Cure for the Common Universe (12 page)

+2,000 points

Music was taught by the Silver Lady, who handed out ukuleles and had players follow along while she plinked out “The Bear Went Over the Mountain.”

I started to feel antsy. I wasn't making enough points in these classes to give me room to fail miserably in any of the remaining contests. I didn't like my odds of earning any medals in the remaining days, let alone two golds and a silver. The Four Square tournament had been a total fluke. And that had been
before
Scarecrow wanted to murder me.

The Silver Lady played “Hot Cross Buns” while I dreamed of playing the Spanish guitar at Mandrake's, melting Gravity's heart.

•  •  •

In the Feed I ordered the beet-and-spinach salad for 1,000 points, while keeping my eyes peeled for enemies. As I crossed to the Burds' table, I noticed Scarecrow slouched in the corner of the Master Cheefs' table. His lip was split, his nose a yellowish purple. There's a moment in games when you've leveled up so much that the enemies who once killed you with a single swipe now look harmless, adorable almost. I tried not to smile. Scarecrow was so skinny and pathetic. What had I been afraid of?

Just then Dorothy, Lion, and Tin Man sat down with
him and glared in my direction. I quickly headed to the Fury Burds' table.

Because of Soup's awesome performance in Four Square, I let him sit next to me. He petted the joint-custody egg he'd just received from Aurora.

“I will name him Muffin,” Soup said.

“I thought it was Megg White,” I said.

“It is Muffin now.”

Behind us some Sefiroth with thick-rimmed glasses and all-black clothes started freestyle rapping.

“Ain't no beatin' this sand, Ozy.

No more feelin' nice 'n cozy.

The cold hard fact is you need better data.

So go right ahead,

Stay ignorant, playa.”

Ugh. Nerdcore. Hard-core rap about video games.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Parappa,” Meeki said, a little dreamily.

“If he doesn't shut up, I'm gonna throw my spork at him,” I said.

Meeki gave me a look.

“What?” I said.

The look got worse.

“Fine,” I said. “I'll throw something less sharp.”

“I'm getting a doughnut,” she said, and left.

What the hell was her problem?

Soup danced his egg along my lunch tray. “Muffin could use some companyyyyyy.”

I groaned but then took the Abomination out of my pocket and set it on the table.

“They're on an eggy playdate,” Soup said.

I ignored him and ate my dirt-flavored salad while an angry wind blew across the roof, flickering the Feed's lights.

A girl I recognized from the Sefiroths walked up to our table.

“Hello,” she said.

Her flowing hair and flower-girl voice reminded me of a weeping willow. She was so close, I could see acne scars under her thick makeup.

“Um, hi?”

“I just wanted to come over and say thank you.” She touched my shoulder, and I tensed up. “Scarecrow's
such
a jerkhole.”

My shoulder relaxed a bit. “Yeah, he is.”

Soup nodded.

My fear of the Master Cheefs started to thaw a bit. If I had some allies in the Sefiroths' guild, I could be protected. Even if they were a little sickly. I could walk the hallways in safety and be more relaxed in the tournaments. Even if they were warm bodies who couldn't fight.

“I'm Dryad,” the girl said, tossing her hair over one shoulder. “You're Miles?”

Soup stuck his hand between us. “My name is Soup. I'm his partner. We're a team.”

“Cool,” Dryad said. “Aww, your egg is so cute.”

“Mine's not the cute one,” I said. “Mine's the lopsided one.”

“That's the one I'm talking about,” she said. “May I?”

“Sure.” I handed her the Abomination.

“Aww,” she said, patting its little egg head.

The egg slipped from her hands. My hand shot out to catch it, but my grabbing fingers tipped it away . . . and my and Meeki's little Abomination splatted across the Feed floor.

Dryad covered her mouth. “Oh
no
. I am
so
sorry.”

“Uh . . .” I looked into the wide eye of the broken shell. Not getting 10,000 points a day would
seriously
set me back.

That wasn't my only concern. Meeki was buying a doughnut. What would she do to me?

I felt Dryad's breath on my ear. “You think it's cool to break people's noses?”

I jerked back. “Huh?”

She stared at me with so much intensity, it scared me.

I shook my head. “I'm not the one who broke it.”

“Yeah,” Soup said. “Scarecrow was the one who called Meeki the Great Wall of China.”

Dryad's eye twitched uncertainly. “That's not what he said.”

“Yeah huh!” Soup said.

BANG!
Dryad slammed her fist down, shattering Muffin and
splatting Soup and me with yolk. She hurried out of the Feed.

Soup sat in gooey shock. On the other side of the Feed, Scarecrow gave me a crooked smile and then slipped out after her.

What a coward. Couldn't even execute his own egg assassinations. Was
Dryad
the one who'd given Scarecrow those hickeys? Or was it Dorothy? Both? How many women did he have? Was there some sort of Scarecrow Manson family?

Soup let out a little whimper. He sucked in his lips, trying not to cry while he collected the shattered, scattered, starry eggshell. I considered going and telling Fezzik, who was behind the food troughs, but then he might've asked why Dryad had done it, and that would have placed 100,000 of my points in jeopardy.

Aurora and Meeki arrived at the Burds' table and saw the splattered eggs. Meeki's mouth fell open just like it had on the Four Square court.

I put my hands up. “It wasn't my fault. That willowy Sefiroth chick came over here and smashed them.”

Meeki said nothing, just kept that same dumb shocked expression on her face.

Soup sniffed.

“Oh, come on.” I said. “It sucks to lose the points, but they're just eggs, dudes.”

If anyone had a right to be upset, it was me. None of them had dates to go on.

Aurora picked up a bit of eggshell and stared at it with her satellite eyes. “They grow up so fast.”

D
uring life skills block I harvested the stupid spinach I'd be eating for dinner that night, while Soup swept around the garden like a
Harvest Moon
sprite, patting the tomatoes like they were tiny heads and saying things like “Plump up, my little honeys” and “You're so engorged today!”

Finally the canary sang and we returned to the Nest for Tuesday's team-based competition. As always, Zxzord was asleep in the bunks. I was kinda jealous . . . of the relaxing. Not the heroin withdrawals . . . if they were even real.

I joined the guild circle, sitting right next to Meeki, who immediately got up and sat on the opposite side. Fine. If she didn't want me to apologize, I wouldn't.

“Greetings, adventurers!” Fezzik said. “Today you'll be leveling up your spell-casting abilities.”

Soup gave a few little claps. “Yesssss.”

Fezzik held up a Ping-Pong ball that had been painted purple. “Fury Burds,” he said, “your quest is to guide this magical orb from the Nest all the way down to the Hub and into the Box of Fate.”

We stared at him.

He held out the ball on his open palm. “Aren't you guys going to say, ‘Oh, that's easy' and try to carry it to the Hub?”

“We're guessing there's a catch,” Meeki said.

“Heh. There
is
a catch.” He tossed the ball and caught it. “You can't touch the orb. And the orb can't touch the floor. And no, you can't just grab a tissue and carry it. The orb cannot come into immediate contact with something you're touching. Any questions?”

Meeki raised her hand. “Why does it feel like V-hab was designed for four-year-olds?”

“I like it!” Soup said, hurt.

Meeki smiled. “I rest my case.”

Fezzik dropped his adventure voice. “Video Horizons accepts players ages eleven to seventeen, so we have to strike a balance with challenges like this.” He looked at our blank faces. “Fine. Use your engineering skills to get this Ping-Pong ball to the box in the Hub before the other guilds. Is that better?”

There was a general grunt of assent.

“Do we get points?” I asked.

“Same as the tournaments. First place is two-hundred and fifty thousand for each player.”

I flipped my chair backward, straddled it, and focused on the orb.

Meeki was right. This did feel juvenile. But if I was going to get out of there in time, I had to treat this contest like it was my fucking job.

“You have until the loon cries,” Fezzik said. He stood up, put a pillow on the bunk above Zxzord, and then placed the purple Ping-Pong ball on the pillow. “I think this is going to be tougher than you guys think.”

Soup, Meeki, and Aurora stood around the orb.

“It can't touch the floor?” Aurora asked.

“Nope,” Fezzik said.

“And it can't touch us?”

“No.”

“Does telekinesis count?”

“Aurora,” Fezzik said, “if you can make that ball float with your mind, I'll give you a million points right now.”

I kept my focus on the ball. Could we somehow hit the ball so it glided all the way down the stairs, down the hall, and perfectly into the Box of Fate?

No. This wasn't
Super Monkey Ball
.

“Hurry, adventurers!” Fezzik said. “The other guilds are probably hard at work!”

“Yeah, probably not,” Meeki said. “What happens if we drop it?”

“You lose five thousand points off the reward, and you have to return here and start over.”

“We could build a train!” Soup shouted. “A little train that carries the ball in its caboose.” He shook his own caboose.

“Let me get this straight,” Meeki said in a cutting voice. “You want to construct a fully operational miniature engine and then lay small rails that perfectly run out of the room down the staircase and up into the box?”

Soup bit his bottom lip. “I guess that's dumb, huh?”

I focused on the orb. Could we somehow tilt the floor so . . . No. This wasn't
Marble Madness
. Besides, the floor was lava. The floor was death. The floor was an infinite fall into failure.

Meeki snapped her fingers. “We could build a bridge. We could use straws and spaghetti to make rails that lead all the way down—”

“That was my idea!” Soup said.

“Yeah, but mine actually works.”

“I'll go see if there's enough straws and spaghetti in the Feed,” Aurora said, leaving the Nest.

“A thousand points to all three of you!” Fezzik said.

“Wait, we get points just for coming up with random ideas?” I asked.

“Of course,” Fezzik said. “This is so you guys can work on team-building. I can't give you points for just sitting there. Zxzord, I'm looking in your direction.”

In the bunk Zxzord rubbed his face. “Don't drop the ball, dudes.”

“Thanks for that,” Meeki said.

I kept my eyes on the orb.

Before the Wight Knights had come along, I'd gone on plenty of
Arcadia
raids where the other players had been nothing more than dead weight for me to drag around. This was no different. The Fury Burds were competing against gamers who all thought just like they did.

We needed something new. We needed innovation.

Aurora returned to the Nest, arms full of things from the Feed. “I also got plastic cups so we can make a tunnel for the stairs.”

“Brilliant,” Meeki said. “The ball will build up momentum to get down the hallway.”

“Nice!” Fezzik said. “Another thousand for Aurora.”

I ignored them. I wasn't in this for a measly thousand. I was going to win the whole quarter mill.

Aurora dumped the straws and spaghetti onto the floor while Meeki got glue and string from the crafts chest. Using a pair of safety scissors, Meeki punched out the bottoms of the cups.

I focused back on the orb. What if the rails ran out the window and around the building to . . .

No. That was stupider than Soup's train idea.

Soup danced around Meeki and Aurora. “What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?”

“You can crawl into the activity chest and stop giving me a headache,” Meeki said.

Aurora handed him a handful of spaghetti. “You can start laying these out to the door.”

“Okay!” Soup said.

After laying just three noodles, he leapt to his feet and shouted, “We need a
Portal
gun! I'd aim at the ball and be like
pthoo
—blue portal!—and then aim at the ceiling over the Box of Fate and be like
pthoo
—orange portal! And then drop,
plunk
!”