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  STRIKE

  The Slave Games Book 1

  Jim Heskett

  Contents

  Plantación

  Offer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Get the Sequel

  Afterword

  Sample of FLAME

  Books by Jim Heskett

  About the Author

  Offer

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  Chapter One

  The rubber bullet whizzed past Yorick’s head, missing his ear only by a centimeter or two. It sounded like a whistle. Instead of waiting for better-aimed bullets to follow that one, he bore down and sprinted.

  He’d hoped a little excursion away from the warehouse quadrant, into the forest quadrant, might buy him a minute or two of rest. He’d thrashed his knee by being overly clever with a jump into a foxhole, and each labored step sent a bolt of pain up his leg. Being clever hadn’t ever worked out too well for Yorick. He should have known by now.

  And, of course, the idiotas1 on the Red team would give him no rest. And it was hard to remain hidden for long, with humming blue lights illuminating his suit, giving away his position any time he made an appearance.

  Yorick also hadn’t seen Rosia for a couple minutes. While he knew she could take care of herself, he didn’t like being apart from her during the round. Anything could happen out here. They watched each other’s backs. They were stronger together.

  He darted between the massive trees, headed for the hill at the northwest edge of the plantación2. He knew of a cave there where he could rest. If he could reach it before he caught a bullet in the back.

  “Come on,” he muttered to himself. “Pretend like it’s easy.”

  His eyes focused a hundred meters to his left, where nimble Rosia was also sprinting, a rifle in her hands. His heart brightened a few degrees at the sight of her.

  She spun, jumped, and launched a volley of bullets behind them. Her rifle spat thirty rounds before her feet hit the ground. Her dark suit with the blue lights stood out against the stark white of the towering walls at the edge of the battlefield. The walls that surrounded the entire plantación.

  One of those rubber bullets struck a Red in the chest. His suit lit up, flashing red lights up and down his limbs, and then went dark. Deleted from the game. This neutralized person had no choice but to holster his rifle and wait for the round to finish.

  Yorick raced among the piles of rocks that served as cairns to lead him through the area. Except one had been toppled over, the rocks strewn about in a two-meter radius. And something caught his eye. A fluffy beige rabbit, one leg trapped underneath a rock. Eyes wide, trying to scurry away, but the thing couldn’t break free.

  Yorick gritted his teeth. He didn’t have time for this. But, something told him if he didn’t intervene, he’d regret it. With all the foot traffic through here, someone was bound to step on the bunny and crush it.

  Rosia would want him to help.

  So, he slowed his pace and flipped over the rock trapping the bunny. Without hesitation, it scurried away, disappearing over a hill.

  Yorick resumed his sprint. Each time his foot landed, he grimaced. But he pushed on, into the thicket of beefy pine trees ahead. Rosia kept pace, and although they were too far apart to communicate, he had no doubt she knew his destination.

  He raised his rifle and squeezed off a few shots at their pursuers. A couple of bullets tagged another Red, and now Yorick and Rosia only had one on their tail. A short and stocky guerrero3 who had only been on the Red team a few weeks. Older, maybe early twenties.

  Rosia pivoted and cut a diagonal line toward Yorick as they neared the cave. He also changed course to avoid a long section of brush that could easily trip him. In a few seconds, they drew to within ten meters of each other.

  “Good job back there,” he said, panting.

  Rosia shook her head. “There’s still one on us. Don’t get out the cake and hats yet.”

  He grinned, and she frowned at him, a common sequence of events. He could always count on Rosia to find the serious side of everything. But that was part of what he loved about her, too.

  The cave was a hundred meters up ahead, on the other side of a small hill within the trees. With his gimpy knee, he had trouble keeping pace with her, but he could stand to push it a little harder. As long as he could stop somewhere and rest for two minutes, that was all he needed. Rosia could cover him, and Yorick had run up his score enough so far this round, he didn’t have to worry about his ranking on the leaderboard. He’d taken out at least four of the Reds himself.

  At the crest of the hill, they both turned right to begin the descent on the other side. The cave was only a few meters down.

  Rosia reached there first, and Yorick was above her, hustling as fast as he could. He jammed a new magazine into his rifle in case any not-fun surprises were waiting on the blind side of the hill.

  She turned to rush into the cave and then backpedaled. Yorick watched her mouth drop open as her eyebrows lifted in surprise. She tried to raise her rifle, but bullets sliced the air around her. Little zips of black cutting through the trees, whining like a horde of bees.

  The cave was not unoccupied.

  Yorick jumped the last couple meters, directly bypassing the hill’s decline to the hidden mouth of the cave. He twisted in midair, hoping to land with his weapon up and his feet pointed at the cave’s opening. To add a few more totals to his kill list.

  When his feet touched the ground, he found himself opposite a gang of five teenagers in red suits. A wide glow lit up the cave behind them. Must have been the entire remainder of Reds still alive in the round.

  And then, a split second after his feet touched the earth, the sting of pain shot from his knee up into the rest of his body. The pain stole all of his motor functions. Without warning, his legs crumpled out from beneath him, and he slumped to the ground. Probably for the best, since the Reds in the cave shot above him, all of them missing.

  He dimly registered the thump thump of rubber bullets from Rosia’s rifle as he sunk. He managed to point the nose of his weapon up, and he pressed the trigger. But, of course, with his body so out of control, his shots missed wildly, bouncing off the dirt interior of the cave. Maybe one or two of them landed on a target, but most were way off.

  Fortunately, Rosia was in control. She swept her rifle in an even arc as she held down the trigger, tagging each of the Reds in turn. Their faces never changed from surprise as she mowed them down, deactivating the glow from their suits one by one.

  The entire assault lasted only two full seconds. When it was over, Yorick was on the ground,
grunting, breathless. Rosia stood over him, weapon in hand.

  “What a pile of mierda4!” yelled one of the Reds. As the light from his suit went out, he threw his rifle at the ground. The others also sneered at Yorick and Rosia. They each immediately released their grips on their rifle triggers, as per the rules.

  But it didn’t matter. Half a second later, the final alarm sounded, echoing across the entire battle space. The last guerrero defeated.

  Yorick and Rosia shared a look. That meant the Blues had won again this morning. At least the two of them, and maybe more, had survived the entire round.

  He staggered to his feet and gave Rosia a little bow. “Thank the stars I was here, right? What would you do without me?”

  She shook her head as a little grin cracked her lips, then she slid her rifle into the sheath on her back.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I distracted them for you. That was the plan all along, wasn’t it? I think we executed everything brilliantly.”

  A figure appeared on the hill, above the rim of the cave. By instinct, Yorick whipped his rifle up, until he saw the tinge of blue on the rubber battle suit worn by Hamon, the head guerrero and leader of the team. Hamon, muscular and with his long blond hair and blue eyes, stood out. The vast majority of the plantación’s serfs had skin more like muddy water, with dark hair and dark eyes. Rosia’s silky black hair was more common than brown, even.

  Wherever Lord Wybert had traveled to acquire a light-skinned person like Hamon, it must have been somewhere far away. But, they didn’t talk about such things.

  “Awesome,” Hamon said. “You found their nest.”

  “By accident,” Rosia said.

  “Not true,” Yorick said, working his knee back and forth to stretch it. “Obviously, this was my grand plan all along. I was only waiting until the last moment, to build up the suspense.”

  Hamon waved them up to him, and his guerreros obliged. Yorick’s knee pulsed with each step, but he’d be fine. Maybe a visit to the medical center above the cafeteria. Or maybe he’d try to rest today instead of afternoon exercise.

  Hamon greeted each of them with a hug once they’d joined him on the hill area above the cave.

  “Plan or no,” Hamon said, “we’ve won today, and that’s nothing.”

  Hamon pulled each of them to him and touched his forehead against their foreheads. He was all sweaty, and Yorick nearly gagged when their slick foreheads touched. But, he said nothing about it. Hamon loved his little ceremonies, and a lot of the other Blues enjoyed them as well. Yorick liked that Hamon thought it was part of the reason they won more often than they didn’t win. And maybe it was part of the reason. Maybe the little ceremonies and superstitions actually helped.

  Below them, the losing Red guerreros shuffled out of the cave, their shoulders slumped, the noses of their rifles dragging along the hillside.

  A couple of them seethed, flashing eyes at the three Blue guerreros standing above them, but the others didn’t react at all. Some of them took it more seriously than the others. Much of the attitude had to do with how you fared on the battlefield each day. Rank was everything.

  Yorick watched them march up the hill, across the forest quadrant. He wondered if one of these Reds would end up in last place. If one of them would disappear into Lord Wybert’s mansion and never be seen again.

  1 Idiotas: idiots

  2 Plantación: plantation

  3 Guerrero: battle ground warrior

  4 Mierda: crap

  Chapter Two

  Yorick and Rosia marched through the battle area, toward the center of the plantación where Lord Wybert’s mansion occupied a large swath of land. They crossed the forest quadrant and then skirted between two of the other quadrants, the warehouses and the foxholes. A minute later, they ascended the hill in the center of the battlefield, the only place where you could see all four quadrants at once.

  “You were brilliant today,” he said, walking backwards to meet her eye.

  She blushed, as she often did when faced with a compliment. “Thank you. Turn around or you’re going to trip and break your ankle.”

  Yorick halted, causing her to bump into him. He planted a kiss on her cheek. “It would be worth it.”

  She rolled her eyes and gave him a playful shove, then she continued on past him. A moment later, Hamon joined them, falling in step without a word. Rosia and Hamon had slung their rifles over their shoulders, but Yorick held his across his chest. It didn’t matter since the round was over and there was nothing to shoot at now. The rifles were deactivated, even.

  On a day when the Blues won the round, Yorick walked with a little extra bounce in his step, despite a limp today. He held the weapon and his chin high. He thought about where he would land on the ranking board and hoped to see his name up there near the top. It was a small thing, but the small things gave him reasons to get out of bed every morning.

  After navigating the hill between the warehouse quadrant and foxhole quadrant, the trio met up with the seventeen other members of their team in the fourth quadrant, the area littered with broken glass known as the block. A series of buildings consisting of smaller residences called apartments. Some buildings rose thirty or forty meters into the sky. In general, the guerreros did not engage much in the block quadrant, because the density of the buildings’ interiors meant you could get lost inside for hours on end. No one wanted to spend all day long to finish a round. No one wanted to be left behind while others were out there, climbing the leaderboard.

  “Hot one today,” Hamon said as the Blues formed a single line, a roving band crunching broken glass on the concrete pavement between the structures in the block. The blue glow of their dark suits reflected off the windows of the ground-floor level of the apartment buildings. Across the way, a gaggle of Reds also marched, their suits dark. Another part of the shame and glory: the winning team kept their illumination until they turned in their control chips.

  “Yep,” Yorick said, since no one else saw fit to reply to their leader’s comment. Despite the victory, everyone seemed tired. These daily summer battles took a toll on the team.

  Lord Wybert’s residence towered over the center of the plantación, a giant white rectangle with massive columns and as many rooms as the entire collection of serf dormitories. At least, that was the rumor, because no one had seen the inside. You didn’t want to see the inside, because if you did, that meant you were last place in a round.

  Yorick’s heart always skipped a beat whenever he saw it. Despite the bright white paint and the abundance of flowers and huckleberry shrubs surrounding the grounds, the property contained a level of menace to it. Not that Yorick would ever share those thoughts out loud to anyone except Rosia, and only then in whispers, in the still of night in their dorm room.

  As they marched toward the mansion, they passed the rows of cages. Currently, only one prisoner was there, a cafeteria worker who had started an argument with a guard. Lucky for her, it was her first offense, or she would have received a much more severe punishment. The prisoner looked up at them, her hands on the bars. But, since there was an armed guard nearby, standing silent with his helmet and automatic assault rifle, the prisoner said nothing. Only watched them go, longingly, to break the monotony of her day. A few days in the cages could drive anyone to the limits of boredom.

  At the edge of the grounds, Wybert stood on his platform, surrounded by four of his elite guard. The plantación lord's wild and foofy hair swayed in the breeze, also making his white pantsuit ripple. He stood before the podium, hands on hips, beaming. The guards on either side of him wore no expression, only hoisted their rifles, fingers near—but not on—their triggers. Wybert waved his hands at the grass in front of the platform where the teams were to assemble in two orderly rows.

  Wybert then raised his hands to the sky. In his booming voice, he said, “Let’s bring it in close, everyone! Line up, please.”

  Twenty Reds and twenty Blues filled the space opposite the podium, lined in ranks. Ham
on stood in the front of two rows of Blues. Diego, the leader of the Reds, assumed his spot. As he did, Diego scowled at Yorick and Rosia.

  Diego was one of the oldest serfs Yorick had ever seen. At least twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old. He had long black hair and eyes even darker than that. A jagged scar crossed his right cheek. Endless theories about how Diego had received that scar floated around the dinner tables at the cafeteria, but no one knew for sure. And Diego would never say. Even stranger was how the deep gash had appeared suddenly one day, with no explanation.

  Yorick thought Diego enjoyed keeping a bit of mystery to put distance between himself and the younger serfs.

  “Excellent work today,” Wybert said into the microphone. “All of you. Some of the highest scores we’ve seen all summer. I know these daily battles can be taxing, but hopefully, you can see the benefit. I certainly can.”

  The lord pointed at the video screen to the left of the podium, which flicked on. One half of the screen for Reds, the other for Blues. The ranks for the top five and bottom five competitors in today’s round. Shooting another guerrero earned the most points, but there were also points awarded for evading shots, sneaking past a conflict, and other, vaguely defined activities. No one knew the exact methodology.