Coders

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  Gabby was barely paying attention where she was leading and they wheeled around a corner, right into another squad. Only a few meters separated the two groups. Gabby squeezed the trigger as she dove to the left behind a pile of rubble. It was the Red Wolves, Malthon's squad. The Frags were uncovered in a bad position and had to retreat to a building a block behind them.

  Malthon stood on a pile of rocks for them to see, rifle resting on his leg. He seemed to be egging them on to take a shot at him, but before they could, he hopped behind the barrier and his squad disappeared. Now they had position on them for the Spire.

  No one was hurt, but while they were checking ammo and taking a breather, the others kept glancing at her. Finally, Avony spoke up after a bit of whispering between the three of them.

  "Gabs, you seem rather distracted. You led us right into that other group. We think you shouldn't take point anymore."

  "I'm fine," said Gabby, feeling like she let her friends down. "I'll pay attention. I've just had a lot of thoughts running through my head. Trying to figure out what the Queen is doing. Why she's bothering with this game when she's about to launch a war with the GSA."

  Avony squinted and the lines of her mouth creased with concern. "The Queen told us why at the beginning. A celebration before the war begins. Why does it matter when we just need to survive and win this game? Afterwards we can worry about why she was doing it."

  "But I think it's important. I just don't know why," said Gabby, pleading with her voice.

  The others ignored her, so she leaned back against a tilted slab of concrete. She had a perfect view of the Spire from her vantage point. It rose ominously into the sky. Gabby could almost sense the Black Heart pulsing in its middle.

  The familiarity of the Spire played tricks on Gabby's memory. She wanted to say she'd seen it before, even though she knew that was impossible.

  The other Frags gathered their things and they prepared to set off again. Gabby stayed on her slab, staring at the Spire. It felt like towers had ruled her whole life.

  Gabby sprung up, startling the others. "I know what it is!"

  The others smiled half-heartedly, almost humoring her.

  "The Spire. I know why we can't go there. We can't complete the game."

  Avony stepped forward with her hand out. "Gabs. You're talking madness again. Are you sure you didn't injure your brain when that explosion hit us?"

  Gabby touched the side of her head and felt wetness. Mouse pointed to her. "She's still bleeding out her ear."

  "I'm fine, really." But when she paused, she thought she could hear other voices in that ear. Distant and through a loudspeaker, but she was sure she could hear them.

  "See she's not fine," said Mouse.

  Gabby stamped her foot. "I'm fine and we can't go to the Spire." She was about to explain further when another burst of searing migraine nailed itself between her eyes. She dropped to her knees, clenching her jaw until her teeth hurt.

  Voices floated in and out of hearing while she had her eyes clamped closed and her hands at her temples, trying to kneed the pain away.

  "...are we sure this is the real..."

  "...she was alone in..."

  "...double, was it..."

  When the pain receded, Gabby was staring into three gun barrels.

  "We can't let you stay with us," said Avony. "We're not entirely sure you're the real Gabby and the Queen warned us that one of us would betray."

  "No! No! I'm not betraying, I've just figured—" Her words were cut short when Avony smacked her on the head with the rifle.

  "Open your mouth again and I'll shoot you." Avony's grim demeanor made it clear she would do it.

  Milton stepped forward. "Look, Gabby. If it's the real you, then make your way to the Spire and help us take it down. But don't come anywhere near us. We can't trust you anymore. As far as we know, the Queen could have turned you somehow when you were all alone in the Bridge zone. Offered you amnesty for Zaela or power or anything. We just don't know."

  Gabby opened her mouth to retort, but remembered Avony's threat. Avony had been gone too, but there was no way she could point that out now. Not after raving about the Spire and bleeding from the ear.

  They left her kneeling in the dust. Gabby didn’t bother trying to follow. She knew where they were going.

  Gabby weighed her decisions carefully, but in the end she chose the most dangerous path. It was clear the Crimson Queen had thought of everything beforehand. Had planned each moment down to the minute detail. Had seeded her friends' minds with thoughts of betrayal so this moment would unfold in the manner that it had.

  When the perception of reality was dictated by your enemy, was there anything left to do? Gabby had an idea, but if she was wrong, then she'd be sent to the Delvers for certain.

  She couldn't see the Frags anymore, they had disappeared in the clutter of rubble and buildings. Gabby climbed to her feet and pulled out the saber. The steel whispered out of the sheath. The blade had such a life-like weight to it and Gabby thought she knew why.

  The edge parted the skin on her arm making her gasp. She pulled the device from her arm and then wrapped a piece of torn shirt around the wound.

  The port in her back wasn't hard to find. She maneuvered the device into the hole connecting to her internal computer system and squeezed. At first nothing happened and a stone formed in her gut. Had she reasoned incorrectly?

  When the world melted before her eyes, she dipped to one knee, beset with vertigo. The sensation didn't last long and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a dense white fog.

  Instead of a burned out building, Gabby was standing in what appeared to be a candy shop with the windows blown out. It wasn't rubble at her feet, but little wrapped peppermints.

  The sun had burned away the upper portion of the fog, allowing her to see farther above than she could along the street level. As she expected, the Spire hadn't moved. It was exactly right where she expected to be. Except it wasn't a Spire, but a Tower. A Tower wrapped in blue and gold. A symbol of power in its land.

  It was the main broadcast tower in the Greater States of America. The one that pushed its reality, and LifeGame, to all its citizens. Gabby and the Frags hadn't been playing a game for the Crimson Queen. They'd been her lead soldiers in the assault on the GSA and if her friends did their job as she expected them to do, they would win the war for the Southlands and nothing would stop the Crimson Queen then.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They'd taken her explosives, of course. They would be needed to blow up the guts of the tower and stop the broadcasts. Killing the black heart was just about destroying the main frames and other systems that ran the main broadcast tower.

  The GSA would reroute communications and recover within days, Gabby was sure. But by then, the Southlands would have pushed so far north and turned so many citizens with its version of reality, that the war would be lost.

  Gabby had no idea what other stratagems were in play to make this work. Clearly, the Queen had been testing her strategy for months: enslaving the Double Eaglers, testing the fog on the Coders, designing the game to use a squad of former LifeGamers to take out the tower.

  Gabby wondered if her position as a Coder made the assault work. She knew they had special markers in their system that gave them override powers for LifeGame. She wondered if Cassius' threat had been real or just a bluff to keep her in line.

  Either way, the Queen's game had gotten them this far. Kept them focused on winning rather than worrying about dying. Gabby wondered how many times she'd actually come close to dying on the journey.

  The weapons she'd been given were real enough. Gabby checked out the Desert Eagle and her assault rifle. She knew the saber was real or it would have never cut her arm.

  Gabby mentally tried to activate a map, to find out where she was in the city, but when nothing appeared, she remembered that she didn't have a system any longer. Damon's program had wiped her clean. At least she didn't have to wonder ab
out the location of the tower.

  A bellowing voice startled Gabby and she threw herself onto the floor, scattering peppermints.

  "The city is under attack. Please move to designated shelters until the proper authorities give the all clear."

  The booming male voice repeated the message three more times. A futile exercise if she'd ever heard one. No one in the city except her could probably hear the announcement, but some bureaucrat had probably hit the button on the prerecorded message when the fighting began, following a pointless script written long before the eye-screen and sense-web technology.

  Her ear had stopped bleeding. Whatever devices they put in her ear to create sound inside the false realities had been damaged during the explosion. That's why she'd been hearing the announcements and distant sirens. She was hearing for real.

  Gabby set out with the automatic in a ready-fire position. In this city, everyone would be her enemy. She crept through the streets, staying along the buildings, but avoiding the broken glass.

  Occasionally she came upon dead bodies. Not all were soldiers. Some were mothers and fathers gunned down in the street. Thankfully, there weren't any kids.

  The fog had thinned. She could see the distance of one block, though she would have preferred a thicker covering. As a lone soldier, she had a better chance of sneaking past groups rather than engaging them.

  Gunfire erupted in the street behind her. Gabby glanced around for a place to hide, but she was crossing an empty section. A squad of five was running down the middle of the street. Gabby recognized their formation from LifeGame.

  Pretending to be a dead body, Gabby slumped along the wall, careful to keep her gun near in case she needed to ambush them. The squad moved cautiously, keeping their guns pointed in multiple directions and covering each other as they moved.

  "Up here and to the right. That'll take us to the Spire."

  "Roger that."

  "Do you think that was Dervishes or Gully Rangers behind us?"

  "I don't know but I bet Red Wolves are ahead."

  Gabby kept her eyes half-open as they passed. She recognized their faces. They were Coders taken on the day in the fog. The Queen had split them into squads and given them all the same task.

  Gabby thought back to the squad attacking them when they first entered the zone. They'd wiped them out to a man, but yet, this squad thought the Dervishes were still alive. Which meant the opposing squads had really just been GSA soldiers wrapped in squad skins.

  Her stomach twisted at the thought she'd ambushed and killed real soldiers with her trap. She thought it'd just been a game.

  When the squad turned down a street a few blocks up, Gabby stood up and went the other way. She found an alleyway that cut through the block. As she neared the other side, nearby gunfire echoed overhead. With her bad ear, she couldn't pinpoint the direction.

  No alleyways continued toward the tower, and since the tower was to her left, Gabby went in that direction. She jumped when she heard a gargled cough from a body in the street. The soldier was one of the squad that had just passed her. His companions were slumped over in the street, still in formation, but now very dead.

  Judging by the pool of blood, Gabby didn't expect him to live much longer. Gabby glanced back twice as she moved. The second time it seemed his twitching body had stopped.

  When Gabby saw the figure strolling down the middle of the street, oblivious to any dangers, she thought it was a trick of her eye-screens. The soldier had broad shoulders and even from a distance Gabby could tell he was around the height of Drogan. He sauntered with such an arrogance, Gabby could see it despite the dimming fog.

  But Gabby knew he had to be real, because her eye-screens didn't work anymore, and as he pointed his guns in her direction, Gabby thought she knew who it was.

  Gabby sprinted back the way she came as bullets tore through the storefront behind her, shattering glass over her back. She fired her weapon backwards as she ran, knowing she stood little chance of actually hitting her pursuer.

  When she heard his voice, she knew who it was. "Gabriella, you bitch, I always knew you for a traitor."

  Gabby dove behind a broken wall as Unthar continued firing in her direction. Gabby knelt behind the wall, ignoring the bullets hitting nearby and squeezed off a few rounds. One hit near his feet, and Unthar dodged to the side.

  "That should keep him honest."

  Gabby took off into a building under construction, shooting the door lock before kicking it in. She needed higher ground.

  Of all the people to be after her, Unthar gave her the creeps the most. His reputation as a ruthless shooter was well known amongst the Coders. Besides his predilection for misery and pain, Unthar was unmatched in shooter games.

  Gabby just hoped she could out think him rather than out shoot him, because she knew if they got into a one-on-one duel, he had the faster reflexes.

  She charged up the stairs, opening each door as she went, giving Unthar options to where she might have gone. As she hit the fifth floor, she heard footsteps at the bottom. Gabby entered the fifth floor to find it half finished.

  The south side of the floor had walls, but closer to the north side, walls were less common. Gabby could see the tower through the empty sides. Gabby padded across the floor, keeping an eye on the closed door.

  A hole in the middle of the floor led to the one below. The middle section was filled with scaffolding and wooden planking. It didn't look too far to jump if she had to, but she wasn’t sure how sturdy the landing would be. Tools lay scattered around, indicating they'd been in the middle of construction when the attack started.

  Gabby was hidden behind a tool box on the west side of the hole when she heard the door open. She listened hard for footsteps but she could only hear a faint buzzing in her damaged ear. Gabby had to assume the big man could move silently if he needed to.

  Gabby had picked her spot because it gave her a good sightline and two routes to escape if Unthar came hard and heavy.

  Waiting for the enemy was the hardest part about shooters. Crouched behind the big red box, Gabby's heart labored in her ears. It didn't help that one of them had been damaged in an earlier explosion. Gabby kept turning her good ear toward the door, hoping to hear a floor squeak or a foot fall.

  After staying in a crouched position for at least ten minutes, Gabby began to wonder if Unthar had moved on to a different floor. Wanting to get a better view of the entry way, Gabby crept around the tool box, keeping her weapon at the ready.

  Plaster and wood exploded behind her, as a spray of bullets came through the wall, precisely where Gabby had just been crouched. Gabby sprinted from her spot, blindly shooting in the direction she thought Unthar might be.

  The muscle-bound brute burst through the wall and his shots barely missed her as she circled around a half wall. Gabby cursed at herself. She was cut off from her planned escape routes. Unthar had come from a direction she didn't think possible. If it were a game, she would have thought he was exploiting some feature of the game for an advantage, but since it was the real world, he couldn't do that.

  Then Gabby cursed herself again. Of course, he was exploiting. He was exploiting her expectations of what he could and couldn't do. He'd probably climbed around the outside of the building. There was a ledge where the window sections would go in later. Gabby shook her head.

  Gabby eyed the big hole in the center of the floor. If she timed a jump she could make it to the scaffolding below and hit the stairs before he could come after her. Trapped as she was, it was her only real shot.

  The automatic would get in her way, so she pulled out the heavy hand gun. After mentally counting to three, she unloaded the clip at the place where she thought Unthar was waiting and ran toward the hole.

  Unthar rolled out from a different location, spraying the air behind her as she jumped. With the adrenaline flowing, Gabby leapt further than she planned and hit the scaffolding hard.

  Instead of providing a soft landing spot, the wood
collapsed upon impact, sending her through. Gabby hit the planking beneath, knocking the air from her lungs. She'd crashed through a support structure and the scaffolding started to collapse.

  Gabby put her arms up as the whole thing came down. A metal bar slapped her across the ribs. The floor gave way and as the wood above piled on top, it all continued downward.

  In a fleeting thought, she wondered why they'd put scaffolding in the middle of a building. She'd expected the floor to catch her and not break through.

  The tangled mess of steel rods and wooden planks caught above her and for a moment, Gabby thought she might escape. But the metal bar across her chest wouldn't let her up. Gabby struggled as the weight of the broken scaffolding groaned.

  Gabby thought she could move the metal bar when she heard planks snapping like twigs. Then the whole mass came crashing down around her, sealing her in a tomb of broken wood and steel.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A beam had hit her in the head, knocking her out for a time. Gabby wasn't sure how long. But as she came to, she realized why they had scaffolding in the middle of a building. An elevator shaft.

  And now she was trapped under a colossal pile of wood at the bottom of it. Or at least near the bottom. She couldn't remember how many floors she'd crashed through.

  Chest spasms made her cough, but the metal bar made it hard to move. Ribs might be broken as well. Her arms were free, so she felt around her. The beams formed an arch keeping the weight of the collapse from finishing the job. When she reached back over her head, a sharp pain formed in her right side.

  Gabby tenderly examined the area to find it sensitive to touch. Bruised if not broken was her self-diagnosis.

  The complete darkness annoyed her more than anything. If her eye-screens worked, she could map the area using touch or the sensors on her body and create a visual map to see. Maybe in this case, it was better not to see. Not to know you were trapped under a mountain of wood and steel, and the only person who knew you were there was your enemy.