Unluck

As Alexandre walked, he studied every bit of information the tablet revealed to him, carefully making plans in his head. The tablet's display showed a digital minimap of the island covered in thousands of points of light. A message at the top read, "Remaining targets: 3,650." However, it only remained at this number for a moment, then dropped by one. A few moments later, it dropped by three. 

"You shouldn't have teamed up with each other," Alexandre said, as though the unlucky trio could hear him. "Humans of any number stand no chance against Hunters."

As well as showing the candidates scattered across the island, this tablet also had the option of showing the student Hunters. However, Alexandre was less interested in simply knowing where the Hunters were and more interested in learning which ones were the most successful.

He used two fingers to zoom in and out until he found a Hunter with a large number of watch lights surrounding him and moving at the same speed—that clearly meant that this student Hunter had taken all those watches from candidates. There were several Hunters who seemed to be efficiently dispatching their prey, as well as many Hunters who seemed to be struggling to find candidates to rob.

As Alexandre explored the tablet's functions, he grew curious. How were Alexandre and William doing on this test? They'd both proved very skillful in their own ways during the last trial, but would they be able to survive in this new and different scenario?

Alexandre had memorized the numbers of both his companions. He first entered the number 46,588 into the search bar, which belonged to Marlon.

The map zoomed to a certain location, where a bright blue dot was moving rapidly in one direction. It seemed that Marlon was running as fast as he could. Alexandre zoomed out a bit to try to find Hunters who might be pursuing Marlon, but there didn't seem to be any around.

Alexandre was impressed—it seemed that he and Marlon had used the same strategy of just trying to run as quickly away from everyone else as possible. Alexandre was much faster, of course, so he'd gotten so far ahead that he'd been able to lounge relaxingly on the beach for a while. Marlon had probably still been running all this time, trying to create distance between himself and the more defenseless candidates who would prove to be more tempting prey for Hunters.

At the end of the day, there were really only two strategies for candidates: fight or flight. Even as passionate and eager to fight as he was, Marlon had been smart enough to realize that running was truly the only choice.

Marlon seemed to be in a good position for the moment, a position that wasn't likely to change anytime soon. Alexandre tapped on the search bar again and input the number 969, which belonged to William.

"Candidate not found," read the display.

Alexandre frowned. "Did you get disqualified?" he muttered aloud. No, that didn't make any sense. There was a separate menu which showed all disqualified candidates, and William wasn't on that list. No, the only explanation was that William had somehow prevented his watch from broadcasting a signal to the tracking system, making him invisible to the Hunters! Alexandre laughed in delight. "Good work, however you did it," he said. "They'd better not disqualify you for something as intelligent as that."

Then a chiming sound played on the tablet and Alexandre stopped in his tracks.

One of the markers on the minimap had just turned orange-gold.

It was Alexandre's own marker.

A message had appeared on the display. "Candidate 23,332 has defeated two Hunters and taken an aid terminal. An additional cash bonus of $10,000 and immediate test validation will be awarded to the student who captures this candidate's watch."

Alexandre let out a long sigh. "And I was just about to move to a new spot where I could relax for the rest of the test… How'd I get so unlucky?"

A whirring sound came from nearby. Alexandre's gaze snapped upward and he saw the tiny drone hovering in the sky, staring down at him with a pitch-black eye lens. "Omega's little bastard," Alexandre growled. "Fine. That's on me for not being more discreet. Well, if that's the game we're going to play, then let's begin."