He pointed his scanners up to the sky, getting a small, positive hit in the top right corner of the structure. I’ve got you now. The targeting computer showed Red Code’s silhouette, locking on and drawing a bright green square around his frame, signaling that the rockets were ready to fire. Mitch sent them flying, sending every one of his twenty rockets up into the air, watching their smoke trails snake towards their shared mark. Mitch forced a smile, watching their paths, knowing it was almost over.
The resulting series of explosions rocked the entire temple structure, sending beams falling and towers crumbling. Debris filled the air, bouncing off his Annihilator’s shoulders, knocking Mitch’s machine down on its front side with a jarring impact. After a few more blows, he found his face pressed just a few inches from the floor through the open cockpit. He pulled at the controls, fighting to regain the robot’s legs, but found himself pinned under a heavy, stone pillar.
The room went quiet.
Mitch swung his machine’s legs out from under piles of rock as a few systems blinked off and came back online. He was surrounded by crumbled walls and pillars on all sides, remains of a temple that was no more. He stood the machine back up, checking from his new vantage point for any sign of Red Code. With an explosion that huge, it wasn’t uncommon for a body to be scattered into pieces, at least back in the Skirmish game world. Mitch saw no remains—no body, no loot, no leveling up.
Nothing, except for redemption.
“It’s done,” Mitch muttered, treading his half-broken machine back towards the rest of Nefarious. He rounded the corner to see the Punch, Fuse, and Dozer all out of their machines and staring in his direction with a collective daze. The looks on their faces made everything worth it—the look of shock and surprise as each made eye contact with Mitch, past the wires and metal twisted in knots hanging all around him.
“I’m just as surprised as anyone,” Mitch laughed. “I know that was some of my better work, but don’t assume this means I’m coming back to join the team. I mean, I could always talk to Mac to see—”
“Mitch,” Fuse stammered, pointing up above Mitch’s head. “He’s—”
“Run, Spit!” Punch yelled. “Run!”
Mitch leaned out of the cockpit, looking above him, to see Red Code perched on top of his Annihilator.
Oh no.
Red Code reached in with a single hand, fishing for any part of Mitch’s body to grab. Mitch clicked out of his seatbelt, pinning himself into the back corner of the cockpit, his mind frantic, the machine still pacing forward with heavy steps. He did the only thing he could think of—he kicked the dashboard with the back corner of his boot’s heel, shattering the main control deck, and bringing the Annihilator to a sudden, sharp stop. The machine went dead. It wobbled for one last moment before losing its balance and falling face-first onto the deck.
Mitch went flying, his world turned upside down. His head spun as his health score fell into the depths. His vision went blurry as he fought to regain his legs. He crawled through the wreckage, finding a human-sized tunnel of light to follow, and made his way over the metal and glass, elbow over elbow. All he wanted to do was put as much distance between him and the Annihilator as he could. He didn’t know how far he’d made it or how much time had passed, he just kept moving. He reached the steps and found refuge behind a broken pillar, looking back at the fallen remains of his machine, its legs folded helplessly behind it. Red Code stood above the twisted metal, head down, searching.
“Well, this is just a big ole mess,” Red Code said, tossing huge chunks of stone and machine out of his way. “But, please, you’re company. You sit—I’ll take care of the cleaning up.” With one swing of his hand, he plucked the Annihilator’s remains from the pile and threw all one hundred tons across the chamber with a flick of his wrist.
“Where are you, Mitchy Mitch?” Red Code sang.
The machine landed near Mitch with a crash, sending pieces of metal and glass flying. He squinted at the wreckage, seeing something that looked familiar lying on the ground a few feet away. The impact had sent Mitch’s backpack flying out of cockpit. It was now laying splayed open a few feet in front of the machine. Four code packages had spilled out around the mouth of the bag. The single remaining parachute code package had been thrown the farthest and was still rolling with a slow, steady speed, straight across the hangar floor. Straight towards Red Code.
“No, no, no,” Dozer yelled, sprinting, her fists at the ready. She laid out vertically, jumping to stop the parachute’s path. She landed, sliding to a stop, her hand outstretched as far as it would go, fingers grasping. The parachute skipped right over her hand, continuing its roll right to Red Code’s feet.
Red Code reached down, snatching the orb off the ground with one fluid motion. He tossed the parachute in his hand, inspecting its edges, drinking in its subtle red glow. His eyes met Mitch’s. “Christ,” he said, “talk about your all-time backfires. Listen kids, it’s been fun, but I’ve got work in the morning, so I’d better be going. Good news for you though: I’ll see you back in Skirmish. If there’s anything left by the time you get back, that is.”
Mitch couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been—how careless, to go after Red Code, to leave the code packages behind. Now Red Code was holding everything he wanted in the palm of his hand, and Mitch knew it was all his fault.
“Ciao, bitches.”
With a click of the orb, Red Code dematerialized, shooting up into the sky with a bright blue beam of light.
Just like that, Red Code was gone.
THIRTY
No Better than a Daydream
THE HAZE OF BATTLE LINGERED—THE taste of discharged gunpowder, the tang of burned metal. Remains of the temple had been reduced to smoldering piles of broken rock. All that and four Skirmish players, still looking for their fifth, staring in silence at the spot where Red Code no longer stood.
Mitch held his head in his hands, not wanting to open his eyes. He didn’t want to face the Nefarious members, couldn’t bear to look them in the eye. He was dreading what he knew was coming next. In a distant corner of his mind—way back in the labyrinth—a single hope emerged hoped that maybe the team would forgive him. Maybe they’d understand. But he knew that any shred of hope was no better than a daydream. He knew the team that had already forgiven him once might be fresh out of mercy.
“What the hell, Mitch?” Dozer shouted. “We shouldn’t even be standing here right now. All we had to do was leave—and you couldn’t even do that this time.”
“Bonehead move,” Punch added. “With Red Code back in Skirmish, we’re ... what’s the technical term, Fuse? ... Totally hosed?”
“I took a chance,” Mitch said, fighting for the right words. “I took a chance and it didn’t work out. But we keep going. We do the only thing we can do: we find Chu and—”
“I’m sorry, Mitch,” Fuse said. “But you calling the shots doesn’t make sense anymore. Not after what just happened. We’ll take control from here.”
“Let’s not get emotional,” Mitch said. “Let’s not do something stupid.”
“I don’t get emotional,” Fuse replied. “But we’re fighting for our lives.”
“You’re the one that made it personal,” Dozer added. “You had a score to settle. Red Code sent you off running back in the day. Turned you into a joke. That’s not my fault. That’s not our fault. Your problem is that you’re mistaking this mission for something that it isn’t. It’s not a way to settle your scores. Don’t try to rebuild your life on our dime.“ Dozer picked up two of the scattered code packages from the floor. “Enough talk. Nefarious, huddle up.”
Mitch’s gloom folded over to despair. He opened his mouth to speak, but found his voice dry, his brain clouded. He fumbled for anything but silence, searching for how any of this made sense. All he found was doubt and dead ends. For the first time since he’d been on this goddamn mission, he could finally see what everyone had known all along: he was a joke. A nobody. Someone pretendi
ng to be something he wasn’t anymore, maybe something he’d never been. There was no chance, no formula where the answer ended up with Mitch being the good guy this time. He was just a tour guide, sitting in a pile of virtual dirt and rubble, next to an old group of friends he didn’t recognize anymore.
“Hands on shoulders,” Punch said, assembling the team. “Let’s get out of here.”
Mitch looked up, his arms draped across his knees, unable to move. Unable to speak.
“See you in the next life, Mitch,” Dozer said.
Three hot blue beams of light shot into the air as Punch, Fuse, and Dozer dematerialized, leaving only silence in their wake. But the silence only lasted a few short moments.
He felt the rumble before he heard it, the grind of steel scraping steel and the crumbling of boulders down the flight of stairs. The body of his dead Annihilator began to rattle and shake, and then right in front of Mitch’s eyes, dissolved into thin air.
He rose to his feet as entire panels of the surrounding arena faded to green screen. That’s when Mitch remembered the second part of the equation: the team’s code package had not only transported the Nefarious team to the next world, it had started NeverRise’s destruction sequence.
Shit. Mitch ran for his backpack, sprinting as fast as his feet would take him. He winced as the floor panels before him flashed with bright white geometric patterns and then, a few seconds later, each disappeared into nothing. He dodged and wove onto a trail of remaining floor segments, pulling his balance back on a few turns after almost falling through into an abyss of nothing. He jumped the last five feet and had never been happier to feel his face hit solid ground, looking up to see he was just a few inches away from the stray code packages. He scrambled to roll the orbs into his bag, leaving one in his hand, as he saw the floor panel beneath him highlight white.
He squeezed the orb, closing his eyes, as he felt the spin of falling creep up from his stomach. The last thing he remembered was being bathed in blue light. He was on his way to the next world.
Alone.
THIRTY-ONE
Left for Dead
MITCH WOKE to heat and sand and blinding light. He cracked his eyes open and quickly winced them back shut, reeling from a million grains of sand etching his cheeks with a constant, unforgiving sting. He spat out the grime from his mouth, only to be replaced with a fresh batch. He couldn’t remember if he’d fallen asleep or been knocked out. Maybe it had all just been a dream—but he knew he wasn’t that lucky. Not this week.
The gray metal and lush green of NeverRise were a distant memory, replaced with a sea of earth and dirt. He was at the center of a vast desert, surrounded by mounds of pale sand that seemed to stretch forever and ever. The sky glowed with burning red. The wind whipped across each hill on the horizon, fading the blowing sand and earth into one faded smear. His ears filled with the distant hum of the game world’s music—an ambient arrangement of strings, rising and falling with each gust. The sand piled up his side, across his elbows, adding grain on top of grain, slowly burying him. From what he could see, the game world had dressed him in dark desert fatigues, flowing cape, and a hood pulled loose over his head. A thick scarf wrapped around his neck. He pushed himself up to his feet, shaking the dust off his legs and letting the wind do the rest.
Mitch saw no footsteps, no structures, no signs of life. No on-screen commands in his field of view leaving clues for what to do next. Just ... nothing.
Without a target to aim for, he trudged towards the sun. The wind pulled him sideways as he pulled his boots forward, heavy with sand, earning each step. He kept marching, leaning into the wind with his head down, legs grinding. A huge gust rolled in, knocking him over onto his side. His face hit the sand, his shoulder pushing into the dune as it shifted beneath him. He found his feet again, pulling a hand over his eyes, slogging towards the burning star in the sky.
They left me for dead. And I sure as hell can’t blame them.
A new bend in his ankles warned him that he’d hit an upward slope. He pushed up the hill, the sun now hidden behind the mound, one hand tracing through the sand to keep his balance. With each step, he felt he was slipping backward more than moving forward, but kept his feet moving. Like treading water uphill. He had to believe he was making progress, had to believe in something.
Cresting the top, the sun reappeared, now looming over a distant valley. On the far side of the hill, the air cleared, the ridge shielding him from the damage of the wind. As his vision returned, he realized he was standing on the lip of an ancient crater, a slow, curving edge that swooped across the valley as far as he could see. A slow arc of rock, smoothed and worn over by millions of years of erosion. Rocky cliffs highlighted the crater’s edge every hundred feet or so, pockmarked with caves and spires. A twisting stone tower stood in the distance looking over the valley, built by a mixture of right angles twisting into the sky—a blocky corkscrew adorned with faded patterns and symbols.
What the hell kind of game is this?
But it was the city nestled at the center of the crater that took Mitch’s breath away—an ancient collection of roads, buildings, walls, and dried canals sunken into the desert, disintegrating bit by bit with each gust of wind, but somehow keeping its form. All built from baked adobe, abandoned long ago and left for dead. But right now, it was everything he needed. Right now, shelter—anything but sand—looked like heaven on whatever virtual earth he’d landed on.
He skidded down the crater’s edge, jogging towards the closest structure he could find—just something with walls and a floor and half a roof to speak of. The standalone structures on the outskirts were each neck-high with sand drifts, but Mitch was encouraged, watching the sand level fall as he worked his way deeper into the city. He found more of the same with every step, a lifeless ghost town, long forgotten. He walked the ancient streets, picturing what it must have been, back in its time. Merchants lining the alleys, children playing games in every corner.
He laughed the thought off once he’d realized his mistake. It’s only a game world. It doesn’t have a history.
He walked into a town square—a collection of six or seven buildings huddled together, shielding each other from the sand’s wrath. A single stone obelisk stood at the center, covered in eroded hieroglyphs carved down each side. He ducked into the closest open doorway and took the first clean breath of air he could remember. The shelter wasn’t much—just a cave-like opening where a door once stood and two windows facing out to the square. But it was calm, and quiet, and it was all his.
He collapsed into the corner, laying his backpack at his feet, wiping sand from his mouth.
Congratulations, you made it. What the hell are you supposed to do now?
He focused on the task at hand—the best way to find Chu, the best way to find the rest of the team. But every attempt to put a plan together was too much of a fight, and he was all out of fight. He pulled both palms down across his face, trying to shake off the past few hours.
With nothing to work with, his mind found itself back in the last world, back in the greens and grays of NeverRise. Back to the last battle, and the feeling of being at the top of his game again after all these years, just for a few moments, even if it all had come crashing down soon after. But NeverRise was gone, and at this point, half of Skirmish might be gone, too. He was a man in a strange land, all alone, searching for a team that had left him behind.
“What are you going to do about it, asshole?” Mitch whispered to himself, throwing a handful of sand across the room. “You’re zero for two against that son-of-a-bitch. If you can’t beat him with a flame-throwing robot, how are you going to do it with a Skirmish rifle? Or with nothing at all?” The spray of sand found a sideways gust of wind, throwing the dust right back into his face.
Focus on the mission, Mitch. Shouldn’t be hard—there’s nothing else here, anyway.
He stood up, shaking it off. Shaking off the whole damn thing. He brought up his status screen, checking the clock
.
Six hours, fifteen minutes to find Chu, locate the rest of the Nefarious team, and get them all home.
“If I’m a sniper, where do I go?” Mitch asked himself as the wind howled through the windows.
He leaned against the empty window frame, his eyes pulled to the structure standing high in the distance, cutting through the orange sky. The stone tower stood tall and firm, defiant to the gusts of sand blowing up and around its twists and turns.
“I’d go high,” he whispered, heading for the door. “Snipers go high.”
THE SKIRMISH MANUAL:
A TEAM-BASED APPROACH
Roles and Responsibilities
* Demolitions * Bulldozer * Rover * Sniper * Leader *
SNIPER
Responsibilities: Cold and calculated. Methodical. A rock under pressure. That’s how you want your sniper. A sure shot is vital, but being a good long man requires an understanding that the role’s power lies more in the mind than with any weapon. A good sniper can cause the opposing team to lose faith in their own strategy—to spread chaos and send grown men fleeing for cover, abandoning all hope.
With a sniper, a calm hand opens to reveal chaos inside.
THIRTY-TWO
Long Way Down
MITCH CLIMBED.
He paced up the stairs, scraping each boot across thin layers of swirling sand, each slicker than the last. He fought the sick feeling rising in his stomach, remembering not to look down, not again. But his view straight ahead gave him a wider understanding of the game world with every step. At this height, he could make out the edges and shapes of massive structures far off on the horizon—pyramids carved from solid rock and mountains of glass. The opposite direction showed pale orange giving way to light blues and greens and grays—the world shifting over to valleys, lakes, mountains, and rivers. Snow-capped ranges beyond them. The signs of life were far off in the distance, but even just knowing they were there—that there was more to this world than heat and sand—cooled the back of Mitch’s neck.
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