“I can see it.” I lift my rifle, wait for the openings, and get us moving forward in a pocket with the cubes enclosing us from behind. As they descend from above, I step forward, find my targets under the falling cubes, and fire.
“How did you figure this out?” Elix asks.
I discover a Nytheralian sneaking up on Gashnaar. They’re harder to see in this shiny, blue, and purple-hued environment. It’s the perfect camouflage. I tag him as the cubes close and see Gashnaar wheel around in shock.
“Zariah. The pattern?”
I think of the caves and tunnels from my youth. “My father threw me in dungeons of all kinds to reach the treasure. I was smart but expendable. I did it so I could eat, so his men wouldn’t take out their lust on me. He was smart enough to at least not fucktoo muchwith his most prized tool, me.”
A shout makes me focus on the right-hand side of the laser tag field and peer out ahead of our shield. Teol and Gashnar are cornered. No one’s firing at them. Their suits are still green, but four males in darkened suits stand around them, three holding Gashnaar down, one holding Teol.
“Any friend of that bitch is just as much of a problem as she is,” one says.
Elix calls after me, but my legs are already moving me in their direction. I can’t stand the idea of my only other friends getting harassed over me. Elix and Aurelius have sacrificed and risked enough.
Cameradrones hover in as security is called over the PA. But they’re going to be too slow. The Talhuskin that ran into me nowpicks her up by the neck until her feet dangle from the floor. She might be a fighter, and manage to get her legs wrapped around his arm, but he’s much bigger than her. Her face reddens. Veins strain in her forehead. Gashnaar cries out to her as the others claw at him and hold him back.
The cubes rising and falling between us make my path treacherous. I run toward them, hop up onto a descending cube, and use it to launch me into the air. My hover boots carry me over the next row. But the cube in front of me is too high to reach. I drop down and sprint under it. The next is midrange. Too high to jump, high enough to go under. I drop to the floor and slide under it. The next rises, so I jump atop it.
The last two rows are both headed up, but I have to move laterally to climb them. I take the next cube to the right and use my hoverboots to reach the last row, which rises two cubes to the left. Then I’m above the group, looking down at them.
“Zariah!” Elix calls after me.
“What are you doing?” a cameradrone asks.
I don’t waste time finding my target. “What you aren’t!”
I sprint along the last row, pick my rising cube, and jump off of it toward the Talhuskin. “Leave Teol alone!”
He looks up at me, and his eyes widen.
I drop, knees-down, toward his back and raise my rifle, the butt aimed at his head. When I crash into his shoulders, I bash my rifle against his face and take us both to the ground. Teol slips from his grip.
The three males holding Gashnaar jolt backward. Seeing Teol coughing and gasping for air ignites a fury I can’t contain. She has only ever been nice to me.
I grab the muzzle of my rifle and swing it like a bat at the nearest Ginarigon male. He staggers back, holding his nose. Elix body-slams one of the Talhuskin males holding Gashnaar,effectively breaking Teol’s mate free. The first backs up and runs as security chases them around the arena.
Elix helps Gashnaar up, while I give Teol a hand.
“Go,” I say. “I’ve got your back. Go get your trip.”
Teol takes Gashnaar’s hand and hurries through the last few cube rows toward the ribbon. I take up a position behind them and fire at two other racers who are almost to the ribbon before my rifle goes dark. Someone has shut off my ability to fire. But my suit is still green.
I see a third, a white-banded female sneaking around through the cubes. All I can do is make myself a body in the way. I put myself between her and my friend, take the hit, and watch my suit blink red.
It’s a strange feeling, looking down at it, knowing if this was real that I’d be dead.
Fun and games my ass. This week has been hell.
Teol makes a happy noise behind us. Elix holds his green rifle in front of him, his suit still on, still guarding my friends. He’s closer to them than I am.
“Miss Landing, you’ve got something on your face,” a cameradrone says as it hovers down to eye level and circles my body. I can’t tell who’s talking, but it isn’t a familiar voice. I wager it’s a guard. It might be a reporter.Could be a hacker.That seems more likely with everything else going on.
“Is it a look of indignation?” I snort.
“What?”
“You and all the others are judging me for just trying to survive this life and have a little fun here for a change,” I say, thrusting a finger at the camera lens. “You vilify people before you understand them. Not all of us want to live in the shit on the fringe for our entire existence.”
