Gun Blade

by Rick Scott

  The spam is so furious I can barely keep up with it on my HUD.

  You hit the Overlord for 324 damage!

  You hit the Overlord for 348 damage!

  You cast Shadow Darkness!

  Critical Hit!

  You hit the Overlord for 614 damage!

  Overlord gains the effect of Shadow Darkness!

  You hit the Overlord for 336 damage!

  You cast Shadow Mist!

  Critical Hit!

  You hit the Overlord for 584 damage!

  Critical Hit!

  You hit the Overlord for 602 damage!

  Overlord resists the Paralyze!

  You hit the Overlord for 327 damage!

  Overlord is immune to Poison!

  You hit the Overlord for 355 damage!

  Overlord is slowed!

  It happens in all of two seconds, and I’m bleeding both TP and Stamina by the time the burst is over, but Gilly’s regen spells keep me in the green. The giant android unfreezes but I don’t let up on my assault and begin dodging between my hits instead of casting.

  The huge blades come at me fast and furious despite the slow effect and I can see now why people avoid fighting these things at all costs. But not me. Not today. I keep the pressure on, watching my HP slowly drain from the poison effect, but its hitpoints are dropping quickly as well. Down to 70% already.

  60%...50%...40%. I keep it going.

  Then finally I see the message I’ve been waiting for.

  Overlord uses Cyclone!

  I hit Retreat and blur with a ghostly afterimage as I backflip through the continuous attack. I land about thirty feet away and am immediately sucked in by the vortex.

  You are drawn in!

  But I go with it this time, dashing forward with the moment.

  Come on…

  The gem on its chest starts to glow and I ready my spell to counter it.

  Overlord uses Pulse Wave!

  You cast Shadow Copy!

  You gain the effect of Shadow Copy!

  The brilliant ring of white-hot energy slams into me again with less than a millisecond to spare, blasting my body into nano-dust.

  Your shadow absorbs the attack!

  I press on mid-flight, accelerating with a Charge Strike, aiming for the still-glowing gem. My kunai slams into it with a brilliant spark and a sound like shattering crystal.

  Supercritical Hit!

  Overlord takes 897(378) damage!

  Overlord is stunned!

  Overlord is incapacitated!

  The permissive for my Backstab goes active as the Overlord slumps forward like it’s just had a heart attack—its cracked gem fading and flickering. I waste no time and Sprint towards the giant, running up its smoldering body with Wall Run. I leap off its horn-helmet head and sail upwards with the momentum of my Sprint. I perform a zero-G somersault at the height of my ascent, going into slow motion as I pull my arm back with a Backstab-infused Charged Attack.

  I take aim at the Overlord’s gem as gravity takes hold once more.

  I time the release of my hit with my rapid descent and feel the massively satisfying whack! of a Plunging Attack modifier kick in as my kunai shatters the gem into a million pieces.

  Smash!

  Critical Hit!

  You Backstab the Overlord for 8745(854) damage!

  You defeated the Overlord!

  You gain 115000 experience points!

  My stats blast to full as a glowing halo of white light surrounds me.

  Congratulations! You have gained a Veteran Point!

  Congratulations! You have earned a new title: Overlord Undertaker.

  The overlord’s body falls to pieces and I absorb the parts as they hit the ground, collapsing them into nano-dust.

  You find 6 nano-crystals

  You find a memory fragment

  You find £1000

  The air burns with a deathly silence and I look behind me to see most of the crowd now returned. No one speaks, their faces a shared expression of deadpanned disbelief. Even my friends look at me like I’m an alien, like I’ve just done the impossible.

  But it didn’t feel that extraordinary to me.

  Lexi throws two fists into the air and lets out a yell. “Bloody right! Young Lords forever, you punters! All hail, Reece!”

  Immediately the rest of the faction cries out my name in hollers and cheers.

  “Reece! Reece! Reece!”

  “Did you see that?!”

  “He did it! He bloody did it!”

  “Way to go, Reece!”

  “Who’s that again?”

  The rest of the crowd joins in and they all rush down the slope of the dune towards me, yelling with shouts of astonishment. I must get a million PMs in under a second.

  Wally: Teach me how to do that, mate.

  Rex: Is that Ninja-only?

  JennyG: How did you attack so fast? Is it magic?

  I’m overwhelmed for a second, until I realize that this is perhaps the first time any of them have seen or even heard of Shadow Copy. The slaps on the back come fast and furious and I’m reminded of the time I beat the Legendary Monster Sheeba in the Yughatha Jungle back in the Shards.

  Someone grips me around my neck in a headlock and I nearly punch them until I realize it’s my brother, Maxis. “Holy crap, Bro! How the heck did you do that?”

  My friends now surround me, Gilly giving me a great big hug. “You were amazing, Reece! Holy cow!”

  Even Aiko boldly leans in to give me a smooch on my cheek, right in front of Gilly. “I think you’ve just become my new hero.”

  What the…?

  Rembrandt nods at me with a thumbs up. “Never doubted you for a second, mate.”

  Val Helena ruffles my hair and then gives me a great big squeeze from behind, lifting me off my feet. “Now I remember why I put all my cards on you. You’re freaking amazing, Reece. Amazing!”

  “I still want to know how you did that,” Maxis says, looking at me with an awe I’ve never seen from him before. “Seriously. How did you do that, man?”

  What the heck? Why are even my friends freaking out over this? “It had a weak spot, I guess. That gem. Hitting it really did a number on it.”

  “Not that,” Maxis says. “I mean, how the hell did you animation cancel…in the real world?”

  I suddenly feel like a noob again. “Animation cancel?”

  Maxis throws his hands up in the air, exasperated. “Freakin’ typical. He breaks the game again and doesn’t even realize it. Geez!”

  But he’s still smiling and shaking his head.

  “I saw it too,” Aiko says, grinning at me, staring with a desirous look in her eyes that almost makes me feel uncomfortable. “I didn’t think it was possible out here either. But you did it.”

  Now they really have me perplexed. Did I just unlock something new? “Can you guys explain what you’re—?”

  “In the Shards,” Maxis says, cutting me off, “because it’s all virtual, it’s possible to interrupt an action with another action if you’re fast enough and time it right. You basically cancel the full movement of the first action while still gaining the effect and performing the other. Essentially you can perform two or more actions near simultaneously.”

  “But that’s only in the Shards,” Aiko says. “You did it here. In a nano-body. In the real world. As for how? I don’t know.”

  The people within earshot go quiet again, perhaps not all of them realizing what I apparently just pulled off. Heck, even I didn’t! They all stare expectantly at me for some kind of explanation. But I don’t really have one. Maybe it was the ring? Or maybe I was just fired up after seeing that monster. Or maybe a combination of the two.

  I shrug and try not to look too smug about it. “I just focused on fitting all my spells and dodges in between my attacks.”

  “My god…” Aiko throws her head back with one of her gleeful cackles. “You didn’t even realize how fast you killed it, did you?” she says. “You must have doubled or tri
pled your DPS just now.”

  I think back and it did seem to go down somewhat quickly. I never even had to worry about the poison from the ring killing me.

  Maxis shakes his head at me. still smiling. “You’re teaching me how to do that, man. You know how long I’ve been trying?”

  Another round of applause and cheers go up as a mini-celebration ensues.

  I look back up to the top of the dune and see Queen Angela and Lance looking on. The bioroid actually gives me a nod of appreciation, perhaps the equivalent of a standing ovation in his mind.

  Queen Angela however, offers me a warm smile and gives a little bow of respect, before climbing behind the wheel of her convertible and powering off into the desert, along with Lance. I’m left speechless amidst the commotion and new-found notoriety surrounding me, but eventually I let myself join in the reverie somewhat. I still have a very long way to go, in my mind—despite what I’ve just achieved.

  That Overlord was worth just over 100k XP. And I’ll need millions to unlock all the powers and slots that I’ll need to face the Gun Queen. Still, a victory is a victory and the sense of accomplishment and confidence that runs through me emboldens me as I engage with the crowd.

  Between countless bro hugs and high fives, I notice a lone figure standing atop a van at the top of the dune. His body is nearly as big as the Overlord and with its gleaming chrome exterior, there’s no question as to who it is.

  Hushed whispers runs through the crowd as several others spot him as well.

  A few run in panic, perhaps fearing an attack. The massive android locks eyes with me and my blood runs cold as a broad smile spreads across his face, revealing his blackened gums and leaden teeth.

  Slowly Lord Kurgan puts his hands together in a slow and deliberate clap, but I can’t tell if it’s genuine or if he’s just mocking me.

  I get a PM, but it still doesn’t confirm it one way or the other.

  Kurgan: Not bad, boy. Add a parasitic life drain to that set-up and you might even have a shot at beating me. Just maybe.

  I wait to see if the Ronin will say anything else, but he merely smiles at me again. Then, with a blast of his jump jets, he takes off like an Omega, soaring high into the air and vanishes from sight.

  Chapter 30: Escalation

  “I’m telling you the truth,” Martha Kirkwood said emphatically. “The brute had a gun!”

  Bruce buried his face in his clasped hands as he released a sigh. The rest of the board members had similar reactions. Alarm for most of them, but Bruce watched the reaction of Dennis most of all. To his surprise, he didn’t react with alarm either, but neither did he give off any impression that he knew about the situation beforehand. Whether that was him concealing or simply being flippant about the matter was yet to be seen, but he wasn’t hamming up the situation like someone who was instigating an outcome either.

  But that wasn’t surprising. This had Novak written all over it.

  “Are you certain?” Dennis said, narrowing his eyes. “The protocols to create a lethal projectile weapon are quite impossible to replicate.”

  “He pointed it at my face, Dennis!” Martha shouted, nearly in tears. “He was going to kill me with it!”

  Damn that punk. It’d been less than five days since his run-in with him in the air scrubber room with Gina. Bruce had hedged his bets and provided a security detail of four people for her while she worked, wary that Novak would try to intimidate her again. But he should have been looking in the other direction. Novak had come to Bruce first, but now that that door was closed, he was leveraging the weaker members of the board against him: putting pressure on him from the inside as well as out.

  It was a good plan too. Assuming he’d actually used intelligence rather than brutal instinct. Either way the result was the same, Bruce was now stuck in a jam. He’d either have to play dumb and pretend like this was new information to him, or reveal to the board that he already knew about it all along.

  This kind of tactic was Dennis-worthy.

  Bruce eyed the carrot-topped software engineer from across the table, his stomach churning. There it was…an enemy AI right in their midst. Or whatever the heck he truly was. And darn if this wouldn’t have been the perfect time to blow it all wide open. To reveal this whole gun deal was set up by him and expose him for what he was.

  But Bruce had nothing.

  Carl hadn’t uncovered anything more pertinent from his surveillance and Gina was still zeroing in on the gun factory. But there was nothing connecting the both of them. At least nothing obvious. Perhaps it was coincidence. Or his own internal obsession with Dennis, skewing his objectivity, but there was no longer any time to see whether the two would pan out or not.

  Novak had upped the ante and the schedule.

  And Bruce needed to act now.

  “You’re wrong about the protocols,” Bruce said.

  The atmosphere in the room grew heavy and silent as all eyes turned to him.

  Bruce was never one to go the route of subterfuge if he could avoid it. The coward’s path, he considered it. He needed to confront this head-on…consequences be damned.

  “There are ways to create weapons without them,” Bruce continued. “And I believe what Martha is saying, because the scumbag did it to me too.”

  “Are you serious?” Evelyn, the Chief Medical Officer, looked more furious than concerned. “Who?”

  “Victor Novak,” Bruce said, spitting out the name like it tasted bad. “Leader of the Citadel Kings.”

  “What?” Evelyn said and then her eyes turned dark. “Why the hell didn’t you say something before now? This is a major breach of—!”

  “Because I didn’t have a solution until now!” he fired back. His credibility and their trust in him was on the line, and he needed to act quickly to salvage both. “And I wasn’t sure if someone at this table might not have been involved…”

  He let his words hang in the air as it chilled cold as ice. It was a risky move, one that would either alienate him as their leader or demonstrate that his leadership went well beyond the board room, even as far as to suspect one of their own for the good of the city. He made a point not to look at Dennis, but the software engineer already knew where the logic led.

  “So you suspected me?” Dennis said coolly.

  Damn right I did, Bruce thought, but his words couldn’t afford to be so blunt, especially without evidence. “As you said, the protocols are not replicable. Which means that either someone supplied them… or someone created a work-around.”

  Dennis grimaced and for the first time, Bruce could sense open hostility from him. Good, show your true colors, you monsters. “Luckily for you, Dennis.” Bruce turned away from him. “A work-around seems to be more probable.”

  “What are you two saying?” Bob, the head of finance, looked back and forth between the two of them. “Someone has hacked our system?”

  “Yes and no,” Bruce said and then paused to gauge the atmosphere. It’d worked. They were still open, hanging on his words without hostility, perhaps reassured that his omission had a purpose and that he was also armed with a plan. Thank God for you, Gina. I wouldn’t have one without you. “I believe someone used a unique method to get around our system, but the system itself is intact. One of my specialists is working on finding the source of the gun, or guns, now. For security reasons, I can’t go into any further details than that.”

  “What security reasons?” Martha said. “I had a gun to my head, Bruce! If you’d said something soon—”

  “I had one to my head too, okay?!” he cut her off. “Look, I get it. This is shocking for all of us. And I’m not sure if Novak shared the rest of his plan with you or not, Martha, but from what I’ve uncovered thus far, he’s not the one behind this. Did he give you his ultimatum?”

  The older woman stared back at him blankly. “What ultimatum?”

  Bruce snorted. Another chess move. “Well he gave me one.” No sense keeping it covered anymore. “He offered to take care
of the problem for us, if we gave him access to weapons.”

  Bob laughed caustically. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “It’s not without merit, you know?”

  Everyone paused at Dennis’ statement.

  Here we go… is this the real you now, Dennis?

  “What do you mean?” Evelyn said.

  “It’s not like we don’t already use them as a de facto peacekeeping force down in the hub,” Dennis said. “You of all people should know this, Evelyn. Don’t you advocate for those people?”

  “Pipes and sticks to chase away muggers and burglars is one thing,” Evelyn said. “I don’t trust anyone with a gun.”

  “Well unless Bruce’s secret plan works out,” Dennis said with a grin, “we may be forced to take a vote on it. Or we can always just go with my plan and retreat to the Shards while the savages slaughter each other.”

  He let out a callous, haughty laugh that turned Bruce’s stomach immediately. He played it off as a joke, but the usual passive-aggressiveness was in high gear.

  The Devil take him…was this the true reveal?

  Was Dennis orchestrating all this from afar—to worsen the situation in the hub enough to present his original idea as salvation again? Or was he merely an opportunist…a carrion feeder, circling high above, sizing up his meal before they were all even dead.

  Bruce tightened his jaw and refrained from reacting too disgustedly, for fear of revealing the extent of his own hand. Let’s see how far you’re willing to take this, Mr. AI. “We’ll cross that bridge, if and when we get there. But for now we have a solution.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Dennis said, smiling. “I’m sure the rest of the board members would rather not have to choose between putting a gun in a maniac’s hand and having one pointed at their head.”

  Chapter 31: Gilly’s Gift

  Wind blasts my face like a hurricane as I crest the rise, my left foot toeing the gear selector into top gear. The engine upshifts with a high-pitched whine, the exhaust note blaring as the induction turbine screams at 13000 rpm.