The Chase

by Bradley Caffee

  “How about it, Red Team? Think your fearless leader wants to replace one of you? See how he’s all googley-eyed over our new bluey? He’s already figuring out which of you to get rid of, so he can have his friend on the team. How about you, big guy?” Blacc was in the face of Kane, but Kane stood silent.

  “How about you, worthless piece of dirt?” He stepped over to Toad.

  Willis almost chuckled. Toad had been called far worse by the other racers.

  “No, I think it’s you, little girl.” He was in front of Jez now. “Yeah, he doubts you. He’d love nothing more than to see you recoded.” At this, Willis heard her stifle a gasp. When is he going to stop?

  “Jaden.”

  Willis snapped his head back to the boy in front of him who had spoken. He was waiting for Willis with a hand extended. Is he crazy? Blacc is going to be all over him.

  “The name is Jaden,” the boy repeated, still waiting for a handshake that would never come.

  “Look what we have here.” Chief Administrator Blacc was suddenly louder so all could hear. “Our bluey thinks he’s the new member at the country club. Wants to start getting to know the other members. Fall in line, you lousy, little, good for nothing—”

  Blacc’s voice faded as he chased Jaden down the line, but not before the boy had raised the corner of his mouth to reveal just enough of a knowing grin to Willis. He’d done it on purpose. He’d played the part of the ignorant newbie to take the pressure off me. Well played, Jaden. Too bad for the kid. He would be recoded for sure today. Willis caught himself rubbing his ear, calmed by the presence of the slight scar.

  The air was thick with anticipation. Willis stood ready at his gate, a door-less metal arch. A single green laser line stretched in front of him from one side of the arch to the other. Anyone breaking their laser would be eliminated from the run, almost assuring their team would be recoded. Willis visualized the laser line at the other end of the course turning from red to green as he crossed the finish line. Green meant you hadn’t come in last. Green meant you were safe from recoding.

  He took a long scan around. Jez’s fierce expression was in full bloom as he examined her face. He could see her thinking her way through the first few obstacles. Kane’s hands clenched into fists on his left. His breathing had become a deep, steady rhythm to match the intensity of his stare forward. Toad, on the other hand, was fidgety. The kid was all nervous energy, but that was normal before a run. Toad had arrived ready to run today.

  Creed’s group appeared determined as ever as each thumped the other on the shoulder with the side of their fists. From somewhere beyond, he heard the whispering of Nico’s last-minute instructions. The goldies had put down their cameras and were all business. Cleo, Starr, and Lacey had all pulled their hair behind their heads and seemed more like Joanne than before.

  It was then that Willis’s eye caught a moment among the Blue Team. Facing forward at the line, the teammates on Perryn’s team didn’t look at each other and missed what happened. Jaden reached a hand over and grab Perryn’s hand. She’d been nervously rubbing her fingers together as if the stress of her first run as leader would somehow ignite from the friction and burn away. Jaden never looked at her, even when Perryn gave him a startled glance, but the quick squeeze of his fingers appeared to do the trick. A warmth came to her frightened eyes as she turned to focus on the course in front of her.

  “Tone in five seconds,” a metallic voice from the speakers echoed off the far wall.

  “Elimination run!” Blacc shouted.

  “Four—”

  “Losing team—”

  “Three—”

  “—faces recoding!”

  “Two—”

  “Make the Alliance proud.”

  “One—”

  Chapter Eight

  Willis never heard the tone. He’d learned to anticipate it so well that he swore he could feel the hum of the vibration in the air before the sound reached him. His legs were already in motion as the laser disappeared.

  The five teams raced the length of the open stretch to the cube. Toad was tiptoeing along the edge and falling behind. Transparent energy fields kept anyone from falling off the side, but the visual of a several story height was enough to give anyone vertigo as they ran on the outside. It was almost impossible to ignore the mind’s overwhelming desire for self-preservation.

  In front of them the mouth of the run opened, an archway high enough for each of them to pass through, except for Kane who had to slightly duck. A few steps beyond the archway rose a high wall, too high to jump and grab the edge. Each team approached the portion of the wall painted to match their team color. Creed was shouting at his team. Someone on Green Team stumbled as they climbed upon another member’s back. Willis’s Red Team didn’t even whisper as Kane turned at the wall, cupping his hands low for Toad to step into. Toad’s foot met its mark perfectly. Thank God. Kane’s massive body burst from its crouched position as Toad’s momentum was transformed from forward to up. Toad caught the edge of the wall and scrambled until one leg was over the wall. Swinging the other leg over, he disappeared down the other side.

  An instant later, a buzz came from the wall announcing that Toad had hit a button beyond, and the upper portion compressed and dropped inside the lower third of the wall. Willis waved the other two over first.

  He chanced a glance to his right.

  Black Team—over. Creed was watching him, measuring their progress in return.

  Gold Team—right behind.

  Green Team—their runner was hopping off the wall to hit the button beyond.

  Blue Team—over. The concept caught Willis as he ran forward, and he stole a second glance behind him to confirm what he saw. Perryn, Dex, and Jaden had joined Amber on the other side of the wall. That’s new. Willis had time to process little else. Another buzz behind him announced Green Team’s hot pursuit over the wall.

  Willis caught up and raced ahead of his team. A cube sat above the floor, affixed at one corner to a pole that rose up out of the floor. Covering the cube were a series of levers that moved up and down, nine on each side of the cube. He grabbed the first lever and heard the activation of the energy field behind him that held the rest of the team back.

  Each lever, when pulled, moved three other levers. The goal was to move all levers to the up position. It was simply a mathematical problem, and Willis had spent hours the night of their first practice on this track memorizing the solution.

  “Come on, Cleo,” Joanne shouted to the gold cube.

  “I know! I have to start over.” Cleo sounded panicked.

  “Done in thirty seconds, Creed.” Walker was making short order of her cube.

  Nico had caught up and was working on their cube. Dex moved furiously around the blue cube shifting levers with confidence. Buzz. Buzz. Willis had finished at the same time as Walker. Buzz. Blue Team was through next. Buzz. Buzz. There were the other two.

  Jez flew by Willis as the energy field dropped and started ascending the rope cargo net beyond. No one climbed better than Jez. This is where they would establish their lead. She was halfway up the net, which stretched to the top of the track cube, before others were a meter above the floor. The button at the top of the net released it to fall flat, covering the gap. Willis, Toad, and Kane leapt onto it as it fell and scrambled across. They met Jez who was dropping from a hanging rope that brought her down to the other side of the gap. Amazingly, Perryn had been the next one down from above the course ahead of the other teams.

  Kane threw himself head-first down a chute at the end of level one to begin work on the first part of level two. Toad and Jez were right behind. Willis peeked over as he jumped on to see that Dex had fallen, getting tangled in the ropes. “Sorry, Perryn,” Willis whispered as he hurled himself into the chute.

  Kane was already making quick work of a lever, pulled back and forth, each yank ratcheting a floor from below into place. By the time Willis was standing next to him, the floor was inches from locking
into position.

  “Starr, no!” Joanne shouted. Willis glanced in time to see Starr step on to their floor too early. Joanne hadn’t quite finished, and the pressure-sensitive floors were rigged to drop until completely raised and locked. Starr disappeared instantly as the floor fell, and he could hear her heavy grunt as the floor stopped several feet below. It wasn’t far enough down to seriously injure her, but it would take a minute for her to catch her breath. Her team would have to pull her out before they could start raising the floor.

  Click. Snap. Their floor was in place, and the four Red Team members bolted to the other side of the open floor. He could hear the floor of Creed’s Black Team click behind him. Blue was ahead of the falling-behind Gold Team. He didn’t know about Green.

  Up a small flight of stairs, a large gap appeared in the floor. The effect was dizzying as the floor was equipped with screens that projected the bottom of the sphere almost a hundred feet down, making it appear as though they could fall to their deaths. The screens hadn’t been active during the training runs, so Willis had to stop to collect himself. Across the span was a rope, which they had tried unsuccessfully to tightrope across in training. In front of the rope, a metal pole rose from floor to ceiling on this level topped with five lights and switches. The lights turned on and off in different sequences, which then had to be remembered and repeated using the switches. Missing even one of the five combinations required starting all over. An expert climber, Jez made quick work of the pole, but she groaned as the lights flashed indicating she’d entered the wrong sequence.

  “Hey, Willie-boy. Enjoy getting a new number behind your ear?” Creed’s voice shouted out. Willis watched in horror as the Black Team very mechanically crossed the tightrope.

  “Ugh. I can’t get it, Willis.” Jez banged the pole in frustration.

  “Get down, let me do it.” Willis gripped his scalp in both hands.

  Jez came sliding down, looking very angry at herself.

  Willis started climbing, his arms burning as he hoisted his weight and held on with one hand, leaving one to work the lights. He could see out of the corner of his eye that every other team had arrived. Amber on the Blue pole slammed her fist on the light switches as she’d obviously made a mistake. Joanne was making quick work of the lights trying to catch her team up. Nico was already sliding down his pole, the puzzle done. One more combination. One more.

  Buzz. Willis crashed to the floor as a second rope lowered to serve as a hand hold for the crossing. Creed had already disappeared down the chute to floor three. Nico was quickly shoving his teammates down. Willis tried to steady his breathing. He owned floor three. This is where they would have to separate themselves.

  Perryn shook her fist as she watched Willis cross the rope. They had a great start until Dex fell on the cargo net. For a minute, she’d believed. Now she stood next to the pole, at the top of which Amber was busy beating her hand against the puzzle in frustration.

  Black team—gone.

  Green team—reaching the chute.

  Red team—right behind.

  “Let’s go. Let’s go!” Joanne shouted as she slid down the pole. The goldies had made up the difference after Starr’s fall.

  We’re in last again. Another recode. I’m not going to make it off this station alive. She swore the doctors inserted hope into her memory at each recode because its dagger twisted in her heart each time they lost.

  Floor three had one obstacle, but it was nothing like Willis had seen on other tracks. The entire floor was a mass of thin metal wires going in all directions. The web spread out throughout the room like a dense metallic rainforest. Each team had to get one player across to hit their button, which would open a trap door in the floor, allowing that team to crawl under the wire system. He could already hear Creed inside the web cursing to himself as he slipped.

  Jez grabbed his arm. “You got this, Willis.”

  Willis approached the wires. They were so thin that he swore they’d cut him if he grabbed them too hard. Okay, Willis. Right foot over this wire. Duck under that one. He’d tried to memorize a solution.

  Clang.

  The bell sound startled Willis, and it was bad news. A bell sound meant the administrators had introduced a change into the course. A sudden pain in his ankle caused him to cry out. He looked down. How did those wires close on my foot? Two wires had drawn together and were pressing deep into his skin, not enough to cut, but plenty to hurt.

  “Ow!” Lacey cried somewhere in the distance.

  “Stupid wires!” Creed was in a rage having lost his lead as he yanked at his arm that was trapped between the wires.

  Willis scanned carefully around him. Was the room moving? No. The wires are moving! The administrators had waited to reveal that this web wasn’t constant. Each wire had a back and forth motion causing the gaps to open and close slowly. He shot a glance at his ankle to see if his theory was right. Sure enough, the two wires had reversed course, and he was soon free. He scrambled forward.

  “Willis! You okay, man?” Toad called out.

  “It moves! Nothing we practiced is going to work,” he called as he quickly pulled himself on all fours through a narrowing gap. “How are the other teams?”

  “Creed’s right behind you and not happy you’re ahead. Nico’s somewhere in this mess, but I think he’s caught. Lacey is back up and close to Creed. The new guy’s running for blue, but I can’t see him,” Toad reported.

  Everyone’s here, Willis noted. Hopefully they’re all freaking out over this change too.

  Left, right, under, over. Willis was weaving his way through the mesh, occasionally panicking as a limb would get caught. The most painful was a hole that he misjudged causing the wires to close briefly around his neck. His stomach lurched as the wires pinched around his throat. For a few agonizing seconds, he couldn’t breathe, and he had to calm himself to patiently wait for the gap to open. He could hear the other runners working their way through the web, but he didn’t dare look. The chaotic movement of the wires was dizzying when scanning around. He learned quickly to focus solely on the next wire.

  Falling forward, Willis found himself beyond the web. He stumbled forward and slammed his hand down on the red button. Jez shouted at the team to get into the trap door. Creed had been behind him but was pulling on a wire that had closed on his foot as he tried to climb out.

  A flash of gold showed him that Lacey was almost through. Nico had one green and yellow arm reaching into the open air outside the web, but he too, was caught. Willis glanced further at the sound of a thud across the room. Amazingly, Jaden had sprung out the end of the web. Blue can’t decide if they want to get recoded or not.

  Perryn’s heart leaped when the trap door opened. Jaden had done it. The web was supposed to be Dex’s turn, but he fell coming out of the chute. Jaden hadn’t hesitated and went running for the web. She called after him to stop him, but it was no use. He was three steps into the web.

  Now she was shoving her teammates down into the hole in front of her. We have a chance. She jumped in in time to hear the doors for the other three teams open.

  The energy field dropped in front of Willis, Jez, and Kane indicating that Toad had made it through the level four ‘hamster tunnels,’ as he called them, to the other side. The three of them ran underneath the clear plastic tubes that ran above their head over to Toad.

  “Stone, don’t you dare mess this up!” Creed shouted. Stone jumped and grabbed the first of the hanging rings. She was watching Kane who was a couple of rings ahead.

  “You got this, Cleo,” a goldie mimicked.

  It was going to be close. The bottom floor was an all-out sprint in a shared space. All the teams would be running together through a room with walls that would move suddenly in and out. A second or two lead would keep him from tripping over another team.

  “Kane!” Jez screamed. He’d lost his grip and was dangling from a single ring trying to find another close enough. Blue and Green Team had arrived. Perryn was
two rings in front of a greenie.

  “Be c-c-c-careful, Perr,” Dex tried to encourage between heaving breaths.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Red, gold, and black platforms appeared simultaneously, and the teams scampered to the other side. Willis threw himself down the chute head first. The race was won by the first member of each team to cross the line. He didn’t need to wait for the others.

  The dark chute curved right sharply with a sudden drop. Willis shot out of the chute and landed in a roll, a move he rehearsed many times privately. In one motion, he finished the roll and found his feet to begin running.

  “Right behind you, maggot,” Creed snarled. Another set of footfalls told him Joanne was there too.

  The familiar walls moved in and out, not with smooth predictable movements, but with jerking suddenness. He spun around the first wall on his right and used his arms to bounce off the one to his left. His lungs burned as he pushed his way through the room. Other voices and running steps told him others had arrived, though he didn’t know if they were blue, green, or other members of the front three teams.

  Crunch. His right shoulder slammed into a wall that protruded from the side in the same spot he’d hit earlier. He’d started to glance back and hadn’t noticed it. The weight of Creed’s massive body shoved Willis aside. He tried to ignore the growing flame of pain in his shoulder and strained to stay on Creed’s heels. They were merely twenty meters from the finish gates.

  A half-wall dropped suddenly from the ceiling, striking Creed. “Aaaah!” Creed screamed as he went to the floor. He instantly scrambled to his feet while holding his head, but it was all the break Willis needed.

  At full speed, he dropped to his knees and slid beneath the wall right next to Creed. He was on his feet as Creed stood up, but this was his race to win. Creed appeared dazed, still holding his head.