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  Copyright © 2016 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

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  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953059

  Cover illustration by Stephanie Hazel Evans

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0323-0

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-0324-7

  Printed in Canada

  For Marc and his fellow English teachers

  . . . with apologies to Sara and her colleagues, for the “librarian” joke.

  CHAPTER 1

  AS THE SUN DOVE INTO A HORIZON WASHED IN gold and pink, Battalion Zero’s quartermaster sat discussing the evening’s agenda with the sergeant at arms in the camp stable yard. Their four cavalry mates worked nearby. The pale, thin teenager faced the tattooed mercenary and said earnestly, “Unless I am wrong—and I’m never wrong—this minecart thing holds the key to our success.” Jools ran a hand through his short, wavy brown hair and waited for Turner to praise his foresight.

  Turner scratched his tanned belly through the rip in his T-shirt. “Yeah, well. Nobody’s perfect.”

  Jools grimaced. If his calculations were correct, before the moon rose, the cavalry group would have simultaneously demolished a mob of silverfish, slain the griefer controlling them, and disarmed a bomb that threatened the lives of more than a hundred unsuspecting villagers. That was pretty close to perfect. The detail-minded quartermaster could scarcely remember the last time one of his plans hadn’t worked. In fact, he could probably count his failures on one hand.

  “Being not-right is not the same as being wrong,” Jools pointed out. “Let’s see. When have I ever been not-right? Well, there was the time I decided I could fly if I made wings out of plastic cling film . . . that was a flop, to say the least. Although, if I’d kept at it, I daresay the next aerospace breakthrough would’ve been mine. . . . Then, there was the blasted science-class volcano that didn’t erupt, but only because I deemed the probability of such an explosion less than one hundred percent. Seems I was the only one in my class who wanted it to be realistic.” He hiked up the sleeves of his tweed jacket, which he’d paired with loose jeans, and thought some more. “Ah, yes. My plan to circumnavigate the Overworld by walking in a straight line did have one obvious flaw. But I couldn’t have foreseen that when I entered the game as a newbie.”

  “What? That the Overworld ain’t round?”

  “Touché. Other than those forgettable events, my record is flawless. So this scheme should be, as well.”

  “Flawless, huh?” Turner gave him a skeptical look. “Sayin’ you’re always lucky in love? I don’t recall seein’ a significant other on your arm the whole time I’ve known you.” He paused. “And horses don’t count.” The muscled mercenary sat back on his dirt block with a smug expression on his face.

  Ouch. That smarts. Jools had been thinking about his pet, but only because it was time to give Beckett a hoof trim. “It’s not too late for me to let your old lady know about your new girlfriend,” Jools shot back. He’d been saving the threat for just such an occasion.

  This didn’t faze Turner. “Rose? Yesterday’s news, Quartermaster. That girl ain’t nowhere near a friend. Never was. Sundra don’t need to know about her. Why not talk about your conquests instead? An’ I don’t mean zombies and skeletons.”

  Jools wasn’t used to Turner’s barbs actually snagging on his emotions. How could he know my rubbish classmates once voted me “Most Likely to Remain a Bachelor”? I may be a tad lonesome, but it’s tough to meet girls in a world where they randomly generate. Not like I can nip off to the armor-dying salon, or wherever it is females congregate.

  Still, Turner seemed to do all right. Wounded, Jools turned the conversation back to the problem at hand. “My real conquests, as you put it, consist of air-tight strategies that result in a payoff of some kind. This particular one will gain us the priceless virtue of world peace. Care to argue with that?”

  Turner scowled. “Look, pal. Peace is overrated. I think we both know, deep down, that a lawful Overworld’ll be considerably less shiny for guys like you and me. We make our gems off conflict—paid out from whichever side holds the upper hand.”

  “Conflict does generate advantage,” Jools agreed. “That’s not to say we can’t make an honest living in a more equitable Overworld.”

  “Honest? You ain’t lightin’ my fire, Private.”

  “Adequate, then. And yes, I know that adequate is never enough for you. Why did you join the cavalry, then?” He snapped his light-brown eyes open and shut a few times.

  “Same reason as you. Man’s gotta keep dirt under his feet—not the other way around.”

  Jools also was not used to reaching an accord with the battalion’s sergeant at arms. But Turner was right. They had both joined up with Rob’s Battalion Zero when the griefer alliance threatened to eliminate their way of life—selling their services to the highest bidder on a contract basis. To Jools’s mind, his freelance career had afforded him the greatest amount of personal freedom. He’d enjoyed plenty of time off, he always had work when he wanted it, and he never had to take permanent sides. This stint with the cavalry was a temporary position until he could resume freelancing.

  Those were the days, Jools thought. Before the griefer bosses tied up the biome boundaries in an attempt to dominate the Overworld, the self-described detail consultant had ridden his palomino stallion, Beckett, wherever the winds of fortune blew. If the crime syndicate needed a way to siphon funds from a building project, Jools was there. If builders wanted to protect their construction site from thieves, ditto. The reputation of employers didn’t matter—only devising the perfect scenario to achieve the desired outcome. As long as the young strategist stayed outside of their ranks, legal and moral consequences couldn’t touch him.

  But once the griefers used enchanted mobs to restrict travel, Jools’s freewheeling career stalled. Biome borders became battle zones. His cavalry mates, Turner and Stormie, who also made their gems on a contract basis, encountered the same trouble. So when they met by chance, it had seemed only natural to join forces with Rob and the others to restore the natural balance of free enterprise, along with a just government that would protect it. They were still working on those goals.

  Jools’s old urge to remain unaffiliated seemed to be slipping, though, and he suspected that Turner and Stormie felt the same way. Having fought together against the Griefer Imperial Army, the once-solo players now felt a certain allegiance to one another—and e
ven to the fledgling United Biomes of the Overworld. After all, if the greater good didn’t conquer the rising tide of evil, they’d all be enslaved and penniless.

  “I do prefer building my own fortune to adding to Dr. Dirt’s or Lady Craven’s . . . or Termite’s,” Jools admitted. “And in order to make a living, one does need to remain alive.”

  “Or, at least, to respawn next to his loot,” Turner concluded.

  Jools threw him a searching look. “So, you’ve changed your spawn point, then?”

  Turner drew back. “Didn’t say I did.” He drummed his fingers on his knees. “Might. Mebbe after a little house-sitting job I got planned. I’ma take some . . . personal time. After my plan works out tonight.”

  “Your plan?” Jools raised his eyebrows. “You may have outlined it, but I refined it. Not to mention helming the minecart transit project, without which there would be no plan. Ergo, as a wholly new entity dependent on my brainwork, the strategy is mine.”

  Turner grunted, tilting his buzz-cut head at the sky. “Gettin’ dark. If we don’t head off those mobs, won’t matter who came up with the scheme, Private.” He rose and dusted off his hands, flashing the 3-D mountains tattooed across his knuckles. “Time for some thrilling heroics.”

  Turner was bound for a silverfish massacre, while Jools was to play a different role in thwarting the latest griefer plot. The quartermaster didn’t mind missing a melee with dangerous arthropods. He preferred any battle he could win without drawing a blade.

  “Carry on, then, Sergeant,” Jools said dismissively to his superior, getting to his feet as well. “I’m off to declare Beta a zombie-free zone.”

  It would be the last time he’d consider victory an all-or-none prospect.

  *

  Jools watched Turner, Captain Rob, and the battalion’s scout, Frida, set off for the city of Beta to fulfill their mission. Then the quartermaster opened the company inventory and doled out some gunpowder charges to Stormie, their artilleryman, and a few stacks of carrots to Kim, the cavalry master of horses.

  “Wish I could stick around to watch your pony show, love,” he said to Kim, who had donned her best pink parade armor to wow the assembled crowd of villagers. Tiny Kim rode the tallest horse in the cavalry, and was known to put on an exciting program of trick riding. She would make a striking ringmaster—her armor matched her pink skin. Her black eyes matched her shiny, black hair, which peeked out from under the dyed helmet, along with a single golden earring.

  She thanked Jools for the carrots on the horses’ behalf. “You make sure that train full of zombies switches back on Lady Craven,” she said fiercely. “Then I’ll put on a whole circus just for you.”

  Kim never shrank from danger herself. Jools thought she had the greatest proportion of courage to her size of anyone he knew—other than Grimley, his auntie’s Chihuahua, back in his old life. He glanced at Stormie, a well-known adventurer and the battalion’s artillery expert. Her skin was the color of gathering storm clouds, and her curly, black ponytail cascaded over her black crop top and ended at her shorts. She added some of the gunpowder Jools gave her to the paper and firework stars she was using to craft rockets. Grimley’s bark and bite combined would be no match for Stormie’s explosive skill set.

  “Reckon you’ll be able to see my show from your control tower,” she said to Jools. “Just look up.”

  The circus act and fireworks display would be fronts for the battalion’s real objective—a bold response to the griefer plot that their captain had recently uncovered. The battalion had learned that, in an effort to destroy the new UBO capital city and the unified government it would house, enchanted mobs had been sent by minecart to kill whomever the bomb did not.

  Jools would never have entangled himself in such a conflict before he’d met up with Kim, Stormie, Turner, and company, but lending them his trust had been worth it. It felt good to have such capable warriors at his back. He hadn’t died since he’d joined the cavalry.

  Jools checked the time. “Right, mates. Inside an hour, this’ll all be over.” He touched Stormie’s arm and grinned. “Send up a purple glitter rocket for me.” With that, he turned on his heel and headed for the minecart yard.

  The roundhouse was empty when he arrived. The rails that entered and exited the turnaround would remain idle, thanks to the U-shaped track that Jools’s minecart crew had laid south of town. When the mob-laden train of carts topped the extreme hills, bound for the city, the new rails would shoot them right back the way they’d come. Take that, Lady Craven, Jools thought, hoping the griefer queen was, indeed, the one behind the evil ploy. The quartermaster had taken great pleasure in switching her game mode during their last encounter. Perhaps another crushing defeat would render her AFK for good.

  He took the steps of the control tower two at a time. All that remained to do was capture Lady Craven’s lackey, Termite, when he showed up to welcome his undead troops. In his mind, Jools pictured the two-legged pest: pear-shaped body, pointy limbs, bulging eyes, and perhaps, two antennae sticking out of his head. “A real creepy-crawly,” he said to himself.

  As Jools neared the top of the tower from which he’d rigged a suffocation sand trap, he heard a sound behind him on the steps. “Steve?” he called, thinking one of the minecart crew had interrupted his R and R to follow him.

  In answer, he heard a click. Jools froze on the top step. His mind raced.

  Immobilized on pressure plate. Footsteps approaching. Kim: entering center ring. Stormie: on far hillside. Turner, Rob, Frida: out of range in city caverns.

  He rolled his eyes downward, careful not to move.

  Gold material . . . weighted pressure plate. Might activate weapons or explosives. Might not. Footsteps: closer!

  A wave of music and laughter drifted up from the festival below.

  No one to hear me yell; no one paying attention, anyhow. Horses, armor, potions—all back in camp.

  Now a wave of nausea swept over him. “Best laid plans . . .” he murmured.

  “—are meant to be spoiled” came a quiet voice behind him.

  Jools nearly jumped out of his skin, but remembered to keep his feet glued to the floor at the last second.

  “Hyeh, hyeh, hyeh . . .”

  The papery laugh seemed to push all the air out of the tiny tower cubicle. Jools gasped for breath. The hair on his neck stood on end.

  “You thought you could fool me,” his captor said in a calm voice drenched with bad intent. “But I am not here to wait for the night train with you. I already know what you’ve done to the tracks.”

  Termite! Jools’s rigid body went clammy with cold sweat. “How could I mean to fool you? I don’t even know who you are.”

  He felt something hard poke him in the back.

  “You lie. You all know my name. Just as I know yours . . . Julian, the third.”

  Again, he jumped, this time as if his damp hand had grasped a live redstone wire. How can he know that Dad’s dad was named Julian? If there was one thing Jools feared, it was someone knowing more than he did. Or knowing as much when they shouldn’t.

  He did what he usually did when faced with an overwhelming mental challenge. He bluffed.

  “My mates’ll be onto you by now. Have you seen Stormie and Turner? ‘Tough’ and ‘Tougher.’ They’ll make mincemeat of you.”

  “Your mercenary is already out of ammunition,” the griefer boss said evenly. “And your artilleryman soon will be.”

  Jools tried his best to sound unworried. “Leaving the better part of our army on the warpath. They’ll find us. You do realize there’s only one way out of this tower.”

  “For me, perhaps. Why not take a step and find yourself . . . another route?”

  Bomb! was all Jools’s brain could scream.

  “Or don’t. Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered with the wiring on that. It’s not hooked up to anything. I just wanted to frighten you.”

  Counterbluff? Truth? Big, fat, smelly lie? Jools didn’t know whether to move or
not. His knees were so weak that he wouldn’t have a choice for much longer.

  He felt the poking in his back again, but this time it was sharper. He trembled.

  “Looks like it worked. Hyeh, hyeh, hyeh . . . Now, turn around easy and lead me back down this staircase.”

  The unseen blade broke skin, and Jools’s knees gave way. He stumbled forward, then back. When he caught his balance, he twisted around to see a dark-haired woman pointing a gold sword at his rib cage. She wore white, plastic-rimmed glasses that magnified her dark eyes. Her expression was almost serene, except for a tinge of unmerited satisfaction—the kind of glee a shoplifter might feel when waving good-bye to the store greeter.

  “You’re Termite?” Jools blurted out. She poked him with the sword in answer, and he began slowly descending the steps. She’s a “she”! Not a “he” or an “it.” How could I have made such a wrong assumption? Jools scrambled to sound nonchalant. “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “Why? What have you heard?”

  Jools thought of all the grief this insect had already caused: stealing building supplies, damaging property, threatening lives. “What have I heard? That you’re the kind of vermin that wants fumigating.” He stopped short several steps from the bottom, crouched down, and leaned backward, trying to take Termite by surprise and trip her.

  Nothing happened.

  He twisted his head to look, but she had already deftly leapt over him and stood at the tower base when he turned back. The swift move sent his mind into overdrive: Save myself, save my friends! Must get to the door. . . .

  “Remember this, my pet,” Termite said, returning to her position behind Jools and prodding him to exit the control tower. “There is one person in the Overworld who knows what you’re going to do before you do it. So, before you tug that rope to activate the sand trap, I’ll tell you who that person is. It’s me.”

  Termite’s sword butt met Jools’s skull in a swift good-night kiss.

  CHAPTER 2

  ONE MONTH LATER

  JOOLS REELED IN HIS FISHING LINE, REMOVED A bone, and cast the hook back into the lake.