Cold War Rune: A Virtual Reality novel (Rune Universe Book 2)

by Hugo Huesca

“You should be more careful,” I told her, happy that the video-feed wasn’t online.

  “Screw you.”

  I slowly made my way to the zone were the androids were located. My job was easier than Walpurgis’, since I knew where my supposed traps were going to be waiting.

  The corridor ahead was divided into three possible directions. Right one led into storage. Front led into the cafeteria. Left, into the troops’ barracks. Front and left were booby trapped. Right was clear, but the androids were waiting there.

  I could find the traps and perhaps disarm them, ignore the storage room entirely, then rush my way into the cafeteria and try to reunite there with Walpurgis. If I did that, though, the androids would be behind me. The path to the Teddy would be left open. The ship itself was safe against them with Francis on board. He would simply sense them on the hull and jump to safety. It was Walpurgis and me who had to worry about them on our way back, since they could be anywhere.

  The best option was to take them by surprise. Fight on my terms, not theirs. I grasped the electric smoke grenade in my left hand and the pistol harpoon in the other.

  I floated my way to the front corridor, slowly, my arms always close to the walls so I could maneuver in a pinch. I had to find the trap.

  If Walpurgis was badly equipped to deal with traps, I was even less so. My Perception wasn’t bad at level 85—it’s one of the skills all players have at a decent level if they just play enough—but the androids were specialists.

  The corridor wasn’t just bare. It was filled with debris from the battle that had taken out the ship. Bodies littered the space in front of me, still covered in their burnt body armors. Some of the weapons still looked operational, which meant they could blow up with the slightest touch, if prepped beforehand.

  Bodies, clutter, walls, tripwires, pressure plates. It was a lot to check for in only a few seconds and I was working against the clock. If I waited too long, the androids would reposition, or just lay even more traps.

  What’s a thing a person would for sure run into when floating or walking?

  Walls, only if magnetized. Trash and broken equipment, only if I stumbled into them without paying attention.

  The bodies, though, those were everywhere. Walpurgis had said she stumbled onto a claymore earlier, and those could be triggered by pressure.

  The armor the corpses carried was so broken and bulky, it would be easy to hide an explosive in there.

  Gotcha. It was time to plan my own ambush. I reached the wall and magnetized my back against it. I was essentially glued to it, like a fly in a web. It was on purpose, though. I had to remain out of sight if I wanted this to work.

  The bodies were far enough away that my end-game shields could tank the explosion. I couldn’t back up, because I’d pass by the storage entrance and the androids would see me backtracking.

  I’d sacrifice my shields for the element of surprise.

  I let the smoke grenade float freely in place in front of me and grabbed the floodlights. I threw and pointed it away from my face, at a neutral point between the corridor and the storage bay. Then I pushed the tray towards the first corpse.

  In normal gravity, the tray was heavy. It was industrial equipment, so it was designed to withstand rough use. If I hit the corpses with enough strength, it would for sure trigger any mine hidden inside.

  The tray clashed against the body with a solid punch. I tensed, ready for the impact.

  Nothing happened.

  The body was either empty or I hadn’t hit it hard enough.

  I grabbed the rope that tied the tray to my belt and pullet it back to me. Then I repeated the process with the rest of the corpses. Next one I missed twice, only managing a glancing hit on its shoulder. Third impact was solid, but nothing exploded.

  “How are things going on your end?” asked Walpurgis.

  If my guess was wrong and the mines were elsewhere, I was just wasting time… But I was committed, damn it. “I’m about to pull aggro on them.”

  “Great. While you are getting pummeled to death, I’ll get there and kill them,” Walpurgis said. “I like this plan.”

  “It’s your standard plan,” added Francis, “from what I’ve seen of your tactics, Master Cole.”

  “Yeah.” It was hard to speak with my jaws clenched. “That’s right. It’s always part of my plan.” I threw the tray towards the third body with a bit more force than the other ones.

  The explosion almost tore me away from the wall.

  A green plasma fireball erupted out from the corpse, filling the corridor.

  A flood of light and heat engulfed me faster than thought.

  If I wasn’t wearing a power-suit, I’d be respawning right then, distance to the explosion be damned. The shockwave was strong enough to take out half my shields and the actual fireball took another 30%. If I had been any closer, it would have reduced me to a cinder.

  My visor filled with red readouts and a bunch of screaming alarms. One of them advised me to replace the shield generator as soon as possible, since this one had shorted out. The communication to Francis and Walpurgis was cut out, too.

  I dismissed the alarms. I’d check the damage later.

  Time to play dead. I demagnetized my back, grabbed the smoke grenade and the pistol harpoon, and crossed my arms around them. I was floating in the middle of the explosion, covered by thick smoke.

  The floodlight I’d kept with me was destroyed. I’d have to rely on the energy reader visor, and the grenade. I’d only one shot at this.

  They’ll have to check if I’m dead, I thought. I made sure to float with my back turned to the storage area, to hide my weapons. But first they’ll wait a bit. Give me time to suffocate if my suit had been breached.

  Hell, Walpurgis had done the same thing to several pirates the times we quested together. It was a damn fine strategy.

  Unless the enemy was expecting it.

  A minute passed. Everything was quiet. The corridor was a mess of smoke and molten metal. My shields went down by another 5%.

  I couldn’t afford to turn them off to let them recharge faster, though. I’d need them in a moment.

  The entrance behind me crunched ever so slightly. Could’ve been the ship’s structure groaning a bit from the stress of the explosion.

  Or it could’ve been a pair of advanced androids getting out of their killzone to confirm a mark.

  No ship is so quiet, I decided. I reached for the grenade floating near my hand, waited a second, then turned and threw it as far away from me as I could.

  The electric smoke filled the dark corridor with flashes of electricity. I activated my jetpack and flew backwards to gain some distance from my attackers, and at the same time, I activated the visor’s Energy mode.

  Two spider-like humanoids appeared in front of the entrance. Their legs were elongated and thinner than their bloated midsections, and were long enough to reach from one wall to the other without being fully stretched.

  They were two ugly mofos. Their silhouettes appeared green and blue in my field of vision, but they lacked any head that I could see. They stood still for one second, trying to process the change in circumstances.

  That’s the thing with androids. You could program standard reaction responses to an unknown situation, but overload them with stimulus and they will freeze as they process it. Only for a second. Less if they’re top of the line.

  These things were top of the line, but I’d already pointed my pistol at the first one’s torso. The harpoon made no noise as it flew through the air, propelled by a mixture of gas and magnetism. Its armor-piercing tip struck the android just as it began to move. Direct hit, straight to the center of mass. The silhouette flared as arcs of blue light (as perceived by my visor) surrounded it. Then, it disappeared as the energy emissions fizzled out. It was fried.

  Second one didn’t stand around as I reached for the second pistol, which was still magnetized to my arm. It flew towards me, pumping its legs with mindblowing speed. I kicke
d the speed of my jetpack up a notch and clenched my teeth. I tried to aim towards the android.

  I wouldn’t have time to reload. I’d have to nail it in one shot.

  It shot me first. The hot coil of plasma appeared as a green miniature sun flying straight at me, faster than I could react. It hit me square in the chest.

  Air escaped my lungs with the force of the impact and I didn’t have to look at my feed to know my shields were gone. Chest armor was fried and wouldn’t withstand another blast.

  I lost control of the jetpack and flew straight at the ceiling, then bounced hard against it one more time before propelling to the floor and smacking ass first on the flat surface.

  I shut the jetpack off purely on instinct, before it could do me any real damage, but the android already had regained the upper hand. It was invisible again, and my visor couldn’t find it anywhere in the cramped corridor. I stood up, groaning, and raised my harpoon pistol.

  I was surrounded by darkness. The thing was invisible. The only chance I had was that it’d make a noise, but it was programmed to avoid that as much as possible. It was probably lining up another shot from a corner.

  Oh, of course…

  I threw myself against the nearest wall and magnetized my entire body to make sure I didn’t bounce. The reaction saved my life. Another plasma shot flew straight at the spot where I had been floating and left a scorched mark on the metal floor.

  I fired a harpoon at the spot instantly. It crossed the distance with a fluid motion, and got stuck on the wall.

  A small showers of sparks came from the air near the harpoon, and briefly lit up the scene. It had managed to glance the android before the machine jumped away. Its invisibility field flickered. It looked just like a spider getting ready to enjoy a fly.

  Reloading the harpoon pistol would take me five seconds, but it was my best shot at survival, so I began to do so. The android reached me in five and tore me off the wall with ease using three of its elongated extremities.

  I tried to fight it off, but the difference in strength was too great. Also, I couldn’t see.

  It seemed to gloat in delight as it began to take chunks out of the outer layers of my suit’s armor. Two of its hands were holding my arms, and I could only futilely kick at its metal body, to no effect. Trying to burn the machine with my jetpack did nothing.

  Three plasma shots lit the darkness around us. Metal screamed as it was torn apart. I was launched backwards on a robotic spasm of the monster and barely caught a glimpse of three boiling-red stumps in the place where some of its arms had been.

  “Took you long enough!” I said aloud, even if there was no point, since Walpurgis wouldn’t hear me with my communications down in the void of space.

  She was crawling through the debris, her suit magnetized to the ceiling, and her arms pointing one of her huge rifles at the robot. The light of the rifle’s mechanism made her an easy target, though.

  The robot rapidly calculated that the odds were now in our favor and tried to reach a corner to another corridor. Walpurgis took out another two of its legs. The machine tripped on its own lack of mobility and stumbled pathetically to the corner as it tried to regain its footing.

  As the android recovered, it shot at Walpurgis with its torso’s plasma cannon. The girl rolled away even before the android began shooting, and returned fire almost instantly. We couldn’t let it escape, or we would be facing a guerrilla scenario the entire day, and I had no time for that.

  Also, I couldn’t allow Walpurgis to steal my goddamned kill again.

  I turned on my jetpack, full power, and launched myself like a heavy metal Superman towards the android. Its field of vision must’ve been 360°, since it reached a clawed leg in my direction, trying to impale me like a butterfly on the metal edges.

  I reached for my belt and took the only harpoon the monster’s plasma blast hadn’t fried when it shot at me. At the last second, I turned on my suit’s spacewalk streams. They were a built-in utility of the suit that wasn’t designed for combat, but could take people by surprise if you used it when it counted.

  My path completely changed in the span of a second, when the oxygen reserves were expelled out of the suit to create a change of direction. I was displaced half-a-foot downward and missed the claw-leg entirely. Instead, I hit the android’s torso head on, with all the forward momentum of my jetpack.

  The harpoon was designed to pierce armor, and even the military alloy the android was using couldn’t withstand the impact. Both android and I were left stunned and drifting through the corridor, smacking against walls and each other. Arcs of electricity surrounded the robot and sent coils of smoke flying out of the cracked shell that was its torso. Its legs shook like the limbs of a hanged man.

  Then it ripped out the harpoon and threw it away.

  Welp.

  I could almost feel its hateful gaze on me before darkness surrounded us again. It didn’t last, though, because Walpurgis didn’t wait this time. She shot straight at its center, each shot filling the corridor with plasma light, until the thing was a crumpled, red-hot, melted piece of trash floating listlessly.

  Then, all was quiet.

  I calmly reached to my helmet’s controls and rebooted my entire system. Communications went back online. Good.

  “You did it again,” I told Walpurgis. My voice wasn’t happy. On the contrary. “I was about to solo the entire instance and you stole it. You’re a monster.”

  “You’re a child, Dorsett,” came the cheery response.

  You’ve advanced your class! A Captain must take care of his crew, and helping them further their character progression counts. Your Class ability is now 10.2%

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  New in Town

  “You can tell people you took them all out on your own.” Walpurgis was very happy, for a person who had spent a couple real-life days in a standoff against robot-spider-ninjas.

  “It wouldn’t be the same,” I said, shaking my head. I inspected the wreckage of the robots using Walpurgis’ spare flashlight.

  The Quest-log said I could loot the battlefield. The first robot was only fried, so the electronics inside were still in one piece. Perhaps an expert could do something to repair them… I fidgeted around the insides of my fallen prey, like a hunter would have.

  “That’s the IFG of the robot,” said Francis. The AI had missed most of the fight, and was happy, and surprised, that I was still alive. “A fitting spoil of war for a feat like that. You killed both of them on your own, then? I’m very impressed, Master Cole, that went beyond my calculations. I’ll have to redo them for new encounters.”

  “Sure, sure.” Personal IFG was a rare sight. They were energy-expensive, and their components were hard to miniaturize. The ones the androids had were ahead of the market by at least an in-game decade. Who had built those things?

  It was mine now, though. I stored the burnt-off piece in my inventory.

  Quest complete! You only screamed for your life three times, one less than your average! Your skills have gone up. Shooting (58th level), Perception (82th level), Trap Disarm (25th level). You can unlock Trap Making by receiving training from an instructor.

  Item gained: Personal Invisibility Field Generator. (Rare) (Broken)

  “I have to reach the captain’s quarters,” Walpurgis explained. “Help me out clear any remaining traps. Why don’t you tell me why you need my help in the real world?”

  I nodded and we got to it. We found several traps, but working together they were much easier to disarm, especially now that we weren’t pressured by ninja androids as we did so.

  Getting Walpurgis up to speed didn’t take me too long.

  “The drones circling the city? Turns out they’re looking for me. FBI thinks they belong to the Church of the Intangible Lord—”

  “The cult?” Walpurgis shot a claymore at the end of the corridor. The explosion cut the conversation off for a bit.

  “Yes. Turns out space-related religions are having
a resurgence lately. For obvious reasons.”

  “Whoops.”

  “Yeah, I thought the same thing. Anyway, the Intangible Lord cult is radicalizing. The FBI doesn’t want them around a States’ city, but they can’t just arrest them with no evidence, or people will become hysterical.”

  “I bet. So, they using you as bait?”

  “Yup.”

  “Does the Church wants you as prophet or as martyr?”

  “No idea, but I’ll be wearing a bullet-proof vest.”

  “Martyrs were sometimes burned at the stake. Heretics are pretty much the same thing.”

  “You don’t have to point that out—”

  “I think it’s important to keep in mind. Ever burned yourself, Cole?”

  Our conversation was cut short when Walpurgis stopped abruptly. We were far after passing the troops’ barracks, deep into the ship’s guts.

  “Captain’s quarters,” my friend announced.

  I waited for her to clear the doorway. She took a doubtful step forward and then she looked at me. “You do it.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” she said. She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, like she really didn’t want to talk about it. “The minute before victory is the most dangerous one, you know?”

  “Because people get distracted,” I told her. “You’re not distracted now, are you?”

  “Because they stop fighting as hard,” she corrected. Her gaze was on me, but Walpurgis wasn’t actually looking at me. She seemed to be lost in thought. “Trust me on this one.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. But if I blow us up, no complaining later.”

  “Oh, you’re not going to make me explode,” Walpurgis was back to normal just like that. She floated away from the door. “I’m taking cover.”

  “You’re a lousy friend,” I said half-heartedly.

  I magnetized my back to the side of the door and pointed my harpoon pistol at the key-lock.

  “Careful with that thing,” Walpurgis warned.

  “That’s what she said.” The door was made of metal and plastic and neither material was able to withstand the piercing tip of my harpoon. The arcs of electricity slid harmlessly through the surface of the door and walls. The lock was pierced and destroyed.