The Quillan Games by D.J. MacHale

tighten on my arm again—on its own. Remember the groove I described that was etched in the circle? It was glowing bright purple. A thin, bright light circled the band that was squeezing the heck out of my arm.
    â€œWhat’s with that?” I asked nervously.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” he asked dismissively. “That’s what happens when a loop activates.”
    â€œActivates?” I shouted. “I don’t want anything on me ‘activating’!”
    â€œI don’t understand,” the guy said genuinely. “You’re a challenger. All challengers wear the loop.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, I’m ‘a challenger’?” I snapped. “What makes you say that?” I had decided to give up being coy. I needed answers. The pulsing, glowing, grabbing ring on my arm was making that all too obvious.
    â€œAren’t you wearing the uniform of a challenger?” the guy asked, looking every bit as bewildered as I felt.
    Uh-oh. It was the shirt. It seemed this red shirt with the black diagonal stripes was only worn by challengers. Whoever they were. I could only hope that challengers were cool people whom everyone loved and nobody ever gave a hard time to.
    Yeah, right.
    Before I could ask the guy anything else, I heard a tortured scream come from across the noisy room. A quick look told me that unlike the guy who was playing the shoot-out game, the player who was running through the 3-D maze wasn’t having as much luck. GAME OVER flashed in big blueletters on his screen. The player had fallen to his knees. He truly looked beaten. His head hung and he was breathing hard. No doubt he had given the game his all, only to lose. I wondered if the reaction of a loser was going to be as dramatic as that of a winner.
    I wasn’t prepared for the answer.
    This guy had a crowd around him as well, but rather than console him, they slowly backed away. It was weird, as if they just got word that the guy had the plague. They all had dark, pained expressions. Nobody so much as threw him a casual, “Too bad, dude. Try again.” They were taking this loss very seriously. One person did break from the crowd. She ran up to the guy and hugged him. The guy didn’t move. I saw that her eyes were screwed shut and her lips pursed, as if she were holding back a scream. The two stayed that way for a few moments while the others continued to move away. That’s when the loop around this guy’s arm began to glow. Unlike my loop that had given off a bright purple glow, his loop glowed yellow. The woman saw this, gave the guy one last squeeze and a kiss on the top of his head, then turned and ran. Seriously. She ran away. By this time the other spectators had blended back into the arcade, disappearing among the other people. Some pretended to be playing games, others were gone entirely. It was like the guy who lost had suddenly developed leprosy.
    I heard a crash come from somewhere. It sounded like a door being thrown open. It made the bald guy next to me jump.
    â€œDados,” he whispered softly, almost reverently.
    I gave the guy a quick look and asked, “What’s a dado?”
    He scoffed, as if he didn’t believe for a second I didn’t know. “Now aren’t you glad I put your loop back on?” he asked smugly. The next thing I heard was footsteps. Itsounded like quick marching, as if a parade were about to pass through. This seemed to snap the guy who’d lost the game back to life. He looked around quickly. His eyes were wide and scared. I didn’t know if he was looking for help, or trying to see where the marchers were coming from, or choosing the best escape route. Or all three. He ran . . .
    The wrong way. He took only a few steps before he ran right into the arms of two uniformed men who were headed his way. They grabbed him, held his arms, and without breaking stride kept on moving. The guy struggled to break away, but it