Game of Mass Destruction (COMPLETE AND AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK)

☠Day Zero - The Game☠

Sia Bucks grinned at the robots on her laptop. "That's it! Crunch into that bastard's liver."

Her tiara stood out from her purple afro and black skin. There was only one boss on the Isle of Hakai, and she wanted everyone to know it was her.

Her kingdom was just an island below the arctic circle, had a huge support thanks to Sia's successful reality TV show. When the Isle of Hakai gained its status as a country, Sia was recognized as the first female absolute monarch, now she was one of the only three left. The other two were the Pope and the Islamic Emperor.

Alexa nestled behind Sia's laptop. Shaped as a pink heart, and with its fluffy exterior it was easy to mistake the little device with a cushion. Alexa could speak in a way that her granny used to, and it would make Sia's heart melt. "Shouldn't you be working, my dear?"

Sia closed the tab. "Yes, I should." Tapping away on another tab, her silver lipstick and black skin reflected on the screen. The build-up to Halloween was always the best time to promote her TV show. On the first night of November, twenty adults would be forced into a world of chaotic robot bashing and lust.

"So how are going to drag the contestants on the island this time?" Alexa asked.

"I told them all they won a holiday with a luxury coach tour around the British countryside and it's gorgeous cities and one mystery surprise location."

"Hmm...so how are you getting them from the UK to the Isle of Hakai?"

"They'll be taken to a ferry."

"What if they resist?"

"They won't resist. I'll gas them to sleep, dump them in the cell in my private jet and off we go."

"Isn't that a bit evil?" Alexa asked.

"Of course not," Sia said with a sparkling smile. "Some of the contestants in this year's line-up are deliciously evil."

"Mariangela's husband and the Dutch pimps?"

"Precisely."

Sia cooled down from the breeze. The curtains slapped her side a few times. Two framed photographs nestled around Sia's laptop. On the left was a shattered wedding photograph. The one on the right was a vibrant picture of three women on stage, each of them wearing tank tops embroidered with their band's name:  Pussy*Pussy*Meow*Meow. 

"Those were the days," she whispered to the photos, raising her glass. "We must do another tour!" Head tilted back; she slammed her cocktail glass by the wedding picture. The dark fluid blurred the facial details of the man in the picture. "If only you hadn't slept with that slutty robot!"

"Who are you talking to Sia?" Alexa asked.

Sia peered over the heart-shaped device behind her laptop. "I'm talking to my ex-husband."

"But that's a photo of you and Professor Denki."

Sia squinted. "I know that."

It had been years since she had a ring on her finger. Comparing herself now to the photo, she contemplated on what had changed since her pop-star days; robots and electronic devices could socialise. Alexa was her only friend on the Isle of Hakai. One thing remained the same: her purple afro still had all its curls in place. 

In the five decades she had lived, she learned to love all colours except grey. The colour grey did not exist in Sia's world. Even though the sky outside was drained of all it's blue, it was still blue. She didn't want to be 52, so she decided to act like a teenager to keep her tired bones active.

She gasped. No way could it have been thirty years. She remembered it as if it were yesterday. American politicians told lies about robots stealing jobs. Her ex-husband had created medical robots to enhance the work of nurses and doctors. Employment had been on the rise, but society's stupidity made her rich. Sia took their fears and used it to nurture the show into the government-funded staple for Netflix subscribers. Sia baptised the show: Game of Mass Destruction.