Gauntlet

by Holly Jennings

  Long after everyone had gone to bed for the night, I sat in my office watching the VGL nightly feed. Marcus and Howie had been joined by two others as they debated the upcoming championship amongst themselves.

  “I don’t think anyone would argue that K-Rig is the number one overall favorite heading into the championship round.”

  “These guys have been together for nearly eight years now. Rumor is they practice up to fourteen hours a day. I think they breathe in sync even in their sleep.”

  “Then you have to consider Team Legacy. Eleven years strong, nine championship wins. They have the most experience in the competition.”

  “Don’t discredit the Swedes, here. They aren’t nearly the best team in the competition, but they’ve had a hell of a run. Everything is just jibing for them. Let’s see if they can continue their streak tomorrow night.”

  “You know, the dark horse in this competition has really been Defiance. They’ve only won a single championship, they’re the least experienced team in the pack, and it’s Kali Ling’s first year as team owner. No one knows what to expect from this team.”

  “Whatever happens, we can know one thing for sure. This will be unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

  I clicked the television off, stood, and turned to the wall beside me. Our former teammate Nathan glowed on the electronic poster hanging there. Footsteps walked up behind me. Rooke wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed his front to my back. I sighed and leaned back against him, conforming my body to his.

  “I thought you were in bed,” I told him.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” He breathed deep, and his chest expanded against my back. “Anxious about tomorrow?”

  “I still have a hard time believing all this. I don’t know what the VGL is going to hit us with tomorrow when we step inside that game. I’m not so sure being on the VGL’s shit list makes me a great team owner.”

  “You are. Even people inside the VGL are starting to take your side. You’re inspiring people.”

  “I inspired people to create those new pods, too. If this international association goes through, and gaming leagues around the world make the switch to Tamachi’s pods, thousands of programmers will lose their jobs.”

  “There’s a negative side to everything,” he said. “There will always be people against you, no matter what you do. And I think there will always be some corruption in gaming. All you can do is to try to make things better, the best way you see fit. That’s all you can do.”

  I turned to face him. His arms slid around me, keeping me securely against him. I rested my chin on his chest, stared up into his eyes, and sighed. “What if at this time tomorrow, we’re out of the championship?”

  He smiled. “And what if at this time tomorrow, we’re number one in the world?”

  • • •

  The crowd roared.

  I stood backstage with my teammates in the Riot Games Arena in downtown L.A. Thousands of fans filled the seats. Hundreds more were gathered in the parking lot. They’d even renovated and reopened the old Staples Center across the street, transforming it into a secondary viewing area for the matchup.

  Inside the main arena, the seating was divided into four major sections. Each section glowed with a team’s color; red for Legacy, ice blue for K-Rig, gold for Eon, and dark gray for us. A single seat in the nosebleed sections cost five grand at the minimum and went up from there. Some of the best seats were going for a record-breaking six figures. There were more than enough people willing to dish out that kind of money for a one-night-only event. Billionaires. Rock stars. Actors. L.A. had more than enough of them. Virtual gaming had become what boxing was fifty years ago.

  The VGL theme music started up, and the noise from the crowd rose several decibels. Marcus Ryan and Howie Fulton walked out onstage, waving at everyone. Their images were projected onto screens behind them that stretched nearly fifty feet high, facing all directions, so everyone in the audience could see.

  “Welcome,” Marcus boomed into his mic, “to the VGL’s first international, all-star championship.”

  The audience cheered.

  “That’s right, Marcus,” Howie chimed in. “We’re about to see the best teams in the world fight it out in the longest match in tournament history.”

  They brought us out one at a time, presenting the teams to the crowd. The whole thing became a blur to me. Even when I led my team onto the stage, I felt numb to it all, not quite connected to the moment. How could I be? I was on a stage with the top gamers in the world, and I was one of them.

  As the announcers continued, their voices became an echo in the background. The audience was a blur, a painting left out in the rain. But as I stood there, I spent the time thinking one thing.

  Thank you.

  I wasn’t sure who I was saying it to, but I felt it in every nerve. I got to play the games I loved with the people I loved. Whatever happened tonight, wherever we’d go from here, I’d never forget this experience.

  “The next time you see these teams, they’ll be on the inside. Join us after the break. The world’s first all-star championship is about to begin.”

  As the live stream cut to commercial, we were ushered toward our set of pods. Each set on the stage faced out in a different direction, with an enormous, oversized screen above for airing the gameplay. As Derek climbed into the pod next to mine, he winked. “See you on the other side.”

  I grinned.

  I climbed into my pod, and the doors shut. The sound of the crowd cut out, and a hollow emptiness filled the pod, like I’d suddenly been dunked fifty feet under water. The wires started scuttling across my skin and attached to my suit, face, and arms. I pushed a slow, deep breath out from between my lips. The moment had come. No more preparing. No more waiting. The VGL’s championship round and a shot at the nine-figure grand prize was happening right now. The next few hours would decide the rest of my life.

  All our lives.

  I closed my eyes and disappeared into the game.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was night.

  I loaded into the base with my team. It looked the same as any matchup: a shield across the door, a map next to it, and weapons all around us. Currently, the map was blank. My throat went a little dry, and I hoped that didn’t mean we’d have to play the whole game without a map.

  I reached to grab my standard weapons and froze. Next to my sword was a pair of weapons I’d never seen offered in the game before, and yet, I knew exactly what they were.

  Deerhorn knives.

  The weapons from my training with Rooke. The same from his virtual program.

  I tentatively reached for them and quickly jerked back. If I touched them, I wasn’t sure if they’d become my permanent weapon. I leaned in close to examine them. Their silver edges and older style weren’t exactly fitting in a game that was filled with ornate, glowing blades. So, what the hell were they doing in here?

  Derek nudged me.

  “Load up, Kali. Quit stalling.”

  Casting one last glance at the knives, I picked up my standard sword and dagger duo and shook the thought from my mind.

  The map of the game loaded onto the screen near the door, flickering a few times before going solid. There were four bases off the edges of the map, one for every direction. Ours was in the south, Legacy to the north, Eon to the east, and K-Rig in the west. Eight flag locations popped up on the octagon-shaped map. A bagua symbol. The map was a bagua symbol. I went cold and had to admit the irony. At first, I’d been worried we wouldn’t have a map of the game. Now we had it, and suddenly, I was wishing we didn’t.

  I backed up until I hit the far wall. I felt numb to everything, even as I watched Lily, Hannah, and Derek cluster around the map. None of them noticed me.

  “It’s not that big,” Hannah said, tracing an outline of the flags with her finger. “It’s only triple th
e size of the standard round.”

  “That makes for more conflict,” Derek said. “Putting four teams together in an arena not much bigger than standard means we’ll be running into each other all the time. It’s what the crowd will want.”

  Their voices were distant. My vision blurred a little until they were just hazy images in the background. The map was a bagua symbol. Why would Tamachi do such a thing? Whatever his reason, I doubted it would bode well for us.

  “We don’t have to run the flags to the base,” Hannah said, and I barely heard her. “We just have to collect them all.”

  “I don’t think that’s all.” Derek’s voice resounded next to hers at the edge of my hearing. “Looks like there’s a second part to the game in the center.”

  Footsteps walked up to me, the sound rippling like I was underwater.

  “Kali?”

  I blinked and looked up to find Rooke hovering over me, his arms crossed. Beyond him, my teammates had finally noticed my shock and were staring at me as well. While everyone else seemed confused, Rooke had a knowing look in his eye. He dropped his voice to just above a whisper and covered his mic with his hand.

  “Why would Tamachi structure the final map of the game to be like a bagua symbol?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I stuttered.

  The rest of my teammates left the map and formed a semicircle around me, concerned looks on all their faces.

  “Maybe he knows you’ll recognize it,” Rooke continued, “and thinks you’ll follow it blindly the whole way.”

  My chest tightened. “You think it’s a trap somehow?”

  “Could be.”

  Great. On top of figuring out the solution to each flag and fighting against the top teams in the world, I now had to be on guard at all times for a trap.

  “Wait,” Hannah began, pointing back at the map. “You know this?”

  “It’s an ancient Chinese symbol.”

  That was all I managed to say before my throat swallowed up my own voice. If Tamachi had expected me to be unnerved by this turn of events, he’d succeeded.

  Derek shifted his weight. “Well, that could be good, right? I mean, you’ll know the game.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what it means.”

  The shield dropped on the door. I kept my back pressed against the far wall. Lily started walking toward the opening. “It won’t mean anything if we don’t get moving.”

  Derek and Hannah followed Lily’s lead and headed for the exit. I didn’t move. Rooke watched them go and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “She’s right.”

  I watched my teammates filter out the exit. “They don’t seem to be taking this seriously.”

  Rooke leaned toward me. “They don’t know what this means to you or how unsettling it is. They haven’t been practicing with us every night. They haven’t been in the program I created. But there’s nothing we can really do about it except be careful.”

  Inside, my stomach still churned, but I knew I couldn’t spend the entire game inside the base. Rooke offered his hand, and I swiped it away. A grin spread across his entire face.

  “There’s the warrior.”

  He turned and headed for the exit. I trailed behind him. When I reached the doorway, I paused, threw one last glance at the map, and set out into the game.

  • • •

  The first flag was only a few streets away, directly north of our base. It stood in the middle of a dead-end alley, open space all around it. Five monks stood in front of it, all holding ancient Chinese weapons.

  They were the same monks from the Wudang Mountains program.

  My stomach dropped. I turned and nearly marched straight out of the alley. Nope, not doing this.

  Rooke grabbed my arm and turned me back. “Kali.”

  “What the hell?” I pointed at the monks. “What. The. Hell.”

  The rest of the team traded looks with each other but said nothing. Rooke simply shook his head. “You have to face this.”

  I met his gaze, hoping to stare him down. He stared back with nothing in his eyes but firm resolve. I sighed.

  He released my arm.

  Fine. Let’s deal with this.

  I drew my sword and marched up to the monks. My teammates followed suit, drawing their weapons around me. The monks mirrored us, taking up a stance directly opposite us. I lunged, and my teammates moved with me in nearly perfect sync. So did the monks. They moved with us, step for step, countering every strike with ease.

  I slammed into my attacker, knocked his arms open, and swiped for his shoulder. My sword slid through nothing, as if the monk was merely a ghost.

  I pulled back.

  How was I supposed to defeat an NPC that didn’t take damage?

  I backed away from the fight.

  Derek glanced at me. “Kali?”

  This didn’t make any sense. First, the deerhorn knives. Then the monks from the mountain.

  What did it mean?

  Then it clicked. This was the southern flag, and that meant Earth.

  “Back up. Drop your weapons,” I told everyone, and placed my own on the ground. Everyone listened to me and backed away but kept their weapons in their hands.

  “Lay them down,” I repeated.

  They traded looks with each other but eventually placed their blades on the ground. The monks started coming toward us.

  “Don’t move,” I instructed.

  My team stood strong, but their breaths quickened. The monks picked up speed. Their blades glistened in the moonlight.

  “Kali?” Hannah’s voice wavered.

  “Hold.”

  The monks charged us and reeled their weapons back.

  “Kali!”

  “Hold!”

  The monks reached us and swung through, one for each of us, aiming straight for our necks. I didn’t move. The blade came to a sudden halt at my neck, the blade pressed against my throat.

  I smiled.

  The monks backed up a step, bowed to us, and moved aside.

  Beside me, Hannah blinked.

  “What was that?”

  I walked up to the flag and wrapped my fingers around it. It shimmered for a second before it disappeared and consumed me in a greenish glow that slowly faded from my skin.

  I turned to the group.

  “It’s Earth,” I told them.

  Derek took a step forward. “What?”

  “The map isn’t just a bagua. Each flag represents a different element within the symbol.” I glanced at the monks. “And I’m guessing each one will have a challenge to pick it up based on what it represents. Earth represents passive energy. That’s why we couldn’t attack the monks even when they attacked us.”

  A voice called out behind me, and it didn’t belong to one of my teammates.

  “Speaking of being attacked.”

  My insides congealed to ice at the sound of the Korean-accented voice. I turned to find K-Rig standing behind us. In front of them all, Kim Jae narrowed his sights on me and smirked.

  “Thanks for showing us how to get the flag.”

  Then he signaled to his team, and they charged.

  CHAPTER 24

  Kim Jae slammed right into me.

  I went flying back, landed on the alley floor, and skidded along until I hit the far wall. My back whacked the bricks hard, pushing a full breath out of my lungs. I gasped for air as Kim Jae descended on me. I kicked up, knocking him back. He stumbled and surged forward again.

  Out of his sight, I gripped the dagger in my boot.

  Kim Jae swiped for my head. I ducked under the blow, tumbled forward, feigning a fall, and drove my dagger through his foot. He cried out and tumbled to the ground. I pounced on him, reeled back, and slammed the dagger through his eye.

  He froze instantly.


  A final breath rushed out of his mouth, and his head lolled to the side.

  I retrieved my dagger and looked up. My mouth dropped at the scene in front of me.

  All five members of K-Rig were on the ground.

  All four of my teammates were standing.

  I leapt to my feet and screamed at the sky. “Is that the best in the world? Bring it on.”

  “Kali.” Derek’s voice sounded empty. I turned my gaze back to the team. For the first time, I noticed Hannah. Her face was blanched, and a dagger was sticking out of her stomach. Blood pooled out and dripped on the ground. She stumbled back and collapsed.

  We rushed to her.

  Lily and I ended up on either side of her while the guys hovered over us. Hannah smiled up at me. “Don’t think I’ll be helping you much this game.”

  She started to chuckle and seized with a cough instead. The dagger in her stomach jerked and twisted. I gripped the hilt.

  “It’ll go faster if I pull it out,” I told her.

  She nodded and braced herself against the pavement. Lily pressed her hands across Hannah’s shoulders. I tightened my grip on the hilt and ripped it out. Hannah gasped, and her whole body went rigid, until her back lifted off the ground. Then she collapsed, jerked a few times, and a breath rasped from her lungs. Her eyes glazed over. Tentatively, Lily reached with her fingertips and shut Hannah’s eyes. Then she hung her head. I did the same.

  First flag, and we were down a teammate.

  Rooke’s hand came down on my shoulder. “It’s going to be a long game, Kali.”

  Hannah’s body dematerialized and faded out of the game. I watched her go and scrubbed my eyes with my palms.

  “K-Rig’s not going for the flags,” I said. “They’re aiming to take everyone else out first. That’s why they got here so fast.”

  “They thanked us for showing them how to get the flag, though,” Derek pointed out.

  I shook my head. “I think that was to throw us off. They’re going after the teams. That’s why they came after us. They thought we’d be easiest.”

  Derek grinned. “Well, we proved them wrong.”