It was a shame. If they’d just been able to play the game for what it was, without the background noise of revenge and conspiracy to cloud their fun, they’d have all been perfect for each other. It was a shame that it wasn’t meant to be, but as they split off to do their individual jobs in perfect unison, I couldn’t help but see what they could have been.
One more transgression to lay at the feet of Deep Dive Studios, I told myself. They sure did have a lot to answer for.
Harker reached the door first. When he found the door locked, he simply scanned the interior through the glass and then spun around to cover the street. Impressive. Sasha got there next, and now that silence wasn’t of the utmost importance it was Winter behind her who let out a sigh. “Of course it’s fucking locked.”
Sasha had picked up a set of lockpicks before they left the Museum, and she withdrew them from her coveralls with a flourish. “You know it. And I have a fifteen percent chance of this working, so…”
Winter growled softly. “This is Coda’s job. Where the hell is he, anyway?”
“I’m sure he’d be here if he could. Smashfoot and MattieMayhem too. Hell, Mattie skipped his own grandmother’s funeral to help out a couple of Sundays ago.”
Harker kept his eyes on the street, but he angled his head toward them ever so slightly. “Really?”
“Really. Didn’t you know?”
Harker didn’t answer.
I don’t like knowing what their situation was either.
Sasha tried to pick the lock.
The lockpicking attempt has failed. That’s why you’re still standing in front of a locked door, just in case you were wondering. Also, your pathetic skill is the absolute baseline. Time to question whether you are the best person for this task. Would you like to push your luck and try again? This time your chance of success will be 5%.
“Screw it,” Sasha said, stashing the lockpicks and reaching for the ax. “Time to make some noise, boys.”
Crash! The head of the ax split the glass right down the middle, making the wreckage peel away in two distinct waves that tumbled toward her, parting to one side and the other.
Harker ducked in first, finding cover that would allow him to watch both of the entrances at the same time. After a couple of seconds he decided that there weren’t any surprises inside, so he gave Sasha and Winter a quick signal that told them the looting could begin.
They both did as they were told. Winter drifted around in the background, casually picking through things. Now and then he lifted something from a desk, but he always made the same disgruntled face at it and set it back down. In theory, he was looking for the keys to the van, but that seemed to be taking a distant second to a leisurely loot run.
Sasha was cherry-picking stuff too, but at least she was hasty about it. She pushed the keyboard on the front desk out of the way, revealing a couple of items tucked beneath the monitor. A pack of cards, an electronic cigarette, a paperback copy of The Last Unicorn and a rabbit’s foot on a keychain. She briefly inspected that last one, but when it didn't appear to have any bonus stats or grant an extra ability, she skipped it too.
Even the stuff she didn’t take she put back where it belonged. A lot of people would've trashed the place, probably burning the joint to the ground once they got the keys and left in the van. Strategic or not, I didn’t think Sasha had that sort of destruction in her. She seemed to think that the way people were in Headshot was a direct reflection of who they were outside of the game.
And maybe she was right.
Mounted on the wall was a little cabinet, and once she’d nudge it with the ax the cheap lock broke. It swung open, revealing row after row of keys.
Sasha was fast, and she was subtle. If I hadn’t been watching her like a hawk, I would never in a million years have noticed that she didn’t just swipe one set of keys. She grabbed two.
After that, she hurried to the white van, climbed into the driver’s seat and jabbed the red button. Smooth as silk, the engine purred up and alerted the others that the main goal had been achieved.
Harker was still in the shadow of the front door, watching her, the street outside and the rest of the showroom floor. Bonbon hadn’t fired a shot yet, which was a good sign. Winter went to the window and flashed a hand signal to the sniper. I saw movement across the way as Bonbon sprinted across her roof and found a ledge that would let her grapple across to the top of the dealership.
Harker dragged open the sliding passenger door and left it that way for the others. While he climbed into the passenger seat next to Sasha, I hopped into the back.
It was a good thing that I hadn’t hesitated, because as soon as Harker’s butt hit the seat Sasha gunned the engine and drove the van straight through the plate of glass that separated us from the outside world. She lucked out and didn’t blow any of the tires, but the noise and the risk were far outweighed by the hassle that trying to move six or seven cars out of the way would have been.
I retreated to the back as Winter stepped across the broken shards and got into the van. A couple of moments later I heard Bonbon land on the roof right before she swung into the van. This model was able to close the passenger door at the push of a button, and Sasha pushed it and then left some rubber on the cement as she slalomed through the parked cars outside and jumped the curb on to the street.
"Anything?" Harker asked Bonbon, turning around in his seat to glance back at her.
The sniper shook her head. "Nope. There are some people around, but nowhere near as many as there should be and not within a couple of blocks. Even when you guys busted the front door, I didn’t see any groups decide to check it out. Everybody’s keeping to themselves."
The van’s GPS kicked out some messages about how light the traffic was. No kidding. In Headshot, almost everyone was already dead. The simulated world may be in the midst of its last gasp, but at least the satellites were still functioning this time around.
Maybe some retro collector would be breaking into the Jay Leno Memorial Automobile Museum right now, desperate to get their hands on a sixty-seven Chevy or whatever, but the rest of us would be relishing the fact that a vehicle with GPS gave our HUD maps a boost, letting us see a couple of blocks farther in every direction.
This part of San Francisco was smack in the middle of the Green Zone, though as we drove, we finally hit an Orange Zone about four blocks south. Sasha found a relatively clear freeway on-ramp but decided not to take it. Just because it was easy to get up there didn’t mean the road wouldn’t be clogged once you arrived.
It looked like Winter and Bonbon would have preferred for her to get off the side streets, but I liked Sasha’s instincts. They let you choose a new path if things went bad in front of you. I remembered the chokepoint ambush the Survivors had turned into a last stand last week. It was too easy to get into trouble and way too hard to get out of it, up there.
The traffic lights obviously didn't work, which meant that you had to keep your wits about you when you came to them. The population of players was so small right now though, thanks to the login servers being FUBARed, that it wasn’t an issue.
She kept driving, pushing hard through the Orange and crossing the Red after ten minutes of awkward silence.
Eventually, Bonbon raised her hand in the seat in front of me like she was back in school. Come to think of it, if she was really fifteen, she was. “So, are we just out for a Sunday drive, or have you got an actual destination in mind?"
Sasha sighed. "I've got a couple of ideas. You just don't worry your pretty little head about it, though. If you need to be bashing your brain cells together about something, think about this… Smashfoot, Coda and MattieMayhem still aren’t here, right?”
Bonbon nodded. “Duh.”
“And the day’s half over. The seven of us have never, and I mean never spent this much time in game without playing together. Like literally, not even once.”
“So?”
Sasha glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “So that's weird, right?"<
br />
"Totally!"
Sasha sped up. We were three blocks in to the Red now, getting deeper all the time. "Remember a couple of weeks ago, when they rolled out the personal tweaks and customizations?”
Bonbon lit up. “The vanity ones? Those were fucking amazing! I’d never have been able to start the game with pink hair without them. Made my life a whole lot easier, that’s for sure.”
“And that whole week you went on and on and on about the new options Deep Dive had given us. Talked our ear off about it.”
“And…?”
Five blocks into the Red now. Sasha nodded. "Those are the ones. And do you remember what you were freaking out about then?"
"Of course I did. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the starting colors were cool, but the rest of that patch was mostly bullshit. All of you guys just made fun of me for it, but it didn’t make any sense. You tell me, why should breast size be tied to weight? It's fucking lame, and more to the point it’s discriminatory. Just because I want to play somebody skinny, all of a sudden I can’t have giant tits? How stupid is that? What if I wanted my character’s backstory to be that my character had a massive boob job right before the Zombie Apocalypse? It's my subscription money, and I figure I should get to play the game the way I want to. You all laughed, but if it was something that limited your characters, you’d be-”
Sasha held up her hand and dragged her to a stop. "Okay, cease-fire. You’re making my point for me.” Nine blocks into the Red Zone, and picking up speed. A gunshot cracked off to the left, and another followed. Ten blocks. Eleven.
Bonbon didn’t like the edge in Sasha’s voice. “Where are you going with this?”
“Do you even hear yourself? You’ve got a rant as long as the Gettysburg address about a couple of cosmetic changes, but half of the Guild is completely AWOL and you haven’t made a peep. None of you have. Nobody’s logged out and given them a call or used the in-game voice chat to see if you could raise them. You three aren’t concerned, which means you know why they aren’t logged in.”
The rest of the Eternals sat in stunned silence. Sasha let just put the pedal to the metal and headed even further into No Man’s Land.
Harker cleared his throat. “All right, let’s talk.”
Sasha was going close to eighty miles an hour, but she stomped on the brakes so hard that she actually stood up out of her seat. The van skewed sideways but she managed not to bounce it off of anything. Stopping in the Red Zone like this was madness, but I guess the worst that could happen was that, if someone tossed a grenade under the chassis all four of them, and maybe me, would just spawn back in the Computer Science Museum. They’d lose some time and some gear, but that wasn’t the end of the world.
"Spill it," Sasha demanded. "And make it good."
Nobody said anything. I was surprised that not even Harker had the balls to try and come up with some spin, and that was when I knew that the situation was dire. She turned around to look at them, and I could see how desperate she was for one of them to prove her suspicions wrong.
It wasn’t going to happen. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew enough to know too much, and their blank faces didn’t give her an ounce of hope. She must have known she was right at the point of no return, but she didn’t have a way of backing away from the precipice. “How about this,” she said. “I’ll log out and call them. Harker, swap into the driver’s seat, and I should be back before my avatar times out.”
“No,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense. Logging out is just asking for trouble, the with as much trouble as we had to get into Headshot already today.”
She shrugged. “Okay. Give me a second, and I’ll message their accounts through the in-game chat. They don’t need to be logged in to reply.”
Winter shook his head. “You drive, and we’ll reach out to them. You’re right, we’ve been far too complacent about not working out why they aren’t here, but we should at least be a moving target this far into the Red. I’ll try Smash, Harker can contact Mattie and Bonbon will touch base with Coda. Does that sound good?”
Sasha smiled, letting herself be convinced. “I would really, really feel good about that.”
Bonbon grinned as if it was the best idea she'd ever heard, but the clincher, the thing that made my blood run cold was when Harker nodded slowly and said, "Anything to keep you happy."
He didn’t want her happy. He wanted her logged in, and he did not want her talking to the rest of the Guild. Winter had floated a terrible idea and the fact that they were jumping at the chance to do something as stupid as each of them going idle to contact one individual as opposed to one of them interacting with all three of the absent Eternals in quick succession.
They were covering their asses, and my suspicions were confirmed by how quickly they all went idle, eager to end the conversation and attempt to gather the troops. A clock appeared above each of their heads, counting down from ten minutes. That must be how long they could remain idle before Headshot logged them out.
Now that they were gone, I could see the heartbreak written all over Sasha’s face. She’d trusted them with secrets that she’d kept close to her chest for years, and now that trust had evaporated. And worse, I think she knew that it was possibly her fault. These guys had wanted to play a game, and instead circumstance and whatever shared experiences they had conspired to make them soldiers in a war she might not have a right to ask them to fight.
I saw her concentrate for a moment and took the opportunity to sync her thoughts up with mine. She was in the game menus, and the fact that she’d never used the option before meant that it was buried. Even after she found it, Headshot did a rare thing and shot a message in text across her vision.
Are you certain that you would like to leave your Guild? As the guild leader, the leadership of the [Eternals] will be transferred to the next ranking member: [Harker]. You will lose access to everything in the Guild's possession, and anything of yours that remains in the Guild Vault will be returned to you immediately. If you are making this decision on a Sunday when the guild Vault absent, your possessions will enter your inventory on Monday morning at 12:01. All Reputation Boosts, Status Bonuses and Ability Benefits that you currently enjoy because of your membership in the [Eternals] will immediately cease to function.
Please confirm your decision by saying "Yes."
Sasha angrily wiped away a tear with the back of her fist. She was pissed off that she was broken up over this, but she told herself that either she was right and the Eternals had turned on her or she was wrong, and they hadn’t. Either way, with the Deep Dive Developers entering the game to hunt her down, parting ways was the best option. She’d tried to shield these guys as much as she could, doing most of the dirty work and all of the illegal on her own.
“Yes.”
You are now without a Guild! The Post-Apocalyptic world is extremely dangerous. You should find friends!
No kidding, she thought to herself, and I was stunned that I could her hear thoughts now, and in her own voice. I thought I had, but now I'm starting to wonder…
Caution! You are in a [Red] Zone. Without allies, there is every chance that you will find yourself the prey and not the predator. Do not proceed unless you are willing to face the consequences. Now that you are without a Guild headquarters to use as a respawn, your eventual demise will result in you respawning in the last location where Headshot ascertained you felt at your most safe. You have been granted a thirty-minute grace period to retreat. After that time, you will once again be a viable PVP target.
Sasha knew that the message was supposed to talk her into tucking her tail between her legs and racing back to the Green Zone, but that wasn’t the plan. That grace period was going to be a huge bonus. Under normal circumstances, she’d never press her luck out here. It simply wasn’t worth it, but she was hoping that the militant, hard-core guilds made up of the most deadly Survivors might make Deep Dive think twice about sending yet another team after her.
&nbs
p; It was a long shot, but it was the only shot she had. Maybe they’d get picked off by somebody else along the way. Their weapons and body armor would make them a huge target, and besides that, they’d have to be a little more subtle than they had been with the Nuggets of Death. If they weren’t careful, they’d have the whole server talking about the random tactical assault teams that were warping in and out of existence.
If somebody worked out who they really were, there’d either be a mass exodus from the game as players cried foul or a have a bunch of the elite gamers trying to take their heads off. Or both.
There was one more thing to do. Even though the timer over her former guildmates’ heads hadn't even dropped by a minute, Sasha had a hunch that they'd be back soon. It wasn't going to take very long to pretend to contact the rest of the Eternals.
Unfortunately for them, the van belonged to her. She’d found the keys, and it had been her that had driven it out of the dealership. She mentally changed her permissions, swapping from sharing her assets with friendlies to kicking everyone out of her vehicle.
Winter, Bonbon, and Harker instantly vanished. They reappeared beside the van, each of them standing in their chosen idle poses. Sasha took one last look at them. Winter was checking his watch. Harker was grumpily tapping his foot, while Bonbon was doing a sexy little dance that involved a lot more booty shaking than her frame was built for.
Despite everything, Sasha was going to miss these guys. She stepped down on the gas and put them in the rearview mirror before they could come back and try and follow her.
When they did return to their avatars, they’d be stranded deep in hostile territory with nobody but themselves to rely on.
Good luck with that, assholes.
Chapter 24
I was pretty sure that Sasha had no idea where she was going. I don’t know where she lived. Normally, I’d assume it was somewhere around here. After all, as a Zombie I had to literally start in my own house. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.
Headshot: Two in the Head (Book 2 of a Zombie litRPG Trilogy) Page 17