“I don’t want to go in,” says Gabriella.
“You have to come,” I say. “We all have to go.” Alistair nods his agreement.
Gabriella chews her lip as her face turns red. She takes a few pills from her purse, shakily shoves them in her mouth, and swallows them dry, then nods vigorously.
“If you’re going,” she says, “then I’ll go, too.”
The security guards don’t want to let us reenter the house at first. But they aren’t cops. They can’t actually stop us. In fact, they work for us. They must do what we tell them, so in the end they get out of the way.
I walk back up the steps and go inside first. I am purposeful, determined. I don’t care about this contest. I am going to find the Game Master and tear them apart with my bare hands.
I hear Alistair and Gabriella creeping into the house behind me. I immediately look over into the White Room again. I half expect to see it covered in blood. To see our mother’s corpse spread out on the floor. But the room is empty.
“I think we’re supposed to go upstairs,” whispers Alistair. I nod.
We make our way up the stairs one after the other, me, then Alistair, then Gabriella, none of us wanting to admit that we are afraid. I know Alistair well enough to know that we are both in silent accord: we are going to get revenge for what has happened to our family. We are going to get revenge against whatever butcher has cut the Nylos down, even if it means that the entire Nylo family is extinguished from the Earth forever.
At the top of the stairs, we walk down a long hallway to a door with light coming from underneath. This used to be our parents’ room. We push open the door.
The Game Master is sitting at a card table. Where did they come from? How did the cops and our security team miss them? On top of the card table, Sea Farmers is set up and ready to be played, a bottle of bourbon and three crystal glasses full of ice sitting alongside it. Three empty folding chairs await us.
“Sit,” says the Game Master in his or her strange, digitally altered register. “Please, sit down.”
We do as we are told. I look to the window and realize that the way we are positioned around the table will prevent anyone outside from getting a clear shot at the Game Master. We are being held hostage quite effectively.
The Game Master gestures to the bourbon and glasses. “You may drink if you like. It might help for what comes next.”
“What comes next?” I ask, my voice steady despite my raw nerves. As if I don’t know.
“You will play,” says the Game Master. “And one of you will win.”
That’s when I notice the revolver in the Game Master’s lap beside the detonator. They are cradling it gently, like an infant.
“Caitlyn, you are the current CEO, and Alistair, you are the brains behind developing Nylo’s most successful games and diversions. But only one of you is leaving this room alive. Gabriella, you have just as much of a shot as your elder siblings. But only one of you will walk down those stairs as the inheritor of twenty billion dollars and control of the Nylo empire. If you don’t play, I will blow everyone up. If you try to kill me, I will obviously blow everyone up. It will be best for you if you each see the logic of what must happen as quickly as possible and begin the game.”
“This is insane,” I say. “We aren’t going to play Sea Farmers while you’re holding a gun on us.”
The Game Master is implacable. They sit silently behind their mask, watching us.
“It should be you,” Alistair blurts out, turning to face me. “You know what you’re doing. I would never be able to run the company without you. There is no Nylo without you. I can be replaced. There are members of my own team who are better than me at this stuff. Designers like me are only good when they’re young, anyway.”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” I say. “Don’t give this psycho the satisfaction of taking this game seriously.”
“It should be you,” Alistair says again. “Can’t I just give up without having to die?”
“Yeah,” says Gabriella, hope shining in her eyes. “Can’t we all just walk away and let Caitlyn win?”
The Sea Farmers King shakes their head.
“Alistair, you know you are the only real genius in the family,” I say. “You inherited all of Dad’s creativity and smarts, and you are the reason this company has been successful for the last decade. You’re the only hope for the company being successful for ten more decades. Trust me: you can learn to do what I do. And if you don’t want to bother, you can hire someone just as capable to do my job.”
The Game Master crosses and then uncrosses their legs, cocking their big foam Sea Farmers head to the side.
“Enough table talk. Play,” they goad. “Play the game.”
The Game Master is right: there isn’t anything else to do here. Playing the game seems like it might buy us some time to think. To make a silent plan. Plus, there is nothing more natural for the three of us than playing this board game.
And so we begin.
The first thing we notice is that although it’s the normal Sea Farmers game board, the rules have been modified. This game includes the Kraken from the expansion pack, but not deployed in the same random way as in the expansion. In this version, the Kraken can be lured by sacrificing hatchling workers. It can then be used against your opponents in a way that directly harms them.
“An interesting modification,” Alistair says after we play a few rounds. “It actually seems very intuitive.”
“It was always this way,” says the Game Master. “These are the original rules, before they
