Chapter 83: The Only Ones

Lena flung herself on me and squeezed so tight I could hardly have breathed if not for my HP. Not that I was complaining. I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her off her feet.

I was vaguely aware of Bernie nuzzling my leg, and even more vaguely of Zhizhi sagging against Miguel, while Erin pressed her back to one of the pressed board walls and Michelle pressed close and whispered to her. Vaguest of all was my recognition of who wasn’t present. Donica.

Reluctantly, I eased Lena back to the linoleum tiles with their Third Eye runic squiggles. She didn’t let go of me, though, so I held her with her head smushed against my chest until she got her sniffles under control.

Then she stepped back and rubbed her nose and eyes.

What remained of the first team had just made it to the intersection in the maintenance hallways when our backups joined us. I didn’t have a clear sense of the length of the tunnel, but I knew it was a lot longer than the concourse in Cinder Alley. “You guys made good time,” I said.

“We came running as soon as Mask showed up on the stream,” Lena said. “Sorry we didn’t get here sooner.”

“Don’t be.” I had no idea if it would’ve made a difference, having Lena and Michelle to back us up. Could we have saved Gerry? Or had Mask been toying with us the whole time?

I knew I was glad that Lena hadn’t been around to become a possible target of Mask’s Key.

“Don’t be sorry?” Michelle asked. She’d been comforting Erin, or being comforted by her, I couldn’t tell which, but now she glared at me. “Gerry’s... he’s...”

“He’s okay,” Erin said. “He’s going to be. We just have to find a Key and we can rescue him, and everyone.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Michelle asked.

Erin swallowed. “I can’t. But I believe it.”

Michelle hugged her arms.

“Where’s Donica?” Erin asked.

“Waiting outside,” Miguel said. “When we realized what was happening, she encouraged us to run to you. She was in no condition to do so, and as a non-player, not especially inclined to.”

“Didn’t stop you,” I said.

Instead of offering a good answer, he inclined his head.

“Did it really go down like it looked in the video?” Lena asked.

“I’m not sure how it looked, but probably, yeah.” I bent and picked up Bernie. Hugging him was almost as calming as hugging Lena. Though I couldn’t see him do it, I felt him give the side of my face a huge lick. “We can fill you in on any details later, after we get out of here.”

“We can’t leave now,” Lena said.

I shook my head. “There’s no point in going back, Lena. We don’t have the tools we need to follow Mask or find where he took Gerry. The best thing we can do now is to –”

“Collect as many Tickets as we can,” she said.

“What?” Michelle’s expression had started to soften, but her glare came back with full force. She directed it at Lena this time. “If that’s a joke, it’s an awful one.”

“The joke is that they drove Mask off, and you don’t want to power up when you have the chance,” Lena said.

“Power up?” Michelle shook her head. “You’re still treating this like a game.”

“Because that’s how it’s made!” Lena balled her fists. “If you think I want to do this for fun after what we just saw, think again. But if you think I’m going to pass up the chance to get stronger when the alternative is letting that bastard do whatever he wants to us? Think way the hell again.”

Michelle sagged.

Erin cocked her head. “You believe we drove Mask off?”

“For sure,” Lena said. “He didn’t come back, did he? Whatever he’s up to, he seems to want to capture strong players. The only reason he wouldn’t come back for you and Cam, Erin, is if his HP was too low for him to think he could win.”

“Maybe he was satisfied with abducting Gerry,” Erin said.

Even though she was answering Erin, Lena looked up at me. “Does Mask strike you as the kind of dude who would be satisfied with taking less than he can get?”

He did not. I started to shake my head, to back Lena up. I wanted to support her, sure, but more than that, her analysis of the situation seemed spot on to me, and it fit what we’d read in the invasion reports.

Then I thought about what it would mean to agree. If we persuaded the others, our group would go back to Cinder Alley. Back to the arcade. Back to those shadows. Playing games I didn’t care about at the best of times, while every moment wondering if Mask’s Key would turn one of those shadows into a portal and drag me through.

Or drag Lena through.

She searched my face.

I wrapped her into another hug, pressing Bernie between us.

I said, “I know you’re right. Just, I hate it.”

“Yeah, you must be sick of it happening all the time.” She tried to laugh but it didn’t quite come out right. She peeked over the top of Bernie. “Seriously, though.”

I shuddered. “I think we’ve got to try.”

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“No,” Michelle said. “No!”

“Chelle...” Erin began.

Michelle pushed her way. “Not you, too? This is ridiculous. Crazy!”

“Even Joon Woo agrees.” Erin showed her phone screen.

Michelle didn’t even glance at it. “Then screw him, too!”

She advanced on Lena and I and jabbed her finger forward.

Before she ever made contact, Lena skittered back like she’d gotten an electric shock.

“Listen, you,” Michelle said. “All of you! This game was cool and fun, and we could do amazing things, and the players were some of my cool and fun friends, and the new people seemed neat. Now one of my cool and fun friends? Gerry? He’s gone. You’re taking it on faith that he’s not dead! And it sounds like my teacher is, too!”

“I know,” I said. “It’s awful.”

“I was totally into it,” she said. “Now I am all the way out.”

“Cool,” Lena said. She recovered from her initial shock and pushed back. It was bizarre seeing her go nose to nose with someone about the same height, and it seemed to throw her off. Only for a second, though. “I guess you’re going to tell us how we get out, now?”

“Hit me,” Michelle said.

“What?” I asked. I sure wasn’t the only one.

“Hit me,” she repeated, “or I’m going to find a stick and bash myself in the head with it until I run out of HP. And I’ll do it every day until I drop out of the beta. Can’t take that long.”

“Chelle, please, stop,” Erin said. “I know you’re upset. Believe me, we all are. You can’t think being powerless is the way to solve this, though.”

“Can’t I?” Michelle locked eyes with Lena. In what I think was supposed to be an imitation of Lena’s voice, she said, “‘He seems to want to capture strong players.’”

I winced.

Lena probably should have. But Michelle mocking her voice had tipped her the rest of the way over from flight to fight. She pushed into Michelle’s chest. “Some friend.”

Michelle drew back. “Huh?”

“Gerry gets kidnapped,” Lena said, “and you go, ‘better him than me?’ Screw that, and screw you if you mean it.”

Michelle’s eyes widened. Her lip trembled. “It’s... it’s not like that...”

“I barely know Gerry,” Lena said. “One of the first things he ever said to me was to call my video cringe. Matt? He invaded me when I couldn’t fight back. Every time I’ve talked to him, he’s annoyed the crap out of me. He humiliated me in my own video and I had to smile about it for the camera.”

“S-so?”

“So, those guys are barely my acquaintances. They probably are people I’d call friends, but that’s because I’m kind of a fuckup.” Lena exhaled. Her anger left with the breath. What remained, forged in it, was the steel that made my heart skip a beat. Gently, firmly, she said, “But you know what? Somebody used Third Eye to hurt them. Third Eye is our only chance to help them. So I’m gonna.”

Michelle backed off. Erin touched her wrist, and she went to pieces. She collapsed against the wall, tears streaming down her face.

Erin knelt beside her.

Lena shrank in on herself. She tried to catch my eye without turning, but I could see her haunted expression. From steel to shattered at one burst of tears. She mumbled, “Too much?”

“I agree with you,” I said, “but... probably.”

She bit her nails.

I rubbed the small of her back, and it seemed to relax her some.

She squeezed her eyes shut and crouched in front of Michelle. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to go off on you.”

Michelle held up her hand, palm out, and shook her head. She started to try to speak, shuddered again, and fell silent.

I glanced over to see what Miguel and Zhizhi were doing. Whispering to each other, it turned out. I couldn’t see her expression, but he wore a wan smile. I suspected he agreed with my assessment of what Lena had said.

When I looked back to her and Erin and Michelle, I found Bernie at the feet of the latter. I glanced through my phone and saw him nuzzling her leg.

She half sobbed, half laughed, and reached down to pet his broad head. He murmured softly.

She blinked her tears away. “You say we’re the only ones who can help Gerry and Matt. But it’s not like that for me.”

“What is it like?” Erin asked.

Michelle turned to her. “I’m not like you. You know that.”

I didn’t. Whatever this was, was news to me.

Erin nodded, though. “You don’t have a Reactant yet.”

“Yet!” Michelle’s voice rose. She tamped it down.

I didn’t say anything, which was for the best, because my voice sure as hell would’ve risen, too. I’d thought I was leaving Lena with one other player who could fight beside her, and worried I didn’t know how strong Michelle was. Now I knew Lena would’ve been fighting solo if Mask had chosen to invade out there instead of in the arcade.

Lena took it better than I would’ve. She hung her head. “Shit. That’s rough.”

“I thought so, but...” Michelle shook her head. “I want to help Gerry and Matt. I do! But even if I tried, even if I get these Tickets, I’m powerless. I might as well be a non-player, except if somebody wants to farm XP off me, they can.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Erin said.

“You can’t stop it,” Michelle said.

Erin hung her head.

“I don’t mean it like that, Erin.” Michelle turned and hugged her friend. “I know you’re really good at this. So are Cam and Lena. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to beat this Mask guy, and stop the jerk in Florida from abusing the game, and even fight monsters if it comes to that.”

“We have to try,” I said. “Lena is right about that much. We’re the only ones who can.”

“Are you?” Michelle asked. “This is nothing like a game anymore. Can’t we call the cops and wash our hands of it?”

“‘Cops got better things to do than get killed,’” Lena quoted.

Michelle stared at her, aghast. So did Erin. Even Miguel and Zhizhi broke off from their private conversation to frown at her.

Lena scanned their faces. “Seriously? Nobody’s seen Big Trouble in Little China?”

“What are you talking about?” Michelle asked.

Lena looked so indignant, so offended, I couldn’t help but crouch next to her and kiss the side of her head. Into her hair, I whispered, “Maybe not the time for movie quotes.”

“It is always the time for movie quotes,” she said.

So I kissed her again.

Everyone except Miguel looked at us like we were both crazy. It’s not so much that he didn’t think so, too. He just already knew what to expect of us.

He and Zhizhi joined the huddle, although they stayed standing. He said, “Unfortunately, in this case, I’m afraid Lena is correct.”

“Not so much that they’d get killed,” Zhizhi said. “But how are the local cops supposed to arrest a guy who can literally melt through the floor?”

Erin and especially Michelle shrank in on themselves.

“By taking his phone away,” I said. That was what Lena and I had said to Benji about Omar when the subject of teleportation came up. Now that I’d seen what Mask could do, what Omar might be able to pull off as well, I knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

Michelle brightened, but Erin shook her head. So did Miguel and Zhizhi.

They got it.

So did Lena. “How would the cops get his phone away from him? It’s not like he’s gonna hand it over.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “That’s why we have to make sure we take all his HP for the day before turning him in.”