“We could use . . .”
“A fighter like you on our side . . .”
The ring of them advanced on her, so that even in their appreciation, the sinister intent was clear. They had her surrounded.
Which was the kind of thing I needed to witness for the story, but now that I had, that was enough.
“Yo, boys and girls,” I said, striding away from SmallvilleGuy, “give the lady some space.” Anavi’s character was wide-eyed at having been cornered, but she visibly breathed easier at the sight of me. Ironic, because after watching her take down that beast, I didn’t think Anavi needed much help in here.
“We’re just recruiting,” one of them said.
“But we have an opening for our next kill.”
“You look like you’d be a good one, elf.”
“I am not an elf,” I said, standing my ground. “I’m a reporter.”
Maybe it wasn’t the thing to do. Rifles lifted around me. And, yes, I recognized what kinds of guns they were, all of them military grade and designed to kill.
Anavi took a few steps toward the squadron and said, “Don’t. She’s with me.”
But that was the wrong thing to say too, because it signaled the end of nonviolent recruitment mode. Half the Warheads’ guns swung around to point at Anavi, while the rest stayed trained on me. A chorus of low laughter was next. Then someone said, “I don’t think you want to be doing this. Any of it.”
SmallvilleGuy, obviously. He had jumped on top of the downed troll, so he stood higher than the rest of us. I wanted to tell him to get down from there, to ask what he thought he was doing, to tell him they might hurt him . . .
But I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of showing any worry.
“Don’t bother. I’m fine, and so’s Anavi,” I said.
One of the Warheads decided that was the last straw. Or maybe he just had an itchy trigger finger.
As the bullet flew toward Anavi, she said to me, “Hope you got what you needed.” And then she poofed right out of existence.
She’d said she would turn off her holoset if things got too intense. So she had.
I tried to reground myself, find my body, in prep to do the same. But it was taking a moment, especially because I was still focused on SmallvilleGuy, and the fact that half the Warheads were heading toward him.
He smiled at them. “You guys give teamwork a bad name. And I heard you don’t know when to quit, either.”
Before they could shoot, a spray of red and green beams emanated from SmallvilleGuy’s eyes through the glasses his character wore. His head moved in slow motion from side to side, the lasers swiveling as he did, knocking all the weapons to the ground in one pass. Some of them fell into separate pieces, even.
“Lo, get out of here,” SmallvilleGuy said when the beams faded. “I’ll meet you after.”
A Warhead spoke up. “Friendly aliens aren’t supposed to have laser vision.”
But another one said, “Good thing . . .”
And another, “. . . we have lots of extra firepower.”
Before I could figure out what they meant by that, my shoulder exploded in white-hot pain.
CHAPTER 9
The sharp flare of pain knocked me back into being able to tell the difference between my in-game form and real-world body. I watched as SmallvilleGuy leaped high into the air again, in a probably doomed attempt to avoid a hail of bullets. At the same time, I lifted my actual hand and switched off the holoset.
I put my hand to my shoulder, which smarted with the phantom pain. When that faded, I laid it over my pounding heart and looked around at the quiet safety of my not-yet-familiar room.
Convincing myself it was safe took me a little while. How long, I couldn’t have said.
Devin’s cautionary echo of the manufacturer warning rang in my ears, and I was breathing hard. But eventually my racing heartbeat began to return to normal. The bed beneath me felt solid again, the world real again, and in the real world . . .
SmallvilleGuy must be freaking out. Assuming he made it out okay.
I was at my desk in a few shaky breaths, opening up my laptop and typing in the passwords. The moment I got into the chat screen, I saw his name. He pinged me with a message, and I sank into my chair. With something like relief, but I wouldn’t have called it that.
Not exactly.
SmallvilleGuy: Are you all right?
I could have run a marathon now that I’d recovered, adrenaline surging through me.
SkepticGirl1: No. I’m not.
SmallvilleGuy: Do you feel disoriented? Pulling yourself out of the game like that can be dangerous, especially when you’re hurt. Maybe I should call and wake up your parents.
My fingers were as shaky as my breath. But being hurt wasn’t why. No one was calling anyone and definitely not my parents.
And what if he was hurt? I wouldn’t have a clue who to tell or anyone to call.
SkepticGirl1: Physically, I’m fine. Are you?