Autoboyography
Page 8

“If you’re hit in the shoulder or back, your vest will flash, and the hit will be counted. Get hit in the chest and your vest will flash, but your phaser will also lock. You can still be hit, but you won’t be able to fire back. You’ll be a sitting duck until you get to your base or find a place to hide until your gun powers up again.”
He lets go of Manny and looks around the room. “There will be two teams playing in the arena, and each team’s vest will be lit with that team’s specific color.” Pointing to Kole’s vest, he says, “Team red.” And then he points to Sebastian’s: “Team blue. Shoot at any color that isn’t your own. Each team’s base corresponds to your color, and you get triple points for hitting and destroying your opponents’.”
Beside me, Sebastian shifts, and I see him look briefly my way, his eyes dropping down to my feet and back up. Goose bumps erupt across my skin.
“Now, before we begin the battle,” Tony says, “a few rules. No running; you will run into someone or something. No lying down on the ground. You will be stepped on. No physical contact of any kind, and that includes making out in the dark. We can see you.”
I cough, and Sebastian shifts at my side.
Tony finishes up, warning us against beating each other with our weapons or—God forbid—profanity, and it’s time to start.
It was dim in the vesting room, but it still takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the arena. Our teams spread out among walls that look like neon brick, and I spot our base in the center. Black lights illuminate the glowing set pieces, but it’s hard to make out much else. The sound of phasers powering up one by one moves like a wave across the arena, and a countdown begins overhead.
Five . . .
Four . . .
Three . . .
Two . . .
One . . .
Sirens pierce the air. I race around one wall and then another. It’s so dark I can barely see, but the partitions and perimeter of the room are marked with textured neon paint or strips of colored light. A green tank seems to glow in the corner, and I see a flash of red, a rush of movement in front of it.
I fire off a shot and the vest pulses red, registering the hit. My own vest flashes when I’m hit rounding a corner. “Target hit,” my gun says, but it must have been in the shoulder because when someone dodges in front of a wall, I’m still able to fire, blasting their chest sensor and ensuring their gun is useless.
Two other players come from opposite sides, and I turn and run, racing toward the base. It’s hot in here with absolutely no air movement. Sweat rolls down the back of my neck; my pulse is frantic. Music and sound effects throb overhead, and if I closed my eyes, it would be easy enough to pretend we’re all in a rave, instead of rushing around a dark room shooting at each other with plastic laser guns. I take out two more players and manage a series of rapid-fire hits on the red team’s base when I’m hit again, this time in the back.
Retracing my steps the way I came, I run into Eric.
“There’s a couple of them near the tank,” he says. “They’re just sitting there waiting for people to rush by.”
I nod, able to make him out only by the white of his T-shirt and the packs on his vest.
“I’ll go around,” I yell above the music. “Try to get them from behind.”
Eric pats my shoulder, and I race around a partition.
The arena is a two-tiered maze, with ramps you can jump on to avoid fire, or climb up to get a better shot.
“Target hit. Target hit. Target hit,” my gun registers, and my vest lights up. Footsteps race behind me. When I lift my gun to fire back, there’s nothing. I’ve been hit in the chest. I look around, searching for my team’s base or somewhere to hide, when I feel a body crash into mine, whoever it is pulling me into a small corner just as Kole and one of his teammates run by.
“Holy—thank you,” I say, wiping my arm across my forehead.
“No problem.”
My pulse trips. I’d almost forgotten Sebastian was here. He exhales, out of breath, and a shiver of heat makes its way up my spine.
It’s too loud to talk, and we’re too close for me to turn and look at him without it being weird, too intimate. So I stand still while my brain goes haywire.
He’s holding my vest, and my back is pressed tight to his front. It’s less than ten seconds—the time it takes for my gun to unlock—but I swear I feel every tick of the clock. My breath sounds loud in my ears. I can feel my pulse, even above the music. I can feel Sebastian’s breath, too, hot against my ear. My fingers itch to reach back and touch the side of his face, to feel whether he’s blushing, here in the dark.
I want to stay in this dark corner forever, but I feel the moment my gun powers back up in my hand. He doesn’t wait, gripping the side of my vest before pushing me out and shouting at me to follow, toward the red base. Eric rounds the corner, and we sprint across the floor and around the partition. “Go! Go!” Sebastian shouts, and we fire in unison. It takes only a few blasts before the base flashes red and a recorded voice sounds overhead.
“Red base destroyed. Game over.”
CHAPTER FOUR
For the first time in my high school career, I don’t need my schedule taped to my locker with dino stickers to know where I’m supposed to be. Our first week back, Fujita’s Seminar is on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. This week, it’s Tuesday and Thursday. It alternates pretty steadily until the end of the year.
I can see three ways this could go:
One, I could love M, W, F weeks because there are three chances to see Sebastian.
Two, I could loathe M, W, F weeks because there are three chances to see Sebastian, but he only attends one class regardless.
Three, I could loathe M, W, F weeks because there are three chances to see Sebastian and he’s there all the time but doesn’t show me the time of day.
In this last scenario, I grow resentful that I can’t seem to shake this crush on an LDS diehard, drown myself in cheese fries and fry sauce, grow a gut, do a crappy job in the class, and lose my admission to the out-of-state school of my dreams.
“What are you thinking?” Autumn appears behind me, tucking her chin over my shoulder.
“Nothing.” I slam my locker shut, zipping up my backpack. In reality, I’m thinking that it isn’t fair to think of Sebastian as an LDS diehard. I don’t know how to explain it, but he seems so much more than that.
She growls in mild irritation, and turns to head down the hall toward the Seminar.
I catch up and dodge a group of juniors having a piggyback race down the hall. I’ve been trained well by her, and bounce the question back. “What are you thinking?” If nothing else, her elaborate answer will keep me distracted from my own spiral into madness.
Autumn hooks her arm through mine. “I’m wondering how your outline is coming.”
Ah, right, my outline. The skeletal document with proverbial tumbleweeds blowing across the tundra. “It’s fine.”
One . . . two . . . three . . .
“Want me to take a peek before we go in?”
I grin. “No, Auddy, I’m good.”
She stops right at the entrance to class. “Did you finish it?”
“Finish what?”
From the flare of her nostrils, I know my best friend is imagining me dead and bloody on the floor. “The outline.”
A mental image pops into my head of the Word doc with two lonely lines I wouldn’t dare show a soul: A half-Jewish, half-nothing queer kid moves to an LDS-infested town. He can’t wait to leave. “No.”