After about thirty feet, his arms and shoulders were burning. He did a quick kick with his foot to twist the rope around his left foot and then clamped down on the rope with his right foot. This gave him a brief but secure breather.
Roland looked up again and could see the blonde digital that he had passed during the crawl, about fifty yards higher. She was making very steady progress and had a good technique.
Below him, Duke and the camo racer had arrived at both the Rival Ropes and at an understanding. Duke pointed at Roland, and the camo racer nodded. Then they both grabbed the ropes with their viselike mechanical hands. They just let their legs hang free. They didn’t need them. Their immense upper body strength seemed to be specifically built for rope climbing.
Coach shook his head. “Roland, you can’t match that kind of arm pulling. Switch to legs.”
Roland took a good handhold, brought his knees up to his elbows and gripped the rope with his feet. The rope made a small “S” shape as he used his left foot to push down on the rope and his right foot to clamp down on top of it. Then he just stood up. He continued repeating the movement and made good upwards progress without tiring out too much. When he looked down, Duke and the camo racer were still closing the gap. He leaned his head right. “Camo racer?”
Skylar swiped three screens to her left to get to the Pinnacle race data. She put in a few commands and then a profile came up on the camo racer. “His name is Hunter. He represents a sport tech company in Tennessee. His profile says that he was an Army Ranger. He lost all his limbs from an IED in Iraq, and the sport tech company sponsored him for the Tech Games.
Roland could feel the burn in his shoulders again. “Gotta move faster!” He wanted to pause and take a breath, but he could see Duke and Hunter weren’t even slowing down. “Sky, I need Leapfrog but focused more on my upper body.”
Skylar buried her head in her code. Her fingers were a blur as she typed and occasionally flipped through the several holographic terminals that she had open. After another twenty seconds, she hit the upload button. “Ok. I made a mod to Leapfrog. It’s called Chimp.”
Roland gave the thought command for Chimp and also enabled O2 and Grip. He could feel his muscles being pulled taut in his hands and arms. He took in a deep breath of air. He could feel it compressing in his lungs as he packed in double his usual air. Roland reached up and clamped onto the rope. He could feel the rope compress as he gripped it. He gave a half smile. Then he launched himself upwards. His body went completely airborne as he traveled upwards five feet. Roland cinched his hands down on the rope. He nodded.
Skylar watched Roland’s feed intently, analyzing her plugin in action.
Coach gave a half smile. “Good plan, Roland. Try clamping your feet together, sole to sole, and then spring upwards using your legs and arms at the same time.”
Roland looked down. Duke and Hunter were only five yards below him now. He clamped his feet together like Coach had suggested and pulled his arms and legs down like a compressed spring. Then he exploded upwards. He clamped his feet and hands down on the rope.
Skylar’s eyes widened. “That was just over ten feet!”
Roland compressed again and shot upwards. He looked down. He was widening the distance between him and the hulking hybrids below. A few more upward pulls, and he had caught up with the blonde digital again.
The blonde glared at him again, but she paused ever so briefly to let him pass.
Roland soared past her without even making eye contact. After another few pulls, he could see a red bell at the top of the rope.
The weapons light turned blue on his arm. He heard a sharp noise below him. Roland looked down and saw the blonde digital woman using her bull whip to try and extract a few pounds of flesh from Duke, who had smashed her face into the chain link fence at the beginning of the race. Another crack of her whip yielded a sharp grunt from Duke. She was getting her payback, with interest.
Skylar swiped over to the screen she had pulled up with the obstacle rules. “You have to ring that bell in order to complete the obstacle.”
Roland nodded. He gave one more pull and then was right under the red bell. He hit the gong, and the peal that rang out was indeed a beautiful sound. He hopped onto the platform. The light on his arm blinked green.
Coach had Roland’s overall standing in the race pulled up. “That’s two hundred points. You are in position 41 now.”
Roland gave the thought commands to disable his plugins to conserve energy. He started running towards the next obstacle. It took a full minute of running to feel normal again. The Chimp plugin had changed the way his muscles moved.
Skylar got her next obstacle alert. “The next one is in a quarter mile. It’s called Elevating Escalators.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
ESCALATORS
ROLAND COULD SEE a large warehouse ahead. There was an upward slanted entryway to it. Even from a hundred yards out, Roland could not see into the entryway. It was pitch black. The light flashed green on his arm, indicating he was close to the obstacle. He leaned his head right for more information.
Skylar had been waiting for the obstacle alert to come. She finally received a red, flashing alert in the top right of her terminal. “I just got the details, Roland. Hold on.”
Coach leaned down over her shoulder to read the details on the obstacle. He shook his head as he read.
Skylar swiped through a few screens on her holographic terminal to find the map layout she was looking for. “Ok. Got it. Elevating Escalators is a set of hypercharged escalating treadmills.”
Coach straightened up. “Basically, it is a stairmaster set in turbo mode.”
Skylar moved the three dimensional map around. “This half mile track actually spans four miles long, because the treadmills move so quickly. If you stop or fall off, it is considered a fail, and you will have to start back over at the beginning. They also have a multi-spectrum lighting system in there, running as a strobe.”
Roland nodded. “Is it all uphill then?”
Skylar shook her head. “No. There are some downhill segments, but this says that they reach speeds in excess of seventy miles an hour.”
Coach leaned back down. “What? That can’t be right. That’s insane.” He read where Skylar was pointing. “Yes. Seventy miles an hour.”
Roland entered the dark hallway. He slowed down, because he was unsure what to expect. Then he felt the floor begin moving under him. He continued jogging forward. He could see a fast strobe light ahead. There were stairs beyond the light that were moving, but the strobe effect made them look like they were moving in slow motion. He gave the thought command for O2 and Fast Twitch. He could feel his muscles being pulled taut as they engaged. He took in a deep breath of air. His lungs expanded, and then the air began to compress as his lungs filled to double capacity.
Roland jumped forward into the strobe light and landed on the stairs. He began exhaling as he made his ascent. The stairs were moving down, fast. Within thirty seconds, his thighs were burning. After another minute, his glutes and calves were burning as well. He could feel a stitch in his side beginning to form. He pressed on. “How far?” He felt like he had to have already gone a hundred yards. The strobe light flashed incessantly.
Skylar zoomed in on the map and checked his position. “You’ve only gone about fifteen yards.”
The statement shocked Roland. “What? Fifteen? My HUD shows I’m doing 26 mph.”
Coach adjusted his microphone. “The GPS here is measuring your movements. You are actually only going about seven miles an hour.”
Anger and frustration surged through Roland. He had to make it through the obstacle. He needed the points to stay in the Tech Games. If he lost and was sent home, he’d lose his chance to be able to try and save his dad. He was pushing himself hard, but he was hardly making any progress. His lungs ached.
Skylar swiped through several screens and found the code she had been working on. “I have a new plugin for you. This shou
ld help redistribute the oxygen better.” She hit the upload button.
A blue error screen covered all but the edges of Roland’s vision. “Ahh! Sky! Can’t see! Fix it!”
Skylar went into a panic. She saw the blue error on Roland’s video stream. “No! It’s not supposed to do that!” Her fingers were shaking as she madly typed on her holographic keyboard. “I’m trying.”
Roland tripped over the next step. He went down hard on the metal stairs. He could taste the iron from the blood in his mouth. The stairs were pushing him backwards faster than he had been moving forwards. He pushed upwards with his arms and was able to stand again.
Skylar opened a new terminal and sent three commands. “That should do it.”
The right side of Roland’s face drooped downwards. His right arm and leg would barely move. The stairs whipped his feet out from under him again. He slammed back onto the ground. “Sky…” His words slurred as they came out. The light on his arm flashed red indicating failure on the obstacle. “Turn off.” Roland groaned. The stairs ended and dumped him onto the treadmill at the beginning. The treadmill moved him all the way back to the entrance. The sunlight blasted in on Roland, making him blink.
Skylar was exasperated. “Turning it off will be like turning you off.”
Coach covered his mic and leaned towards Skylar. “Reboot the whole system. Now. He’s going to have to do this without the tech until you can get it back online.”
Roland began to push himself back up.
Skylar exhaled sharply. “Ok. Roland. I’m doing a reboot on the nano system. The comms will remain up.” Then she swiped to a new screen on her holographic terminal. The only thing on it was a power button. She pressed it.
Roland collapsed hard back onto the pavement. “Ahh!”
Coach crossed his arms and then adjusted his mic. “Roland. Listen up. The nano is completely down. We will still have comms while Skylar reboots it, but you will not have any abilities. We are going to do this old-school. Take a deep breath in. Clear your head.”
Roland inhaled slowly. The drooping left his face, and the movement returned to his arm and leg. I don’t need the tech to climb stairs. I can do this. For my dad. He started jogging forward.
Coach nodded. “That’s it. Now go up two stairs at a time. Try to time it with when the light is flashing on.”
Roland nodded. He attacked the stairs. He leapt onto them, two at a time. He tried to regulate his breathing. He knew he needed to conserve his breath as much as possible. He watched the timing of the strobe lights. He counted as they flashed. They were flashing on and off three times for every one of his steps up the stairs. He felt the fire return to his side as the stitch set in. He ignored it. Roland drank the oxygen in as he willed himself to take the next step and then the next. After several minutes of hard work, he reached the top of the stairs.
Roland felt his leg reach up and over the top of the stairs. His foot caught on the downward side of the stairs and pulled him over. The downward stairs picked up speed quickly. He could feel the wind on his face. He was passing in-between the strobe lights much quicker now.
Coach watched Roland’s video feed. “You’re doing good. Hunch down. I think the wind might knock you off your feet.”
Roland hunkered down as he ran forward.
Skylar never stopped typing on her terminals. She watched as Roland’s nanotech system booted back up. The system came back online. It produced one more error from the code she had uploaded earlier. She found the offending plugin and deleted it. Then the rest of the system came back up normally. “Ok! I got it. Roland. Are you ready for me to take you back online?”
Roland nodded. “Do it.” He knelt down and braced himself, just in case.
Coach nodded to Skylar. “Turn it back on.”
Skylar swiped over to the screen on her holographic terminal that had the power button. She reached up and hit it.
Roland felt a surge through his body as the nanotech reactivated. He felt his eyes dilate completely and then return to normal. He straightened as he continued running down the escalator. He closed his eyes and gave the thought command for his HUD. The familiar layout popped back into his vision, like an old friend. “Sky, I’m back.”
Skylar sat back in her chair and let out a sigh of relief.
Coach focused on Roland’s video stream. “Roland. Use Slow Mo and Leapfrog.”
Roland cracked his knuckles. “Exactly what I was thinking.” He gave the thought command for both plugins. Then he also added Fast Twitch and O2. “Going to make up for lost time here. Need to get rid of these strobes too.” He gave the thought command for 3D Sonar. His vision completely changed as the sonar mapped out the stairs in front of him.
Coach nodded and half smiled. “Much better. Now, get moving.”
The strobes were no longer a distraction. The moving stairs now showed as green wireframes. Roland leaped forward taking four stairs at a time and then five and then six. The Slow Mo made it easy to move forward. The stairs seemed to be nearly stationary as he descended them. The stairs changed again. They began going up, with no end in sight. Then they increased in speed. It began to take the same amount of effort just to stay in one place, as it had taken to move forward. He took a deep breath in and surged upwards.
Roland was at a near sprint for the next five flights of stairs. His lungs were burning, even with the plugins turned on. He leaned his head right. “How much further?”
Skylar swiped over to the holographic map. “It looks like you are just passed the halfway point.”
Roland heard shouting ahead and the metallic clang of weapons. He couldn’t see the blue weapons LED on his arm with the 3D Sonar plugin enabled, but he did see that the weapons countdown timer had showed up on his HUD. It had begun its steady descent to zero. Roland glanced up from his stair climb to see what was going on. He was barely able to make out some figures ahead of him, but then his foot caught on the edge of one of the stairs. He whipped his arms out to steady himself and regain his balance. He avoided the fall, but he had lost several steps worth of progress. He leaned his head right to find out what was going on ahead and gritted his teeth to push himself and make up the lost steps. Sweat stung his eyes as it gushed down his forehead. Multidirectional droplets of sweat flung off of him, splattering on the walls and stairs.
Skylar had gone back through his video stream and pulled a still image to see what was going on ahead.
Coach leaned over her shoulder.
She zoomed in on the other contestants in the photo. “It looks like there are four contestants ahead, and there are more coming in from the other sides.”
Coach nodded his agreement. “Your stairs are just one lane. There are least five other lanes that are feeding into one central stairway. It is about twice as wide as the one you are on now. You’ll be at the main stairway in another ten seconds, and you need to be weapons hot. Go with the bo staff. You’re going to need the reach.”
Roland pulled out Charlotte from her carrier. He left the carbon alloy weapon in its small handle size until he could get closer. He was only thirty feet from the boiling mass of contestants.
Sparks showered each time the contestants’ weapons collided. The stairs were moving at twenty-five miles per hour. Each contestant strained to keep the steep uphill pace.
A downward draft of air blasted into Roland’s face. It stank of salt and body odor from the extreme effort being put forth by each contestant. It was accented by the iron acridity of blood. There was another smell that took a second to register in Roland’s brain: gas. The pungent, rotten egg smell of propane.
Skylar was running Roland’s video stream through a filter on a new terminal screen so that she could see what was happening down the tunnel without the 3D Sonar plugin. The strobe lights continued to blink at an epileptic rate, making the swirling mass of fighters ahead look as though they were in a disco hall, but their dance was not for pleasure. It was choreographed death.
Any other people wou
ld have already been chewed up and spit out by the escalators but not the contestants. Each was in peak physical condition. Each fighter was pulling out all the stops in an effort to gain just one more step and break free of the boiling mob.
Skylar saw an orange blast just beyond the contestants. “Fire! They are shooting out fire from the walls!” She pulled up her code and began typing as fast as possible on her holographic keyboard to make a mod.
Coach watched as another stream of fire shot from the opposite wall this time. “It’s pitch black in there, except for the strobes. How will we tell where the fire is going to hit next?”
Skylar finished her typing and hit the upload button. “I just added thermal imaging to your Sonar plugin. Watch the walls. They should heat up just before a blast.”
Roland nodded. He looked ahead. With the mod, he could see the walls where the fire had just come from were still glowing orange. He watched as two more contestants leapt from their escalators into the foray. Then another one, on his right, also shot into the growing grudge match. Her dreadlocks showed up even on Roland’s Sonar vision. Bianca!
Coach expanded his holographic terminal to watch her better. She was nearly a blur of motion despite the speed of the escalator. She hardly touched it. She was alternating between the using the wall and the steps. She approached the contestant closest to her, a long haired Asian man. He swung a club at her. She jumped from the stairstep towards him. She landed on the end of his club with her feet and used the momentum of his swing to catapult her towards the wall. She sprang to the wall at an even faster speed. She began angling her run towards the ceiling. A split second later, she was sprinting upside down on the ceiling. She rushed passed the chaos below her and then dropped gracefully onto her feet. “Magnets! She’s using magnets in her robotic legs to go upside down. That would require a tremendous amount of energy, so she couldn’t keep it up for very long. Roland. Can you use Leapfrog to get past them?”
Nano Contestant - Episode 3: Combat Obstacles: The Technothriller Futuristic Science Fiction Adventure of a Cyberpunk Marine (Nano Contestant Series) Page 6