Winter Harvest

by Dawn Chapman

  Although it looked very limiting, I think I’d still have to wear the clothes. I reached down, and slipping my feet back into the trouser legs, tugged them on.

  NANITE SMART CLOTH SKIN BOOST +8

  ALL-ROUND SHIELD BOOSTER +8

  “Thanks for the forceful hand.” I smiled at her.

  “No problem.” Naylar smiled back at me. “How does it feel, look?”

  “It feels very strange, like there’s something touching me, feels nice, but, yeah strange.”

  I looked around the corridor at the whole place.

  “Do we need to carry on?” I glanced at the mini-map flashing in my view. I could still see an arrow and a tiny star.

  “Yes. You may have a shield and a suit, but you’ve no bound weapon. Just the gun I gave you before. I presume you want to be able to either shoot something or learn melee?”

  I thought about it for a brief moment. “Yeah, I’ve mostly played as a tank before, the odd healer. The guns look amazing here, but I chose my specialties already.”

  “Oh, do tell. Jai’s been taking bets on what?” Naylar’s grin widened. “Besides, I want to know if I was anywhere near correct. Especially with you being on Tolsa.”

  “Battle Mage,” I said. “And Nanite Engineer. But I do have a pretty decent rank for Merc Sniper.”

  “Wow, really? Not one of us picked that up.”

  “Good. That means no one has any clues to my main goals. Thank you for that.”

  Her frown creased her pretty face, and that made me feel sad, but I was already starting to trust them more than I wanted.

  Her frown faded. “No, thank you for telling me. Shall we keep going? It’s not far to the next flag, even if it does look like it. There’s a lift ahead, and it will take us almost to it.”

  I shivered. Ugh. Lifts. They were just so…over-done. At least I’d be ready, right?

  She started to move away, and I followed. I felt a lot better now I had these items, amazed once more that so little would make me feel so good. I wondered what it felt like to be her level and even higher. It was better than any drug, for sure. I wanted more and more of it. I could see why they might want to stay when they started out levelling the playing field like this. Show the newbies what they can get, and things would soon change in basic training. No matter how desperate you felt, this would top it.

  I instantly worried about the human race, though, in general this was a bad thing to want to do, to be an AI maybe forever.

  Naylar stopped up ahead of me. I hadn’t noticed my dawdling.

  I reached her side, and she tapped the wall ahead of us. There was a flash of a panel, and a lift door slid open, revealing a tiny silver room.

  “Hop on board,” she said.

  I stepped inside with her as the lift moved off, and she started to pull out her weapons. Her stance changed.

  “Be ready,” she said. “When the door opens, they will hit us hard. They won’t want us to get out of this box.”

  “Who is they?”

  But no sooner had I asked when the lift pinged, and the door started to open.

  “Think activate,” she said. “Then stay close to me so it will cover us both. Got it?”

  I had no clue as to what else to do. The shield was all I had. Even if I had more, I didn’t have a hand to use anything else. I just held onto it and focussed.

  There was a blue glow around us, and I noticed my health bar pulsing with that blue tint too. It gave me a grin. I knew it would have made Craig and Paul grin also. I missed them.

  Naylar spoke clearly. “Ready?”

  The door was almost fully open, and with one final push she rushed forwards, and I followed as close to her as I could physically get. I didn’t want to impede her movement.

  This time, her aim was so true it was unreal. She didn’t hesitate, both guns blasting at the creatures that were waiting. I not only managed to get close to her, but I found that when she moved it was simple for me to move with her, like I started to anticipate where and what she was going to do as she was doing it.

  A few moments later when she finally stopped shooting, she looked at me, and sweat dripped down her face, her breath in quick fired rasps.

  “Tired?” she asked.

  I knew what we’d been doing had meant we were bouncing about the room like lunatics. “No, not really.”

  “No loot?” I asked her.

  “Not this time. You will be gaining levels, though.”

  “Haven’t had any notifications or anything.”

  “Check your stats. I don’t understand?”

  I certainly didn’t either, if she had no clue.

  I tried to access the stats and found I couldn’t. “Huh? I don’t seem to be able to?”

  She moved to my side and said, “Same. Let’s be nice and careful down here. There shouldn’t be any blockers, but it seems there are. I’ll have to try and turn them off.”

  “Blockers?”

  “Yes, they stop some of the system controls and prompts.”

  KYLE! THANK FUCK!

  The voice hit me hard. Hiroto! I nearly fell over. What? What the hell? Where have you been? What’s going on?

  Give me a moment, just catching up! Hiroto replied.

  I wasn’t going to argue with Naylar at all about being careful. I mean, I might have a few new bits of equipment, but I wasn’t anywhere near a strength I was confident in. I should be winded after what we just did.

  And she was scaring me a little. Anything here now would be way too big for me to kill.

  “What are we facing down here?” I asked, but she held up her hand and shushed me.

  I couldn’t help but literally bite my tongue. I tasted blood. It wasn’t pleasant, but I knew it was needed.

  I felt my body stiffen as I noticed something up ahead. “There were pods. Looked like old-school kind of hospital equipment, and yeah, vats were the only way I could describe them. They were long and silver, and it looked like there were—oh gawd.”

  Naylar moved ahead of me and peered inside one of them. She looked at me. “There’s nothing in them, but—” she moved to the next one. “It does look like someone’s been here at some point, using them for experiments of some kind.”

  “Why aren’t the interfaces working here?” I asked, and on the inside, I shouted. Xirob?

  I am here too, and we’re working on a fix. It’s something on the planet that within certain areas blocks us, but seems to be letting us through in here. Give us some time. We’re re-calibrating all your internal settings.

  Thank God. I thought. If I could hug you guys, I would!

  I was so, so ecstatic they were still here. That Xirob wasn’t dead.

  What happened, guys?

  We’re not sure, but this planet has some extra things going for it. We just need to re-tune your internal to see past it.

  I could understand what Naylar was looking at, the pod. So I asked her. “Is this a spawn section?”

  “It didn’t use to be,” she said. “The last time I was down here it looked a lot different.”

  I moved to the pod, and I could see that it was much different from the ones I’d seen back on Tolsa. I looked inside. It seemed pretty harmless. Like you might have a nice sleep in there. I wondered briefly what it would have been like to wake up in the right side of this world. The training facilities, to go through all the usual introductory things. That would have helped me.

  I shrugged it off. I couldn’t worry about it now, not really. I was here.

  I had to stay alive now because I’d no respawn point and because I actually liked these people. But as Naylar moved about the room and I watched her, she shrugged. “Seems everything else has been moved or just poofed. I can’t see any other newbie equipment drops. Sorry, Kyle.”

  I didn’t like the feeling that this room was giving me. I glanced back to the way we’d come and nodded. “I think we should get the hell out of here.”

  She looked back to the lift, then to me. “Yeah, I don
’t like it.”

  No sooner had she started to move off though, when there was a ping. The lift had closed off, and I watched as a number started to count down. “Expecting any of the others to join us?”

  She shook her head and raised her weapon. “No, there’s not anyone else supposed to be coming. These are small missions. This was supposed to be easy.”

  I had a funny feeling that this wasn’t going to be easy anymore. Naylar’s finger steadied on her trigger, and I pulled the gun back up, ready for whatever it was that was going to come through that door.

  The numbers clicked down, and I felt anxiety rising with every click. Then it stopped.

  Kyle, be careful! This is way above your level!

  Tell me something I don’t know!

  Naylar didn’t hesitate as the doors opened; she struck hard. There was a terrific scream as the creature within took the blow and then lunged.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I wasn’t quick enough to even see it leave the lift.

  It was just a blur.

  Black and wispy. There was nothing I could have done to stop it, either. As it swung at Naylar, knocking her back into a bulkhead, her scream was something I didn’t think I’d ever forget.

  Then it launched at me, and I, too, was slammed with such velocity into the wall behind me that I thought several of my ribs had cracked. I dropped my gun. It skittered away from me with tremendous speed.

  I pushed against it, but it pinned me with strong arms.

  My green health bar was on a fast decline, at sixty percent as the creature seemed to be absorbing everything that I was. In the wispy darkness came a stink that made me want to throw up. I couldn’t move, and the rising bile stuck in my throat as the weight on my chest pressed down. Breathing became much harder. The more I struggled to breathe, the more weight bore down on me. Health way under the fifty percent mark.

  I wasn’t going to let this fucking thing win!

  I looked into the creature’s wispy face, misted in the dankest colourings it could be, and in there I actually saw something. It could have been a person, or maybe just the remnants of one.

  “Trust me,” Naylar shouted. “Hold still. Don’t struggle against it.”

  I wanted to. I wanted to push and shove and go down fighting with everything I had. I didn’t want to fail them.

  I couldn’t see what Naylar was doing. The world around me started to fade. The only thing I could actually focus on was the eyes of my attacker.

  It seemed to be cackling, drawing every bit of my energy into it. My bar was at less than a quarter now, and breathing was impossible.

  “I’m coming. Duck!” Naylar’s shock came in hard.

  I did the only thing I could that it might not have been expecting. I lunged at its face with my own, teeth and jaw clamping down on what I could only perceive as its nose. I bit into nothing, then there was something, something hard. It burst into a horrible tasting goo, and the smell assaulted my nostrils. When it let go of me, I gagged and dropped to the floor, rolling, spitting and vomiting as I did.

  Naylar’s blast hit the thing hard, but she didn’t let it stop there. She followed through, taking it on at close range with her sword. I watched as she ducked and weaved in and out. I could see the creature’s health was now in the orange, less than fifty percent, but she was struggling to get in any kind of other attacks. I had no idea where it had managed to pull a weapon from, but it had. I had to try something myself. But there was nothing in here that stood out. I was nothing but a computer nerd, someone who had no real skills in anything. Those inside games and beyond were picked up because of the system. My only chance here was to help Hiroto and Xirob with the blockers. Somehow something in this room was doing it, making it worse. I knew I could do something; I just wasn’t sure what.

  GAMBLING THE LIFE OF YOUR FRIEND IS A BIG RISK

  Y/N

  And the system was doing nothing much other than hiding.

  I had mere seconds. Naylar was now on the last remnants of her strength and resolve.

  GO FOR THE GUN OR THE COMPUTER? COME ON YOU CAN DO IT!

  The computer stations behind me I knew nothing about, but I had to figure them out quickly, and without Hiroto. I plonked myself at it and started one-handed typing, password after password, language, anything I could do to get it to open up to me.

  My hands moved as fast as they could, turning from words to numbers, to more than that. I was inside the system surrounding this area.

  Quickly things started to make sense, like the numbers and rhythms.

  There it was, just a switch to yank. I did so!

  “Kyle!” Naylar called out, and when I looked up I could only witness the creature slicing through her side with his sword.

  Shit! No way. I acted again, jumping back over the desk. I grabbed for my gun off the floor, rolled, now able to locate my target much easier with the internal chip back online, even if Hiroto wasn’t with me just yet. I pointed it at the side of the wisp’s head and pulled the trigger. The blast struck, and instantly its head exploded. I mean literally, it coated poor Naylar with whatever he was made of. The spray reached me too, and I gagged.

  Pain stretched across Naylar’s face, but when I blinked, I saw her grin at me. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Fuck this place.” I wiped the gore from my face.

  Naylar eased off the wall, holding her side. “I need some assistance here. Help me.”

  I helped her over to the desk, where she perched on the end and pulled her pack around. She took out a small kit and passed it to me.

  Opening it, I saw just vials and a band-aid-looking thing. “What do I do?”

  Naylar looked away from me, touching her temple. The shimmer of her shielding and skin moved. I watched as it parted at her side, revealing the deep wound. It looked even worse because I could see internal wires. “My nites will be able to fix this one. It’s not as bad as it seems. But I do need the patch. I hate doing it. Just pull the tab and place it. My suit can seal it in, and I should be good to go again.”

  I picked the pad out of the kit and then did as she asked. When I pulled the tabs, the pad doubled in size in my hands and started pulsing. I placed it to her skin. Fascinated as the tech pulsed once, her body then melted alongside it, absorbing it into her. Her suit shimmered and closed over it.

  “We’ll need to get more materials and gear than we have now. Used a lot of necessities we needn’t have this last week.”

  “That my fault?”

  She didn’t look away from me, but she did frown. “Yes and no, kid.”

  “I’m glad you’re at least honest with me.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone in this team not to be. So we can move from here, right? Always honest. Even if it hurts. Got it?”

  “Got it, thanks,” I said. I did understand that and the reasons why she would want to keep that one rule. It would mean that everyone in the team would never let each other down because there was no need to lie. Lies just made you forget things sometimes, and then it would hurt the others when the truth came out.

  I did think about how much they’d been through over the years together. They had obviously been together a long time, and they cared for each other more than shown on the outside. That mattered to me. I had a lot to prove to them, to help them with their mission, to gain that same loyalty. After that, I had no idea what I was going to be doing.

  “Why the long face?” Naylar asked.

  I sucked in a breath and backed away from her. “What happens after this mission is complete?”

  “We get the hell out of Dodge?”

  “You have a plan to get out of here?”

  It was going to be too good to be true. I knew it, and her face said it all. She didn’t need to open her mouth. “Well, we did have an escape plan.”

  I sat back, letting my brain rest for a few minutes and just breathed in and out. It was hard at first to process everything. And watching Naylar do the same, I knew there was goi
ng to be a lot of trouble ahead for us. I wanted it not to happen, for these things to just work out, but my life was far from being an easy ride right now.

  “Try not to stress over things,” she said.

  It was easy for her to say of course, because she’d been through it all, and I was essentially just a noob here. I was learning everything about this “game” and what it meant to them and to us on Earth, but things seemed off, like there was something else here, something underlying.

  “What are you thinking?”

  I opened my eyes once again to look at her and to see the concern. “If we need a way off this planet and I get my systems up and running, get my levels to match yours, I can get a signal out to a friend. We’ll have a way off.”

  She laughed. “Don’t worry, kid. Really. Jai will have a plan.”

  “He’s a good man, right?”

  “Yes, he is. You landed in a dangerous spot but also probably one of the better ones that you could have.”

  “Do you think I’d have survived training camp?”

  Naylar pushed herself up. “No.” She didn’t lie. “I do not, and I’ll tell you why.”

  I moved with her and leaned on a wall, still a bit unsure of my own body.

  “What’s your stats?”

  I hadn’t thought to check in a while. “I don’t know.”

  “Then check them out. From what I can see, you came close to respawning again. I don’t think we can afford to lose you.”

  I knew I was grinning from ear to ear. I’d really gained a lot. Wow.

  “Did you do okay, apart from health?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I really did. I gained a lot from that. Just from that potion and being with you. Four levels!”

  She squeezed my arm. “Yeah! That’s what I wanted! You can and will level out with us much quicker.”

  I understood Power Levelling. This was awesome. I cast my stat points to increase as a Fighter. Always mindful of my natural ability for Sorcery. It wasn’t easy but there were things I needed to increase now. Five points each to Strength and Constitution, three to Wisdom and Charisma, and two to Dexterity and Luck.