Global Match — Day Two Begins

"...Mmm. He's a really good man."

Park Jung-hyeon gazed at the gukbap that had arrived via room service, his face lit with pure contentment. The bowls had already been scraped clean, and the team's stomachs were solidly full. In Jung-hyeon's mind, right after Yeon-woo himself, the manager Kim Min-su had now been firmly filed under "good people."

"Shame it isn't in a proper earthenware pot, but still — being able to bring outside food in like this is a blessing. Would've been a crime if we hadn't gotten to eat it."

Kim Su-hyeok wasn't quite the gukbap devotee Jung-hyeon was, but he wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with a thoroughly satisfied look of his own. Even if no one on their team had been eliminated and they'd won every fight, fatigue was still fatigue. In a way, the Korean team had covered more ground than anyone else, which meant their muscles had taken a heavier load. But because they'd planned their strategy carefully from the start, that distance had been traveled under secured conditions — so when it was time to rest, they could actually rest. They weren't nearly as exhausted as they might have been.

The other teams, by contrast, had spent nearly ten hours locked in combat under constant tension. They had to be completely wrecked.

The real problem is the epinephrine.

When a human body enters a combat state and the tension spikes, it secretes epinephrine. Better known as adrenaline, epinephrine is a catecholamine hormone released by the adrenal glands that helps the body ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠respond rapidly to crisis. Once the body decides it's in danger, it throttles blood flow to lower-priority systems like digestion and the skin, and ramps it up toward the brain, heart, and muscles.

The brain's basically saying: if you don't want to die, move faster, shoot straighter, hit harder.

In the short term, physical performance climbs. Fatigue, however, stacks twice as fast. And the worst aftereffects of hormone overload always arrive at night.

"I'm heading back to my room."

The moment Yeon-woo stood, both teammates scrambled up and roughly stacked the empty gukbap bowls onto the serving cart. When Yeon-woo took hold of the cart, they tried to stop him.

"Ah — we'll handle that."

"It's fine. I'll just leave it in the hallway on my way out. They said someone would come collect it."

Pushing the cart loaded with empty bowls, Yeon-woo stepped out of his teammates' room.

"You need to keep your condition sharp, so go straight to sleep."

"Yes, sir. Of course."

Watching them nod, Yeon-woo waited until their door closed, then parked the serving cart against one wall of the corridor and headed for his own room. He walked straight past his door and stopped in front of the elevator.

The downside of a day like today, when epinephrine dumps this hard, is insomnia.

He rode down to the lobby on the hotel's second floor. Dozens of players were still pacing, unable to shake off the high of the day's matches. He took the elevator again, this time up to the rooftop garden on the fourth floor.

The garden seemed to double as a smoking area; people with cigarettes between their lips were scattered across the space.

"—good thing I made the call right then and bolted behind that rock..."

"Ha! Yeah, that tracks. You know what I was thinking in that second? On the left—"

War stories in a dozen languages drifted over on the wind from every corner.

Everywhere you look, people are still buzzing about what happened today.

It was already past ten at night. For modern civilians, ten wasn't particularly late. For soldiers who had just fought a battle, though, this was the golden window when muscles needed to unclench and begin recovery — the hour when rest was non-negotiable.

Yeon-woo moved through the hotel, cataloguing the faces of everyone still too wired from the day's excitement to sleep.

Hmm. The ones I don't see are Italy, Japan, and Switzerland, more or less.

Coincidentally, that matched the win-probability rankings the sixteen-member external evaluation panel had issued. The reason Yeon-woo was making these rounds at all was the item he'd acquired at the end of the day.

A radar detector that only has "radar" in the name. I need to make it count.

He had to gather every scrap of information he could and carefully sort out who deserved to be treated as a priority threat.

That was when someone called from behind him.

"Hey, Ryu!"

Yeon-woo turned toward the voice. Myles Kroeger of the Canadian team — the same man who had cheerfully shouted "Annyeonghaseyo!" at them earlier that evening — was waving with a broad grin. He and the rest of the Canadian squad were clustered in a corner of the rooftop garden, smoking and talking.

As Yeon-woo approached, Myles fished something silver out of his pocket. At first Yeon-woo thought it was a smartphone — then remembered that outside communication was still banned and no one had gotten their phones back. Looking again, he saw it was a somewhat outdated digital camera.

"I wanted a picture with you so badly I begged one of the staff until they handed me this. When my daughter finds out I got a photo with you, she's going to completely lose her mind."

"Haha. Is that so? How old is she?"

"Just turned twelve. Still tiny."

"She must be adorable."

For a conversation with the people who had eliminated them that very evening, it was remarkably warm. Part of that was because Myles Kroeger genuinely was a fan of Yeon-woo — it hadn't been empty talk — and part of it was that the Canadian team simply weren't the aggressive type.

Yeon-woo took photos with Myles and the rest of the Canadian members. With their team leader, Kamal Wotherspoon — a well-known Canadian actor working in Hollywood — he even made a promise to stay in touch as fellow actors once the competition was over.

Good people.

It had only been a short conversation, but he came away thinking they were genuinely decent. He was about to head back and rest when Myles lowered his voice.

"If you run into the Norwegian team tomorrow, be careful. Something's off about them."

"Off?"

When Yeon-woo asked, Myles and the other Canadian players filled in the rest.

"We spotted them first, no question. We opened fire on the guy who looked like their leader — the one holding the ops pad — and hit him clean. He didn't go out."

"Three of us put more than seven rounds into him for sure."

Myles nodded and added,

"They ducked behind cover right away, so neither side got eliminated and we never confirmed who they were. After the match we checked — the only team wearing Coated Co. gear was Norway."

"We filed a protest with production immediately. They said the system only registered three hits and they'd look into it further... but the way they said it, it felt like they thought we just missed and were making excuses."

Yeon-woo rubbed his chin as he listened. The Canadian team he'd faced himself was skilled. Even after being ambushed, they had quickly fixed positions and burned through three of Park Jung-hyeon's lives with precise fire. Their judgment that they'd put at least seven rounds into the Norwegian leader was almost certainly correct. And if the man had been holding an ops pad, he hadn't even been moving.

A stationary target that a shooter of Myles Kroeger's caliber can't hit? No chance.

Either Norway had acquired some unknown item, or they were running some kind of bug exploit. Yeon-woo smiled at the Canadians who had given him the tip.

"Thank you. Coated Co. protective gear — Sahara colorway, three oversized front pockets?"

"Yes. That's the one."

Yeon-woo nodded and shook hands with each of them in turn.

"If we meet Norway, we'll fight carefully."

Whatever trick Gochujang Head had pulled, his name was already on Yeon-woo's list.

And at that same moment, someone was watching Yeon-woo and the Canadian team laugh and talk from a shadowed corner of the rooftop garden.

"Heh heh... my prey..."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

It was Marco Banchero, captain of the Italian team.

The next day, competition resumed. Fewer helicopters than the day before cut across the Central American sky.

Doesn't feel like this ends today...

Even if every team but one went out and a winner was crowned, the game would probably need another day or two. Setting aside the Polish team that had been eliminated in the shooting round on day one, eight of the nineteen teams were still standing. More than half had already fallen — but that was day one.

A careful look at the pattern of eliminations ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made it clear that day two would produce far fewer outs. On the first day, the teams had started in a ring around the island roughly seven hundred meters apart, so chaotic multi-way fights had erupted everywhere almost immediately. Most of the eliminations had come from those opening brawls.

When the first strategy window hit, fourteen teams were still alive.

From the moment the match began, all Yeon-woo and his teammates had done in the first round was move toward the center. That meant five teams had already taken each other out before anyone even reached the middle.

In the second round we eliminated France for our first kill, but only three teams went out total.

Subtract the French team Yeon-woo's squad had removed, and only two others had fallen. In the third round, the three teams Yeon-woo and his teammates had stacked up in front of the warehouse building accounted for every single elimination. No other teams had managed to take each other out.

The later this match goes, the more that pattern will lock in. Some of it will be teams deliberately avoiding fights — but the island is also just too big, and everyone's too scattered to predict.

Would production sit still and watch that play out? Yeon-woo shook his head. Something new was going to be added to the rules. Guaranteed.

Thud-thud-thud-thud—

As the island drew closer, the helicopter dropped altitude. Looking out the window, Yeon-woo could see the other birds carrying players descending toward different points across the island. The landing zones were only places a helicopter could actually set down, so they wouldn't be the teams' exact starting points — but they would be as close as possible.

South is just us. Three heading toward the center, two north, one northwest.

The remaining helicopter was somewhere behind Yeon-woo's, out of sight from the window. Even a rough fix on positions was valuable.

One unknown team whose bird I can't see, and the closest to us are the ones going center. If I remember right, when we boarded earlier Italy, Switzerland, and Germany were on those birds.

Once a flight of helicopters was airborne, they held formation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at safe intervals for safety reasons — they didn't reshuffle positions midair like a shell game. The three birds that had turned toward the center carried those three teams. The ones heading north were Japan and Brazil. The one going northwest was, if his memory was correct, Israel.

North and northwest were a long way from Yeon-woo's southern drop.

Which leaves one team.

Yeon-woo pulled out the strategy pad he was holding and tapped the screen with a finger.

Beep—

The surviving teams scrolled down the screen. Without hesitation, Yeon-woo selected Norway.

The one team whose helicopter he hadn't been able to track by direction was Norway.

If I can't see the bird, it's flying behind us.

Which meant there was a high probability they would drop somewhere close to Yeon-woo's team. It was almost time to find out what "secret Gochujang Head was hiding" — the tip the Canadians had so kindly passed along.