by Wyatt Savage
Above the torsos, expanding air sacs lay beneath misshapen skulls with rawhide-like material stretched over them, rows of saber-like teeth sawing back and forth in gaping, unhinged mouths. The laddering of their spines was visible as they turned, the knobs studded with foot-long spikes, ending in tails that resembled a fireman’s hose, thick and white and trembling like the stacked segments at the end of a rattlesnake’s tail.
Jackie watched as the creatures ‘riding’ the much larger monster detached from their fleshy ropes and crashed down to the ground. These smaller Machina Monstrum were instantly met with fire from Armando’s men and began returning fire from curved metal rods that flung orange bolts across the darkness.
One of the things whipped around and squared up on Jackie. She fired her pistol and missed. The small monster whipped a curled rod around, firing a bolt of orange light that ricocheted off a boulder and hit Jackie in the hand, slicing her palm open. -1 Health Points!
She dropped the pistol and stared at her hand. Blood pumped from the wound along with a wriggling assortment of nightcrawler-sized worms. God help her, she thought the squirming worms were beautiful in the moonlight. Closing her eyes, she focused on the HUD, which reflected revised stats:
Species: Homo Sapiens (Leon, Jaqueline)
Chattel: 5.7 mm pistol; Roundworm Parasites; ANFO Salt; Spud Gun; Potato Launcher; Grenade Launcher
Health:8.5/10
Level:1
Class:Mage
Kills:24
Vitals:BP – 125/80; T – 98f; RR – 15bpm
XP:633
The small monster bulled toward her and Jackie reacted by flinging a handful of the blood and worms in the thing’s face, snapping her wrist as if casting a spell.
The monster skidded to a stop. Jackie could see the worms squirming into the beast’s mouth and eyes. In seconds the monster was on its back, clawing at its face, ripping off chunks of flesh, fighting to get to the worms. Jackie lifted her spud gun and fired at the stricken monster, causing it to vanish in a black plume.
“Congratulations,” Simon said. “You have killed a level one monster and gained twenty-five points.”
The stats on her HUD reordered to reflect the fresh kill:
Species: Homo Sapiens (Leon, Jaqueline)
Chattel: 5.7 mm pistol; Roundworm Parasites; ANFO Salt; Spud Gun; Potato Launcher; Grenade Launcher
Health:8.5/10
Level:1
Class:Mage
Kills:25
Vitals:BP – 127/80; T – 98.02f; RR – 16bpm
XP:658
Ignoring the pain from her wounded hand, Jackie ran forward, mentally dissecting the terrain, cataloguing angles, possible lines of attack.
She dodged several of Armando’s men who’d been turned into stone pillars. She aimed her spud gun, which was almost comical-looking in the middle of all the heavy arms, and fired with precision, willing shots into the smaller monsters.
Three of them exploded when the ANFO vials struck them, and Jackie was awarded an additional 75 XP. The rest of the smaller creatures were focused on Armando’s men in a battle of attrition, with Armando doing the most damage. A third-party observer would have described the scene as a battle with the most dangerous and central opponents—the Machina Monstrum and Armando—wreaking destruction on the lesser fighters, their underlings, while making headway to each other. What might have been missed was that the human side held a secret weapon—Jackie. She had a direct line to the Machina Monstrum, and no one was focused on her.
She opened the backpack and removed the loaded grenade launcher. She pulled the firing pin back on the weapon and aimed at the large beast, lobbing grenades at the Machina Monstrum.
The first grenade exploded against the beast’s armor-plated surface, doing no damage. The second slipped between two armored plates, erupting in a violent explosion that caused the creature to shriek, but causing little damage. The third landed on the ground, exploding next to the beast.
Jackie cursed, but it was premature. The Machina Monstrum was still carrying out destructive attacks against the foot soldiers, but it had begun limping. The leg near the grenade that exploded on the ground had taken damage, which registered as -2 Health Points! for the monster on her HUD.
With careful consideration, Jackie dissected what had happened as if she were examining a patient in the emergency room. The bottom of the creature’s feet must have lacked armor due to the unlikelihood that an attack would come from below. She’d found its weakness. Now she had to figure out how to exploit it.
Unfortunately, the Machina Monstrum had taken notice of her. Once it had dispatched several more foot soldiers, the creature turned its full attention to Jackie, barreling straight for her.
13
Detour
With little time to react, Jackie rolled on her side, taking cover behind the fallen men who’d been turned to stone, shielding herself from a volley of incoming fire. The smaller Machina Monstrum strafed her position with a series of orange plasma bolts. The bolts slammed into the ground, tossing rocks and gravel into the air. Jackie covered her head as the plasma rippled like lightning.
Jackie dove to the ground near a canyon wall, searching for the monsters that were barely visible in the dim moonlight, moving off to assault Armando’s men. The original, biggest monster was coming her way, however. She reloaded her grenade launcher and filled the spud gun with three ANFO vials. Direct attacks weren’t going to take the Machina Monstrum down, but if she could strike below its feet, it was possible the creature could be toppled, and she could finish it off through its undercarriage, earning enough XP to enhance her abilities and better protect herself.
As the monster advanced, Jackie raised up and fired the grenade launcher, aiming all three grenades at its feet. The grenades exploded in a flurry, sending dust plumes into the air and blocking her view.
A long lull in the fighting dragged out as she waited, holding her breath. Then the beast’s massive legs crashed out of the dust. The Machina Monstrum was little harmed. The first hit had been lucky. Crossing her fingers and hoping for the best wasn’t going to work. Jackie was going to have to outsmart the enemy.
Out of the corner of vision, she spotted Jorge and Armando. They’d taken notice of her first successful strike, as well as her dud on the second try, and they were rushing toward her position to assist.
Jackie felt certain combining their attacks from the same position wouldn’t work. The monster’s armor was too strong. She could use them to trick the beast, however, if their timing was just right.
After pulling up her HUD and sending a quick message to both of them to engage the Machina Monstrum in unison and from the left flank, she waited until she could hear the two of them opening fire. A large plume of dust rose overhead as the beast pulled up short and changed direction—going straight for Armando and Jorge. This was Jackie’s one and only chance.
After reloading, she rose up to see that she was now to the left of the beast. With the grenade launcher over her right shoulder and the spud gun in her left hand, she opened fire. This time she aimed for a spot directly in the Machina Monstrum’s path toward Jorge and Armando. The grenades landed first, followed by the vials, which shattered on impact.
Only a couple seconds later, the beast reached the spot where the projectiles had landed. The explosions erupted from beneath the creature’s legs, rocking the ground and propelling the Machina Monstrum upward, causing its body to tilt right. It teetered for several seconds before collapsing on its side.
Jackie reloaded the potato launcher with just one grenade so she could get it off faster. By the time she’d positioned the weapon over her shoulder, someone else had already delivered the death blow.
Jackie watched Armando toss his pistol and heft a grenade launcher off a dead foot soldier and open fire. The shots from his weapon tore the exposed biomass to shreds. In less than a second, the creature’s lifeforce dwindled, and the yellow dot on Jackie’s HUD vanished. The Machina Mon
strum kill was credited to Armando.
They’d defeated the beast and won this battle, but she was overcome with anger. Most of all, she was furious that her kill had been taken from her. She knew she should have been grateful for her allies, no matter how temporary they potentially were, but this was a chance to gain more experience points and power up. Despite surviving the onslaught, she was worse off than other participants for having not made substantial gains.
With the field of battle cleared, she ran out from behind her makeshift cover, the stone carcasses of Armando’s men, and marched up to him. “That was my kill,” she spat.
Armando held up a hand. “Not now,” he replied calmly, as his eyes roamed upward to his hilltop compound.
Jackie spun around, shocked at the devastation she laid eyes on. The entirety of Armando’s compound was ablaze, swarming with monsters and participants, including the Los Antrax, the cartel enforcers Armando had mentioned. Each appeared to be attacking the other.
“Lucky we were attacked when we were,” Jorge said. “Or that would be us up there about to die.”
Jackie thought about expressing that she was sorry to Armando, but the truth was that she didn’t feel this way at all. What she truly saw when looking at the devastation was points, lots of points that they were missing out on.
Her attention went to Armando as he grabbed ammunition off the ground to restock and began marching upward and to his compound. She was going to let him go. Despite having saved her life in return for temporarily saving his son’s, the bastard had stolen her kill. As she began to turn, she stopped at the sound of a notification on her HUD. She’d gained a hundred experience points for her kills and another twenty for surviving twenty more minutes, but they were running short on time.
“How many points do you have, Armando?”
“Enough.”
“To do what?” she asked.
“Acquire a Ragetag.”
“What’s a Ragetag?”
Armando did a double-take. He turned and faced her, taking a few steps closer, seemingly still calm and at peace notwithstanding the chaos all around them.
“Don’t you know what they are?”
She shook her head.
“They are game-changing upgrades, perks. According to the information from my voice, there are an infinite number of possibilities, all specifically suited to the participant who obtains one, enhancing their skills and power.”
“That could have been my upgrade,” Jackie said, gesturing back at the dead monster.
Armando shook his head. “I can see your stats, Jackie. Killing the Machina Monstrum would not have given you enough experience points to obtain a Ragetag. But it was enough for me to get one. And now I have all that I need to avenge myself, my son, and my family. I live now only for one purpose: to inflict as much damage on the invaders as they have brought down upon us.”
Jackie lowered her gaze. She couldn’t argue with his sentiment. It was odd that she didn’t feel the same way after losing Will, but she most certainly wanted to give them hell.
“Just because I did terrible things, does not mean that I was a terrible man,” Armando continued. “I am a terrible man now, but the Melee has done this to me. As the voices in our heads say: ‘Some people find themselves in the Melee.’”
The familiar words sent chills up Jackie’s spine. The same transformation was happening to her. How it would turn out remained a mystery for the moment, but she recognized that she’d already experienced a metamorphosis. She still saw the same information—undiagnosed infections, injuries and what had caused them, even health problems waiting to happen—but the manner in which she processed the information was different. Her first instinct had shifted from imagining how to fix and cure things to conceiving ways to exploit the weaknesses in others in order to kill. Another new priority lay in determining whether helping others would benefit her survival or not, as had been the case with Armando and Jorge, but not with the strangers captured by Armando’s men, who were weak and only served one purpose—to increase her experience points.
“I understand what you want to do,” Jackie said. “I get wanting to take revenge. But we’ll inflict more damage on the Melee or whoever’s running it if we continue on to the gate and use the shortcut to the next level.”
Armando considered her words carefully, as he glanced over his shoulder and up at the compound. There wasn’t much that could be done for his former comrades. They were already lost. And the monsters he’d be attacking were low-level, which wouldn’t give him the satisfaction he craved. He wanted to do real harm to the invaders, and Jackie was using that drive against him to get what she wanted.
“You’re not wrong,” he admitted, descending the embankment, rejoining Jorge and her. “We’ll lead my remaining men to the gate and find a way in. But be not deceived, survival is less of a concern for me. If I see a chance to cause severe damage at the cost of my own life, I will take it.”
Jackie nodded. “Just get us to the gate and we can go our separate ways.”
Armando glanced at Jorge. “Do you agree?”
Jorge was busy collecting left-behind ammunition for his assault rifle/grenade launcher. He looked up and managed a nod. “I will go where the two of you go. After what I’ve witnessed today, my odds of survival are better with you than without, even if you do both have a death wish.”
Jackie waited for Armando’s remaining foot soldiers, twelve in total, to gather as much leftover ammo as possible, then everyone began marching forward, headed in the vicinity of the entrance into the sky dungeon.
Her mind filled with disordered thoughts as she plodded forward, backpack on, faced smeared with blood and grime, weapons at the ready. Never had she thought it possible to conceive the thoughts she’d been having. Was she truly willing to bring other participants to their journey’s end for the sake of upgrading and progression? She’d sworn an oath once upon a time to do no harm. Now that the world had changed, was the oath still valid? It had been made under different circumstances, in what seemed like a lifetime ago. Was it time to reconsider who she really was as a person? And what about Will and her family. In all of the action she’d forgotten about them. What would they think about the new Jackie?
She banished these thoughts, focusing instead on the mission ahead. “Simon?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like more information on Ragetags, please.”
“A Ragetag is an upgrade, Jackie, a force-multiplying application that places the user in a trance-like state of fury in which he or she is temporarily immune to death from participants at the same level, as well as impervious to pain for precisely four minutes. Several Ragetags, such as an Immolator, empower the user with kinetic energy, such as increased strength and physically destructive power. Be aware that this type of Ragetag is fast-acting and reduces stamina for four minutes after its use. Others, such as the Bone Shaker, have one-time use limitations but carry greater immediate impact from the attack.”
A status message appeared on Jackie’s HUD, a collection of holographic images that floated in the air. There were magazines of ammunition, grenades, cutting instruments, battle helmets, a few pieces of ordinary body-armor, gloves, boots, and what looked like satchels filled with vials, powder, pills, and patches. Above these were other, more exotic-looking weapons, including battle suits, jet packs, and other strange devices and equipment that she’d never seen before.
“How does that Bone Shaker thing work?” Jackie asked via Mindspeak.
“It shakes bones,” Simon answered matter of factly. “If I may be so bold, Jackie, I do not believe it is a good choice for you, not based on what I have observed. You are much better suited to indirect attacks, deception, and spell casting.”
“Spell casting?”
“Are you not aware of your own actions, Jackie?” Simon asked. “You have been casting spells without the aid of upgrades, you just didn’t know it. It is really rather quite impressive.”
“What are
you talking about?”
“You mixed compounds that were not meant to be combined, creating a powerful weapon that surprised your enemy. This, in and of itself, is a kind of magic. You also delivered the disabling blow in a deceptive manner, tricking the opponent, luring the Machina Monstrum into a trap using your traveling companions as bait. You are a natural killer.”
“Bullshit,” she huffed. “I’m a doctor. I save lives. I don’t take them.”
“Do you still honestly believe that?” Simon asked.
Jackie was thrown by the response for several seconds. “This isn’t my choice, Simon. Nothing I’ve done has been by choice. We were working together against a common enemy and everything, this game, was forced on me.”
“Nobody has forced you to do any of the things you have done.”
Jackie shook her head. Her own words felt hollow. She wouldn’t have believed them had someone else uttered the exact same things in light of the actions she’d taken.
“Just tell me about the other weapons, the other Ragetags,” she said, pissed. “How do I get them and how much do they cost?”
“Each item carries a different price. For instance, Bounder is one of the least expensive Ragetags, but it is not an upgrade that best suits your abilities. I am not permitted to state the exact ones that would best fit you and your skills. I am, however, allowed to provide acceptable guidance within reason, as long as it does not create an unfair advantage over other participants and is intrinsically befitting your nature.”
“My nature…what does that even mean?”
“You will see.”
“Give me whatever guidance you’re permitted to share, Simon,” Jackie demanded. “And don’t hold back based on what you might perceive as moral dilemmas on my account. I want to know all the options, no matter what. I want to know everything that could be of value.”