“Eight hundred thousand dollars!”
The offer hung over the beach.
In the world they'd left behind, that amount could keep an ordinary employee working for years. It was enough to make people compete for promotions, betray colleagues, and sacrifice their weekends.
Tonight, it was an empty promise attached to a problem no one knew how to solve.
The wind howled around the rocks. The temperature continued to fall. The survivors' thin clothes clung to their bodies, and their hands had grown stiff from the cold.
A bright beam suddenly cut through the darkness.
Tyler had found a tactical flashlight among the scattered wreckage near the trees. He clicked it on, and the white beam swept over the sand, illuminating a row of pale, exhausted faces.
“Ms. Voss! Kael!” he called, his teeth chattering. “I found a flashlight. We can use it to see what we're doing.”
Kael snatched it out of his hand.
“A flashlight isn't a heater!” he snapped. “What good is a light if we're all frozen by morning?”
Tyler stiffened but said nothing.
Kael turned toward the others.
“You heard the offer. Eight hundred thousand dollars. Someone needs to get a fire going. Now!”
He shoved the flashlight at Javi.
“You hold the light. I'll handle the fire. It's just friction. People did it thousands of years ago. How difficult can it be?”
He found a relatively dry-looking board and a straight piece of wood. Kneeling on the sand, he pressed the stick against the board and began rubbing it between his palms.
At first, he worked with determination.
Then the minutes passed.
The stick slipped. The board shifted. The cold made his fingers clumsy, and the rough wood tore open his palms. His breathing became ragged, but the only thing beneath his hands was a growing pile of dust.
“Hold the light steady!” he barked at Javi.
“I am!”
“Then why can't I see any smoke?”
“Because there isn't any!”
Kael threw the stick aside.
“Move!”
Another manager pushed forward, carrying two dark stones he had picked up from the rocks. He struck them together above a pile of damp vegetation.
A few sparks flew.
They vanished against the wet material without leaving even a glowing ember.
He tried again. And again.
Nothing.
Other men joined in, rubbing sticks, scraping stone, and piling together whatever they could find. They tried to shield the tinder from the wind with their bodies, but the materials were saturated with seawater. Every attempt cost more energy than it produced.
After half an hour, they were no closer to a fire.
Kael dropped to his knees, breathing hard. His hands were raw, and his shoulders trembled from the effort.
“There's got to be a way,” he muttered.
No one answered.
The survivors had exhausted themselves, and the cold was winning. Lila curled up beside Elara, her face streaked with tears and grime. She was no longer trying to look beautiful or charming. She simply wanted to stop shaking.
Elara looked up the slope.
The cave's fire burned steadily. She could see the light through the entrance, and the smell of hot meat still drifted down whenever the wind changed.
Kai had found shelter, gathered food, secured drinking water, and started a fire while the rest of them were struggling to keep their hands from going numb.
The contrast was humiliating.
“One and a half million dollars,” Elara said.
Her voice was hoarse, but it carried across the group.
“Whoever gets a fire burning will receive one and a half million. I'm increasing the reward. You can have the money as soon as we're back.”
Silence.
Kael bent his head. He couldn't make the laws of physics obey a corporate bonus scheme.
Then a thin man near the edge of the group rose to his feet.
“Ms. Voss,” he said. “I may be able to help.”
Everyone turned.
His name was Chen Jian. He was the husband of Wang Lan, a manager in the finance department. At company gatherings, he was easily overlooked among the executives and salespeople. He worked as a structural engineer and rarely joined in the office gossip.
That evening, he had spent most of his time staying out of other people's way.
Now he adjusted his salt-stained glasses and walked toward Elara.
“I can make a fire,” he repeated.
Kael jumped to his feet.
“You?” He gave a disbelieving laugh. “You sit behind a desk drawing buildings. Half a dozen of us have been trying, and you think you can do better?”
Chen didn't look at him.
“Your approach was wrong.”
Kael stepped closer. “What did you say?”
“Friction fire requires the right materials, sufficient dryness, and sustained pressure and speed. The wood here has absorbed seawater. You can rub it until your hands bleed, and it still won't produce a useful ember.”
Chen gestured toward the stones.
“Striking two random rocks is no better. You need the right materials to create sparks, and even then, you need something dry enough to catch them. Wet seaweed won't do.”
Elara studied him.
“Can you do it or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it. The money is yours.”
Chen shook his head.
“One and a half million isn't enough.”
The beach went quiet.
Kael stared at him, then broke into an incredulous laugh.
“You've got some nerve. A minute ago, you were hiding in the back. Now you're trying to rob Ms. Voss because we're cold?”
He grabbed Chen by the collar.
“Two million? Five million? What next? The entire company?”
Chen remained unusually calm.
“Twenty million dollars.”
Kael's expression changed.
“You've lost your mind.”
He raised a fist, but Elara's voice cut through the argument.
“Enough.”
Kael froze.
Elara was trembling so badly that she had to brace one hand against the rock behind her. The promise of rescue had carried her through the afternoon, but the cold was making it difficult to think. She had offered money to make the others act, yet all the money in the world had failed to produce even a steady flame.
Twenty million dollars was an absurd demand.
So was expecting to survive the night without fire.
“Fine,” she said at last. “Twenty million. If you can get a fire burning.”
Kael released Chen's collar with an angry shove.
Chen brushed the sand from his shirt and held out his hand.
“Give me the flashlight.”
Javi hesitated. It was the only dependable light they had.
He looked at Kael.
Kael spat into the sand and turned away.
Javi passed the flashlight to Chen.
Chen examined its casing, then turned it upside down and unscrewed the metal cap at the base.
“What are you doing?” Tyler demanded. “That's our only light!”
Chen ignored him.
He tilted the flashlight over his palm. With a small click, a cylindrical industrial lithium battery slid into his hand.
He raised it toward the flickering light from the cave above.
Then he looked around the circle of shivering survivors.
“Now,” he said, “I need a little piece of foil.”