I turn my head and step to the barrier again, keeping my movements as small as possible.

“Deflect the spray,” I whisper.

Lucas bows his head and walks toward me. The yellow players advance cautiously in case he turns and whips his sphere at them.

Perfect.

The barrier flashes and I duck away. The players freeze in their tracks. Lucas thrusts his arm up and intercepts the marbles that appear in thin air. A cluster zooms toward the yellow players, forcing them to scatter. Unfortunately, Lucas missed two orbs, which hit the ceiling and ricochet at me. One grazes my elbow before I can tuck my arms in, and my suit flashes white.

One Count gone.

The remaining marbles swarm the yellow players, who duck and dive and sprint away. A marble hits one of the girls before she turns the corner, and the man is hit a second time. His suit deactivates. The other girl deflects two marbles and presses her back to the wall.

We run forward. The girl darts to the left. I pump my arms to catch her and fling my sphere. It knocks against her leg. Her suit glows white and deactivates. Out. I stop running, but Lucas rushes past me. He chases the second girl—who has a huge head start—and they vanish into another aisle. As I get closer, I hear grunts…silence…and pounding footsteps. Lucas reappears—frantic—and swings his arm back in time to deflect a sphere.

Then a second.

And a third.

“Other way!”

A shriek. A flash of white.

“Twenty-five players remain,” the headset voice announces.

I spin on my heel and sprint after him. The timer appears in my display again, counting down from twenty. Lucas catches me and we run in search of a ramp to Level 3, the smallest of the three levels. People are chasing us, but I don’t look back.

14.

Lucas shoves me to the left. A ramp rises behind a shelter.

11.

The footsteps turn the corner.

9.

A marble whizzes past me. We clamber up the ramp. A second sphere ricochets off a barrier and fizzles out of sight.

6.

A crowd of yellow players runs up the ramp as me and Lucas turn another corner. The timer hits zero and Level 2 flashes red, purging anyone who might still be down there. Ahead of us, a red player holding two spheres runs into the intersection. A trail of hair billows behind her. She sees us, stops, and then darts away.

Glacia.

A sphere fizzles under my arm, missing me by inches. Lucas and I bolt forward. At the intersection, Glacia is nowhere to be seen. We keep running. I look over my shoulder at the yellow players, just as one of them hurls and sphere. I jump sideways to avoid it and nearly trip Lucas.

“Go left!”