The World Keepers 7

by Ty The Hunter

  Adrian doesn’t waste any time. He uses the rope to lower the bosun's chair, putting him at eye level with me.

  “I’m going to grab you around the waist, but I can’t hold you for very long, so as soon as you can, you’re going to need to grab onto the rope.” He shows me how to wrap it around my wrist and then through my palm so that it’ll slow my speed and the rope will run over my shirtsleeve rather than my bare skin.

  “Keep that web stuff on your hands,” he says, “it’ll let you slide down the rope easier and keep you from getting rope burn.”

  He swings forward and grabs me with both hands, giving my shoulders a chance to let go of my body weight for a few moments. It’s unbelievably nice. I just want to sit here and sleep. I’m exhausted.

  “Alright, no time like the present, the sooner you start, the sooner it’s done.” he says.

  Grudgingly, I reach out, grabbing hold of the dangling rope beneath his bosun's chair. I look down, Thomas is standing underneath the rope, arms high and outstretched, like he’s going to catch me if I fall.

  I laugh out loud at the thought. “Thomas, you do know I’m 30 feet in the air, right? If I fall on you, we’re both going to die.”

  He doesn’t laugh with me. “Shut up and get down here!”

  So I shut up, and I get down there.

  The going is painful, and I more slide than climb, but the rope hardly burns my hands, thanks to the webbing. By the time I get to the bottom, most of it has been burned from my palms.

  At the end of the rope, I let myself down as far as I can. Then I really am grateful for Thomas standing there, because he reaches up, puts his arms around my waist, and helps me the rest of the way down.

  He doesn’t let me go for a second, instead, he stands there, holding me in a bear hug so tight I can barely breathe. “When we get home, I’m going to kill you.” he tells me.

  “Hey!”, I say, “Once again, this was NOT my fault!” I mean it’s not like I can help it that people keep porting me into the game. I’m sure not asking for it.

  I feel some dirt being kicked into my hair, and I remember that Adrian is still up there, waiting for me to finish my descent. Backing away from the rope, I look up and gesture to him, indicating that he can come on down when he’s ready.

  He unties the bosun's chair, turning it back into a climbing rope, hooking a loop around his ankles. Since he has gloves on, he doesn’t have to worry about getting rope burn, and he just slides quickly down to the ground.

  I wonder briefly why his character is wearing gloves, but don’t say anything about it.

  Carina runs up and hugs him as soon as he hits the ground, then she turns to me, tousles my hair, and says “Good job, Jed.”

  I blush.

  It’s what I do.

  Julia walks up as well, punching me on the shoulder. “I knew you wouldn’t be dead.”

  High praise, indeed.

  “Well, you know, I tried hard not to be dead.” I smirk at her.

  I’m just about to suggest we get the heck out of dodge when I hear “Can you guys get me down now?” being shouted from above our heads.

  They all look up, then look at me.

  Oops.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, we need to save Dirk.”

  We did save Dirk, in case you were wondering, but I’m going to admit that Adrian was a little (maybe, A LOT) less delicate that time around.

  Maybe it’s because Dirk has been a monumental butt head up to this point. Perhaps it’s because Adrian was tired from rescuing me. Whatever the reason, I think I can easily say that none of us have any regrets.

  Aside from Dirk, that is. Hearing him squeal like a girl was the highlight of my day! #truthagain

  “We got you down, quit your squalling.” Julia told him after he’d been going on for 10 minutes about how he thought we were going to let him die.

  “Listen, Dirk.” Adrian says, “It’s not too late to let you die, just remember that.”

  He shut up, and the cave has been a whole lot more peaceful ever since.

  I’d like to say we were out of said cave by now, but that’s not how it’s going. There were a lot of other people tethered to the ceiling, and we came to the decision that we should try and get them down if they were still alive. Frankly, we could use all the help we could get.

  We weren’t sure how to determine whether or not they were alive, so we settle on walking around the cave and yelling.

  Julia let us all know pretty quickly that she only subdued the bugs with the same gun she shot Thomas with. You know, when he was threatening to storm out of the van and kill Jake.

  “I brought the gear in with a code, it’s not original to the game, and therefore it’s not going to work for very long.” she explained.

  “How long is “not very long”?” I asked, eying the still sleeping bugs.

  “I’m not sure, it’s not an exact science, think of it like “practicing medicine”,” she says, gesturing to the gun in her hand. “Only instead of practicing medicine, I’m practicing hacking. I might be darn good at it, great at it, if I’m being honest, but it’s still practice.”

  “Alright, so the bugs are going to wake up soon, at which time we will become food, right?”

  She looks at me, and I think she might punch me again, but instead, she just nods, like I said the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Yep, pretty much!” She starts walking around the bugs, nudging them with the toe of her shoe. Most of them remain still, but the ones toward the front of the cave, the ones they shot first, those guys are starting to perk up.

  Thomas and Carina are still yelling at the ceiling of the cave. “Is anyone alive up there?! We’ll get you down!”

  So far, no one has answered, and I think we’re probably leaving here with just our small group when I hear muffled yelling coming from the back of the cave. I turn in circles, trying to pinpoint the source. We’ve all gone still, staying as quiet as possible so we can find whoever it is that was lucky enough to survive so far.

  “It’s coming from that pile of bodies.” Carina says, pointing toward a heap of webbed Robloxians.

  We all rush over, knowing our time is running short. The yelling gets louder as we get closer, but it’s definitely not coming from anyone on top of the pile.

  “We’re going to have to move those bodies out of the way.” Julia says. At first, I think she’s going to point this out and then leave it to the rest of us, but no. She starts climbing the mound, listening to the voice as she goes.

  We follow her up, stopping when the voice starts yelling “Move! Move! You’re crushing me!”

  Backing up, we start rolling bodies away from the pile. It’s kind of gross, but they move pretty easily since they’re all bundled up like frozen corn dogs.

  Finally, we see a pair of eyes blinking at us about halfway into the mound. Adrian leans into the hole, takes out his knife again, and proceeds to cut the webbing away from the guy that’s been hollering at us.

  “Oh my gosh! Thank you so much!” the kid says. “I thought I was going to die in there.” He scrambles out of the hole we made, then slips and slides down the hill of corpses, landing at the bottom and scanning the cave, checking out the carnage.

  “Holy cow….”

  He turns back to face us. “Thank you again. I’m RainbowCreeper, who are you guys?”

  We all introduce ourselves, one at a time, just like back in pre-school.

  “Listen, not that I don’t want to get to know you,” Julia says, “but we have to get back to the town and stop these bugs. We saved you because we can use all the help we can get.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure! I’ll help.” he says. “What do I need to do?”

  “Just come with us, we’ll let you know along the way.” she tells him.

  “We need a plan,” Adrian says, “like right now. What are we doing? How are we killing these guys once and for all?”

  We had already talked about it in the van a bit, and it seems
like Julia and Thomas filled Adrian and Carina in as much as they could, but nothing’s been solidified as of yet.

  “I’m still voting for shrinking them down and baking them in a pizza oven.” Julia says.

  “That’s nasty. I’m totally in.” RainbowCreeper says.

  Points for him being willing to do whatever it takes!

  “Okay, well I’m not totally on board with that idea,” Carina says, “but we can work with it.”

  She places her hands on her hips and stares around the darkness. There is some light coming in, but it’s getting fainter with every moment, and that means night is on the way. So we’ve got more than one problem to deal with now.

  “We need to get these guys to the pizza place,” Thomas says, “that’s got to be the first thing we do. All of the other bugs are there, and I don’t think we have the time to deal with two sets of them. There’s no way to kill them where we are right now, so for sure we have to get them into town where we can use the stuff the game makers already have in place.”

  It seems like everyone agrees with this theory, based on the nodding heads and murmurs of assent.

  “Great!”, Julia claps her hands together in a “that’s that” motion, “I’ve got a Cupid’s Bow gear code, it’ll be perfect!”

  “What’s a “Cupid’s Bow”?”, I ask.

  “It’s exactly what it sounds like! I hit the bug with a dart, it thinks we’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it follows us to town, cause we’re buds and all….”

  One problem with that,” Carina chimes in. “There is no way you’re going to be able to take the time to hit every one of these roaches with a love potion or whatever it is. If it’s anything like the sleepy dart, we’ve got maybe 10 minutes from start to finish before they hate us again.”

  I look around at the bugs strewn across the damp cave floor. They’re not really sleeping anymore. The ones at the front are just short of lively enough to try and rip our heads off again. The ones at the back are mostly still, but a few are starting to twitch.

  “She’s right.” I say. “We need to do something that will affect all of the bugs at once.”

  No one says anything for a few minutes. We’re all trying to figure out how to handle this.

  “Julia, let me see the gun.” Carina holds out her hand, even though Julia doesn’t currently have a gun.

  Julia eyes her for a second, then holds out her hand. A gun appears, and she hands it over.

  “It’s pink!” Thomas yells, somehow affronted by the color, “Why does it have to be pink? Can’t you make it black or something?”

  “I guess I could,” Julia says, smirking, “but now that I know it bothers you, I’m definitely not going to.”

  “Well whatever, I can deal.” Thomas walks over to Carina, probably thinking he’ll take the gun from her, but she holds it above her head with one hand and puts the other hand squarely on his face, holding him at arm's length. “No, bad Thomas, bad.” she says.

  There’s a snort of laughter behind her, and Thomas whirls around to see Dirk trying to cover it up with a cough.

  “You shut up.” he tells Dirk, sticking a finger in his face.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up! It was funny. You just got roasted.” Dirk retorts, his ears turning red, either from anger or embarrassment, I can’t tell.

  “Boys, boys!” Carina yells at them as Thomas closes in on Dirk, clearly getting ready to tackle him into the nearest cockroach.

  It happens in an instant. Carina brings her gun hand down, apparently forgetting she’s holding it, preparing to deliver a lecture on maturity to the two kids choosing the worst possible time to tangle.

  “You guys need to chill!”

  “Pfft.”

  We all hear the noise just before Dirk doubles over, “You shot me!” he yells, pulling the pink feathered dart from his side and throwing it on the floor. The body of the dart shatters, and whatever liquid was left in it begins to leak out, seeping into the dirt.

  Carina stares in horror at the gun in her hand. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!”

  Julia starts to laugh, and we all turn to face her. She looks back at us, unrepentant. “What? It’s funny! You guys just don’t know how funny it is.” She keeps laughing, wiping her eyes. “Give it like 10 seconds. Then you’ll get it.”

  We all turn, staring between Julia, Carina, and Dirk, waiting for whatever it is Julia thinks is going to happen.

  It doesn’t take long.

  Dirk straightens up from his hunched position, looking immediately to Carina.

  “Dirk, I’m so sorry!” she starts, but he cuts her off as he walks toward her. Adrian steps into his path, probably worried that he’s going to go after his sister, but Dirk just bends to the side, looking past Adrian’s body. “It’s okay, Carina, don’t even worry about it.”, he says, his voice is so calm and sweet, it’s….really unsettling.

  He steps around Adrian, whose mouth is gaping open at this turn of events, and walks up to Carina. She’s a bit taller than him, so he has to look up, and he does. His look doesn’t say “anger”, not at all. It says “open adoration”, and that makes me start to laugh as well.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s a love potion.” I say, trying hard to stifle the humor in my voice.

  “What? It’s a what?” Carina is looking down at Dirk, who has placed a hand on her arm and is currently running said hand up and down her arm in a soothing gesture. She steps back a little, but he just follows, utterly clueless to the fact that this whole thing is one-sided.

  “It’s okay, Carina.” he says again, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, no harm done, promise.” With this last part, he runs his hand all the way up to her shoulder and gives it an affectionate squeeze, then moves closer to her, putting his arm around her waist.

  I’m seriously about to pee myself. I can’t even deal with this right now. It’s fantastically horrible!!

  “Uh, okay….Dirk.” she says, looking at the group of people, no doubt trying to find someone who can help her out of this situation.

  Julia catches her eye, “Don’t worry, if it’s anything like sleeping potion, he’ll be back to his turdy self in no more than a half an hour.”

  Dirk is utterly oblivious to all of this. He just continues to stand near Carina, smiling like a love-struck lunatic.

  It’s disconcerting.

  “Alright, well this little development aside,” Adrian says, smirking, “I think I have an idea about how to deal with these bugs.”

  Before he can tell us his plan, there’s a loud “CLANK!” behind us. We all whirl around, ready for a bug attack, but it’s just RainbowCreeper. He’s holding the barb gun Julia used to shoot an anchor into the ceiling for Adrian’s aerial rescues.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize it would be that loud.” he says, gesturing to the retracted barb and rope in his hand.

  “I just figured it might come in handy later on.”

  He’s got a point. I didn’t even realize you could use it again once you’d shot it.

  “No, that’s cool, good thinking, man.” Adrian says.

  Back on track, he walks across the cave to the gamer body parts piled in the corner, the place we just saved the new guy. Reaching in, he pulls out a leg, discards it, pulls out an arm, discards that as well, and finally reaches his hand into a partially chewed torso.

  “Adrian, nasty!” Carina yells at him. Dirk scowls.

  “Yes, that’s gross, don’t do that in front of her.” He uses his hand on Carina’s waist to turn her 180 degrees, apparently trying to protect her delicate sensibilities. “Don’t look, darling, you shouldn’t have to see things like that.” He throws another scowl over his shoulder, then removes his hand from Carina’s waist so he can rub circles on her back. I’d say he was trying to soothe her, but it’s not soothing, it’s creepy, all the way creepy.

  Carina looks over her shoulder at us as well. She looks like she wants to kick all of us in the face. I smile at her, bringing both hands up to
make a heart shape with my fingers. The look in her eyes promises death, but we might not survive anyway, so I’ve got nothing to lose.

  Adrian makes his way over to where we are, he has his hand inside the torso, the gaping hole apparently providing him with a pretty good grip.

  “Julia, can you code in another gun?” He asks her this as he places the torso on the floor and uses both hands to push the hole open a little more.

  “Uh, sure…..” she says, eyeing him warily like he’s gone and lost his mind at the worst possible time. She conjures up another gun and hands it to him, being very careful not to touch him, since his fingers are covered in decomposing flesh.

  “Okay, so tell me how this works.” he says. “Carina shot Dirk, and now he’s in love with her, so is it that whoever shoots the dart is the person the bug will connect with and follow?”

  We all look at Julia, who’s still staring at Adrian like he’s a science experiment.

  “Sorry, yes, that’s right. Whoever shoots the dart will be the recipient of the bugs attention.” She nods her head in confirmation, looking at the gun in his hand.

  “Hey, be careful with that thing.” Thomas says. “If you shoot me with it, I will totally kick your butt when it wears off.”

  Everyone backs away from Adrian. Even Dirk manages to scowl harder over his shoulder while he pushes Carina protectively toward a cave wall.

  “I’m not going to shoot you, I’m not going to shoot it at all.” he says. “I’m going to break it open and pour it into this dude’s guts. Then we’re all going to stick our hands inside so we’re all connected to this serum.”

  I grimace, man I do not want to do this, he better have a good reason.

  “So when the bugs wake up,” Julia begins, slowly, “they’ll eat the torso, become our biggest fans, and follow us back into town. Brilliant, Adrian!”

  “Yeah, brilliant, you’re so smart.” Carina says, snidely.

  Someone isn’t too enthusiastic about playing intestine handball.

  Adrian uses his free hand to pull the dart from the barrel of the gun. He sets the gun down on the ground, then puts his hand back into the torso.