A bright spotlight pierces the blackness. It illuminates a patch of sand.
LOOKING UP
at the source of the spotlight we see shapes moving around its diffuse edges. A larger shape is hoisted into the centre of the spotlight, partially blocking it, and then lowered towards us, the shape in silhouette. It is a body, the limbs hanging limply at its sides.
THE BODY
lowered to a couple of feet off the ground, and then dropped, falling with a thud onto the sand. The body groans, rolls itself over, throws back the blanket in which it is wrapped. It is--
MIFFED MATT
--groaning.
FROM SOMEWHERE ABOVE
the crackle of a loudspeaker, and then a voice, deliberate, enthused, belonging to a female ANNOUNCER.
ANNOUNCER (O.S.)
The old world ran on decimal points. On fractions. On equations. Life and death were decided within the cells of a spreadsheet. A banker squeezed zero-point-one of a dollar here, a politician saved their fat friends a quarter of a penny there. An accountant tapped a button on her keyboard, and half a planet away an entire city starved. Well no longer. We don't hold truck with large sums, with tiny fractions. Only one number concerns us in this age. The number five.
CROWD (O.S.)
Five! Five! Five!
ANNOUNCER (O.S.)
Less than five can't be counted, it's dirty; more than five makes your head all hurty. But five is the perfect mid-point. Five is the universe in glorious balance. All must be brought to five, and in that five will we find peace.
CROWD (O.S.)
Peace in five! Peace in five!
Miffed Matt stands, checks he's still in possession of all his appendages, brushes himself off.
ANNOUNCER (O.S.)
And where do we do this sum? Not in checkbooks and underhanded spreadsheets. We do our accounting out here in the open, in the Numberdome, where all can see, all can witness. Numberdome. Three may enter. Two more may enter. Five must remain!
The spotlight goes off and all the lights flash on. The arena -- for it is an arena -- is lit up. Miffed Matt is on the floor of an enormous cage, the bars reaching upwards all around him and meeting at the top, where a small hole from which he was lowered is being barred and bolted by two bare-chested mutants. Around the cage are stands housing a boisterous Crowd, cheering and pumping their fists. In a special observation box Timmartin and Farazze sit scoffing pre-match snacks -- English snacks, none of those vole-oh-vaunts or other foreign muck. And on a central podium, high above the arena, holding a microphone, is the Announcer, a flamboyant woman with spiked shoulderpads who looks not dissimilar to Tina Turner.
CROWD
Five must remain! Five must remain!
ANNOUNCER
Or four may enter. But then only one may enter. Five must remain!
CROWD
Five must remain!
ANNOUNCER
Or seven may enter. But then two are going to have to leave. Five must remain.
CROWD
Five must remain!
MIFFED MATT
I'm not sure I'm getting this.
ANNOUNCER
What is there not to get? Five must remain!
CROWD
Five must remain!
MIFFED MATT
Is that a game? I don't see how that could be a game.
ANNOUNCER
It is the most glorious of games, played through the generations by our people. The sacred game of fives.
MIFFED MATT
Sounds like a card game to me.
ANNOUNCER
Well it's not, OK? It's a game of terror and agility and universal balance. Eighty-eight may enter. Eighty-three will have to leave. Five must remain.
CROWD
Five must remain.
MIFFED MATT
Yes, I can do arithmetic. I'm just not getting any sense of depth. It's like someone has taken a one-line joke and based an entire belief system around it.
ANNOUNCER
Enough of this. Bring in the champion!
A gate in the side of the cage is pulled open by a handful of nervous TAMERS, and a man steps through. More than a man. A hulking, gargantuan creature. YAXLEY-LENNON -- at least eight-feet tall, with rippling muscles and skin marked with homemade tattoos. He is naked but for a Union Jack loincloth covering his waist, and a battered and notched Saint-George's-cross helmet hiding his head.
The Tamers spur Yaxley-Lennon forwards with spears and buzzing electrical whips, causing the beast to howl, lash out, and, in time-honoured tradition, grab an inexperienced Tamer and rip his head off and eat him before leaping into the arena.
TAMER #1
Goddammit. That's the third apprentice in three fights. And I really liked Terry.
TAMER #2
It is becoming rather a trope, isn't it?
TAMER #1
Why don't we just take his manacles off inside the arena?
TAMER #2
It's part of the spectacle, I suppose.
ANNOUNCER
Ladies and gentlemen, mutants and aberrations, I give you your undefeated champion, top of the league, defender of our freedoms, king of the sunbeds -- Yaxley-Lennon!
Crowd goes mental.
ANNOUNCER (CONT'D)
Two have entered. But you all know the rules. We've got a discrepancy here. Yaxley-Lennon, I guess you'll just have to tear Miffed Matt into four equal pieces. For five must remain!
CROWD
Five must remain!
MIFFED MATT
Oh.
ANNOUNCER
Oh what?
MIFFED MATT
No, it's just. A fight to the death? Really? I thought it was going to be more interesting than that.
ANNOUNCER
What could be more interesting than a fight to the death?
MIFFED MATT
I mean. All that stuff about fives seems like misdirection. I rather feel you're using it as grand populist rhetoric with which to mask the inherent simplicity and thuggishness of your approach.
ANNOUNCER
(hurt)
We're not the kind of people to do a thing like that.
(back to business)
But whatever your words, Miffed Matt, it is time to move past them, to a place of actions. Contenders, you are in the Numberdome now, and it crackles with anticipation. You go now into history. Stand, contenders, and be counted! Begin!
Miffed Matt turns to face his opponent --
-- and Yaxley-Lennon charges.
CONTINUED...
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