“That’s the Preypad,” said the Floomfle. “It has a map. It shows you where to go.”
“OK, that’s handy,” Cal said, stuffing the rest of the items back in the pack.
After a moment’s thought, he stuffed the Floomfle in, too, and pulled the strap tight around her neck so only her head was visible.
“Hey! Let me out!”
“It’s for your own good,” Cal told her, swinging the bag up onto his back. He grimaced as the strap rubbed against his shoulder. A quick glance at the hole in his bodysuit confirmed that the shoulder wound had not healed up. It hadn’t, as far as he could tell, even made an attempt to heal up.
Fonk.
That was something to worry about later. The closest Sloorg was clawing frantically at the branches that held it now, and it was only a matter of time before it got free. They had to get moving, and fast.
Cal turned the Preypad over in his hands. “OK, so how does this thing work?”
“You tap it twice,” sighed the Floomfle, as if this should’ve been the most obvious thing in the world.
Cal tapped the screen twice. As he watched, a series of lights blinked on—random, at first, but quickly forming a recognizable pattern.
Oh God, no, Cal thought. As if his day wasn’t already bad enough.
“Hi, I’m Perko! Your friendly animated assistant,” chimed the animated face on screen. “How can I help you survive today?
Twenty-Seven
“Forward. Forward. That’s right! You’re doing great! Forward!”
Cal shook the Preypad, trying to shut it up.
“I’m going forward. You’ve been saying ‘forward’ for the past ten fonking minutes. I can’t go more forward than I’m going.”
“That’s right, you’re right on track!” announced Perko. “Forward. Forward.”
Cal threw the Preypad away. It was not the first time he’d done this since they’d left the Sloorgs, and it wasn’t the first time the Floomfle had told him the same thing.
“You’re going to need that.”
“Yes! I know!” Cal snapped. He looked up at the canopy of branches above them, puffed out his cheeks, then went to retrieve the device.
“Ah, there you are!” said Perko. “I thought we’d lost each other, chum! Now… forward.”
Cal resumed his trudge through the forest. The branches hadn’t tried to take a swing at him since he’d called the Controller’s bluff, but he kept an eye on them anyway, just in case they decided to try any funny business.
“So,” said Cal, weaving around a patch of rough bracken. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Perko! Your friendly—”
“Not you!” Cal said, clamping his other hand down over the screen so it was sandwiched between his palms. It didn’t silence the infuriating digital bamston, but it at least muted him a little. He craned his head around. “I meant you. What’s your name?”
“Why should I tell you, murderer?”
“Uh, maybe because it’s polite, and I saved your life,” Cal said. “And because I’m not a murderer.”
He raised his head and shouted. “You hear that? I’m not a murderer! I’m not Reduk Topa. This is all a set-up.”
“They can’t hear you,” said the Floomfle. “Not live, anyway. If the Prey talks, they save it for the edited highlights. Sometimes they make these little clips of them begging or crying. It’s, you know, funny.”
The way she said the last word suggested she didn’t really get the humor.
“Great. So, no one can hear me? Of course they can’t. That’d be too easy.”
He looked around at her again. “I meant it, though. What I said. I’m not Reduk Topa. I’m the captain of the ship that delivered the crates with you guys in to the station.”
From the corner of his eye, he caught her expression change. “Not on purpose. I mean, if we knew what was in the crates, we’d never have brought you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe King Floomf would just sell you all out like that. He seemed like such a nice guy.”
“It is a great honor to feed oneself to the Sloorgs,” said the Floomfle. Once again, though, she sounded like someone hadn’t yet let her in on some secret that would explain why this should be the case.
“It’s Floora,” she said. “My name.”
“Nice to meet you, Floora. I’m Cal. Cal Carver.”
Floora squinted at him. “You’re serious? You really aren’t Reduk Topa?”
“Reduk Topa’s dead.”
“Are you sure?”
Cal thought back to the way a quarter of the pirate’s skull and its contents had slid off and flopped to the floor.
“Pretty sure.”
From between Cal’s palms, Perko let out a high-pitched shout.
“Jesus, what now?”
“…current rate, we will be exiting the forest in fifteen seconds. The route I plotted brings will take you out right at the entrance for Sector One. How’s about that?!”
Cal clamped his hand down over Perko again, muffling him.
“There’s a pocket on the front of the suit,” said Floora. “It’s soundproof, so that the Preypad can’t give you away.”
After a moment’s search, Cal found the pocket.
“You won’t be able to hear it, though,” Floora pointed out. “If it tries to warn you of anything.”
Cal didn’t even hesitate. He shoved the Preypad into the pocket, then fastened down the little fold-out covering above it.
Silence. Blessed silence.
“Thank fonk for that,” Cal said. He peered ahead through the tangle of trees. The glowing path was out there just beyond the forest’s edge, leading up to an archway made of what looked like ivory, or maybe white wood.
“What’s in Sector One?” he whispered, scanning the treeline for danger. Somewhere, far behind him, a Sloorg howled.
“It’s random. There are dozens of different arenas. Hundreds, maybe. No one knows what’s coming up next,” Floora told him, her wide eyes searching the trees behind them. “It’ll tell you on the gate, but that’s the only warning you’ll get.”
Cal groaned. “Is there anything useful you can tell me? Any tips? Anything at all?”
Floora thought for a moment. “Don’t die?” she suggested.
“Right,” said Cal. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
As far as he could tell, there was nothing lurking out beyond the forest’s edge. Besides, this was still far too early in the game for the Controller to let him die. After all that expense and those years of effort, he wasn’t about to let Reduk Topa bow out before the hunt had technically even started.
He hoped.
“Fonk it, let’s do this,” Cal muttered, pushing his way through the branches in the direction of the path.
He wished he’d kept hold of the spoon. As weapons went, it was way down his wishlist, and yet he’d have felt more comfortable having it to hand. He contemplated stopping to fish it out of the bag, but another Sloorg howl—closer this time—made him reconsider.
“You know you’re bleeding, right?” said Floora. “Your shoulder.”
“Shizz. Still?” said Cal. “That should’ve healed by now.”
“Well, it hasn’t.”
There was no time to dwell too much on that now. As Cal neared the edge of the trees they parted before him. A branch shoved him in the back, ejecting him out onto the path.
“Hey, watch it!” he warned, shooting a dirty look at the closest tree. It slapped him across the face with a hand made of twigs and leaves. The branches creaked around him, giving the impression the whole forest was laughing.
“Just so you know, I’m going to come back here at a later date, cut you all down, and turn you into furniture. Ugly furniture,” said Cal, addressing the trees as a whole. “You have my word on that.”
Another branch swung at him. He skipped back, avoiding the strike, then raised the middle fingers of both hands, and waved them at the forest in general.
“You know they can’t understand you, right?” said Floora.
Cal continued giving the trees both fingers. “They can’t? How do you know?”
“Because they’re trees.”
Cal stopped waving his hands around. “Well, that’s disappointing,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides.
Being sure to keep out of the trees’ reach, he turned to the archway he’d seen from the forest. It was not, it transpired, made of ivory or wood. He’d definitely have preferred either of those over the actual building material used in the arch’s construction.
“My God, those are some big bones,” he said, leaning back. He whistled quietly through his teeth. “What the fonk did those come from? Godzilla’s thighs?”
A sign hung by two lengths of chain from the top of the arch. It creaked back and forward on the breeze.
“The Boneyard,” Cal read. “Wow. They really must’ve been up all night coming up with that.”
He turned and found one of the floating cameras. “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with? Aren’t you guys supposed to be creative?”
“This isn’t good,” Floora whispered. “This must be a new zone. I’ve never seen it before, so I won’t be able to offer any advice.”
Cal peered through the arch. The other side looked just as pleasant as this side, with lush green grass, the occasional flower, and a few fluttering insects busying around between them.
“It doesn’t look so bad,” he said.
He felt Floora wriggling in the bag, as if trying to make herself even smaller. “It will be. They all are. Just wait,” she told him. “You’ll see.”
Cal rapped his knuckles against the archway, hoping the giant bone would turn out to be a prop made of Styrofoam. To his disappointment, it wasn’t.
Still, all that awaited was a path, a grassy hillock, and some space butterflies. Just how dangerous could it be?
“I guess we’ll both see,” he said. Then, with a final rude gesture to the forest, and a quick check for any Sloorg action, he stepped through the archway and into Sector One.
Twenty-Eight
It started well. Later, when looking back, Cal would be able to say that, at least.
The first twenty seconds or so were easy going. Enjoyable, almost. Cal could just about have fooled himself into thinking he was setting off on a hike toward the picturesque mountain he could see rising in the distance.
Sure, he had a suspicion that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked. He was confident that everything would go wrong at some point, he just didn’t expect things to take a turn for the worse quite as quickly as they did.
It started when the butterfly electrocuted him, and just sort of snowballed from there.
Cal had felt pain before. He’d felt a lot of pain before, on a large number of occasions. Nothing had prepared him for the butterfly, though.
It alighted gently on the end of his nose, its little legs twitching, its colorful wings flapping slowly in and out.
“Hey, check it out,” Cal had said. He’d kept his voice low, afraid he might scare the delicate creature away.
And that’s when it had electrocuted him.
His jaw had clenched, his arms had locked, and he’d fallen backward, landing on Floora and almost crushing her. He then proceeded to squash her into the grass as he bucked and thrashed around, the butterfly discharging a surprisingly large amount of electrical charge directly into his face.
And then, the insect had fluttered off to join the others, leaving Cal spread out on the ground, gently steaming.
“What the fonk was that?” he’d managed to wheeze.
“Buzzerflies,” said Floora, her voice muffled against the grass.
“I do not like buzzerflies,” Cal had remarked.
And then, a second of the insects had landed on his forehead, and the whole ordeal had begun again.
Three buzzerfly encounters later, Cal limped across the grass with his hair on end and his eyebrows steaming, his gaze darting anxiously in all directions as he kept a look-out for more of the fluttering little bamstons.
Floora, who’d made a pretty compelling case for not being in the bag after Cal had almost crushed her to death, trotted along beside him. Her little legs moved at double the speed of Cal’s, but she still struggled to keep up. Every ten seconds or so, she’d launch herself into the air, fly unsteadily at Cal’s waist height, and alight a few paces ahead of him. It wasn’t the most elegant system in the world, but it stopped her falling behind.
A buzzerfly came within what Cal considered an unsafe distance. He flicked at it with a gloved hand, while pressing the fingertips of the other hand to his temple.
“Fonk off.”
“What are you doing?” Floora asked.
“I’m telling this thing to fonk off.”
“With the fingers, I mean. Why are you touching your head?”
“Oh. Mental command over butterflies.”
Floora continued to stare up at him.
“It’s this thing from a TV show I used to watch. There was this guy who could control butterflies. He was part of a team of… well, not superheroes. More like sidekicks, I guess.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I thought it was worth a shot.”
“Was it a reality show?” Floora asked.
“No.”
“So… fiction then?”
Cal stopped trying to mentally control the buzzerfly.
“You raise a very good point.”
The insect harassed him for a few more seconds, then got bored and fluttered off. Once Cal was sure it wasn’t some sort of clever bluff, he continued up the side of a low hillock and stopped when he reached the top.
After double-checking to make sure the buzzerfly wasn’t sneaking up behind him, he looked down into the valley that spread out ahead. The path had stopped at the entrance to Sector One, and all that lay ahead was more green grass and blue skies.
“Is this it?” he asked. “Shouldn’t a boneyard have, like, I don’t know. Bones? Maybe a yard of some description?”
“You’d think so,” said Floora.
She glanced at the pocket on the front of Cal’s bodysuit. It took him a moment to work out what she was getting at.
“Aw… fonk,” he muttered, unclipping the pocket cover and fishing inside.
“Hey, iiiiiit’s Perko!” sang the face on the Preypad.
Cal immediately clamped his hand over it. “Shh. Shut the fonk up,” he hissed, bringing the device closer to his mouth. “I know who you are. God knows, you’ve told me often enough.”
He tilted his head left and right, limbering up for the next sentence.
“I need your help.”
“Perko’s your pal! Of course, I’ll help! Just tell me how!”
“You can start by dropping your fonking volume by ninety percent,” said Cal, glancing behind them. No sign of the Sloorgs, but that didn’t mean they weren’t coming.
“How’s this sounding, partner?” asked Perko. He remained as gratingly enthusiastic as ever, but was no longer shouting.
“Better,” said Cal. “Now, how do we get to the Boneyard?”
“You’re standing in it, good buddy!” Perko replied. “The Boneyard is Sector One.”
“No, I mean the actual Boneyard. The part with the bones.”
“This zone’s hub is fifty-seven paces away. That’s where the action is!”
Cal turned, looking around. There was nothing but rolling green on all sides. “Which direction?”
“Any direction,” Perko chimed.
Cal removed his hand from the device’s screen and glanced down at the animated face. “What does that mean? How can it be fifty-seven paces in any direction?”
“Need help choosing a route, old pal?”
The face became a spinning arrow. It spun quickly at first, then slowed to a stop and flashed. “Try thataway! Or…”
The arrow spun again. When it stopped the second time, it indicated a completely different direction
. “Thataway! Or…”
It spun again. Cal shoved the Preypad back in his pocket and closed it over.
“Yeah, I get the point,” he muttered.
He looked down at Floora. She was standing by his feet, raising herself on her tiptoes to give her a better view behind them.
“I can’t see the gate,” she remarked.
“Huh?”
“The entrance. The archway. It should be behind us, but I can’t see it.”
“It’s right over…”
Cal stopped. Sure enough, the entrance was nowhere to be seen. “It has to be that way, because when we came through we were looking directly at that mountain,” he said, pointing off toward the cliffs he’d seen in the distance.
“You mean that mountain?” Floora asked, motioning in the opposite direction.
A similar mountain stood a few miles off in that direction. Cal flicked his head between them, and soon came to the conclusion that they weren’t similar mountains, at all.
“They’re the same,” he said. “They’re exactly the same.”
Floora stuck a thumb in her mouth and chewed anxiously on the nail. “What does that mean?”
“What, ‘same’? It means—”
“No, not ‘same’. I know what ‘same’ means,” the Floomfle replied. “I meant, what does it mean for us? For our odds of survival?”
Cal put his hands on his hips and regarded both mountains. Or, the same mountain twice.
“I’m no scientist,” he began. Having only known him for a short time, Floora had no idea quite how much of an understatement this was. “But I have a theory.”
“Perception field?” Floora guessed. “Altering how our brains are processing visual input?”
Cal hesitated. “Yes. Yes, it might be that,” he said, pointing at her. “Or, could it be a big mirror? Which is what I was going to say.”
Floora smiled up at him.
“Oh, you’re serious?” she said, when he continued to look expectantly at her. “No. I think it’s the perception field thing.”
“Right.” Cal nodded as he looked at both mountains again. “And what does that mean?”
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