by Wyatt Savage
“Why would anyone go there?”
“Because there is also treasure inside. Loot. Worth enough points to allow a participant to rise many levels, to attain powers that no mere human has ever possessed.”
“Then it is like a dungeon,” Jorge offered. “Like in one of those games. Hopefully there is not a dragon inside.” He laughed. Jackie and Armando did not.
Jackie pointed at the image of the dungeon. “Where is it?”
Armando circled his finger again and the images changed to a map. There were two white dots separated by a line. One of the dots was Armando’s hacienda, and the other was the construct. “The entrance is out in the valley, maybe eight kilometers from here.”
Jackie watched as a single yellow dot appeared. The dot began moving toward the hacienda. “What is that?”
Armando scowled. “A monster. They have sent a monster to attack us.”
Shouts echoed at the back of the house. Several men ran into the great room. They shouted in Spanish and Jackie made out the words “It,” and “Coming.”
“It is larger than the other ones,” one of Armando’s men said. “Much larger.”
Armando nodded and stood as the three-dimensional images faded away. “Good. They have sent a warrior to us, and we will send a warrior to them.” He pointed to Jackie and Jorge. “Get ready. We will go and meet the devil halfway.”
11
Taking the Fight to the Enemy
Jackie followed Jorge and Armando outside. Armando’s army of men and women were already strapping on body armor, grabbing their weapons, ready to throw down. Armando did not shrug on any body armor; rather, he carried a simple black pistol, moving down to get a better look at the valley.
“No time to have doubts,” Jorge said over his shoulder, turning and heading for the illuminated metal dome bunker. “We need to choose our supplies.”
Jackie joined him in rushing to the weapons cache, where the door was still ajar. Inside, she considered the array of heavy-powered firearms. They would certainly be of use, but she couldn’t carry much and still make good time. Maximizing how much damage she could inflict with less was her best bet.
She wouldn’t be able to carry more than one grenade launcher, and that was only going to be effective once or twice. The assault rifles were the best offensive weapons, but also cumbersome, and they wouldn’t last long. The small arms were something she could carry but they wouldn’t pack much firepower and likely weren’t powerful enough to get the job done against what they were facing. Grenades, which were small enough that she could carry several and powerful enough to inflict damage, were a definite yes.
She stuffed several into a military-grade backpack that had a multitude of smaller pockets along the lining. She then snatched the thinnest air-sealed meals-ready-to-eat available, along with plastic tubes of antibiotic cream, matches, bandages, and several small syringes. The key was survival and gaining an edge—especially one based in her medical experience and knowledge—would give her an advantage over the other combatants, human and otherwise.
Next, she gathered a few small and manageable offensive weapons that few others would have considered worth acquiring. Besides a compact cylindrical grenade launcher, the weapons included a small potato gun with a long barrel meant for planting seeds, a pistol-shaped spud gun that was meant to be a toy to fire small chunks of potato at short range with limited power, and finally a handful of small vials of ammonium nitrate, consisting of the chemical formula N2H4O3, a white crystal solid that’s soluble in water. The ammonium nitrate was primarily an agricultural fertilizer, but it had a secondary and more dangerous use: it could be used to create improvised explosive devices. All that needed to be added was fuel oil, resulting in ANFO (ammonium nitrate fuel oil). She grabbed two small canisters of that as well.
She was halfway through loading everything into the backpack when it hit her. How had she suddenly known about the chemicals and how to use them? How could she possibly know about these things? Sure, she’d acquired some knowledge in school and while working in hospitals, but not all of it. Not even remotely. And yet, the information was coming to her, streaming, an alien presence hardwired into her gray matter that was telling her what to grab, why, and how to use it. She wondered whether it was because she was classified as a mage, whatever that really meant.
Jackie instinctively knew that most countries had taken measures to limit the use of the ammonium nitrate due to worries over its destructive potential. She imagined that Armando held a large stockpile, probably for use in farming. The spud guns were likely meant to keep their families occupied and distracted from a siege on the compound as toys, but she knew they could be useful in other ways. No matter the original intent, she was glad she’d found something she could repurpose for their current situation and that it was small enough that it would fit into her backpack. All of the weapons and gear were added to her stats as chattel, but she found that she was able to delete certain items, so as to keep the information on her HUD manageable.
Before she could exit the illuminated metal dome bunker, her HUD flashed, notifying her that she needed to check her current status, profile, and stats. She selected the notification and focused on her stats, which read:
Species: Homo Sapiens (Leon, Jaqueline)
Chattel: 5.7 mm pistol; Roundworm Parasites; ANFO Salt; Spud Gun; Potato Launcher; Grenade Launcher
Health:9.5/10
Level:1
Class:Mage
Kills:24
Vitals:BP – 119/80; T – 97.09f; RR – 12bpm
XP:625
Since it was too early to spend XP on another medpack and since she felt satisfied with her decisions, she turned for the exit and chuckled at the sight of Jorge. He looked like an undersized and under-muscled Rambo decked out in as many bandoliers as his shoulders could carry, a shotgun, a pouch of grenades, a grenade launcher/assault rifle combo, an armored vest, and two thigh holsters with fully loaded pistols.
“How do I look?” he asked, smirking and proud of himself.
“Back in the day we would’ve said you look like a tool,” Jackie answered.
Jorge beamed as if it were a compliment. “A tool of destruction. I like this description. I think we’re ready.” He paused as he looked her over, noticing that she only carried a backpack. “Please do not tell me that you’re still reluctant to fight. Have you not seen enough? We face death. You must fight back.”
Despite how goofy he looked, she found him endearing. He had, after all, been loyal, saving her after the attack on the taxi. She didn’t feel the deep bond one felt after spending a significant amount of time together, but he was growing on her in short order—like bacteria, but in a good way.
“I’ll be fine, Jorge. I’ve simply chosen items that fit my natural skills.”
He shrugged, barely able to lift his shoulders under such heavy weight. “Suit yourself. We have to go!”
After rejoining Armando on the outcropping that overlooked the valley, Jackie read the information flickering across her HUD, flipping through screens to see what kind of monster approached. Unlike before, there were no specifics on the monster type or what it was capable of. She wondered whether the monster had the ability to block them from reading its stats. Whatever the reason, they were all flying blind.
“Can’t get a read on it either, huh?” a familiar man asked from behind.
Jackie looked back to see Jorge, sweating under the weight of his large weaponry load.
“Nothing,” she replied. “That can’t be good.”
“No, it’s not. I may not have your education, but I am a smart man, and I recognize your intelligence. We should do everything we can to find out more before the next leg of our journey.”
Nodding at each other as if reading one another’s minds, they shuffled down the embankment for a little privacy and to get a better look, away from the others. Unfortunately, the reading wasn’t any clearer there.
“You have friends in high places,�
� Jorge whispered, glancing back and up at Armando, who was barking orders to a dozen or so of his foot soldiers. “You do know who he is, don’t you?”
“He’s not my friend. I saved his son’s life. That’s all it is.”
“Lucky for us. He is, what we call a ‘dry one,’ Jackie. A man who walks between the raindrops. Do you know what that means?”
“Cartel?”
“He is bigger than just one cartel,” Jorge said. “People literally live and die on his word. There are songs written about him, Narcocorridos. Y’know, ‘Con un cuerno de chivo / y bazuka en la nuca / volando cabezas / al que se atraviesa,’ with ‘an AK / and a bazooka taking aim / he blows the heads off anyone who gets in his way.’”
“I must’ve missed that one on my Spotify recommendations,” she replied. Off Jorge’s snicker she added, “Whoever he is, and whatever he’s done in the past, he’s helping us now.”
“Si, and for that I am most grateful.”
“Then let’s not talk about it anymore. Let’s not mess up the plan.”
“What plan is that?”
“We’re going to that dungeon in the sky.”
“We?”
“You and me,” she replied.
“Who said we were a team?”
“Who said we weren’t?”
Jorge paused and Jackie noticed something behind him. What looked like a storage shed. Something dangled from the top of it. She and Jorge strolled over to see that it was a cluster of dead rats hanging by their tails under a lamp. Moths and swarms of bugs, attracted by the light, flew sorties around the dead vermin. Jackie noticed that something had been painted on the back of the shed. A mural of sorts, a skeletal female figure clad in a long white robe. The woman held a scythe in one hand, a globe in the other.
“Do you know what that is?” Jorge asked.
“No.”
“Santa Muerte. The sicarios pray to her.”
“What is she?”
“A kind of…goddess of death.”
The eyes of the skeleton seemed to bore right through Jackie. Jorge tapped Jackie on the shoulder. “I see some of the goddess in you, Jackie Leon.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, smacking her lips.
“You have changed. I feel that you are finding yourself in all of this.”
“I’ve adapted. That’s all. Don’t read too much into it.”
Jorge laughed at this. “Now you sound like an abogado…a lawyer…a person who speaks out of both sides of their mouth at the same time.”
Jackie saw that the door to the shed was partially ajar. She opened the door to see a bare bulb dangling from a string. She tugged on the string and the bulb sizzled to life to reveal a small shrine inside. Melted candles surrounding images of Santa Muerte, skeletons, what looked like other religious idols and wax-covered photos of Armando, a beautiful woman, and Armando’s son. Feeling as if she was privy to something she wasn’t meant to see, Jackie closed the door.
Pivoting, she saw Jorge walking back up toward the others. A feeling of absolute serenity came over her and the words Simon had said before rattled around in the backwaters of her mind. “Some people find themselves in the Melee. Some people find themselves in the Melee…”
A loud searing sound pierced her ears, interrupting her contemplation. A beeping noise indicated on her HUD that the beast was close at hand. It was time to move out.
12
Secret Weapon
Jackie whipped between HUD screens to see the yellow dot at less than a mile away. And there were red dots closing in as well. Lots of them. Celebratory gunfire rang out. Armando’s men fired into the air. She hustled over next to him.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re going now,” Armando said, pointing to the celebratory gunfire. “We are going to confront the monster and then, God willing, we will head to level two.”
“What about the red dots?” Jackie asked.
“Other participants. Most likely Los Antrax,” Armando replied.
“What is that?”
“A team of murderers that provide armed security for the cartels. I have been at war with them for a very long time and now they have come to pay me a visit.”
“We can fight.”
“We will fight,” Armando replied with a nod. “But not against them. And not here.”
Several armored trucks motored up and Armando and three dozen of his fighters climbed into the beds. Jorge shouldered his assault rifle/grenade launcher, strapped the bulletproof vest as tight as possible, and shifted the bandolier containing a half-dozen forty-millimeter grenades the size of boiled eggs to his backside. He then climbed up into one of the other trucks which quickly drove off.
Jackie hopped up on the side of a truck, backpack over a shoulder, pistol in hand, and held on for dear life as the tires shot dust into the air behind them. The caravan drove at an alarming rate of speed down over a steep incline along the canyon wall. Fearful of showing any emotion around Armando’s fighters, Jackie kept her gaze down, hiding any reactions she might have to the bumpy ride and the danger ahead. The yellow dot was a half mile away at this point, and Jackie finally received a notification of its stats on her HUD.
Species: Machina Monstrum
Level:1
Class:Monster
Health:10/10
Attributes:A hybrid mechanical-biological marauder with oversized olfactory bulbs. It has the ability to sniff prey from eight miles away, has skin covered in hardened plates that can retract and allow the creature to draw up into a defensive ball, possesses spikes which result in instant calcification to anything they strike, and is able, depending upon conditions, to spawn parasitic offspring.
Explosions echoed up ahead. She gripped the edge of the truck and looked up to see that the other trucks were already firing into the blackness. Her truck gouged to a stop and eleven of Armando’s foot soldiers jumped out of the bed. She followed them. At the very least, they’d provide cover.
The air was cold and the ground was hard. Jackie held her pistol tightly against her thigh, navigating by her HUD and the light cast from several fires that were burning in the distance. Armando’s men began tossing grenades and firing rockets at the Machina Monstrum, which Jackie couldn’t make out clearly. From the description, she knew the beast would be fearsome, but knowing about it and seeing it firsthand were two different experiences. Despite having prepared herself, she dreaded facing a creature that was created, born, or bred for one purpose only: killing.
She took cover behind a huge cropping of dusty rock and sat on the ground. For a moment she lost heart. She was a woman, perhaps the only woman amongst a band of men, killers, hitmen working at the behest of a man who was most likely a cartel boss. What the fuck was she doing? She was a doctor, not a fighter, not a warrior, or a mage or any other kind of life taker. Was she really ready for this? Just because she was the smartest person on the battlefield didn’t mean she had an advantage. This was no operating room. She cursed herself for thinking like this. She’d always been making excuses for herself, hadn’t she? Always suppressing what she really felt, what she really wanted to do in order to fit in or please someone else, usually a man. She’d done that personally and professionally for as long as she could remember. She was tired of it.
“Simon?”
“Yes, Jackie?”
“I need to know about my family. Are they still alive?”
No response came. Only a deafening silence in the midst of a series of explosions.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they? Are they still on the island?”
“They are no longer here.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they have reached their journey’s end, Jackie. They did not go to the Melee, but the Melee came to them. They have passed into the great void.”
The terrible, crushing sensation that everyone she had ever loved was dead came over her. Eyes tearing, she dropped
her gun, sobbing uncontrollably, struggling to block out the sounds of fighting, the screams of Armando’s men, the horrible hissing shriek made by the Machina Monstrum. What was the use in going on? What purpose would it serve for her to continue to fight? She stared at the rubber band on her wrist. Out of habit, she twisted it. This time it didn’t unravel, just stayed twisted near the bottom of her hand.
A heavy object fell to the ground next to her, making a loud thump. It was a man, one of Armando’s men. She’d seen him before in the back of the truck. He lay still. She blinked. He’d been turned to stone. Soon she’d join him.
She sat down on the ground, fighting off the blackness that swamped her. Get it together, Jackie, she thought. Get your shit together. Get fierce. Do not give up. Take the fight to the fucking enemy. Don’t go down without a fight!
The blackness receded and she quivered with fury. Her mind became unmoored and without another thought, she opened her backpack, and commenced, with an expression of calm detachment, mixing a bit of ammonium nitrate with fuel oil into several vials.
The voice she’d heard before, the alien one whispering into her ears, directed her on how to do everything. She mixed a few drops here, a few drops there, like a sorceress conjuring up potions. Mage, the voice whispered to her. You are becoming what you were always meant to be. When she was finished, she loaded the vials into her spud gun before standing.
She shouldered her backpack and began running forward, faster than she’d ever run. She could see the vague outline of the beast up ahead, rampaging around like Godzilla, taking fire from Armando’s fighters.
Closer now, Jackie was only fifty yards away from the beast. She dashed up a rise, coming around behind it. The monster was easily thirty feet tall. It came fully into view on her HUD, which zoomed in. She saw that it was less a flesh-and-blood creature than a construct, metal fused with shimmering biomass. A maze of interconnected silver threads and pallid bone.
On the monster’s back, smaller creatures became visible, clutching fleshy ropes. These things were seven or eight feet in height with glistening, pulsating flaps of scaled flesh that covered a bloodless mass of anatomical detail, mechanical undercarriages lined with rubbery ligaments and pistons that acted as torsos.