A List of Cages by Robin Roe

Author:Robin Roe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

Charlie keeps sending me bruising glares as we join the long line for laser tag. I think he’s mad because Adam paid for me again, and it was a lot of money: twenty dollars.

Just as we’re nearing the front, a staff member tells us there’s only enough room for two more players on the Red team. One of us will have to join the Blue unless we’d rather wait forty minutes for the next game.

“How about I go with Julian this time?” Adam says.

“Whatever,” Charlie answers, looking angry.

We’re all allowed into what looks like a little locker room full of equipment. Everyone begins swiftly suiting up. I lift the red gear from one hook, and mimic them by lowering it over my head. It looks like a football player’s safety pads, only it has a rifle attached by a wire. Beside me, a man kneels in front of a smiling boy and helps him put on the gear.

A flame-haired worker shouts, “Attention!” Everyone gets quiet while he goes over the rules. “No physical contact allowed! No sitting or lying in the arena! You earn ten points every time you shoot your opponent in the kill zones…” He taps his head and chest. “…and one hundred points by shooting the signal over their home base! If your gun starts flashing, you’re out of ammo! Go back to your home base to reload! If you’re shot, you must return to your home base to recharge! Is everyone ready?”

The players all cheer, shaking their rifles in the air.

“You get all that?” Adam asks me, and Charlie mutters something about babysitting.

“I think so,” I say, but it’s a lot to remember and I’ve never done this before, so I probably won’t be good at it.

The staff lets the Blue team in first, then the ten of us on the Red team gather in a tight passageway where the walls and floors are completely black except for glow-in-the-dark swirls. Adam’s fingernails and teeth are glowing. I stretch out my hand. My fingernails are glowing too.

An alarm sounds. A speaker overhead announces robotically, “The game will commence in three…two…one!”

On lightning legs, Adam immediately darts out of base.

Much more cautiously, everyone else cascades from the room until I’m left standing alone. I don’t want to leave, but it’s kind of scary waiting here by myself. Suddenly Adam leaps back into the little room, startling me.

“Come on,” he orders. I follow him down a dark hall. He’s swift and confident. He must know the maze well. “Duck!” Someone is shooting at us.

We dive into another passageway, pressing our backs against a black wall. My heart is pounding fast.

“We’ve gotta get to their base.” Adam says it so seriously that I start to laugh. All of a sudden this feels fun-scary, like when my dad and I used to play hide-and-seek in the dark.

Adam grins at me with glowing teeth. “You ready?”

I nod.

The second he jumps out, a little girl in blue fires at him. His chest plate beeps. “Damn it! Gotta recharge.

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