Cyber Squad - Level 1: A Gamelit/LitRPG Lite Cyberpunk Adventure

by A. K. Mocikat

  He started clapping, and everyone joined in enthusiastically. Some more than others.

  The Twins from Hell exchanged a look, their faces unreadable.

  Finally, Gregor continued after the applause had ceased. “We will have more big news for you soon. For now, know that you’re a part of something greater. Something much greater than yourselves.”

  His smile was broad and shiny, yet had something uncanny about it. Almost chilling. However, Kai noticed that most people clung to his words and didn’t seem to notice it.

  “But I don’t want to keep you away from an important event,” the CEO said. “Enjoy the tournament, folks! And to celebrate Helltek’s success, we’ve doubled the progression points today, giving all teams a chance of greater progression. Go get ’em!”

  He waved into the crowd, then he and his sister left the stage. Marie-Louise’s expression was bored. Now that she thought no one was paying attention anymore, she had dropped her friendly mask.

  Next to Kai, Claudia and Marco exchanged an excited look, and Topher smiled.

  “This is our chance, guys!” he said while the group exited the assembly hall, following the hundreds of people in tight black suits.

  “Hell yeah!” Marco called out. “I can’t wait to get started!”

  “We will so whip everyone’s ass!” Claudia agreed.

  Kai fell a bit behind the others, who already seemed to be celebrating their success before the tournament even had started. He found himself next to Viktor, who didn’t seem excited at all.

  “What do you think, Viktor?” Kai asked, trying to start a conversation.

  “I think this guy is so full of shit it smells all over campus,” Viktor answered, so casually it was as if he were talking about the weather and not running his mouth about the CEO of his company.

  “Um…” Kai said, not knowing how to react. Viktor’s bluntness had caught him off guard.

  But then something else caught his attention. For a second, he thought he spotted snow-white hair in the crowd. He strained his neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, his heart pounding. But he couldn’t see her anymore.

  Get a grip on yourself, idiot, he told himself. What are you, twelve? Focus!

  And that he would. He knew he wanted to score as high as possible in the tournament. Every progression point brought him closer to a better life. A life away from stinky tenements and on a shiny campus. A life closer to her.

  ***

  Entering game… Please wait… Loading…

  Behind Blue Eyes 3. Secure_dev_mode, build 341A.

  A second later, Kai found himself in the lobby of the game. He had been here so often recently that he didn’t even notice the spectacular view outside the windows anymore. Claudia, Marco, Francois and Josh were already waiting. They seemed excited but in good spirits.

  It wasn’t customary for the techs to participate in tournaments unless the game required six players. The team size for BBE was four to eight players. And the memo sent out by the manager organizing the event stated that all teams were required to have five people.

  The techs and team leads were supposed to monitor the game closely. The primary goal of the whole event wasn’t to offer the testers a good time and progression but to test all aspects of the multiplayer mode. Especially when many matches were played at the same time.

  The first four rounds were played simultaneously by all teams, with the Level One and Two teams competing against each other and the Threes and Fours separately. After that, the best teams in each group would compete against each other in a final match. The same happened for the higher levels. Level Tens didn’t participate in tournaments as no one would have a chance against them anyway.

  Matchmaking in progress – please stand by!

  This was it. Kai felt his heart pounding in excitement. He had never participated in something so competitive – and important.

  Loading map…

  3…

  2…

  1…

  The lobby disappeared and was replaced by a loading screen showing the map they were entering as a 3D model as well as the game mode.

  Kai and his friends had played all the maps many times, and he instantly recognized which one it was.

  “Jackpot!” he heard Marco say over the comm.

  Kai smiled inwardly. This map was their favorite, their home turf, so to speak.

  Map: Village

  Modus: Capture the Flag

  Faction: Guardian Angels

  “Excellent!” Claudia called out.

  The multiplayer version of the game offered three different modi: Capture the Flag, Domination, and Death Match.

  Kai’s team agreed that they preferred CtF or Domination to Death Match. They were easier to practice and to control, whereas Death Match was pure slaughter. The only goal was to kill as many enemy players as possible within a given time frame.

  The loading screen vanished, and Kai and his team found themselves in a bleak, desolate area.

  As normal for Capture the Flag, they spawned at their flag, which bore the Guardian Angels logo, two neon-blue wings on a black background. The flag was located on the roof of a base building that looked like the ruins of a former supermarket. It was accessible via stairs at the front and two ramps on the sides.

  “Ok,” Marco said. “We stick to the tactic we’ve practiced. “Claudia and Francois guard the flag. Kai, Josh and I go hunting. Let’s move!”

  “Left or right?” Josh asked as they jumped from the roof.

  Each map was set up for three teams. At the beginning of the match, it wasn’t clear which team had their base where, since that was generated randomly. Although the map featured a variety of buildings, the three flag bases looked exactly the same. This was important for the balancing of a PvP game. The balancing was something the tournament was supposed to test, among other features. It was axiomatic that all three teams should have the exact same chances of winning the match, which would entirely depend on their skills. Players hated only a few things more than poor balancing in PvP.

  “Left,” Marco decided. “Remember. We’re avoiding the marketplace.”

  “Copy that,” Kai answered.

  The sky was overcast, and the low afternoon light veiled many of the buildings they passed in darkness. The map was designed to look like a deserted, post-apocalyptic small town or village. Trying to avoid making any noise, they used a back alley behind crumbling base buildings that could have been small shops and businesses in a long bygone area. Behind them were a couple of residences with creaking porches and devastated yards.

  The map was huge, and even though they sprinted, it took them more than a minute to pass the center and approach the enemy base.

  As soon as the base came into sight, the three slowed down and crouched, making themselves more difficult to spot. The scanning function, which was an important part of the main game, was disabled in PvP and so was any kind of flying drone, which was used to lift a player up onto high buildings in Single Player and Co-op modes. This made sense as the scanner would have made it impossible to sneak up on an enemy, and using a flying drone to flee once the flag was captured would have been lame and bad balancing.

  “How’s it going at the base?” Marco asked.

  “No enemy contact so far,” Claudia replied.

  She and Francois were lying low, close to the flag. The plan was to ambush whoever tried to steal their flag. Crouching in the shadows made their Blue team tags disappear and meant they were almost invisible to the enemy.

  “Copy that.”

  “Maybe we’ve been lucky and Reds and Yellows went against each other,” Kai said.

  That would be the best scenario possible, he thought. And indeed, as they approached the enemy base, it seemed deserted. The red flag with the iron fist logo moved lazily in the afternoon breeze.

  “Ok, I’m going to get it,” Marco said. “Cover me!”

  Kai stayed behind the corner of a destroyed diner, his rifle at the ready, wh
ile Josh crouched behind a burned-out car wreck. They watched as Marco carefully approached the enemy base, completely unhindered. He stretched out his hand to grab the flag.

  Suddenly his head exploded in a red mist.

  “What the fuck!” they heard Marco’s disembodied voice as his remains collapsed.

  “Sniper!” Kai called out. “Watch out Josh!”

  He looked around, trying to localize where the shot had come from. A rifle muzzle stuck out from a shattered window on the second floor of a building right next to the diner.

  “Damn campers!” Marco’s voice sounded furious.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Kai said, already on the move. “Wait for my signal, Josh, then run and grab the flag!”

  “We’ve got company here,” Francois reported.

  “How many?”

  “Four Reds.”

  “God damn it!” Marco swore. “I have fifteen seconds left until I respawn. Hold on there!”

  “Engaging them now,” Claudia’s voice sounded cold and calculated.

  Kai kicked in the door and stormed upstairs, where the sniper was hiding. Yet when he entered the room the shot had come from, it was empty.

  He reacted lightning-fast, spinning and activating his blades. Just in time before a massive sword could decapitate him. Sparks flew in the semi-darkness of the room.

  Being an experienced PvP player, Kai had anticipated where the attack would come from.

  Campers usually always followed the same tactic. They hid, ‘camping’, ambushed an opponent, then quickly hid behind the door or any other suitable cover and waited for the enemy to go after them and storm the room. This one had chosen the most obvious solution and hidden behind the door.

  Kai tumbled backward due to the immense force of the attack. The Reds were called Proms in the game and had different standard equipment than the Angels, the faction Kai and his team had been randomly assigned to. They were bigger, bulkier and much stronger, with clearly artificial limbs made of metal.

  “Get the flag Josh!” Kai called out over the channel only his teammates could hear.

  The cyborg soldiers Kai’s team was playing lacked the Reds’ immense strength, but they made up for it in agility. Moving much quicker than his opponent could react, Kai performed a roundhouse kick and hit the hostile in the abdomen. The Red lost his balance for a second, which was enough for Kai to finish him off. Activating the Rush ability, he lunged at the enemy and decapitated him with one clean strike, using all his momentum.

  “Camper’s down.”

  “We’re having a bit of trouble here,” Claudia reported. “We’ve got one of them but Francois is almost done, too.”

  “Hold on! I’m almost back,” Marco said. “Six seconds!”

  “Merde!” Francois called out.

  “…And he’s done,” Claudia said.

  Meanwhile, Kai ran to the window which the sniper had used as a vantage point. Down on the street, he saw Josh grabbing the flag.

  “Got it!” Josh called out triumphantly.

  Then Kai saw something else.

  “Watch out, Josh! Yellows approaching from behind! RUN!”

  He had wondered what the third faction was doing. Two hostiles from the Yellow faction appeared from behind a building, where they had obviously been waiting for the right moment, and now went in pursuit of Josh. Those hostiles were smaller and lighter but way more agile than Kai’s team. They were of the same kind as the killer cyborgs they had encountered in the dreaded level with the mall and the bomb.

  Luckily there were only two of them, which meant the remaining three were guarding their home base. But there was no doubt that they would catch up with Josh at any second. The game mechanics prevented the player carrying the flag from sprinting.

  They almost had him.

  Kai grabbed the sniper rifle that the enemy he had just killed had dropped and took aim.

  Hitting a moving target with a sniper rifle was always a difficult task, but he had to try.

  Kai held his breath and pulled the trigger.

  And hit the enemy player!

  The Yellow froze for a second, then stumbled and fell. Kai hadn’t managed to kill him, but at least he had wounded him enough that the hostile couldn’t pursue Josh anymore.

  Crawling on the ground, Kai saw him reaching for his pistol.

  “Don’t even think about it, asshole,” Kai said.

  Quickly, he took aim again and pulled the trigger. This time he hit the enemy cyborg’s head, which exploded in a foam of blood and metal shards.

  In a tournament, the most progression points came from a victorious match, but every kill gave extra points, and Kai had already eliminated two hostiles.

  But he didn’t have time to celebrate. The second Yellow had stopped and was now aiming his rifle at Josh, about to shoot the flag carrier in the back.

  “Josh! Watch out!”

  Too late.

  The enemy player riddled Josh with bullets from his assault rifle.

  “Ah!” Josh called out as his virtual body twitched in death spasms and then collapsed.

  The Yellow used Rush to advance quickly and grab the flag. Meanwhile, Kai saw the first of the fallen Reds respawn at their base. It would be difficult to get the red flag now.

  Once again, Kai took aim with his sniper rifle, ready to blow the remaining Yellow into temporary nirvana.

  A noise startled him.

  He spun and saw another Yellow standing in the door of the room, aiming his pistol at him. The hostile had done exactly the same as Kai earlier: he’d gone to eliminate the sniper before trying to capture the flag.

  Kai leaped to the side. He dodged the first bullet, but the second hit him in the back, causing 25% damage. An unpleasant sensation hit his body, similar to an electric bolt, but nothing compared to what he had had to endure on hard mode.

  He didn’t waste a second. Rolling, he drew his own pistol and fired three consecutive shots at the enemy player. Looking up, he saw that two of his bullets had hit the target. The hostile had fallen to a crouching position, a gaping wound in his chest indicating heavy damage. Before he could do anything else, Kai was on him and finished him off with a short distance headshot.

  He heard an unpleasant popping sound as the bullet smashed the Yellow’s head and bloody goo splatted into his vision.

  “Are you guys done at our base?” he asked.

  “I’m back,” Marco replied. “Claudia and I are about to finish off the last of the Red fuckers.”

  “Ok, cool,” Kai said, running down the stairs. “You might want to check the Yellow base, it’s pretty much unguarded. With a bit of luck, we can get two flags at once.”

  “Copy that!”

  Back on the street, Kai saw that the respawned Red was about to pick up the flag. Kai drew his assault rifle and riddled the enemy player with bullets, sending him to nirvana for the second time in as many minutes. He grinned, imagining how the other player was swearing and cussing him out.

  Activating Rush, Kai leaped for the flag and grabbed it.

  “Got the red flag!”

  All he needed to do now was survive and bring the flag back to his home base. Which was easier said than done as the Red team could see the position of their flag on their mini-map and would try to retrieve it no matter what. There was no point in sneaking now. Kai took the shortest route home, even though it led him through open terrain.

  “I’m back at the base,” he heard Josh say. “The others went for the yellow flag.”

  “Ok.” Kai ran as fast as he could. “Cover me! You should see me in a moment.”

  He turned his head and saw a Red player chasing after him.

  “Oh shit, I got one on my tail!”

  He could neither sprint nor fire a weapon when carrying the flag. The only way to avoid being shot was to run in erratic zig-zags. Bullets hit the remains of a collapsed building right next to his head, and exploding plaster clouded his vision for a brief moment. Luckily he knew the map by
heart.

  “We got the yellow flag!” he heard Marco’s triumphant voice. “We lost Claudia, but Francois and I are on our way. Hold on there, we can do this!”

  “Yeah, they sacrificed me for the greater good,” Claudia said with fake pathos in her voice.

  Meanwhile, Kai evaded another storm or bullets, but it was close. Next time he wouldn’t be so lucky, that was clear. He could hear his pursuer’s footsteps on the old, cracked concrete. The heavy cyborg body was impossible not to notice.

  Suddenly, Kai had an idea.

  He dropped the flag and spun on his heel, lightning-fast. Simultaneously, he drew his pistols and fired in the direction where he anticipated his opponent.

  Kai was lucky. One of his bullets hit the puzzled enemy, who hadn’t expected the flag carrier to go on the offensive.

  Instantly, Kai exploited his pursuer’s bafflement and shot him in the face.

  He smiled, picking the flag back up. That was his fourth kill. He could imagine his progression numbers moving up as he gained extra points.

  Approaching his team’s base, he saw Marco and Francois swiftly closing in with the yellow flag from the other direction.

  Kai arrived first, and a victorious theme could be heard as he placed the flag on the designated pedestal. The area on his HUD designated to display the team’s points shifted from zero to one for the Blue team. Seconds later, it went up to two as Marco and Francois arrived with the yellow flag.

  “Woohoo!” Marco cried out. “We rock! Only one more and we win.”

  It was true. There were two ways to win a CtF match, either by leading when time ran out after ten minutes or when one team scored three points. Kai’s team had started out extraordinarily well, outsmarting and outplaying both enemy teams.

  “Ok, let’s finish this!” Francois said.

  “Wait for me,” they heard Claudia say. “I’m almost back, seven seconds.”

  “Ok, what’s the plan?” Josh asked.