I lifted my hands and looked at them.
“I’m not even a human,” I muttered to myself.
Although I had said it quietly, Jessica heard me.
“What are you talking about?” She said in a soothing voice. “You are a human. So what if you’re a copy of Max Morgan? You have your own consciousness, personality, emotions, dreams, and so on. That’s what makes a human human.” She paused for a moment and then continued with a smile on her lips. “By the way, look at me. I’m just an image on a screen. I don’t even have a body of my own. Not yet anyway. So you’re even more human than I am.”
I pondered on what Jessica had just told me and then nodded. “Okay. So you want to defeat the Alien. Then what?”
“Like I already said, once the Alien is dead, we can take control of the space station as well as all the alien technology like the Resurrection Pods. Then we can withdraw all the people from the Virtual Reality Capsule and give them new bodies by means of the Resurrection Pods so that they can start a new life.”
“You mean, on the Earth?”
“Right.”
“But the Earth is devastated,” I stated. “You said it yourself.”
“Not the whole Earth is in ruins. The game takes place among the destruction from the war, but there’re still enough green places to live on the planet.”
I shifted my gaze from Jessica to the metal box called Virtual Reality Capsule.
“But people who live in there don’t know anything about your plan, right?”
“No, they don’t. What’s your point?”
“They don’t know about the war and live their perfectly nice lives,” I observed. “What if they don’t want to drop everything they are familiar with to start a new life in the post-war world? What if they preferred to live in the virtual reality instead? How can you decide what’s better for them?”
“I see your point,” Jessica replied softly. “But if you think that life in the VRC is perfect, you’re totally wrong. That device has been malfunctioning for a while. Due to that, the people living in there eventually start to realize that the world they live in is false and they then start to seek the way out. But the Alien didn’t care about it much. So instead of repairing the VRC, THEY do something else. When a person finds out the truth, the Alien just kills that person. Do you want to know how many people the Alien killed in the past month? Over two hundred. So if you think that THEY care for us, you’re wrong. The Alien’s examining and experimenting on us. What do you think is going to happen when THEY get bored with this? They’ll just kill all the humans in cold blood and get out of here.”
I contemplated what I had just heard from the woman. A couple of moments later, I opened my mouth to say something, but Jessica beat me to it.
“Wait a sec,” she muttered, a troubled expression on her face. “What’s that?”
“What do you mean?” I inquired. “What’s happening?”
The woman was clearly perplexed.
“Something’s wrong,” she stated and started to say something else, but then the screen suddenly went dark.
Something was definitely odd.
“Jessica?” I called out to her but got no reply. “Jessica! Are you there?”
Out of the blue, her face appeared on the big screen once again. The woman’s visage was distorted in pure fear.
“It found us,” she shouted. “I don’t know how but––”
The screen went dead again, cutting the woman off in midsentence. I was afraid. Had to do something. I looked around the room. The door through which I had walked in a few minutes before was still shut and locked.
“Max,” I heard Jessica scream and looked at the screen to see that the woman’s face had appeared on it again. “You’re in great danger! We’re all in danger! The Alien found us. Run! Run for your life!”
The screen went dark for good this time. I dashed toward the door and slammed my fist against the control panel. Nothing happened. I was about to smack it again when the red letters reading CLOSED on the screen of the control panel were replaced by the word OPEN in green ones. The door slid into the wall with a quiet hiss. I darted out of the room into the corridor.
When reached a four-way junction, I stopped. All the doors were shut. Where to go then? What to do? To retrace my steps? Would be that a smart move on my part?
The door to my left hissed open. Figuring that it was Jessica who had unlocked the door for me, I dived into it.
I ran through the corridors as some doors slid open to admit me. There was a thought at the back of my mind that it probably wasn’t Jessica who helped me this time. Not that I had much choice, though.
Soon I ended up in the room with the UFO that had brought me to the space station. At least, it looked exactly like one. The door closed and locked with an electronic click behind me.
I started striding toward the UFO. Then there was a quiet humming to my right. I jerked my head to look in that direction and saw a small spherical robot fly through the air toward me. It emitted a blue beam toward me. I dashed to the side, but I was too late. When the beam touched my body, I found myself unable to move.
Dangit!
“Well, well, well,” a raspy baleful voice came. “We can hardly believe that such a pathetic little guy like you was supposed to deal with us. Duh. The Resistance is way dumber than we deemed it to be.”
I looked around the room, trying to place the voice. Yet there was no one in here save me.
“Who are you?” I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t get even my mouth to move. Yet whoever was talking to me seemed to read my mind.
“We’re those whom your friends from the Resistance call the Alien or THEY.”
It finally occurred to me that the husky menacing voice was in my mind as if the Alien was communicating with me with telepathy.
“The dumb Resistance thought that we didn’t know about it,” the Alien continued. “But we were aware of them all along. Although we affected ignorance, we always kept tabs on it, monitoring its actions. Now that we found out what the Resistance plans were, we can smash the Resistance once and for all.”
The Alien made a pause as if waiting to see if I had to say something. I couldn’t say anything even if I wanted to.
“By the way,” the Alien continued, “we’ve been aware of you since the game update. Do you recognize the robot in front of you?”
I sure recognized the drone that pinned me down as one of those white spherical drones I had first met at the Arena. Later on, one of them scanned me when the game was updating. Then the same flying drones materialized out of nowhere and assaulted me after my using the glitchy pistol.
Now I knew that the drones had been doing the Alien bidding.
“Yes,” THEY said after reading my mind. “We first got aware of you after one of the drones scanned you during the game update. Then we directed them to find and kill you. Yet it wasn’t until you started to use the glitchy pistol that they finally were able to detect you. Unfortunately, you managed to destroy every drone I send after you. Not that it matters now that I’ve finally had you.”
I couldn’t move or use my psi-powers. I racked my brain, trying to find a way to break free, but no bright thought occurred to me. I couldn’t do jack to prevent the Alien from whacking me. It was all over.
THEY had read my mind.
“Don’t you worry, stupid piece of shit,” the Alien said. “I won’t kill you right away.”
I felt my left hand being lifted to eye level. Then the crystal shuddered in my flesh and popped out of my arm. The next moment the HUD disappeared. I no longer saw my Health bar, the experience bar, the log, and all the other elements of the user interface.
Then the crystal exploded into nothingness right in front of my face.
“We’re going to have you brought back to the Earth to continue to play to the game,” The Alien revealed and then uttered a sound roughly resembling a giggle. “How long do you think yo
u can survive when unable to see your HUD and items’ stats?”
Then I felt being stripped off of my clothes and armor. In less than a couple of seconds, all my armor and weapons were destroyed. I had only a pair of briefs on now.
“You can forget about your friends from the Resistance,” the alien said to me. “We have them all killed by the time you get back to the game.”
Still unable to move, I felt myself being moved in the UFO. Once I was inside, the door slid closed with a hiss. The drone stayed outside. Since its beam no longer touched me, I was finally able to move.
“By the by,” the Alien said. “Now you’re not only unable to see your HUD and items’ stats but also if you get killed, you won’t get revived. So if you die, you’ll die for good.”
Dangit.
“Good luck, human,” the Alien giggled. “I don’t think you’ll stay alive for long.”
I felt the floor vibrate under my feet as the UFO started moving. I was being transferred back to the Earth to play the game again. How long would I be able to survive?
Not for long. That I knew for sure.
Chapter four
The UFO soon came to a stop and the door slid to the side. I pondered on not leaving the safe chamber to see what would happen. Sure enough, the UFO wasn’t going to take off with me on board. The transport patiently waited for me to get out. I knew that I couldn’t just hide out inside it. Sooner or later other players would notice the UFO. If an armed player entered the room, I would be as good as dead.
So I had no choice but to get out. After I disembarked from the spacecraft, the door got closed behind me and the UFO lurched up in the air and flew away, disappearing in the distance.
I surveyed my immediate vicinity to find out that I was on the roof of a skyscraper. Upon walking over to its edge, I looked down at the huge city stretched in all directions below. It was the Dead City, the final location in the game, designed for the most experienced and high-level players.
What the heck was I going to do? I couldn’t see my HUD and couldn’t check items’ stats out. How the heck was I supposed to play the game now? Guessed that was the point. The Alien couldn’t care less. It wanted to give me false hope. It sure enjoyed mentally torturing me.
It started to drizzle. I felt cold. Dammit. Had to find some clothes. I turned and walked over to the rooftop exit door.
I searched a few floors, finding them empty. On another floor, there was a cabinet centered against one wall. I walked up to it and opened the door. Inside lay a T-shirt. No information popped up in my HUD when I fixed my gaze on the item. Figured.
The crunch of footsteps and the rustle of clothes came to my right. I whipped around to see a player enter the room.
> Name: Kitson
> Clan: The Titans
> Level: 98
He stopped dead as he saw me. Kitson clearly played as a Soldier. He was wearing heavy armor and held a heavy machine gun in his hands. His nickname was white-colored, which meant that he wasn’t a player killer, PK. It gave me hope.
Suddenly, he brought up the machine gun, the stock snug against his right shoulder, pointing the weapon at my chest.
Fear and panic rose in me. If the player killed me, I would never revive in a Resurrection Pod. My death would be permanent.
“Wait,” I yelled. “Don’t shoot! Don’t kill me!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Kitson quizzed.
“Look at me! I don’t have shit! By killing me you’ll achieve nothing!”
“So what?” He said.
I was thinking hard, trying to think of something.
“Look,” I said, “you don’t want to discolor your nickname, do you? If you kill me, it’ll turn red. You’ll stain your reputation and become a PK and other players can kill you without their nicknames turning red.”
“True,” The player said as he lowered his machine gun, the muzzle pointed down.
I breathed a long sigh of relief. Seemed like I had actually managed to reason with the player. It was a close call.
“So why are you naked?” Kitson wanted to know. “Got killed recently?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Some player killed me. I didn’t have anything stored in the Resurrection Pods so I revived without any items.”
Kitson nodded his understanding.
Then the player’s face hardened and he suddenly whipped his machine gun up, aiming it at me again.
“What the heck?” I blurted out. “Whatcha doing?”
“I just realized something,” he replied. “Your nickname is red. So you’re a PK yourself. The way I see it someone’s wasted you because you’re a PK. So I can take you out too and my nickname won’t turn red.”
“Wait!” I screamed.
I saw the player’s finger closed around the smooth curve of the trigger, taking up the slack. I didn’t waste any more time. As the player started to release a long burst from his gun, I spun around and took off. The sharp report of the machine gun filled the air. The wall to my right suddenly erupted into geysers of plaster, as automatic fire racked the wall, cratering it. Some of the bullets zipped within mere inches of my head, pushing air against my skin.
Then I felt a burning in my spine as a slug tore into my flesh. Without the HUD, I couldn’t even tell how much damage I took. Dangit! With such a devastating stream of gunfire being pouring in my direction, there was no way I could get away.
If only I could use my psi-powers! I tried to activate Shield and the bluish semi-transparent energy field appeared around me. As it turned out, even though my HUD was invisible, my skills were still available. There we go!
I used Acceleration and dashed through the doorway onto the stairway. I raced down the steps, taking them several at a time. The pounding of feet on the floor sounded from above. Then Kitson started firing down the staircase. With my using Acceleration to increase my movement speed, he couldn’t catch up to me so the player decided to open fire, hoping some stray bullets found and kill me. No such luck. The power shield protected me well.
It wasn’t long before I reached the ground floor and dashed toward the entrance door. Once in the street, I raced away from the building. It was drizzling. I kept to side streets and alleys. Eventually, Acceleration wore off. I came to a stop in an alley between two buildings. I had no idea how much mana I still had. Guessed not much.
Just to be on the safe side, I activated Invisibility and crept toward the mouth of the alley. Once reached the corner, I peered around it and surveyed the street, looking both ways. Kitson was nowhere in sight. Good. Seemed like I had given him the slip.
Gunfire erupted around the street. It was midday so there were plenty of players online. Luckily, the crack of fire was muffled by distance, which meant nobody was near my location.
I kept squatting on my haunches, surveying the street and trying to think of something. Since the Invisibility skill was active and I was immobile, my mana was slowly draining. As I had no way of knowing how much mana I had left, I had to make an assumption that I didn’t have much of that precious energy left so I had to come up with some plan of action ASAP.
The drizzle turned into a downpour, beating the sidewalk. Dammit! I got drenched in a heartbeat and started to tremble. It was extremely cold. Just what I needed! My situation had just gone from bad to worse. It wouldn’t be long before I froze to death.
I squinted, straining to see through the wall of rain. The street was plunged into a watery gloom. Sheets of rain lashed the sidewalk and pelted the buildings. The blustering wind blew, whipping my hair.
I was racking my brain, trying to ignore the stinging cold weather and resisting panic that threatened to overwhelm me. What to do? What the heck to do? If didn’t think of something fast, I would freeze to death. I had to build a fire to get myself warmed up. But I had no resources for that. Moreover, to do that, I would have to bright up the Main Menu and switch to the Crafting Menu. But without the crystal, I couldn’t do that. So I
had to somehow find a way to enable myself to see the HUD and bring up the Main Menu. The only way to do so was acquire another crystal. Where to get it?
A player got a microchip installed at the Training Location at the very beginning of the game. But the Training Location was in the very first location in the game. It was way too far from the Dead City. There was no way I could get there without a vehicle. Moreover, once a player left the Training Location, he or she couldn’t get back. So even if I had somehow made it over to the first location, I couldn’t have gotten to the Training Location anyway.
Had to think of something else.
Then it dawned on me. Every player had a crystal inserted in their hand. Sure, one couldn’t extract the microchip on their own. I knew this for sure because I had once tried to do it, to no avail. But what if I could pull a crystal out of another player flesh? Like Jessica had told me, I was capable of interacting with some objects while other players couldn’t do that. So maybe I could take a crystal out of another player’s arm.
Since I had no other ideas, I decided to try it.
The rain showed no signs of abating. I stepped from the alley and walked down the street, looking for players. A few minutes later, the Invisibility psi-power wore off and I got visible. It was bad. I could get an easy pickings for some sniper now. Deciding not to push my luck, I dived in the nearest alley between two buildings.
All of a sudden, gunfire erupted somewhere nearby. I ducked my head and looked around the alley. Yet I wasn’t being fired at. I tried to activate Invisibility, but there was no dice. Either the cooldown of the Invisibility skill wasn’t over yet or I didn’t have enough mana to use the skill again.
The pounding of booted feet on the blacktop came from the street. I got down on one knee and peeked cautiously around the corner from a low angle. A player ran down the street in the direction of the alley I was in. Due to heavy armor the player wore, she played as a Soldier. Too bad she wasn’t a Warlock. On the other hand, it was a good thing that she wasn’t an Engineer, for she would’ve had lots of drones protecting her.
Glitch Book Six Page 3
