Chapter 32
A primal scream erupted from Bobby as he lay in a pool of water on the floor of a dark room with glowing blue baseboards and crown molding. His heart was beating out of his chest as he relived the final moments of being pulled underwater by the riptide and of desperately fighting off the urge to sleep. As Bobby’s vision cleared, he saw Joel kneeling by his side with a hand on his chest. Uh-Oh, this couldn’t be good. He vaguely remembered the two of them battling to prevent a tidal wave from crashing on the shore and flooding Cyber City. Based on the fact that they were in this tiny room and no longer in the simulation and that he felt strangely energized, Bobby assumed that either Joel had extricated them from the trial using his panic button or whoever was monitoring the games had pulled them both, fearing for their lives. Either way, Bobby was supremely disappointed.
“You feeling alright, bud?” Joel asked as Bobby’s pulse recovered after the scream subsided. “I’m so sorry.” He added dejectedly.
Bobby was furious. If his assumptions were right, Joel had accidentally put him to sleep. Thinking back to the mountaintop trial, he knew that Joel was able to protect people from his area of sleep effect, he had protected Bailey, after all. He wanted to tear into Joel. But this was no time for tough love. That could, and would, come later. Instead, Bobby attempted to ease Joel’s guilt in what little way he could, “It’s alright, dude. We were always gonna lose this competition. The All-Stars are trained for this sort of thing.” He held his arm outstretched toward Joel. “Help me up. I’m fine now. In fact, I’m feeling fucking incredible!”
“Yeah. I gotta get me one of these things,” Joel said while motioning around the room. “Healing chamber. I wonder why they don’t sell these.”
“Well, that’s sorta obvious, isn’t it? It would disrupt the whole healthcare and wellness market. Nothing is regulated more than meta-tech. I’m surprised they even supply one here for us to use.” Bobby couldn’t help the cynicism creeping into his response, but it was the truth at the end of the day.
“I wonder if it would help with mental health issues.” Joel’s mind seemed to be elsewhere, but he was visibly pulled back to reality as suddenly, a light buzzer went off, and a door opened in one of the chamber’s walls. The baseboard lighting started to blink in a way that led the two Challengers out of the healing cell and through a long hallway lined with dozens of doors. As they passed each door, a feeling of anger built within him as he imagined all the people that these miraculous rooms could save.
“I don’t know about mental health, but I’m sure they do have limits. I mean, if they could cure cancer, Aurora wouldn’t have had to take her sabbatical from The Council, right?”
“That's… a good point,” Joel answered hesitantly.
The door at the end of the hallway, once opened, revealed a movie theater with stadium seating for about 40 people and 24 large screens in place of the usual one. Two of the screens were blank. On the other 22, individual live feeds showed each competitor fighting in real-time. Sounds of battle emanated from the speakers, creating an unsettling noise that threatened to take over the room, adding to a sense of unease. It reminded Bobby of late nights at the bar and cleaning up while the owner watched his favorite World War II movies on all of the TVs in the place.
Bobby guided Joel to a couple of seats in the back row. If this room was going to fill up by the end of the challenge, he wanted to be hidden and out of the way. Being the first two eliminated was fucking embarrassing. Luckily, Bobby was wearing black, which would help him fade into the background of the dark theater, he hoped. Once they were situated, he turned to Joel and asked, “So what the fuck happened.”
Joel looked horrified and guilt-stricken and sighed, “I’m not entirely sure. It seems my power may have backfired.”
“Backfired!?” Bobby was unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.
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“Yeah, as I was about to take out the villain, I kept getting these flashes of this nightmare I had last night. Or maybe it was a vision? There’s a small chance I’m psychic... But, anyway, you were there. And you looked almost haunt-” but before Joel could finish his rambling explanation, a massive explosion rang through the theater’s sound system, commanding each boy’s attention.
Worried for his team, Bobby scanned the monitors. First, he saw Cecilia, whose alias he was unfamiliar with, using her power to control wood to board up windows and doors of businesses in a strip mall near the train station. Megan was apparently nearby, as her feed showed her phasing through walls, ceilings, and floors. She located a couple huddled in the back of a sushi restaurant. But, instead of escorting them through the closest wall, which would have been safest, she guided them through the flames of a burning kitchen and out the back door. It seemed she was unable to phase other people with her. Either way, this was not the source of the explosion, so he continued scanning, taking in as much visual data as he possibly could as fast as he could. He knew he couldn’t do anything to help, but he still wanted to make sure the people he cared about were safe. Worst case scenario, at the very least, he could be there to witness their death.
Joel turned back to Bobby and tried to apologize once again, “Like I was saying, I had this dream-”
And just like last time, Bobby cut him off. “No dream talk. Concentrating” And he was. Bobby was letting the action of the feeds flow directly into his brain through his eyes.
The Hazmat guy was fighting a fire-manipulating meta that wielded a flamethrower for an arm, and the weird kid Ralph’s feed seemed to indicate that he was hiding in a small room, or wait, was he in a trashcan? What a fucking weirdo. Anyway, no huge blast happening there.
He turned his attention toward the feeds that worried him the most. It seemed that Ken, June, and Jax were fighting in sync together marvelously. June was dialed in on recon, finding trapped civilians and rescuing them in the blink of an eye. Jax created these impressive energy domes to shield everyone from powerful gusts of wind and falling or ricocheting debris. Ken was ferrying people from June’s handoffs to Jax’s safe zones. Wait a minute. Why was Ken there at all? Where’s Samurai Tortoise? What the hell is going on? What is wrong with these people? Bobby wondered how any of these assholes had survived The Culling if they were going to act this recklessly stupid all the time!
The last feeds on The Challenger’s side featured Bailey and Ashley kicking ass against an earthquake meta. Ashley’s giant tree was wailing on the criminal as Bailey was providing vital assistance, all the while ensuring no innocent lives were lost to the fissure running down Main Street.
So, if it wasn’t in The Challengers Arena, the explosion must have been on the All-Star’s side. This thought made Bobby perk up a bit. Maybe, just maybe, The All-Stars were doing as badly as his team. This hope was quickly dashed when he assessed Team All-Star’s live feeds.
He was unsurprised to see that they had been smart from the beginning, splitting into six teams of four, each containing specialists to tackle the main criteria of saving civilians, protecting property from damage, and subduing the villains responsible. The explosion had come from Horizon’s foursome. Lizzy’s team included the two douchebags that Bobby had destroyed at basketball: Hanzel and Artie. Their fourth was a young girl, maybe a high schooler, who was lifting cars and punching through concrete. Thinking back on the televised All-Star reveal episode, Bobby surmised that her alias was Gluttony, and he had hoped he would never go up against her in any kind of battle.
Gluttony had punched through a gas line, on purpose, to create an explosion that opened a makeshift entrance to the underground subway system where they could lead the terrorized masses into the safety of the train station. Next, Artie created a massive impenetrable ball right over the entrance they had just created. This allowed the All-Star squad the ability to move the civilians through the tunnels while protecting them from earthquakes and fire. Artie’s shields would hold up the tunnel walls, and if the evil fire meta ignited the invisible gas that was now pouring out of the busted line, the only one it would hurt would be him. Moreover, they could now get word to other squads to try to create and protect more entrances to the tunnels. It was brilliant thinking.
He wondered who had come up with the plan. Who was he kidding? Only one person could be this deviously brilliant and audacious: Horizon. Even though the teams had been thrown into this battle without any advance information, Lizzy was able to stay calm and multitask mentally. Everyone else had been bogged down by what was right in front of them. But not Lizzy Morgan. She kept her mind on the big picture.
When faced with a bunch of natural disasters and panicked crowds that needed both wrangling and guidance to get to safety, Lizzy found a way to manipulate the environment, the obstacles against her, to her benefit. If he was right, Lizzy Morgan was the most shrewd, cold, tactical mind he had ever encountered. It would take some serious progression for him, or any of The Challengers, to beat her in this competition. Today’s battle may already have been lost, but Bobby was preparing for the war.