Cure for the Common Universe (21 page)

Gray light seeped through the tall, frosted windows, giving the Hub an apocalyptic
Diablo
feeling. I sank into a beanbag chair and braced myself for G-man's announcement. I imagined
this numbness was the feeling people got when they realized they'd forgotten to feed their pet for a few days. Or worse, opened an air-conditioning grate, tossed the pet between the walls, and then locked it inside.

G-man climbed onto the stage, clasped his hands together, and stared at us with those shiny, sincere eyes of his. The players sensed something serious was going down and got real quiet real quick.

“We have a Video Horizons first today,” G-man said softly.

Oh God. First what? First missing kid? First victim of the thing that dwells between the walls? First splattery death?

G-man bowed his head. Then, lifting it and with increasing volume, he shouted, “Someone found our first
side quest
!”

A gasp ran through the crowd.

“Come on out here, Soup!”

Soup came in through the side door, looking sheepish, exhausted, and yes, even a little heroic. The knots in my stomach unwound as my head began to throb. What had I missed out on?

G-man threw an arm around Soup's shoulders and addressed the players. “We want to instill a sense of adventure in you guys. A sense of exploration. Sometimes the greatest rewards in life are off the beaten path. You have to break the rules a bit”—he raised his hand in caution—“while still respecting the space you're in.”

Dorothy raised her hand. “What was the side quest?”

“That secret is reserved for the player who was sharp enough
to discover it and daring enough to follow it to its end.”
Damn
. “But don't worry. We'll have another side quest set up by next week.”
Dammit
. “Although, I am
not
telling you guys to tear this building apart looking for the next one. It should be pretty obvious when you see it.”

Dammit all to hell.

“So,” he continued, “for the act of curiosity, for impeccable instincts, and for an adventurous spirit, I award you, Soup S. Soupington,
five hundred thousand points
.”

The air was sucked right out of the Hub. Before the Master Cheefs had a chance to boo, Aurora and Fezzik leapt to their feet and burst into applause. I felt the color seep out of me.

But if I felt miserable, it was nothing compared to how Soup looked. If I had been onstage, if instead of wasting my time at pointless star class, where I watched Fezzik make a fool of himself and received zero points for it, I'd actually gone on the side quest and won
500,000 fucking points
, I'd have acted like I was on
The Price Is Right
in the middle of Mardi Gras. I'd have ripped off my shirt and helicoptered it over my head while running around the Hub, screaming like an idiot.

Soup looked like his grandma had just been cut in two by a train.

“And these are
golden
points,” G-man said. “Which means you cannot lose them, Soup, no matter what you do.”

“You just made that up!” Lion called out.

“Yes, I did,” G-man said. He jostled Soup's shoulder. “That officially makes you a third tier, buddy! You'll be out of here in no time.”

That was when I understood. G-man wanted Soup out of V-hab. The kid had been point dodging for weeks, and now it was time for him to go home. The side quest had been real, but it was probably only worth 100,000 points at most. I say “only,” but that would have made up for the cross-stitches. And a silver medal in today's tournament would have put me over the top.

Dammit.

“You have anything to say, Soup?” G-man said.

All heroism had leaked right out of Soup's pale little face. He searched the audience and found my eyes. “I couldn't have done it without Miles Prower.” His face brightened. “Hey! He was the one who made me do it! He showed me where the entrance was and
everything
!” He looked up at G-man. “Can I give Miles my golden points?”

The Master Cheefs booed. The Sefiroths hissed. My heart lifted.

“Shh, none of that,” G-man said. “No, Soup. You cannot give points away. Miles needs to earn his own way out.”

Soup frowned at me apologetically.

G-man cleared his throat. “We've got our big paintball tournament this afternoon.”

“YES!” Lion shouted.

The rest of the Hub whooped and clapped.

“Normally,”
G-man called over the noise, “I wouldn't condone any activity that encourages harming others, but it's what the board wants, so . . . I'd like to encourage the team-building element. That's why I'm going to give the surviving players a bonus twenty thousand points for every one
of their guildmates still alive at the end of the final match.”

Twenty thousand.
I experienced pure elation . . . followed by pure fear. All was not lost. I could make it to Gravity. But only if I won the paintball tournament. And at least one of my guildmates wasn't totally incompetent and stayed alive.

“Okay, everyone,” G-man said, “grab some breakfast and get to class.”

Soup staggered offstage, arms dangling. He ignored Aurora's congratulations and collapsed into the beanbag next to me.

I patted his little shoulder. “That was a nice thing you did, Soup. Or
tried
to do.”

He stuck out his bottom lip. “I guess—” he said in an unnervingly pouty voice. “I guess the thing that makes it better is that I know when we get back home, we get to hang out.”

That was so sweet, I could've hanged myself.

“You wanna tell me about the side quest?”

That perked him up. “It was the most
awesome
thing
ever
.”

He told me about it. It wasn't that awesome.

•  •  •

I spent the rest of the morning trying to kill it in my classes while completing every bonus task I could along the way. Soup returned to the Nest to sleep off his adventure. This was good. My brain was freed up to concentrate on guns and shooting people with those guns.

For breakfast I scarfed down the greenest of greens and the fruitiest of fruits to remain spry.
+1,000.
I was still woozy from
my crash, so I fought off invisible ninjas in tai chi until I was so exhausted, I thought I might lose the battle against absolutely nothing.
+2,000
. During music I imagined the Silver Lady's bongo playing as a war march. The rhythm made my heart beat
kill
and
kill
and
kill
. The ukuleles only slightly spoiled the effect.
+2,000.

During lunch my leg was a jackhammer. I'd killed thousands in
Arcadia
. Now I just had to shoot a few real people with paint. I was violently stabbing up asparagus when I felt a sharp pinch on my love handle.

“Gah!”

“For improvement through pain,” Aurora said.

“Thanks. Ouch.” I rubbed my side. “Do we have to bleed to improve?”

Aurora shrugged and slurped up spaghetti.

“Greetings, adventurers,” Fezzik said in a painfully morose voice.

His lunch tray was full of zero-point foods—mashed potatoes and french fries and ice cream. His obvious return to an old addiction made me uncomfortable.

“Today,” he said between bites of fried chicken, “I want to talk to you guys about process addiction and intermittent reward. Process addiction is like grinding in
Final Fantasy
when you're already at max level. You just keep entering battle after battle because it feels so . . .” He trailed off and looked at us. “Is any of this getting through to you guys?”

“I don't know what ‘inter-mitten' means,” Soup said.

Fezzik sighed. He set down his chicken. “What games were you guys playing when Command and Conquer took you?”

Meeki grunted. “I was right freakin' in the middle of
Fire Emblem
.”

“Arcadia,”
Aurora said.

“Game of love,” I said.

Meeki rolled her eyes.

“Arcadia,”
I said.

“I was picking peaches for my raccoon friend,” Soup said. “Conquer ripped the 3DS right out of my hands. It hurt my hands. And my feelings.”

“Zxzord was probably in the middle of something else,” Meeki said, and chuckled.

Fezzik stared at his food and nodded. “Great games.”

We fell into silence. Over at the Sefs' table, I noticed that Dryad sat alone, occasionally touching her cheeks, while over at the Cheefs' table, Dorothy and Scarecrow sat too close and laughed together. I would have almost felt bad for Dryad if she hadn't almost murdered me on the racetrack and smashed my valuable egg.

The Silver Lady came into the Feed, sat next to Dryad, and consolingly patted her back.

Fezzik stood up abruptly. “Excuse me, guys.” He left the Feed with his tray.

“He's never talked to us about video games before,” Aurora said, watching him go. “Only as references for surviving real life.”

“What's wrong with him?” Soup asked.

“He proposed to the Silver Lady last night, and she totally rejected him,” Meeki said, eating a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Dude should have realized he didn't stand a chance.”

I agreed with Meeki but refused to acknowledge it.

“So now what?” I asked. “Fezzik's just going to go right back to video games like he told all of us not to do? Isn't he supposed to be our healer?”

Aurora gazed toward the door. “What if giant heartbreak is more painful than a regular-size one?”

No one answered.

“I should go talk to him,” Aurora said.

She left the Feed.

“I gotta get to class,” I said, and slid my tray toward Soup. “Thanks, buddy.”

Fezzik's story was tragic and everything, but there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, Meeki was right. A dude that big should have known he didn't stand a chance.

I jogged to gardening. I had triggers on the fingers. I had bullets on the brain. I had blood in my . . . blood. I asked the Silver Lady if I could water, set the nozzle to jet stream, and scored head shots on the tomatoes, imagining each as a red helmet on a
Halo
map.

The funny thing was, at least for that day, I wanted Fezzik and my dad to be right about violence in video games. I wanted first-person shooters to have turned me into a cold-blooded murderer . . . with paint.

After I knocked a couple of tomatoes loose, their guts splattering across the soil, the Silver Lady quietly took away the nozzle and led me to an area to pull weeds for the rest of class.

Those weeds never knew what hit 'em.

T
he sun was a bright blur behind the clouds. The wind blew white off the dunes. Sand whipped our clothes and stung our eyes as the Fury Burds trudged north. Black shapes rose up before us. The giant, melting chess set I'd seen from Video Horizons's roof was actually dozens of black bunkers, towering inflatables that would serve as our battleground.

“The Wasteland,”
Soup whispered.

All I had to do was be perfect one last time. I might as well have actually been going to war, my heart was hammering so hard.

The three guilds gathered in the shadow of a bunker monolith. The players hummed with excitement. Even Zxzord had dragged his undead ass out of bed at the prospect of shooting someone.

The coach held up a paintball gun and called over the
wind, “Each of you will receive a gun powered by a CO
₂
canister and equipped with a hopper—that's this container on top—that has a two-hundred-paintball capacity.”

“Ahem.”
G-man loudly cleared his throat.

“Right,” the coach said. “I'm supposed to warn you not to lift up each other's masks—that's your helmet—and shoot each other in the face. Got it?”

“No problem, boss!” Lion said. He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together. Why was G-man giving them these ideas?

While the coach showed us how to load the hopper, I overheard Meeki whisper to Aurora,
“He's got three compressed air guns he's gonna give the Sefiroths since they have the fewest points.”

“Is compressed air better?”
I whispered.

Meeki scowled at me.

“Is compressed air better?” Aurora asked for me.

“Those guns can fire twelve paintballs a
second
,” Meeki said.

“How?” Aurora asked, seeing my eyes widen.

Meeki curled her middle and index finger around an invisible trigger and rapidly double tapped the air. “It's like being attacked by a swarm of neon bees. You might be able to avoid one, but . . .”

“Meeki,”
I whispered,
“are you a badass at paintball?”