The Change: Episode one Read online

  Who's ready to play? Are ya? Are ya really?

  Dear Reader,

  If you are new to my work, you should know that I try very hard to swing away from what everyone else is doing. I prefer original, surprise ideas and scenes, not seen before. (Pun intended.) Some of those will be violent or mature in nature, I promise.

  This second edition has new content (more than 300 pages worth!) and professional edits. I do not suggest readers younger than 18 be allowed access to it.

  Now that we’ve gotten to know each other a bit, please allow me to take you on a trip through a world none of us has ever known. Try to imagine…

  500 Years into the future, nine of every ten babies conceived are female. Men have been enslaved for their own protection and the only way to get a mate is to enter the Network Games and fight for one. The catch? It's a live battle to the death and the competition is fierce.

  Who's ready to play? Are ya? Are ya really?

  Watch Trailer

  *Flipping to the back for a 2 page outline of the rules of the game is recommended, but not necessary.

  The Bachelor Battles

  Episode One

  The Change

  By Angela White

  Edited by Kim Fillmore, Sharon K. Maybrier

  Smashwords Edition

  Angela White © 2011

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  Standard Copyright laws apply.

  Made in the United States.

  Table of Contents

  The Network

  Luck of the Draw

  The Games We Play

  Deadly Living

  Win Some, Lose Some

  A Loving Owner

  Waves of Change

  Crimson Control

  Recovery Zone

  Network Run

  The First of Forever

  Deceptive Depths

  Tracker…sss

  Untrained

  All the Walls

  Rebel Charm

  Network Rider

  Kudzu Karma

  Inside Information

  There are Ways…

  Falling Hard

  Turning Tides

  Notes

  Extras

  Let’s meet the Players...

  “…Candice Marie Pruett. At barely 18, this intimidating Bounty Hunter resides in the Recovery Zones of Ohio and has a long record of excessive force. Recently fined over one million UDs for injury to a family member, this brutal Changeling only wants one thing. To get back what was stolen from her. Rank at the start of competition: 5/10.

  “The Blonde Bombshell. As reigning champion, this scarlet-wearing Dock Worker is heavily favored to repeat her string of vicious victories and claim a second Bachelor. Trying to earn the title of Head Defender by winning all the Games, she starts the competition ranked 1/10.

  “The Ex-Defender. Fresh from losing fugitives in the deserts of Nebraska, this former Network guard seeks to make amends by winning and donating her prize to charity. Baker, the dangerous, untrained male she allowed to escape, is still missing. It has lowered her rankings on day one to 7/10.

  “And their prize: A choice…

  “Daniel is a 20-year-old Bachelor with excellent relief skills and no memory of his life before being sold to the Network. Calm and unaggressive, he has been trained to be the perfect, harmless mate, and now hopes for a loving owner to take him home.

  “Or…

  “One of the eight other eligible bachelors sharing his quarters. They are lot #21198.

  “Who's ready to play? Are ya? Are ya really?”

  Chapter One

  512AW (After War)

  1

  What if… the male population was going extinct, and behind them, women, the world?

  That was the reason the Network had given for the laws that decreed all men must have an owner, someone to be responsible for their care. Enslavement was the only way to protect our species, they’d insisted… and we listened.

  After the nuclear war, when the population fell below seven million world-wide, the birth rate slowly recovered to half of the pre-war averages, but less than 5% of those were male. The fallout damaged reproductive systems, making girls by the hundreds for every boy born, and those rare few were weaker, more susceptible to the toxins still in the air and ground. In small, scattered clans of survivors, this was more proof that by ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’, God had meant women.

  Within decades, the number of men had dropped drastically, and there were new wars, where whole towns of survivors killed each other for their sons. Huge groups decimated the smaller clans, absorbing the useful and disposing of the rest. Cities that had begun to rebuild, fell again to unchecked violence as the remaining scientists confirmed the fears. Unless something was done, the human population was likely to die out within just two centuries.

  That’s when the Network took over.

  It must have been horrifying at first, for all those who’d gone without contact for so long, to suddenly hear life coming from the devices that still worked. Had they thought maybe it was all over, and for good this time? When the radio station blared to life on July 4th, 085 AW, it was with anthems for all the nations. Played over and over, it was a call that people answered. When the words finally came, the first signs of a civilization about to try again… they were spoken by a woman.

  Within ten years, the radio station had drawn nearly five thousand refugees from all corners of the planet and returned New York to some of its former glory. Renamed New Network City in 099AW, it became the first beacon of light in the darkness that hung over the new world. In 114AW, the United States was renamed New America, but there was little new about a world cursed by ghosts of the past.

  Now, five hundred years after the nuclear sabotage that had destroyed our planet, the country had been split into three parts. Directly in the middle was an unknown area called the Borderlands, where the Wild West had returned in a new version of hell. The sides of New America were each controlled by a division of the Network, though the West Coast outpost was as foreign to most as those mysterious Borderlands. People from the west preferred to stay there, but it was hard to imagine them attempting the four-month trek anyway, considering the odds of death along the way. Few places beyond New Network City were livable… and those in charge liked it that way.

  The Network hid from their subjects, ruling through cameras and audio devices. No one really knew who was on the Council, only that it had ten members. There are no records or photos. From our history books, it seems no one cared. Rules, laws, and the foundations of a society that had existed solely inside the debris-laden walls of the Network City districts, had spread around the globe and been duplicated by other lands, other leaders. It was easy to see why it succeeded.

  The Network was strict. More so than any of the previous democracies on American soil… but really, it wasn’t that, even from the beginning. They imposed the bans and the punishments, and we obeyed, even though the War of 2012 had been caused by the very same indifference. Why would we consent to it starting again? Didn’t the death of billions teach us anything? There could have been a world of hope, remade from the ashes of the pain. Instead… we got the Games.

  History books tell our female children that the Games came about because there were no jails for criminals. This is supported by the first ten years rolling by using all convicted criminals as the contestants. Mates hadn’t been the prize - just the return of their lives if they were the last one standing. All those who fought and died in the first decade, were men.

  That’s the part that has kept the rebels fighting. If those in charge were genuinely trying to protect the population by enslaving the men, why kill them? T
hey could have been set up as donors. Instead, the Network declared pregnancy to be illegal without a breeding pass, further cutting the number of male births. To the rebels, it seemed that the Network was intentionally letting the male population be wiped out.

  The rebels managed to come near to their goal of overthrowing the Network a number of times in those first 50 years, never bending on their demand for freedom. They were, of course, were mostly male and were hunted for large bounties. Their determination drew women to their cause, however, and by the year 112AW, the Network was in real danger of losing control. Few believed the stories of protecting the males anymore; it was too lucrative for the Network, and was being done too openly for the people to accept. Men had been picked up for the smallest transgression and thrown into death-battles as their wives and daughters watched in helpless fury. It might have gone on that way forever if not for the Change.

  During the War, different chemicals were released, some natural, most not. These toxins not only caused the women to bear only female children… it also Changed them.

  The first known cases came from a small pirate island in the south whose entire population was decimated by a mysterious illness that slowly transformed the residents into insane lunatics with a taste for blood. They called it Rage Walkers disease when it migrated to New Network lands in 148AW. By then, it had not only mutated, but had begun to appear in the offspring. No one was immune, and if not for the continued mutations, humankind would have been wiped out.

  By the year 175AW, rather than driving the person straight into insanity, the disease had slowed. It became common to see someone suffer with it for years instead of months. After a while, it became like other incurable illnesses. Avoided and forgotten about… for a while.

  The post-disease birthrates hadn’t changed from that horribly low number of 5% male, and another, more dangerous pattern began to emerge. These rage-walker children were violent. Three years after the first one entered kindergarten, there was a decree in place for all infected children to be homeschooled to protect the rest. When it became clear that over half the population that had survived the first wave of the disease was infected, the Network took drastic measures.

  Realizing their population was about to become highly aggressive, the Network began cracking down, forcing people to swear loyalty and work for them. For more than a hundred and fifty years, they’d been providing everything for their people, and now, they began using them to gather what was needed to keep the city going while they worked on a dome. And the Games kept rolling. Only now, it was all women in the matches, as the children grew up the Network had to do something with them.

  By the year 199AW, a good portion of the Eastern lands had been cleared and returned to use, providing homes and farms that the Network controlled ruthlessly. It became almost impossible to get a breeding pass, and the impotent fury behind the eyes of those females may have driven the Network’s next choice. They began to allow innocent citizens to enter the Games. If they won, they would have riches and power. If they lost, it was one less violent person on the streets… and it was incredibly popular.

  Everyone was tired of living in the dark, and the Games were vivid, brutal, attention-keeping entertainment. The year the first ‘good’ female won it, she asked for what all of the population wanted – a mate and a family. In that moment, the Network seized an opportunity. They already owned most of the healthy males on New American soil and charged outrageous prices and demands for the purchase or use of one. When that bloody blonde asked for a mate, the Network changed the rules. From the next Game on, the prize was a man. After that, they could pass any law they wanted…

  …Because the rage disease was still mutating. Over the generations, it had stopped killing its host, but inflicted them with so much torment that they wished for death. Many of those first women to go through it killed themselves just to be free of the pain. It hurt on the inside, burnt and stabbed, and jabbed at their control until only the sight of blood would pacify it. And, for some reason the scientists couldn’t even guess about, a mate was the only cure.

  Once contact with a male was made, it sent the disease into remission for a while. It might be minutes, it might be days, but eventually, it eased enough to let the person lead a normal life, free of the blinding rages and the need to see blood spraying across the walls. Even there, though, it was hard. Once the fire burned out, it was gone, leaving a sparkless woman with only the will to be with her mate. It was the rare female who kept her man for very long after finding this peace because she was too content to stay alert and fight for him.

  The riots of 230AW were all about the men. The disease was changing the women, making them angry, vicious, and the Network, safe in their dome-covered complex, sweetened their deal, promising pure bachelors at special times and even Games with all twins as a double award. They changed the arenas and the weapons, played with the lighting, and managed to keep the violence swirling, confident in their control through the ugliness that offered a small hope to the post-war females.

  By 275AW, the Network had complete control, reinventing many of the old terrors to get the rebels under control during the sporadic raids and attempts to free their fellow-enslaved males. Always worried about the women joining these few brave men, the Network cut off communication between its various cities, and censored anything that was broadcast. It became illegal even to own a hand radio, and the only media reports the people saw were scripted ones.

  The bloody battles held us ignorant of the pieces being put into place, and there was little protest when other programs disappeared - replaced with a different version of the Games. Soon, there was no music, no outside news, nothing but the never-ending lineup of vicious death matches.

  Even now, in 512AW, the Games are on every wall screen, in every home in Network Land. We kill ourselves by the thousands each year - live, for the chance, the mere possibility, of an end to this pain…

  2

  "Hello, and welcome to our first interview segment of this week's episode of... The Bachelor Battles!"

  The live crowd goes wild at the start of the highest rated Network game. Cameras pan out to show the adoring viewers who are beating on each other and spilling their drinks. The party in New Network City tonight will be massive.

  "We're talking by Com with Candice Pruett right before she steps onto The Block for introductions. Already well known for their bounty hunting, the Pruett family is worth a whopping 700 million UDs! Wadda ya say, folks? Let's make Candy feel welcome!"

  The Audience cheers passionately as an average-looking teenager with flat, black eyes flashes onto the gigantic view-screen above the lavish stage. Sunken eyes outlined with dark shadows and glassy irises only hint at the pain she has spent every minute battling. Like all Changelings, she possesses an instinctive fury over which she has little control - except for how she expresses it. Dressed in a high-collared black cloak, the girl’s harsh, eager grin and deadly weapons mark her as anything but ordinary… and the Network knows it.

  "Tell us, Candy. Why did you sign up for the Bachelor Battles?"

  Silence...

  "Miss Pruett?"

  A throat being cleared and then a mutter. "Did we lose her?"

  "Hello? Are you there?"

  "Don't ever. Do that. Again."

  Softly spoken, the words rolled through the arena in menacing waves.

  The surprised reporter stumbled. "Um, do what, Hun?"

  "Call. Me. Candy.”

  Click!

  Fades to another mutter the microphone wasn't meant to pick up. "Pull me off this one."

  Pause…

  "Why? I'll tell you why! She's that Changeling! The one the Network fined a million UDs for hurting a relative! That whole family is ruthless, and I've already paid my dues!"

  3

  My family couldn't believe I'd signed up for something as deadly as the Bachelor Battles. So what if legal men were only available through the Network? So what if the thing I wanted, needed th
e most, could only be had here?

  What I was doing was crazy, maybe even suicidal. I'd be extremely lucky to come out alive, let alone unscathed... and I couldn't wait for it to start.

  "Candice M. Pruett!"

  My heart thumped painfully as I padded toward the red velvet curtain, ignoring the roaring cheers of the live audience on the other side of the New Network City dome. It had been a long ten years, but I was finally here, and that relief had me stepping into view with my usual confidence.

  I emerged far below the shiny blue cage where I would battle, and understood those screaming fans were inside the dome, in the circular auditorium-like center of the vast Network complex. I hadn’t realized the crowds had such access to the contestants, but it was too late to worry about it now. Set up like a honeycomb, they called this part The Block, and I stepped forward to walk it.

  Too far away to see them clearly yet, the Bachelors were in the grandstands, surrounded by a thick row of Network guards. All around them were thousands of faces staring at me…and then thousands more. The arena-like rafters rising to the sky seemed endless.

  "A top-rated Bounty Hunter, Miss Pruett excels in over fifteen different types of weaponry."

  Pulling on the shield I’d developed over the hard decade of waiting, I glared at them. My guts crawled into my chest when they began to scream in excitement at my image flashing onto the giant view screens, but my feet never paused as I circled the stage.

  "Just 18 this month, barely legal for the Games, and will ya look at that, folks! She even has the Network patch on her bracelet, which means she came out on top of her fellow contestants in the time trials. I'd say we'll be seeing more of her!"