by Wells, JB
Kieran jumped off the chair, his legs were a little heavy but his body was back, he was normal again. He drank the water and felt his body re-hydrate instantly. “So I can just go?”
“Yep.” Gracie carried on checking the screens and filling out her chart. “Most of the time you have a different watcher, so it may not be me again. I have to say though, I’m glad you transitioned so well, you have a natural gift for it. Now, off you go, the bell has already called.”
“That was so freaking brick!” Owen shrieked as he jumped out of his chair. “Please, no more lessons.”
“Nope, time to go and meet Cadet Thistle,” Dexter smiled dragging him along. “Time to go and meet our leader.”
The cadets walked away from the chairs to a cadet who was waiting nearby. His name badge said Thistle, 333. On his shoulders sat three silver stripes.
“Whoa, he’s a legend.” Owen gushed.
“We hardly know him,” Isabelle laughed.
“No, durr! His stripes mean he is a Legend gamer.”
Isabelle shrugged indifferently.
Next to Sebastian Thistle were two more cadets, one of them was Emily Magnus and the other was Ben Folley. The group walked up to Cadet Thistle and waited with him as others slowly approached their correct squad.
Richard and Felix pushed past Kieran and Dexter nearly sending them flying. Richard was still wearing the stupid smile that said he was the best.
“I still don’t get it, how did he get in to TakeDown, he’s rubbish at practically everything.” Dexter hissed.
“Depends who you know in this place,” Sebastian smirked.
The crowd around them had grown. There twenty new hunters along with seven new members of TakeDown and twelve new medics. The nineteen year old cadet stood tall in front of them, his holobadge shone brighter than theirs. He looked each of them up and down assessing their strengths.
“I am Sebastian, but call me Seb. I’m a fifth year here at WIPI and I have been the leader of Hunters for nearly two years. I haven’t lost a cadet yet. The reason I haven’t lost anyone is because of the three rules.” Seb had his hands behind his back and paced back and forth in front of the group, he was the image of a young Ex but with a more stylish haircut. “One, you obey every order. Two, you mess up and you’re out, and three, no one gets left behind. Are we clear?”
“Yes Sir!”
“As Hunters, our team colour is blue and our emblem is a set of wings. You see the boxes scattered around?”
The cadets scanned the walls and saw four boxes sat high up near the ceiling.
“These boxes are our calling card. As soon as that box flashes, I expect to see my team in their chairs ready for upload. Do you understand?”
“Yes Sir.”
Emily Magnus, the leader of TakeDown laughed sarcastically. “If any of you need namby pamby babysitting, then leave now.” She shouted cruelly at her new recruits and looked them up and down like she already hated them. “TakeDown is the hardest squadron to be in. I won’t lie to you, we lost two cadets yesterday whilst on manoeuvres in Tulsars Castle.”
Emily was a mean looking girl, as she spoke her face looked scary as if she’d never smiled in her life. She was the same age as Seb but she looked hard and angry. She didn’t soften the words to her cadets, she carried on speaking without any emotion. “I don’t have rules just a motto: ‘The chances are you won’t come out, but if you’re going to be taken, then go down fighting.’ If you don’t like that then please join Seb’s group. I’m sure he will be able to hold your hand and wipe your nose for you!” She was a hard person to please.
Seb rolled his eyes at Emily and continued with his cadets. “We have targets and standards in Hunters. I will expect you all to keep up with them, if not then you will be removed from my clan. I look forward to fighting alongside each of you. Dismissed.
Kieran and his friends turned to leave as his name was called out.
“Cadet Kealey, can I have a word?” Kieran brushed his hair out of his face and grimaced at his friends. After hurting his hands they tingled whenever he felt worried now and he rubbed his palms together to try and rid the feeling.
“We’ll wait here,” Dexter reassured him.
Kieran returned to Seb and waited to hear his fate.
“Wing filled me in on what happened in the Intracell game. I have to admit I’m pretty impressed how you handled the after effects.”
Kieran shrugged still rubbing his hands together, the tingling feeling fresh in his mind.
“I was there, I saw you create the Tetracell and it was something else.”
Kieran blushed, “Erm…thanks.”
“Anyway, I want you to join the Hunters Intracell Team. Since Pied-Piper has been infecting people faster than the speed of light, we’re a man down.”
“Really, me?”
Keeping a stern face he simply nodded.
“Yes, that would be amazing,” Kieran’s hands stopped tingling instantly.
“Good, training is usually three times a week at 1600 hours in the commons room, but with the recent events that has all been cancelled. So, throwing you in at the deep end, literally, we have a match this Saturday. I need you suited in at 1400 hours.”
“Okay?”
“You know what you have to do. You can pick a set of skins up from the stores and the sensory gear will be with Wing. I will see you in there on Saturday.”
“Great, thank you sir.” Kieran’s smile was still splitting his face in two.
“Don’t thank me just yet.”
Kieran re-joined his friends who had overheard the whole conversation.
“Intracell team, you were asked to join the Intracell team?”
He looked at Owen and Dexter completely dumbfounded. “I think that’s what just happened.”
“Kiwi, that is so brick!”
Dexter huffed, “Dude, I told you, you’re the brick. Seriously no one will ever pick it up.”
Kieran turned one last time before he left and he glanced longingly at the world they had just left behind. The chair was almost glowing, calling and beckoning him to get back in there. It was amazing in Plantranet, he too felt right in there. He felt like he belonged. His feeling was short lived as Richard appeared.
“See you in the match, it will be a joy taking you out. I’ll be the new leader of TakeDown Intracell league before long, just watch this space.”
Kieran didn’t care at that moment; he glanced past Richard and back at the world that made him feel right. He wasn’t the freak anymore, he was part of The Elite
16
“You have been here well over a week now; you’ve had five of your ten mandatory training sessions. This is your first lesson on manoeuvring and tactics. You may find you encounter your first taster of transference today, it is not something to be scared of, and it’s natural within the realms of Plantranet. Can anyone here tell me what transference is?”
Simon Doolie’s shaky hand appeared through the crowd.
“Cadet Doolie, I should have guessed you would have a pretty good understanding of this. Please enlighten the rest of the class.”
Simon took a deep breath, “Transference is when a small amount of damaged coding from your avatar can download back with you.” Simon’s relief could be heard as he squirreled himself back within the group for safety.
“Yes, that is correct. If you take a bad fall within Plantranet, you may find faint bruising on your body. You feel the pain when you are in there but that is just from the avatar’s point of view. In some cases when you are downloaded back to the arena a small amount of the damaged coding, as Doolie pointed out, could transfer back with you. It is due to the exceptional rate of upload, the physical memory data from your avatar can get mixed up in the process. The scientists and Techs call it Transference. But don’t worry about that now, as Cadet Doolie is the only one who has spent most of his time cleaning the ground with his visor. Now, if you would all go through the door behind me, we shall begin.
&n
bsp; The room they walked into was dark except for a dim light that floated in the middle. The walls were black with scrapes and dents in them.
“What goes on in here for there to be those marks up there?” Isabelle asked as she inspected the ceiling.
“I have no idea.” Kieran stopped staring at the digs and scrapes. He noted the ramps, hideouts and hidden stairs that led to a higher concourse. “This looks a bit like laser quest.”
“This is the combat training room, you will have at least another five sessions in here and then you will be put on shift out there.” Ex’s thick steel armour almost twinkled under the dim light.
All of the cadets had to continue their training regardless of their squadron or job, all except Guiders who had a different form of training. At any point any other cadet could be called up to fight. Even those who worked in the control rooms belonged to a clan.
The room was a sea of colour, the medics in their green armour stuck together in one group, the cross engraved in each of their back plates. The red Hunters were standing close to each other, their symbol of wings representing their duty to help set the taken free. Huddled in the corner were three cadets in pure black, they were the TakeDown clan. Their symbolic handcuffs entwined with barbed wire portraying their specialised duty to restrain and retrieve select enemies. Reserve fighters had the same colour as their own clan except their colouring was pale and there was a wave running through their symbol.
“Right,” Ex’s bulky armour glistened under the light. He held his hand up, “This is a flapper.”
The cadets sniggered and looked at Ex strangely.
“I assume you all know what a clapper is?” The cadets nodded. “Well, a flapper works the same as a clapper except you don’t clap. Like many of the spawning objects, this one Rewdy can create for you, but only twice. It takes a lot of power for the robot to make one so you must make sure you use them only when it is really important. Anyway, like its name suggests you simply flap your arm through it to extinguish the light.” Ex raised his heavy armoured arm and wafted his hand through the glowing orb. The lamp rubbed out in wisps of smoke and plunged the room into darkness. “Each light will give you two hours light at best, but you must remember that many enemies will be attracted to it and you will let them know where you are. Selsus, another Flapper, please.” A light appeared again. “You will have fifteen minutes of light and then you will be left to fight in the dark.” Ex strolled back towards the door. “If you are in the caves you won’t have much light, so use all your knowledge and your guiders to fight your way out of this. The scenario will start in one minute and you have one hour. Don’t forget, points’ scoring is this weekend, so rack ‘em up cadets.” With that he left the room and the door slid shut, bolting up several times behind him.
“So what do we do now?” Dexter mumbled.
“We fight,” Kieran whispered and took in the surroundings, looking through the sight on his gun. He couldn’t help but notice that Richard and his friends were looking happy with themselves, as they congregated with each other in the corner.
“They obviously don’t have to fight.” Owen shook his head and backed towards the wall with Alfie covering him, their guns aimed.
“They made it into the toughest group,” Kieran muttered, still scoping the area.
“No Kiwi, they fell into the toughest group.” Isabelle corrected and joined them.
The footsteps of all cadets bounced around the room, there was scraping and clonking as their armour was so heavy. A claxon sounded and the lights went out, the room was in complete darkness.
Kieran looked at the panel on his forearm, a few buttons sat above the screen and he pushed one. A clock started to count down from sixty minutes. “Okay, we’ve got fifty nine minutes, let’s make this count.”
“Agreed,” Alfie called and he switched his clock on.
The others that had congregated in a group also switched theirs on.
“Fenton?” Kieran called.
Fenton Collins was Kieran’s Guider for this session. He was one of the third years and he didn’t sound anywhere near as friendly as Chloe or any of the others had in the past.
“Here,” Fenton snapped.
Kieran glanced into the corner of his visor to see him but Fenton had not appeared.
“Can I have the plan for the room, please?”
“Sure,” Fenton almost huffed, “the outline will be with you in thirty seconds.”
“Thank you?” Kieran called but his guider had gone.
“Who’s yours today, Kiwi?” Isabelle asked.
“Someone called Fenton, though he’s not what you’d call a laugh a minute.”
“Ouch!” Lewis, one of their new friends laughed, “He’s Felix’s older brother.”
“Ohh,” Dexter mimicked a girlish tone, “no wonder he’s being icy. Looks like the points could be ours today, kiddies!” With that he gave an evil laugh and scurried off, he kept low and his scope was held up to his face. As it was pitch black, it didn’t take long before Dexter ran into a wall and smacked his gun into his visor, and in turn bumped his nose. A few ‘ouch’s’ followed and that made Isabelle laugh with joy.
The map appeared on Kieran’s visor. “There’s a sheltered area in the far corner, it’ll be a perfect place for us to take cover. In a two by two formation, we should make our way over there.”
“But it’s so dark,” Dexter moaned.
“Erin,” Owen called, “Can I have a flapper please?”
Seconds later a glowing light appeared above Owen, and gently lit the area around them.
“Snozbots!” Isabelle screamed and she crouched down.
“Take cover!” Kieran called, his visor lit up with cross hairs. “Set guns to Recov and fire on an empty chamber.”
The steadily growing group of cadets all shot their weapons into the air above them. The high pitch noise from the guns squealed around the room and the swarm of Snozbots landed with a crash. The points all fizzed into the air and each cadets arm plate vibrated.
Kieran noted the time still counting down on his forearm, “forty five minutes left. Let’s keep moving.”
They continued moving forward, with more cadets joining them. When they reached the shelter, Kieran pointed at areas for each cadet to take cover in. The area was pretty secure, there were at least twelve Antigen guns covering every direction. Above them was the second level, so there was no worry of an enemy attack from above, but hidden in the corner behind them was a grating that covered one of the air vents.
“Well, I was expecting more than this,” Isabelle whispered, her voice was all crackly as it came through the comms in their helmets. “Just a little more action!”
A scream erupted from the far side of the room, making them jump, and then there were more screams.
“What on…” Owen started to say.
Kieran hushed him before he could say anymore. The ground started to rumble around them like an earthquake.
“Zwerms!” Another cadet called from the back.
“Everybody, quiet!” Kieran hollered, “Do not move!”
The grating nailed to the wall, burst open with the force of the rumbling. The once sturdy ground that they were securing began to bounce around. “Over here, to the wall!” He called trying to steady himself. Once they were in the shelter of the wall they watched the other cadets as they screamed and ran away from the giant worm like creature.
“They’re all screaming!” Dexter called.
“Shh!” Kieran raised his hand and carried on watching. “Fenton?” He called quietly but there was no response. “Fenton?”
“Should I flap out the light?” Alfie asked.
Kieran shook his head, “No, the Zwerms are blind.” He pointed to the cadets that pin-balled back and forth. “They are making way too much noise, they’re sitting targets. We need to make them quiet.” He looked at Dexter, “Can you reach your guider?”
“Travis?” Dexter crouched, silent for a minute. He looked up at K
ieran, “I can, why?”
“Fenton?” Kieran called a couple more times, his hand placed over where his ears would be on his helmet. He sighed and released his hand, “Can you ask your Guider to reach Fenton for me?”
Dexter knelt down and spoke to his guider. “He can’t get hold of him either. He thinks there might be a connection issue with his pod.”
“Can you ask Travis to patch into me?”
“191,” Travis appeared in Kieran’s visor.
“Hi Travis, sorry to have…”
“No, don’t apologise.” Travis interrupted him, “I can only think that there must be a connection issue. How can I assist?”
Kieran watched through the dancing symbols on his visor that followed the beasts as cadets ran for their safety. Some dived onto the floor as the gigantic beast crashed around them, and others scrambled and skidded across the room.
“Can I talk to the other cadets?”
“Sure, do you want me to put you through now?”
“Yes, please.”
Travis laughed and Kieran could see him in the corner of his screen. Travis leant in and shook his head. “Looks a little bit of a mess in there, eh? Lucky it’s only a training session.”
Kieran carried on watching as a few of his new friends dodged danger, all he could do was watch from safety.
“Go ahead, 191.”
“Guys,” Kieran whispered, “can you hear me?”
A few screams echoed back in his ear. Over in the far corner were three very dark figures. Each of them was near enough climbing the walls.
“Looks like TakeDown just took on three new babies.” Dexter laughed.
As he laughed a crash came from behind them, a fifteen foot tall and 20 foot long Zwerm burst through the wall where the vent had been. Kieran and a few others were knocked to the floor.
“Zwerm!” Alfie screamed.
Many of the group followed Alfie as he hot footed it away from the once secure corner. Dazed and hurt, Kieran could see the creature lunging after cadets and then he saw a figure running and screaming. It was Dexter.
Kieran laid still and held his breath with his gun firmly in his grasp. The Zwerm’s rippled tail was wobbling and crashing only inches from his face. He lay there, mesmerised by the animal, its skin was semi-translucent and the textured flesh beneath it moved around freely. There were no visible bones, and underneath the oversized maggot were four little legs that looked like matchsticks. Confused he tried to work out how four little tiny things could hold up such a volume of weight. Holding his breath until his lungs were fighting for him to breath, the Zwerm grew closer to him. He could hear his heart beating loudly as the blood rushed through his ears. Finally the tail crashed down on top of him as it turned towards movement.