With profitability now a matter of winning and losing, Reggie picked a raiding mission sure to restock their coffers. Even a failure might net them some profits if they could get away with some salvage.
Reggie had the platoon out again, this time on a nighttime invasion of a refinery.
The landscape was a wash of psychedelic thermal-imaging colors. Blue-and-indigo sky, fluorescent red and green fields.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Gaffu Lizards 0/25]
The mission had come with an image of what a gaffu lizard looked like. Essentially, it was a chameleon the size of a train car that breathed fire. There had been no explanation of why Reggie’s employer wanted them dead, but there was no denying that having such a creature around could be hazardous to any number of local industries—let alone just living near them.
Mini-gun fire rang out.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Gaffu Lizards 1/25]
“Bet you taste like chicken!” Barv taunted the dead creature. It might have been mildly amusing if Reggie hadn’t heard the same joke for Barv killing just about any organic hostile.
“Stick together,” Reggie ordered. “Don’t separate more than 200m from the nearest friendly juggernaut without my order.”
[Primary Objective: Destroy Gaffu Lizards 3/25]
They found gaffu lizards in the fields.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Gaffu Lizards 6/25]
Gaffu lizards prowled the riverbanks.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Gaffu Lizards 13/25]
There was a nest of gaffu lizards near the spot where a hostile drop ship landed and disgorged juggernauts.
Without even waiting to see who his opponents were, Reggie knew. He switched back to optical view and opened fire at an Osprey that limped down the ramp first in line.
The Osprey survived the attack with light damage to its right arm.
“Abort Primary Mission,” Reggie barked. “Engage enemy juggernauts. Coordinate fire at my order.”
Reggie tagged the Osprey he’d already hit and watched his platoon race to close range.
The next juggernaut out of the drop ship was a Chi-Ri, then another Chi-Ri, then an Imp. Reggie had the weirdest feeling of déjà vu when a red-painted Jackal came down the ramp.
But it wasn’t until a blue Wolverine strode into the moonlight that he knew what had happened.
“So glad you decided to fight,” The Mechromancer taunted, following close behind the Wolverine. “It grows tiresome always chasing, chasing, chasing.”
Reggie ignored the taunts as The Mechromancer’s forces spread out into a defensive line, protecting their drop ship.
Blue laser beams cut the night air, brilliant against the darkness—almost blinding. Reggie expected them to target him, but instead, he saw the damage light up the platoon display on his console. The wire frames of Fraya and Sando’s Chipmunks took massive damage.
“All pilots, aerial charge my target,” Reggie ordered, tapping The Mechromancer’s custom juggernaut on his mini-map.
While Reggie had stripped the Chipmunks of their overpriced, laser-reflective missiles, he’d left them with the Jump Boosts installed. In unison, three of the four Chipmunks crouched low, then sprang into the air, accompanied by fiery thrusters in the soles of their feet pushing them skyward. Fraya closed to within range of her Jump Boost and followed suit seconds later.
Arcing through the air, each of the Chipmunks was a 25-ton catapult stone.
Barv shrieked an incoherent battle cry and opened fire with his Minigun in midair.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Gaffu Lizards 14/25]
Nice to know his NPCs had their priorities straight.
Reggie took missile fire from the two Chi-Ris. The cockpit shook like he was driving down a pothole-pitted road. His damage status showed hits primarily to the right arm.
Right Arm: 8/20
Torso: 77/80
[Custom Juggernaut - 11% To Hit]
Reggie struggled to get a solid line of sight to his target. The enemy juggernauts were arrayed to defend him.
Sailing through the air, the Chipmunks now rained down on The Mechromancer. It was such a large target, it hardly seemed conceivable they could miss. Despite not being able to get a sensor reading on its weight or armaments, it was definitely sized as a heavy juggernaut. And yet, despite its size, it moved with the grace of a martial artist. A twist, a duck, and a sidestep, and Sando, Barv, and Tenny all slammed to the rocky ground, firing their Jump Boost at the last second to prevent damage to their own legs on landing.
Fraya, trailing the first three, adjusted trajectory in midair with a blast from her right Jump Booster. Just judging by eye, she appeared to be on target with nowhere for The Mechromancer to run.
Then the familiar-looking Wolverine stepped into Fraya’s path. The Chipmunk struck full force, instantly destroying both the legs of the light juggernaut. The head armor of the Wolverine went black. Both juggernauts toppled over in opposite directions as The Mechromancer stepped out of the way.
“Almost poetic, don’t you think?” The Mechromancer asked. “Brought down by a dumb, digital animal.”
“You’re one to talk,” Reggie snapped. He pounded a fist on his radio as if The Mechromancer were sitting inside it. “You’re nothing without your NPC lackeys.”
“Oh?” The Mechromancer asked. “Who said there were any AIs at work? I control all these myself.”
Missile fire from the Chi-Ris poured into Vortex’s left leg. Damage indicators flared. The knee actuator seized.
Left Leg: 1/40
Reggie limped around to try and hide his damaged leg before it got chopped out from beneath him. He had to get another shot off.
[Custom Juggernaut - 23% To Hit]
The Plasma Launcher wasn’t going to end anything. Any damage he did would just be erased when The Mechromancer got back to his own base and paid for a quick repair job. What would that even be worth?
Reggie switched targets.
[Wolverine - 100% To Hit]
There was nothing sporting about taking out a downed juggernaut, especially one that was little more than a puppet on strings. But that had been Reggie’s juggernaut. It was easy to imagine that he’d been driving the same Vortex all this time, but that was just as easy fantasy. In truth, he’d had Vortex replaced by his insurance policy multiple times, each time leaving pieces on the battlefield. This Wolverine in his crosshairs was either one of those forgotten husks or a cobbled amalgam of multiple defeats in Reggie’s past.
“You can’t have it,” Reggie said with a snarl.
He squeezed the trigger.
The Plasma Launcher struck true. The Wolverine with its destroyed head was a sitting duck for a shot into its exposed, unarmored core. Reggie’s guaranteed hit didn’t include automatically striking his choice of sub-system, but skill played a role. Reggie struck the internal missile storage. Unexploded ordnance did the rest of the work.
“Such a pity,” The Mechromancer teased. “Too bad I’ve got another one right here in front of me.”
With a blast from a Particle Cannon, The Mechromancer chopped Reggie’s leg out from under him personally.
It was all over. Idly, Reggie wondered if The Mechromancer would leave him lying there helpless, disabling one weapon, one limb at a time, then waiting for the gaffu lizards to come by and finish him off.
That thought galvanized Reggie into action.
There was a panel on his console that Reggie had imagined to be pointless in a glorified arcade game. It was marked with a yellow hazard warning sticker crisscrossed with red zigzags. In the center of the design was a black skull.
Reggie popped the panel covering the self-destruct. Beneath, there was a key and a thumb-sized red mushroom cap of a button. Turning the key, he set the timer to 5:00. Reggie turned it a click farther. The timer changed to 1:00. One more click, and the timer displayed 0:00.
The Mechromancer loomed over Vortex. “I’m going to enjoy watching—”
R
eggie pushed the button.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Reggie stood in front of the computer terminal in the hangar of his base, going through the Submit Complaint dialog tree.
[Have We Answered Your Concern? Y/N]
“No,” Reggie replied, trying to keep his cool. This was the fourth time it had asked him after providing an answer he wasn’t looking for to a question that wasn’t what he’d asked.
[Please Describe Your Complaint: Character Stuck - Lag - Bug - Exploit - Abuse]
“Abuse.” It was a hard pill to swallow, calling it that, but Reggie was the victim here.
[Select One: Racial - Sexual - Ethnic - Religious - Real World]
“Other,” Reggie said with a sigh.
[Do You Have a Complaint Against a Specific Player? Y/N]
“Yes!” Reggie shouted at the screen.
[Please State the Name of the Harassing Player]
“The Mechromancer.”
[Unable to Locate Player “The Mechromancer”]
[Please State the Name of the Harassing Player]
“I don’t know the guy’s real name. I want to talk to your supervisor.”
Reggie was breathing hard, his face felt warm, and without realizing it, his hands had balled into fists. If the game’s help staff were to magically poof this Mechromancer fucker into the room with him, Reggie was ready to settle things once and for all.
Instead, the console text vanished from the wall-mounted screen, and Reggie was face-to-face with a person. He was lantern-jawed, with an eye patch and a shading of stubble on a leather-skinned face. “I’m Admin Tychus. What seems to be the trouble, Warrior King?”
Reggie wanted to snap that it was Sgt. King, but this wasn’t the venue to pull rank. He wasn’t a soldier here, but he was a paying customer, even if someone else was footing the bill for him. “Yeah, I’m on a medical account here, on doctor’s orders not to log out unless absolutely necessary.”
The admin looked perplexed. “I’m sorry to hear that, but—”
“And some bleep is bleeping with me just about every mission I go out on,” Reggie blurted, barely pausing for breath.
Tychus chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. Did you know I can tell you’re on censored, and you’re still swearing like a bleeping bleep. So what if some pilot has it out for you? Kick his bleep.”
“Well, he’s more than twice my level,” Reggie replied sarcastically. “Lemme just get right on that. Oh, wait. I did. And now I’m back at level 8, zero XP.”
“Lemme give you a bit of advice, soldier,” Tychus said in a gravelly voice that sounded like he chain-smoked cigars. “Get good.”
“What kind of advice is that?” Reggie scoffed. “A guy twelve levels above me with tech I can’t even scan isn’t exactly a fair fight, even trying to ambush or evade or anything else I can think of.”
“Like I said, get good,” Tychus replied slowly, as if Reggie hadn’t heard him clearly speaking full speed. “Or crawl back to the faction you left. Or pick a new one for all I care. This is a multiplayer game. No one ever said you would be able to play king-of-the-mountain with all comers. You want protection, don’t come crying to me about it. Join up, make some friends. Bleep, get laid and forget about this griefer for a while. I can see you’re paid up on extra services. Just quit crying to me about it. You waste any more admin time on this, I’ll slap you with a day in the brig.”
“Brig?” Reggie echoed. “When did this pseudo-futuristic army get all naval?”
“Call it what it is then, a 1-day ban. You log in, you’ll be in shackles in a cell. Got it?” Tychus grumbled. “Over and out.”
The screen went blank.
There was no help to be had from the admins.
“I’m not going back to House Virgo,” Reggie swore. Hearing the words aloud in his own voice made them real. He’d given himself his word.
Storming back through his base, Reggie ignored the casual greetings of Barv and Tenny as he passed them in the halls. When he reached his quarters, he slapped the panel to close himself inside for privacy, then threw himself down onto the bed.
It was time to do something he’d put off for too long.
Reggie logged out.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Reggie coughed.
What should have been a simple enough matter turned out not to be. First of all, he was coughing because he could feel a tube down the back of his throat. No amount of coughing or clearing his throat was going to remove it or dislodge it.
When Reggie tried to bring up a hand to cover his mouth—a reflex drilled into him since the age of two—he was reminded that he couldn’t move. Once again, he awoke strapped into the pod. But even straining against the cloth straps holding him to the tubular frame was difficult. His muscles felt rubbery. His joints were stiff.
As he continued coughing uncontrollably, unable even to move his head, a woman came into view.
At first, Reggie saw the white nurse’s uniform and assumed it was June—Nurse Mallet here, he had to remind himself. But it was someone new. She was dark-skinned, slim and attractive, but not anyone he could place with a name. The new nurse tapped something on her tablet, which made a faint buzz with each tap of her finger.
Reggie tried to call out to her, but it only came out as more coughing.
“Hold on, Sgt. King,” the new nurse reassured him. “Let me get that for you.”
Out came the feeding tube. It was wet and slimy. The stuff it dragged with it dripped out his nose like Reggie was a five-year-old with a head cold. It stung and burned and reeked.
The nurse wiped Reggie’s nose with a piece of gauze, then pinched while he blew to clear as much as he could.
“Sorry,” the nurse said with a sweet southern accent. “You weren’t expected back so soon.”
“Soon?” Reggie croaked. “How am I—”
Another fit of coughing overcame him.
The new nurse held a plastic cup of water to Reggie’s lips and tilted it back. He drank and felt the coolness all the way down his throat and into his stomach. The coughing fit eased after a few sips.
“Where’s June?” Reggie asked.
“Who?”
Reggie tried to shake his head to clear it, but the gaming rig was holding it snugly in place. “June… um, Lt. Mallet. She’d been taking care of me.”
The nurse gave Reggie another sip as she answered. “She’s been reassigned. I’ve… I’ve got to say, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Sgt. King.”
“Reggie,” he replied. He was feeling less and less like a sergeant these days. He needed human contact more than acknowledgment of rank, even if the nurse certainly outranked him—unless she was a civilian. Reggie couldn’t twist his head to get a good look at her uniform.
“Well, Reggie, let me go find Captain Zimmerman for you.”
“What’s your name?” Reggie asked as she headed for the door.
“Lt. Winston,” she replied with a flash of brilliant white teeth. “But since I’m calling you Reggie, you can call me Grace.”
“Grace, don’t bother the doc just yet,” Reggie said. “Gimme a hand getting out of here.”
The smile faded. “I’m not authorized. You’re not in any medical danger here. Just hold tight. I’ll be back before you know it.”
The door closed behind her, and Reggie struggled feebly in the restraints. It was pointless. He couldn’t reach any of the buckles or catches. Even with the electrode pads on his muscles, presumably exercising him as he slept, he felt weak as a newborn. There was no way he was going to pull a superhero move and just tear free of his bonds.
A few minutes later, Dr. Zimmerman entered. He glanced up from his tablet and instantly scowled. “You’re back awfully soon.”
“Doc, I think I’m about done with Armored Souls,” Reggie said. “I can’t hack it in there.”
“By all accounts, you’d been enjoying your time in the game world,” Dr. Zimmerman said,
tapping notes into his computer. “What’s changed?”
Reggie chuckled weakly. “This is gonna sound stupid, but some guy in there’s got it in for me.”
Dr. Zimmerman dragged a rolling chair over to the side of the pod, sitting just at the edge of Reggie’s peripheral vision. “You’re being bothered by another player?”
“Yeah, that about sums it up. I’m bothered. I’m bothered that I can’t go on a mission without looking over my shoulder. I’m bothered that the customer service guy blew me off. And frankly, doc, I’m kinda bothered that I’m wasting away here while I play soldier games in a fake universe.” He gave a tug at the restraints that jostled flabby muscles.
Dr. Zimmerman held out the tablet for Reggie to view. It had a bunch of medical gibberish scrawled in complicated charts and graphs. “You’re fine. You’re just on a low-calorie diet due to inactivity. That’s the sluggishness you’re feeling. But that’s not why either of us is here.”
“I’m here because I’m strapped to this goddamn machine!” Reggie snapped. Even the short outburst had him gasping for breath. He had to wait until he could continue his rant. “I’m sick to death of being trapped. I want out of this pod, out of the game, out of this hospital. You hear me, doc?”
“I do.”
Reggie gave a tug, straining at the straps on his arm. “Well?”
“Request denied.”
“I am not some science experiment for you to play with. I’m no lab rat. I want out of the maze.”
Dr. Zimmerman leaned down, looking Reggie in the eye. “Have you considered that for most of your adult life, you’ve been trapped in a steel box on tracks? You follow orders, complete missions. You’ve had to kill. You’ve lost friends. There are breaks between assignments, but it’s always back out into the fray. Can’t you see the parallels?”
“So, what? You’re saying Armored Souls is like commanding a tank? Gonna have to burst that bubble, doc. It’s not.”
“The man who commanded a tank crew of Corporal Charles Blackwell, Corporal Duncan Murray, and Private Brandon Davis was not a quitter. Something broke inside you. I’m not worried about this.” Dr. Zimmerman waved a hand up and down Reggie’s body. “I’m concerned with what happened in here.” He tapped a finger to Reggie’s forehead.
Dead Mech Walking: a mech LitRPG novel (Armored Souls Book 1) Page 24