Know Thy Enemy

by Dawn Chapman

  Trapped. Pierce never imagined he could be captured so easily. It seemed obvious now why that voice had sounded so strange. His enemy, the soldier who captured him, was talking, but through speakers placed in the woods. He’d been preparing the electric shock to render him unconscious.

  That’s why the voice seemed so strange: it was duplicated. Projected from the base, while the natural voice moved behind him, creating a strange effect when heard together. Leading Pierce to believe he was dealing with a long-distance sniper. In reality, the enemy had gotten closer.

  Pierce stood and paced the cell. There was no escape unless he could shrink to the size of a small turd, flush himself away. The blood-stained scratch marks on the wall must have come from trapped mutants. Like the ones on the ship. They weren’t from human hands, but very sharp nails.

  He glanced at the glass. The place was silent. So, he sat. Waited. Decided for the first time to check his stats. With a flick of his eye, the screen appeared before him, then he swallowed. He’d been beaten, or worse, each stat read dangerously low.

  Character Name

  Pierce Hunt

  Age

  21

  Level

  1

  XP -

  1800 - XP to level 2 – 1700

  Talents - Empathy

  2/20

  Talents - Trained Soldier

  60/100

  Health

  60/100

  Mana—No magic detected

  0/0

  Focus

  100/100

  Stamina

  10/100

  Armour

  5/100

  Strength

  5/100

  Intelligence

  30/100

  Wisdom

  10/100

  Constitution

  10/100

  Agility

  5/100

  Luck

  1/100

  Charisma

  10/100

  It took over half an hour for his captor to come by. The first thing Pierce noticed was he stood over six feet tall and wore a dark purple vest seemingly made of some sort of leather; his boots and gloves as well. The only uncovered part of his body was his face. His skin was dark, almost glowing; he had big purple eyes, slicked-back hair. In his hand rested Pierce’s plasma rifle.

  “I’m Corporal Leenz, a soldier of New Ararat. Who are you?”

  “My name is Pierce. I’m a soldier from Earth.”

  “Earth,” repeated Leenz, his eyes narrowed, darkened. “You’re here for our planet, aren’t you?”

  Pierce’s head pounded as he tried to assess the situation. Leenz was an NPC surely. An amazing simulation, New Ararat, the trees, buildings, even the cell he was in.

  “I’ve been sent to defeat the Maxol,” explained Pierce. “That’s my only interest. I found a wrecked ship…”

  “I saw the ship,” said Leenz. “And I still don’t know how it was wrecked. So, you’ll remain here until I get some answers.”

  “It wasn’t my doing.” His back felt slick with sweat. “I realize you’re engaged in some sort of genetic experiments. I don’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Liar. Your mission was taking Mount 23. This is Mount 23.”

  “How do you know that was my mission?” asked Pierce, legitimately curious. His mission had been to deactivate a radar, not conquer the place.

  “Because it was my mission, too. I took Mount 23. And it was easy. By the time I got here, everyone was dead. The scientists, I mean. The creatures were alive, with a thirst for blood. That’s what happens when you mess with nature, right?”

  Pierce ran a hand through his hair. So hot in here.

  Leenz put the gun aside and leaned against the glass. “They did things in these labs. Created monsters for nefarious reasons. Apparently, they got too big. The scientists didn’t have the proper weapons to fight them. Hence, a massacre. When I got here, I encountered creatures that will haunt my nightmares forever, but I killed all of them. Still, my mission wasn’t complete. To my surprise, I found you feeding that monster of yours with the body parts.”

  “Chopper…” Pierce murmured.

  “He’s fine, don’t worry,” said Leenz. “I thought of putting him down, but he didn’t attack. I could have killed you too easily, but decided I should make contact first, see what you know.”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m just following the mission they gave me.”

  Leenz let out a strange giggle. “Isn’t this funny? I’ve read a lot about Earth. I’ve seen what you’ve done to it. Now you come to my planet… who knows how we’ll be in a hundred years? Or even twenty?”

  “It was all agreed upon.” Pierce couldn’t understand why this NPC was going on and on. Reading Leenz’s main stats failed, no findings, no extra info to help him. What he could see was a very full Health bar.

  “Who agreed?” shouted Leenz. “We are all slaves. We don’t get to give our opinion. That’s what they told us. But neither you nor the other guys are aware of how easily you can turn a good thing into a hell.”

  “Fuck you and your planet!” Pierce stood. “You think I care about your problems? I’m here for one reason: complete my mission. And that mission does not involve sitting, talking to a whiny son of a bitch who…”

  “The bitch!” Leenz yelled. “You’re not talking to a son of a bitch. You’re talking to the bitch herself. I’m female.”

  Pierce mumbled, trying to find a clever answer, but couldn’t. “Whatever!” he said. “The one thing I can guarantee is if we didn’t have this glass between us, I’d kill you regardless.”

  “Really?” said Leenz, lifting the plasma rifle, removing the ammunition. She did the same with her own gun, then threw everything down the hall. She then took off her vest, to reveal a top of the same colour underneath it. Pierce realized Leenz possessed the Araratian equivalent of a nice rack.

  Leenz removed her gloves and putting her hand on the palm scanner next to the cell, like a bursting soap bubble, the glass wall was gone. “Let’s see how quickly you can try,” she growled.

  In a second he was ready for combat; Pierce ran in her direction. Leenz avoided his first two punches, the third one connected with her ribs. She grunted but attacked Pierce with a jab to the nose. He fell backward, his eyes filling with tears. Leenz hopped over him, grabbing for his throat. Pierce tried to jump sideways, he gripped her shoulder hard and kicked the back of her leg, hoping it might take her down.

  Leenz fell to her knees. Pierce wrapped his arm around her neck and squeezed. Leenz felt for Pierce’s face blindly, and stuck her thumbs in his eyes. This dislodged his monocular device. Probably best I don’t see my stats anyway.

  The pain was too much for him, and Pierce let her go, stumbling back a few steps.

  When she turned back to him, Pierce was ready once again. He wouldn’t give up. Giving her another rib punch, something broke. Leenz yelled and with a roundhouse kick that struck Pierce’s head, split his ear open. Pierce was on the ground again, so she kicked his face, then stepped back while he recovered.

  She smiled. “The warm-up is over!”

  His popup noises alerted him to the fact they were going crazy, but he couldn’t see them. Pierce was up, his cheeks covered in blood, his eyes filled with fury. He ran to her. Exchanging more punches. Kicks. Leenz hit Pierce more than Pierce hit her, but she soon realized that provoking him hadn’t been a good idea. For all his punches that missed, the ones he landed were as powerful as a bomb.

  Both their faces were covered in blood and sweat. His red, hers a dark blue. Pierce was willing to kill her, but Leenz must have realized she still needed a prisoner.

  Finally, she managed to get her legs around his head, immobilizing him. “This is over! Give up!”

  “You’ll have to break my neck if you want me to stop,” he spluttered. Pierce didn’t stop moving as she bore down, suffocating him.

  His face was blue when he fainted.

  Leenz must
have released the grip from his neck because he came around on the floor quickly. Splayed out, he watched as Leenz waved aside her own stat screen. A little more pummelling and Pierce knew he’d have been dead.

  Instead, it was back to his cell where she locked him up. Pierce saw her stats drop further when a red flashing box appeared. Did she realize how hurt she was? He wasn’t sure. She grabbed a medical kit, stitched up her arm and swallowed some painkillers. By the time she moved her attention to him, Pierce had bound up his own wounds with a length of trouser material, then checked his stats. Nothing worse than hers.

  XP + 218

  TOTAL—2018

  TOTAL TO LEVEL 2—982

  HEALTH—45/100

  “Should we continue our talk?” he said, licking a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth.

  “What was your mission again?” Leenz asked. “Take Mount 23, then what?”

  Pierce shrugged, rubbing down his legs; pain seemed to throb everywhere. “I’ll receive further instructions after completing the mission.”

  “You mean if you had finished it.” Leenz sneered. “You realize you’ve failed. You are now under my control.”

  “I haven’t failed,” said Pierce. “I just haven’t succeeded yet. As soon as I kill you, take control of this facility, I’ll proceed with my next assignment.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “Let me be frank with you, Pierce. I have fought a lot of people. But I never felt this kind of pain. I kept you alive until now for information. You don’t seem to have a lot to offer.”

  “Then why don’t you kill me?”

  “Because I want to know what your next assignment is. Should probably shoot you in the head right after. But instead, I’m going to do something foolish. You see, there is still something I want to get clear, so you’ll get to hear some information no other human or Maxol has ever heard.”

  Although her face didn’t change its stern expression, she continued, “We aren’t happy being offered as a prize in some game. We have little experience; our weapons can’t compete with yours in the real world. I’m part of the Araratian Resistance Army. A few of us have managed to get inside this virtual reality, and we acquired enough skills to fight back. We can’t eliminate you all, though. My mission here is to sabotage your missions. Making the game as unplayable as possible.”

  Pierce struggled to take this in. “Sounds like you’re trying to save a sinking ship with a bucket.” Pierce paused. “So why am I still breathing? If that’s what you want, just eliminate me.”

  “There’s the rub, and my situation is I have to let you take control of this lab. For that information. That means you have to walk away from that cell. You must proclaim victory over me. And there’s the problem. If I let you take control over this facility, there’s no way to prevent you from killing me.”

  “So, what do you propose?” asked Pierce.

  Leenz pulled a small box out of her pocket and took something from it that looked like a pill. “This I got from the Maxol,” she said, putting it in her mouth and swallowing it. “They don’t like being made prisoners. This little thing has the power to explode everything in a two-mile radius. It’s connected to my life signals. You may kill me if you want, but I find it unlikely you’ll escape the explosion.”

  She put her palm on the scanner and again, the glass wall disappeared.

  “I’m your prisoner now, Pierce,” she said. “You are in command of this facility.”

  Red letters appeared in front of Pierce’s eyes, giving him the details of his next mission. He read through them quickly. Then he looked at Leenz and wondered if it’d be worth it to take her with him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Drayk

  Drayk drifted. He didn’t feel much in regard to actual pain, but the steady thrumming in his chest remained. He felt the others around him, escorting him somewhere. The light, as their faces drifted in and out of view, grew and dimmed. In and out. He knew the device in his chest needed to come out now, or the game would never be realised.

  Altus’ voice came through to his struggling mind. “Drayk, are you with me?”

  Drayk shook his head, his body reacting to the movement, everything around him vibrating. “I’m-m-m here.” His body reacted with an involuntary shudder. “I don’t feel so good though.”

  The room darkened as Drayk tried his best to get to the bed Altus pointed to. There was nothing special about it—lights, digits, but those silver tools he’d never seen before. Where the hell am I? “What are you going to do? How can you sync in here with my real body?”

  “It’s complicated, but I can’t knock you out. I need you to be ready for this. You have to tell me what you feel as we work.”

  “But will this transfer to the device in my chest?”

  Altus nodded with no further explanation. Drayk had many questions, but of course no time for them. “Ugh, let’s get it done.” He groaned, knowing he had no choice. “Will it hurt?”

  “We’ll see. I’ll administer as much of a drug as I can. I don’t want you to feel pain, but sometimes that’s the best indicator of your health. I won’t have access to your stat sheets now, so I’ll be asking you questions.”

  “You want me to report what I’m going through?” The thought terrified Drayk.

  “The more you talk, the easier it’ll be. I don’t know what the pain threshold is for you or this device, but I don’t want to find out you’re at a hundred percent when there’s no way to stop the operation or this procedure.”

  Drayk nodded as he managed to lie down, feeling the cool metal beneath him. It comforted him, eased his pain. A nurse appeared in his view. She said, “I’ll need to apply some gel to your chest, several nodes to your legs, back, and forehead. Ready?”

  On his nod, she helped him undress. No Maxol female had been this close before, and heat rushed up Drayk’s neck. All he could do was look away. The entire time she was close, his heart beat more and more erratically.

  Altus came back into his view. He was now surgically clean. Drayk noted the strength of his arms. Altus moved around doing things, fetching tools, which worried Drayk.

  Altus then turned to the nurse. “You need to stay, while we do this.” She nodded, allowing him the space to manoeuvre about the bed.

  With a soft voice, Altus instructed the AI in the system. “Anesthetise, sect 101. Pain relief to forty-five percent.” A small device appeared out of a slit at the table’s side. “Relax, this’ll help. I’m not going to do anything without informing you. All right?”

  Drayk nodded. The nurse offered a smile. Another screen appeared before them, displaying a full 3D holographic body image. There in the centre of his chest the device pulsated and ticked. Drayk’s hand shot to its position. “I feel like there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do to help.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. I’m going to numb your limbs. Then we open.”

  The words stung even though Altus hadn’t laid a finger on him yet. Drayk settled back down, tried to breathe in nice and steady. He accepted the next needle which came at him. Straight for his chest, piercing the skin.

  Within moments the drug made him feel woozy. He tried to lift an arm, a leg. “It’s working. I think you can do it now.”

  Drayk closed his eyes, he didn’t want to see Altus open him with his scalpel, even if was only a game version of himself. A moment later, he couldn’t help but look; he’d never felt any pain, just pressure. That was it, nothing else.

  “I’ve reached the device,” Altus reported. “It’s more complex than I first thought.”

  “Can you stop? It’s making me…” Drayk’s breathing increased. “I-I-I’m in here?”

  “Give me a moment.”

  Drayk felt the pressure increase. Then there was a little pain.

  His stats dropped.

  HEALTH—48/100

  FOCUS—25/100

  The nurse called out: “Health dangerously low, Altus.”

  “Slight stinging sensa
tions. My left arm,” he reported. “Not a lot, but it’s there.”

  “I’m just going to try turning this component off.”

  Drayk made the mistake of opening his eyes. “Let me see. Please.”

  Altus coughed, then a screen appeared in Drayk’s view. There Drayk saw his open chest, his heart beating, his inner organs on full display. Bile rose up his throat, burning. He wanted to be sick. But the pure white squared device intrigued him, also pulsating, beating, like his heart should.

  His brain fixated on the display, and he managed to alter the view. “What are you doing?” Altus said.

  There was a slight pinch as with a thought Drayk moved the tiniest component inside it. “Altus, you can’t turn it off, give me a moment.”

  Drayk focussed even more. There was a section he could see, one he wanted to see even more of.

  Altus let out a wow as Drayk dove into the inner workings, the object’s design specs. A detail came into view that even he couldn’t imagine was real.

  Then at maximum zoom, there it was, tiny robots inside the device working away, doing things, building things.

  Confused but excited, Drayk said. “They need re-programming. You can’t alter the way they work; you need to alter their perception of what they’re doing.”

  “Artificial Intelligence?” Altus asked, “I’ve known it was possible, but at that level, never.”

  Drayk thought back to his schooling. Maybe, I can do this myself? “Do you have access to a P1872—a technagraal? It’s fairly new, maybe developed in the last year. I’ve heard of it, I’m not sure you’ll have one here though.”

  Altus turned to the nurse. “Go fetch Muvral. I think he’ll know.”