Cure for the Common Universe (22 page)

She ignored me but told Aurora, “My parents wanted me to let out some aggression, so they let me play every weekend.” She looked at her own chest, which seemed to be . . . flatter
than before. “Taped my boobs down this morning.”

“Round robin,” the coach called. “Every guild will fight the other two guilds, and then the two most successful teams will compete in one final battle for the gold. However, you must survive the game in order to earn points. Like G-man said this morning, for every survivor on your team, you'll be granted a bonus twenty thousand. Understood?”

Soup raised his hand. “Do we have to pla—”

I pulled his hand down before he could finish. “Soup, we need as many players as we can get.”

“I don't wanna get shot,” he said.

“That's easy,” I said. “Play perfectly.”

The coach handed out masks and protective vests. The Cheefs looked like their bodies had been genetically altered to fill their red armor. The Sefs, in green, looked like a ragtag team of new recruits. The Burds . . . looked like children in purple Halloween costumes.

The coach handed out guns with paintballs to match our armor. I held my gun to my lips. “Make 'em bleed purple.”

Fezzik summoned the Burds into a circle. His armpits were two swamps of sweat.

“All right, adventurers,” he said, shoulders still deflated. “The big raid. Heh. . . . Here we go.” He was doing a terrible job of hiding his heartbreak. “I want you to remember that this isn't about killing each other. It's about self-respect and honoring your guild. It's about helping each other get back into the real world. So . . . get out there, and . . . do a heck of a job.”

G-man summoned the guild leaders to discuss rules. Fezzik lumbered away, without having made a single
Final Fantasy
reference. The Fury Burds were left looking less inspired and more depressed.

“Okay, forget that whole speech,” I said, leaping up and addressing my guild. “This
is
about killing each other.”

For the first time ever, Meeki smiled at my words. Soup hugged himself.

This would be just like pumping up the Wight Knights before a raid, only I wasn't really friends with these people, and if they didn't perform, I'd miss the most important event of my life so far.

“So,” I said, “um, when I first got here, I thought you were a bunch of lazy video game geeks.” I hadn't actually prepared an inspirational speech, so I had to make it up as I went. “But you want to know what I see now?
Murdering
machines.” I sized up my guild. “Zxzord,” I said, catching his sunken eyes. “Our undead electric warlock. Clearly, you're the most hard-core among us. How do you feel?”

“Like complete shit.”

“Well, then, let's get you out of here and into a proper rehab. Soup . . .” He nestled his little butt into the sand, preparing to be showered with compliments. This was the first time I'd need him to actually perform instead of throwing the game or just obeying my every command. I needed to boost him up with a compliment. “You are . . . the only player in Video Horizons who found a side quest—with my help—and
you're superdedicated to your guild. That's why I'm asking you to act as my personal human shield.”

“I . . .” He gulped. “It would be an honor.”

Now for the person who hated my guts. If Meeki was going to help me win, I would have to find the pathway to her heart. And fast.

“Meeki.” She didn't look at me, of course. “I'm sorry I let our egg baby die. It had your grim determination. Well, the Asian half of it did, anyway. Let's win this for the Abomination.”

“And Muffin!” Soup said.

“Sure,” I said.

Meeki still refused to look at me.

“Also,” I said. “Scarecrow is a douche bag. Take revenge on his ass.”

“Don't tell me what to do,” she said, but then she cocked her gun.

Good enough.

“Finally, Aurora . . .”

The coach blew his whistle. “Guilds to their positions!”

“Um, never mind,” I said. “Let's get 'em, guys.”

Aurora pinched and twisted the back of my knee.

“GAH!” I rubbed the sore spot. “Right. Pain for healing. Thanks, Aurora.”

Fezzik led us to our position, north of the Wasteland. The sand swirled. The sun beat down. The Fury Burds flapped our arms to air out our armpits. We were as ready as we were going to get.

“First up,” the coach called. “Burds versus Sefs!”

The coach raised the starter's pistol and fired. The Fury Burds crept into the Wasteland. Bunkers rose up around us like a black stone forest on Mars. I breathed the scalded air.

The Burds dodged and weaved around those alien bunkers, slaying every Sefiroth in sight. Forget their compressed air guns. They had no clue how to use them. I never thought I'd be so grateful for the sizes and shapes of my guildmates. Zxzord lay in the bunker shadows, as skinny as a sliver of darkness. Sir Arturius saw nothing but bunker until purple paint was suddenly dribbling down his visor. Aurora was small and spry . . . and a
terrible
shot. But she missed Parappa only to have the paintball ricochet off the pudgy side of an air bunker and then hit Parappa in the leg.

Then there was Meeki. Meeki the Destroyer. Meeki the painter of deserts. Meeki, the player who waited until Devastator was within two feet before shooting, because she wanted him to “taste it.” His sobs echoed across the Wasteland. At that moment there was no doubt in my mind that Meeki had hit her brother with that Wiimote, and I couldn't have been happier about it.

Meanwhile, Soup and I were a two-headed beast, backs together and protected, prowling the alien desertscape. I could feel sweat pooling in my ass crack where he was pressed. For once I didn't shove him away. No one could sneak up on us. They would die if they tried. That was, until a green paintball whizzed three inches from my shoulder and exploded on Soup's throat.
Even though he was sobbing, he managed a grin at having sacrificed himself for me.

The remaining Fury Burds met in the center of the Wasteland and tallied our kills while the sun singed my wounded shoulder.

“Who have
you
killed, fearless leader?” Meeki asked me.

“No one yet,” I said, trying to sound like a badass. “But Dryad's still out there. I think she killed Soup, so yeah . . . let's get her.”

We all headed in separate directions to hunt Dryad down.

Shield gone, back exposed, I shivered in the desert air. I tried to keep an eye in every direction, but it was impossible. Sweat fogged my visor. I could feel my heart beat in my mask. I was backing up to what I was certain was the wide empty wall of a bunker, when I felt the cold barrel of a gun press into my neck.

Shit.

I turned around slowly.

Dryad put her gun in my face. She did not look victorious. There was a sadness in her eyes.

I slowly raised my hands. “It would be really stupid of you to shoot me,” I said.

“Why's that?”

“Because you guys won't win.” I took a deep breath and a huge chance. “If you really want to hurt Scarecrow, then you have to let me win.”

Dryad narrowed her eyes.

“Think about it,” I said. “All of your guildmates are dead.
The Sefs aren't good enough to win in the end. The Fury Burds are. Scarecrow would hate that.”

Her eyes remained narrow. I watched her trigger finger tense, and I winced.

“Make him regret it,” she said.

I opened my eyes. “I will.”

Dryad dropped her gun.

“This is for Muffin,” I said. And I shot her in the face . . . plate.

•  •  •

“Next up,” the coach called. “Cheefs versus Burds!”

We got our asses handed to us. The Cheefs were everywhere at once—Lion prowling through the bunkers, Scarecrow slipping around corners, Tin Man stomping toward us like a freight train, and Dorothy, the invisible executioner.

Ten minutes after it had begun, the Burds stumbled out of the Wasteland, red-spattered, out of breath, and soaked with sweat. Fezzik had no words of encouragement. He just sat in a shadow and stared off to the horizon.

Thanks a lot, dude
.

We peeled off our sweaty armor and used rags to mop off the red paint. It hurt Soup's bruised little throat to talk, so he quietly karate chopped my shoulders. Aurora sat next to me.

“If we win,” she said, “what are you going to talk about on your date? Will you tell her you've been in video game rehab?”

I scrubbed the red off of my vest where Scarecrow had shot me. “Maybe I'll tell her I was in a real rehab, so she thinks I'm a badass.”

Aurora gave a half grin and glanced at Zxzord, who was rubbing suntan lotion onto his tattoos.

“Or maybe you could just tell her the truth,” she said.

“Ha,” I said. “How are you going to break up with Max?”

She scratched some red off her mask's visor. “I think maybe I'll do it in
Arcadia
. I'll approach him with my Neon Elf, reveal my true identity, and then break up with him in front of his guild. Let him and everyone else know that the badass he's been adventuring with is actually his girlfriend.” She blew paint shavings off her helmet. “But that would require playing more, so I don't know.”

“Your true identity, huh?” I said. I stuck out my hand. “I'm Jaxon.”

Aurora looked surprised for a second. Then she shook my hand. “Jasmine.”

“Huh. Both
J
s.”

“Yep,” she said.

I noticed she hadn't shaken her hair into her face once that day.

“Let's win this thing,” I said, “so I can tell the truth to Gravity and you can break up with Max in style.”

Aurora smiled and nodded.

We had barely finished cleaning our armor when the Sefs limped out of the Wasteland, covered in red.

The whistle screeched. “Final round! Fury Burds versus Master Cheefs!”

My stomach filled with butterflies. Butterflies with razor-sharp wings.

“This is it, guys,” I said to my guild. “We got this?”

“Got this!” Soup croaked, holding his bruised throat.

“I'll try to convince the wind to favor our paintballs,” Aurora said, pouring little mounds of sand in a circle around her.

“Um . . . that would be awesome,” I said.

I meant it. That
would
be awesome.

“Zxzord?” I said.

He didn't respond, just lay flat, arms crossed over his face.

“Okay. . . . Um, Meeki?” I said.

Meeki held up her gun. “The Meeki shall inherit the earth.”

“Excellent,” I said.

“But not for you.”

“Still fine,” I said. “Everyone,
stay alive
.”

I slid on my mask and tried my best not to admit we were probably completely screwed.

The coach blew his whistle.

We stepped into the Wasteland.

A shot rang out.

Again the coach blew his whistle. “Dead Burd!”

Purple paint dribbled down the side of Zxzord's mask. He had shot himself in the head.

“What the
hell
are you doing?” I asked him.

He pulled off his mask and threw it. “I'll be in the bathroom.”

“We all know you're faking,” I said.

“We're all faking,” Zxzord called over his shoulder, and then ambled back toward Video Horizons.

“Seriously?”
I said. This was the biggest betrayal I'd seen since Leeroy Jenkins.

“Rrg!” Meeki stormed over to the coach. She was arguing that we should get Parappa, the nerdcore kid, on our team because our player committed suicide . . . when red exploded out of the back of her neck.

Again the coach whistled. “Dead Burd!”

“Move,
move
!” I shouted, dragging Soup into the arena by his arm. Aurora ran in the opposite direction.

Soup and I fled deep into the Wasteland and hid behind a long, squat bunker. I peeked over the top and saw the coach point Meeki out of the arena.

Shit. This wasn't fair. We'd lost two players in less than a minute because one of our players was possibly faking heroin withdrawals. I wanted to rage quit the whole game right then. I couldn't.

Sand stung our faces. Gunshots cracked through the dry air. The sand sizzled my ass, and the air smelled like melting bunker plastic. We were in bullet hell.

“What do we do?”
Soup whispered, terrified.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“If we lose,” Soup said, “at least we can build sand castles together tomorrow.”

“No,” I said. “I will not admit defeat.”

Another shot. No whistle.

“Okay, here's what we're going to do,” I said, before I knew what to say. I searched the Wasteland and pointed to a bunker
that towered above the others. “I'm going to boost you up on top of that.”

Soup looked worried. “I'm scared of heights.”

“Well, then it's a good thing that you're a weaponized
animal
who doesn't know the meaning of heights, isn't it?”

Soup didn't look so sure.

“Come on,” I said. “I'll toss you up there like a Pikmin.”

He followed me into the shadow of the bunker. I cradled my hands, Soup stepped onto them, and I hefted him up. The bunker wobbled, threatening to tip over. Soup whimpered. But then it stabilized, forming a nice cozy cleft with him tucked inside. He peeked his nose over the edge to look down at me.

“For every Cheef you kill,”
I whispered,
“I'll spend a whole . . .
afternoon
with you back home.”

Soup nodded. “I trust you, Miles.”

I crept off to find Aurora. A shot rang out behind me, followed by Soup's giddy laughter.