Predator or Prey

I didn't remember ordering anything as I watched the delivery drone fly away. I didn't see which company it belonged to. I thought that I received my recent purchases, right? The new winter coat sat on my shoulders. The Pride and Prejudice series my mom wanted and the new wallet for my dad arrived at their place the week before, just in time for Christmas. The shoes for - for Taylor. I shook my head. Those had long been out of my apartment. Taylor had left in a flurry of tears and anger. It was my fault. I knew it was. I looked for companionship in others. I found myself in the beds of others, and Taylor found me there too.

I refocused on the little box left behind by the drone. About the size of a tissue box, no identifying marks or even a shipping label decorated its sides. Against my better judgment, I brought it inside. Echoes of my mom yelling about strange packages and anthrax bounced in my head as I took scissors to the packing tape.

A simple radio sat in the box, nestled in packing foam and air bags. It almost looked retro, maybe a bit bigger than a baby monitor. I turned it over in my hands. Could it be a bomb? No, bombs needed more material. The radio was too small for that. I couldn’t place what era it resembled. No one detail nailed it down. The dial was set to a random AM station in the middle of the 1400s.

Turning it over in my hands, I accidentally turned it on. I wouldn’t say I jumped, more like I dropped it and ran, once I heard the voice talking through the speaker.

The voice sounded androgynous as it rattled off a set of numbers, took a pause, and started again. The same numbers, over and over again. I recovered my courage and listened more intently to the voice. I couldn’t place why the numbers had some significance so I wrote them down. I stared at them with the radio still talking next to me. I fiddled with the stupid machine until I figured out how to turn it off.

The numbers ran through my mind as I settled in a chair with the radio and the slip of paper with them on it. I don’t know how long I stared at them. They could be telephone numbers, addresses, PO boxes – addresses. I scrambled for an atlas my father insisted I keep. He always said that technology would fail when you least expect it. Carefully, I matched the numbers with longitude and latitude, tracing the graph lines with a ruler to make sure I stayed in the right place. I looked at the map in shock. The coordinates were close to the city, my city. A coincidence I thought. As I homed in on the exact location, familiar street names and landmarks kept my eyes glued to it. The bright red lines from my pen crossed over a wharf in the city. Not far from me.

My heart began to beat faster. What was this thing? Why? Just why? I walked away from the map and the little radio and paced my small apartment. It could be completely benign, a prank. Ha-ha, you won a million dollars or something. Maybe that was it, I told myself. One of those videos where the host “pranks” someone and gives them money after a little scare. I had seen a few videos like that taking place close by. I eventually calmed down and thought more rationally. More than likely the radio was delivered to the wrong address. Those drones couldn’t be trusted entirely.

I decided to go to the wharf the next morning since it was my day off. I took a taxi down to the docks and referenced a smaller hand drawn map I made for myself. Walking along the water eased my mind. I followed my map until I reached a small warehouse. The building looked to be in good repair, which made me feel much more relaxed. Walking around the building I found the entrance to the main office.

Inside, the office felt oddly sparse. The front desk only had a simple sign-in board and calendar. The waiting area seats looked brand new. I cautiously called out, “Hello?” After a minute, I figured I’d leave the radio on the desk with a note. As I placed it on the counter, a young woman stepped out from a room behind the desk. Smartly dressed in a sharp blazer and pencil skirt, she gave me a corporate smile.

“You must be Jamie,” she sounded like a voiceover for an office training video. “Please, step through.” She gestured to a door I assumed went into the warehouse proper. I didn’t know why I listened to her. I couldn’t say why my feet led me to the door. I only knew I was in shock as the door clicked behind me and I was face to face with someone I thought I’d never see again.

My boss. My old boss from three years ago, stood only a few feet away from me behind a glass window, beating it and waving her arms. She couldn’t see or hear me as I called out to her. In my heart, I felt empty. This woman made my life hell. Every day was torture in the office. She belittled me and my coworkers, made us grovel for sick days, forced overtime without compensation, and – and did more inappropriate things to me and another coworker. HR didn’t believe me in the exit interview about the harassment. Supposedly it “didn’t happen that way.” I didn’t know if they were covering their asses or truthfully didn’t believe she was doing those things.

“Ah Jamie, we were expecting you,” a deep voice came from a shadowy corner of the room. A man in a business suit, almost non-descript, stepped into the light. “You have been granted an opportunity. My employers do hope you will participate.”

“What opportunity,” my voice shook as the obvious panic of my boss infected me as well.

The man waved a hand towards her and said, “We specialize in acquisition and closure as well as other activities, but these two involve you specifically.” He crossed the room to the window and flicked a switch. The window seemed to clear, and my boss saw me. Her face dropped immediately. The panic gone and replaced with pure terror; she began to scream loud enough for me to hear through the thick walls.

“The question is simple. Predator or prey?”

“I don’t under…”

“Predator or prey,” he asked louder and more firmly.

“Predator,” I blurted out. He nodded and hit another switch. I couldn’t see my boss anymore, but now a collection of weapons sat off to the side within view. He escorted me over to them.

“Have you used a firearm before,” his question was professional. I shook my head. “Not a problem. We have more physical armaments that are easy to use.” He motioned to a set of swords, spears, and a myriad of other bladed and blunt instruments. I stared at them all in shock. He selected a small firearm, a handgun, along with a spear and handed them to me.

“The pistol has twelve rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. If you wish to reload, please let us know, and we will supply you with a new one. I would recommend looking down the sight for shooting. Take a deep breath and then fire. Do you have any questions?”

I shook my head and accepted the weapons. He led me to another door and motioned me through it. I turned to him and stared. “You have as long as you’d like,” he said and closed it leaving me in whatever strange world I’d been thrown into. I turned and surveyed the room.

A massive labyrinth of cubicles spread out before me. I stood on a catwalk above it all. The facsimile of my old office seemed almost normal compared to what I experienced only moments prior. I saw a flit of movement down below. My boss ran between desks and conference areas like a scared rat. She desperately tried every door but to no avail. It all clicked then. The torture she put me through, the small touches that turned into groping, the evil grins as she lorded over me. She used to be the one hunting others, but now it was my turn.

I held the pistol in my right hand, spear in my left, and looked for a way down to the maze. I entered a cubicle and fired a shot into the walls ahead of me. I didn’t expect to hit anything, but the scream to the left of me drew me closer to my quarry. It didn’t take long to find her scrambling to open a door. I took a shot at her but missed. She ran into the maze as more bullets followed her path. As the man had told me, a new pistol with more ammo was handed to me through a door by an attendant.

The chase lasted only a few minutes. My boss tired quickly. She wasn’t as fit as she had once claimed she was. I found her gasping for air in the corner of a cubicle. I held the pistol up and aimed it at her, remembering what the man had taught me. “Please,” she begged, but I couldn’t hear her through the raging memories. The times she told me that she would promote me if I did things to her. The things she did to me, to Sam. Neither of us deserved that kind of torture. My fury only grew in my chest as I held the gun to her. She wept as if she knew my choice.

After a few moments of rage, I unloaded the magazine away from her and rammed the spear next to her leg. “You have no power over me anymore. You are nothing but a horrid memory. An old hag,” I spat at her. Her sobs quieted as she curled into herself, and I walked away.

I didn’t remember what happened after that. All thought faded to utter darkness, and I awoke in a dark room. I stood and felt my way around the room. Painted drywall met my fingertips, but then cold glass. My heart sank. No, no, no, no, no.

A light turned on the other side, and I saw Taylor. Perfect Taylor. The Taylor I betrayed and left heartbroken in foreign city with no friends or family. No, no, no, NO, NO, NO. The same man walked to the window and gestured to me, and faintly I could hear him ask.

“Predator or prey?”