Chapter 7

“Seriously,” she said after she scanned her own wristband. “Do you play any sports? Because you have some skills.” They were running too low on time to be chatting this much, but she was growing more curious about him.

“Nah, I don’t generally do things that involve teams. Or coaches. Or expectations.”

She looked over at him. “You’re, like, the opposite of me.”

“Somebody’s got to slack off and play games all the time,” he said with a grin. “Otherwise, what would happen to L33T C0RP?”

“Good point. Speaking of which, we better get going.”

Past the checkpoint pyramid was another long pit. This time circular saws whirred up and down between two ropes.

The ropes are hard enough, she couldn’t help but grumble to herself. Why does there have to be circular saws?

Solvr took the first leap and grabbed the rope, starting to swing. She timed her swings so she’d be away from the blade as it came down but got nervous, swinging four or five times without making the jump to the next rope.

“You can do it!” Fites shouted behind her. “Don’t worry about the blades!”

She let go on the next swing but released the rope a moment too early. The blade caught her right boot with a painful jolt. She was able to make it to the next rope and swing to the opposite end of the chasm, but accidentally landed with her weight on her bad foot.

She winced, sitting down to look at the damage. There was no blood because this was a game. She didn’t even see a cut in her boot. But it hurt, especially when she touched her finger to her heel.

Maybe the sensors don’t need to be this immersive, she groaned in her head.

Fites was beside her a moment later. “Are you going to be okay?”

The pain wasn’t too bad, nothing more than a dull throb at this point. She grabbed his arm to pull herself up. “I’ll be fine. Rub some dirt in it, like my volleyball coach used to say.”

“You play volleyball?”

“Used to. But I wasn’t that good. I guess it built character or something.” She limped a few steps to the next pit. There was a jolt of sharp pain every time she put her weight on the bad foot, but she was getting used to it.

The next pit had five ropes but no blades. That worried her. The challenges seemed to get harder and harder as they moved through the labyrinth, which meant this one had a threat she must not have seen yet.

She leaped to the first rope, springing from her left foot, which she wasn’t used to doing.

The jump wasn’t as strong but she reached the first rope. She swung anxiously toward the next one.

What’s going to jump out at me? she wondered. What’s going to fall on me, shoot at me, come flying toward me?

“Everything okay?” Fites called to her. He’d jumped out to the first rope and was waiting for the one she was still dangling from.

“Sorry—I’m fine!” Solvr threw her weight back, got the rope swinging, and leaped for the next rope. As she grabbed it she noticed it was unraveling at the top.

She panicked. That’s what makes this pit harder than the last one. It has a bum rope.

Giving her legs a kick, she tried to swing out to the next rope before this one gave, but felt herself drop an inch as the fibers snapped and unwound.

Another kick.

This time the rope snapped and her breath caught in her throat.

As soon as she realized she was falling, she expected the game to cut out at some point, bringing her back to start. But instead she landed on something spongy. She patted the ground. It felt like soft, loose soil.

She stood up and walked through the shadows, feeling along the edges for a way out. There was a ladder at one end of the pit. Unfortunately it was at the start of the pit so she would have to go through the ropes all over again. She climbed up and saw Fites had made it to the other end. She hadn’t even noticed when he was swinging above her head.

She cupped her hands and shouted, “How did you do it?”

“Skip the third rope!” he shouted back. “Swing the second one hard and jump to the fourth rope! You can make it!”

Of course the third rope was now broken, so that part would be easy to remember. She swung to the second, threw her weight forward and back, got the rope swinging as hard as she could, and let go at the last possible second. She sailed past the frayed rope and grasped at the one beyond it, even felt it in her hands, but fumbled and fell.

She landed again on the soft, spongy soil at the bottom of the pit, taking a little damage. She groaned.

“It’s okay!” Fites yelled from the ledge overhead. “Third time’s the charm!”

She ran back to the ladder and scrambled up. She leaped to the first rope, then the second. She swung as hard as she could and let go at the last possible moment. This time she got a tight grip on the fourth rope, eyeing the final rope carefully.

“That one is safe!” Fites instructed.

She threw her weight back to make her rope swing harder.

“Just grab the last rope!” Fites yelled. “It’s a short jump.”

But I want to do this, she thought. As the rope hit the top of its arc, she let go and sailed past the last rope to the ledge. She landed on her injured foot. She’d forgotten about that. She hopped around on her good foot, muttering in pain.

So much for style points.

“It was a great jump,” Fites said helpfully.

She hobbled over to him. “We lost a lot of time,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It took you a while to . . .” He glanced up and saw her giving him a look. “I mean, we got set back a little.” He tapped his wristband. “But we still have three hours and ten minutes left. That’s over half.”

“It’s almost exactly half.”

“Right. Can you run on that bad foot?”

They both glanced down at her right boot.

She tried putting her weight on it. The pain had lessened once more to what it had been before she’d landed on it. “I guess I’ll have to.”

They took off down a corridor, Solvr ignoring the throb of pain every time she landed on her bad foot. They turned and screeched to a stop before another pit. All of the ropes dangling over this pit looked worn and fragile.

“The game is messing with us,” Fites said with a scowl.

Solvr glanced down and saw a ladder. She peered across the chasm and saw another ladder leading out.

“We go through the pit,” she said. “The ropes are there to tempt us.”

“Oh. Well, that’s actually easier, right?” He started down.

But it’s not supposed to get easier, she worried as she followed him down the ladder.

The ladder stopped halfway down. She dropped the rest of the way and felt another small pain radiate from her foot, though at least the floor was a little softer.

Fites was bouncing a little. “This is nice. I could take a nap.”

“Me too,” she joked. “How do we pause our timers?”

The floor shifted under their feet and she nearly lost her balance. Solvr looked down to see the floor was buckling and rippling as if it were alive.