CHAPTER 19
Hunter
A giant alien spider scurried down the hall at me with impressive speed, its spiny legs gripping and ripping into the floor as it moved. It was the size of a large dog, with a sleek red shell and slime dripping out of almost every part of it.
“Die, you evil nasty goopy thing!” I yelled, aiming my glowing gloved hand at it. I tried to adjust for the monster’s speed as I punched forward and a ball of light rocketed from my fist. But the spider was crazy fast. I punched out balls of light again and again, managing to injure two of its legs, and hitting it once in the body. But it just wasn’t stopping.
“Evil nasty goopy thing?” a voice sounded in my ear. “Is that a technical term?” It was Jasper, the kid in the yellow tracksuit. He was shooting at my spider’s sister, or brother, or weird uncle. “I mean, it’s accurate,” Jasper said. “It’s just a mouthful.”
“Yeah,” I said, and calculated one more time before shooting, “maybe let’s just call them goopies for short.” I punched again, nailing it right between the eyes.
Okay, I admit that’s not as impressive as it sounds. These things have like seventeen eyes so there’s a broad target, but my shot definitely hit between at least two of them. Maybe between like six of them. Instead of squirting blood or dissolving into purple slop or something, it just burst into mist and blew away. I guess that’s how the goopies die.
Now I only had to worry about nine of his cousins that were still in the hallway. Not to mention any others that might show up.
I still couldn’t find Edelle, and she wouldn’t respond to me. I didn’t get that. Maybe she was just busy? But why would she send the text, and not think I’d want to see her? I spent so much time looking for her that I was late to meet Jasper, and then we only had ten minutes until class. I’d texted her that I was trying to find her everywhere but couldn’t, and that I’d be here shooting alien spiders. For all I knew she could be watching me right now.
“Can we tell if anyone is watching us play?” I asked.
“I think the program has an option to see the crowd if there’s anyone there,” Jasper said, “but I doubt there is. Anyone else could just jump in and play if they wanted to.”
The program wasn’t showing me any options to see anyone watching. She probably wasn’t there.
Edelle had said that her mom was making her go to virtual school. But that didn’t make a lot of sense. Why would her mom do that? Then again, my friends wouldn’t have any idea why I was here either.
Was there a chance that when Edelle found out that I was coming here, she’d enrolled? That would be so dope. So much effort and a really good friend. And it would be great to have her here, especially while I was trying to not worry about my stupid bald spots. Even just thinking about hanging out with her felt good. I’d love to see her.
But for now, breaking into a monster’s lair, defeating its army of alien spider goopies to save the world was a good distraction.
“Take that, goopy!” Jasper yelled, shooting another spider with his fist guns and watching it vanish away. “Hey, that does kind of help.”
He shot with almost each word, almost every ball of light finding its mark. Two more goopies misted. The kid was good.
“I think I’ve shot seventeen,” Jasper said. “How about you?”
“Fifteen,” I admitted. Of course he knew he was ahead.
“So, just for clarification,” Jasper said, “who’s shot more?” He coughed to clear his throat.
“Less talking. More shooting,” I said.
Like in most video games, I’d expected to get a different avatar, the super-soldier kind who looked like he could bench press five hundred pounds while shooting a blueberry off a goalpost sixty yards away. I don’t know why a blueberry would be on a goalpost. That doesn’t make sense. But you get what I mean.
But both Jasper and I looked like our student avatars inside the video game, me in my lacrosse jersey and him in his yellow tracksuit. The game had given us cool armor over our arms and legs, a sort of helmet, and the amazing light-shooting gloves, but you could still see glimpses of our clothes, which, with those colors, couldn’t be good for camouflage. If I were an alien spider, I’d want to eat Jasper just so I didn’t have to look at that tracksuit anymore. Or because I’d mistaken him for a very large mango.
But it did make the game feel more real.
“Don’t get too cocky,” Jasper said, spinning around. “This game is called Infestation ExtermiNation for a reason.” Jasper was starting to sound like a coach. I wasn’t sure I liked that.
“Me, cocky?” I asked. “Who’s the guy counting kills?” I jogged farther down the abandoned shopping mall hallway. In the game, this was where the nasty goopies had landed. We were searching for their den, where the mother of all these ugly terrors was hiding out. I held out my fists, ready for anything.
I hoped Jasper thought I was good enough. Together we’d have a decent shot at the tournament.
A goopy burst out, and we both shot it twice at the same time, exploding it into mist.
“Jinx,” Jasper said.
“I don’t think you can call jinx killing aliens,” I said. “That’s only when you say the same thing at the same time.”
Jasper just smiled. “You owe me a soda.”
“Whatever,” I said, raising my glowing fists again. “Sixteen.”
“Fifteen and a half,” Jasper corrected. “Come on, Lacrosse. I’m at seventeen and a half. Keep up.” Then he bolted down the hall. “I need to get ready for that trophy.”
He said I and not we.
I shot another alien that burst through the wall to the side, a new one this time, some kind of alien scorpion with long pincers. I had to roll away as it reached for me, then twisted back to shoot it.
“Epic!” Jasper yelled.
We shot and moved our way through the next few rooms. Being honest, Jasper was better. The more we went through, the more I wondered what he thought of me. So I took it up a notch as we went on, slipping into rooms first to take out a few alien beetles. Apparently there were more of those than spiders, and they counted for more points. I even got off the first shots at a massive Martian centipede. Then it nearly ran me over, but we eventually destroyed it.
What I didn’t have in video game experience, I was learning to make up with in body control.
Then I got a text, and pushed pass-through on my goggles to check my phone really quick in case it was Edelle.
Nope. It was Fetu asking if I had found her yet.
Then an alien spider ate me.
I hoped Edelle wasn’t watching.