The Quillan Games (51 page)

I heard a few more passes, some close, some distant. All fast. What was it? Though I wasn't told the rules for this game, something didn't make sense. I was in total darkness. How could the rest of Quillan see what was going on if there was no light?

As if in answer, the world suddenly came alive. White light filled the room. It was so bright that I was just as blind as when it was dark. At the same time, music started playing. It was loud, upbeat, electronic music like they played at the challenger parties. It was so loud that I could no longer hear the thing flying around the room. This was worse than darkness. I now had two senses taken away. I forced myself to stay on my back. Looking around, my eyes adjusted enough that I could make out shapes. The room itself was totally white. Floor, walls, ceiling, everything. The bright lights were on the high ceiling, and they were moving in time to the music. There were hundreds of them, all flashing in different directions. They were painting the room with light, making it impossible to see.

I saw a flash of silver a few feet above my head. It had to be what was making the sound, though I couldn't hear it over the music. I lost it in the lights. What was it? I started feeling a little too vulnerable by lying on the bed like that, so I quickly rolled off onto the floor, but crouched down low, using the bed for protection. I peeked my head up over the mattress in time to see another silver flash. This one I locked on to. It was headed in my direction, about five feet over my head. I followed it as it shot over me, continued on, then stuck into a wall only a few yards away. What was it? I was close enough to that wall that I felt confident enough to crawl to it. I got down on my belly and crawled, commando style, across the floor to the wall. Looking up, I saw what was making the sound . . . and my heart sank. It was a silver disk. It
didn't look much different from a CD. But it was embedded an inch into the wall. CDs weren't sharp like that. I realized that the sound I was hearing wasn't from a single source. Whatever the game was in this white, noisy room, to play it meant you had to dodge sharp, lethal Frisbees that were randomly fired in all directions.

Suddenly, rampaging clown dolls didn't seem so bad.

Chunk!
Another disk embedded itself in the wall over my head. There was no fooling around. These things were deadly. Veego and LaBerge had upped the stakes. The question now was, what was the game? I kept my back to the wall and squinted to get a look at the room. My eyes had adjusted enough that I could make out some detail. The room was giant. The ceiling was high. You could fit eight basketball courts inside, with room left over for a running track. It wasn't empty. There looked to be several mountains scattered around. I'm serious. There were craggy mounds all over the place that had to be thirty or forty feet high. They were just as white as the rest of the room, looking like giant icebergs. I could see little glints of silver where the killer disks had embedded themselves at various places. Still, I had no clue as to what the game could be, besides avoiding decapitation, that is.

My eye caught movement. It was dark against all the bright white. It was Challenger Green. He was climbing one of the mounds. If my penalty for losing the clown game was to not learn the rules, that meant Challenger Green
did
know the rules. I watched him for a clue. He climbed the mound easily. There were several places for foot- and handholds. It looked like climbing was the easy part. The hard part was avoiding the speeding disks. I saw one disk fly toward him and stick into the side of the mound, next to his leg. He never saw it coming, but dove back in surprise when it hit. He
nearly fell off the mound. That meant he didn't know when to expect these things. Which meant I wouldn't know either. Swell.

The top of this minimountain came to a peak. Challenger Green quickly scampered to the summit, did something I couldn't see, then hurried back down. Whatever he did up there, I figured I had to do it too. That was the deal. We had to climb these mountains. At least I had a goal now, besides avoiding being sliced in half, that is.

I decided that safety was more important than speed, so I stayed on the floor and crawled along on my belly. My plan was to get to the mountain closest to me. I hadn't seen any of the disks flying that low, so I figured I'd be okay until I had to climb.

I was wrong.

I had gotten about halfway there when the floor in front of me suddenly moved! A whole section of floor quickly slid to the right, opening up a cavern. It seemed as if the room were built on air! Or at least, over a chasm. The opening was dark, so there was no way to tell how deep it might have been, but I didn't want to jump down to find out. No way. I caught a glimpse of movement to my left. My bed was hurtling toward me! I quickly realized it wasn't just the bed, it was the floor below it that was moving. The bed shot across the floor, then suddenly tipped on end and fell into another hole that had opened up in front of it. I quickly crawled over and looked down. The bed was long gone. The chasm below was deep.

I had learned the next wrinkle to this game. The floor was a constantly shifting puzzle. Holes opened up quickly and randomly. If you were in the wrong spot, buh-bye. But you couldn't stand up and leap from spot to spot or you might get sliced by the flying disks. The trick was to stay alive and get
to the top of those mountains to do . . . whatever. At least my penalty had been erased. I understood the game. I kind of wished I didn't.

I was still looking down into the hole where my bed had disappeared, with my fingers curled over the edge, when a section of floor flew toward me. I saw it coming at the last second and pulled my hands away as the pieces of flooring slammed together with a
chunk!
The hole had closed so fast and so violently that my fingers would have been crushed for sure.

I scrambled back toward the first mountain. I felt a few disks flying overhead, but I was more worried about the floor suddenly opening up and swallowing me. I reached the base of the mound, took a breath, and quickly climbed. There was no problem getting up, thankfully. At least that gave me a fighting chance to dodge the disks. I leaped up, climbing from ledge to ledge while scanning back and forth for any flashes of silver headed my way. A few stuck into the mound on either side of me, but neither came close enough to be scary. There was one good thing—it didn't seem like they were being aimed. I wasn't being shot at. If I got hit by one of those things, it meant I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I reached the pinnacle and saw what I had to do. It was simple. There were six round, flat lights about three inches in diameter that were built into a plateau on top of the mound. Three red, three green. One of the green lights was glowing. I took a guess and touched one of the red lights. It lit up. That was the game. You had to climb three mountains and light all your lights . . . without getting killed, of course.

The race was on. I turned and looked down at the room from a bird's-eye vantage point. It was so white and the lights were so bright, the whole place glowed. From high up on top,
the floor looked like a checkerboard with squares about five feet across. The squares were constantly moving, opening up pieces and filling in others. There didn't seem to be any pattern to it. That was bad. There was no way to guess where a hole might open up. I also saw the flashes of silver as the sharp disks flew across the room. Winning this game was about being lucky and keeping your head. Literally.

I saw Challenger Green down on the floor, hopping from square to square. He landed on one just as it moved. It was so fast that it threw him off balance. He had to throw himself backward or he would have been dumped into the hole.

A flash of silver sped by me, very close. It got my attention. I had to get moving. I leaped down the mountain faster than I should have. But Green was ahead of me. I needed to make up time. I was lucky I didn't take a tumble. That would have been weak. When I hit the floor, I crouched down low to make a smaller target and started running for the next closest mountain. I only got a few steps when I saw a silver disk headed for me at head level. I threw myself to the side and it sailed past, but I was falling right toward a section of floor that was opening up! I had to contort my body to change my direction in midfall. I hit the section of floor right next to the new opening. Too close. I rolled to my right just as the section of floor beneath me started to move. It was so fast, it spun me into a barrel roll. I had to fight against my own momentum and stop myself from rolling off the edge. I ended up on my belly, with my left arm dangling over the side of the chasm. I took a second to catch my breath, then realized I was in a bad spot. I quickly pulled my arm out a second before a piece of floor slammed into place, nearly cutting off my limb.

As frantic as I was, I couldn't stay still. No place was safe. I got on my knees and crawled toward the next mountain. The loud music picked up the pace. I wished it would just stop. It
made a difficult game nearly impossible. I made it to the base of the next mound and started my climb when I felt a sharp, hot pain in my right leg. Looking down I saw that a disk had clipped my right thigh. It made a neat cut through my black pants and stuck in the side of the mound. I didn't want to know how deep the cut was. There was nothing I could do about it anyway. So I climbed. If it hurt, I didn't know it. My adrenaline was pumping too hard to notice. I got to the top of the mound to see that there were still only one red and one green light lit. I quickly hit the next red light. I was in the lead!

I turned to head down just as a second green light turned on. I looked out over the room to see Challenger Green on top of another mound. It was dead even. I hurried down the mound, even more recklessly than last time. It was going to be close. I hit the floor and scanned to see which mound I should climb next. Challenger Green was doing the same thing. We were maybe twenty yards apart. I saw the mound that was closest to me. Unfortunately, it was the same mound that was closest to Challenger Green. It was decision time. Did I go for the closest mound and possibly have to fight Challenger Green to get to the summit? Or risk running for a mound that was farther away?

The two of us made quick eye contact. We both knew what we had to do. We ran for the same mound. We both chose to fight each other rather than make a suicide run across that deadly, random gauntlet.

I was halfway to the mound when I saw two disks flying at me from different directions. I dove to the ground as they hit above me and shattered. Pieces of metal rained down, nicking my arms like stinging bees. Challenger Green saw this and laughed. My dive cost me precious seconds. Green was almost at the mound. I was going to lose.

That's when the floor opened up beneath Challenger
Green. He fell. Not to the floor—he fell into the hole. He never saw it coming. He screamed, but kept his wits. He caught the edge of the opening with his arms. His arms and shoulders were above the floor, the rest of his body dangled below. But he was trapped. I saw him kicking to try to get a leg up, but he couldn't get leverage. He wasn't going to fall, but he wasn't getting up, either.

I realized with horror that he may not have been in danger of falling, but in seconds he was going to be cut in half. As soon as that piece of floor jammed back into place, he'd be history. It was almost over. I was seconds away from winning the Grand X.

The reality of the situation hit me hard. This guy was about to die. I would be the champion, but at what cost? Another gruesome death? In those few vital seconds I realized there was an opportunity here. Which would have more impact on the people of Quillan? My victory in the Grand X? Or a selfless act that would demonstrate yet again how things were going to be different? I could win the competition and let Challenger Green die, or I could save him and be a hero. Even if I ended up losing the Grand X, I would have made my point. The choice was easy.

I quickly crawled across the floor and grabbed Challenger Green by the arms.

“What are you doing?” he growled.

The floor piece started moving. I pulled back hard, but the guy was heavy. He quickly realized I was trying to save him.

“Pull! Pull!” he commanded.

He got one leg up onto the edge, and had nearly brought up the other when I heard the crunch.

“Ahhhhhh!” he screamed as the flooring slammed home, crushing his foot.

I heard the cracking sound, even above the music. It was horrible. The poor guy lay on his back, his foot jammed between pieces of floor, trapped. I tried to force open the pieces of floor, but they wouldn't budge. Challenger Green screamed in agony. There was nothing I could do to help him . . . except to win. When the game was over, I had to believe he would be released. It couldn't have been a better situation. I not only saved his life, but the game was mine to win. I quickly left him and climbed up the mound. The silver disks seemed to be coming from every angle. I didn't bother ducking or dodging. I was either going to be lucky or I wasn't. I got to the top of the mound and saw the lights. All I had to do was press the final red light and it would be over. My finger hovered over it. The game was mine. But I didn't push it. I suddenly remembered what Nevva said. If the competition was tied going into the last round, the final game was always a match to the death. If I pressed that button, the competition would be tied. By saving Challenger Green and winning the game, I might have set myself up to die.

I kind of wished I had remembered that a few seconds before.

I looked down at Challenger Green, who was clutching at his shattered foot. The guy was in a lot of pain. Whatever the next competition was, I was going to have a pretty big advantage. I wondered if I had just saved Challenger Green from a random death, only to be put in a position where I might have to kill him myself? I had never killed anyone in my life and didn't want to start. Had I made a huge blunder?

There was only one thing to do. I pressed the red light.