The Battle Begins (4 page)

5

A
CROSS THE RIVER AND 247 STORIES UP,
M
ARCUS WAS IN
his bedroom, listening to music on full blast and practicing kick flips on his skateboard as he scanned the simulink network for updated stats on the Unnaturals, like he did before every match.

He was only allowed to watch four of the sixteen fights each season, because his stepdad, Bruce the Brutal, worried about “overexposure to violence.” That was totally uncool, considering he was eleven years
old—only fifteen months away from being a teenager!—but it was also totally hypocritical. Not only did Bruce help Marcus's older brother, Pete, get a job with NuFormz, but Bruce helped design the monsters, which he'd confided to Marcus were only virtual models, anyway. But like any die-hard fan, Marcus still knew the mutants' histories by heart, especially the ones on his favorite team.

Team Scratch had had a rough time lately. That was putting it mildly; the Invincible had led Team Klaw on a five-season winning streak, and he wasn't showing any sign of slowing down. Pookie the Poisonous—the Chihuahua-spider—was the only one that could hold a candle to the scorpion-tiger, and he'd been mysteriously retired halfway through last season. Then the Crunch, a cockroach-crocodile that everyone thought would be super tough, had gotten squashed in his first match, bankrupting half the gamblers in Lion's Head. Things had just gone downhill from there, and almost every time Marcus had checked the simulink, at least one member of Team Scratch was listed as injured.

Still, Marcus wasn't giving up hope. Tonight was the final showdown, the Mega Monster Mash-up, when all the creatures fought at once. It was the most important match of the season, the only match that really counted,
and Marcus had a warp ticket with his name on it.

He scanned the stats projected in front of his eyes. Even as a loyal Scratch fan, he knew it didn't look good. Team Klaw's odds were 62:1.

There was a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, and Marcus looked away from the simulink toward the floor-to-ceiling warp screen on the far wall of his room. He could see Matchmaker Joni Juniper—or her avatar, at least—descending from the ceiling of the Dome in the mouth of a golden lion. As she reached the center space next to the scoreboard, the lion roared and erupted in an explosion of stars that turned into a banner.

“The match is starting!” Marcus called downstairs to his mother.

The Matchmaker's mouth was moving. Marcus killed the guitar-shredding noise of Sky Seizure and popped in his magni-sound earbuds.

“The time has come,” she announced. “For the night all you Moniacs have been waiting for! The Mega! Monster! Mash-up!”

Marcus usually hated that lame fanboy term,
Moniac
,
but Joni Juniper was a total skyrocket, with honey-brown skin and a cloud of soft, dark auburn ringlets that framed her face, and when she said it, he actually blushed. He felt way too far away from the stadium, though—it was time to warp!

“Mom?” he called again, pulling out one of the earbuds. “Ticket code? Pleeease?”

“Sure, sweetie,” his mom answered. “As soon as you finish your history homework.”

Uh-oh.

“Who cares about the Warming Age?” Marcus groaned. He'd been procrastinating on this research feed all day. What was the point of reading about the animals that went extinct in the past, when you could watch newer, cooler virtual animals fight right now?

When his mom didn't answer, Marcus sighed and turned back to the simulink and pulled up the list his teacher had generated, scanning it for something he recognized. Aha: hippopotamus! He thought he knew enough about a former Unnatural, a Komodo dragon– hippo mix, to whip up a quick feed. He remembered the Hellion's crazy-powerful jaw, and that gross red drool, and started dictating the text.

“The hippo's teeth sharpened themselves when ground together, and by overproducing saliva to slick
things up, they could swallow their enemies whole.”

Or was that the lizard half of it? Marcus wasn't sure, but he was able to bluff his way through a mediocre couple of pages, and soon enough he'd uploaded it to the school's inter-verse. “Mom!” he screamed desperately. “Finished!”

The simulink beeped and moments later, the ticket code materialized in front of his face. Marcus popped the earbuds back in, slid the Blink over his eye, and pulled his desk chair up close to the warp screen. When his fingers made contact with the filmy material, a numerical key appeared, he tapped out the code, and a cartoon lion breaking his chains appeared on-screen, confirming his entry.

Warp time, baby!

The Blink clicked on and Marcus felt slightly dizzy as his eyes adjusted to the 4D image on the screen. Then he was there.

Or he was as much there as you could be without actually having tickets to the live match. Marcus knew he was still in his bedroom, of course, but other than the feel of the chair cushion beneath him, it sure seemed like he was in the Dome. When he rotated in his chair, his view expanded to a 360-degree view of the inside of the stadium. He saw the metallic sheen of the curved ceiling,
the hologram of Joni Juniper dancing through the air as she revved up the crowd, and the crowd itself, thousands of people in the sloping bleachers all around him. They looked angry.

Marcus gave a voice command to crank up the volume on his earbuds, and the sound of booing rushed into his ears.

He looked down toward the wide, dusty circle at the center of the Dome. The Invincible was prowling around the arena, looking more terrifying than ever. His imposing white tiger's body rippled with muscle, razor-like teeth glinted under the Dome's bright lights in a permanent snarl, and a long scorpion's tail curved over his head.

It looked like that stinger had done some serious damage; in the ten minutes it had taken Marcus to finish his homework, the match was already over, and with it, the season.

Looking around the arena at the aftermath of the Invincible's rampage, Marcus was sick to his stomach. He tore off his Blink and warped out of the stadium, feeling cheated. He tossed his earbuds on the bed and joined his mom in the kitchen.

She was furiously chopping vegetables and dumping them in a pan, and Marcus peered around her arms to
get a look at what she was cooking.

“Honey, don't touch,” his mom said. “Bruce is going to be home any minute, and I've got to finish this. You know he likes his food hot when he walks in the door.”

Marcus couldn't care less what Bruce the Brutal liked.

“I hate stew, anyway,” he grumbled. “I'll have a Vita pill or something.”

His mom made a sound of disapproval in her throat that told him that wasn't an option. “A capsule of powdered protein is not sufficient for a growing boy.” Then she glanced up from the food she was making. “Hey, I thought you were warping into the match. Is it over so soon?”

“The Invincible won again,” he said, more to himself than her.

“It's just virtual reality, honey,” she said, repeating what she and Bruce always like to remind him. “It's just entertainment.”

Well, it hadn't been very entertaining, that was for sure. It would be almost a month before the new mutants started competing—not that it mattered much. As a Team Scratch fan, it was getting harder and harder to get excited about another season.

So much for a comeback.

6

B
ENEATH THE CITY OF
L
ION'S
H
EAD, IN A TINY APARTMENT
in the underground neighborhood known as the Drain, Leesa was hard at work on a letter. Or she would be, if she could just figure out how to start it.

She sat cross-legged on the sagging couch that doubled as her bed and hunched over the tablet in her lap, staring at the blank screen. Her hair hung around her face in a sleek dark curtain but for the one streak she'd recently dyed blue.

What did you say to a sky queen politician? What could you say that would make her listen?

Her friend Antonio would say she was an idiot for writing the letter at all, but Leesa was desperate, and Eva Eris was the only person she could think of who had any real power.

Dear Mayor Eris,

I need your help in a really bad situation.

Ugh, that sounded lame. If she wanted an important lady like the mayor to take her seriously, she had to sound more grown-up. Leesa deleted the line, her fingers hovering above the screen. Then she had it.

I'm requesting your assistance with a very grave matter. Mega Media has gone too far with its Unnatural monster matches. The Mash-up was . . .

Brutal? Disgusting?

The Mash-up was HORRIBLE!

The images Leesa had seen during the last fight were
a scar in her memory, and she felt the nausea over again. After that night, she'd wanted to walk away from the Unnaturals forever. She almost had.

She glanced down at the paperback she'd been reading, propped open on the cushion next to her. Leesa's teacher, Ms. Hoiles, often lent Leesa old books—really old ones, made from paper and everything—but she couldn't have known how the sight of that cover would affect Leesa.
Charlotte's Web
was spelled out in fancy letters, with a web winding around them. There was a tiny spider dangling down, and a girl smiling up at it. Looking at the image, all Leesa could think about was Pookie, her Chihuahua, and she knew it was time to finally do something. He was the reason she needed to write the letter.

The sentences flowed faster now.

Leesa heard someone fumbling at the front door. She glanced at the time, and a chill went through her. It was only five o'clock. Her mom didn't get off work for another two hours. Crime had been up in the Drain since the latest rationing, and Leesa lived on one of the worst streets.

The locks rattled, and Leesa gripped her tablet tightly. There was nowhere to run or hide; the whole apartment was only one room. All she could do was hold her breath as each of the eight dead bolts clicked open, one after the other.

The door burst open with a bang, and Leesa screamed.

Then she instantly felt like a baby. It was her mother. Of course it was—who else would it be?

Her mom kicked the door closed behind her. “Sorry, lovebug,” she said, out of breath. “I didn't mean to burst in like that, but I was about to drop everything.”

Leesa got up and maneuvered through the small, cluttered space to help her mom.

“You're home so early,” Leesa said, taking two of the heaping bags. She couldn't remember her mom ever coming home from work early. “Time is money,” she always said, and they never seemed to have enough of either. After a full day of running errands for rich sky dwellers too scared of pollutants to venture to ground
level, her mom would crash on the couch and nap for a few hours while Leesa stayed up to read. Then, when Leesa headed to bed, her mom would take off again for the midnight shift, monitoring robots for her other job at the ReadyGro factory.

“What'd you expect?” Her mom set down her burden on the counter and tugged playfully on one of Leesa's braids. “It's your birthday, isn't it?”

Was it? Leesa blinked. She'd been so caught up in what was going on with the Unnaturals that she'd totally forgotten.

Her mom started to unload the bags, and Leesa gasped at what she saw: ReadyGro tomatoes. Broccoli. Noodles. Bottled sauces. All premium buys.

“What's all this?” she asked, trying to temper her excitement. “Stuff for one of the sky families?”

“No.” Her mom's eyes shined in the dim light. “This is just for us. I thought we could sit down for a real meal together for once, to celebrate.” She started putting the synthi-veggies in the fridge.

“Aw, Mom . . .” Leesa's stomach growled in anticipation of the feast. Still, she couldn't help feeling guilty. “You didn't have to spend all that money.”

They mostly lived on Vita pills these days, with the
occasional frozen dinner thrown in when they could afford it. Leesa had vague memories of her mom cooking meals from scratch when she was little, but since her dad had left and they'd moved to the Drain, it was completely unheard of.

Her mom waved her off. “Hush. Twelve is a big deal! My baby's almost all grown up.” She tickled Leesa's sides, like she had when she was little.

“Mom, stop.” Leesa rolled her eyes, but she was beaming.

“Besides, you've been so down lately, I figured you needed cheering up. I just wish I could've given you more,” her mom said with a sigh. She turned away to brew her tea—with her crazy sleep schedule, Leesa's mom drank a lot of tea—but Leesa could hear the sadness in her voice. “I was really trying to save up for an automapooch for your birthday, but I just couldn't swing it this year.”

“It's okay,” Leesa said brightly. “I don't want a virtual pet, anyway.” Wanting to reassure her mom, she walked back to the couch and grabbed the tablet. “Look.” She showed her the letter she'd been writing. “When the mayor reads my petition, we're going to get Pookie back.”

Her mom stared at the words, her face a mask. Then
she sank down into the couch like her legs were too wobbly to stand. “Oh, lovebug.” She covered her face with her hands, obviously upset.

“What is it?” Leesa asked. Her mom was one of the toughest people she knew, and it took a lot to make her stop smiling, let alone break down.

What could be so awful about writing to the mayor?

Leesa's mom took one of Leesa's hands in both of hers and pulled her down next to her. “I didn't want to tell you this before. But maybe now that you're a little older, you can understand.”

Now Leesa was alarmed. She and her mom had lived in such close quarters for so long, she didn't think they had any secrets—well, almost any. She hadn't told her mom about sneaking into the Dome with Antonio to watch Unnaturals matches all these years, but that was different. That would've worried her, and the last thing Leesa wanted was to add to her mom's worries.

Her mom looked super worried right now, though, and it was totally freaking Leesa out. She squeezed her mom's hand. “Tell me.”

Instead of answering right away, Leesa's mom took Leesa's shoulders and guided them to turn. Leesa raised her eyebrows in confusion, but she obediently turned away from her mother, tucking her legs up under herself
on the couch. Her mom started to comb through her hair with her fingers, like she had when Leesa was little. It felt nice, but Leesa was too anxious to enjoy it. She stared at the wall, waiting.

“Leesa, the mayor isn't going to help you get your dog back,” her mom said. She separated Leesa's hair into two sections and took a deep breath. “That woman is the reason Pookie's gone.”

Leesa snapped her head around. “How could it be her fault?” That didn't make any sense. “Pookie ran away. He slipped his collar like he'd done before—you always said I put it on too loose—and he went exploring and got lost on the streets and picked up by scouts and—”

“He didn't get lost, sweetie,” her mom interrupted. “And the Unnaturals scouts didn't find him.” Leesa caught a glimpse of the pain in her eyes before her mom signaled for her to turn back around. Her mom started to braid one of the sections of Leesa's hair, winding the strands over one another in a tight line down her head. Finally, she said in a whisper, “Your dad gave Pookie to them.”

“What?” Leesa squeaked. Her dad? No. Why would he do that? And how could her mom not tell her? Nothing made sense. Feeling the tug against her scalp, she didn't dare turn back around, so she stared at a long, jagged crack on the wall as she said, “All those days I
spent walking around the streets at ground level, calling for him. And all those years after, hoping he'd come back . . .”

The crack blurred.

“I know, lovebug. I'm sorry.” She could hear that her mom was crying, too, and Leesa's head bobbed as the braiding got clumsier. “I didn't want you to hate your father. Your dad is a good man but a bad businessman. This all started because he wanted a better life for us. He didn't want to see you grow up in darkness, underground, didn't want to see his baby girl—” Her voice broke. “Living in a pit like this.”

Leesa wiped her nose and made herself stop shaking so her mom would continue. She needed to know the whole story. “What does the mayor have to do with anything?”

“Did you know Mayor Eris was the one who started the Sky Project?”

“Everyone knows that.” When Leesa was little, there was no space anywhere, and everyone was living all smashed together. Eva Eris funded research to build higher than anyone thought possible, and soon Lion's Head was thriving again—they said she'd saved the city. When she decided to run for mayor, she'd won in a landslide.

“Well, we couldn't really afford one of those fancy sky homes, but Eva told your dad we could get by on credit for a while. She had just bought this new virtual reality network, and if he offered up collateral . . .”

“Wait.” Leesa sat up straighter. “So Mayor Eris owns Mega Media? She started the Unnaturals?” She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“I think she wanted it mostly for ad propaganda. She never thought her little reality show project would take off, but when it did, she needed animals. And we were way overdue on rent.”

“Pookie was the collateral.” Leesa couldn't hide the bitterness in her voice. “And Dad just handed him right over.”

“No, lovey.” Her mom tied off the second braid and finally let Leesa turn around. “He thought it was temporary, and he tried to fix it. He really did.” She took a long sip of tea and studied Leesa's face, as if deciding whether to say more. Finally, she continued, “I'm not sure if you know this, Lees, but your dad likes to gamble.”

Leesa looked away. Did she know her dad gambled? Everyone in the Drain knew. He was so pathetic that not even Vince would take his bets anymore. Leesa walked to the mirror and studied her braids, tugging some hair out of the top of one of them to show off the chunk she'd
dyed blue. Careful to keep a straight face, she said, “I think I might've had an idea.”

Her mother looked ashamed. “He wasn't always like that. Baba went to the Dome just trying to win enough to get Pookie back. Some touts gave him inside info on who to bet on, and Baba trusted them.”

Leesa winced at how easy a mark her dad had been. Even she knew not to trust the touts.

“They were all working for the mayor, of course. When he lost, Baba started placing daily double bets to try to break even again. Unfortunately, when he lost those, too, it hit us twice as hard. By the time he started winning, it was too late.”

Leesa felt sick. Everything was starting to make awful, perfect sense. “That's why we moved to the Drain, isn't it? Mayor Eris got Pookie and the house?”

Her mom met her eyes and nodded, and there was something else written there between them but left unsaid: it was also why Baba didn't live with them anymore.

Leesa gripped the tablet tightly in her hands, resisting the urge to chuck it across the room only because she knew how expensive it was. So much for her letter.

“But now we're free.” Her mom reached out to tuck the blue strands behind Leesa's ear. “And I'm going to
keep working and keep saving, and one day, things are going to get better.” Then her solemn tone changed to one of forced enthusiasm. “We're already doing pretty well for ourselves, though, aren't we? Look at this feast!” She hopped up off the couch and gave Leesa's knee a shake. “Now come on, we'd better get cooking if you want me to stay awake for your birthday dinner.”

“I don't really feel like celebrating.” Her family was broken and her dog was gone and everything seemed stacked against her. The only thing Leesa felt like doing was curling up and crying.

“Birthday girls aren't allowed to mope.” Her mom's voice was peppy but firm. “If I've learned anything, it's that when things get hard you just have to trust in yourself, Leesa. We're stronger than we think.”