Glitch Boxset

by Victor Deckard

  Flynn and I almost simultaneously finished off Titan and Hunter and turned toward Unkas, who had already picked up all his stuff and was about to take off. I tried to use Stasis on him but to no avail. My mana had drained. Before I could use a vigor to replenish it, Unkas spun around, darted across the room, and bounded down the stairs, taking the steps several at a time.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get ‘im,” Flynn said to me before vaulting from the nearest window.

  I started down the stairs. When I reached the landing, a gunshot sounded from the first floor.

  “I wounded him,” Flynn texted.

  I raced down another flight to the first floor. Flynn stood in the doorway, the shotgun held in his hands trained on Unkas, who lay supine on the floor. Before Flynn could fire again, Unkas used Stasis on my friend. Then Unkas noticed me. I whipped my revolvers up and finished the player off before he could do anything to me.

  I strode to the loot that had dropped from Unkas. Bending over, I took the biker outfit from his bag and changed into it, without examining its stats. Among the items was a slave collar. I picked it up. Seemed like Unkas had been going to put it on Flynn to make him hand the legendary shotgun over.

  There was Titan and Hunter’s loot upstairs, yet I decided not to bother with their stuff for two reasons. First, none of them played as a Warlock so their armor and weapons were useless to me. Second, if I decided to check their items out, they could’ve gotten there in time and Flynn and I would have had to fight them again.

  When the Stasis field disappeared, Flynn and I left the building and ran across the street. Once in the garage, I straddled the bike Unkas had created. When Flynn clambered on behind me, I twisted the throttle. The rear wheel whirled and the bike shot out of the garage onto the street.

  I yanked at the handlebars, executing a tight U-turn. In the rearview mirror I saw Titan and Hunter burst out of the alleyway. They opened fire on the bike, yet all their bullets went wide. I accelerated and soon the two players disappeared in the distance.

  Chapter twelve

  I slowed down when we reached the alleyway where I had left the Humvee. Flynn got off the bike, sat behind the wheel, and we continued on. Soon we got to the nearest mailbox to find out that Cry had already sent a message to Flynn, where he had told Flynn what place he had appointed for the meeting and had explained the terms and conditions of the exchange of the legendary items.

  After we read it, my friend asked, “What do we do now? This guy seems to be able to fend off anything.”

  I considered handing the legendary shotgun over to Cry. This guy had come up with a good plan to prevent himself from being double-crossed.

  “Don’t know yet,” I finally replied.

  Flynn had a sad expression on his face. It was obvious that he wasn’t all that keen on giving Cry the legendary shotgun. He’d rather keep such a powerful weapon.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something on the way,” I promised. “Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

  After I hopped on the bike and Flynn got in the Humvee, we moved on.

  Cry had been waiting for Flynn to arrive at an auto plant. Cry had chosen this place for the meeting for two reasons.

  First, not only did mobs seldom spawn in there, but there also were few resources. For these reasons, players rarely visited this place. Moreover, although the building was pretty spacious, it contained no objects that could be used as a concealed position to ambush someone from.

  Second, in the middle of the main room were two conveyor belts running the length of the room. One of them could be used to carry items in one direction and the other in the opposite one. Those two conveyor belts would be the means of exchanging the two legendary items.

  After reaching the plant, we split, Flynn driving in the Humvee toward the main gates and me heading for the back door.

  I killed the engine and got off the bike. The corridor was wide enough to accommodate the bike. I leaned it against the right-hand wall, activated Invisibility, and walked down the corridor.

  At the end of the corridor was another door. It opened into a spacious chamber containing the two said conveyor belts next to each other in the center of the room. At the far end of the conveyor belts stood a player attired in medium armor. He wore something like a metal backpack on his back.

  I checked my HUD. The Invisibility was still active. Since I stood still, the psi-power wasn’t wearing down but my mana was slowly draining.

  I looked up and fixed my eyes on the player.

  > Name: Cry

  > Level: 25

  Due to a drone hovering above the player’s head, he played as an Engineer. The drone emanated a blue beam toward the player, forming a bubble around him. Had to be a power shield or something like that. Next to the first drone hovering in midair was a smaller robot. It just hovered around the player, doing nothing. At least I couldn’t detect any activity on its part with the naked eye. What the smaller robot was for? The player wouldn’t have created it for no reason.

  The door at the opposite end of the room swung open and Flynn walked in.

  “I just arrived,” He texted me. “See Cry. Are you here?”

  “Yep. I’m invisible.”

  “Good. See those two drones above Cry?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “The bigger one creates a powerful shield around Cry.”

  “Figured as much. What about the smaller one?”

  “It’s always scanning the surrounding area for any traps, invisible players and such. Guess as of now you’re out of scanning range, but it’s sure to notice you if you get closer to Cry. Its range is thirty feet.”

  I looked at the player, gauging the distance to him, and estimated he was thirty-five or so feet away. So I was just outside of scanning range, but if I got any closer to Cry, his drone would detect me.

  Watching Flynn walk toward the two conveyor belts, I was racking my brain, trying to come up with a course of action. Still, no bright idea occurred to me yet.

  “Have you thought up something?” Flynn texted me.

  “Not yet.”

  Flynn reached the conveyor belts and stopped. Now the players stood at the opposite ends of the two conveyor belts, facing each other. Then the player placed the legendary pistol on the one belt and Flynn did likewise with the legendary shotgun, setting the weapon on the other belt. This done, the two players simultaneously activated the belts. The pistol started moving toward Flynn and the shotgun toward Cry. Both items were being carried at the same speed.

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just activate Acceleration, dash toward the items, and grab them because Cry was surely prepared for anything. If I went any deeper into the room, Cry would notice me. And he wasn’t taking any chances, which was why he had an energy shield on. He also must have some other ace up his sleeve. I was sure that he could create drones able to freeze or slow down other players. So I couldn’t just grab the two both legendary weapons and took off. Rather I would have to fight Cry. There was no other way to get the items.

  By that time the pistol and the shotgun drew level with each other. And then the unexpected transpired. Before I could do something, another drone materialized above Cry. Then the player jerked a spherical object from his vest and tossed it toward Flynn. It landed at my friend’s feet and triggered on impact. Yet no explosion followed. Instead, the grenade emitted a humming before falling to pieces.

  Immediately afterward Flynn texted me, “Max, I can’t move! He froze me!”

  When I looked at Cry, I saw that he had already made it toward the two legendary items, grabbed both, and turned toward another back door. The metal backpack on his back turned out to be a something along the lines of a jump jet. It propelled the player up in the air and forward. In the blink of an eye, Cry covered the distance to the back door and then was through, disappearing from sight.

  “He’s getting away,” Flynn texted me panically.

 
No way I could catch up to the player even if I activated Acceleration. So I dived into the corridor, reached my bike, straddled it, and twisted the throttle. After negotiating the corridor and bursting into the room, I directed my bike toward the back door through which Cry had disappeared.

  I barreled through the doorway, then down another corridor, and into the street in time to see Cry climb into his car and slam the driver’s-side door shut behind him. With a screech of tortured tires, the car set off, driving down the street. I raced after him.

  Cry activated the turbo. Yet my bike had a nitro engine as well so I switched it on and soon pulled abreast of the car.

  Even above the noise, I heard a roar of another engine behind me.

  “Max, I’m right behind you,” Flynn texted me.

  “Good. Try not to lag behind.”

  “Your bike is faster than the Humvee, but I’ll do my best.”

  After Cry realized he couldn’t get away from me, he directed the turret gun mounted on his car’s roof open fire on me. Since the turbo had already worn off, some bullets hit me, reducing my HP by about ten percent each.

  I activated Shield and then Twins. Several copies of my character appeared around the car, confusing the turret gun. It swiveled around and started firing at my counterpart on its right.

  Taking advantage of not being fired at, I used a stimulator and a vigor to restore my health and mana respectively and then yanked at the handlebars, pulling close to the car. Jerking a grenade off my vest, I shied it. The grenade slammed against the turret gun, detonating on impact. Although the explosion didn’t demolish the turret gun, its aim was off now, most bullets going wide.

  Cry deployed several bug-like robots. They scuttled across the bodywork toward the damaged turret gun to fix it. Gripping the handlebars with my left hand, I used my right to draw a revolver from its holster. I managed to destroy some of the robots before they got a chance to repair the turret gun.

  My revolver clicked on empty. I flicked the cylinder open and shook the spent shell casings from the gun. With only one of my hands available, it was impossible for me to put fresh cartridges into the gun so I resorted to Telekinesis to reload the revolver.

  After swinging the cylinder closed, I took aim at the remaining robots, which were in the process of repairing the turret gun. As my finger curled around the trigger and started to put pressure on it, an idea occurred to me. I used Jamming, temporarily disabling the robots as well as the turret gun itself.

  Although the robots didn’t move, they still clung to the bodywork. I tried to shake them off the vehicle with Surge, but it didn’t work out exactly as expected. The robots still clung to the bodywork, but the car itself got affected by the psi-power. The vehicle swerved back and forth for a spell until Cry managed to get the car going straight again.

  I decided to let it go and instead of using Surge, I tossed another grenade. The resultant explosion finished the turret gun off and dealt with the remaining robots as well. Then I used the rest of my grenades to destroy the armor covering the car’s hood.

  After blasting a huge ragged in it through which black smoke billowed, I reached for my revolver and opened fire on the engine. After dumping the whole mag into it, I reloaded the gun by using Telekinesis. The car’s engine was severely damaged and the vehicle’s speed got reduced.

  I used Surge again, shoving the car to the right-hand shoulder of the road. The car slammed into the nearest building, its engine dead now. I stopped my bike and disembarked it, drawing my revolvers.

  The driver’s-side door swung open and Cry leaped out of the car. Instead of opening fire, the player activated his jump jet. But I was ready for it. He raised not more than a few feet up in the air, when I used Telekinesis on the player, arresting his ascent.

  I opened fire, aiming for the jet pack. The bullets punched holes in it, damaging the device.

  With a screech of tires, the Humvee came to an abrupt stop. Flynn jumped outside, a shotgun held in his hands, and joining in with firing at the player. Between our gunfire, it wasn’t long before the jetpack exploded, hurling the player down to the ground. He hit the blacktop hard.

  Rising on his knees, Cry put his hands up in the air and shouted, “I give up, guys! I’m so sorry about trying to double-cross you. Shouldn’t have done it.”

  “What do we do?” Flynn texted me so that the player couldn’t eavesdrop on us.

  “Let’s finish him.”

  Flynn and me started discharging our weapons almost simultaneously. No way Cry could survive such devastating gunfire. When the player was dealt with, Flynn walked up to me.

  “So this moron planned to betray us in the first place,” He said.

  “The same holds true for Unkas,” I said, then reached for the slave collar, and showed it to my friend. “I took it from Unkas when he died. Looks like he planned to put it on you to make you hand the legendary shotgun over. So both Unkas and Cry wanted to double-cross us.”

  Flynn looked at the collar before bursting into a laughter. “And I thought they were going to play straight! Silly me!”

  Then we picked up the loot having dropped from Cry and divided it between ourselves. Flynn took his armor and the legendary shotgun. I took the legendary pistol as well as resources and consumables.

  Then Flynn sized Cry’s vehicle up. It was a good car so my friend decided to take it. Since its engine was damaged, the car couldn’t accelerate. We drove slowly to my garage. After Flynn pulled inside, he got out of the car, got on behind me, and we drove back. My Humvee still was in the middle of the road. Flynn sat behind the steering wheel and we drove back to my garage.

  I decided to leave the Humvee in the garage since the chamber was big enough to accommodate both the Humvee and Cry’s vehicle. Flynn offered to team up in order to play the first mission of the Main Quest. However, I had already completed it and didn’t want to wait for Flynn to complete it. I was eager to move over to the second location and play the next quest in order to find out why the story of the Main Quest was very similar to what had happened to me.

  I bid Flynn farewell and move on. As I had the legendary pistol, I didn’t need my Ice Volcanos anymore. So I uploaded them into the nearest Resurrection Pod and checked out the stats of the legendary pistol.

  > Name: Fire and Ice

  > Weapon type: Pistol

  > Rarity: Legendary (orange)

  > Level requirement: 20

  > Damage: 475

  > Accuracy: 95

  > Fire rate: 1450

  > Magazine size: 35

  > Special quality 1: Increases the critical damage by 50 percent.

  > Special quality 2: When you hold the pistol with both your hands, the pistol’s accuracy gets boosted by 100 percent.

  > Special quality 3: This pistol can deal two types of elemental damage, namely Fire and Cold. To switch between them, use the selector on the right side of the pistol.

  > Elemental damage: Fire

  > The stats of the Fire elemental damage:

  > Description: This gun can place a debuff on a foe that set him or her on fire. While the debuff is active, the foe is getting hurt by fire damage.

  > The chance of placing the debuff on a foe is 45 percent

  > The duration of the debuff is 30 seconds

  > The damage that is dealt to a foe is 75 points per second

  > Elemental damage: Cold

  > The stats of the Cold elemental damage:

  > Description: This gun can place a debuff on a foe that decreases his or her movement speed over some time. While the debuff is active, the foe is getting hurt by cold damage.

  > The chance of placing the debuff on a foe is 45 percent

  > The duration of the debuff is 30 seconds

  > The damage that is dealt to a foe is 75 points per second

  So now I was attired in the unique armor outfit, was wielding the legendary weapon, and had the good vehicle. It was time to get back to
the second location to play the next mission.

  I holstered the pistol, consulted the map, and hit the road.

  Chapter thirteen

  > The main quest 02: Sky beams

  > Description: You have found out that there was a war between humans and aliens and the latter won, leaving the Earth in ruins. A handful of people survived. You also have learned that there is a strange space station in low Earth orbit, from which several UFOs fly at night to scatter in different directions and leave strange purple beams aimed up in the sky. What are they? You have no idea so you resolve to get to one purple beam to figure out this puzzle.

  > Goal: Get to one of the purple beams that appear at night.

  > Reward:

  > 1. Experience points: +3000

  > 2. Money: +5500

  > (Do you want to accept the quest: Yes/No)

  I read the description twice but failed to find any secret meaning in it. So perhaps the first mission description and my actual experience of surviving the first day in the game might have had likeness by pure accident.

  Anyway, I accepted the quest.

  After returning to my house, I checked on the resources I had and commenced building the second story floor. This done, I built another one. Now I had few resources left. If my house got damaged tonight, I couldn’t be able to repair it so I went down to the cave to gather up some resources.

  Other players attacked me every now and then. I easily scared them off with my powerful legendary pistol.

  Soon a familiar message popped up in the log.

  > Attention! The night will fall in 60 minutes!

  I left the cave and headed for the nearest vending machine to buy some ammo and consumables. This done, I returned to my house and stored the resources I had gathered up in the two chests in the garage.