by Vic Connor
“Not so fast, Nikolai! Even beyond this, we’re waiting for an opportunity. Waking up one person here, there, this will take long time, and rouse suspicions. We must open them all at once.” Yuri spread his arms out. “And finding the moment of time back in the real world when this will meet the least resistance is…well, difficult.”
“You have no ideas at all?”
“Well,” Yuri said, “we don’t exactly get out much. Your mother might be able to, I don’t know, crash the servers for example, but she’s working a different angle. She wants to protect lives, not risk destroying them.”
“She’s hacking the Phaeton League games, you mean?”
“Yes, yes, this. This is how she sent you the message, yes? The Bible verse. That was very Anna.” Yuri smiled.
It had been specific. It had to be; only Niko was supposed to interpret it, despite the fact that the League games were watched by everyone on both Phaeton and Cygnus. “Dad…” Niko said, an idea forming in his mind, “do the people in the Territoria office watch the Phaeton League games?”
“Yes, of course, Binary System Championship is a big event!” Yuri said, enthusiastic. “Everyone wears team colors, they provide snacks, and they have big theater on the campus where everyone…” Yuri paused, then smacked his own forehead. “Of course, of course! My brilliant boy.” Yuri grabbed him and kissed both his cheeks. Niko suppressed the urge to wipe his face off; to smile.
“And…” Niko began, sobering, “Once everyone’s out…the servers will be shut down.”
“Not quite,” Yuri said, oblivious to Niko’s sudden melancholy. “They’ll never stop monitoring Territoria, although they may not raise alarm at individual players logging out. People die in the game almost every day, after all. Your mother will need to devise a way to…and Catherine will help to…hmm, and Clark…”
“Wait, Catherine?”
Yuri glanced at Niko, as if not understanding the question. “Well, of course, our people still work in some teams like I said…” He trailed off, apparently lost in thought. After a moment or two, he continued, “Besides, the Cygnus’ server is housed at penitentiary in Seattle. Phaeton’s server is down in San Francisco, and there are other facilities being built in L.A. and Austin to support the wider user testing. We’ll need to shut down Phaeton servers and destroy the other facilities to really take Clark down.”
“But…if we shut down all of Territoria…you and Mom…”
At last, Yuri seemed to understand Niko’s concern. He shifted, putting his hands on Niko’s shoulders. “Niko, son of mine, listen to me very closely. Your mother and I…our bodies are gone. We couldn’t download our DNA code like we did for you. All we are now is data. This data will help you however it can, but once the time comes to shut down Territoria forever, you’ll have to let us go.”
Niko felt it, then, something welling up, choking him from the inside out, an awful feeling, heat pressing against his forehead and sinuses and eyes. Tears, threatening to escape. He swallowed them back. “I don’t want to,” Niko said. “I only just remembered you.”
Will I kill my parents to save the others, most of whom I don’t even know? he wondered. He didn’t know the answer to this question.
And will this even be saving people? Niko thought about the real world, with its lack of water, with all of its problems.
The Phaeton emerged fully from behind Cygnus, the two planets and the sun casting burning light behind Yuri’s head like a halo. “As long as you remember us, Niko, we’ll live forever. Saving these people’s lives is more important than safekeeping the shadow of our own. This legacy matters more to us than living again, do you see what I mean? Sometimes, to protect people, we must take the blows meant for them.”
The light expanded and filled Niko’s vision until he couldn’t see his father; couldn’t see Cygnus and Phaeton; couldn’t see anything. All of it faded to white.
The day after the incident, their team hobbled together in the lunchroom.
“I swear, you’re immortal,” Jacob said, prying a wad of spicy noodles up with his chopsticks.
Niko choked, then forced himself to laugh at the joke.
“You think Jeny’s going to blow up about the date?” Tim asked flatly.
“Probably.” Niko sighed.
“She’s not the only one pissed about that,” Erica said, stabbing at her grilled fish. Niko was pretty sure she was imagining it was him.
“Yeah, I’m still unclear why we have to do our Hunt on the day of—”
“Day of what?” Jeny approached, kicked her leg over the lunch table bench, then flopped down across from Niko, dropping her tray on the table with a clatter. The rest of the team looked at one another.
“Jeny,” Niko said, “don’t be mad.”
A wad of rice noodles stopped an inch from Jeny’s mouth. The bustle of lunch hour clanged and clattered around them. She narrowed her dark eyes. “Don’t be mad abou’ what?”
“I requested a day for our next Hunt,” Niko began, swallowing.
Jeny dropped her metal chopsticks into her bowl with a sloppy bang. “What day?”
Across the table, Tim gave Niko a sarcastic salute.
“Niko, what day?” Jeny pressed, leaning half over the table like she was ready to jump across and beat it out of him.
“The…21st?”
The chopsticks clattered out from her bowl as Jeny slammed the table with her fist. “The 21st? The 21st?! That’s the day of the Binary System Championship, Niko. The Stingers are playing in that game. You—” Jeny was standing now, and her sheer volume had made the lunchroom go quiet. She stopped herself, rubbing wrinkles out of her dark brows. “It’s okay. There’s a full day of runup broadcasting, but as long as I’m back for the actual match at seven o’clock…”
Niko grimaced.
Jeny pounded the table again. “Niko!”
“Listen, Jeny, it’s the earliest Hunt I can get us—well, y’know, obviously the day was available—and I need to hit six before—” Niko stopped himself. He couldn’t talk about the plan on the server, lest Clark catch wind of it. Besides, if he told Jeny it was for a revolution in the real world, the one she didn’t really believe in yet, she’d beat him to death with her chopsticks. “Before…our training for the finals. I need as much time with it as I can, if we want any hope of winning.”
Jeny sagged. “Can’t we just exchange with someone for the next soonest assignment? Please, any time except during the Championship…”
Niko looked over at Tim again, with another plea for help. Tim was laughing under his hand. Niko glared at him, then said quickly, “It was Tim’s idea.”
Jeny turned. “Tim?”
“Yeah,” Niko lied. “Totally. He said we need that time to practice and it couldn’t wait. Totally his call, I mean, he’s the coach, after all.”
Jeny turned her whole body toward Tim, directing her foul-mouthed tirade at him. Now, it was Niko’s turn to laugh into his hand.
He wished he could tell her the truth. Her world was about to get turned upside down. He just hoped enough people in Clark’s team—if not Clark himself—would be too busy watching the Binary System Championship to notice him logging out after getting his ultimate ability.
Half-listening to Jeny rail at Tim, Niko brought up his UI, looking at his ability list. His Ult was still locked, greyed out with a description text that said only, “Unlocks at level 6.”
29
The Playoffs
“Hello, Ravenscroft, your announcer Luis Fonseca here. We’re all still hoping my partner Kiele is going to return soon, but until then, welcome to the Ravenscroft Playoffs!” The camera focused on a young man in a clean-cut, charcoal-grey suit with a moss green shirt, and a pocket square to match. His hair was teased into a well-structured pompadour haircut. “Now, I know most of you are watching the Binary System Championship tonight,” he said, a bit forlorn, “but for those of you here it promises to be an exciting match.”
The barracks were
full of all the wrong kind of energy. Up on the screen, the camera cut, showing a wide shot of Luis seated beside an empty chair at the desk. Jacob paced back and forth, half-watching Tim scribble on the holographic whiteboard. Niko thumbed the metal of his cross. Erica sat lounged on a bench in the corner, covering a yawn with a manicured hand.
Niko quickly opened Erica’s profile to refresh her skills in his memory:
ERICA LUI, LEVEL 12 SUCCUBUS MYTHIC CLASS
Passive: When you have not attacked or been attacked for 5 seconds, movement speed is increased by 15%
ABILITIES:
Bewitching Beauty — Charm an enemy, making them unable to attack for 6 seconds or until they take any damage besides Drain.
Drain — Channeled. Drain 5 HP/second from an enemy as long as this spell is being channeled.
Raking Nails — Deal 30 damage to an enemy within 5 meters of you.
Ultimate: Jump through — Jump to an enemy in a 10 meter-range from you and deal 50 damage. If there is another enemy within 10 meters of them, the attack continues.
With a sigh, he closed the UI and glanced at Jeny.
Jeny’s mind didn’t seem to be in the room, as she was constantly checking her UI for updates on the Binary System Championship.
Most of all, Niko was worried about how she’d react—how everyone would react—once unplugged and exposed to the real world. If they were anything like Cal, their memories would eventually return as well. Those memories could be good or bad, but based on his own experiences, he knew which one he’d bet on.
Tim capped his digital marker, then turned, pointing at his drawings on the screen. “The Devil-Dames are a strong team. They’re working with a Nymph, a Korrigan, a Werewolf and a Hone-onna.” Tim tapped the marker on the list of Mythics, which included names and abilities. “They tend to stick together throughout the match. This means they’ll be behind you in stats, but if they catch anyone alone, or in a duo, they can wipe you out. The plan is to split up, avoid them until you’ve built your stats, then rejoin and initiate a team fight.”
Jeny shifted, looking up at the screen, then back, her foot tapping on the floor like a fluttering bird. Niko wished he could convince her that missing the Stingers game was the least of her worries.
His fathers’s bitter words came to his mind: Slaves programmed to love their prison; to know nothing else.
“…And if we spawn in the southwest quadrant, then you and Jeny head out together and go after the Bugbear, here.” Tim tapped a scratchy doodle of a bear head at the bottom of his scrawled map. “Erica and Jacob, head for the Tommyknocker mine, here, and wipe it out.”
“All right, Ravenscroft,” Luis announced over the speakers, “we’re starting up the ten count on this match. I hope you’re ready; it promises to be a good one.”
“Like that matters,” Jeny mumbled, standing up. “Ain’t a single person in the galaxy watching this match.”
That’s what I’m hoping for, thought Niko as they all lined up beside one another. Tim stood apart, folding his arms and nodding to Niko.
The countdown ticked from one to zero, and the doors to the barracks opened wide. Outside, there was a tall outcropping of rocks to the left, circled by a thin deer path. To the right, forest, and straight ahead a steep hill.
“Southwest quad,” Niko said. “Erica and Jacob, head to the—”
“—Tommyknocker mines, we got it, Niko,” Erica purred, waving at him over her shoulder as she strutted away down a shadowed deer trail, Jacob in tow.
Jeny dragged Niko away from them by the sleeve. “Come on, Niko! If we end this early, I might be back in time to catch the team fight.” When they got out of there, she was going to give him hell.
Following Tim’s directions, Niko and Jeny struck out north, weaving through the ghost pines, keeping away from major thoroughfares in an attempt to avoid the Devil-Dames team. A short trek later, the treeline opened to a rocky heath leading out to a cliffside. Jeny had to point the Bugbear’s lair out to him: a squat hole among the rocks, shaggy with azure grasses.
“Can you lure him out of the cave?”
“Course. I’ll use my sparkling personality to keep his attention,” Jeny said sarcastically, shucking her jacket off. It billowed up like a balloon, expanding out over her head, becoming the swollen, massive seal creature. She stomped over to the den, pounding a heavy fist on the lid of the lair. “Oi! Wake up, ya wee hairy bass, before I skelp that manky mum o’ yours!”
With a low growl, a massive creature slithered out from the hole. It was tall, with a long torso and shaggy, dark fur patched with bright moss. Jeny stumbled back for only a moment, until it unhinged the jaw on its eerily human face and roared, sharp and high. Jeny grunted, then she and her seal-creature body-slammed into the beast. Niko readied his abilities.
Before he could move, the bear grabbed a boulder from the ground and launched it at Niko with a powerful thrust. It smashed into Niko’s midsection, knocking all the air out from his lungs and shaving ten percent off his HP.
The bear straightened to its considerable height, and a set of wicked claws shimmered as it smashed its paw into Jeny. She lost her balance and her seal-creature scurried a few steps away. In a giant leap, the bugbear was over Niko. It struck out with its claw, missing Niko’s throat by an inch.
Niko fell on his back and activated ABIL_EditValue a split second before the creature’s massive paw shattered his skull. He snapped behind the great beast, snatched a large rock from the ground with both hands and threw it into the back of the bugbear’s head.
Four tusks pierced the monster’s sides, making it arch and let out an almost human howl of pain. The tusks retrieved, stunning it.
“Finish him!” Jeny yelled from behind Niko.
He jumped to the bear, a stone in one hand, grabbed its mossy fur with the other and propelled himself upward, climbing up its broad back to stand on its shoulders. He smashed the stone into the beast’s skull and activated ABIL_RecursiveFunction. A fountain of black blood erupted from the bear’s head under the barrage of crushing hits. Its claws shot up to tear Niko apart, but Jeny’s tusk shield stopped them mid-way.
Half a minute later, the bugbear’s skull caved in, and the creature collapsed onto the rocky ground next to the entrance to its den. Niko jumped off its shoulders and the monster turned into a pile of loot, earning Niko some clawed gloves and Jeny a furry, armored belt.
She snapped it on, then turned and beamed at him. “We make a pretty good team, all said.”
Niko soaked in Jeny’s hard-earned praise, until he checked his UI.
BATTLE COMPLETE!
MONSTERS DEFEATED: BUGBEAR x1
150 EXPERIENCE GAINED
GOLD: 300 GP
PASSIVE EFFECT: 150*1.5 = 225 XP
10075/10125 XP
He was just 50 XP shy of hitting six. “Ugh! Come on! I need my Ult already.”
Jeny’s puffed-up posture shrank into her usual hunch. “Whae’s wrong with you tonight? You’re all quiet and jumpy, like when you first got here. Something about this match is fishy and has been from the beginning.”
“There’s nothing—”
“You’re lying.” Jeny pointed an accusatory finger at him. “It’s what that lightning tree said, innit? About hitting six. Something’s going to happen when you get your Ultimate.”
Niko winced, hoping Clark wasn’t paying attention right now. “Jeny, quiet down.”
“Dunnae tell me to be quiet, ya howling, scabby, lavvy-heided—”
Before Jeny could finish her string of insults, four women burst from the treeline behind them. In the front, a stocky, furry woman bared a full set of canine teeth, frothy drool hanging from her lip. Definitely the werewolf. Behind her, there was a skeletal woman with bloody-red lips, an ethereally beautiful girl in a long, white dress, and a mischievous woman with beetle-blue skin and big, all-black eyes.
“Devil-Dames,” Jeny hissed, as the full enemy team closed in on them.
“Great,�
�� Niko huffed. He thumbed on his comm. “Erica, Jacob, we’ve got them. We need you in the south quad, now!”
With a call from the werewolf, the Devil-Dames attacked in a flurry. Jeny leapt in front, taking the brunt of the first volley, all burning magic and sharp claws. The hideously thin woman skittered behind Niko, then grabbed him in a clutching embrace. Behind him, he felt her body swell, the sharp joints and bones becoming smooth curves. At the same time, Niko’s own body started to shrink down to a bony frame. He elbowed her in her growing stomach, then knocked her back with a multi-punch attack.
They put up a good fight, but it was four against two. Soon, he and Jeny were out of cooldowns, and the four women were backing them up to the cliff’s edge, preparing their last volly.
I can’t log out from the barracks, Niko thought. What will happen if I get knocked out before hitting six?
But just as Niko was giving into despair, a red streak darted into the fray, slicing their blue-skinned healer down to half. When the Werewolf turned to defend her, hearts danced above her head, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth, making her look like a dreamy puppy dog. Erica spun on her cloven hooves, licking one of her fangs. The Korrigan and the Hone-onna turned to close in on her, but Jacob leapt into the group, stunning them.
“Erica, get the healer!” Niko called out. He and Erica descended as one on the Devil-Dames’ healer, the beetle-blue Nymph. She went down with a whimper, the K.O. timer starting above her head. The werewolf, now broken from Erica’s charm, turned to revive her.
“Not oan your life, Fido,” Jeny snarled, body-slamming the Werewolf to the rocky ground. Jacob flashed up a golden shield of light, blocking the Korrigan. Niko and Erica went to work on the black-haired Hone-onna who was back to her skeletal form.
Over the Hunting Ground speakers, the automated announcer called “DOWN,” and the nymph shimmered back to the barracks. A short line of text floated in the corner of Niko’s screen, as it always did when he defeated an enemy before the battle was over.