The Life- Illusion

by Lincoln Greene

  Olive drab camo Humvees and M35 troop transport trucks began to swarm into the freeway around them, giving chase alongside the Ursa APCs and GoonStorm Humvees. Within a few seconds of them having arrived on the freeway, it was full of high caliber gunfire as three factions all competed to rip them apart. Kurt gunned his engine, watching the rearview to make sure Jimmy was keeping up as he aimed for any vehicles foolish enough to get directly in front of them.

  A roadblock ahead of them spanning all six lanes of the freeway was under attack by GoonStorm forces desperate to get through. Half a dozen tanks crouched across the road, firing at each other while Humvees and troop transport trucks struggled to shove one another out of the way. Gadot made her return then, sweeping in low and lighting up the road block with a sustained BRRRT of fire from her nose cannon. As she roared by overhead, she released two underslung bombs that slammed into the Abrams. Jimmy and Kurt had to slow down to pick their way through the mess, avoiding the shelled-out tanks and shoving aside a flaming troop transport before the road was clear.

  They both pushed on the gas, trying to outrun the encroaching flood of molten oil as the freeway finally arced up to thread through downtown towards the airport. Gadot flew by overhead again, using her warthog’s cannon to shred any forces in their way. As she finished her attack run, she suddenly banked hard and swung into the city as two F-15 Eagle fighter jets screamed by and fired missiles.

  “Holy…The Heat has jets too!?” Kurt gripped his wheel harder, watching Gadot’s dot begin an intricate dance between the buildings of the Downtown Cluster.

  “Yes. And Tanks.” Her voice was strained as she fought the g force shoving at her during a hard bank. “And helicopters with miniguns.”

  “Oh.” His voice was small, the burning city raising up all around them. Kurt looked out his side window, seeing the burning oil flood underneath them as they curved back around towards the airport.

  Jimmy chuckled in his ear. “Think of Heat more in game mechanic terms. I mean as a concept. It’s not something you can really fight and defeat. You can just run if you piss it off, and the more you piss it off, the harder it comes after you. Too much chaos on a server, and the Heat mechanic comes out hard to shut it down.”

  “Very helpful Jimmy, thank you.” Kurt dropped back behind the semi-truck, having seen an approaching helicopter dot with flashing red and blue lights on his map.

  A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter swept in overhead, buzzing down to hover beside the semi-truck. The metal door on its side slid open and the multi-barreled tip of a minigun slid out to point at the truck. Jimmy saw it coming and activated his Stone Skin ability, covering the truck in a rocky appearance.

  “Little help?!” His voice was strained, waiting for the onslaught. When it came, the truck swerved back and forth a little on the road before he managed to get it under control. “Good thing my pain suppression skill is maxed out…” He spoke through clearly grit teeth.

  Kurt immediately realized he couldn’t wait for Gadot to save them, busy trying to shake the jets as she was. He pressed the button to roll down his window and drove up on the side of the truck, coming even with the back of the helicopter while being careful to avoid the minigun’s stream of lead. He drew The Messenger and carefully aimed, before crossing his fingers on the steering wheel and firing. The rear rotors immediately began making a grinding sound before they spun off and smashed into a nearby building. With inky black smoke pouring from every portal, the Black Hawk bucked and whirled in an untidy circle before crunching onto the freeway overpass in front of them and detonating. Kurt ducked back behind the truck as Jimmy sighed in relief and slammed into the burning husk, sending it spinning off behind them.

  “Damn good shooting!” He sounded ecstatic before taking a few breaths. “See, told you. An expert shot in no time.”

  “Yeah, well it feels like all I’ve been doing all week is shooting, so that adds up.” Kurt groused to the amusement of his friend. “Where the hell is this airport?!” Jimmy chuckled in his ear as the overpass they were on arced around a skyscraper and the airport came into view. “…shut up.” The airport was on a manmade abutment jutting into the ocean, with the roads leading to it all raised above the city street level. This made it immune to the creeping onslaught of the burning oil slick, which had begun to slow considerably so far from the Jahre Viking. The city burned around them, creating an island of the airport.

  From their vantage point on the crest of the freeway, Kurt could see a final roadblock in their way. The obstacle was comprised of two transport trucks settling in nose to nose across the freeway as their occupants took firing positions. Bracing them was a duo of Abrams tanks, both swiveling their cannons to face the oncoming vehicles.

  “Gadot! We need you!” Jimmy activated his armor’s ability again, gritting his teeth in preparation for the incoming fire.

  Her response was breathless, the g forces working against her apparent. “I’m…trying…”

  “Shit. Aim for the center buddy, hopefully the truck can take it.” Jimmy’s plan was not particularly reassuring to Kurt, but he fell in line and braced himself as he floored his gas pedal.

  Both vehicles swept down the two lane overpass, Kurt’s car directly in front as Jimmy pressed up as close behind him as possible. As they approached, the NPCs manning the line opened fire, spattering Kurt’s windshield with bullets as two shells from the tanks sailed by overhead and impacted on the truck directly behind him.

  “That’s me out of armor.” Jimmy sounded strangely calm as the stone skin effect fell away from the truck and thick black smoke boiled from beneath its hood.

  The sky tore apart to their right as Gadot’s Warthog swept over the roadblock with a deafening burst from her cannon, followed by an anti-tank missile. Kurt’s eyes went wide as he ducked low into his seat and slammed into the rising explosion in front of him at top speed. The scream of metal drowned out his own pained grunt as his car bottomed out hard and spit sparks from its undercarriage, tossing aside the ruined husk of a troop transport and barely lifting the tank behind it.

  He glanced at his rearview mirror to see Jimmy slam into the tank, wrenching it over the edge of the overpass as the truck shuddered violently and swerved on the pavement. Not letting off the gas pedal was his instinct, but the quick glance in his rearview had cured that. He strained to see Gadot, looking out of his side window as he drove to the bottom of the ramp and the entrance of the airport. Satisfied with the glimpse he caught of her plane weaving and spiraling between the skyscrapers and smoke behind them, he focused on the road ahead and tried to see through the black smoke pouring from beneath his hood. In his side mirror he caught a glimpse of her as she managed to get behind one of the jets in pursuit and down it with a quick burst from the Warthogs cannon.

  The street leading up to the airport entrance was littered with destroyed vehicles, most of them police and civilian cars. Kurt weaved between them, trying not to damage his car any further as he approached a chain link gate leading onto the tarmac. The massive black cargo plane rumbled overhead as it came in for a landing and Jimmy whooped in his ear.

  “Almost there man!” They drove across the tarmac, bypassing the various wrecks of passenger airliners and military vehicles. “Oh…” Jimmy’s voice fell as they watched the Lace Stronghold come in for a landing. Dozens of troop transports were piling into the airport behind them, having managed to wind their ways through the flaming rubble and wrecks they had just passed.

  “I’ll go. Get the payout on board and get it out of here.” Kurt sighed as he cranked on the wheel and pressed the gas pedal to get back to the gate. His vague hope was simply to block it long enough for Jimmy to get free, but he really had no idea how he was going to accomplish that. A quick glance at his wrist showed his health sitting at half with no armor left. Shaking his head, Kurt palmed a grenade and slid his wedge-shaped car to a stop in the middle of the single lane gate entrance.

  The Heat arrived then, dozens of armed and armored
NPCs pouring out of the transports and moving to approach his makeshift barricade. Kurt slid down behind his car, gripping his Glock and waiting for his moment. As he heard the boot falls come close enough, he pulled the pin on his grenade and tossed it over his car. An NPC shouted “Grenade!” in a panic a second before the thing went off and Kurt stood up to finish off anyone left standing.

  He had misjudged his situation somewhat, as another three squads of the game’s best police NPCs opened fire, immediately driving him down behind his car again. Flames erupted from its vents and from beneath the armored wedge behind him, and Kurt was forced into a staggering run, trying to make cover but knowing it was hopeless.

  Instead of the small arms fire he expected to hear, a massive noise drowned out the explosion of his car. BRRRRT! Gadot swept over the gathered NPCs and hit them with a quick strafe from her plane’s cannon, dropping in for a landing on the tarmac. Kurt turned back, seeing the devastated NPC force. Nothing was left but massive holes in the road and vehicles and a few piles of silver dust that were fading into the blacktop. He shrugged and started running after the landing plane.

  She landed near the Stronghold, turning her Warthog back and hopping out while leaving the engine running. Kurt saw the semi-truck sitting at the back of the massive cargo plane, with Jimmy directing a group of NPCs as they worked at it with oversized saws and blow torches. Jimmy no longer wore his heavy armor, apparently having decided that it would be a hindrance now that its armor value was spent. Kurt joined them in the middle of a conversation as he approached.

  “Yeah it just won’t go up the loading ramp like this. They should be done soon.” Jimmy turned and saw his friend approaching, his face lighting up. “Hey! You lived, that’s great buddy.”

  “Right, I’ll be back with a ride for us. We’ll have to draw the heat off the Stronghold if there’s any chance of keeping this take.” Gadot climbed back in her Warthog and started taxiing it towards a hangar across the tarmac.

  “We’re clear for a few seconds anyway, she took out the Heat. What do I do now?” Kurt stopped and caught his breath, looking out over the city. It looked like the entire world was on fire, thick black clouds of smoke pouring into the sky and blocking the view.

  “Safe to say we lost the Ursa and Goons, so all we have to worry about is this ten bar.” Jimmy stood next to Kurt, hands on his hips as he looked over the Stronghold with a confused look on his face. “Right, so I get that the guns are my addition.” He pointed at the smattering of barrels poking from beneath the wings. “What the hell are those though??” His hand shifted back on the plane a bit, pointing to a series of boxy protrusions just behind the wings.

  Kurt cocked his head and stared at the bank of angled boxes with cylindrical openings facing the rear. “…Huh…dunno. How’s that whole thing work anyway?”

  “The game pays attention to your play style and class, adds stuff to the Stronghold for each player that’s a major part of the Crew. We never get to pick, but it’s also free…guess we can’t really complain.” Jimmy shrugged and turned back at the sound of encroaching helicopters. “Heads up man, we have trouble.” He turned to shout at the NPCs for a moment. “Get it done!”

  Gadot’s voice came in over their open com channel. “Actually those are my addition. They’re called JATO rockets. Good stuff, just watch and see what they’re for, you’ll love it.”

  The Lace crew had managed to cut and saw the giant cone off the front of the semi-truck and were loading it into the massive cargo bay of the Stronghold. Jimmy pointed to the city’s skyline where another three Black Hawk helicopters had just broken out of the smoke and were heading straight towards them. The cargo ramp began to laboriously raise, and all the Lace NPCs climbed inside as the massive cargo plane began to taxi away from them, its propellers laboring up to speed. Kurt felt a small swell of panic in his throat as he turned back to see a dozen heavy troop transports heading towards them, flanked by two Abrams tanks and a handful of high speed interceptors.

  Turning back, he quickly gauged the distance and saw that the massive cargo plane would not escape the tarmac before the Heat arrived. “They won’t make it…”

  Jimmy took a shooters stance and started firing on the Black Hawks swooping in. As he downed one, it crashed onto the tarmac and exploded, causing Gadot to swerve her new car and curse in their ears. “HA! Oops, sorry babe.” She drove up beside them and slid to a stop, reaching over and shoving open the passenger door as the Heat bore down on them from behind.

  Both men climbed in, Kurt protesting at being shoved un-gently into the backseat as Jimmy took the front. “I’m going, stop shoving!” He huffed in annoyance as he clicked his seatbelt in place before looking nervously around them at the swarming Heat vehicles. “Jeeze…sure hope you can get us out of this Gadot.”

  She glared at him in the rear-view mirror for an annoyed instant before shifting to a falsely cheery response. “Me too!” A light press on the accelerator had the rear tires of the Mustang boiling as she slid them around in a half circle.

  Jimmy lifted his mask and leaned forward in his seat, turning to face Kurt as he rested the barrel of his rifle on the back of his seat. “Hate to break this to you bud, but you don’t really escape a ten bar. You kinda just hold it off for a while, delaying the inevitable smoosh it hands out.” He hesitated, finger hovering beside the trigger as he turned to face Gadot. “…May I?”

  “Well, since you asked so nice.” She smirked at him as she dodged a series of troop transports spread out across the road in front of them.

  Jimmy smiled, made a kiss motion at her, and blew out the back windshield. He pressed his back up against the dashboard and began to shift in his seat slightly, shoulder tucked firmly into the butt of his rifle as he fired selectively. “Ummm…are they going to leave anytime soon?”

  As he spoke, the oversized cargo plane that served as their crew stronghold made a lumbering turn and began taxiing down the runway to their side, giving them an excellent view of all the police and army vehicles working to surround and obstruct it. The huge aircraft suddenly jerked forward, a dozen streams of red fire erupting from the boxes around its fuselage in lances of fire and force. It was propelled forcefully into the air, narrowly avoiding a blockade of troop transport trucks as it banked towards the smoldering city.

  “Wow. Didn’t think that thing could move that fast.” Kurt pressed up against his window, watching as the massive cargo plane climbed, assisted by its JATO rockets. They sputtered out as it reached the wall of smoke representing the downtown area.

  “You think that’s impressive, wait until you see what my addition does for us.” Jimmy smiled as they wove through the various police and military vehicles, exiting the airport by shoving the burnt husk of Kurt’s ramp car out of the way.

  A blinking com indicator flashed on the map that Gadot had on the windshield, and when she swiped it to a green talk button, Crane’s voice filled the car. “We need five minutes in the air before we can activate our jammer. Can you give us that?”

  “Ah! Stealth. There’s my addition.” Kurt sounded pleased with himself for a moment before being shoved into the back of Jimmy’s seat.

  Gadot yanked on the handbrake and spun the wheel aggressively to avoid an incoming high speed pursuit vehicle, sliding the Mustangs back end around before the car shot off towards the city onramp. “We can sure try.” She glanced at the rearview mirror, took a long slow breath, and nodded slightly. “Keep em off me as best you can boys.”

  When Kurt glanced back, he cringed at the sight of a dozen high speed interceptors moving to catch them. Gripping both his Glock and his Maxim 9, Kurt popped up in the back seat and started firing indiscriminately. He was slightly dismayed to see most of his rounds sparking harmlessly off windshields and wheel wells before the encroaching enemies vanished behind a wall of oily smoke. He turned to face forward, reloading as the car slowed down considerably.

  They had entered the firestorm that used to be the downtown cluster. W
hile they were safe from the flames on their raised two lane freeway platform, visibility was severely impaired by the thick black smoke boiling over the sides and raising all around them. Gadot was forced to a slow crawl, dodging burnt out wrecks and oncoming Heat forces as they went.

  With the massive amount of smoke in the air, Kurt found it difficult to breath. He heard some uncomfortable coughing from the others as well and checked his wrist to see a slow health drain from the smoke, similar to the tear gas mechanic. Within seconds, the shapes of high speed interceptors and troop transports began to take form behind them, with muzzle flashes lighting up the smoke.

  “Aim for the radiator Kurt!” Jimmy shouted over the whine of incoming fire as Gadot did her best to dodge a troop transport that hurtled towards them out of the smoke ahead. Kurt gamely peeked over the backseat, emptying and reloading his Glock, trying to shoot at the same vehicles Jimmy seemed to be firing on. As the troop transport slid past them, he adjusted his aim momentarily and allowed his stream of full auto fire to sweep its tire line. The tires burst, and the truck slid across the road, slamming to a stop with its nose shoved up against the concrete barrier and its body forming a perfect roadblock.

  “The interceptors have bullet proof tires, the transports don’t!” Kurt happily shouted, fumbling to reload as Gadot swerved to avoid another truck trying to ram them head on. It hurtled past them as the Mustang skidded against the concrete barrier, leaving paint and sparks in its wake as it bucked up on two wheels briefly. The truck slammed into the roadblock behind them and knocked it aside, before the entire scene vanished into the smoke.