Serial Escalation

by Sean E. Britten

  “Sounds painful.” Thao said.

  “It wasn’t just the arm, after the attack I had a lot of internal damage as well.” Layla said, “Ribcage, multiple organ failure, internal bleeding. They had to do a lot of digging around in there anyway before they reinforced it all.”

  Thao absorbed the information. Layla traced her living right hand down her left side to her hip as she spoke about the frame and the reinforcements the military surgeons had made. Thao had other questions but hesitated until the silence had stretched on between them except for the crackling flames.

  “What you said outside, about knowing exactly what you were doing when you killed your commanding officer? Was that true? That you didn’t really snap at all?” Thao said.

  “Yeah, I meant it.” Layla said.

  “So-, they lied, in your introduction.” Thao said, “What if they lied about me as well?”

  “I guess, but there’s a pretty big difference about a little lie about someone’s state of mind and-, making up a whole rape-murder backstory.” Layla said, “Everything they said about me still happened, just not quite the way they told it.”

  “But isn’t it weird that I can’t remember anything about-, myself? They control everything in here, us, the traps, the robots, everything, but somehow they slipped up and wiped my memory-, and they don’t even care about trying to fix it?” Thao said, “Just one of those faces meant anything to me, why only one? Who was she? Why didn’t I know any of the others?”

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.” Layla said, “It doesn’t make a difference as to why we’re in here and it won’t help us get out, we need to keep our heads clear.”

  “I’m not sure, maybe it does.” Thao said.

  Thao rubbed the sleeve around his wrist. A short time later, their maps updated with a beeping sound. Layla looked at it but still couldn’t properly manipulate the screen on her right forearm with the smooth, mechanical fingers of her left hand.

  “What have we got?” Layla said.

  “Supply drop, looks like food, across the park from us near the wall.” Thao said, “And there’s another team-, oh man, they’re coming for us. I hate this game, it’s Drago and Hutchins, the Russian guy and his partner.”

  “We’re short of ammo and I need that food or I’m going to pass out.” Layla said, “If we’re lucky we can avoid the other team, and we’ll have to keep moving.”

  Layla fetched her dry fatigues and body armour and put them back on. Thao dressed in his long coat and black clothing, which was dried out but looking a little more ragged than when he’d first put it on. His stun baton remained in its holster on his right hip. Layla checked her G36C and the two of them got moving.

  The other exits to the library had apparently all been blocked so they headed back out the main entrance, circling around the mechanical carnage of their battle with the librarian bots. Thao was careful to step over the tripwire Layla had pointed out to him earlier. He stayed close behind Layla, relying on the hulking cyborg for cover. The enormous doors eased inward, the sky looking lighter although it may have only been because they had been inside for so long. Layla went first and fanned out with her assault rifle. For a few moments it seemed quiet, and then one of their camera drones buzzed out of the building, over Layla’s head.

  With a thump, something sailed into the archway above the pair. Layla backed up hard into Thao, throwing them both to the ground as the object exploded. It shattered the top of one door, knocking it off its hinges. Pieces of stone rained from the archway. Layla and Thao rolled aside as the massive door and chunks of stone crashed to the ground. Their drone was destroyed by the blast and spiralled from the air.

  Layla and Thao rushed back inside and behind the dusty reception deck. Leaning her assault rifle across the desk, Layla let off a short burst into the street. Drago and Wolf Hutchins had found them faster than they’d expected. The big Russian moved out of a gap between the buildings, holding his M32 grenade launcher. The barrel of the black, bulky weapon was smoking, drum magazine loaded into its receiver. He was a big man, heavily muscled under his body armour, and with tattoos covering his neck and all other exposed flesh below it. His face was deformed by scar tissue, grinning viciously with pockmarked teeth. His partner, Wolf Hutchins, was lower to the ground and wiry but still muscular, and just as predatory. Holding a stubby submachine gun, the two men seemed matched well as a team. Hutchins fired back, another short tear of gunfire that pocked the side of the archway.

  “Move!” Layla said.

  Layla shoved Thao back toward the inner entrance. Drago’s next grenade blasted the desk the two of them had been hidden behind moments before, ripping it in two and slamming the remains against the wall.

  Layla and Thao made their way back past the rows of heavy tables toward the scorched shelves. The smell of smoke chased them into the shadows. Crouching, Layla aimed at the entry hall. She made sure that Thao was behind her and he squatted down low, holding his stun baton. Thao felt like the baton was more useless than ever compared to Drago and Hutchins’ weapons.

  “Hey, soldier-bitch! Going to jack you up, bitch!” Drago yelled, “What that arm do? You got the Kung Fu Grip? Starting winding it up, bitch, going to have you Kung Fu Grip on my lyubovnaya kolbasa.”

  Drago’s thick Russian accent butchered every word. Leading the way his dark, armoured bulk appeared in the doorway like a walking tank. He swept the barrel of his M32 from side to side and Layla fired, the G36 barely bucking in her grip. Three rounds tore through the wall to Drago’s left. Drago laughed, aiming for the muzzle flashes, and squeezed his trigger. Cursing, Layla had already started backing up and taking Thao with her. The grenade whistled into the nearest shelf trailing a white ribbon of smoke and exploded, the blast thundering the length of the library. The blast ballooned outwards in a cloud of flapping books and shrapnel. Layla and Thao kept retreating as they were sprayed with debris, Layla protecting her face with her left arm.

  “Did I get you, Kung Fu Grip bitch?” Drago shouted.

  Wolf Hutchins moved around Drago, aiming his weapon low. Coming through the arch, he stumbled. Hutchins’ foot had caught on the tripwire that Layla and Thao had avoided earlier. He and Drago reacted quickly as some kind of klaxon sounded. They stumbled inside as a door broke through the ceiling and rattled down, blocking the arch at the front of the massive room.

  The klaxon sounded again and again. It seemed like it had been designed to trap whoever triggered it inside with the librarian bots and drive the bots into a frenzy right away, but all the bots were already dead. Drago and Hutchins just looked confused but then focused back on the task of killing Layla and Thao.

  “We’re trapped in here with them.” Layla said.

  Taking cover, Layla fired another short burst at Drago across the library. A couple of rounds hit his body armour but one tore a hole through the man’s forearm. Spurting blood, Drago raised the wound to his eye line as if trying to peer through it.

  “There you are!” Drago said.

  Drago’s broken grin scythed across his face. He raised the bulky M32 one-handed. Another High Explosive round thundered into the shelving and rows of mouldy books were blown apart. The shelf tipped with a groaning creak, smashing into a second shelf and then a third like dominoes, crashing into the wall and sending hundreds of books raining to the ground.

  Hutchins fired wildly into the shelves where Layla and Thao had last been standing. Drago hung back, like artillery support, as Hutchins darted in. The klaxons that had been filling the library with noise stopped just abruptly as they’d started but the door blocking the only exit stayed in place. Sweeping through the damaged shelves, Hutchens kept his finger on the trigger. A book fell from a crooked shelf and Hutchins spun, firing on full auto. Bullets shredded the book as it bounced across the floor.

  Suddenly, Layla punched through the nearest shelf with her mechanical arm. She grabbed Hutchins by the shoulder and yanked him through the hole as books and pieces of shelving w
ere scattered in all directions. Layla threw the man across the aisle, bouncing him off another shelf with a crash. Hutchins kept his grip on his submachine gun. Layla raised her G36 with her right hand but Hutchins managed to fire first. A couple of bullets chattered off Layla’s left arm and another couple socked her chest, stopped by her armour.

  Thao lurched forward, the fork of his stun baton crackling, and managed to get the baton into contact with Hutchins’ neck. The man went rigid, teeth cracking together as spit sprayed from his lips. Before Layla could follow up on the opening Thao had given her, a grenade sailed into the shelving above their heads. The world shattered open, blowing all three of them in different directions and showering them with debris.

  Thao set up, his ears ringing painfully, “Layla? Layla!” He yelled.

  “Here, shut up!” Layla said.

  Pulling herself out of the wreckage, Layla grabbed Thao by the collar. Together they ran toward the back of the building. Wolf Hutchins had been separated from them by the blast, buried in the shelving.

  “I’m running low on ammo, and he’s not going to let us get close.” Layla said.

  “There was a basement door near the bathrooms, maybe there’s another exit through there, or sewer access.” Thao said.

  “Okay, you go, I’ll cover you.” Layla said.

  Thao was terrified but he didn’t question it, darting around the room ahead of Layla. The soldier followed with her G36 ready. Sitting up among the debris with his face bloody, Hutchins spotted them and fired a long burst. Layla squeezed off several rounds while still moving. Flanking them, Drago joined in with his M32, laughing, but he deliberately aimed too high. The next round slammed into the wall above Thao and Layla. Several old oil paintings were blown off the wall, scorched and shredded, as thick pieces of the walls fell away.

  “Keep moving!” Layla said.

  Thao tripped, stopping short of falling, and stumbled into the short bathroom hallway in a haze of smoke. They came to the door Thao had noticed before, marked ‘Staff Only’. Thao grabbed the handle and wrenched it up and down but it wouldn’t move.

  “It’s locked!” Thao said.

  Layla loomed over Thao and struck out easily with her mechanical arm. The handle broke and the door slammed inward. It was lightless in the basement, the dim glow from the hallway only reaching across a short landing. They could see a couple of old servers in a bulky cabinet near the door and not much else. Inside, Layla slammed the door closed again. Thao groped his way across the landing, shuffling so he didn’t fall over any stairs, until he got hold of a railing.

  “I can’t see anything!” Thao said.

  “Hold on.” Layla said.

  There was a loud scraping sound as Layla grabbed the server shelves and pulled them in front of the door. They were bulky and heavy, and the metal shelving was hefty as well. Short of blowing the door up, Drago and Hutchins wouldn’t be able to get through it.

  “Use the bracelet, its screen should give us enough light.” Layla said.

  “Good idea.” Thao said.

  Thao tapped at his sleeve. The glow of the screen was weak but Thao could angle it around on his arm. He found the stairs and they hurried deeper into the basement. Behind them, Hutchins arrived at the door and they heard a burst of gunfire rattling from the other side.

  The building’s basement seemed to be more trashed from the quake than the ground floor. Ruined books covered the floor around toppled shelves and bins. A pile of broken computers covered one workbench and the remains of a malfunctioning library bot was beside the computer parts, legs jutting in the air. In one tiled corner of the room there was a dark grate covered in rust. Layla jammed her mechanical hand through the bars of the grate and then ripped it out of the ground with superhuman strength, holding it aloft before tossing it across the room.

  “You go first, just watch for traps.” Layla said.

  “Even down there?” Thao said.

  “Pretty sure they’ve been through this whole place and wired every inch of it.” Layla said.

  In spite of the flooding throughout the arena the tunnel was mostly dry. There were only a couple of inches of thick muck underfoot. Without the light from their screens the tunnel would be black as tar. Thao slipped down the pipe to the tunnel, looking around carefully, and Layla dropped easily to the ground behind him with her G36 still raised. Orienting themselves, they set off in one direction down the damp rainwater tunnel.

  xXx

  “Got to get out, don’t belong here.” Baxter Webley said.

  Baxter’s face was pale and sickly. He staggered through the alleyways of the arena, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind him like breadcrumbs. Baxter tucked the stump of his right arm against his side. Blood was soaking through his makeshift bandages. He had been wandering in circles ever since splitting from his partner and his right arm, even coming across trails of his own blood and footprints.

  Without his kill switch, the former Wall St banker was strangely disconnected from the game but still trapped in the arena. He hadn’t just lost the kill switch, his bracelet had the screen which would have told him the locations of the other contestants and supply drops. Two camera drones flitted overhead. Baxter had no idea if he might turn the corner into a pair of other contestants who wouldn’t take a chance on him being out of the game. He hadn’t dared go back for his severed limb and the screen attached to it. For one, he worried there would be other contestants looking for an easy kill. But even though he knew his partner, Reaper, would be dead, Baxter was terrified if he went back there the man would somehow be waiting. He carried his remaining vibroblade sword at his side, swinging it with a slight hum.

  There was noise up ahead and Baxter scurried back. Another couple of drones darted through the street. It was another team, Ursula Paxton and Dogboy, but they didn’t see him or his drones as they passed by the mouth of the alley.

  Ursula and Dogboy had taken weapons from the team they had killed. Along with her weaponised glove Ursula was armed with Wing Chun’s submachine gun. Dogboy had his old Thompson submachine gun but was also carrying Billy Blight’s futuristic battle-axe. They were headed for a food drop on the map.

  “It’s going to be alright, Rover.” Ursula said, “Any more of those fuckers are going for the drop we’ll use the same trick of them. Men are easy, you’re all dogs, you just look it more than most. Either hungry or horny and the switch is easy to flip.”

  “What if it’s a woman?” Dogboy said.

  Dogboy mumbled through a mouthful of saliva. Ursula had pheromone emitters installed under her skin at the wrists and sides of her throat, useful in her former life as a sex worker. Turned up as they were, they choked the air with an invisible gas that made Dogboy drool.

  “Good point, Rover, damn, you’re smarter than you look.” Ursula said, “Maybe you should show some dick, you got a proper one or one of them red rocket things?”

  Back in the alley, Baxter felt a darkness rising in him. He’d felt it before while hunting homeless in the woods of upstate New York. Back then, he’d felt like a god, deciding life or death with the twitch of a finger. He was far removed from it all when hunting from the sunroof of an armoured SUV now but his grip tightened on his sword and he slipped out, into the ruined street. He was faint from blood loss but the darkness filled him with new strength. Still hugging his bloody stump to his side, Baxter crept up behind the others as quietly as he could.

  Dogboy’s pointed ears pricked up, hearing Baxter’s drones first. He spun, already howling, as he realised they’d been caught by surprise. The one-armed businessman looked pathetically small as Dogboy reared back with his axe. Baxter struck out with surprising speed, his vibrating blade carving through the axe handle. Dogboy looked surprised as the two halves came apart in his hands. Before he could recover from the shock, Baxter lashed out again and sliced through Dogboy’s armour and into his chest. The big man stumbled and fell, blood pouring out of the wound.

  “You son of a bitch!” U
rsula said.

  Ursula swept around with her new SMG. With his left hand, Baxter swung the sword in a blur. It cut the gun in half as well, the magazine and most of the barrel falling away. Ursula hissed, dropping the other half of the gun, and drew back with her weaponised glove. Baxter kept in motion, his face blank, and he lashed out at the movement. Ursula’s fingers fell away, all four sliced through by Baxter’s sword, along with the long needles they were attached to via the glove. Blood and the fluids from her syringes poured off Ursula’s hand. Ursula started to scream and cupped his injured right hand but Baxter jammed his sword into her throat, carving upward into the underside of her jaw and cutting off the sound of her cry. He ripped it free and she sunk to her knees, clutching at her torn throat.

  “No!” Dogboy yelled.

  Dogboy leapt to Ursula’s side despite his bleeding chest. There was no saving her, however, as blood ran down her front like a waterfall. She went limp and her sleeve started to sing. Dogboy’s kill switch joined in as the needles sunk into his flesh.

  After his initial burst of speed, Baxter was clumsy from loss of blood. Dogboy snarled and leapt to his feet, no longer feeling the deep gash in his ribcage, and Baxter stumbled away as the bigger man swung at him with his heavy hands. Slicing at the air, Baxter retreated and Dogboy pulled the Tommy gun off his shoulder. He swung it around like a bludgeoning weapon instead of firing it and the two of them circled around one another, jabbing with their mismatched weapons.

  “I’m not supposed to be here!” Baxter said.

  Without thinking, Baxter pulled his sword back and threw it. The throw was weak but the blade vibrated as it cut through the air. It sunk into Dogboy’s face and was left, jutting, from his canine features as he sank to his knees. The taller man with the mutilated face collapsed, blood pouring out of the wound, and died. Baxter stood over the body for a few moments, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Sit, good boy.” Baxter said.

  Baxter pulled the short sword from Dogboy’s face, the vibrating blade dripping. He cut through Dogboy’s right arm under the elbow and it came away just like when he had cut off his own arm. Though the kill switch had been activated the metal sleeve’s screen still worked. Tucking his right arm against his side, Baxter laid Dogboy’s severed forearm on the ground and poured over the sleeve’s map hungrily. He saw the last known positions of the remaining teams on the map and that godlike feeling of power swelled inside him again. He could see them but they couldn’t see him.