by Harper North
“Find it?” I ask over the comm.
“Yes,” Vadie says. “Um . . .”
“Go!”
I yell with so much force that no one argues. The Jump Pod takes off, rising above the city, and upon looking down, I see our clones standing at attention for a second before they melt into a green glow that collapses into the ground.
We’ll have to reactivate them in the Lazara Region, then.
No one speaks on the trip to the Lazara Region. It seems to take forever. I can’t level up yet or get my heart to calm. Lucky stays quiet. He doesn’t dare protest. I’m dragging my cluster along and working them like crazy, but at least no one’s protesting right now. They can be angry at me all they want once I ensure that Raralin isn’t going to throw me out to the ICC.
At last, the Jump Pod slows as we descend toward a bright desert with near-white sand dunes and an occasional jutting rock—rocks that offer little cover. The place is a Sniper’s nightmare. I gulp.
“I don’t like this,” Vadie says over the comm. “I’ll tell you why once we’re out.”
The Jump Pods leave us on a platform made of sandstone. A nearby Save Station pokes out of the sand, barely visible. This is not a welcoming region.
“Okay,” I say once we stand on the platform together. “The Ancient Eye is what I think this next thing is called. It can look at any player you’re friended with.”
“Why do you want that?” GloryStealer asks.
“To sell it and settle a debt.”
“We need to rest,” GloryStealer insists. “This isn’t all about you. Even a few hours’ rest will help.”
I resist the urge to check my game time. I should still have at least a full day in real-world time to get this finished and paid off, but I’m a doer. Getting things done is my game. It’s how I reached The Binding to begin with.
“Leave her alone,” Vadie says. “Look, this map is all sorts of . . . bad.”
“You know something about it?” I ask.
“Now that I’m here, I remember it,” Vadie says. “My old cluster—the one that kicked me out—they came here before. I can’t remember where they’d go to fight, but it was never good.” A haunted look comes over his face. The sight makes my heart fall.
This stands between me and rescuing Atlas. Between survival and death for us both.
“There are old ruins somewhere around here,” Vadie continues. “My cluster had to walk around forever to find them. I don’t remember where the leader found this information, but it might be a good idea to get a vehicle. Otherwise, this will take forever. What’s our combined XP?”
I pull up my full HUD. I’m still not used to managing a cluster. Our cluster’s XP pool depends on how much XP each player has earned while clustermates, a number separate from our individual XP. At last, I find it.
“We should be able to buy a vehicle,” I say. “Easily. That Infernix map alone gave us twenty thousand XP.”
We actually have a little over that—twenty-three thousand—thanks to some grinding the others accomplished while I was dealing with the Elders. It looks as if defeating the Tenticlas gave each of us five thousand and gave the cluster five thousand as well. It was the same for the secret treasure map.
“Vadie,” I continue, “what was in this old temple?”
“We could never get inside,” he says. “It was guarded by these . . . things. I can’t describe them.”
I hope The Hermit has input before we get there. I study my map. There seems to be a circular road—perhaps a race track—in the distance. Most deserts have places where you can buy off-road vehicles. Many players like to race, and the desert environment is perfect.
“Look,” Lucky says. “I have to log out to go to work. I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to get fired and thrown onto the streets. Joining The Detached isn’t on my bucket list.”
“We get it,” Coco_Dream says.
Mentioning The Detached brings Atlas to mind again. Isn’t he with them on Earth?
“I’ll see you later,” Lucky says. “Good luck. At least you have the clones.”
He vanishes as he logs out.
“Well,” I say, “should we check out that track in the distance?”
“I can’t see it,” GloryStealer says.
“That’s because your Awareness points aren’t high enough yet,” I explain. “Vadie?”
“I remember there was a track,” he says. “A place that allows XP betting on races. It’s an illegal gambling operation, according to the lore.”
“Then they’ll have vehicles,” I say. “We can buy one from a player down on their luck. Come on.”
It takes forever to get to the race track. It turns out to be a dusty arena with the rumbling sounds of off-road vehicles dashing about inside. More vehicles—all of them off-roaders with huge tires, some possibly upgraded with illegal gun mods on the sides–– wait in a row in front of the oval-shaped sandstone race track structure. People mill around. No one wears armor out here. This is a shady gambling area where fighting isn’t the focus. As I approach, my log welcomes me to The Rat Race. I’m assuming a rat is a type of Earth creature. The name doesn’t have a nice ring.
“Well, we should make an offer on the biggest, most intimidating vehicle we can find,” Vadie says. “I’m serious. How about that one?” he points to the biggest off-roader decorated by mounted machine guns on the hood.
I turn to Vadie. “What are we in for?”
“I told you. I can’t describe it.”
A guy in head-to-toe leather stands next to the vehicle. Painted on the off-roader’s side is a Human woman, just as scantily clad as TheBigGuy’s NPC servants. The bald guy, a Cyborg with a red machine eye, smiles at us and slaps his hand on the hood.
“She’s a beaut, isn’t she?” he asks. “Won it in the last race.”
“Congrats,” I say, keeping my tone friendly. I study the guy’s username. Gunk_TheSecond. Not glamorous. He’s a Level 6 and clearly here for the gambling. If he’s a for-profit player, we may be in luck.
“I’ve been here at the Rat Race for years,” he says with pride. “You want some pointers?”
“You want to make a profit?” I ask. “We have twenty thousand XP we can dangle in front of you for that vehicle. We’re looking for old temple ruins in these parts.”
“She ain’t for sale,” Gunk says.
“But we need that,” Vadie says, shrinking back.
“Those guns,” Coco_Dream says, circling around it.
“Have you seen these ruins?” I ask. A local would know the desert.
A dark look comes over the guy’s face. “You don’t want to go there.”
“Told you,” Vadie says.
“What’s out there?” I ask.
“There are hacked bosses out there,” Gunk says. “ICC throwaways. Failed experiments. I don’t know what the official story is, but they guard the temple and don’t let anyone inside. Countless people have died out there. Some say they’re left over from this world’s early development days. Others say the ICC threw them out to the sands. Garbage, you know? Still others say they were used for early beta testing and the ICC just likes to see how players deal with them. Helps them test things. It’s foolhardy, if you ask me.”
“We’ll pay you XP to take us out there,” I say.
Gunk looks at me as if I’ve suggested deleting his account. “You’re crazy. I won’t go out there after the things I’ve heard. And now that I know what you’ll use her for, I won’t be selling Betsy to you. I would hate to see her roll out to her demise.”
Coco_Dream looks at me, but Android faces don’t convey meaning or emotion well. She grabs the guy’s arm and pulls him toward the vehicle’s door, equipping her Blaster with her other hand. Gunk is way out-leveled. “You will take us to these ruins,” she says. “Time is short. You don’t have to participate in the raid.”
“Ma’am, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he says.
“Open the door. You’re drivi
ng us there.”
Coco_Dream isn’t wasting time. At gunpoint, Gunk opens the driver side door and climbs in. Coco_Dream circles the vehicle, Blaster pointed at him, and gets into the front passenger seat. I wait for him to log out, but he doesn’t. That means one thing: he hasn’t properly stashed the vehicle yet. Players can claim garages to safely stash vehicles. But he’s just won this off-roading beast and hasn’t had time to do that yet. If he dies or logs out beforehand, he loses Betsy.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he says.
We climb into the back of the off-roader, which has no roof. We’re exposed to the sun and whatever else wants to kill us. But we sit well off the ground. That’s a plus. Anything attacking will likely come from the sand.
At gunpoint, Gunk drives us into the desert, over several dunes and through many rocky valleys. He pauses and makes turns around jutting rocks. I try to keep track of the route, but it’s confusing and would have taken us forever to find alone. At last, he crests another sand dune, and on the other side, far below, is a circle of jutting sandstone rocks.
It’s manmade. A temple.
“I ain’t going no farther,” the man says. “This is the temple. You’re on your own from here.” He looks around, plotting an escape route.
“We can let him go now,” I say. “Vadie, is this it?”
“Yes,” he says, voice quaking.
We get off the vehicle. As soon as I jump down, Gunk floors it and flees with Betsy. I’ve never seen such a tough-looking guy so terrified.
“Well, this is it,” I say, marching down the sand and arming my Rifle. “Weapons out. We need to clone ourselves before we get all the way down there.”
The sound of Betsy’s motor fades as we’re left alone. My log tells me that my armor is working to cool me off and its effectiveness is reduced. I pull up my inventory to get the Replica in my hotbar. Clones will help immensely. We are probably the first to attempt to defeat the bosses here with them.
“It doesn’t look so bad,” GloryStealer says.
And then he slips and slides down the dune, dropping his Sniper Rifle.
Vadie swears as GloryStealer rolls into the circle of stones. As soon as he does, the ground trembles. He’s activated something.
Vadie swears. “Here we go!”
We slide down the dune. I land on the circle’s bare stone, slipping the Replica onto my arm. My clone forms again before me, but it can’t happen fast enough. GloryStealer rises and surveys the two monstrosities rising on opposite sides of the arena.
They’re gigantic, mangled hunks of metal with at least a dozen arms each. They stand on mismatched legs as they rise from the sand. Waterfalls of dust fall off each one, turning the air into a haze. A red eye in the center of the first mangled mess searches while a claw sticking out from the second grasps at the air, seeking a victim. These things make no sense. There are no obvious weak points.
My clone finishes forming and I toss the Replica to Coco_Dream. We need her right now.
But even with our clones, we might not come out of this alive.
CHAPTER 9
NOTHING ABOUT THE robot bosses makes sense other than they appear almost impossible to kill. Twin health bars stack on top of each other in my vision and, despite our clones helping us, we’re all taking damage.
The moment a metal monster takes damage, both of the bosses’ health bars regenerate. I crouch behind a stone within the circle and aim my Scope at a red eye belonging to the robot with all the arms. It faces me, eye brightening as it prepares to shoot a laser my way. I fire. Sparks fly from its eye—its only weak point so far—and its health bar drops ten percent. But then the health bar rapidly climbs back to full. My clone fires a shot as well, but we make no headway on bringing these monstrosities closer to death.
The eye emits another beam and a maw of red, seething light tears at the edges of my cover. Rock fragments fly, shrinking the crumbling pillar. Soon I won’t have any cover left. My clone vaporizes. The real Vadie hides behind the pillar next to mine, sheltering from the body claw that grasps at stone. He’s not doing well in this fight. Close Range Combat isn’t the way to go with these monsters.
The claw slips over Vadie’s cover and crushes his clone, who is trying to swing his Electric Glove at the robot. Poor GloryStealer’s clone can’t stay alive for more than thirty seconds. His clone respawns next to mine in a flash of green light and immediately dies as the red-eyed robot slams a mangled metal appendage down on it.
“Don’t die!” I shout over Coco_Dream21’s constant fire. “We won’t find this place again!” Dying means respawning at the last save point. There’s no time for that.
Coco_Dream stays alive by backing away as far as she can from both robots as she shoots. I continue to take cover as the red eye beam fades. Coco_Dream’s clone respawns, fires on the claw robot for a few seconds, and succumbs to another appendage that the monster slams down on it.
But the clones are the only reason the four of us still live. Panic consumes me. Without them, these bosses would have crushed us all in thirty seconds. I check their health bars again. Full. After several minutes of fighting and covering, we’ve made no progress. The moment I come out from hiding, I’m dead.
“Hermit,” I say. “Help?”
“I am meditating.”
It’s the best I can get. I cycle through my hotbar, equipping and then activating my Advanced Nanobot Pack, adding +10 Health Regeneration for three minutes. The red-eyed robot is charging again with an ominous hum. I need to buy time while The Hermit takes his.
Equipping my Rifle and Scope again, I peek out from behind the rock and fire at the eye once more. Sparks fly and the same happens, but the boss continues to charge as its laser weapon brightens. My clone snipes a shot too. Coco_Dream keeps shooting and turns her full aggression on the red-eyed robot. Behind me, the clawed robot snaps its weapon with a screech, hunting for prey. Vadie shouts and runs, directing the claw away from me.
“The entrance to the ruins is in the arena’s center. It can be opened with powerful explosives,” The Hermit says.
The world flashes red. I’m caught in the maw of the eye’s death laser. My health bar plunges as I duck behind the rock’s shelter. My Health Regeneration races against damage just fast enough to avoid a complete drain. The green is a sliver by the time I take cover and starts to climb again.
And that’s with an Advanced Nanobot Pack.
“These bosses are undefeatable,” The Hermit says.
“You could’ve told me that before we came here!” I say. But my mind sharpens. Not reaching the Ancient Eye means death. Literally. “We have to get past these bosses, then.”
“You can blast a hole in the center of the arena.”
“That helps.” I watch as Coco_Dream takes cover behind another pillar as the laser robot fires on her.
And I don’t have much shelter left. My column has whittled down to a giant stone tree trunk, not a massive temple pillar. But an idea hatches. I activate my comm and eye an Advanced Ground Bomb in my inventory, courtesy of Lucky_Champ.
“Everyone,” I shout into my comm, “I’m going in through the middle. Distract the robots long enough for me to get in.”
Another red laser nukes GloryStealer’s clone. The real GloryStealer is hiding and doesn’t dare emerge.
“Are you crazy?” Vadie asks.
“Just do it,” Coco_Dream says. She emerges and opens fire again.
I don’t waste time. Charging into the deadly opening, I equip the Advanced Ground Bomb and place it dead center in the arena. A claw snaps at me, closing in, but Vadie leaps forward, Electric Glove ready. He slams it into the side of the claw and, amazingly, it sparks and freezes for a precious second. Rolling away, Vadie takes cover as another red beam tries to roast him.
I sprint away from the Ground Bomb as a mangled robot tentacle rises above me and slams down—from which boss? I don’t know. The world explodes, and I fly into a stone pillar. Or is it a robot leg
? The object doesn’t move, and I blink, trying to gain my composure, my heart in my throat.
“There’s an entrance!” Coco_Dream shouts.
That’s my cue. I rise as she opens fire, risking herself. The claw sails for her, extending on creaky gears and hydraulics. GloryStealer peeks out and fires. But there is an opening. I roll to the edge and topple down stone steps and into pure darkness.
Coco_Dream21 has fallen in battle!
Taking a breath, I push myself up.
GloryStealer1 has fallen in battle!
I stand on the bottom of the steps as the battle continues to rage above me. Limbs squeal as the sand-clogged machines move to strike Vadie. He’s still alive. The others are respawning back at the save point.
Vadie_77 has fallen in battle!
I’m on my own now.
A lump forms in my throat. My clustermates sacrificed themselves for me. I need to finish this for them.
Before me, a stone corridor stretches into the dark. Topside, the noise dies and sand hisses as the robots sink back into the desert dunes. There’s no time to waste. The Hermit was right. This is the only way to complete this mission, and I have the sense that this part is meant to be completed alone. Even though no one without a whole team and the Ancient Replica could have possibly made it this far.
Have I discovered a secret mission line?
I walk and my footsteps echo off the corridor’s walls, but my map shows no enemies. I need a break and, besides, I don’t have the Replica on my person. Our party passed it around in a hurry before Vadie inventoried it at my order. So, it’s not lost. I have the sense that dying in the arena above means never getting to loot your corpse. Coco_Dream may have just lost her Blaster Mod. The guilt left from their sacrifice returns and tugs at my core.
When I see the faint green glow of alien lights, I know that I’m on the right track. They’re flat and mounted in the ceiling and now I can make out those strange alien symbols on the walls. The mystery blue-skinned race had an operation out here too. Maybe this is another lab and those robots were failed experiments meant to deal with the Golgans. I imagine the robots gained a form of sentience and went rogue long ago, taking out this lab without the Golgans’ help.