“I'm done playing,” Carter said, cocking back the hammer. “Enough's enough. It's game over for you.”
My vision narrowed and all I could see was the gun. Carter closed one eye and took aim at my head. I swallowed hard and, with nothing else I could do, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Bang! Bang!
“Noooooo!” Kasie yelled.
Much to my surprise, my eyes snapped open. I thought I'd closed them for the last time but they opened right up at the sound of the gunshots. The second they did, I saw a bolt whiz through the air hitting Carter's hand. His gun fell to the floor and, when my eyes followed it down, I saw Krystal laying in a pool of blood directly in front of me – a big pool of blood.
She'd jumped in front of me a split second before Carter pulled the trigger. A waterfall of emotions crashed over me. Krystal sacrificed herself for me in the most selfless act I'd ever witnessed in my entire life. She'd told me that she dreamed of doing something important, something that mattered. She said that she wanted to be a part of something bigger than herself. And that's exactly what she did – as long as it ultimately lead to me defeating Carter.
Krystal's sacrifice both invigorated and infuriated me. I looked Carter in the face and saw an evil smile appear – more evil than ever before. I wanted to smack that grin off his face and make him suffer for what he did to Krystal – for what he tried to do to me. Carter stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled, getting the attention of the gang members in the vault.
“That's enough money grabbing,” he yelled. “We need to get out of here. Zip up the duffel bags and help me destroy these four – I mean three – meddling morons.”
“Meddling morons?” Amber repeated and laughed.
“Yeah,” Kasie added, “what are you, a sci-fi villain from like sixty years ago?”
“No. I'm a real life villain who's about to put an end to all three of you,” Carter replied to Kasie, then turned his attention to his goons. “Get them!”
The Hazmat-suit-wearing thugs started walking out of the vault, coming right at us. Carter took several steps backwards before turning around and walking into the vault. He was checking to make sure all the money was ready to go while his goons took care of us. They cracked their knuckles and stretched while walking toward me and the girls. We knew what we had to do.
“Girls,” I said, looking at Amber and then Kasie.
“Yes?” they both replied.
“Time to put all that training to good use,” I said. “Let's waste these dirt bags!”
“Dirt bags?” Amber repeated with a little chuckle.
“Yeah,” Kasie added, “what are you, an eighties vigilante?”
I don't know where I got “dirt bags” from – it just came out. As soon as I'd said it, I realized how silly it sounded. I shrugged my shoulders and tried again.
“Let's get these assholes!”
“There you go!” Kasie said.
“Much better!” Amber added.
The girls readied their weapons and I raised my fists. The goons had come about halfway across the room. There were six of them, not including Carter. He was busy in the vault making sure the duffel bags were all set.
Amber raised her crossbow and took aim at one of the goons. She pulled the trigger and a bolt whizzed through the air, hitting him in the center of his chest. Blood trickled out, leaving a red trail down the front of his Hazmat suit. To the guy's credit, it didn't seem to slow him down one bit. He just kept walking toward us – until a throwing star hit him right in the eye.
Kasie whipped a star at him and that did slow him down. Piercing his left eye, the goon fell to his knees and screamed out in pain. The throwing star slashed right through his protective face mask and stuck in his eye. He clutched at it as blood pooled out, covering the mask so he couldn't see at all, even with his one remaining good eye. One down, five to go.
Amber loaded another bolt into her crossbow and pulled back the string. The goons were closing in on us quickly. I started walking toward the one in front, though the next guy was only a couple steps behind him. As I walked, a throwing knife went flying past my head.
“Hey,” I yelled, looking back at Kasie, “that was a bit close!”
“Sorry!” she replied.
Kasie's throw might have been a little closer to my head than I would've liked, but it was right on target. The knife zipped past my head and ended up inside the head of one of the goons. It hit him right in the mouth.
“Arrrggghhh!” he screamed.
Blood poured out of his mouth as he tried to remove the knife from his face. Kasie must've really lodged it in there good, because he couldn't pull it out. The blood-soaked gang member stumbled around for few seconds, eventually collapsing to the floor. Two down.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I knew how to fight. I didn't have time to summon up the list of my skills, but I knew that my hand-to-hand combat score was an eight.
“Let's see if I can get it up to a nine,” I thought to myself.
I charged at the guy in front, grabbing him by the legs and lifting him up off the ground. He was a big dude and it surprised me how easily I was able to lift him. I slammed his big ass down onto the cement floor, right on his back where the oxygen tank was. Though I didn't realize it at the time, the impact actually put a crack in the floor. Kasie pointed it out to me a little later.
Speaking of my best friend, she chucked another throwing star at one of the remaining goons. Actually, she threw two stars at him. I was too busy pummeling the guy I had pinned underneath me to see her do it, but I saw the aftermath. The guy collapsed to the floor right next to me with a star in his chest and another in his neck. Blood was shooting out of both wounds, especially from the neck. After a few seconds of some pretty-intense twitching around on the floor, he stopped moving. Three down, soon to be four.
The guy under me was fading fast. I kept punching him in the head over and over again. Both of my fists hurt but I barely noticed. He did his best to defend himself against me but I could tell he was having trouble keeping his guard up. I cocked back my right arm and got ready to deliver the knock-out blow.
Then, I got kicked in the face and everything went black.
24.
When I came to, I felt like... well, I felt like exactly what'd happened – like I'd been kicked in the head. I opened my eyes and the room was spinning. It took a moment for things to come back into focus.
“Let go of me!” I heard Amber say.
“You're hurting me!” Kasie said.
I didn't see either of the girls right away but they sounded like they were behind me. I rubbed my eyes and tried to get up to my feet. It wasn't easy, as the room was still spinning a little bit, but I managed to stand up. I could see Carter still inside the vault checking all the bags, so I knew I'd only been unconscious for a few seconds. And, when I looked down, I saw that all the thugs were on the floor except one.
I turned around – but not too quickly – and saw the last gang member. He was the biggest of the bunch and had both Kasie and Amber pinned against the wall. The tall goon had one of his massive hands wrapped around each of the girls' tiny necks. Amber's crossbow was on the floor near her feet, as was Kasie's last throwing knife.
Seeing both girls in pain made me incredibly angry. As horrible as my head felt, I knew I had to act immediately. That guy could easily crush the girls' windpipes if he wanted to. I'd already lost Krystal and refused to lose anyone else.
I don't know if you've ever been kicked in the face, but it takes a lot out of you. Not only was the room still spinning and my vision blurry, I felt incredibly weak. I didn't have the strength or the balance to tackle him like the last guy I took down. And I didn't think that punching him in the head would do much, other than maybe make him angry. There was really only one thing that I could think to do. Doing everything in my power to not lose my balance, I took two steps closer to him.
�
�Hey,” Carter yelled to the guy, but not soon enough.
Bam!
Using every ounce of strength I had in my body, I kicked him square in the nuts. Instantly, he released both of the girls. They gasped for air – as did the thug. Amber clutched at her neck, the thug clutched at his balls and, as soon as she caught her breath, Kasie reached down and clutched at the throwing knife at her feet. Don't let the name fool you, though: A throwing knife can also double as a stabbing knife. Kasie bent down and grabbed it, then plunged it into the thug's side.
“Take that!” she yelled, stabbing him over and over until he collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood.
I took a second to survey the room. Next to me were Kasie and Amber, who was picking up her crossbow. On the ground next to Kasie was a thug with a pool of blood under him, still holding his crotch. Sadly, Krystal's body laid just a few feet away. Even as a corpse, the girl was insanely beautiful – in a non-sexual, non-creepy kind of way. In the middle of the room laid five more thugs, all but one of them covered in blood. The thug who I was beating up before getting kicked by his friend was the only one still alive and he was trying to sit up. Near the vault entrance laid the bank manager. And, of course, then there was Carter.
He stood at the entrance to the vault with eight big duffel bags at his sides. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I hoped it was remorse or regret or something of the sort. I knew that, in all likelihood, it wasn't, though. He was a selfish jerk in real life and the simulation just took all your traits and desires and amplified them. I doubted if he even cared at all about any of the deaths he contributed to, even the ones of his fellow gang members.
“You want me to...?” Amber asked, pointing at the guy trying to get up with one hand, waving her crossbow with the other.
I nodded. Not even a second later, a bolt flew out of Amber's crossbow, piercing the guy's neck. Even knowing that none of it was real, I still had a hard time watching a defenseless guy getting killed. But we all knew that, as soon as he was back on his feet, he was going to come at us again and we couldn't have that. The thug yelled out, clutching at his throat. Amber must have directly hit an artery because blood was squirting out several feet. It reminded me of the type of thing you'd see in a bad horror movie. Horrible as it was to watch the man bleed to death, it was no movie. Game, simulation, or whatever, I was experiencing it as if it were real. It all certainly felt real.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The three of us looked up at Carter. He was leaning against the side of the vault entrance, giving us a one-man slow clap.
“Well done,” he said, speaking slowly. “You've managed to figure out my plan and neutralize my men. Not the smartest bunch, but they certainly know how to follow orders. I guess I should've ordered them to not get killed.”
“It's over, Carter,” I said. “You're done. This ends here and it ends now.”
“Oh yeah?” he replied. “You gonna have your little girlies take care of me like you did with most of my men? Or are all three of you gonna gang up on me?”
I turned to Kasie and Amber and said, “Wait for me upstairs.”
“Are you sure?” Amber asked.
“James,” Kasie protested, “I think it'd be better if we all...”
In a stern voice, I cut my best friend off and said, “Go upstairs and find Melissa. Make sure she's alright. And be careful. There could be more Southie Soldiers that we didn't see.”
“Okay,” Amber consented.
“Yes, James,” Kasie reluctantly agreed.
Amber gave me a kiss on the cheek, then Kasie on the other. I could see it in their eyes that they were both afraid – especially Kasie. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't afraid myself. This was it. This was the culmination of everything that'd happened over the past week. Everything else had been leading up to this very moment.
Amber and Kasie turned around and walked out of the room and down the hall toward the elevator and stairs. They were both barefoot and, once they were around the corner, I could no longer hear them. Now it was just me and Carter. The hero and the villain. I eyed him from across the room and the following popped up in front of me:
Quest Complete: Isolate The Villain
1400 Exp.
Congratulations! You've reached level 6!
Stat Increase
50 Max HP
1 Strength
2 Defense
Skill Increase
[Physical] Hand-To-Hand Combat: 10/10 (+2)
[Physical] Fighting Dirty: 6/10 (+1)
[Intellectual] Quick Thinking: 6/10 (+1)
I couldn't have gone up a level at a better time. Not only did some of my stats, skills, and max hit points increase, my HP were restored to full. The lingering dizziness and pain from being kicked in the face suddenly disappeared and I felt refreshed. I could use any advantage I could get over Carter. Going up a level and being at full health would give me a nice advantage.
I thought to myself, “close,” and the words disappeared from my vision. Looking at Carter, I saw his eyes scrolling from side to side as if he was reading something.
“Nice,” he said, under his breath. “Level ten.”
“You just reached level ten?” I blurted out without thinking about it.
“That's right,” Carter replied with a smirk.
So much for my advantage. Now I realized that he had me at a disadvantage – and a significant one at that. I don't know how Carter could've gone up four more levels than me. I'd gotten into several fights, saved several women, and did a bunch of other things, yet I was only level six. He must've done a lot of villainous stuff to go up all those levels. I knew that he figured out he was in the professor's game before Krystal and I, so he must've used that time to get a leg up on us.
My anxiety grew and my heart started pounding. I hoped that sending Kasie and Amber upstairs wasn't the wrong thing to do. It hardly mattered now, so I did my best to put it out of my head and just focus on what I had to do – kick Carter's ass.
“There are two ways we can do this,” I said, knowing full well that there was really only one way this was going to play out.
“Let me guess,” Carter replied with a grin. “The easy way and the hard way. Am I right? You're too predictable. You always have been. That's why everyone thinks you're so boring – so ordinary.”
Ordinary – there's that word again. It stung almost as badly to get called ordinary by Carter as it had by Kasie. As much as I wished that it didn't bother me, it did. I couldn't stand Carter and wouldn't care at all about what he thought of me if it wasn't so damn true – I was ordinary. But not anymore.
Going through everything I'd gone through that week made me vow to stop letting fear and anxiety rule my life – to start really living. No one would ever call the week I'd had ordinary and, as soon as I got out of the simulation, I was going to make sure no one would ever call me that again. The experiences I'd had that week may not have been real, but the motivation and desire they cultivated inside me were very, very real.
“Is that your way of saying you don't want to do things the easy way?” I asked. “Because I'd prefer it if neither of us got hurt. We can do this the peaceful way.”
“The only one who's gonna get hurt is you,” Carter replied.
He unfolded his arms and started walking toward me. All of a sudden, I started getting tired. My eyelids got heavy and so did the rest of my body. The extreme fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks and I remembered what Melissa had told me and the girls. She said that the inhalers could wear off and, when they did, we'd feel strange. I knew that I had to take a couple more puffs from it to keep from passing out.
Carter kept walking toward me, closing in quickly. I reached into my right pocket where I thought the inhaler was, but it wasn't there. It was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open by the second. I reached into my left pocket and, much to my relief, found the inhaler. My mind was starting to feel really foggy. I dug the inha
ler out of my pocket and brought it up to my nose to take a puff from it, just in the nick of time. But, before I could, Carter punched me in the face and the inhaler went flying across the room.
“Looks like you're gonna die with a stuffy nose,” Carter said with a smile on his face.
I wished that the inhaler was only for a stuffy nose. If I didn't get a couple puffs of naloxone up my nose quickly, it would be game over – literally. The only problem was, my inhaler was on the floor behind Carter. I needed to summon every ounce of energy I had left to get to it. My whole body was weak and it wouldn't be easy, but it was necessary.
I tried to think of a witty comeback but couldn't come up with anything. My brain was barely functioning and I needed to use what little energy I had to get past Carter. I took a swing at him, but he easily dodged out of the way.
“This is gonna be even easier than I'd thought,” he said, the big, stupid smile still on his face.
Carter launched another fist at me and, again, hit me right in the face. I tried to block the punch but my reaction time was too slow. Standing up straight was getting hard enough. It was almost impossible to defend myself and fight back against Carter.
“Come on,” he said, “at least try to win. We both know you're gonna lose, but you look like you've already given up.”
“I'll never give up,” I mumbled, my eyes half shut.
Again, Carter hit me in the face. This time, it was an open-hand slap. He was just toying with me. He could see that I was in rough shape and wanted to prolong the fight as long as possible.
I just assumed that, since I was the hero, I would be able to defeat Carter. But, for the first time, I was seriously starting to doubt myself. My usual negative thinking started to creep in. Even in a game where I was the hero, I couldn't win. I felt like a failure. I felt like I was letting everyone down. I felt like I was letting myself down.
“You're even more pathetic than I'd thought,” Carter said, shaking his head. “You and your little girlfriends. I should've done to Kasie what I did to Krystal when I had the chance. I'll just have to go find her when I'm done with you. Maybe I'll make her my girlfriend!”
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