Multiplayer

by John C. Brewer

  “GoreFiendHell is an arrogant infidel,” said al-Nib. “And when this is over, Malik, and you kill him to discover who he really is, he will get his rightful reward.”

  GoreFiendHell? Kill him? Who he really is? This wasn’t making any sense!

  “But not the reward he is expecting,” the other man laughed ominously. Izaak shivered and listened closer.

  “It will be my pleasure,” said Mal-X. “Operation Scimitar is going to –” He paused suddenly then stared straight at the spybot. “What the…?”

  “What is it?” he heard al-Nib, shout. “What is it!”

  “Some kind of robot!” Mal-X exclaimed.

  Mal-X sprang forward, filling the field of view. Izaak hissed a swear word, and started backing the spybot away when he saw the butt of Vera coming down. There was an instant of static and the link was gone.

  “Time to go,” he said to himself, and ran back down the stairs. But he hadn’t gone halfway down when he encountered people rushing up. The fight was furious but short and three vanguards lay on the stairs dead. But now, everyone in the hotel knew exactly where he was. More characters poured into the stairwell from below, leaving Izaak only one direction to go. He emerged on the top floor, back in the hall, where he spiked the door shut. The other guard heard it and came running up.

  “You!” he snarled when he saw Izaak. It was the guard who had wanted to meet him again.

  “Here’s your chance,” said Izaak. He deployed his fan shield and lit up his arc-sword. Frenchy rushed him, firing with his carbine, but Izaak’s fan shield deflected the attack easily. Izaak brought the sword down and sheered the weapon in half, then brought it back up and cleaved the under-armored guard in two. “Guess that makes it three times.” Then he peeked down the other stairwell only to see more guards rushing up. Someone let loose a burst that sparkled off his shields, draining them a notch. Izaak jerked his head back and shot a spike into that door too. They were locked out for the moment, but he was locked in. Hector snatched up his cell phone to call Rada.

  “Ersatz!” came a voice behind him, and he turned to see Mal-X approaching.

  “Mal-X,” Izaak snarled, and Hector dropped the cell phone. Rage consumed him and he bolted forward, his arc sword shining like lightning.

  They fought furiously. Izaak landed blow after blow and Mal-X gave ground. Hector gripped the controller tightly, driving the joysticks so hard his thumbs turned white “You stole Vera! You cheating loser!” He brought down the arc sword and clove Mal-X’s carbine in two. An instant later a pale gold glow filled the hall as Mal-X’s nexus blade appeared. A single swipe dropped the dissipater field of Izaak’s shield to nothing.

  Izaak fell back before the superior weapon and Mal-X rushed after him. The nexus blade came down, and Izaak’s arc sword burst into a million sparks and nearly drained Izaak’s shields. A glance at his power indicators showed his fusion cells were nearly empty.

  Izaak dropped a flash grenade and bolted the other direction. There was a flash and Izaak knew Mal-X would be blind for a few seconds. The hall ended at a window that was just a black rectangle. Down below, he saw the pool glimmering in the starlight. Then behind him, the sound of more shouts. He had no choice.

  Just before he got to the window, he put a burst from his battle pistol into the glass and it disintegrated. He jumped from the ledge and sailed through the air, landing in the pool with a splash. He struggled to the edge and climbed out. But it was no use. Guards were coming at him from all directions, pouring from the hotel like ants. They shot and he fired back but it was only a matter of time before his shields were gone and then his health would disappear and Izaak Ersatz would be dead.

  Suddenly, Rada appeared like a bolt of red lightning. Hector knew in Omega Wars a barbarian’s power grew as the number of enemies increased, and Rada was surrounded by a veritable sea of foes. Her body shone with the bloodlust.

  But Izaak and Rada, even under the bloodlust, shouldn’t have been able to defeat so many. Yet, somehow, they fought their way out, leaving the pool choked with digital corpses.

  “Good timing!” Izaak exclaimed.

  “Hey, what are barbarians for?” Chaz replied with a laugh.

  They fled the compound and tried to flee east to the ravine with the boat, but there were too many guards, and they were forced west, toward the nearest wall. Izaak remembered the western side of the castle – a wall and on the other side a seven hundred foot plunge. It wasn’t straight down, but fell in a series of steps. Perhaps they would be able to climb far enough to leap into the water. They got to the wall and Izaak turned and followed it.

  “What are you looking for?” said Rada.

  “The guard towers on this side come out on the cliff. If I remember right from my vacation, there should be one right along here somewhere.”

  “If the game terrain is the same as real life.”

  “This is the closest I’ve ever seen. So far everything I’ve seen is exactly like it is for real.”

  And it was. He found the tower exactly where it should be – a large square blockhouse straddling the wall. There was an opening leading into a bare room at the base and another leading out the other side. Izaak ducked inside and Rada followed him as bullets whizzed and smacked into the walls around them. From the cries of their enemies in the darkness, it sounded like dozens were behind them.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Izaak gasped, and bolted out the other side.

  “You go,” said Rada.

  “What?” Izaak pulled up short.

  “I’ll stay. There’s no way we can both climb our way out of this. You know it. So just go.”

  An enemy burst into the chamber and Rada sliced him asunder with a single swing.

  “I can’t leave you here, Chaz. We’re Spartans. Sworn to –”

  “This is what Spartans do,” Rada fired back. “Hold narrow passes to buy time.”

  “I won’t leave you here,” Izaak protested. “I took the oath. And it’s all my fault anyway.”

  “Hector,” the character said, and it was suddenly Chaz, not ravishing-Rada. “It’s only a game, man. Go ahead. Besides, I’ve always wanted to do a heroic last stand.”

  Rada placed herself beside the door and planted her feet. It would be tough for them to get a clear shot at her and they could only go through the door one or at most two at a time. Just like at Thermopylae when Xerxes was invading Greece. “They shall know my wrath,” she said, fully back in game mode. “And I shall have an ending worthy of a song.”

  Hector could imagine Chaz’s smile. “See you around the neighborhood,” Izaak said, and scrambled down the hill. He felt terrible leaving her there like that. But like Chaz had said, it was only a game. Though from the things Mal-X and Ned al Nib had been saying, he wasn’t sure they understood that. It had all seemed very un-game-like.

  The sound of battle receded and the slope grew steeper until it was nearly vertical. Izaak edged down, one handhold at a time. He had to move slowly, with precision, or fall to his death. Without Rada’s rearguard, he’d have never made it. If he could just get down to the lower ledge, he’d be able to jump into the water. Although a fall would still be around five hundred feet, he had read on a gaming forum that you could survive a long fall into water by activating a bubble shield in mid-air. Tonight he’d find out if it worked.

  He was maybe thirty feet from the ledge when a powerful explosion boomed above him. A moment later, something whizzed past and blew up beneath him – a grenade – shaking his hand holds. Izaak clung to the cliff for a moment, stunned. A deep rage grew inside him as he realized Rada must be dead. He didn’t care if this was just a game. He swore then he’d have his revenge.

  Then another grenade went off above his head. Then another. He slid a few more feet, and let go. He hit the ledge and slid straight down, then tumbled over the side into empty space. Grenades exploded above him as he plummeted toward the water. He had meant to stop at the ledge, find the bubble shield in his inventor
y, then jumped with it ready to activate. Now, he kept pushing the wrong buttons, opening and closing his inventory or selecting the wrong item. He mistakenly selected a smoke grenade and set it off. Then threw away a perfectly good fusion cell. The water was rushing up at him with breathtaking speed.

  At the last second, he found the icon for the bubble shield and activated it, and was immediately encased in an iridescent sphere. An instant later, he hit the water and plunged into darkness.

  As Izaak sank, he shed his Lorica and weapons and dropped everything except his fan shield. It was just enough and he rose back to the surface as the blue bar for his air supply expired. Sitting on his couch, Hector realized he’d been holding his breath and gasped for air along with Izaak.

  Once on the surface, Izaak scanned around to get his bearings. Reavers were now patrolling the shoreline. They would kill him or, worse yet, take him to GoreFiendHell, who would put Izaak in a stasis field. It wouldn’t kill the character, but Izaak would be unable to move, effectively removing him from the game for as long as Gore wanted him out. And Hector had been playing Izaak long enough so that his interface was fully developed. Bringing a brand new character up to Izaak’s level of response and accuracy would take months. His only choice was to swim.

  But this was a game – and one in which Izaak would never get tired while he swam. He could drown. He could fall to his death. Or burn. Or be killed in a hundred different ways. But he didn’t get cold or hungry, and he didn’t get tired unless he was sprinting. The swim was boring though, so he called Chaz and told him what had happened but they wound up talking about girls, specifically Tyra and Sabrah, until the batteries in Chaz’s phone died. Dead batteries: another similarity between Omega Wars and real life.

  When he finally swam beneath the gates separating the Spartan’s cave from the sea, Hector did the equivalent of collapsing onto the dock; he set the controller down and stretched his cramped fingers. His hands were exhausted.

  His ordeal was over, but Rada was gone. She could come back in a week, but Izaak felt strangely guilty. As she’d said, it was just a game. And she had encouraged him to go. But he still couldn’t help but feel he’d betrayed her.

  And then there were the things he’d heard. Visas. Tickets. A rehearsal for something called ‘Operation Scimitar.’ “The biggest yet,” the bearded one had said. Ned al-Nib. And this al-Nib was paying GoreFiendHell to use his Reavers to guard the peninsula. Real money, it sounded like. And why did Mal-X lie to this al-Nib about Izaak? None of it made any sense, but Chaz had said not to worry about it. Obviously, Operation Scimitar was what they were calling the invasion they were training for. But Hector was already starting to forget what they had said as he put Izaak to sleep. He wrote everything down as best he could remember, then turned off his game console and went to bed.

  Ch. 17

  Sabrah hated going to her father’s house. Hated that man. Hated his girlfriend. She was only ten years older than Sabrah. Ten years! And they had talked about getting married. And talked about Sabrah “having a mother again.” Were they insane? She already had a mother. And never, ever, would she call that tramp, “mom,” “mother,” “stepmother,” or any conceivable variation on that theme. Of course, there was no doubt why her father was interested in Sky – she looked like a super model with Laura Croft boobs. But her head was full of air – no doubt the reason her parents had named her Sky.

  She slumped into the desk chair in her room, happy to be out of her dad’s lair, but not happy to be home. If only there was somewhere else. Hector’s question came to her mind. “What was the worst thing that could happen to you?” Hector, obviously, felt it was getting killed. Sabrah disagreed. The answer was much simpler: betrayal. Her father had done it to all of them. Her mother had done it to herself.

  She stared at her computer. There was a place that was better. She logged on to Omega to see if anyone was still on, but they weren’t. When Hector didn’t respond to her text message, she sat for a moment thinking, then checked Thrylos’ status. He was awake. And she knew he must be somewhere in Alanya, so she sent him a private message to meet her at the same place they’d talked last time.

  There was something comforting about the grizzled old empath. And he didn’t seem to mind spending time with her. It was nice to have him around, even if he wasn’t exactly real.

  Ω

  Veyron woke up and it didn’t take her long to realize Rada was missing, or that Izaak wasn’t wearing his armor. She’d never seen his character before without his helmet and body armor but there he was, stretched out in nothing but clothes and the fan shield Alkindi had given him. Somehow, she thought Izaak’s face would look like Hector’s, but it was just a generic male and looking at the unfamiliar features made her uneasy. Had she bonded with the game that closely? She thought about calling Hector on the phone to see what had happened, but he hadn’t answered her text, so was probably in bed.

  She didn’t find Rada anywhere. Not in the cave, not in the house above, and not in the immediate vicinity. Chaz wasn’t even logged on. An unsettling feeling crept over her that something bad had happened. Well, ‘bad’ relative to it being a game.

  The sky was turning morning-gray behind the peninsula and the beach stretched out in a long white ribbon until it merged with the darker rock of the mountain. Specks were already moving along the beach. Reavers. She shuddered. They had taken over much of the town and made it impossible to approach the castle. Eventually, they would spread this far and discover the Spartans were here. They should move soon, farther away.

  But she hadn’t come to fight Reavers. She had come to see her friend. Picking her way through the ruins, she tried to access the powers that so eluded her. Don’t think about it, Thrylos had said. Think about it, Thrylos had said. Picture what you want to happen, he said. Empty your mind, he had said a second later. Concentrate on what you want to happen. Don’t expect any one thing to happen. It had been like everything else in her life, conflicted.

  Rage welled up inside her and threatened to burst out as hot tears. But what was the point of crying? It didn’t help, and there was no one to hear her anyway. So she tried to concentrate without concentrating while expecting nothing to happen and not thinking about it, but hoping something surprising but also desired would occur.

  It tied her in knots, and through the blur of the tears she was fighting back, she almost blundered into a swarm of scarobs out for breakfast. The sudden clicking of the mechanical pests jolted her like walking into a spider web. She jumped back and ran far enough to put some distance between them. But they didn’t follow, just stared with lidless, empty lenses. “Stupid bugs!” she shouted, and threw a metal bar at them. It hit one and broke off a solar panel. Their wings flipped out and they took to the air like angry hornets, except for the one that hopped back and forth like a bird with a broken wing. A moment later, they set back down and began repairing their damaged friend as if nothing had happened.

  “That was diplomatic,” said a familiar voice. “Those scarobs seem to like you. They follow you around like pets.”

  “Very funny,” she retorted, and scanned until she saw Thrylos picking his way through the ruins, coming toward her.

  “Haven’t you noticed? Every time I see you, you’re surrounded by scarobs.”

  “This whole junkyard is full of them,” she complained. “They’re like roaches.”

  “How are your exercises going?” he asked, as he reached her side. “Any progress?”

  “No. This stupid empath character is a complete waste of time.”

  “Maybe you should try something else. There are plenty of other character types.”

  “I don’t want to try something else!” she snapped back. Then felt like an idiot. After all, she had come looking for him. “Sorry. I’m just under a lot of stress.”

  “You have a lot of anger inside you, Veyron. It is difficult to focus your mind when you are angry. I’ve done some research on this. The detectors that read our alpha wav
es are very sensitive and anger produces the most powerful and chaotic brain waves of all.”

  “I can’t just turn it off,” she said despairingly. “I’m not a machine.”

  “Have you shared this anger with anyone?”

  “My parents don’t care.” They’re the problem, she thought. “And my friends don’t want to listen to my stupid problems.”

  “Are you sure they don’t want to hear it?”

  “I’m not going to tell them, okay?” This Thrylos could be maddening. All he did was ask questions. “So who’s left to ‘share’ this anger with? My scarob buddies?”

  “You could share it with me,” said Thrylos.

  His offer was compelling. But getting personal online – especially with a total stranger – could be dangerous. She’d had men try to solicit her more than once. Grown men. With families. This seemed different. Still… “There’s nothing you can do,” she finally said. “It’s my family. I have to deal with it.”

  “You know, Veyron, I’ve watched people with every advantage life has to give – talent, wealth, opportunity, family – destroy themselves through bitterness. They accomplish nothing with their lives. And I’ve seen people with nothing rise to great heights by simply choosing to work with what they have, and not give up. It doesn’t mean they are always happy or even successful. They just make a choice.”

  “Words,” Sabrah said dejectedly. “They don’t change anything. My life is what it is and I just have to live it. Just like this stupid game, I have to keep trying even though I know it’ll never work.”

  “Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result,” said Thrylos.

  “Are you saying I’m crazy?” Sabrah accused.

  Thrylos laughed. “That came out wrong. I simply mean, sometimes the assumptions we are using to guide our lives and make decisions are simply not true so, we don’t get the results we expect. Once we see this, sometimes things snap into focus. Sometimes all that is needed is the perspective of someone who isn’t as close to our problems as we are.”