by Axie Oh
“Nice sharpshooting,” Seungri says as Jessica rolls by, raising his GM’s hand for a high five.
She ignores him. “Alex, what’s the plan?”
“We’re heading to the lighthouse,” Alex says, his eyes averted from the camera. He wipes sweat off his forehead.
I frown, noticing the slight trembling of his hand. Is the Enhancer finally showing its infamous side effects?
“Alex?” Jessica repeats.
“Something’s not right,” he says. “The lower city. It’s too quiet.”
I check my GM’s visuals, but nothing seems out of place. The map on my screen shows an empty lower city leading to the Hydro-filled beach.
“There’s nothing on the map,” Jessica says.
“Yeah, well, our map is the shittiest map in the history of maps,” Seungri says.
“Shut up,” Alex gasps. “All of you. I need to concentrate. There’s a high probability that there’s — ” He breaks off.
We see his mouth move, but we don’t hear his words, drowned out as they are by a wall of sound.
A blast from a high-power beam cannon pierces through our group. Most of us are quick enough to get out of the way. Sela isn’t. Her GM takes a brutal hit to the back, her bot sparking dangerously.
“Sela!” Seungpyo shouts, grabbing her GM with his own. He chucks her to the side as another beams blasts through.
It’s an overhead ambush, a line of RL-005s on the rooftops. Like the ones in the upper city, but with advanced upgrades, including beam cannons and increased mobility. Third Act war machines.
I retract my blades, detaching my power rifle and shield from my back. With my shield angled horizontally to block my chest, I steady my rifle on the shield rim, the barrel aimed skyward. I’m a decent shot; one out of every three bullets finds its mark. Jessica’s much better, but there’s only one of her.
Seungpyo grabs Sela’s unused rifle, twisting around to shoot two-handed.
Defenseless, Sela backs up. An enemy RL bursts through a building behind her. It wraps its arms around her GM’s chest and squeezes.
I rush forward, taking a close-range shot to my shoulder. I jam one of my blades into the helm of the RL holding her. It lets go, reeling back, and I blast it in the chest multiple times with my rifle.
Inside my GM, the cockpit flashes red in warning.
Damage count: 47%
My GM lists, going haywire. The shots from above have stopped, giving me time to check my status. Sela’s face pops up on my screen. “Jaewon-ssi, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say, gritting my teeth.
I am pissed, though. If this were a real battle, I could get out of my GM and quickly fix some of its more damaged parts, but the program won’t allow me to leave until I’ve reached the Tower. Yes, we can die in real life, but we can also fix ourselves when we’re broken.
“None of this makes any sense,” I growl into my comm. Alex flickers in to watch my rant. “You can’t simulate real life in a simulation. It’s impossible.” I point the red light of my rifle on the nearest building. “That building is shaking with pixelation. If I had a can of spray paint, I couldn’t draw on the wall. Tsuko says he wants us to experience real-life combat, but simulations can never replicate real life.”
Alex shakes his head. “This isn’t the time for debating the morality of the test. Not to mention we’re being monitored by Tsuko. Try not to piss him off and get a default death. I still need you in order to win.”
I close my eyes and take a steadying breath. I open them. “All right, let’s finish this.”
Alex follows me out of the city streets and onto the cement roads curbing the beachfronts of Busan. The bay that lines the stone bridge leading to the lighthouse is packed with Hydros — their massive rocket launchers already primed for firing. The bridge itself is deserted, but it’s without cover, and narrow enough that one shot could fling us into the water.
“The game’s rigged,” Seungri says. “There’s no way we can get across that bridge.”
“We can,” Alex says. “We just have to force our way.” His face doesn’t show up on my screen. He must have disengaged the ability of his GM to transfer his visual. We can only hear him, the calm cadence of his voice issuing out of the speakers. “It’ll be risky, but it’s the only way. As a bulk unit, we’ll have a better chance of making it across the bridge.”
“What are you talking about?” Seungri asks, maneuvering his GM onto the sand.
“I’m saying we’re going to have attach our GMs to one another, front to back, and move as quickly as we can across the bridge. We’ll be bombarded with shots on both sides, but as a bulk unit, we’ll be too heavy to knock into the water. Jessica will snipe from the beach. If we can make it across the bridge in less than a minute, the armor of our GMs should be able to withstand the assault.”
Seungpyo’s face looks almost blue in the image projected across my screen. “And if we can’t?”
“Then we die,” Alex says simply. Again, his face fails to show on our screens.
“Alex,” I say, looking directly into my camera. Even if I can’t see his face, he can see mine. “What are the statistics of a plan like this succeeding?”
Alex’s response is immediate. “Seventy-five point-eight-seven percent.”
Seungpyo whistles. “Not bad.”
I ask my last question. “What’s the percentage of all of us surviving?”
“Eighty-nine point-three-two percent.”
“I’d high-five that high percentage,” Seungri shouts in English.
I shut off my own cam and close my eyes.
The twins might be fooled, but I’m not. I don’t trust those numbers. They’re not just high. They’re too high.
“Jaewon-ssi,” Sela says, her singsong voice cutting through my troubled thoughts. “Are you all right?”
I roll my shoulders and press my comm back on. “I’m fine.” I jerk my GM forward. “I’ll take the front.”
“No,” Alex says. “You take the middle. Your GM’s too damaged.”
“I’ll take the front,” Seungpyo says, positioning his GM in front of mine. “Leave it to me. I got you kids covered.”
Seungri sputters. “Kids?”
“Yeah, kids. I was born eighty-eight point-five-six seconds before you, remember? I got you, my cute little brother.”
“Little?” Seungri falls over in his seat with laughter. “Cute?”
“You heard me,” Seungpyo says, engaging the back of his GM with the front of mine. He grins into the camera. “Now shut up. Let’s end this simulation in time for dinner.”
“Dad’s making dumplings!” Seungri shouts.
I shake my head. Brothers. I extend the arms of my GM outward, the right holding my power rifle, the left holding my shield. The front of my GM presses against the back of Seungpyo’s, the back against the front of Seungri’s. Alex takes up the rear, both of his guns aimed wide. The girls position themselves on the beach to snipe.
“On the count of three,” Alex says, his face reappearing on our screens, expression blank. His calmness settles my nerves. Almost. “Three.”
We jet forward. My gears are in neutral, propelled by Alex’s speed and Seungpyo’s direction. I pivot the head of my GM so that I can see the ocean to my right, aiming at Hydros in the water and blasting them with my power rifle. On my left, I can feel the bombardment of bullets hammering against the thick metal shield.
Halfway down the bridge, the gears in Seungri’s wheels give out. His GM jerks to a stop, almost knocking all of us off the bridge.
“Ai — shhh. I’m disengaging,” he shouts. He gives my GM, still attached to the back of Seungpyo, a powerful push, propelling me forward.
It happens in a second.
One moment, Seungpyo and I are speeding down the bridge, faster without the
added weight of Seungri and Alex. The next moment, there’s a blast. I’m thrown violently to the side. My machine staggers, but somehow remains upright. Ears ringing, I look up to see an empty space where Seungpyo’s bot once stood. Frantically I zoom my camera in on his GM. It’s in the water, sinking. Half of it is blown away, cockpit included.
Damage count: 23%.
My screen is static. Pieces of sharp metal fall from the ceiling. The cockpit flashes red in warning. I grab the straight horizontal bar-shift and jam it forward into full throttle. My GM flies across the last remaining meters of the bridge, plunging through the shoddy gates surrounding the lighthouse. It smashes into the belly of the Tower, the walls crumbling down on either side of me.
“Seungpyo’s down!” Jessica cries into the silence and smoke.
I watch on my circle map as the green dot labeled N.S.1, for No Seungpyo, peters out into nothing.
My eyes immediately focus on the still green dot labeled N.S.2, for No Seungri. It remains unmoving, still stuck on the bridge.
My eyes are glued to the dot, my throat swallowing dry air.
“Lee Jaewon!” Alex shouts.
They’re brothers.
“Lee Jaewon!”
How can one live without the other?
“Jaewon-ah, listen to me. This isn’t how it ends.”
“Seungpyo’s . . .”
“I know. I know. But you need to bring the rest of us home.”
I take a breath.
Home.
I have no home.
I unclip the belt holding me down, and it retracts with an audible zip. “Here goes nothing,” I murmur, turning the handlebar that opens into the lighthouse.
08
The Girl
It’s cold in the lighthouse. A breeze whistles through the cracks in the mortar like a thin scream. I’ve never been near the ocean in reality, but the clinging salt of the air stings as it hits my skin.
Leaning forward out of the cockpit, I see my GM has burst through the rubble wall of the lighthouse, the front half of its body jammed against the crumbling spiral staircase.
Gripping the metal handlebar situated right outside the cockpit — placed on the GM to help the pilot maneuver in and out of the machine — I jump, feetfirst, onto the nearest staircase landing. A few chunks of cement fall from the stairs, crashing to the floor below.
Inside the GM, I’d been wearing my school uniform, but sometime between leaving the cockpit and landing on the stairs — maybe in the air as I jumped — the simulation changed my outfit into a standard soldier’s uniform, black with one red armband. I also have a handgun tucked away in a holster attached to a gun belt worn across my chest.
I take the stairs three steps at a time, feeling winded by the eighth landing, even if this is a simulation. I’m surprised I haven’t yet run into any enemy soldiers protecting the perimeter. The thirteenth landing ends at a door, the shadowed light of the lantern room seeping through the cracks.
I slowly turn the doorknob, press the toe of my boot against the wood, and ease it open. I raise my gun. I’m here to defuse a bomb, but it’s likely guarded within the room.
The room is dark, the only source of light the lighthouse’s lantern beam that slowly sweeps the gray-blue ocean waters, searching for imaginary ships in the night.
I wonder how many hours we’ve spent in this simulation. Time moves differently here. What could seem like hours in here could be minutes in the Real. It’s how soldiers get trained so quickly and at such a young age. We spend so much fake time training in simulations to die in a moment in the Real.
Something flickers to my right.
“Sela?”
She stands behind the bars of a holographic cage, watching me, her eyes wide and dull. “Save me,” she says, her voice sounding electronic and hollow. “Save me.”
I flick on the mike at my ear, attached to my comm. “I found the hostage,” I say dryly.
“Good,” Alex responds. “What about the explosive?”
I peer around the room. It’s hard to see anything. There are deep shadows in the corners, where the beam of the lighthouse fails to reach.
“It’s not here.”
“It has to be. The mission hasn’t ended yet. Are you sure you checked all the rooms?”
I look around. There are no other rooms other than this one and the empty main chamber my GM crashed into. But maybe there’s something hidden with Sela in the cage.
“No,” I say, “one sec — ”
I’m jarred to the side as a body hurtles into mine, a fist connecting beneath my rib cage and knocking the breath out of me. My gun slides across the floor, hitting the side of Sela’s holographic prison.
My assailant, his face hidden beneath the shield of a pilot’s helmet, is smaller than me, the top of his head reaching a little past my shoulders. Still, he’s got a powerful punch. It takes all my strength, bolstered by adrenaline, to push him off. He veers into a wall, his helmeted head banging against the hard cement. He stumbles backward, raising his gloved hands to the base of his helmet.
I rush to Sela’s static cage, grabbing my gun from the floor and twisting to shoot.
The globe of the helmet rocks upon the floor, revealing the face of my attacker.
I lower my gun.
“Lee Jaewon!” Alex shouts from the comm. “What’s happening?”
I watch as the girl cocks her head to the side, as if listening to Alex’s voice. There’s no possible way she can hear him.
“It’s you,” I say.
I’ve seen her before. Last night at the concert. She’d been staring at the stage as Sela sang the last words of her song. Even if this moment in the lighthouse is simulated, yesterday night was real. I remember the way the police droids tumbled off the Grid and took her away. Who is she?
“Lee Jaewon!” Alex shouts again, and I squint at the pain of it in my ear. “Did you find the bomb?”
“There’s a girl.”
“That’s nice,” he growls. “Is she hostile?”
I’m about to answer when the girl lifts her hands to her collar. She wears a black jumpsuit that zips to her throat. Her face remains expressionless as she lowers the metal zipper. I swallow, my hand tightening on the gun. Why is she . . . ? Blue-and-red wire peeps out of the collar of her suit.
“It’s on her,” I say into my comm. “The bomb. She’s wearing it.”
There’s a pause on Alex’s end. “She attacked you, didn’t she? Then she’s hostile. Shoot her and defuse the bomb.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her. I think she’s real.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
To my right, fake Sela flickers in her cage, a poorly constructed hologram wearing a pale pink dress that washes out her vacillating face.
The programmers of the simulation have Tech to make Sela appear real. Why would they choose to project a weak, almost blurred image of Sela, yet put small, unnecessary details on the image of the girl I’m facing? Even with the dim lighting of the lantern room, I see her. She has a light brown beauty mark at the bridge of her nose, thin lips, and empty eyes. Is it a trick? Is she the hostage?
“Lee Jaewon!” Alex yells from the comm. “I’m coming up. If you’re still alive, I’m going to kill you.”
I can’t concentrate with Alex shouting in my ear, so I take out my earpiece. It’s attached to a cord that wraps around my neck, and I have to duck my head to take it off. When I lift my head, the girl is no longer empty-handed. She holds a gun aimed at my chest.
Well, then.
She releases the gun’s safety with an audible click.
We stare at each other. When she doesn’t immediately shoot, I wonder if she’s as curious about me as I am about her
“I’ve seen you before,” I say.
“You could
n’t have.”
Her voice is clear like a wind chime.
Simulations can’t respond without prewritten dialogue, so I decide to test her. “It was last night, a little before midnight.”
She blinks, a first sign of emotion. “You were at the concert?”
“I was. The music could have been better.”
The girl steps forward, eyes flashing. “You’re wrong. It was beautiful.”
Of course she would think that. I’d never seen someone so captivated by a song before.
A flash of surprise crosses her features, and then she scowls. “It doesn’t matter if I was there or not. It doesn’t matter if you were there or not.”
“It matters to me.” I step forward. “Who are you? Are you like me, taking a test at a different academy?”
She doesn’t answer, pursing her lips.
I bend my knees and place my gun on the floor, then kick it away out of reach. I won’t kill her, even to beat the simulation. If she’s under the same test rules we are, killing her in the simulation would mean she could actually die in the Real. She watches me, a frown on her lips.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” I say.
I watch as she slowly lowers her gun. “I — ” she begins.
I never get to hear the end of that thought. The doors behind us bang open, and Alex explodes into the room, his comm already pulled off and hanging around his neck. He throws it to the floor, where it slides through fake Sela’s cage.
“Shit, Jaewon,” Alex says, breathing heavily. I can see the slight tremors in his hands, the onset of the Enhancer’s withdrawal symptoms. His gaze moves from the girl’s gun, raised again when Alex barreled into the room, to mine, clearly dropped on the floor. “Couldn’t you have chosen a better time to lose it?”
“Alex, I think she’s a student at another academy, taking a senior test just like us. If she dies in the simulation, she dies in real life.”
Alex shakes his head, frowning. “That can’t be right. I know for a fact that we’re the only team taking this high-level test in the state. It broke regulations, but my father told me beforehand. To my knowledge, she’s just a sim.”