Shades of Wolves

Chapter 10: What is the real exam question?

November 11th, 2100.

Those foolish piece of crap are all dead now. But the smart guys are slowly appearing. They still have not wanted to show anyone their true ability just yet.

I figured out what is my duty and what I am supposed to do, but unexpectedly, there was someone who could do it better than me.

I do know a girl in here, smart but good at hiding herself. That girl definitely would go further and further more. And surely, no one would like to be her opponent, not even that blind man.

Nabeya

Malvis's medical team arrived. She also looked around for a bit and then nodded at the person in charge of transporting the corpses. He controlled his robots to put Russel in a white bag, pack it up, and then lift it. Another robot sprayed water to wash the bath of blood on the floor. Not even over ten minutes later, the scene was as new as if nothing had happened.

"Let's take her back to her room!" Malvis put her hand on the Hoa’s shoulder. Mahoney was still lost. Her lips were quivering.

With nothing left to see, everyone left. Sammul passed by the two girls. He happily left a sentence.

"I’ve made a wrong guess then. You didn't die after all"

Hoa looked at the man in black. Turned out he was just joking around for fun, or…. Sammul actually really knew well that someone would die soon. If it's the latter, Sammul must be the most cunning fox here.

…………………..

Hoa led Mahoney to her room. She discarded her friend’s bloody shirt after that. Sitting in the bathtub, Mahoney's body was being washed clean with the warm water. Even so, the terrible feeling when the countless crimson rays of blood shot up on her stayed remained. There was no way this could be erased in any time soon.

“I still remember very well. The eyes of my brother looking at me. He sold his piano skills to get enough money to be able to get me out of that house.”

Mahoney with her lifeless eyes recalled. Hoa sat on the edge of the tub and looked at her in pain. When Mahoney had been 10 years old, her parents had died from the pandemic. The two brothers had been later adopted, but very soon, everything had fallen apart. The rich and famous couple were nothing but pure lascivious demons. They had taken advantages and abused both of the siblings physically and mentally. Xavier had sold WIC his playing skills to get money to take Mahoney away. Unfortunately, it had eventually soon been discovered. The money had been confiscated. Xavier had lost everything. He had not been able to play his classic music anymore. It had been the only thing that had been able to ease the pain in his heart. Suffocating from the broken promise he had made with Mahoney, that stalemate situation led him to commit suicide.

“My brother, before he died, played Liberation. He is like Russel, both angels with broken wings.”

Mahoney closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face. Hoa hugged her. They had known each other for a long time. Hoa understood her best friend's plight. But the influence and power of her foster parents was enormous. In this society, making it through and staying alive after the pandemic was considered the best luck of yours. The wounds in one’s heart? The scars in one’s mind? Did they really matter at all?

"It will be fine"

"Hoa…." Mahoney lowered her head, as if thinking about something for a long time.

"What's up?" Hoa asked.

“If we make it to the next round, would you ever leave me?” Mahoney looked up at her with her innocent eyes.

"Not gonna happen!" Hoa confirmed.

"It's really nice to have you by my side." Mahoney rested her head on her best friend's shoulder. She just hoped that, when she died, she would always keep this memory.

………………

11pm, at the terrace.

Today, besides Russel, there were two more people who did not have enough patience to wait. They also chose the same way to escape, which was suicide.

Now Hoa finally understood the nature of WIC and why so few people sued them after this game. Because simply, while waiting to be granted a new identity, the victim chose a better way to escape - suicide. Hoa had seen many movies, in which, when someone lost their memory. When they woke up, they would be extremely confused and depressed, but very quickly they would gather and pull their life together again. It was thanks to their loved ones who would support them and help them to awake their subconscious. Most importantly, the biggest factor to help them was the care they received at the moment the patient first opened their eyes. It was almost like the golden hour in medical surgery. Once there was an accident occurred, the first amount of time would decide whether the victim would live or die.

But WIC let the losers suffer for quite a long time. It could probably be a few weeks from the time of their memories were stripped down from their mind. Then they had to wait for a few more weeks before getting granted for a new identity. Obviously, this was their intention to push the victim to their edge of the end. Because they knew it very well that only the dead could no longer have their voice anymore.

It seemed like just yesterday. The terrace had nobody but her and Sammul at the moment. But he did light a bonfire, probably to keep himself warm in this weather.

"Is it you?" Sammul seemed to be really in love with fruit beer. He gulped them down like a water pipe. It was strawberry flavor the day before. Today it was blueberry.

Hoa sat down across from him. Then moved her hands to reach out.

“Would you mind giving me a sip?”

Sammul was obviously a little taken aback, but he also put in her hand a bottle of beer he'd only drunk half way through.

“I put poison in it, by the way!” Sammul said in a casual tone of voice. Nobody could tell if he was being serious or just a lame joke.

"It's okay. Someone died before me, so I'm not afraid anymore" Hoa smiled in response. Apparently, this afternoon he was just messing with Mahoney and Hoa.

Hoa’s throat gurgled with the cold beer. They sat in front of the fire, kept their silence for a while, God knew how long. No one said anything during that time. The only thing was making its noise was the cold wind blowing whistle past them.

"Aren't you going to blame me for the murder this time?" Sammul finally spoke up, breaking the cold silence between them.

"I have eyes. They killed themselves!" Hoa looked at the burning fire in front of her eyes, the ashes from it were blown by the wind in a quiet space around them.

"Falcao, I didn’t kill him!"

Hoa remained silent. She was not really sure if Sammul's words were trustworthy at all.

"I wanted to kill him, though. Someone did it for me, on my behalf." Sammul snatched the beer bottle from Hoa's hand. He drank it comfortably.

Hoa looked up. She knew he was going to continue.

"When he entered the cafeteria, that fool Falcao said he wanted to show his power. He wanted to kill someone that night to test WIC's reaction."

“WIC's reaction?”

“He wants to know if WIC would make anyone to take the fall, the responsibility. If not, he will kill more. It’s part of his plan to eliminate his opponents."

Then it's very likely that the prey would be Sammul, who was blind. He would not know who would be the one who take action against him. His resistance was also very weak. Then it was why he was against Falcao in the first place, to protect himself.

“You were right. I purposely sat there to attract him. But when I was about to sneak the pill in, I realized there was someone who wanted to kill him more than me.” Sammul pursed his lips. He talked about killing people as if it was no big deal at all. Hoa began to be curious. She wanted to know what happened in Sammul's life and what brought him here.

"Who is that?"

“You make a guess”

Hoa was diving in her thoughts for a moment. She was not really confident in her theory.

“Is it… Russel?!”

"Fortunately, you have some intelligence left."

Anders was all muscle and physics, but that’s just it. He did not have anything else besides those. Russel, on another hand, was different. He worked at an animal shelter, at least he knew the medicine that served the humane death upon the past saving animals.

“He put the pill in his pocket. Must have faked illness, went into the infirmary and stole it. Probably the first time he killed someone. That’s why he kept touching his pocket, where the weapon was kept."

Sammul must have smelled it, so he had not drugged Falcao as his orginal plan. She was surprised to find out the truth. She could not believe that the person who had committed homicide was Russel. However, it could also be Sammul, who wanted to put all the blame on the dead person. Since the dead had no way to justify.

“You wonder yourself thinking whether you should trust me or not. You’re not sure if I am lying or not, are you?” Sammul leaned forward towards the girl. His dark glasses pressed close to Hoa's face.

"No, I believe you. Since there's no reason for you to be lying to me." Hoa replied. Indeed, it did not really matter if Sammul killed someone. There had been quite a few people died already. Who cared about Falcao anymore?

“So… what about Tajina?”

“You are really curious, aren’t you? But I didn't kill her"

"The murder method is very similar. Isn't it Russel as well?" Doubtful Hoa.

“WIC might be strict with the rules, but as for the poison, they just leave it there and hope that someone to come get it!”

Sammul had pointed out the essence of this game. The more traps you set, the more interesting it got. The more interesting it was, the higher the rating would be.

………………..

Hoa and Sammul were sitting by the fire. The flame got the color of the blood and it was almost the metaphor of this game. It was just so ready to devour its preys and consumed them until they turned into nothing but ash.

Hoa was holding a piece of paper on her hands. It was Russel’s answer paper which had been crumpled yesterday. She carefully glued them together. There was a name box, code number, date and Russel’s confirmed signature.

“Have you ever considered that these 100 questions of WIC aren’t really the game question at all?” Hoa looked at the torn paper in front of her eyes while speaking her thoughts.

This first game was really strange. They were assigned 100 questions. “No internet connection” was the only thing the supervisor guy had said. Nothing was said meant the same with nothing was impossible to be done as long as they did not cross the line. It meant the participants could even exchange the answers or discuss to get the right answers.

“I didn’t even trust those questions from the very first time. Remember what’s the first thing that supervisor said?” Sammul picked up the wooden stick to play with the ash on the ground.

Hoa recalled. After all the greetings, he said ‘your questions are all the same’.

“Right, he said so”

“But it is the truth. They are all the same”

The number of questions were the same, only the orders on each computer was slightly different. Which meant that content of questions was just the same, only the order was not.

“The only difference is the order”

Sammul burst out a laughter.

“Then it’s not the same. If the guy said it’s the same, it’s supposed to be the same”

Sammul looked at Hoa before continuing:

“What is the only common thing among those questions for us all? Think about it. Check it”

Hoa used her memories. She began to recall and to scan all the questions of hers, Sammul’s, and Mahoney’s. The three of them were not on the same line of seat. Then she added Russel’s paper at the final.

“I see it!”

“And what is that?”

“The code. A line of symbol texts and the numbers of T008 ( triangle*)X (triangle*) ”

“There’s still one more thing that you missed”, Sammul added in.

“One more thing? What’s that?” She couldn’t miss anything anymore. She had checked it carefully.

“Even though I am blind, I can still smell lots of things. After telling us the rules, the supervisor did wipe the chalk off the blackboard. I can still sense the chalk’s scent around”.

Hoa tried to replay her memories again. After finished giving people the notice of the rules, he had asked everyone to carefully checked to see if they received enough questions. Then he wiped off the lecture on the board. And finally, he drew a time graph on the clean blackboard. Nobody had given any doubts about it. They simply had all thought that he just had had to wipe off the board since nobody had had done it for him.

If what Sammul said was right, then the question was what they had all seen on the board. That question was the only thing they had in common. It matched with whatever the supervisor had said before, that their question was the same.

“Still remember what it was?” asked Sammul. He’s quite confident on Hoa’s super memory skill.

Hoa closed her eyes. The numbers quickly filled up her memory. It was her natural ability to remembering everything and anything.

“The lecture was maths…”

Her memories which were fading in her brain slowly made its way to float back to her through those closed eyes with the fire around.

“Congruent triangles”