Alternates: Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The six of us chat while we wait for the last game to start. Much like our lunch with Morty, once the pleasantries about the game are out of the way, everyone prefers to avoid the topic of The Q altogether.

I find out that Natalie, with whom I don’t think I’ve exchanged a single word before this, is a religion major like me, and we get into a spirited discussion about her thesis, which she’s writing on Biblical reception in rural queer communities. I tell her how cool I think her topic is and ask if it’s personal to her and she says she’s not sure yet, she’s still figuring it out, but she did grow up Evangelical so it’ll take a while, and we laugh about that. I also find out that, unlike me, Natalie didn’t know the Final Factor because she remembered it from an old episode of The Q - she actually knows Ancient Greek, which she learned so she could read the Bible in Koine. Mark teaches me and Hank how to play a seven-symbol version of rock-paper-scissors that adds in fire, water, air, and sponge (“ah, the four classical elements,” Hank says) in addition to the usual three options. Mark is much better than the two of us, but he’s a surprisingly patient teacher, and he coaches both of us as we battle it out and the other semifinalists cheer us on. I’m too busy trying to remember the rules to think about strategy, and I suspect Hank is too, because we quickly lose track of who’s winning and agree to call it a draw when, after many, many rounds, we get distracted by the others’ ongoing conversations. Ruby, Hank, and Mark complain about the fact that their STEM professors seem to leave all the teaching to their TAs and don’t really care about helping their students because their departments (biology, engineering, health administration) are so big that they don’t have to care. London, Natalie, and I listen with interest to these grievances, coming as each of us do from smaller, less-well-funded humanities departments with deeply invested professors. London, who’s double-majoring in English Literature and Portuguese, teaches us his favorite Portuguese swears. We pick them up right away and start calling each other sons of bitches in all the languages we speak, although almost everybody’s pronunciation is atrocious.

“I wonder what’s taking them so long,” Natalie says. “Mickey, do you have the time?”

I glance at my watch. “Three-fifteen. Wow, yeah, it’s been almost an hour since your game ended. What gives?”

Almost the moment I say it, Yasmin leads the final three competitors into the room and the security guard makes a quick search of each of their plastic bags. Joan’s hair has been slicked carefully back from her face and her braid is in perfect order. She’s wearing her Smith sweatshirt, the same one she put over my shoulders the other day. Rafa, to my great surprise, isn’t wearing his glasses. He lifts a finger and presses down under his right eye, rolling it a few times in what I recognize as the universal sign for “I’m not used to wearing contact lenses and this feels weird.”

Instead of going up to the podiums right away, Yasmin holds up her hands, and the three of them stop where they are, spacing themselves six feet apart automatically. Yasmin leans over to one of the people behind the camera, who shakes his head, and she gives him a thumbs-up and says a few words to Rafa, Joan, and Duncan. They nod, and Rafa gives her almost the same thumbs-up she gave the camera guy. Then she ascends the stairs into the audience seating area and turns to us.

“We’ll start the last semifinal game in a few minutes,” Yasmin explains, “but our team is just finishing up the recap that will play before Cab introduces the contestants. The goal is for it to go over who’s in the finals so far and build up the suspense for this last semifinal game. It shouldn’t take much longer. We appreciate your patience.”

“No problem,” Hank says. “Thanks for letting us know.”

We nod and make sounds of agreement, and Yasmin retreats down the stairs. She moves toward the judges’ table, and I watch her strike up a conversation before looking back to Rafa, Joan, and Duncan. Duncan is waiting patiently, hands folded behind his back, but Rafa and Joan are engaged in an intense whispered conversation, heads together, no longer six feet apart. Rafa steals a glance at me, which I avoid meeting at the last second. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Joan do the same thing. Rafa shakes his head, and Joan tilts hers like she’s considering something carefully. He shakes his head again, more vehemently this time, and Joan holds up a hand to calm him. She looks at me again, for longer this time, and says something that makes the tension in Rafa’s shoulders evaporate. He glances behind him at Yasmin - I follow his gaze, and she isn’t watching him - and reaches out and gives Joan’s shoulder a quick squeeze. She nods, and they retreat back to their six-foot social distance.

They were definitely just talking about me. They were obviously talking about me and barely doing anything to hide it. Did they want me to know they were talking about me?

I look back at Rafa. He’s looking at me.

Fuck, he knows I know. But I don’t know! He already gave Joan the whole spiel about not trusting me - was this just that again? What else is there to say? What did she agree to just now? Did he tell her to do something? Or am I completely misinterpreting that whole conversation? I mean, I didn’t hear any of it, so maybe interpret isn’t even the right word in this case, but - still! They were talking about me!

Yasmin finishes her conversation with the judges, checks with the camera guy again - this time he gives her a thumbs-up - and arranges the three remaining semifinalists in the order they’ll walk on: first Rafa at the champion’s podium, then Duncan, then Joan. The Q’s opening theme music begins to play, and Rafa moves to walk on, but Yasmin puts up a hand as the suspense-building recap flashes up on the monitors.

We hear Cab, in a voice-over, say, “It’s been a very exciting tournament so far, folks. Our Student Showcase contestants have already finished two of the three semifinal games with some very impressive scores.” Footage from the previous two games begins to play, with shots of each of our faces and people buzzing in. Yasmin begins to shepherd Rafa onstage. Once he’s at his podium, she comes back for Duncan.

Cab continues, “Currently, our three highest-scoring semifinalists are… Mark MacIntyre, from Syracuse University!” Mark waves at the camera with a toothy grin on his face. “Natalie Zielinski, from Xavier University!” Natalie nods and raises her eyebrows at the camera. “And Mickey Lewis, from Princeton University!” I smile, victorious, as my podium displays my winning 9900 points.

Hey, wait.

“But will any of our three remaining semifinalists score high enough t-”

The video and audio cut abruptly and the monitors go dark. I see Joan quickly dart her eyes away from the screen, towards me, and then back towards the contestants behind the podiums. She saw my score. Or at least I think she did. I saw her look away.

Or at least I think I did.

Yasmin waves her up onto the stage, her movements frantic, and Joan hurries up to her podium. I see Joan’s shaking fingers tapping against the sides of her legs, and after a few moments, she shoves her hands in her pockets.

Around me, the other contestants have already erupted into a flurry of hysterical whispers. I turn to face their eyes, which are already on me.

“Well,” I whisper as they quiet. “I guess that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Holy shit,” Mark whispers back. “What do you think they’re going to do?”

“Make me a finalist automatically?” I joke.

“They should,” Natalie replies. “Like, I know you’re joking, but they literally just ruined all the weird secrecy and isolation stuff they’ve been doing. That’s completely unfair.”

“They might not have ruined it,” London points out. “The contestants can’t see the monitors from the stage, and Rafa and Duncan were already up there.”

“What about Joan?” Hank asks.

“Was she looking?”

“I don’t know.”

“Even if she was, can’t she just lie and say she wasn’t?”

“Would Joan do that, though?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t really talked to her.”

“Me neither.”

Yasmin and Morty are off to the side having what looks like a tense discussion. The way Yasmin moves her hands is quick, sharp, jerky, and she gives off the impression of being a ninja breaking invisible boards. Morty, normally expansive in voice and gesture, has his arms crossed and is tapping his foot in a quick, unsteady staccato. More people join their tense conversation - Cab, two of the judges, the man from behind the camera, and a few other people with headsets in - maybe PAs? One of the headset people walks away after a few minutes, pulls out a cell phone, and makes a call, and a few minutes after that, someone in a suit shows up.

“Who do you think that is?” Ruby murmurs.

“If I had to guess?” Mark replies. “A lawyer.”

“Oh, man, that’s - I mean, that’s really serious,” I say.

“Yeah,” Mark says. “I bet they think you’re gonna sue them.”

“I don’t know how to sue somebody.”

London leans over to us. “You could, though, I think,” he says. “I mean, if Joan did see that, it basically guarantees she can beat you, right?”

“Not if she doesn’t play well,” Ruby points out. “But I guess she won her last game so she’ll probably play well.”

“But there’s no way to guarantee the way a game goes,” Hank says.

“Yeah,” Ruby agrees, “there are tons of scenarios where she wouldn’t be able to reach your score. Or where she’d beat it organically.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think they know what to do either.”

“Hence the lawyer,” Mark interjects.

After several more minutes of tense conversation among the adults, Morty breaks away and steps up onto the stage to talk to the contestants. His voice is loud enough that if we fall silent and strain our ears from the studio audience section - and we do - we can just barely hear him.

“Okay,” he says. “Sorry to keep you guys waiting, but this is a very serious situation. Did any of you see that?”

“See what?” Joan asks. She sounds so confused I almost believe her. But I don’t, I won’t, because I saw her look away which means she must have been looking towards. And she chose to sabotage Keeley. I’m mad at her, and I don’t believe her.

I wish I didn’t have to keep reminding myself.

Morty sighs with relief. “Okay, that’s good to hear, but I’ll ask again anyway. We need absolute and total honesty from all of you. We won’t punish any of you if you saw it. Did you or didn’t you see, on the monitor, Mickey’s score?”

“No, I didn’t,” Rafa says.

“Me neither,” Duncan says.

Joan shakes her head. “Me neither.”

Morty nods. “Okay. Hang tight for a little bit, you three. I’ll see if we can get you some chairs so you can sit down.”

“Thank you,” Rafa says. “Let us know if we can help somehow.”

“I appreciate that, Rafa.”

More tense, hushed conversations. The group scatters for a few minutes, and one of the headset-wearers comes back with three folding chairs tucked under his arms, which he sets up for Rafa, Joan, and Duncan in a wide half-circle facing the back wall of the studio. And then Yasmin comes up the stairs and asks to talk to me.

She pulls me aside, around the right side of the stage and into the narrow, dim hallway behind it that clever camera angles and bright lights disguise on TV. The man in the business suit - up close, he does indeed radiate lawyer energy - is also there.

“We’re very sorry to have put you in this position,” Yasmin says. “Showing your score was a mistake on the part of the editing team, who were working under time pressure, and I’m sure it can’t be pleasant to be in your shoes right now.”

“It’s not,” I say. It comes out more confident than I expected. The lawyer’s shoulders tense.

“Of course,” Yasmin replies. “Unfortunately, the collective hands of The Q are tied here. Because of the inherent randomness of the game, there is no way to guarantee that, even if a contestant had seen your score, they’ll be in a position to beat it. But if we attempt to alter the game to prevent someone from beating your score or otherwise try to sway things in your favor, we’ll be in legally dubious territory at best, and you understand The Q’s commitment to keeping our game entirely ethical.”

“I remember that discussion, yeah.”

“If any of the contestants bet suspiciously on the Final Factor - for example, if any of them were to bet to end up with exactly 9901 points - then we’ll take a closer look. But right now, they have all said they didn’t see your score. Neither Rafa nor Duncan was in a physical position to be able to, and given that it was only up on the screen for a moment, it seems unlikely that Joan did.”

“So what am I supposed to do, then?” I ask.

The lawyer shakes his head. “You sit and watch the last game, and either you make it to the finals or you don’t. As Yasmin said, our hands are tied.”

“And what you’re saying is mine are too.”

“No, no,” Yasmin says, but she doesn’t clarify what she and the lawyer are saying. I’m beginning to suspect he’s not here in case I sue them; he’s here to make sure I don’t.

“And what happens if one of them does end up with 9901?” I ask.

“Then we’ll go from there,” the lawyer says. “In the meantime, though, the only ethical thing to do is to see how the game plays out.”

I don’t know what else to say, and I'm certainly not about to explain just how little I care about playing the game ethically, so I just nod and let them take me back to my seat. The folding chairs are taken away, the lights and cameras are reset, and before I can explain what happened to the other semifinalists, Cab Cabrini is introducing our last three Student Showcase semifinalists.

It’s fascinating watching Rafa play with the knowledge that he’s trying to lose. When Cab introduces him, he flashes his hot vampire smile at the camera and, perhaps to mourn the loss of his glasses, makes a heart with his hands. I can already see the Internet showering him with love for that choice. He gets to go first, and he chooses a category - Movies By Actor - that he’s great at. He buzzes in on every question and gets them all correct, and then he switches to a category - European Geography - that I’m sure isn’t his strong suit. He sits back, doesn’t try to buzz unless he’s absolutely certain of himself, and lets the other two slowly overtake him. He makes the whole thing look easy, and even though he’s standing at a podium, I keep imagining him kicked back on a beach chair with a daiquiri in one hand and his buzzer in the other.

He actually finds the Q Factor question in the second round, the category being Pop Music, and doubles his score with a grin on his face as he says, with barely disguised glee in his voice that I suspect is manufactured but can’t honestly say for sure, “Oh, my god, I love her. Who is Lizzo?” He gives the camera a shy little wave. “Hi, Lizzo.”

Cab Cabrini laughs delightedly as he tells Rafa he’s correct. That’s the last question Rafa answers until the Final Factor, but his hot vampire smile never budges once.

I’m so busy analyzing Rafa that I hardly notice Joan absolutely wiping the floor with Duncan. He’s getting flustered by her cool monotone and absolute command of a huge variety of knowledge, and he keeps making mistakes, buzzing in too early, and not reading the question all the way through. What’s more, though, she’s playing risky, much riskier than she did in her first game. She jumps in on questions outside her areas of expertise and zigzags all over the board rather than sticking with her linear strategy. It makes sense to play that way if you’re trying to maximize your score, but I’m surprised Joan’s not more methodical and conservative about it. It works for her, though. When it’s time for the Final Factor, Joan is beating my score handily, with 12200 points.

There go the finals, I think. But at least I won my game. I get to say I went undefeated on The Q, and I get to come home with fifty grand and hear my dad tell me how proud he is of me. 

And, I have to admit to myself, I don't have to keep reminding myself to be mad at Joan. She actually was telling the truth.

Natalie leans over and nudges me during the commercial break before Final Factor. “Hey,” she whispers. “I’m glad I don’t have to play you in the finals. You’re an awesome player.”

“So are you!”

“This does really suck, though.”

I shrug. “Hey, once an alternate, always an alternate.” And I’m shocked to hear that, when I say it, I don’t sound angry. I still feel angry. The warm hungry thing inside me is screaming that it won't be fed again, that I've felt what it feels like to win on The Q for the last time, and I didn't even know it was my last. But I'm not angry at Joan, not anymore.

Which means I don’t have to feel weird about seeing if she’s free again tonight.

The Final Factor category is Money Matters, and the contestants spend the commercial break making their bets. In the studio audience section, we aren’t paying much attention. Neither of the other players can catch Joan, although Rafa has put himself in a distant but respectable second place, and we’re already joking in our quietest TV-friendly whispers about whether Lizzo will acknowledge Rafa online once this episode comes out. The producers hurriedly shush us as the show comes back in, and we quiet down to listen to the Final Factor clue.

“Larry King set off a mathematical controversy in a USA Today column about making change for a dollar bill. Along with half-dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, he considered a dollar coin as change. But if you disagree with Larry and don’t count that dollar coin, there are this many ways to make change for a dollar bill.”

Oh, my God, I can’t believe it. Joan and I just talked about this at Joe's Foods. What are the odds?

The players’ answers and bets are revealed.

Joan’s guess is “What is 242?”

What? She knows it’s not. She’s the one who corrected me about the half-dollars, and it mentions the half-dollars right in the clue. She knows it’s 292.

Her bet - the amount of money she loses for getting it wrong - is revealed. 1268 points.

“Which takes you down,” Cab says, “to 10932 points. Still a very respectable score.”

Joan looks into the camera.

I see her wide eyes on the monitor staring out at me.

10932. It’s not one point more than my score, so there’s no reason for the producers to start a deeper investigation. There’s no reason at all to suspect she saw my score. She’s put herself comfortably in the finals.

It’s not one point more than my score.

It’s 1032 points more.

Might Makes Write and all the writing shared herein are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.