"Watch out for the wildlife, it's nothing you've ever seen before. Oh, and bring food because you don't want to risk trying to eat that stuff either. There's plenty of canned goods in the food court." It wasn't all bad, Ed had hunted and eaten what he killed while staying out there. The difference was if he died the implant notified Zenith and they'd retrieve his body and revive him so none of that really mattered, did it?

Someone without a chip wasn't likely to be so 'lucky'.

He didn't know what was worse, the question or the quick realization that the teen had made a mistake. Either way, he can't not answer when the kid was obviously supplying his own answer and he didn't know what exactly it was that was going on inside his mind.

"You got pulled in by accident through some portal they have no control over. They tricked me into volunteering. Apparently, they're really good at it."