To make the stakes that much higher. The experience of the Hunt all the more enhanced, the victory all the more rapturous.”

The Director nods me on.

“I mean, the training period alone will take up fi ve chapters.

And it'l be a chance to fl esh out the hunters. The competitiveness between us, the confl icts within, all that wil only be grist for the mil .

It'l build up anticipation, leading up to the Gala, then, to the climax, the Hunt itself. The book will practical y write itself.”

The Director's eyes shine with reluctant approval. “And the FLUNs? Why arm the hepers with FLUNs? Go on, go on, you're doing wel so far.”

“For excitement. No, more than that.” I pause, thinking. “To slow the Hunt down. Because these are the very last hepers in existence. What a waste to devour them into extinction in mere seconds.

Chomp, chomp, gone, scarfed down in a frantic feeding frenzy. It'l be almost anticlimactic. No, better to draw out the experience, to kil off the hepers slowly, one at a time. One chapter stretched into three.”

I fi ght the urge to furrow my brow. “But that's possible only if the Hunt is slowed down— by arming the hepers. It'll the Hunt is slowed down— by arming the hepers. It'll increase the drama, the excitement, the payoff for the eventual winner. And then the last chapter will be amazing.

Drama to the hilt as the winning hunter drinks down the very last drops of heper blood. Down, down his throat . . . into oblivion.” I look at Ashley June, then at the Director, understanding at last. “Everything is for the book. For the Ruler.”

The Director is staring with a look of genuine surprise, his eyes wide, his jaw drooped and slack. Then his head snaps forward, then back again, a sharp staccato movement that cracks his neck. “Wel done,” he says. “You really are quite the surprise.” His neck cracks THE HUNT 133 loudly one more time, a bone- snapping clap that ricochets down the library.

Then he pauses: his eyes suddenly narrow into a dark and intense disdain. “And so that brings us back to you. The one thing I cannot fi gure out. How do you fi t into all of this?

And why the directive I received just a few minutes ago, again concerning you?”

“What directive, sir?”

“Why is the Palace so interested in you?” he asks, ignoring my question. “Everything else, I've fi gured out.” And every last vestige of brightness in his eyes is fl ung away. Only razors of darkness stand in his eyes now, so keen on mine, I feel them slicing into my eyebal s.

“I don't know.”

“You're lying,” he says, caressing his forearm with the backs of his fi ngers as if stroking a hairless kitten. “Tel me. Now. Tel me what's going on. The Palace thinks it's so smart with these random directives, thinks it can keep me in the dark. Every other day comes some new directive wil y- nil y, some new twist on this Hunt. They want to keep me on my toes, they want to keep me in the dark. But I have my ways of fi nding out.” His words drop out of his mouth, sharp icicles fal ing into a dark canyon. “And of coercing it out, if necessary.”

My fi ngers, hung by my side, begin to tremble. I press them against the side of my leg. “I don't—”

“Tel me!” His voice booms off the wal s. Even as his words echo down the length of the fl oor, I see the anger rising in his eyes.

He begins to move toward me— “I know why,” Ashley June suddenly whispers.

The Director stops. Everyone turns to look at her.

She looks at me briefl y, as if about to commit an unforgivable betrayal, then says: “It's because”— her voice lowers even more— “he's different.”

“What do you mean?” the Director asks.

She is standing in the shadows; now she steps forward, into a splash of moonlight. “He's exactly what the Palace is looking for.”

Hesitation. Then: “Explain.”

“You said the winner will pen this book. So they need someone who can write. And with the media here, there're going to be magazine interviews, TV talk show appearances, radio interviews after the Hunt. So they need someone wel - spoken. But Heper Hunt winners have typical y been loutish brutes, masters of physicality but not exactly the most articulate or ce re bral of people. The Palace needs someone who is wel - spoken, thoughtful, restrained, detail-oriented.” She fl icks her chin in my direction. “And with him, you've got all that. I know: I've been his classmate for years. He's always been an academic star, unwittingly. His intel igence is effortless.

He'l be terrifi c. In press interviews, in front of the camera, penning the memoir. And the Palace knows this; it sounds like they've thor-oughly vetted him. Of all the hunters here, he's by far the most media- ready.”

The Director turns his eyes on me, scrutinizing me as if from a newly discovered angle.

“He might be a bit on the shy, quiet side,” Ashley June continues, “but even that's a plus: it's a quietness that's compel ing and attractive. Girls love it.” She pauses. “Trust me on that one.”

The Director shifts his stare away to look outside, a fl icker of annoyance fl itting across his face. “Who's been giving you all this intel?”

“Nobody. It's just guesswork, that's all .” Alertness shines in her eyes. “Nothing you haven't already thought of, I'm sure.”

“I see.” His left hand, glowing with a suffused paleness, strokes one of the attaché cases. His bony fi ngers lilt on the handle, brushing it with fear and disdain. “So you're just guessing— you could be way off base.”

“Maybe. But I don't think so.” She pauses. “But what about me?

Why am I here?”

The Director raises his eyes to her and scratches his wrist in long, lethargic strokes. His plea sure is easily evident.

“You are what we would cal Plan B.”

“I'm not sure I fol ow.”

“Pity that. And to think you'd been doing so wel .” The Director sniffs. “Evidently, you're just like everyone else, always needing me to spel things out for them. An hour ago, I received yet another directive. Concerning both you and him. You are Plan B. In case Plan A— him—fails to pan out, in case he fails to execute, you're the safety net.

Something goes wrong during the Hunt, he fails to deliver or is taken out of the action, you're there to win the Hunt.

You're the insurance policy, the understudy winner.”

“I don't think it'l work.”

“But of course it will !” he says, mild irritation seeping into his voice. “You're every bit the package he is. Smart— though I'm beginning to have my doubts; verbose— though a little too much, I'm coming to think; and very knowledgeable about hepers. They've told me about you, little girl, about all the heper clubs and societies you've been involved in over the years. Your heper knowledge wil come in handy during post- Hunt interviews and whatnot.

And besides, you're quite the eye candy. You'd look good on camera, in photographs. Your pretty face would grace the covers of instant best sel ers quite wel . Yes, I can see it now.”

“You need to think about the bigger picture of the Hunt,”

Ashley June says, her voice steely.

“I need to think? . . .”

Ashley June is silent: the silence of regret.

“You think you know better than me?” The words pepper her like pel ets out of a shotgun, rancid with scorn. “Don't tel me what I need to think, little girl.”

The Director closes his eyelids, his long eyelashes delicately interlacing. And with that, the temperature in the library, already low, plummets. Beams of moonlight freeze into pil ars of transparent gray ice. I shoot a look at her. She knows she's crossed a line— her skin is even paler than before, and her eyelids are fl uttering.

The Director's eyes draw down to the two attaché cases.

He pul s them closer. “One of you'l need to win the Heper Hunt for this plan to succeed. That's what you wanted to tel me, isn't it, little girl? Please. Don't presume to share with me your pedestrian ideas. Because I already knew that. In order for you to grace the covers of magazines, to appear on talk shows, to be the talk of the town, one of you must win. Because yes, I'm wel aware that there're other hunters, many of whom are not only as desirous to win, but far more capable of doing so.”

He presses a button and the attaché cases open with a snap. He spins them around for us to see inside. A FLUN inside each case.

The Director takes one out. “Nobody knows what real y happens out there in the Vast during the Hunt, how dirty it can get. For one, the Hunt has never been videotaped: videocameras are too heavy, and besides, cameramen wil simply throw the cameras down and join in the Hunt, unable to resist. And nobody really cares how . . .

unsportsmanlike things can degenerate. Hunters have been known to . . . wel , resort to dirty tricks. It's a dog- eat- dog world out there, and the more dog it is, the more interesting it'l be to read about later. Use these FLUNs on the other hunters. Everyone will think it was just the hepers who shot them. Somewhere in the Vast when you're far removed from the Institute. One FLUN for each of you, three shots in each. Should be enough, no?”

“And what if we take out all the other hunters?” Ashley June asks. Her voice is quiet but not hesitant. “And it's only the two of us left? What should we do?”

The Director's reaction is almost violent. His hands cross together at the wrists, and he scratches deep white lines into the soft give of his wrists, his head snapping back like a sideways pogo stick. “What do I really care?” Beads of delirious light shoot out of his eyes. “What do I really care so long as one of you wins? Oh, you sil y girl!” He suddenly stops moving as if remembering something; he looks at both of us sternly. “Only know this: I want a clear winner. It's always better that way. No ties. The public does not like ambiguity. If it comes down to just the two of you . . . wel . . .