Warden 1

by Isaac Hooke

  “You know,” Will told her. “Nice thing about training: you can cheat.”

  He low-crawled directly inside that hump, so that his body was completely shielded.

  Rhea glanced at Bardain’s ghost on the battlefield beside her.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Bardain said. “He’s allowed to cheat a little, since he already passed this test. You, on the other hand, are going to act as if everything around you is completely real, as always.”

  She switched to a crouch, so that her feet wouldn’t be too exposed, and kept low as she peered past the edge of the rock. Horatio’s suppressive fire had forced the attacking bandit from view once more.

  “Cover me,” Horatio said.

  She fired above the hollow, aiming where she thought the bandits were hiding.

  While she did that, Horatio arose and hurried forward, sprinting past her. He dove behind a boulder that was very close to the bandits’ positions.

  “Now would be a good time for some virtual grenades,” Horatio commented.

  “Too bad we don’t have any,” Will said.

  “Don’t assume the bandits don’t have them, too…” Bardain told him.

  True enough, an energy grenade arced from the hollow, and slammed into Horatio. It exploded in a sphere of bright light. Horatio turned solid white and remained that color.

  “You’re out,” Bardain said.

  “Come on Rhea, it’s just you and me now,” Will said. His pistol emerged from the far side of the hump and he began to lay down suppressive fire. “Go get them before we get ’naded too!”

  Rhea charged them, leaping onto a boulder located next to the hollow. The bandits huddled in full view below her. She fired rapidly, adjusting her aim far faster than any human could ever hope to react to. Too fast even for the pistol—she had to squeeze the trigger twice sometimes to get off a shot, as she fired quicker than the recharge interval.

  “You like that, bitches?” she growled as they dropped with fatal hits to the head. “Does it tickle?”

  When the last of them had fallen, she glanced, beaming, at Horatio, but the robot was looking at Will, who returned the gaze with a worried look on his face.

  “Sorry,” Rhea said. “Guess I got carried away.” She turned back toward the hollow, only to find a bandit she hadn’t noticed before standing straight up, his pistol pointed directly at her.

  Her foe unleashed an energy bolt, and she turned white.

  “You’re out,” Bardain said.

  Will fired at the exposed bandit, eliminating him.

  “Rule of thumb,” Bardain told Rhea, “never look away until you’re sure you’ve got them all. At the very least, you should have dropped into cover first. Do your best to track enemy numbers. Your HUD and overhead map can help with that. If you’d paid attention, you would have realized there was still one left.”

  Bardain reset the map, and they did the scenario again. This time, Rhea’s team won without any causalities.

  The next couple of hours were spent battling bandits in multiple scenarios. Sometimes the combat would take place at a distance across a rocky wilderness, and other times, it would occur within the tight confines of a partially collapsed skyscraper.

  Finally, Bardain announced: “All right, that’s enough practice against bandits for one day. It’s time to try small unit tactics against bioweapons! Are you not excited?”

  “Very much so,” Will said sarcastically.

  “Well, I am!” Rhea said.

  “Yeah, I noticed you seem to like combat a little too much,” Will said. “Especially the killing part. I’m not sure what to make of that.”

  “None of this is even real,” she said. “It’s only a game. And I can’t help it if I really get into a game.”

  “It won’t be a game when we get out there,” Will told her. “And you have to kill for real.”

  Rhea opened her mouth to reply, but she had nothing.

  The realization that he was right hit her full force, and she lowered her weapon. She started to sit down on a boulder, but at the last moment realized it was an illusion, and instead sat cross-legged on the ground beside it.

  She held the inert pistol in her hands and stared at it.

  “What is it?” Will said, sitting down beside her.

  “It’s not a game,” she said softly. “Not a game.”

  “No,” Will said. “None of this is.”

  “I’d almost forgotten why I was doing this,” she told him, still gazing at the weapon. “So I can survive the Outlands.”

  “You know, maybe it was a bad idea to make you sign that contract,” Will said. “Maybe I was a bit too hasty. I figured…” He glanced at her forehead.

  She touched the region above her brow, where the so-called “mark” had been sanded away. It no longer felt tender to the touch.

  Will continued before she could say anything. “If you don’t think you can do it, there are other ways to pay off your debt. It will take longer, of course, but you can always find work in Rust Town, or maybe even Aradne, and transfer some of your monthly income to my account. I can be flexible in that way.”

  “No,” she said slowly, forcefully. “I can do this. I can. I won’t give up.”

  Will rested a hand on her knee. “Rhea, if you can’t—”

  “I can,” she insisted. “I can. I just… well, okay, I admit it: I’m not sure I’ll be able to kill someone for real. Bioweapons I won’t have a problem with… like squashing bugs. But bandits?”

  Will nodded. “Maybe you won’t have to. Maybe we won’t encounter any during the couple months you work for us. Or if it comes to it, perhaps you can stay back, lay down covering fire.” He shook his head and turned from her to gaze into the distance. “I look at it like this: the bandits and highwaymen I encounter out there certainly won’t hesitate to kill me, so I refuse to hesitate in turn when it comes time to strike them down. In the Outlands, there are some good people out there, this is true. You’ll know them right away. But there are also bad people—the bandits, the cannibals—who’ll attack without any provocation, and usually when you least expect it. The way I look at it, you’re not even killing, not really, when you delete these bad people from the world. You’re doing society a favor, in fact, by making the roads a bit safer for the next group of travelers that happen to pass that way.”

  Rhea nodded slowly. It made sense, in theory. In practice…

  She cocked her head. “Wait, did you just say cannibals? There are cannibals in the Outlands?”

  “Whoops,” Will said.

  Rhea glanced at Bardain, who shrugged. “Food can be scarce in the Outlands. And not everyone has an appetite for Kargs and Werangs. Speaking of which, can we move on to the bioweapon training now? Assuming you still want to go through with this?”

  She glanced at Will and Horatio. “I do. I’m a salvager now. I won’t let you down.” She sighed. “I hope.”

  “I hope so, too,” Will said. “Like I told you, maybe we’ll get lucky, and won’t encounter any other humans. Maybe you won’t get tested.”

  “Yeah.” She glanced at Bardain. “So, the bioweapons?”

  Rhea was caught completely off guard by the first battle that followed. She had become accustomed to digging in against opponents who fired from afar, so it was quite the change of pace to have creatures rushing her the instant she and her party were spotted. Her first instinct was to run and hide, as Bardain had taught, but the creatures were far enough away that she had time to evaluate other options. They were fast closing, however…

  They were all Kargs. Only twelve. Between herself, Horatio, and Will, they should be able to deter the lot of them without too much difficulty.

  Target the tentacles.

  She aimed between the legs of the incoming monstrosities and fired at the tendrils that dangled beneath their underbellies. Will and Horatio joined her, similarly aiming for the tentacles. She wondered why the pair had bothered to take cover, especially considering the three of
them would have these Kargs dealt with soon enough, but she decided to follow their lead—cover was probably a good idea. She’d only just started to duck behind a small boulder when an energy bolt struck her from the side. She flashed white.

  “You’re out,” Bardain said.

  Rhea glanced toward the source of the attack, only to see Bardain standing there, no longer in ghost form.

  “Take cover when you fight, no matter how unnecessary it might seem,” Bardain said. “Combat always attracts third parties in the Outlands. Not only are other bioweapons drawn to firefights, but bandits, too.”

  She frowned as the bioweapons vanished.

  “Even if I’d taken cover, you would’ve still had a clean shot from your angle,” she complained to Bardain.

  “That’s not the point,” Bardain said. “Take cover.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  The Kargs came again. She ducked immediately this time, like Will and Horatio, and that seemed to please Bardain. Still, she kept an eye on him, and when he remained in non-ghost form, she fired her pistol at him for good measure, and he turned white.

  “Hey!” Bardain said. “That was uncalled for.”

  “Was it?” she asked. “You sure you weren’t going to shoot me again, and say something like, ‘trust no one?’”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, and instead turned her attention to the stampeding Kargs, firing at their dangling tentacles with Horatio and Will.

  Most of the Kargs turned away, but the strikes only made one of the Kargs dash toward them even faster. When one of its tentacles tore clean off, it screamed, seemingly enraged, and increased its speed even further.

  “It’s not stopping!” Rhea shouted.

  “It happens,” Will said. “Run!”

  Horatio and Will rose from cover and hurried away.

  Rhea remained where she was.

  Will glanced over his shoulder at her. “Rhea!”

  “I got this,” she transmitted.

  She low-crawled across the ground, keeping low, using the virtual boulders for cover while Horatio and Will drew the Karg after them. She positioned herself behind a small boulder directly in the bioweapon’s path. She lay on her back but kept her pistol close to her chest—there wasn’t enough room to raise it without exposing herself.

  The Karg was suddenly leaping over the boulder.

  She raised her arm with inhuman speed. Pistol and hand became a blur as she squeezed the trigger and let off three quick shots that struck the Karg between the tentacles, drilling into its underbelly. She had actually intended to fire five times, but the pistol’s recharge interval hadn’t been able to keep up with her.

  The Karg screamed in midair. It landed on the other side of the boulder, stumbled forward a few paces, and then collapsed.

  “Nicely done,” Will said, coming to her side. “But risky. If those shots hadn’t killed it, the creature would have come back for you. We would have been too far away to help you.”

  Bardain put them through various bioweapon exercises for the rest of that day, and as usual, Rhea took care to readjust her hood so that her face remained concealed, as necessary.

  The tactics for fighting against the creatures in a group weren’t all that different from battling them alone. When upwind, and the creatures hadn’t noticed you, the best tactic was to remain stock-still until they passed. When downwind, and the foes were manageable, you were better off pressing the attack; if there were too many, running and hiding was the preferred option, with the goal of attaining the high ground so that you could strike from a more advantageous position.

  They trained until the late evening, when the light levels began to dim, denoting the coming of night.

  “Well, you’re as ready for the Outlands as I can make you,” Bardain announced. He dismissed the AR overlays, so that the boulders vanished, and the vaulted ceiling vanished from the sky.

  “She’s actually pretty good for someone who has had only three days of training,” Will commented.

  “It’s her mind-machine interface,” Horatio stated. “Accelerates her learning process. Gives her an unfair advantage.”

  Bardain studied her. “I don’t know. Maybe. If her aim wasn’t so poor, I’d almost think she had previous fighting experience. Then again, could also be beginner’s luck. Either way, be careful out there.”

  “I will,” Rhea said. She revoked Bardain’s access to her HUD. “So, what next? You’ll join us for a graduation supper?”

  Bardain laughed. “Oh no! Unless you’re buying?” He glanced at Will, who shook his head. “He’s not paying me enough to host a supper for you, unfortunately. All you receive is a pat on the back from me, I’m afraid. Remember what I told you. And I don’t mind repeating it in front of Will: once you’ve repaid your debt, get out.”

  10

  Rhea sifted through the unstable ruins of a mid-rise apartment. The building had collapsed at some point, its constituent parts fanning across the broken street. Will had given her a list of salvage to look for, in order of descending value: prescriptions or other medicines; power cells; and lastly machine parts, especially intact servomotors or entire limbs. Metals also had some resale value, but because it was so low, Will instructed her to ignore most pieces. That was why whenever she founded a crushed robotic limb, or a pair of shattered AR goggles for example, she simply tossed them. Best to leave room in her pack for the more valuable items on the list. It was a long way to the next settlement after all—there would be ample opportunities to find better items.

  Because medicines and prescriptions were the most valuable, Rhea had suggested visiting former hospitals and pharmacies, but Will had only laughed. “Those places were the first to be looted. As in utterly stripped. We’re better off picking random buildings and doing spot checks on the way out. We do occasionally find the overlooked gem now and then, doing that.”

  Spread out beside her, Will and Horatio sifted through the same collapse. The three of them were in the ruins of the city that surrounded Rust Town. Officially bandit territory, but too close to the settlement for bioweapons to be a threat. The trio were near the outskirts of these ruins, close to where the stony terrain of the Outlands proper began.

  Rhea heard a noise, as of tumbling concrete. Instinctively her hand dropped to the pistol strapped to her hips. She glanced toward the source and spotted an avalanche of rubble tumbling down the ruins, close to Horatio.

  “Whoops,” Horatio transmitted, scrabbling to safety.

  She released the pistol and took a few leaping steps to further distance herself from the collapse. She watched the shifting concrete settle, then returned her attention to the task at hand.

  She had the eerie sensation that someone was watching her. She glanced at Horatio and Will, but neither of them were paying her any heed. She gazed upward, and spotted Gizmo resting on a rooftop not far away. The drone kept watch on the street behind them.

  Her hand once again drifted to the pistol holstered to her side as she scanned the broken windows of the surrounding buildings. Will had procured the pistol for her while still in the settlement, and he’d had it delivered to Rust Town security. At the exit, when the sentry had thawed out the frozen weapons, Rhea’s pistol had been among the batch. It was the same make and model as the pistol she’d trained with, so that made things easier.

  She saw nothing in those empty shells of buildings, and the feeling of being watched soon vanished. Obviously, she had an overactive imagination. Which would make sense, given all the “jump scare” attacks Bardain had used during practice, with bioweapons and bandits appearing when she least expected it. He had essentially trained her to be paranoid—which was probably a good thing in this place.

  Rhea returned her attention to the rubble and picked her way forward carefully. She was worried more about the embarrassment that would come if she triggered a debris avalanche rather than any actual harm to herself. She also feared for her friends: part of the reason they were so well separated was so t
hat there was less chance of a collapse swallowing them all; it also gave them more time to react in such a scenario.

  “Did you know attacks are only the second most common way salvagers lose their lives out here?” Will had told her at one point. “The first most common cause of death or serious injury for us is being crushed by debris.”

  She carefully lifted a piece of rubble to free a pump of some kind, and realized the machine was smashed beyond repair. She set the concrete back down and moved on.

  Rhea shifted the straps of the pack that was slung across her back. It wasn’t that the pack was uncomfortable, or heavy—how could it be, considering it held only a few months’ worth of provisions in the form of pills? No, it was more of an unconscious habit, something to remind herself that if she wanted to get out of debt, she needed to start filling that pack. It was hers, a gift from Will before they left the settlement. He carried his own at the moment, but she had to wonder—when his became heavier, would he make her heft it alongside her own? She’d probably have to start charging him for that.

  “Well, I think it’s safe to say that anything of value has been picked clean from this trash heap,” Will announced over the comm. “Too close to Rust Town. But we had to check, as a matter of principal. Part of the salvager’s code: leave no piece of debris unturned. Anyhoo, what say we move on to brighter pastures?”

  And so the trio proceeded down the rubble to street level and continued across the damaged street. Blast holes marred the asphalt here, as if this neighborhood had seen significant shelling. Probably the site of an offensive against invading bioweapons.

  She instinctively pulled up the search interface on her HUD to check if she could find out what had happened here but stopped herself halfway.

  “You know, I find myself missing the Net already,” she said. “I’ve gotten used to looking up every little thing.”

  “Your AR interface has an internal dictionary,” Horatio said. “Along with a cached copy of common websites.”