Outlive (The Baggers Trilogy, #1) (14 page)

             
“You’re sweating. And you look pale.”

             
Baggs swallowed. His mouth was dry.

             
“It looks like you were reading about Paul Higgins’s death—a true tragedy. Come over, have some lunch.”

             
Baggs was so immersed in reading what he had found on the internet that he hadn’t noticed Jodi come in and drop off steak quesadillas for lunch. They were served on a silver tray, as breakfast had been, along with tea, different sodas, and water. Baggs pulled back a chair and sat down. He loaded his plate and began to eat slowly, thinking about Paul Higgins’s death.

             
It seems like too much of a coincidence. Maybe Higgins knew that Turner was cheating, and then he died in Turner’s home. Is it a cover up?

             
But, things like that did happen.
And is one instance really enough for me to get so worked up about this? People naturally have heart attacks.

             
The food was delicious, as was breakfast. Baggs had meant to ask Tartuga some questions, but Tartuga started the conversation.

             
“Something has changed,” Targua said. He took a drink of water and eyed Baggs over the rim.

             
Baggs’s heart skipped a beat. He was almost sure that he would be told that they didn’t need him anymore. “What’s that?”

             
“Eldridge died at eleven a.m., not one p.m., so you’re going to arrive at eleven fifteen a.m., got it?”

             
Baggs nodded.

             
“And, I got an email from one of our producers. He wanted me to ask you something.”

             
“What’s that?”

             
Tartuga leaned his head to the side, sizing Baggs up. “Before I ask, I want to remind you that I’m helping you out quite a bit.”

             
Baggs didn’t say anything.
He’s not helping me out; he’s helping a councilman out so that Turner will do him some kind of a favor.

             
“We want you to be in a commercial for the next episode of Outlive.”

             
Baggs raised his eyebrows.

             
“Jodi will come in here in a few minutes with the paperwork for you to fill out for Outlive. Then, they’ll take you downstairs, do makeup and all that, and film you saying a few lines.”

             
“What’s in it for me?”

             
Tartuga laughed incredulously. “In it for you? The quesadillas, the coffee this morning; I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime! Even though Outlive is full, you’re getting to compete.”

             
Baggs took a sip of water. He was nervous, but he didn’t show it. “I’m not saying a line unless you pay my family. I want you to send them twenty thousand extra CreditCoins.”

             
Tartuga laughed again, louder this time. “You’re out of your mind.”

             
Baggs shook his head. “You need me just as much as I need you. According to you, Eldridge is already dead. You want to replace her with someone who will impress Turner. You won’t find someone else like me. You saw me fight.”

             
Tartuga laughed again. “You’re an ass! Ten thousand CreditCoins, final offer. But you’ve got to say whatever lines they give you.”

             
Baggs laughed. He didn’t actually think that it would work. “Deal,” he said.

             
Tartuga took one final slice of quesadilla and walked off somewhere else in the building while Baggs finished his meal. Just as Tartuga said, Jodi came in a few minutes later with an electronic tablet onto which Baggs could put his thumbprint as a sign that he understood the risks that would be involved as a competitor to Outlive. He also used his thumbprint to bring up his and Tessa’s bank account, which was where the twenty thousand CreditCoins for Outlive, and the ten thousand CreditCoins for the commercial would be sent.

             
As he put in the information, Baggs was beaming. He had never had thirty thousand CreditCoins before.

             
After the forms were filed, Jodi walked Baggs down the long hallway towards the elevator. Before Baggs got on, he checked his account balance by pressing his thumbprint to the vending machine. The thirty thousand CreditCoins were there, just as promised.

             
Filming the commercial was strange. Baggs was taken into a well-lit room and asked to sit on a chair, scowl at the camera, and say disjointed lines like, “I wanted to kill him,” and, “I completely lost it.” They wanted his voice to sound gravely and menacing. Baggs did whatever he was told to do. The potential humiliation was outweighed by all of the CreditCoins they were giving to his family to do the commercial.

             
Thirty thousand! I can’t believe it!

             
He learned that his voice would be played over footage of him beating up the police officer in the next commercial. He didn’t like that portrayal of himself, but he needed the money.

             
After shooting the commercial, Baggs was led down the elevator to an underground facility where company helicopters were kept. Tartuga had given Jodi instructions to make sure that Baggs got into company helicopter number nine. Once inside, the doors would lock and Baggs would be unable to get out until he landed at an undisclosed location. They wouldn’t tell Baggs where he was going. He guessed Turner’s home, or some facility owned by Turner.

             
The helicopter was black and impeccably clean, with windows tinted so dark that you couldn’t see inside. The entire machine was as long as a limousine. As it sat in the garage, it was on wheels, and the blades were concealed in a hidden compartment that would come out automatically when the machine was ready for take off. There was no pilot—a computer operated the copter without human assistance.

             
“Good luck,” Jodi said to Baggs, and opened the door for him.

             
Baggs thought it was a funny choice of words, considering what he had learned about how little luck influenced who won or lost the deadly competition he was about to be involved in. “Thanks,” Baggs said, and got in.

4

             
When Baggs looked back into his bloody past, with all the bones he broke, the lips he busted, the black eyes he created, and the brains he made bleed, it was hard to believe that he had escaped it all. He thought,
in a perfect world, guys like me would be behind bars.
But he wasn’t behind bars; the world wasn’t perfect. Up until he signed up for Outlive, he had lived a happy life with Tessa, and then with Tessa, Olive and Maggie. While he was reading Harry Potter to Maggie and Olive, a man he had killed was rotting in a shallow roadside grave.

             
He supposed it all started when he was fifteen. He wouldn’t have gotten the gang’s attention had it not been for the fight with Baldy. Or, more specifically, he wouldn’t have gotten their attention had it not been for what happened at the
end
of the fight with Baldy.

             
Fifteen year old Baggs still worked at the same grocery store he worked at as a nine year old—Lucky’s. The store didn’t last long after that, but soon he would find a new way to make money.

             
Money from piano would come much later—in his twenties. As a teenager, it was just a hobby for Baggs. His buddy Brian, who lived down the hall from his parents, owned a keyboard. Baggs was just playing for fun at the time, but everyone could tell he had talent. Back then, though, he wasn’t looking for another job. Working at the grocery store earned him enough CreditCoins to buy the things he needed.

             
His parents demanded that Baggs contribute a certain amount of CreditCoins each month to help pay for bills and food. If Baggs made money beyond that amount, he could do with it what he pleased. Most months, Baggs made a couple hundred CreditCoins over what his parents asked for. When he got older and got into financial trouble, he thought,
why didn’t I save more of that?

             
He spent most of the excess capital on alcohol. There were laws in London prohibiting minors from purchasing alcohol, but the laws weren’t strongly enforced. Essentially, if you went into a bar and appeared to be eighteen, they would serve you. Baggs more than met this criterion. He looked like he was in his mid twenties as a fifteen year old. He already had a thick, black beard at that time that ran up his cheeks and halfway down the front of his neck. His eyes were about level with the tops of most mens’ heads. At fifteen he had hands big enough that people stared at them when they were rested atop a table.

             
Fifteen-year-old Baggs loved to get drunk in bars. He didn’t have anything better to do, and he loved the atmosphere. People cursed, smoked, and were generally less tightly wound than they usually were. To young James Baggers, this attitude was freeing, as was getting drunk. Saving all his CreditCoins didn’t even cross his mind—no one expected the economy to go sour like it did.

             
On weekends, Baggs and some of his buddies—all older males who also worked at Lucky’s—went to a bar called The Barbed Wire to blow whatever money they didn’t need to buy the necessities for living. Baggs only drank whiskey. “More drunk per CreditCoin,” he would say. And that was his goal—to get drunk.

             
He liked to look at the girls, and as he got drunk, his stolen glances at their bodies became less covert. That’s what made Baldy want to fight him—Baggs was staring at his girlfriend. He was looking at her breasts, specifically. Even in his thirties, he could still remember what they looked like that night as they pressed against her white blouse. The top three buttons were undone, and he could see freckled cleavage and a pink bra. He couldn’t remember her name, or what her face looked like, but he remembered her breasts.

             
Baldy was the nickname of a regular at The Barbed Wire. Baggs didn’t know his real name, but everyone called him Baldy so that was functionally his name in that environment. Upon seeing the man, the reason for his nickname was obvious—he was as bald as a pool ball. Baldy was tall—not as tall as Baggs, but taller than most people—and at thirty years old he had a thick, sunburned neck, a belly that protruded in his tucked-in shirt, and a black metal spike pierced through the cartilage in his left ear. Baldy liked fighting; he usually got into a few fights a month, and it was easy to push him towards violence. Baldy got a rush from standing opposite someone who was trying to hurt him.

             
The night that Baldy fought Baggs, the gang members were sitting at a booth near the back. Baggs didn’t notice them. He didn’t even know such criminals existed until after they approached him later.

             
The Barbed Wire smelled of beer. Through the years of drinks being poured night after night, the aroma seeped into the wood. It smelled of cigarettes, too. At one in the morning on a Friday night, fifteen year old Baggs was slumped on a bar stool, smoking a cigarette and thoroughly drunk. Ashes had fallen in his beard, but he was too drunk to notice. He had to be at work at six in the morning, but right then he didn’t care. He was staring at Baldy’s girlfriend’s breasts.

             
Looking back on it, he supposed that he had forgotten where he was, in his drunken stupor. He forgot that people could see him. He was making no effort to hide his gaze.

             
The rock music played loud from the band on the stage in the corner, and Baggs took another sip of his whiskey. Even over the loud drum and guitars, Baggs heard Baldy’s voice from right behind him: “What the hell are you doing?”

             
Baggs turned around, slowly. The image of Baldy floated in front of his drunken eyes. He had seen Baldy around, but never spoken to him. People on barstools surrounding Baggs turned to see who Baldy was going to beat up this time.

             
“I asked you a question, dumb ass. What are you doing?”

             
“Me?” Baggs asked stupidly. “Drinking.” He held up his glass of whiskey and smiled.

             
At this time, the bar grew quiet. The band was in between songs.

             
“What are you
looking at?”
Baldy asked.

             
Baggs looked down at his drink. “Whiskey.” He said.

             
Baldy breathed threw his nose like a bull. “Don’t play smart with me. What
were
you looking at?”

             
Baggs knew that he had been caught staring at the woman’s breasts, but didn’t want to admit it. It was embarrassing. And, he hoped that if he just denied it that Baldy would leave him alone. That night, Baggs had never been in a fight before; he did not yet know how much he liked violence.