Chapter 39 - 38 : Share or Steal

Chapter 39: Chapter 38 : Share or Steal

The sixty filed into the gym under a sky gone orange and pink.

Inside, it was almost too bright. Every white light in the ceiling was on, and thirty folding tables stood on the basketball court in five rows of six. A chair on each side of every table, and in front of every chair, two cards lying face down. One said SHARE. One said STEAL.

A security camera hung over every table. The front six had an HDV on a tripod as well. Hendricks let three hundred people into the bleachers. The rest jammed the doors, up on their toes.

The partners sat down in pairs. Out on the lawn they’d been hiding together, running together. Now there was a table between them, and nobody spoke first.

Rhett stood in the middle of the gym. This time he hadn’t stayed in the tent. He had the mic in one hand and a rolled-up stack of registration forms in the other.

"The rules are simple," he said. "Two cards in front of you. You get one minute to talk to the person across from you, about anything you want. After that minute, I count to three, and everybody flips at once."

"Both share, we flip a coin and one of you goes through. One shares and one steals, the one who stole goes through. Both steal, you’re both out."

He paused.

"Once the cards are down, nobody leaves their table. The water guns don’t come out until the last card has landed."

Somebody in the bleachers whistled. Half of the sixty started doing the math in their heads.

The math only ever came out one way. Whatever the other person flipped, stealing never cost you. If they shared, you went through. If they stole too, well, they weren’t going to let you through clean anyway.

The person across the table could do that math too.

There was no getting the command tent into the gym, so Dom ran the switcher from behind the scorer’s table at the edge of the court, two borrowed monitors in front of him. Claire set her laptop down next to him and put up a poll on the site: WHICH TABLE TURNS FIRST?

In under a minute there was a clear leader. 041 and 218. Seventy-one percent of the votes were on Dylan.

"They remember the two hundred," Claire said.

"Everybody remembers," Rhett said.

He raised the mic. "One minute. Go."

Thirty tables started talking at once, and every lav mic sent every word back to the switcher. Dom’s hands jumped across the buttons, cutting from table to table.

In the second row sat two guys, 311 and 312, who’d shared a desk since third grade and shared a dorm room now.

"Share, right?" said 311. "Obviously share. Like, why are we even talking."

"Yeah," said 312. "Obviously."

They bumped fists. After the fist bump, 312 didn’t look at him again.

At the end of the first row sat Mac and Owen.

"Owen." Mac had both hands flat on the table and was leaning in. "I’m flipping share. I’m telling you straight, I’m flipping share. You know what the insurance on your mom’s car costs."

"Mm."

"Is that a share mm or a steal mm?"

Owen thought about it. "Mm."

The bleachers cracked up.

In the third row, two faces nobody knew, a guy and a girl. She’d taken both his hands across the table, and her eyes were shining.

"Derek." Her voice trembled. "From the day we signed up, I knew I could trust you."

"Jenna." He drew a breath. "Whatever happens today—"

Over in a corner of the gym, Kevin buried his face in his hands.

At the middle table of the fourth row, Dylan hadn’t stopped talking since he sat down.

"I know what you’re thinking." He was talking fast. "You’re thinking about the two hundred. So am I. I think about it all the time. I screwed up that day, the whole world saw it, I know. But this is different. This time it’s for us. I swear."

Sierra hadn’t said a word. Her hands rested on the table, flat on top of her two cards.

"Say something," Dylan said. "Anything."

"Just flip your card, Dylan."

"Ten seconds," Rhett said.

The gym went silent. Sixty hands reached for the tables, every one of them resting on a single card. Three hundred people in the bleachers held their breath, and the ones up on their toes in the doorways stopped moving. The number in the corner of Claire’s screen jumped to eighty-five thousand.

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

Sixty cards flipped at once.

The two monitors on the scorer’s table went to split screen, thirty little squares with thirty results in them. The noise in the gym didn’t go off all at once. It went off table by table.

Second row. 311’s card said SHARE. 312’s said STEAL.

311 looked down at the two cards, then up at the guy who’d been sitting next to him since third grade. He didn’t swear and he didn’t cry. He just said, very quietly, "Third grade."

312 turned his face away. The booing rolled down from the bleachers all at once.

At the end of the first row, two SHAREs.

Mac slapped the table. "I KNEW it! I knew that was a share mm!"

A volunteer walked over and flipped a coin into the air. It turned over a few times under the white lights and landed on the back of her hand. She lifted her palm.

Owen.

Mac froze for a second. Then he stood up, grabbed Owen by the wrist, hauled his arm up over his head, and yelled at the bleachers. "My roommate! Everybody! That’s my roommate!"

Somebody in the bleachers started it up. TREE! TREE! TREE!

Owen, arm still in the air, had no idea what to do with his face. In the end he said one thing, and his lav mic just caught it.

"Thanks, Mac."

Table nine was two STEALs. The two of them looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same time, folding over the table. At table fourteen a girl started crying the second her card was over. She’d stolen. Her partner had shared.

In the third row, two SHAREs. Derek and Jenna hugged across the table, and kept hugging, while a volunteer stood there holding up a coin and waiting.

The chat had stopped being readable. Thirty squares, thirty stories, everybody screaming about the one table they’d been watching.

There was one square Dom hadn’t cut to yet.

His finger hovered over the button. He glanced over at Rhett. Rhett nodded.

Fourth row, middle table. Full screen.

Sierra’s card said SHARE.

Dylan’s said STEAL.

First he let out a long breath, and his shoulders came down all at once. Only then did he look up at her.

"Babe, listen—"

Sierra didn’t move. She didn’t cry, she didn’t swear, and this time she didn’t reach for a water bottle. She just took her hands off the cards, folded them on the table, and sat up very straight.

Nobody in the bleachers booed. It was just quiet. Three hundred people’s worth of quiet.

On Claire’s site, the poll result was still pinned at the top. Seventy-one percent.

Two soft coughs came through the speakers. Every head in the gym turned toward the middle of the court.

Rhett unrolled the stack of registration forms in his hand. The paper rattled, and the mic carried the sound to every corner of the gym.

"Everybody stay in your seats," he said.

He turned to one page in particular.

"I’d like to read you something. You all signed it." He looked up. "Page seven."