Cut Off Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  The Show

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Resort

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  The Mainland

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  Sample Chapter from YOUR ONE AND ONLY

  Buy the Book

  More Books from HMH Teen

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Copyright © 2020 by Adrianne Finlay

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Logo by Joel Tippie

  Texture (interior) © Apostrophe/Shutterstock

  Cover illustration © 2020 by Joel Tippie

  Cover design by Mary Claire Cruz

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Finlay, Adrianne, author.

  Title: Cut Off / by Adrianne Finlay.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2020] | Summary: When something goes horribly wrong during the filming of a new virtual reality show, teenaged contestants question how much of the game is real.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019012438 (print) | LCCN 2019016650 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358237358 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358006459 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Survival—Fiction. | Virtual reality—Fiction. | Reality television programs—Fiction. | Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F536 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.F536 Cut 2020 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012438

  v1.0720

  For Ginny and Hattie

  Brandon McCay is going to die.

  That’s what he thinks as he stumbles, gasping and bleeding, through the forest. But he’s determined—that’s what’s important. He’s got grit, and willpower, and no way will he let a reality show be the thing that kills him.

  Everything was fine until the earthquake.

  Everything was fine. He was surviving, no doubt better than anyone else on the show. He’d caught fish, built a great shelter, and actually had a decent shot at winning this whole thing. He’d already started planning what to do with the money after the show. Buy a new car, pay off his parents’ house, maybe backpack to exotic destinations. Have adventures, live it up, embrace his inner adrenaline junkie.

  He’s over that now, though. The next trip he takes, there’ll be feather pillows and room service. There’ll be hospitals. He’d trade every cent of the million-dollar prize for a morphine drip right now.

  He clutches his side. The blood on his fingers is thick and sticky.

  Was the earthquake only yesterday? It seems longer.

  He was ascending a rock face when it happened, trying to get to higher ground, have a look around. He balanced on a scraggy bit of ledge, figuring he looked pretty good on the Skym camera hovering just above his head. The Skyms were sophisticated, and definitely expensive—top-of-the-line drone cameras that did all the filming for Cut Off, creating a 3-D virtual-reality experience for the folks back home. Brandon’s climb gave them a pretty sweet panorama. Those viewers who dropped the nine hundred bucks on the Cut Off virtual-reality visors were sure getting their money’s worth.

  Not that Brandon was simply performing for the camera. He had plans, like signing a first-class endorsement deal with a sporting-goods company or an energy drink. Eventually he’d have his own show. Getting picked for Cut Off was just the start for him. High on that cliff, it all felt inevitable, a sure thing.

  Then the world shook, and knocked him right off the side of it.

  He dropped twenty feet to the ground and lay there dazed, staring into the blue sky, waiting for the rest of the mountain to crash down on him. When it was over, he sat up to find that a branch as wide as his finger had torn through the side of his t-shirt. For a second, he couldn’t make sense of it, and then his mind clicked together that it hadn’t ripped through his shirt, it had ripped through him—his muscle and flesh. That was when the pain hit, and he screamed.

  Lying there, pierced through the gut, a swelling knob on his head and blood soaking into his clothes, his first thought was about the damn show and how he couldn’t win now. The producers would swarm him, pull him from the game, and that was it. Over and out for Brandon McCay.

  He’d barely lasted three weeks. That wasn’t enough time for fame and endorsements, not enough time to become a household name. He was hurt and yeah, scared, but mostly he was pissed.

  Even though it was obvious he was out of the game, for the sake of the drama he yelled up at the fluttering Skym, “Hey! Come get me, I’m tapping out!”

  While he waited, he used the time to his advantage, chatting with the camera, putting on a steadfast, heroic front. There was an audience behind that dead glass eye, and it’d be his last chance to connect with them, perhaps turn his bad luck into something that would look gutsy and badass.

  The first hour passed, and then another. Where were they?

  He reached for his bag, the wound screaming at him as he drew his body off the branch. He dug out the beacon and pressed the red tap-out button. He didn’t know how it worked, but it was supposed to send out his GPS location, alert the producers that he was quitting. They were supposed to answer.

  Instead, he was met with silence.

  When darkness came, he knew something was wrong.

  Really wrong.

  That all happened yesterday, when he still thought the camera was sending a signal to the audience, the producers, the crew. Now he doesn’t know what to think. He wasn’t about to lie there rotting in the woods, so he’s been walking since morning.

  As if things couldn’t get worse, he’s pretty sure something’s following him. Something big, a wolf or a wild boar. He can hear it in the bush. It smells the blood that soaks his pant leg, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He needs to lie down, rest a minute, that’s all, but every time he slows, the trees rustle with a noise like a creature stalking through dry leaves.

  His limbs tingle, and some distant part of him knows that’s bad.

  A low growl rumbles from the darkness.

  Brandon walks faster, but he can’t keep going like this much longer. Just as the darkest thoughts, the ones he’s held at bay all morning, threaten to tumble forward, hitting him like an avalanche of rocks, he sees a trailer. A sound escapes him that he doesn’t recognize as his own. Part whimper, part laugh. The relief is so strong and sudden he feels like throwing up.

  The trailer is white and broad, a relic of the civilized world in the middle of nowhere. Among the blue design swirls decorating the side and under the windows, someone has slapped
a decal of the show’s logo: CUT OFF, with an image of the earth within the O, and bows, arrows, and fierce animals bordering the perimeter. It’s the producers’ trailer, like a base camp. Brandon doesn’t care anymore that they didn’t show up right away. They’re here, he’s found them, and everything will be okay. The earthquake knocked out his Skym signal, killed his beacon’s GPS, but everything is okay now. He’s safe.

  With a groan, he pushes the door open and falls to the floor, the Skym flitting in after him. He lifts his eyes to find . . . no one. It’s empty.

  Terrified of whatever beast has been tracking him, he kicks the door shut and turns the lock.

  “Hello!” he calls, his voice wet with pain and desperation. “Hello?”

  Brandon drops his pack and drags himself across the gray carpet. With his last bit of strength, he hauls himself into a chair at a bank of computer screens.

  There’s a smartphone on the desk next to a half-eaten tuna sandwich and a partially full water bottle. Brandon guzzles the water and shoves the sandwich in his mouth. The tuna tastes sour. He doesn’t care.

  Where is everyone? What happened here?

  Blood smears the buttons of the console as he presses them, at first methodically but then with increasing panic. The computer boots up to reveal the show’s logo, but there’s no signal, no internet, no sign of anyone or anything. The console phone is silent. The cellphone has no signal. One of the computer monitors flickers on, and a black-and-white screen glows to life. Twelve scenes divide the screen, seven of them blank and five showing the remaining contestants, footage from their Skyms. One of them is building a fire, another’s fishing. And there he is, Brandon, in the image on the bottom right, hunched over the desk.

  At first glance, he doesn’t recognize himself, and for a moment he thinks, That guy’s screwed. His face is drawn, and his blood shows black on the monitor. How can that be him?

  His hopes of winning the show might be over, but if that Skym is still filming, he’s giving it a goddamn story, a drama is what he’s giving it.

  “Hey!” he yells at the footage of the four other people. “Hey, someone! I need help!”

  The contestants don’t react. They can’t hear him, of course. He lays his head on the desk and cries long enough to come back to himself, and then he cries some more.

  Rolling the chair across the trailer, he brings himself to the couch. As he eases onto the pillows, his wound oozes more blood, but it doesn’t hurt as much now. It’s a throb, constant and relentless, but no longer piercing. As the pain retreats, he finds himself using it as a gauge to make sure he’s alive.

  Suddenly he wishes he could see the outside. After so many days, he thought it’d be a relief to finally be indoors, out of the forest, on a soft couch. But he’s always been happiest outside. He craves fresh air, the clear space of a cloudless sky, the rush of a breeze. The somber trailer, with its dingy carpet, plastic chairs, and moldering smell—it isn’t what he wants in this moment.

  There’s a poster tacked on the wall: mountains with snowy crests, green fields below, a spray of wildflowers—yellow, violet, iridescent blue. In the black border on the bottom is the word ESCAPE. Brandon lets his gaze settle on the image while he rests, just until he can figure out what to do next. He needs to find the main camp. Surely someone will be there.

  He imagines what the crisp air would taste like on top of that mountain. The pain has slipped away entirely now, and that’s nice. His fingers grow numb. Then colors drain from the wildflowers until they, and everything around them, turn gray.

  Brandon’s hand drops from the couch. The Skym bobs overhead for a long time, its signal transmitting to the screen three feet away, until at last its battery wears down in the gloom-ridden room. It settles gently to the carpet and its red eye blinks off.

  The

  Show

  Chapter 01

  PROSPECTIVE CONTESTANT: RIVER ADAN

  AGE: 17   HEIGHT: 6'0"

  EYES: BLUE   HAIR: DARK BROWN

  STUDENT, ONLINE EDUCATION, CLALLAM COUNTY, WASHINGTON

  EMERGENCY CONTACTS:

  JAMES IRWIN, UNCLE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  ELEANOR IRWIN, GRANDMOTHER

  TUCSON, ARIZONA

  PARENTS DECEASED, ACCIDENTAL DEATH/CAR ACCIDENT

  SECOND-ROUND INTERVIEW (EXCERPTS)

  INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY SUPERVISING PRODUCER GREGORY HITCHENS

  HITCHENS: Now is the time in our interview when you can ask any nagging questions you might have for us.

  RIVER: How much longer will all this take? I figured since you guys came to me, asked me to apply, there wouldn’t be this whole process.

  HITCHENS: Well, there’s another interview, and the psych eval, and if you’re selected you’ll have the wilderness survival training. Though you hardly need it, you’ll have to participate in the training if you’re selected. Liability and all that. It’s fundamentals—fire starting, shelter building, that kind of thing. Should be a piece of cake for you. Otherwise, the selection process is variable. So, I’d guess another week and then we’ll do some paperwork.

  RIVER: My uncle is the one who really wanted me to do this. I’m not so sure.

  HITCHENS: He told us you’d be perfect for this when we spoke to him. And I have to say, your application is the best of the bunch. It’s good stuff, River. You’re not second-guessing, are you?

  RIVER: I don’t know. We’re on camera the whole time?

  HITCHENS: That’s right—our Skym cameras will follow your entire journey on the show, transmitting the whole thing in 3-D on a virtual-reality platform.

  RIVER: So they’re, what, like a drone camera?

  HITCHENS: Yes, but much more sophisticated. The Skym recognizes your face, your clothes, it zooms in and out with changes in your expression, and it’s programmed to stay with you at all times, no matter what.

  RIVER: And the cameras are self-sustaining?

  HITCHENS: They require very little maintenance. You only need to change out the solar battery chargers once a day, and charge the supplemental battery. They do the rest of the work.

  RIVER: That contract said something about the show possibly taking a year. It’s a lot to think about.

  HITCHENS: Yeah, there’s no set time frame. We’re not a traditional television show, we don’t have a network to answer to. We plan to stream on every media platform for as long as you kids stay out there surviving. And it’ll be hard, but think of the payoff. Not just the money—you’ll have great exposure. You’ll be famous.

  RIVER: I don’t care about money. My parents had insurance. And I don’t want to be famous.

  HITCHENS: I won’t lie, River. We want you on the show. But you’re right, it’s a commitment, and you need to figure out if it’s what you really want. You filled out the application, and you’ve come this far in the process. Why do all that? You must have your reasons.

  RIVER: Why kids?

  HITCHENS: Why what?

  RIVER: Why kids? Everyone you recruited is under eighteen.

  HITCHENS: Well, you’re not kids, exactly, are you? You’ll be eighteen in less than a year. But it’s part of the experiment. To observe what happens when young people are removed from civilization. Not only from the comforts and conveniences of the modern world, but also from the difficulties that society, and older people—people like me—created. Also, while the content of the show will be available traditionally, on televisions and computers, the audience also has the option of streaming the show on our new virtual-reality platform. The technology we’ll implant in the contestants means that their brain waves—yours, if you’re selected—will be transmitted through our new app. The audience won’t just be able to watch the show, they’ll be completely immersed in the experience—they’ll see what you see and hear what you hear, with our special cameras that record everything in 3-D. Frankly, the technology is most effective with a certain plasticity in the brain. The younger the recipient, the better it works. We cast you
ng contestants, but only those mature enough to give it a go by themselves in the wilderness.

  RIVER: Transmitting my brain waves sounds . . . invasive.

  HITCHENS: It’s completely safe, nothing to worry about. Once you tap out, the ions will be neutralized. What they do, however, is give the audience a fully immersive experience. Your visual and auditory perception will be transmitted, through our 3-D application, into our Cut Off Experience visors. People wear these things, and let me tell you, River, it’s amazing. They get so caught up in the experience, they actually start thinking they can touch the world around them. It’s a real trick of the brain. We’re also expecting that a young audience is more likely to adopt our new technology, really live with it, you know? Your experience out there, in the wild, it’ll make them feel like they’re living it too. Groundbreaking stuff, River. So what are you thinking?

  RIVER: Can I do it alone?

  HITCHENS: Of course. Other contestants will end up working together, probably. It’ll give them an advantage. But there’s nothing that says you have to, if you don’t want.

  RIVER: Yeah. I work better alone.

  END RECORDING

  EVALUATION:

  River Adan is thoughtful, but reserved. That’s where the risk in casting him lies. He’s not forthcoming, and unlikely to share his journey with the viewers in a way that allows them to emotionally connect. Honestly, his interaction with the Skym will likely produce more dead air than anything.

  Our observations and psych profile, however, suggest something interesting beneath the surface that we’re hopeful will come out in the tense conditions the show will produce. The death of his parents has led him to become isolated. When he encounters other contestants (and of course we’ll ensure he will encounter others, despite his desire to work alone), we envision some entertaining outcomes.

  Otherwise, he’s extremely competent. With his skills, there’s a better chance of him keeping the show going than some of the other contestants we’ve chosen so far. I’d put money on him sticking it out for the long haul. He is genuinely interested in the wilderness experience and will be an asset both as a contestant in the game and, with the right influences called into play, as a driving narrative force.