Life: Online: A gamelit novel

by Shiloh Hunt

  Kitty heard a noise beside her, too close to be the retreating Brad. She twisted around, mouth opening for a shout that never came. Sam, bloodied avatar on his knees, slammed his fist into her face. Her avatar spun away from the force of the blow, coming to a halt against the wall. She watched, avatar unresponsive as it recovered, while Sam lifted her rifle and took aim.

  His shot took Lucy in the neck.

  Lucy swung back a step, his free hand reaching up to his throat. Something squeezed at Kitty’s heart, wrapping her chest in bands of iron. Lucy took another step back and sank to one knee, the hand holding the grenade dangling at his side. There was another resounding crack of gunfire, and one of the soldiers toppled over backward.

  He turned to her, one hand clutching his throat, the other still clinging to the grenade, eyes blinking emphatically as he sagged back on his heels.

  “Lucy!” Kitty reached him. She grabbed hold of him before he could topple to the floor. “Your med-packs. You need to—” A sob cut off her words.

  A last crack of gunfire rang out. She heard the sound of a body slumping down behind her.

  Lucy’s hand fell away from his throat. The blood that poured over his neck stained his uniform. He went limp in her arms. Kitty bent over him and held him against her as she clutched at his avatar. Lucy’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.

  “I’ll respawn,” he whispered. “Don’t tell anyone that—”

  Lucy’s hand flopped down, and something clinked to the floor, the sound of its metal case rattling against the concrete clearly audible over the sudden silence.

  Kitty stared at the small container with frozen horror. Then her gaze lifted to Sam, yards away, his eyes wide. Kitty growled and vaulted herself over Lucy’s avatar, her foot flashing out to kick the grenade before it could come to rest.

  She spun around, scooped up Lucy, and slammed her shoulder into the first interrogation room’s door.

  An explosion rang out.

  The ground disappeared beneath her, returning seconds later with a vengeance that snapped both her avatar’s legs. She lost her grip on Lucy, ears singing as his body was ripped away from her. A deep, all-encompassing terror tore free inside her as she tried to stand and couldn’t.

  Her head struck something and a sudden influx of lights blinded her. And then a hand clutched her face, fingers pressing into her cheeks, thumbing back her eyelids.

  “…hear me? Kitty?” Sound returned. “Can you hear me?”

  That voice.

  Will had found her.

  51

  William fumbled with a med-pack and applied it to Kitty’s avatar with a shaking hand. There were so many of the things lying around — and not just med-packs but ammo, weapons, and other random game objects — that his inventory was full. All stuff Lucy had dropped when he’d died.

  Kitty’s eyes opened again, this time by themselves. Gold-flecked green irises fixed on him, her pupils widening. God, the game had gotten every detail right.

  “Lucy?” Kitty blinked up at him.

  William released her, flicking his fingers in the direction of the guy’s corpse. Kitty nodded, pushing herself up. She kept her eyes averted from the corpse as she rose to her feet.

  “Brad?”

  “Just as dead. Maybe even deader.”

  Another nod. Then, “Sam?”

  “Who?”

  “Uh, Panda Guy.”

  William shook his head. “Possibly the deadest of the lot.”

  “Now?”

  “Now we go home.”

  Another nod. She looked like she wanted to cry. Perhaps she was, back in the real world. In her sleep. It wouldn’t be the first time. She clambered over rubble to escape the corridor, William following close behind.

  “You pick up some weapons?”

  “Yes,” she said. “When I walked past—by Lucy’s…” Kitty waved behind them, to where Lucy’s corpse still lay.

  “He was a dick, Kitty.”

  “He’s coming back,” she said.

  “He was a loser.” William reached out and grabbed the soldier’s arm. “And we’re going home.”

  Kitty jerked her uniform free. “He’s coming back,” she said, louder than before.

  “Kitty, just—”

  “He said he’s respawning!” She spun around to face him, her avatar’s face set in a snarl. “Why would he lie?”

  “He was on his last life.”

  “How do you—”

  “In Fantasia.” William grabbed her arms again. She tried to jerk free, but when he tightened his grip she relented and twisted her face to the side. Her eyes squeezed shut.

  “He told me himself.” He gave her a gentle shake. “The guy’s dead. And we’re going home. So look forward, not back.”

  Kitty let him drag her down the corridor. They emerged into early morning sunlight, the jungle’s noise washing over them when they stepped into its shadow.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes before Kitty spoke again.

  “He’s a hacker. Or… a cracker or something.”

  “What?” William stared at her in surprise, but she was looking down, arms crossed over her chest.

  “Lucy. He is—” she compressed her lips for a second “—was. He was a hacker.”

  “How do you… why—”

  “He was arguing with Seriou—Panda Guy.” She looked up, but not at him: at the jungle ahead. “He was one too. They were here to hack into the game.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. We’re going home.”

  And then she peeked at him from under her lashes, a small smile on her lips.

  “We’re finally going home,” she said again, relief transforming her words into a hushed whisper.

  “Good God, don’t look at me like that,” William said, pressing his eyes closed.

  “What?”

  “You’re a…” William waved his hand at her. “You’re a fucking guy, Kitty. It’s just weird.”

  She laughed, but the sound was too tight, forced. “Sorry.”

  A bird called out a few yards away, the sound echoed by another further in the distance. Their avatars crunched through underbrush as they wove their way through the tangled jungle.

  “What happens when we get there? When we’re home?” Kitty asked.

  William drew breath before replying. “Look, Kitty, what I said in Play—”

  “You didn’t mean it?” Hope rendered her voice an octave higher; but William kept his eyes fixed ahead and forced himself to shake his head.

  “I’ll go stay with Francis. We can talk when this is all… once we’ve recovered. Maybe stay friends or something. But not… I can’t…”

  He shot her a stiff smile which she didn’t return.

  “You really don’t know what he was going to do? Lucy?”

  Kitty shook her head. “It makes sense, though. Finally.” She let out an audible breath. “I couldn’t understand why he kept lying to me. But now I do. Sort of. At least… I guess I can understand. He was using us.” She glanced at him, face expressionless. “For cover. So he could blend in. So the mods wouldn’t find him, I guess. And whatever he was going to do, it would strand him here, in the game. So it was like a suicide mission.”

  “Shit,” William said.

  The jungle opened up, the zip-line spearing toward the distant rock of the Arena coming into view. Kitty stepped up to it, but didn’t attach herself to it. Instead, she stared out over the glittering sea, her fingers visible where she clutched her avatar’s shoulders.

  “I always knew there was something off about him,” William said.

  “You were jealous,” Kitty said half to herself.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Why would he say he’d respawn? Why lie, when it didn’t matter anymore?”

  William gave a small shrug. “Maybe he was just fucking with you.”

  “Lucy wouldn’t do that.” She shook her head. “He’s not that kind of
guy.”

  “So what kind of guy is he then, Kitty?” He heard the acerbity in his voice… and so did she.

  She spun around with a scowl on her face.

  “He’s the kind of guy that saved me when he could have let me die.” She took a step closer. “He’s the kind of guy that didn’t care how good I was at playing.” Another step. “He’s the kind of guy that helped me find you, twice. That helped me rescue you, twice.”

  Kitty poked her finger into William’s chest.

  “That—” she spat “—is the kind of guy Lucy is.”

  A crunch of leaves announced a soldier a second before the guy stepped onto the stretch of pale rock they stood on. William jerked away, recognising the avatar’s black eyes.

  Lucy gave him a long look and turned to Kitty. His lips spread into a slow, sultry smile.

  “That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said about me.” Lucy stepped closer, laying a hand on the back of her neck.

  William glanced between the two, frowning. Kitty had brightened, her avatar’s haggard face slipping into a timid smile. William shuddered; Kitty’s fluttering eyelashes slapped on a male soldier’s face sickened him. Lucy didn’t seem to mind: the guy closed the distance between them and drew her close.

  “Hey—” William began, stepping forward.

  Kitty might look like a shell-shocked prisoner of war, but she was his shell-shocked prisoner of war. And this guy looked like he was about to spin her around and give her avatar a thorough—

  “But overly romanticized, I’m afraid.” Lucy’s head whipped around to face William. “Your comments were much more on par, mate.”

  A handgun appeared in Lucy’s hand.

  Kitty shoved him, and the bullet that would have taken William between the eyes took off his ear, instead. Lucy snarled and grabbed hold of Kitty despite her efforts to stay out of reach. William ran forward, but before he could grab his rifle out of his inventory and aim it at Lucy, their two avatars snapped out of existence.

  William stumbled, cart wheeling as he almost went over the side of the cliff. Lurching backward, he took two hurried steps away from the edge, spinning around to scan the scant clearing in case Lucy and Kitty were hiding behind a tree or something.

  They weren’t.

  The jungle had gone quiet.

  William grabbed hold of the zip-line as his legs sagged beneath him. Exhaustion clutched at him with long, sticky fingers. Every movement was a struggle.

  Where had Lucy taken her?

  Why hadn’t he listened to Kitty when she’d told him the guy would respawn?

  How could she have been so wrong?

  William turned to face the Arena. The black rock glittered in the sunlight. It was almost noon: his shadow was a dark blot beneath his avatar.

  He had no idea where she was and there was no way to find her. So what else could he do here? Nothing. What remained for him here, in the game?

  Nothing.

  William slid his hands inside the leather loops and pushed off from the cliff face.

  About halfway down, his hands began to slip.

  Level 13

  Shut the Back Door

  “Corporations have more power than the government.”

  Adam Jenson - Deus Ex

  52

  Kitty stumbled and caught herself against the side of a rain-slicked mountain that reared into a sky stuffed with boiling clouds. She spun around, pressing herself into the wet rock as she faced Lucy on a narrow path cut into the cliff face.

  Dressed in a tight leather carapace, his dark hair hanging to his shoulders, he looked more like an assassin now than he had that first day in Chimera. Perhaps it was just the stiffness of his shoulders, the thin line his mouth was set in.

  “What did you do?” Kitty asked unsteadily.

  “We’ll start here,” Lucy said, his hand sweeping out to take in the land sprawling below them. “I know there’s no possible way you could have dropped it in Chimera, but we’ll start here anyway.” He turned back to her. “You know why, Kitty?”

  She shook her head, crowding back against the rock as he stepped closer.

  “Because I know you’re tired. And as soon as you’re tired enough, you’ll do anything to get home. Because here, there’s no sleep. You’ll just keep going on and on.”

  He held up a leather encapsulated finger.

  “You begin dying after three days without water. First, your kidneys fail. Then you lapse into a coma. And your mind? Who knows?” He smiled mirthlessly. “Maybe you’ll just stay here forever.”

  A nearby thunder clap punctuated the end of his sentence with a very definite period.

  Lucy smiled at her. “So, shall we begin?”

  “Begin what?” she asked.

  “The hunt. I think the mines are a good place to start, don’t you? No horses down there. Just walking. Ducking, crawling, more walking. Very tiring.”

  He turned and started down the path.

  “No.”

  “No?” Lucy turned around. “Why do you assume you have a choice in the matter?”

  “Because I won’t tell you. Doesn’t matter how tired I am.”

  She lifted her chin as he came closer, but all he did was press his palm against the rock behind her and lean in.

  “You will tell me. Perhaps before you’re even tired enough to blame it on that. And you won’t regret it, either. Want to know why?”

  Kitty remained silent, glaring up at Lucy with as much fury as she could muster. He was right, of course. As usual. She was exhausted. Getting so close to the end, only to have it snatched away, had drained her last reserves of energy, as meagre as they’d been. And now he stood here, intimidating her with his black eyes and his snarky mouth and—

  She shoved him.

  Hard.

  As hard as she could.

  She even screamed as she did: yelling a single, warbling syllable that made no sense other than to voice her rage better than an hour long monologue ever could. Lucy’s eyes widened, both arms spreading out in a slow, futile search for something to grab hold of, but of which there was nothing.

  Then he was gone.

  It had been a narrow footpath, with no barriers to prevent exactly the kind of accident Kitty had just forced upon the man. Her chest rose and fell a few times as she reigned herself in. She peeked over the side of the cliff, her hand still touching the shimmering rock behind her.

  A few strips of fog were closing over the hole Lucy had torn through them during his descent. She slid down the wall with her back and gripped her knees.

  So this was how she died. Here, in Chimera. It would end where it had all begun. She buried her face in her knees and tried to cry.

  Footsteps crunched closer.

  She didn’t lift her head, knowing who it would be.

  “You lied,” she said.

  Lucy didn’t speak.

  “You told Will you only had one life left. You’ve been lying this whole time.”

  “I beg your pardon? I have never lied in my life, dear.”

  Kitty sprang to her feet. She faced a tall wizard, gaping for words as he calmly watched her, his fingertips touching his chest.

  “You must be lost,” the wizard said. He held out a long, skinny hand, the bell at the end of his beard tinkling merrily. “May I accompany you home?”

  “Home?” Kitty whispered. “Like home, home? Real home?”

  “Home,” the wizard confirmed.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am a game moderator,” the wizard said. “Rumple’s my handle, if you must know. Now, how about we get you out of here?”

  Kitty extended her hand. Here, her avatar was the same delicate-boned elfling she’d been when she’d sent Will out over Chimera’s choppy waters and, inadvertently, straight into a garage in Torque.

  Her fingers folded over the wizard’s hand.

  How had that even been possible? How could her spell have vanished Will into a completely different rift? It wasn’t even
as if the glitch had anything to do with it. That had come later—

  “It wasn’t you, dear. It was the cracker. Lucy.”

  Kitty’s fingers contracted, her eyes sliding up to the wizard’s face. He still wore the same pleasant smile as before, but his eyes had hardened. His gaze pierced into her as if he was trying to unravel her thoughts and draw them out through her pupils in a single thread of conscious intent.

  “He made William disappear,” Rumple said. “I suppose that made it easier for him to—” the wizard’s lips moved silently for a few seconds “—for him to lure you into accompanying him across the rifts. In eternal search of your partner. A valiant quest indeed, and one which a courageous young lady such as yourself wouldn’t shy away from.”

  Kitty jerked at her hand, but the wizard’s grip was as unyielding as steel.

  “I met him, you know.” Rumple smiled. “Your… William. Nice enough chap. Bit of a joker, really. He led me to you, of course. But after all that nasty business with the grenade… Well, I decided to meet with you in private before making my intentions known.”

  “What—the—fuck—are—you—talking—about?” Kitty said through gritted teeth.

  “I’d have thought you would be more grateful.” The wizard sniffed. “I am, after all, liberating you from the snares of a very dangerous young man.”

  “Let me go,” Kitty said, tugging on her hand again.

  “But I’m going to take you home,” Rumple said, his bushy gray eyebrows colliding above his nose. “Don’t you want to go home?”

  “Ja but, not… just let me go!”

  “I need to know more about Lucy, dear. I need you to think about him for me. Can you do that?”

  His eyes narrowed. Kitty’s thoughts scattered, cannoning through her mind like a bunch of ping-pong balls let loose in a squash court. And, as if that tentative grasp she’d had was all that had kept it at bay, pain washed through her, shooting up from the lower half of her body and splintering into shards of agony.