D. MacHale - The Quillan Games

I approached an open doorway and cautiously took a peek inside. It wasn’t LaBerge and a bunch of clowns, I’m happy to say. It was a full-fledged, raucous party of… challengers. The room looked to be a dining hall. It had long wooden tables and heavy padded chairs. There were plants and paintings and lamps that cast a warm, pleasant glow to the place. The table was heaped with food and drink. It was a feast! Servant dados scurried around, making sure that plates stayed loaded with steaming delicacies and that tankards remained filled with drink. All the servants looked exactly like Fourteen. You’d think they would at least have them wear numbers to tell them apart.

None of what I just described was as interesting as the challengers themselves. There were about twenty of them, all young, all in great shape. They weren’t all guys, either. There were just as many girls. I knew they were challengers because most wore their striped jerseys. But many had the jerseys off and wore T-shirts of the same color. They were laughing and telling stories, and clapping one another on the back and talking too loud and basically having a great time. One guy took a goblet of something and dumped it on the head of another guy. Everybody cheered and whooped like it was a frat party.

The music came from a band that was set up in the far corner. It was made up of more Fourteen clones. Dados. They played a weird tune that was kind of like rock, but had a haunting, loopy undertone. Their instruments were electronic keyboards. The band stood up and played like a regular house band, but it looked like they were standing at computers. Even the drum guy was on a computer. He was good, too. They played a dance tune with a driving beat. They may have been robots, but they could play! Yes, there was dancing. It didn’t look like any couples were together, it was more like a mosh of gyrating, sweating bodies. They were having a blast.

I didn’t get it at first. How could these guys be partying like high school kids when they were in such a bad way? I even recognized the three guys who’d tried to behead me in that gruesome game of Tock. They were dancing and shouting like everybody else. The only sign that they were any worse for wear was the blood stain on the sleeve of Challenger White.

One of the challengers leaped off the dance floor, jumped up onto the table, and held up a goblet, shouting, “To Mr. Pop!”

Everyone screamed in approval, raising their goblets and toasting. A chant started: “Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop…” They stomped on the tables and clapped their hands. The chanting reached a crescendo, everyone cheered, and the party continued.

Mr. Pop. Who was he? To the challengers he was obviously some kind of hero. Was he a challenger himself? No, that couldn’t be, because he wasn’t here, he was out in the city somewhere, hidden. The people who rescued me from the police dados were trying to protect him. The idea that I might have led the dados to Mr. Pop’s secret hiding place was horrifying to them. Whoever he was, he was being protected by people who weren’t on the same side as the dados, which meant they weren’t on the same side as Veego and LaBerge and this mysterious Blok that was run by a group of trustees. Confused? Yeah, me too. I really hoped that Nevva Winter would clear things up… right after she cleared up who the heck she was. Sheesh.

As I stood there watching the fun, the party began to make sense. These guys were under a death sentence. None of them knew how much longer they’d be around. My guess was that they needed to relieve some of the stress and enjoy what little time they had left. It felt like a victory party. Maybe they were rejoicing in the fact that three challengers made it back alive from the Tock game. Four if you counted me. On the other hand, there wasn’t a whole lot of grieving going on because a challenger had just died. Challenger Yellow. Remudi. Maybe it was because he wasn’t around long enough for anybody to get to know him. Or maybe it was because they were so used to death, grieving wasn’t a part of the equation.

Veego and LaBerge said the challengers were treated like royalty. Judging from this party, they definitely were given the chance to have some fun. These guys were taking advantage of every second of life they had, for none of them knew how long they had left.

I wasn’t in the mood for partying. I had other business. I was about to move on, when something caught my eye. A lone challenger sat at the table. He wasn’t dancing, he wasn’t laughing or telling stories. He sat alone at the end of the table… looking at me. He was the only one in the room who even knew I was there.

I caught my breath. Why did I know this guy? It took only a second to remember. Challenger Green. The champion. The record breaker. The guy who killed Remudi. Challenger Green stared at me and lifted his goblet, as if in a toast for my eyes only. In that moment it all came clear to me. I was being set up. Whatever the Grand X was, if it was as big a deal as they said it was, it would have to involve their champion. Challenger Green. If I was going to be part of it, it meant I would be competing against this guy. He was the all-time doo-da big cheese that nobody could beat. How could I possibly stand a chance against him?

I guess I should have been scared, but you know what? I wasn’t. Just the opposite. The realization actually gave me a feeling of hope. I was going to go up against the guy who killed a Traveler. I would get the chance to avenge his death. I gave the guy a small salute. He drank from his goblet, and I continued on. I knew we would be seeing each other again.

As I made my way cautiously down toward the courtyard, I found that the castle was strangely empty. Once I left the blowout challenger party, everything became eerily quiet. I wondered where Veego and LaBerge lived, but wasn’t curious enough to try to find out. It was tough enough finding my way through the dozens of twisted corridors and intersections to make it down to the courtyard. It was slow going, because I didn’t want to risk being caught. Finding Nevva was too important. So I kept to the shadows and tried to be quiet.

Finally, after twenty minutes of wrong turns and dead ends, I found a side door that led outside to the courtyard. The next part was tricky. I got my bearings by looking out on the wide space and finding the front door, where I had first entered the castle. Looking directly across from that door, I saw a wide archway that seemed to lead into a small garden. According to Fourteen that was the octagon. The trick was to get across the wide open space without being seen. I stayed along one wall, moving quickly, holding my breath. I’m not sure why I held my breath. It didn’t make me invisible. It just seemed like the thing to do. Thirty seconds later I ducked through the archway and into the octagon.

It was a pretty garden that was ringed by, you guessed it, an eight-sided wall. Three of the sections were the outer walls of the castle. The other five were built out from the castle and rose up too high to think about climbing over. It was maybe thirty yards across in all directions… big enough to hide in the trees and bushes. There were lots of flowers, a brook, small flowering trees, and some stone benches. It was the kind of place where you’d see old people hanging out to feed the ducks. The sky was full of stars that were so bright they provided plenty of light to see all this. I wondered briefly if one of them might be Second Earth. I had a quick feeling of homesickness, and forced myself to change gears. I didn’t need to be feeling sorry for myself right then.

Nevva said to meet her there “later.” When was later? An hour? Three hours? A quad? A click? I found a small bench nestled between two flowering bushes, and settled in for I didn’t know how long to wait for her.