Chapter 11- Teams of Three

  Nurse Andra holds my thin arm firmly in her cold metal hands, and the needle finds its way into a vein. I shut my eyes and look away as the cold SNO floods my system, leaving a small bloody puncture in my flesh.

  Andra offers a bandaid. “This will close by tomorrow.”

  I rub away at the opening, smearing the drop of blood across my skin. By the time I get the bandaid ready, the bleeding has stopped and the hole has closed. I slap it on anyway and roll down my sleeve.

  Unlike the other drills we’ve had the last few years, this is the first time the class is remotely excited for this one. Everyone’s chatting, joking, wondering what the next game will be like, glimpsing through the two Arena windows, awaiting the SNO to kick in.

  When it does, the room falls into disappointment.

  “I knew this would be an obstacle course,” Bison groans. “I should’ve stayed home.”

  Even I let out a long sigh. Obstacle runs have never been anything more than physical torture. Once the trial begins, our bodies don’t stop until the course ends. Running miles, climbing walls, rope swings, and sometimes going for a swim. Cerena aims to push our limits every time, leaving us out of breath, arms limp and weak, light-headed on the ground, and sometimes foaming at the mouth.

  But this course is different from our regular routine. The Arena’s interior is a sphere today. A wide disk, splitting it across the middle with a bulge in the dead center, almost like Saturn and its rings.

  On closer inspection, the outer ring seems to be the first course, and it’s filled with active rocks that punch up like pillars. Great. The second ring is stagnant, for now. The third is brightly yellow, filled with honeycomb tiles. The last one in the very center is a dome-shaped bulge with climbing rocks scattered across it. The very top of it is flat, with ropes around the edges.

  “A boxing ring?” Raven says. “What kind of obstacle course is this?”

  “Maybe something will show up at the end,” Viper adds.

  A few other kids toss out guesses before Cerena fogs the window, blocking our view.

  “You’re all required to complete at least three physical drills each year,” she says. “So let’s get this over with and get into position.” She returns to her lectern podium as we assemble in file—a map of the Arena blasts in display. “For today’s objective,” she continues, “you’ll be in teams of threes. Each player on the winning team will be rewarded fifteen points.”

  Not bad, since it’ll bring me back to first if I win, but still a small amount for a drill, especially for an obstacle course.

  “But there are only twenty of us,” I raise.

  Cerena nods. “Yes, one team will only have two players. But that might not be a disadvantage once I explain the last course of the run. You’ll all start in various places behind the first ring, and the goal is to make it all the way to the center.” She zooms in on the dome's top. “This is your last stop, where everyone gathers. It matters not who gets there first, but who remains. You must be the only team that has all members present to win.”

  “So we box each other out?” Raze asks.

  “Correct. Any sort of close combat that brings your opponent over the ropes will do. Remember, nothing above the collar. I want to see good forms and stance, the way martial arts are taught. None of that messy street fighting I saw last month.”

  A few of us scoff.

  Cerena always encourages choreographed fights, using the techniques we’ve learned in class, and nothing dirty like collar-grabbing and nut-kicking. When she’s done with the briefing, I take my pick before anyone else. Falcon. The boxer. I’ve never seen any of his actual boxing before, but since his brother is the most famous boxing champion in the world, I’ll take his reputation.

  “Just us two,” I tell him. At some point, I’m sure we’ll get lost in the course, but we can hold ourselves just fine.

  Falcon gives a glimpse towards Raze, who’s chosen Bison. Viper squeezes herself into their team.

  I hear his faint sigh behind his velm, and he nods. He’s a boxer, and he doesn’t spill a single word. Wonderful.

  This victory will be mine.

  When the last ten seconds tick, Raven walks past me. She doesn’t have a team yet, and the last team of two players refuses to let her join, gesturing for her to go my way.

  “Well, I don’t want her either,” I say. One more person, one more liability, especially when she’s tiny. Besides that, no one wants to mingle with a poor girl from a poor city from a poor district.

  Raven stands in front of the room, arms crossed, shoulders squared, and posture straight. If she’s about to cry, she doesn’t show or sound like it. “Fine, I’ll be my own team.”

  Cerena peels away from her coding screen and gives us a disappointing look. “This is not allowed. Either the five of you discuss whose team she’ll join, or I choose one for her.”

  “Just take her,” I tell the other pair. “You guys need the extra hand.”

  “We’ll take boxer boy, or you,” one replies. “But not her.”

  Falcon nudges my shoulder, a silent plea to give Raven a chance. They’re friends, after all, but I stand my ground and refuse.

  Raven makes a disgusted noise under her velm. “Maybe you don’t remember from all the alcohol you drown yourselves in,” she says to the class. “But I outscored the majority of you in the physical test every year. And that includes Boxer boy.”

  “Yeah, but I can pick you up with one hand and toss you like a frisbee,” Bison adds. Viper jabs him in the ribs. “Ow, I was joking!”

  The class falls silent. Half pitiful and the other half annoyed.

  “Alright, we’re doing a coin flip,” Cerena says. “Heads for you. Tail for the other.”

  She tosses a coin into the air, it bounces and spins on the painted stone floor, pausing to a stop and landing on heads.

  Raven’s on my team.

  *

  Security Andra escorts us into the small block cell, shutting the vaulted door behind us. Falcon faces the Arena door. Raven leans against the wall, and I perch on the opposite side, neither of us saying anything, looking in each other’s direction. The countdown light above floods us in red.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  This should be the time to discuss strategy before the course inevitably separates us, but I haven’t been able to voice a single word that wouldn’t come out screaming. I wouldn’t want Raven on my team even if she’s the best boxer in the world. There’s never been a time we agreed on anything. Her ideas are always shortsighted, while she thinks mine are delusional.

  Just my luck today.

  “Since we’re all thrown into the same boat,” I start, breaking the silence, “let’s try not to puncture a hole and sink us all, yeah?” Then, to no one in general, “Don't be a liability.”

  The starting alarm blares, the tiny block cell blinks in waves of red, counting down from thirty. Cyan streams down the side of our arms, our team color.

  “You think I wanted this?” Raven replies, folding her arms. “I’d rather hang onto a driftwood than be on your paper boat.”

  “Paper boat?” I huff. “Try a yacht. Or is that something you’ve never heard of?”

  “I doubt you’ve been on one yourself.”

  I haven’t.

  “I can easily buy one if I want to,” I continue. “Throw a party, invite the whole class. Maybe I’ll hire you as a server, so you can finally have a taste of the luxury life for once.”

  I expect her to curse me back, calling me a spoiled brat or delusional again, but only a low, condescending chuckle comes out of her mouth. She mutters, “As if you can actually afford that.”

  My heart leaps. “What do you mean by if? I live on a Gaia. I’m covered from head to toe in luxury brands you’ve never heard of. I own a Govon bag for fuck sake.”

  “Yeah, that’s quite the expensive wardrobe. Too showy. Too performative.” Raven leans in to whisper. “As if it’s all just a glamorous facade to hide what you really lack.”

  Heat rises to my face. Not what I’d been expecting her to say. Sweat immediately builds on my back. I try to contain the embarrassment and breathe. What does she know?

  My mind is racing. Questions flood my head, and I’m conflicted if I should stalk toward her and snap her neck. But if I do so, I’ll have to do the same to Falcon. And then what? How will I explain myself?

  Falcon has his neck cranked our way, and immediately swings back when I catch him eavesdropping. Fuck him, he’s a mute anyway.

  “I don’t know what you heard,” I carefully tread, but some sort of invisible pressure forces out my words. “But you better be careful what you say, and keep the rumor to yourself.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “That depends on you.”

  I open my mouth to add, but the countdown ends. The Arena door doesn’t open immediately. Instead, a low tremble shakes the cell. And before I know it, my back is slammed against the wall. Raven and Falcon are losing their footing, crashing against the wall with me, all pressed under an invisible palm. Then I realize the room is moving in circles at an accelerating speed, like a carousel.

  It feels like minutes before it comes to an abrupt stop. I fall to my knees, a hand on the ground, the other clutching my stomach, threatening to retch out the single SEM pill I took this morning. Falcon tries to stand, but ultimately loses his balance and collapses. Raven remains on all fours, forehead on her arm.

  “What the fuck,” I croak.

  “Fucking Cerena,” Raven adds.

  Once in a while, our lovely instructor likes to toss things around, especially on days she deems lackluster.

  The Arena door splits open, and a wave of heat floods into the cell. The outer ring greets us with shooting pillars, a whack-a-mole, if you will, an uppercut to the guts on the wrong step. At first glance, it seems like we’re moving. Until my brain stops spinning and adjusts to the scene, I see that the disks are slowly rotating at a fixed speed.

  Raven’s the first to stand and dash past me. “See you guys at the top.”

  She hops out into the course, dodging the following pillars with ease. Falcon does the same, but the first step punches him out of my sight. I don't see him again.

  The words Raven has said replay in my head. I need answers. Furthermore, I need to get out of this cell. I swallow down the dizziness and take my first step out. The platform launches me into the sky.

  ***R***

  The Arena is an inferno.

  Walls of molten rock reach up to the dome ceiling, magma bubbling up between the crevasses of each pillar stone, casting the only light in the entire ring. Though the crack isn’t enough for a body to fall through, it’s enough for a clumsy foot to lodge in between, and if stuck long enough, for the foot to cook.

  Staying above the platform for long isn’t a good plan either. The rock is hot enough to melt my soles, smearing tar on the ground. I leap over each surface swiftly, one step closer to the next course, anticipating the rise of another punch. There’s no pattern to these bursts, almost no warning. In rare moments, I catch a faint quake just as the pillar a foot away erects, avoiding it easily.

  With impatience flaring on my back, I make a sprint for it, ignoring the thrusting pillars, bouncing back up the moment I’m tossed.

  Finally joining the others at the edge—a narrow neutral ground, diving each course—I feel my soles cooling.

  The next ring is wobbly, a glowing rainbow seesaw. No rotations. Players must cross over without tipping to one side, like crossing a flat disk balanced on a rope. Except the middle equilibrium switches ever so often without notice. One second you’re safe in the middle, then you give in to gravity the next.

  Each ring is about five highway lanes apart. If I leap on and sprint across, I can make it before my weight pulls me down; that only works if I’m the only one on board. The large ring in the middle hinders my view of other players.

  I stand idle to observe how others tackle this course. Many sprint across without thinking, some make it, some fall into the sphere and teleport back to their original cell to start over again. Not the worst penalty. For now. But later in the game, when being present is crucial, the fall will be punishing.

  A group of players is attempting…something. Two groups of four, to be exact. Both on opposite sides, ready to hop at the same time, so the forces balance each other, no matter where the middle beam falls. Clever, but there’s no way for them to communicate. Too far to shout, and no one in the middle would be their guide.

  In the midst of their conflict, when the middle beam finally stabilizes, a tiny girl sprints across the course. She’s quick and committed, not sparing a glance outside of her target goal. Raven. The first to make it before anyone else.

  I should’ve followed Raven and done the same, but the wobbly surface and the countless players plummeting to their demise shook away my confidence. And with the two groups attempting their plan, I should take this slowly.

  An embarrassing amount of time has passed when they finally grasp their situation—this won’t work without a third party. In desperation, the left side slowly dips onto the plate, signaling their ascent. Then five seconds later, they all leap on regardless of whether the other side will follow. The right side does not. One side topples over under immediate weight. The four of them slip and descend into the pit, like food thrown into the garbage bin.

  The disk flips ninety degrees before coming back down. As soon as the surface evens out, I waste no more time and sprint a beeline across.

  About halfway in, my rubber soles begin to slip against the steepness. I spare a glance over my shoulder, and two players with green stripes are on my tail, weighing me down.

  I return my attention head-on, scrambling for friction to lift myself further. I’m only a few feet away from the next course, but I feel myself sinking. To make matters worse, one player clutches my ankle. Shaking him off didn’t do the trick, so I kicked his hand against the plate. He falls immediately. With one player gone, the plate lifts, and fortunately, the opposite side must’ve gained some players, lifting my side back up. I take this chance and leap off, closing the gap and landing further than I anticipated onto a hexagon-shaped plate the size of a small standing shower.

  The honeycombs. The platforms sink under any weight and will only stay afloat for no longer than three seconds once triggered. I have no time to process my surroundings as the plate begins to go under. Thick honey substance rises over the edge, reaching toward my boots. I skid away from the honey and leap onto another available honeycomb right as the one I was on submerges below. It’ll take twenty seconds for it to resurface. This course serves whoever comes first.

  Earlier players have already sabotaged this obstacle course, emptying the combs until there are gaping holes all around. I don’t stop moving and choose my path carefully, not to trap myself in a dead end. This stage is larger than the others, and is where most of the players are now. Many of whom are deliberately sending players back to the start.

  I make good progress across the board, avoiding populated areas, then a rock lands on a platform before me, triggering the weight—specifically, the blue, vibrant climbing rock from the next course.

  Without a moment to spare, I leap onto the next available. The same happens—another rock, another route gone.

  But the players who are ascending the dome aren’t interested in me. So I look higher to find the culprit. Inside the ring, the only person behind the ropes is Qonni.