Chapter 28
Bobby rubbed the tiredness from his eyes as his alarm assaulted him from the corner of his nightstand. He was not a morning person. Is anyone really a morning person? He forced himself to wake up. For Bobby, the morning grind was the worst part of this new life. He wondered how all those “five-am tech bros” did it. Procrastinating getting up, Bobby continued to think about his old life in Austin. He missed his friends, his bar, and his band. Intellectually he knew he would be back home soon enough, but emotionally that knowledge didn’t quell the twinge of homesickness he felt. Sure, he was making some good new friends, but no one that he could trust like his chosen family back in Texas. Luckily, the excitement of The Healer Challenge today helped diffuse those feelings of loneliness and isolation a bit. Bobby didn’t know too much about Aurora, the current Herald in the seat of The Healer on this iteration of The Council; still, the idea of the first official Top Seed event was exciting in and of itself.
Finally wrangling the willpower to get going for the day, Bobby grabbed his costume that he had laid out the night before and made his way to the ensuite bathroom to wash his face with cold water. In the reflection of the bathroom mirror, he noticed a half-dressed Joel lingering in the doorway, clearly working up the courage to speak. Bobby wasn’t sure why, but Joel wore an uncharacteristically spooked expression. Between that, and the midnight nightmare scare, he wondered if he should broach the subject, but it didn’t take a psychologist to know that Joel was slow to let new friends in. Were they even really friends yet? Bobby supposed he used that term loosely. Over the last month, the roommates had grown pretty close, so yeah, Bobby definitely was starting to consider Joel a friend.
Joel finally got up the nerve to confront Bobby about whatever was bothering him and quietly, nervously asked. “Hey…how’d you sleep?”
“Fine. Better than you, anyway, Mr. Night-Terror! Why do you ask?” Bobby answered.
“Oh! Just wondering, I guess. No reason. Anyway, gotta finish getting my uniform on.” Joel nervously stuttered as he slipped out of the bathroom doorway back into the bedroom.
Bobby assumed Joel was nervous about the challenge today, but this was odd behavior, even for him. He couldn’t focus on his roommate at the moment. Bobby got dressed and secured his mask into place. He grabbed his storybook and placed it into its dedicated holster. His costume complete, he paused and smiled sideways. Bobby had never imagined what he would look like as a Herald, but he felt like a whole new person. He struck a heroic pose and laughed. “This trial is gonna be fun!”
***
“Welcome to your very first challenge, contestants!” The Show appeared on the jumbotron overhead and shouted in excitement as The Challengers exited the tunnel and made their way to centerfield of the Dual Arena.
Bobby looked around. The Arena was covered in what looked like a high-tech tent. There were no fans in the stands, so the 24 contestants were alone in the massive colosseum.
“This challenge will be a team event. The All-Stars will head to the upper arena after I explain the rules. Both teams will be competing at the same time and will face the same dangers.” The Show explained as fancy graphics flashed on the huge screen. “Which brings me to the Technology Dome. Using tech developed by our own Dorian Dusk, your current Innovator, we have combined holograms and cybernetics to turn these arenas into anything we want, populated with whatever and whoever we like. While the images are simulated, the dangers are very real.”
Bobby had never heard of anything like this, but it didn’t really surprise him. When you work with the best metas and minds in the world, they are bound to come up with some cool new shit. He looked at his team of Challengers. They didn’t seem nearly as focused as the All-Stars. That concerned him. Even that Artie guy seemed to have a new level of focus during the briefing.
“We will use this technology to simulate an attack on Cyber City’s downtown by a team of supervillains. Your team’s mission is to save civilians, avoid property damage, and subdue the villains!” The Show paused for canned applause and reaction shots from each of the competitors. He then directed his attention through the jumbo screen and directly at the Top Seed cast. “Each one of you will be given a panic button which is only to be pressed if and when you feel you, or another teammate, are truly in extreme, life-threatening danger. It will teleport the button presser, along with anyone they are touching, to safety. But it’s a one-way trip. Once used, you will be unable to return to the trial. Use it wisely.”
Bobby’s gears started turning as he looked at the empty leaderboard rankings displayed next to the jumbotron’s screen. He was happy to have a potential safety net, but with all this complexity, how the hell were they going to do the ranking?
“Now you must be asking yourself how the rankings will be assessed.” The Show continued, “Well, it’s fairly simple. Thanks to our great Innovator, we have developed a complex algorithm to identify and grant the top ten individual competitors points based on over a billion variables pertaining to the main criteria of civilians saved, property damage averted, and villains subdued. So, in essence, first place will receive ten points; second place, nine points; and so on and so on, with tenth place receiving just one point. In addition, every member of the winning team will receive 10 points for their collective victory. You don’t want to finish on the losing team, especially if you don't crack the top ten individual ranks. Zero points would be a disastrous start indeed.” Bobby hoped The Show’s explainer was almost over; he was itching to get started. “Now, with all that out of the way, let’s get the first challenge started! It's showtime, people! Time to see who has it in them to start off the year as the top seed!”
***
The All-stars were escorted to their separate arena while Bobby and his fellow Challengers stood around waiting anxiously.
June was the first to break the silent tension. “So we should probably decide on some smaller squads if we want to be the winning team.”
“Yes. Does anyone here have an ability that will allow for communication over long distances?” Ken followed up.
“Who the fuck died and made you two the leaders?” Cecilia asked pointedly.
“Look. No one else seemed willing to step up. And I have had some training in this sort of thing.” June said bluntly. She was putting on her best Herald impression.
“Is that supposed to impress me? We all made it through The Culling. I, for one, am not going to be dragged down by anyone else. It’s obvious that the key to winning this whole thing is to be one of the Top 10 individuals. No way I’m getting zero points in the first challenge.”
“Yeah. Fuck that noise!” Connor emphasized with bitter determination.
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“Please, everyone, be calm. We must work as a team to succeed. The best way to avoid earning zero points is to be on the winning team.” Ken insisted.
“Nah, I’m with Ceci and Connor. Everyone man for himself.” Spencer reiterated.
“Don’t call me Ceci,” Cecilia said. ‘And patronizing misogyny aside, I think we agree.” She looked at Ken and June, “You all can do whatever you want, but I’m placing my fate firmly in my own hands.”
“Can I at least join you to make sure you stay safe?” Megan asked sheepishly.
Cecilia sighed and nodded.
June and Ken looked around for backup when out of nowhere, Ashley chimed in, “Everyone should do what they think is best. If you want to squad up, then fine, but as long as we win, who cares? I’ll be going solo because I work best when I'm alone.” That pretty much shut down the conversation.
Bobby watched the shitshow unfold with a jaundiced eye. Based on the rules and their attitude, his team was definitely going to lose. The All-Stars may be C-listers at best, but they had been trained to work as a unit to even become Heralds in the first place. They knew when and how to put their egos aside for the greater good, even if only temporarily. His team couldn’t decide on a single strategy right now if their lives were on the line. He gripped his panic button, attaching it to a wristband for easy access. With how things were going, it seemed likely that he would need it. There wasn’t time to dwell on the negative, so Bobby walked over to Bailey and Joel, who were, of course, standing together. “So this is already fucked. Want to be a squad? You two are the only ones I even remotely trust.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bailey replied, speaking over Joel, who was mumbling some sort of statement of gratitude. This didn’t bode well for their communication in the coming trial.
Bobby laughed, “Let’s kick this challenge’s ass!”
An alarm sounded throughout the arena as a city sprung up from the turf in front of everyone’s eyes. Visually it was as if the city was being built digitally, but Bobby reached out to touch a newly created light post, and it felt completely real. It only took a few seconds for the once empty space to become a fully realized city, with skyscrapers, cars, and citizens milling about in various activities going about their day.
Chaos followed in the wake of the city’s completion. Screams and explosions sounded in every direction. It was hard to pinpoint the
specific area of highest risk because cars and buildings blocked Bobby’s view of any actual danger. While Bailey and Joel stood like statues on the sidewalk, he took a moment to breathe and take in his surroundings.
Bobby stood on a busy city street with heavy traffic due to road work. Half of the lanes were closed off, and a bunch of construction guys with yellow hardhats were doing their best to direct traffic while a couple of their cohorts manned the jackhammer. To his left was a one-way road that led to a beach a few blocks away. To his right were what looked like the tallest skyscrapers, so Bobby figured that was the downtown area. Straight ahead appeared to be a trendier midtown neighborhood with restaurants, cafes, and shopping. He glanced behind him and saw a freeway overpass and train station. June, Ken, and Jax all took off toward downtown, and Ashley headed for the shops and restaurants of midtown. The rest of the Challengers scattered to the wind.
From the moment The Show explained the scenario, Bobby had surmised that the key to this trial would be teamwork, so he couldn’t have imagined a worse start for their group. He imagined the All-Stars had broken up into distinct squads with specialized abilities. He looked at Joel and Bailey with a wide smile. Well, at least he had his own little group of specialists.
He was about to bring his friends in for a quick huddle; however, before he could do anything, Bobby felt the early tremors of an earthquake. The shaking intensified so quickly that he didn’t have time to talk, much less think of a way to use his powers in any sort of effective way. Before he knew it, the situation became dire. People were screaming and running from the beach toward downtown, people were stuck in their cars, and the road workers were frozen in fear as a massive fissure started to form straight down the middle of the road, parting the lanes and swallowing an entire row of cars with the people in them. It was as if he had been transported into a real-life goddamn Godzilla movie.
In the back of his mind, Bobby knew that none of this was real. But those thoughts were reserved for the mind vault, the place Bobby invented to store unnecessary and unproductive thoughts while he tackled more imminent threats to his well-being. Bobby had dealt with some amount of trauma in his young life, and those tools were about to come in handy today.
Joel and Bailey jumped into action instantly, trying to save the innocent victims of this unnatural disaster. Bailey… no, for today she was Hieroglyph, yelled “floten” and pointed her new phone at the gaping hole that had already consumed dozens of lives. Bobby marveled at the quick thinking and resourcefulness of the young aspiring actress. That girl sure was full of surprises. Her power seemingly stopped gravity in the fissure, allowing Joel to run over and grab a child that was about to be swallowed by the earth itself. The respite only lasted for a few seconds, though, before gravity once again took hold, yanking everything back toward the deep dark hole. Bailey shouted “floten” again, and once more, gravity stopped, allowing Joel to rescue an older woman, who was also able to grab the man next to her. Joel pulled them to safety. Bobby figured that they would use this technique to save as many people as possible unless he could come up with something more efficient.
“Huh, floten,” Bobby mused. “Keep it up, you two! I’m about to become a whole lot less chatty. But never fear, Kidd Grimm is about to save your asses once again!”
Bobby sprinted to the edge of the ravine, and as he did, he started to whisper the words of a story that was one of his favorites as a child. To be fair, it was more myth than fairytale, but it seemed that as long as the story was old, popular, and had some sort of moral quandary or lesson, his meta talent allowed him to call it forth from the figurative page. As he spoke, the words took visual form and circled him until the word “Icarus” grew to Bobby’s size and attached itself to his back, morphing into a pair of wax wings.
While Bailey continued to create pockets of floatation, Bobby whipped about, grabbing those that were about to fall into the pit. That was until Joel reached out to grab a huge tattooed man who looked to be a bouncer, and the two were both dragged into the trench together. Realizing he needed to bail his buddy out, Bobby folded his wings and dove into the hole. He was about 50 yards underground before he was able to catch up to Joel. He reached down with both hands, all while reciting the words of the Icarus myth to stay airborne, and grabbed his teammate by the wrists. The bouncer was bear-hugging Joel’s waist, and with all the effort he could muster, Bobby stopped their descent and pulled them over to a rock ledge in the side wall.
Bobby wanted to tell his friend to let the civilian go, but he needed to keep reciting the words while forcing his meta power through them to keep his wings.
“Take him first, I can hang on. Hurry.” Joel shouted. Bobby could see the fear in Joel’s eyes but was unable to argue. He grabbed the huge scruffy man and flapped his wax wings as hard as he could. Luckily he was able to take off and lift him to safety before heading back down to rescue Joel from his mistake.
Once they were back above ground, they got right back at it, and after about ten more minutes of rescue work, the three Challengers had saved everyone that was in danger of falling to their death, so they regrouped on the sidewalk in the hopes of coming up with some gameplan for moving forward.
“Quick thinking, Hieroglyph!” Bobby said to Bailey as she jogged over to him.
“Thanks, Bobb- Kidd Grimm,” she replied through her labored breath. “If I had more time, I might have been able to save more people, or faster, or something.”
“No,” Bobby needed to stop her second-guessing, “You did great. You jumped in and solved the problem. Without you, far more would have been eaten up by that thing.”
Joel stood there staring at his feet. “Sorry, guys. Thanks for the save,” Joel said. He couldn’t even look Bobby in the eyes. “I feel totally useless.” Bobby had never seen Joel this defeated.
In a surprisingly serious tone, even shocking himself a little, Bobby barked, “Then fucking do something next time.” If they were going to have any sort of a shot at beating the All-Stars in this challenge, they couldn’t have deadweight in their squad. “I know you tried your best, dude, but if your power isn’t suited for a particular task, you need to regroup and figure out how to make it work. We are counting on you! I know you can handle this. You made it through The Culling, for fucks sake!”
Joel actually perked up as if the shock of the truth bombs had reenergized him for what was to come. “Okay. Okay, okay. I got this. I do.” Bobby wasn’t sure if Joel was trying to convince them or himself, but it didn’t really matter. Unless he was wrong, this trial was going to get much, much harder from here. And Bobby was rarely wrong.