I shrugged. “It’s been doing this all week.”
Curtis was one I wasn’t sure of. He’d come six months after Isaiah, but he was still among the ten oldest students. I had to wonder whether all of the gangs were run by androids: Oakland and Mouse, Isaiah, and Curtis. The only one that seemed out of place was Carrie, who had only been in the school for a year. While she didn’t seem to be a co-leader of the gang, like Mouse was, Carrie had become a kind of second in command after Curtis.
I wondered whether she was a human in love with an android. Just like I’d been.
“Are you okay to play today?” Curtis asked me while we walked.
“I think so,” I said. “My head’s feeling better, and I can do most things with these braces, no problem.”
“And your ribs?”
“Hurt like hell,” I said with a laugh.
“Well, we’ll try to keep you in one spot if we can. Defending something, maybe. With any luck, we’ll be reffing today and you can sit out.”
The paintball field that we were heading to was one of the biggest, I was told, with dozens of small plywood buildings arranged like we would be fighting in a city.
As usual, Isaiah stood at the head of the crowd.
The crowd was a little quieter than usual and more somber. This was the first game we’d played since everything had happened—the teams had changed, and key players were missing.
“The game today is Bodyguard,” Isaiah announced through the bullhorn. “Society on offense, the V’s on defense.”
Curtis patted me on the back and gave me a smile. I’d be able to defend somewhere without a lot of running around. That wasn’t what I planned on doing, but I gave him a nod.
“The Society will designate one player as the VIP,” Isaiah continued. “That player has to touch the flag in the center of the town square. The offense will also have five more players than the defense. Both teams have a medic, but the VIP cannot be healed.”
I turned to look at the V’s, gathered together in a group behind Curtis. Everyone seemed hesitant, like no one wanted to take Jane’s place. I could see her in my mind, standing right with us, cheerfully raising her hand.
She’d said it was because she liked being alone. Someone had programmed her to like that, I guess.
Timidly, Carrie volunteered. “I’ll do it.”
A few in the crowd nodded their heads in approval, but no one looked very enthusiastic.
In some ways, I think that I was getting over Jane faster than any of them. They hadn’t seen what I’d seen. To them she was still their good friend who was brutally murdered. To me—well, I didn’t know what she was. But every time a good memory of her appeared, it was followed by one of her sitting on that table, her torn ear in her hand, and a voice that didn’t belong to her.
The Society’s medic was Vivian, someone I didn’t really know, but Becky was chosen as the VIP.
Isaiah made sure the medic sleeves were handed out and then read the rewards and penalties for the game. He raised an eyebrow and stared for a moment before reading the words aloud. It was obvious he didn’t approve. “The team that wins today will receive decreased punishments for any rules infractions that take place this week. The team that loses will have increased punishments.”
There were murmurs among the crowd, especially in the V’s. “This is bull,” Mason said. “The defenders always lose here.”
Isaiah looked at his watch and announced that we had fifteen minutes to get in place before the game started. I lifted up the ribbon and let the others go under.
“Okay,” Curtis said as we all walked together. “We don’t have everyone we used to. Mason and Benson, take up defensive positions in the town. Joel, you’ve got front perimeter, and Hector, you’ve got back. John, I want you guys to split up and work independently as snipers on the streambed. Anna, you’re with them. Find cover and wait for them to come to you. Carrie, stay in the city and heal defenders as they get hit. Society outnumbers us, and they’re probably going to hit us from all sides at the same time.”
He clapped his hands and wished us good luck, and we split up. Mason and I headed for the city, walking slower than the others for my sake. My chest hurt.
With the buildings of the city in sight, we had to drop down into the deep, dry streambed that Curtis had mentioned and then climb back out.
The city was even bigger than I expected—maybe thirty or forty small buildings made of plywood, a third of which were two stories tall, and one a skinny three-story tower. They were clustered together and stained with old paint splotches.
“It’s a mess,” Mason said. “They always give the offense more people here. We get slaughtered.”
“What do they do when the V’s are offense? The other team would only have ten or twelve guys.”
“We’re never the offense here. Always defense. We always lose. Which, I guess, means that we’d better not break any rules this week. I want to eat.”
Mason placed me in a good defensive position on the second story of a plywood building with two windows—one facing the woods and the other facing one of the main entries into the town.
“Good luck, man,” he said, and gestured to the paint-splattered walls. They were coated with layer after layer. “You won’t last long.”
With that, he turned and left, hurrying deeper into the city.
As soon as he was gone, I pulled supplies from my pockets and set them on the floor in front of me: the bottle of now-red alcohol, the syringe, a stack of gauze pads, and a bottle of water.
From another pocket I took out three paintball grenades. I hadn’t used them before, but they looked simple enough: a canister of paint and another of compressed air. I pulled the pin on the first and threw it down the stairs, and then did the same with the other two.
There was a loud hiss, and the sound of skittering and scraping as the pressurized grenades spun and sprayed the room below. When the noise stopped I hurried down the steps. The room was streaked and speckled with neon green, white, and yellow.
I picked up the grenades and ran back to the second floor.
I unscrewed the top of the water bottle and poured it out, not caring where it spilled. Then, after laying two gauze pads over the mouth of the bottle, I gently strained the alcohol through the gauze.
The smell was already overwhelming, and my eyes began to water.
The cayenne pepper was supposed to infuse with the alcohol—that’s what I’d seen on TV. It seemed to be working, because as the water bottle filled with reddish rubbing alcohol, all of the bits of pepper remained on the gauze and the liquid below hardly had anything floating in it.
From somewhere in the distance I heard the pops of a few shots.
I dipped the syringe down into the alcohol and drew back on the plunger.
The sound of paintballs hitting the perimeter buildings was coming from two different sides of the city—loud, resonating thwacks. I peeked out my window but didn’t see anyone.
Carefully, I turned the syringe to the first grenade, refilling the paint canister. I spilled a little on my hand, and it stung and burned the tiny hangnails on my thumb and index finger.
I gingerly replaced the pin and then hurried to fill the other two.
There were shouts, people calling for the medic. They were close.