Panic Button

Nine

Max and the other passengers watched as their screens pulled up a video-cam feed.

This time, the cameraman was in the corridor of an office building. Drab utilitarian decor was swamped in cold light from overhead fluorescents. The intruder peered around a corner, giving the passengers a camera-eye view of the corridor ahead. He must have been wearing the device on a headset.

Alan, his face recognisable from his All2gethr profile, was a few metres away, dragging a cleaning trolley up to the closed doors of an elevator. Bottles of cleaning fluid jostled next to cloths and refuse sacks on the trolley. He yawned, scratching his head as he pushed the call button. Without warning, the assailant sped towards Alan, camera-view shaking with each stride.

Whack!

The intruder swung his weapon, a heavy baseball bat, into the backs of Alan’s legs. His victim fell to the floor, crying out in agony.

“No! No!” Alan cried, as the attacker stabbed the end of the bat hard into his face, shattering his nose.

Blood gushed from the wound and Alan wiped at it pathetically as the intruder lifted the bat again. His cries were ignored again as his assailant rained heavy blows down on his legs, sharp cracks echoing across the empty corridor.

Alan lay on the floor, writhing in agony, his face stunned and his body contorted. He tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t work. His attacker stomped on his shoulder before shaking an object in his free hand. It rattled loudly. An aerosol can — spray paint. He then bent over Alan and sprayed something across Alan’s chest, before roughly dragging him to his feet and shoving him through an emergency exit door to the side of the elevator doors.

The door smashed open, rebounding off the wall loudly as the attacker frogmarched Alan over to a metal railing atop a stairwell. His legs now broken and useless, Alan tried helplessly to beat at his attacker with his fists as the man behind the camera shoved him against the railing, hard. Alan’s throat emitted a terrified yelping sound as the attacker grabbed his broken legs painfully and flipped him clean over the railing. There was a hideous snapping sound and the attacker peered over the edge of the railing, still filming. The gentle whir of the zoom lens accompanied the cameraman’s sharp breaths as he zoomed in on the motionless form several floors below.

Alan’s body was like a broken doll, legs splayed out either side of him, bent back on themselves in a grotesque mockery of the human form. His smashed and contorted limbs were slowly being engulfed in the growing stain of his blood. The camera whirred again as the killer zoomed in on Alan’s chest — the letters ‘ROFL’ spray-painted there.

The video feed clicked off.

Max sat in brooding silence. Dave wiped a film of sweat from his furrowed brow. Gwen made a little heaving sound from behind her hand — she looked like she might throw up.

“How could they…?” Jo struggled to find the words. “You… sick bastards!”

Grabbing the champagne bucket just in time Gwen wretched and vomited, on the rocks.

“Now I assure you that what you just witnessed is very real. Breach the rules again and I will just kill someone else. It’s time to play the game.”

Dave reached out, trying to comfort Gwen.

“Don’t touch me!” She shrugged off his hand angrily, still clutching onto the ice bucket.

“I was just trying…” Dave’s voice was like an open wound.

“Well don’t. Keep your dirty hands to yourself.”

Jo watched Dave as he retreated to the rear of the aircraft; disturbed by the violence she sensed bubbling just beneath his surface.

Max stood up, pacing the aisle and looking up at the ceiling lights.

“You just killed an innocent man in cold blood for no fucking reason,” he snarled, barely suppressing his anger.

“I disagree,” Alligator replied, as calm and matter-of-fact as ever, “You implicated your friend when you broke the rules. And I will kill plenty more ‘innocent’ people if you don’t follow them — to the letter.”

His green face grinned from the monitors. “Thank you for your kind co-operation.”

Alligator’s words hung heavy in the air as the computer displays blinked off again.

Jo took a napkin from the bar and handed it to Gwen who took it and wiped bile from her mouth. Turning to face Dave, Jo narrowed her eyes angrily.

“So you think that was faked too?”

Dave shook his head, eyes vacant. “I don’t know what to believe anymore…”

Jo approached Max, who was glancing around the cabin with an expression of pure paranoia.

“Why are they doing this… to us?” she asked. “What’s going on here?”

Max shook his head, taking deep breaths and drowning his anger in recycled oxygen. He glanced over Jo’s shoulder at the others. Gwen looked dreadful, her face pale and drawn after her ablutions. Dave seemed more on edge than ever — his clown’s facade had slipped and gone.

“Got to keep our heads…” Max whispered.

Jo nodded her silent agreement.

Blink, blink, flash.

Something beyond the darkened porthole window nearest Max caught her eye.

Jo moved toward the glass, zombie-like and numb, peering outside. Her quick breath fogged the window. Through the haze she saw distant lights, glittering in the dark beyond the clouds.

“We’re close to land,” she realised.

“What?!” Max turned sharply.

Dave and Gwen moved to the window nearest them, on the same side of the plane as Jo, peering out, curious.

“We should be over the Atlantic now. But we’re not. Look — there’s land, over there.”

“What does that mean?” Gwen asked.

Max answered. “Whatever our destination is…”

“It’s not New York,” Jo finished.

“So where are we going then?” Dave asked. “Jesus.”

They all looked to one another, mortal fear in their eyes. Alligator’s games had diverted all their focus onto the victims of their forfeits. It hadn’t occurred to them that they themselves might be in danger aboard the jet — until now.

Max turned and looked at the flat panel TV screen on the wall at the front of the plane. Maybe, just maybe, he thought. The thing had been inactive for the duration of the flight so far. He approached the screen, tapping the power button a couple of times. Dead, totally dead — yes, maybe.

His fingertips found the groove behind the screen’s casing. He pressed with his fingers, working them down into the gap, and pulled. The wall bracket moved, only a centimetre or two, but enough for him to get a purchase on it. He twisted and pulled with all his might, wrenching the bracket back out of the cavity wall. The screen tipped forward into his arms, heavy all of a sudden, and he crouched, dropping it to the floor.

Gwen looked horrified. “Don’t! You’ll piss Alligator off and he’ll…”

But Max was intent on his newfound task. “No power cable,” he said, excitement in his voice as he checked both the hole in the wall and the cable ports in the back of the TV.

“What are you doing?” Dave asked.

“This screen should show our flight path, ETA, weather systems, all that stuff…”

His eyes, sharpened with purpose, darted around the cabin and settled on Dave’s touch screen.

“The lead,” Max said.

Dave looked dumbfounded.

“Disconnect the lead,” Max clarified. “Pass it to me!”

Dave disconnected the power lead from the back of his screen and tried to hand it Max. It didn’t quite reach.

“I said don’t! You shouldn’t be doing this,” Gwen said, her voice laden with dread.

Ignoring her pleas, Max wrested the monitor from its bracket and dragged it across the floor, closer to the power cable. Still a couple of inches too far.

Dave yanked at the cable, snapping it away from its wall housing, pulling with all his might until he could plug it into the monitor. The screen fizzed into life, the Deppart Airlines logo appearing briefly before dissolving to a computer-generated map display.

“What?” Max said, as a GPS flight path marker appeared over the map, a little pixelated plane showing their position.

“Where the fuck are we?” Dave asked.

“We’re over Denmark,” Jo said.

Max nodded. “According to this we’re bound for Oslo. What the hell is in Oslo?”

Jo cut in. “All2gethr headquarters are in Oslo.”

“Why are they doing this to us?” Gwen asked, lip trembling.

“I don’t think this is All2gethr,” Max said.

“What?” Dave snapped.

“You think a social network is doing this? No, it can’t be them, can’t be.”

“Who is it then?” Dave railed on, “It’s all legit — this trip…”

“You read it in an email did you? It’s got to be legit then hasn’t it!?” Dave’s idiocy was beginning to grate with Max.

“This is their competition — we were contacted through their site, remember.”

“You think a social network is out there killing people? For what reason? Profit margins not high enough so they’ve moved into hit jobs? Snuff videos? No mate, whoever it is, it isn’t All2gethr.”

Dave shook his head in disbelief. Max looked past him at the cockpit door.

“We’ve got to get to that pilot,” Max said.

Dave looked defeated. “I bloody tried, door’s sealed tight.”

“People are dying because we broke the rules.” Gwen was now at the bar, helping herself to some chilled water. “Maybe we should just think about playing along before someone else gets hurt.”

“They can’t wipe out everybody can they? I’ve got over a thousand people on my friend list…”

“Oh, go you, Dave. This isn’t a bloody popularity contest!” Gwen shouted.

“That’s not what I…”

“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats…”

Alligator’s voice interrupted Dave’s protest, the reptilian voice making the speakers rattle.

“It is time for Round Three.”