Glitch Boxset

by Victor Deckard

  Although we had shy of twenty minutes left before night fell, we already took up our respective positions. I walked over to the nearest window and peered into the long thin opening cut in the metal plate. Moonlight illuminated the deserted streets. All was peaceful and quiet. The calm before the storm, all right.

  I took a step from the window and looked back. Stan was standing a little way away from me at another window, staring out, his body tense. His usual grin was absent now. The same goes for Guard. He looked as solemn as ever. The game challenged the guys and they were eager to beat it.

  As for Melissa, the girl didn’t look serious one bit. She couldn’t help smiling. With delight shining in her eyes, the girl darted from one window to another on end. She seemed to be so eager for night to fall. She just couldn’t wait. Unlike the guys, Melissa didn’t take it seriously. Seemed as though she wasn’t even interested in getting through the night. She played purely for having fun.

  I noticed the other two guys cast the girl disapproving glances every so often. Perhaps, seeing how noncommittal she was about whether we would be able to survive made them regret admitting her to the group.

  I looked Stan and Guard’s way once more. I liked the guys. Perhaps I should tell them about me having been trapped in the game. They might reach out to the developers to tip them off about me. Still, I decided not bother them with my troubles at the moment since they were fully concentrated on the task at hand.

  More to the point, I didn’t know how they’d react to my story. That player, Crayne, had been quite amiable until I told him my story. On hearing it, he completely lost it and even threatened to off me if I didn’t cut the crap.

  On the other hand, I doubted that Stan and Guard would flip out over my story. They seemed to be really nice guys. So I decided to tell them everything after we got through the night.

  That is, if we got through the night.

  Another message turned up in the log.

  > Warning! The night will fall in 10 minutes!

  I saw a glimpse of some object dart past the building, flooding the street with purple light for a couple of seconds.

  “Look,” Stan uttered. “Those flying things have shown up. It’s not long before the first wave begins.”

  “Yeah,” Guard agreed.

  I looked in the direction the object had disappeared and saw a beam of purple light shot up into the sky.

  “What’s that?” I inquired.

  “Not a clue,” Stan responded. “Those things fly out of the space station and spread out around the city. Guess those things then land somewhere and direct purple spotlights up in the sky for whatever reason.”

  “Not purple, but lilac” Melissa cut in.

  “Whatever,” Stan dismissed her remark.

  “I wonder what it’s for,” I beckoned to the purple shaft. “Have you tried to drop by one of those purple beams?”

  “What am I, a nut?” Stan chuckled. “But anyway, of all people I talked to in the game, none has checked those beams out yet. Each of them holds their own opinion about the beams though. Some figure that the beams indicate safe zones, others consider them to be some kind of teleports. Still, none of them can tell for certain what the beams actually do.”

  “What about you?” Guard wanted to know. “What do you make of it?”

  “Perhaps, one might be teleported to the alien space station if they approaches one of the beams,” Stan replied with a deadpan expression on his face. Then he smirked and added, “Just joking. Guess the space station’s just some kind of embellishment. I don’t think one might actually get up there.”

  “The alien space station?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Didn’t you see it yet? Regardless of what time it is, the space station is always clearly visible. Unless the sky’s clouded over, I mean. You can see it now if you get outside.”

  “You better not,” Guard cut in. “Let’s not take any chances.”

  “I sure saw it last night, but I don’t know nothing about aliens,” I said.

  “There’s the History of the World in the Encyclopedia. You didn’t peruse it, did you?”

  “No. Is it worth it?”

  Before Stan had a chance to reply, Guard said, “No. The game doesn’t have the main quest yet. So what’s the point in examining all that information?”

  “I didn’t read it either,” Melissa barged in on us, seemingly very pleased with herself for not reading the Encyclopedia.

  “What’s wrong with you, guys?” Stan reproved us. “It’s far more interesting to play a game if you know the history of a game world and all. There’s even a hint at the reason why there’re so many monsters around at night, from the game world’s point of view. More to the point, the developers are going to add the main quest to the game and––”

  A message popped up.

  > Warning! The night has just fallen!

  Stan instantly shut up and got very serious. His grip on the “purple” Predator I’d given him tightening, Stan peered out the window he stood at. Guard followed suit, drawing his weapon and peering into the thin opening in the nearby window.

  Even Melissa was no longer leaping from one window to another and prepared herself. I pulled both my pistols from their respective holsters and braced myself.

  It was quiet for another few moments and then all hell broke loose.

  Chapter eight

  We successfully held the line for the two first waves. We stood our ground, gunning down the swarm of monsters in the street. None of them was able to break into the house. They clawed and snapped at the armored windows, but they failed to break it apart thus far. Nevertheless, I was certain that everything might change yet.

  In the time between each wave Guard and Stan would repair armored windows as Melissa and myself gathered up ammo and stimulators, which we shared between all of us.

  The third wave was noticeably harder. There were much more mobs in the street. Moreover, a new kind of monsters appeared. This mutant stood about six feet high. It was swelled-out and covered with numerous sores that oozed thick yellowish pus. Also, the nasty nauseating mutant had no arms. Two long thin appendages, which passed for legs, slowly carried the vile creature in the direction of the building. From somewhere inside the monster was coming weird greenish illumination.

  When the mob was close enough to the building, I saw its stats appear in my HUD.

  > Name: Boomer

  > Level: 7

  > Health: 1075/1075

  The closer the boomer got to the house the brighter was its illumination. I had a gut feeling that something was wrong. The obnoxious mod had to be dealt with ASAP. Both my pistols spat flames, bullets ripping into the creature’s sore flesh with nauseating wet sounds, blood and pus splattering the blacktop. The monster took little damage.

  My bullets detracted only ten points each from the mob’s HP although the damage attribute of both Screamer pistols amounted to sixty. Even considering the high-velocity bullets my pistols were loaded with reduced the overall damage by twenty-five points, the Screamers still had to deal more damage, namely thirty-five points, than they did.

  The rounds lodged themselves into the rotten flesh of the boomer, but the bullet wounds quickly healed over and the mob’s HP replenished. I fired away at the mutant, trying to figure out a way of croaking the ugly. How could I take out the monster if it was constantly regenerating its HP?

  Then I saw something like a blister bloat on the boomer’s overweighed body. I lined my iron sights up on the blister. I heisted for a second or so and then put pressure on the trigger. After a few rounds penetrated the blister, it burst open as blood and pus gushed, strips of ragged flesh dangling from it. The creature’s HP got reduced by as many as two hundred points at once and its health was no longer restoring itself.

  More blisters swelled out across the mutant’s body every so often. Once it happened, I fired a burst on a blister, demolishing it. The boomer kept advancing on the bu
ilding. By the time it reached within a couple of yards of the house, the mob had only one hundred or so health points left. As I waited for another blister to swell out, the boomer made it to the building and stopped.

  The greenish illumination was getting brighter by a second. It soon was so brilliant I couldn’t look at it without squinting anymore. Then a sudden flash lit up everything within a distance of a couple of yards and the mutant blew off, spraying the blacktop and walls with pieces of its ragged flesh and pungent sticky substance.

  This substance spattered the metal plates on the nearby windows. Metal sizzled and plumes of acrid smoke billowed up. The acid ate away at the boarded-up windows extremely fast. Holes in the metal plates widened by the second.

  A thin scream filled the room. I looked around to see Melissa being surrounded by a few monsters, which were getting inside through broken windows. Judging from melted edges of the metal plates, they’d been eaten through by acid of boomers.

  Melissa didn’t utilize her psi-powers, perhaps having decided to save on vigors until later waves. I wanted to dash across the room to come to her aid, but Stan beat me to it.

  “Y’all better kill boomers first,” Guard shouted, having noticed broken windows at the far end of the room, which was Melissa’s responsibility. I thought that perhaps Guard should’ve warned us about exploding boomers having strong acid for blood in the first place.

  Finally, it was a break. Melissa and I went outside to gather up the loot.

  “It was a close call, wasn’t it?” I said.

  Melissa was smiling lightly as she replied with a joyful gleam in her eyes, “More fun ahead.”

  We returned to the building. After taking rifle ammo and grenades from us, Stan went upstairs. Melissa took up the position by the stairs. Guard created a few flying battle drones and placed several automatic turrets on the walls.

  The fourth wave began. We were doing our best to keep monsters at bay, yet they soon crashed through the windows and entrance door into the building. We were unleashing a devastating barrage on them, slaying monsters in packs. One killed mutant was instantly replaced by another.

  Just in a few minutes, the entire first floor was swarmed with monsters. They were all over the room, on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Spiders spat acid globs on us. Sometimes I successfully dodged them and sometimes I did not. Sharp pain penetrated my body from time to time when an acid ball smacked against me and ate through my armor and at my flesh.

  I set about employing my psi-powers, knocking away the pushiest mobs with the Surge, lifting them off the ground by the Blow, and freezing them up with the Stasis. I also activated the Shield from time to time, yet it didn’t last long, what with so many foes around.

  I tried to patch myself up with the Biokinesis but to no avail. Once I started to use the psi-power, one of the nearby monsters deal some damage to me, terminating it.

  I caught a glimpse of Melissa glaring at me every now and then. Obviously, she disapproved of my using psi-powers so often. Perhaps, she reckoned I might use up all of my vigors in no time and then start begging for hers. And she didn’t seem to be willing to share her vigors with me.

  Speaking of Melissa, I noticed that she didn’t utilize her skills at all. Which was understandable. The girl was standing halfway up the stairs so that she could render Stan assistance if needed. The whole first floor was teeming with monsters but only few of them made an attempt to ascend the stairs. So it was Guard and me who had to deal with the swarm of monsters.

  With my constant eliminating mobs, my experience bar was steadily filling. Mana, on the contrary, dissipated pretty quickly. When I would have little mana left, I would resort to one of my vigors. I was bound to run out of vigors very soon. It was inevitable. True to form, I ultimately had no vigors left. It was a shame. Sure, I had few vigors to begin with, but I hadn’t expected to use up all of them before we reached later waves.

  “Hey, watch out!” Melissa suddenly shouted to me. “Look around, you dummy!”

  I’d already noticed the greenish illumination coming from behind myself. It could mean only one thing. I jumped to the side and glanced back. A boomer was on my heels. And the mutant had already turned into a huge bright spot, which meant it was about to explode. I activated the Shield just before the boomer blew out, spraying strong acid all over the power dome. The Shield popped.

  A few drops of acid hit me. It ate through my biker armor and reached my skin. It hurt a lot. The pain was so intense I just couldn’t bear it. I started racing around and screaming, aggravating the swarm of monsters. Running past the stairs, I heard Melissa shout at me, “Whatcha doing, moron?”

  Of all of the monsters on my trail a few spotted the girl and raced up the stairs after her, forcing her to ascend the rest of the steps to the second floor. Guard was able to keep mobs at bay. Still, when I raced past him, a dozen mobs separated from the swarm following me and charged at the player from the rear.

  I was well aware that my haphazard running around endangered my teammates’ lives, but I just couldn’t help it. Acid kept burning my flesh, making me suffer extreme pain.

  Suddenly, I tripped over a carcass of a dead mutant and got flattened against the floor. Several mutants pounced on me, impaling me on their long claws. I tried to use the Surge to knock the monsters away from me, but I didn’t have enough mana left.

  Luckily for me, the torture didn’t last long. The mobs finished me off in a few seconds. Contrary to my expectation, when the darkness before my eyes dissipated, I found out that I was still in the building.

  That said, something was strange. I was looking over Guard’s right shoulder. I myself couldn’t move but when Guard raced across the room, I trailed him without my actual doing so.

  Then I got it. It was a spectator mode, which allowed me to observe the game from the other players’ angles. I switched to another player, Stan. He was upstairs, firing the Predator away at a bunch of small flying monsters. Melissa was assisting him.

  Stan’s assault rifle ran dry. He turned around and ran for cover, with me being tagged along with him. I couldn’t either fly around or interact with the game world in any way. But I could look around.

  As Stan was changing mags, I glanced back and saw a dozen winged monsters chasing the player. I wanted to warn him about them, but it turned out to be beyond my control as well. All I could do was just silently observe the other players on the team fight the mobs.

  Stan finally slammed the fresh mag home, whipped around, and unleashed a devastating barrage on the winged mutants chasing him, snuffing them all.

  I switched back to Guard. Watching him play, I figured he seemed to be the most experienced player on the team. Nevertheless, he surely needed assistance. He couldn’t deal with all the mobs swarming the first floor on his own. Monsters were intent on circling him in so the player had to be constantly on the move in order to thwart their plans. He was running around the first floor, discharging his shotgun at the monsters and slaying them one after another. Had the corpses not vanished after a while the floor would’ve abundantly littered by corpses by this point.

  The massacre lasted a few minutes more. Then I suddenly revived behind Guard. Aside from underpants, I was stark naked. Guard turned around and stated, “You back? Good. Stick to me while I take the remaining mobs out.”

  There were much fewer monsters around since the wave had ended and they were no longer spawning. Guard had actually been able to hold out until the end of the wave all by himself. He was indeed the best player on the team.

  Eventually, the remaining mutants were dealt with. I found the body of my previous character, stripped it of the biker outfit, and put it on. After picking up my pistols, I glanced at the experience bar. I’d lost about half experience points I had.

  Stan and Melissa descended the stairs and went over to us.

  “How you managed?” Stan quizzed.

  “Just fine,” Guard shrugged. “Max got killed, but I h
eld out.”

  Melissa glared at me, “So you died? Loser! We shouldn’t have taken you in!”

  “Here we go again,” Guard sighed. “Quit picking on him already. I don’t ask you to fall in love with him or something. Could you just put up with him, at least through the duration of the night?”

  “Fall in love with him?” Melissa shrieked. “Are you nuts? How could I possibly fall for him? Did you see what he was doing? He was running around and screaming like a crazy, aggravating all the mobs! We could’ve failed because of him!”

  Stan regarded me with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “You was running around and screaming like a crazy, huh?” He asked. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “The matter with him is that he’s touched in the head!” Melissa declared before I could reply to Stan.

  I ignored the girl. By way of explanation, I said, “A boomer exploded near me. Acid burned me like hell.”

  All of them just stared at me, puzzled.

  “It’s just a game, bro,” Stan finally stated. “I know this is a roleplaying game so one can change their behavior to assume a particular role, but there’s no need to overdo it.”

  My teammate’s reaction bothered me a great deal. I was about to ask a question to Stan when Melissa called out to me, “Say, are you going to stay there all night? How about you go and assist me?”

  I looked around and saw the girl gathering up the loot. After noticing it, Stan and Guard hurried to repair broken windows. Realizing the next wave would start very soon, I decided to hold off asking the question until later and joined Melissa in picking up the loot.

  After some time passed, we clustered together on the first floor once more and dealt ammo and stimulators out.

  “All right,” Guard looked at me. “Max, what about your vigors?”