At some point, you’ll need to sleep in the hospital, and your money might just disappear.
Never read the book, so one thing I’m wondering – Is there only one Running Man at a time, or are there mutliple games going on at once? I’m guessing this is a weekly tv show, which might be a bit boring if all they have is footage of a chase for one guy they haven’t yet found. Not that it’s a big help, but it should help a little if in the first several days, a runner from a game already started is getting the bigger headlines.
In the book, there are one or two runners who start at the same time as Richards, but I don’t believe there are others who started before and are still competing.
I disagree. Dystopian society or not, humans are still human and they won’t cross certain boundaries if risks outweigh benefits by a wide margin.
Perhaps they wouldn’t want to visit New York, but they may wish to visit Las Vegas, which is where the Bellagio, Casino Royale, Circus Circus and Bally’s Hotel and Casino reside. Particularly so, if, as is likely, given the context of the OP’s fabricated future scenario, Saudi Arabia were as dystopian a society as the United States. Then, Vegas remains the defacto destination one visits to recreate in opulence and anonymity.
I believe the best plan would be to hide in plain sight with a diversion twist. Since disfigured strangers are rarely scrutinized I’d spend my first 24 hours gathering theatrical makeup and prosthetic features:
disguise myself as a horribly disfigured person – no humps or missing limbs, just a face messed-up enough that strangers would want to look away rather than linger on it.
relocate to the center of a new urban area every few days.
rent rooms in neighborhoods with no sense of community so the neighbors won’t discuss me…motel types.
spend all days traveling to the edges of the transportation system to mail packages.
after a few days, board the bus to a new city and apply new disguise in the depot bathroom.
I wouldn’t know where to get a fake passport done and certainly couldn’t find out within 24 hours. It’d be easier to stay in a country where I speak the language, anyway.
I guess I’d get a load of disguises - go to a theatrical wholesaler - give up on the videos, get in a big stock of food and drinks and find a building to hole up in. A library is a possibility - a fair few hiding places and no night security, so you could wander around at night (using the loo and stretching your muscles) and sleep during the day.
Might they not notice a strict Muslim at a gambling resort, though? (The burka would imply strict).
It’s specified in the book that, if the videotapes are not received regularly, you forfeit the game. The cash stops. The manhunt doesn’t. Until you’re dead. There’s no “statute of limitations.”
Good point. Once you are playing the game, it doesn’t stop. If you default by not sending in tapes, then you forfeit. But the Hunters do not stop hunting you.
I think the best thing to do would be to keep moving. But if you had a network of contacts around the country who would be willing to receive and remail tapes for you, that might be best. It is one thing for the producers to receive tapes from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia in three days; it is quite another for the producers to receive tapes from New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and Seattle in three days.
1: Make all the tapes at once if allowed or film in a ski mask later on if not. Throw acid or lye on my face to burn or scar it beyond recognition. Dye my hair etc… Remove extra limbs or teeth as required to achieve satisfactory results. Then find an abandoned dumpster or warehouse somewhere and live in it hoping that my wounds don’t cause an infection that kills me in less than 30 days while using some of the methods discussed above to get the tapes out.
2: Break into the producer’s home and hold his family hostage.
3 Rig something to blow up that will kill a lot of people and wire it to a dead man switch. You could send the tape to the media showing what you have done and you wouldn’t have to hide at all.
4: Live in the attic of someone’s house and only come down when they are at work like that crazy lady did in Japan.
5: Seek refuge with some religious order that is willing to provide sanctuary as part of their practices or creed. This would also provide a ready made network of people to drop off tapes around the country or even the world if they were cooperative. Even a run of the mill Christian minister would not be likely to turn you in given the consequences and the prohibition against murder — but better safe than sorry.
6: Move in with a blind person.
7: Hide in a compound near a Pakistani military academy.
8: Join a terrorist organization and have them use their resources to hide you. This might also work with criminal gangs or spy agencies operating for other governments.
9: Seek asylum in the embassy of a country that does not extradite to countries with a death penalty.
10: Become a host for a show on MSNBC or whatever Al Gore’s new network is. No one is likely to see you there.
11: Buy a giant Twizzler outfit and stand in parking lots handing out candy like you are part of some promotion.
12: Dress as a copy of the Constitution since no one recognizes it anymore.
I could go on but the more interesting problem is how to finesse sending the tapes. I assume a modernized version of this story would use a smart phone and the hunters would track you with GPS signals encoded in your transmissions so you would never have a chance. But even using the tapes you are toast if you have to film yourself and mail them daily. Without an accomplice you can trust with your life there aren’t a lot of good strategies other than staying on the run. Perhaps you could send them to someone whom you knew would be out of town for the next month with a note to forward them. Sending them as over the transom submissions to a publishing house might also get you the proper delay.
In that case, I’d go offroad to some 3rd world country, and still skip on the videos. Again, there’s no guarantee that the company has any incentive to keep their word and stop the hunt and pay the money after 30 days. So if the hunt is forever anyway, then a 3rd world country with less infrastructure makes it much harder to find, and less likely that the hunters want to travel there.
You’re still setting up another innocent person who looks similar to you up as patsy, since the company obviously won’t admit defeat.
Well, I don’t have such a network, and couldn’t set one up in 24 hrs, esp. not if people are being told I committed a murder, and people who help me risk their own lives. (I also wouldn’t want to put that risk onto them).
I am assuming that the internet either would not exist at all in this dystopian society, or be heavily censored, like in China, so I can’t simply put out a call on Facebook to make a group.
How do you know the adress of the producers home? How do you get past security in some gated community, given that you have only 24 hrs. to set this up?
Where do you get the materials and knowledge?
She lived in a cupboard.
And the problem with that is that if you leave the house in a residental neighborhood to mail the tapes, you will be seen by the neighbours.
I don’t know any in the US. Christians are not even allowed to provide asylum against the state.
And what stops the hunters from storming the sanctuary? They’re not built like a castle anymore.
Where do you find one that’s also deaf so as not to listen to radio, but still lives alone and wants to accept a subrenter, plus has neighbours who also don’t watch TV?
If you move in with a blind person, you need a damn good excuse as to why you can’t do the shopping for them.
I doubt that you can apply and join in 24 hrs. And how do you contact them? I don’t know the address of my friendly neighborhood terrorist.
Hiding in plain sight - that’s a good idea. You still need a place to eat and sleep, though.
The problem is that in a dystopian totalitarian state*, all resources that would be helpful to runners would also be helpful to dissidents (and terrorists), so I assume the state would crack down on them. E.g. a law that only actors licensed by their guild with ID, can buy wigs and other disguises.
I assume totalitarian instead of simple dystopian - e.g. a state that’s attacked and falls into ruins or suffers a major natural catastrophe - is because the whole idea behind this “game” is only possible if the state doesn’t care any longer about human rights.
I assume that libraries don’t exist anymore. Public libraries need public money, so it would be easy for the govt. to cut access to information. (There might be lending libraries for pulp novels, like in the 19th century, but not places to stay and learn. Depends of course on the technology available.). College libraries, if not also cut for budget reasons, would probably restrict access to students with ID (And also limit the textbooks).
Might they not notice a strict Muslim at a gambling resort, though? (The burka would imply strict).
[/QUOTE]
Assumption: Someone very important to me need money, lots of it. There is slim to none chance at winning this game.
I think the only way for me to “win” this game is give most of the money I have in my cash account to the loved ones, and ask them to run far far away within the first 24 hours. Then, I will try to run away from this game all together. Meaning, don’t send any tape, change my look, become a fisherman/caveman, and move away. Never surface, ever again. Expect to be hunt forever, but knowing if I survived 6 months, I am probably not in the hunter’s top priorities anymore.
I found even with normal disguise, people usually cannot recognize you, and without the tape, the hunters will have hard time tracking you. As long as you don’t have to mail the tape, it should be possible to survive.
Due to illness combined with a bout of insomnia, I read this on Monday night again. It had been a while, I had forgotten how good it was!
He started with something like $4500 cash.
The camera was the size of a book, the discs he recorded to were approx the size of a coin. He was required to drop 2 a day, or forfeit as described. It becomes clear through the story that the Hunters get information as to where he “is” from the maildrop.
Those that can get a picture or video of you get a cash reward. Those that drop a dime on you that results in your capture and death get a big reward.
There is no delay, the show is shown live, Ben is introduced to the audience, and he is ushered out of the building. The hunters start after him 12 hours later.
It is a truley dystopian society, where all society revolves around The Network (that puts out and provides the Free Vee) and specifically the Games, which everyone watches. Literally, everyone. Even the Unabomber would have had a cable run to his shack. Having a viewer in your abode is required by law.
They pump him up as a criminal, making the brainwashed masses hate him. They are eager to turn him in. His tapes will be altered if he attempts to monolog to the masses about the Real Situation.
The Hunters and the authorities will kill anyone they need to to get Ben dead. As long as it isn’t seen by the masses.
While it’s no Long Walk, it’s a very very enjoyable story.
This means that everybody knows his real face immediatly. He can’t walk into a barber shop to get his hair dyed or put on a fake beard, he will be pointed out very shortly.
With these odds, I’m amazed that people even manage 8 days.
Did they adress at all what happens to look-alikes? Are the hunters required to get confirmation (fingerprints), or do they just shoot when sighting him? (I guess the network wants to draw out the chase for suspense, so they probably want to get close, but there are enough people today that earn money by posing as doubles of celebrities, so even a close-up of a face isn’t sure to know that this man saying “I’m John Smith, not Rob Brown! I swear, look at my ID!” will be believed.)
I wonder about the purpose, though. I originally thought that - if the prey had 24 hrs. headstart before his picture was shown - that the state wanted to suppress any possibility of an underground - because any method of getting false IDs, using decoys etc. that would be useful for dissidenters could be identified and stamped out with these “running men”. But since they don’t have a chance, it’s apparently only entertainment.
Still, why use innocents, and not real convicted murderers in that case? Are innocents easier to catch because they have more scruples to involve third persons? They don’t know enough about the criminal underworld to have a chance of getting away?
And it’s supposed to take place in the mid-2020? The far future? Amazing how hard not only tech changing and emerging was to predict, but that inflation and prices would change so much - 4500 doesn’t buy you several plane tickets. Maybe bus lines. You can’t rent a car to drive around for 30 days plus gas, motel and so on unless you stay in the seedy side of town. That’s really not enough for a man on the run by some orders. Esp. compared to the billion dollars they are promising. Something in the order of 500 000 would be a better start.
So, are we playing by the rules of the OP or the revised rules of the actual book?
It is interesting how King predicts 2025 (in a science fiction way), and how much further we have got in 2011. $4500 will not give you a good head start in 2011. Camera the size of a book? We are now having camera the size of a thumb. Discs the size of a coin? That would be a SD card. Then again, we have miniSD and microSD that are much smaller.
Also, the show promise big ongoing reward, $100 per hour. That would only be $2400 per day, and $72k for the full 30 days. Not good enough a incentive with today’s inflation. And, I won’t start the politic.
It’s not mentioned in the book, but I think a real-world consequence of this game with such a large prize would be the development of organizations/companies who are on the side of the contestents, keeping them safe from the Hunters. Even if it costs $100 million to keep Richards safe, you’re still earning $900 million (less whatever you want to give to Richards).