The voice came back at once, as if silence itself had been a mere technical issue.
"One more contestant was terminated today. We confirm, Racer."
A beat.
"She went out doing what she loved. Twenty-nine competitors remain."
Proxy kept looking at the ceiling, which was, in a sense, a safer direction than the alternatives.
"Now. A special announcement, and we do mean special. The contestants in the Presidential Suite of the Luxury Resort are asked to pay particular attention. Everyone else is also asked to pay particular attention, for reasons that will become obvious."
Nyx tilted her head a fraction. She was still perched on the bar stool, wrapped in the towel. Her damp hair lay across her shoulders, and the fresh bandaging on her forearm was bright enough to look almost accusatory.
"Proxy. Nyx. You've been busy."
The host's voice did not alter its tone when it said their names. Just warm, the tone someone used when speaking to a camera they knew was already loving them.
"Three eliminations in two days. We've reviewed the footage, as has our audience, which has grown considerably since yesterday evening. The breakdown, for those keeping score."
"Proxy - zero direct eliminations, one creative infrastructure incident, and a very interesting conversation at a cargo crate. Nyx - three. All of them thorough."
A pause.
"The audience has ratings about this dynamic. Those ratings are, on balance, extremely positive."
"Flattering," Proxy said.
"The numbers tell us that our viewers have selected their favorites. That is, of course, their prerogative. It is also, as of this moment, an actionable preference."
The warmth never left the voice. That was what made it unsettling, if one bothered to be unsettled by voices.
"We've decided to share you with the rest of the field."
"Of course," Proxy said.
"Your location will be broadcast to all remaining contestants every four hours. The schedule begins now."
Another pause, shorter and more exact.
"Presidential Suite. Top floor. Luxury Resort. You have excellent taste, incidentally. The champagne was a nice touch."
Nyx looked at him.
He did not look back.
"Furthermore. Any contestant who successfully eliminates either Proxy or Nyx will receive guaranteed extraction from the island, immediately. Simply a clean exit, full medical, and whatever our legal team has prepared for the occasion."
The voice paused one last time, the sort of pause that existed solely to make the next sentence land with proper cruelty.
"We look forward to seeing how this develops. Good luck out there. We're watching."
The speakers let the suite fall quiet again.
Proxy stayed where he was for a long moment.
He had the camera feeds up in his deck, all of it quiet, all of it moving on a clock that had just been reset by twenty-seven people hearing "Presidential Suite" and "guaranteed extraction" in the same breath.
"I guess this makes us the stars of this show," he said.
Nyx tilted her head, watching him in a way it felt she was less interested about the announcement and more on how Proxy felt about it.
"We should ask for a higher fee. What do you think,"
He exhaled through his nose.
"You sound surprised," she said.
"I sound annoyed. There's a difference."
"Is it? You still look uninterested and lazy."
He looked at her.
She was, he noted, entirely calm. The real sort, which was in some ways worse because it told him exactly how she had processed the announcement and exactly what she had decided it meant.
"Twenty-seven people," he said. "All of them with a free exit if they get through one of us."
"Mm."
"That's not a small number."
"No," she agreed.
"And your response to that is 'mm.'"
She looked at him with her devoted eyes and her damp hair and the patience she reserved for him and apparently no one else.
"I stay with you," she said, simple and direct. "As long as that's true, it doesn't really matter how many come at us."
She tilted her head.
"I'll butcher them all the same."
He looked at her for a moment.
She meant it the way she meant everything she said about him, as an absolute truth.
The three people on the golf course that morning had presumably entertained high expectations about their own odds.
Racer was seven feet under. The swordsman had fled with one arm. The tactical officer had disappeared like a dog tucking its tail.
He was not ignorant of the implications.
"I'll also make sure they suffer a lot," she said, helpfully.
"I gathered."
"For you."
"I know."
"Do you? I want to be clear about that part. Pretty clear. Pristine clear."
"Nyx."
"Yes?"
"Get dressed."
She looked down at herself with mild surprise, as if some earlier version of the situation had convinced her the towel counted as normal clothes and she had not yet been persuaded otherwise.
He turned back to the camera feeds with the economy of a man making a very specific decision about where his attention belonged.
He heard her move.
Heard the oddly tactical efficiency of her going through her clothes, the jacket's replacement from what remained of the supplies, the SMG sling settling, the backpack finding its proper place.
The sounds of her preparing were familiar to him now, almost as familiar as the suite itself.
He ran the cameras one last time.
The building was theirs. The network feeds were clean. The substation was sealed below. The elevator was keyed.
The suite they had turned into a base in the span of a night, the suite she had named in her head in the elevator on the way up, the suite that had been their address to the whole island for approximately a few minutes.
It was quiet, warm, lit by dust and an empty champagne bottle and the jammer unit against the wall they could not take with them. Least he could hide it here and maybe use later.
"Ready," she said.
He turned.
She was fully armed and fully herself, the SMG at her side, two fingers already catching the fabric of his sleeve before he had even taken a step.
"We will need to keep moving. Until those mad corpos are done with this game."
She nodded once.
She did not need to say that this was fine with her as long as they were moving together. She also did not need to say it could be also until she killed every other contestant.
It was already said in the grip on his sleeve, in the position she took at his left side without thinking, in the warmth she had about what happened to anything that got between her and where he was going.
He called the elevator through the deck.