Variant (8 page)

Isaiah held up his minicomputer and gestured for everyone to quiet down. As a hush fell over the forest, he opened it and clicked a few keys. “Search and Rescue,” he read. “Havoc is defending and Variants are attacking. The Society is the ref. The winning team will be invited to a party tonight in the trophy room. The losing team will not receive food for two days.”

There were groans from the crowd, and players immediately began taunting each other.

“This one’s good,” Lily whispered to me. “They’ll have one of our people, and one of us has to get up there and touch them. And the hostage can’t get shot.”

“Why would they make us starve? What are we supposed to learn from that?”

“You tell me. They do this a lot.”

I looked at Mason but he just rolled his eyes.

Lily’s mouth formed back into a bitter smile. “But we don’t have to worry about it, because we’re going to win.”

After a moment’s deliberation with the V’s, Curtis shouted, “Rosa will be the hostage.” One of the older girls nodded, looking a little disappointed but not surprised. She was decked out from head to toe in dark, heavy camouflage that had hundreds of cloth leaves individually stitched onto it. She looked like a cross between a ninja and a swamp monster.

“Rosa’s got asthma,” Lily whispered to me. “She has the best equipment and gun out of all of us, but she just doesn’t last long on the field.”

Mason leaned in. “And this frickin’ school won’t give her any medicine.”

Isaiah ushered Rosa up to the front. She handed her expensive gun to another girl.

Isaiah waved his arms to get everyone’s attention. “And each team gets a medic,” he announced, reading from the minicomputer again. Jane immediately volunteered.

“What does the medic do?” I asked Lily.

“When there’s a medic in the game,” she said, “if you get hit you just stay where you are and she’ll touch you to heal you. But if she gets hit then she’s out. And a medic can’t heal a head shot. If you’re hit in the head, you just leave the field.”

Isaiah handed out a white armband with a red cross on it to Jane and the other medic, and then sent Havoc up into the woods, with Rosa in tow. Several of the Society refs started fanning out into the woods.

Curtis sent our squad to the far left, and we waited outside the ribbon for the refs to blow the whistle. Even though it had been so cold during the night, the midday sun, even under the trees, was warm. Lily, her mask up on top of her head as she waited for the game to start, had sweat dripping down her temples.

I looked out past the ribbon at the forest beyond. Several of the pines and rocks were spotted with paint from old games.

“How big is the field?”

“I once heard twenty or thirty acres,” Mason answered. “But I have no idea where that number came from. It’s not like we measured it. Just make sure you stay inside the ribbons—those are the boundaries.”

“I’m going to run,” Lily said, her eyes focused on the uneven terrain. “Stay about fifty feet behind me; when I stop, you stop.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t thinking about paintball. My mind had gone back to the night before, climbing that tree. Was there a chance I could sneak off the field now? How close did the paintball field get to the wall? How vigilant were the refs?
What if
our
team was reffing?

No, I thought. There are only as many paintball players as the smallest team, and since the Society was the biggest, they’d always have players off the field. Even if we were the refs, the Society would be around, maybe patrolling the wall on their four-wheelers.

I glanced back at Lily. I couldn’t believe we could buy that stuff with points. It was like they were
trying
to get us to escape.

The whistle sounded and Lily darted under the tape and sprinted forward. I ran after her, but despite her heavy poncho, she was still faster. We ran farther and faster than I thought we would. I had no idea how big twenty acres was, but we ran for a couple minutes before Lily began to slow and watch for Havoc defenses.

The forest was silent except for the crunching under my feet. Lily was walking like soldiers in the movies—crouched low, gun ready. I tried to imitate her.

Somewhere off to the right I heard a girl’s voice shout, “Medic!” and then a moment later a boy shouted the same thing. I didn’t recognize the voices and turned back to look at Mason to see if he knew who it was. It took me a second to see him, leaning against a tree. He motioned for me to keep my eyes front.

Lily froze, watching something, and she gestured for me to get low. I knelt next to a dry spiky bush, and watched as Lily slowly crouched down. With her legs against the ground, the shaggy ghillie suit obscured her almost completely.

I heard rapid firing from behind me and spun to see Mason spraying paintballs into the woods. I looked for his target, but couldn’t see anything. A moment later he stopped.

I lifted up slightly, trying to see the enemy, and my bush erupted in splashes of paint. I fell down on my belly and heard Mason returning fire.

When the shooting stopped, a whistle blew, and a ref jogged over to me and asked me to stand. He inspected my clothes, had me turn around, and then declared, “You’re not hit.” The balls had exploded on the other side of the bush, and apparently not enough paint got me to count.

I dropped back down and looked forward to Lily. She was on the move again, heading to the right, but motioned for me to stay where I was.

Had I not known her before, I’d have never guessed the professional, commando-like player ahead of me was a short seventeen-year-old girl. Everything about her was different now: the way she moved, the constant level of alertness. Through the smudged paint on her legs I could see well-defined lines of muscle tone. I was glad she was on our team. Hopefully we wouldn’t be the ones without food for two days.

I kept low and lost sight of her as she moved over a rise and into a thicket of juniper. Shots suddenly hissed out, and I heard a male voice swear and shout for a medic.

Grinning, I looked at Mason, and he gave me a thumbs-up.

Lily came charging back over the rise and urgently gestured for Mason and me to follow her. I jumped from the bush and ran. My bruise was throbbing, reminding me of the last time I’d been in the forest, but I ignored it.

I almost ran past Lily before I saw her at the last minute, hiding behind a log. I dropped down beside her. Thirty feet ahead was the boy she’d shot—probably the same one who’d shot at me.

“We’ll ambush the medic,” she said, out of breath. She kept her eyes forward but pointed at a boulder several yards to our left. “You get behind that. When they get here, wait till they get close, and start shooting. Then get down. Mason, get over in that thicket. We want them to think that Benson’s alone and doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“That won’t be hard,” I joked, but Lily ignored it.

“Go,” she whispered.

The injured kid shouted again for a medic. Lily had told me earlier that injured players aren’t allowed to say anything else—he wouldn’t be able to warn them.

I waited, leaning on the rock high enough that someone would be able to see me. I watched the forest ahead—there was plenty of cover. A tiny stream dribbled down on the far side of the thicket, and tall brush—five feet tall in some places—grew at its bank.

The injured guy rolled and pulled a pinecone out from under his back. I wondered which of the Havoc kids he was. He looked too short to be Oakland.

I heard the shot—the sharp hiss of compressed air—but I didn’t see the shooter before a paintball smacked into my shoulder. A second hit me in the ribs, just above my bruise. I gasped in pain at the sting and then raised my arms in defeat. I was dead.

“Medic!” I shouted, holding my side with my hand. Those paintballs hurt.

I could hear muffled laughter behind the grass, and then two masks pushed through it, identifying their downed player. One of them gestured. Another, crouched low, jogged across the clearing toward me, apparently unaware of Lily and Mason. He cautiously moved around, checking the area, and then gave a signal to the other.

Someone ran straight for the injured guy—the boy with the medic badge. He had just healed the first guy when Lily and Mason opened fire, splattering the guard, the medic, and the newly revived kid. The dead guard swore, and the medic shouted something, yanking off his badge and throwing it to the ground. I noticed now that the last guy—the mask peeking through the grass—stood up, one ball of paint smashed into his goggles. Four kills.

I gave a thumbs-up to Lily and she returned it.

A few moments later, Isaiah’s voice echoed over the bullhorn. “The defending team’s medic has been killed. No more Havoc team members can be healed. If you are shot, please leave the field of play.”

Lily and Mason formed another ambush around me, taking up new positions to guard against someone doing the same thing we’d done, and we waited for our medic.

Jane appeared a few minutes later, running alone, not moving with a squad as the Havoc team had done. I shouted “medic” as soon as I saw her to help her find me, and she sprinted, moving fast and light. She didn’t slow, just lowered her arm enough for her fingertips to drag across my shoulder and then continued into the forest. I stood back up and brushed at the wet paint spots with the back of my hand.

Even though I couldn’t see her mouth behind the mask, I could tell from Lily’s eyes that she was smiling. “When I told you to act like you didn’t know what you were doing, I didn’t think you’d take it so literally.”

“I’m an overachiever.”

“Nice,” Lily whispered. “Okay. Same as before. We’ll move up and along the ribbon.”

Mason and I nodded, and she began running. I gave her fifty feet and then followed, keeping my stance even lower than before.

Lily had described our goal before the game had started. Rosa would likely be held hostage in a group of small defensive forts—nothing fancy, just little wooden structures with peepholes and room to shoot. There were supposed to be five or six of them somewhere at the back of the field.

The slope was getting steeper, and we moved more slowly and deliberately now. Lily would stop at cover—bushes or trees or rocks—and then, when she felt safe, she’d run for the next. Mason and I followed behind.

At a large rock outcropping, she decided to leave the ribbon and head into the interior of the field. We had to be close to the bunkers by now. It wouldn’t be long before we ran into trouble.

Lily moved to a cluster of junipers and paused for what seemed like ten minutes, though it couldn’t have been nearly that long. Finally, she began to move, creeping up the slope. I watched, giving her some space before I dared to follow. I didn’t have any camouflage, and couldn’t go slowly like she did. If I left the cover of my rock, I’d be spotted in an instant.

A staccato of shots sounded behind me, and I ducked and spun, turning my gun toward the noise. Someone was shooting at Mason, but I couldn’t see him or the shooter.

I peered over the rock toward Lily, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The shooting stopped. Mason hadn’t called for a medic, which was a good sign.

My options were limited. Most of the slope was thick with brush, and anybody could be hiding inside it. I didn’t know where Mason was, so I couldn’t very well move to help him.

Suddenly there was a flurry of shots, paint splattering all over in the trees and bushes. Mason yelled out “hit!” and stood, paint splattered across his mask.

Jane couldn’t heal a head hit. I took a deep breath, watching as he held his gun up and walked toward the ribbon and off the field. I didn’t have anyone behind me anymore and someone was hidden in the brush.

Looking back toward the front, I couldn’t see Lily at all.

I waited for five minutes, hoping to hear shots as Lily looped back and killed Mason’s attacker, but it never happened.

The only sign of life was a Society ref, about forty yards away. I thought about making a break for the wall, but knew I couldn’t. The refs all had whistles, and my tan sweats stood out like a white light in this dim forest.

If I couldn’t escape, I might as well play the game. I didn’t want two days without food.

Clutching my gun, I jumped to my feet and ran to the cluster of junipers where Lily had been. I skidded to a stop behind a gnarled trunk and readied for attack. But there was no sound.

I whispered her name. With her ghillie suit so convincing, she could have been ten feet away from me. No answer.

Crap.

I waited another few minutes, hoping to see some movement or hear a sound, but there was nothing.

I still hadn’t fired a shot.

Hoping that I wasn’t going to screw up Lily’s tactics—I assumed she was still alive since I hadn’t heard her call for the medic—I lifted into a crouch and prepared to advance. No one shot at me.

I moved slowly, hunched down, ready to shoot if necessary. My shoes were loud in the rocky dirt, even as I tried to step around dry twigs and brittle grass. I went up the slope where I’d last seen Lily. There were no signs of her—no footprints, no fresh paint marks.

There were more trees here, shorter but denser. I moved from trunk to trunk, watching anxiously. It had been a long time since I’d heard or seen anything, and I began to wonder whether the game was over and I’d missed the bullhorn.

After a few minutes, the first bunker came into view. I dropped to the ground. There was no good cover, so I lay flat on my stomach, my gun aimed at the wooden fort. The front surface was splattered with a dozen different colors of paint, though I didn’t know whether that was from this game or a previous one.

Where is Lily?

I moved back to a crouch and headed for the nearest cover, a large stump. No one fired.

Screw it.

I jumped from the stump and ran toward the bunker, stopping at its base. I took a breath and then leapt up, pointing my gun inside.

It was empty.

I could see through it and out the back door. Behind it was a clearing, and the back of another bunker. I hunched over again, and moved around the side, trying to be quiet and failing miserably.