by Justin Sloan
“Thank the gods for that shield!” Rivera said, and I snapped out of it, sprinting forward again. I wasn’t sure if that was the last of the shield, or how many more shots it could take.
What she’d said, though, threw me off. We dove through the café doors and pushed our way past chairs and tables, finding a back door to run through before turning left at a Karaoke place. She had said ‘gods’ more than once now. Very few people in the Great Americas were polytheistic. Meaning what, exactly?
I didn’t know yet. Could she be a sympathizer, or was I overthinking this? It was certainly possible people in the Americas had the same religion as those from the Eastern Ascent Company countries, but most people tried to hide it. Still, every action she’d taken so far made me fairly secure that she was on my side, but there was no being completely sure.
There was no reason for this to bother me, yet, but it had my mind reeling. Enough so that, when a giant mech came storming past, I nearly didn’t pull back into hiding in time. At the last second I rolled out of its line of sight, landing with Rivera in a small nook that might have been meant for a vending machine but was instead occupied by us.
We were pressed tightly together, her hand on my chest, her eyes on mine. The rumbling of the mech went on, then paused before moving back our way. Her finger found my lips, and she held it there as she said, “Shhh.”
I took it away and nodded.
The rumbling was close, the sounds of soldiers nearby too. With the equipment they likely had—with all their hacking and whatnot—they should’ve been able to scan the area and find us by now. But for some reason, they hadn’t. It took a moment before I realized I was not only still holding Rivera’s hand, but squeezing it.
She smiled, and squeezed back before I pulled my hand away. After a moment, the rumbling began to grow quieter, until it was barely audible. The soldiers too seemed to be gone.
“Come on,” I whispered. We checked the corner, then moved in the opposite direction.
“They have to know why we’re here, right?” Rivera asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why else would they think the two remaining Marines show up in their city, so close to their spawn point?”
“True.” And that made me realize something worse. “Which means they’ll now have it heavily guarded.”
“Most likely.”
I turned back toward the direction where we’d seen the light, and then to Rivera. “We have to at least know what we’re dealing with, right?”
She thought about it, then said, “You’re the ranking officer. Your call.”
“Get the intel, then we decide,” I stated, then kept on, keeping close to walls and shadows when possible. On the third turn and right when we were likely very close to our destination, Rivera tapped me on the shoulder.
When I looked back at her in confusion, she held a finger to her lips. Her eyes flittered upward and to the left, and so I turned away, using the reflective side of my sunglasses to look, as I’d done earlier. Sure enough, someone was up there, watching from a window.
My first instinct was to turn and shoot, but then I realized he wasn’t in the window at all, but floating a few feet in front of it. He had his arms behind his back and wore loose robes, giving him the look of an old monk. I’d seen that image before in this sim, in the trees right after the attacks had begun, and was starting to put it all together.
“Hacker,” I said, barely audible. “I told them all, but they wouldn’t believe me. Someone managed to get in.”
“Someone?” she said with a scoff. “Sugar, how the hell do you think they managed to kill so many of us?”
“I…” She was right, of course. The other side had cheated, somehow. But now I wasn’t sure if they were toying with me, or someone was playing their game but on our side. “So this one…” I nodded toward the shadow. “If he was an enemy, wouldn’t they be on us by now?”
“Possibly. He might be on our side, trying to find ways to help us.”
I considered that, glanced up, and said, “How about a mech of our own!”
No response, except for him vanishing.
“Damn.”
“Maybe that’s part of the test,” she said. “See if we can earn ourselves one.”
“If we earn it, or get it ourselves, we wouldn’t need him to give us one.”
“Right…” She didn’t seem so convinced.
“Let’s stick with the theory that he wants us to survive, and see what happens next,” I said. “No point in killing ourselves trying to take over a mech right now. Would you even know how to operate it?”
“That’s actually the kind of game I have played,” she replied with a grin.
“Okay, fair enough. And if there’s an army, a mech might be one of the few ways to get in past the all-seeing eye.”
“What?” She frowned, not liking my references, apparently.
“To destroy the ring,” I replied. No point in going further than that. A realization hit me. “Actually, when I’ve seen him before, it was always at a moment of danger. I think.”
“We’re kind of surrounded by danger,” she replied.
I chuckled. “True. Well, be on your toes.”
We ducked down into the stairway of a below-ground restaurant, seeing our target—ahead of us to the left, the temple rose up high. It had red columns of wood, curving roofs of green, and thick ropes with strange, zigzag-patterned cloth or paper hanging from them. The glow came again, and there was no doubt about the fact that it was coming from within, judging by the reflection on the walls.
“Doesn’t look so bad…” I started, but then stared in confusion as a group of soldiers emerged. It wasn’t that they were soldiers, but rather who was in their midst—General Omarav, the one I’d killed. “Damn.”
“What is it?” Rivera asked. “Another mech? Something crazier?”
“I killed him,” I said, indicating. “Because of me, he had to leave the sim. But there he is, General Omarav.”
“As I thought,” she said, looking at me as if it was obvious. “With all of their soldiers killed early on, there’s no way they would have the numbers they do without respawning.”
“But it’s against the rules. How?”
“Like we figured, they have to have something blocking it. Maybe this so-called ring. I don’t know.”
“We can’t just stand here, we have to take him out,” I said.
“And what then? He’d be respawned right there.”
I frowned. “We need to destroy the ring? Let’s start with the temple. But you’re right, we’re going to need more weapons. More… something. And a plan. Maybe one or two of those mechs, like you said.”
“Now you’re talking. So let’s get out of here, formulate a plan and—”
BAM! Something hit me, hard, and brown shards like glass splintered around me. It took a second to realize that Rivera was shouting about a sniper and returning fire. She turned back and dove, slamming me to the ground as a grenade flew past. Then she rolled with me and we were in the next street over, her sheltering me as it exploded. I would’ve hated myself if she’d been hurt, but as we recovered and I spun looking for the sniper in spite of my dizzy state, she said she was unharmed, and that she got him. She thought.
“What…?” I tried to ask.
“I think your shield’s gone,” she replied, guessing at the question. “So don’t get hit again!”
Of course, with the sounds of gunfire the rest of the army was onto us, and the next corner we turned, there they were. At least we had our weapons, and since they were a large group relatively unguarded, the three grenades we lobbed at them did their damage. We ducked back and shot down others who were out of the range of the grenades, and then the return fire started.
We watched as the opposite wall was obliterated, then I had to make the call. Turning to fire again, I yelled, “Run for it, I’ll hold them off!”
I was already firing when she grabbed me and yanked me bac
k, saying, “Like hell you will.”
But before I lost sight of the enemy, the blue lit up again and I saw that same group come charging back out of the temple, freshly spawned. She was right, this was a war we couldn’t win, if we didn’t do it wisely. So instead of struggling, I went with it, cursing and yelling at her for not listening to an order, but knowing she was right the whole time.
Our best bet here was to go underground, and luckily for us there was a built-in subway system. We waited until one of the raiders flew overhead before reversing course, so that they’d think we’d kept on in that first direction. We took the stairs four at a time, nearly falling, and soon were at the bottom, barreling through the tunnel.
It was dark, my heart was pounding, and I had no idea where we were going now. For at least an hour we went on like this, until I heard a moan and thud behind me. I spun, ready to shoot, but instead stood with my mouth open. Rivera had collapsed, but there was nobody nearby.
“No, no,” I said, darting back over to her side. “You said you weren’t hurt.”
“Maybe… I was wrong.”
“You think?” Together we stood, my arm around her waist, as the wound was in her upper right shoulder. It wasn’t horrible, but she had lost blood and needed rest. I did the only thing I could think of and applied pressure with a piece of cloth from my uniform, tying it around her.
“How… how can we fight that?” she asked. “It’s… impossible.”
“No,” I said, pulling her along. “The Rivera I’m starting to know doesn’t think that way. Don’t you give up on me now.”
She grunted, but didn’t argue. We were going to make it through this, if on nothing else than by bulletproof determination.
I had no idea how long we kept going, but finally we reached a point where the subway just sort of stopped. It rose up into a grassy field, sparsely populated with trees and a lake. We worked our way around the lake, trying to find a spot where the enemy wouldn’t easily find us if or when they pursued. Finally, we stopped among the trees at the edge of the grass, and she lowered herself to lie at my side. She wasn’t looking so bad, but definitely needed rest. That wasn’t all we needed. We needed more fighters, more guns. More luck.
For now, I leaned up against a tree to take the first watch.
11
At some point I realized I was drifting off to sleep and tried to fight it, but couldn’t. I remember seeing glimpses of the command room, of a doctor in front of me, my eyelids opening and closing, then an intense pain and then fading. Dreams took me, and in the last one before I woke, I remembered seeing Donica on a raft, alone in a white dress, floating downriver and away from me.
She looked over her shoulder at me, smiled, and then waved farewell.
I woke from my sleep to see Rivera at my side, rifle held at the ready. Her shoulder looked fine now, and even the blood was gone. That was enough to largely clear my grogginess, but when I asked, “What happened?” she shushed me and pointed toward the lake.
She was staring intently at something in the waning light, but at first I couldn’t see what. Then, as my mind cleared and my eyes adjusted, I noticed two silhouettes. Two women. They were out there, at the edge of the water.
“Are they…?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Enemy? Doubt it.”
“NPC then,” I said. As I watched, something became very apparent to me. I knew them! One was tall and slender, her military space armor clinging to her body in a way that made no practical sense but was sexy as hell. The other emerged from the lake completely nude, and I instantly recognized the busty redhead from early artist renderings when we were developing Game of Shadows. It was Glider and Banshee! The characters from my game.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Rivera noted.
“It’s just that… I think we’re getting our hacker help now.”
“Or maybe they’re here to kill you,” she pointed out.
I averted my gaze as Banshee saw me staring. She waved, then started dressing.
“Sorry about that,” Banshee said, finally covering up her breasts. “I didn’t expect to find you so soon.”
“Find us?” Rivera asked.
“Well, him,” Banshee replied. “We’ve been sent to help win this war.”
I frowned, eyeing the sky around us as if I’d be able to see the cameras. “Who sent you?”
“Good question,” Banshee said, turning to Glider. They were natural enemies in the game, but after the battle we’d been adding choice space to at my meeting the day of the call, Glider joined the good side if you played your cards right. Apparently, they were programmed to be in that phase of the game—working as partners.
“We’re not sure of much, yet,” Glider said, looking down at me over her nose. “You? You’re the one trying to take on the entire enemy forces by yourself?”
“With her,” I said, nodding to Rivera.
Rivera stuck out her hand. “Nice to—”
“Uh huh,” Glider said, turning back to me. “What level are you?”
“It’s not that kind of game,” I replied.
She grinned at this, then looked at Rivera as if they were sharing a secret, though Rivera continued to look confused. “You didn’t even tell him?”
“Tell him what?” Rivera asked.
“You’re saying you don’t know either?” Glider laughed, while Banshee shook her head.
“She’s referring to the fact that it wasn’t that sort of game before, but is now,” Banshee chimed in. “Here, just think about your levels, or I can…” She snapped her fingers in front of my face, and a screen appeared there. I was very familiar with this screen, as it was fairly simple, similar to action games from the early 2000s, with levels, some simple stats, and character points along with skill points. There were only two categories for the latter—marksman and brawler. If I understood the numbers correctly, I was already level four, and therefore had three points in both categories.
“What exactly am I doing here?” I asked.
“Tell us what you see,” Banshee said, and I glanced over to see Rivera looked like she was staring at a blank space in the sky. She was probably seeing the windows too.
When I told them, Banshee explained that I could touch the screen as if it were real, but they couldn’t see it because it was sent to me only.
“You knowing so much… kinda makes me assume you’re the hackers,” I said, very accusingly.
“We admit nothing. I will say that you need us, though. Go on, try to increase the stats.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand,” I admitted.
Glider sighed, then waved at Banshee. The two stood in front of Rivera and me, and Banshee said, “Listen, we’re learning what we can. We don’t know everything, but what we can tell you is that someone is working on your behalf. They’ve managed to make alterations to the sim, but can only do so with the use of code from other games. So in this case, they’ve been able to overlay an upgrade system, and modern ones don’t work because the code is too similar, too easy to spot. Also, they can’t simply upgrade you because that would send signals to the enemy, give your position away, maybe worse. But this way, you can upgrade on your own. You’re already level four, you said?”
I checked again. “That’s right.”
“There you go. Just select the traits and apply them where you think makes sense.”
With a confused frown, I selected my health and applied all character points there. My logic was that we needed to stay alive or this was over. Most games were about the hack and slash, but I wasn’t sure what type of game we were really playing here yet. Looking at the marksman and brawler skill trees, my only options were to add power to strikes for the former and increased focus for the latter. I used two of my skill points for those, and then had the option for stun effect to combo strikes, or increased aim for shooting. Seeing as I’d been engaged in much more hand-to-hand combat than I would’ve originally thought, I went for the stun effect. T
he next skill in that path showed as an increased chance of critical strike, and I was starting to like this hacker. If I could get through a few of these skill trees before charging into the main battle, I might have a chance at this.
“How about you?” I asked Rivera.
She frowned, looking at her screens. “Huh… looks like you selected for both of us.”
“Oh, we didn’t think…” Glider shared a look with Banshee.
“Well, it’s very early level stuff,” I pointed out. “Not much choice yet anyway, but now we know going forward. Something we can discuss based on needs.”
“Right.” She swiped the air, I imagine dismissing her screen.
I wasn’t done with my screen, though, because I noticed an arrow that I assumed meant there was more to it. Swiping it revealed a map like I’d originally been briefed on, but it was changed. We were close to the enemy’s side, though not quite there, and the map only revealed areas where we had been. It showed that our initial push had reached about the twenty-five percent mark moving from bottom left to upper right. Then there was an area where I’d taken off with Rivera, the hill, and then a bunch of black before we took the portal that brought us to the evolving city.
Having a map might come in useful later, and I made a note of where we were in order to orient ourselves.
“Wait, your wound…?” I said to Rivera.
She grinned, rotating her shoulder. “I don’t know. When I woke, it was healed. You two have anything to do with it?” she asked the ladies.
Glider looked confused, but said, “We’re not exactly… I mean, we’re not the ones doing this all, to be clear. So we don’t know everything going on with it, or your shoulder.”
“Must’ve been a part of this, though,” Rivera said, and offered me a grin. “Meaning, I’m pretty damn sure we can trust him at this point.”
I nodded. “Assuming it’s one person. But yeah, with this, them, and—”
“So them you give thanks for?”