SAVE POINT 111

Loading A Turn of Events...55%

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EmeraldCity_88

I would say 'it's good to be back' but...well, these guys are as prickly as I remember them. The ironic part? The lot of them are like little pillows compared to Skipper, and that's a bleaker thought than I want to ponder right now.

I munch on the oatmeal consistency MRE the pink-haired one gave me. Thanks to the overall lack of seasoning and flavor, my throat is currently Shahara dry. I lean across the wood conference table, reaching to uncap a bottle of what appears to be fruit punch while all of them stare at me like I'm a gorilla in a zoo. Just even more egged on to be an animal because of their open states, I wash it all down with a gulp.

"If I wasn't absolutely desperate, you guys would seem like assholes," I say around a belch as I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth, "You really couldn't spare anything more tasteless from that vast kitchen of yours?" I lift a sarcastic eyebrow. I watch the words simmer like a boiling kettle on the freckles one's thin lips.

"We're in a bit of a pickle," she admits.

'Pickle'? I laugh to myself. Why does she sound so uptight and British? This should be good. 'Cause if they're in a 'pickle' now, they have no fucking idea about the shit storm that my little sis is probably about to rain down on their heads.

"Joy said your sister is targeting me," the brunette one steps forward—Rosabella, the Game Maker. Her arms are crossed firmly over her chest, and her eyes are a deep, unnerving brown that pinch as they sear into my soul, "She has to have a reason—"

I throw my hands down at my sides, "I don't know why." My voice holds more than a little annoyance. "All I know is that she's not the same and has some sort of grudge—"

"Describe 'not the same'", now, the freckled guard crosses her arms too.

They're all staring at me. ...I mean, having an enraptured audience is great. On YouTube. On stage. ...Except it's making me fucking exhausted. My legs, swinging off the edge of the conference room table, ache from all the walking I've done—the kind of deep-seated ache that feels like it's coming from the inside of my bones out. What, have I turned into Jack Skellington? My body feels like a limp noodle, and these people are questioning me like we're in a police examination room? Fuck this.

I hop gingerly, wincing, off the table, pulling the elastics out of my pom-pom pigtails and shaking my short, green hair out like a dog. "You know," I gripe as I run my fingers through the thick, dyed strands, "I'm not really sure what's in all this for me." A cheeky grin slides on my face—I feel it. But no one else is smiling. The pink-haired warrior takes a sudden step towards me. She's so close she has to look down to breathe heavily and nasally in my face—gross. The smell of disdain and leather coming off her from the multiple weapons straps crisscrossed on her belt and back makes me stop...just a little.

"How 'bout we let you live," she snarls.

Excellent level of infuriated and condescending.

Right inflection.

She could work on her intimidation level, but it just might be that I'm immune at this point.

"Very good," I coo back, rolling my eyes to look back at the group, "You guys have a guard dog—"

"You can have a room here," the Game Maker blurts hastily, "A bed with a soft mattress. Somewhere out of the weather. No bars. No limits."

"Plenty of cockroaches," the nerdy one slumped in the chair whispers under his breath, so low I can barely hear it.

"What?" I ask.

But my mind is already churning—spinning and liking how things are spinning in a positive direction for me suddenly. A real mattress? God, that would be better than a drawer full of cat socks right now...

I come back to reality to find them all staring expectantly at me. And, to be frank, expectations and I don't mix.

"Listen, I want unlimited room service with the room," I negotiate firmly.

"Fine," Rosabella quips.

"Unlimited cable?" I query.

"Unlimited bugs," the dork whispers again.

"What's with the bug thing?!" I spit, whirling on him.

The freckled, girl guard taps her long, pale fingers on the navy arm of her uniform. "We're having a bit of an infestation currently," she admits, her face crunching up in an embarrassed wince.

"Tell us about your sister or no room, no room service, no cable and no fucking sympathy," starts the pink-haired girl, reaching for the front of my shirt like she's going to punch me.

I shove her off, "Okay, okay! Just...I brought her back from the dead—"

"You what?!" Rosabella looks shocked.

"I knew that bitch was crazy!" the black guy by her side points at me, his eyes flashing white and wide as he points, "She has green hair! Exhibit fucking A—"

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Oh, he is going down. No man ever calls me the 'c' word—

I fly forward, "You wanna fight? I'll fight you—"

But he just chuckles down at me like his muscles do all the talking, "And you would lose, small girl. I'm a dragon—"

"Back to your sister," the Game Maker rests a hand on her man's arm, trying to calm him as she stares intently at me, "You brought her back to life?"

And I nod, holding up my hands defensively, "It's shitty and selfish of me, I know, so, if you're going to lecture me, take a hike. But I made a wager with a servant of mine—she was in a multiplayer mode. I told her, if she won, she'd win her freedom...as long as she told The Game she wanted my sister to come to life again—"

"But you can't do that!" the nerdy one bolts to standing. He runs a frazzled hand through his dark hair as his eyes crunch calculous. His words come out in rapid speech, "In multiplayer mode, The Game detects what you most want and gives it to you if you win. It would be that girl's wish—"

"Well it was," I state sourly, "She wanted her freedom so bad that she asked internally for my wish—"

"Highly improbable," the kid counters, raising a dark eyebrow.

"Probability is for losers and tools and, obviously, it worked so," I twirl a I'm-right-and-you're-wrong strand of hair around a finger.

The dweeb cocks his head to the side, narrowing his eyes, "But you said she wasn't the same. In my coding class we learned that the one thing The Game can't do is bring people back from the dead."

Oh my God. Do I have to spell it out for this kid?!

"So it didn't work," he continues.

"She's alive, she's out in the freaking forest with a tank and an army of scumbag wannabes, why aren't you hearing what I'm saying?!" I clench my hands at my sides and my jaw, "Is she different? Yes. She wanted to kill a kid and she can't remember stuff, and she apparently hates cats now but...well, she's there—she's in the flesh and blood and I missed her so..." I kinda more than hate how I suddenly feel like crying in front of these strangers.

I'm just tired—that's it. I followed a glowing orb through the night holding the sticky hand of a child that is most certainly not mine and, now, I'm exhausted beyond belief. Luckily, the kid had been happily absorbed into the pool of people, and I don't have to worry about him anymore... I resist the urge to close my eyes and leave them that way.

"About that bed..." I prod.

But the nerd's fingers type rapidly in the air. His eyes snap over the floating, neon commands suddenly there, "I'm searching for her. What's her name again? Maybe I can GEOlocate her and check her stats—"

"Oh my God, my bed please, you promised," I insist, whining now.

But the freckled guard speaks over me to the nerd, completely ignoring my plea, "Skipper. Her name's Skipper."

I roll my eyes, "You're just going to find out she's alive—"

"Got it!" The dork throws an excited hand up in the air, but his eyes, scanning over numbers flashing through the air, cloud with confusion, and his hand drops slowly, "Oh, that's weird."

"What is it, Dormouse?" Rosabella steps forward, looking concerned.

...And none of them are paying attention to me again...great...

"Her tag, check this out," Dormouse hits a key, pulling up a screen:

REVISION53_SKIPPER

I squint at the label. That's Skipper's tag? "Revision? What does that mean?" I blurt, trying hard to keep alarm out of my voice but failing.

The dork nudges a wave of dark hair from out of his eyes as he turns to answer, "It means her avatar was generated several times. 52 times to be exact. And it finally generated correctly on the 53rd time."

Correctly?

If his voice wasn't so gratingly nasal, maybe I would be able to focus. As it is, my thoughts are spiraling. The Game tried to generate Skipper 52 times and only got it on the last one—what does that mean?

"I don't get it," I blurt roughly.

From across from me, Rosabella folds her arms over her chest, chuckling in agreement, "Honestly, I tell him that all the time—"

Dormouse rolls his eyes like he's conversing with kindergarteners; his fists clench, "It's like when you try to download a photo or video on your phone, and it fails. The generation stopped."

"...And what would make it stop?" I prod, finding myself leaning in. My voice is an intent and maybe-scared whisper.

"Well, that's where it's weird because..." the kid trails off, passing another frazzled hand through his hair, "I mean, I know in the back of my mind from training that The Game can't resuscitate the dead. I can see here that the coding is attempting to recompile old memories of hers but it's...well, it's strange... It appears it couldn't complete the task with solely only the memories. It kinda looks like it mixed something else in there to—like how you mix an egg into a cake when baking—to hold everything together..."

"What, dude—what did it mix with the memories? I've had enough of this beating around the bush," the dark-skinned man complains, taking his sunglasses off and folding them to slide on the front of his shirt.

And Dormouse's face pales further. His eyes dart to the freckled, girl guard as though looking for encouragement. "It's The Game," he squeaks, "It's like The Game built a child for itself, mixing it's consciousness and identity with some but not all of her sister's memories. Skipper's a metaphorical tank—a weapon. You said she doesn't like Rosabella?" The kid stares at me, whimpering. And I feel my eyes grow huge because...

I knew something was off.

It's not Skipper—she's not Skipper! Well, not wholly. She's mixed with The Game? She's part Game? The part that wanted to murder a boy? The part that wanted to imprison me? The part that said she was going to teach the Game Maker a lesson?

"Yes, she definitely hates Rosabella," I say solemnly.

"So, she's the one sending the threats," the pink-haired girl speaks like it's a vow, "Dormouse, can you find her location?"

But that's when something screeches.

Loud.

Like nails on a chalkboard.

Both hands fly to cover my ears. My eyes squeeze shut—

> She's coming. To stop this kind of darkness, you need both light and dark. Two halves. Working together like yin and yang. Don't ignore this or The Game will eat itself like a snake consuming it's young. And you and your friends are the young.

The screeching noise stops. The booming voice stops, and I right myself again to see that only Rosabella and I are reacting. The rest of the group watches us, confused.

"Are you guys—okay?" Dormouse sputters.

But I barely hear him.

I lock eyes with Rosabella, and there's a knowing there. She heard it too. She heard the same voice which spoke to me in the forest when I saved Darren. Somehow, it was just us—connected somehow.

"Light and dark," the Game Maker whispers, nearly inaudibly. And she meets my eyes again, "I'll walk you to your room now."

"I'll go with you," the pink-haired warrior jumps up, but Rosabella extends a blocking arm, never taking her eyes from mine.

"No," she says, "We go alone. I'll be back in a minute. I promise."

And the other girl drops back, though hesitantly.

Must stink to be so guarded all the time...