by Arthur Stone
He had no idea where he was, and he’d never visited a region quite like this. This vegetation wasn only marginally easier to navigate than the wilderness he’d left. Short, bulbous trees dotted the area, their leaves narrow and graying. Dried-out grass rose nearly to his waist. The soil was dotted with abnormally bright bald spots, likely salt crystal formations. This new cluster was far from a green paradise, but certainly a cut above the grasshoppers’ desert. At least he wouldn’t die of thirst. Water, water, everywhere—but he had to find alcohol as quickly as possible, with no signs of civilization to go by. After finishing his quick meal and filling his water flask, he’d head in a random direction in search of buildings.
Wait—what was that? An unexpected sound from the sky interrupted his progress. Gradually, he recognized it…with the help of an unfolding, unlocked memory. Nearly choking, Cheater lifted his head and stared. Before him was something unimaginable on the Continent, something miraculous, something he’d only encountered in his past life. Before him was an airplane. It was a massive airplane, the kind that carried hundreds of passengers thousands of miles—and it was going down. Falling straight out of the air, it spun on its axes as it went, its detached wings forming colossal boomerangs as they hurtled downwards. As the tail broke off before his eyes, it rotated to spin like a top. The disaster vanished from sight behind the crown of a large, silvery tree, leaving only fragments fluttering through the air. A column of dark smoke ascended; a few seconds later, a staggered series of crashes pummeled his eardrums.
Cheater had heard of events like this—they happened regularly on the Continent. This airliner had loaded in with a cluster reboot. Either the pilots had gone nuts, or the black clusters had done their work on the machinery, killing important electronic systems. Incoming airplanes had terrible prospects here. Their pilots became disoriented by dead clusters as they sought to land, areas as effectively anti-aircraft as the finest flak guns.
Cheater continued to chew his tuna as he watched the smoke billow upwards. It was stultifyingly obvious that the crash site was less than three miles away. He doubted the flight attendants would still be serving meals and drinks…but self-service was still very much an option. There was a hitch, of course: the local infecteds weren’t blind, and certainly not deaf. They’d obviously heard the unusual sound and would see and smell the smoke. The wreckage would become their guiding star, magnetically attracting them from all over. Any beast who arrived in search of food and drink would find only searing disappointment and pain. Still, the plane crash could play to his benefit.
For now, the river would be a safe place. Infecteds along its bank would abandon it to rush to the disaster zone. He’d rather not go out on the water—there, he’d be visible to infecteds on the opposite bank, ones who might very well risk a swim to reach a player. He could, however, travel the bank, maintaining cover by reeds and trees. Flowing water was an excellent path for a lost man to follow. Sooner or later, he’d arrive at some kind of civilization. In every civilization and era, people frequently settled alongside bodies of water—why should the Continent’s inhabitants prove any different? Finishing up the last of his tuna, he stashed the can in his backpack. This wasn’t for a personal aversion to litter, per se; Cheater had learned that every scrap was potentially valuable for future crafting. He was officially a hoarder.
Cheater took a moment to remind himself to cool it with his Choppa swings. As enthusiastic as he was about totaling that cohort of weak infecteds, he shouldn’t have left such a messy eruption of blood and guts in his wake. Had he not created such an ocean of gore, he could have salvaged some useful clothing. The conditions of the creatures’ rags indicated they weren’t too fashion- or hygiene-conscious, but he wasn’t one to talk—his current ensemble wasn’t fit for a scarecrow at a landfill.
Chapter 16
Life Nine. Food, Water, Shelter
Cheater reached civilization within an hour. First, he crossed a road—well, more of a trail, actually, made up of ruts with grass growing between them. At the river’s end, he saw a clearing built for fishing, swimming, and relaxation. He followed the road out from the river until it grew paved; a little further, he found a town’s welcome sign. The silvery trees had given way to lush greenery, and he could make out the corner of a shingled roof through their branches. Besides this, nothing else could be seen. The neighborhood’s lush forests made for poor visibility, dashing his dreams of safely surveying the area for threats.
He did not follow the road into town, of course. After sneaking alongside it up to its first fence, he checked the area with Omniscience. His attempt to mark objects that stood out frustrated him. Everything created by human hands was illuminated, from asphalt to garbage to buried ruins. Failing to filter out any truly useful information, Cheater employed his ability again, this time selecting living things. Through this view, he surveyed as trees and bushes bristled with flowers, a squat pigeon perched on a branch, fidgety sparrows fluttered on wires and small rodents poked out of their little holes. Cheater didn’t know for sure what infecteds might look like in this view, but he doubted they’d be easy to miss.
Shaking yet another tick off of his hand, he headed through the grass to the nearest house. He wasn’t “sneaking”, per se, but he still kept noise to a minimum as he crept over an array of flowerpots. Discovering its doors and windows locked, he pondered the wisest way to gain entry to the house. Choppa could cut through anything, of course, but that approach was anything but subtle. Who knew what villains might be lingering nearby? He moved to the next house, discovering its two doors were also locked. One looked shaky, however, so Cheater decided to try to break it down without making too much of a racket. The crash site had ceased smoking some time ago, but gaggles of infecteds were most likely still trampling around the area.
Cheater first slid the tip of Choppa in between the door and its frame. He then began to wiggle it, pushing the two wooden surfaces apart until they cracked. He killed twenty minutes this way, failing to make any visible progress. Still, he feared making noise, which excluded all other options. Placing himself in the house owner’s shoes, he rooted around for a hidden spare key. This proved fruitless: even after he used Omniscience and specified “keys”, he discovered that all of them shone safely inside the house. Returning to the previous dwelling, he tried again—and found himself in luck. A weighty ring of keys sat waiting for him beneath a rock, and the first key he tried...opened the door! He was happy to find a new use for his ability. Everyone else seemed to enjoy telekinetic abilities and had no problems opening locks. Cheater, however, had to rely on other methods.
A few minutes later, Cheater was voraciously downing jars of pickled tomatoes and piles of homemade smoked meats, washing the feast down with lifejuice made with vodka. He had Omniscience to thank for finding all of these goods. Although it couldn’t quite show him finer details, the skill highlighted everything asked of it without fail. Finally sated, Cheater tossed off his rags and scrubbed with tepid water from the “hot water” tank. It was his first time properly washing in two weeks. Once clean, he rummaged up a perfectly inconspicuous set of clothes to wear—mediocre, yes, but it would work until he found something better. Now, it was time to sleep. The night had been tumultuous, so he’d earned a rest. How many days had it been since he’d laid on a proper bed? He’d lost count, but knew it was time to catch up.
Before closing his eyes, Cheater granted Kitty leadership of the party. He smiled to see this little bit of communication go through; while it wasn’t direct, it was better than nothing. He knew what would happen now—Kitty would, sooner or later, return the role to him. Like Cheater, she probably watched the party window on and off, so he never knew when she’d revert leadership. Their connection was unpredictable, which was far more fun. After all, a little variety never hurt in a relationship.
***
It was twilight when Cheater woke up. The System timer didn’t rouse him; a car engine did. Players slept lightly in this world, he
knew, or they wouldn’t be players for long. Jumping out of bed, Cheater snatched his rifle and hid by the window. As the sound approached, he saw the frame of a heavy, home-armored truck flashing through the branches. This was a typical Continental mode of transport for players. Even bots didn’t hesitate to make such upgrades, though they might prefer better equipment. As the vehicle sped onwards, it was clear no passengers noticed him; either way, Cheater decided to leave the house no matter the outcome. There had to be shelter further from the road. He paused for a moment to let a few pursuing infecteds follow the truck off into the distance. He couldn’t quite tell how many of the beasts tore after the vehicle, but it was likely only two or three. This reassured him further that the ghouls had rushed to the crash site. After holding for a few beats longer to let everything settle, Cheater moved stealthily towards a new home, located its keys and made his way in.
The moment he lay down, shots rang out. He looked outside to discover these short bursts sounded from a large-caliber machine gun accompanied by a dozen light rifles and, from time to time, the clap and bang of grenade launchers. At one point, something intimidatingly large exploded. The sound of battle died down as quickly as it had begun, however—it sounded as though someone flanked the pinned-down enemy to toss in the skirmish’s final remarks. Everything went quiet. He estimated the battle transpired a mile away, perhaps slightly further. Distances often became distorted in the silence of the night. He judged that the vehicle was heading in the direction of the battle, thwarting his plans to pass that way in the morning.
March’s chat window remained grayed out, meaning that there were still dead clusters between him and his would-be interlocutor—whether or not the man had left the desert himself. The best way to find a clear signal would be to ask a player, and the best place to ask a player would be at a stable. Meeting someone out in the open could naturally spell trouble. Physic and Georgy—who sometimes went by Mosey—were decent guys who’d gotten along without conflict. Cheater found himself saddened that they hadn’t made it to the border and so earned no reward for the crossing. When he first encountered them, however, the two were ready to shoot. That was normal: players had to be chronically suspicious and on-edge by nature. This wasn’t helped by the fact that they weren’t all that bright.
Cheater knew that the destination of that truck would be a stable...but who wanted to approach the site of an unknown battle? Cheater’s only other option would be to wander at random, hoping to eventually reach a stable or some decent players in his aimless ambling. No. The battlefield was the only way. The victor wasn’t likely to stick around for long; after looting their enemies, they would clear out before any big bad monsters arrived to investigate the noise. He doubted that infecteds factored in the conflict, either. It wasn’t customary to collect everything from the broken bodies and smashed vehicles of the fallen; weapons, ammo, lifejuice, and ghoul loot were the items in most demand. Those were not Cheater’s primary needs, and he wouldn’t dream of risking his fortune for the sake of a few miserable trophies. What he valued more was the information he could gather from the bodies that hadn’t yet turned to black dust. For example: if all of their Humanity scores were red, they were probably moles. In that case, he’d seek out those who vanquished them, as mole hunters in general respected high greens like him and would likely react to him positively. He might find something else of use on the field, too—a clue, here or there. First, he would sleep a few more hours. He could mull things over on the way.
***
Cheater hid his most valuable unbound treasures in a tiny stable. He selected an ordinary, commonplace triangle stable, one he doubted would interest anyone. These spots occurred at the point where three clusters met. The border was visible only for the powerlines it cut off. Information about any cluster could be obtained by placing a hand on the ground and going into inspect mode. This didn’t reveal much, but any stable clusters were explicitly marked “stable.” Cheater climbed into some bushes, dug a hole with a shovel he’d swiped from the village and covered the ground with looted greenhouse plastic. After placing his treasure within, he sighed—it was an objectively mediocre cache, and it wouldn’t take high Perception to notice it straightaway. But who would be wandering through these remote thickets to find it, anyway? The road the truck had traveled lay half a mile away, and even the strongest sensor couldn’t pick up such details from that distance. No one in their right mind would waste their mana wandering forests and fields on some vague, misguided treasure hunt. At least, this is what Cheater told himself. Despite his reasoned self-soothing, prevailing panic dug its claws into his hard with a feline fervor. How could he leave so many valuable things unprotected?
Still, this cache was a weight off his shoulders—in a literal sense. His load had been heavy and uncomfortable on his spirit and spine alike. A walking treasure chest was far easier to spot than one buried in a secluded location. While he hated to leave it behind, carrying it was far worse for his sanity. Cheater made a mental note to find a decent backpack, one to replace those that had so tormented his shoulders. They were simply not designed for heavy loads. Good backpacks were, of course, not easy to come by, so he’d have to keep an eye out.
***
With the crows as his guides, Cheater’s search did not take him long. Squawking and circling overhead, their ominous presence meant that players weren’t the only parties at battle; in fact, they might not even have been present at all. Scavengers could not benefit from players, since they disintegrated shortly after death. The slain were either bots or infecteds. They could have even been digis yet to turn who’d decided, in some crazed, delirious stage of early infection, to play at war. He couldn’t tell from afar. The road inclined slightly before sloping down into the battlefield’s depressions. All Cheater could see was the top of a reinforced vehicle, perhaps that of the very truck that had zoomed by him overnight. It was obvious that this truck would certainly never zoom anywhere, ever again. What little he could see of the vehicle was burned, twisted and melted into a modern art piece. The barrel of the machine gun mounted in its turret pointed forlornly towards the skies.
Crows were cautious birds, so their tranquility was a good sign. Cheater likely had no looting competitors on the scene to contend with. Therefore, Cheater didn’t hurry. Instead, he spent about an hour studying the terrain from various vantage points. Only one “threat” was found: a lonely hare, wrinkling its nose as it crept slowly along the edge of a wheat field. Smiling wryly at the sight, Cheater inwardly affirmed that paranoia was good in moderation, then marched off towards the field.
***
He was unsure whether this totaled truck was the one from his wake-up call; after all, he’d only seen it briefly, in the darkness, at a distance and obscured by trees. That said, life had since been so unkind to the thing that even its very owner would be hard pressed to identify it. As it climbed the incline, it had evidently been hit by the gun of another combat vehicle. Telltale shells—14.5 millimeter—were scattered nearby, likely from the heavy machine gun he’d heard that night. An anti-tank grenade fired from the side of the road had struck its driver’s-side door. It was evident infantry had promptly followed up, as everyone who’d sprung to escape from the burning truck were riddled with bullets and shrapnel.
Cheater investigated the shooters’ patch of grass. He found spent cartridges of various calibers, but not a single drop of blood. Whoever had arranged this ambush really knew their stuff: they had smashed the enemy quickly, took no losses, grabbed everything
of value, and left. Or...might they have grabbed more? Cheater then spotted some disturbing details, ones which made him instantly want to turn tail and flee—but he had to investigate. He crouched down over the first corpse and activated inspect mode.
Object: potential infected human. Currently presumably immune. ID 843-442-843-809-171. Unidentified. No Continental skills detected. Current carrier nearing expiration.
It was as bad as he had feared. This was no
t a bot. It was a digi—a special kind of digi. A digi was an immune NPC which came in a variety of types; Cheater had met neutral and even friendly ones, but he had yet to encounter a hostile digi. Cheater knew little about this particular digi’s life, but he could tell this poor fellow had endured a nasty, drawn-out death. Cheater could see he wasn’t the only one tortured by these unknown attackers: some had other died from bullets, shrapnel, or fire, but many showed signs of serious torment. Cheater had come across so much cruelty on his travels, but never something as vile and wanton as this. Why? Here, loyalty wasn’t valued. Anyone would instantly crack under torture here, and anyone would beg to be finished off quickly—but everyone unlucky enough to survive this fight had been mutilated.
He heard the grumbling of nearby ghouls, murmuring amongst themselves. They didn’t sound too scary, nor could they see Cheater—he maintained a secure hiding place behind the lower body of the trunk, scorched tires sinking it nearly to the pavement. His Chameleon was active, too. It cost mana to sustain, but if he switched it off, he would have to deal with its significant cooldown and steep re-activation cost. It was easier to sustain it while he went about his business. Suddenly, an unexpected noise punctuated the grumbling: an incomprehensible wheezing, transforming into an agonizing moan.