by Yuli Ban
They flipped me upside down and went down the stairs, my face banging against each step. I tried to grab their legs, but my arms were stuck— they had tied me and I hadn’t realized it. When I tried squirming out of whatever rope they used, the material burned ever more fiercely.
We arrived at room 101. They threw me in. I fell on my face and heard the tumblers click. When I got onto my feet, I beat at the door. But it was no use.
I was stuck in a black void. There was no way out. No hope and nothing I could do. No matter where I looked, there was only the void.
I slid down against the wall and let my body go limp.
The bastards turned the temperature up so high that I could have stripped to my bones and still sweated every drop from my body. I tossed my clothes off and used them to wipe my face. Soon, it began to burn just to touch the floor and walls.
I screamed. I banged. I did everything I could, and it wasn't enough. My health started to drop at an accelerated rate.
But before it could hit zero, I heard a hiss from above. With every breath, my health increased by 25.
Once I realized what had happened, I made a deliberate effort to hold my breath or, better yet, take the belt from my pants and stop breathing altogether. But they turned the temperature up again and I could no longer tolerate the sensation of the metal upon the belt against my skin.
When I pulled it away, I felt my skin sizzle from where those parts had been. My leg hairs were falling out. All of my body was covered in massive red splotches. If I could have seen my eyes, I wouldn't have been surprised if they were melting as well.
But as quickly as the air went hot, it suddenly cooled. I feared that they were about to take it in the other direction and confuse my body completely.
This was it, I thought.
'I'm trapped. I'm doomed to be here forever. This is how I'll live. This is my life now.' I beat at the floor with my sticky, rubbery skin. How my heart hadn't stopped from so much of my skin being cooked, I didn't know. Maybe I was looking too much into the prospect of dying. But that's how far gone I was.
There was nothing else anymore. I blew it.
I blew it like that hole in the wall— what on Earth was that?
Yes, it was a giant gaping hole in the wall! And someone was standing in the middle.
Ana, glamourous in her blood-soaked white dress and dual-wielding Uzis. Just like old times.
She held out her hand and spoke to me, but I heard nothing. When she said something else, again I thought she was miming to me. However, she rolled her eyes and put force into her words. That's what convinced me she wasn't playing around.
She grabbed my wrist and pulled me out. Though I felt the impact of each step, my hearing had left me. I panicked and wondered what had happened, but when I felt around my ears, horror gripped my heart when I felt little pools of mucus dripping from the canals.
'Aw shit, they melted my ear drums!'
That, or they heated my ear wax to such high temperatures that my ear drums had been cooked. Either scenario was terrible.
We ran across mobsters in every hall, but Ana had bullets every one of them.
Once we got into the concert hall, I saw Tatiana and Olga waving at us.
Tatiana grabbed my wrists and pulled me in for a hug, though I didn't know what she was saying. So I pointed to my ears and said out loud that I was deaf from torture.
Her solution was obvious. She took out her tit and lodged it down my throat, squirting copious amounts of breast milk into my stomach. My stats refilled instantly, and my hearing came back all at once. It felt like I cleaned my ears.
"Thank you!" I shouted as I glomped on. However, she had moved in such a way that I missed her entirely and faceplanted onto Olga. More than that, I faceplanted onto her groin.
She blushed and said, "'K. Sure. I'm open for it now when we get back."
But I was picked up and put back on my feet. When I turned around to see who had the strength, I got an eyeful of Succubus.
"Maria, you're alright!"
She also wanted my tongue. Our French kiss went on and on for far too long and exposed us. But when I looked behind her, I saw one of the mobsters trying to crawl away. Ana finished him off with burst fire.
"That's it," I said. "I've made up my mind. No more faffing about. I've got to get out of here, ASAP."
"What happened to you in that room?" she said.
"Horrible things. It wasn't long... but I don't ever want to go back in there."
"You'll be in there for the rest of time, boy!" echoed across the concert hall. From behind us, Shotgonavan lifted from below stage. He was surrounded by a small army of sexbots, all dressed as Radio City Rockettes with machine gun breasts.
"Doctor!" Ana cried. "I knew you were one of the G-Men, but how could you do this? You've broken poor Alex!"
He snarled, "Polybius is going to take control, and there's not a damn thing any of you fools can do about it!" Then the entire stage lifted and his shadow was cast upon the entire floor.
Where there would have been pyrotechnics, twenty sexbots rose from the cannons. They were all clad like Rockettes, complete with those milky leggings and miniskirts. However, they all had silver skin and red eyes, and generally had the proportions of anime characters.
And their breasts were machine guns. Because that was nice.
Shotgonavan shouted again, “The Day That Never Comes is upon us!”
I raised my fist at him, still shaky and desperate for a little bit of revenge, and said, “I’m tired of you fascist freaks!” I instinctively grabbed for my ray gun. That wasted my time. The sexbots locked and loaded their electro-mammaries. I wasn’t scared. Not anymore.
“Wait!” Ana shouted as she coughed and wheezed. She pushed me back and stepped forward. “Before we kill each other, can you just explain what this so-called ‘Day That Never Comes’ is supposed to be?”
Shotgonavan retracted his arm and stroked his chin. “For you, Dearest Anastasia, I won’t. How dare you align with these degenerates!”
Maria ran forward and grabbed Ana. “You damn fool. You know exactly what we’re about.”
Ana wasn’t offended by her former friend’s rage, but perhaps that was due to her swimming brains. “Look, Doctor, I know we’re not exactly on very good terms right now—”
“KILL THEM ALL!”
The sexbots fired. Their bullets ripped up the hall, laying waste to the wooden floor and all the glass tables.
Yet even as my cover got whittled away, I managed to dodge each bullet.
Ana shot out one of the light fixtures, sending it crashing down on top of several of the sexbots. They exploded in beautiful balls of fire that didn’t distract any of their autonomata mates. Tatiana had a submachine gun— that ghostly MP-40, of course. With every shot, chunks of Shotgonavan's health fell from his health bar. He didn’t seem to care. Instead, he stood atop his platform laughing maniacally to the heavens as if he were calling upon the power of the storm itself.
But then I saw what he was getting at— with a swat of his hand, he brought down a pillar of white fire from the ceiling. As it impacted against the floor, I saw that the wood tiles did not simply burn. Rather, they disintegrated. Bit by bit, it ripped out of reality and left a dark hole. A second pillar came upon me! With haste, I rolled out of the way, right into the path of a third pillar.
When I thought I was doomed, Maria dashed for me and shouted that damn word: “Shoryuken!” Her fist smashed against my chin, sending me back to crash into another glass table. She landed on her stomach, barely missing the ethereal flames.
Though I lost some health and had a fork of blood upon my chin, it was better than death. I threw her a thumbs up. She winked. That was her last shoryuken for today, and what a save it was.
Olga said, “What the hell? Is he a wizard?”
Ana shouted, “Yeah, a psychomancer! That’s why—” She stepped out of the way of another pillar, “That’s why I wanted to bring Alex to him! I thou
ght he might be able to look into his head to see what’s wrong if Johnic couldn’t do it. I knew he was one of them, but I thought he was like Johnic too.”
“Phah!” Shotgonavan spat. “Johnic was a bitch! A traitor of the highest order. I would’a strangled him with his own vocal chords if I had the chance.”
“Better to die a traitor than live as a tyrant!” Olga shouted. I heard in her voice a certain conviction, true belief in what she was saying as if she was teaching Shotgonavan a lesson.
I saw my chance. With my increased strength, I thought it possible to punch the elevated platforms down. However, I would have to get past the sexbots just to have a chance. I shouted to Olga, “Elf! RPG!”
She saluted, equipped Doof's RPG, and fired it at the stage, kicking off all the pyrotechnics prematurely. They shot up like dragons, blowing away the remaining sexbots and casting off a rainbow of crackling sparkles. Servos, gears, silicone breasts, and computer chips showered the hall.
I looked to Maria, and she looked at me. We told each other of my plan, and she gave me her own additional task. And then we nodded on it.
My way forward clear, I ran to the base of the platforms, ducking through a black cloud of smoke, and punched at the base. All of it reminded me of the hotel, striking the floor to crawl away from the tornado. What renewed strength! What renewed hope! I didn’t want to fail. Not again. I went around, blasting my knuckles through the ceramic and plaster, digging into the frame underneath.
Shotgonavan peered over the side of the platform and looked down. “You little rat! You think you’re clever?” Then he fell back, having taken a sniper strike to the face. “Augh!!”
I looked back. Through the smoke, I saw Tatiana giving me a thumbs up— Doof’s sniper rifle over her shoulder. I grinned.
With one more blow, I knocked out a critical point for the platform’s suspension. Even though I couldn’t hear it through the cacophony, I could just feel the tension in the metal. There was so much, in fact, that I ran right off the stage and fell on my ass.
The entire thing tipped over, and Shotgonavan fell towards me. We yelled, and I feared the worst— not that I’d be crushed, but that I’d end the night accidentally kissing the man. UGH. No, he’s not even cute.
But before he made impact, I heard a meaty SHUCK. When I opened my eyes, I saw Shotgonavan’s face. He was drooling. Maria pushed him off her katana— OH GOD.
OH GOD NO. As much of an asshole as Shotgonavan was, I actually felt pity for the man in his last moments. That was no way to go out: impaled through the balls by a succubus’s sword!
He fell over, mouth forever open in shock. The rest of the platform caught fire behind him, and the liberal use of nitroglycerin in building materials meant that the blaze spread quickly onto the curtains, the walls, the ceilings, and the wiring. Before I could blink twice, the fire went from a small crackle to half of the entire ballroom.
Shotgonavan rolled onto his back and let out the most pathetic cry of pain.
All of the girls ran to me, lining up and grabbing my shoulder and chest.
Tatiana was the one who said, “Do it, Alex. He’s all yours!”
Ana added, “Clock out that doctor!”
I stepped forward and wrapped my fingers around his laurels. I brought him up to my eyes, and I could tell from every fold in his face that he wanted it to end.
“Why do you even care about dying? You can just respawn.”
He spat blood in my face and I felt obliged to sock him in the eye, but I had restraint and shook him. Finally, he said, “No, that’s not entirely true. This world has a life system, and I’m a cat who’s lived too long.”
I turned to Ana. “Did you know?”
She shook her head. “Honestly, no! I never died before, so…”
Then I decided to stop beating around the bush and asked, “What is the Day That Never Comes?”
And for the last time, his mouth curled and those hazel eyes seemed to take on a deathly black hue. “Oh, little Alex. You would love to know, wouldn’t you…? My ghost’ll tell you the details.”
“Answer me!”
“You want a chance? Go fuck around in UFOrlando. Learn about Polybius. See just how…” Blood gushed from his mouth and he coughed what looked like his heart. “See how screwed you is, boy. Go see how screwed you is. Should’a left yourself to Batzor when you had the chance.” And then he let out this spooky monkey laugh that echoed above the fire.
I ended his life with one punch that took off his head.
The girls grabbed me and began to hug me, lift me, kiss me, and parade me out the door. “You beat your first boss!” Ana cried.
I looked back at the headless corpse, my face contorted and mind frazzled. I don’t know why, but I really fucking hated that guy.
Once all of the stage fixtures began falling and the fire spread, we all exchanged quick looks of "Oh shit!" and scrammed as like rabbits. When we left the Sistar Ballroom, there was no rain.
Only an epic explosion.
And no, we didn't look at it. I walked on like a Chad with my ladies, happy to be alive and happy that they loved me as much I as loved them. Yes, even the Elf.
Fly Away
The sun set on a sweet winter day. As the skylights and neon of Amville faded behind us and Hurricane Sinatra Jr. moved inland, I sat back with my hands behind my head and stared off into space. The RV eased on down the road past the ruins of practically half the city, all laid to waste in a single day. The girls were in the other room talking amongst themselves, though Ana remained by my side, still not saying much to me for half an hour until she joined the others. No, she just lashed that tail and kept saying, “You stole my blunt, you meanie.”
Above my bed hung the bent remnants of Batzor's Core and various news articles of the creature's death. With them came even more bits of understanding. Even if I could not fully understand everything that was going on, that didn't mean I couldn't have fun. And what little I did understand was enough to piece together all the rest.
In my arms was the one girl who wanted to stay back— Maria. I began to pet her head, running my fingers through her hair and around her horns. She shifted ever so slightly.
"Don't you want to go into the other room and play dominoes?"
I glanced at her and said, "Nah. I'm fine."
The RV bumped over a pothole and I heard the other girls groan right as the sound of clattering domino pieces rang out.
"You can't do that!" Tatiana cried.
"Put that back, you cheater!" said Olga.
"Mew."
I sat up and said, "Is that all she has to say? Mew?" Then I fell back and shook my head in my pillow. "She is such a stereotypical doofus. I love her."
"I love her too, big man."
After another minute, I asked, "Svboogydood is the guy who knows everything, right?"
"Yes."
Another pause. "Do you really think he's actually a Player like me?"
She didn't say anything.
So I added, "Mya never really told me about what the cortical model was supposed to do, so I figured that it was just something for the military."
"That may indeed be true. It's not my place to talk about real world things, but I have thought on occasion whether or not Mya was the only one who used the system. "
I turned to her. "Whaddya mean?"
"Well... I've been thinking..." She shifted her whole body and flopped those breasts right on top of my hand. I didn't move that lucky hand and instead set my other hand on my stomach. "What if Sam and the Rocket 88s weren't just employed by the Hurricanes? What if the Rocket 88s were supposed to be an actual training ground for your own real-world Hurricanes?"
As she said that, my inner bullshit-o-meter went off the charts. And that's how I knew it was possible that she was telling an ugly truth. Just by how much I didn't want it to be true. It all made too much sense.
Mya's fully-immersive virtual reality system was not supposed to be ready for another decade
at least, but she had the shit luck of managing to create it just in time for a neo-fascist vanguard to exploit. No wonder she felt so guilty in those last days, I thought. She was so eager to bring the magic of FIVR to the world, and yet in the end, the worst possible people were the ones who got to use it.
I said to her, "What if I said that makes too much sense to be true?"
She ran her finger on my chest. "What if I said that it's just a theory?"
"Theories aren't the same things as hypothesises. Hypotheses? Hypothe... whatever. Theories have evidence behind them and can be confirmed in some way. That's why I don't like what you've said, but... it's also why what you've said sounds like the closest thing to the truth I've heard in years."
She scoffed and shook her head. "That's just my own paranoid rambling."
"Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not evil."
Tatiana came into the room, tits juicy, and said, "Hey, Alex-boy. Do you need any more milk? I've got plenty more just in case."
I waved my hand and said, "Nah, I'm fine for the day. Nowhere near as much achiness this time around."
She visibly sulked. "Are you sure?"
Olga grabbed her by her forehead and pulled her back into the room.
"Stop being horny!"
I blushed. We hadn't had much of a sexytime this time around, but what little we did was amazing. Though I still wanted to get inside Olga, and Tatiana’s first time with me was lackluster, we still planned for a better night in the future. And everyone on the RV knew that this was going to be the most explosive night of all time.
But it was time for more personal talk. I looked back to Maria and said, "I do still ache, though."
"Well why don't you suck on Tat's tits?"
"I just don't want to right now. It's my choice anyhow. Besides, you're more than just sex objects to me. I don't like reducing you to that level."
She rolled onto her stomach and sighed. "You were raised well, big man. Though I do feel that you're more high-strung than you think you are, even now."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked with a sardonic sneer. I knew damn well what she meant— ever since my epiphany in the rubble of Johnic's hotel, I was always still just as skeptical over the events going on in front of me. I just learned to cope with them better. And that was still leading to a blow-out upstairs sooner or later.