We leave before the shelter’s purge sequence activates and head back to the intersection. Before we reach it, however, a sphere streaks across it. Silence, then a fizzle. Someone shouts and the corridor flashes white.

A guy on the blue team runs through the intersection, and his partner jumps into view. He reels his arm back—about to hurl his sphere at a second person—but sees me and Callen and stops mid-throw.

“Right here!”

“Oh boy,” Callen mutters, and we scramble.

The Recruit whips his sphere at me. I press myself against the wall to dodge it, then jump into the air and pull my legs to my chest. I hit the ground a split-second after his second sphere shoots under me and fizzles down the aisle.

White light flashes: Callen. He got hit in the back. I glance over my shoulder and see two red players charging toward us.

“Run!”

I sprint toward the intersection. Callen catches up just as the two blue players jump sideways and three Hologis marbles streak over their heads from the opposite direction. One marble ricochets off the nearest barrier and collides with the sphere that a red player threw to deflect it. Both spheres bounce between the walls, then slam into each other and shoot off. One hits a blue player in the shoulder as he runs. A red player charges forward and tackles him, pinning him to the ground as the second red player scrambles to catch another sphere to make the out.

“Turn right!” Callen shouts.

But I think too fast. I dive to the left and smack into a yellow player. We collapse and sprawl on the ground, reeling from the collision. My side aches. I grab my stomach and grimace.

Across the intersection, Callen grips tufts of hair in his fists and mouths, “What are you doing?!”

Then a voice blares through the stadium:

“Full purge.”

The purge sequence of every shelter and barrier activates at the same time. Red light floods the aisles. Pockets of fizzling explosions crack in the air and suddenly hundreds of marbles swarm the maze, streaking down aisles and slamming into players.

Voices in my headset cut out mid-sentence. Shouts ring in my thoughts. The players around me scramble for cover, and I sprint down the aisle, ducking and bending sideways to avoid being smacked in the face and knocked out.

There—a shelter. I jump inside and press against the wall. I’m safe unless someone on a different team comes inside. Light blue orbs flash past the entrance, but the sensors lining the doorway prevent the marbles from flying inside.

A full-stadium purge. That means one or more teams didn’t lose a single player in the tournament’s first ten minutes. It has to be the green or yellow team—maybe even both—because I’ve seen blue and red players get knocked out. We might have a better chance than I thought.