The Leveller - Julia Durango Page 0,21

at me.

It almost looks like it could be Jack’s beanstalk, if the stalk was a slimy, quivering tangle of pea-green intestines with a bulbous, kidney-colored, drooling head at the top.

Its open beak reveals a fleshy, pulsing void that reeks of rotting meat. I’m no longer thrilled by my ability to smell things here, and I sure as heck refuse to get swallowed whole by that stinkweed.

I whip out another grenade and lob it underhand, like I’m tossing a Ping-Pong ball into a fishbowl at the carnival. Bingo! Give the girl a prize. The carnivorous weed does a smoky little death dance, then begins to dissolve.

I’d like to wave good riddance, but who’s got the time? I hear the slither before I can move the machete back to my right hand, so I end up making an awkward lefty slash behind me. I get nothing but air. A long, leathery tail wraps around my ankles and begins to encircle my legs, squeezing me from bottom to top like a tube of toothpaste. I figure it’s only a matter of seconds before my ribcage gets crushed in the serpent’s grip, sending me back to the Landing to start all over again.

That is so not going to happen.

I struggle to keep my arms free as long as possible and wait until I finally see the anaconda’s big yellow head swaying in front of me, its tongue flicking in and out of its mouth, licking its lips before dinner, no doubt.

I take my machete in both hands and bring it down hard, like I’m cutting a watermelon in half.

The snake’s head flies off into the jungle.

That’s a home run if I ever saw one.

“And the crowd goes wild,” I say to no one, letting out a big sigh as the jungle finally disappears.

I pause a moment in the white room to put away the machete and remaining grenades, then I pull out my crossbow and quiver. I’m actually looking forward to this next room.

I follow the walls again, always turning right, until I reach a green button.

A moment later, I’m standing on a long rickety rope bridge between two high granite cliffs. Several planks are missing from the bridge, threatening to drop me into the sea of boiling orange lava below. I quickly don my harness and clip myself to the ropes before the first pterodactyl attacks.

The five dive-bombing dinos do their best to knock me into the lava gorge or spear me with their pointy beaks, but they are no match for this girl/weapon combo. My crossbow and I perform like a beautiful machine, a symphony of movement, a perfect, deadly blend of accuracy and precision. It’s like the bow and I have morphed into one body—a Transformer, only cuter and less clunky.

We pick them off one by one, until the last one falls . . .

. . . onto the rope bridge.

Oops.

The bridge sags under the weight of the beaky bird, then snaps in two.

I’m already harnessed to one side of it, but I grab for the ropes anyway and we go swinging down like Tarzan, skim the boiling lava, and smash into the granite wall.

Ouch is all I have time to think before my skull cracks like an egg.

I wake up in the Landing. “Wyn Salvador, you son of a rasshøl!” I yell into the mall. I know it isn’t very nice, but I don’t care. At this point I thoroughly despise Wyn Salvador and his creepy fright fest. And now I have to start over again. I just lost thirty valuable minutes of time, not to mention a piece of my sanity. No wonder some of the MEEP-Os ended up mental.

I fly through the Landing, reloading on ammunition and supplies. It’s one thing to create your own game in the MEEP, to know who your enemies will be before you go in. Like those Choose Your Own Adventure books for kids. Let’s say you decide to battle a dragon. You still feel a thrill of fear once that dragon starts chasing you with his razor-sharp claws and fiery breath, but at least you chose him, and if you’re any good, you also equipped yourself with some decent weaponry to fight him. It’s another thing entirely to battle unknown enemies that another player chose. It’s like someone telling you there’s a monster under your bed, then forcing you to stick your head down there to look.

There aren’t enough chill pills in the world to get over that kind of mind game.

But