Obviously, we couldn’t go into the casino. They might’ve made the age for gambling in the state eighteen, but neither Izzy or I fit that bill. And honestly, it probably wouldn’t have been that fun anyway. I preferred to risk far more interesting things than money.
And yeah, that was only partially a joke. Either way, we had to find something else to do. Fortunately, that wasn’t exactly difficult. Phoenix really was making a big push to turn itself into the tourist destination. Detroit might’ve reinvented itself as the center for Touched manufacturing and the like, but Phoenix had been making a pretty impressive play to become the spot people came to in order to throw their money away either at the slots and card tables, or at any number of other entertainment spots. They had theaters, arcades, this truly amazing amusement park that was still partially under construction but was planned to rival Disney World itself, and more. The whole city and its surrounding suburbs were about three-quarters of the way through a five year renovation meant to turn this place into the biggest tourist trap in all of North America. And, as far as I was concerned, the hottest. Seriously, whose idea was it to build a city here? Every time we stepped out of the air conditioning, it felt like I was going to melt. Which, come to think of it, was actually a very distinct possibility with my new powers.
The first place Izzy and I went was this go-kart racetrack just around the corner and down the street a little bit from the hotel. Through the entire trip, we did our level best to stay inside the air-conditioned pavilion area over the sidewalks. There were a few places where we had to step out into the heat and I was painfully reminded we weren't in Detroit.
But, we made it to the go-karts, paid what amounted to just over twice as much as we would have back home, and spent a while racing around the track with some other people. I might've noted that it was more expensive here, but I had to admit they had gone all out for the thing. It took up about two city blocks, and even had multiple levels. It was like a massive four-story parking garage (three levels above ground and one below) that had been converted into a go-kart track, with each level being a different thing. The ground level was a lot of dirt and hills, with a western theme. There were small statues of cowboys and Native Americans, a little frontier town with buildings that were only slightly bigger than we were, and even one part with a fake cave area to drive through where you can see statues of miners and prospectors doing their thing. At the far end near the ramp leading up, there was a scene of a sheriff with his posse and some bandits having what appeared to be a very dramatic shootout near an overturned wagon with gold spilling out. One deputy who had apparently been shot was lying near the gold, using a shotgun to threaten anyone who tried to come near it.
All of that was cool enough on its own, but after doing a couple loops, Izzy and I realized that the scenes were changing gradually. The statues were moving when no one was looking, slowly playing out the scenes they were in. The gunfight was being gradually acted out, with some guys falling, others adjusting their positions, the miners finding gold, and the town going about its normal business. Yeah, okay, that was cool.
And the other levels were just as intricate. The second level had a modern day feel, which I belatedly realized was spy-themed. Or maybe just action thriller. It was like driving through the middle of a big city like Detroit or New York, where the skyscrapers were just barely taller than I was standing up. The cars were toys, the people basically action figures. We could see car chases, shootouts on top of buildings, dramatic rescues via hanging helicopters, and more throughout the city. Like the western bit below, every time we came back around, there were changes made to those scenes to move them along.
The top level of this place was future themed, with spaceships and aliens running around a landscape that was kind of like Mars with all the red dirt. There were hanging spaceships, the ceiling had a bright light like stars and two moons, the works.
So the ground level was western-themed, the middle level was modern day, and the top was a sci-fi future. Together, Izzy and I went back down and checked out the underground floor. As expected, it was prehistoric. There were dinosaur models, a volcano, even this big t-rex head that would move back and forth along the area just in front of the track and roar at you as you raced past it just barely out of reach. That was cool.
It was all cool, really. The whole place was so fun to race through, watching the various scenes advance bit by bit. They may have been simple ‘stories’ being told without any dialogue or anything, but it was still very neat to see going on as we drove.
And that was just one of the tourist spots within walking distance of our hotel. After spending an hour or so with that, Izzy and I moved on. We checked out a nearby arcade, played at the batting cages, watched some classic cartoons at this neat little theater where you paid like a dollar for roughly ten minutes of antics from Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and so on, got our faces painted at a corner artist, and even went through this museum place talking about the history of gambling. They showed how slot machines were originally created, got into some stories about ancient card games, and just generally made it fun to listen to and watch. There was a lot of effort put into it.
Even then, we barely scratched the surface of what there was to do just within a short distance of the hotel, let alone across the city. This place was amazing, heat or no heat. They were definitely working to earn their place as a tourism center. I could honestly hardly wait to see what they would do with the LEAT games. If their goal was to impress everyone watching and make them want to come, it was gonna be so epic.
Eventually, we made it back to the hotel after a text from our dad to meet up for dinner at one of the restaurants in the lobby. And, naturally, that was an incredible meal all on its own. It might’ve even been close to the level of Chef Claudio’s work, though I wouldn’t ever say that within his earshot. In all, it was just a fantastic meal to cap off a fantastic afternoon. I had basically completely forgotten about my problem during the flight, until Mom asked me if there had been any more issues with that. I assured her there wasn’t and that I felt completely fine, which she seemed to accept easily enough.
After dinner, our parents had to go to a meeting in one of the conference rooms, and Simon had a date. Yeah, a real date with a girl he had met here. I only teased him a little bit, which I thought showed great restraint on my part. It was a vacation for all of us, after all. I could let him off easy for once. Especially after everything he’d done to keep things going while Mom and Dad were in the hospital. He’d earned a real break.
All of which left Izzy and me alone in the hotel suite. Well, not really alone. Bailey the cat was there, though when I checked on her, she was lying on the bed in Simon’s room staring at the television. He’d left it on. When I moved to turn it off, she hissed at me, so I left it alone. Apparently she enjoyed watching the shapes move or something. Which I supposed made sense, given it was some sort of nature documentary. There were lions on the screen, and the narrator was talking about the pride traveling in search of food. There were a lot of dramatic shots of amazing scenery with the lions in the background, and some where the camera was clearly attached to one of those tiny fly-sized drones given how close it was able to get to the lions without disturbing them.
Honestly, I kind of got caught up in that and ended up sitting down next to Bailey, idly scratching her behind the ears. She seemed to like that, leaning into me without taking her eyes off that screen. Eventually, Izzy joined us, and we spent like half an hour just sitting there on our brother’s bed, watching the lion documentary and petting his cat.
Eventually, Bailey jumped from the bed to the desk nearby, where some water and what looked like bits of steak from room service had been laid out in bowls. She took her fill before disappearing into the bathroom where a litter box had been set up.
“Well, I think she deserves some privacy,” I murmured while standing up. “Let’s go check out what sort of game systems they’ve got in this fancy-pants place. Simon said something about Haunted Deep Two, and I’m pretty sure I can kick your butt this time.”
We played games for awhile, including that one, watched a movie, looked out at the stars from the balcony, and I texted with Paige a bit to catch up with her. The trip was going--well she said it wasn’t boring, but that she would give me the details later. I was pretty sure she did that because she didn’t want me to try to find a way to suit up and go find her. Which was completely ridiculous. She was like thousands of miles away, not even in Detroit or Arizona. Did she really think I would try--yeah okay that was fair.
Either way, eventually it was late enough for both of us to head for our rooms. Simon and our parents weren’t back yet, but honestly, I couldn’t spare the brain power to think about what any of them might be doing. Yes, there was probably at least some Ministry stuff going on, but I just… meh, I couldn’t focus on that. I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. The thought of being seen as Paintball here made me almost laugh out loud. Maybe I had been lucky so far about people not associating Cassidy Evans with Paintball, but if ‘both’ of us happened to show up like two thousand miles away from Detroit, it might end up raising a few questions. So no, I couldn’t go out in costume.
Instead, I just took the chance to get some sleep. With the bright lights from the casinos across the street cut off thanks to the special tinted windows, the room was left almost pitch-black, and very quiet. It felt a bit different, laying in a strange bed so far from home, but I did eventually crash while listening to Izzy’s light snoring.
I was woken up hours later by two very different things. The first was the sense of someone staring at me, along with a bit of weight on the bed. The other was the sound of my phone buzzing on the floor. My eyes opened, and there was enough early morning light being allowed in by the tinted windows for me to make out Bailey. She was sitting on the bed next to me, staring intently my way. When I looked at her, she gave a firm meow, looked over at the source of the buzzing, then jumped down and left the room. Maybe she was hungry and couldn’t get Simon to get up and feed her?
Sitting up and glancing over toward the still-sleeping Izzy, I found my phone in my pants on the floor. It was my Touched phone, actually. I had a couple texts from… from Silversmith. He was requesting a video call. Why would my dad be asking for a video call? Why did he want to talk to Paintball at all? Was this his way of checking to make sure I was actually sticking to my vacation? I had no idea, but I didn’t want to do anything that could make him suspicious. I needed to call him, but where could I--
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Thinking quickly, I slipped out of the room and onto the balcony, closing the sliding door behind me. The rooms had special noise-canceling privacy screens around them, so no one would see or hear me talking out here. Turning around, I looked at the glass of the sliding door briefly, before putting my hand against it. With a thought, it was suddenly painted dark green, with an intricate white swirl pattern. I did my best to make it look like a wall, and arranged my phone so it would only pick up that. Then I grabbed my special bag (of course I brought it with, vacation or no vacation) and pulled my costume on quickly. Once I looked like Paintball in an area that definitely wasn’t the balcony of the very same hotel suite my dad was staying in, I sent the video call and held my breath. This better not take long. What if Izzy woke up and came out here?
Thinking about that, I added a bit of green-yellow paint to the sliding glass door. If I heard it start to open, I would activate that and momentarily freeze it just long enough to end the call.
Yeah, this was a great and not-at-all stressful way to start the day.
Praying that whatever this was would just be quick, I watched as the video call was answered. A second later, Silversmith himself appeared on screen, standing--oh, he was on a balcony of his own, with a view of the exact same buildings that were across the street from… from… me.
Slowly, I glanced to one side. My parents’ balcony was about twenty feet away, and had its own privacy screen up. From this side, it just looked like a bit of thick black netting surrounding the balcony that was impossible to see through. Which was the same thing my dad would see around this balcony if he looked in this direction.
My dad was there, twenty feet away, dressed as Silversmith while on a video call with me. This was… yeah.
Restraining the urge to gulp, I spoke up as casually as possible, “If this is about making sure I’m not out fighting more supervillains, I’m pretty sure you could just check the news.”
With an easy, casually charming chuckle, Dad-Silversmith (Dadsmith) shook his head. “I promise, it isn’t about babysitting you. Actually, Paintball, I called to ask for… well, a bit of help, I guess.”
Oh God, it was so hard not to reflexively look over at the other balcony right then. How absurd was this? We were both close enough to have heard each other in a normal conversation just fine if it wasn’t for the privacy screens, but Dadsmith thought I was thousands of miles away, back in Detroit. It was just--eesh. I barely managed to keep my voice even and just replied, “Well, I don’t know what I can--wait, are those casinos behind you? Did you gamble away your superpowers and now you’re too embarrassed to ask your actual team for help getting them back?”
Another easy chuckle came, as Dadsmith shook his head. “Ahh, not quite. I managed to retrieve my powers from that bookie just fine, thanks. But as it turns out--ahh, you know what the LEAT games are?”
“Who doesn’t?” I pointed out immediately. “Wait, casinos, is that where you are? You took your own vacation, huh?”
“Let’s just say you’re not the only one who needed one,” Dadsmith replied. “And yes, we’re here to have some fun, and participate. Speaking of which, I was wondering if you might be interested in that. Participating, I mean. See, one of the contestants seems to have dropped out of a category you qualify for, so they have an open slot. And I thought you might be able to show these people what one of the best up-and-coming Touched from Detroit can do.”
I blinked a couple times behind my helmet. “Wait, this really isn’t about an emergency or… or--”
“It’s not about calling you in to do something dangerous,” Dadsmith put in. “Which, I guess the fact that that seems odd to you says a lot about how your first few months have gone.” He gave a soft sigh before continuing. “No, this isn’t an emergency. I just thought that since you’re not doing superheroics right now, you might like to have some fun. I can send a teleporter up to bring you down if--”
“No, no, that’s fine,” I quickly interrupted. “I have my own way to get down there.” I left that vague, letting him assume it had something to do with Trevithick.
“Oh good,” Dadsmith sounded relieved. “So you’re interested in filling that spot and competing in the games?”
I painted a bright, wide smiley face across the front of my helmet. “Oh, I think I can handle that. Though isn’t there some sort of entrance fee? I’m not sure I have the sort of--”
“It’s taken care of,” he assured me. “As I said, you’re replacing another competitor who had to drop out, so you’ll just be stepping in on their fee. But if you win, the reward goes to you. As does the fame, of course. But you’re sure you can make it down here on your own? You’d have to be here by five o’clock to get checked in for the first event in your category at six.”
“Five o’clock, got it, but where?” I really had to play dumb here, listening as my own father gave me directions to the place where I would need to check in as Paintball so they could run me through tests to make sure I fit in that category. He also asked if there was going to be any issue with my parents or guardian for leaving the state for a little while, again noting that I could be teleported back at any point. With a straight face (well, hidden behind my helmet), I told him that my own parents would definitely be watching me in that race.
Hey, it was the truth.
In any case, I got off that call as quickly as possible after that. Part of me was asking why I had agreed to this. I didn’t need to. There was no life and death emergency, and even being here was a risk. Having Paintball and Cassidy in the same place? How was I going to pull that off, exactly?
I didn’t know. I hadn’t even thought about it at the time, before agreeing. Because the truth was, I wanted to compete. I wanted to be part of this. I had watched these games for years. They were amazing. I hadn’t even thought about being part of them until the moment Dad brought it up, but… but now that the opportunity had been put in front of me, hell yes I wanted to. I didn’t even care if I won anything or not, I just wanted to compete.
Unsurprisingly, Izzy thought I was a bit crazy when I went back in the room and told her what was going on, but she also kind of understood. And she pointed out a few things that helped me feel like it wasn’t as much of a risk as that voice in the back of my head kept trying to say it was. Our parents wouldn’t be that suspicious about Paintball being here, since they had invited me. And the crowd was so huge at these things, as Cassidy all I had to do was say I was going for a closer look, take Izzy with me, then disappear to become Paintball. Izzy would easily cover for me. My parents wouldn’t even question me wanting to be closer to the action, and there would be thousands of people around. Yeah, it wouldn’t be difficult to get out of their sight.
Once we talked that all the way through and I was assured that I didn’t need to call my dad back and make excuses not to show up, Izzy looked at me. “So, you’re doing it?”
Taking a deep breath before letting it out, I finally nodded. “I know there’s like a thousand arguments against it. I know it’s kind of silly and risky. I know all that. But… I want to. I want to run in the races. I want to compete. I want to try. Hell, I want to use my powers in a fun way, especially the new ones. If I could win one of those rings, it’d be cool, but honestly I just… I just wanna see what I can do out there. So yeah, I guess I’m doing it. I’m gonna compete in the LEAT games.”
*******
There had to be some sort of time fuckery going on, because it seemed like no sooner had I said that, then the entire day had passed. Oh, we spent time with the family. Our parents took us to a nearby amusement park and we hung out for hours together, playing games, going on rides, the lot. Simon even brought Bailey on one of those little cat leashes. It was both adorable and strange.
The point was, I had fun. And it helped me not think about what I had agreed to through almost the entire morning. Eventually, we all went to the stadium where these early events were going to be held, picked up some lunch, and watched a few of the exhibition matches. The arena was meant for football games, but they had set the whole place up so that the floor could be easily and quickly adapted to add in various obstacles. There would be larger courses in shut-down parts of the city, or at a couple of the racetracks. But this arena was where the initial exhibition matches, the games meant for competitors to show the audience what they could do, would be held.
Or… what we could do. Yeah, that still hadn’t really sunk in yet. But it probably should soon, given where I was. Izzy and I had followed the plan, telling my parents we were going down for a closer look instead of staying up in the private box with them and Simon. Now Izzy was out there somewhere, staying with the crowd on the far side of the arena so our family wouldn’t notice I wasn’t with her.
And me? I had left the arena entirely, blending in with one of the groups heading out to smoke. Then I snuck around, found a private place to change into my costume, and made my way back in through the side entrance Dadsmith had told me to use. The man there had me demonstrate my powers to ensure I was the real Paintball, then led me to a room with about six judges. They weighed me, took my height, and had me sign a few waivers. They reminded me that this first event wasn’t really a race, it was more of a way of letting each competitor in our category show the audience what we could do, basically any way we wanted. A way of building excitement for the real competition that would start the next day. When it was my turn, I was just supposed to take a run through the obstacles and make a good show of things while doing my best to hype up the crowd. The point was to make a spectacle. Apparently I would’ve spent weeks going through training and testing, learning what was expected, and even just getting my name out into the crowds so people would know who the hell I was (well, who Paintball was anyway). But this was a last minute switch, so they were making do. They wanted me to stay after the event to get some more details about what would be expected throughout the rest of the week, but for now, all I really needed to do was show off for the crowd a bit.
All of which led to where I was now: in the arena itself. I was right there, standing on a small platform where one of the guards had led me up through a tunnel that led onto the field. Ahead of me was a long stretch of grass, with dozens of weirdly-shaped obstacles, walls, spinning hoops, moving platforms, anything and everything for me to use to impress the thousands of people surrounding me. Thousands… thousands of people sitting or standing all around me in those stands, staring at me. They were watching, waiting, expecting to see me put on a fun show for them. The announcer was hyping me up, talking about some of the stuff I’d done in Detroit, going on and on about me being some up-and-coming Touched who was already making a name for myself after only being active for a few months. But honestly, I barely heard him. I was doing my best not to hyperventilate. This had been stupid. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have agreed to it. I should’ve made an excuse, my dad would’ve understood. Why did I want to do this? Why did I want to--
Then I didn’t have any more time to debate with myself. I didn’t have time to worry about how this was going to go. Because the announcer stopped talking, and an official began a countdown while tens of thousands of eyes were riveted on me. Tens of thousands of eyes just right here in the arena. There were cameras all around, broadcasting the image of me across the whole country, if not even further. The LEAT games were a big deal. Millions of people watched them. I had more eyes on me in that moment than I’d ever had in my entire life put together.
In what was somehow simultaneously an eternity and also only half a second, the countdown ended, and a loud buzzer filled the arena. That was the signal.
It was time to show everyone what I could do.