His words end in a fit of coughing. Blood stains the front of his uniform and drizzles to the floor in a viscous red stream. I pry his hands from my neck and shove him away. The avatar thumps lifelessly to the ground, blood already disintegrating as the wound in his chest closes.
Gun stands ten feet away, still in his frog avatar with an AT-57 machine gun in one hand. I want to run to him, but we’re separated by brawling Russian peasants and Roman gladiators. Gun holds up a purple pill, pinching it neatly between his thumb and forefinger.
Our eyes meet. I nod. He hurls the pill, and the purple lozenge rockets over the crowd.
I snatch the pill out of the air and toss it down my throat. I glance at Gun again, a question on my face. He holds up one webbed hand, fingers splayed. It’s our signal for wait. Whatever this pill does, it will take a moment to kick in.
A hand latches onto my ankle. I look down. It’s the same Leaguer Gun just shot and killed. His avatar has regenerated like a vampire in a B movie. I bring up my free foot and stomp hard on his shoulder. He grunts, reaching for his gun.
Billy pops up in front of me, leaping out of the swirling blue. His eyes are wide, and he pants as though he’s run a long way. In one hand, he holds a small leather bag. He reaches into the pouch and pulls out a small mound of gray powder.
“Mortality!” he shouts. The powder turns bright orange. Billy flings it straight into the Leaguer’s face.
The man drops my ankle and pulls back, swiping at his eyes. Several frogs climb onto him and detonate along his arms. He screams. Another frog lands on his head and explodes. The avatar collapses into perfect silence. The Leaguer has jagged black holes along both arms. Two-thirds of his head is missing.
This time, there’s no slithering pixels, no quick rebirth. The bastard stays dead.
Mortality.
The name says it all. Billy’s Touch program made the man mortal in Vex. And the Twains killed him. Somewhere in the real-world, this man is dead.
The auction has disintegrated into chaos. The Twains are everywhere. Most of the avatars regenerate, but evidently security breaches don’t sit well with would-be despots. Two-thirds of them have disappeared.
A few die-hard bidders remain—Elvis, Chinese Emperor, and Grecian Urn. At this point the bid is up to one and a half billion. I’ve lost track of Gun. Imugi tries to conduct the auction while pretending he’s not surrounded by chaos and exploding frogs.
Taro comes into view, locked in hand-to-hand combat with the female Leaguer. Her finger has grown back.
I see a flash of metal between them: the ring. Taro and the woman struggle over it, each trying to pry it from the other’s grasp.
“Come on.” I grab Billy’s hand and race toward them. I swing my leg around and deliver a roundhouse to the woman’s ribs. She grunts in surprise, and I pull a startled Taro free of her. Billy moves in behind me and blows a handful of dust into the Leaguer’s face.
“Mortality!” he cries. The powder flares to fluorescent orange as it settles onto her.
“She’s got the ring!” Taro says. “What are you—”
“Billy got the Touch,” I say. “She can die now.”
Taro’s head whips around, eyes narrowing. The Leaguer struggles to clear the orange powder from the sockets of her SmartPlastic mask. Taro kicks her in the chest, knocking her flat to the floor. He brings his foot down on her throat, stamping hard. She makes a gurgling noise. The ring rolls out of her slack hand.
Taro bends down, reaching for it.
But he’s not fast enough. A Leaguer materializes out of the smoke and fire. He snatches the ring and races straight toward the dais, toward Hank—who is held captive.
She’s back in the chair, cuffs around her wrists and ankles. Her eyes are wide, panicked. The breach she made in the firewall is gone. Nine Leaguers surround her, weapons raised.
“Help!” she screams, catching sight of us. “Help me!”
I start for the dais as the Leaguer slips the ring onto his hand. Hank’s head whips back. She starts screaming, straining against the cuffs. Seconds later, her avatar disappears. She’s back in the real-world, trapped on that awful cot with electricity flowing through her.
“Hank!” Billy races past me. He snatches a fistful of Mortality from the bag. “Hank!” He runs straight at the Leaguers, flinging Mortality in every direction, screaming its name. A neon-orange nimbus surrounds the pack of navy-blue uniforms. The Leaguers scramble in confusion, trying to catch Billy as he weaves through their midst.
Taro and I rush after Billy, heading straight for the cloud of neon orange. A small, isolated part of my mind catapults into panic mode at the thought of becoming mortal in this place. I can’t freak out; my friends are counting on me. I shove the panic into a lockbox in the back of my brain and let my training take over.
Side by side, Taro and I charge into the shimmering motes of Mortality. I snag an OS-15 handgun from an unsuspecting Leaguer and shoot him. His scream sends shivers down my legs. Taro elbows a man in the temple and acquires his own OS-15. Together we plow through the mass of orange and blue, fighting our way after Billy.
Fortunately, we’ve got surprise on our side. The Leaguers were not suspecting an attack from us, and they are confused by the billowing orange powder. They have no idea they’ve just become mortal.
My gun is up, trembling only a little in my hands as I fire at anything and everything in a SmartPlastic mask. A man’s hand snakes out, latching onto my wrist. My right leg delivers a kick to his gut. I wrench free—but not before he brings up his free hand and buries a knife in my shoulder.
I gasp, stumbling. My shoulder is a blossom of white-hot agony that makes it hard to think straight. Blood flows down my arm. I reach up with my good arm, wrapping a hand around the knife handle.
I’m mortal, just like the Leaguers. Which means any wound I receive here is real. I will feel every cut, every punch, every bruise.
I yank out the knife. I gasp as spikes of pain radiate from the wound. More blood flows out. The Leaguer comes for me, gun raised.
Taro leaps between the soldier and me and fires three shots into his chest. The Leaguer drops, dead.
I draw in a breath and steady myself. I’ve got to keep a clear head, ignore the pain, and stay in the fight mentally. I force my avatar upright, force it back to Taro’s side, force it back into the melee.
Fighting beside Taro is strange. We know how to dance, but we don’t know how to dance together. When his arm whips sideways to take out a man to my right, his elbow nails me in the nose. When he stumbles and I swing a kick over him, I clip the side of his head.
Despite our poorly synchronized efforts, Mortality and confusion have given us the edge we need. In less than two minutes, all but one of the Leaguers are down. Most are dead, the rest too gravely wounded to fight back. In the eyes of those still alive, I see the realization that the wounds they’ve taken in Vex are real.
Only the Leaguer with the ring remains. He crouches on the dais. He holds a gun in one hand, his other hand up to display the ring. Hank flickers back into view, slumped in the chair. Tears streak her face.
“Hank!” Billy tries to scramble onto the dais, but the Leaguer kicks him off.
Blue lines lance out from the cuffs, and Hank screams again. Her avatar disappears.
“Call them off, smart boy,” the Leaguer growls at Billy. “Call them off or I keep it up ’til the shock kills her.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” A green body streaks into view. Two amphibious hands lock onto the man’s head and give it a powerful, succinct twist. The breaking bones make soft clicking sounds.
The soldier tips over, dead. Gun looms over the body.
A moment later, Hank reappears in Vex. She sags in the chair, eyelids fluttering.
“Hank.” Billy claws the cuffs open and drags her into his arms, cradling her.
Hank is breathing, barely conscious. Billy weeps over her. I kneel beside them, scanning our surroundings.<
br />
The auction room looks like—well, like a swarm of exploding frogs has swept through it. The bidders are gone. The Leaguers are all incapacitated. Only Imugi remains—a giant serpent-like creature racing straight toward us with rage in his eyes.
“Merc boy, get the Touch!” Gun roars. “Sulan, with me!”
I surge to my feet beside him. Together, we leap onto the dais and clamber onto the chairs. We jump toward the charging Imugi. I smack into his giant snout and feel the impact in my gut.
I’m mortal. The phrase runs like a drumbeat through my head. I’m mortal.
Two giant reptilian eyes glare at me. Imugi snaps his jaws, trying to catch my flailing legs. I grapple against the smooth scales, my shoulder screaming. The pain is so intense I momentarily lose concentration. My avatar slips. I land hard on my back, the impact knocking the breath out of me.
Imugi comes for me, rage accentuating every pixel of his face. Seconds before his snout batters me into a mass of blood and bones, I roll sideways. His blue head is a blur in my periphery as it strikes empty ground.
I bound to my feet and hurl myself at his neck. A hand reaches out, pulling me the rest of the way up. Gun. He clings to Imugi’s head with his legs. He has a knife in one hand, poised over Imugi’s brain. Gripping the blue scales with two legs and one arm, I take my firearm and place it against the serpentine body.
Imugi swings and bucks, trying to dislodge us. It’s all I can do to hang on.
On the ground beneath us, Taro’s slender form sprints straight at Imugi. In one hand he grips Billy’s Mortality pouch. The serpent dives at Taro, teeth bared.
A handful of neon-orange dust hits him in his face.
As soon as the Touch powder flies into the air, Gun’s knife comes down. He plunges it repeatedly into Imugi’s head. I empty the rest of my clip into his neck.
A soft, strangled sound issues from Imugi’s throat. He tips sideways and crashes downward. I jump free, hitting the ground and rolling to my feet. Gun lands beside me as Imugi’s body hits the floor with a thump.
Gun and I stand beside each other, both of us bent over our knees and panting. I stare at Imugi’s unmoving form, at the giant blue serpent bleeding at our feet.
He’s dead.
He’s dead.
The man responsible for the murder of thousands is dead. And we killed him. Me, Gun, Taro, Hank, and Billy. He’s dead because of us.
I turn away from the body, feeling sick. Gun watches me.
“Hey, Short Stuff,” he says softly, as if this is just another day in the Cube.
“Hey, Baldy,” I reply, because it’s easier to pretend this is just another day in the Cube.
Gun and I never touch. It’s just not something we do, unless we’re dealing a roundhouse or a left hook to one another. But seeing him—even in his frog suit—opens a fissure of emotion inside me. I throw my arms around him and cling to him, fighting back tears. His strong arms squeeze me tight. It’s probably just the stress of the situation, but all I can think about is how I never want him to let me go.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
Taro rises to his feet from the other side of Imugi. “Sulan, are you okay?” He walks around the bloody head, coming toward us.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I reply, my cheek pressed against Gun’s tuxedo jacket.
“You know this guy?” Taro points his weapon at Gun, eyes intent.
“We’re training partners,” Gun replies coolly, releasing me and looking Taro up and down.
“So you’re the one who trains with her using Touch?”
I don’t see Gun surprised very often, but it’s clear from the slight widening of his translucent eyelids that Taro has struck an unexpected punch.
“Taro, he’s my friend,” I say.
The affectionate quirk of Gun’s lips makes me glow inside. “Sulan,” he says, ignoring Taro, “I’ve got a way to deactivate the real-world cuffs. As soon as I do, you’ve got to be ready.”
“What?” Now I’m confused. “How are you going to do that?”
“The pill you took. It’s a tracking beacon, so I can locate you. I’m sending help. Be ready.”
“Who are you?” Taro inserts himself between me and Gun. “How did you know where to find Sulan? How did you even get into this auction?”
“Taro!” I say. “What’s wrong with you? Gun just saved our lives.”
“Let me see your face,” Taro says to Gun, ignoring me. “Show me your real-world face.”
“Sulan.” Gun, who’s got a good three inches on Taro, looks over him at me. “Get ready. Wherever you are, get out of there. You know how to find me.”
A deep boom in the real-world reverberates in my chest. The last thing I see is Gun’s frog eyes. Then everything goes black.
18
Uncle Zed
It takes me a moment to figure out we’re not in Vex anymore. My headset is still on, but the lenses are dark. A soft fizzle tickles my wrists and ankles. The cuffs pop open.
I sit up and fling off the headset. The movement sends pain lancing through my shoulder. I reach up and feel my jumpsuit. There’s no blood, but the pain of the stab wound is real. My body is rubbery from the electrocution.
Moving slowly, I shuck off the open cuffs, letting them clatter to the floor. I rub at my wrists and ankles, marveling to have all four of them back in my possession.
It’s pitch black in our room. Next to me, Riska growls. I reach out. My fingers find a leathery wing.
“Hey boy,” I say.
Hank moans on the cot next to mine.
“Hank?” I lumber forward and grope blindly for her headset. My hand lands on her face. I fumble my way up until I connect with the headset, then tear it off.
“Hank?” Billy whispers, his voice tinged with the panic.
“I’m okay.” Hank’s words spiral up out of the darkness, weak and raspy. “Not sure I can move, though. What happened?”
“I think Sulan’s friend detonated an EMP bomb over the ship,” Billy says. “It fried everything, including our cuffs.”
Gun. I can’t help the swell of pride in my chest. “He did say he was sending help.”
“Would’ve been nice if he’d dropped us a sack of flashlights,” Taro says with a grunt.
I hear him moving. His boot connects with something, and someone moans.
The Leaguers. Some of them are still alive, and in the room with us.
I force myself to drop into a fighting stance, hoping the remaining Leaguers are too weak to fight. My heart pounds painfully in my chest, and my palms sweat.
“Here we go,” Taro says. There’s a cracking sound. A glow stick comes to life, casting fluorescent-green light. It’s just enough to illuminate the mass of bodies at Taro’s feet.
It’s not that I haven’t seen dead bodies before; I see them all the time in Vex. I once blew up a whole stadium of bad guys.
But this is different.
The figures bathed in the weak green glow are collapsed haphazardly on top of each other. The bodies don’t show any external sign of violence, but most are definitely dead. Only two of the twelve make feeble movements, some sliver of life remaining within them.
And there, on the edge of the pile, is Imugi. There is no smile behind his white mask. His Vex set is askew, revealing one frozen dark eye. Even in death, it seems to bore through me.
Shivering, I turn away. All that killing—I did that. Some of it, at least. Enough of it.
Before I know what’s happening, I’m braced against the side of my cot, retching. All that expensive steak comes back up and lands in a wet, stinky pile at my feet.
A gunshot makes me jump. I spin around and see Taro standing in the midst of the Leaguers, gun pointed at the floor. No, not at the floor. At a man. A twitching man who dies even as I watch, a bullet in his head.
Taro shifts the gun, aiming at the last Leaguer still alive. He fires right into the man’s head.
The pile of bodies is perf
ectly silent, perfectly still. Blood makes an ever-widening lopsided circle on the floor.
In the feeble neon light, Taro’s gaze meets mine. He doesn’t say anything. His face is composed, the epitome of a seasoned mercenary doing what needs to be done.
His eyes tell a different story. They hold anguish as gently as a person might hold an injured bird. There’s so much pain in those dark eyes that you’d think he was on the floor in that mishmash of bodies.
Maybe, in a way, he is.
What sort of normal sixteen-year-old knows thirteen different ways to kill a man with his boot? His voice, clear as morning light, rings in my memory. You think it’s glamorous? You think it’s fun?
For the first time in my life, I have an inkling as to why Mom never wanted to teach me how to fight.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Taro says, his voice gruff.
“Mrow.” Riska stretches onto his hind legs and reaches for me. I bend down so he can scramble onto my good shoulder.
Billy slides an arm around Hank and helps her sit up. She tries to stand, but her legs collapse. A garbled sob bursts from her mouth. She sits on the edge of her cot, quivering as she scrubs tears away.
Billy hovers next to her, every muscle in his body tense. His mouth tightens in determination, then he bends down and scoops Hank into his arms.
“Wh—what are you doing?” Hank gasps.
“You can’t walk,” Billy says, face turning bright red.
Taro comes to stand in front of me. He’s got two OS-15 automatic handguns shoved into his belt and two more in his hands.
“Your shoulder okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. It’s sore but I’m fine.”
“Here. Take these.” He pushes the guns and some extra clips at me.
I take the guns. They feel very heavy in my hands. “Are you okay?” I search his eyes, seeing the pain there.
Taro stares back without answering, and I understand that he is not okay, not by a long shot. Impulsively, I take his hand and squeeze it. He smiles.
“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s get out of here.”
We join Hank and Billy at the top of the stairs, Riska riding on my shoulder.
Sulan Box Set (Episodes 1-4) Page 14