This chapter was written by the talented ShaunAllan  

The drones hummed quietly on the air, watching.

Their only movement came from slight wobbles from an errant breeze that tried to dislodge these intruders into its territory. They were an almost silent audience for the world below them.

That world, the district, at least, was only a few levels up from a slum. Sampson had the funds to bring him anything he might wish for and to bring an entire establishment to the crumbling level of decay the drones now were witness to. The residents of the apartment block below could live a lifetime on what the owner of the hovering sentinels 'earned' in only a week. Earned was a loose term. Was it earning if you lived off the secrets of others, or the spying into the hidden lives of the populace? Sampson would say yes. The occupants would not.

Hours went by and the drones waited patiently, uncaring of the movements of any but their target. Suddenly, they twitched in unison. They were linked by the blanket of low level WIFI that covered the city and enabled the live streaming of The Hunt to any and all devices. Movement had been detected. Cameras had zoomed, infra-red modes already in play. A game was afoot, after all.

The woman slipped out, a shadow amongst shadows. She looked all around her before leaving the shelter of the entrance. Naturally, as one does, she neglected to look up. The drones would have been difficult to see if she had. They had the ability to alter their colours using their cameras and a paint coating with pigments that changed with deliberate variations of heat. The constant whirring of their fans diverted the energy created into myriad circuits and functions.

But, danger doesn't come from above, except in movies. Danger, or witnesses – but that's the same when you're trying to remain unseen – comes from the front or the sides or from behind. Above is the sky. Above is where prayers go to be either heard or ignored depending on your religion. Above was safe.

She slid through the streets, swift and sure and certain. She was adept at remaining hidden even in plain sight, her training from long before like a comfortable jacket recovered from a closet she'd kept locked.

She was part of the Addington family. The best. The royalty of the Hunters. She trained with her husband. Bested him in every possible way, to his immense displeasure. But he had edges that were rough. Edges that were sharp and had cut her often on the occasions when he didn't score the first kill, or wounded when he was going for a 'hole in one.' She had finesse. Grace. And the taste of blood was bitter in her mouth and a stain on her spirit.

The illness had been real at first. A sting from one of the poison traps she had tried to avoid but had still stumbled into thanks to a rock that sneaked under her boot, twisted her ankle and landed her in hospital then bed for an extended period.

So, she used the excuse of lingering sickness. Of hospital visits and stays that were never needed or happened. She found a new life that hadn't meant to include love. It hadn't meant to include taking on someone else's children and loving them as her own. It was in a world far removed from the one she called home. They had little but they had so much. Money and food and space and adoration from the fans of that damned show were trophies for her husband and children. Her other husband and children.

But now, the man she loved and who gave her a reason to smile, was in the Hunt. He was running for his life to give her the very life she had shunned!

So, she would save him.

When she ran, the drones flew. When she paused they hovered. Their thermographic lenses followed her meandering route through the canopy. The fence had proven to be no problem for her. It was designed to keep people in, not out. After all, who would want to break in and risk being accidentally shot? She knew the sensors and the cameras. She was well aware of blind spots. Almost between one heartbeat and the next, she had scaled it and was vanishing into the forest.

When she hid, when she waited and when she dropped down in front of her husband and her son, each a complete stranger to the other, the drones waited with her. There was almost a shiver of anticipation in the machines at the confrontation, perhaps influenced by the fact Sampson was watching remotely in the air in front of him.

He was smiling.

The man and the boy who was being forced to be one dropped their weapons as instructed. They stared at the woman, not knowing their reasons for doing so were almost the same. Her demeanour wasn't that of a loving wife or a sick mother. It was of a woman in control, both of herself and her situation. It was one of defiance. It was one of a woman ready to face the questions she couldn't avoid.

But first..

"Mum?" Marcus gasped, his mouth hanging wide and his eyes bulging.

"Mary?" croaked Sixty-Four, his mouth dry from the run and the fear and the shock.

"Stop there," she ordered.

They did. For Marcus, she was his mother. He was ever respectful of her position in their household and his heart. For Sixty-Four, it was because, though he spoke his own mind had had his own opinions, he generally deferred to her. She knew best, and he liked a quiet life. Even their breaths paused in their lungs before realising she probably wasn't talking to them and they could continue their job of helping them live.

"I know you've got questions, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to answer them right now" she said. "We need to move, or we'll be dead. I'd prefer that didn't happen."

She turned and crouched in one fluid movement, much like a cat ready to hunt for mice. Not in the standard imagined way of a fluffy, cute animal bringing home a gift for its owner, but in the savage, predatory way of a beast and its prey.

She didn't need to tell them to follow. They did so automatically.

"Keep down, keep fast and keep quiet," she hissed.

They did, though her husband's haste included stumbling over roots and against trees. The sudden change of circumstance had released his pent-up anxiety from being hunted and replaced it with an exhausted confusion.

"James!" she barked at him, the only time she spoke. "If you don't want to die, don't act as if you do!"

She turned forward as sharply as she'd turned back, dismissing the noisy, clumsy gait of her husband and concentrating on the issue at hand. Avoiding both the watchful eye of the authorities and the millions of viewers. And, of course, the hunters.

She stopped, abruptly. Marcus was quick enough to not run into her but James, Sixty-Four, wasn't. Marcus grabbed him just as he was about to knock her over. James wrenched his arm away, his fist clenched. He was ready to lash out at this boy who thought he was old enough and strong enough to hunt and kill contestants as if they were vermin to be exterminated. How dare this boy touch him?

He raised his fist, but Mary grabbed his arm, her finger on her lips. She shook her head, then raised an eyebrow, questioning if he understood what she was telling him. He did, suddenly aware of the forest around them and the eyes and ears of the world.

There was the snap of a twig close by and the hushed curse of a man angry with himself. Mary glanced towards the sound then pointed at her two companions, then down at the ground.

You stay here.

Again her finger went to her lips.

Don't make a sound.

They understood. James was still a contestant. He was happy to remain where he was and not make a sound. Marcus was still his mother's son, whoever this man was. And however the hell he knew his mother! He would do as she asked. There was clearly more to her than he had ever realised, and questions were teeming into him like ants into their nest.

Mary left them, creeping through the forest towards the Hunter. She moved so easily, it appeared that the branches moved aside to let her pass. She disappeared from their view and, only seconds after, they heard a man's grunt and a sickening crunching sound. Then, something fell heavily to the ground.

"Come on," she said, appearing briefly through the trees.

They followed again, more aware now of the change that had occurred. They were no longer Hunter and Hunted. They were fugitives and they had no idea how or why everything had changed.

Mary moved swiftly once more and they took her lead. They passed a body on the ground. A man. His neck twisted much further than it should normally go. Blood trickled from his mouth and darkened the mud beneath. Mary ignored him. She'd already seen him there when she snapped his neck. James looked and looked away. He could have no sympathy for someone who would celebrate putting a bullet through his skull.

Marcus faltered but continued to follow his mother. Tears welled in his eyes and a cry choked in his throat. But he couldn't stop, not even for his dead father.

The drones hummed quietly on the air, watching.