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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover art by Amanda Brack

  Series design by Brian Peterson

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5107-4346-5

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-5107-4347-2

  Printed in Canada

  CHAPTER 1

  Grey and his squad had made it to the top fifteen in this battle, but the safe zone was growing small as they fortified their position just outside Lucky Landing. They had beaten other squads to the center of the circle, thanks to their landing choice at Fatal Fields. “How’s everybody on mats?”

  “Still max wood,” Kiri said.

  “I’m low,” Finn admitted. It hadn’t been a week since Grey’s best friend in real life, Finn, arrived in this hacked virtual reality version of Fortnite Battle Royale. While it was good to have Finn’s skills, Grey felt even more responsibility to get them back to the real world.

  “Take some of mine,” Kiri said as she pulled materials out of her inventory for Finn to pick up. “No time to farm.”

  “Nope,” Hazel said as she peered through a slat in one of their wooden walls. There was a point when Grey never thought he could work with the mean, trolling Hazel, but so far she had been a big help to the squad. “Four coming from the north.”

  “Three from the west, too,” Grey said as he watched the other side. “This will be tricky.”

  The games had been changing over the past several days. Grey had a feeling it was due to how close the end of the season was. They only had about twenty days left, and everyone still in contention for the top five spots was playing more cautiously.

  Previously, the battles would only last long enough for the storm to shrink three or four times. Now they went on until the safe zone was barely a speck the map. Grey couldn’t imagine making it long enough that the storm completely closed in, but he knew that could happen. Finn and Hazel had experienced it when they played in the real world. In that case, whoever died in the storm last was the winner.

  The incoming players opened fire on Grey’s squad, and Grey replaced the walls as they broke. At least one player had a rocket launcher. Grey had grown to hate those—they destroyed his structures too quickly.

  “What’s the plan, boss?” Hazel asked.

  “Get out.” Grey opened a wall on the back side of their tower and jumped out. They were sitting ducks in there, and it didn’t look like either team was turning on each other. “Keep an eye out for Tae Min—we are not getting sniped this time.”

  “At least not until the end,” Finn said with a grumble. After some time in the game, Finn had finally learned why everyone was afraid of Tae Min.

  Tae Min eliminated Yuri by head shot.

  Tae Min eliminated Vlad.

  “And there he is,” Kiri said. “Too bad we don’t know where Yuri and Vlad are.”

  “They’re a duo,” Grey said, “so they’re not behind us at least.”

  Grey and his squad ran into Lucky Landing since the safe zone was still well over the southernmost area on the map. They didn’t get to come down there often because it was so hard to stay in the safe zone, but Grey had always liked it. Though the game had gone long, the place had been left unlooted because no one came down there.

  Even better, a supply drop had fallen right in the courtyard. The supply balloons carrying a box of goods fell later in the game, and they could have fantastic weapons and supplies in them.

  “Boxing in,” Finn reported as he laid down protective walls.

  Kiri did the honors of opening the box, and out popped a glowing orange miracle—a legendary rocket launcher. Now they could be the ones exploding their opponents’ structures.

  Grey smiled. “Hazel, will you be our explosives expert this game?”

  “Yes, please.” Hazel grabbed the rocket launcher, and everyone handed over their ammo to her.

  And it was just in time, because the enemy squads closed in on them. Grey directed his squad to move into the buildings. If they were going to take rocket-launcher damage, he didn’t want to waste their materials building until the opponents ran out of ammo. Their enemies could waste those rockets breaking down Lucky Landing and not Grey’s towers.

  “Where are we on traps? I have three,” Grey said.

  “Two here,” Finn said. “We building a trap box?”

  “Maybe, if they push in.” Grey and his squad had climbed to the top level of the building they were in, and he put up walls at lightning speed. At least one squad had claimed a house across from them, and he’d lost sight of the other one. But he heard walls being broken, so he assumed they were coming in from below. “Finn, block off the stairs. If they come up, use your traps.”

  “Got it.” Finn moved backward to follow Grey’s orders.

  The squad in the other house opened fire on the tower Grey had built out of the Lucky Landing structure. He could tell they were only testing them, though, because they could have busted down the walls much faster. Maybe they didn’t want to waste ammo.

  “Hazel, time for rockets. Kiri, pick off whoever you see.” Grey had his building blueprints out, and he used the edit tool to open a small window for Hazel to shoot rockets out of. Then he built higher up, trusting Kiri would know to follow him to a better sniper position.

  Kiri did. They climbed several ramps higher and from their new perch unloaded fire onto the now-exposed enemy squad.

  Hazel knocked down Zach.

  Kiri eliminated Ben.

  Grey knocked down Tristan.

  Grey smiled. They didn’t beat Ben and Tristan’s new squad often, but it was always a welcome occurrence when they did. “Keep up the pressure. Hui Yin is still up.”

  “More rockets on the way,” Hazel replied as her rockets continued to soar into what could hardly be called a building anymore.

  Hazel eliminated Hui Yin.

  With the last enemy squad member eliminated, all the downed players were eliminated as well. Now Grey turned his attention to the squad coming from below. “How you doing down there, Finn?”

  “Traps didn’t work. They haven’t come up the stairs,” he replied. “I heard their footsteps, but I can’t tell where they went.”

  “Got it.” Grey had a feeling Finn dropped the traps too soon, even though Grey had said to drop them after Finn spotted the players on the stairs. You couldn’t get away with preemptively dropped traps on top players. They were much smarter than lower-ranked enemies. “My bet is it’s Lam’s squad then. Probably hiding.”

  Kiri sighed. “They’re such turtles.”

  They were, but they were also all ranked in the top ten. Lam’s squad never prioritized eliminations—they farmed mats and hid out for as long as they could. But that didn’t mean they should be counted out. They knew the late game better than anyone, and they had a way of trapping their opponents in builds. Grey had taken to watching Lam sometimes after he was eliminated, and she was a master at making a labyrinth to impede enemies and ultimately destroy them.

  It wasn’t a flashy play style, but it got the job done.

  “We gotta be careful,” Grey said as he looked at the map for the next circle. They were just outside of it, and he was certain they would make sure to be there first with only a few people left on the map. “How many rockets do we have left?”

  “Five,” Hazel said.

  “Save them until we find their base.” Grey opted to leave their building from his own platforms, assuming Lam’s squad might have left their own traps on the way down.

  The next safe zone wasn’t very far from them and still in Lucky Landing, but as they approached it, Grey saw the fortified building that likely contained Lam’s squad. They had built metal walls around one of the southernmost structures, and Grey was nervous to approach. This team was smart and deserving of their top-ten status.

  “What should we do?” Finn asked as he built their own protective walls.

  No one shot back as he did this. Grey didn’t like that. Usually a team would go on the offensive if they already had the high ground and fortifications. Lam’s squad wanted you to come to them, which had to mean they had a plan to destroy you.

  “Why aren’t they shooting?” Hazel asked. “They had to have heard us. They must see us.”

  “I don’t know.” Grey looked behind them, worrying that they were so focused on Lam� �s squad that Tae Min would sneak up on them. “Watch for Tae Min, Kiri. I have a feeling we’re surrounded.”

  “No doubt.” Kiri turned away from the big building, her sniper scope out.

  “Permission to approach the tower,” Finn said. “We’re already top ten for the game—I’m good with that.”

  “You sure? You need the ranks the most,” Grey said.

  Finn shrugged. “This is getting annoying. Let’s get it over with.”

  Grey was at a loss for how to approach, so he said, “Okay, you go first. Me and Hazel will fake push behind you.”

  “Going.” Finn ran forward, building ramps and walls to protect himself. But no one shot at him.

  Just when Grey was beginning to think the place was abandoned, the explosions started. Finn went down immediately as the entire front wall disintegrated under the C4 that Lam’s team had put there. If that wasn’t smart enough, there was a second structure behind that one with windows built into it. Lam’s squad opened fire on Grey and Hazel before Hazel could get off one rocket.

  Soon, they were eliminated along with Finn.

  Kiri followed soon after, taking a head shot from Tae Min as he entered the safe zone. Lam’s team reset their trap, and even Tae Min didn’t have the patience to wait them out this time. Their squad took the victory, and the member with the highest eliminations would take the top rank for the game.

  “They’re so annoying,” Finn grumbled after Grey’s squad was teleported back to the battle warehouse at the end of their day.

  “But smart,” Grey replied. Maybe it wasn’t a style that anyone liked, but Grey had to admit that what Lam’s squad was doing worked for them. He needed to find something equally effective for his squad so they could take over the top five.

  CHAPTER 2

  Grey’s squad finished in the top fifteen at least once a day, and that had been enough to boost their ranks closer to the top twenty. But they still needed more. More top-ten finishes. More Victory Royales. As he looked at their ranks while the Admin did her usual speech, he couldn’t help worry that there weren’t enough games to do it.

  Ben and Tristan were still several ranks above him, and Grey glared at their names. He needed to beat them more often if he wanted to take their ranks.

  The Admin disappeared before Grey even thought to listen to her. His squad mates gathered around him, probably ready for his usual decision on what they’d be practicing before their mandatory rest time.

  “What’s the plan?” Finn bounced on his toes, already prepared to play more. He hadn’t tired one bit of the game. In fact, he sometimes complained that they only got to play five battles a day. He’d played much more than that in the real world. “Should we find a squad to practice with? Some duos?”

  Grey shook his head.

  He looked over to where Lam and her squad were. She was much older than Grey, he guessed twenty-five, with shoulder-length black hair. There were only three in Lam’s squad, Pilar and Trevor being the others, and they whispered amongst themselves before heading outside. He knew not to ask them for practice. They worked alone. It seemed like a lot of the top teams said that. Yuri and Vlad also rejected practice. It sounded like recently, Zach’s squad had also stopped practicing with Hans’s squad.

  People were moving into end-game phase. No one wanted to share strategies or show off their true skills.

  Maybe Grey’s squad should consider that as well. “Let’s have a … meeting.”

  Finn raised an eyebrow. “A meeting?”

  Grey nodded. “In the forest.”

  Grey began to walk, and they followed him in silence for awhile. It didn’t seem like anyone else was among the trees, but he kept an ear out just in case.

  Before they stopped, Hazel said, “We’re not in trouble, are we? You’re not gonna leave us for Lam’s squad or something.”

  Grey whirled around in surprise. “No! Why would you say that?”

  Hazel folded her arms. “You always say they’re smart … and you’d fit in with them with all your tactical skills.”

  “Well, I’ve never even talked to them,” Grey said. “I wanted to talk about strategy—the top squads are keeping more to themselves as we get closer to the end of the season, and the battles are slowing down. I wanted your opinions, but I didn’t want other players overhearing us.”

  “Oh.” Hazel ran a hand through her short green hair. “That’s a valid concern. The games are getting weird. More defensive.”

  “I have a feeling it’ll only get worse,” Kiri said. “Everyone is more careful—I’m not getting nearly as many snipes once we get past the top thirty.”

  “People are playing boring.” Finn leaned on a tree, looking sullen. “I wish I was here back at the beginning of the season when people were probably trying to get more eliminations.”

  “Boring is relative,” Grey said. “I want you all to have fun, but I want to help us all get home even more. That has always been my goal, with you guys and the guys from our old squad. And to do that, we have to start thinking about the end game and being top ten as many times as possible. We need to consider all the options for winning. I know people look down on Lam’s squad for being turtles, but they are top ten and that’s where we want to be, right?”

  Hazel sighed. “Yeah, it’s true. We have to figure out how to beat their crazy tactics at least.”

  “We also need to find them early to tank their ranks,” Kiri said.

  “They might be good builders but not great fighters,” Finn offered.

  “Okay, good, this is what I wanted—let’s brainstorm what we can do to pull down the squads that outrank us.” Grey took a seat under the nearest tree, and everyone joined him. “I don’t care if the tactic is cheap, boring, or whatever. We’re getting to the point where we can’t have pride in how we win.”

  “Well, then explosives are the way to go,” Finn said. “Those things are so overpowered. Look how Lam popped me with those C4. Rockets and grenades are good, too. We should have a big stock of those for pushing.”

  “If we can find them,” Kiri said. “It’s not like we get explosives every game.”

  “Of course, but we can save them for late game when we do get them,” Finn replied. “Getting that rocket launcher really helped us out this game.”

  “For sure.” Grey agreed that explosives were becoming increasingly important, especially in the end game. “So we can all agree that we should build strategies around explosives. We can’t assume we’re the only ones thinking these will be clutch. We’ll need to come up with countermeasures as well. And hopefully some creative ways to use them, like how Lam’s squad baited us. It was cheap, but clever, too. We can’t complain when it’s a fair fight and they outsmart us.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, what else?” Grey didn’t want to be the only one coming up with plans—he had learned it was important for his squad to have ideas as well. Sometimes he would freeze up. If other people contributed, they all had a better chance at winning.

  “I hate it, but building seems to be more and more clutch,” Hazel admitted. “Not just the fast building, but all that editing. Like how they had windows on their walls and were ready to shoot.”

  Grey nodded. “Or players cut their stairs in half, or make a small hole in the floor and drop a trap. There’s a lot we could figure out there.”

  “I don’t know how people think of that in the moment,” Kiri said as she stretched out in the grass under the trees. “Watching others do it is one thing, but I blank and start shooting in hopes of getting someone down.”

  Finn nodded. “High-pressure situations can be hard to build in.”

  “There should be a way to practice that, though,” Grey said. “Maybe if we put pressure on each other and try new things to get out of it. Non-shooting things.”

  “Can’t hurt, but do you really think we can make top five? It seems like a long shot at this point.” Hazel wore a concerned expression on her face. While she still wasn’t the nicest person on the planet, Grey appreciated that she was upfront and not afraid to bring up issues. In a lot of ways, it actually helped them get better.

  “It’s not,” Grey said, though a little voice inside whispered that Hazel had a point. “We just have to keep ranking higher, and we can do that. It might not be flashy, but I know we can if we work hard and target the players above us in rank. We have to come up with ways to stop them from succeeding.”

 

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