by Damien Boyes
The bot’s barely moving, its torso chewed out and no meat inside, so when the new burst of pheromones hits, the raptors lunge toward the fresh prey. She empties her rifle into the beasts as they converge on her, and Zara-Zee swings out from a hut further to the north to help, but the bullets aren’t enough to slow down the frenzied artificial dinosaurs. Her screams don’t last long.
Raptorwolf downs JennjaminFranklin. 72 players remain.
Then it’s a full-on panic. OVRshAdo’s fourth teammate pops out of the same building Zara was hiding in and fires a full magazine into the closest raptor, and while that’s enough to kill it, the other two now have new targets.
You run along the fencing and cross the open muddy path back to the nearest hut. You’ve got eyes on three of the enemy squad. One’s dead, but you still haven’t seen OVRshAdo, which means he’s behind you. You load your last dart and get ready to use it.
He’s coming for you, you know he is. It’s how he thinks. Send the rest of the team out front as a big noisy distraction while he sneaks around to get the job done. You huddle under the overhanging roof, invisible and sheltered from the rain, and wait. But not for long.
A shadow emerges from the jungle, the rain sluicing off something that isn’t there. He found himself a camo unit too. Except he’s moving, and the camo doesn’t work great with movement, especially in the rain.
Shots come from behind you, followed by a shuddering squeal. That’ll be another raptor dead. But only one. There’s still one left somewhere.
Raptorwolf downs HotFannySandwich. 71 players remain.
Yes! Just Zara-Zee and OVRshAdo left. Odds are all even now. That’s more like it.
The audience is eating this up. You’ve been so focused on surviving you haven’t noticed the pressure swelling in your head, and now the attention is making you dizzy. Your aud has grown steadily this game, the crowd likes a proactive player, but now that the top three survivors are having it out, everyone’s watching. One way or another, this fight right here is gonna blow the game wide open.
OVRshAdo’s picking his way across the mud toward the back of the stockade, blurry water cascading down his armor. He’s still got his Stinger, and the black circle of his gun’s muzzle is floating along in midair. He isn’t keeping it down, he wants to be ready to fire the instant he sees you. That’s why you need to hit him first, but you’re only holding the pherodart, and it’s out of sight behind your back, as he’s sure to notice you if you try to swing it out and fire. Wait until he turns his back, and then you can draw your Stingers and put him down.
“Two left,” you think to Warrack. “OVRshAdo’s here with me, and Zara-Zee’s in the second hut from the north on the east side. Plus a raptor somewhere around here too.”
“Roger—” Warrack answers, and just as he does OVRshAdo freezes, then spins directly toward you and fires, as if somehow he can hear your thoughts.
You dive to the side, trying to avoid the spray, but even with the muscle tonics juicing your body you’re not fast enough. Bullets thud into your armor, knocking you off balance, and you bounce off the hut wall and fall to your knees. The pherodart gun spins from your hand as you hit the mud, and you abandon it as you roll, trying to stay out of the line of fire.
OVRshAdo whips around, drawing a light machine gun as he does, and this time when he fires the bullets hit you square in the chest, driving you back against the concrete wall. The camo unit sizzles as a bullet shatters it, and your invisibility winks off.
“Followed your footprints in the mud,” OVRshAdo says, easing off the trigger for a moment to answer the question you hadn’t asked.
You try to get to your feet but the mud slows you down, and when OVRshAdo fires again he doesn’t miss. The adaptive armor takes the brunt of the bullets, but they come so fast it doesn’t have time to reform around the weak spots and you feel tugs of pain in your abdomen as hot metal embeds itself in your flesh.
Then his weapon clicks dry. “Betcha wish you were on my team right about now,” OVRshAdo taunts from behind his faceplate as he reloads.
Shit, shit, shit.
“He’s on me,” you call out to Warrack, but a fresh round of shooting in the distance tells you he’s busy with Zara-Zee. You’re on your own.
Fire burns through your abdomen but you ignore it, and you whip out the Stinger and let fly with a return stream of metal, and this time it’s OVRshAdo who hits the mud.
You get up and run as you shoot, hunched over from the pain, but the bullets go wide as you prioritize moving over accuracy. Chunks of concrete explode from the wall behind you as you slide around the corner and out of his line of sight, but you won’t be safe for long. You glance up and see a shuttered window and react without thinking, take a step back and dive straight through the wooden slats. You crash into the room, roll awkwardly, and tuck yourself next to an empty bookshelf, guns up, ready to shoot.
Blood is pouring out of your gut. You feel it, warm and wet, streaming over your groin and down your leg inside the resealed armor. The wound isn’t fatal, you’ve got a medkit in your backpack that should seal it up and keep you going until the endgame, but until then it’s gonna slow you down, and that could be enough for OVRshAdo to finish you off.
A metallic clank rings out as something hits the concrete floor, and you barely have time to hurl yourself into the next room before the frag detonates, throwing dust and shrapnel everywhere. Your ears are ringing but you keep moving, thud out the front door and stumble through the mud across the main path through the center of the settlement, right past the ruined warbot.
A quick glance north toward the community hall shows the coast is clear, but Zara-Zee could be anywhere. Warrack’s outline is two huts up on the west side of the village, crouched with his back against an outside wall, and who knows where that last raptor is, but you don’t have time to worry about it as you shoulder your way through the front door of the hut, stumble inside, and slam it behind you.
“Zara-Zee’s closing in,” Warrack reports. “And I’ve lost contact with the raptorwolf.”
“Run,” you answer as you move deeper into the hut. “Lose them in the jungle.” He’s right on the edge of the village, a short sprint and he’s in the trees.
“I’m not abandoning you,” Warrack replies.
“That’s an order,” you tell him, though you have no authority to give one. “OVRshAdo’s after me, but he won’t chase you—” You don’t think.
You hop out a side window, grimacing as pain flares in your stomach. You can’t stop moving, can’t let OVRshAdo get close, but you can’t run blindly either. One wrong turn and you could end up face-to-face with Zara-Zee—or that raptor.
The rain is letting up now, retreating as quickly as it blew in, and the clouds are parting to reveal bright blue sky. You pause, listening for any sound of movement, and a throaty growl ripples out in the village. Zara-Zee shrieks in surprise, somewhere off to the northeast, then lets loose with a barrage from her weapon. The raptor squeals in pain but you don’t think it’s dead.
“You have any frags left?” you ask Warrack as you force yourself to move again, tiptoeing closer to the western edge of the huts. You need make a break for it, no way you can fight your way out of this one.
“Three,” Warrack replies.
“Toss ’em.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere,” you say. “Just not at me.” Who knows, maybe he’ll get lucky.
His outline shifts as he pulls his frags and lobs them between the huts and out into the clearing toward where Zara-Zee was shooting. The explosions fire mud and smoke into the air but nothing hits the kill-feed. They’ll have cleared a path through, this is your chance.
“Hit the jungle, now!” you say. “I’m right behind you.”
This time Warrack obeys, but before he can get two steps a spray of gunfire sounds from the south, just on the other side of the hut. Warrack swears as the bullets smack into him, and he’s forced back into protection behind the wall.
You poke your head out around the corner and instantly pull back. OVRshAdo blasts a chunk out of the concrete where your face was a second ago. He’s already swung around to flank you, coming up the outside wall of the huts to cut off your escape route, and he’s given up on the camo. He knows you’re injured, no point hiding now.
“Come on, Ani,” he calls. “Why drag this out?”
Warrack’s two buildings up, and he angles his weapon around the corner and blind-fires down the wall. A second later another burst of fire erupts from the other side of the village and Warrack’s vitals go haywire.
“I’m hit,” Warrack cries in your head. “It’s bad.” Zara-Zee must have an angle on him, somewhere across the other side of the village. He’s exposed, got nowhere to run, and by the looks of his vitals he doesn’t have long left.
“Aren’t you gonna go help your teammate?” OVRshAdo taunts. “Sounds like he’s hurt.”
You want to, but there’s nothing you can do. Move and you’re dead. Zara-Zee’s north of you, OVRshAdo’s to the south, and you’re stuck in between. There’s nowhere to hide, and the second you show yourself they’ll mow the both of you down.
Your only hope is to make a run for it, abandon Warrack and save yourself. The thick leaves of the jungle are only ten feet away, and your skyn is juiced up. Maybe you can make it across the grass and lose them—
No chance. OVRshAdo’s too close. The moment you moved he’d end you.
Zara-Zee shoots again, and Warrack cries out as he’s hit once more, but still he doesn’t die. She could go for the flush and send Warrack out of the game, but they’re playing with you, torturing him to force your hand, and you grit your teeth in frustration. Part of you knows this is just a game, that none of it is real, but the pain in your gut isn’t in your imagination, and neither are Warrack’s dwindling vital signs.
And Rael, he’s real, realer than anything out here. All this may all be meaningless, but if you lose he loses too, and he doesn’t get the luxury of a respawn.
So if they want to play, you’ll play.
You know you can’t take on OVRshAdo, you’re hurt and he’s too close, but you can kill Zara-Zee.
You pick yourself up and crouch-walk along the length of the hut, peek out across the village and spot her against the corner of a hut two buildings up, eye to her scope, holding a line of fire straight across at Warrack. She’s got a headshot lined up, could have downed him already, and if they were playing smart she would have.
You raise the Stinger and fire a burst at her, and she swears as she falls back around the side of the building. She’ll still have line of sight on Warrack, but you don’t give her the chance to take it. You pull your last frag and toss it up between the buildings where she’s hiding. You don’t think it’ll catch her, but it’ll force her to move.
The grenade pops with a whump and tosses chunks of dirt from out between the huts, but doesn’t seem to hurt her. Still you limp across the clearing, moving toward her position, and that’s when OVRshAdo hits you in the back with a burst from his weapon.
Your backpack takes the brunt of it but still you’re driven face-first into the mud, and you sprawl out helpless.
That’s it. Game over.
Your heart thuds in your chest as you wait for the next shot, the one that’ll send you back to your skyn at home, and for a second you almost welcome it. But then you realize what it’ll mean, what you’ll have to face—
You heave yourself around, wipe your eyes clear, and see OVRshAdo standing over you, just a few meters away. He’s holding the pherodart launcher, must have picked it up after you dropped it, and he’s got a fucking grin on his face like a couple of gamer groupies just offered him a three-way.
Of course he’d use the raptor against you. It’d be easy enough just to shoot you, but where’s the spectacle in a one-man firing squad? He’s wringing every drop of drama out of this he can, playing for the crowd, and he must be doing a good job of it because the audience is going nuts, a livewire bouncing around in your head as the audience floods into your POV, eager to experience for themselves what it feels like to be mauled to death by a velociraptor/wolf hybrid.
“I imagine this will be unpleasant,” OVRshAdo says, admiring the dart launcher with a raised eyebrow as you work back up to standing. One of your Stingers is on the ground, but you’ve got another one on your hip, if you could only get to it.
You glance around, checking behind you, searching for anything that might save you. Warrack’s out of the fight and bleeding out. His green outline is still slumped against the hut on the west side of the village, and Zara-Zee has him covered anyway. She could finish him anytime she wants, but she’s just as engrossed in the drama as the rest of the audience. She’ll wait until the show’s over to finish him.
You don’t want to go out, not like this.
“I suppose it’s too late to team up?” you say, stalling by playing casual. You’re seething with fear and frustration but no damn way will you let OVRshAdo see that.
Helaughs. “Oh Boo, we could have done great things together, you and I. And maybe one day we will—but today is not that day.”
The two of you lock eyes as he raises the launcher, and as he levels it at your face you notice the thick plug of mud blocking the muzzle. Hope spasms in your chest and you try not to smile. His day is about to get super shitty.
“Wait!” Zara-Zee calls out in warning, but it comes an instant too late.
He pulls the trigger and the weapon fires with a snap-hiss, but instead of shooting a dart the launcher backfires, spraying OVRshAdo with a gush of raptorwolf pheromones.
He screams and flings the launcher away but he’s already doused. Before he can move the remaining raptor races out from between two huts, and leaps for his arm.
OVRshAdo’s good, manages to draw his pistol and gets two clean shots off, but two bullets from a handgun aren’t enough to stop the charging animal and it hits full speed, bites down on OVRshAdo’s forearm, and drives him to the ground. He pumps bullets into the raptor’s guts as it chews his arm off, but then the weapon clicks dry and he’s defenseless, with nothing left to do but scream.
Now’s your chance. You pull the Stinger while you spin, firing even before you’re facing Zara-Zee, not giving her any chance to take you or Warrack down. She yelps as a line of bullets rakes across her chest, forcing her to flee around the corner.
You chase her down the alley between the huts, keeping up the onslaught of metal, not giving her the chance to regain her footing.
She fires backwards as she runs, heading for the jungle, trying to escape, but her shots go wide, thudding into the concrete around you. Yours don’t miss.
The bullets hit her square in the back, knocking her forward, and she stumbles and trips in the mud, tries to roll and come up shooting, but you don’t give her the chance and riddle her with bullets. Her armor cracks and blood bursts from her back as you empty the magazine into her.
AniK@ downs survivor Zara-Zee. 70 players remain.
Your heart’s racing and your breath is raspy, but the fight isn’t over yet. Somehow OVRshAdo’s name still hasn’t hit the kill-feed.
Warrack’s still alive, but won’t be for long if you don’t patch him up. You should go to him right now, but you can’t until you know OVRshAdo is out of the game. First though, you walk over to Zara-Zee’s corpse and reclaim your Redeemer.
“Told you I’d take this back,” you say as you fasten it to your pack, then spin and reload your weapon as you run to the center of town, half-expecting to see OVRshAdo gone, but he’s right where you left him.
He’s lost his helmet and his skyn is shredded—still alive, but won’t be for long. You creep closer, keeping your weapon up, not giving him any chance to get a lucky parting shot. He’s got a long knife held slack in his left hand and while he’s drenched in blood, a lot of it is the raptorwolf’s.
It’s dead and he’s about to be. His right arm is gone above the elbow and his c
hest is ripped completely open.
“Fucking hell,” you say as you stop a few paces away. He’s not playing possum, you can see his heart beating in the open air. “You killed it.”
“Killed each other,” he says, his voice weak, then coughs a spray of blood.
“Goddamn legend,” you say, honestly impressed. “I’m almost sad to see you go.”
“Patch me up then?” he says, but we both know he’s too far gone for that. The medkits will work for bullet wounds and lacerations, but a raptorwolf just performed open heart surgery on him. He’s only got seconds left.
You shake your head. “I said ‘almost.’”
He smiles, doesn’t seem mad or anything. “Good game then, AniK@.”
“Yeah,” you answer as you aim the Stinger at his exposed head. “Good game.”
You could always just let him bleed out, but the competitive part of you can’t let that happen—you want the credit. All it takes is a single bullet, straight to the heart.
AniK@ downs survivor OVRshAdo. 69 players remain.
GAGE, FINSBURY
00:23:52 // 12-JUL-2059
“Looks like the bot’s got the spot, mate,” OVRshAdo calls. He’s twenty meters away and closing, but he’s taking his time, stepping carefully over the ice as he angles toward my hiding place behind a silvery supply crate. I’m down to less than ten percent health and falling as I bleed out. My vision is vibrating. We’re in game five, tied two games to two, and I’m about to lose.
“How many times has that bot beat you?” I yell back. “More than twice?”
The battery on my camo’s down to a second and a half of invis time left, and I ran out of AR ammo fighting the last wave of bots. I’ve got six shots in my nine-millimeter pistol and a single grenade, with only seconds before the bots are close enough to strike, but the instant I move OVRshAdo will down me. All it’ll take is a single glancing shot and it’s game over.