Worldshift- Virtual Revolution

by Scott Straughan

“It’s a type of drone. Since Kyle has already mapped them, I can send these out to interface with the cameras undetected and put their feed on a loop.”

  That sounded promising, but they still needed somewhere to go. Thankfully, Kyle soon discovered something and reported back.

  “I found somewhere we could hide, guys,” he told them. “It’s nothing spectacular, just a side room, but it looks abandoned and it’s full of junk. I don’t think the security droids ever go in here.”

  “All right, I feel exposed here at the starting location, since it’s not a safe zone and it’s a dead end,” Michael replied. “Come back here and lead us to this room of yours.”

  “Finally, hanging around in this empty room is boring me to tears,” Jude said.

  It didn’t take long for Kyle to get back, and once he showed up, he motioned for them to follow him out into the hallway. The passage was long and shadowy, but it was built very similar to the room they’d just come out of. The floor and wall were concrete, but there were steel pipes everywhere.

  As they approached the first camera, Kyle pointed it out to Michael. The older man nodded and then placed his bug drone on the wall. The metal beetle immediately scurried up the wall toward the camera. When it reached its target, it latched onto it and froze.

  Michael frowned and said nothing for several long seconds before speaking up. “Hmm, I seem to have it. It was a fairly low-level security firewall after all. This camera should now be stuck on a loop.”

  None of the other cameras gave them any problems either, and they didn’t run across any droid patrols, so they were able to make it to the room Kyle had found without a problem. He led them to a rusty steel door hidden at the back of a particularly dark hallway and then gave it a push. The door squealed a little as it swung open on its rusty hinges. It certainly seemed like no one had been using it recently. Beyond the door, there was a dark room full of piles of scrap.

  “Everybody in!” Kyle laughed cheerfully as he observed their dismayed frowns. They obeyed but unhappily.

  “Why did we come here again?” Jude remarked as she turned on her helmet light. The room’s lights were all broken.

  “Because we needed a better place to hide,” Michael explained as he looked around. “We couldn’t be sure that a random patrol wouldn’t wander right into that other room.”

  “So we’re just going to hide here in the dark?”

  “No, now we set up a base of operations. Kyle was right. This place is perfect. Judging by all the dust on the floor, the security droids never enter here.”

  Lily nodded in agreement. “I already have some ideas. Let me set up a point generator and then I’ll fix the lights. Next, we should focus on security and then the save beacon. We can probably use some of the junk lying around for that.”

  “Can’t we just repair the existing lights?” Ethan asked.

  “No, whoever controls the drones might notice the power draw. Lily has the right idea,” Michael replied.

  Thankfully, Ethan’s helmet hid his face as his cheeks flushed red. He felt stupid, but how was he supposed to know about this espionage stuff? It didn’t normally come up in regular Worldshift.

  As Ethan repaired the lights hanging from the ceiling, Lily set up a generator and rewired the lights to draw power from it. Meanwhile, the others cleaned up some of the junk and sorted it. Their job was made much easier when the room’s lights suddenly flickered to life.

  “Ah, good. That’s much better!” Michael exclaimed happily as he used the new illumination to study the room. “Now, how are we going to conceal that door? We can’t leave it visible.”

  “Why not? I thought you said the droids never came in here?” Jude asked.

  “We also have to worry about other players though,” Michael said. “We might be one of the first to reach this floor, but others will soon arrive.”

  “The door isn’t the only way in or out,” Kyle told them. “See that big vent over there by the ceiling? It leads out into another room, and players in armor can fit through it.”

  “Even better!” Michael replied happily. “It’s always nice to have an escape route. I can place a camera in that other room, and putting a lock on the vent should be simple enough.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the door while I was working,” Lily said. “I believe I could mix up some foam that would mimic cement. We could plaster it on the door to conceal it.”

  Michael gave her an impressed look. “You never cease to amaze me, Lily. That sounds like a wonderful solution.”

  “Your hacking was just as impressive, if not more,” the blonde said as she gave him a cute smile back.

  Now that they had a plan, the team went to work. As Lily and Michael worked on securing the entrances to their new base, the others continued cleaning and sorting. As Ethan was going through a pile of scrap, a piece of dirty machinery caught his eye. It looked like a box with two small robotic arms.

  “Hey, look at this! I think it’s part of an upgrade bench!” he shouted to get his team’s attention.

  Kyle and Jude quickly looked up from where they were working and walked over to see.

  “Huh, if we can get that save beacon up and build a workbench here, then this really will be like a base,” Jude remarked.

  “Ya, I think that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” Kyle replied. “This entire floor seems like some sort of huge, deadly capture-the-flag game or something, except with robots stalking everyone.”

  Ethan had to agree. It seemed like the game devs had created this floor so that players would be led to this room, or another like it, and then build a hidden base.

  After getting back to work and finishing up the sorting, it turned out they didn’t have all the material and pieces necessary to finish the workbench. Most of the clutter was useless metal or plastic scraps.

  “We do have enough stuff to build the save beacon though,” Lily said.

  “Then let’s do it,” Michael told her. “One of us might need to log off soon, and I’d prefer it if they were able to get back here.”

  No one had a problem with that, so they quickly built the rather simple device. Basically, it was a long antenna attached to a generator and a computer.

  “So what now?” Ethan asked Michael when they’d finished. “We seem to have our little secret hideout complete for now.”

  Michael scratched his chin. “Well, now that we’ve secured a base of operations for ourselves, the only thing we can do is explore. We need to learn as much about this level as possible and secure some more resources. In particular, we need to complete that workbench. Being able to build new tools would be invaluable to our mission.”

  “We definitely need to make some more stealth cloaks or even some cloaking armor,” Kyle said.

  That reminded Ethan of another problem they were facing. “Right, we only have the two cloaks, and that means only two of us can really leave the base for now.”

  “You can have my cloak. Creeping through these tunnels really doesn’t appeal to me. I only had it for sniping, and I don’t think I’ll be doing much of that down here,” Lily told Ethan.

  “All right, thanks. That’s a big help,” Ethan replied. She smiled cheerfully at him as she handed the cloak over, like she was glad to help.

  “Before anyone goes anywhere, we should go over some basic rules,” Michael said.

  “Like what?” Ethan asked as he took off his hookshot and replaced it with the cloak.

  “We don’t know the enemies’ capabilities or goals, so it’s entirely possible that they might notice you and decide to follow you back to this base instead of confronting you directly. Thus, we need to set up an evasion protocol.”

  “Wow, we’re really getting into the spy stuff now!” Kyle laughed excitedly. He was obviously having fun.

  As everyone listened, Michael laid out some rules for people returning to the base. Among other things, they needed to scan themselves for bugs and circle back at least once to make sure they were
n’t being followed. Most importantly, if somewhat obviously, they weren’t to lead any robots they encountered to the base. Instead, they were to try to lose their pursuers and find somewhere else to hide.

  “That’s all we can really do for now, until we get some more equipment,” Michael said as he finished his lecture.

  “Then I’m going to head out there and see if I can find some loot!” Ethan grinned in anticipation. There was something about sneaking around like this that was thrilling. The thought of creeping past cameras unseen excited him.

  “I’m going to log off,” Jude told everyone. “I don’t see a point in sticking around here with you guys if I can’t even do anything.”

  Lily sighed regretfully. “I’ll probably go too, now that I no longer have a stealth cloak.”

  “Fair enough,” Michael told them. “I’ll stick around here in case something happens and send you an update message before I log off.”

  When the two women logged off, Kyle and Ethan headed back into the hallway. After walking for a few seconds, they reached a T-junction, so they nodded at each other before heading off in different directions.

  Ethan moved carefully and kept an eye out for cameras as he walked down the shadowy hallway. Here and there, panels and pipes stuck out of the walls. When he came upon a camera, Ethan marked its location and either ducked under it or used the cloak to shield himself from its sight as he slowly moved past it. Sometimes the cameras swung back and forth on their motorized hinges, so Ethan was able to dash through them after memorizing their timing.

  As he made his way through the subterranean maze, Ethan occasionally stumbled upon rooms with unlocked doors. Most of the rooms were empty or full of cameras, but he occasionally found some with items lying around in unobserved places.

  Unlike the static cameras, the robotic patrolmen were a real threat. Even with the stealth cloak, the passageways were far too narrow for them to miss him if they caught him off guard. The robots had solid-looking steel chests, but their limbs were made from thin steel frames full of twisted black cables. Their oval heads were also smooth, featureless steel, except for the lenses covering their eyes. Ethan found them creepy, thanks to their glowing red eyes and the intense way they studied their surroundings. Still, he was used to seeing many different types of robots in Worldshift.

  The first time he stumbled into a patrol headed his way, Ethan had to throw himself behind a thick pipe. All he could do was hold his breath and hope as the droid walked past. He was sorely tempted to simply shoot the dumb thing. It didn’t look tough, but damaging it would probably set off an alarm, and there were swarms of robots on the surface. He couldn’t fight them all. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. The robot passed by without noticing Ethan.

  Soon afterward, Ethan found a massive warehouse chamber. It was absolutely packed with long rows of shelves that were stacked full of items. The problem was that not only was the room well lit, but it was also full of both cameras and droids. Several of the humanoid robots were standing guard within while others sorted the room’s contents. Ethan was only able to peer inside when the door was opened by droids carrying items in and out. Ethan marked the spot and moved on since getting in would be next to impossible by himself.

  However, before Ethan got very far, he was drawn toward another bright doorway by a metallic screeching noise. Moving cautiously, Ethan checked to make sure there were no droids coming and then peeked through the door. It was immediately clear what he was looking at. It was a subway terminal. A long tunnel ran through the room, and freight trains were zipping through it from both directions. The sound of their wheels on the tracks was the source of the metallic shrieking.

  The station was bustling with activity. There was a train stopped on the closest track, and dozens of droids were unloading it. They weren’t alone either. In the middle of the busy robots was a hulking robotic spider. It was using its long front limbs to pick up crates and load them onto its back, which was flat and had guardrails like the back of a truck. The mechanical arachnid was almost twice as tall as the other robots and probably weighed ten times as much. It moved the heavy crates effortlessly with only two of its eight legs. When it turned Ethan’s way, he got a good look at its head. It had a cluster of red eyes made from mechanical lenses, although the irregularity of their size and placement made them hard to count.

  Fascinated, Ethan studied the robots as they worked to unload the train. Other drones were walking through the station on other tasks as well. One was even using a mop to clean the floor. How odd.

  Ethan was so captivated by the sights that he failed to register the whirring noise at first. It wasn’t until the hovering camera drone dropped down and looked directly at him that he realized it was there. The drone had a round steel body with a camera in the center of it. Ethan froze as the camera’s lens rotated and extended out to focus on him. It seemed to take the drone a few seconds to pierce his cloak, but then it recognized him as an intruder. There was a loud beep, and several blinking red lights activated on the drone. As the beeping continued, Ethan stumbled back in shock. He’d messed up badly.

  CHAPTER 25

  HIDE AND SEEK

  Cringing, Ethan glanced at the train terminal. The work had stopped. All the drones had put down their boxes and turned to look his way, including the giant spider robot. As he watched, the first few humanoid drones moved his way.

  “Frak, time to get out of here.” Ethan pulled his pistol out and shot the camera drone that had detected him. It was knocked backward and exploded as he sprinted away.

  Running as quickly as possible down the dark hallway, Ethan furiously tried to think up a plan. Could he just outrun the drones? He didn’t know. Thankfully, he had a significant lead on his pursuers. His best bet would probably be to gain a bit more distance and then find somewhere to hide, like a vent or a closet.

  Suddenly, there was movement ahead of Ethan. A humanoid drone stepped out of a dark doorway and turned to stare at the player. A moment later, it beeped loudly and moved to intercept him. It didn’t appear armed, but its outstretched arms blocked almost the entire corridor.

  That was fine with Ethan. Instead of trying to go around, he drew his sword and dashed forward. Without hesitation, he slashed downward at one of the drone’s extended arms. His energy blade seared effortlessly through the steel and cables, and as the limb began to fall, Ethan dashed past the drone and into the hallway beyond without slowing.

  “This sucks!” Ethan grunted as he sheathed his weapon and kept running. He hadn’t realized the real challenge in escaping the alerted drones. Not only were the other nearby drones being called to investigate the alarm, but the sound of Ethan’s running footsteps was undoubtedly drawing them too.

  Ethan’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of metal crushing metal. Startled, he threw a look over his shoulder, and what he saw sent a shiver of fear up his spine. A multitude of glowing red eyes and a moving wall of metal… It was the huge spider drone. The thing had chased after him with single-minded determination. The hulking thing barely fit inside the hallway, but its many legs allowed it to move with surprising speed. The sound Ethan had heard was it crushing the drone he’d injured a moment ago as it charged after him. Worst of all, the monster was gaining on him.

  “All right, eat this, you metal freak!” Ethan yelled as he pulled a javelin from the quiver on his back.

  There was little point to being quiet now, so Ethan grinned as he chucked the explosive projectile right at the spider drone. The crystal spear flew through the air and sliced into the metal spider’s shoulder. It then exploded with a bang that rattled the walls. As Ethan spun around to continue running, a wave of air hit his back, pushing him forward and giving him a boost of speed.

  “What was that? Did something just explode?” Michael asked over team speak. Apparently, sound carried over long distances in these underground passages.

  “Yes, I may have accidentally triggered an alarm, and there might be a swarm of robots ch
asing me,” Ethan explained as he ran down another hallway. His attack seemed to have stopped the spiderbot for now.

  Michael sighed in exasperation. “I can’t say I didn’t expect this. I thought one of you two would trigger something. That’s why I remained behind.”

  “Got any advice for me?” Ethan asked hopefully.

  “Don’t get caught.”

  “Anything else? Losing these guys seems hard.”

  “Find somewhere to hide until the heat dies down, preferably far from here. A few hours ought to do it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Michael replied sternly.

  “All right, I’ll see what I can do,” Ethan responded and focused on running again.

  He needed to avoid the cameras for a while so that the drones wouldn’t know where he was. He’d been ignoring them while he ran, but that had probably been a mistake.

  Up ahead, three humanoid bots ran around a corner and headed straight for Ethan, so he quickly swerved into a side passage to avoid them. A moment later, he noticed a large vent at the base of a wall up ahead. Glancing around and activating his scanner, he didn’t see any cameras or drones in sight. That meant he was probably unobserved. Ethan shoved his cloak in his inventory, dove for the vent, and pulled out his blade. Moving swiftly, he used the blade to pry the vent cover off and then slipped inside the vent feet first. Thankfully, he was then able to pull the grate back on.

  As droids ran past, Ethan carefully shimmied deeper into the tight vent. He had his helmet light on a very weak setting, so it didn’t give him away, but he needed to be able see. The vent itself might be trapped or full of vertical shafts.

  Ethan failed to find any cameras or traps, although he did find another grate. Turning off his light, Ethan peered through it and saw a dark room. Cautiously, he waited a few minutes before moving, but he didn’t hear or sense movement within the room, so he began removing the grate. When it was loose, he let it drop a bit and stuck his head out. Then, he scanned the room for cameras. It was only when he was sure he was safe that he reactivated his light and climbed out of the vent.