Read Flash Point for Free Online Page A

she went home to a hot shower.

Five
    S ATURDAY
    THE SCREENING ROOM held eight black leather chairs, each deep and wide, arranged in two staggered rows. Small tables between the chairs held drinks. The screen, ten feet wide and seven feet high, shone blackly in the reflection from recessed lighting. Dark red cloth covered the windowless walls.
    At ten a.m. on Saturday, six people settled into the seats. James Taunton, front and center, reached down to pick a tiny piece of lint off the carpet, an action rightly perceived by the two people on either side of him as a reproach, even though of course they had nothing to do with the cleaning staff. But this was their event, their TV show, their room for the next two hours on this sunny Saturday. If a meteor hit Taunton Life Network in the next two hours, they were responsible.
    “Sir,” Myra Townsend said on Taunton’s right, “you understand that it’s very rough. We only shot the final participant last night.”
    “Of course he does,” said Alex Everett, on Taunton’s left. “How many screenings do you estimate you’ve been to, sir?”
    Taunton didn’t answer. He held out the piece of lint to Myra, who took it. In the far seat, tech genius Mark Meyer blinked and tried to stay awake; he was
never
up at this hour of the morning. Also, his hands felt naked without a tablet in them. But it was only a few hours and then he could go back to bed. The two underlings seated behind the four said nothing, and would not have dreamed of doing so.
    “Roll it,” Myra said. The screen brightened.
    Music started low, gradually becoming more audible: rap set to keyboards performing atonal music. The rap words were indistinguishable and stayed so, but the strange music sounded both energizing and slightly menacing. Two teenage actors, preternaturally beautiful, materialized as if floating in black space, although it was clear that their trendy boots stood on firm, unseen ground. Neither smiled.
    The boy growled at the audience, “You think you’re a good judge of character? Yeah, you do. Well—here’s your chance to prove it.”
    “What you’re going to see,” the girl said, “might shock you sometimes. This isn’t just one more sorry reality show. The people you will see don’t know they’re being filmed—they
never
know for sure. We put them in unexpected situations—but not to see how they react.”
    “To see how
you
react,” the boy said. “Can you predict what each of them will do? You predict right, and you can win big.”
    “Really big,” the girl said. “Every week we’re giving away five million dollars—just for being a good judge of human nature. Are you?”
    Now pictures with names flashed behind the actors: huge close-up shots of Amy, Rafe, Violet, Lynn, Waverly, Cai, and Tommy. Each face held for three secnds; the whole loop repeated while the girl spoke again. For the first time, she smiled, a smile with a hint of nasty relish. “Seven people. We show you each of them encountering an . . .
interesting
situation, different every week. Then we list five responses they might have made.”
    Film of a short brunette, provocatively dressed in short shorts and a crop top, buying an ice cream, leaving the store with it. The film disappeared, replaced by a wall of glowing letters:
     
    LYNN:
Ate the ice cream!
Dropped it in the gutter!
Offered it to a crying child!
Gave it to her dog!
Threw it at a cop!
    “No, nothing that lame,” the boy said scornfully. “This isn’t Sunday school. We’re not interested in do-gooding—we’re interested in your ability to judge people.” The screen resumed its montage of the seven teens. “You’ll get to know Lynn and the others, none of whom is an actor. You’ll see them react week after week to situations they don’t anticipate or understand—because some of the things that we’ll arrange to happen to them aren’t filmed at all. They’ll never know which events are part of the show, which aren’t,