Posted on 2011-10-31

Lizzy looked at the vine with suspicion. It, of course, could just be a vine. It certainly looked like a vine.

It did not look like a snake or any other rope like creature out to kill. Then again, it could be a vine that when pulled upon actually was a bell pull and summoned creatures with fangs and wings.

Also there was the possibility that when pulled it might open a trapdoor which covered a pit of killer voles.

Lizzy began to reconsider the idea of attempting to climb the tree. Unfortunately, night was falling and if she remained on the ground then the killer zombie platypus would get her.

She took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the vine and swung herself up into the tree. While any killer zombie platypus would be thwarted by only being a short distance above the ground, Lizzy thought she would take the opportunity to climb as far as she could in order to get a better view.

The edge of the stadium wasn't in sight, but Lizzy knew it was there, the organisers had probably painted matte paintings to make it look like it went on forever.

Lizzy used her teeth and her knife - she'd managed to grab that at the beginning - to create a safe hammock type arrangement to sleep in.

There were no pictures in the sky from the organisers this night, which meant that no one had been killed.

Not that anyone but her could be killed, exactly.

It was all so ridiculous. Every couple of years the government organised these little games in order to keep the people entertained.

It was despicable that blood sport could be so entertaining but there it was. Lizzy had hoped it would never be her that would be called up.

That had been a fantasy. Of course Elizabeth Bennet would be a prime example to parade at this ridiculous nonsense.

Particularly since the last games (the Fanny Price games) had been such a disappointment. Twelve Fanny Prices sitting around on Park Benches until one by one they malfunctioned or, in the case of the real Fanny Price, starved to death had been incredibly boring to watch.

It had been much more exciting at the Emma Woodhouse Games. The Real Emma had shown her true matchmaking skills upon the other Emmas and since then they'd really had a look at the programming of the robots. After all if the robots could accidently engage in those kind of activities who knew what else they could be unexpectedly capable of; there was Artificial Intelligence and then there was artificial intelligence!!

The Games were much more developed now than in the past, where they would have to find doppelgangers because robots when killed did not - in the past - make convincing humans. Something about the lack of blood and profuseness of wires just made people guess the correct human before the very end. Guessing before the end took all the fun out of it apparently.

The doppelgangers were also tricky. One year they'd had to pretend they couldn't tell the difference between Bingleys where one was chubby, another had curls on his forehead, another had a bright shock of orange hair sticking directly up and one was entirely black and white.

Lizzy wasn't even going to discuss the year she'd had to watch Mr Darcy fight to the death.

No, this year her robots looked exactly like her, and the audience was excited voting on which Lizzy they thought would win and which number Lizzy would be revealed as the real Lizzy.

When she'd realised that this year would be her year, Lizzy did some research and was surprised at the amount of doppelgangers and robots that had won. Were her fellow heroes and heroines so paltry that they had just lain down and died?

Lizzy wasn't about to do that. She had intelligence - proper human intelligence - on her side. Also these Robotic Elizabeths seemed inordinately fond of walking - some were distracted by their bouncing chests - and when they weren't walking they were outwitting each other. Except in the way that meant they were too busy thinking to see the zombie platypi (and so forth). Lizzy figured that as long as she stayed out of the way of the murderous animals the other Lizzies would off themselves what with the walking and the witting and the knocking themselves out with their…chests.

Really, it actually did not reflect well upon her that this was the trope the designers had gone with. It was almost as bad the time that the Tilney Games had been set in a haberdashery store and everyone had ended up strangled by Muslin.

What did *that* say about Tilney's character?

But it was often too difficult to find good characters. The year they thought that Lucy Steele was too minor a figure to have a whole game to herself, and had half the contestants be Lucy Steels and the other half be Annes? That had not been a successful year - except for those who enjoyed hair pulling.

The Captain Wentworth Games had been interesting - what with all the water and the women clamouring to be allowed on board, several Wentworths had had palpitations, fallen overboard and drowned just at the thought.

She didn't want to be reduced to being a chesty wit! It was insulting.

No, Lizzy would show them all: she'd see off those Lizzy!Bots and then she'd bring down the Organisation!

The second main button pusher at the Organisation Central Command was bored. No one was doing anything interesting; at least in the Mr Darcy year, everyone had kept falling into ponds and skewed by passing epees.

One would not think that the Year of Lizzy Bennets would just involve some walking and eyebrow raising. There were only so many times he could frame a close up on some fine eyes.

He was happy when his shift was over and the third main button pusher came to do his shift.

"Hey Ron, do you think they know there isn't a real Lizzy Bennet in there with them? - You know, that she doesn't really exist?"

"No, they have made remarkable advances in A.I."