Chapter 6- Playground

  Bison and I are directed into what seems like a prison cell, awaiting the Arena gates to open. All pairs start at random intervals. Once all the gates are shut and ready, the lines on our carbon suits glow blue, our team color. Bison’s outline on my screen glows green, his alias and health bar above his head. Mine bore the bottom right of my screen and a two-hour timer on the left.

  Neither of us speaks as the countdown begins from thirty. I can’t tell from his velm if he’s pissed that I chose him.

  But in all honesty, it won’t matter once we win.

  When the alert buzzes red, the Arena door opens. With the map of the playground fresh in my mind, my first instinct is to sprint out, but I’m quickly halted as the room appears nothing like I recalled.

  It’s the same playground, alright, only magnified tenfold. The ceiling stretches so far up, clouds form on its own. The room expands far beyond what I’d perceived from the lobby. A colossal window with an afternoon ray seeping through the glass, shining light on the oversized dolls and giant stuffed animals scattered across the place, monsters in a labyrinth jungle. A tall bookshelf looms across the room, miles away, a mint green bed in the far center, then a set of children's tables and chairs. The ground is surprisingly mushy, a brightly puzzle-checkered foam across the floor. Various items littered before us, dollhouses, racing tracks, a kitchen set up, art and craft supply boxes that seemed to have been knocked from a table above, glitter, and crayons spread across the mats.

  “It’s like we shrank,” Bison says, sizing up the toy soldier who’s the same height as him.

  We carefully study our surroundings before deciding on our next move. It’s awfully quiet.

  “Let’s get somewhere high,” I suggest. “Find the puzzle first.”

  “We need weapons,” he retorts.

  “We’ll find them on our way.”

  “And risk running into enemies?”

  “They’ll leave us alone!”

  Bison audibly snorts. “Have you ever played battle royale before?”

  I can’t afford a gaming console, let alone the game, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “I don’t have time for games.”

  “Then listen to me,” Bison exclaims. “No matter what the objective is, players will always prioritize eliminating other players. We can’t be caught empty-handed.”

  “Well, we should avoid getting into any brawls.” Eliminating players won’t gain me extra points. Battles this early will only put me at a disadvantage. “The best strategy right now is to let the other teams take each other out, while keeping ourselves hidden.”

  “What’s the fun in that?” Bison is already strolling into the depths of the arts and craft district, toward the wall of animal plushies.

  I have no other choice but to follow. “The fun is when we win.”

  Eventually, we come across a glowing chest, bright against the cardboard box. Bison pops open the lid, and a bright pixelated star hovers out. My screen centers on the amplifier, and a description box appears: Star Power up grants temporary super speed.

  “Tap onto chest to consume, or into either pocket to store,” Bison reads, and puts the star away, vanishing on his right hip. “Same rules as the Portal World, huh. I smell a lawsuit coming.”

  “If you know this game so well, you should know all the tricks and stuff, no?”

  “Every game is different in its own way. But for now, we should cut noise. Try not to alert enemies.”

  Best suggestion he’s made so far. Since he’s confident in his skills, I follow him deeper into the jungle. But when the flooring changes from foam to carpet, we come to a halt. The narrow space widens. Plush animals spread sparsely, leading us into an open area where the carpet pools into a blue pond. A chest lies in the very center.

  “Let’s skip this one,” I propose. “We shouldn’t be in the open.”

  Bison stands still in consideration. “Don’t you know the best items are usually in dangerous areas?”

  “Not worth it.”

  “No risk, no reward.” He parts. “Wait here. I’ll be quick.”

  Within just a few steps of his departure, I feel a hard object wedge into the middle of my spine.

  Enemies.

  Fuck.

  I immediately freeze, anticipating the burst of a paintball, but it doesn’t come.

  “Hands up,” says my assaulter.

  Viper, I recognize.

  Bison hears her, too, and turns over his shoulder as I slowly raise both arms.

  Falcon steps forward, his neon green color spiraling on his back. A red outline forms over his silhouette, their full health bar above their head. Enemy.

  “You too, big boy,” Viper adds, cockiness in her tone. “Hands where I can see them.”

  He hesitates for a second. Possibly considering abandoning me, cut his losses early. Maybe it’s not a loss at all, now that I realize he’s right—we should’ve searched for guns the moment we stepped into the playground. With his middle fingers up, Bison raises both hands.

  “Check his pockets,” Viper says to Falcon.

  And we’re fucked. Screwed. But when another second prolongs, I think otherwise. No doubt there’s a gun on my back, but why didn’t she just shoot while our attention was diverted? It’s not a paint gun.

  “Mugging us?” Bison asks him.

  “Saw an empty chest and followed your trail,” Viper says. “Surrender whatever you have, and we’ll let you go this time. Friend's discount.”

  Bison chuckles. “It’s nothing useful, honestly. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Just give it to them,” I grumble. A full spray-down from a water gun will chunk 75% of our health. Too much loss this early. The star’s not worth it.

  I feel Bison’s glare on me as Falcon approaches him.

  “Whoa, buddy,” he says, taking a step back while keeping his palm up. “I don’t recommend touching me below the belt if you know what’s good for you, Toothless.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The boxer, whose brother won three world championships in a row, comes to school with missing teeth from his weekend skirmishes. So Falcon usually keeps his mouth shut for most of the day.

  Falcon pauses shortly before him, annoyed that he’s even taking orders from his victim. Bison makes a show of putting down a hand slowly, reaching for his right pocket. Before he makes a tap, he glances over to me with a look I can only read as, Take care of Viper.

  My face drops. Fighting an armed opponent is precisely what I’m avoiding, especially when my success rates are low. I make a gesture of refusal with a slight shake of the head, but it’s too late. His gaze locks onto the star hovering in his palm. As Falcon reaches for it, Bison slams it to his chest.

  A bright sheen casts over his body. One second, the two stood in the center of the pond, then they were gone the next, leaving an afterimage of glittering dust across the field. They reappear across the floor further than before, gone in a blink once again to another location like a bullet ricocheting in a pressurized chamber. The movements are too quick for me to follow. So I don’t, and fix my attention to the opponent on my back.

  Viper is still in the middle of her shock, watching her partner get thrown from the belly of a penguin plush to a seal. I seize this opportunity and hook her ankle with mine. She buckles backwards, a spray of water up in the air. I dodge the splash, taking Viper to the ground with me. I grapple for her gun, hands over hers; she sends a knee to my ribs. I suck in the pain and swerve the muzzle away from my direction, letting the tank drain empty. When the last drop squirts out, the weapon fades into pixels like a glitch in the system—gone from her grasp. Then we’re back to tumbling back and forth, I thread her knee as she laces the other, exchanging punches and strikes.

  Even though we’re allowed to land punches deeper than skin contact, it feels foul, like I’m breaking the rules of our usual sparring exercise. I relish this feeling.

  We’re the same height and build—we can probably wear the same clothes—so I can’t easily overpower her, or her against me. Eventually, she tosses me on my back, her arm in the air, ready to strike down.

  I cross my arms over my chest, waiting for the blunt force, but Viper never makes contact.

  Instead, a thud blows on her back. A bloom of lemon smoke erupts in the air before my eyes. Her visor glitches. Not a single muscle moves on her body. She’s stunned. A paintball has hit her.

  As the yellow mist hides me under, I remove her aside. My heart races. Eyes scanning the field for the third team. Before the smoke clears completely, I hear another pop. The smoke erupts from afar, and an alert follows immediately: Teammate in need of assistance, two minutes to unfreeze before player’s elimination.

  Shit.

  Bison’s nowhere in sight, but I see the forest green smoke about thirty meters away. I start toward him, but quickly remember that a paintball has a total of three bullets. Two popped, one bullet left. One too many, if you ask me. Without knowing where the shooter is, I can’t blindly run across the open. If I get hit, I’ll be back in the lobby before the game even starts.

  Do I need to save him? I told him we should avoid fighting this early, given that all the players are still in-game. If I knew we were not compatible, I should've taken someone else, someone more compliant. So he had it coming. I’ll cut my losses early and make do without him.

  As the smoke fades, Falcon emerges in the distance, headed towards me. I embrace myself for another battle, but the moment he sprints without regard for the shooter at large, I realize he’s going for Viper.

  He’s risking it, but then again, so am I if I’m outnumbered every fight. Without another thought, I rise from the ground and bolt across the pond. I scan the jungle for the shooter, but there’s no one but us. Therefore, I can only conclude that the shooter is from above.

  Falcon and I swiftly pass each other, the timer bleeding down.

  Bison is a few yards away when I hear the pop loud and clear—the last shot. Something in my body tells me that the bullet is for me. And something in my body tells me not to take another step. All my muscles lock in place as a ball, the size of a fist, slams down inches from my feet—a deep violet cloud fumes over my vision. Hah, you missed.

  The high of the triumph floods in quickly, knowing I read the shooter like a book. Better luck next time. But I don't celebrate just yet. I dive into the haze of the mist and tap Bison on the shoulder to unfreeze, then haul him back into the depths of the jungle, where we disappear.

  ***R***

  “Nice try,” I tell Raven. The shiny plastic paint gun vanishes from her violet-striped arms.

  When the smoke clears, Qonni and Bison are nowhere to be seen. We lost them.

  “Ugh, I had her,” Raven groans, and falls backwards off the edge of the bed frame and plops onto the fluffy mint duvet. She cries into the blanket, kicking and slamming her fist until she tires herself out. “You wouldn’t have missed that shot.”

  I chuckle politely. “Guess we’ll never know.”

  Raven made the right call to climb up, but then again, we got lucky; a chest miraculously spawned next to us as we left our starting cell. And adding to our luck, we spotted the two most threatening teams going neck-and-neck.

  “Find anything interesting?” Raven asks when her tantrum dies.

  I gesture at the spot next to me, where I already mapped out the terrain of the playground. The Arena is split into two territories: the jungle and the town. The jungle is littered with stuffed animals, spilled art supplies, and knocked-down book piles, as if a toddler ransacked it right before our drill. In the middle of the mess is an elaborate arrangement of stuffed animals in a closed circle, and a single plastic toy sits in the dead center. One of the two puzzles we’re supposed to find, if I have to guess. There’s no clear path that leads straight into it, so without the knowledge from what I know up here, it’ll be a nightmare to find, if possible at all.

  On the other hand, the town begins right below us. Carpeted floors of roads and sidewalks, rows of dollhouses, creating formatted streets, ornate with tall lamp posts, idle cars, and figurines. In the heart of the residence stands a town square, with a large, jarring xylophone that doesn’t quite fit the environment.

  The other puzzle.

  I tell Raven my findings and speculations.

  “But that would be too obvious, no?” I add. “Out in the open like this. It’s too easy.”

  “Maybe it’s just that simple.” She shrugs. “Let’s say you’re right, and this is the puzzle. How do we solve it? By playing music?”

  “We’ll need notes.”

  The search doesn’t take long as we find a spreadsheet painted on the mural. Stars scattered over the wall, a gawking sailor on a boat at the base, the composition written in between.

  “Can you read musical notes?” Raven asks.

  You’d think that I would. I stare at the wall, remembering the many times I rejected musical lessons despite Ama’s protest, something I regret now. “No,” I shamefully answer. “But that might not be necessary.” I point out the various colors the notes are painted with. The colors match the bars on the Xylophone. “You don’t need any musical skills to play the chords.”

  “So we just play the whole composition?” Raven reflects. “That’s the puzzle?”

  “We’ll have to part from here. One of us reads the note and color, the other plays the note. It’s going to be loud and attract the entire lobby to us. We’re practically begging for a bloodbath.”

  I idled there for a moment, exploring solutions and ogling at the other teams fighting in various places. There are too many of us in the game right now.

  “Let’s wait for the player pool to shrink,” I suggest. “It’s only a matter of time before they eliminate each other.”

  She nods in assent. “What will we do in the meantime?”

  “Let’s continue looting.”

  *

  Raven and I find both of the guns and a star amplifier, before she suggests a better idea.

  Near the town square, we leave out an unopened chest, hide from view, and wait for other teams to take the bait. Unfortunately, we only take out a single team before we lose the paint gun.

  In the middle of salvaging the eliminated team’s item, a pixelated health that restores 25 health and a shield, another team sandwiches us from both ends.

  Viper and Falcon. Both around seventy health, their water guns trained on us.

  “Whoa,” Raven says, taking a step back, knocking into me. “Let’s talk here, yeah?”

  “Some dirty tricks you’re playing here,” she says. “I respect it, though.”

  These two are phantoms in the night. I’d been cautiously watching our backs and still couldn’t hear them coming.

  “You really want to fight us like this?” I ask, keeping my weapon on Falcon. “It’ll be messy.”

  “Then give us your gun,” Falon says, “and that heart.”

  Raven and I exchange glances. Would it be worth fighting them now? It’ll be a messy clash. As I mentioned before, noise will attract other players. While we’re down and injured to the last bit of health, the last thing I want is for another team to show up and clean us all out after we fought their fight. But since we’re unlikely to win against everyone, the only way is to surrender our weapons.

  That or—

  “I have a better idea,” I propose.

  “Yeah?” Viper answers.

  “Let’s team up.”