Gauntlet

by Holly Jennings

  “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “I can run.”

  “Good.”

  The machine faded into view again. Hannah blocked its path, her massive battle-axe turned sideways, stretching the width of the alleyway.

  “Derek and Rooke are guarding the flag,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll give you as much time as I can.”

  The machine solidified into the virtual world.

  “Go!” she shouted.

  I took off in a limping run, but this time, I didn’t look back. Judging by the sounds of metal clanging off the brick walls and Hannah’s grunts, it sounded like she was ripping that machine apart with her bare hands.

  Funny, usually I’m the one with anger issues.

  I pushed myself through the streets, gritting my teeth against the jolts of blinding pain that shot up my leg every time my foot smacked the concrete. Come on, Kali. Footballers play on broken feet.

  Footballers.

  The glowing hue of the flag rippled behind me as my reflection slid through the glass windows and bus shelters of the street level. The sky opened up, and the rain poured down, pounded against my battered body, slapping every bruise and tear. Kick a girl while she’s down, why don’t you?

  Finally, I rounded the corner to our base, where my male teammates stood at the end, guarding it.

  I limped faster.

  Derek met me halfway down the street and reversed directions when he reached my side, running beside me to protect the flag to the base.

  “Where’s Hannah?” he huffed.

  “In berserker mode.”

  Twenty feet from the base, the remaining Ascension players stepped into our path from a darkened alleyway. Ugh. With the fight against the machine, I’d forgotten about the other team. Now it was two-on-three for the match and the game. I glanced down at my battered body. Well, two-and-a-half, maybe. Still, it was an interesting scenario. We were split. But they were surrounded.

  Derek waved Rooke up and drew his own sword.

  “Get to the base,” he said to me. “We’ll hold them off.”

  He charged for Ascension. Rooke did the same. They crashed together in a broken, harsh melody of clashing swords, heavy grunts, and thick, crunching punches.

  I bolted for the base. Actually, I more or less limped like a dying gazelle around the skirmish.

  Just as I passed the fight, Rooke’s opponent broke away and lunged for me. Rooke tackled him to the ground, but not before the tip of his sword caught my knee, slicing a gash across my good leg. I stumbled and hit the pavement. Blood dripped out of the wound and swirled with the rain to form a puddle beneath my legs. Perfect. Between my ripped left knee and shattered right foot, I couldn’t run. Hell, I couldn’t even push myself to standing.

  Fuck it.

  I crawled along the ground, pulling myself toward the base. My hands and knees scraped along the pavement, and tiny bits of gravel dug into my skin like needles. But I dragged myself onward. Ten feet from victory.

  Now nine.

  “Target acquired.”

  Clanking footsteps pounded down the street toward me.

  My body turned to ice, and my stomach lurched, shooting acid up my throat. For the second time in the tournament, existential vomit became my biggest concern.

  Crawl faster, damn it.

  Eight feet away, seven, six. The footsteps descended on me, and a metallic hand clamped around my good ankle and pulled.

  Uh-oh.

  I slid backwards. Six feet, seven, eight, nine, ten . . .

  DAMN IT.

  As I bumped along the pavement, my body went from ice-cold to subarctic, and it wasn’t only because of the machine. The new rule of the night replayed in my mind.

  The game will reset if no team scores.

  We’d have to do this whole thing again. We’d have to face this thing again.

  No.

  NO. NO. NO.

  I lost it.

  I ripped my dagger from its sheath, twisted around, and started filleting the machine. Hunks of metal went flying. I shouted incoherently. Even I don’t know what I was saying. The machine glitched and contorted, its arms twisting into impossible angles.

  This was my berserker mode.

  After several more stabs, the machine seized a final time and powered down. It faded from view.

  I braced my hands against the pavement to keep myself from collapsing. My ankle throbbed, my head pounded, and my skin burned from dragging along the road. Rooke hurried to my side in a stumbling gait. Blood soaked his pant leg, starting at a gash in his upper thigh. More blood dripped from his nose, and his right eye was already turning black.

  “Derek’s out,” he said as he slipped my arm around his shoulder and pulled me up beside him. “Ascension’s out. It’s just us.”

  Yeah, just us. And the robotic spawn of Satan.

  Together, we started limping and stumbling toward the base. Between all our injuries, we must have looked like we were competing in a drunken, three-legged race. We closed in on the base. Three feet. Now two.

  Metal footsteps pounded behind us.

  “Target acquired.”

  Fuck!

  The robot lunged for me and grabbed both ankles. I went down hard, slamming into the pavement. Pain detonated in every cell as my body cracked against the road. My vision swirled. Rooke latched onto my wrists. The machine had my ankles. They both pulled, like I was a toy and they were two dogs playing tug-of-war. I felt like I was being ripped apart. I glanced over my head, where Rooke was straining with my arms. My fingertips were two inches away from the base, if not less.

  “Pull it out,” I screamed. “Pull my arm out of the socket.”

  Rooke glanced between me and the base and furiously shook his head.

  “Do it!”

  Instead, he let go.

  Argh. I’ll kill him next.

  I slid away from the base again, my body bumping along the pavement. But what was that I’d said about machines? They’re predictable, and it looked like I wasn’t the only one who realized it.

  I slid to a stop when the robot released my ankles and reared back to deliver the final blow. Rooke instantly snatched me back, dragging me by the arms. The robot scrambled after us. I backpedaled, pushing my feet into the pavement, propelling us even faster toward the flag’s home.

  We closed in on the base. The machine closed in on us.

  Three feet away.

  The machine swiped its hands through the air, missing me by an inch.

  Two feet away.

  Its claw sliced through the bottom of my boot.

  One foot away.

  Its eyes were all I could see.

  Rooke’s leg gave out, and he collapsed three inches from the base. I lunged.

  Reached.

  Strained.

  And slammed my hand home.

  A glowing outline of the flag appeared. The horn echoed overhead.

  Victory.

  I collapsed and rolled onto my back, just in time to watch the machine descend on me. I froze. My throat constricted, and I sucked in a raspy breath as it reached for me. Then the outline of the machine wavered and grew transparent. Moonlight cut through its image. Then the stars appeared. And the night sky, more and more, until the machine faded from view completely. A phantom wind whispered along my neck, as if its claws had passed right through my skin.

  I shuddered.

  Rooke’s heavy breaths next to me brought me back to reality. Or, at least, as close to reality as we could get in this place. We lay on the pavement together, the rain drenching our battered bodies. Breaths heaved from our chests. At some point, out of the absolute absurdity of the matchup, I started laughing.

  Rooke glanced at me. “You’re laughing?” He shook his head. “You’re fucking crazy.”

&n
bsp; “And what happened to you?” I pointed down at his leg and pouted, mocking him. “Do you have a boo-boo?”

  He chuckled. “Wanna talk about getting a boo-boo? I nearly swept you off your feet and carried you to the flag.”

  I gave him the side-eye. “Oh, I would have hurt you. Very, very badly.”

  “I would have enjoyed that.” He winked.

  And, for a second, there he was. My friend. A glimmer of the person he used to be. My heart just about exploded, and I would have let it. In that moment, everything was aligned. Rooke was at my side, and he was smiling. Hell, even I was smiling. We’d worked together. We’d won together. Real or virtual, for just that fleeting second, all the things in my life were right where they belonged.

  My vision went black, and I felt the insides of the pod. I blinked away stars as my senses adjusted to reality. My chest heaved, my hands shook, and it had nothing to do with plugging in. I braced my hands against the sides of the pod, gasping for air. We barely made it. Just barely.

  And that thing. That machine.

  I shuddered. I’d dream about it tonight, whatever that was.

  I wriggled my foot. No pain. It was fine. Of course it would be. None of the pain or injuries I’d endured in the game were real, and just like the matchup, once the pod stopped sending signals to my nerves, everything virtual vanished in an instant. Still, my heaving breaths took a while to subside.

  The speakers around me crackled as the real-life audio cut into the pod.

  “Wow, wow, wow,” Marcus said and repeated it several more times. “What a match. What a show by Defiance. They earned every inch of that map.”

  “This is why they’re calling it the all-star tournament. That was the most insane thing I’ve ever seen,” Howie chimed in, adrenaline pumping through his own voice. “And with that, Defiance advances to the next round.”

  The next round. What the hell would be the next round?

  CHAPTER 14

  The press conference after the matchup didn’t go as planned. I sat with my teammates in front of the sea of people and pointed at a reporter. He stood and turned toward Rooke.

  “Rumors are you’re headed for rehab. Any comment on that?”

  I cut Rooke off before he could answer and spoke into my mic. “We’re not going to be discussing that at this time.”

  Before I could point to another reporter, one stood on his own and looked at Lily. “Given that your girlfriend recently came out as straight, how did that make you feel?”

  I glanced at Hannah. Her face was blank. On most people, I would have taken that as a good sign, but I knew for Hannah, a lack of cheer and a stony expression meant she was really feeling this.

  Lily stuttered. “She’s not—”

  The reporter pressed onward. “Are you still together?”

  “Well, yes—”

  He scoffed. “So, you’re standing by her?”

  She glanced at me, her eyes pleading for help. I pressed my lips to my microphone.

  “Do any of you have questions about our gameplay?”

  Silence answered. I think someone sneezed.

  I fought the urge to sigh. Really, people? After a matchup that intense, the concern was on the gossip and rumors circling my team?

  “Fine,” I said, my voice stern. “I think it was interesting how the VGL introduced NPCs into the arena. It’s a nice shake-up from the norm, and it really challenged us as a team.”

  No one said anything. No one even raised a hand.

  “Isn’t the game more important to you than our presence in the tabloids?” I asked the crowd.

  Someone at the back answered me. “Then stop creating gossip.”

  A few people laughed.

  I placed my hands down on either side of the mic. “If none of you have questions pertaining to the game, then this conference is over.”

  The conference was over.

  The following week, the media had yet to let up on my team. On my tablet, I flicked through the covers of nearly every tabloid.

  Rehab for Team Defiance?

  Hannah O’Leary’s secret straight life revealed.

  Exclusive photos of Jennifer Talen’s baby bump.

  I shook my head. I knew it was best to leave it alone and not even read these headlines. If we weathered the storm long enough, they’d find someone else to go after. Still, every instinct inside me was screaming to call out the lies and protect my team. For my own sanity, I left my tablet in my bedroom as I headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. It was practically pointless. When I walked into the room, Hannah was hunched over the table, an untouched breakfast at her side and a tablet gripped in her hands.

  “Bringing your tablet to the breakfast table now?”

  She failed to look up at me. “I would have brought my phone, but someone took it away.”

  Ouch. Well, somebody was cheeky this morning.

  I grabbed a coffee and a plate of my perfect proportioned breakfast, and sat down across from her. Three bites into my meal, and Derek walked into the room

  “We can relax,” he announced, sitting down at the table. “I finally got ahold of Jennifer. The rumors aren’t true, and it’s not her fault, either.”

  I let out a heavy breath. Thank God. Derek wasn’t leaving the team, and he didn’t have this huge responsibility before he was ready for it. It must have been a load off his mind, too.

  “How do you know it’s not her fault?” I spooned a mouthful of blueberry yogurt into my mouth.

  “Apparently, she had her identity stolen by an AI bot. The person smearing us all over the Internet isn’t even a real person. It’s a program pretending to be her.”

  I thought about that. “How would an AI bot know about you two sleeping together?”

  He shrugged. “A thousand ways. A blog. Instant messages. A hacked online journal. If someone had a one-night stand with a pro gamer, do you really think they’re not going to tell their friends about it?”

  Hannah pointed at Derek and nodded vehemently. “He has a point. If I slept with someone famous, I’d tell everyone I know.”

  “You are famous.”

  “You’re missing the point, Kali,” Derek said. “People put their lives online. Even the best antitheft software can’t stop every AI program from taking their identity.”

  Decades ago, the general public had worried about other people stealing their identities. So they were a little blindsided when computers started doing it, too, taking over their social-media accounts, getting them fired from their jobs or disowned by their families for comments that weren’t even real.

  Derek took a breath. “Here’s the thing. I don’t think the target of the attack is Jennifer. The bot hasn’t touched her bank accounts, online profiles, or anything else. This is only about our one-night stand. I think someone is using her to target me.”

  I tried to follow his line of thought. “Basically, you think someone created this AI program just to make you look bad?”

  “And, by extension, the team.”

  “Who would do that? A kid, or somebody with no life hoping their name would end up in the news?”

  “Could be. Or . . .”

  “Or?” I prodded.

  He sighed. “Maybe this is crazy, but we all know who specializes in artificial intelligence programs.”

  I frowned at him. “Come on. Tamachi is not behind this.”

  Derek didn’t look certain. “Maybe not Tamachi, but it could be someone inside his organization. Or it could be a marketing ploy. I’m sure even Tamachi has to agree to the VGL’s seedy brand of advertising.”

  “He invited us into this tournament. He brought me to the meeting at the VGL. Why would he do any of those things, then try to destroy our reputation?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”

&nb
sp; “More good news,” Hannah piped up, gripping her tablet. “Looks like the media has a new target in the tournament. Our team’s problems will be old news soon.”

  A strange mix of relief and guilt churned inside my gut. “Well, that’s . . . kind of terrible, actually. To think of someone else getting hit like that.”

  “I know,” she said. “But if it gets the heat off us . . .”

  True. As much as I hated for someone else to suffer, we needed the break.

  “Who’s the victim?” Derek asked.

  “Apparently, they’ve got an Asian team in some sort of dating scandal, and one of the European players is secretly an heir to a billion-dollar fortune.”

  “So, that’s how it evolves,” I said with a sigh. “From the world’s greatest competition and a nine-figure grand prize to dating scandals and family dramas.”

  “Uh, Kali . . .” Hannah’s voice trailed off. She glanced at me, and bit her lip.

  “What?”

  She flashed her tablet at me. On it was a photo of me and Kim Jae together at the club. The caption read:

  Defiance and K-Rig: Enemies with Benefits?

  I went numb. You’d think after dealing with this bullshit for years, I wouldn’t be surprised by this kind of thing anymore, but the media always found a way.

  “There’s commentary,” Hannah said. Her finger hovered over the tablet. I sighed, and nodded.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  She tapped the PLAY button. The hosts of Hypnotized popped up on the screen.

  “Are we serious about this? Kali Ling and Kim Jae actually hooked up at a club? K-Rig doesn’t associate with anyone.”

  “He’s certainly associating with her.”

  They laughed.

  “First her own teammate and now the enemy. Can’t Kali Ling keep her legs together?”

  My teeth gritted together so hard, I thought they would crack.

  “You’re screwed,” Derek said to me. “Do you have any idea how the Korean fans are going to react to this?”

  I knew exactly how the Korean fans would react. When it came to the portrayal of relationships and affairs in the gaming world, the East was the complete opposite of the West. While Americans practically squealed over a new gamer-celebrity couple, the Korean players portrayed themselves as eternally single—and, hypothetically, available. My mind flashed back to the fans at the all-star dinner reveal and the women literally throwing themselves at K-Rig. Now they’d be diving at me—probably with knives.