I climbed on top of the display pile, hoping to get the drop on the other guy. It was a desperate play. The crossbow fired without a sound. The enemy had stopped to pick up something- maybe a vest but I could not tell- so it was as easy a shot as I would get.
“Hey, what did I miss?” Goemon said into the voice chat.
“I’m at the gun range,” I said. The shot was good, but I missed the head. I loaded up another one. One more would do it, I figured. Lucky for me the guy had yet to find a weapon. “You’re in the ocean.”
“I’m drowning. What the heck.”
“Can you swim over here please? I need help.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m about to drown I think.”
My target rounded the corner and I chased after him. I was desperate to finish the job. When I made it around myself, I found myself in a narrow shooting lane. At the other end hung a paper target. Between it sat the player with an arrow in his shoulder. Behind him stood his duo partner with an automatic rifle trained on me. I had no vest and no helmet and no chance. I fired the crossbow anyways, and maybe it hit, but I was dead before I got the chance to find out.
18
Loadout
The steep cliffs slowed our descent of radio tower mountain. The trek left us with no time to relax and enjoy the spoils. Most importantly, though, we survived. We would have to loot quickly to make sure we stayed alive.
“You should take the Para,” Goemon said.
“Me? Why? I can’t hit anything.”
“I have the Kar. I’m still feeling it.”
“That’s true.”
“Besides, you’re warmed up now. You’ll be fine.”
“OK. I’ll try it.”
I already had two weapons in tow, the Mini rifle and the shotgun. I figured I should probably keep the Mini in the event of another long distance encounter. That meant saying goodbye to the shotgun in order to make room for a shiny new power tool, the M249 Para LMG. What did LMG stand for? Don’t know, probably lightweight machine gun but that did not make any sense because the thing was ultra-heavy. As in, the heaviest weapon in the game. An UZI was a lightweight machine gun in my eyes. I mean sure my shoulders needed some work and I always struggled with the incline bench press. Ah who am I kidding, my whole upper body could have used a testosterone boost. But the word lightweight just undersold the sheer power that was the Para. Why was it called the Para? Don’t know, that is just what we called it in another game.
“Why is it called the Para?” I asked.
“Because, dummy, it’s for people who parachute with it.”
“Dummy?”
“Yeah.”
“Who could parachute with this thing? It weighs 900 pounds.”
“Dunno. The armor is all toast. We can’t use anything here. At least we got the Para.”
Much like there was One Ring to rule them all, I now weld the greatest power imaginable in the PBR universe. At least as far as I was concerned. Technically there could have been other Paras elsewhere on First Island, too, but I had never experienced any LMG on LMG action in any round as long as we had played the game. Only time would tell if I would be corrupted by its great power. Good thing I had my faithful ally Samwise Goemon to keep me on the right path.
All I needed was to grab some ammo and we could be on our way. I checked the first guy who had the machine gun equipped, but he only had half a box. 15 measly rounds was an insult to the weapon and would take it nowhere. It was like filling up a superbike with an eighth of a tank of gas. Where was the rest? I checked the next guy and all he had was 7.62mm ammunition. That was fine for Goemon’s loadout, but those did nothing for me.
“There’s no ammo,” I said. “Did you take it?”
“No. What do you mean there’s no ammo?” Goemon replied.
“This takes 556. The guy had like 15 bullets, that’s it.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, what the heck. I mean I still got one box left over from the Mini but that’s not even a full clip.”
“Well just conserve it.”
“Conserve it? Conserve the Para?”
“What, I don’t know.”
“You know what this is?”
“What? We should probably go,” Goemon said as he began jogging off toward the Safety Circle. I followed after him.
“This is like. Like you drove me to Del Taco for my birthday. You said hey, actually wait. It’s also Taco Tuesday. Taco Tuesday at Del Taco, and you drove me there on my birthday and said, hey, I’m going to get you some tacos.”
“That was nice of me.”
“I’m not finished. So we’re there and I order a bunch of tacos.”
“Soft or crunchy?”
“I don’t know, crunchy.”
“How many tacos?”
“It’s three for...well, let’s just say I get nine tacos.”
“That’s a lot of tacos.”
“That’s my point,” I said.
“Do you hear that?” he asked, trying to distract me.
“Let me finish. So I’ve got nine tacos which is awesome! Except, there is only, uh, three hot sauce packets.”
“What kind of hot sauce.”
“The hottest one, obviously.”
“Three packets for nine tacos is not enough sauce.”
“Exactly! That’s what I’m trying to say, that three packets of sauce is not enough for this machine gun. I mean, you get my point.”
“Yeah, now can I listen? I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from. It’s like five feet away from me. Or a mile, the sound in this game, I swear.”
I got a bead on it. Footsteps, most likely, and it sounded like they were running alongside us. It made sense, we were all trying to flee the Blue for the safety of the Circle. Only a madman would run headlong into assured destruction of the BWOD.
“They’re close, right next to us. I think to the left up in those trees. It’s a duo,” I said.
“I hear them on the right. Man, my sound,” Goemon said.
“What if there’s two.” It made sense. The trees provided cover to the left. To the right, the other potential duo might just be rounding the hill. From the sound of the footsteps, their views would converge at almost the same time just by the nature of the direction they were headed. It was a recipe for collateral damage.
“Oh no. We don’t want to be in the middle of two duos.”
“I think we should hide, let them go past us,” I said.
“Really? You want to hide? What about the Blue?”
“What about it? We’re in the Safety Circle. You never look at the map.”
“You’re not wrong.”
We hightailed it for a tiny sheet metal shack in the middle of the field. Identical structures just like it- really more a shed than an actual residence- dotted the First Island map’s landscape at random. They could also be found in every other map in the game, though they were made of different materials: cinder blocks for Desert Island, bamboo for Jungle Island, maybe ice or whatever for Snow Island but we never ended up there. It was difficult to determine what function the shacks served in the grand scheme of the game world. A tool shed with a picnic table out front in the middle of a field or jungle seemed a bit out of place to me. But, it would work just fine for a temporary hideout.
A level one helmet sat on the picnic table, useless. The holographic sight inside, though, fit nicely on the Para. I had to make my limited ammo count, after all. We closed the door and crouched down low, away from the sole window. Unfortunately, said window faced the opposite direction. It blinded us to the action.
Right on cue, the battle erupted. The right hill duo opened fire with a couple of hefty-sounding weapons. They opted for the good ol’ spray the whole clip and hope for the best strategy instead of a controlled burst approach. It took the duo on the left a few moments to respond with a counter attack. It was possible they had yet to locate the exact location of the aggressors. Another scenario could be the defending duo ha
d some decent cover in the trees and wanted to utilize it best they could. After a couple of seconds, right duo stopped, most likely reloading after that assault. The left duo now returned fire with the low thump of one sniper rifle, semi-automatic, and something fully auto of their own.
“What the heck was that thing,” Goemon asked.
“Don’t know. Sounds like an SKS,” I answered. A couple of more distinct shots went off, sounding vaguely like something getting sucked out of a tube or a bowling ball dropping into a body of water.
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t. You gotta get your sound fixed, man.”
The exchange ceased again and the Dude Duo on the right spoke up. “Listen, ladies, we’re going to give you a chance here,” the player yelled.
“Ladies?” I whispered to Goemon. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Just surrender and maybe, maybe we’ll go easy on you,” he continued.
“Thank you for the offer! It sounds very nice!” one of the girls shouted. Her voice sounded very familiar, genuine and friendly. It was a strange tone to take for a life or death situation.
“Stop it, Elly, how many times have I told you not to be...” the other member of the lady duo said to her partner before trailing off. Her voice also rang familiar. Plus that name, Elly. I let my head run a bit wild with scenarios that this was the same duo we had run into back at The Spot. “Screw you, dirtbags!” she screamed before sending off a couple of more semiautomatic warning shots. She must have been the one with the SKS. What was her name?
“What was her name?” I asked Goemon.
“What? Who?” he said.
“The girl talking.”
“How should I know?”
“You have a better memory than me. They’re the same duo from before. At The Spot, remember?”
“You think so?”
“Yes! I’m positive. One of them is Elly.”
“Oh. Maybe you’re right. That’s funny.”
“I am right. The other one is named...Nails.”
“Nails, huh.”
“Yes!” I raised the volume of my whisper as high as the category of communication would allow. This was it! What were the odds of us both ending up here, out of 100 other players. Now that I think about it, probably 2 out of 100 I guess but statistics and probability never spoke to me in a coherent language. The point was, we could save them. We could all work together. Finish the round as a draw, maybe. Find a four seater Dosha and drive off into the sunset. Elly and me in the backseat would exchange info, obviously. Then...who knows where the relationship could end up. I had no marriage plans but maybe if she was the right girl...
The Dude Duo spoke up again. “If you want, I could teach you how to use that thing. Just a heads up, you’ll need both hands.”
Another volley of gunfire soared in front of our shack. This time it was returned by the other side. The exchange lasted a few moments. I turned to Goemon.
“We have to help them,” I pleaded.
“Who?” he asked.
“Who? Who?! Elly and Nails!”
“Oh. Why? We should let them sort it out.”
“Because, man. Don’t you have a heart. Haven’t you ever been in love.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, pal.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Ugh. Alright, alright. Then what do you want to do.”
“Can you throw a flash?”
“No.”
“OK, OK, good point. Let’s just wait for them both to start shooting at each other and then we-”
Both duos engaged with each other in a chorus of gunfire. I kicked open the door and bolted out with the Para swinging, all 45 bullets of it. Just like I hoped, the mountainside Dude Duo was in clear view as I rounded the corner of the shack. They were focused on their enemies in the trees, and by the time one of them turned to look at me I already had him in the holo sight. I fired off all 45 rounds in the span of a couple heartbeats. The recoil was stronger than I remembered, but it might have had something to do with how I never stopped forward momentum. Enough of the bullets hit the mark, though, because my target went down.
I kept my finger on the trigger, deaf to the rapid clicking sound that indicated no more rounds to fire. The second and sole standing member of the duo turned his attention to me. I was defenseless, I could not blame him. I probably would have done the same thing. But he should have focused on Goemon. The thunderclap of the Kar sounded off behind me and a cloud of red mist erupted from the enemy player. At least Goemon understood the plan. The girls in the trees did too, because they finished the guy off before Goemon even had a chance to load the second shot in the rifle. I took some damage, but I was still standing. Could not say the same for the roasted duo.
19
Friendlies
“I would have liked to switch weapons first,” Goemon said.
“No time. Besides, you did fine. You knocked him.”
“The AK might have been a little more effective than shooting one bullet at a time from fifteen feet away. I probably would have gotten the kill.”
There went Goemon again, always obsessed with the numbers on the scoreboard. He was a real stat fanatic, that one. He would have boxed out his own teammates in basketball just to make sure he got credit for the rebound. I told him that and he denied it, of course. He called me dramatic and I told him that it was clear he was being the dramatic one, and so I let him know that he would hardly give a second thought to shooting me in the back if it meant the bullet was going to end up taking down an enemy as well, putting another point up on the scoreboard. He reminded me that in all our days playing PBR he had only teamkilled me once, and to remember how many times I had killed him, and before I got a chance to say all of those times were clearly accidents the girls interrupted us with either a well-placed or terrible gunshot that hit the dirt between my feet.
Goemon snapped his rifle towards the source. Meanwhile, I still held mine down. After all this, I could not believe they actually wanted to kill us.
“You finished?” Nails called down from the trees.
“After all this, I can’t believe you actually want to kill us,” I shouted.
“That’s the point of the game, right?”
“How dare you,” I said.
“She’s got a point,” Goemon chimed in. And yet, no one was pulling the trigger.
“We saved you!” I said. “That’s got to be worth something.”
“Saved us? yeah right. We had those scrubs right where we wanted them,” Nails said.
“They did help us,” I heard Elly say quietly. Finally I had someone on my side. It just so happened to be the one that I wanted, too. I don’t mean “The One,” but, maybe, actually, you never know.
Nails gave her a light push and mumbled something inaudible.
“I don’t think they’re going to shoot us,” Goemon whispered to me.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Let me handle this.”
“Oh great.”
“I’ll tell you what. We’re going to let you go,” I called out.
“You’re going to let us go? Oh, that’s rich. I’ve got a scope on your head. And besides, you’re out of ammo. Click, click, click,” Nails said.
“So you do. And my associate here is the best sniper of the season. He’s got the Deadly Accuracy badge to prove it.”
“What? Deadly Accuracy- what the heck is that?” Goemon said. I shushed him. It was all part of the plan.
“Fine. You want to leave the loot with us? Then, you are free to go,” Nails said.
“Leave without looting? Absolutely not,” Goemon said.
“Shh, I know. I got this.”
“Look, clearly we both want the loot here,” I said and waited for a response. They did not give one, so I continued. “We got one kill, you got one.”
“Yeah but I knocked the second guy,” Goemon said. I put the palm of my hand towards his face.
“So, what’s your point?” N
ails responded.
“My point is, I’m proposing a temporary truce. We split the loot. Then, we go our separate ways.”
Elly and Nails began whispering to each other. “Then what?” Elly yelled. I can’t believe she was already thinking about our future together. That was nice of her. Maybe we were more on the same page than I thought. Or, maybe, probably, she was talking more short term. Play it cool, Fieldy, I told myself.
“Who’s to say what the future brings? I’m talking about here, now, we cast aside the dedicated, dare I say antiquated, rules of PBR for this one precious moment and we split the loot like civil human beans. I mean, uh, beings.”
“Precious moment?” Goemon whispered.
“Shut up,” I mumbled.
“How do we know we can trust you?” Elly yelled.
“If Goemon was going to shoot you he would have done so already. I don’t have any bullets, like you said.”
A few moments of silence ticked by. Then, the two women of the duo emerged from the trees. Both donned matching warpaint, the center point being a black stripe across the eyes, ending at the ears. It really brought Elly’s eyes, but she probably looked good in anything. The black paint matched the leather jackets emblazoned in spikes on the shoulders in color.
Nails’ defining characteristic was the frag grenade in her hand, extended high into the air for all to see. “Alright,” she said, “but if you so much as lift a trigger finger I’ll blow you past the desert island.”
“Hey, we call it Desert Island too,” I said.
“Is that really necessary?” Goemon asked, motioning to the grenade with his finger rather than the barrel of the gun.
“Yeah, come on Nails, cool down,” Elly said. “I’m Elly, this is Nails. You are?”
“Actually we’ve met. I’m Field and this is Goemon,” I said. For a moment, my heart sank lower than the Underground Lake. I could not believe she forgot.
Project Battle Royale: A Gamelit Survival Book Page 11