Psion Delta (17 page)

“Very
crazy-cool-awesome, Sammy,” Strawberry joked as she mimicked Sammy’s tone from
minutes earlier.

They
reached the fourth level without incident and spent several minutes hunting for
a way to the fifth floor. As they searched, Kaden ordered his team to regroup
so they could attack Jeffie on the top floor as a unit. It was twenty minutes
after this when Strawberry spotted a way up to the fifth floor. Sammy warned
her to be ready for a second attack as he aimed and launched her, but, again,
there was no one watching the hole.

“This
way.” He led Strawberry back into the heart of the fifth level.

“You’re
limping again,” she muttered. “How’d you get hurt?”

“It’s
not bad.” In truth, almost every step sent a jolt of fire from his thigh to his
toes.

Kaden
and Jeffie hadn’t said much in a while. Sammy guessed that Kaden’s team had
reverted back to working as a unit while Jeffie’s was probably still spread out
around the Arena. She seemed to like splitting her team into small functional
groups.

Strawberry
kept lookout behind them while Sammy assigned himself the task of peeking
around corners and steering them away from danger. He had no strategy other
than trying to engage his enemies in small packs. His chances of getting them
to fight each other were low. Jeffie was too smart to let her team get whittled
down by Kaden.

A
short distance away, Sammy heard whispering. He retreated into a narrow cove
and pulled Strawberry back with him. They stood there waiting, their faces only
centimeters apart. Gripping Strawberry’s arm, he felt her pulse pounding
rapidly. He couldn’t see her eyes, but felt her watching him. His own heart
beat a little faster as he listened intently for the sounds of enemies, but
didn’t know if he could believe what he heard because everything had gone so
quiet. Then, without warning, the wall behind them disappeared. Three Betas,
Cala, Levu, and Miguel, turned in reaction to the sudden change.

“We
found Sammy,” Levu told Kaden through her com.

“Engage
him,” Kaden ordered, his voice in Sammy’s ear. “We’ll surprise him from
behind.”

“Stay
behind me and guard my back,” Sammy hissed at Strawberry. “Don’t fight. Just
watch out for anyone being sneaky.”

Levu,
Cala, and Miguel spread out and moved in carefully. Sammy eyed them all, trying
to decide which was the weakest and how best to engage them without endangering
Strawberry.
Not Cala
, he decided.
Eenie meenie miney mo.
He ran full
sprint at Miguel, using both hands to shield. Miguel shot blasts at Sammy with
his right hand and protected himself with his left.

The
space containing the five Betas wasn’t much larger than a bedroom, not cramped,
but not spacious, either. Sammy launched himself with a blast from his left
foot into the wall on his right. A bolt of lightning shot up his leg to his
torso as he did so, causing him to grunt in pain. Midair, he shifted his weight
to perform a wall blast. Miguel jumped to meet him while the two girls tried to
contain Sammy. Once both feet were on the wall, Sammy used a double foot blast
to shoot himself away from Miguel and toward Levu.

Levu
wasn’t caught completely off-guard, but she didn’t defend herself well, either.
She shielded her head from the front, but didn’t react fast enough as Sammy
sailed past her and deactivated her helmet from behind. Cala’s blasts knocked
Sammy’s legs, disrupting his motion enough that she ruined his landing. All he
could do to prevent a total crash was use cushioning blasts to soften the blow
against the incoming wall and floor.

Cala
and Miguel ran at him, giving him no time to prepare.
I can’t lose!

He
saw Strawberry watching the action instead of keeping an eye out for Kaden. He
yelled at her, “NOW!”

Sammy
had no idea what Cala and Miguel would think it meant, but it was enough to
make them hesitate. He regained his footing and blasted himself bodily into
both of them, shielding as he did so they would have no way to reach his
helmet. The drawback to this, however, was that he couldn’t reach theirs,
either.

The
three Betas collapsed in a heap and scrambled over each other, each concerned
about protecting their own helmets so the enemy couldn’t deactivate them.

“Sammy,
they’re coming!” Strawberry warned.

Cala
got up first, and Sammy threw his weight into her side. He was much bigger than
her and drove her back into the far wall, away from Miguel who followed after
them. Sammy and Cala hit the ground again their arms tangled as they tried to
pin each other down. Sammy reached for Cala’s helmet, but as he did this, she
pinned down the arm he needed to use to shield against Miguel’s incoming blast.
Her sacrifice allowed Sammy to deactivate her, but gave Miguel his golden
opportunity.

Turning
quickly as he struggled to free himself from Cala’s frozen grip, Sammy saw that
Miguel was already down with Strawberry standing behind him.

“Yep.”
She gave him two thumbs up. “That was me. I saved you. I’m so clearly awesome.”

Sammy
would have hugged her if the situation weren’t so dire. Instead, he thanked her
and moved on. Around them, more walls disappeared. Kaden, Brickert, and
Ludwig—the last of Kaden’s team—could not be far away.

“This
way!”

The
dull throbbing in his leg turned into a steady drumbeat, and his limp became even
more pronounced as he led her deeper into the ever-vanishing labyrinth.
Everywhere they went, they stayed hidden while Sammy tried to figure out
exactly what Jeffie was planning. As he heard more and more of her orders, he
became fairly certain she’d only lost Kawai and Hefani. That left her with
seven players—all of them good ones.

Come
on, one of you honchos, help me out here.

Almost
on cue, Jeffie fired off new instructions, but they didn’t jive with the orders
she’d recently been giving.
What’s going on here? Li and Rosa weren’t
supposed to be separated from Jeffie.

At
that moment, Sammy knew that Major Tawhiri had given all three honchos the
ability to hear each other. Jeffie had figured it out and sent false
instructions into her com. However, judging from her most recent orders—real
ones, Sammy assumed—she’d divided her team into three groups and had been
keeping them near enough to help each other out as they patrolled the top floor
of the maze. Unfortunately for her, Kaden had just wiped out one of her groups,
Li, Rosa, and Brillianté, while Kaden had lost only Ludwig. Both teams were
bleeding badly now. By taking out a third of Jeffie’s team, Kaden had greatly
improved Sammy’s odds of winning.

Due
to four more Betas being deactivated, a fifth of the maze faded into nothing.
The Arena was beginning to look less labyrinthine and more like a random
scattering of walls and short halls—any semblance of a complex design now
shattered. Sammy hissed the instructions for his next move into Strawberry’s ear.
They worked their way to one of the outer walls of the Arena. Once they’d
reached their destination, they moved laterally, only leaving the wall when
they had to go around obstacles. Sammy kept his attention on the middle of the
Arena as Strawberry watched their sides. They hurried around a long L-shaped
barrier when Sammy saw two Betas about thirty yards away, their backs turned
toward him.

“Stay
here,” he told Strawberry, then took off at a run. Though his leg functioned
fine, tears sprang to his eyes from the pain. He sprinted the distance full-on,
eyes locked on the targets, but ready to dive for cover should he need to. A
powerful feeling came over him, like he was a great white shark sneaking up on
unaware swimmers. His legs propelled him forward, his arms pumped to the same
beat as his feet. Right before Sammy took to the air, and far too late, Antonio
turned and saw him.

“What
the—” he exclaimed as his helmet clamped down.

Parley
turned, too, but Sammy soared through the air above his head, deactivating him
next. As he landed, Strawberry called out for him over her com.

“Help
me! Kaden and Brickert are chasing me.”

“Run
toward me!” Sammy told her.

Walls
disappeared as Strawberry rushed toward Sammy, one hand shielding behind her.
Kaden and Brickert were fast overtaking her.

“Go
left behind that wall!” Sammy ordered.

Immediately
Strawberry hooked a left. Sammy dashed to help. Brickert followed his sister,
and Kaden came straight at Sammy.

“Sammy!”
Strawberry cried.

When
he and Kaden were only a few meters apart, they launched themselves into the
air at the same time, meeting each other mid-blast, bouncing off each other’s
shields, and landing awkwardly. Sammy regrouped and blasted again, but Kaden
did the same. This time Sammy gave his shield more of an angle, shoving Kaden’s
hand up as he tilted his head to avoid Kaden’s next blast. When they clashed
this time, they grabbed each other’s arms, locked fingers, and fell to the
floor as one. Kaden had the better position and landed on top, but Sammy quickly
countered by getting his feet down to the floor and blasting a third time,
flipping them over.

Kaden
never recovered from this move. Sammy used his strength and superior fighting
skill to pin back Kaden’s arms with one hand and deactivate him.

“Kaden?”
Brickert asked through the com. “Kaden, did you get Sammy?”

Strawberry’s
gone. Brickert’s not.

He
knew Brickert couldn’t be far. With only twenty percent of the walls remaining,
the Arena was looking awfully bare. Kobe and Jeffie remained. Brickert alone represented
Kaden’s team. And there was Sammy. He liked his odds. It didn’t take long to
find Brickert. They almost bumped into each other walking around a corner.
Bricker put his hands up, ready to shield, but when he saw Sammy he dropped
them.

“That’s
it?” Sammy asked. “You’re not even going to try?”

Brickert
shrugged. Sammy heard a hint of a smile in his voice. “Why should I? You’ll
embarrass me.”

Sammy
laughed in good humor as he deactivated his friend. Kaden’s team was done.

Kobe
and Jeffie
. . .
what a coincidence
, he mused to
himself as he stalked the remaining two. He saw very little chance of losing
now unless they were able to catch him by surprise. A good mixture of fortune
and skill had gotten him this far, and he suspected it would take him the rest
of the way, too. Neither Kobe nor Jeffie could better him one-on-one. The only
question left was
had they already found him?

The
wheels in Sammy’s head spun faster now, and the cogs turned cleaner than they
had in quite a while. Why hadn’t she come to the rescue of Parley and Antonio?
In fact, why had Parley and Antonio been so out in the open?

Bait.
She’s close by. She’s stalking me, letting me finish Kaden’s team, taking token
losses. She and Kobe plan to
—

His
thoughts were interrupted by Kobe and Jeffie attacking from opposite sides,
firing blasts at Sammy with both hands. Sammy dropped low and shielded his
front and back, barely escaping Jeffie’s blasts. The force of them rocked him
as they bounced off his shields. He paused to catch his breath, waiting to see
if they would make the next move or allow him.

Jeffie
to the front. Kobe to the back.

Sammy
dropped his shields and did a half-somersault, ending in a full-out blast off
his hands. Feet first, he shot at Kobe, who had to duck to avoid being kicked
in the face. He tried to deactivate Kobe, but Kobe shielded too quickly. Sammy
flew past him harmlessly. Jeffie disappeared from view, probably trying to
sneak around and reset the trap. Kobe came at Sammy, pressing the attack before
Sammy had time to prepare. Sammy backed up, shielding again. Out of the corner
of his eye he caught a glimpse of Jeffie running behind a series of walls only
a few meters away.

Not
smart, Jeffie, leaving me alone with Kobe. You’re not going to be back in time
to reset that trap.
And he was right. Moments before Jeffie
appeared behind Sammy, Kobe had his helmet deactivated when Sammy used a
triple-wall bounce to thoroughly disorient him.

As
Sammy and Jeffie faced each other, the rest of the walls melted away. The only
thing besides themselves and the floor was the stiff bodies of deactivated
Betas like small mounds on an otherwise barren plain of steel-gray.

“So
this is how you want it to end, Sammy?” They approached one another warily,
Jeffie swaggering, Sammy hobbling to avoid putting any pressure on his aching
limb. Judging by the tone of her voice, she still thought he intended to lose
so he could stay at Beta headquarters.
You couldn’t be more wrong.

He
stood alone, his one teammate fallen, having managed to all but win this Game
with odds stacked against him.
Major Tawhiri is right
.
I am done at
Beta
. He had nothing left to prove. Alpha was the next step. And beyond
that, who knew? There would be time for Jeffie and Brickert and other friends
later . . . in a few years.

“Sorry,
Jeffie,” he said.