by Hugo Huesca
“What’s different now?”
I shrugged. “My perspective is different, I guess. Three years ago, I didn’t have you.”
She stood there as stunned as if she had fallen face-first into a stun-lance.
I instantly felt self-conscious and awkward. When I was about to say something, though, she rushed to put a hand over my mouth.
“No, no, don’t speak. You’ll ruin it.”
She lowered her hand, and I kept my damn mouth shut.
“That’s right,” she muttered as she rested her head against my chest. Perhaps she was crying, but I couldn’t see from my position. “Just let me have this.”
14 CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RUN FOR THE HILLS
“YOU’RE sure we’re not about to sabotage some doctor in the middle of brain surgery?” I asked Mai for the second time.
The medical supply closet was getting a tad cramped with the five of us stuffed inside. It was the best place to steal the hospital’s network to log to Rune while remaining unnoticed.
“They use another, more exclusive network for that,” Mai explained. She was typing furiously on her own cheap laptop. The difference in skills compared to my own meager training with Roscoe was notable. For example, she wasn’t using a disposable Berry, which meant she had no fear of someone tracing back her infiltration. “At most, we’ll be making a bureaucrat have a slower connection to their social media profiles.”
“So that’s only half as douche-baggy,” Van decided. “A five out of ten on the scale.”
“Good enough for me,” said Walpurgis. She was sitting on a cardboard box next to a shelf filled with sharp objects, which she eyed with suspicion as if they could fall on her at any moment. “You done, cutie?”
“This isn’t as easy as it looks,” complained Mai. “I can’t just speed-type my way into a password-protected server, I need to…social-engineer…Ah. Never mind. The password was ‘admin.’ I guess we’re connected.”
“I could’ve done that myself,” I told her with a teasing smile.
“Police would already be on their way in that case,” Van said. “With your track record, they probably have your face on a post-it next to all their computers.”
“Yeah, they probably do,” agreed Irene. The traitor.
Our smiles didn’t last long. Truth was, we were racing against time. Irene’s father suspicion could be catastrophic if it was true, and we needed to let Caputi and the PDF know about it. We needed more evidence.
Both of those we could find by picking a fight with Rune’s resident ghost terrorist.
The supply closet disappeared from view as I put my mindjack on.
Begin Deep Dive Immersion?
I logged into Rune to arrive at a hell of plasma fire.
The Algernon burned.
PDF players were scrambling over the hangar, trying to hold an invisible line against a never-ending onslaught of enemies.
The explosions illuminated the vast hangar, the tremors and the shockwaves being so strong that fighters left and right broke free of their supports and slided through the floor, carving a bloody path through the PDF and their enemies alike.
Said enemies poured into the hangar from every possible direction, including entrances created by explosions. They fell from pipes on the ceiling. They clawed their way out of the floor’s metal panels. They jetpacked their way through in a maddened charge that was usually met with immediate destruction via plasma bolts.
I recognized them all. They were the same person. Same black power-armor with orange lines, the same energy shield-and-sword combo. Even with their visors down…Those were all Savin Keles.
“What the fuck.”
Acting on instinct alone, I selected my plasma rifle from my inventory and started shooting. From what I could see, I was standing in the middle of the hangar. Straight in the thick of the fighting with no cover available nearby. Exposed. I dropped to one knee, trying to make myself a smaller target. That was Walpurgis’ advice in action.
One plasma grenade detonated only a few hundred feet away from me and showered my armor with heat. The PDF players nearer to it weren’t so lucky.
“For fuck’s sake—stop it with the grenades!” I heard a surviving player scream over the common channels.
I need to do something, I thought, trying to stop my mind from getting sucked down into the frenzy of combat. Green and orange plasma bolts were soaring above my head in all directions like a light show.
“Everyone seeing this?” I finally said as I switched to my team’s private chat. “Keles is overrunning the Algernon.”
One black-armored Keles-mook straight in front of me saw me before I had the time to shoot him down. He held a pair of plasma grenades in his hands. As he spotted me, he raised them, ready to throw them my way.
I hit him with a perfect head shot.
Finally!
His shields tanked, but they held. I could almost see his mocking grin.
Ah, f—
Before the Keles had time to throw, a bullet broke through the air above my head and hit one of the grenades he held up high. The explosion detonated the other one and the Keles disappeared in a small green cloud.
“Ah, hell yes!” Walpurgis’ voice blared on my comms. “They’re all live carrying grenades! I’m in heaven!”
Another one blew up when a bullet nailed the sling of grenades he carried around his chest.
“Show-off,” I muttered.
For a moment, the tide started to turn, with the PDF slowly pushing back the Keles’ control over the hangar. I could see the tides of black-armored guys slowly rise in numbers.
Where’s he getting this many copies? They had to be NPCs of some kind…The other Cole couldn’t just copy-and-paste his own code.
My own voice appeared on the team’s private channel. “What took you guys so long?” the other Cole asked. “Quick, we need to get to the Teddy!”
“Cole?” asked Rylena. “What’s going on?”
Damn, this is about to get confusing, I thought.
Three Keles—Kelesii?—reached melee range with an elite squad of six high-leveled PDF players. Their energy shields and swords proceeded to turn power-armor and meat to separate, compact pieces faster than I could blink.
The Keles were mediocre at a distance, but they were as impossibly good at close quarters, just like the original.
“Keles found a way to multiply. He’s insane,” said the other Cole. He spoke so fast he ran over some words. “He’s going after the Algernon’s engines. We need to leave. The PDF’s trying to hold the line, but they’ll get overwhelmed.”
“Heard that?” Rylena asked Van over the chat. They were not in the Algernon since they’d been hunting Sleipnir’s players when the base was attacked. So Walpurgis and I had to meet with the other Cole.
“Confirmed. Where are you, Cole?” Walpurgis asked.
“Near the middle of the hangar.”
“I’m trying to reach the Teddy.”
“This is going to get confusing,” Walpurgis muttered.
“You bet,” I told her. “Let’s meet with him at our ship.”
The Teddy was near the end of the hangar, a hundred yards away from the forcefield that separated the port from open space. I couldn’t see it through the plasma smoke and the bolts saturating the air, but I knew the location.
Walpurgis wasn’t far from me—she was in the middle of a firefight with an unlucky Keles who was trying to rush her with his jetpack. I ran toward her in time to see how she used her legendary, twin-linked sniper rifle to bypass Keles’ shields and make his jetpack explode mid-air.
“Seriously, I could do this all day,” she boasted.
“Perhaps you’ll need to,” I told her as I reached her. I put my back against hers while I unleashed my entire ammo clip at random, trying to dissuade any Keles from coming any closer. “Don’t let them reach you, that sword will fuck your day up.”
“If they reach me.”
Together, w
e slowly crawled our way toward the Teddy. The other Cole and my ship were nowhere to be seen. The fighting was going badly for the PDF.
It was a war of attrition they could not win. Keles were literally picking the more advanced players’ shields down while straight-up killing the newbies. I saw PDF power-armor generators fizzle out and die from the strain of constant recharging. Some players were left immobile where they stood, easy pickings for the advancing onslaught.
Worse still was the lack of good cover. Boxes and cargo trucks were big and bulky, but they only served as concealment—a well-placed shot was enough to take them out. The only good cover available were the fighter ships themselves. But without their shields online they were taking a pummeling.
On the other side of the hangar, a smart PDF player had reached a fighter and was using it as a slow-moving turret, mowing down wave after wave of Keles troops. Others saw it and tried to do the same. In response, the Keles launched a counter-attack towards the empty fighters, trying to disable them with grenades before their shields were up.
Half a dozen ships exploded around us, taking out both Keles and PDF alike while Walpurgis and I ran toward the Teddy.
The forcefield at the end of the hangar flickered for half a second.
“The generators are taking a beating,” Walpurgis said.
We don’t have much time left. The surviving fighters were doing great at keeping Keles’ levels manageable. But down in the engines room…The PDF didn’t have any siege weaponry there.
A tremor shook the hangar so hard that I thought the Algernon was already blowing up. I lost my footing and fell face-first. Other players did the same. With a grunt, Walpurgis magnetized her hand against my back and helped me up, her armor’s servos groaning all the way.
“Not the time to be clumsy!”
“It’s not like I did it on purpose—”
The Teddy was close now, only a sprint away. Walpurgis and I exchanged a glance. The way was obstructed by an intense firefight. At least a dozen Keles against half that many PDF members.
“No time to fight them,” she said. “Let the cannon fodder handle it.” Her jetpack spat superheated air as it started. Mine did the same.
“Too bad you don’t have one of these, huh?” I asked as I turned my personal Invisibility Field Generator on. At the same moment we launched into the air, my body was covered by a transparent curtain, like a liquid mirror.
We traced a parabola through the air, with the highest point being the top of the firefight. A couple Keles took potshots at Walpurgis and the bar with her shields on my visor dropped a quarter.
“Goddamn, turn that thing off! They’re focusing me!” she complained as she tried to return fire while maneuvering the jetpack at the same time.
“No, you’re my cannon fodder.”
Instead, I dropped a primed electric smoke grenade over the Keles’ side of the fight. It fell right in the middle of them and the cloud with blue sparks of energy made them disappear from view.
We landed in front of the Teddy and I deactivated the IF.
“Finally!” said the other Cole. He had taken cover behind the landing wheels, taking potshots here and there. I could guess at his degree of success to be not very effective, since he was using a blaster pistol meant for close distances. “The Algernon is doomed. Quick, follow me!”
Another tremor made the entire structure of the Algernon roar in metallic pain. There was no other way to put it. Never had I heard a sound like that. The sound of a dreadnought’s death scream.
Walls bent unto themselves and the floors panels exploded upward like they were propelled by geysers. The forcefield and all the emergency lights went off at the same time.
The force of the blast threw the three of us around like rag-dolls and broke the Teddy out of its restraints. Several tons of ship slid toward us in a shower of sparks.
I screamed a manly “Eeep!” as the Teddy threatened to splat me in a gory interpretation of those pre-millennial cat and mouse cartoons.
Instinct saved me. Laying flat on my back, I turned on my jetpack seconds before the mass of the ship reached me and I catapulted out of the way fast enough to make my vision blur.
I smashed against something large, flat, and hard. My shields flashed down to 50% and a litany of warnings showed on my screen about the dangers of using walls as speed bumpers.
“Argh!” At some point, gravity had fizzled out. I floated in circles for a panic-filled moment before I managed to regain control with my armor’s oxygen streams.
At least the quake had disrupted the firefight. Everyone was out of commission, at least for a second or two. Also, we were surrounded by darkness.
“Are you two still alive?” I asked.
“Yes,” answered Walpurgis. “But the Teddy fell out of the Algernon. It’s adrift and I’m in pursuit.”
I muttered something nasty toward all things Keles. “I’ll catch up. Cole…I’ll just call you Dorsett, okay? Are you alive?”
“For now. By the way?” asked the other Cole. “A little help?”
His position appeared on my minimap a dozen yards away from me. He must’ve propelled the opposite direction from me. I turned my visor’s headlamp towards his location as I flew over to him.
One of the Keles I had bathed in the electric smoke grenade had survived both firefight and quake and was standing in front of the other Cole. My virtual self had lost his blaster and was giving ground as the Keles advanced towards him. The Keles’ visor was transparent, so his mocking grin was visible.
“Ah,” I said as I flew towards them as fast as I could. “This is going to suck.”
“No kidding,” Cole said.
Keles’ eyes darted in my direction, following my headlamp’s beams. I shifted my rifle to automatic rate of fire and unloaded the entire clip in his general direction. I could see the electric smoke had fried his shields. I only needed one good hit…
Keles reacted so fast his arms were a blur of motion. I saw the circular shape of his orange shield as it deployed on his left arm. He deflected three plasma bolts away before they could reach his chest, all in the same movement.
“Are you for real?” I exclaimed. No one is that fast!
We could not afford to stay and fight that asshole. Ships in Rune tended to explode with catastrophic results.
The other Cole’s jetpacks were burnt out, so he wasn’t going to reach the Teddy by himself. I shot towards him with the full intention of carrying him like a bride in my arms.
He jumped when he saw me coming.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Keles do the same, but he had his jetpack ready. As he soared through empty space, his energy sword spat forward from his wrist. He was already swinging it towards us as my hands closed around Cole’s arms.
I barely had time to shift my body away. The hit struck me hard enough to short my shields out for a second—the only reason energy swords were any use in non-trained hands—puncture my power-armor at the back, and smack me hard against the floor while the momentum kept trying to carry me forward.
A year ago, I’d have slid helplessly for several wasteful seconds while trying to recover from the hit.
Now, I simply magnetized the entire armor against the metal panels and clenched my teeth as the sudden deceleration tried—and failed—to make me lose consciousness. My vision tinted an angry red.
But I was already on my feet, closing in on Keles and Cole while oxygen ran out of my reserves.
This saved the other Cole’s life. Keles was already on him, so I threw my empty rifle away and clawed my blaster pistol out and shot Keles in the chest.
The impact only glanced him, but was enough to leave a brutal, scorched dent on his armor’s frontal plate. He jumped back and used his energy shield to avoid the follow-up shots, which ended up being deflected to the floor or roof.
Keep your distance, I told myself while I shot him again, more to distract him than to hurt him. I needed time so my armor’s systems could clos
e the breach and restore energy to the jetpack.
Keles had a different idea. The other Cole was empty-handed, so Keles jumped to him while keeping his shield pointed in my general direction.
Fuck! I jumped into the fray as the downward stroke shifted through the air.
I realized too late that this was Keles’ intention. His shield suddenly became a club when he swatted me with it, breaking my charge. Cole jumped away from the sword (which was a feint anyway) and tried to tackle the Keles down.
I saw the black armor jump way over Cole’s head, pirouette mid-air, and throw the point of his sword at my chest as he fell.
I sidestepped and twisted my waist so the sword merely carved a long line on the surface of my armor.
The three of us were now locked in close combat. Keles’ savage grin was clear as day through my headlamps.
The other Cole jumped away from him, turned back, and launched a brutal strike with his elbow directed at Keles’ visor. Keles danced around the blow, closing the distance, and smacked Cole with the blunt part of his sword close to his wrist. Half a second later, Keles blocked my punch with his shield, struck me again with it, and kicked my knee so hard that the servos of my armor were crushed. Only thanks to the expensive end-game gears did my knee itself remained unbroken.
But I was now immobile. I raised my blaster, but aiming was impossible in the middle of the melee—I’d hit the other Cole just as easily as I would Keles.
Cole tried to grab the shield with his armored gauntlets—to give me an opening to shoot. But in doing so, he left himself wide open. Keles wasn’t the kind to let go of a chance like that.
He plunged his energy sword down onto the other Cole’s torso. His shields failed. The weapon disappeared into his belly with a terrible hissing sound and came out of his back a second later, covered in steam and boiling blood. The other Cole made a guttural sound and was left floating there, immobile, with blood and oxygen spiraling out of the wound at a deadly rate.
I screamed with rage and plunged forward with my working leg as I raised the blaster to shoot Keles in the head.
Faster than I thought possible, he turned off his sword—freeing his arm—and elbowed my hand away. The blaster floated down.