Skylar saw him point. “I see it, Roland. I’ll enhance the image. Just a sec.” She took a still from Roland’s feed and began processing it. She cropped the area with the glint and zoomed in on it. “Hobbes, enhance this.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Hobbes in his thick british accent. The computer ran a series of algorithms and enhancements on it.
Coach recognized what it was. “Roland, that glint has a blue tone to it. That’s Duke. He’s climbing straight up the sheer rock face.”
Skylar squinted at the picture. “I see it now. Is that possible? I don’t even have that as an option for a route.”
Coach crossed his arms. “Well, it’s certainly not an official route, but he is saving a lot of time that way.”
Skylar went back through Pinnacle’s flying cam drones. “Ok, I found the footage that one of the camera drones took. I see his route now. Hold on, Roland. I’m mapping it on the map simulator here.” She typed speedily on her keyboard, and then a second line appeared on the three dimensional hologram of the course showing where Duke had gone.
The ground got much steeper, and Roland had to slow down even more. He looked up at Duke again. Duke was nearly high enough to be obscured by the clouds.
Coach zoomed in on the holograph of the course to examine it more carefully. “Roland, I’m looking at the route here. It is nearly straight up. There are parts where you have to jump from rock to rock. If you miss or slip, you’re done.”
Skylar turned and looked at the course holograph, too. “Roland, this route is scary looking. Don’t do it, ok? You are still passing people. Just keep going the way you are going.”
Roland shook his head and began heading for the base of the sheer rock cliff.
Coach looked at the cliff carefully as Roland approached. “Roland, you have a lot to gain here. You’d probably move up a hundred spots or so in the race if you make it to the top. But the risk is considerable. You can’t run if you are dead.”
Skylar shook her head. “The risk is too great, Roland.”
Roland reached the base of the cliff and reached out to touch it. The stone was smooth in many places and rough and sharp in others. He looked up towards the top when he heard a high-pitched, hysterical sound. Roland put his hand over eyes like a visor as he squinted upwards. The sound became louder. It was someone screaming, and it was getting closer - fast.
Coach clamped down on his headset and yelled. “Roland! Move back now!”
Roland’s proximity sensor began beeping, indicating that something above him was moving towards him rapidly. He took several steps back.
Roland watched in horror as a man flailed his arms and legs and tried desperately to grab a hold of anything. Then he slammed into the ground with a sickening, bone crushing crunch, just six feet from Roland. The screaming stopped. The man, a digital, was dead. The stench of bile and death hung in the air.
Skylar stood up and began to pace. “Roland. No. Don’t do this.”
Roland knew that the switchback road would take him too much time. Going straight up the cliff would be the only way to gain enough positions to make it into the Tech Games. He thought about his dad sitting in a maximum security prison. He looked once more at the broken racer on the ground. The climb was worth the risk, and it was his only option. Roland found his first hand hold and pulled himself up. “I’m going up, Sky.”
CHAPTER THREE:
CLIMB
SKYLAR WATCHED ROLAND’S video feed as he climbed the cliff face. It was nerve racking every time he reached out for his next hold. He tested each hold before committing his weight to it. Sometimes his handhold would slip or a part of the rock would break off. She could hear as small rocks and pebbles were being dislodged and bouncing down around him. His breathing was labored, but he didn’t seem overly fatigued. Skylar checked his altitude again. He had been climbing for nearly forty-five minutes. “Roland, you are at about six thousand feet.” She watched the screen dip slightly as he acknowledged.
Roland found a relatively safe spot to take a break. He leaned against the black slate rocks and took three deep breaths. It didn’t help. He still felt lightheaded. He gave the thought command for the O2 plugin. He saw the plugin light up on his HUD. He filled his lungs and then kept going. His head began to clear. “Sky, I need to be able to move faster. This is taking too much time.”
Skylar turned back to her system. “I’m on it.”
Roland blew on his fingers to warm them. He looked up for his next handhold.
Coach continued studying the rock face. “Roland, you will have about three more handholds. Then you are going to hit a flat patch.” He covered his headset mic with his hand and leaned towards Skylar. “Skylar, we’ve got do something to warm him up, too. If he’s blowing on his hands that means that numbness is starting to set in.”
Roland grabbed onto a small outcropping with both hands. It felt solid as he pushed on it. He was going to use it to swing his body to the right, hoping to find better holds. A little bit of water ran over the outcropping. It felt slick. Roland took an extra firm hold and swung to the right grabbing ahold of the new outcropping. Without any warning, he heard a loud crack and watched as the outcropping snapped off right at its base. He felt himself begin to fall. His stomach lurched upwards.
Skylar stopped typing and watched in horror as Roland’s video feed began to plummet.
Roland dropped the outcropping and flailed to gain a new hold. His left hand found a small crag, and he clenched down hard on it. His descent halted as quickly as it began. Roland’s body slapped against the rock face. He kicked his legs and found footholds, but there was nothing for his right hand. He looked up at his hand hold. It was a tiny ledge, only big enough for three fingers. Each knuckle was already turning white from the strain of his body weight.
Coached looked over at Skylar. “Skylar, quickly redirect blood flow to his left hand. He will lose strength quickly while he’s white knuckling.
Skylar attacked her holographic keyboard furiously. “Blood rerouted.”
Roland carefully reached his right hand up and swapped out his fingers to give his left a break.
Skylar rerouted the blood again. “This gives me an idea, Roland.” She swiped through several holographic screens and then buried herself in code.
Coach continued watching Roland’s feed. “Self-assessment, Roland. Status?”
Roland glanced around as much as he could. His cheek felt wet. He wiped his fingers across his left cheek and looked at them. They were red with blood. “Bumps and bruises. Scrapes on my face. I’m fine. Looks like I fell about ten feet.”
Coach zoomed in on his holographic map to Roland’s exact location. There was a small ledge that was big enough to stand on below Roland. “Roland, we need to get you to a safer place. There’s a ledge about six feet below you. It’s on your left side.”
Roland looked down on his left. “Got it. More like ten feet though. Go on three.”
Coach watched the feed intently. “One, two, three, drop!”
Roland dropped down onto the ledge. He went into a crouch to absorb his downward momentum and grabbed tightly against the rock face. When he felt secure, he stood up and looked around at his new position. His rock ledge only stuck out about a foot and a half. The sun peeked through the dismal clouds for a minute and lit up the rock wall. Roland looked over his shoulder and could see all the way to the bottom. He could see runners still coming to the base of the mountain, but they looked like ants. The wind whipped over him, and the sun disappeared. Roland blew on his fingers again. He clenched his fist several times to loosen up the muscles and increase his blood flow. He heard a loud noise above his head and turned towards it. An eagle flew by, its shrill call breaking the monotonous silence.
Skylar finished her typing and then hit the upload button. “Roland, I combined several plugins and made a new one called Grip. Just uploaded it to you. Go ahead and enable it now.”
Roland gave the thought command Grip plugin. He felt h
is fingers begin to tingle. He watched as his hands began to turn red. The numbness went away. His hands actually felt hot for the first time since he had entered the mountains. He rubbed his hands on his arms to spread some of the heat around.
Skylar smiled. “I increased the blood flow to your hands to warm them up. The extra blood flow will also bring more of the nano cells to your hands and fingertips. You should have a much stronger grip now. See if it works. If it does, then I have one more for you.”
Coach gave Skylar a nod but kept watching Roland’s feed.
Roland reached out and took a hold on the rock face again. It felt different. It felt easier. He pulled himself up to his next hold and grabbed on with just his left hand. He looked down. He was only about a foot above the ledge. He let go with his other hand. He gripped his hold hard with his left. Then he pulled his entire body weight up with just his left hand. He reached out with his right hand to a small ledge that he could only get three fingers onto. Roland watched his left hand as he cautiously let go. He easily pulled himself up with just the three fingers on his right hand. “Whoa.” He quickly grabbed two more holds and pulled himself up onto a small ledge where he could stand. “Sky, let’s add the next one.”
Skylar was typing intently. “Ok, just a sec.”
Coach had pulled a holographic replay of Roland’s last few handholds. He swiped his hand through the air to control the video. He went back to where Roland was just letting go of his first hold. He paused the video and stared at it. “Roland, I just watched a replay of your climb with Grip enabled. On your first handhold, you left indentations in the rock where your fingers were. This is good.”
Roland nodded. “I’m not cold anymore, either.”
Skylar hit the enter button to upload to Roland. “Roland, I just uploaded my second one to you. It’s called Rock Viz for Rock Visibility. It changes your vision to see with a combination of heat and sonar. It should highlight the best handholds on the cliff face.”
Roland gave the thought command Rock Viz. Instantly, his vision changed.
Coach watched as Roland’s video stream also changed.
Roland looked up. The cliff face was a lighter color of gray, and there were small patches of brightly colored areas and others that were black. Some of the rocks looked like he could see partway through them. “Sky, what are the colors?”
Skylar looked at Roland’s feed. “The colors are where there is a small out outcropping or something that is catching the sun so it is warmer than the rest of the rocks. The dark areas are crevices in the rock that you can probably use as a handhold.”
Roland blinked. Everything looked weird, but it was much easier to identify the handholds. “Thanks.” He grabbed onto a spot that looked hot pink and pulled himself up. Roland made some quick progress by grabbing several of the brightly colored handholds and pulling himself through them. He got to another ledge and stopped. “Coach?”
Coach had been watching and analyzing Roland’s every move. “Roland, I think the tech looks solid. You are already moving faster. I think you can go a lot faster than that though. Use the momentum of each pull to shoot you to the next one.”
Roland nodded. He heard a strange whirring noise behind him. One of Pinnacle’s sky cams was hovering about twenty feet away from him. “Looks like I’ve got an audience.”
Coach crossed his arms. “Don’t worry about that. It’s time to cover some ground now. Get moving!”
Roland nodded and turned back towards the rocks. He put the hover cam out of his head and focused on the strange, brightly colored handholds of the rock face. He took in a deep breath of cold mountain air and grabbed the nearest hold. He looked for the next one that was about a foot out of his reach. Roland gripped his hold hard and yanked his body upwards towards the new hold. The force of the thrust sent him airborne. He reached out for the next hand hold. He grabbed on with ease and continued his upwards momentum with the next hold. He pushed harder from that ledge and went airborne. Roland looked down briefly. He could only see about a hundred feet down, and the rest of the cliff was obscured by a cloud. He grabbed his next hold, a black crevice.
Pinnacle’s hover cam flew in a little closer to get a better look at Roland.
Roland could hear the hovering getting a little louder. He kept his focus on his climb. He got to a small ledge and stood up to take a quick breather. His rate of climb was six times faster than when he started. “Sky, thanks.”
Skylar just watched Roland’s feed. “You bet.”
Coach looked at where Roland was on the map. “Another two minutes of hard climbing like that, Roland, and you’ll reach the top.”
Roland nodded and then launched himself to his next hold.
CHAPTER FOUR:
RUSSIAN
DEEP IN THE warehouse district, it was quiet, except for one place with much more traffic than usual. The Trophy was a dump of a bar that had never won at anything, yet it was full of patrons today. It’s only claim to fame was its micro distilled vodka. The foul concoction served two major purposes. The patrons used it to kill brain cells, and the bar’s cleanup crew used it remove rust from the drains in the floor. The Trophy’s most popular drink was called Alzheimer’s, named after the infamous disease that took away your memory and had been cured in 2030. If you could drink three shots in a row in under a minute, your fourth was on the house. All the regulars of The Trophy only counted their drinks by how many free shots they had had.
All the warehouses in the Russian warehouse district customarily let their employees off for Pinnacle’s Tech Games race, since nothing was going to get done anyway. All the employees, dock workers and forklift drivers were gathered at The Trophy. There was barely standing room as they all watched the Tech Games on The Trophy’s antiquated plasma LED screens. The owner of The Trophy loved it when the Tech Games came on, because his profits soared. Not just from the vodka, but also from the bets which the bar took a cut of.
Pinnacle broadcasted the race on ten different channels, and each one showed on a different screen around the bar.
A middle-aged man walked into The Trophy. His coveralls were covered in stains and grime. His long hair and beard were streaked with grey. He made his way over to the bar and pounded his fist on it. The bartender went over to the man. “Usual?” Without waiting, he immediately laid out four shot glasses.
The man smiled. “No, Ivan want triple!”
The bartender smiled back and laid out two more sets of four shot glasses.
The patrons around Ivan all turned to watch the spectacle. A triple Alzheimer’s was a lot, even by The Trophy’s standards.
The bartender poured the near moonshine into the twelve shot glasses and picked up his stopwatch. “You got three minutes! Go!”
With practiced precision, Ivan swallowed one shot after another. He downed the first and second sets of Alzheimer’s without even flinching. After a deep breath, he downed the final four shots. He slammed the last shot glass down on the counter. “Time?”
The bartender stopped his watch. “Minute and half. Boys, we have a new record!” The other patrons all cheered and clapped. The bartender went to the chalkboard behind his counter and recorded Ivan’s time for the triple Alzheimer’s.
Ivan turned around. “Tech Games always better with Vodka, da?”
All the other patrons cheered and pounded on the bar.
Ivan turned his attention to one of the plasma LED screens. It showed one of the contestants climbing up a sheer rock face. He watched the man climb.
Another patron held up a hundred dollar bill. “A hundred says he falls off the cliff and dies!”
The owner took the man’s money and wrote the bet on the big chalkboard in the middle of the room. “Who will take those odds?”
Ivan watched the climber and listened to the Tech Games announcer, Honest Al. “Turn that one up.”
The owner turned up the volume on the screen with the climber.
Honest Al’s voice boomed throughout the din
gy little bar. “This contestant, Roland, is one of only a handful of racers using nanotechnology. I have to be honest with my audience, no one using nanotech has ever made it through the race into the actual Tech Games.”
Another patron held out his money. “I’ll double his bet. Two hundred says he falls to his death. Look at him. He’s puny. No robot arms or legs.”
The owner added that man’s money to the pot. “Who’s going to be brave and take those odds?”
All the patrons laughed.
Ivan stepped forward. “Ivan take bet! Da! He going to make it.”
The first man stepped up to Ivan, but barely reached his shoulder. “Put your money where your mouth is then, Old-Timer.”
Ivan guffawed at the man’s brashness. Then he held out a roll of hundred dollar bills. “Fifteen hundred say he make it to top, da?”
The owner greedily took Ivan’s money and marked him down on the board.
Ivan stared down at the man and put his thick, meaty finger on the man’s chest. “I know Roland. Him tough, like Russian.”
The patron who had bet two hundred dollars stepped towards Ivan. “What do you mean tough like Russian?”
Ivan turned towards the second man. “I put needle through his eye, into optic nerve. He take no pain meds and no vodka. Him tough, like Russian.”
The second man was almost as big as Ivan. He stepped right up to Ivan’s face. “I’ll match Ivan’s bet. Because Russians are weak!” He handed the owner another fistful of hundred dollar bills.
The first man pulled out another wad of cash and handed it to the owner. “Me too. Nanotech always dies. He’ll never make the top.”
Ivan crossed his arms and gave a big smile, his white teeth shining brightly through his beard. “Barkeep, two rounds of vodka for my comrades. They need it, da?”
Nano Contestant - Episode 2: Ultimate Endurance (An Urban Futuristic Fantasy Sci-Fi Action Adventure Genetic Cyberpunk Techno Thriller) (Nano Contestant ... Fantasy Action Adventure TechnoThrillers)) Page 2