He could feel his anger rising. This was all just an elaborate hoax. Calm down, he told himself. There is no one left. You’ve won this. He breathed. Yeah, but what if it wasn’t even a competition at all? said another part of him. Why has Lucy suddenly turned into one of them? And who are they? Wolf was actually angry now. He felt cheated. Cheated. This is a joke, it’s . . . He wondered vaguely if he was going to die. He tried to stay calm, to remember wise words from all the books he’d read. The Master gives himself up/to whatever the moment brings.

The projector suddenly made a whirring noise, and the screen came to life once again. There was a picture of a girl. She had long brown hair, a few freckles, a clear, completely innocent smile.

“Oh my God,” said Wolf.

“Your sister,” said the man. “Natasha, I believe?”

“Where is she?”

“Interesting question,” said the man. “You asked who I am. You can call me Aizik.”

“Aizik?”

Something was bugging Wolf about the names of the people here, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“Well, Aizik, where is my sister?”

“Let’s say she’s been kidnapped. Let’s say the kidnappers have a demand. Would you do what they wanted?”

Wolf took a deep breath. “I’ve already come here,” he said. “Are you trying to say that you’ve kidnapped her?”

“Not exactly.”

The projector whirred. A new picture came onto the screen. It was the same town as before, the one with the yellow-brick buildings, the park with the sparkling silver slide and the bright red swings.

“You can choose,” said Aizik. “This town, or your sister.”

“But I don’t want a town,” said Wolf, confused. “I came here to get my sister back.”

“Oh no,” said Aizik. He chuckled. “You’re not deciding which one you want. You’re deciding who gets to live. You can either choose your sister, or fifty thousand people you’ve never met. And the dictator isn’t there anymore, by the way. These are fifty thousand innocent people. What’s your choice?”

“I’m not going to make a choice like that,” said Wolf. “You saw all my other answers. Why would I change who I am now?”

“To save your sister.”

“You’re just trying to make me become irrational,” said Wolf. “But no, I’m not going to choose to annihilate fifty thousand people OR my sister. Sorry.”

“Right,” said Aizik. “Then we’ll kill them all.”

Wolf felt ice stabbing him deep inside his heart.

Natasha. All those people.

“What?” he said.

“I think you heard. Unless you choose which one to save, we will kill them all. You can choose Option A: Save your sister but destroy the town; Option B: Save the town but kill your sister; or Option C: Kill your sister and destroy the town.”