by Damien Boyes
She continues her roll, kicks the flailing bot off, and lands in a crouch with her weapon up and ready. The three prowlers are down but that was just the opening wave. Red-eyed bots are all through the woods now, utilibots and drones and prowlers and a bunch more. I don’t see any warbots yet but I imagine it’s only a matter of time.
“Move!” she yells in our heads, and we don’t need to be told twice. She fires three times and downs the three closest bots and then she’s up and sprinting and we fall in behind. We swing wide left to avoid Aurora City, but the bots are already ahead of us, and we’re forced to divert toward the fields.
“They’re herding us toward the city,” I say as I put two bullets into a stalking prowler.
“No shit,” Shad snaps back. “So don’t let them.”
We try, but no matter how many bots we take out they just keep coming, pushing us toward the open gates, and eventually we’re backed across the bridge and into the city and the moment we’re on the other side the gate closes behind us, locking us in.
The town is a maze of narrow walkways and overhanging buildings, with a wide path cutting directly through the center to the gates on each side, which are also closed tight. The walls are too high and too smooth to scale, and other than the gates there doesn’t look to be any way out.
“The island’s playing us,” Shad says out loud. “Got us trapped in like rats.”
“We might be fucked here,” I say, glancing around, looking for some way, any way out, but I don’t see anything. For a moment the city is quiet, as if holding its breath, and then the bots come, slinking out from around the buildings with their eyes smoldering red.
“Definitely fucked,” Anika mutters.
My mouth goes dry and my guts clench. Looks like this is where death finally catches up with me. Of all the ways I thought I would die, I didn’t expect it to be in a live action video game—though I didn’t expect most of the shit that happened over the past few years either, so I shouldn’t be too surprised.
My first instinct is to get angry, to lash out at the injustice of it all, but it passes immediately. We’re doing a stupid thing, and no one forced me to come. Besides, I’ve had a good run, longer than I deserve. This is as good a place for it to end as any.
I check my remaining ammo, ready to go out fighting, and find only a single regret comes to mind, completely unexpected: this is the last moment I’ll have with Anika.
It’s a shock, to be honest, that my last thoughts aren’t about Connie, and then I’m flooded with guilt and hope the bots will make it quick and put me out of my misery.
I glance at Anika and she’s already looking at me through her clear visor. “Been a fun ride,” I say.
She gives me a frustrated smile. “Guess I’ll see you back home.”
Except she won’t, this is as far as I go, and there must be something in my expression because her brows knit together in concern. She opens her mouth to ask, but we don’t have a chance to get into it.
“Save the tearful goodbyes ’til we’re dead, yeah?” Shad says as he raises his weapon. “We’re not done yet.”
No, but we will be. Still, we’ll make a mess on our way out.
I get my weapon up, then there’s no room for anything in my head but gunfire.
There’s a semicircular courtyard around the gate and we stick close together, covering the angles, Shad and I on either side of Anika. We make each shot count, dropping the bots before they can get close and calling out our reloads, but the island has more bots than we have bullets.
“Out!” Shad yells in our heads as he drops his assault rifle and draws his pistol. I’ve only got nine shots left and Anika must be nearly dry herself.
“Now a good time for a teary goodbye?” I ask as I put down two more prowlers. We’ve made a hell of a pile of broken bots, but they just keep coming.
“Keep shooting,” Shad says as he reloads his pistol. We only brought two magazines for the sidearms, and this is his last. After these twelve shots he’ll be fighting with his fists, and as strong as these skyns are, even we can’t beat an infinite supply of bots.
Then Anika stops shooting, lets her rifle drop to her side, and swings her pack off her back. “Cover me,” she says.
“What are you doing?” Shad shouts over the teamspeak.
I use five more rounds, swinging back and forth to take out Anika’s share of the bots as well. Two shots left.
“Getting us out of here,” she answers, and pulls her pack of explosives from her bag.
“We need the explosives to take out the AI core,” Shad says, but Anika throws him a withering glare and he drops it. Besides, on the off chance we do make it out of here we still have three charges left.
She sets the timer to five seconds, readies the detonator, and then sticks it to the bottom of the sealed gate behind us.
“Fire in the hole,” she says as she starts the countdown and rushes to my side. I tick off the numbers from five in my head as we retreat, but with the bots still pushing forward we can’t go far. Shad moves away on the other side of the gate, fires twice, and then his weapon clicks dry.
As the counter hits one I hold my breath and put my hand over Anika’s head as we duck low, huddling together.
The explosion is deafening, sets my ears ringing, and sprays us with chunks of concrete, but our armor protects us. The readout on my visor shows our collective heart rates are spiking but no one’s hurt. I turn and squint through the cloud of dust, expecting to see a hole in the gate, but the doors are still standing. Charred and dented but sealed up tight.
My stomach falls. Shouldn’t have got my hopes up.
“Worth a try,” I say, and spin to fire my last two shots, but Anika slaps me on the shoulder and points back into the smoke.
“We’re not done yet,” she says and moves away from me, deeper into the dust.
Shad makes a whooping sound as I empty my weapon at the closest two bots. I spin but don’t see anything different, the gate is still closed tight—and then I notice: Shad’s gone.
“What—” I start, and my gaze follows Anika’s finger as she gestures down at the jagged hole blasted through the concrete. The explosives didn’t touch the gate, but it blew an exit in the ground.
Maybe we’re not out of this yet.
“Into the hole, soldier,” she says, and flashes a wink at me as she raises her weapon to pick off the bots that are still closing. “I’ll cover you.”
A surge of emotion fills me as I race toward her and peer down into the black. Who knows what’s down there, but right now anywhere’s better than here.
I take a second to tap my helmet against hers and give her arm a squeeze before I step forward and plunge into the darkness.
AniK@
799:40:21 // 16 Players Remain
When you saw OVRshAdo had returned, you knew he’d be coming for you. You chased each other all game, trying to get the upper hand on one another, and now, finally you have him.
You’ll make him regret coming back.
You’ve got him pinned on a wide cliff in the craggy highlands. To one side is a steep drop to the moonlit marshes, and to the other a sheer rock face that’s gotta be three stories high. The only thing separating you is a broad split in the rock, a fissure carved over time by the nearby river roaring over the cliff’s edge
OVRshAdo’s holed up on one side of the chasm, you’re on the other, and between you is the hull of the wrecked blimp from the Fargo’s Last Cargo hotspot. The crashed airship straddles the chasm like a covered bridge, and it’s the only way across.
This round’s almost over. Only two hexes left open and the one you’re in is about to close. Any moment you and your squad will be in the red, leaking safe-time, but you don’t care. There’s nowhere for OVRshAdo to run now. Backtracking through the red would take too much time. His only path is through you. And there’s no way you’re letting him make it to the next game.
He got close once before, around hour fifty. Got withi
n shouting distance.
He tried to talk to you, offered a truce, like he wanted to be friends—as if. You didn’t give him an opening to play his mind games, and you killed one of his squad for it. He managed to get away and you’ve been after him ever since.
“We should back off,” Warrack says, the low-light perq glowing green in his eyes. “He’s not going anywhere.”
Warrack’s got all his gear together and looks anxious to leave. Same with LarryCheese and finitoburrito behind him. They all want to move, and you don’t blame them, it’s by far the smartest play. Stick around here and you’ll be pushing into the green after the other players have already set themselves up, like running into a meat grinder.
But you don’t care.
“No,” you say. End of discussion.
Except Warrack doesn’t give up. “The zone’s closing and there’s easier targets. No point wasting safe-time on him.”
“No,” you say again, your voice firm. “We can’t risk the chance he could make it through. Go if you want, I’ll finish him on my own.”
Warrack makes a frustrated noise in his throat but you ignore it. The simmering anger that’d been eating at you for days finally boiled over when you saw OVRshAdo’s name reappear on the kill-feed, and it hasn’t stopped roiling since. You’re not giving him the chance to weasel his way out of this game. He would have had to spend every leaderboard point he’d ever earned, and probably chipped in an extra buy-in fee to get back into the game this quick. He’s gone to a lot of expense to try to ruin your streak, and you’re gonna make him pay for it.
A rattle of shots sounds in the dark, somewhere out in the distance, then another.
CtrlAltDuhL33T downs Wombocombo. 15 players remain.
Still Warrack doesn’t quit. “We’re already late. We need to move. You’re not playing with your head.”
“Damn right,” you say as you swing your AR around and set it to burst fire. With your team all running low-light vision, the waning moonlight isn’t a problem. The darkness might help them slip into the safe-zone unseen. “You should get moving. I’ll catch up with you when I’m done here. And if I don’t—thanks for everything.”
You slide out from behind one of the cargo pallets and peer into the long tunnel of the downed aircraft. It’s even darker inside and you can’t make out anything at all. Who knows what’s hiding in there, but it doesn’t matter, you’re going anyway.
“Wait,” Warrack hisses. “I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” you say. “No point all of us dying.”
“You die, I die,” he says.
The pained look on his face hurts your heart, and your better instincts nearly take over and convince you to back off, but then the anger resurges.
Why should you be the one to back off? OVRshAdo sure as hell wouldn’t.
“What about you two?” you ask Larry and finito.
They glance at each other, then shrug. “We’re only here because of you anyway, why quit now?”
“You’re all idiots, you know that?” you say. “But thanks. Let’s get this done.”
They both grin and check their weapons, magrifles with grenade launcher attachments, and fall in behind you.
“Spread out and be ready for anything,” you tell them as you take the lead and step into the aircraft. The blimp’s cargo hold creaks as you pace through it, and even with the low-light perqs you can’t see more than a few feet ahead of you. Halfway across the zone passes over you and your safe-time starts to tick down. You were nearly at the maximum though, so you’re cool for now, but even though you don’t see any bots in here, once your time runs down it won’t take long for them to find you.
After the pitch black of the cargo hold the night sky on the other side is glowing like an oncoming train. Still there’s no sign of OVRshAdo and his team. Maybe they already tried backtracking. Or did something reckless like climbing up the rocky cliff.
“Hold here,” you tell the team and stop at the edge of the ruined blimp to scan ahead. The cliff on this side is wider, strewn with wreckage and spilled cargo containers, and it stretches on for a few hundred feet until it narrows and disappears behind a curve in the rock face. Most of the blimp wreckage is on the cliff above you, but the cargo ended up down here—or at least that’s how the story in the hotspot goes. Eventually the cliff rises like a ramp to meet the high ground above, but that’s half a mile away along a treacherous path. If OVRshAdo went that way, it’ll take him hours to swing back around and reach the green. No way he makes it before his safe-time runs out.
Could that be it? Did he push his luck too far this time?
Still, he could be hiding behind any one of the cargo containers. No point coming this far and not making absolutely sure.
Your pulse quickens as you poke your head out of the cargo hold and check around the south side of the aircraft, expecting to find a shotgun blast to the face waiting for you, but it’s all clear. Warrack does the same on the right side and finds nothing either.
You hold your breath for a second, straining to hear anything that might give OVRshAdo away, but with the waterfall so close you can barely hear anything else. Six big containers are spread out between the cargo hold and the point where the cliff narrows and begins to slope up. If he’s not hiding behind one of those you can safely turn around and fight your way into the green knowing he’ll be dead soon.
“Warrack, you’re with me. We’ll go straight up the middle. Larry and finito, give us a second and then flank to the left and right and cover the angles. Shoot anything that moves.”
“Roger,” Warrack says.
“Giddy up,” finito adds.
You and Warrack step out into the moonlight, weapons up, and pick your way across the rocky ground to the first container. You put your back against the side, shuffle to the corner, and swing around with your finger on the trigger, ready to fire, but there’s nothing to shoot at.
Warrack moves ahead of you, inching toward the next container, while LarryCheese and finitoburrito step out of the shelter of the cargo hold, ready to split off and cover each side of the cliff.
And that’s when OVRshAdo strikes.
A heavy machine gun opens up from the curved roof of the tunnel, chunking into Larry and finito, and they’re dead before they hit the ground.
ChangZhang downs survivor finitoburrito. 14 players remain.
ChangZhang downs survivor LarryCheese. 13 players remain.
Adrenaline spikes and you wheel around to return fire, your heart in your throat, focusing on the afterimage burn of the muzzle flash above you.
ChangZhang rolls to avoid your shots but overcompensates and scrabbles against the plastic to keep from sliding off the sloping roof, but it’s already too late, and he shouts as he slips over the edge.
Gravity downs ChangZheng. 12 players remain.
“Anika!” Warrack yells, but it’s all happening too fast. You spin as a player steps out from behind the container Warrack had been approaching, a raised shotgun in her hands. Her first shot takes Warrack directly in the faceplate, cracking it, and the second pops his Cortex with a blue-white flare that momentarily overloads the low-light perqs and leaves you blind. You shoot anyway, aiming for the memory of her position, but your bullets smack wide against metal, and you suddenly realize your game is about to end.
Pizdaty downs survivor Warrack. 11 players remain.
Your ears are ringing as the next shotgun blast hits you in the chest. Your armor absorbs the blow but knocks you against a container and even though you fight, trying to recover and get your weapon up in defense, another shot catches you in the side, spinning you around. Another pounds into your chest, cracking your armor and ruining your weapon, and then the last one knocks your feet out from under you and you slump down to your knees.
“Enough,” someone calls, and you squint up through your visor and see OVRshAdo striding toward you. He’d been out of sight this whole time, letting his team do all the work for him. “S
he’s mine.”
He’s got a magcannon, held low on his hip. Casual, like he doesn’t need it. Which he doesn’t. Pizdaty’s still got four shells left in her weapon, more than enough to finish you off.
Warrack’s headless body lies nearby, blood still pumping from his neck. You know he’s not dead, that he’s back in his headspace with no memory of you or the game or what just happened to him, but still the sight of him lying there burns you with grief and anger. Not only is your friend gone, but you’re the reason he’s dead—and even worse, he won’t remember you. All this time you had together just went away in a blaze of light.
OVRshAdo takes two steps closer then stops, doesn’t say anything, just looks down at you. The bots have found you now and they’re all around, a couple prowlers plus a few floaters too. The last zone will be closed any minute and then it’s only a matter of time before your safe-time drains and they’re free to attack.
“Hey Ani,” he finally says. “Nice to see you again.”
“Fuck you,” you spit, and your chest sears with pain. Probably broken ribs or bruised organs. Good thing this game is almost over. You’ll be out of this body soon enough; the problem is you know what waits on the other side, have known for days now, and you’re not ready to face it.
“Come on, man,” he says, like he’s genuinely hurt.
“What are you waiting for?” you wheeze, barely able to breathe through the pain and the anxiety of returning home. “You went through all this trouble to finish me, so go ahead.”
OVRshAdo cocks his head. “Is that what you think? I came to finish you?”
You blink, not sure what he’s getting at, and when you glance up at Pizdaty her expression reads the same.
“Vhat’s dis—” Pizdaty starts, but then her face grows clouded. She whirls around, whipping her weapon toward OVRshAdo, but she’s not fast enough. The magcannon whines as the capacitors discharge and send a slug of supersonic metal straight through Pizdaty’s chest.