by A W Wang
As I rush down a narrow hallway, I admonish myself for not using Leo’s time with the champagne to increase my power via thoughts of sex and violence, because I really need Syd’s close-quarter viciousness to prevent my opponents from hacking me into chunks of gore.
After slipping through a ruined doorway, I stumble into the kitchen. As my hunters converge, I slither out a small window frame and using a low profile, cut down a cramped passage between high brick walls.
The narrow path is perfect for an ambush, and the pursuit slows, affording me precious seconds to execute my crappy idea.
By design, I’m letting them funnel me in this direction. The original three-story structure I picked as the home base is nearby, and I have the advantage of knowing its layout.
When I pass the end of the alley, the front of the building is steps away. I sprint up the stairs, and not caring about the noise, smash through the double doors.
Nobody crashes into the foyer after me, which is a relief because I have a spare moment, but dire because they’re trying a simultaneous assault, and I can’t defend against eight opponents at the same time.
I dash up the cramped staircase to the second story. As I turn the corner, I sheath my undersized sword and pull the garrote from my hair. Heart thumping, and hating the wretched plan, I kneel just past the staircase and wait.
As the front door swings open, I take a steadying breath and slip the thin wire through the gap in the herringbone tiles.
When the top of a man pops into sight, I tap the floor.
He glances up.
I lower the garrote and yank backward with both hands.
The loop catches his neck, and he gurgles, kicking out.
Muscles straining, I pull him up and struggle to the balustrade. With a final tug, I knot the garrote handles below the corner ball and then sprint to the top of the staircase.
As I skid to a stop, a woman with short black hair shoves past her twitching partner.
My eyes widen. Her face is painted with an elegant pattern of blood stripes eerily similar to the Mongol warrior who reminded me of Syd.
She whips a throwing knife at my head.
I duck.
It punches through the stairway window, leaving thick slices of glass embedded in the frame.
Unwilling to waste one of my two remaining throwing knives, I step back and breaking off sharp pieces of the jagged glass, fling them at her.
The first sails high and hits her partner in the throat. Amid the spurts of blood, he stops moving. As she side-steps the next, her feet slip on a dusty stair. I fire another shard that stabs her thigh, and then one more that leaves a slice on her arm.
She screams, and in a rage, lurches up the steps.
I meet the charge with a stomp kick into her face.
Her neck breaks with a disgusting crunch as her head snaps backward. She tumbles past her dead teammate and limply slides into the dusty foyer.
One pair gone, three pairs left.
Glass shatters in the adjacent room while a thump comes from the ceiling. Two more sets of feet appear near the double entrance door.
“Time for Plan B.”
I ignore my optimistic voice.
“There is a Plan B, right?”
So not helpful…
Retreating through the hallway, I slide on the dust-covered tiles and spin into a modest room. With no other option, I plow my way out the single front window.
Before I touch the street, I tumble to lessen the impact, wiping a long smear through the layer of dust. As a powdery haze settles around me, I wipe my eyes and catch an overzealous enemy stupidly leaping from the same window. I reflexively roll under his arcing form and yank out my blade. As he flies over, I thrust upward. The tip spears into soft tissue, gouging away a chunk of his inner thigh.
His leg buckles as he lands and face-plants onto the layer of fine powder. He feebly attempts to rise, then collapses into the slushy red puddle growing from his spewing artery.
My five remaining opponents sprint and bar both sides of the street, taking their time to circle me as I stand.
The three women and two men each have a different pattern of blood drawn over their faces. Their vicious eyes beam with a sinister hardness, examining me like an animal to be slaughtered in an ancient ritual. Although none have anywhere near my six sigma score, the hatred rolling off their bodies makes up for any differential in skill level.
My confidence ebbs. They aren’t natural.
“You’ve got them right where you want them!”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Stop thinking and react.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Syd would eat these people for breakfast.”
“You’re an idiot!”
In front of me, a rough woman with a circle of blood on her forehead arches an eyebrow.
Irritated at the universe, I puff out a breath but refrain from smacking myself.
However, Mr. Optimism is right. Syd would demolish my opponents. If I survive this predicament, I promise myself I’m joining Vela in sampling the extremes of the blue liquid.
Someone heavy shifts in the dust behind me.
I whirl to face a large man with three blood stripes running down each cheek. He grins.
My control snaps. “Are we going to finish this sometime today? I have to meet a friend after I kill you all.”
A smallish woman with a dot of blood decorating her nose yanks out her sword and lunges at me.
With a sharp clang, I stop the thrust then sidestep an attack from the striped-cheeks man.
A swipe draws blood from my back, but the second man who is decorated with smears of blood under his eyes leaps back before I can strike.
I’m totally outmatched.
After setting my feet, the next attack comes from the final woman whose face is painted like a hawk. I deflect an arcing sword then parry a thrust from the circle-forehead woman. I twist but the tip of a sword nicks the back of my leg.
Powder spills from me as I blow out a frustrated huff. They are hacking me into shreds one gory piece at a time. I grit my teeth, suppressing any sound of pain, and tighten the muscles in my face. Although defeat appears inevitable, I’m not giving them the satisfaction of seeing fear.
The eye-smears man charges from behind and I pivot to block his thrust. The circle-forehead woman swings an overhead strike, and I dodge, but a kick knocks me to the ground.
Squinting from the cloud of dust, I roll from a flying foot, which still manages to glance off my ribs. After slamming my hand on the ground in frustration, I wobble to my feet, bruised and bleeding.
“Focus!”
Two pairs of uneasy boots shift to my rear. The dotted-nose woman steps to my front and takes a deep breath. From behind, the striped-cheeks man shifts his posture for an overhand strike. The eye-smears man adjusts his sword position on my right while opposite, the hawk-face woman fondles her throwing knives.
I’m not sure how but my perception has widened to encompass their every movement. Each intended attack is clear to me. I haven’t felt this ready since being tossed into the battle on “Acid Island.”
Before I can think myself out of the perfect fighting state, the dotted-nose woman shuffles closer and fires her sword at my chest.
Trusting to my intuitions, I sidestep, hearing the movements of the person behind me and sweep my sword to block his attack while dodging a flying knife coming from the other side.
The circle-forehead woman swipes her sword.
Stepping inside her guard, I block the swing and jam my blade at her throat.
She stops it with her free hand and when I pull it back, the sharp edge slices two of her fingers off.
While keeping her sword hand in my grip, I swing my sword to ward off attacks from two others.
The circle-forehead woman tries to bite me, but expecting it, I twist to throw her into the striped-cheeks man.
I jump through the gap to break the enci
rclement and turn, backpedaling to create space.
The eye-smears man whips a knife at my face.
Jerking my body in a half-swivel, I deflect it with my sword then block a slash from the striped-cheeks man. As my head twists to evade another knife, I spy a powder covered wall a few steps to my right. I dash to it and whirl, raising my sword for a high stroke.
On my heels, the striped-cheeks man moves to block my attack.
Instead of assaulting him directly, I swipe the flat of the blade through a pile of dust on the wall and fling it at him.
The powder hits smack in the center of his unblinking eyes. He raises his hands, blinded.
I snap the second knife from my holster into his throat.
Blood erupts from his neck and wheezing for air, the striped-cheeks man crumples in a heap.
Four left, including the one missing her fingers.
Another knife speeds at me and my body automatically shifts to let it fly past.
The circle-forehead woman charges and I deflect her blade, twisting my shoulders and letting her momentum carry her into the wall. With a fleshy thump, she tumbles over it, raising a powdery cloud.
There’s no time to finish her. The eye-smears man pounces at me.
I swipe aside his overly aggressive sword strokes, and when the circle-forehead woman pops above the wall, I snap throw my last knife.
In her disoriented and missing finger state, she offers no defense, and the blade hits her in the eye with a squishy sound. Dead, she vanishes behind the low barrier.
The eye-smears man snarls under his blood paint and redoubles his attack, launching an overextended swing with too wide a stance.
I dodge and cut his arm as I shuffle past to avoid being encircled.
This is the best I’ve ever fought. I even sense the thread inefficiencies in my opponents. There aren’t many, but every single millisecond delay or suboptimal movement gives me a subtle edge.
With measured fury, I jump at the remaining three, who don’t have a chance. Using deft sword strikes, I advance and feint, taking advantage of everything the environment has to offer.
When the dotted-nose woman slips on the slush leaking from my face-planted enemy, I rush in and slice her throat.
Seconds afterward, my stiletto finds the chin of the eye-smears man and plows through his brain.
As the hawk-face woman, my last opponent, charges with a bellow, I fling my sword into her chest. Terribly wounded but refusing to die, she stumbles at me.
With each staggering step, my fear rises and although winded, I raise my fists to meet her.
As she nears, her arms droop and her sword clatters on the street. Two steps from me, her mouth opens to flash a wide set of bright teeth.
I blast my right fist into the center of the bloody beak painted on her face.
Bone shatters and with blood and bits of teeth pouring from her smashed lips, she crumples at my feet.
As she draws her last breath, a happy shriek leaves my mouth even as my strength falters and I sink to the dusty street.
Who were these people?
The static fades and despite sitting alone in the semicircle, I’ve never been happier to be in a healthy body.
Because I’m lucky to be alive.
It was the best and most natural I’ve fought since the beginning. But I can’t celebrate because I’m not sure how to recapture that ability.
Who were those people?
I hunch and bury my face in my palms, letting my pent-up fears flow through my head.
When a soft pop announces Haiku’s arrival, I peek from between my fingers.
She applauds. “Finally, I was wondering if you ever would.”
Pulling my hands down to prop up my chin, I ask, “If I ever would what?”
“By yourself and outnumbered, you harnessed all of your talents and fought to your true potential.”
Although I hate to admit it, part of my success was not having worries about any teammates. “Why do you care?”
“It’s important for you to do well.”
Straightening, I slap my palms on my thighs. “I mean, of everyone who has died from your teams, why am I so special?”
As Haiku floats close, shades of blue float throughout her normally silver eyes, giving her a strange depth.
“Brin,” she says with enough emotion to get my attention. “Your performance in this scenario was very important. More than you know.”
It’s an odd admission.
“What do you mean?”
“You need to use your situational awareness more. Against every opponent, not only the toughest, you always need to perform at your best level. For every single battle.”
“I survived. Let’s not make a big deal out of it.”
“You should understand your importance in the world.”
The tone seems familiar, but I can’t place it.
“Who were those opponents?”
Her newly expressive eyes blink. “Each team varies in the quality according to a normal distribution.”
“No, they were different. You said worse things were coming. Were they part of that?”
She purses her lips, deep in thought. “Today, you won a great victory. And you need to continue to grow and perform at a higher level in the scenarios.”
“But what about them? The stares, the bloody face paint. What’s inside them!”
I shiver at the last words. The hatred and malice rolling from their bodies was unnatural.
“They are participants in the Ten Sigma Program, nothing more.”
“Weren’t you watching?”
“Of course, and you performed magnificently. By yourself and outnumbered, you harnessed all of your talents and fought to your true potential.”
I scrunch my lips, fuming at the repeated sentence. While I want more information about the strange opponents and why worse things are coming, Haiku won’t be forthcoming with any more details into the inner workings of the virtual world for today. I need to speak with Vela and making convoluted arguments to the little avatar falls around a million places below that. “Being that I’m the sole survivor, can we skip the debrief?”
“There is no substitute for procedures. Rules must be obeyed.”
I groan. Her insistence on performing a debrief promises to be excruciating. Letting my frustration take over, I say, “You send me to battles. I come back. You increase my score. I ask you questions. You skirt around them, not giving me any answers with any value. And I’m not interested in hearing a psychoanalysis.”
She glares.
I respond with a shrug because ultimately, I don’t care about an unhappy software construct.
After a moment, her cheery face returns along with her shallow personality. Then she politely chatters away while I stare and will her to finish.
Finally, as I reach the end of my patience, she floats back to the center of the room. Her happy voice gets happier. “And your sigma score has increased to 6.2!”
I might have imagined the whole emotional depth thing.
“Are we finished?”
She waves her hands, and I materialize on my mattress.
Under the faint starlight crawling through the high slats, everything is still. There’s no need to wait.
Determined to save Vela with the secret of the blue liquid, I pop out of my bunk and rush down the aisle.
When I get to her bed, it’s empty. With a nervous breath, I collapse beside it, waiting.
Hours later, when dawn peeks into the barracks, I have to accept my worst fears.
Vela is gone.
Thirty-Seven
Six scenarios pass after Vela’s non-return to the barracks. Besides killing and surviving, my seminal moment occurs when I come back alone from an impossible mission into the heart of a fiery city and cross the seven sigma barrier.
And mercifully, during this time, I haven’t seen any more face-painting opponents and have no reason to treat the blue liquid as anything other than a culin
ary-based entertainment source. At least for the moment, things haven’t gotten worse from that standpoint.
Kneeling behind the apex of a shallow hill, I shield my eyes from the midday sun hanging in the clear sky. In front of me, stout hedgerows growing on shallow embankments divide the green land into square fields. While a soft breeze laden with the smells of flora and trampled grass brushes past my face, I watch the last of the other side flee to the map’s edge, their panicked forms plowing through shrubs and stumbling over scruffy tracts of grass. Seeking easy kills to raise their scores, overzealous sigma chasers from my team pursue. Despite the gospel preaching parity between the competing forces, sometimes lopsided battles happen.
However, I don’t care about the impending victory. The alien sensation of happiness has replaced the dullness smothering my emotions. I’m almost shaking with nerves like a schoolgirl which, of course, I have no recollection of being.
Suri is on my side, but I’ve kept my distance. The disaster with Vela weighs over any desire to speak with another member of my original team. I wonder if she despises me too.
“You’re not a despicable person,” my annoying internal voice says.
Not needing the conversation, I pressure my temples with my fingers while shaking my head.
“Hey, are you trying to fling me out of your mind?”
“Maybe…”
“Well, it won’t work.”
“Ugh, you make me want to walk in front of the next bullet.”
“That’s not happening either.”
I hate my optimistic internal voice.
“I can still hear you.”
So not helping…
Despite the possible adverse reaction, the idea of speaking with Suri consumes my thoughts. If I don’t take the chance before she joins the chasers, she’ll be gone. I yell, “Suri!”
She stops and turns her head, her brows knit in puzzlement.
I stand, sending a tense wave.
For a moment, she waffles in indecision before the corners of her lips rise into a smile. She jogs up to my position, eyeing me as if I might be a mirage. Her cheerfulness is genuine, and when she arrives, I wrap her in a hug.
After we separate, she says, “I’m surprised to see you.”