“I know,” she continued, “we never got your names. I just figured, you know, in case you forgot ours.”
“I’d never forget a voice like yours,” is what I wanted to say but what I actually said was, “I’d never forget a legs like hers,” for some reason. Fortunately Goemon had my back.
“Well, let’s get to it then,” he loudly proclaimed. It was clear he was trying to throw them off the scent of my idiocy. It worked because they ignored my comment. Maybe the PBR gods had a heart and they never even heard it.
“Legs, huh?” Nails said. I was never lucky.
“You should probably grab this,” Goemon said. Ah, my faithful wingman always had the best ideas. Nothing like a nice group activity to break the ice. Looting the eliminated duo fit the bill just fine. The genius of the plan rested in its simplicity. If everyone got distracted enough I would no longer have the chance to say something stupid.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Auto shotty,” he said.
“No way.”
“Auto shotty sucks this late in the game,” Nails said.
“It’s got its uses,” her partner said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “See, we like to work as a team. Goemon here handles everything from a distance. I take care of all the stuff in the trenches. Close range, long range dynamic.”
“We kind of do that too,” Elly said.
“Maybe we have more in common than you guys think.”
“Or maybe,” Nails said, “it’s called basic game strategy.”
Whatever she wanted to call it was fine. The fact is the SK12 (as we called it) automatic rapid-fire shotgun slid into our team dynamic like crispy French fries into a California burrito. It was terrible at range, there was no arguing with the surly Nails about that. However, because of its proficiency at close range, it complemented Goemon’s long-distance specialization more than I wanted to complement our attractive rival. The SK12 looked like a standard assault rifle in hand or on the ground. Shells were loaded via magazine rather than individually, and the eight total rounds it held were enough to clear out anybody hiding behind a doorway or around the corner of a wall.
Part of me was sad to see the Mini go. But I never got anything done with sniper rifles anyways. I slapped the scope from the Mini onto the Para, and shifted the holo sight onto the auto shotty. It was the best loadout I could have asked for, really.
As for ammo, I still had some shells from the beginning of the round. The player we took down had a couple more boxes of shotgun ammo that would be sure to last the rest of the round. He must have been a bit of a pack rat, because his entire inventory was filled with ammunition from every type of weapon in the game. I took the rest of the stash of 5.56 bullets for the Para and began the arduous reloading process. Two boxes containing 60 bullets total was half of what I would feel comfortable with but it was a heck of a lot better than nothing.
“Can’t believe you got a Para,” Elly said.
“Yeah it’s alright I guess,” I said. It was way better than alright but I was just trying to act cool. “What did you guys get?”
“None of your business,” Nails said. “Come on, Elly, it’s time to go.”
I checked the game clock and the Blue was set to cruise in any minute. Something told me that Nails had a different reason for wanting to bail out on our double date, though. I looked toward Goemon to help me salvage the situation but he was still elbow deep in the loot backpack.
“We could stay together, if you want?” I half asked.
“We could what?” Goemon said. Turned out he was listening after all.
“Ha! So what, you can shoot us in the back when it suits you? I don’t think so,” Nails said.
“No, I just figured, you know, four of us working together stand a pretty good chance at survival. Versus, you know, every man, or woman, or girl or whatever by themselves.”
I expected a violent verbal response. Instead, Nails just stood there and narrowed her eyes at me so they were nothing but two bright slits in the shadowy warpaint. It was unnerving and I wished she had just insulted my gear instead. Both Elly and Goemon then looked to her for some definitive answer, as if she were the judge.
A distant rumble in the sky ended the silent standoff. Just across the horizon, another drop plane cruised overhead. The flight path would not cross over us. The payload would be close enough to access on foot, but the journey would consume a chunk of time off the game clock.
“That’s our cue,” Nails said.
“Maybe next time,” said Elly.
“Don’t try to follow us. It won’t end well for you.”
“What, The Drop?” I said. “You going to climb the mountain this late? You can’t go around.”
“Don’t need to,” Nails said. She stood up from the loot. She checked her weapons over one more time. “There’s an entrance to the underground tunnels nearby.”
“Oh no,” Goemon said.
“That deathtrap?” I added. “It’s glitched. Probably haven’t even patched it yet.”
“Glitched?” Elly said and stopped in her tracks. Nobody liked a glitch death in PBR. Even the most experienced veterans got swallowed up by them from time to time, and it’s not like you got a consolation prize when they occurred. The round-ending ones were a bit like sailor’s stories of rogue waves. They were mostly real even without a ton of video evidence, and discussed in hushed whispers by those who had been affected by them directly. Some players laughed them off. Those players had never stared into the void.
True PBR vets had friends or at least friends of friends with stories of glitches that snatched victory away from the top five. The range of tales extended to darker depths, the worst of which claimed to swallow up players who would never be seen again. I personally knew a player, well not personally, but my friend did, who had their duo partner disappear off their friends list altogether mid-round due to a hollow mountain glitch.
“Yeah, glitched. Happened to us not long ago. I couldn’t play for a week. Basically,” I said.
“Come on, Elly, let’s go,” Nails said.
“You should go. If you want to get yourself vanished.”
“Vanished?” Elly said.
“That’s right. I saw it myself. Goemon and I both did. I could tell you the safe way through, if you want. Before you go. So you don’t die.”
“We should at least hear it out,” Elly pleaded.
“Oh for the love of- fine, but make it quick,” Nails said as she sat back down.
20
Tunnel Snakes
Several Months Ago
The Eastern Bloc aesthetic was apparent in the architecture of all the towns of First Island, both large and small. It was scrawled on highway signs and above cleared out storefronts. It was found in munitions caches and the humble, if comical, engineering feat that was the Dosha. It was also hidden, lurking underground. What good was a Cold War vibe without a little bit of nuclear espionage?
We visited the tunnels one time, and once was enough. There was one entrance that I knew of, but whispers told of an interconnected network of underground passages sprawled out underneath the entirety of First Island. That’s not to say it was an efficient form of transportation so long as you knew your way around. PBR was built on the freedom of movement. It requires player adaptation to placement of the Safety Circle. Survival of combat requires cover and sneaking and hiding behind trees or sometimes, a lot of the time, running away. Put yourself in an underground maze and that all goes out the window. Oh, only there are no windows and it is pitch black except for the occasional flickering red emergency light.
“Yeah, we’ve played the game before,” Nails interrupted.
“I know. I’m just setting the stage. It’s important,” I said.
“We don’t have all round.”
“OK, OK.”
These were all crucial pieces of information that we learned too late. Our logic was sound going into the ordeal. The Drop phase had been unkind to us. We
went a little out of the way to hit The Spot right out of the plane. This put us at a time disadvantage. The fact The Spot had no decent weapons except a 12-round stock Vector SMG for Goemon and a double barrel hunting shotgun for myself did not make the gamble pay off. That left us further behind, and playing catch up to the Safety Circle for most of the early phases.
We looted what we could on the outskirts of the more populated areas. We picked up a couple of vests from a field shed and the picnic table out front. Goemon found a helmet on the second story of a barn. All the rifles in the game went into hiding or in the hands of other duos. Engaging anyone else from a distance was out of the question with our current loadout.
So when we found ourselves square in the middle of two other duos, we knew an alternative game plan was in order. It’s like the pros always say, playing cold cuts in a duo sandwich without the right gear is a recipe for a ticket to Sogtown.
“The pros don’t say that. Nobody says that.”
“I’ve heard ‘em say it.” I think I was mostly getting that saying right.
“We’re screwed. Maybe we can lie down in the bushes and they’ll ignore us. Maybe we should just quit the game and give up forever,” Goemon said, maybe not in those exact words but it was pretty close. It was definitely implied.
“Nonsense,” I said. “What about...there.”
A low hill of green earth rose out of the ground. It would have been invisible from the sky, just another unassuming piece of the rolling landscape. It was easy to see from ground level. The green of the hill hung over a cold cement entryway surrounding a metal door.
Goemon had just about finished covering himself in mud and grass. It was an attempt at homemade camouflage. The act of cowardice made me sick. “You make me sick,” I said.
“That’s not how it happened,” Goemon said. “You’re nuts.”
“Oh really? Then why don’t you remind me.”
“I just remember saying things didn’t look good. And they didn’t.”
“Can I finish the story?”
“Do you have to?”
“Yes.”
Anyways, I picked up Goemon’s spongy excuse for a-
“Dude. Really?” Goemon complained.
“OK, OK, I’ll stop.”
“Is this going to take much longer?” Nails asked.
“It will if I don’t stop getting interrupted,” I quipped. I took the resulting silence as an invitation to continue.
Anyways, sometime after I finished convincing Goemon but before the bullets started flying in, we decided to take our chances in the mystery tunnel. The door was heavy and rusted near shut. The only reason it opened at all was due to my own sheer strength of will. And also, just strength. As in muscle strength. I’m pretty strong.
Beyond the door, a cement staircase descended into blackness. The decision of whether to follow proved easy. We knew what was behind us. Four-plus rifles with extended mags and tactical stocks and scopes pointed at our backs. In front of us, though, was a hall of wonders that might end in death but also potentially salvation through escape or, dare I say it, riches.
The first red flag came quickly. The lack of a flashlight and, I am not ashamed to admit this, my own hesitation, caused me to take an immediate dig.
“Take a what?” Elly asked.
“Take a dig.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know. He took a dig,” Goemon chimed in.
“Right. It means I fell. Hard,” I elaborated.
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s just something we say.”
“Oh...kay,” Elly said.
Where was I? Oh yeah. So I take a dig, hard enough to lose some health. On the bright side, I found a blinking red light at the bottom of the stairs. Under the blinking light was a little metal handle and some words in Russian or something. Goemon whispered down at me to see if I was OK. I told him sure, I think I figured it out. So I pulled the handle and the tunnel glowed a hot red, like I opened the flume on some sleeping fireplace coals. It was easier to see now that the emergency lighting system had kicked on, but the red neon bloom made things even more unnerving than the blackness.
The walls were narrow, enough room for a duo to go shoulder to shoulder but no more than that. I never did get claustrophobic so that did not bother me much. The length of the tunnel added some level of unease. It extended far past my field of vision which meant we were going to be spending a lot more time down there than I had anticipated. The main issue illuminated by the flashing red bulb was that someone else had already been down there. More disturbing was they wanted to let us know. They did this by scrawling a personal message on the wall. Actually, on both walls, and a little bit on the ceiling.
The message was clear only in that it showed we had entered the domain of some kind of psychopath. The letters were shaky and long like brushstrokes painted using an offhand. The first I read proclaimed “DON’T” and “IT’S LOOSE” and “DEATH” and “NO WAY OUT.” Then a little bit further a fiery drawing caught my eye, scribbled atop the words “WELCOME TO THE VOID.” Needless to say the text was sending out some mixed messages. Which one was it, don’t come in, no way out, or welcome? There was only one way we were going to find out.
Goemon checked our six as we advanced down the hall. I wielded the double barrel with confidence, and tried to push back the doubt that it would do anything if my target were all the way down the hall. The only thing to use as cover down there were barrels tagged up with exclamation points, skulls and what I think were symbols meant to convey some form of radioactivity.
The air got stale down there faster than an unclipped bag of flaming hot Cheetos. We progressed further and further into the tunnel. I thought it would never end. That’s when the smell hit me.
“Was it you? From the Cheetos,” Nails said. Elly laughed and covered her mouth. I ignored the insult and continued.
I should clarify that we had been walking for several minutes. The red light had dimmed to a soft glow, enough to see, but not much. About as bright as the flame of a cigarette lighter, I would say. The entrance behind us was no longer visible. So when the sound came rumbling in...
“Sound? I thought you said smell.”
There was, uh, both, sound and smell. The sound rumbled in, deep and low at first but then higher. It was animalistic for sure, but it was no animal I had ever heard in my entire life. It was not behind us, that was impossible.
“No way. There’s no animals in PBR,” Elly said.
“Maybe not in this iteration. But you ever heard of cut content?”
“Yeah, like weapons that didn’t make it in the game.”
“Not weapons. Monsters.”
“Psh,” Nails pushed air out of her lips. It registered as feedback on the mic. “Don’t listen to him. There were never any animals in this game. Or monsters, for that matter.”
“There wasn’t supposed to be, anyways, at least not in this version,” I continued.
“What do you mean?” Elly asked.
Like I was saying, the demonic roar seemed to be coming from everywhere. I found part of the answer. The ventilation system above our head served as the perfect transmitter. The acoustics of the cement tunnel- or was it a mausoleum?- did the rest and echoed the noise all around.
I felt in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong. Call it a sixth sense if you want to. This was different from the adrenaline rush of a typical PBR engagement. Something was off. The fear was there, but the usual accompanying anticipation had been replaced by dread.
Still we continued deeper down the corridor. The explorer who walked the halls before us became increasingly brazen with his scrawled ramblings. They degenerated from words to solitary letters intermixed with radioactive symbols like the ones on the barrels. The last legible piece of work appeared to be a print of an oversize hand, or perhaps a five-digit animal claw. It could have been the size of a bear’s paw, but something about the placement of the fifth digit made
it read as a thumb and a humanoid track. The hand or claw print started out clear but smeared red paint or some other liquid across the rest of the hall. Dark droplets dripped down the wall in places that it had been laid on a little too thick. I ran my finger through it and held it up for inspection. The red light made it tough to determine the composition. For some reason a sudden urge welled up in me to put it to my lips.
“What are you doing,” Goemon asked. The suddenness in his voice snapped me out of whatever moment I was in.
“I don’t know,” I said. It was like a spell over me had been broken. I shook it off. “What is this stuff?”
“There’s no paint in PBR, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Oh, man. You think it’s blood?”
“Don’t know.”
A morbid fascination began to take hold. The tunnel compelled me to travel further and further down into its depths. I was pulled along by some magnetism that only grew stronger the deeper we plunged. Forget about turning back to locate the exit. Anything outside of the cavern no longer existed. Even the game clock no longer mattered. I checked it out of force of habit, and the seconds had slowed to a near standstill. Perhaps we had been down there minutes or hours, but the very notion of time behaved differently.
“Of course, by now, I know what you’re thinking. PBR was not always a battle royale game. That’s common knowledge. It originally had a different title,” I explained.
“What? No it didn’t,” Elly said.
“It’s just a rumor. And a dumb one. PBR put battle royale on the map. They practically invented the genre,” Nails said.
“A rumor the mods ban people for even mentioning on the PBR forums,” I countered.
“Yeah, because it’s off topic. Because it has nothing to do with the real game.”
“So they say.”
“Yeah, they do say. Because there’s not so much as a screenshot proving otherwise.”
“We found proof. Horrible, nightmare inducing proof.”
Project Battle Royale: A Gamelit Survival Book Page 12