Fum!
I heard it first, then I felt it. My left leg went numb. I fell to my knee, my good knee, and turned to see a little clown in a striped suit with big blue buttons charging at me, screaming like a banshee. I couldn’t run; I had to fight him. The little gremlin leaped at me, his sharp teeth gnashing. I caught him and threw him at another tree. The clown hit, landed on the ground, and instantly jumped up and attacked me again. I couldn’t stop these things. It was like they were made of rubber. Except for their teeth. The teeth were sharp.
Without a gun the thing wasn’t going to hurt me badly, but he was making my life miserable. Until the feeling in my leg came back I was going to have to deal with being semi-lame. He leaped at me again, I caught him, and rather than throwing him against a tree, I threw him as far as I could. I got lucky and the little banshee sailed between trees, screaming the whole way. As soon as I let him fly, I furiously rubbed my leg to get the circulation going and get rid of the effect of the stun gun. I grabbed a tree and pulled myself up, stomping my foot to get the blood flowing…
And got jumped by two more dolls. I lost my balance and crashed to the ground as they clawed at me and viciously bit my shoulders. I pulled them both off and jammed them together. In their frenzy, they started biting each other! Idiot clowns. I turned and heaved them as far as I could. By then I had gotten enough feeling back in my leg that I could start limping. I had gotten a few yards when I saw the next red flag! Unbelievable! I pushed myself forward, dragging my leg behind me. I hadn’t heard any horns go off so I had to believe Challenger Green was having as much trouble as I was. Hopefully more. I was still in the race.
I got closer to the flag. No clowns were in my way. I reached out, and was about to grab it when I got a faceful of fist. Challenger Green had returned. He’d been hiding behind the tree with the flag on it, waiting chance to defend myself. He hit me so hard that I was knocked off my feet, though I suppose that wasn’t so hard, since one of my legs was almost useless. The guy leaped on me, jammed a knee into my chest, and stuck his nose right in my face.
“I’ll kill you before I let you win,” he snarled.
He pulled out the same knife I’d seen him use to saw the rope and kill his last opponent. He held it to my throat. “Or maybe I’ll just kill you now and be done with it,” he said, his spittle spraying me.
“We’re not alone,” I said. “All of Quillan is watching. Is this how you want to win? Kill me like this and everybody will know you only did it because you knew you couldn’t beat me. Is that how the great Challenger Green wants to be known? Not good enough to win, but good enough to murder?”
I saw his confusion. He may have been ruthless, but he had an ego. He liked being champion. He pulled the knife away and jammed it back in his boot. He then stood up and grabbed my red flag off the tree.
“You want to win?” he taunted. “Then you’ve got to get this from me.”
He laughed and took off into the trees. I sat up, rubbing my throat. That was too close. I had no doubt he would follow through if he got another chance to kill me. This wasn’t a real competition. This was survival of the fittest. Or the most ruthless. Or craziest. I cautiously stood up and tested my leg. I was okay. But the game was over. I had no chance. The only thing left for me to do was keep away from those clowns until Challenger Green made it to the far side with his flags. I started walking in the general direction of where I thought the far side was. Maybe the clowns knew I had given up, because they didn’t bother me anymore. I actually found the next red flag, too. I was going to leave it, but took it anyway. Just because.
A few minutes later I heard the horn that signaled the end of the game. Winner-Challenger Green. Good for him. The rest period was coming up. I needed it. And I needed to talk to Nevva.
Fourteen was waiting for me when I finally made it to the far side. We got in the electric cart, and he drove me back toward the castle.
“It is two games to one,” he said. “What’s important is that you are still competing.”
“Yeah, I feel really great about that,” I said sarcastically. “Did you find Nevva Winter?”
“She isn’t here,” Fourteen said.
“What do you mean?” I said with surprise. “She said she would be here for the competition.”
“I inquired with Blok,” Fourteen said. “They told me that she was observing the Grand X with the trustees in the city.”
I stared straight ahead, trying to compute what that meant. She was supposed to be there! She promised me she would be there! Something must have happened that she couldn’t get away. Was she all right? Was she revealed as a member of the revivers? Nevva was a Traveler. She knew how serious this was. Then again, she wasn’t there when Remudi competed, and that turned out about as badly as possible. Things were coming to a head here on Quillan, on all fronts. I wondered if her triple life had finally caught up with her. There had to be a good reason why she wasn’t there, but I couldn’t come up with one. I decided not to let it freak me out. It didn’t change what I had to do. I was down. Two games to one. Challenger Green had the upper hand. I had to keep my head in the game. Or the games. Or whatever.
When we arrived back at the castle. Fourteen led me back up to my room and stopped at my door.
“I will try to learn more about Miss Winter,” he said. “It seems to be of great importance to you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been a real friend.”
“Friend,” he said. “No one has ever referred to me as a friend.”
“Yeah, well, you are. How much time do I have?”
“I do not know,” he replied. “I will return shortly to let you know. Please try and get some rest.”
I was beat. Not tired. Beat. It’s not like I wanted to lie down and go to sleep or anything. I just needed to catch my breath, and my thoughts. I dragged myself over to the bed and lay down on my back. I actually hoped this rest period wouldn’t be too long. I didn’t want to stiffen up or lose my psyche.
Be careful what you wish for.
No sooner did I settle in and focus up at the ceiling, than my bed fell through the floor! A trapdoor had opened and swallowed up my bed, with me in it! I looked up to see the door close above me, cutting out all the light. I was falling in pitch darkness. I quickly grabbed on to either end of the bed, not knowing when I’d hit bottom. The fall only lasted a few seconds, and it turned out that it was more of a controlled fall than I thought. The bed had actually been lowered quickly. I landed with only a minor thump.
I didn’t move. There was nothing to see. Absolutely nothing. I was in total darkness. The room sounded big, though.
“Are you ready. Challenger Red?” came a teasing voice that echoed through the emptiness. It was LaBerge. His voice was amplified.
“Ready for what?”
LaBerge laughed and said, “Ahhh, that’s your penalty for losing in the Clown Forest.”
“Clown Forest.” That’s what he called that game? What a geek.
“What do you mean? What’s my penalty?” I called out.
“Your penalty is… we’re not going to tell you the rules to this next game.” He chuckled. “Good luck.”
There was no rest period. Game number four had already begun.
(CONTINUED)
QUILLAN
I had been here before. I knew what it was like to be in the dark and vulnerable. Loor had trained me in the dark. She taught me how to use my other senses. To listen and feel. I knew what to do. I lay flat on the bed and kept my breathing shallow. If Challenger Green was out there, I would feel him before he got close enough to attack.
I heard nothing. I felt nothing. It was like I was floating in limbo. But I didn’t panic. Moving would be a mistake.
I heard a sound. It wasn’t a living thing, it was… something. Something quick. It sounded like it flashed by overhead. It couldn’t have lasted for more than a second. Whatever it was, it gave off a high-pitched ring as it sped by. I heard another one. It came fro
m a different direction. The sound flew over me and disappeared quickly. There was no question, something was flying above me in the dark. Another one flew by, this one was barely over my head. I felt the slight ripple of air as it sped past. Whatever it was, it was moving fast. I didn’t want to get hit, so I stayed on my back, listening.
I heard a few more passes, some close, some distant. All fast. What was it? Though I wasn’t told the rules for this game, something didn’t make sense. I was in total darkness. How could the rest of Quillan see what was going on if there was no light?
As if in answer, the world suddenly came alive. White light filled the room. It was so bright that I was just as blind as when it was dark. At the same time, music started playing. It was loud, upbeat, electronic music like they played at the challenger parties. It was so loud that I could no longer hear the thing flying around the room. This was worse than darkness. I now had two senses taken away. I forced myself to stay on my back. Looking around, my eyes adjusted enough that I could make out shapes. The room itself was totally white. Floor, walls, ceiling, everything. The bright lights were on the high ceiling, and they were moving in time to the music. There were hundreds of them, all flashing in different directions. They were painting the room with light, making it impossible to see.
I saw a flash of silver a few feet above my head. It had to be what was making the sound, though I couldn’t hear it over the music. I lost it in the lights. What was it? I started feeling a little too vulnerable by lying on the bed like that, so I quickly rolled off onto the floor, but crouched down low, using the bed for protection. I peeked my head up over the mattress in time to see another silver flash. This one I locked on to. It was headed in my direction, about five feet over my head- I followed it as it shot over me, continued on, then stuck into a wall only a few yards away. What was it? I was close enough to that wall that I felt confident enough to crawl to it. I got down on my belly and crawled, commando style, across the floor to the wall. Looking up, I saw what was making the sound… and my heart sank. It was a silver disk. It didn’t look much different from a CD. But it was embedded an inch into the wall. CDs weren’t sharp like that. I realized that the sound I was hearing wasn’t from a single source. Whatever the game was in this white, noisy room, to play it meant you had to dodge sharp, lethal Frisbees that were randomly fired in all directions.
Suddenly, rampaging clown dolls didn’t seem so bad.
Chunk! Another disk embedded itself in the wall over my head. There was no fooling around. These things were deadly. Veego and LaBerge had upped the stakes. The question now was, what was the game? I kept my back to the wall and squinted to get a look at the room. My eyes had adjusted enough that I could make out some detail. The room was giant. The ceiling was high. You could fit eight basketball courts inside, with room left over for a running track. It wasn’t empty. There looked to be several mountains scattered around. I’m serious. There were craggy mounds all over the place that had to be thirty or forty feet high. They were just as white as the rest of the room, looking like giant icebergs. I could see little glints of silver where the killer disks had embedded themselves at various places. Still, I had no clue as to what the game could be, besides avoiding decapitation, that is.
My eye caught movement. It was dark against all the bright white. It was Challenger Green. He was climbing one of the mounds. If my penalty for losing the clown game was to not learn the rules, that meant Challenger Green did know the rules. I watched him for a clue. He climbed the mound easily. There were several places for foot and handholds. It looked like climbing was the easy part. The hard part was avoiding the speeding disks. I saw one disk fly toward him and stick into the side of the mound, next to his leg. He never saw it coming, nearly fell off the mound. That meant he didn’t know’ when to expect these things. Which meant I wouldn’t know either. Swell.
The top of this minimountain came to a peak. Challenger Green quickly scampered to the summit, did something I couldn’t see, then hurried back down. Whatever he did up there, I figured I had to do it too. That was the deal. We had to climb these mountains. At least I had a goal now, besides avoiding being sliced in half, that is.
I decided that safety was more important than speed, so I stayed on the floor and crawled along on my belly. My plan was to get to the mountain closest to me. I hadn’t seen any of the disks flying that low, so I figured I’d be okay until I had to climb.
I was wrong.
I had gotten about halfway there when the floor in front of me suddenly moved! A whole section of floor quickly slid to the right, opening up a cavern. It seemed as if the room were built on air! Or at least, over a chasm. The opening was dark, so there was no way to tell how deep it might have been, but I didn’t want to jump down to find out. No way. I caught a glimpse of movement to my left. My bed was hurtling toward me! I quickly realized it wasn’t just the bed, it was the floor below it that was moving. The bed shot across the floor, then suddenly tipped on end and fell into another hole that had opened up in front of it. I quickly crawled over and looked down. The bed was long gone. The chasm below was deep.
I had learned the next wrinkle to this game. The floor was a constantly shifting puzzle. Holes opened up quickly and randomly. If you were in the wrong spot, buh-bye. But you couldn’t stand up and leap from spot to spot or you might get sliced by the flying disks. The trick was to stay alive and get to the top of those mountains to do… whatever. At least my penalty had been erased. I understood the game. I kind of wished I didn’t.
I was still looking down into the hole where my bed had disappeared, with my fingers curled over the edge, when a section of floor flew toward me. I saw it coming at the last second and pulled my hands away as the pieces of flooring slammed together with a chunk! The hole had closed so fast and so violently that my fingers would have been crushed for sure.
I scrambled back toward the first mountain. I felt a few disks flying overhead, but I was more worried about the floor suddenly opening up and swallowing me. I reached the base of the mound, took a breath, and quickly climbed. There was no problem getting up, thankfully. At least that gave me a fighting chance to dodge the disks. I leaped up, climbing from ledge to ledge while scanning back and forth for any flashes of silver headed my way. A few stuck into the mound on either side of me, but neither came close enough to be scary. There was one good thing-it didn’t seem like they were being aimed. I wasn’t being shot at. If I got hit by one of those things, it meant I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I reached the pinnacle and saw what I had to do. It was simple. There were six round, flat lights about three inches in diameter that were built into a plateau on top of the mound. Three red, three green. One of the green lights was glowing. I took a guess and touched one of the red lights. It lit up. That was the game. You had to climb three mountains and light all your lights… without getting killed, of course.
The race was on. I turned and looked down at the room from a bird’s-eye vantage point. It was so white and the lights were so bright, the whole place glowed. From high up on top. the floor looked like a checkerboard with squares about five feet across. The squares were constantly moving, opening up pieces and filling in others. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to it. That was bad. There was no way to guess where a hole might open up. I also saw the flashes of silver as the sharp disks flew across the room. Winning this game was about being lucky and keeping your head. Literally.
I saw Challenger Green down on the floor, hopping from square to square. He landed on one just as it moved. It was so fast that it threw him off balance. He had to throw himself backward or he would have been dumped into the hole.
A flash of silver sped by me, very close. It got my attention. I had to get moving. I leaped down the mountain faster than I should have. But Green was ahead of me. I needed to make up time. I was lucky I didn’t take a tumble. That would have been weak. When I hit the floor, I crouched down low to make a smaller target and started running for the n
ext closest mountain. I only got a few steps when I saw a silver disk headed for me at head level. I threw myself to the side and it sailed past, but I was falling right toward a section of floor that was opening up! I had to contort my body to change my direction in midfall. I hit the section of floor right next to the new opening. Too close. I rolled to my right just as the section of floor beneath me started to move. It was so fast, it spun me into a barrel roll. I had to fight against my own momentum and stop myself from rolling off the edge. I ended up on my belly, with my left arm dangling over the side of the ch^sm. I took a second to catch my breath, then realized I was in a bad spot. I quickly pulled my arm out a second before a piebe of floor slammed into place, nearly cutting off my limb.
As frantic as I was, I couldn’t stay still. No place was safe. I got on my knees and crawled toward the next mountain. The loud music picked up the pace. I wished it made a difficult game nearly impossible. I made it to the base of the next mound and started my climb when I felt a sharp, hot pain in my right leg. Looking down I saw that a disk had clipped my right thigh. It made a neat cut through my black pants and stuck in the side of the mound. I didn’t want to know how deep the cut was. There was nothing I could do about it anyway. So I climbed. If it hurt, I didn’t know it. My adrenaline was pumping too hard to notice. I got to the top of the mound to see that there were still only one red and one green light lit. I quickly hit the next red light. I was in the lead!
I turned to head down just as a second green light turned on. I looked out over the room to see Challenger Green on top of another mound. It was dead even. I hurried down the mound, even more recklessly than last time. It was going to be close. I hit the floor and scanned to see which mound I should climb next. Challenger Green was doing the same thing. We were maybe twenty yards apart. I saw the mound that was closest to me. Unfortunately, it was the same mound that was closest to Challenger Green. It was decision time. Did I go for the closest mound and possibly have to fight Challenger Green to get to the summit? Or risk running for a mound that was farther away?
The Quillan Games tpa-7 Page 38
