The Quillan Games (6 page)

I realized that this silver band must have been the “loop” he was talking about. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the one that had been at the flume. The guy's eyes went wide. He quickly grabbed the loop and looked around as if he feared being seen.

“Are you insane?” he seethed. “Don't flash that around.”

Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed the loop, then took my hand and shoved it through.

“Hey,” I protested, and tried to pull away. It was too late. He shoved the round bracelet all the way up to my biceps. Instantly I felt it tighten around my arm, as if it were alive. I tried to pull it back down, but it wouldn't move. It rested just above my biceps and clung there.

“Why did you do that?” I shouted.

“I helped you, now you help me” was his answer. “What are your chances? Be honest. It doesn't matter to you if I know, does it?”

“Chances for what?” I asked while trying to pull the loop down my arm. It wouldn't move. The harder I pulled, the tighter it squeezed. It felt like there were a thousand tiny needles inside, keeping it in place. I was frightened, and more than a little creeped out. What was this diabolical loop? How could it know that I was trying to pull it off so it knew to cling tighter? And why didn't it want to get pulled off in the first place? Could it think like the robot-quig-spiders back at the gate? Things were happening a little too fast.

“Get it off!” I shouted to the bald guy.

His answer? He laughed. “I just did you a favor!” he said. “If you were seen without that loop, you'd never see another challenge.”

Before I could ask what the hell he meant by that, I felt the loop tighten on my arm again—on its own. Remember the groove I described that was etched in the circle? It was glowing bright purple. A thin, bright light circled the band that was squeezing the heck out of my arm.

“What's with that?” I asked nervously.

“What do you mean?” he asked dismissively. “That's what happens when a loop activates.”

“Activates?” I shouted. “I don't want anything on me ‘activating'!”

“I don't understand,” the guy said genuinely. “You're a challenger. All challengers wear the loop.”

“What do you mean, I'm ‘a challenger'?” I snapped. “What makes you say that?” I had decided to give up being coy. I needed answers. The pulsing, glowing, grabbing ring on my arm was making that all too obvious.

“Aren't you wearing the uniform of a challenger?” the guy asked, looking every bit as bewildered as I felt.

Uh-oh. It was the shirt. It seemed this red shirt with the black diagonal stripes was only worn by challengers. Whoever
they
were. I could only hope that challengers were cool people whom everyone loved and nobody ever gave a hard time to.

Yeah, right.

Before I could ask the guy anything else, I heard a tortured scream come from across the noisy room. A quick look told me that unlike the guy who was playing the shoot-out game, the player who was running through the 3-D maze wasn't having as much luck.
GAME OVER
flashed in big blue
letters on his screen. The player had fallen to his knees. He truly looked beaten. His head hung and he was breathing hard. No doubt he had given the game his all, only to lose. I wondered if the reaction of a loser was going to be as dramatic as that of a winner.

I wasn't prepared for the answer.

This guy had a crowd around him as well, but rather than console him, they slowly backed away. It was weird, as if they just got word that the guy had the plague. They all had dark, pained expressions. Nobody so much as threw him a casual, “Too bad, dude. Try again.” They were taking this loss very seriously. One person did break from the crowd. She ran up to the guy and hugged him. The guy didn't move. I saw that her eyes were screwed shut and her lips pursed, as if she were holding back a scream. The two stayed that way for a few moments while the others continued to move away. That's when the loop around this guy's arm began to glow. Unlike my loop that had given off a bright purple glow, his loop glowed yellow. The woman saw this, gave the guy one last squeeze and a kiss on the top of his head, then turned and ran. Seriously. She ran away. By this time the other spectators had blended back into the arcade, disappearing among the other people. Some pretended to be playing games, others were gone entirely. It was like the guy who lost had suddenly developed leprosy.

I heard a
crash
come from somewhere. It sounded like a door being thrown open. It made the bald guy next to me jump.

“Dados,” he whispered softly, almost reverently.

I gave the guy a quick look and asked, “What's a dado?”

He scoffed, as if he didn't believe for a second I didn't know. “Now aren't you glad I put your loop back on?” he asked smugly. The next thing I heard was footsteps. It
sounded like quick marching, as if a parade were about to pass through. This seemed to snap the guy who'd lost the game back to life. He looked around quickly. His eyes were wide and scared. I didn't know if he was looking for help, or trying to see where the marchers were coming from, or choosing the best escape route. Or all three. He ran . . .

The wrong way. He took only a few steps before he ran right into the arms of two uniformed men who were headed his way. They grabbed him, held his arms, and without breaking stride kept on moving. The guy struggled to break away, but it was no use. They had him and weren't letting go.

“This was my first try!” he complained nervously. “I'm allowed two tries, aren't I? I thought those were the rules? If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but I know I'm supposed to get two tries.”

Obviously he was wrong. Or the uniformed guys didn't care. They kept marching him away. The guy was near panic. It was incredible. He lost at a video game, and by losing, some police-looking guys called “dados” came to take him away. It really didn't make sense. What kind of games do you lose, and then get dragged away by the police? These dado guys weren't fooling around, either. They were both big. I'm guessing they stood about six-foot-four. They had broad shoulders and wore shiny gold helmets. Their uniforms were dark green and looked like they'd just come from the cleaners. That's how tight and pressed they were. Each guy had a round patch on his upper arm that was bright yellow, with a logo that looked like a “B.” On their hips they each had a shiny black holster that held a golden pistol that seemed to be made of the same material as their helmets.

As scary as all this looked, there was one more thing about these guys that told me you didn't want to mess with them. It was their faces. I don't know how else to describe
this except to write that their faces were big. And square. They almost looked like cartoon bad guys, with sharp jaw-lines and deep-set eyes. They had no expression. Even as they carted off a guy who was yelling and squirming to get loose. Their faces remained stone blank. They didn't give instructions. They didn't tell the guy to calm down. They definitely didn't say where they were going. They simply kept moving.

The guy didn't have a chance.

They dragged him past two more police guys who were standing on either side of the aisle. They had entered from two different directions to surround their quarry. When the loser guy was dragged past these two other uniforms, I saw that the two new guys were standing stock still, their hands behind their backs, surveying the crowd. Nobody else in the arcade made eye contact with them. It seemed pretty clear to me that they were afraid of these police dudes. Heck, I would be too if I lost at a pinball game and my punishment was to get dragged off by a couple of Terminator-looking guys. I now understood why all the players were so intent on their games. Losing wasn't a good thing.

The two sentries followed the others. One of them took one last look around the arcade, scanning the room, until his gaze came to rest . . . on me. The two of us made eye contact. I felt a chill. This may sound weird, but it was like I was staring into the eyes of a doll. A big, living doll.

“What's he looking at me for?” I asked the bald guy. “I wasn't even playing.” I looked to the bald guy for an answer, but he was gone. I was alone. I snapped a look back to the doll-man-police-dado-whatever that was suddenly so interested in me, and my knees went week. He and his pal had changed their minds. They stopped following the others . . .

And came after me.

(CONTINUED)

I
've been a Traveler for a couple of years now. I've learned more about time, the universe, and everything in it than I ever thought possible while growing up in sleepy little Stony Brook. Above all else I've learned a very important rule that I try to live by:

When big, scary-looking guys chase you, run.

I wanted to know who these dado police were. I wanted to know why winning and losing at these video games was so important. I wanted to know what “challengers” were, and why I was given a shirt that marked me as one. I wanted to know what this eerie “loop” thing was that wouldn't let go of my arm. There was a whole lot I needed to know about Quillan, but I wasn't going to find out by letting myself get dragged off to who-knows-where by a couple of Frankenstein-looking thugs. It had to be on my terms. So I took off.

Trouble was, I had no idea where I was going. The arcade was big and loud, but it wasn't very crowded. I couldn't lose myself among the people. Especially since I was wearing a
bright-freakin'-red shirt that made me stand out like a tomato in a bowl of blueberries. My best shot was to get out of the arcade. At least that was my hope. I had no idea what I would find outside, either. We could have been in the middle of a desert. But I knew that if I stayed inside I'd be caught for sure. Outside was better. Or so I hoped.

I dodged around a couple of game machines, ducked low, reversed my direction, and walked calmly the other way. I didn't want to draw attention to myself and alert the goons who were chasing me. It didn't work. It was the red shirt. Many of the people in the arcade ran up to me, and with the same look of desperation that the bald guy had, they pawed at me while asking, “When do you compete? How good are you? What is your event? Please, tell me!”

I gave up trying to be inconspicuous and took off running. I glanced back to see if the dado dudes were following. They were. Their dead doll eyes were locked on me as they stormed their way through the arcade. People had to get out of their way or risk getting run down. Who were these guys? At least my misdirection bought me a little space. I had a few seconds to find the exit before they'd catch up. But the main floor of the arcade was huge and I had no idea which way was out. All I could do was run, and hope. I blasted through the rows of machines like a running back dodging tacklers. The strange electronic music offered an odd accompaniment to the chase. As I ran along, people would see me and start applauding, as if I were running a race. I wanted to shout out “Shhhh!” but figured that would have been a waste of breath. It was clear that I wasn't going to make a quiet exit; all I could hope to do was make a fast one. But after running for about a minute, snaking through the arcade to ditch the dados, I still hadn't found the exit.

The thought hit me that there might not be any exits, and
that Quillan was all one giant arcade. I'm not sure if that would be a dream come true . . . or a nightmare. Right then it felt more like a nightmare. I was getting a stitch in my side and had to stop to catch my breath. I ducked behind a tall game and gulped air. That's when I saw it. It was nothing more than a thin shaft of white light on the floor, but it stood out amid the brightly colored flashing strobes. Daylight. I knew I had to be near a door. Or a window. It didn't matter, whatever it was, I was going through it. I ran for the light, and after ducking past two more rows of games, I saw it: double glass doors leading to the outside and safety.

I was only a few yards from . . . what? I wasn't sure. But I had to get there. As I ran for freedom, I saw something else that I knew would help my escape. Next to the door was a long row of hooks with jackets hanging on them. My first thought was that these people were pretty trusting to leave their jackets where anybody could steal them. My second thought was that I had to steal one. I'm not a thief, but this was an emergency. If I was going to blend into this territory, I couldn't go around wearing a uniform that made me stick out like some kind of rock star. So I swiped one of the hanging jackets that looked to be my size, though the fit really didn't matter. All it had to do was cover up the red shirt. Note to self: Return the jacket if you get the chance. Like I said, I'm not a thief. But this was an emergency.

As I put the jacket on, still headed for the door, I glanced back into the arcade. The police thugs were gaining fast. I had to get outside and get lost as quickly as possible. While still jamming my arms through the sleeves of the jacket, I backed into the door, banged it open, and spun outside.

I found myself on the sidewalk of a busy city, jammed with people. That was good. I could blend in here, no problem. I quickly pulled the jacket around me to hide any sign of the
telltale red “challenger” shirt, and walked quickly through the crowd to get as far away from that arcade, and the dados, as I could. I kept my head down and moved as fast as possible without knocking anybody over. That wasn't easy. The sidewalk was pretty crowded. Mark, remember when we'd take the train into New York City and walk up Fifth Avenue to go to Central Park? Remember how crowded it always was, with hundreds of people all going one place or another? I always wondered why people didn't keep bumping into one another. Well, that's pretty much what it was like. I was in the center of a very busy downtown of a very busy city, but I didn't take the time to stop and look around until I was sure I had lost my pursuers. It wasn't until I had made a couple of turns, crossed a few streets, and finally turned onto a wide boulevard that I felt sure I had ditched them. I slowed down. My heart stopped racing. I had escaped. But to where? It was time to take a look and see what a city on Quillan was all about.