The Carnelian Fox Read online

  “Third time, still unlucky. He’s a cheating scumbag. Rica avoided the pits, so some ropes gave way. She jumped across, so he disqualified her for ‘being out of bounds.’ He never even mentioned bounds!”

  “Maybe you’re flagging now the challenges are getting tougher?”

  “Hey, I didn’t call you to get mocked,” I said, shaking the eBand as if he could feel it. “Plus, I went over to Marla’s hall and passed straight away.”

  “Ha, what happened to ‘I’ll show that creep I won’t give up. No matter how many times he screws me over…’”

  “Shut up. I hate that guy. And Lucy’s getting irritated. We’re on our way to Larvia now, should be there tomorrow some time. She got a tip about a great candy Gem shop and wants to find a fifth member for her team.”

  I leant back against a tree trunk, settling into a cosy, embracing nook. I was glad to leave the damn town of Illusis behind, if I got my way I’d never go back. Not unless I had a full-strength team to go kick Beaux’s stupid challenge hall’s ass.

  “How is Lucy? Happier now she’s got some points?” Eli’s voice faded. You sometimes got bad connections out in the wilds.

  “Yeah, she’s just over there, training her Gems. Don’t know if I’d call her ‘happier’ though. More like regular Lucy. Not as mopey. Unless she can hear me, then she’s an absolute delight.”

  “Sounds like you’re both doing well. Hey, if you do one challenge hall in Larvia you’ll have a full licence. We should head back to Beaux’s club to celebrate!” I saw Eli’s mischievous grin in my mind, he thought he was so funny.

  “But a night in my pyjamas with hot chocolate and a tray of chicken fingers sounds so much better…” I said.

  “Okay, if you go win tomorrow, I’ll bring you chicken, how does that sound?”

  It sounded incredible. I couldn’t wait to have him back again, especially with chicken involved. I smiled down at my eBand. Yeah, he couldn’t see me, but it was an involuntary reaction. Things were turning around right now; I was one win off completing my challenges, Lucy was less angsty, and perhaps I had a kind of date?

  “What happens if I lose?”

  “Salad, Sam. Salad happens.”

  “You sure know how to motivate me.”

  I enjoyed listening to his teasing. Somehow, I drifted into a relaxed and natural rhythm with him. Even though I still tingled with a sense of awe at what he’d accomplished with his team.

  A girl’s scream ripped my attention away. Lucy!

  “Sam, what’s happening?” I ignored Eli’s frantic voice and looked behind me to where Lucy had been earlier. She was gone. Why was she gone?

  I scrambled up, not bothering to wipe the green-brown dust off my trousers and summoned all my Gems.

  ‘Rica, can you sense Lucy?’

  ‘No, I’m blocked from other humans. But her Gems are this way.’

  I raced after the red panda, my other four fanned out around us. I strained my senses to pick up an idea of what startled Lucy. Or attacked her… oh damn, I’d already lost one travel partner.

  My body screamed with panic, my mind playing over dozens of pictures of her strawberry blonde hair spread out over the dirt and dripping with blood. I shrugged away the icy shivers across my flesh and almost missed a step. I needed to focus, breaking an ankle wouldn’t help anyone.

  We burst out onto the bank of a small river. Finn took the lead on his long legs and skittered to a halt before he plunged headfirst into the sluggish water. Down on her knees, Lucy bowed over a welt showing bright and angry on her forearm. Her prominent cheeks demanded focus, red and puffy and coated with salt sheen.

  In front of her stood a lemur whose ears reached my shoulders. Its fur was corrosive grey and oozing with poison except where rainbow rings banded its tail.

  “Is that Rolo?” I forced out.

  Lucy’s sobs ripped from the depth of her lungs and she buried her head in her hands.

  The lemur didn’t attack, so I assumed it must be her formerly adorable pure candy type, now evolved. He glared at something down on the mud flat, a green and brown capsule.

  “Did he fight an adolescent Gem off?”

  Lucy still didn’t answer my questions. Her ruddy face paled to almost as grey as her lemur’s new fur. I offered a hand to help her up, supporting her with my arm around her back.

  “Lucy, please. What happened? Are there any more?”

  “Look at him,” she said between sniffles, then recalled her Gem.

  “Are you all okay?” I needed answers, but she must be in shock. And I didn’t know if she had any other injuries. “Let’s get back to camp and I’ll make sure you’re all right.”

  She nodded and let me guide her. All my guys stayed out, and I intended to keep it that way for the rest of the night. At a gentle tug on my trouser leg, I glanced down to see Sev with the capsule in his mouth. I took it, wondering what it held. But it wasn’t my capture, so I slipped it into Lucy’s pocket. I doubt she would use it, but it might be a trade opportunity for her.

  I eased her back to our base area and sat her down with a draco-warmed drink.

  “Thank you,” she said, with a hard edge at her lips.

  “Why did you wander off like that?” Now she wasn’t close to dying I had questions other than ‘what the heck is going on?’

  “Training.” She breathed into her cup, sending up little clouds of steam.

  “You had plenty of space here,” I said, spreading my arms to take in the very adequate amount of clear floor.

  “I wanted to train them on my own for a while.”

  “Come on, I wasn’t even watching you! I was on a call.”

  “As usual.” She hugged her drink close.

  “What’s wrong with you? Why do you have such a problem with Eli? All he’s done is help us out and be nice to us. You’re totally antagonistic for no reason.”

  “I wouldn’t if you weren’t so obsessed with him.” Lucy shot me a filthy glare but couldn’t hold my gaze.

  “Are you jealous?” It was the only explanation. I never imagined him being Lucy’s type, but I guess when someone swooped in to save your life it more than made up for a lack of fashion sense.

  “Yes,” she admitted, the pallor of her face returning with a crimson blush.

  “I didn’t know you liked him, I…”

  “Don’t be imbecilic, Sam,” she cut in, mouth twisting into a grimace. “I… ugh this is embarrassing… I wanted this to be our adventure. You aren’t the only one that dreamed of travelling around with her Gems and having fun and making memories. When Daddy invited you over, I thought you seemed rough around the edges. I still think that now, of course. But you were my first opportunity to get out of the house, and I appreciate that. We complement each other rather well as partners. But then, as soon as someone else comes along, I’m nothing to you. All you do is talk to him, Sam. I’m a Prime too, aren’t I? But we never chat about Gems at all. It’s as though you think show Primes are beneath you, like we don’t work hard or learn anything.”

  “Oh…” Okay, not what I’d expected from her. Not at all. What do you say to that?

  “But it’s fine. You’ll cap out when we reach our destination, so I’ll just find someone else to travel with.”

  “I don’t think I’ve been fair to you,” I said. Yeah, Lucy was a pain sometimes, and she was always the one that pushed me away, but I had some stuff to share too. “I suppose I never told you much about myself. Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d care or want to talk about me. I do have a bad impression of show Primes, I got bullied by this group at college. It doesn’t mean all of you are the same, I should get that. And it’s not true that you’re nothing to me, I was so terrified something had happened to you just now...”

  “Daddy put a lot on your shoulders, saying you had to protect me, I understand that. But I’m not your responsibility, Sam. I’m a grown woman and I wandered off. Don’t fret about me.”

  “Did you hear about…” I couldn’t bel
ieve I was revealing this. I couldn’t even talk about this to myself in the comfort of my mind. “What happened to the Capshaw’s son?”

  “That’s one Prime. There are hundreds of us in the world. It was a terrible incident, and I’m devastated for his parents. But you can’t base your future on a single awful attack, if people did that then their fears would stop them getting anything done.”

  “You don’t understand.” My words caught in my throat and I blinked at the threat of tears. “I was there. He was my best friend, and I was the only one with him when he died. I had to go back to the lodge and scrub his blood off my hands and I can’t face having to do that again. I guess I figured it wouldn’t hurt as bad if I didn’t get close to you, I wouldn’t be replacing Callum. It was supposed to be our adventure, okay? So yeah, I guess I know where you’re coming from.”

  I blotted at the corners of my eyes with a sleeve, trying to stem the flow before it overwhelmed me. Instead, it broke me, and I ached with guilt. I let Callum die and I let Lucy down.

  A weight brushed my shoulder. Lucy’s thoughtful expression didn’t quite fix on me, but she gave me awkward pats. It was the equivalent of a bearhug from her.

  “I won’t go off without telling you next time,” she said.

  “And I’ll stop being such an ignorant jerk,” I replied.

  I stuck to my end of the deal. Even if it wasn’t her intention for me to plague her with hours of battle theory that night. I excused myself for a minute to ring Eli back and assure him we weren’t a pair of corpses abandoned in a ditch. But I hung up straight away to spend some time with Lucy.

  Sure, I was getting somewhere with that girl. But after what she did the next day, I’d never be able to look at her the same way ever again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You sure you don’t want to come?” I asked. “This might be the moment I get my last points, and you could do with a win too.”

  “I need to meet my rep in twenty minutes, Sam. This isn’t like the boards; you don’t browse a list of statistics. I’ll be visiting the Gems and getting a professional to match me up with a new team member.” It was almost like we’d never had our moment yesterday, never had that time of openness where we laid everything out. Lucy’s superiority flared again. I was eating a bacon sandwich for breakfast. All back to normal.

  “Okay, have fun.” I waved her off as she left. Then I finished my food and psyched myself up to get my full licence.

  Back in my room, I summoned my team. Five incredible Gems.

  ‘Four incredible Gems and one ultra-incredible Gem,’ Rica corrected.

  ‘Yeah, Finn is pretty awesome,’ I replied.

  Her wave of amusement reached my mind, I was getting used to this form of communication.

  “Is there a way we could use your ability to coordinate our battles?” I spoke out loud to include everyone.

  ‘It would make sense,’ Rica said. I’m not sure if she projected to the rest of the team, but they all sat there, listening in. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I stayed summoned, so it didn’t look like a tactic we were using though.’

  ‘Rica? Is it uncomfortable for you? Being in a capsule I mean. Don’t you like it?’

  ‘It isn’t unpleasant. They designed us to be this way. It’s akin to sleeping, you don’t remember doing it until afterwards. Except you wake up fresher.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m a terrible Prime. Or if all Primes are. I don’t know. Am I crazy for wanting to battle with you guys? I love the crap out of you all, so is it weird I put you into danger?’ I’d never voiced these thoughts to another human before, so why I thought it was a good topic to bring up with a Gem now, I had no idea.

  ‘You put yourself in danger too. Even for me when you didn’t know me. I don’t think you expect anything of your team you wouldn’t do yourself. We’re growing, getting stronger from this, and that means we’ll be able to help others even more. None of your Gems resent you, if that’s what you’re asking.’ Rica leapt up onto the bed where I sat and curled up in my lap, her twinkling eyes fixed on my face. I stroked the fur between her ears. It prickled with static, but not enough to make me stop.

  ‘Are you your own complete person?’ I was still so confused at how she worked. ‘Some people say that Gems are just game pieces. That you’re programmed to work the way we want you to and you can’t veer off scripts or programs. And other people say that because you’re made from animals, you have your own thoughts and personalities. Not that everyone agrees animals have them anyway…’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Rica tilted her head to one side. ‘If I believe I have thoughts and I’m me because a human put that there, does that make what I think less valid? Who made you, Sam? Surely someone or something. Whether you think that was intentional or accidental, you had an origin. So do we.’

  ‘This is worse than college.’ I rubbed my forehead, churning over her words. But did some philosophical boffin write that script for her to run to add immersion? Or did she come up with the opinion herself? Or is that the point? To never know yet accept that’s where she stood? I sure wasn’t intelligent enough to figure it out, if humans had stats, mine would be average to poor all round. Not that I intended on letting that hold me back.

  There were only two challenge halls in this small town. This sleepy little fairy-tale town. Illusis may have showed the glitter and sparkle of candy Gems, but this place held the rainbows. I wondered if Eli went to a secret hideout made of poison pools and shadows for his specialities.

  Larvia was quaint, that’s the only way to put it. The buildings were one step away from gingerbread houses, faux wood gave off an old-fashioned aura and the townsfolk hung mass amounts of multi-coloured bunting from every surface. I can’t believe that Lucy had the nerve to complain about my companionship when all the destinations she chose made me want to puke.

  I headed to the nearest challenge hall, Rica trotting alongside me. In most public spaces it was fine to have one Gem out if they weren’t the width of the street or causing trouble. I spotted a handful of other Primes with a team member tagging along in the jolly market square. Dancers and buskers filled the damn town, carousing around little stands selling striped cookies or sweets. I didn’t object to desserts, just the fact it felt like Christmas at an inappropriate time of the year.

  I bought a cookie and snapped a piece off for Rica. The red panda nibbled at the corner of the treat and lit up, crumbs falling from the corners of her muzzle. I may have created a cookie loving monster.

  This was it. My last points. I hoped.

  After this I could do anything. Now I’d seen Eli in action, it was clear I still had a long way to go. Back in college with Callum, we’d talked as if capping out our fifty points was the end of the journey. It felt like the point you’d made it, proved yourself worthy of being a Prime. Once you had fifty points no one could stop you from being whatever you wanted to be. That naïve me from back then thought it was as simple as walking out of the last challenge hall and into an arena to compete for huge prizes. If I tried that I’d get flattened.

  I should take a break and train up my Gems. It was easy enough for them to battle each other and develop their powers, maybe coax an evolution from them. I wanted the confidence to go into the wilds on my own. I needed to know they had the strength to handle whatever the world threw at us. Once I got to that point, I’d be comfortable trying my luck against whatever other Primes had to offer.

  I shoved the last bite of the cookie into my mouth and pushed open the door of the challenge hall. It would be nice having Lucy or Eli, or Callum, here to see this. But this was my life and my career, my responsibility to make it happen.

  I blinked at the dim cavern of a room set with strings of fairy lights along every wall. Gentle harp music stroked my eardrums. I could nap here. Despite the delicious treat I’d eaten, saliva pooled in my mouth as the aroma of freshly baked cake caressed my nostrils. Did someone’s grandma run this place?

  There was no sign o
f bustling here, no extraneous visitors, no Gems wandering around. Where was the Challenge Master? Damn, they better not screw me over by being on holiday or something.

  ‘Over there,’ Rica mentally pointed.

  ‘There’ was a cosy fireplace with three oversized armchairs facing the flames. The shuffle of a turning page suggested someone’s presence.

  “Excuse me?” I called. “Are you the Master here?”

  A finger appeared, held up and clearly asking me to wait a moment. I waited. I got bored within seconds and wandered over by accident.

  It wasn’t a granny sat in the chair. It was a man. One with cute features and a chiselled jaw enhanced by the flickering light. He had a slim physique, not scrawny like Eli but well-toned. His golden-brown hair flopped a little over his forehead in that messy on purpose way.

  The man slid a leather bookmark to the edge of a crystal table and inserted it into his hefty hardback. It was rare to see people read something from paper instead of a screen.

  “I had to finish the page,” he said with a liquid tone, “Sorry, the dialogue in this series enraptures me.”

  “Err, no probs, I guess.” I should stop talking around intellectuals, it made me realise how illiterate I sounded.

  “You’re here to challenge?” His inquisitive eyes were like a Gem’s, too big and too captivating.

  “Yep. Sure am.”

  “I’m Lourey, the Master here. May I scan your eBand?”

  I offered my wrist, damn I needed to replace that ancient piece of crap. I almost felt the guy wince with sympathy at my scuffed old tech.

  “Forty points. And this is your first challenge hall in this town?”

  “Yeah, I’m planning on capping out today, so go easy on me, okay?” I hoped he got that I was joking. Bet he thought I was desperate enough already.

  “You only have five Gems registered to your person, Sam. Have you forgotten to take the sixth from storage?” Lourey pursed his lips, considering.