Coach was yelling now, trying to get through to Roland. “Don’t open your mouth! You swallow that back down!”
Skylar threw up once more into the trashcan.
Roland gave a shaky nod. He was down to a slow jog now. He inhaled through his nose and began swallowing the nutrition bars - again. It took four tries to get it all. Then Roland let his hands down and opened his mouth to take a deep breath. He put his hands up on top of his head to try and get rid of the dizziness. He turned on his O2 plugin and enabled the High Altitude option for it. Oxygen flooded his system. He began to feel better almost right away.
Skylar swished some water and spit it into the trashcan. Then she put it in the hallway for the cleaning crew to get. “Sorry about that. I have a weak stomach for that.” She motioned with her hand in the direction of Roland’s feed.
Coach gave her a thumbs up to let her know everything was ok. “Roland, how are you feeling?”
Roland continued jogging. His HUD read 10 mph. “Better now. Those tapioca bars tasted about the same both times. How’s my knee?”
Skylar smiled and drank some more water and then typed in a few commands to pull up the latest data from the nano cells. “Wow, it’s working! The heavy insulin spike and the increase in nano cells are already making a difference. The bone has already started healing at the base of the fracture.”
Coach motioned to another graph. “Looks like your inflammation is down, too.”
Roland’s odometer showed that he was almost at the five mile mark. “Got an idea. My legs had much more support with the Leapfrog plugin. If I use that while my knee is healing, it could give me extra support.”
Skylar pulled up her code on Leapfrog. “Turn it on. Let’s see.”
Roland gave the thought command Leapfrog. The words lit up on his HUD. He also gave the thought command for Fast Twitch. He could feel his legs being pulled taut for extra support.
Skylar raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, actually, that’s a great idea. I see that there is an even greater concentration of nano cells offering support in your legs.”
Roland began to take longer leaping strides up the volcano. He could see that several racers in the group ahead of him had reached the summit and were starting down the other side. Then Roland felt the ground begin to rumble. “Oh no!”
Coach watched as the feed shook a little from side to side. “Careful, Roland. It’s going to blow again any second. You need to hurry up and get past the summit!”
Skylar saw that Roland’s knee was about halfway repaired. “You knee is good enough with Leapfrog, go!”
The rumbling began to get rougher. Roland was only about fifty feet away from the summit. Two racers were right at the top, running along the open mouth of the active volcano. Roland could see the bright orange magma bubbling up and falling back down. They began yelling at each other. Then the one behind pushed the contestant in front of him down. Roland watched in slow motion as the man pitched forward over the edge of the volcano. He tried in vain to grab onto anything to stop himself, but he was already in midair. His scream was cut short as he plunged headfirst into the lava - melting instantly.
Roland crested the summit just in time to see the last bit of the man’s feet disappear under the magma. He took long, leaping strides to get past the man who had done the pushing. Then he began his descent. The downward slope combined with Roland’s long leaps put fifty feet between him and the summit in seconds.
The volcano went into complete eruption. The ground shook violently. The five racers that were cresting the summit were incinerated as the first wave of lava surged over the edge. Roland looked back to see a breaking wave of orange liquid rushing down the side of the volcano, devouring everything it touched. Roland poured on the speed. His leaps became mere controlled falls as he shot down the side of the volcano. Hot rock and bits of lava rained down like deadly missiles. Roland’s proximity sensors were beeping almost constantly. He altered his course, first left, then right, then back to the center. His HUD showed that he had covered seven miles of the course, and his speed was at 42 mph.
Coach let out a low whistle. “Wow.”
Roland continued passing other contestants who were making their way down the volcano. Some were getting pelted by the smaller pieces of lava. Roland blew through another two miles of the course. The light in his arm turned red. It was a welcomed sign. Finally, he reached the bottom of the volcano, and the terrain leveled out. He could see the sign for checkpoint four.
Coach read it as Roland approached it, “Welcome to Checkpoint 4: Sand and Desert.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
DESERT
THE LIGHT IN Roland’s arm turned green and went out as he passed under the fourth checkpoint banner.
Coach watched the other contestants through Roland’s feed as they made for the water bottles. “Roland, make sure you drink up on the water. You’ve got ten miles of sand and desert ahead.”
Roland nodded and chugged through a water bottle. He looked down at his knee. It seemed less swollen despite having put so much pressure on it with the Leapfrog plugin going down the volcano. He grabbed a handful of chocolate nutrition bars. He half smiled when he saw that all that was left was a small mound of the tapioca flavored bars. Roland was halfway through his first bar, when he heard a commotion behind him. The half surprised, half disgusted look on the woman’s face told it all. She had eaten one of the tapioca bars. She spat it to the ground and then commenced to coughing. She grabbed part of her sleeve and rubbed it across her tongue to try and get the taste out. Then she grabbed a bottle of water and downed the whole thing without taking a breath. The racers around her laughed loudly at her misfortune, but none dared to touch any of the tapioca bars. “See, it’s not just me.”
Coach crossed his arms. “Eat up. Let’s get a move on.” He put his hand over his mic and leaned towards Skylar. “Check his position.”
Skylar nodded and began a flurry of typing and hand swipes to get the screens pulled up. “Roland, you are now in position 298. You moved up about a hundred places!”
Roland nodded. Then he dumped his wrappers and water bottles in the trash as he headed out into the desert. The ground changed almost instantly from the soft grass at the base of the volcano to sand. He looked down at his knee again and leaned his head to the right for more information.
Skylar pulled up his vitals and ran another scan on the holograph of Roland in the middle of the room. “Wow! Roland, that fracture in your knee isn’t even showing up!”
Coach moved over by her to see a close up of the data. “She’s right, Roland. The patella looks completely normal now. That’s unreal! That means that Leapfrog worked even better than we thought it would to stabilize everything.”
Skylar shook her head. “Roland, I just ran your scan again, just to be sure, and everything came back perfect.”
Roland gave a thumbs up and continued into the desert.
Coach watched Roland’s feed. “Trouble is that Leapfrog burned a lot more calories than we could have anticipated. Those bars you just had will be barely enough to get you through the desert.”
Roland nodded and then gave the thought command to put his compass back up on his HUD. The desert had some rolling sand dunes, but otherwise everything looked exactly the same. It brought back memories of his deployment with the Marines for the War on Terror in Iraq, a war that we had been ‘pulling out of’ for over a hundred years.
Skylar took Roland’s heading and ran it through her GPS to check his course heading. “Roland, you need to adjust your heading about ten degrees east.”
Roland turned to his new heading. The sand was difficult to run on. It was very soft and dry. He sank down about two or three inches with every step. After half a mile or so, he felt drained. His legs were burning from exertion. He tried to lengthen his stride to get more distance out of each step. He knew that he was sweating, but it was so hot that his sweat evaporated instantly. Roland looked down at his dirty running clothes. Thick s
alt lines, from the sweat evaporation, made patterns around his neck and arms. Roland gave the thought command to show the temperature. His HUD showed 128 °F. He thought about when the judge read of his dad’s sentence - death by incineration. He was not going to lose his dad. He dug deep and exerted more energy to plow over the sand dunes.
Skylar saw the temperature show up on Roland’s HUD. “Wow, that’s hot.” She began pulling in more environmental data to analyze. She muted her headset and took the holograph over to Coach. “Coach, look here. Roland’s HUD is showing 128 °F. I took some more readings. The sand he is running on has been soaking up that heat for days. It is radiating nearly 200 °F back up at Roland.”
Coach looked intently at the data. He muted his mic and then leaned towards Skylar. “That kind of heat will make his feet swell. Keep a running scan going on his feet, ok?”
Skylar nodded. “Will do.”
Coach unmuted his mic. “Roland, shorten your stride. Then point your toes down into the sand so you can get a platform to push off from. You will slow your pace a little, but it will keep you in the race longer.”
Roland nodded and began to shorten his stride. It felt strange after working so hard to stretch his stride as far as he could. He could feel the change immediately. It was much less work to take shorter steps, and pointing his toes into the sand was helping his step off power. The speed in his HUD dropped down to 18 mph.
Coach watched as Roland’s feed seemed to bounce more as he took shorter steps. “There you go. Keep your upper body straight, and relax your shoulders.”
It took Roland the next half mile to really get used to his new positioning. Then he began to see other racers ahead of him. He was actually gaining on them. Ahead, there was a large sand dune. A hybrid racer with mechanical legs was a little behind the modelesque, digital racer. They both charged up the sand dune. The digital paused slightly at the top to catch his breath. When he took his next step, the hybrid behind him reached out his leg and tripped him. The digital pitched forward, headfirst down the sand dune’s embankment. Then the hybrid ran down the dune after him.
Roland crested the top of the dune just as the other two reached the bottom. They were rolling and fighting across the hot sand. Then the digital wrapped his legs across the hybrid’s body and locked the hybrid’s arm into a textbook armbar hold. The hybrid struggled and kicked his droid legs to no avail. The digital held him fast and continued to apply pressure by raising his hips. His hips acted as the fulcrum against the hybrid’s elbow. The hybrid yelled out in pain. He even tried tapping out on the digital’s leg.
The digital got a huge grin on his face. “You should’ve thought of that before you tripped me!” Then he thrusted his hips up and fell backwards with the full weight of his body pulling against the hybrid’s arm.
Roland heard an audible cracking sound as the digital snapped the hybrid’s elbow the wrong direction.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
HACKED
ROLAND WINCED AS he heard the hybrid yell in excruciating pain. He had already altered his course to come down on another side of the dune, but he could still hear the man.
Coach watched the two racers from Roland’s feed. “Yeah, steer clear, Roland. Tempers are only going to get worse.”
Skylar suddenly sat straight up in her chair and began staring closely at her terminal and typing desperately. “Coach…”
Coach came over and stood next to her to see her screen. “What is it, Skylar?”
Skylar pointed at the wavy graphs going across her holographic terminal. “I’m getting tons of signal activity and interference ahead.”
Coach stared at the graphs closely. “Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
Skylar pulled up the three dimensional map of the course. Roland’s position showed up as a green dot. There were about ten other dots ahead of him.
Coached watched the dots on the map. Some of them would disappear and then reappear a few seconds later. “Roland, we are getting a lot of signal traffic ahead. It looks like you are coming up on a big group of other contestants.”
Roland nodded. He looked forward, but he didn’t see anything except the heat waves billowing up from the sand covered dunes. He checked his HUD. The odometer showed that he had run just over two miles in the desert section so far. The sweltering heat made it hard to focus. He engaged the O2 plugin and tried to slow his breathing down. The temperature on his HUD was continuing to climb. It now read 129 °F. His calves were burning from the new running position and the added exertion of the deep sand.
Skylar went back to watching the signals. An alert popped up on her terminal. “Coach, remember that alert I set for that psychedelic racer?”
Coach nodded. “Yep. Is that what just popped up?”
Skylar squinted at her screen. “That’s right. He is in that group ahead. He’s sending out some major interference that is blocking the other racers’ communication and trying to shut down their tech.”
Coach watched the little dots on the map as they moved forward. “Raise Roland’s firewalls and see what else you can find out about the psychedelic racer.”
Skylar didn’t answer but instead went into a flurry of activity between her holographic keyboard and swiping between her terminals.
Coach went back to watching Roland’s video feed. “Roland, be careful ahead. There’s a big group of racers coming up.”
Roland nodded as he began sliding down a big sand dune. Then he leaned his head right for more information. He tried to keep his feet from sinking so far into the sand, but there was no way around it. He could feel the grit of the sand as it worked its way into his shoes and through his socks. The sand ground mercilessly against his feet each time he took a step.
Skylar finally got the info pulled up that she needed. A profile picture showed of the psychedelic racer in her terminal. “Roland, the psychedelic racer’s name is Pixel. He’s even worse than we thought earlier. I know they have a bunch of hackers working for him here at the games, but they have at least another thousand hackers working remotely to hack any contestants that Pixel comes into contact with.”
Roland nodded as he crested the next dune and saw another unexpected surprise. A few dunes ahead of him, he could see the hulking form of Duke. Nine other racers, including Pixel, were not far behind him. Roland picked up his pace. He recognized Bianca ahead of him. He watched as she ran. She seemed to almost float over the sand, hardly sinking at all. “How’s she doing that?”
Coach pulled up a replay of Bianca’s running on a separate terminal. “I’ll check her out, Roland.”
Roland suddenly felt woozy and began to weave back and forth.
Coach watched Roland’s video feed bounce side to side. “Roland, what’s wrong? Do you feel ok?”
Roland shook his head, and then he lost his balance and pitched forward into the sand.
Skylar slammed her hand down on the table. “No! Pixel did that! The Psychedelic Group just broke through our firewall!”
Coach ran over to look at her screen. Her terminal was flashing psychedelic colors. “Skylar! Get them out now! Shut everything down if you have to!”
Skylar swiped through several screens quickly on a different holographic terminal. She finally got to a screen which only had one switch on it. It was currently set to digital. The other option said quantum. “Roland, you might go dark for a second. I am switching all our systems over from digital mode to quantum processing. I’m still experimenting with quantum processing, but now we don’t have a choice.”
Roland lifted his head up and spit out a mouthful of sand. Sky’s words seemed far off.
Skylar flipped the switch over to quantum processing.
The british accent of Hobbes came through the speakers. “Changing to quantum processing mode now, ma’am.”
Roland started to stand back up. Then everything went completely black. “Sky? I can’t see! Sky?” Roland knelt down in the burning sand and tried to listen hard. He couldn’t hear anythin
g from Skylar or Coach. He could only hear the other contestants moaning. Then he heard a shrill war cry that could only have come from Pixel.
Coach looked around at all terminals. They were completely black. “Skylar, how long?”
Skylar crossed her arms. “About ten seconds.” Then the holographs started to come back on. It was torture not knowing what was happening to Roland. “I’m going to send that Psychedelic Group back to the year 1990! Let’s see how they like dial-up internet!” Then she pulled her personal computer out of her pocket and set it next to their other hardware. The small black device was only three inches square and had a skull and crossbones decal on the top of it.
Roland could hear Skylar and Coach talking, but he still couldn’t see. “Sky! I can’t see!”
Skylar swiped through several screens and then began typing furiously on her holographic keyboard. “I’m bringing you online now, Roland!” Still fuming, she hit the enter key.
Roland’s vision came back as abruptly as it had gone. But this time, everything seemed sharper and clearer. The colors seemed a little over saturated. “Sky, I can see again. Thanks! What happened?”
Skylar scowled. “The Psychedelic Group did the hacking equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on us.”
Roland jogged over the next dune, and he saw all the other contestants laying on the ground. Pixel was dancing around in between them hooping and hollering. “Looks like he nuked everyone else, too.”
Skylar flipped a switch on one of her screens. Her personal computer lit up. We are using quantum processing now, so he can’t hurt us. It’s like we are speaking a completely different language.
Coach watched Roland’s feed. “What do you mean?”
Skylar nodded towards Pixel on the video feed. “All his code is digital, you know, like binary. Either on or off. With quantum processing you can be either on, off or somewhere in between.”
Coach just looked at her. “I didn’t understand anything you just said.”
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 6