L. Sellers - The Gauntlet Assassin

Mon., May 8, 2:14 p.m.

Wet and exhausted, Lara stood in front of the cameras and couldn’t stop smiling. She’d won her first round! She would move forward to the Puzzle. The adrenaline kept coming and she could barely focus on the director’s voice.

“Forty-two-year-old Lara Evans of Oregon has won the first round of the Challenge, beating twenty-four-year-old Kirsten Dornberg of Florida. Lara’s official time is 59 minutes and 12.5 seconds.”

Lara looked at the big digital clock with pulsing red numbers. Could that be right? She felt like she’d been in the tunnels for hours. She tried to remember the competitors’ times from last year, then realized it didn’t matter. The Challenge was different every year.

“You were in trouble for a minute on the elevated maze,” Minda said, her voice breathy. “How did you manage to catch yourself and get back up? That looked impossible.”

“Some of it was luck, but years of martial arts training have honed my reflexes and taught me to go into the fall. So I pushed myself to the beam, rather than lose my balance.” Lara flashed back on the moment, but it was a blur. “Getting up was a slow and careful process. It wasn’t something I could have ever practiced for.”

“No one expected you to win your round of the Challenge, so the analysts and bookies are scrambling. I hear the odds against you have dropped to seventeen to one.” Minda shoved the mic at Lara, as though she’d asked a question.

“The odds have always been against me and I’ve never let it stop me. I think the viewers tested me and I earned their support.”

“You definitely did. After Kirsten grabbed you underwater, the viewers brought the wall down to give you a break. Do you think you could have won without that?”

“We’ll never know.” Lara wanted to remind the director that she’d beat Kirsten in the elevated maze and in the tunnel, but it was better to be gracious. “It was an intense race and Kirsten was a formidable competitor.”

“You have a day and a half before your next event. How do you plan to spend your time?”

“I hope to get permission to leave the arena and see a little of the capital. This is my first visit to D.C.”

Lara saw one of the cameramen swing his focus behind her. Kirsten must have finally come out of the water pit and through the door. Lara resisted looking back.

“Congratulations again.” Minda grabbed Lara’s hand and shoved her arm into the air like a prizefighter. She hoped the viewers were cheering for her in their homes. She would need their popularity points in every phase, especially the final vote. After a moment, Minda nudged her to step aside. It was Kirsten’s last turn to chat up the viewers before heading home. As Lara walked away, pain flooded her legs, but the smile stayed on her face.

She trudged down the wide hallway that circled the arena and passed a technician at a control panel, but no one else. The media only had access to the main lobby area. Lara hoped to find a way out of the building that would allow her to bypass the lobby where many of the contestants hung out. On some level, she wanted their congratulations, yet she’d been a loner for so long, it was habit to avoid social encounters, especially groups.

The gray hallway went on forever, with occasional overhead doors for machinery and a few regular doors for people. Eventually, the hall hooked left and fifty yards later, Lara pushed through double doors into the common area where she’d started. The room held groups of soft chairs, a small cafeteria, and a few NetCom stations that had blocked access to the Gauntlet program and all social media sites. The organizers did their best to keep the participants from learning any details about the arenas before they competed.

A group of contestants swarmed her, offering their congratulations. They slapped her shoulders and gave her high fives, their mouths smiling but their eyes distant, calculating. Even though they couldn’t watch the events, they could see the scoreboards, which were updated constantly.

Jason Copeland gave her a friendly punch to the shoulder. “You kicked ass, old woman.”

Lara fought the urge to put a fist into his solar plexus. “I hear you wanted to go against me in the Challenge, looking for easy points. Seems a little cowardly.”

He grinned. “We’re all here to win, one way or another.”

Aware of the cameras everywhere, Lara grinned back. “Maybe you’ll get a chance against me in the Battle.”

A man with coppery skin and a black ponytail stepped closer. “I’m Makil Johnson, from Georgia. A group of us who don’t compete until tomorrow are having dinner off site. Would you like to join us?”

Still aware of the cameras, Lara reluctantly said, “Sure. Thanks for asking.” She’d beg out of it later. “Do you have a chaperone?” Contestants could only leave the arena and hotel area in groups, and they had to take a chaperone to ensure no one watched the broadcast version of the competition.

Makil nodded. “We’re all set to meet at seven in the hotel lobby.”

“I’ll see you then. You’ll have to excuse me for now. I need to rest for a while.”

“You earned it.” He gave her a nod of approval.

After a hot shower and a small protein and vegetable shake, Lara lay down. Her body was exhausted but she didn’t sleep well even at night, so she would only meditate for a while, then get back up. After a few minutes, the desk NetCom beeped. Lara grudgingly got up to check it. The corner app flashed Video Message .

She tapped to answer and the box enlarged. Michael Quince and Rob Schakowski, her old homicide-unit partners, grinned and shouted their congratulations. Quince did an end-zone dance that made her laugh. She recognized the conference room in the Eugene Police Department, and it warmed her weary bones to see them. Schak had retired the year before, so he’d made a special effort to join Quince. She was a little sad Jackson wasn’t there.

“Hey! It’s good to see you guys. Thanks for checking in.”

“You killed on the first section,” Schak shouted. “In fact, you’re the first woman to finish the Challenge in less than an hour.”

Lara hadn’t realized that. Trust Schak to have the stats. “It’s wickedly complex. I was going on instinct.” They had to be vague when they talked about the contest. Special software monitored the contestants’ conversations with the outside world to ensure they weren’t hearing advance details. “I mostly got lucky.”

“Bullshit. That save was amazing,” Schak said.

Quince, going gray but still gorgeous, cut in. “I about had a heart attack when you went down, but you were so quick to correct it.”

“You were fast in the tunnels too.” Schak still sounded excited, but a beeping noise cut him off. The software didn’t want him talking about tunnels. If Lara hadn’t already competed, their message probably wouldn’t have come through.

“I hated every minute of it. My knees still hurt. Did you know there were reptiles in there?”

“That’s disgusting.” Schak tried not to laugh.

“I’m surprised you were both able to watch the live feed. How did you know when I was going to compete?” They only announced each Challenge a few hours in advance. The software also blocked viewers from the competitor’s state from voting when their representative ran the course. It kept populous states from having an advantage.

“I was watching at home and waiting,” Schak said. “When I heard them announce your name for the first round, I contacted Jackson and came down here. He watched with us, then had to go out on a lead. He’s working a missing persons case.”

The job always came first for Jackson. She loved that about him. “This means a lot to me, guys.” Lara struggled to keep her voice from cracking. “I appreciate the support.”