bright blue, joined across the bridge of the nose by a thin line. He was wearing a black tailored suit over a white shirt and red tie, with black leggings and then white stockings sticking out over a pair of gleaming black leather shoes. 589 pairs of curious, scared, angry eyes follow him, the only sound in the whole place is the banging of his shoes on the stone floor. That is the person that I must kill.

The Administrator walks down the row of cabins, inspecting the survivors. He pauses before a couple of people, mostly from the top twenty in the rankings, including our pod on the end of the row. Then he walks back to center of the of the row and faces us.

"Welcome to Project Pharo," he says.

In an instant, we all recognize that voice. It's none other than The Voice itself, and then immediately all 589 brains in that cave instinctively knew that this was the person behind their abduction, and imprisonment in that hellhole for a month. Some decided there and then that they would do everything in their power to kill the man before them whatever it took, others felt an insane, oppressive, crushing fear that made their knees buckle and finger tremble, and a few felt an unexplainable admiration.

"I will keep your first briefing short," the Administrator said, his voice loud and clear. "In this Facility, you are bound here by only one rule - and that is to follow the orders of Pharo at all times."

He tapped his temple when he said 'Pharo', and I realized he was referring to the Voice.

"Failure to follow the order of Pharo," he said, pausing before he continued, "will result in a slow, painful and gruesome death."

The way he said that made me feel like he was smiling under his mask.

"Other than that, you are to do as you please. Kill, steal, everyone be friends - I don't care. But every day, from when the blue light up there -"
He points to a large spotlight in the center of the cave's roof that was currently off  "- turns on, you will be trained by our instructors. Anyone who doesn't turn up will die. Anyone who challenges an instructor will die. And anyone who challenges me will die. Ingrain that in those dumb skulls of yours."

Next to me, Neo swallows.

"Training starts tomorrow," The Administrator continued. "So rest while you can still enjoy it."

He turned around, and the guards stood aside to let him leave.

"Remember," he said. "Now that you are here, you belong to me. And I can end every one of your worthless lives in a mere snap of my fingers. So if you want to escape from the title of 'worthless', then prove yourself to me. Prove that you are useful, prove that you are worthy, prove that you, are strong."

Then, he was gone.

Training started the day after that, just like the Administrator said. In the first 3 weeks, we were just told to increase our strength, and we did barbaric assault courses like scampering up cliff faces twice as high as the one we had climbed to escape the pit, with a knife between our teeth and fifty kilograms of equipment strapped to your back, or navigating a huge labyrinth filled with traps that could killed you in the blink of an eye, or escaping a ravine filled with monsters. With the training, came deaths. People who were too incompetent died on their own, whether it be falling off the cliff to be dashed to bloody pieces on the rocks below, or being impaled and burnt in the labyrinth, or become monster food in a ravine. People died every day. Of course, there were people who tried to escape. 287 organized an escape party behind the instructors backs, and tried to escape after the blue light had gone out, in our resting time. But the second they left the pod, they found their way barred by a dozen guards and were torn to pieces by chrona-powered blasters. A few people who couldn’t bear the pain decided to end their own suffering, and we were ordered to mention them or face death. One person refused to participate in the training when the blue light had turned on, and witnesses claimed that his head had been slowly melted from the inside before exploding. After the hellish strength training ended, we began the combat training. We had hundreds of fighting and movement techniques beaten into us over a course of two months, and if we messed up we were punished. That was I didn’t mess up. Because you were only punished once and the punishment was death.

That was my life for the next half a year. At least according to the blue light it was half a year, since I just imagined that it shone according to each day on the surface. We woke each other up before the blue light turned on, Nyx always the first one up and Chris was always the last one to get kicked up by everyone else because he slept like a rock. Artee once even thought he was dead because he didn't wake up even though we poured both hot and cold water on him and he only fell out of his bunk when we threatened to block his access to the bread storage. That was another problem we discussed as a pod. The bread storage was nowhere near as full as it had been since we had first arrived, and other pods were already fighting and murdering and robbing each other for food, which was running low - we resupplied with water every two months at a underground stream that was a peaceful zone set up by 001's Pod. In fact, Just the other day, Elemental, Artee and Ronin had burned Pod 48 to the ground and sent its residents packing because they had tried to attack our friendly neighbors, Pod 49, which was only a Pod of five people consisting of 019 'Swono', 030 'Luc' and three others. Pod 49 did have a lot more food than we did, and they were lending us some, and we had also plundered quite a bit from burning down Pod 48. But sooner or later we would run out. Or another pod of twelve would run out before us and set their sights on us.

"We have 003 through to 008 in this pod," Swifty argued. "Unless it's 001, I doubt another Pod would set their sights on us."
Artee sighs in defeat.

"Fine," he replies.

"Doesn’t change anything about desperate pods targeting 49 though," I say, and everyone agrees.

Even though we had made a show out of Pod 48, people were desperate and would to anything.

"We can’t forsake Luc and Swono and the others after all they did for us," Ronin added.

"They gave us bread," Dobo muttered, but everyone ignored him.

We had called a meeting to discuss future matters, but as it turned out there really wasn't much to talk about, as usual. Elemental had anticipated this and had slipped out just before the meeting.

"There is one thing that I still feel uneasy about," Neo suddenly said.

"Which is?"

"001 and 002, Airo and Avoma. Where are they and what are they doing?"

He was right, of course. We had heard rumors about the two people who had escaped the pit the fastest, and 001 was apparently a monster of battle during the training. But we had never seen him, or at least we even if we had we didn’t know who he was. But we did know that he lead the largest faction in the cave, which was made up of eleven cabins with almost ninety people involved.

"It's almost as though he's avoiding specifically us," Chris scoffed. "He's scared, mark my words, he's scared."

Then, the front door is flung open. Elemental is standing there, and he's supporting Swono on his shoulder, who's covered in ash and is hanging onto consciousness. We all stare at him.

"Pod 49," he said, "Is under attack."
There's silence for a second.

"Who is it?" Nyx asks, jumping to her feet.

"It's 001. And his giant cross-team."

"…cross-team?"

"Am I wrong?"

"Well…"

"No, I'm right, because I'm me, and I'm never wrong. Now hurry up!"