The points for one keeps going down, almost below the one thousand threshold. I turn and look at Addie, then Rem. Neither are paying too much attention to the battle. Both are watching a music video, the volume too loud for my ears. The young man’s points drop close to eight hundred.
“How many points do you both have?” I ask, just as the young man declares defeat.
Addie is the first to respond after a quick glimpse towards her wrist. “Eight thousand, nine hundred, and fifty.”
“Twelve thousand four hundred,” Rem says without even looking at her wristband. “And they expect us to get up to fifty thousand in eight weeks. They’ll have to increase the number of battles per day, or the number of players per sequence.”
“How many are there now?” I ask, tossing my trash into the receptacle.
“The Keepers only allow five battles per day, since they max out at two hours each. There are only two participants in each sequence.”
“So, not everyone gets to play in one day,” I say.
“Yup, which sucks because you can get bored really easily,” Addie says, standing up. She gets something from the icebox, then sits back down. “I wish they would let us go out, just for a few hours, into the city.”
“Did they used to?”
Rem lets out a slight snort. “A long time ago. The problem was the wristbands couldn’t be tracked outside of Thrace Tower, so people would start disappearing. No one knows if they just returned to their parents, or if something else happened. They widened the spectrum on the newer wristbands they started using.” Rem holds up hers, shaking it. “Now it doesn’t matter where you are, they can find you.”
“But why stop the outings? I would think since they now have a better way to keep an eye on everyone, it would be easier to let them out and explore.”
“We thought so too,” Addie says, pulling her legs up underneath her. “But then people started missing their battle times.”
“So?”
Rem and Addie look at each other, obviously annoyed by all my questions. “If you miss your scheduled time, the Keepers automatically transport you to the battlefield, knock your points down to fifty, and hope that your death will be a lesson to others,” Addie says.
“Or, if you happen to survive, they punish you anyway. Making sure to display your subordination to everyone,” Rem adds, holding up her arms.
“No more excursions,” Addie says. “The lessons didn’t exactly take.”
“Ladies,” a voice utters behind us. Matron Kaniz is standing in the main hallway. “I think you’ve had a long enough break.”
Rem rolls her eyes as she stands, and Addie and I have to muffle our laughs. The rest of the day is spent with me trying to move on my own. It takes some getting used to, and I almost make myself sick a few times, but it gets easier the more I do it. I still haven’t figured out the time piece of it, but Rem says I’ll get there. We finish just after seven. I notice that my weapon is no longer on the rack, so I ask Addie. She tells me the Keepers would’ve moved it back to the storage room.
I’m not comfortable with the idea that these Keepers can move anything from one location to another. What if they decide to send us all to the battlefield at once? Do they monitor us even outside The Litarian Battles or the training room? Rem said they were able to, but is that still the case now that we’re all confined to the tower?
Everyone is much more subdued when they get off the lift tonight. No screaming or laughter like yesterday. Frey plops down on the couch next to me, not looking well. Others either go into the bedrooms or just collapse on any open space in the common room.
“What happened?” Addie asks Frey, moving to the edge of her seat.
“Jax and Hannah…both of them…gone.”
“How?” Rem asks, her voice clearly alarmed. “They were two of the highest pointed players in our unit.”
“Lok, he somehow managed to damage Hannah’s wristband preventing her from looping, using her shield, or ending the battle.”
“That’s not possible,” Addie says, practically crying. “These are indestructible. Why didn’t she use her weapon?”
“She did, Addie, but he’s a Dead Mark. Without her ability it wouldn’t matter. She was dead the moment he broke the band.”
“And the Keepers didn’t stop it?” Rem asks.
“Of course not,” Frey practically shouts. “They awarded him double points for doing it.”
“What about Jax?” I ask, trying to become part of the conversation. I didn’t know either of these people, but if I can learn what happened to them, maybe I can prevent it from occurring to me.
“He was being stupid. Got too cocky. He was up against a Nius, the newer one from the Outer Limits.”
Lil.
“She placed explosives in a couple of locations, but only arming them to go off if movement was detected, or something like that. Jax thought he could loop his way around the battle floor, teasing her, trying to get her to mess up. Dumbass stepped close to a mine and blew himself up. He wasn’t paying attention to where she put them and only aerial projected instead of time looped.”
“His shield didn’t help?” I ask, trying not to sound stupid.
“The one he had was to defend against Dead Marks, not Nius. The Keepers could’ve saved him if they had called the game, but they let him bleed to death.”
“I guess Addie and I won’t be competing for a while if they’ll be recruiting replacements that we’ll have to train,” Rem says, leaning back on the couch.
“There will be no replacements,” Matron Kaniz says, entering the room. “With the event approaching, the Keepers
