Insignia (23 page)

If Russo-Chinese Combatants were here …

Medusa
might be here.

The greatest warrior in the world could be in the same simulation as Tom. Right in reach of him. And he was just standing here, a useless sentry, removed from the fighting.

“Yes! I’m getting the exit option now!” Elliot gave a relieved laugh. He turned to Tom. “Is the exit sequence working for you, or do I need to unplug you once I’m out?”

“Wait.” Tom turned on him, electric with determination. “Don’t go yet. Let’s fight them, Elliot. Come on. You and me. Hector and random sentry person. Let’s take on the Greeks. Let’s take on the Russo-Chinese.”

“You want to stay?” Elliot stared at him. He obviously hadn’t even considered that option. “The pain receptors are on full, Tom. You saw Stephen. Getting stabbed here feels like getting stabbed.”

“I’ll risk it! Elliot, come on already. This could be incredible! Let’s show ’em Americans aren’t cowards!”

Below them, the people in the city were screaming as they were cut down by the invading army.

“Come on, Elliot,” Tom said. “This is my only chance. You get to fight these people all the time. I may never be CamCo. I may never get to fight them in real life.”

“This means that much to you?”

“Look, come on. I’ll do anything. I’ll pay fealty. You want fealty? You’ll get all the fealty you can handle. Just don’t unplug me!”

Elliot shook his head, exasperated and, Tom would swear, amused. “You were born in the wrong era, Tom. You should’ve been a berserker. Fine. I won’t unplug you. But go as a combat character.” And with a wave of his hand, Tom’s body transformed.

He was about to murder Elliot for turning him into a girl again, but he realized that this girl character was the best warrior yet unclaimed in the sim: Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons.

Elliot saluted him. “Don’t embarrass your country, Plebe.”

“No, sir!”

“And I didn’t even have to wrangle that ‘sir’ out of you, huh? Well, that’ll do for fealty,” Elliot said with a grin and vanished from the sim.

And so it was left to Tom, the lone, nonvirtual defender of Troy, against the entire Greek army. He whirled around, the grandeur of the moment sweeping over him. He didn’t care that he was probably going to be skewered and end up as miserable as Beamer. He didn’t even care that it was going to hurt. This was his time of glory.

He watched the attackers and waited for that one. That one person to show up, the fighter he’d know anywhere.

And when he spotted him through the churning mass of the army, the clouds of dust, and the rippling waves of heat, Tom knew him at once.

Medusa was playing
Achilles
. The mightiest warrior in the world of today was fighting as the most fearsome warrior of the ancient world.

It was so fitting Tom could’ve cheered.

But instead, he caught sight of a stray horse, riderless, panicked with flight, galloping across the dusty ground below him. He timed his leap, and landed right on its back. It was easy in Penthesilea’s battle-hardened body. Using her powerful legs, Tom steered the horse’s massive body, launched them toward the battle. He kicked its haunches and plunged them into the bloodshed.

Tom ignored the warriors boiling about him. They were mere obstacles blocking his way to Medusa. He needed to attract Medusa’s attention, so he tried to pick out the other Russo-Chinese Combatants among the virtual soldiers.

He recognized Rusalka, known as Svetlana Moriakova, the Russian answer to Elliot Ramirez and the only public Russo-Chinese Combatant. She was playing Agamemnon, and she betrayed herself in the way she hung back and tried to ensure others took the brunt of the fighting. Tom had seen enough past CamCo battles to recognize the tactic on sight. He raised his bow and arrow, caught her eye, and winked. Just as the surprise washed over her face, his arrow impaled her throat.

He found Red Terror next, playing Odysseus, a guy who betrayed his identity by the way he cut down the strays, the stragglers, the weakest. Just like Red Terror when he fought in space, who always attacked the soft spot first. Tom clutched his bow in his left hand, drew his sword with his right, and hacked off Red Terror’s head as he careened past him.

Then he saw the Combatant Kalashnikov, playing Patrocles, recognizable by the way he played dirty and killed Tom’s horse beneath him. Tom leaped clear of the screaming, thrashing creature, rolled to his feet, and drove his sword through Kalashnikov’s eye.

That’s when Medusa saw Tom.

Medusa charged through the armies in his chariot. With a jerk of the reins, Medusa brought the chariot to a halt just meters away, dust swirling up in a great cloud around his gleaming armor.

Tom just stood there, sword in hand, a huge grin on his lips. He stared at Medusa and Medusa stared at him, and in this moment that made his dreams come true, Tom could only think of one thing to say.

“How’s it going?”

As soon as he spoke, he regretted how stupid he must’ve sounded.

Medusa’s eyes raked over him. “You didn’t run with the others.”

“I’d never run from you.”

“I’d call you courageous,” Medusa said, “but I suspect you may just be a moron.”

Tom laughed, feeling almost giddy, because this was really happening. “Got me in one guess … Medusa.”

Medusa jerked a bit. “You know me.”

“I’d know you anywhere,” Tom confessed. “I think about you all the time.” He knew how creepy and stalkerish that had to sound, but he didn’t care.

“You seem a bit deranged,” Medusa remarked.

“That’s fair.”

And then Medusa charged.

Tom knew he didn’t stand a chance in the open. He scrambled into the midst of the massing armies to buy some time. He cast his eyes around for some advantage, then spotted the concave shield of a dead Greek, aware of Medusa fighting through the Trojan army to get him like some relentless angel of death. As the rumbling of the wheels mounted to a roar in his ears, and the shadow of the chariot blotted out the sun around him, Tom twisted around, angled the shield, raising his sword above it—and blared sunlight right into Medusa’s eyes.

Medusa was blinded just as he flung his javelin. His wild throw sent it whizzing by Tom’s ear.

Tom hurled the shield at Medusa, unbalancing him. He leaped forward, lashed out with his sword and drove it through the neck of one of the chariot’s horses. Red Terror wasn’t the only one who could play dirty.

The horse tumbled to the earth with a scream. It thrashed to the dusty ground, toppling the second horse and careening the chariot onto its side. Tom leaped clear of the vehicle, saw Medusa doing the same—hurling himself clear of the wreckage. With a whoop of triumph, Tom tore after the struggling warrior, ready to impale Medusa before he could regain his sword.

Medusa resorted to using the only weapon in reach: a cloud of sand that stung Tom’s eyes, blinding him in that critical second. Tom’s sword sank into the ground, and a kick to his stomach reeled him back to the ground, knocking the breath from his body.

And then Medusa was on his feet, blade flashing toward Tom’s head. Tom rolled out of the way, thankful for Penthesilea’s agility. He scrambled back up and blocked Medusa’s next blow with his sword. And then the next. But Medusa pressed relentlessly, with the raw strength of Achilles overwhelming Penthesilea. Tom’s arms buckled beneath the bone-jarring clang, and he twisted out of the way of the blade just in time. When Medusa’s next blow came, Tom let his arms give out entirely beneath the power of it and used the momentum to spin himself around. He drew a bloody gash on Medusa’s back, and then leaped back before Medusa’s blade could swivel around and gut him.

They faced each other, fighting for breath. And then Medusa whirled away from him. Just as Tom moved to pursue, Medusa whipped back around and tossed something into the air. Tom felt a tickling around his legs, and looked down to see the chariot’s reins twined in a loop around his limbs.

He slashed downward with his sword to cut the makeshift lasso, but it was too late—Medusa jerked the reins to tighten them, tumbling Tom to the ground. Then Medusa leaped onto the remaining horse and kicked it into a gallop, the reins dragging Tom across the ground behind it. Sand scorched a raw path down his side. A wild slash of his sword finally severed the rope, and he thumped down to the earth, breathless.

Medusa galloped a distance, and swung back around. Sunlight gleamed off his steel helmet and armor.

Tom raised himself to his shaky legs, kicking away the remains of the reins, his sword aloft, waiting. Waiting. His strength was wearing thin, his breath ragged, his body on fire where his skin had been torn off by scraping across the ground. This couldn’t last much longer.

And then Medusa charged. His horse galloped faster and faster, grunting with the speed. Tom readied himself for the assault as the clattering hooves filled his ears and the dust blotted out his vision, and then at the last moment, Medusa leaped off the horse. The animal careened into Tom in an explosion of thrashing hooves and muscle. A blow to his ribs, to his torso. Acid burned through him when something ruptured.

Tom dragged himself clear. Fire burned inside him, and each gasp at air felt like a dagger stabbing him. One of his lungs had collapsed. His breaths were gurgles as the shadow of Achilles strode over the sand toward him. He saw the shadowy sword rise and then arc down into him.

It didn’t hurt at first. At first. And then Medusa tore out the bloody blade, kicked Tom over onto his back, and loomed above him, a black figure in a halo of sunlight. A nuclear meltdown was happening in his torso. Tom’s scream was a gurgle as molten agony consumed him, radiating to his limbs, tearing at every nerve. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe....

Medusa knelt down next to him. “I’m sure you now wish you’d left with the others.”

Tom’s vision darkened around the edges, his body arcing in pain in a futile fight for oxygen, and the plume of Medusa’s helmet grew larger and darker as he leaned even closer to watch him die. Tom was half aware of Medusa’s hand lifting the back of his leaden head, sliding his helmet off to let his bloody hair spill out—Achilles taking a moment to gaze down at the dying Penthesilea. And as Tom’s consciousness tunneled away, he thought he saw Medusa’s lips curl into a slow smile. Through his agony, he twisted his lips into a bloody grin of his own.

You’re everything I dreamed you’d be
.

The last thing he felt was Medusa’s hands cupping his head, cradling it until he slipped away into the darkness.

T
OM’S EYES SNAPPED
open in the simulation chamber.

Elliot was seated at the end of his cot, arms folded. The rest of the simulation group was gathered around behind him, staring down at Tom like he was some weird science project. When Tom tried to sit up, a bunch of hands helped him.

He groped at his aching head. Elliot hopped down and strode over, dark eyebrows raised. “Your heart rate went a bit crazy there toward the end. We were worried. How’d it go?”

“Took out Kalashnikov, Red Terror, and Rusalka.”

Elliot laughed. “Rusalka, taken out by a plebe. I’m going to rub that in Svetlana’s face next time we’re at the same PR event.”

“Then Medusa got me.”

Elliot shocked him by clapping his shoulder. “Good job, Tom.”

Tom found himself grinning back. Elliot had let him stay, had given him a chance to face Medusa. He was amazed. Somehow he couldn’t imagine thinking of Elliot as Dorkmirez ever again.

The crowd around him cleared as everyone tucked away the wires in the simulation chamber. Tom didn’t move right away. He felt like he was buzzing all over with the thrill of what had happened. When he did move, it was only to make his way across the room where Beamer was sitting on his cot, legs drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. He looked paler than his character in the sim, his freckles a stark contrast against his white skin.

Tom waved his hand in front of his eyes. Beamer flinched back from him and scrambled off the cot, gasping for breath. “Get back!”

“Tom, leave him alone,” Elliot ordered gently, watching from over Tom’s shoulder.

“We’re friends.”

Elliot drew him back with a firm grip. “Try to think: you just killed him.”

“Come on.” Tom turned to Beamer incredulously. “I didn’t
kill
kill you. And hey, I died, too. Sword to the gut.” He clutched his abdomen and imitated his own gurgling from a minute before, then collapsed theatrically to the floor. But when he jounced back to his feet, Beamer wasn’t looking at him.

Tom grew exasperated. Beamer died all the time. So this one death hadn’t worked out for him. He was fine now. Tom had died, too, and he’d never felt this alive or pumped up in his life.

“Come on, Beamer! I beheaded you for your own good.”

Beamer sent him a cloudy look, like he didn’t really see him. Elliot stepped between them, drawing that foggy gaze to his. “Stephen, would you like me to call the social worker for you?”

“Yeah, that’ll make him feel better,” Tom said. “Call the guy a wimp.”

Beamer’s eyes flipped back to him over Elliot’s shoulder. He stared at Tom for a long moment, and then bolted from the room.