The Warheads.
They were military characters in the game. Steroid human physiques, dressed in all black gear, and armed to the teeth.
They didn’t seem to have spotted SmallvilleGuy and me yet. So I squinted to see what the game would tell me about them, a second before SmallvilleGuy said, “Don’t try to look at their stats or they’ll—”
A hail of fiery bullets sprayed in our direction. I pulled him back toward the toothy side of the tree for cover.
“—know we’re here?” I finished. “Oops.”
The tree snapped at us, and we were forced to back away again. “We need to find Anavi.”
“Will she come anywhere near them?” he asked.
“Hard to say. She knows I wanted to see them interact with her, but she didn’t make any promises.”
One of the soldiers in the Warhead pack called out to the others, “We can pursue the unknown elf—”
Another chimed in, calling out, “But we just found our real target. This way.”
They hesitated briefly before heading in the opposite direction of us. SmallvilleGuy took my arm, and I swore I could feel the pressure of his fingers against my skin. It was . . . nice.
Clearly, elvish senses caused you to turn into a princess in the silliest possible sense of the word.
“It has to be her,” I said. “Let’s go.”
He followed my cue as we loped along after the Warheads.
We didn’t get too close, just near enough to keep them in sight. The squad was having a blast, calling out to each other in that creepy overlapping way, moving like they did at school, like they were all part of the same entity.
Or like a Hydra, a monster with many heads.
“See what I mean about them?” I asked.
“It is weird. Do you think they can do something to her mind outside the game? You talked to her today, didn’t you?”
“I know they can,” I said.
SmallvilleGuy stopped cold, his light green hand on my arm gently pulling me to a halt too. “Lois,” he said, “did they do something to you?”
“It was no big deal.” I shrugged. “But it confirmed what she’s saying. It proved to me that it’s true. They can do things they shouldn’t be able to. I just can’t figure out how or why. They’re getting away, we should—”
“We’ll catch up to them. What did they do to you?” he insisted.
“I felt them . . . push me. Away. My mind, not me,” I clarified. His alien expression darkened. “But I was fine. I am fine.”
“Time for us to catch them,” he said in response.
I wished I had a secret decoder ring that would explain his reaction. Was he mad they’d done something to me? Or concerned in general that they could act outside the game?
We caught up to the Warheads without any trouble, watching as they spread out in a silent circle around a girl grappling with what appeared to be a giant troll. The hunch-backed monster stood three times the girl’s height, and when it shoved her with a hand nearly as big as she was, she backed off, as if to rethink her strategy.
She was a soldier too, though not like the Warheads. She had on camouflage instead of black, and wore a crisscrossing belt filled with grenades. I took a closer look—yes, the grenades had words printed on them. They curled around the sides of the weaponry. I could make out nirvana and karma and viscera.
“That’s her,” I said.
“She’s holding her own,” SmallvilleGuy said.
Unfortunately, the troll meant Anavi was too occupied to notice the Warheads. But if I called out to warn her, then the troll would almost certainly be able to best her. And the other thing that had started to worry me was how real everything in the game felt.
I didn’t want to find out whether getting hurt would too.
But Anavi had decided she was tired of troll fighting. She backed up a few more steps—the Warheads behind her doing the same, again, so she wouldn’t see them yet—and then took a running start before—
“Is she really . . .” I started, but left off, gaping.
“I did not see that coming,” SmallvilleGuy said. “And neither did the troll.”
He was right. Anavi was stabbing into the monster’s clothing with some kind of tool for leverage, climbing right up its arm. When she reached his shoulder, she stood and yelled out: “Sic semper tyrannis, troll!”
And she jabbed the small tool she’d used on the way up there into the creature’s massive neck.
“That was a tranq dart. Look out,” SmallvilleGuy said and pulled me out of the way as the troll swayed and then fell forward like a tree crashing down in a forest.
It hit with enough force that the ground shook beneath our feet. I leaned into SmallvilleGuy, trying to make out what had happened to Anavi.
I spotted the proud warrior at the exact same moment as the Warheads did. And vice versa.
The three of them nearest Anavi, where she’d landed on the ground in a fearless warrior’s crouch, began to clap, balancing machine guns and other heavy artillery against their chests.
“Well done . . .”