A Buried Spark

by P. J. Hoover

  “See what?” I say.

  “This.” He motions to me and then him. “We’re supposed to get to the end together. The two strongest ones. The two with the most to offer. That’s how it was always supposed to be.”

  He’s not right. But I also know I need to pick my words carefully. My options are limited. I could try to kill Owen, but I could easily fail. My other option is to pretend to work along with him. It’s far from ideal.

  “I don’t trust you,” I say.

  Owen actually laughs. “Good. I’d worry about you if you did.”

  He’s so carefree, like he really believes this is all part of some great plan.

  I glance out at the expanse of green grass. It looks calm and inviting. That, too, must be a lie. It has to conceal more. I have to move forward into the zone, but I don’t see any way to get rid of Owen. There is not really anywhere else for him to go.

  I nod out at the openness ahead. “I’m going that way. How about you give me a ten minute head start. That way we don’t have to be together.”

  Owen’s mouth drops open slightly. An act of surprise. “Why wouldn’t we want to work together? We have so much of a better chance of surviving that way.”

  I hate that his words make sense. I don’t want him anywhere near me.

  “We can’t work together.”

  “Why?”

  His question hangs there in the air. I fumble for the right response.

  “You’re cheating, that’s why,” I finally say.

  “Cheating? By getting help? And you’re not?”

  I hold my face still, trying not to show anything. “Why do you think I’m cheating?”

  Owen laughs. “You’re friends with one of the gods,” he says. “That Zachary guy. He’s been helping you this entire time. There’s no way you would have been able to get out of the labyrinth if not for him.”

  I bite my lip. I don’t want Owen’s words to be the truth, but they are. There is no denying them.

  “So what?” I say.

  “So we work together. Out there.”

  I will Cole to appear, but nobody does. It’s still just me and Owen. The minutes tick by. And what if Owen is right? What if this is one more trick of the simulation, separating me from my friends, making me work with my enemy?

  “I’m coming along,” Owen says. “Whether you want me to or not. So why don’t we just be civil?”

  Civil. Owen has tried to kill me. Tried to force himself on me. He is not a civil person. But I’d rather have him with me than behind me, waiting for me to let my guard down. Whether I want it to be or not, this is the best way. But the first chance I get, I’ll find a way to stop him.

  “Fine,” I say, crossing my arms. “We work together.”

  A huge grin breaks out on Owen’s face. A grin I used to think was so perfect. A grin I know now is filled with deceit. “Great, Edie. You won’t be sorry.”

  I already am sorry.

  I step forward into the grass. Immediately something skitters under my foot, making me jump back. I look down but don’t see anything except grass waving gently in the wind.

  “What?” Owen says.

  I point downward. “There’s something in there.” Something hidden. The grass is here to cloak it.

  Owen places one of his boots into the grass, stepping solid. “It’s fine. You’re imagining things.”

  Fire burns through me. I am imagining nothing.

  I test it again with my foot, but this time nothing moves. Still, I did not make it up.

  “Whatever,” I say. If Owen doesn’t want to be cautious, that’s his issue.

  “Just stay behind me if you’re scared,” he says.

  Bullshit. I’m not scared and I’m not staying behind him. Even though I don’t want to, I place my other foot also into the grass. Both feet are in. I am committed. I blow out a deep breath and take a step. Then another. Five more steps and I start to question if I really felt anything in the first place.

  Then Owen says, “Shit! What was that?” He jumps and lifts his right foot into the air, swinging it around wildly, nearly bumping into me.

  I freeze. “What was it?”

  He looks down, studies the tall grass. “Something grabbed at my foot. I felt it through the boot.”

  I almost let a petty smile creep onto my face, but I don’t need to. He knows that he should have listened to me.

  “You told me so, right?” Owen says.

  I shrug and blow out another breath. And then I see it. Something black and red flashes through the blades of grass. I jump back, but my foot doesn’t land on solid ground. Instead it squishes something big. It reminds me of stepping on a giant cinnamon bun, except it also makes a sickening crunching noise.

  I look to Owen, but my eye catches on his leg. Crawling up it is some sort of black and red crab monster.

  “It’s on you!” I shout.

  Owen freaks and swipes at the thing, but another one is attached onto his bare arm. I’m so distracted I don’t notice the one crawling up my right leg until it’s well past my knee. Its pinchers sink into my flesh, and I shriek.

  I swipe at it, and the second it lands on the ground, I try to stomp on it. But the things are fast, and another one claws up my back. I swat at it, but when another pinches me in pain, I twist around too fast and fall off balance. Then I’m on the ground and covered in them.

  I cover my face and try to get to my feet, but there must be twenty of the things on me. It cannot end this way. I try to stand and barely make it to one knee when Owen grabs me and yanks me to my feet. I twist and shake and fling the crab things off me until I’m finally free. My pants are torn where they had been attached, and the skin underneath burns.

  Owen swipes at three crabs that claw at his knees and ankles. He’s detached the one from his arm, but blood drips down to the grass, creating a frenzy beneath him.

  “Run!” I shout.

  We take off, running through the vibrant field. The crab monsters swipe out with pinchers dripping with venom. The grass is alive. We run faster, and the world becomes a blur. The grass grows thicker, and burrs stick to my legs, but I keep going. If I stop for even a second, I will die. I don’t question this. It is fact. I dare to look forward, for the end to the grass, but everything is green. It’s only when I no longer feel anything brushing against my legs that I finally look down.

  The grass is gone. The ground underneath our feet is green, the same color as the grass, like it’s been put in place as some sort of optical illusion. But it’s only hard rock, green to look like grass, but solid and smooth.

  I stop running and bend over, placing my hands on my knees to catch my breath. I did it. I got across the boundary to this zone. But then I remember that I didn’t do it alone.

  I hate it. I hate every second of it. But I’m also not too proud to acknowledge the truth.

  I look over to Owen. His face is red, his skin is splotchy, and he’s also breathing hard. “Thanks,” I say.

  “No problem.”

  Simple. Straightforward. He’s not even a jerk about it.

  “What do you think is ahead?” he asks.

  I straighten up and look forward, across the new zone. Zone Epsilon. The ground where we stand is solid green and hard, like smooth emerald formed here when the zone itself was created. Beyond that are four large stripes each extending away from us: Red, black, green, and yellow. They’re each so wide that they encompass the entire horizon ahead.

  “I don’t know,” I say. My brain fights me. I don’t want to work with Owen, but I also know that I have to. It’s the only way. And maybe the Greek letters we chose before entering have something to do with whatever is ahead.

  “What letter did you pick before you got in here?”

  “Iota,” he says. “You?”

  “Omicron.”

/>   “Any idea what it means?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “Can you ask your dad?”

  And like it’s no big deal, Owen says, “Maybe.” He presses a finger to either of his eyebrows and his eyes focus on his heads-up display. But the focused look is soon replaced by one of frustration.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  He pulls his fingers away from his eyebrows. “My dad’s not answering.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  Owen’s face is half worry/half annoyance. He tries again. And again. And the normal confidence that fills his eyes is missing.

  “He’s not responding,” Owen says. “He’s always answered right away.”

  Something must have happened to him.

  “Maybe he’s busy,” I say, though the words sound false to me. I think the better guess is that Owen’s dad got in above his head. He destroyed the memory banks. He cheated in the simulations. He hacked in when the gods didn’t know. He pried into the business of the gods, but maybe he underestimated them.

  Maybe we all underestimated them.

  “What do you know about Chaos?” I ask.

  Owen shakes his head. “Just that he’s the last of the old gods. Kind of surprised my dad when he found out. He thought all the old gods were dead.”

  But they weren’t. And possibly Chaos discovered Owen’s dad messing around with his simulation and had done something about it. I haven’t met Chaos, but I can’t imagine any of the old gods happy to have a mortal, like Owen’s dad, messing around in their business.

  “We need to keep moving,” I say.

  Owen taps his eyebrows again. “Let me try one more time.”

  I let him try, though I know he’ll fail. Owen’s dad must have been eliminated. Owen is alone.

  It doesn’t work. But Owen, instead of looking defeated, is filled with a new confidence.

  “It’s okay,” Owen says. “He never helped me in the labyrinth. I don’t need him here.”

  I almost point out that Owen would still be in the labyrinth simulation if his dad hadn’t pulled him and Abigail from it, but I keep my words to myself. The more I appear to ally myself with Owen, the better my chances of survival.

  “We have four choices,” I say. “Red, green, black, and yellow.” I start toward the colored stripes, walking until I’m only about ten feet away. I stand at the split between the green and the black.

  “They’re like lanes,” Owen says.

  Lanes. It reminds me of a racing game. Lots of racing games have the same end point and a few different tracks the player can take to reach the end. Each track is easier and harder in different ways.

  “We need to pick one and take it,” I say.

  Owen seems to consider our choices, looking from one to the next. “You know whenever we had a choice before, Abigail would always pray for the right answer.”

  “Abigail’s not here,” I say. As far as I know, she’s still on the edge of the chasm, afraid to jump into the gaping mouth of the monster.

  “It used to work better before,” Owen says, almost like he hasn’t heard me. “But then she took the lightning. Since then, the gods don’t seem to be answering her.”

  That’s because by taking the lightning she killed the very god who was helping her.

  “We don’t need to pray to some god for answers,” I say. We can figure it out.”

  The side of Owen’s lips curl up. “That’s what I always liked about you, Edie. You were always so confident in being able to figure things out. You never once doubted yourself.”

  I bust out laughing before I can stop myself. If Owen only knew the truth. I have doubted myself so many times I could never count.

  “What?” Owen says.

  I shake my head. “Nothing.” Then I look back to our choices. Red is on the far left. Next to it is green, then black, then yellow. Each stripe is easily one hundred feet across. Each is plain and simple with nothing to distinguish it. I think through each choice. Yellow: it’s normally associated with caution. Red: it’s most likely to be danger. Green: Full ahead . . . unless it’s a trick. And black: the very absence of all color. The one with no meaning. It could be our best bet.

  “Black,” I say pointing to the dark stripe before us.

  “Why?” Owen asks.

  I fix my mouth and stare him in the eye. I don’t want to explain my logic to Owen. I try to figure out why. If it’s pride, then that’s all the more reason to tell him my thought process, because what if I am wrong? There are no second chances. Not anymore. I already used up my reset. So I go through my thoughts, and as I do, he slowly nods.

  “Absence of color,” he says. “Good thinking. Let’s do it.”

  I don’t want to feel relief that he agrees with me, but inwardly I do. I don’t let it show on my face.

  “Great,” I say. “Let’s not waste any more time.” Then I start for the entrance to the black track ahead.

  XXXII

  The second we step foot on the black track, the rest of the zone vanishes. Huge walls go up on either side of us, blocking out red, green, and yellow. The walls are black, but images of outer space begin to spin by on them, like we’re moving forward in space, and they are here to help make the illusion feel more solid. Five steps forward, and the ground behind us begins to rumble.

  I turn in time to see the ground disappearing, crumbling away into whatever is below. It forms a gaping hole, and it’s coming right for us.

  “Run!” I shout.

  I take off forward on the black track. There is no choice. No chance to be cautious. My feet pound on the hard ground, but the rumbling only gets louder. I’m not going to make it. Next to me Owen runs as fast as me. It’s no use.

  The falling ground catches up to us, then my next step comes up empty. I fall into the opening. I scramble with my hands trying to find some hold, but there is nothing to hold onto. But instead of falling downward, I stop and hang there in the midst of the stars and galaxies. It’s like we’re so far out in the middle of nowhere that the pull of gravity on us doesn’t exist. I watch the rest of the black track collapse, turning into floating space debris around us. Then there is no way to distinguish one way from the next. Everything looks the same.

  “Which was do we go, Edie?” Owen asks. His face is unsure, and it almost brings me joy. How nice it must have been for him to just ask Abigail to pray their way out of any situation or to call in for some help from his dad.

  I move my arms, and against the laws of physics, I spin around, like there is something out here to move me. There is no sign of the black track anymore. No planets nearby. No star that seems any closer than any other. There is only me and Owen and outer space.

  I call up the menu on my heads-up display, looking for some kind of hint as to what we’re supposed to do. But the only selection available is Help, and when I select it, a single message flashes on the screen.

  Find your way through to the end of

  Zone Epsilon.

  Not terribly useful given that it’s information I already knew.

  “You see that, Edie?” Owen says. He’s pointing off toward something in the distance. Maybe a planet or an asteroid. There are lots of them around, gently floating like we are.

  “Not specifically,” I say. It’s hard to know exactly what he’s pointing at.

  He comes closer to me, such that our line of sight is the same. “There. Right where I’m pointing. The little speck. It’s kind of blue.”

  I narrow my eyes and attempt to see what he’s pointing at. Sure enough, among the moving objects is one that is not moving. “It’s blinking a little. Is that the one you mean?”

  He nods. “Okay, I know this is completely dorky, but my dad used to watch this space show. I didn’t watch it with him because come on? How nerdy is that? But if you lived in our house you couldn’t help but cat
ch an episode here and there.”

  Nerdy or not, I’ve watched plenty of space shows in my life, seeing as how I used to want to be an astronaut.

  “What about it?” I ask.

  He grins. “Well, there was this one episode about something called a wormhole. And I think—”

  As soon as he says it, I get it. And I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. I was too busy looking for some sort of puzzle for how to get to the end of the zone.

  “You think it’s a wormhole,” I say. The heads-up display had said, “Find your way through to the end of Zone Epsilon.” Through. That’s the word that mattered. We have to go through the wormhole.

  “Exactly,” Owen says.

  We start out, moving through space toward the flickering blue object. In the vast area of space, it’s the only one that is staying in the same place, like a beacon drawing us in. Owen and I stay side-by-side because I know it can’t be this easy. Something will try to stop us from reaching our destination. But as we continue on and nothing attacks, I get less sure of this.

  “Didn’t you ever want to be an astronaut?” I ask Owen. He’d mentioned watching the space show like it was something to be embarrassed about. But we both grew up right near Cape Canaveral. Everyone I knew wanted to either be an astronaut or work for NASA.

  “Well, sure,” Owen says. “When I was in elementary school. Who wouldn’t want to be? But do you realize how much math and science you have to take when you’re an astronaut?”

  “Duh,” I say.

  He laughs. “Yeah, well I didn’t. But once I found out, that was a no-go for me.”

  He’s smiling, but he almost looks embarrassed about it. It’s so different that the expressions I saw him wearing back at school. “Why are you so against math and science?” From what I’ve seen of Owen, he’s actually pretty smart. He just doesn’t like to work very hard. His skills seem to be getting other people to do work for him. Like me. Abigail.

  He shrugs. “Are you kidding? My dad was always trying to shove it down my throat. Him working at that gaming company. All he wanted was a kid who liked the same nerdy things as him. But the more he forced me to practice math or program or anything like that, the less I wanted to. I think he finally gave up trying when I was a sophomore. He still forced me to take computer science, but he stopped nagging me about giving a shit about it.”