by Devin Hunter
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Copyright © 2018 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Brian Peterson
Cover artwork by Amanda Brack
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5107-4264-2
E-book ISBN: 978-1-5107-4267-3
Printed in the United States of America
CHAPTER ONE
Grey hated when his squad picked Tomato Town as a starting place. Not because it was a bad spot, or because there was always a chance they’d die early when lots of others showed up. It was because of the pizza place. It made him miss home. And pizza. Food in general, really.
It had been three weeks since Grey had gotten sucked into this virtual reality version of Fortnite Battle Royale, and he was homesick. More than he had ever been.
He hadn’t told anyone, since it didn’t seem fair to complain when two of his squad mates, Ben and Tristan, had been stuck in this world for almost a year. But as Grey’s squad fortified their position in the pizza place, he wished he could feel his stomach rumble. He wanted to feel hungry so he’d have to eat. It was strange, not having a real body to do those things. His mind still wanted to do them. More than missing his body, he missed his family and friends. He missed his room and even his school. He missed being a person.
It felt more and more that he was just a character in a video game.
Grey took a shot to his shoulder, and his shield was almost gone.
“Focus, Grey!” Kiri yelled at him.
“Sorry!” He tried to shake off the homesickness. “This place always makes me miss pizza!”
Ben groaned. “What I’d do for a piece of pizza … extra cheese, pepperoni, and olives.”
“Not you, too!” Tristan said as he laid a trap on the wall.
“How can you not miss pizza?” Ben asked.
Tristan shrugged. “I miss my mother’s schnitzel. Pizza is so … American. I do miss German food, though.”
“Pizza is international,” Kiri said. “We love it in New Zealand. You’re just weird.”
Grey laughed.
“I could do with a fresh slice of my Auntie Ripeka’s Maori bread, though,” Kiri said with a sigh.
“I don’t know what that is, but if it’s bread, I’ll like it,” Ben said.
They were probably doomed to be eliminated very soon, being holed up here, but at least his squad was getting along.
And they had been getting better.
Depending on the day, Grey’s squad averaged being ranked in the fifties and forties. For a moment one day, they were even in the thirties. Even now, there were already sixty people eliminated.
Once the wall was broken down, the first enemy to run in died on the trap. Grey unloaded with his weapon, but the second he heard the C4, he knew this would be the end of the current battle. Sure enough, they all took critical damage, but at least they were laughing as their vision went black and white.
Having fun took the edge off missing home.
“Coulda been worse,” Ben said. “We did decent for the day.”
“Yeah, just positioning bad luck,” Tristan replied. It was strange to think that, three weeks ago, Tristan had left their squad and fought with Ben. Now it seemed like it had never happened.
“The storm is not our mate,” Kiri said.
“Maybe tomorrow.” Grey had played enough battles to know that sometimes luck wasn’t on your side. Sometimes you got bad weapons. Sometimes the eye of the storm ended up on the opposite side of the map. All one hundred players stuck there had had some bad days at this point, and the average rankings had only gotten tighter together.
As they waited for the battle to be over, Grey selected a player who was still alive to watch. His favorite had become Tae Min, the top player in the whole group.
Grey figured a lot of people watched Tae Min, but it was hard not to. There was so much to learn from spectating. Tae Min wasn’t just a good shooter—he could also build at lightning speed. He didn’t just know every location—he knew how to use them to his advantage. And on top of all that, it felt like Tae Min was a mind reader.
Sure enough, Tae Min was one of the very last ones alive. His ranking had only fallen to five from his perfect first day. The next closest player, a teen girl named Hui Yin, had a ranking of twelve.
Tae Min was in the eye of the storm building a tower faster than Grey could imagine doing. It made Grey want to practice more.
A squad of players tried to get Tae Min, but there was always a wall in their way. He took down his opponents one by one until he was the last player standing and the battle was over.
Another Victory Royale for Tae Min.
Since it was the end of the day, Grey appeared in the battle warehouse along with the other one hundred players trapped in the game. He stood next to the others of his rank. Ben was right next to him. Kiri was still a few behind but had moved closer, and Tristan was just ahead of all of them.
Like he’d grown used to, the Admin appeared in front of them. “This concludes the third week of battles. Your rankings are posted on the board. Please keep in mind that you have five weeks left to be one of the top five ranked. This will be the only way to return to the real world. All remaining players will participate in the next season of battles.”
Grey gulped. Five weeks? He tried not to think about time passing, but five weeks didn’t feel like enough.
Which meant he’d be stuck here for two more months.
When he already missed home so badly he could cry.
The Admin disappeared, leaving the players to themselves for the next three hours before mandatory “bedtime.” Grey still wasn’t sure that he slept during that time, but he did feel rested after, and that was always welcome.
“More practice?” Ben asked as everyone broke off into their squads. Things had settled since the beginning of the season when everyone seemed angry, as if people had accepted their fates. Though Hazel, a player that started with Grey, still trolled them frequently.
“I need a breather,” Grey said. “You guys go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Kiri frowned. “You okay?”
“Just need to clear my head before more Fortnite,” he said.
“I bet the little baby boy misses home!” Hazel interrupted. She pointed a finger, and everyone stared. “Look at him! He looks like he’s about to cry because he can’t see his mommy.”
Hazel’s squad laughed.
Grey rushed away before his face made expressions he wanted to hide. He headed for his cabin and his bed. He wished he could fall asleep now, but that never worked. All he could do was lie there and t
hink about everything he missed.
He wished his best friend Finn was there so they could talk about the game. Finn would know how to get better. He’d help Grey rank up. Finn would probably be like Hazel and be excited to be in the game, too, since he already loved to play it so much.
At this point, he even missed his little sister, Bella. She was always bothering him, but now he wondered what she was doing. How was she taking the idea of him being in a coma? He hated to think of how much his family was worried about him and wished he could tell them he was okay.
Grey squeezed his eyes shut. Crying wouldn’t get him anywhere. Only a top five rank could do that, and he had to figure out a way to make that happen.
CHAPTER TWO
Grey heard the door of his cabin open, but no noisy footsteps followed. Not the familiar steps of Ben and Tristan, nor the louder ones of Lorenzo. He looked up to find Tae Min sitting on his own bed. Tae Min didn’t look at Grey, but it still felt like he might speak. It had been three weeks, and Grey still hadn’t heard Tae Min say a word.
“You do miss home,” Tae Min said.
Grey gulped. Could he just talk to Tae Min? Ben had made it seem like the guy didn’t like talking, but maybe it was different when Tae Min started the conversation. “Is it that obvious?”
“Is your home nice?” Tae Min asked.
“I like it.” Grey didn’t know how much to say. Tae Min wasn’t a gossiper, but Grey didn’t want anyone to hear that he really was upset. Everyone already saw him as weak. “It wasn’t perfect, and my family isn’t rich or anything. But it’s home, you know?”
Tae Min shrugged.
Did Tae Min not have a home to miss? No one had heard his real story, though there was plenty of speculation from other players. Grey decided not to pry. It already seemed like a big deal that Tae Min was saying anything to him.
“Keep building—not faster, but smarter,” Tae Min said. “Don’t wait for anyone to tell you. Just do it until you are better.”
“O-Okay.” Grey raised his eyebrows in surprise. Did Tae Min just … give him advice? Not that it was incredibly specific, but it still felt like a gift. “Thanks.”
Tae Min nodded once, and then he lay on his bed with his back toward Grey. It was enough for Grey. To get any encouragement from the top player meant a lot, and he resolved to listen. Maybe the advice meant Tae Min thought Grey could get home if he just kept working on his ability to build.
Not faster, but smarter.
Grey wondered what that meant. There was still time before bed, so Grey jumped up and went back outside to find his squad mates.
The practice area was extra busy today, so perhaps the Admin’s warning about only having five weeks left didn’t impact just Grey. Some of the top squads—the ones in the top twenty ranks—sparred each other in giant structures that loomed high above where Grey walked on the ground.
The height of the buildings had scared Grey at first, but he’d gotten used to being up on precarious ledges. Kiri loved those kinds of builds—they only helped her snipe players better—so their squad accommodated.
Because though Kiri still might have had the lowest rank of them, she had the highest elimination count of all of them.
Grey worried she would leave them. Even now, he spotted her talking with the leader of a top twenty squad. Ben and Tristan stood several paces off, looking nervous. It wasn’t the first or even the tenth time someone had tried to recruit her right in front of them.
“Please consider it,” Zach, a skinny teen from Harlem, said with clasped hands. “You want to get home, right? Well, we can get you there much faster than your squad.”
Kiri let out a long sigh.
Grey hung back to watch. Part of him didn’t understand why she stuck around with him, Ben, and Tristan. She had gotten sucked into the game without having ever played because she’d lost a bet with her older brother. She missed her home just as much as Grey did, and he almost wanted her to go home more than he himself wanted to. At least he’d wanted to play Fortnite. Kiri never did.
“Look,” she said as she put her hands on her hips. “Stop asking, okay? I’m not switching. Everyone had a go at me except for them. Who’s to say you won’t kick me out if I’m not spot on?”
“We won’t!” Zach insisted. In all fairness, Zach seemed like a decent guy from what Grey could tell. He wasn’t a trash talker, and his squad worked well as a team. “We’re only looking for a person because Anya doesn’t want to go home anymore. She and Veejay are a thing now, I guess.”
Grey grimaced. He’d seen a few couples in the game, but he couldn’t imagine deciding to stay just to be with someone.
“Sorry, I need to get back to practice.” Kiri walked away, leaving Zach to slump his shoulders and go back to his own squad.
Grey approached his squad, and Ben was the first one to notice. “Hey, dude. Get your rest?”
Grey nodded. “What have you been practicing?”
“Builds,” Tristan said, though his eyes were on Kiri. “You could join Zach, you know. You deserve a better squad. You’ve gotten very good.”
Kiri glared at him. “You want me to?”
Tristan shook his head. “No, but … we are holding you back. We can all admit that, I think.”
Ben winced. “He’s not wrong. We’re lucky to have you still.”
Kiri looked to Grey. “You think I should go, too?”
It seemed like Kiri would be mad if he agreed, but what else could he do? “It’s not that I want you to go. It’s just that … we’d all understand if you want to. I don’t want to ruin your chances of getting back home this season. You’ve more than proven yourself.”
Kiri was quiet for a moment. “Then you all just need to get better, because I’m not leaving the squad. Let’s keep practicing, ay?”
“If you say so.” Grey couldn’t help but smile. Even though he felt guilty for holding Kiri back, he was grateful for a friend who wouldn’t up and leave for their own benefit. He felt like he could trust her, and that made her an even better squad mate than her good aim. “Can we do some building? I want to work on build battles.”
“We need that the most,” Ben said as they all headed to the warehouse in the practice area. It was filled with an endless supply of weapons, items, and materials. “We’ll never get past Hazel’s squad if we can’t build faster. Jamar and Sandhya are too good at that.”
“I don’t know what we are missing,” Tristan said as they filled their inventory with wood, brick, and metal. “We build as fast as anyone.”
“Well, we never have enough mats,” Grey pointed out. He had never used up a full stack of materials in practice, but in game they were always short at the worst times. He thought of Tae Min. “And maybe it’s not about being faster—but smarter?”
“That’s a good way to think of it,” Kiri said. “Maybe it’s like reflexes? I mean, when I first started playing netball, I was rubbish and never scored. Then somewhere along the way I just learned when things felt right.”
This sounded a lot like what Tae Min had been saying. Grey just had to figure out what “building smarter” meant. He had an idea, which he wouldn’t usually share, but he was getting desperate to rank up. “Maybe we could try solo building versus each other? Some teams rely on a couple good builders, but the top teams probably all know how to do it well.”
“It’s worth a try,” Tristan said.
“I’ll go up against Ben first,” Grey offered. Ben was the best builder on their squad, and Grey needed to catch up to him at the very least.
Ben smiled. “You’re on!”
CHAPTER THREE
Instead of building where everyone could watch, Grey and his squad moved farther out into the practice area. The place was the same as always, with the trees, buildings, and bushes not having moved. The sun had stayed in the same place in the sky, and even the clouds hadn’t budged since Grey got sucked into the game.
But it hadn’t always been the same, Grey had learned. There
had been a handful of “patches” to the virtual reality version that they were stuck in, or times when the game had been altered. Ben and Tristan told him about them. The map in the battles had changed—Dusty Divot was once Dusty Depot and not a crater, and Tilted Towers was actually a pretty new location that hadn’t existed when they first came into the game. Some of the weapons were removed, and others had their damage levels or speeds changed. Skins had been added and removed. For a day, there was even a jet pack that let players fly, but it was too overpowered.
Grey worried about facing a patch when he was finally getting used to the map and items as they were.
They picked a favorite hill on the outskirts of the ghost town where Grey first met Tristan and Ben. Hardly anyone came here to build, and they could talk and practice without the scrutiny of other players. Grey liked it that way. It was hard to learn when Hazel was constantly yelling, “You’re doing it wrong!”
“So how should we do this, Grey?” Ben asked.
“Well, now that I’ve watched a lot of the top twenty …” Grey pulled at his shirt collar. Usually it was Ben and Tristan making the calls on practice—they did have more experience after all—but they had also peaked in the fifties in ranking so maybe they needed help, too. “It doesn’t seem to always be about how high or fast but where the player puts the walls and ramps to get advantage. Like, all those weird angles. Tae Min is always trapping people below him, not just building straight up.”
“True,” Ben admitted. “But how do we practice that?”
“I dunno,” Grey replied.
“Maybe we try to shoot each other or block shots with our builds,” Tristan suggested. “First to ten hits instead? No matter how big the build is?”
“I like that,” Kiri said. “It will help me with my close combat. Still rubbish there.”
Grey smiled, happy his idea was received well. “Ready then?”
“Let’s do this! We only have a half hour left,” Ben said.
Tristan and Kiri moved farther away so they would have their own room to build and fight. Ben backed away from Grey, a clever smile on his face as he pulled out the blueprint that indicated he was in building mode. Grey selected his wood materials, and he, too, now held a blueprint.
