The Survival Experiment

"Morgan," I heard Tiffany begin, as she prodded me in the side, "are you all right?"

Disorientated, I looked up at her and waited until she was a discernible human figure before I responded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Thank god," she sighed. "That gas..." She shuddered. "I don't know what that stuff was, but you were the first one to pass out. I saw your body go limp, and I panicked. I couldn't scream, because I was losing consciousness myself, but I really thought it was a trick, and they were poisoning us."

"Stay optimistic," I reminded her. "If we make it out of here, there's one thousand dollars with each of our names on it." I sat up and looked around. Everyone from the waiting room was here, all still knocked out except me and my insomniac of a friend, in the middle of some desert. I caught sight of a piece of white paper a few inches from the muscular man's head. 'Great;' I thought, 'the doctors have already chosen an alpha male.'

"Since you're so good at waking people up, would you mind rousing the rest of these people?" I suggested to Tiffany. "The sooner we start, the faster we finish."

Tiffany did not object. As she began with the purple-haired girl, I approached the white paper and carefully snuck it away to examine it. On the paper was a computer-generated map, an extremely simple one with only a dot on the south end to represent where we were and an 'x' due north to represent our destination. A note was written on the bottom, below the key, which read, "Don't forget; you're being timed. The clock was started upon your arrival, and who knows how long you were asleep?"

As if reading my mind, the strong blonde woman, who had apparently just woken up, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Everyone wake up, now. If you resist, don't doubt that I will use force."

Most everyone rolled over or sat up, but the twins didn't even twitch. The woman marched over to them and kicked them, once each, below the belt.

They began yelling and writhing in agony across the sand, and the ruthless woman only said, "Defy me again; you'll see that it only gets worse."

As I looked sympathetically upon the two injured men, I knew that would be me if I didn't keep my mouth shut.

The woman snatched the map from my hands and looked it over. Then she looked around at the desolate earth surrounding us in all directions. "How are we supposed to know which way is north?"

"That way," the thin, wiry woman with the glasses answered, pointing straight forward.

"How are you so sure?" the blonde questioned her.

"Compass."

"Where did you get a compass?"

"I brought it into the lab with all my stuff," she responded. "I imagine it got here the same way we did."

"And how is that?" the woman asked.

The mousy girl shrugged, and no one else had any input to share.

"Never mind; it doesn't matter," the fierce woman said. "Let's go."

"Wait," I stopped her. She glared at me, her chlorine eyes boring into me as if they could dissolve me from the inside out. "I think we should get to know each other a little first."

"I didn't come here to make friends," she scoffed. "I came here to win."

"We're either going to work together or work alone. You won't make slaves of us."

She scowled. "Fine, I'll play along. I'm Jada, and this is my husband Jesse," she said, gesturing to the tall, handsome man at her side. I almost laughed; I knew who wore the pants in that relationship. "You?" she asked me.

"Morgan."

She pointed to Tiffany, who posed her name as a question, as if she had briefly forgotten it.

Jada locked her piercing stare on the twins. "What about you two twits?"

"Finn," hissed the black-haired one, fury in his eyes.

"Wade," his brother replied quietly.

"Great," Jada said sarcastically. "Compass girl, you got a name?"

"It's Ramona," she answered. Quietly, she added, "Or just Mona," but Jada had already moved on.

She nodded to the girl with the purple fauxhawk, who said, "Giorgie."

Then she pointed at the big black guy. "And you?"

He spoke slowly, as if to prolong the eerie chills his voice gave me. "I'm Darian."

"All right, that's everyone," Jada declared, addressing me in particular. "Satisfied?"

"That's not everyone," I disagreed. I gestured to the elderly woman, then asked, "What's your name?"

She did not reply, only looked at me with an innocent, blank stare.

"Your name, old lady!" Jada started yelling at the woman. "Who. Are. You?"

"She doesn't speak English," Ramona inferred, adjusting her glasses over the bridge of her nose. Facing the old Japanese woman, she pointed to herself and said, "Ramona." She pointed to me and said, "Morgan." Then she pointed to the woman, and waited.

"Setsuna," the woman replied. Ramona smiled at Setsuna, either as a friendly gesture or just because she was pleased with herself.

"And now we're going," Jada turned to begin her trek through the barren desert.

"You're veering just a hare northeast," Ramona scrutinized, looking down at her compass.

Daggers in her voice, Jada retorted, "Fine, why don't you lead the way, compass girl?"

The daggers didn't even prick Ramona. In a smug manner, she said, "Gladly." As she passed Jada, she walked daringly close, but Jada didn't move a muscle.

I shuddered. If one of these women was going to dictate us, I didn't want to know what would become of the other.