They’d chatted a few times, but he was always busy, and his comms code changed all the time to keep some semblance of his privacy intact.
Min tapped Eva on her shoulder. “Uh, Cap, there might be a tiny little problem.”
“What’s that?” Eva asked.
“You need tickets to see him,” Min said, “and they’re all sold out.”
Chapter 5
Throne of Games
Eva wasn’t one to give up over a simple thing like tickets being unavailable. There had to be other ways to get to Leroy, and she’d find them all and try them until one worked.
“I know he’s busy, but there has to be a way he can sneak out for a minute to see us,” Eva said. “He sent us his latest comms code, right?”
Pink wrinkled her nose. “Let me check.” She stared at the wall for a minute, then shook her head. “The one I have is unassigned. Either it changed recently or he forgot to tell us.”
Mierda, mojón y porquería. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. “Where is his big event going to be?” Eva asked.
Min checked the program. “Wow, the main ballroom in the Nebula Wing. Crash Sisters must be doing really well in a lot of fandoms.”
Eva pulled up a map of the massive convention center, pinpointing the ballroom. “Let’s start walking,” she said. “It’s pretty far away.” She took off at a brisk pace, which Pink caught up to easily because her legs were longer and she didn’t have a still-healing leg.
“And how are you planning to charm your way into this one?” Pink asked.
“If there are tickets,” Eva said, “someone has to be scalping them. Min, check the local q-net.” She glanced back to be sure Sue and Min were keeping up, which they weren’t, because once again Sue kept stopping to admire costumes and whatnot, and Min was still holding her hand. With a sigh, Eva stopped and waited, ignoring the glares of the people forced to move around her.
“Oh wow,” Min said. “These tickets are a lot. Like, a lot a lot.”
“How much?” Eva asked.
Min told her, and Eva threw her an incredulous look.
“Me cago en diez,” Eva said. “What comemierda has that many credits to piss away on a cabrón celebrity?”
“It’s a grudge match,” Min said, as if that explained it.
Eva shook her head and once again got moving, Pink at her side. “We’ll scope out the security situation when we get there,” she said. “If it costs that much, there are probably going to be guards.”
“No fighting,” Pink said. “And no throwing chairs.”
That eliminated some possible options. “Fine. We figure out a way to sneak in, maybe disguise ourselves as staff somehow.”
“Staff have commlink codes,” Sue said, idly swinging Min’s hand as they walked. “And special uniforms. I heard a couple of them talking about the codes getting switched again.”
“So we get the codes, steal a uniform, and walk in like we own the place,” Eva said.
Pink made a sour face. “That’s a lot, honey,” she said.
“Do you have a better plan?” Eva retorted.
“There’s one other thing you could try,” Min said. “The Challenge Room.”
Eva stopped and turned, earning a face full of sequined bodice, followed by a nasty look from a person in a gorgeous ball gown as they moved past her.
“What,” Eva asked, “is the Challenge Room?”
The line of people snaked around and through the low building currently built out as the Challenge Room. They all competed against each other for limited spots for a special meet-and-greet with Leroy himself. Some, like Eva, sat with their backs against the wall and got up only to move forward. Others bounced on the balls of their feet, or did push-ups, or took selfies while flexing. Others stared up at Pluto overhead, and the sun and stars beyond, perhaps imagining themselves as characters in an epic story with destinies written in the glittering canvas of space.
Eva had filled out a number of forms and medical waivers to try the challenge, because as Min had told her repeatedly, the room was “a super hard obstacle course, like, level ten thousand” used as an initial screening tool for contestants who would later compete to be added to the Crash Sisters roster. It also changed every time so people couldn’t practice for it, had “like, so many traps,” and had to be completed in under a minute.
Eva regretted her decision not to buy overpriced food on the way there, or at least coffee, and also questioned whether this was worth the time she was wasting in line when she could be stealing a staff uniform. Well, she could always try that plan if this didn’t work. She also wondered idly where the exit was, since no one was leaving the building. Then again, it made sense; wouldn’t want anyone giving people in line the heads-up about what to expect.
What felt like hours later, the doors in front of her slid open, revealing a wall with a small corridor that looped around it, obscuring whatever was on the other side. She stepped in and the doors closed behind her, leaving her in darkness.
“Welcome to the Challenge Room,” said a voice to her left. Soft, female, like an old human nav computer. “Please listen to the instructions carefully, as they will not be repeated. Your goals are to destroy all visible targets and reach the opposite side of the room, pressing the large green button to open the exit door before time runs out. You will have sixty seconds from the time you hear the starting bell. The room will be illuminated in three, two, one . . .”
Eva threw her arm over her face just in time to avoid being blinded by the massive floodlights that blazed on. A bell jangled so loudly that she almost wished she’d covered her ears instead, but she had more pressing considerations.
Sixty seconds, destroy targets, green button. Go.
The room went deep into the ground, at least three stories down. A number of platforms were arranged in no apparent order, staggered parallel to each other at different heights in a way that created roughly three levels. Each level had walls blocking access at strategic locations, apparently to encourage jumping or dropping to lower platforms. There were a few ladders, spread so far apart as to be almost useless given the time limit.
The green button was on the other side of the room, at the bottom. The targets she had to break were large floating orbs, glowing faintly red, possibly holographic. There were five of them, and she’d already wasted six seconds casing the joint. Time to move.
She shot toward the first target at a run, vaulting a low wall and using her momentum to carry her across a gap between platforms. The target was about as high as her head, and after a moment of hesitation, she threw a punch at it. With a strange musical chime, it popped like a balloon and vanished. Definitely holograms.
It was harder for her to see where all the targets were now, or where the platforms fell away. There was one more target on this level, but another one was closer, one level down with a ladder next to it. She vaulted another wall, a taller one, landing in a roll that took her a few steps from the ladder.
An alarm jangled, and the floor beneath her shimmered and vanished.
As she fell, she managed to grab a corner of the second level’s platform, wrenching her left shoulder. Swallowing a yell as pain lanced through her, she grabbed on with her other arm and jackknifed, pulling herself up. The target was just ahead, at waist level, so she kicked it. Poof it went, still with the goofy sound effect. Three more to go: one more on this level, one up top, and the last one at the bottom.