Lair

by Carl Stubblefield

  Gus triggered a Basic Flight and jumped to clear the turrets, interposing himself between the eight Mantids approaching from the rear. This many opponents was a different level of challenge, and more than once his new armor stopped a stray talon that made it past his defenses. Gus was a blur of motion, but he had definitely shifted to the defensive. The turrets were tasked to only attack the area in front of them, and Gus’ attention was so focused he couldn’t access the controls to widen the kill zone.

  “Nick! Adjust the second row of turrets to attack this direction!” Gus grunted as he turned a parry into a riposte as his attacker became open.

  Hero by The Verve Pipe. Success Rates x 6. Damage increased.

  The Mantids were definitely fighting with much more coordination. It was all he could do to maintain attacking, blocking and retreating without letting the Mantids chase him away from the turrets. They fell back as three of the turrets rotated and began peppering them with projectiles. While they were distracted, Gus tried one of his new abilities. He hurried to activate Wrecks and Parks. One of the Mantids froze in the air, reminding Gus of a Matrix scene, with it suspended in an attack pose.

  The ability was cheap and apparently had no cooldown so he ‘parked’ three more Mantids. The turrets shredded them to pieces as they were hanging there. He noticed a blue pulse flicker above him when firing Wrecks and Parks. He looked up and saw one of the blue creatures that resembled a poop emoji with too many eyes wedged in the nook of a tree. The stupid thing was directing the other Mantids and could sense his powers, the little jerk!

  Gus would get to it later. With the herd thinned, he was able to take out two of the remaining attackers. They viciously protected their frozen allies, apparently unaware that they were dead. Or maybe they did and wanted to have the brains readily available to boost any lost HP.

  Another chain combo later, the two active Mantids were down, and Gus attacked one of the remaining frozen ones, lopping off its head. Grinning evilly, Gus threw the severed head at the little blue Peeping Tom. Direct hit! With no appendages, it couldn’t dodge or move out of the way and it was pushed off of its roost. The squelch as it hit the ground and popped was very satisfying.

  Berzerk by Eminem. Success Rates x 24. Damage increased.

  Turning around, Gus was shocked to see the carnage that had been delivered while his back was turned. Zombies crawled over piles of bodies, only to become part of the growing mountain as they were picked off by the turrets. The Mantids were better at dodging, but it was difficult for them to dodge every turret. Some stopped to crack open the skulls of fallen Dark Nth and gorged on the neural tissue inside.

  Gus wasn’t sure if it was some form of psychological warfare tactic, but man… it was incredibly unsettling. The growing pile of bodies allowed the Mantids a higher ground advantage, and Gus moved between the two rows of turrets and sliced at the creatures as they leaped toward him. It was difficult to score kill shots from this angle, but he saw that if he could at least wing them sufficiently, the turrets would do the rest since the Mantids could not flee and their unnatural speed was curtailed by a significant enough wound.

  Mr. Hurricane by Beast. Success Rates x 120. Damage increased. Recovery accelerated.

  Gus wanted to try firing T-Wrecks but he had dipped below 100 MP. He would have liked to see a large dinosaur tear through this mass of enemies. He felt his stamina waning after what felt like constant fighting. It wasn’t like the movies, where one guy held off hundreds of ninja warriors, polite enough to attack one at a time. Fighting multiple creatures at a time was tiring! The minimap was swathed in color far down the path. What is happening?

  He retreated behind the turrets to catch his breath. Gus noticed that the green, blue and red bars were refilling at an accelerated rate. He wondered if the labs in the manor could develop some kind of stamina, MP, or HP potion analog. No use in getting distracted about it now, but man, it would have made a big difference.

  On and on they came, throwing themselves forward, mostly Shamblers now, sacrificing themselves to the turrets. Probably to soak up all the bullets and leave the way clear for the more effective soldiers in the zombie army. Gus wondered why, if they always had this many Dark Nth, they didn’t attack all at once.

  Before he could work out an answer, all of a sudden, the horde retreated a bit, keeping behind the barrier of bodies, unreachable by the turrets. Even the Mantids in the trees jumped down and hid behind the large mound. Gus did not like what was happening and retreated a bit, unsure what was planned next.

  From what Gus could see of the crowd of Dark Nth, they parted to the sides of the path to make way for something. It didn’t take long to find out what. Large creatures, riddled with muscles, stepped forward through the breach. Their shoulder muscles were grotesquely large and extended up to the sides of their heads, making their whole frame adopt a chevron shape.

  “Were those shoulder or neck muscles? How did they even develop like that?” Gus wondered.

  Bands of sinew and muscle shone through in torn patches where their growth overtook the skin’s capacity to hold it, and Gus could see the tell-tale iridescence of Nth-embedded tissue when the light caught it just right. Gus dashed and triggered Slide, gliding quickly toward the huge creature; he chopped upward with the naginata as he got next to it, but instead of the blade slicing neatly through, it was like chopping into a piece of wood. The blade stuck in place.

  A huge hand grasped him at his upper back, holding him like a cat by the scruff. Pulling him upward, the giant muscled creature looked at Gus, and he saw a huge dinner plate sized fist punch him square in the face, just as Gus activated Dodge. It mitigated some of the damage, but he still absorbed the majority of the force, and it rocked his head as he flew backward.

  Darkness set in and Gus was bobbing in and out of consciousness. He began to hear shots, first sporadic as his awareness faded in and out, then more continuous. Gus struggled to regain his senses, but it felt like he was at the bottom of a very deep swimming pool, struggling to swim upward. He would make some progress then would nod off, sinking back into the deep.

  Shaking himself to action and struggling to regain his full senses, almost swooning into total unconsciousness. Finally, Gus managed to break through. Opening his eyes and gasping, Gus saw that he lay crumpled amid the turrets. The turrets fired constantly, burning through their ammunition and targeting multiple zombies. Had they not been there, Gus would have been overrun. He noticed with horror that no music was playing. He had lost his song-chain with the hit, and all of its buffs with it.

  The turrets were extremely efficient, and the bodies of two of the huge hulks were lying there, large holes chewed through the head and shoulders. Other Shamblers had formed a mound that deflected the other zombies toward the sides. These mounds were starting to get bulldozed away by a second wave of the Juggernauts.

  One behemoth pushed forward; its tiny eyes puckered by the bulges of muscle surrounding it. The stare bored into Gus, ordering him to stay there and die. Gus crab-walked backward, slipping and scuttling between the remaining turrets, trying to escape. The large creature interposed its arms in front of its face, forearms acting as literal meat shields, and the turret fire ricocheted off or thudded into them, doing no real damage. A large backhand launched one of the turrets into another before flying off into the jungle.

  Gus activated Wreck-luse, and the Juggernaut let out a huge bellow. For a second, Gus thought it was a critical failure, but the creature did an about face and barreled through the other creatures, back up the path. All the remaining zombies made way for its wild retreat, with only a few Shamblers too slow to get out of the way and getting flung to the side of the trail as they were tackled by their teammate. A furrow appeared as the zombie plowed through the carnage, rapidly filled with other assorted zombies.

  Gus saw his naginata lying there, just a couple feet in front of the turrets, sticking out from underneath a fallen Juggernaut. With the distraction of the fleeing Juggernaut
, Gus had just enough time to run forward and grab ahold of the weapon. It took a couple good pulls, all the while another one of the hulks bore down on him, with outstretched hands ready to grab and crush him, or pull him in two. Finally, he pulled it out, his momentum spilling him backward ass over teakettle.

  The Dark Nth were close now and as Gus lay on his back, he heard the turrets start to sputter. Whether from running out of ammo or being overwhelmed by the sheer press of bodies, the sound made him panic. The heady scent of rotting flesh made his stomach roil as they came closer and closer. Gus jumped to his feet and swung the naginata around him, trying to make some space from the encircling horde. Wreck-tums triggered again and Gus pushed his way out of the gang of zombies in the direction of the weakened opponent, and broke through to freedom. From there he dashed away, not stopping until his stamina and MP were in the red and he was far away.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My Own Worst Enemy

  Day 9 9:39 AM

  1:15:31 remaining

  Gus made it to the edge of the clearing, dodging trees in his reckless flight from the zombies. After a bit, he checked his minimap and saw that he was no longer being pursued. He finally allowed himself to stop and collapsed on the ground, his stamina bar exhausted. Just like his very first battle on the island, once he was out of the way, the zombies marched to their goal. Checking his minimap, he saw that the yellow, orange and red dots had continued to pour out of the forest and were everywhere. A pop-up on his display showed that all of his turrets were out of ammunition or inoperable. There was nothing to stop them.

  The horde appeared to be congregating near the front entry in a more and more concentrated mass. With so many zombies milling about he would not be able to enter the manor again, and even if he kited them away bit by bit, he doubted he could clear enough of them to get in before the volcano erupted. If Gus never saw another countdown again it would be too soon.

  The sheer quantities of mobs made him wonder how there could be so many. There were a couple hundred zombies of different types, probably much more than that, counting those that continued to trickle out of the forest.

  Feeling discouraged at his failure, it weighed heavily on him. Then it hit him almost as a wave and he slumped to the ground, leaning back against a tree. How could he have ever thought that he could take on such a teeming mass of deadly creatures? Why did he let himself hope that this time would be different? He felt a familiar despair seep into his core, sapping his hope and motivation. It was like the color was draining out of his world. He cupped his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes as he contemplated what had happened. His father’s words haunted him: Never engage a superior force…

  Even with the Nth, he was still Gus, and somehow life seemed to find a way to ruin things. Couldn’t fate finally give him a break? It was so much crueler to dangle the potential of having powers and the manor’s capabilities in front of him and, just when he felt he was getting a handle on things, snatch them away. Different emotions battled within him; anger, despair, and sadness, swirling around like waves tossed in a storm. Sadness prevailed though, and Gus could feel the depression swallow him.

  They were right. All the people who didn’t believe in him were right all along. He had overreached his station. He didn’t have what it took to get rid of the Dark Nth and escape the island. The corrupted Nth would eventually find a way in and infect the A.I. and system there. After that, who knew? Turn off the bio-stasis field and infect the world? Gus found it harder to care about the future. Maybe it was for the best that the volcano was going to go off, at least it might prevent the Dark Nth from leaving the island.

  “Gus, what are you going to do?” Nick asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. It probably doesn’t even matter now; I blew it. Just another failure in the life of Gus T. Vannett! I can’t get into the manor anymore with all those zombies in the way, but I guess none of that matters because pretty soon the volcano will do its thing and we’ll all be dead.”

  “So that’s it, you’re done?”

  “Might as well be. My father called it. I really am a failure. He must have seen it in me, and I stubbornly refused to believe it. I don’t know why, after having so many examples of it blatantly shoved in my face. I really, really, wanted him to be wrong. To come back and show him, ‘See? All those years you doubted and underestimated me. No matter how you have chosen to see me, I don’t accept your judgment and pity.’”

  “Wow. Ok, Gus, I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you to suck it up. But think about how I see things. I’ve always been an outcast. And I’m great with that. Sometimes I don’t play well with others, but I walk my own path—” Nick started to say.

  “Yeah, but you do realize that you’re not really—” Gus interjected.

  “Let me finish! I’m not as patient as the old man, so I’m going to tell you how it is.

  “Do you realize how we Nth see things? This construct frames my whole reality, all thanks to you. I am acutely aware of everything that has been recorded about this construct, and it is boiled down into little old me. It IS my reality. But let’s talk about you for a moment. Who are you, Gus? Are you a good guy? A bad guy? An anti-hero? Who are you going to be when everything shakes down?”

  “Obviously, I’m good—”

  “That remains to be seen. It doesn’t matter how powerful you get, Gus, life scales in difficulty to match your abilities. Whether you are a super or a reg. There’s never going to be a magic time when everything is easy and happy. There’s always going to be something or someone to blame for your troubles, too. One of my primary purposes and drives is to help you succeed. Are you a quitter?”

  Gus pursed his lips closed, not wanting to hear this. Not now. He woodenly shook his head no.

  “This way you deal with problems is not helping you at all. Running from difficult things never allows you to get past them. Life has a funny way of providing you a different way to learn a lesson if you refuse to learn it the first time. So doesn’t it make more sense in the long run to not just endure your struggles but overcome them?”

  “How long do I have to maintain these futile efforts? I’m doubting that I have what it takes to be a super. Even after all I’ve been through, I’ve essentially accomplished nothing,” Gus said dejectedly.

  “You like to think that you’re unique in your suffering, but whether you have an interface or not, you need to ‘level up’ in life. Especially when you don’t get positive feedback like XP. More often than not, you’ll find that the harder you try to do something good and worthwhile, people will criticize you and curse your name. It’s not fair, but people rarely get what they deserve—good or bad. That’s why you have to step up, my friend. You can make the difference. But you have to change your perspective. It’s all wrong. If you’re ‘obviously’ a good guy, that’s what you’ve signed up for, warts and all.”

  “Yeah, but—” Gus tried to argue, but Nick forged on.

  “Have you ever stopped to think you’re not entitled to succeed at everything you do? That’s not how things work in the real world. Even with your luck stat being so high. It’s probably more of a danger to you now in your current pessimistic state than you can possibly know.

  “YOU are your own worst enemy. Not your dad, not the system, not anyone. You influence the course of your life by the choices you make. I know part of you doesn’t want to accept that, but it is true. You have to stop blaming people, fate, or anyone else for your situation. It’s stunting your progress. That is what we Nth have found to make all sentient creatures their happiest. When they are progressing in a path they have chosen.”

  Gus slumped at the tirade. “Nick, I’m tired of being blamed for all the bad things in the world as if they happened because of me. Regardless of how you say luck works. It’s hard to rebound after being smacked down time and again.” Gus spat.

  “I wish there was a stat for willpower or grit. Something that was measurable that humans could work on to level and
improve. That’s what seems to separate those who succeed from the ‘also-rans.’ Don’t quit now because you’ve encountered an obstacle, however insurmountable you currently think it to be. Adapt. Evolve. Overcome. Find your potential and surpass even that. I am on your side.” Nick emphasized the last sentence with a gravity out of character for him. This iteration of him, at least.

  Gus sat there silently. Nick had kicked out the crutches he had used for so long, and hit him hard with a truth bomb. He couldn’t even come up with a valid comeback; all his justifications and excuses seemed hollow and weak. He had not really made any plans as to what he would do if he got back to civilization, other than a vague ‘I’ll show them all!’

  The pressing nature of multiple crises was enough to occupy his whole thought process when he wasn’t striving to level some skill, mostly for the thrill of leveling, not to become someone who could actually do something for the world. But isn’t that what he always did? Ignore his problems, especially ones involving his inner feelings, when things became too intense. Find a distraction, and use it as a coping mechanism. He resolved to make some changes as Nick finished.

  “Figure out who you really are, and what you aspire to be. Forget all your issues, whatever they may be. They occupy far too much of your self-concept, and perceived value. Every species the Nth has ever worked with have family drama. It is universal in any social creature. Are you going to step up and do something about it? Are you a whiner or a winner? A victim or a victor? How much time have you wasted by doing something you didn’t really like, with the hope that someone would think differently of you?” Nick exacted, the question not a rhetorical one by his tone.