Try Try Again Read Free

words.
    The gamelight glowed and then blinked, meaning Jill had won
that particular T-slice, or more probably had tied with a few thousand other agonists.
Jill stayed with the character, but almost immediately the gamelight blacked
out, meaning at least one other person was doing a better job of being Liv
Saunders, than Jill was.
    Her gamelight came on one more time that evening, but Jill
won nothing more. After the show ended, her webV showed she had won a dollar
for tying one T-slice (about four tenths of a second this time – the actual
value depended on how many agonists were online at the moment) with some 2,645 other
competitors.
    Jill spent the next week in a grim mood. If she didn’t win
something more than a kiss-off buck in episode four, she’d just drop the whole
thing. If she could. She’d stop shaping her hair like Liv did (or had –
the fanzines said Saunders had made slight changes in her hairstyle recently.)
She’d stop centering her life on five Wednesday evenings twice a year. If she
could.
    She practiced hard, reviewed the trial transcript three more
times, watched the downloaded season-one footage again, studied Liv’s body
language (inscrutable, but imitable). Desperation powered her practice
sessions.
    As Wednesday approached, Jill had been a little encouraged
by winning that dollar in episode three. Hope was again springing as she
reminded herself, it was episode four where she’d won that thousand dollars in season
one. She waited impatiently as Wednesday crept toward her.
    She avoided Ellie, not needing more downer-therapy than she
was already giving herself, but she couldn’t avoid Roger’s call, because she’d
absent-mindedly touched the answer icon before spotting the telltale
caller-ID.
    “Hi, this is Roger,” the cell voice said. Jill momentarily
caught her breath, then flinched. Jill didn’t think she could control her
voice, and said nothing. She had a momentary flash of Roger at the Charley
Dukes trial as the killer, the accused who this time would be sentenced to
being hung, drawn, and quartered the good old-fashioned way.
    “Jill, are you there? I just wanted to tell you I left my
loyalty-card collection. I think it’s under the dresser. Could you go look?”
    Jill very much wanted to say, Why, did That Bitch leave
it in our bedroom one day when you ‘had her’ over? How’s that for loyalty? But she just said, in as cool a voice as she could manage, “I’ll look later and
text you.” She hung up, and hurried into the living room. Episode four of
season two of ‘Try Try Again’ was about to start.
    Halfway through episode four, Jill’s gamelight had not yet
come on. Time for the British Foods commercial, which was new for season two.
The scene right after the commercial was her favorite, she thought it was her
best chance to win. Liv Saunders and Charley Dukes would be seated at the
defense table, watching Chief of Police Gardner response to the prosecution’s
questions; saying he saw Charley shoot the Congressman. This testimony wasn’t
particularly crucial – some thirty-five other people saw the same thing, and
seven had been dutifully trooped to the stand and testify to that.
    Chief Gardner had been on the platform with Congressman
Barnes seconds before Barnes had stepped down into the crowd and been shot.
Gardner had said he’d been – ah – reaching for his weapon when … Actually, Jill
had heard Gardner had been ducking for cover. Not blaming him, she thought, who
wouldn’t duck when a man a few feet away pulls out a pistol and starts firing
wildly? Gardner had suffered a flesh wound to his right hand, and so the
ducking was seldom mentioned – especially by Gardner. ‘Heroic Chief Scott
Gardner’ had been well-honored.
    Coming out of this commercial and a half-second black
screen, as Jill knew and had practiced, Prosecutor Brent Nielsen would ask
Gardner how many shots he’d heard, and Gardner would say “Three or four. Maybe.
Or could be five,