Chapter 72

It was the adrenaline. Or it was the shock. The surprise. Something crystallized my response to the sight above me into a near-perfect reaction. Employing AGILITY requires surrender. It does get easier with practice, but in the early days, it actually takes tremendous concentration for a contestant or young Griidlord to both surrender the use of their body while still instructing and guiding it.

The body moves at incredible speeds normally when one is using AGILITY, hurtling through the air, twisting, turning, like the most terrifying ride at a fair. The brain's natural reaction is to try and intervene, to seize control. But in that moment, Lance stared down the length of his sword at me, aiming, the blade glowing.

I told my body that I wanted to be clear of the hole, and fast. I could have ducked back in, but the light line was above me. I needed to get above it, but I also needed not to get erased by the BEAM that was about to sear toward me. Even as my artificial muscles began to contract, Mario was booming, "Tiberius has ten seconds."

The suit's AGILITY kicked in, and my movements became a blur. My body twisted and launched upward in a graceful arc, narrowly avoiding Lance's BEAM as it lanced past where I had just been. The world spun around me as I executed a series of acrobatic maneuvers that would have been impossible without the suit.

I felt the acceleration pushing into me. The first leap made me feel like a rocket lifting off, piercing upwards. I cut up through the air like an arrow. As I rose, the suit tucked my legs into my body, and I spun, tight and fast, over and over. I arced above my targeted landing spot and dropped neatly onto it.

The crowd erupted in cheers and screams. The display of acrobatics had thrilled them. To those who cared, the sudden shift in my position changed the dynamic with Lance as well. Above me, Lance's mouth folded into a savage, seething snarl.

A lot of information needed processing in a short window of time. Lance was tracking me with his blade, trying to hit me as I landed. I had a mild elation. Mario had announced that I had ten seconds when I emerged, even though I had emerged below the light line. I had assumed that doing that would have resulted in ejection.

The voice hissed, "They need to be on their best behavior. They've been too obviously against you so far. They might try and duplicitously work against you, like they did today choosing a challenge that exploited your weakness, but they won't let the crowd see them working against you, not with Baltizar waiting in the wings to fight your corner."

Even as the voice spoke, I leapt again, performing another acrobatic move to another girder as Lance's BEAM missed me by inches. My mind raced, taking in the situation. I was dancing on the final feet of the second last level. This level was composed of steel girders jutting from the tower at random points, and above this level was 30 feet of pipes, like the ones we started with. Only now the pipes were even further spaced, and now they were 300 feet above the ground instead of 20 or 30. Beyond that was the conical top of the tower, the slopes of the cone not too steep to stand on. That was where Lance had positioned himself.

The white line separated the level of pipes from the cone, the safe zone. I leapt again as Lance fired, narrowly avoiding his BEAM. The light line was rising above this level, which was a shame. The girders were wide enough for me to balance on them without needing my left hand. The narrow pipes above were less convenient. The tower had narrowed considerably, the four walls closer together. As I leapt, I caught a glimpse of Katya fending off Gideon as they both dangled from the pipes of the next level.

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Lance turned from me, confusing me, until I saw Lauren skittering up the pipes towards him. He blasted at her, and she diverted from her path. He was playing king of the castle, intending to be declared Griidlord today if he could. His distraction was a boon. I leapt, sparing my AGILITY, and caught a pipe from the next level with my right hand, taking my time, heaving myself up to standing, using the wall of the tower to balance me. The light line below slipped over the last of the girders. This was it. I was on the last level, and there were 10 minutes left.

Gideon and Katya separated from their dueling. Katya, I was sure, had already figured out the predicament, but it was only just dawning on Gideon. Lance was on reasonably sure footing, with the elevated position, a powerful BEAM attribute, and the intention of deleting all four of us if he could. We had essentially no cover; the pipes weren't worth much. As I thought this, Lance fired at me, and I leapt. I would have fired back, but my sword was not equipped; I needed both hands for now. The BEAM, intended for me, struck the pipe I had just been standing on, shearing it away. Pipes would not make good cover.

What ensued was a frustrating battle. The four of us, moving between pipes, either had to keep our weapons sheathed or use them from precarious positions. Either scenario resulted in the same: Lance could shoot at us with comfort and face very little risk of having fire returned against him. There was no formal declaration of allegiance this time; we all four just understood that we couldn't afford to make targets of one another.

We leaped from pipe to pipe, constantly dodging and repositioning. Lance frantically tried to cover all approaches, his BEAM slicing through the air and shearing pipes that rained down below. At one point, Katya nearly reached Lance, but his advanced CUT sent her tumbling. My heart leapt in my chest, but she spun and caught herself, so graceful and natural that it was awe-inspiring. The light line continued to creep up.

Lance was tiring. I was stunned he was able to use so much BEAM, but it was clearly fatiguing. The bolts he sent became lesser and lesser. That was how it seemed to be with attributes; I could only use AGILITY so much before the neural pathways in my brain that operated the attribute began to go numb. The same seemed to be true for BEAM. Sadly, he had used CUT very sparingly, so we had to expect him to be ready to use that next if any of us did succeed in reaching him.

Each of us was biding our time, trying to find an opening. Katya and Gideon had stopped their skirmish, now focusing entirely on navigating the pipes and avoiding Lance's BEAM. I glanced at Lauren, who was inching closer from another angle. The four of us were like a pack of wolves, circling a dangerous prey.

HEARING brought the sound of Lance's breathing to me. He was breathing hard and fast, maybe more from stress than exertion. He fired another BEAM at Gideon. The big man ducked out of the way, the beam streaking past him. The blast sheared another pipe from the tower and it tumbled away. I used the distraction to move a few feet closer. I never took my eyes from Lance. His shots were getting sloppier, his aim less precise. He was nearing his limit.

But so were we. Every movement expended energy, and he was certainly keeping us moving. My wrist throbbed, my shoulder burned. But I was matching well. Katya was dancing from point to point, cool as ever. Lauren's jaw was set in that same stern set, letting nothing show. Gideon's expression was one of hungry rage, but then, his expression was always one of hungry rage.

The light line was coming, closer and closer. We had minutes, maybe less. Lance knew it too. His every move grew more urgent, maybe even to the point of panic. He knew he couldn't hold us off forever. Of course, he didn’t have to. Just for another few minutes.

It was getting harder to navigate. The battle was removing pipes at a prodigious rate, the spaces between them growing wider and wider, the gaps less even. I had to employ AGILITY more and more. But then, finally, Lance aimed his blade and it pulsed. Sputtered might be more accurate, and failed to send the spear of energy. His BEAM was exhausted. Lauren, Katya, and I were spread only a few feet apart, directly below him. We'd had to edge higher as the light line rose; there was only a gap of 16 or 17 feet left.

Then Lance did something that I momentarily couldn't explain. He dropped from the security of the cone and grabbed a pipe, dangling from it. In the first moment, I couldn't explain it, but in the next, his intention became devastatingly clear.