Assault or Attrition (24 page)

“That would be
too easy. For all we know the entire castle is packed with C4 – if
we try to force our way in we could explode, just like the
caskets.”

Brynja groaned,
let a few expletives fly and buried the heel of her boot into the
wooden door. “Frost, I hope there’s a hell,” she shouted, “because
when I get there I’m going to kick you in your goddamned face!”

I suggested
that threatening Cameron Frost in the afterlife while stomping an
immovable door might not be the best way to expend her energy. I
also pointed out that for Brynja to theoretically fight Frost on
the ethereal plane, she’d have to end up in hell – if that was
where he was located. She wasn’t in the mood to discuss
theology.

As Brynja
continued her tantrum, I remembered Frost’s introductory speech
about competitors putting their faith in others. Surely there was a
good reason for the dual hand sensors, and it was so obvious I felt
like an idiot for not realizing it immediately.

“We need to do
it together,” I explained. “The prints. We need both our hands
simultaneously to unlock the door.”

When we
positioned our hands into the grooves on the metal plates a voice
resonated through an overhead speaker system.

“Trust,”
Cameron Frost’s voice boomed like a thunderclap, “is the key to any
partnership. The two superhumans who have arrived at this point
formed an alliance. An alliance that will – out of necessity – be
broken. Before you can enter the castle, state your superpower, and
how you would use it against your partner.”

It was another
lie detector test. In order for the door to unlock, the competitors
had to basically describe how they’d kill each other, and look each
other in the eyes while they did it. Another twist in the game that
would, in other circumstances, have resulted in a bloodbath.

“That’s easy,”
I said. “I don’t have any superpowers.” Detecting my truthful
response, the metal plate glowed blue beneath my palm. A loud
ratcheting sound clanked from above when the first set of bolts
fell out of place. One more honest answer and we’d be inside.

I glanced over
at Brynja, who avoided eye contact. She drew in a deep breath and
leaned forward, using the wide doorframe for support.

“What’s the
problem?” I asked. “Just say you don’t have powers anymore and
let’s go find the next set of pods.”

“I can’t do
that,” she mumbled.

“What?” I
blurted out. “I thought your mind reading ability faded after we
left the hospital, and that you were back to normal?”

“‘Normal’?” She
repeated, as if I’d hurled an insult in her direction. Brynja’s
hand was pressed firmly on the metal plate, but she turned to face
me, brushing a sweep of blue locks from her face.

“I didn’t mean
you
weren’t
...you know what I mean.”

“I
was
normal,” she said emphatically. “I
am
. It’s just that a week
ago I felt this tingling, and suddenly...” Brynja’s head sagged,
eyes fixated on the toes of her boots. “Shit, this is really hard
to talk about.”

“It’s me,” I
assured her. “We talk about everything.”

“All right,”
she continued, drawing in another deep breath, “so...this tingling
happens, and suddenly my psychic abilities come back. A
little.”

“A little?” I
shouted. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Okay,” she
admitted. “A lot.”

“You’ve been
reading my mind?”

“It’s not like
that. Not on purpose, anyway.” She stepped away from the frame and
moved towards me, hands extended.

“Holy shit –
and I trusted you!” I turned away and raked my fingers through my
short hair. I couldn’t look at her without feeling sick. Brynja had
been more than my best friend over the last several months – she’d
been my family. At times my
only
family. And the entire time
that we’d lived together she’d been violating my mind; reading my
innermost thoughts, and probably using them to manipulate me.

“You
can
trust me,” she pleaded, “it’s just—”

“It’s just
what,” I interrupted. “What is it? We’re probably going to die here
in this freak show – executed on a simulcast while the world
watches from their living room couches. If you’re not going to be
up front with me now, then
when
would be a good time?”

“What do you
want from me?” she screamed, slamming the back of her fist into the
wooden door so hard I was surprised she didn’t break her hand.

“Some goddamned
honesty
,” I shouted back.

“I wanted you
for myself,” Brynja said, turning away. “I’m a selfish bitch, okay?
And I wanted things to suck between you and Peyton so I could catch
you on the rebound. Is that honest enough for you?”

Holy
shit.
My mind reeled. I suddenly hoped we’d have to fight
another homicidal rock monster – that would have been easier to
deal with than this painfully awkward moment.

Brynja turned
and pressed her back against the door, sliding down until she sat
on the ground. “I didn’t say anything because I knew you’d react
like this. You get all defensive and shell up anytime something
disrupts your perfect little bubble. And secondly...I guess I gave
up.”

“Gave up?” I
joined her on the ground, leaning back against the doors.

“The minute
Peyton walked back into your life I knew it was over. I never stood
a chance. That girl’s mind is like this magic fantasy land of hope,
and forgiveness, and chocolate-covered gumdrops.” She smiled weakly
and laughed under her breath. “Reading her is like being stuck
inside a fucking Disney movie.”

“You read
Peyton, too?”

She nodded,
pulling her knees tight against her chest. “Like I said, it just
happened. Proximity and stuff...if you’re too close, surface
thoughts start to float around. They’re like big neon billboards –
can’t avoid them if I try.”

“So...”

“So, she’s the
Lois Lane to your Superman,” Brynja sighed. “The Mary Jane
whatshername to your Spidey. Peyton would follow you to the end of
the earth if you asked her. But that’s the rub, Mox: you have to
ask
her. Like, with actual words and stuff.”

“I
did
ask her,” I replied without missing a beat. “I asked her to move in
with me and she shot me down. She walked away and we didn’t speak
for months – that was
her
choice, not mine.”

Brynja raised
her eyebrows, and her lips curled slightly at the edges. “So you
expected Peyton to leave her family, school, job and friends – and
move out to the middle of the Canadian wilderness with you...and
stay here forever?”

I never thought
of it that way. “You’re saying that was too much to ask?”

“She’s a
human girl
, Mox. She’s not a collectible action figure. You
can’t just stick her in a plastic dome and expect her to pose,
smile and be happy about it. That’s insane.”

I shrugged.
“
You’re
happy here.”

“Because you’re
all
I have,” she groaned, letting her forehead fall against
her knees. “I had nothing to go home to, so I moved in with some
dude I met one time for a couple hours last summer...” she trailed
off for a moment, furrowing her brow. “And now that I’m saying this
out loud it’s sounding really pathetic.”

“You’re not
pathetic.”

“Look,” she
continued, “I like it here...well, not
now
, with the angry
mob and people trying to kill us – but before, yeah, it was fun.
But did you expect it to stay that way for the rest of our
lives?”

“If it was
going so well why would it have to change?”

Brynja stood
and dusted herself off, extending her hand towards me. “Because
life changes. Shit happens – some good, some bad.”

“Some?” I
replied, taking her hand as a stood.

“Okay,” she
conceded, “mostly bad. And you can’t live in a bubble and expect
everything to stay the same because
you’re
changing too,
Mox. Some people just wait way too long until they realize it.”

“So if we make
it out of here alive—”

“When,” she was
quick to correct me.

“Okay, when –
then I’m supposed to go and live in the open? Act like no one wants
to murder me?”

“Like I said,
things change. It won’t be like that forever. Talk to her. Tell her
that the two of you can work in the real world – that’s all she
wants to hear. And compromise with her. I know, it’s asking a lot
from an eccentric celebrity billionaire, but give it a shot.”

Most girls
assume that guys are mind readers, or at least that’s how Peyton
always treated me. If she’d just
told
me
what she
needed once in a while I wouldn’t have to hear it from someone with
actual psychic abilities. “You read all of that?”

“Yup,” she said
with a small nod. “I put the pieces together. The way she cares
about you is kinda romantic...in a barfy sort of way. But I don’t
need psychic powers to see that you two assholes belong
together.”

Brynja was the
only person who could insult me and make me smile at the same time.
It was one of her lesser-known super powers. “So then what?” I
asked. “Where will you be when Peyton and I are making it work in
this theoretical ‘real world’, wherever the hell that is?”

“I know how
these things end,” she said quietly. “I’ve
been
the other
girl before. Not like, in a sexy way – but as a friend. A guy gets
a steady girl in his life, and they do
not
want me
around.”

“You’re not
going anywhere,” I reassured her, “because I
can’t
lose you.
Who else am I going to build Lego castles with at two in the
morning while we eat Nutella from the jar?”

She smiled
softly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’d settle for that, you
know. Just us...talking, hanging out, doing nothing. But it never
works out that way.” Brynja took a few short paces to the frame of
the massive door and pressed her hand into the metal plate. “You
want the truth?” she said, tilting her chin towards the sky. “Here
it is, Frost: I would never use my psychic powers to hurt Matthew
Moxon, because he’s the only person I’ve ever felt real with.”

The deadbolt
dropped, the hinges creaked, and the heavy wooden doors began to
swing open. And from the darkness of the castle courtyard a
snarling blur of teeth, fangs and claws burst forward. Brynja was
buried beneath the creature before I had a chance to move.

“
I have
missed the
shit
out of you, kitty!”
Brynja giggled as the creature’s tongue lapped her cheek, leaving a
thick stream of saliva behind.

A lion with
dragon wings and the tail of a scorpion was an unnerving sight,
even when it was a more reasonable size; the blue manticore, last I
saw it, was no larger than a pit bull. Now, pinning Brynja to the
ground with its paws, it was roughly the size of a compact car.

During Arena
Mode, Kenneth Livitski had used his ability to manifest objects out
of pure blue energy to create this: a living replica of the feared
mythical creature. Even after Kenneth had been stabbed and sent
into a coma, his creation persisted. ‘Melvin’ (the unfortunate name
that Brynja had stuck him with) helped us survive the games, and
when we neared the end he’d raced into an alley in pursuit of an
attacker, never to be seen again.

For the months
following Arena Mode, holo-forums were ablaze with speculation
about Melvin. Was the manticore being controlled by Kenneth all
along, even after he’d been eliminated from the tournament? Or had
the creature somehow become sentient, able to act independently and
make its own decisions? That ‘sentient being’ hypothesis was a
popular one, but didn’t seem feasible; all of The Living Eye’s
creations had been merely puppets, controlled by his
intentions.

Brynja had
recently regained her telepathic abilities, which meant she was
still a superhuman; she could have manifested the creature herself
without knowing it. It wasn’t unprecedented for superhumans with
existing powers to spontaneously gain new ones, although
occurrences were extremely rare.

“Well this is a
nice surprise,” Brynja said, getting back to her feet. She ran her
hands along Melvin’s white mane, eliciting a low rumbling purr. She
glanced over her shoulder and cracked a smile, noting that I’d
taken several steps backward. “Still not a cat person, huh?”

***

We searched
the expansive courtyard while Melvin curled into a ball under a
cherry blossom tree
, closing his eyes for a midday nap.

Unlike the
relatively barren landscape of the Japanese-themed level, the
interior of the castle was recreated with painstaking detail. The
courtyard was immense. Intricate stone paths wove through gardens,
lined with sculpted hedges and multicolored flowers. Arched wooden
walkways bridged the gap over running water, where brilliant copper
fish circled beneath. And time-worn staircases (or at least they
were designed to look time-worn, since this castle had been built
fairly recently) twisted in every direction, leading to even more
gardens, trees and sculptures. It was endless. If the pathway to
the next level was hidden somewhere within this labyrinth it could
be virtually anywhere, and by the time we found it we’d no doubt
have the Red Army – or a superhuman assassin – knocking on the
front door.

An hour drifted
by as our search persisted.

Then
another.

And then I
heard the sound of crashing rocks behind a wall of hedges. Melvin,
who was napping nearby, curiously lifted his head. His fuzzy blue
ears perked up, rotating towards the direction of the
disturbance.

I followed a
pathway around the garden to find Brynja kicking a short statue,
which had toppled over and broken into several pieces when it hit a
tile. She cursed and stomped her feet, as she was prone to doing
when she was frustrated.