Victors

Chapter 3

Todd's POV

I stared at the blank screen of my television. A second ago, I was talking to Rebel through my Radish bots. They had tracked her down to an abandoned warehouse, where she was no doubt planning something.

But the feed unexpectedly cut off.

"What happened?" I asked nobody in particular.

A Radish bot hovered up to me. "The Radish Robots were shut down from an outside system. We are currently working on tracking it."

"Ah, thank you," I said. I relaxed in my throne. My bots were excellent at tracking IP addresses.

"Supreme Radish, it is time for your daily checkup on the Games," a Radish bot said as it entered the room.

"Ah, yes." I stood from my throne, walked out of the throne room, and climbed up the stairs in the lobby.

The stairs brought me to the Games room, where a real-time small-scale model of the arena was hovering in the air. There were also several dozen television screens around the room, showing footage of the arena at all times. I studied them for awhile.

"How's everything been going?" I asked. "Any more deaths?"

"Audrey was killed by Yuri, and Geneva was killed by Alvin," the bot answered.

"Hm. I like those two, Yuri and Alvin. Keep an eye on them, make sure they're not out too soon," I said.

"Yes, Supreme Radish," the bot replied.

I walked back down to my throne room. As I entered, another bot came up to me.

"Supreme Radish, we have successfully found the source of the power cutoff."

"Alright, where'd it come from?" I asked eagerly.

"It seems to have come from the same warehouse Rebel was in," the bot answered. "There must have been someone else hidden in there with a computer."

"What?!" I shouted. "Send another squadron of bots there right now! I want to know who else is in that warehouse!"

***

Naomi's POV

The five of us crept across the street towards the giant, radish-shaped mansion. There was a long driveway winding across a huge grassy lawn, which was separated from the street by a tall electric fence. Two bots stood guard on either side of the driveway.

"Are you sure this plan will work?" I whispered as we hid behind the corner of a building.

"Of course," Rebel replied. "As long as you're all good at fighting—which I know you are, since you won the Games—we can beat the bots and kill Todd."

I was still skeptical, but the others seemed to agree, so I went along with it.

"Alright, Naomi," Rebel said as she peered around the corner. "Do your thing." She moved so I could take her position.

I notched an arrow in my bow and peeked out from behind the building. The bots didn't notice me. I released the arrow, and instantly killed one of the bots. The other bot looked at it's dead companion, but before it could react, it also received an arrow to the metal skull. They were easy kills, since they weren't moving.