“It’s everywhere,” Hannah announced as we entered the room. “Seriously, like every other channel.”
Tablet in hand, she used it to flip through the channels on the wallscreen, her fingers moving in a blur. The frenzied look in her eyes made me think her finger was actually on the trigger of a machine gun.
“How can you even see every other channel?” Derek asked, motioning at the choppy blur on the screen.
You could, just barely. Shots of Rooke and me fighting together between commercials, cooking shows, and nature documentaries. It blended into one big blurry mess, as if someone had taken two old movie reels and spliced them together frame by frame. Rooke—a mop—me—spaghetti—swords—a hawk diving for prey.
“Hannah,” Derek exclaimed, slapping his hands on his knees. “I’m gonna have a seizure.”
She giggled. “I’m hitting the thousands now, and it’s still going.”
Lily simply held her head with one hand and shook it. She munched on the popcorn in her lap.
Finally, Hannah stopped on the VGL’s home channel. When our old friends Marcus and Howie popped up on the screen, Rooke and I retired to the couch. Scratch that. Rooke sprawled himself out so I had to squeeze into the tiny space between him and the armrest, right under the crook of his arm. Had he done that on purpose?
I glanced over his profile, but his eyes were locked on the screen. No cocky grin. No sly glance in my direction. I shrugged it off and turned my own gaze to the television.
The screen flashed through the tournament highlights, showcasing the best moves and kills throughout the last few months of tournament play, including the preseason matches. Spinning, kicking, blades soaring through the air. Gamers became the embodiment of martial arts and short-range weapons. They were gods on the screen.
Then, the footage cut to me in the center of the tower. InvictUS stormed through the entrance. Great. This, again.
I watched as I dodged their blows and delivered some of my own until I ended up on my back, pinned, bleeding out from the neck. I gripped my own throat and shook my head.
The highlights ended, and the footage cut back to the announcers. Howie beamed at the camera. “What a great season so far. We’ve seen some incredible plays in the RAGE tournament this year. Now that we’ve finished highlights of the previous matchups this season, let’s recap tonight’s earlier event: Defiance vs. Rizing Nation.”
The scene cut to the sepia fields of the arena. Three lines carved their way through the stalks. The camera angle changed to eye level within the fields. Derek snaked his way through, the girls flanking him on either side. At her size, Lily moved so swiftly through the fields, the stalks barely shook. Stealthy little thing. Maybe she should go on offense more often.
Halfway through the fields, Derek held up a hand. The trio halted and dropped to their knees, crouching low. The stalks trembled only from the wind. Instant camouflage. The rustling fields and their breaths filled the audio.
Then came the distinct sound of the enemy charging through the fields. My teammates crouched even lower, making themselves as small as possible. The rustling grew and grew until the attackers soared past them on either side. One missed Lily by an inch. The axe in her hand trembled, like a magnet jerking toward another, as if the weapon itself desired the kill.
“Nice, guys,” I said. “Very smooth.”
“Thanks.” Derek beamed.
The paths through the stalks rippled away. When silence settled around them, my team picked up and continued toward the enemy tower. Slowly. I smiled. They were following my instructions. My teammates really did trust me. Guess I’d earned it.
The announcers’ voices overlaid the footage.
“What was that?” Marcus sputtered, sounding confused. “Did they just let them go past intentionally?”
“Uh, that’s a new tactic. Not sure what Defiance is doing here, but this should get interesting.”
The camera changed to the trio bursting into the enemy’s tower. Two of Rizing Nation stood in the center.
Derek went for one while the girls went for the other. Nation separated.
Big mistake.
Hannah and Lily fought together, blades swirling through the air. Those two were Amazons, warrior women. Hannah took the high ground, seeking out his head and neck, while Lily swiped at his legs and waist. He stumbled back under their wrath.
Lily jumped and spun, blades out. Her axe sliced through his neck, finally landing in the home it had been aching for. Blood speckled her face, but she landed softly on the ground with a menacing grin gracing her lips. A pigtailed psychopath.
“Lily,” I began, eyes wide at the screen, “remind me never to piss you off.”
She leaned forward on the couch. “Being on offense wasn’t that bad, you know.”
The smile tugging at her lips told me the axe-wielding blonde enjoyed it more than she was letting on.
The girls joined Derek in his fight, where he was feigning and blocking more than anything. Just holding the remaining enemy at bay. So his sudden strike of pure strength threw his opponent off. When their swords clanged together, the opponent’s tumbled out of reach.
Hannah pounced.
Together, Hannah and Derek slammed him against the tower wall and pinned him there, arms spread on either side. His eyes clenched shut as he waited for the kill. No one from my team moved. When death didn’t come, he opened his eyes.
“What are you waiting for?”
Derek and Hannah exchanged glances and turned to Lily. She backed up several feet, reeled an axe back, and released. It tomahawked through the air until it struck the tower’s wall right beside his head, missing by an inch. If the camera had zoomed in more for the shot, I bet I would have seen bits of his hair falling away from his head.
Lily retrieved her axe, backed up several feet, and repeated the same process, landing her axe a millimeter closer. She shouted at the tower’s ceiling.
“Is this all you’ve got?”
The announcer’s voice overlaid the footage. Marcus laughed.
“Wow. They’ve been training so hard, Rizing Nation isn’t even a challenge for them.”
“Looks like nothing can stand against Defiance.” Howie paused. “Wait a minute. The rest of Nation just reached their tower.”
The footage cut to Rooke and me inside our tower just as our enemy broke through the entrance. We went back-to-back. Two soldiers became one as we fought off three enemies at once.
Derek shook his head. “Jesus, look at you two. You move together like one person.”
Lily nodded in agreement, and Hannah sat with her mouth hanging open.
When the fight ended, our own began, and I saw the replay of our little display of affection in full. His hands were everywhere, feeling every part of me. Clutching. Grasping. Desperate. The way Rooke looked at me, the heat in his eyes was so thick it radiated off the screen. How much of that was fake?
How much was real?
My heart jumped into my throat and nestled in like it was home. Seriously, it was impossible to swallow or even take a deep breath.
The match ended, and the footage cut out to the VGL announcers and their stunned expressions, staring wide-eyed and openmouthed into the camera.
My teammates burst out laughing.
“Wait, wait.” Derek waved at Hannah. “Put it on again.”
Hannah complied and pushed the rewind. The stunned announcers popped up on the screen again, and my teammates erupted in a volcano of giggles. Popcorn rained down instead of ash. A dozen times, Hannah rewound the feed. Each time they slapped their thighs and threw their heads back. One time in slow motion was particularly entertaining—for the people beside me, at least.
I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands, wishing I could use them to cover my eyes without anyone’s noticing. I risked a glance at Rooke. Luckily, he
was watching our teammates-turned-hyenas kill themselves over the announcers’ reactions. Wasn’t he embarrassed about this? God, I wanted to bury my head in the sand.
Finally, Hannah stopped the repeat and let the feed roll forward. The footage cut back to present time, and Marcus and Howie pretended to laugh at themselves.
“Well, that was unexpected. What will they do next to top this week’s performance?”
Our teammates looked at us, heads turning in unison as if all were being controlled by a single puppeteer.
“So, what is next?” Derek laughed. “A sex tape?”
Rooke looked down at me, eyebrows raised, a slight grin tugging at his lips. The knot in my throat doubled in size.
I managed to shake my head. “I think not.”
“Come on, Kali,” Hannah cooed. “Give the people what they want. It’s for the show.”
The trio erupted with laughter again. Heat burned my cheeks. Until that moment, I thought there was a level cap for embarrassment. Beside me, Rooke chuckled right along with my teammates. At least one of us was enjoying this.
“Be sure to join us next week as Defiance faces off against their longtime rival InvictUS, the team that creamed them in the Death Match.”
“I can’t wait to see these two together again. This is going to be a hell of a show. Good night, everybody.”
The scene cut to snippets of our rivals, the bloodiest of their battles, where their weapons ripped through every opponent the tournament could throw at them.
InvictUS.
The undefeatable team. The ones who now stood between us, the championship, and the rest of our lives.
The channel flipped to a commercial, though none of us really watched. The images from the screen projected odd shapes and images over the motionless room. My stomach swirled, and I doubted mine was the only one. We were so caught up in the moment, we’d all forgotten about the tournament. Reality came crashing down around us even though we’d never really left it. For a few fleeting moments, the game hadn’t been anything more than that. A game. Something for fun.
Finally, I exchanged glances with my teammates, all stone-faced with their lips pressed into straight lines. Though no one spoke, a silent declaration rippled through us all.
The championship was set.
CHAPTER 20
I sat in bed studying InvictUS on my tablet. Replays of their fights flashed across the screen. In every single match, they ripped through the stalks like they were weeping-willow branches. Few opponents lasted more than a minute against them, and that was only because InvictUS was toying with them, drawing it out, like how a cat torments a mouse before killing it. These guys were brute force, a runaway train—each of them. Especially Trent, their leader. His weapon ripped through his opponents with ease, like a giant merely swaying an axe side to side, sending men and women alike to the virtual afterlife. Together with his four teammates, they formed the epitome of invincibility. Ever since video games had hit the market, characters had been endowed with temporary indestructibility. Mario had sparkling stars. Ms. Pac-Man had giant pills. But no one had ever thought they’d see it in true form inside gamers themselves.
My eyes glazed over as the action continued across the screen. I let the tablet slump against my knees, and my head against the wall behind me. Screams, blood splats, and other sounds of battle floated in the background even though I wasn’t listening anymore. Hours and hours of watching their fights, and I still hadn’t found a weakness among their team. Maybe they didn’t have one.
For a distraction, I scooped up the tablet and opened the general eBook and magazine store. Under the sports section, several magazines immediately popped up featuring Rooke and me on the cover, all with the breaking news over the sudden rekindling of our romance. Some captured shots from our little late-night display, others with us spliced together. And that’s all they’d ever get.
A buzz came from my door.
I got up from my bed, bringing my tablet with me, and tapped the button beside the door. When it slid open, Rooke stood on the other side.
“Hey. You missed breakfast. I worried you were sick.”
I held up my tablet. “Studying. Sorry.”
He snatched the tablet from my grip, and kept it out of arm’s reach as he looked it over.
“Studying us?”
I swiped for the tablet and missed. “I was looking at our rivals.”
He held it up to me, where he’d opened a full-spread shot of us kissing.
“Then what’s this?”
I reached again. “A distraction.”
He leaned toward me. “Hey, if you need a distraction—”
I squashed his face with my palm and retrieved my tablet. Rooke pulled away, chuckling to himself. As I scanned through the picture on the screen, a knot formed in my stomach. I’d gotten so caught up in shoving the game up the sponsors’ asses, I forgot about my true drive behind it all.
Nathan.
I sighed.
“This kinda sucks, though,” I said, hearing the heavy, defeated tone in my own voice. “This isn’t where I want people’s attention.”
“What do you mean?”
“The focus should be on Nathan. He died because of this sport, but nobody knows it. All they care about is shit like this.” I held up the tablet, now featuring a new angle of our make-out session. Rooke glanced at the picture and shrugged.
“Sure, but what are you going to do about it? I mean, the media will censor you anytime you try to talk about it, if Clarence doesn’t kill you first. And then there are the sponsors dropping us in a split second.”
“I know.” I scoffed. “The media. The sponsors. Sure wish I could censor them.”
My breath caught in my throat. Censor them. I should censor them. Just like Dr. Renner had said, I’d need to find my own way to honor Nathan. Here it was, right in front of me. I had everything I’d need right inside this very facility.
I grinned.
“What?” Rooke asked.
I pushed past him and out the door.
“Where are you going?”
I never answered his question. He’d see soon enough.
Down the hall, Hannah and Lily leaned against the wall, talking. Oh, this was easy. Like destiny wanted me to do this. I snagged Lily’s arm as I breezed by, dragging the pigtailed blonde along with me.
“Um, Kali?” Hannah called out.
“I’m borrowing your girlfriend.”
Hannah made a sound of protest, but I plowed ahead without looking back. Lily hurried along beside me, no complaints, as I led her down the hall. At Derek’s door, I buzzed his keypad, repeatedly, once every second, until it became its own techno beat.
The door slid open.
“What?”
Derek stood on the other side dressed in nothing but a sheet clenched at his waist. I offered him my best smile, the one we’re taught. “You said you can program anything, right?”
He waggled his eyebrows at me. “I’ve been a gamer since I was five, but I’ve been a programmer since I was born.”
Behind him, the bedsheets rustled, and the murmured voice of a woman called his name. I had the decency not to snoop at the woman, to crane my neck to see how pretty she was and how many plastic pieces she’d stuck in her body.
Derek glanced back at the woman and turned to me. “Look, now’s not a good time, okay?”
He pressed the control button, and the door started sliding shut.
“One favor,” I began, raising my voice to get his attention, “and I’ll convince Clarence to have our next ad campaign feature you alone.”
He caught the door. “I’m listening.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “If you’re good at programming, then are you good at hacking, too?”
He just smiled.
—
I wasn’t much for sharing my favorite place, but this was for something bigger than myself.
I stood on the roof of the facility over Clarence’s office, looking out at the city with my teammates clustered behind me. Darkness and moonlight had settled on Los Angeles, but it still buzzed with life, a barrage of flashing signs and lights. Puttering vehicles, wailing sirens, and the general ambience of a million voices filtered up to us on the rooftop.
“What’s supposed to happen?” Hannah asked, arms crossed as she tapped her foot.
“Just wait,” I said, waving a hand to dismiss her impatience. Then I winked at Derek and Lily. My accomplices shared a grin with each other. Hannah noticed.
“Wait, they know what’s going on? How come they know, and I don’t?”
“Just wait,” I stressed. “You’ll see.”
She sighed but shut her mouth. Rooke waited behind her, patiently, though I saw the wonder in his eyes as they searched the horizon.
Across the skyline, every digital ad, poster, and billboard went dead. Instantaneously. From high above the city’s highways to the street-level windows of coffee shops, gyms, and retail stores. Despite the car lights and streetlights, the city’s wattage dropped by half, if not more.
Cars automatically screeched to a halt as passengers threw the doors open and stepped out. Heads poked out of buildings and windows, most pointing toward the sky. What was happening? A power outage? A technical glitch? They were about to get the answer.
After thirty seconds of blackout, Team InvictUS’s picture flashed across every screen in the city, followed by the words:
THIS IS WHAT THEY’RE FIGHTING FOR.
A pile of money popped up next. Rich, green American moolah in stockpiles. Then it cut to a picture of us, Team Defiance, with the words:
THIS IS WHO WE’RE FIGHTING FOR.
Nathan’s picture appeared. Dressed in his typical RAGE gladiatorial armor, he was sure to snag people’s attention. Hey, he looks familiar. Haven’t I seen him before? For clarity, we’d included his stats.
Arena Page 25
