The first match was done with. Which was good, because those six minutes had felt like a couple hours. Sure, it wasn't a life and death situation, which was definitely a real treat, but it was still a lot of action all happening at once. Six minutes was kind of a long time to spend doing something like that. I needed some water and to lay down somewhere. Wait, no, first I needed to walk around. Which might seem counterintuitive, but yeah, I needed to walk slowly for a minute. Then I could lay down and just stare at the ceiling until the whole world stopped spinning so fast.

Also I kind of needed to use the restroom. Fortunately, the others were there to help me walk out of the arena. Because as turned around and dizzy as I was right then after all that, I wasn't sure I could have found my way to the exit within the time limit. I felt Split gently take my elbow to help guide me that way with them. It was like the guy knew exactly how I was feeling. Probably cuz he'd been in the same situation before. Everyone had to be new to this stuff once, right?

The sound of the crowd completely cut off behind us as we walked down the tunnel. The other three were all joking with and teasing each other about the match, promising retribution or just a better showing in the matches to come. There was no real anger or hard feelings about any of it. Liqueguy had come out on top of that first match, and the other two were just playfully taunting him about a girl in the stands named Gina, whom he apparently had some sort of crush on.

Halfway down the tunnel, Tumbleweed turned back to me. "Oh dude, that thing you did to get out of that pipe before these two could trap you, that was sweet. I really thought they had you, but you were like, 'Bye!'" She half-doubled over laughing at the memory before pointing at me. "But you better be on your toes next match, cuz I've got your number now." Even as she said it, the woman was already giving me a light punch in the shoulder. "You and me are gonna tango again, and you'll find out what it's like to get all your points yoinked away." Despite her words, there, again, wasn't any real anger there. Plenty of competitive fierceness, sure, but no anger.

Before I could respond to that, my attention was drawn toward something filling the corridor ahead of us. It looked like a series of sprinkler heads extending from the ceiling and walls, except they weren't projecting water. It looked like… vibrations in the air, and I could hear a soft, just barely audible humming sound. "Err, what's that thing?" None of them seemed at all taken aback or confused by it, so it was probably supposed to be there, but it still made me hesitate.

"Ohhh, you have not used the sonic showers before!" Split realized, giving a soft chuckle. "It is okay. All is well. It is simply the showers without the water. You are cleaned by sound waves. No reason to be nervous. Come, we will show you." With that, the guy walked straight ahead, going through the 'sprinklers' shooting out those vibrations. I thought I could see some sort of dust trail in the air that disappeared quickly, then he was on the other side, raising his arms. "You see?"

"He's right, it's safe," Tumbleweed assured me. "It's just a way of letting us get clean between matches without taking all the time to have a normal water shower. Gets the sweat and dirt off. Even gets under the clothes too. Something about the molecular space between the material or- yeah, I don't know. It's a technical thing. The point is, just walk through it and you'll be cleaner."

Well, I could hardly argue with the idea of getting this sweat off. I probably really stank. So, I walked through as instructed. It felt like moving through a stiff breeze coming from all sides. The humming sound was louder when I was passing through, but not painfully so. It was actually almost like my body itself was vibrating, and I could pick out a faint pleasant scent of deodorant of some sort. Boy, this really was convenient. I wondered if I could get one installed back home. Not that I wanted it to completely replace having a real hot shower any time soon, but it could be nice for emergencies, or when I was so tired it felt like I'd fall asleep and hurt myself in an actual shower.

We all passed through that and got much cleaner. I could feel the lack of dirt and sweat, both of which had been pretty prevalent before. Once we were done, Split hopped forward, thrusting his hand out. In the same motion, that entire arm vanished before reappearing next to Liqueguy to give him a little shove. "Now what were we talking about before? Oh yes, it was a discussion of which of us needs to pay for stealing points. Let us focus on this little thief right here, shall we?"

With a laugh, the other man turned to face him, walking backwards with a wide shrug. "Hey, it's not my fault you let yourself get distracted while those two were in that pipe. You were so busy trying to see if there was a way to sneak in to yoink their points that you didn't notice me at all."

Split, for his part, made an embarrassed noise and recalled his arm before sniffing. "Yes, well I certainly will not let anything like that happen again. You and I will have as much of a rematch as these two." His hand waved idly at Tumbles and me. "And then I will be the one to surprise you, my fluid friend."

Liqueguy, for his part, gave a wide yawn. Which turned out to be half-taunting and half-real, as he followed it up with a tired, "All I know is I need a cat nap. Forty-five minutes or so should do it."

I laughed, the thought of getting some sleep making me want to yawn. It was contagious. "Yeah, wouldn't that be nice. But I think the people out there might object to waiting around that long." Sure, there was plenty of entertainment in between the matches, specifically so people didn't have to sit around doing nothing in between short bursts of action. Six minutes might have been a long time when you were actively involved in it, but it would really start to drag on for the ones out in the audience if there wasn't plenty of other stuff to distract them. There were magicians, dancers, other Touched showing off their fancy powers, comedians, jugglers, acrobats, it was basically an entire show between matches. No, scratch that, it was multiple shows. You could get out and stretch your legs at any point, but you could also sit there and see all that other stuff.

But no matter how much extra entertainment they had, letting competitors take naps for like an hour between their matches would probably make the whole thing drag on just a bit too long.

The other three exchanged clearly amused looks, before Tumbleweed took my arm, guiding me the rest of the way through the tunnel. "Come on, we'll show you a little secret about all that. After we hit the restrooms." That bit came as she gave another tug, pulling me down a side hall.

A secret? Well now I was confused. For a moment anyway, before another distraction came as we passed through that short hallway to the restroom area. There were entrances on either side, one labeled as the men's room and the other as the women's room. I went right along with Split and Liqueguy while Tumbles went the other way, all three of them calling out even more teasing words at each other the whole time about what they were gonna do when the next match came.

I was so distracted by all that, listening to their lively, cheerful taunting, that I made it all the way not only into the restroom, but into the nearest stall before realizing where I was, exactly. I was in the men's room. And even more-- uh, importantly, I actually had male equipment right then. I hadn't even noticed that I'd made myself appear with--err, that the last time I'd turned myself to liquid. But there I was, physically completely male while standing in that stall staring at the toilet.

It wasn't the first time that I'd-- uh, done this as a boy, of course. Though I certainly wasn't used to it by any stretch of the imagination. But doing it here, like this, around these guys (I could hear the sounds of them… taking care of biology) was enough to make my brain short-circuit a bit.

Was it weird that after all that, after the entire thing out in that match, this scared me the most? Okay, maybe scared wasn't exactly the right word. It was different, it was weird, it was.. a lot. But I did it. I--err, took care of all that, while managing not to blush so hard I set the entire restroom on fire. It was pretty close though, to the point that I was almost surprised the fire detectors didn't pick up on the rising heat in the room (yeah, most places had heat sensors in addition to the old smoke detectors, given all the special powers and Touched-Tech that could just prevent smoke). But apparently they weren't sensitive enough to pick up my blush.

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In any case, I did my business without completely falling apart, then rejoined the others back in the corridor where they were waiting for me. "So, uh, you said something about a secret?" Part of that was me trying to change the subject away from the restroom, and part was real curiosity.

If any of them noticed anything weird about my body language or whatever, they didn't show it. The three just looked at each other again before chuckling, as Tumbleweed took my hand once more. "Yes, a big secret. Come on, you'll love this. It's so cool." With that, she pulled me back to that break room where we'd started, and over to what looked like a totally normal blank door.

It was Liqueguy who stood by the door and explained. "So here's the deal. You see this room?" Opening it, he showed me a small space that was just big enough for a very simple bed, more of a cot really. The walls and floor were metal, and the space was lit by a pair of very softly glowing lamps that hung from what appeared to be a ceiling made of sapphire gemstone. From the door to the bed was maybe a foot or so of space. It really was tiny, like a closet. Well, a normal closet rather than the giant apartment-sized version I had back at home. The space was very small.

"It's a Touched-Tech room," Tumbleweed explained. "A portable one. They have a few. Very rare, very expensive. The organizers bring them to all these events and find areas to stick the entrances. When you go in the room and close the door, time goes faster in there than out here. You can spend two hours in there and it'll be about two minutes out here. The only real problem is that you're totally cut off from any sort of internet or other connection, obviously. It's private, quiet, and you can get some rest. So go ahead, you can be first. Just relax for a couple hours."

Uh, oh, well that was convenient. And surprising. I almost wondered why my parents didn't have something like this. But on the other hand, maybe they secretly did. It might explain how they could do all the stuff they did. My dad led like three separate lives, and who knew how much my mother was doing all the time. It was very possible they did have this sort of room so they could catch up on sleep. Or maybe it was just that rare and even they hadn't been able to convince whoever was responsible for these rooms to let them buy one. Either way, wow. I could kind of tell why it was kept so secret though, why the competitors didn't talk about it. If the public knew these rooms existed, everyone would want one. And why shouldn't they? This was kind of a big deal, and it was being-- okay I didn't want to think 'wasted' right now, about something I loved as much as I did the LEAT games, but seriously. These rooms would be so useful in other areas besides a sporting event. They had to be using these in more important places, didn't they?

Somehow interpreting my reaction, probably through body language, Split gently put in, "We are like guinea pigs, yes? They wish to be certain these tools are safe before using them for other, more critical situations. We are in good health, when we use them like this, our adrenaline is high, our hearts are racing. If there are going to be negative side effects, this is a good test."

"Oh great," I muttered, "that makes me feel even better about all this." Still, it made the use of them here slightly more understandable. I pushed those thoughts aside. Or rather, the yawn that escaped me pushed them aside for me. My body really liked the idea of getting a quick nap in. If I was going to go back out there and throw myself into a whole other match just like the first one, while having any hope of actually scoring enough points to help get one of those rings I wanted so badly, I needed to get some rest. Maybe I wouldn't even be able to actually sleep but even simply laying down for a little bit would probably help. I could worry about all the ethics of all of it later.

So, after getting a little more instructions (the lights would come back on when it was time to leave and give one of the others a turn), I stepped in and let them close the door after me.

The lights dimmed once the door was shut. I could barely see the outline of the bed. Letting out a long breath, I took the single short step that way, turned, and sat down. I wasn't going to take my costume off entirely, of course. There was no way in hell I would be that stupid. But I did take the helmet off, setting it down on the floor out of the way. That still left the mask on just in case.

Laying back on the bed, I took out my phone and looked at my messages. As promised, there was no active connection. No Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular signal, nothing with any sort of actual connection to the outside world. Time was passing much faster in this room, making that impossible. And yeah, I recognized the absurdity of calling that impossible when I was literally sitting in a room that would make relative time within go quicker. Touched-Tech was bullshit.

But even though I couldn't get new messages or go online or anything, I could check old ones. I scanned through a dozen or so congratulatory texts from my team and a few others, including Lucent and Ryder. The latter made me smile a little more. He had included a picture that he said Cardsharp, another member of La Casa, had sent him. It showed a bunch of their people, Touched and Prev alike (all masked, of course) sitting in some big theater room watching the games on a giant screen with an assortment of treats. Some were holding up signs that said things like, 'Kick Their Asses, Paintball!' and 'How Do You People Like Getting Beat By A Rabid 12 Year Old?' One sign in particular suggested that I would run faster if I just imagined that Cuélebre was right behind me, which wasn't a bad idea. It even had a decent drawing of both of us just above the words.

That made me snicker a little, as did some of the other encouraging messages, especially from my Bird Dad. But what definitely didn't make me smile was what wasn't there. I still didn't have any messages from Paige. Could that really just be from her not wanting to distract me in the middle of this? She had to know that we were between matches right now, didn't she? Unless she wasn't watching after all. Maybe she didn't actually care about the games that much. It wasn't like she had to watch them just because I was participating. After all, she was supposed to be on vacation to bond with her sisters. Maybe she had just gotten distracted by all that. It would be totally understandable.

And yet, no matter how much I told myself that, I couldn't entirely shove aside the feeling of disappointment. My stomach twisted at the thought that the girl might not be watching this. How stupid was that, honestly? I had spent so many years wishing Paige would just disappear forever, and now I was sad because she might be too busy with her new family to watch me compete. It was stupid and weird. Not to mention selfish. She deserved time with those two.

Realizing that I was wasting my nap time obsessing over the idea of Paige being too busy or distracted to send me any messages, I shoved the phone away and tried to relax. Yeah, tried was a good word for it. There were so many thoughts swirling around in my head right then, and my adrenaline was still running so high that I had no idea how I would ever to--

The lights came on, bringing me out of what had apparently been a very deep sleep. One second I had been insisting that I would never be able to pass out, and the next, I was waking up.

Curious, I glanced at my phone after sitting up and orienting myself. Sure enough, it said that about two hours had passed since I went into this little room. Though it also noted that there was no active connection and that the listed time might be inaccurate. Boy, if it only knew.

Okay, well, it was obviously someone else's turn for a nap. So, I put my helmet back on and stepped out. "Well that's a really weird feeling," I announced with a wide yawn while glancing back down at my phone once again. Yep, after just a second or so out here, it adjusted and showed the time as being roughly two minutes since the door had closed behind me.

And no, there was still no message from Paige. Or anyone else. Not that I really expected there to be. After all, only a couple minutes had passed from their point of view. but I couldn't help the slight sigh that escaped before I shoved the phone away once more. Now really wasn't the time to focus on that. Not when there were still two matches to go through.

Liqueguy took the next session in the room, while Split and Tumbleweed showed me how to watch the highlights from that first match on the nearby screen. They were already teasing and complementing each other through the replays, and I quickly jumped in to start doing the same.

Everyone took their turn in the room, catching a quick nap to get refreshed in the time it took the people out in the stadium to use the restroom and grab a snack from the concession stands. Which only reminded me again of how absurd this was. We were using technology to completely shatter the space-time continuum in order to do sports better. That was ridiculous, wasn't it? Even if we really were being used as guinea pigs to help make sure the technology was safe, as Split had suggested.

And just like that, we were heading back out to the field once more. Each of us had had a two hour rest, a shower, and I was finishing off the last of a couple granola bars and a bottle of water that the others had handed me. We were rested, clean, rejuvenated, and ready to get back out there to do it all over again. Even as we drew closer to the end of the tunnel, I could hear the roar of the crowd getting louder, their anticipation for round two possibly even higher than it had been for the first one. My stomach was certainly anticipating it, that was for sure.

Time to go distract myself with another run. I already had some ideas about racking up more points this time. And hey, Paige was bound to send a message by the time this one was over, right? She wouldn't miss two of my matches in a row. Unless… unless something was wrong.

Oh great, I really needed that thought right now.

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