Page 147 of Light Leech

A blue light cast a line on the water’s surface to indicate the start and finish line. The first boat passed through it, and ours soon after. No one announced the end to the lap, nor was there any indication of how many laps remained.

The last boat passed the line and the light turret rose again from the island to eliminate one of their rowers. Now with two of theirs sucked into those light orbs with only their skin husks to occupy their seats, one would have thought they would slow down. Instead, they pulled the rower-less oars into the boat and accelerated. They neared the fourth boat around the first curve and passed them as they pulled around the second curve of the second lap.

The first boat finished its second lap. The Eunuch struck the gong. As he spoke, large cylinders of light rose from the center of our boats. It looked like a glowing blue log that stretched two feet long and half a foot in diameter.

“Rowers take your spears. The combat round has commenced. Begin play.”

Our captain shouted as he stood. “Rows two and six, take spears and start aiming! Everyone else, keep rowing.”

He gripped the log and pulled out a thread of light as if pulling it from a bundle of sticks. Each “spear” was a straight bolt of light that left no empty indentation in the log from which it was taken.

A spear flew past our boat from someone on the second boat. Just as they missed, someone in the first boat struck them. The hit-rower disintegrated into the light ball at his hip, which then flew to the center of the island.

I kept rowing, relieved that I wouldn’t have to take part in murdering other prisoners.

I kept in sync with the drummer, who hunched as spears flew near him, one striking our front-most attacker.

I lost focus. My neurospace reconnected.

Naoma had messaged me.

Oh my zeg. It was a long, rambling paragraph that could have only been an explanation of her going along with Zhou. My heart soared for a moment until ice recaptured it.

Naoma: I’m so sorry, Petya.

I stopped reading. As one of my fellow towers pulled me to the side. It was just enough to dodge a light spear that struck the tower two rows behind me.

“Don’t stop rowing!“ the captain cried.

I resumed as commanded, though my movements were a touch behind the rhythm. I tried my best to sync myself to the others but accepted that I would not focus until I read her message. If her message had any answer to this, I would be doing them a disservice. None of this mattered until I understood it. I knew it was a selfish outlook, but I was willing to wager my life on a chance to end this. The end might come, anyway.

Like the socitab addict I was crawling back to the neuronet, I pulled her message into my interface to satisfy my hunger after a series of justifications.

Naoma: I’m so sorry, Petya. I wish I could have explained everything to you when you came to, but I didn’t want to waste a chance to infiltrate. Zhou has explained this, except for its true purpose. Elites like their entertainment, no matter how twisted, but there’s always a corrupt version of good they see in it. I’m sorry I acted like one of them. I hope you didn’t think I had betrayed you. I know you’ve seen that too often and never want you to see it from a person close to you. I’m not with them. I never will be. Never again. I just had to act the part, I don’t mean that just to save me. I figured there was something going on, but now that I’m watching you up here, I couldn’t have ever predicted it would be this bad. He explained it to me and I know I might just sound like a rambling mess, but I wanted you to know that I didn’t choose anyone else over you. I hope you believed that the whole time, but I wouldn’t blame you for thinking otherwise.

How could I have ever doubted her? Had she ever doubted me helping her break away from Nichley? Probably, but that was beside the point. I didn’t care how often I had been betrayed in a world that monopolized on dishonesty. I should have held out hope.

I would the next time, knowing that it would pain me even more when the inevitable betrayal came. I doubted it would be from her, now having learned my lesson, but knew that someone close to me was bound to crack as the Gongtide rolled in.

I read on.

Shou. I’m going to try and call him Shou here so I don’t slip up. I don’t know how long I have to fight for his favor, but I won’t discard that advantage yet. He claims to be an emperor from the ancient China. Yes, he advocated the Gongtide and knows the true history and all, but he still claims it. Seeing this race now, it isn’t that crazy in comparison. This is something he had in his ancient palace, which he blended with the tradition of dragon boat racing. I bet it’s all a disgrace to the true traditions, using just their names and concepts, but it doesn’t matter. The Lake of Wine and Forest of Meat is a competition run by palace attendees who donate fans. In this case, he assumed I was with him and took you out thinking you were my fan donation. Yes. That kind of fan. Everyone on that leaderboard brought human donations to sacrifice to this occult game. The winners get a plot written for them to have a social advantage so society will make them their next god for who knows how long. The more of your devotees you drag here and sacrifice, the higher your chance is at winning. I don’t know what those balls of light are or what Shou gets from it, but I don’t intend to wait until the end. Everyone else should have had their neurospaces blocked, but I reached out to Ralia to bring yours back on line. Slap your cheek if you’re getting this. I need to know before we can move forward.

The wine stung my eyes, but I looked toward her as I leaned back with my oar. I slapped my cheek, then focused back on rowing with her messages in my periphery. After half a lap, she sent another response.

You and I need to isolate Shou if we’re going to learn anything. After we figure out what all of this is, we can deal with him and move on to whatever is next. If you have any ideas based on what you’re experiencing right now, let me know. Don’t die. I feel like that’s a given, but please don’t. This will continue until only one boat can cross the line. I don’t know if that means when there is a full boat left or only two people. It’s not going to stop unless we do something.

I thought about proposing a theory, but I figured it was better to test it than wait.

I threw a spear towards Zhou. Light flashed as the spear collided with an invisible barrier. A few of the other towers tried to see if they had better luck.

The crowd laughed. I doubted we were the first to try and escape.

Petya: We’re stuck in here. You’ll need to do something out there.

I let her work with her thoughts as I focused on the rowing and dodging the occasional spear. We had lost another rower while I was reading her messages but hadn’t lost any progress towards the next boat.

I thought about yelling for everyone to stop throwing the spears, but there would be no purpose. It wasn’t because these people were all bloodthirsty savage fans. They wanted to live. It was as simple as that. If they didn’t hit their enemies with the spears, their enemies would hit them.