Survival Of The Fittest

One step; two; three. One breath; two; three.

There was no turning back. He was about to cross the point of no return.

S061: ALEXANDER HAWTHORNE — CONTINUED FROM "Subtraction"

The air on the island was calm, without even a faint trace of storm clouds or snowflakes, but the atmosphere was anything but. A dark, overbearing tension hung in the ambiance, a dryness enough to make each breath of air feel like swallowing knives. Alexander could feel the electricity in his bones. Outside of the pulsing pain, the way the lead burned into his skin, and the stinging that came with every breath, he felt it, felt it above all else, and made those other sensations feel like absolutely nothing at all.

He took a step. He took a breath.

He held a long, brutal metal rod in his hands, clasped tightly in his spiderlike fingers as if letting go of it were a death sentence in its own right. Earlier, he had taken apart one of the many shelving units that dotted the island's facilities and disassembled it with the same care and caution that a scientist might go about splitting an atom. It had not left his hands since he had first taken it. Since then, he had used it as a cane to traverse the island more easily in his newfound woundedness.

He took a step. He took a breath.

That was not its sole purpose. Alexander had a plan; this rod was the keystone, the centerpiece by which it would operate. It was, by all means, a longshot—but, at this point, in this place, there were no such things as guarantees. It had come to an end—where there was no option but to press onward, to throw down your gauntlet, to throw down the dice and see the result that would come as they fell—and he could only hope, in his heart and his head, that this would, against all the odds, work.

He craned his head upward and turned it, narrowed, half-hazed eyes shifting back and forth across the locale. He had ventured to the island's central township, where the original inhabitants had housed themselves. However, that fact, on its own, was not what had drawn him here. It was the fact that, across the entirety of the island, this was one of two places he could still cross to reach the ocean; most of them were now Danger Zones, but not here, not this place—an oversight he would use.

In the distance, he could see the water, sparkling, frigid, bits of ice forming on its surface where it met the concrete. He moved towards it, tiny drops of blood forming in his wake, one step at a time, one breath at a time. And, even though death was closing in on him, Alexander felt unstoppable, as if nothing could touch him anymore. He felt liberated, even though, as of yet, his liberation had not come. And Alexander drew closer towards the steps that led into the water and then took the first.

Alexander did not care if he died. From the moment he had first awoken on the island, he had considered it a possibility; such was his mindset that death was a fact of life and would come when it wished. But, back then, Alexander intended to find an alternative to the game for a separate reason. Because otherwise, there was no path in which he and Valentin could maintain their existences. He would have gladly traded his own for Valentin's if it had come down to it. They took that option from him.

Perhaps he would have gone along with their game if the circumstances had gone differently; maybe he would have killed for himself and Valentin. But those were what-ifs. His death had broken Alexander, but it broke him to the point that he did not care about what happened to himself. Alexander was a creature of spite and anger, and if he died, he died. He did not care. He lived only insofar as he did so he could still exact his calculated vengeance upon those who had done this to all of them.

Alexander wanted to shatter this game like it shattered him, to smash it into pieces and put them back together in his image. He wanted to prove—to the terrorists who had thought themselves so clever, to his classmates who had never believed in them, who had turned on one another so readily, to the whole world outside of this island—that he was right all along. To prove that this game—this terrible, terrible, terrible game—could be won, not on their terms, but on his terms, and his alone.

Perhaps it was a form of madness. But there was a method in it.

Ludwig Boltzmann, physicist, philosopher, and founder of statistical mathematics, died by his hand in 1906, aged 62; carrying on his work, Paul Ehrenfest did the same in 1933, aged 53. Évariste Galois died in 1832 of his wounds after a duel with an unknown assailant for reasons lost to time, aged 20. André Bloch murdered his entire family in 1917, aged 24, and continued his work at the Charenton lunatic asylum until his death. Kurt Gödel, aged 71, starved himself to death for fear of being poisoned.

Alexander Hawthorne, in the year 2021, aged 18, was about to cross the Rubicon, entering the pantheon of mathematicians who had lost their minds.

He devised a theory regarding the collars around their necks, the Swords of Damocles, that kept them all in line. It was a matter of the most basic deduction. They had to close; thus, they also had to open. That meant that the collar must have a locking mechanism; this also meant that it must have a clasp, hinges, and rivets. All of these things were logical extensions of facts about the collar. If there was a locking mechanism, that very mechanism was a possible vector of attack against itself.

He had spent so long thinking about how to turn off the collars from a mechanical and electronic perspective—how to render them nonfunctional—that he had overlooked the most basic possibility: simply removing them first. Thinking more, he imagined that was how the terrorists would want their captives to approach the collars. This area would likely have seen the most scrutiny thus far, giving the captors more valuable information and opportunities to refine their mechanisms further.

They had created an operant conditioning chamber—a Skinner box; Alexander was the rat in a cage. And they wanted him to press the lever.

Effectively, to draw from the above, they had given the students a heavily guarded door—the collar's actual mechanisms and electronics—and they had repeatedly dashed themselves against the rocks in an attempt to slip by. He intended to reject that framing and to strike against an area that was less considered. If he had, in his single-minded focus, overlooked such a thing, was it not also possible that the terrorists had themselves forgotten the possibility—neglected it as a valid plan of attack?

That was where the metal rod would come into play. Alexander's method of choice was to use a lever (the metal rod) to create torque—twisting force—and build amounts of pressure within the collar, the ultimate goal being to pop open the collar's rivets and clasps from the inside out, opening the collar without any risk posed from the internal systems. This plan would, in his estimation, result in a scenario in which the collar "unlocks," its clasps and rivets unraveling in such a way that the collar unclamped itself from his neck in such a way that it can be quickly, cleanly, and safely removed; this should not result in any detonation from the collar except for one done manually after-the-fact as a means of damage control. It may mangle his hands as he removes it, but he did not care; his hands were an acceptable sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. It was a plan that was, at a glance, utter madness—but could it be mad enough to work? He had to bet on it. There was no alternative left for him to find.

It was simple. It was beyond simple, an entire life hinging on an equation:


Of course, he was not foolish; he had a contingency if his initial theory was incorrect. He intended to dive deep underwater. If something were to go wrong—and the collar, instead of opening directly (popping itself open from the pressure build up inside it), was cleaved through by the rod—the device would become flooded with seawater. That seawater would cause the battery to discharge more quickly, and the current would break down the salt by electrolysis, producing hydrogen and chlorine gas. After that, all the metal components, including the connectors, would rapidly corrode, rendering the device nonfunctional, a second chance reaction:


Alexander was not out-thinking the parameters set forth by the terrorists; he was thinking entirely outside of those parameters.

"I am not afraid anymore," Alexander declared as he stepped further into the screaming sea, restrained anger in how he spoke, bleeding and seeping into each word like acid dripping from his teeth, iron on his tongue, mettle in his voice. "Because now, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—left in this life for me to be afraid of; there is nothing left for me to lose. The only thing I have left in this world is my hatred—my hatred of you."

Lurching forward, he stepped forward again—once, twice, thrice—and let himself plunge into the ocean. The cold water stung him down to the bones. With a gasp, he felt his mouth fill with water, bubbles streaming from the corners of his lips. Then, as quickly as he could, he slid the metal rod into place, between his neck and the collar, and he rotated it into position; one end above one side of the collar, one back below the other. Then, with all the taut strength he could muster, he gripped each end with the opposite hand and pulled them, exerting pressure onto the collar.

After some effort, a clasp on the collar is forced open. A second later, the collar emits a shrill beep and then detonates. The blast's shockwave, amplified by the water, ruptures Alexander's eardrums and rips through his hands and flesh, shredding the veins and arteries of his forearms.

The entire plan was, from the start, structured as a scientific inquiry, a construction of methods by man. Alexander viewed the world through the lens of objective fact, a universe of numbers and realities coming in the form of atoms, molecules, and particles. So he had continued to think as he operated his plan, life staked on the physics he learned, hard truths and certainties running up against the cold indifference of the unknown.


The primary thing he had wondered, at first—the first stage of the process—what he struggled to wrap his head around was the following: how does one make the collar cease to function? He racked his mind, thought, thought, felt, running that question repeatedly, tossing and turning it around in his head, bouncing in his skull like the screensaver on television, wondering, trying to unravel the mysteries of their deaths.


The answer he came to was simple.

There was no way to turn off the collar; if there was, that method was too obtuse, complex, or conditional to be of value. Thus, there was no reason to look at that angle, a dead-end perspective, like viewing the world from the eyes of the corpses before them. But he knew, somewhere out there, there was an answer, deep within the spilled blood and shattered bone: a long-shot solution, a bullet of light to pierce the veil over their eyes.

There had to be a way.


There was a way out.

But not one rooted in complexity. Something simple—something relatively uncomplicated, so bare that even the most unextraordinary layperson could figure it out alone—so simple that it existed beneath the radar, imperceptible, a solution too thoughtless to be accounted for, an invisible key. All he had to do—his path to freedom—was find it, to feel around its contours in the dark, grasping for the truth like a long-lost object.

And, with enough thought, he did.

Torque was a relatively easy concept to understand. It was basic, it was banal, it was brutish. It was an uncomplicated, unintelligent, unthinking force, a child's notion. And, in his mind, in all his thoughts, ideas, and concepts, it was the perfect storm, something so simple that nobody would have thought to try it; it was the out-of-the-box solution, a one-size-fits-all solution to any problem, applying pressure like a skeleton key.


Everything went on the line. Everything was at stake.

Alexander twisted and pulled at the metal rod, feeling the pressure around his neck as it slowly turned, the chill of the water stinging him, its choppiness beating like a hammer taken to his slender form. He gritted his teeth so hard that they felt like they might shatter like glass, ground them down. He bit his tongue, focusing the pain on one area so that he might ignore it elsewhere, like squeezing a railing as you receive a doctor's shot.

He tightened the rod for a minute, feeling the muscles go taut in his arms, refusing to let the pressure go. And he felt the torque build around his neck, felt the metal buckle, heard the screech of metal against metal as it roared angrily, nearing its breaking point. He kept going. He pressed harder, harder, harder, feeling the metal start to bend, the rivets shaking in their holds, and the horrid wrenching of the steel as he twisted it.

And then there was a little click.


And, suddenly, all of the pressure was gone; just like that, the collar had popped open, just as he had predicted, the clasp opening like a handcuff around his neck as it began to float there. His eyes went wide, almost disbelieving of the sight before him, and he gasped, feeling the salt water down his throat, feeling the bubbles as they flew from his mouth. He remained there, submerged and still and silent, for just a second.

And then there was a beep, shrill, its sound cutting through the water like a gunshot through the air. There was a muffled bang, quieter than he expected, and a flash of light as Alexander's head was pushed suddenly backward, his head slamming hard on the concrete wall behind him. For a moment, he felt nothing, but then, a pain shot through him, the pressure wave sending shocks throughout his skin like an explosion inside him.

The water around him became violent, and the choppiness became more apparent, fizzing as if carbonated, pushing him backward with a sudden, crushing wave. His eardrums burst like busted-open taikos, hearing gone, reduced to silent ringing; his hands and arms began to unravel, tearing at the veins like seams pulled open from a textile, blood pouring out of him like dye, fragments of skin and muscle and bone opening up across the ruins of his arm like the blooming petals of a flower growing in concrete.

He screamed—screamed in rage, screamed in agony—his deaf cries drowned by the water as it rushed into his crushed lungs, unable to be heard even by himself. The pain burst throughout his body, every nerve alight with electric signals, the knife-like hurt, almost like a neutron star detonating inside him. It felt like his whole body was turning itself inside out, veins tearing themselves into confetti ribbons in the ocean.

And then, just like that, any picture of him from the cameras above the water was gone, drowned beneath a surging ocean of frothing red.

A moment later, Alexander tore himself from the sea, up out of the water like the first creature as it emerged from the primordial ooze. His ears trickled with blood and endolymph and perilymph, burst from the myringas to the membranous labyrinths. He spat red water from his broken, punched-in lungs, visual on his sunken chest. His erratic, mangled fingers, like the crushed legs of a spider, trailed out from the wreckage he called his arms, blood pouring from them like a crimson waterfall.

And, in his hands, he cradled the broken shell of the collar.

It was still in one piece, but only just; the center-front part of it existed only as a spooling thread of metal holding each side together, its shell battered and broken by the detonation, many of the pieces embedding themselves in his arms like unwanted piercings. The clasp was there, undamaged but undone, hanging open and limp. The collar's guts spilled out in mangled twists of wires and cords. He dropped it onto the ground.

It hit the concrete with a clang and was left to drown in a pool of blood.

And he smiled.

For what felt like the first time in so long, Alexander smiled. He grinned wide, breathless, running his fractured, blood-soaked hands through his hair below the knit cap. A broken laugh followed, half in disbelief as if still unable to believe this was real. He had done it. Despite everything—against every odd and expectation—he had done it. He had beaten them, beaten their game, defied them, to the end, like he had planned.

He was right.

He had always been right.

For a moment, he just laughed, a tired edge in his voice, as he looked up at the sky, amazed by its blueness. And he just mouthed silently, 'I did it,' 'I did it,' 'I did it.' Then, with conviction in his broken voice, he shouted it. "I did it!" to the sky as if someone up there wanted desperately to hear it. The blood still poured from him, and the pain burned, but it was immaterial as far as he was concerned, not further from his mind.

Alexander was under no illusion, no delusion; this was a short-lived victory.

Soon, he would be dead; he knew that. But he would die on his terms, not their captors', not his peers'; at his own hands, not by anyone else's. He had proven everyone wrong. The captors, his classmates, the very world, all would be forced to admit that they were wrong in their assumptions, that Alexander and Valentin were right, that there was another way out besides violence, they could resist the game and still come out on top.

"Valentin," he thought, taking a painful step forward, unable to muster his breath, "I did it, Valentin. We did it." And for a moment, Alexander held his arms tight to the extra layer he wore as if Valentin was there, buried his eyes in his lids. "We are not victims of this game; the game is a victim of us. We proved our theories beyond a shadow of a doubt." He laughed again. "If you were here, Valentin, I think you would be so proud of us."

With a lurch, he dragged his broken, shattered form toward one of the houses, blood trailing behind him like the red carpet for him. And once he was there, he took his maimed right hand, balled it up, and wrote his manifesto on the white suburban façade, his fist like a paintbrush, the house his canvas. One motion became two, three, four, more as he penned his last message and gazed proudly upon his work.


IN HONOR OF VALENTIN SHULGIN:

TORQUE REMOVES THE COLLAR; CHECK THE GROUND NEAR THE WATER.

— ALEXANDER HAWTHORNE


Then, he took another step and, smiling the whole time, moved towards the house's four-paneled window, its panes smashed in, and hooked his right arm through the upper-left corner of it. As he felt himself fade for good, he thought back to his father and Valentin, and he knew, knew, knew, with a certainty in his heart, that they were both looking down on him, beaming with pride. And he knew their captors were watching through the cameras, pulling out hair, wondering where it went wrong.

And a few minutes later, he died there, still standing, as if to, even in death, defy them.

S061: ALEXANDER HAWTHORNE — DECEASED
24 STUDENTS REMAIN