Grid Seekers (Grid Seekers Book One) (19 page)

Chapter Seventeen

“
We need to
find somewhere else to go,” I said, when Liam and I were back hiding behind the tree roots.

“I don’t know where,” Liam said, his hands up.

“Wait, they never told us when we’d get a hold of Peter. We could really use his help right now,” I said.

“Yeah, where is he?” Liam asked.

“I’m right here, guys,” Peter said.

“…Peter?” Liam asked.

“It’s me. I’m just getting into the grid now. They didn’t have us ready on time. I think it was set up like that,” Peter said.

“How long have you been listening to us?” I asked.

“Just a minute or so. I was going to say something, but you guys sounded, well, busy and all with that camera,” Peter said.

“Oh, yeah,” Liam said, smiling.

“They definitely aren’t going to like that, not one bit. Let’s just hope they don’t send something in to punish you guys. They don’t play nicely when their cameras and video feeds are compromised,” Peter said.

“How could they do anything to punish us? We’re already here,” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s the thing, you’re
there
, in the grid. Did you think only you guys could alter the source code?” Peter asked, the sound of him typing tapping in the background.

“Well…yeah,” I said.

“You’re wrong…very wrong. They can alter whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want. If they wanted to toss in a fifty-foot man-eating dinosaur that could fly and shoot lasers from its eyes right now, they could. There’s no limit to their powers when you’re inside of there,” Peter said.

“So, maybe we
shouldn’t
have broken that camera then,” Liam said, scratching the back of his head.

“Was probably a bad way to start the competition. What’s done is done, though, and there’s no going back. I’ve linked into your profiles, and I can see you have some decent cards. I have your health and location on my screen, so I’ll be able to keep tabs on you two,” Peter said.

“What about anyone else? Can you see them?” I asked.

“Negative. I might be able to, but it isn’t going to be anytime super soon. What I can tell you, though, is that I’m seeing something on the map close to your location. I’m trying to hack further in to get a better sense of the direction, but it’s difficult,” Peter said.

“What is it? It’s not a survival pack, is it?” I asked excitedly.

“Not sure what it is, but it’s about a hundred to two hundred feet to your right,” Peter said.

Liam and I quickly turned, looking right, before looking back at one another, our attention soon going back to the wall of dirt the tree sat on, before we climbed out, dusted ourselves off, and began slowly walking, Peter guiding us the entire way.

The problem with these random items was that we had no idea what they were and we had to find them ourselves, two annoying things that proved to be more of a challenge than they let on during training.

“Stop!” Peter exclaimed, after we had walked a good distance from the ravine.

“What? Is it here?” Liam asked.

“It’s there, but I can’t tell where exactly. It looks like it might be obscured or something,” Peter said.

“There’s nothing here but a few trees. There aren’t even any real bushes or anything,” Liam said.

“Look around, then. I’m seeing that it’s hidden somehow. You aren’t going to see it just lying around,” Peter said.

Liam and I split up, each canvassing the area slowly, watching the ground closely for anything that stuck out. I didn’t see a survival pack anywhere, that sort of thing being fairly large and unable to be hidden too easily. It looked like the chances of finding one of those were slim.

“Alexia,” Peter said, causing me to stop dead in my tracks.

“What?” I asked.

“Look to your left. What’s there?” Peter asked.

“A tree. It’s like five feet away from me,” I said.

“It’s there somewhere,” Peter said.

I moved in closer, inspecting the tree, trying to see if it was stuck onto the bark, hanging off of a branch, or anywhere else that would make sense. There was nothing, the tree’s limbs being devoid of any helpful items, unless you counted leaves as helpful.

“There’s nothing,” I said, as Liam walked over.

“There has to be. I see it there, right in front of you. It’s literally right in front of your body as we speak,” Peter said.

I leaned in closer, my eyes two feet away from the tree, as I scanned up and down, slowly kneeling down to see if there was something, anything, that a card could be stuck in or hiding in.

I kept going, my eyes slowly scanning down, before I got to the bottom, where a small part of the tree jutted upwards, like it had been uprooted a couple inches.

“There’s an opening here,” I said, reaching my hand down, my small wrist just the right size to slide in, my hand patting around on the dirt as I tried to feel for the prize inside.

I felt something, what felt like a card, lodged back there. The tips of my fingernails scraped against it, trying to nudge it loose, before it fell forwards into my hand, and I slowly pulled it out, making sure my bracelet didn’t get snagged and lost for good.

“It’s a card,” I said.

“Awesome! We’re barely in this and I’ve already helped you find something,” Peter said.

“Which one is it?” Liam asked.

I turned the card over; it was covered in dirt and dust, so I wiped it off with the front of my shirt, revealing the picture, name, and description.

It was a terraform card, which I thought was sort of fitting considering I found it almost buried inside the earth. I smiled, looking at Liam as I held it up, my count now up to a perfect five cards, and the two of us now having an overly powerful one at our disposal.

I put the card in my pouch, the metal clanking against my other cards, and made sure my pouch was clasped as tightly as it could get, so none of them were able to fall out, especially if we had to start running again.

As Liam and I looked around, trying to plan our next step, a chime went off.

“What was that?” Liam asked.

“A modify alert. It means that somebody in the competition used a card,” Peter said.

“Can you find out who? Does it say?” I asked.

“The scope of my ability and powers in here right now is
very
limited. I’m afraid I can’t help out there. It could’ve just been somebody using like a food or water card,” Peter said.

Just as he ended his sentence, a blood-curdling scream echoed throughout the forest, like it was reverberating off of the trees, sending shivers up and down my spine. I looked at Liam.

“Or not,” Peter said.

“Group two from Chicago has been eliminated by Los Angeles group one,” Gordana said overhead.

“Wait, what just happened?” I asked, panicking.

“That was fast. I didn’t expect them to take people out
this
soon,” Peter said.

“What does she mean Los Angeles group one?” Liam asked.

“Each megacity, as you know, has two groups, and they’re identified with either a group one or two label. It’s just for tracking and announcements,” Peter said.

“Who was in that group? Who took them out?” Liam asked.

“Uh, it looks like it was a guy named Jason and a girl named Bridgette. They’re the two members of Los Angeles group one,” Peter said.

Liam and I looked at one another in shock, our mouths open. The two people who we disliked the most had already started off with a literal bang, taking out two other competitors like it was nothing. We hadn’t even been here half an hour and they had taken out one of their eleven groups of competition. Were we next? Was Gordana going to announce our demise soon?

“They place a beacon on our maps when someone, or a group, is eliminated,” Peter said.

“Is it close to us?” Liam asked.

“No, not super close. You’re about ten minutes away, I’d reckon, but only because the terrain is rocky and difficult to walk on,” Peter said.

“How did we hear her scream from that far away?” I asked.

“You’d be surprised what sounds the human body can make when your life is on the line,” Peter said.

•••

Night had fallen on Liam and I faster than either one of us thought possible. We had lost track of time, the first day in the grid being a challenging one, both of us now walking around the forest, looking for a suitable place to make camp. We hadn’t found any more cards, or better yet, a survival pack, but Peter led us around, cracking the codes for a lot of the map around us. We found a secluded spot, the back of a hill with a steep drop-off, causing a five-foot high wall.

We decided that this was as good a spot as any, and made camp, though it wasn’t too homey. We had no tent, no blankets, and worst of all, no fire. I took out my cards, rummaging through them in the dark, only the moonlight giving me illumination, before finding my feast card, which was a good thing to have when you were stuck in the wilderness. I knew the six-hour cool down would be fine, since both of us were soon going to sleep, and it was better to at least eat a little bit instead of waking up hungry, especially if we had to move quickly.

“I forgot about this,” I said, seeing the plasma shield card, its gold front piquing my curiosity again.

“Oh, that? I thought you knew,” Peter said, though he’d told us before we found camp that he would soon be leaving for the rest for the night.

“They never told us anything in training about gold-faced cards,” I said.

“Figures. The quality of their education program has been really falling in recent years. I’m thinking of starting a petition—” Peter said.

“Peter,” Liam said, interrupting him.

“Right, I’m sorry. Gold cards can be of any type, and they’re one-use cards. While regular cards can be used every six hours, once you use a gold-faced card you can’t use it again, so use them wisely. Black cards are a different story, though,” Peter said.

“How many different types are there?” I asked.

“Just regular, gold, and black. The black ones are incredibly rare, nobody’s ever found one before, not even with the help of their hackers. They’re faceless, just the black metal and a magnetic strip. One’s extremely good, the other’s extremely bad,” Peter said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, one will do something incredibly helpful, but you don’t know what it is or what it’ll do until you swipe it. The other will do something incredibly horrible, possibly catastrophic, and works the same way, you won’t know until you swipe it. You have no idea which one you have until you swipe it. It’s a game of chance and luck, but don’t worry, I don’t expect you to find one. Nobody ever has,” Peter said.

“Yeah, probably not,” Liam said.

Holding the feast card in my hand, I put the stripe through my skimmer. It was the first card we’d used in the competition so far. Nothing happened. I swiped again, this time slower, but again, nothing happened, like it was a dud. It
would
be my luck that I got the only faulty skimmer in the competition.

“Why isn’t this working?” I asked.

“You’re not saying ‘modify,’” Peter said.

“I thought that was just for show,” I said.

“Nope, it’s for real. You have to say it right before you swipe, or else it’ll do nothing at all,” Peter said.

“Modify,” I said, the tip of the card in the grooved edge of the skimmer, and then I swiped the card through.

The chime went off overhead, and I looked up, then back down, seeing a spread of food in front of us. There was cheese, bread, meat, bottles of water, and two cookies, one for each of us. Liam and I dug in, my stomach grumbling, as I’d only had the small breakfast this morning and no lunch. It was surprising that my hunger translated in here, even though I was supposedly hooked up to that IV, but I guessed WorldNet was that realistic. It truly was a place to live your life without really living it.

We ate in the dark, wishing we had some kind of fire card, as the five minutes that passed by while we were eating chilled the air even further, the cold air rolling in, our surroundings devoid of any light. We could almost see our breath in front of our faces. We stayed huddled up, neither one of us having anything more than our uniforms to protect us, though the little nook we were in did seem to hold heat a little better than if we were in the direct wind. The wind was now blowing over top of us, rustling some branches, making them sway gently in the breeze.

“How are you holding up?” Liam asked, after he had eaten his final piece of bread.

“I’m okay. I guess when we were going through training, and when I was thinking of what we would be doing in here, I never really planned or thought about nighttime. It’s so uncomfortable here. I miss that bed, and those blankets!” I said.

“Yeah, a big fluffy blanket would be kind of nice right now, wouldn’t it?” he asked.

“Yeah. A lot of things would be nice right now,” I said.