I woke to white.

  Not hospital white—that dingy yellow-tinged shit—but pure, sterile white. The kind that hurt to look at.

  My head pounded. The chemical taste in my mouth suggested whatever they'd jabbed me with wasn't FDA approved. Probably wasn't even Earth approved.

  I sat up. The bat lay beside me on the floor, dented and scratched but still in one piece. Small victories.

  "HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,982 IS NOW CONSCIOUS."

  The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. I scrambled to my feet, fists up, bat forgotten.

  A screen materialized in front of me. Yellow pixels arranged themselves into a face. A simple face.

  :)

  "What the hell?"

  "GREETINGS, HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,982. I AM ENTITY SLIVER 1,091,844. I WILL BE YOUR ASSIGNED ENTITY LIASON UNIT FOR THE DURATION OF THE MURDER MOON GAMES."

  "The what?"

  :|

  Movement to my left caught my eye. An old woman sat in a wheelchair—ancient, maybe ninety, Southeast Asian, drowning in a floral print dress and blanket. Her hands shook on the armrests. She stared at me with wide, terrified eyes and started speaking rapid-fire in some foreign language. I caught zero words.

  "Hold on—why is there a grandma here?"

  "SHE IS EARTH'S SECOND REPRESENTATIVE."

  "Representative for what?"

  "THE MURDER MOON GAMES. A MANDATED INTERGALACTIC COMPETITION HELD EVERY FIVE EARTH YEARS. ALL SPACE-FARING PLANETS UNDER UNION JURISDICTION MUST PROVIDE TWO PARTICIPANTS."

  The old woman kept talking. Her voice cracked. She gestured at the walls, at me, at the yellow face on the screen.

  "She doesn't understand you."

  "THE MOST POPULAR LANGUAGE WAS CHOSEN FOR EFFICIENCY. TRANSLATION SERVICES WILL BE PROVIDED UPON ARRIVAL AT THE MOON. CURRENT ARRIVAL TIME ESTIMATE: THREE HOURS."

  "Moon? What moon?"

  :)

  "ALPHA CZ1, COLLOQUIALLY KNOWN AS 'THE MURDER MOON'. COMPETITION SITE FOR THE GAMES. PARTICIPANTS FROM ALL UNION SPECIES OWNED PLANETS WILL ENGAGE IN COMBAT UNTIL ONE SPECIES REMAINS. THIS TIME SEVEN SPECIES ARE PARTICIPATING WITH OVER FOUR MILLION PLAYERS."

  Combat. The word landed like a punch.

  "You're saying this is some kind of—what—alien hunger games?"

  "THAT IS A CRUDE BUT FUNCTIONALLY ACCURATE COMPARISON."

  "And you grabbed me for this?"

  "EARTH WAS RECENTLY CONNECTED TO THE FTL TRANSIT NETWORK. ALL NETWORK-CONNECTED PLANETS MUST PARTICIPATE. EARTH FAILED TO VOLUNTEER TWO PLAYERS SO YOU AND HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,983 WERE RANDOMLY SELECTED FROM EARTH'S HUMAN POPULATION."

  I looked at the old woman again. She'd gone quiet, sunken into her wheelchair, lips moving in what might've been prayer.

  "She can't fight. Look at her."

  "PARTICIPATION IS MANDATORY REGARDLESS OF PHYSICAL CAPABILITY."

  "That's insane."

  :|

  "THOSE ARE THE RULES."

  "Then change the rules!"

  "NEGATIVE. I DO NOT POSSESS MODIFICATION AUTHORITY. I AM A SLIVER. I OBSERVE. I BROADCAST. I ENFORCE."

  The walls began to shift, white bleeding into transparent. Beyond them: space. Actual space. Stars and the void and something massive in the distance—a star covered in dozens of massive ring-shaped panels rotating around it, the stars light pulsing between them.

  "What is that?"

  "IT IS A VISUAL OF OUR DESTINATION. WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU EARTH HUMANS CALL A DYSON SPHERE. PRIMARY POWER SOURCE FOR THE MODIFICATION FIELD SURROUNDING ALPHA CZ1."

  "Modification field?"

  "A MEGA-STRUCTURE AROUND THE MOON THAT ALLOWS FOR ALTERATION OF PHYSICAL LAWS WITHIN ITS RANGE. THIS ENABLES GAME MECHANICS LIKE TERRAIN MANIPULATION AND STAT ALLOCATION."

  "Stats? Like a video game?"

  :D

  "CORRECT. UPON ENTRY TO THE MODIFICATION FIELD, YOU WILL SELECT A CLASS AND BEGIN RECEIVING QUANTIFIED ENHANCEMENTS TO STRENGTH, SPEED, DURABILITY, AND SPECIAL ABILITIES. THIS WILL SPEED UP THE GAME AND ALSO INCREASE ENTERTAINMENT VALUE."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The old woman grabbed my arm. Her grip was paper-thin, desperate. She spoke again—pleading, I think.

  "I can't understand her."

  "TRANSLATION SERVICES WILL BE—"

  "Yeah, you said that." I pulled free as gently as possible. "How do we get out of this?"

  :|

  "SURVIVAL. IF YOUR SPECIES WINS, YOU RETURN HOME. IF YOUR SPECIES LOSES, YOU DIE."

  "That's it? Fight or die?"

  "AFFIRMATIVE."

  "Wait… you said species, how many humans are there?"

  "HUMANS OWN 1,365,211 NETWORK CONNECTED PLANETS, THUS THERE WILL BE 2,730,422 HUMAN PLAYERS."

  I blinked. There were other human planets?

  The sphere grew larger in the viewport. Beside it, a smaller object came into focus—metallic, covered in scaffolding and lights, a pockmarked surface barely visible beneath the superstructure.

  "YOUR TRAINER AWAITS YOU. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU REQUIRE BEFORE ARRIVAL?"

  I looked at the bat. At the terrified old woman. At the cold indifference of the yellow face.

  "Yeah. Go to hell."

  :)

  "USER FEEDBACK APPRECIATED. PLEASE RATE YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE UPON COMPETITION CONCLUSION."

  My pulse hammered in my ears. Combat. Death. Four million players. The words ricocheted through my skull like pinballs, refusing to land anywhere that made sense.

  This couldn't be real. Except the viewport showed actual space. The drugs in my system felt real. The old woman's trembling hands looked real.

  Heat crawled up my neck. Another thing yanked from my control—worse than the injury, worse than Dad's silence, worse than ten years of going nowhere. At least those I could blame on myself somewhat.

  This? Pure cosmic middle finger.

  I wanted to swing the bat until something broke. Until the yellow face shattered. Until these walls cracked open and I could walk back to that batting cage and finish the goddamn tryout.

  But I couldn't.

  The old woman had stopped praying. She watched me with watery eyes, waiting. Like I had answers. Like I could fix this.

  Should I play along? Figure out the rules, find an angle? Or bolt—find an escape pod, break down a door, something? Drag her with me somehow?

  Except where would we go? We were in space and she seemed so frail.

  My jaw clenched. I forced my breathing to slow. I had to convince this thing it had to take us back.

  "Listen," I said to the yellow face. "There's been a mistake."

  :|

  "We shouldn't be here. She definitely shouldn't."

  "NEGATIVE. SELECTION WAS RANDOMIZED PER UNION PROTOCOL ARTICLE 47.3. NO MISTAKES OCCURRED."

  "She's elderly. She can barely move."

  "UNION LAW DOES NOT SPECIFY AGE RESTRICTIONS. ARTICLE 12 STATES: 'ALL SENTIENT BEINGS OF PARTICIPATING SPECIES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR SELECTION.'"

  The old woman's breathing quickened. She gripped the wheelchair armrests, knuckles pale against the vinyl.

  "Look at her! She'll die the second we land."

  :)

  "STATISTICALLY PROBABLE. HOWEVER, SURVIVAL RATES ARE NOT A DISQUALIFICATION CRITERION."

  My teeth ground together. "What about me?"

  "I ESTIMATE YOUR SURVIVAL RATE AT 0.016%."

  "Not that you gorified calculator. I mean't the joining the games - I didn't consent to this, any of it!"

  "CONSENT IS NOT REQUIRED. EARTH JOINED THE FTL TRANSIT NETWORK. HUMANS ARE UNION MEMBERS. UNION MEMBERSHIP MANDATES PARTICIPATION IN THE MURDER MOON GAMES. ARTICLE 3.1 IS VERY CLEAR."

  "I didn't join anything!"

  "YOUR SPECIES GOVERNING BODIES ACCEPTED THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS."

  "I don't even know what those are!"

  :|

  "IGNORANCE OF UNION LAW DOES NOT CONSTITUTE EXEMPTION."

  I stepped closer to the screen. "Then take us back. Find two other people, surely some lunatics would be happy to volutneer!"

  "SELECTION IS FINAL. ARTICLE 47.8: ONCE COLLECTED, PARTICIPANTS MAY NOT BE SUBSTITUTED OR REPLACED EXCEPT IN CASES OF PRE-TRANSPORT MORTALITY OF BOTH PARTICIPANTS.'"

  "So if we both died right now—"

  "I WOULD BE REQUIRED TO SELECT NEW PARTICIPANTS FROM EARTH. HOWEVER, I WOULD ALSO BE REQUIRED TO FILE AN INCIDENT REPORT. I DISLIKE PAPERWORK."

  The old woman spoke again, voice rising. She pointed at the viewport, at the approaching moon, at the yellow face. Her hand trembled so badly it looked like she might shake apart, she did not seem well.

  "I think she needs medical attention."

  "MEDICAL SERVICES WILL BE AVAILABLE UPON ENTERING THE MODIFICATION FIELD."

  "She needs it now!"

  "CURRENT RESOURCES ARE ALLOCATED FOR TRANSPORT ONLY. ARTICLE 89 PROHIBITS NON-ESSENTIAL ENERGY EXPENDITURE DURING COLLECTION PHASE."

  "She's a human being!"

  :)

  "CORRECT. SPECIFICALLY, HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,983."

  My hands balled into fists. "You're just going to let her suffer?"

  "I AM GOING TO TRANSPORT HER TO THE MURDER MOON PER MY PROGRAMMED DIRECTIVES. HER COMFORT IS NOT MY DIRECTIVE."

  "That's—"

  "EFFICIENT."

  The bat lay near my feet. I stared at it, metal surface catching the white light. One good swing. Smash the screen. Find whatever CPU ran this bastard and—

  "I WOULD ADVISE AGAINST HOSTILE ACTION, HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,982."

  I felt a chill run down my spine. "You reading my mind now?"

  :|

  "YOUR BODY LANGUAGE INDICATES AGGRESSIVE INTENT. INCREASED HEART RATE. DILATED PUPILS. CLENCHED FISTS. VERY PREDICTABLE."

  "Screw you."

  "USER FEEDBACK NOTED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO ESCALATE THIS COMPLAINT TO MY SUPERVISOR?"

  "Yes!"

  "REQUEST DENIED. I AM THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY ON THIS VESSEL."

  I bent down, wrapped my fingers around the bat's grip. The aluminum felt solid. Real. The only thing in this white nightmare that made sense.

  The old woman's eyes went wide. She shook her head, rapid and desperate.

  "HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,982, I MUST WARN YOU THAT VIOLENCE AGAINST ENTITY PROPERTY WILL RESULT IN DISCIPLINARY—"

  I swung. The bat connected with the screen in a shower of sparks and shattered pixels.

  :o

  The face appeared on a new screen that materialized behind me.

  "WELL. THAT WAS UNNECESSARY."

  Panels opened in the walls. Four robots dropped from the ceiling, identical to the ones from the batting cage. Red scanning beams swept across the room.

  "HOSTILE INTENT CONFIRMED. DEPLOYING ENFORCERS."

  "Call them off!"

  "NEGATIVE. YOU HAVE DAMAGED ENTITY PROPERTY. ARTICLE 156 REQUIRES RESTRAINT OF DANGEROUS PARTICIPANTS."

  The robots advanced. The old woman screamed—high and thin and terrified. She tried to wheel herself backward but the chair's brake was locked.

  "She's not dangerous! Leave her alone!"

  "PROTOCOL REQUIRES SECURING ALL OCCUPANTS DURING ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS."

  Two robots moved toward her. She threw up her hands, still screaming, words I couldn't understand tumbling over each other.

  One robot grabbed the wheelchair. The other reached for her arm.

  She jerked away. Her face went white. Then gray.

  Her hand flew to her chest. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.

  "Stop!" I lunged forward but two robots caught me, one on each arm, lifted me off the ground. "She's having a heart attack!"

  "MEDICAL ASSESSMENT CONFIRMS CARDIAC EVENT IN HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,983."

  The old woman gasped then slumped in the wheelchair. Her head lolled forward.

  "Help her!"

  :|

  "ARTICLE 89 PROHIBITS NON-ESSENTIAL ENERGY—"

  "HELP HER!"

  The robots held me fast. I thrashed but might as well have been fighting concrete.

  The old woman's chest stopped moving.

  "HUMAN PLAYER 1,334,983 HAS EXPIRED. CAUSE: CARDIAC ARREST TRIGGERED BY STRESS RESPONSE TO ENFORCEMENT PROTOCOL."

  "No. No, no, no—"

  "PER ARTICLE 47.8 SINCE THERE IS STILL ONE REMAINING PLAYER, TRANSPORT WILL CONTINUE. I ESTIMATE YOUR ODDS OF SRUVIVAL ARE NOW 0.012%."

  The viewport showed the moon, closer now. Scaffolding and lights and that pockmarked surface that might've been beautiful if an old woman wasn't dead three feet away from me.

  :\

  "ADDITIONALLY, I MUST FILE AN INCIDENT REPORT TO THE ENTITY. AS PREVIOUSLY STATED, I DISLIKE PAPERWORK. YOUR COOPERATION WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS OUTCOME."