“No.”
I decided to walk her out of there even if I had to use force. I reached forward and grabbed her hand, but she quickly pulled it free and took a step backward.
“Jen, if you don’t leave on your own, then I’ll have to make you.”
Two security guards popped up out of nowhere. The employee named Alex quickly filled them in on what was happening and they stood near me, one on either side of me.
“Sir, you have to return to your pod,” one of them declared.
“Hell I will.”
Each of them took hold of my arm and then they gently but firmly started to turn me around. When I tried to break free, they gripped my arms harder.
“Let go of me, you assholes,” I yelled at them.
They didn’t bother to answer to me.
“Hey, don’t hurt him,” Jennifer said.
She started after the two security guards, dragging me toward my pod, but the employee Alex stepped in her way and lifted his hands in a placating manner.
“Don’t you worry, miss,” I heard him say. “They won’t hurt your friend. I promise.”
The two beefy security guards kept half-dragging me across the room. Their fingers tightened around my arms as I made an attempt to break free. Those guys were strong, but I wasn’t weak myself.
I tipped my head back and then brutally jammed my forehead into the face of the man on my right. Since he was facing forward, the blow I had delivered only glanced his head. Still, it stunned the man for a moment and his grip on my right arm loosened.
Taking advantage of it, I freed my hand. When the guard turned his head to look at me, I smashed my fist into the guard’s nose and heard a sharp crack as the bone broke. Blood gushed from his destroyed nose, pouring down his mouth and chin. He roared in pain as he cupped his left hand over his bloody face.
I turned and started to hammer my fist into the second man’s face, who was still clinging to my left arm. I could feel his nasal cartilage crack and warm blood flow over his face. I continued to beat the man, hell-bent on flattening his face into pulp unless he let go of me.
Perhaps I would have if five more security guards had not come to my minders’ aid. The guard on my left finally released me. He and the other one I had beaten jogged away to have their ruined noses attended. As for me, I had five fresh opponents to deal with. Between the five of them, they managed to pin my arms down and half-dragged, half-carried me to my pod.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted two Slavic-faced players standing nearby and watching me, nasty big grins on their faces. They were clearly amused by the scene I had caused. One of them said something in heavily accented English to the other one and then they both broke out guffawing.
I also caught a glimpse of the big screen on the far wall, showing the countdown. There were less than sixty seconds left before the game started.
By the time we reached my pod, which was already open and ready for use, I had calmed down a little.
“Are you done with having a temper tantrum?” One of the security guards asked. “If we let go of you, are you gonna behave yourself?”
“Yes,” I said. “So you can get your paws off me already.”
They finally released me but still kept me circled in just in case. I looked back over my shoulder, but the security guards blocked my view of Jennifer.
“Would you get inside, please?” the employee said, motioning toward the big screen. “The time’s almost up. The game’s about to begin.”
I glanced back once more. Jennifer was somewhere on the opposite side of the room, but I couldn’t see her. I wondered if she had already climbed in her pod or was still standing there, looking in my direction.
One of the security guards stepped aside to let me get in my pod. Once I lay inside it, the employee swung the transparent glass door closed.
Only then the full realization of what was about to occur sank in. I was about to plunge in the game, Battle Royale Online. Out of a hundred players only one would survive. The odds of my winning were extremely slim. If a player died in the game, his or her pod would be deactivated, which would result in the player’s death.
However, I wasn’t worried about myself much. On the contrary, I thought about Jennifer. She was such a sweet girl. I couldn’t stand a thought of her getting killed. But the only way to prevent her from playing was to give up on my idea to play the game.
I made up my mind.
Lifting my right hand, I tried to push the transparent door open. It wouldn’t budge. What the heck? They had locked me in! I rapped the transparent door with my knuckles. Yet nothing happened. I waited for a second and tried again. Nobody walked up to the pod. I strained my ears, but the only sound that I heard was the soft humming of the pod. Where were the employees and security guards? Had they already left the room, or what?
I started to knock on the door hard with both my fists. The din I caused was tremendous. Still, nobody showed up. Either there was really nobody nearby or the pod was soundproof. Or they couldn’t care less about me, thinking that I was just thrashing around in another fit of uncontrollable anger.
“Let me out,” I shouted continuing to ponder at the door. “I’ve changed my mind! I don’t want to play!”
Nobody answered to me.
“Hey,” I yelled again as panic began to rise in me. “Is anybody there? Let Jennifer out! You hear me? Let her out! We ain’t gonna play your freaking game! We’re leaving!”
Still, no answer.
I punched and kicked at the door with all my might. The door wouldn’t budge and nobody came to my pod.
As I was about to shout again, the pod started to hum louder and I felt it vibrate.
In the next moment, everything went dark.
Chapter One
The darkness before my eyes lasted for about a second. Once it dissipated, I saw that the pod, the room, and everything else were gone.
A message appeared before my eyes.
> Pick a nickname. You can take any nickname you want even if it was already taken by another player.
There was no point in trying to make up some intricate nickname, so I just named myself Jason. It was my first name; hence the nickname.
The page before my eyes refreshed.
> Done! You’re now in the Preparation Phase. The Main Game will start in 29m45s. Up until that time, you can get acquainted with the game. Notice that you cannot kill other people or be killed while in the Preparation Phase.
Once I read the message, it disappeared.
I looked around to find myself surrounded by trees and dense undergrowth. Had to be a forest or something. I wondered how big it was. The sun was high in the afternoon sky. The sunlight filtered through thick foliage. I looked around the place, trying to get my bearings and decide which way to head. The vegetation was thick but negotiable. I started to jog west where the trees seemed to be more spaced out.
According to the game guide, I had been reading yesterday, as well as to the message I had just received, it wasn’t the main game but a preparation phase, as it were, to let players familiarize themselves with the game. In the preparation phase, players couldn’t hurt or kill each other. They were given about thirty minutes to get the hang of the game. When the time was up, the main game would begin.
Still, I ran through the forest, keeping low, crawling under low limbs and protruding foliage or skirting them where possible. Although I knew I couldn’t be killed in the preparation phase, I tried hard to attract as little attention to myself as possible. Just in case. Not that there were players nearby. Aside from dry fallen branches crunching under my feet from time to time, no sound reached my ears.
As I kept on running through the trees, I found myself thinking it was a very realistic video game. If not for the user interface before my eyes, I would never have been able to tell I was in the virtual reality and not in the real world.
My head-up display contained a health bar, a sta
mina bar, and a digit 0, which stood for my current level. As I ran, my stamina was gradually draining. When it reached zero, I couldn’t run anymore until it restored itself.
Suddenly, the trees opened up. I stopped just outside of the forest, which turned out to be just a thicket, and scanned the surrounding terrain. I was standing at the crest of the hill. The day was marked by a bright sun and a clear blue sky.
Below the hill was a road. I glanced in both directions and saw a small town to the north and a plain to the south. There was also a car at the left shoulder of the road, which looked exactly like a Jeep Wrangler.
Suddenly, there was a distance sound overhead. Looking around, I spotted a small helicopter looking like a McDonnell Douglas MD 500 Defender coming from the south. The rumble grew louder as the chopper closed in. Just to be on the safe side, I ducked back in the trees so that the player didn’t notice me. The low thrumming turned into a deafening whir of the blade rotors beating the air and whipping the branches and leaves as the chopper barreled over the thicket. It was flying low, just above tree level. It caused a mini hurricane of dust and fallen leaves all around me as it passed. The treetops thrashed in the chopper’s downwash and then the helicopter thundered away. It was heading toward the small town.
Figured. According to the game guide, weapons and equipment could be found in such ghost towns. No wonder players converged on such places. I decided to head for the town as well. If I got lucky, I would find some weapons in there before other players looted the place. Not that it mattered. Although it called the Preparation Phase, all the weapons one found would disappear when the main game began and one would have to scour the map for any useful items from scratch.
I pounded down the slope, dry branches crunching under my feet. Once at the base of the hill, I jogged toward the Jeep. The car wouldn’t provide much protection since it was topless and doorless. Still, it was better than nothing. I got in the driver seat, grabbed the gearshift, and slammed the car into gear. I opened up after I got onto the road, heading for the town up ahead.
I accelerated, shifting up through the gears until the car drove as fast it could. The buildings grew bigger as I got closer. It wasn’t long before I reached the town. After entering it, I slowed down. Shabby buildings lined both sides of the road. Aside from the rumble of the car’s engine, no sound reached my ears.
I pulled the Jeep up to the curb in front of a two-story building and climbed out. The street was very quiet. It seemed as though there was nobody in the whole town.
I tried the knob of the entrance door. It twisted easily and the door swung open. Surprisingly, the room was totally empty. There were stairs leading up to the second floor. I ascended the steps, taking them two at a time. Once on the second floor, I checked all the rooms but found nothing of interest. Either there had been nothing to begin with or the building had already been looted by other players.
I went on to search other buildings. One of the two-story buildings had a staircase leading to the roof. When I took the steps up and pushed the door open, I instantly saw a McDonnell Douglas Defender helicopter sitting on a helipad. The chopper looked exactly like the one I had seen earlier on.
The breeze brought a rustling sound to my ears. I turned and spotted a player standing at the edge of the roof and watching the street below. He stood sideways but acted as if he didn’t notice me yet. Or perhaps he didn’t care as players couldn’t get killed while in the Preparation Phase.
As far as I could tell, the player wasn’t armed. He didn’t hold any kind of weapon in his hands and there wasn’t a telltale bulge of a gun under his clothes.
Then I looked up at the player’s nickname hovering above his head.
> Name: Vic Morgan
> Level: 0
His name rang a bell but I couldn’t immediately remember exactly where I had heard it before.
And then it struck me. When I declared my intention to play Battle Royale Online to one of my few friends a couple of days prior, he told me that the game allegedly had some glitches. Sure enough, I asked him to elaborate. As it turned out, he didn’t know anything about said glitches, but he heard that some guy named Vic Morgan had been the last man standing a few times in a row, earning millions of dollars because he had supposedly hacked the game.
It was hard to swallow because if that were the case, the game moderators would long since find and punish the hacker. However, I decided to ask around, just in case. As things turned out, almost everybody who ever wanted to play Battle Royale Online knew of Vic Morgan. Some people I talked to opinioned to have won a few games in a row, he had to be either an experienced player or a very lucky guy. The others, like my friend, thought that Vic Morgan was actually a hacker.
Sure enough, I didn’t buy it. Had to be just a strange rumor going around that might not be true.
Or so I thought.
And here I was, standing on the roof in the game and looking at the guy I had considered to be pure fiction.
However, given players could pick any nickname they wanted, there was no way to tell if the guy in front of me wasn’t a phony. Perhaps, he had just taken the name of the infamous player to have an intimidating effect on his opponents.
All these memories and thoughts flashed through my mind in a second. The player was still pretending not to notice me. Or perhaps he wasn’t really aware of my presence.
“Hey,” I called out to him.
He idly turned to face me. He expressed no surprise on seeing another person on the roof. Suddenly, I realized that if he had been here all the while, watching the street below, then he must have seen me tooling around the town in the Jeep, as well as me entering the building, so he had been well aware that I would eventually show up on the roof and had been ready for it.
Our eyes met. The player seemed relaxed and self-confident. He watched me calmly, saying nothing.
“Are you really Vic Morgan?” I inquired, getting down to business right away.
A small smile touched his lips, yet he still didn’t bother to utter anything.
“I heard lots of rumors about a Vic Morgan,” I continued. “He’s said to have won a few times in a row. Is that true?”
The player simply clammed up, watching me with a small smile on his face.
“Okay, you can conceal the fact if you want,” I said. “But if you’re really him, I’d be very glad if you could give some tips on the game.”
“You shoulda read the game guide, duh,” he finally started speaking. “It’s full of various tips.”
“Sure I did. But a piece of advice from such an experienced player like you who’s got a few wins under his belt would be precious.”
My little flattery seemed to have had no effect on the player.
“Why should I?” He wanted to know. “When the main game starts, we’ll be enemies.”
“Enemies? You sound like you’re in a war,” I grinned.
“I am,” he replied with a deadpan expression on his face. “It is a war. Didn’t you get it yet? Players are going to kill one another. Not just the characters they play as. If you get killed in here, you’ll be put to death in the real world as well. Do you know what the developers unofficially call the pods our real bodies now lie in?”
“No.”
“They call them the players’ coffins. It’s a self-explaining name if you ask me. So tell me, why should I give you any pieces of advice? You’re my adversary after all.”
“There are hundreds of players in the game,” I observed. “The chances of your encountering me in the main game are extremely slim.”
Vic Morgan contemplated it for a moment, still hesitating. Then he made up his mind.
“Okay, I’ll give one piece of advice,” he finally gave in. “Then you get out of my face.”
“Okay. I’m all ears.”
“Never trust anybody.”
Once he said that, Vic Morgan started for the helicopter. He got in the cab without giving me a s
ingle glance.
The rotor blades started whirling around and very fast at that. In the real world, it would take a helicopter’s main rotor some time to reach takeoff speed in order to have enough power to haul the chopper airborne. In this game, however, the engine noise rose almost immediately and the rotors become a blur as the chopper was at takeoff revolutions almost in no time flat, causing a miniature whirlwind of dust.
I watched the helicopter ascending and thought about what Vic Morgan had just told me.
Never trust anybody.
Guessed it made sense. Given how little chances of winning a game of Battle Royale Online a player had, it was no wonder some of the participants were eager to team up with other players to get a sort of advantage over the others. Yet it could be very hazardous to completely trust the player you temporary called a truss with because he or she could easily shoot you in the back when you turned away.
Perhaps Vic Morgan knew this from bitter experience.
The helicopter disappeared in the distance. I walked through the rooftop door and took the stairs down to the first floor. After crossing the lobby, I pushed the entrance door, walked out of the building, and almost bumped into two players walking down the sidewalk.
“Hey watch where you’re going,” one of them snapped at me in a thick accent.
The twosome had the hard-edged look of Slavs. As I looked them over, I realized it was the same two guys who had made fun of me when I got in a fight with the security guards.
Their stats popped up in my HUD.
> Name: Mikhail
> Level: 0
> Name: Vladimir
> Level: 0
They recognized me as well. One of them nudged the other.
“Hey look, it’s the guy who got roughed up by those bouncers because of his girlfriend.”
The Last Player Standing: A Dystopian LitRPG Novel Page 3