The broadcast did not wait for either of them to prepare anything to say about it.
"We have updates."
She listed the industrial zone eliminations. The gang leader. The assassin. One more, somewhere else on the island.
"That brings us to eighteen."
A pause. The sarcasm stayed in the pause. "Precisely half. We find the halfway point to be one of the more interesting moments in a game like this. The field is small enough that the survivors are no longer strangers to each other. Large enough that the ending is still out of sight."
She let that settle. "We thought you should know."
Then she spoke of the next Pantheon game. She did not name it. She said only that it would arrive during the night, that it would find them wherever they were, and that she had always found exhausted contestants more interesting than rested ones. She said it with the warmth of someone sharing a pleasant thought.
"Sleep well," she said. "We'll see you soon."
The speakers returned the zone to silence.
