Neon Theater Presents · Survive: Neon Slumlight · Episode 002
The broadcast cuts away. The pursuit never stops.
Show Opening — The Buck
The first thing Milo Venn lost was his left shoe.
It came off in a drainage channel beneath the elevated freightway, where rainwater and machine oil flowed together in a black ribbon. He had been running for eleven minutes by the clock blinking on the wristband they had fastened to him. He knew because he had checked it eleven times. Once for every minute. Once for every opportunity to discover that time was behaving like time.
He was still relieved about that.
The second thing he lost was his breath.
Milo climbed the concrete slope on hands and knees, hauled himself through a gap in the fencing, and landed behind a row of commercial refuse bins. The district above him was called the Millworks. Everything here was either being assembled, dismantled, or stored until someone could decide which.
His right calf throbbed. Blood had soaked through the cuff of his work trousers and dried stiff beneath the fresh rain. The injury was not dramatic enough for television. He knew that because a little red camera had followed him down the channel, pausing politely whenever he stumbled.
He crouched behind a bin labeled FOR BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL NOT CURRENTLY IN USE.
From the freightway came three short notes, as gentle as an appliance finishing a cycle.
Milo pressed his palms against his mouth.
The Hunter was signaling a location check.
It was not a threat. Not exactly. It was a courtesy.
A man in a charcoal raincoat appeared on the upper walkway, holding a slim black case in one hand and a folded umbrella in the other. He checked his watch. He looked down at the drainage channel. Then he raised his head and addressed a camera Milo could not see.
“North service cut,” the man said. “Target appears mobile. Visibility poor. I’ll take the stairs.”
He did not shout. He did not hurry. He opened the umbrella before descending.
Milo ran.
Somewhere far from the Millworks, a studio audience applauded.
The Hunt Is On
Derrick Vox had the kind of smile that suggested he had never been personally inconvenienced by suffering.
“Good evening, valued viewers, and welcome to THE HUNT!”
The words appeared behind him in enormous gold lettering. A stylized buck leapt through a ring of white light. Its antlers briefly resembled the arms of a clock before the graphic resolved into a cheerful sponsor logo.
“Tonight’s Buck is Milo Venn, thirty-four, employed in inventory reconciliation, and described by colleagues as ‘usually on time.’”
A photograph of Milo appeared on the studio wall. He was wearing a paper hat at an office birthday party. Someone had cropped out the cake.
“That’s right, folks. A man who knows the value of a schedule. And the gentleman tasked with keeping tonight’s schedule moving is our Hunter, Calder Rusk.”
Calder’s portrait showed a clean-shaven man in a plain jacket standing against a beige wall. The photo looked suitable for an employee identification badge.
“Calder has an outstanding attendance record,” Derrick said. “He has never once submitted an incomplete field report. Not once!”
The audience applauded harder.
Behind Derrick, a producer made a frantic cutting gesture.
Derrick ignored him.
“And remember, our coverage follows the action wherever it leads. If you’re just joining us, Milo has already crossed the east freightway, declined a complimentary hydration station, and made what officials are calling an ‘unscheduled descent’ into municipal runoff.”
The studio screen changed to Milo scrambling between two shipping containers.
“Look at that determination. Look at those knees. That, my friends, is what commitment looks like.”
Derrick turned toward a second camera, softening his voice.
“Of course, the pursuit itself does not pause for our programming. That’s a very important distinction.”
He held the smile for a beat.
“Now a word from the people who make it possible.”
A Product for Every Emergency
The television picture bloomed into a kitchen so clean it looked as though no one had ever eaten there.
A smiling woman stood beside a silver countertop appliance.
“Does your household suffer from inconvenient urgency?”
Her husband rushed into the kitchen, waving a smoking saucepan.
“Marla! The stove!”
She raised one finger.
“Not now, Dennis. I’m demonstrating CALM-AWAY™ Domestic Composure Mist.”
She sprayed the air.
A gentle chime sounded. Dennis froze mid-panic. The saucepan continued to burn.
“CALM-AWAY™ doesn’t solve your problems,” Marla said brightly. “It helps you stop making them everyone else’s.”
Fine print scrolled along the bottom of the screen at an unreadable speed.
The kitchen filled with smoke. Marla continued smiling.
“Available in Fresh Linen, Rainy Meadow, and Administrative Neutrality.”
A chorus sang:
“CALM-AWAY! FEEL LESS TODAY!”
The final frame showed the couple seated calmly at a table while the smoke alarm melted behind them.
The advertisement ended.
In a small apartment above a laundromat, Tad Phelps reached into a bag of corn-flavored chips.
“That’s a pretty good deal,” he said.
Boots, his elderly hairless cat, stared at the television from the arm of the couch.
“Don’t look at me like that. I said the deal was good. I didn’t say the product was.”
Boots made a low, displeased sound.
Tad glanced at the screen.
“Come on. Back to the running guy.”
Now Back to the Show
NOW BACK TO THE SHOW.
Milo had traveled three more blocks.
The program returned to him halfway through a fall. He struck the pavement shoulder-first, rolled beneath a loading ramp, and lay there blinking at the pale industrial lights.
His wristband read 00:19:42.
The viewers had been away for forty-seven seconds. Milo had spent every one of them running.
His calf was bleeding again. A piece of torn fabric was tied around it, darkening with each pulse. He had found a length of steel pipe somewhere during the commercial break. It shook in his hand.
Above the ramp, the Hunter’s shoes came into view.
Black leather. Sensible soles. Not a drop of mud on the cuffs.
Calder Rusk stopped to answer a call.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m aware the west corridor is closed.”
He listened.
“No, that wasn’t communicated in the briefing.”
Another pause.
“I’ll adapt.”
He ended the call and sighed. It was the sigh of a man whose afternoon had become more complicated than the calendar indicated.
Milo held his breath.
A little camera drifted under the ramp and hovered beside his face. Its lens adjusted. A green indicator lit.
Milo whispered, “Go away.”
The camera edged closer.
Above him, Calder said, “Milo, I can hear you.”
Milo swung the pipe at the camera. The device darted aside. The pipe struck the underside of the ramp with a noise like a church bell dropped down a stairwell.
Calder folded his umbrella.
“That was unnecessary.”
Milo crawled out the opposite side and ran toward a row of maintenance doors.
Only one stood open.
He went through it.
The Maintenance Level
Inside, the Millworks breathed in slow mechanical intervals.
Pistons moved behind glass partitions. Conveyor belts carried empty metal frames toward rooms without windows. Somewhere a machine repeatedly stamped a shape into sheets of aluminum. Milo could not see what the shape was. He could hear the stamp descend, rise, descend.
A sign above the corridor read EMPLOYEE WELLNESS ACCESS.
He pushed through a second door and found a break room.
There were two vending machines, a table with three chairs, and a motivational poster showing a sunrise over a warehouse.
PRODUCTIVITY IS A FORM OF GRATITUDE.
Milo dragged a chair against the door. Then another.
He tried his phone. It showed full signal and one available application.
SURVIVE — VIEW LIVE.
He opened it.
His own face appeared on the screen, pale and wet, staring at his own phone. The image was delayed by perhaps two seconds. He raised his hand. On the screen, the hand rose two seconds later.
A bright banner read: YOU ARE CURRENTLY FEATURED!
Below it, a smaller line offered: SHARE THIS MOMENT.
Milo shut the phone off.
He found a first-aid kit on the wall. It contained a pair of gloves, one adhesive bandage, and a laminated card advising employees to report injuries promptly. He pressed the bandage over a cut on his wrist, then tried the room’s other door.
Locked.
He checked the window. Reinforced glass. Beyond it, a narrow service passage led toward the district’s outer road.
He could see traffic moving in the distance.
Ordinary traffic.
People going home. People buying dinner. People who would pass this building without looking up.
Milo grabbed a chair and struck the glass.
The first blow cracked the plastic seat.
The second snapped a leg.
The third made the glass ring but did not mark it.
A polite knock came from the barricaded door.
“Milo,” Calder said. “I know you’re injured. There is a procedure for that.”
Milo gripped the broken chair leg.
“Is there a procedure for letting me out?”
A silence.
“Not one I’ve been authorized to administer.”
“Then go away.”
Calder sounded genuinely weary.
“I can’t do that either.”
Milo stared at the window. The passing traffic seemed impossibly close.
“Why me?”
The Hunter did not answer immediately.
“I don’t receive that part of the file,” he said at last.
For the first time, Milo believed him.
Viewer Engagement
“Folks, we’ve got ourselves a standoff!”
Derrick stood before a wall of live feeds, each showing a different angle of the break room. Milo appeared in six squares. Calder occupied a seventh. The eighth showed a vending machine.
“Let’s hear it for our Buck’s creativity. Furniture as fortification! An inspired use of workplace resources.”
A producer leaned into frame and whispered something.
Derrick’s expression tightened.
“I’m told the chairs are leased. We do not encourage damage to leased property.”
In Tad’s apartment, Boots had climbed onto the television cabinet.
“Get down,” Tad said.
Boots remained where he was, staring at a camera feed showing the break-room window.
Tad watched Milo pacing.
“He should’ve stayed in the tunnel,” Tad said. “You can’t hide in a room with one door.”
Boots tapped the television with one paw.
For a fraction of a second, the reflection in the break-room glass seemed to contain someone standing behind Milo.
Tall. Still. Too pale to belong to the room.
Then the image shifted and the reflection was only a reflection.
Boots hissed.
Tad frowned. “What? He’s not even doing anything.”
Derrick raised his hands.
“While our field team works through a minor access issue, we invite you to participate in tonight’s viewer poll!”
Two choices appeared:
A — BUCK MAKES A BREAK FOR IT
B — HUNTER MAKES THE CALL
“Voting is free,” Derrick said, “with a standard participation convenience charge.”
Tad reached for his phone.
Boots knocked it off the couch.
The Service Exit
Milo noticed the ventilation duct when the stamping machine stopped.
Without its rhythm, he could hear air rushing above the vending machines. A square grille was fastened to the wall with four screws. The upper left screw was missing.
He dragged the vending machine away from the wall. It was heavier than it looked. He put his shoulder into it and felt something shift inside his injured leg.
The grille came free after three strikes with the broken chair leg.
Behind it lay a duct wide enough for a desperate man who no longer cared about his elbows.
Calder heard the metal fall.
“Milo?”
Milo pulled himself inside.
The duct smelled of dust and hot copper. He crawled through darkness toward the service passage. Below him, he heard Calder forcing the door, then the scrape of chairs across the floor.
“Please don’t enter the ventilation system,” Calder called.
Milo kept crawling.
“It’s not rated for occupancy.”
A screw tore his sleeve. Another scraped the side of his neck. He continued until the duct opened above a corridor lit by a green EXIT sign.
He kicked the grille outward and dropped.
His injured leg folded beneath him.
For a moment, he could not move.
Then he crawled toward the exit and pressed the crash bar.
The door opened onto rain.
Milo laughed. It was not a happy sound. It was the involuntary noise of a man who had spent twenty minutes negotiating with impossible things and had finally found one that obeyed its label.
He staggered into the service passage.
At the far end, traffic passed behind a chain-link gate.
The gate was open.
Milo moved toward it as fast as his leg would allow.
From the building behind him came three short notes.
The Hunter had reached the corridor.
Milo did not look back.
A Brief Message From Our Sponsors
The broadcast cut to a warmly lit dining room.
A grandfather held a decorative kitchen baster like a family heirloom.
“Some traditions are too important to question,” he said.
A smiling child reached toward it.
The grandfather’s face hardened.
“DO. NOT. USE. THE. BASTER.”
A cheerful voice announced: “Tad’s Decorative Baster. The centerpiece that makes every meal a conversation.”
A price appeared, then vanished.
“BUY NOW.”
The grandfather smiled again.
The child slowly withdrew her hand.
In the lower corner, a tiny line read: FOR DISPLAY PURPOSES ONLY. NOT SUITABLE FOR FOOD, LIQUIDS, AIR, OR INTENTIONAL HANDLING.
Back in his apartment, Tad sat upright.
“Hey! That’s my commercial!”
Boots stared at him.
“Well, my name’s in it. That counts for something.”
The cat looked toward the screen again, ears flattened.
Tad turned up the volume.
“Come on, Derrick. Show us what happened.”
The Last Block
NOW BACK TO THE SHOW.
Milo was at the gate.
He had not stopped during the advertisement. He had limped through the passage, crossed a strip of broken pavement, and reached the opening in the fence.
A tram rolled past on the other side. Through its windows he saw passengers reading, sleeping, staring at advertisements. One woman looked directly at him.
Milo raised both hands.
“Help!”
She lowered her eyes to her phone.
A small red camera hovered above the gate.
Milo stepped into the road.
A tone sounded from his wristband.
He looked down.
00:31:08.
The display changed.
BOUNDARY NOTICE.
The pavement beyond the gate flashed with a thin amber line, projected from devices mounted on the fence posts.
“Of course,” Milo whispered.
He stepped across it.
Nothing happened.
He took another step.
Then another.
Behind him, Calder emerged from the service passage, raincoat open, umbrella still folded.
“Milo,” he called, “you’re outside the designated area.”
Milo turned.
“Then don’t follow me.”
Calder stopped at the line.
For the first time that night, he looked uncertain.
He checked his phone. He scrolled. He made a call.
Milo backed toward the tram stop, one slow step at a time.
Derrick’s voice crackled from the camera.
“Ladies and gentlemen, an unexpected development! Our Buck has discovered the perimeter, and our Hunter appears to be consulting the fine print!”
Calder covered his phone’s microphone.
“Could you please not narrate my calls?”
“It’s live television, Calder!”
“I’m aware.”
Milo reached the tram platform. A woman in a green coat stood beneath the shelter, holding a paper grocery bag.
“Please,” he said. “Can you call someone?”
She looked at the blood on his trousers, then at the camera, then at his wristband.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re on.”
“Yes.”
She smiled apologetically.
“I don’t want to spoil it.”
The next tram arrived with a soft electronic chime.
Milo caught the door before it closed.
A warning sounded from his wristband, but the door shut behind him.
The tram pulled away.
Milo sank into a seat.
No one spoke to him.
Outside, Calder remained at the perimeter, listening to the person on the phone. He nodded once, then slipped the device into his pocket.
“Understood,” he said.
He opened his umbrella.
The camera followed the departing tram.
Closing Credits
Derrick Vox stood beneath the enormous golden buck.
“Well! That is what we call a finish nobody saw coming.”
The audience applauded. Some sounded disappointed.
“Tonight’s Buck has left the designated pursuit zone, and the field team is reviewing the result. Until that review is complete, the outcome remains—”
He glanced toward the producer.
“—administratively exciting.”
A graphic appeared: STATUS PENDING.
“Whatever happens next, remember that participation is a privilege, compliance is a virtue, and good television is everybody’s responsibility.”
Derrick smiled.
“Thank you for watching THE HUNT.”
The credits rolled over a shot of rain on the Millworks fence.
In Tad’s apartment, the television switched to an advertisement for discount kitchen flooring.
“Huh,” Tad said. “I guess he got away.”
Boots was still staring at the screen.
Tad scratched behind the cat’s ear.
“Good for him, I suppose.”
On the tram, Milo watched the city slide past.
His wristband had gone dark.
He touched it once. Nothing.
He looked at the people around him. No one looked back.
At the next stop, the doors opened. Milo rose carefully, testing his injured leg, and stepped onto the platform.
He stood beneath an ordinary streetlamp.
For the first time since the freightway, no camera followed him.
He took one step.
Then another.
Across the street, a public information display changed from a transit map to a photograph of his face.
THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING, MILO VENN.
A smaller message appeared beneath it.
PLEASE REMAIN AVAILABLE FOR FOLLOW-UP.
The display returned to the transit map.
Milo stood still as the city moved around him.
Somewhere behind a studio wall, Derrick Vox was already preparing for next Saturday.
The viewer could change the channel.
The Buck could not.
