“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” That voice sounded familiar. A11_4_ON3 typed in his gamertag before he looked up to confirm who it was.
When the keyboard faded away, he saw ECHO standing there dressed in a red jumpsuit—the same as the one he was wearing. Behind her were two other players—STR33T_WIZE and Z1P_ZAP—dressed identically.
ECHO was glaring at him, standing with her hands on her hips. “‘All For One’ . . . really? When did you change your tag?”
“After I quit racing with you and started competing as a solo racer,” he replied.
“You mean when we told you to stop racing with us,” she spat back.
They were on the right side of the starting line. Behind ECHO and his other former teammates, he could see more racers milling about around pods of different glowing colors. He looked down at his jumpsuit—red. So was the pod he had been placed next to. All three of the others’ jumpsuits and pods were red. This wasn’t good—they’d been placed on the same team.
They had once been a racing crew, but that was over, and A11_4_ON3 had never intended to play another game with these three again. Just seeing them standing there made him flush with anger.
Their last race together had ended badly, and the other three had blamed him.
Well, he thought, mostly ECHO and Z1P. STR33T was silent through the whole fight. ECHO and Z1P_ZAP had called him selfish. He’d said he would be better off with racers at his own level. It ended with ECHO, always the team leader, asking him to leave their crew. Z1P_ZAP quickly agreed with her. He was sure STR33T_WIZE had made some halfhearted joke at the end of the fight, but he couldn’t remember what it was.
It was fine. A11_4_ON3 wanted to do solo racing anyway. He hadn’t had any intention of rejoining them. It was cruel fate that he was here now.
Z1P_ZAP crossed her arms. “Let’s ask for a new teammate.”
A new voice interrupted them. “Welcome to Pod Racer!” A man was standing in the middle of the track in a white suit with sunglasses covering his eyes. “You are the first sixteen people to play this remarkable L33T C0RP game. I am the Game Runner, and I’ll be explaining how things work here.”
“Excuse me!” Z1P_ZAP shouted. “We’d like a new teammate!” She pointed right at A11_4_ON3. “We don’t want to play with this one.”
The Game Runner tilted his head. “I’m sorry. Team selection has been locked. There will be no changes.” It was final. They would be the red team. A11_4_ON3 looked at the others farther down the starting line: blue, then green, and yellow at the last starting position.
“As I was saying,” the Game Runner continued, “you have been divided into four teams of four. This game is made up of three races. Before each race, you will compete in an arena to earn credits. With those credits, you can purchase upgrades to your pod, giving you an edge in the next race.”
“What are you even doing here?” ECHO hissed to A11_4_ON3. “I thought you only did solo races now.”
“I wouldn’t miss a chance to try the new L33T game,” he said. “I was assigned randomly to a team that needed one more. If I’d known it was you three, I wouldn’t be here.”
She scowled back at him.
“The losing team at the end of each race will be eliminated from the competition,” the Game Runner continued to explain. “This—” he gestured to the track behind him—“is a qualifying race. It will not count for points, but it will allow you to get a feeling for your pods as well as assess the skills of your opponents.”
“We’d like to quit!” ECHO shouted suddenly. A11_4_ON3, STR33T_WIZE, and Z1P_ZAP snapped their heads toward her.
“Excuse me?” the Game Runner asked.
“We’d like to quit,” she said again, calmer this time.
The Game Runner smiled. “This is an extreme racing experience. You don’t quit—you win. The losers in this competition will continue racing other teams until they are victorious. That’s the only way you’re getting out of here.”
ECHO, Z1P_ZAP, and STR33T_WIZE all looked at A11_4_ON3. He looked down and shook his head. This is not good, he thought. I’m going to wind up trapped in this game forever, racing with people I don’t like and who don’t like me.
“It’s time to get in your pods,” the Game Runner instructed. “The qualifying race will begin shortly.”