Chapter 2:

Welcome to my world of death. My Donors were selected by The Country for the lifestyle of ‘Spike for Siv.’ Around 2020, a country, who is no longer in existence, launched a series of missile strikes in response to the Spike Program that The Country had created. Needless to say, or maybe it is important to say, that this country was obliterated within four hours of the first missile striking the ground because we were so much powerful than them.

The Country was previously composed of these things called states. There were fifty of them and they existed in a happy unity with each other.

When our borders were breached, we released a series of biological and chemical compounds in retaliation. Unfortunately, these compounds were misused and so we obliterated half of the globe. There were nuclear meltdowns, famine, drought, disease, huge black clouds, blah blah blah, you name it, it happened. In the wake of this disaster, the population of The Country turned inward and isolated itself from the rest of the world. Our infrastructure was not equipped to take care of this many people, so our Super authorized a release of another strain on the weakest members of its own population.

Every single biological relative of mine was Executed because The Country used the water supply to inject the strain of Nalgene-521 which is consequentially part of my genetic makeup now. After the Country reduced the population to a mere 30 million members, it sought to rebuild from the ground up. Our current Super is a man named Kendall Khan. He is a ruthless dictator from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and although he is fifty to sixty years old he looks slightly older than me. The incredible aging technology that the Keepers created with the Spike Program allowed him to do this.

The Country thought it was a good idea to fabricate two unequal classes of people to avoid internal conflict so we could create a new society of inter-dependent Beings; there were those they called Spike and those they called Sivs. The Sivs are the Observing Class. They look like Spikes. They talk like Spikes. They act like Spikes but there is one significant difference. These Sivs do not have my super awesome, ass-kicking, muscle building, gorgeous smile-wearing, boyish charm. They do not have it.

The Sivs have been marked, chipped, and are told to breed regularly. They are allowed to get diseases, they are allowed to make these things called "children," and are allowed to die on their own.

A Siv is what every Being was like before the attack - they are ordinary people. They are an independent self-governing body that has strong tendencies to clump themselves together to create things called "families." A family is a collection of Sivs that live together or in close proximity to one another. They engage in an Encounter that is called Love. If two Sivs engage in this concept, then they will move into a house or an apartment together. After two Sivs have lived with each other for five years they are required to apply for a Permit to create a child; this process is the combination of Love and sex. Once the Country approves the original Permit, they are required to apply for a Permit every three years until the female Siv starts her process of Decontamination - when she loses the ability to make a child.

The Country regulates this process to make sure that our population does not go extinct but also, and more importantly, so Spikes have an audience. There are still those rumors that The Country will release minor strains of Nalgene-521 if a Dwelling has too many Sivs in its borders but I do not know how accurate this information is. Spikes are different; the Spikes are a species of Being who cannot die naturally, feel no physical pain, do not have to deal with these "children" things but are hunted on a daily basis for the viewing pleasure of others.

We were designed in a lab by Keepers and we were the reason the Country was attacked. After the nuclear meltdown, famine, drought, large black cloud, and occasional life-destroying tumor became less common, The Country needed to give the Sivs a reason to live. They allowed the familial structure to remain but quickly realized that although one should live and breathe to build familial relationships, many deviant Sivs abandoned this notion after years of making children. They wanted a reason to continue existing for themselves, something that made them "happy." Happy is this concept that when you look at something and enjoy seeing it or enjoying feeling it, it makes your brain feel good. When your brain feels good, your body feels good. Sivs were not content with only having a family, so in the ALT Convention, Keepers came together and decided to engineer a new class of people.

The Sivs serve themselves by watching Spikes. Each job in Country is engineered for the Pit. Keepers are part of the highest functioning levels of The Country and are old-world neuroscientists, psychologists, and sociologists who select desirable traits for the Spike production. These teams of scientists researched and defined characteristics from pre-war. They picked attributes from three Topics: Physical Attribution, Emotional Capacity, and Social Hierarchy. For example, there is a female Beta Spike in the south of the Country who has eyes that can see into your soul. There is another Beta Spike in the West that has an Encounter rating with a 100% success rating. There is another, north of me, that can seduce any, male or female of either species. However, each of these players has their own distinct Pitfall. The female Spike in the south may be able to see into your soul but Executes too many people on a weekly basis. A Pitfall cannot be engineered out of a Spike’s design.

An Encounter, by the way, is an attack that is paid for by Sivs for their viewing pleasure. If a Siv kills a Spike, then that Siv is supposedly rewarded with a trait of that slain Spike. It is a very confusing concept but if you stick in there with me, you will get there, but there is one catch. A Siv has never defeated a Spike. Nevertheless, this is The Country’s greatest pastime and the reason for existence. There are 24/7 live broadcasts of each Spike’s life; every detail, every sneeze, every step is recorded for the Sivs’ viewing pleasure. Camera’s, videographers, social media accounts, all exists to monitor myself and my class of people. I am on a screen almost every second of my day; when I shower, when I eat, when I travel, when I nap, etcetera. The other States, such as England, do not partake in the Pit, as they see it as cruel and unusual punishment to have someone fear for their life on a daily basis.

As I was saying, the Country is the only State that partakes in this practice. However, because The Country still maintains and develops the largest stores of chemical and biological weapons, other States have allowed for the continued Spike Program in exchange for a weapons truce. The other major governing bodies such as Oceana, England, Russia, France, Germany, Brazil, Canada, China also make up a majority of the viewing of Spike even though they say ’they hate what our government is doing’ - hypocrites. All over the globe, Sivs are locked into their screens scrolling through each player’s profile.

Participation in the Pit, however awful running for your life sounds, does come with its own rewards. For one, my life is paid for. I have not and will not spend anything of my own. The Keepers collect a tax from the Sivs and the price of each Encounter is enough to support my daily lifestyle. I fly in jets, party on yachts, pee in a golden toilet, and am super attractive. What else do I need in my life? Sivs have none of my abilities, none of my training, they are basically nothing compared to me.

Now that you know how I found myself in that Encounter this morning and the operations of the Country and how it is protecting us, I wanted to give you a bit of a look inside me. My name is Colman Cai. My Entrance Day is April 19th, 2051 and I was created as an Alpha Spike. An Alpha Spike is the highest amount of luxury you can get. Imagine if you were buying a car. You can go to a dealer and look around the lot to find a Ferrari that looks close to what you want, or you can go to the manufacturer and customize every last detail. Which would you pick?

I was grown in a lab until ten years of maturity. On April 18th, 2051 my Tube was opened and out walked the incredibly handsome Spike that stands before you today. An Alpha Spike has each of the Topics, and sub-Topics, the Keepers value. This means I am handsome, strong, smart, educated, athletically gifted, socially praised, funny, and always smiling. My eyes are the color of the Artic sky with gold specks. I have a Roman nose that fits my face with exactly the right specifications. I keep my hair trimmed neat. I make sure it is about an inch and a half to two inches on the top with a fade from a three into a one down the sides and around the back. The color fluctuates with the season. Each time I move you can see the ripple of my forearms, pectorals, biceps, triceps, deltoids, abdominals, crotch-dominals, and back muscles. My cheekbones look they were shaped from granite and so does everything else.

There are only three Alphas in Circulation today and I am the only one in Country. The other two have been captured and taken to other countries for study. I believe there is one male and one female. Do not quote me on that, I have never met them. I fight and Execute with precision and I even eat a burger with such passion that before you know it you want to take that burger off the screen and shove it between your legs, yeah I am that good. I stand at 6’2", 175 pounds and I have no emotion.

There is one minor point about Spikes that does not appeal to the rest of the world; we have no real emotions. Initially, when the Keepers were in the experimentation phase of the program, they tried to facilitate the ability to emphasize and relate to Sivs and other Spikes. They wanted a more seamless transition between the two classes so they would ultimately make more money. During the final phase of testing in a simulation of the Pit, the Alpha Spike was unable to Execute because of the emotions he had developed in the process. They tried over and over again but after many trials, spending over a billion dollars, they were unable to create a Spike that possessed any sort of regular emotion that, at the same time, was willing to Execute another Being.

They discovered that Executing was a way of separating the soul from itself. If you divided the soul from itself, then you were unable to establish an identity. I talked to a few scientists after they had removed my amygdala nuclei, or the emotional center of the brain on April 20th, 2051. Before the operation, each Keeper had a kind of glow around them and when I noticed the glow was not there anymore, they said that was a typical reaction for someone who had their emotions nulled. The only thing I can do in this life, that was vaguely similar to an emotion, is smile and feel excited. I do not know why I smile, I just know that when I see lights and cameras my lips curve into one.

I still get dreams about my Entrance Day. I remember walking out of my Tube and people in black lab coats were shining lights in my eyes. Each of them was yelling about numbers and vital signs. I walk out of this tube, with fluid still draining around my ankles, and immediately I notice cameras. I do not know how I knew they were called cameras. The red lights were everywhere as I looked around and the scientists in the black lab coats were still yelling but in large glass windows above me, I saw Khan accompanied by two other people. These two other people are crying, they must be Sivs, and they are holding onto one another - I wanted to join them.

As I looked around at the chaos erupting in this room, I was hit with little silver balls. They attached to a different part of my body and sent electrical signals into my muscles and brain. I vaguely remember looking back up to those huge glass windows one last time, wanting to kiss those people I saw, but then my vision went dark and the next day I woke up, fully clothed, with a part of my brain missing. I was now a killer and I was meant to like it - I do.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3