“No.”
“Well, it was cool. Let’s do it again.”
I do not remember if the round in question played out exactly like that. It’s possible I got the circumstances switched and we were actually the ones who got sniped from three miles or eight kilometers away and I only have the kill cam footage seared into my memory. Goemon was good enough to do it. He just needed to believe in himself. Besides, a bigger scope for my own rifle would be just the thing to kick the round into high gear.
The radio tower possessed the allure of being the highest place on First Island. It was tucked smack dab in the middle of what qualified as the mountainous region. Only an SUV with a running start could make it up that slope, and few had the willpower to endure the trek on foot. Perhaps because it was the uppermost point, the frequency of sniper rifle mods spawning up there was quite high. It was one example of the occasional attention to detail present in the game.
The hike to the top was mostly uneventful. The great wall of the Blue became the most prominent feature of the 360-degree view, a digital ocean on a tsunami timer poised to submerge all but two players or in many cases even one. The entire world (map) flooded in biblical fashion, and you could survive if you built your ark out of enough bullets and the tools that shot them. Then, the round restarted and the great Blue beast slumbered again if only for the several minute warm-up period.
“Really makes you think,” I said.
“About what?”
“I don’t know man, you ever think there’s more out there beyond the Blue WOD, past the digital ocean.”
“Don’t know. An invisible wall, probably.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“You could play offline and go noclip to try and find out.”
“It’s just like, we’re here, fighting for our lives. We don’t even stop to talk to these people.”
“So.”
“So? Don’t you want to know the motivation? Why they’re here? Why they do the grind night in and night out, the spawning, the dropping, the looting, the killing, the more looting, the inevitable dying?”
“You really want to go back and talk to those clowns at The Cave? They’re all like that.”
He had a point. The optional anonymity mixed with the brevity of the interactions made a lot of players come off as dumb. The excessive profanity and often overt racism and accompanying slurs did nothing to bolster the reputation of the average PBR-er. The disgruntled mom in the background did nothing to help the situation, either.
Maybe that was unfair, though. Maybe the average PBR player had more going on upstairs, and it was just a very vocal minority that made the rest of us look bad. We were not that obnoxious. OK sometimes we were, but usually it was only if provoked. Also the crazy racial slur guy only popped up like once or twice a round. The girls we met seemed OK.
“What about the girls?” I asked.
“Who?”
“You know. The girls that went to The Spot.”
“Oh. What about them?”
“They didn’t seem so bad.”
“No, they were alright I guess.”
“Maybe we should have had a little chat.”
“Oh, just a nice little chat.”
“Yeah!”
“They would have killed us, man. You’ve lost it.”
“I’m just saying.”
“OK, maybe next round we can try and have a conversation with somebody, but we’re pretty far in here.”
Yeah, they probably would have killed us if we tried to stay and chat. But sometimes I liked to think about the people on the other side of the barrier. Maybe we really could have hit it off, exchanged info. Became friends. Lovers. Ah, who am I kidding, PBR was a terrible place to meet girls.
I managed to talk our way to the top of the mountain. Goemon searched the inside while I swept the outside. Nothing too useful but I did find bullet loops for the Kar98. I think they made it easier to reload but I really did not know.
The radio tower was like everything else on First Island: mostly broken but intact enough to give you the general idea of what it represented. The metal antenna had been cracked in half, making it impossible to climb. A crumbled concrete staircase almost led to a metal catwalk, but did not quite get there. That was fine, the base of the tower was high enough already.
Besides, the view always ended up being a bit disappointing. Limitations of the PBR game engine reduced the distant visibility to a mostly hazy fog. The remote terrain and mountains arose as featureless mounds of unworked clay, with only the biggest trees able to be displayed. The only other details that showed up were different players, so long as they were running. Even they appeared as ants across a blank background, like the two I could see to the upper right. I mean, southeast.
“I see someone. Actually two,” I said calmly. No need to panic, the other duo was kilometers away. We were invisible to them.
“Where?”
“South...easty. I mean, like 130. Ish.”
“Those guys are so far.”
“Good thing you got the Kar. Here, I got you a present.” I tossed him the bullet loops modification to do whatever it did.
“Oh hey, it’s fully kitted. You want this 4x scope?”
“Heck yeah. You don’t want it?”
“No, I found an eight-by inside.”
“Oh, baby.”
“I know.”
“Now you got no excuse.”
“You mean except that it’s impossible.”
“Come on, you might as well give it a shot. We came all the way up here.”
“I mean, you’re right.”
“I’ll be the spotter,” I offered.
“OK. Do I go prone? Or crouch on a knee?”
“How should I know?”
“I guess I’ll lay down. This thing sways so much. It’s real difficult.”
“Don’t worry, you got this.”
I equipped Goemon’s old scope on the Mini rifle and it brought the distant world into focus. Much of the detail returned, but the players still contrasted against the background, nothing more than a flat, empty field. The duo donned level three gear. Either there was a ton of it floating around, or they were the same jokers from the cavern.
“I think they’re the same guys,” I noted.
“I think you’re right.”
“Which one you gonna go for first?”
“I don’t know, the one in the front. That guy was the worst.”
“How can you tell the difference?”
“I can’t, really. They’re both the worst.”
“OK, I got him spotted.”
Goemon fired the first round. A cloud of dirt erupted several meters away from the target. It was a bad first shot, but we were pretty far. This was probably a personal record attempt for distance.
“Miss, two low, and behind him,” I called.
“Dang, that was too low? I aimed like a foot over his head.”
“Aim higher, I guess. Your gun is from one of the World Wars or something, it can probably barely make it.”
“I thought you said it would be fine!”
“It will be, come on, come on, before they hide.”
Goemon cranked the bolt back, loading another round. The duo did the opposite of hide, opting instead for a shelter in place strategy. They both crouched down in a horrid interpretation of a phalanx. From there, they stumbled over each other, spinning around, trying to determine the source of the shot. I considered trying my luck at sniping them with the weaker scope but I figured Goemon could take another crack at it first.
“OK, at least they stopped running. I’m going to aim way above.”
He fired again, and a beautiful shot, perfectly executed. I could practically hear the gong sound as the guy’s level three helmet flew off. Unfortunately he remained upright.
“How is he not dead? This game doesn’t make any sense,” Goemon said.
“Guess the level three helmet really makes a difference. Even if it’s damage
d, apparently.”
I aimed high, a full body length above the player’s head. I fired and the scope kicked up so I could not even see if I landed the shot. I fired twice more, figuring I might as well take advantage of the semiautomatic nature of my weapon of choice. Maybe I should have been laying down instead because I did not know what I was shooting at. My scope stopped shaking again and by some miracle I had landed at least one of the shots, enough to knock the wounded target.
“You got him,” Goemon said.
“I don’t know how. I aimed like fifty feet over his head. Is his buddy really about to pick him up right now?”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
Rather than taking cover, the remaining member of the duo- most likely Jeffie, being screamed at by his partner- chose to kneel down, completely stationary. He had to follow orders, and orders must have been to revive, revive! The shot could not have been more lined up. Goemon took advantage and fired true. As Jeffie collapsed so did the other.
I looked at the scoreboard. Field finally killed xXxSc0p3Sh0wxXx. It was nice to get credit for the kill after a successful knock. It was even better to get revenge on those jerks. The scope worked, the rifle worked, the plan, everything actually worked out for once.
“Did that really just happen?” I asked.
“What?”
“Did we just snipe a duo? Successfully?”
“We got this, baby,” Goemon said as he reloaded the Kar.
16
Salt Flats
“Do we have time to make it down there? Before the Blue rolls in?” I asked.
“I’m tired of getting kills and leaving loot,” Goemon said.
I hated dying from the Blue. It was such a long, drawn out process, one that you fought and fought against until the bitter end even if you knew it was fruitless. I have to imagine it was similar to being stranded out in the middle of the ocean and trying to swim to shore. You are going to try, because you can’t just give up. If you do, that’s the end. But you know you will never make it. At least in the ocean you might get lucky and come up on an island, or a boat or plane, or a giant friendly humpback whale that offers to carry you all the way back to the mainland. It is something to fight for. It was way worse in PBR than in real life. Maybe not really, but seriously, it was worse. If the Safety Circle appeared at the opposite corner of the map and you got swallowed up by the hungry Blue monster you just kept running, taking damage faster and faster until you died. And you died alone, killed by no one but bad luck and your own poor planning. Sure, you could stop and heal, but while you did so the Blue just kept going, doing even more damage than it did when you stopped to bust out the first aid or the bandages. But you still thought about it. Your health ticks down, two thirds, half. There’s still time to heal, you think. Wait any longer and you will be dead before the first aid finishes. So you kneel down to heal and open up your map while the first aid works its magic and the Circle is eighteen kilometers away, and you will never make it, but you try anyway and die. An embarrassing message flashes to everyone in the scoreboard, just so all the players know you did not get shot by somebody better, but you got left behind, like getting picked last for kickball everyday all over again.
Despite all of these horrible reasons, the Blue and the position of the Safety Circle failed to rank on Goemon’s importance scale. In his mind, a gun and some decent cover was all you needed to get out of any situation in PBR. He played a meticulous game in every other aspect of a round. It always came down to me being the one concerned about death by environment.
I checked the clock. I scanned the map. I tried to look at it through the lens of my ally. Usually when I did that I survived way longer. We still had a few minutes left.
“We can do it. But we gotta hustle. I might even go so far as to say we have to book it,” I said. To be fair, I was also tired of missing out on all the victory spoils.
“Whoa whoa, cool your jets,” Goemon said.
“I just don’t want to-”
“Die from the Blue.”
“Yeah, let’s just go already.”
The jaunt down the mountain was easier than the road up. We picked up some speed on the way down but it only took one glitchy rock face before you were falling in midair for twenty feet wondering what happened.
“I just want to say, whatever happens, it’s been a good round so far,” I said.
“Yeah it’s been alright,” Goemon replied.
“No, I mean, we’ve done it all, right? Got to The Spot, we got some good loot. Won a few engagements. Heck we even sniped some fools.”
“Yeah.”
“More importantly, we had a good time doing it. Just quality time, you know? Just a couple guys, hanging out. This is what it’s all about.”
“You OK, man?”
“Yeah, yeah, I just- I just want you to know-”
“What.”
“That if the Blue kills us it’s all your fault. But I won’t be mad.”
“Ha, thanks.”
“Not like that one time.”
17
AFK
Last Month
The cargo plane soared in from the south. We passed over the military base first, an island you could only escape by bridge. Anyone that dropped there might find the heaviest munitions but would have to fight to keep them and then likely spend the rest of the round chasing the Safety Circle across the map. At least ten players decided to take the risk and leapt from the plane.
The first to bail out proclaimed that only real men dropped at the military base and that if you were not a real man you should not bother because you would not survive. This elicited a reaction from a real girl, which was far less common in PBR. The reason for the rarity became apparent as half of the plane attempted desperately to get into her private voice channel. I felt a bit bad for her but promptly forgot as she dropped somewhere in no man’s land.
There was still plenty of time to select a drop spot. Speaking of which, The Spot itself was off of the shopping list for that round. The flight path of the cargo plane would force an extended parachute flight just to make it halfway there. I asked Goemon if he was up for some sightseeing but he still had yet to return from the bathroom. That meant I had to make the drop decision for the both of us, to be ready by the time he got back. We would have to choose something further along the path, closer to the northern edge of the island.
The cargo plane passed over the School. The man next to me turned and looked me up and down. He wore a green dinosaur costume, some hybrid of a stegosaurus and a t-rex. The dinosaur’s mouth drooped open in a circular cutout with just enough room to expose his face. He opened his actual mouth and told me if we did not drop at school that he would perform unspeakable acts on my mother, and that actually he already had, and that actually the sentiment went for anyone that failed to drop at School. School was the worst, full of endless hallways and dozens of doors with people hiding right behind them waiting for you to turn the knob to an Uzi greeting. The rooftops and the gymnasium were no better. I ignored him and he and his friend dropped out the back along with another fifteen players.
The next major arena on First Island was Polka City. The vast quantity of multilevel buildings provided somewhat of an advantage over the last two spots. You could hang around the outskirts and find some decent loot while the folks in the middle shot themselves to pieces. From there it was as simple as reading the situation, opting to turn tail and run or engage with the remnants of the battle. All in all, a nice balance between heavy action but a decent chance at survival. I would have suggested it myself but Goemon was still in the bathroom. A swathe of players leapt out the back, several of them shouting something in broken English and perhaps Chinese. The plane was beginning to thin out.
There were still a couple of spots left to drop. Sunken City aka Atlantis was coming up soon and we dropped there sometimes. It required careful piloting of the parachute. You simply had no choice but to land on a rooftop. The rooftops had the guns and p
layers up there feasted on those stuck in the waste deep water that flooded the entire city. The variety was fun and I might have picked that one, but the players that dropped had tactical camouflage and berets with medals that implied some kind of special ops experience. They probably would have destroyed us. Good thing Goemon was not back from the bathroom yet.
The gun range was the final stop on the tour, complete with an ocean view. There was nowhere to hide down there, and it all came down to who found what weapon. If you pick up the M16 you are in good shape. If you get the crossbow it’s over. Goemon hated dropping there. And he would not have to, because he was still in the midst of the world’s longest bathroom break.
I dropped anyways. The only other option was the beach, which held nothing, not even any tasty waves. I figured maybe I could grab some gear and run for it, and Goemon could catch up with me later. I looked back into the plane one more time before jumping out. The only people left were Goemon, still motionless, a slumped over duo dressed in pajamas, and two solos wearing stock gear who had probably never played before and did not know how to exit the plane.
As I plummeted straight down to the firing range, I attempted to gather intel on the competition. Three other duos dropped with me. Because I waited until the last minute to drop, hoping that Goemon would still return, they all had a head start. My rivals landed scattered around the range before I did. I made a last second adjustment when I pulled the chute, steering towards the outer left quadrant where nobody else ended up.
I caught a view of the plane as it exited the map boundary. The system forcibly removed the players still onboard. Goemon, the pajama duo and the two others all fell from the sky out in the open ocean. Their parachutes would deploy automatically, too, but it’s not like they had life jackets when they hit the water.
A pile of sandbags served as a display case for the loot I had available. A pistol sat there asking me to pick it, but I declined. A pistol would never cut it, not against the rest of the firepower located at the range. The only other option was the fabled crossbow: it was terrible unless you landed a headshot. There were five arrows to go along with it. Footsteps marched on the other side of a sandbag wall. They were close, and I had no time to think anymore. I equipped it and loaded in an arrow, a process that took about six minutes longer than it should have.
Project Battle Royale: A Gamelit Survival Book Page 10