Panic Button (8 page)

Jo’s eyes widened. “Ball
!?
”

“Piercing - Prince Albert.”

“Oh...”

Dave approached Gwen, unzipping his jeans, towering over her. “
Wanna
see?”

Max laughed and smacked Dave’s butt playfully, like a jockey lashing a racehorse.

“Yeah! Let’s see some of the hard stuff!”

Gwen winced. “No, no I’m all good, thanks.”

“Well stop going on about it then!” Visibly annoyed, Dave turned and stomped to the bar.

“Dave?” Gwen’s voiced wavered. She looked shocked by his sudden change in mood.

He ignored her, opening a bottle of whiskey. He poured a sizeable measure into a glass tumbler.

“All right mate?” Max said, looking up at him.

Dave downed his drink in brooding silence and poured another.

Jo knelt on her seat, head resting against the cool glass of the window. Peering out into the night sky, she watched the wing lights blink amidst cloud
vapour
like the beam of a lighthouse in thick fog.

The fizzy water had finally begun to offset the effects of the champagne. Her head had cleared a little and she felt at peace gazing out of her little porthole. Just then, a momentary flash of lightning caught her eye, way off in the distance. Thunder rumbled faintly over the drone of the engines.

“Atlantic’s meant to be clear.”

Jo was thinking aloud, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Slumped back in his reclined seat, another large whiskey in hand, Dave shrugged.

“So?”

Jo looked over her shoulder at him. “I checked the weather, you know... before the flight.”

Gwen looked nervous, swallowing hard. “And?”

“And it’s meant to be clear.”

Dave shrugged again, bullish. “Bloody weather men, always get it wrong.” He got up, groaning and stretching, and headed to the bar. Glasses and bottles clinked as he rummaged around, looking for something.

“What are you doing?” Gwen asked. His rummaging was putting her nerves even more on edge.

“Looking for something to eat. You’d think there would at least be some bloody bar snacks on this plane. Bet the business
travellers
don’t have to ask twice, know what I mean?”

No-one answered. Dave gave up his search with a grunt of frustration and poured himself yet more whiskey.

“Probably left food out of the equation deliberately,” Max said, watching Dave commit further crimes against his liver.

“How’s that?” Dave asked, his speech slightly slurred.

“Get us into the games more quickly,” Max replied, “Lots of booze, empty stomachs...”

“You seem to know quite a bit about it.”

Dave’s statement sounded like an accusation. The whiskey was evidently making the big man surly. Max fell quiet.

Hearing another distant rumble of thunder, Jo turned her attention back to the window. She arched her hands over her forehead to block out the glare of the interior lights. Squinting out into the blackness, another flash of lightning revealed the swirling shapes of storm clouds gathering.

Huge dark forms, like black ships rolling in toward their fragile little island in the sky.

“Please take your seats. It is time for Round Two.” Alligator’s voice echoed around the jet.

“Any fucking food on this boat?” Dave said, stomach gurgling in concert with his needs, hunger churning the lake of champagne and spirits in his tummy.

The monitor screens flickered to life once more, the Alligator regarding them with his black-
slitted
eyes.

“Dinner, and desserts, will be served upon arrival at your destination,” Alligator said.

“What about a bag of peanuts while we’re waiting, eh? I’m bloody starving.”

Dave rubbed his ample beer belly and licked his lips.

“I’m famished too mate,” Max said.

“Me too,” Jo said, “I skipped breakfast I was so excited about the flight.”

Dave looked over at Gwen, who clearly did not want to discuss food.

 

“What about some pretzels then?” Dave ventured.

Only the throb of the jet engines replied.

“Tight bastards.”

The Alligator’s face faded from view, replaced by ‘ROUND 2: KISS AND TELL’ displayed in large pink letters against a lurid backdrop of cascading love hearts.

Dave grinned at Jo, licking his lips. “That’s more like it! Kiss and tell. Nice.”

“I guess we aren’t getting off the hook that easily,” Jo said, frowning.

The display dissolved to a rapid montage of webcam video clips. Dozens of faces appeared one after the other on the screens.

“Millions of All2gethr users are online twenty-four-seven,” Alligator continued, “They share their interests, their passions, their ambitions and dreams...”

People of all ages, races and sexes were shown on-screen, peering into their webcams in offices, bedrooms and lounges the world over.

“For some, it is a place to wear disguises, for others it is the only place they can truly reveal themselves...”

The montage drew to a close, holding on the image of a pretty teenage girl. She stared sullenly into her webcam, teenage
Emo
band idols on the bedroom wall behind her. Tears had made her black kohl eyeliner run in dark rivers down her cheeks.

Jo peered closer at her screen. The image seemed familiar somehow, but she couldn’t quite place it. Where had she seen that girl before? Jo got the feeling it had been in a music video somewhere. Then the image cut off abruptly, replaced by the Alligator’s
rictus
grin.

“In this round we are going to find out what you are all like - behind closed doors,” he said.

Dave returned his seat to its upright position. He looked worse for wear, still slugging whiskey from the tumbler. Something resembling apprehension moved across his face. Gwen stretched her arms and ruffled her hair, listening intently to the Alligator’s voice.

A pop-up video window replaced their host’s grinning green face. Grainy hand-held footage was now playing out along with a distorted, echoing audio track.

A figure in torn dirty clothes was on his knees in a dingy cell. A plastic sandbag had been pulled over his head, obscuring his face completely. The terrible whimpering, pleading sounds coming from within the bag were testament to just how terrified he was. The camera tilted and moved, revealing a group of men standing around him, dressed in combat fatigues and balaclavas. They were taking turns to brutally punch and kick the man, some of them gesturing into the camera lens with devil horns and gang signs. As the men goaded their terrified captor, another of their number approached carrying a large gun. Cocking the weapon, he pushed the barrel against the hostage’s forehead.

Blood and brain matter exploded from the ruptured sandbag, splashing against the cell wall. The men roared, triumphant, as their victim slumped like a broken doll to the hard stone floor, a dark pool spilling from his head all around him.

 

“What the actual fuck?” Max said, glancing around at the others.

They looked as shocked as he was and yet, like him, could not tear their eyes away from the footage.

“Jo. You
recognise
this video.” Alligator’s voice was smooth as silk, heavy as a brick. He was not asking her a question, merely making a statement of fact.

Jo shook her head slightly, mouth shut tight.

“Please answer verbally.”

thought Jo,
bastard is watching us
.

“No, I...”

“That’s not altogether true is it?”

“I... don’t remember.”

The video window snapped closed, the display changing to a list of data. Hundreds of web addresses scrolled up the screen.

“I find that hard to believe,” Alligator countered.

The scrolling stopped and an address, a series of numbers with a secure ‘https://’ prefix, was highlighted.

“You watched this video two months ago. On Tuesday the fifteenth at 22:17 hours, to be precise.”

The list of web data began to scroll again, then stopped abruptly. Another secure web address line was highlighted on the screens.

“You watched it again the following morning at 11:53 hours. You then sent the link to five of your friends in a personal message.”

Jo glanced at the others, incensed at the intrusion into her privacy.

They all looked as disturbed as she did that a stranger could access her web history like this, so easily. But there was something else in their eyes - something accusatory.

“Look, I don’t remember okay? I see a lot of crap online...”

She knew how feeble her words sounded, how hollow an excuse for her voyeurism. Her mouth was bone dry again. The bottle of whiskey was still on Dave’s table, inches away.

“What did your message say? When you forwarded it to your friends?”

Jo fell silent, eyelids blinking rapidly,
tongue
licking at her dry lips.

“I’ll repeat the question.”

“I don’t remember,
Jesus!
”

Gwen smacked her teeth at Jo’s careless invocation of the Lord’s name.

Jo glared at her, eyes daring her to say something.

Just then, an email window popped up on their screens.

“Well then, let’s take a look.”

Jo and the others peered at the email header, reading the words.

‘OMG THIS IS SOOO NASTY - WATCH TIL THE END!!’

“I didn’t send that,” Jo said in a low voice.

“Then who did?” Alligator asked.

Dave, Gwen and Max all looked at Jo. She lowered her eyes, falling silent again.

“Why did you send the video Jo? Why did you watch it? Was it enjoyable, seeing a man killed before your eyes?”

Alligator’s voice had become clipped, carnivorous.

“No. No, of course it wasn’t.”