Page 76 of The Most Dangerous Games

Because Tipton is not here to win.

Tipton is here because he’s owned.

The Host’s gaze returns to the Death Valley feed.

Jimmy is talking to Alek.

Encouraging. Stabilizing. Doing what he does best.

The Host doesn’t hate him.

Hate is too personal.

Jimmy is simply in the way.

And if Jimmy stays . . . he’ll turn thirty contestants into a movement.

The Host just wants him to be gone, sooner rather than later. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of the way.

Donaldson tries to be discreet in his private conversations with some of the others, almost always outdoors, away from any hidden microphones. Or cameras. Or even drones.

Was he really naïve enough to think there might not be casualties? And what difference would it make if he knew my name, as much as it might shock him?

It would shock all but one of them.

“Maybe today he quits,” The Host says out loud.

There is a method, The Host thinks.

The Host leans toward the mic at his desk and speaks softly, not to the contestants, not to the pods . . .

To the room.

“Today,” he says, “we find out who they really are when the world offers them one button and no mercy.”

He watches Jimmy take another step into the heat.

Then he adds, quieter:

“And we find out how long optimism lasts when it starts to cost blood.”

51.

Mammoth Cave

Kentucky

Four groups of four players have gathered in the mountains of south-central Kentucky, in what The Host calls “an unmapped branch of the Mammoth Cave system” that stretches for hundreds of miles.

Jack McHenry knows better. Mammoth Cave is mapped the way oceans are mapped: not completely, not perfectly, but thoroughly enough that anyone who says “unexplored” is trying to sell you something.

This isn’t unexplored.

It’s restricted.

The “Alpha” group is the first to enter the caves, followed by “Bravo” and “Charlie,” each from a separate location. The “Delta” group is the last to enter:

Jack McHenry—already flashing back to deployments where caves meant traps and ambushes and the ugly, stale smell of fear.