"Oh no," she whispered.
They had started the final week of competition early and she wasn't there. Not only was she not gaining points, she was losing them, and fast.
Before she dropped connection, she checked her ranking. It didn't take her long to figure that by the time she got back to school, she'd be in last place.
Chapter Eleven
When they reached the farmhouse, Gabby had to restrain the urge to run to the FunCar. She didn't want them to think something was wrong. She knew now the stakes were much higher than she'd previously envisioned.
Gabby didn't suspect that the Frags would harm her if they thought she would turn them in, but she didn't want to chance it. And she hadn't decided, anyway. First she would have to survive Final Raid.
"You said you'd get me back by morning," she said, pointing at the sun, now directly overhead.
"I said anything I thought would get you to stay," said Michael. "We got you back earlier than I thought we would."
Gabby threw her backpack in the FunCar. Milton handed her a piece of paper.
"Bet you haven't seen one of those very often," he said.
The paper had a crude map drawn on it. It looked like a child had made it.
She shrugged. "I read books. Real ones. And speaking of." Gabby pulled the owl book out of the backpack. "Have you ever seen this one before?"
Milton stared blankly. "Nope. Never seen it. Why do you ask?"
"Just curious," she asked.
Gabby wasn't sure why she thought the Frags might know about the book. Maybe she hadn't believed Michael when he said the owl wasn't theirs. It just seemed like a strange coincidence.
She would have to ask Blair if she knew about the Frags next time she saw her. If she got to see her again. Even if she survived Final Raid, she'd still have to survive her parents.
Though that might explain their willingness to work with LGIE. They probably suspected what happened to the kids that failed and didn't want that to happen to her. Her opinion of her parents dropped, realizing that they allowed this system to continue.
Gabby had one leg in the FunCar when she felt the heat from another person behind her.
Michael stood nearby, staring at his feet and glancing up at her between half-started words. A halo of bugs floated above them.
Choking on his words, Michael finally gave up and lunged forward, pressing his lips awkwardly against hers. Gabby turned slightly, startled by the movement, and the kiss missed her mouth, settling halfway between her lips and cheek.
Michael mumbled an apology and then left. Gone was the confident boy from the Black Gate who'd kissed her as a diversion from the Coder. He shuffled toward the farmhouse with his head down.
Gabby's cheeks burned. The wetness against her face tingled like mint.
A bug flew down from the hovering halo and landed on her shoulder. The tiny wing lifted and waved.
"Bye, Celia," said Gabby.
Then Gabby was lifted into the air by the strong arms of Drogan. He embraced her in a smothering hug that squeezed the air from her lungs.
"Bye, Drogan," she grunted.
"Bye, Ms. Gabby," he said, grinning dully.
He set her down and returned to the barn. A nursery rhyme sprung to his lips on the way.
"What now?" she asked Milton.
"Get back to your Final Raid," he said.
When the surprise registered on her face, he continued. "I knew you checked your messages as soon as it happened. Good thing I did, too, the Coders had put trackers on all the messages and I squashed them before they could broadcast our location."
Gabby paled and the heat deserted her face.
"If I hadn't, we would have been greeted by hovercraft," he said. "We'll contact you when it's over."
Milton left.
The manual FunCar controls appeared when Gabby got in. She spread the map on her lap and gunned the vehicle. She didn't have time to waste.
Gabby pushed the FunCar much faster than she had on the way in, screaming through the mountain roads. Every minute away meant more points she would have to make up.
The FunCar tilted toward the cliff edge on hard corners, and her stomach leapt into her throat. Racing games weren't her strongest suit, but she could manage.
After a few harrowing hours on the mountain roads, she reached the flatlands and achieved speeds she didn't think possible from the bubble car. The poor aerodynamics of the car left its vulnerable to wind gusts and Gabby had to drag the car from the edge of the road on more than one occasion.
Gabby drove the FunCar right up to the school, ignoring the rules about returning vehicles to the lot for recharge. That fine was the least of her worries.
Moments before she'd reached the school, she broadcasted a brief message to her parents and Administrator Bracket that she was arriving at school. She left out an explanation and an apology.
Bracket was waiting for her when she pulled up. His flattop looked freshly cut and his formal military outfit was sharp as ever. Gabby would have complimented him on it, but for the grim mask he wore.
"You picked an extremely bad time to go missing for a few days," said Bracket, flexing his arms across his chest. "Do you care to give an explanation, Ms. DeCorte?" He looked ready to throw her over the FunCar.
She'd worked out an explanation on the drive in, but as she opened her mouth, it seemed a feeble excuse.
"With the big raid coming up, and the demand from the LGIE, I freaked. I got majorly debuffed, and my mind was dotted with worry. So I hacked a FunCar and took off for a joy ride," she said, trying to sound on the verge of tears.
The part about the hacked FunCar was painful to say, but she knew she had no way around it. It would give them something to punish her for if they chose to go easy. Or it would give them another mark against her if they wanted to make it hard.
Administrator Bracket nodded slowly. Gabby thought she detected a twinge of concern.
"What did you decide on this joy ride?" Bracket asked. His eyes briefly motioned behind him, as if he were trying to tell her someone was there.
Gabby was going to give him an honest answer about not wanting to cooperate with the LGIE, but she changed her answer as she opened her mouth.
"That I need to listen to my parents." Gabby put on her best pleading face, the one she used to get out of punishments with her dad. "Please, Administrator Bracket, you have to understand. I know my joy ride wasn't going to drop agro, but I've been grinding points for so long, and I really needed a break."
One eyebrow went up and his head tilted slightly to let her know that it wasn't enough.
"Plus getting into the LGIE has always been a dream of mine and knowing they were investigating my files broke my heart," she said.
She might have gone too far, since they could easily review past public records to find she'd never expressed that desire before, but it was the first thing that came to mind. LGIE was total neural shaping work, and she hated her neural shaping classes.
Bracket's other eyebrow went up, signaling surprise, and a hint of a grin formed. Her confusion at his support dissolved when a pale man in dark clothes with a sword strapped to his back appeared out of thin air.
Remembering that she wasn't supposed to know this was possible from her experience at the mountain wall, Gabby forced herself to gasp in surprise.
"Where did you come from?" said Gabby.
The man was the Coder from the Black Gate. He had milky white skin that appeared sickly in the sunlight. He wore black pants and an open shirted vest. A hungry sword made of starlight was strapped to his back.
Red eyes glowered, devouring her in his gaze. "You'd be correct in wanting to be a member of the LGIE. We're given great license to do our job."
The threat and promise was clearly delivered. Gabby kept her face neutral.
"However." He snapped his head to the side, eliciting a dreadful crack. "Agents of the LGIE were the very best of their class. A distinction you do not currently own."
"In fact." He spread his arm wide and the current rankings flowed out like an unrolled scroll. Her name blinked red, second from the bottom. At the top, the Evil Dolls flashed bright green and a few spots below the cut off line, Zaela's name hovered flat gray.
"You're not even going to make it through the week, let alone be high enough to be noticed." He placed his hand to his chin, in playful contemplation, while his eyes studied her cruelly.
His mocking grin sneered to one side. "We shouldn't delay Ms. DeCorte much longer, Mr. Bracket."
"That's Administrator Bracket." His face was featureless stone. "And yes, Mr. Johnson. She should join the game in progress. She's lost enough ground because the Final Raid started a day early."
"I'd like a few words with her before she goes," said Mr. Johnson.
"Fine. But don't keep her too long. The early start to the Raid Games has been violation enough to the spirit of the rules," said Bracket.
Administrator Bracket made a point of not turning toward Mr. Johnson when he left. Gabby had never been a fan of Administrator Bracket's before, but his willingness to tell the LGIE agent he was wrong improved his faction in her eyes.
The albino Coder rolled his eyes and sneered a mocking grin.
When they were alone, Mr. Johnson, who didn't look much older than Gabby, moved uncomfortably close. His sour breath made her nose wrinkle.
"I know you were with some Frags," he said. "If you tell me where they are, I can help you get back those points you've lost. You're in quite a deep hole, you know."
Gabby stared back into his crimson eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Johnson. I've never heard of these Frags."
"I can make you a lucrative offer for substantiated information about them," he whispered. "Even get your friend Zaela into University, if that's what it takes. I have that authority."
That he was willing to subvert the system for information made Gabby realize the Frags may have been truthful about the stakes. Not that the two dead kids in the tent hadn't convinced her.
"May I go?" she asked after a long pause. "Like you said, I'm in a deep hole. I need to get into the raid and earn some points."
Mr. Johnson bowed with a deep flourish, the sarcastic grin still lurking on his lips. "By all means. But I think we'll be speaking again after the raid is over. My offer won't be as generous then."
Gabby didn't give him the satisfaction of answering him and marched to the building.
Mr. Johnson yelled after her. "Be careful in there. Everything isn't as it seems. Even your friends."
As her hand touched the door, she thought a tiny black speck lifted from her shoulder and disappeared into a wind gust.
It could have been one of Celia's sensor bugs, but there was no way it could broadcast this far. She was on edge and imagining things, she thought. Gabby opened the door and went in.
Immediately, her school interface sprung into existence around her. She followed an orange arrow to the school gym. She couldn't wait to join the raid and talk to Zaela. She missed her best friend after a difficult weekend. With any luck, it would be a co-ed raid, and Zaela had picked Dario for their team.
Bracket was waiting outside the gym doors, wearing a suit of platemail with the visor up. The stiff interlocking armor suited the rigid marine.
"Your team is waiting at the entrance," he said. "They couldn't enter the Raid until the whole team was there."
"Thank you, Administrator Bracket," she said.
"No, you don't understand," he explained. "They haven't been able to earn points while you haven't been here."
"I understand," said Gabby. "I was thanking you about outside."
His eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about."
She nodded as he handed her small glowing shield with a stylized black dragon on it. The dragon had smoke leaking from its nostrils. The word ASPHYXIA was printed above the dragon.
Gabby recognized the raid program and squeezed it to initialize. Administrator Bracket disappeared as the world changed to a loading screen.
Except for the glowing door in front of her, the room was a blank box. It would be good to get into the Raid. She hadn't scored a single point in over a day.
Beyond the doors, her brief optimism was dashed as she saw her team. Had Gabby picked the four other students she would least like to be on a team, she would have picked the four waiting in the loading room.
They looked just as excited to see her.
Chapter Twelve
Gabby's first thought was that they had set her up. As she glared back at the four sets of eyes, it was her second thought, too.
Before she had wondered if the Coder, Mr. Johnson, had pulled the Raid ahead to set her further behind. The LGIE wanted her to give up the Frags and by making her lose points, they had something to offer if she didn't make it.
Now that she saw the rest of her team, she knew that was their plan. There was no way any of the four would pick her, and random selection would never be this bad.
Teams of five would mean there were nine other teams already in the game, earning points. She could already guess that Zaela and Dario wouldn't be on the same team. When cut off came at the end of the Raid, only thirty students would go on to Blizzard University. The Boss level, as some liked to call it.
"Better watch it team, she's probably exploiting our characters so we die at the first challenge," said Stephan.
Gabby had once dated Stephan. He was a beautiful boy that sparkled even without a hint of digital modification. Stephan glided like royalty through the halls. Even the female teachers fawned over him.
She'd practically been maxed buffed when they went on their first date. She and Zaela had planned every second of the date, leading up to a story book kiss.
Their actual date was a disaster. For four hours, they rode a FunCar up the coast, and he talked about himself, hardly even remembering she was there.