“The game will begin in five, four, three, two, one,” Ava said.
On “one,” the hundreds of opalescent aliens walked around through the market place, causing the fighters to hop this way and that in an attempt to get out of the way.
“Are they going to have to fight all of them?” Renn asked.
“No, the white aliens are Trinidations, which are an incredibly passive species. See, not all of the species are bad. It’s part of the game. If you kill a dangerous species, you gain points, kill a good one, you lose points, save a good one from a bad one and you gain a lot of points,” Dylan explained.
Renn watched Desh and Kia wave to the passerby, prompting Ava to award them 200 points for acknowledging the Trinidations as a friendly species. Remi and Sargus walked around; looking for the dangerous aliens, while Desh and Kia gave the impression they were browsing, using the other team as bait.
Once Remi and Sargus disappeared around the corner, Desh and Kia ventured out a little further. Desh saw a family of Trinidations freeze and scatter from where they stood.
They’re coming, Renn heard Desh project to Kia.
Kia followed Desh’s gaze and took out an arrow, as Desh walked to the other side of the street.
What do you hear? Kia thought.
There are a lot of them. I don’t recognize the language, Desh replied.
Renn heard Remi scream in pain and glanced up to the scoreboard to see that he had been terminated behind one of the buildings. The crowd booed, annoyed they weren’t able to see the first death of the school year.
Trinidations scattered, running from the marketplace in search of places to hide. Desh held his palms forward, when the sound of galloping could be heard approaching.
Kia pulled back on his bow, aiming for the street.
I didn’t hear any blasts when Remi died. You think they have guns? Kia asked.
Doubt it. Go up and take a look, Desh projected.
With that, Kia jumped into the air, spreading his large wings, and hovered above the city. I see them, he thought and looked up at the scoreboard. They’re Ottens.
Renn looked up to the board and curled his lip at the picture of an ugly brown beast with horns that protruded out of its forehead, curving below its pointy ears. It was the five eyes that made the shape of a “W” in the middle of its face though, that made the animal look so bizarre to Renn.
They’ve only got machetes, but there are a lot of them, Kia thought, firing arrows into the enemy. Desh, get out of there! They’re coming straight for you!
Desh took off, sprinting in the opposite direction, when dozens of brown humanoid figures turned the corner. The Ottens rode towards them on another species with matted black hair, flaming red eyes, and four massive legs. The Ottens grunted as they rode, whipping their machetes around and slicing any Trinidation that had yet to hide. They caught a glimpse of Desh and all took off in a gallop after him with Kia following from the air, taking them out, one by one.
They’re almost on you, turn around! Kia thought.
Desh stopped in his tracks, turned around, and created a large wall of energy, causing the Ottens to collide with it. The enemy fell, disoriented.
Kia and Desh took advantage of their disorientation and discharged a hail of arrows and lightning, lowering the numbers by a third.
More are coming. Keep moving, Kia instructed, looking around the city. When Kia looked back to Desh, Desh was no longer in sight. Kia looked up at the scoreboard to see that Desh was still alive, and flew down to take a closer look.
Renn considered projecting to Kia that Desh had run inside a building, but thought that might be cheating, and left Kia searching for his friend, as Renn sat on the edge of his seat.
Where are you? Kia thought, hesitating to land.
The enemy stopped under Kia, looking around.
Kia, get in here! Desh projected from a building.
Kia flew down, crashing into a second floor window, and disappeared.
The students around Renn groaned.
“Don’t tell me they’re gonna hide for the rest of the level,” Rudy whined.
“What kind of building did they run into?” Renn asked, noticing an insignia above the doorway.
“I think it’s a police station,” Dylan replied. “There won’t be any police in BOTS, but there should be weapons and equipment they can take.”
After a few seconds, the crowd became antsy and yelled, “Fight, fight, fight, fight…”
At that moment, Desh and Kia shot out of the building riding separate Trinidation hover-monocrafts, and flew past the angry riders, kicking a couple of them in the head and knocking them off their steed, in defiance.
The crowd screamed and cheered at the players’ feistiness, while the horned creatures galloped after the fighters, along the city streets, in hot pursuit.
Renn watched, dying for the chance to ride a Trinidation monocraft, which rode like the hover-bikes on Earth, but were designed for the rider to lie forward, so a Toran like Kia could ride it without bending any feathers.
Desh and Kia carried large shotguns that created green balls of explosions. The boom from the shotguns was earsplitting, but no one could take their eyes off the lime green spheres zooming through the air.
“Awww,” Renn said, watching Desh pass Sargus, thereby leading the enemy right to him.
Desh and Kia slammed on their brakes and turned the monocrafts around. “Come on!” Desh yelled, putting his hand out for Sargus.
Sargus ran for Desh, but two Ottens, swinging their machetes, overtook him. The blade went high into the air and came down, taking Sargus’ arm with it before Kia was able to fire off a shot, killing one of the riders.
Desh fired a bolt of lightning, hitting the second Otten in the chest. The rider, and the beast beneath it, shuddered as the light crackled around them and they fell to the ground, dead.
Sargus’ stub healed in seconds, but not in time for him to avoid the pain. Sargus screamed in agony, “Ava, eliminate the pain!”
“Pain eliminated,” Ava complied, deducting 1,000 points from his score.
“Why didn’t Desh or Kia ask for the pain to be eliminated? What’s the point of letting Sargus suffer?” Renn asked.
“They couldn’t,” Dylan replied. “You can only eliminate pain for yourself and your teammate, because you lose points if you turn the pain off. It’s best to try and bear it, but if you lose a limb, you’ve got no choice. You either lose the points or hope to die to make the pain stop. It won’t always hurt though. If someone strikes a fatal blow, Ava will eliminate the pain without penalty.”
Sargus stopped yelling and visibly relaxed. He stood up, grabbed his large laser gun with the other arm, and turned around towards the pack running towards them. Kia, Desh, and Sargus fired together, but the enemy finally reached Sargus once again, and aimed for his neck.
Renn cringed when Sargus went down and watched as the fighters and the predators took off, leaving Sargus’ body in the dirt. “What happens when a fighter dies?” Renn asked, disturbed by the sight of the Zeanup’s headless body.
“Well, from the fighter’s perspective, every hologram in the room disappears and they’re just standing in a plain white simulation room full of people. For that moment, you see everything as it really is. It snaps you back to reality really fast, which is cool if you just experienced a brutal death,” Dylan explained. “See, there he is,” he said, pointing to the holding tank.
Renn looked over and saw Sargus step out into the fighter’s tank, limbs intact, and grab a drink of water, as if being decapitated were a normal occurrence. Renn laughed and shook his head. This is so much better than baseball, he thought.
Renn turned back to the fighters, watching Desh speed up and turn a corner, out of view.
Kia slowed down and continued straight ahead.
The beasts followed Kia, gaining on their enemy, and followed the Toran to the edge of a cliff, where he rode until he was no longer above solid ground.
>
Kia flew up into the air as the monocraft tumbled to the rocky gully far below, exploding when it hit the rocks. He turned around, watching the enemy stop at the edge of the cliff.
The Ottens cursed and spit at the flying boy they were unable to reach. They heard a whistle and turned around to see Desh grin and display his palms.
The Ottens charged, but were met by another force field that pushed them back off the cliff, one by one.
Kia looked up to the sky, where the scoreboard hovered in the clouds, and watched Ava add hundreds of points at a steady pace.
Ava ended the level after the five minutes were up, and Desh and Kia advanced to the next level alone.
They had a difficult time surviving level three though, not having the other team to help them take on the horde of six armed and four legged beasts that attacked them. The enemy threw hundreds of thin shards of rocks in the shape of daggers at an alarming pace.
Desh’s electricity and force fields were already in use when another dagger was thrown — aimed for Desh’s chest. Kia, however, jumped in front of him, blocking the dagger with his own body.
Kia looked down at the shard buried deep inside his chest and pulled it out. Crimson blood slowly trickled from his mouth before he fell to his knees, and then to the ground, dead.
Desh froze in horror when Kia went down and the crowd fell silent, watching torment and rage streaked across the remaining player’s face.
“Oh my gawd,” Renn said, watching Desh’s eyes turn black. Waves of energy surrounded the Mindeerian while crackling streams of light emitted with ferocious vengeance. He massacred another flood of attackers, proving to be the most formidable player that day.
Desh died, nevertheless, when he became outnumbered fifty-to-one, and fell lifeless beside the Toran, until Ava cleared the simulation.
When the hologram descended, Desh could be seen walking back to the fighter’s tank, with his head hanging low and blushed cheeks, despite the crowd’s thunderous applause.
Renn looked over to the fighters' tank and saw that Kia was already there, grinning as Desh walked up. When Desh got there, he seemed unable to make eye contact with the Toran and instead stood at the edge of the holding tank as if ready to watch the next battle.
Kia remained silent until he couldn’t take it anymore. “I thought you were gonna cry there for a second, Brother,” he said, still grinning.
“Shut up,” Desh replied.
“You want a hug?” Kia teased.
“Shut up, shut up,” Desh persisted, while his cheeks turned a deeper shade of rouge and his palms an illuminated blue.
Kia, however, wasn’t going to let it go, and his grin broadened.
Desh finally submitted. “I just can’t get used to seeing you die, all right?” Desh said.
“Good,” Kia replied, starting to get serious. “Cause the second you do, is the second you start to get careless with my life, and outside of simulation, I can only die for you once.”
“I know,” Desh said solemnly.
Renn listened in amazement to their conversation, bewildered that the question wasn’t whether Kia would sacrifice his life for Desh, rather when that day would come and whether or not Desh could handle it.
Dylan nudged Renn, bringing him back to the conversation. “So you want to compete next time?” he asked. “You and I could partner up.”
“Hey, why didn’t you ask me?” Rudy asked, sounding offended.
Dylan looked at Rudy as if that had been the stupidest question known to man. “Two humans? Really?” Dylan replied, unable to keep his upper lip from curling.
Rudy thought about it a second. “Yeah, okay. Good point,” he said, and then looked at Renn for his response.
“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Renn replied. He watched the games for the rest of the day, only taking short breaks to eat or go to the bathroom, but it was the game that followed Desh and Kia, that became the most talked about, thanks to Ivan.
Ivan had fought against Breman and Unden, the Zorgre brothers who were big and clumsy, and always bumping into things. Their limbs were like tree trunks and their species were known throughout the Federation as not being the brightest suns in the universe. For Zorgres it was attack or don’t attack, kill or don’t kill, black or white, on, off. Anything further than that and they would sit there scratching their heads, until the enemy came and cut their heads off.
Watching the Zorgre brothers fight was, however, the most exciting thing about the game, since Ivan died on level one, having gotten too cocky and gone after the enemy, a large furry creature he should have chosen to outrun. But Ivan, trying to cover up his mistake, brought even more attention to himself by giving vainglorious accounts of the incident to anyone who would listen, despite the whole school having been there and knowing what really happened.
When they all got back to their dorm rooms, Renn and his roommates listened to Ivan’s recount of the story as many times as they could tolerate, until politely asking him to “shut the hell up” so they could study before the sleep regulators sent them to sleep.
CHAPTER 8
Bottom of the Food Chain
Renn woke up and made his way to the bathroom. When he got out of the shower, he saw his dog sitting in front of the sinks, waiting for him, like he always had on Earth. “Hey, Upgrade,” Renn said, grabbing his uniform.
Upgrade wagged his tail and meowed.
Renn froze, then turned to the dog. “Come again?” he said.
Upgrade meowed, panting in excitement.
“Dylan!” Renn called out. “What’d you do to my dog?”
Renn could hear Dylan laughing hysterically in the other room while Renn fussed with Upgrade’s controls. He went through a series of meows, squeaks, roars, hisses, honks, and quacks till he found a good manly bark. “There you go, Buddy,” he said, scratching Upgrade behind his ears.
It took Renn longer than usual to get dressed that morning and he came to the conclusion that Tom had come in while he was in the shower and put everything, including his shoes, in its rightful place. That is, where an android felt their rightful place should be.
“Come on, we’re going to be late for physics and I heard a Sensatus is teaching the class,” Leo said, while he and Dylan stood next to the door, waiting. “Everybody knows how Sensati get about punctuality.”
“I can’t find my shoes,” Renn said, looking around.
“Searching for shoes,” Ava complied.
Renn looked up in amazement as a red beam scanned the room, until a closet door lit up and opened, displaying his shoes at its base.
“Thanks, Ava!” Renn said, grabbing his shoes and sliding them on.
“You’re welcome,” the computer generated voice replied.
“That’s cool!” Renn said, looking over at Rudy, who was taking his time getting ready.
“Yeah, you can do that in all the dorm rooms,” Rudy replied. “I don’t know how I’d find my Fep without it.”
“Couldn’t you just turn out the lights?” Renn asked, as he grabbed his tablet and headed for the door.
Rudy looked over at the Fep, who was curled up asleep next to its teddy bear. “Oh. I never thought of that,” Rudy muttered.
Dylan, Leo, and Renn made their way to class, finding Desh, Kia, and Etienne already seated. Dylan and Renn looked at each other, mumbling a sarcastic, “Great,” then saw Lux, and sat down next to her, while Desh glared at them.
The class filled up with students running in at the last minute, as the professor stood at the front of the class, greeting them with a rather high-pitched “Hello,” when they entered.
Renn cocked his head, staring at the professor for a moment, not having noticed him when they first walked in. The more he looked, the more he wondered whether the professor was human or not. He was short, maybe only four feet tall, with eyes a little too big to be human, but hid them behind a pair of thick glasses, which magnified them even more. The professor’s thick black hair was slicked back, revealing a
widow’s peak on his forehead and ears half the size of a human’s.
Is he human? Renn projected to Dylan.
Dylan jumped, startled, looking around, then to Renn.
“What?” Renn asked. “You’ve really never had someone talk in your head before?”
“No, and may I remind you, neither had you till you got to the Galileo.”
“Good point,” Renn said.
“And the professor is a Sensatus, by the way,” Dylan added.
The bell chimed and the professor walked to the door, locking it in preparation for class. He had only walked a couple steps back, when Rudy ran up on the wrong side of the door, unable to get it to slide open. He knocked on the circular glass partition in the door and waved, trying to get the professor’s attention.
The Sensatus turned around at the noise, walked back, and tapped on the window twice, prompting the window to turn black and shut out the sound.
The class giggled and snickered, as Rudy’s eyes widened and disappeared, making it very clear that the punishment for being late was to miss class. If it was like the other classes Renn had been in so far, if a student missed a class, there was no way to make up the grades or retrieve the lessons without prior approval, and was as good as failing the class for the day.
“Is he really our physics instructor?” Renn asked Dylan. “I once heard that Sensati’s IQs are so far advanced that they can’t teach humans.”
“Yeah, but I heard this one’s good at dumbing things down so we can understand them,” Dylan replied.
“Hello,” the Sensatus began with a smile. “My name is Professor Ozrot. Let’s begin, let’s begin, turn your tablets on and pull up lesson one, please.” He then proceeded to give the class a lecture on quarks and leptons, but lost the students when he rattled off a long formula at a rapid fire pace.
Renn looked around the class to see if he was the only one mystified and then leaned over to Dylan. “Was that English?” he asked.
“Some of the words sounded familiar,” Dylan said.
“Like what?” Leo asked in amazement.
Galileo (Battle of the Species) Page 12