by Ramy Vance
This would be the best time to take over one of orcs’ microchips.
Abby brought the tracker close to one of the orcs outside the bar. She wanted to snag one before Terra got the chance to cut it down.
The tracker landed on the back of its neck. A small microchip poked out of the orc’s skin. “Martin, we’re on it. Take over the chip,” Abby said.
Martin popped up on the holoprojector and rubbed the two ends of his paperclip body together. “Now we’re in business,” he shouted.
The holoprojector turned red as Martin sent the virus through the microchip. “Let me see if it’s working,” he muttered.
The screen changed to a physiological readout of an orc, complete with a diagram showcasing its central nervous system. “Not only are we in business, but we’re buying everyone else out too,” Martin exclaimed.
Abby pulled the tracker away from the orc and stared at the holoprojector. A wave of nausea hit her. “What now?” she asked.
“I’ll take control of this one, plus a few more. You better tell Terra what’s happening and snag another one. We’ll see how far we can stretch this.”
The tracker headed to Terra, buzzing around her head as she picked up an orc and body-slammed it. Abby turned on the speaker and said, “Terra, this is Abby. Don’t want to alarm you, but we’re getting some of the orcs to switch sides.”
Terra whipped her head around, clearly looking for the source of the voice. Abby landed the tracker on her shoulder. “Don’t worry too much about it, but if you see an orc killing another orc, it’s just me.”
As Abby explained, an orc on Terra’s side jumped over a table, impaling an enemy orc. “Honestly, I’m not sure who’s killing who anymore!” Terra shouted. “But appreciate the help.”
The tracker lifted off Terra and headed to another orc, landing next to the microchip and taking it over.
Martin crept back onto the holoprojector’s screen. “We got a problem. You’re going to have to use VR to control this one. The virus isn’t as foolproof as I thought.”
Abby stood from her chair abruptly and exclaimed, “What do you mean, I’m going to have to control it?”
“Trust me, it’s intuitive. Just get hooked into the VR.”
There wasn’t time to ask any questions. Abby went to the table with the VR equipment and suited up, hoping Creon wasn’t paying too much attention. She slid on the VR visor and stepped into the orc’s body.
Abby was instantly transported to the battlefield. Apparently, Martin had done upgrades on the VR equipment as well. It was as if she were there in person.
Martin popped up in the corner of Abby’s field of vision. “I’m moving the tracker to a safe space. All the nanobots are used up, so make the most of this!”
Abby stared down at her hands. They were the hands of an orc, and they held two daggers. Another orc was standing beside her, preparing to enter the bar. Without hesitation, Abby drove her daggers into the other orc’s back.
It was Abby’s first taste of revenge. It tasted great.
Most of the orcs, humans, and goblins in the bar were armed. They were preparing to make their push to leave. Terra figured as long as they remained on the defensive, they were merely waiting to die.
The alternative of a chimera and orcs riding wargs wasn’t much more promising, but it beat being cut down around a table.
But, why was it taking so long for the orcs to zero in on their position? There was no way that was all of the advance party.
At Terra’s side, Nib-nib made an inarticulate noise. Terra looked down at him and asked, “You sure you don’t want a sword, buddy?” He had given the ax to someone else.
Nib-nib raised his forearms and clicked them shut enthusiastically. Guess that answered that.
Terra turned back to the rest of the folks huddled together in the bar. “This is our push!” she shouted. “We take this arena and make it ours!”
Shouts from humans, goblins, and orcs alike rose up, momentarily drowning out the screams of the crowd.
Terra rushed out of the bar, tackling the first orc in front of her and driving her ax into its chest. The rest of her ramshackle group ran out after her.
Outside the bar, there was chaos. The orcs on wargs were riding around, kicking up dust and whooping loudly. The chimera was waiting for them, spitting small bursts of acid on the ground as it pawed the sand.
Terra stared down the chimera. This was where she was making her stand.
Chapter Twelve
Martin’s voice screamed over Abby’s VR control system. Abby nearly turned and ran, she was so engrossed in the carnage around her. “We got something like a problem.”
Abby guided her orc’s hands around another orc’s throat, watching the life fade from her opponent’s eyes. “Is it something like a problem, or is it a problem?” she asked.
“Our signal is cracking. Or not quite the signal, but we’re losing control. There’s too much biofeedback on your end, and it’s causing—”
“Could you just give me a straight answer?”
Martin sighed as he grumbled his response. “Your fleshy bits are making it hard to keep the signal up, and I can’t take them all over. Also, seems there’s a firewall up, making global control impossible. You’re going to cut out, and if you break into another chip, you’re just going to get cut out of that one.”
“What are my options?”
Martin hummed while he was thinking. “Uh, I guess you could inject some of those nanobots into your bloodstream to compensate.”
If Abby had been paying closer attention or had known Martin better, she would have been able to sense the doubt in his voice. Unfortunately, she was distracted, and her relationship with Martin was less than two weeks old. “Fine, let’s do it,” she said.
“The vial is already prepped on the nanobot counter.”
Abby pulled up her VR headset and rolled up her sleeves. She reached over to the nanobot counter and, exactly as Martin had said, found a vial of nanobots. The syringe at the end of the vial gave Abby cause to pause. She hated needles.
Screams erupted through her VR headset. She yanked it down to see what was happening.
Terra was on the chimera’s back, slashing it with her ax. A human was caught under the beast’s front paws, and the lion’s head was tearing him to pieces.
Abby had to look away. She couldn’t bear to see another human life lost in this nonsense of the Dark One’s creation. She had to do something to help. Anything. She grabbed the syringe of nanobots and injected them into her forearm.
The feeling was instantaneous. Chills went down her back, and she felt ice coming up her throat. Her fingers went numb, as did her toes. She fell to the floor, hacking up whatever was in her.
Creon jumped up from his desk and rushed over to Abby. “What the hell are you doing, Abby?” he asked. “What did you just do?”
As quickly as it had overtaken her body, the cold left. Abby got back to her feet. Something was different. She didn’t know what it was, but she felt it in every corner of her body, deep in the crevices of her brain. Now that she thought about it, she’d never felt the crevices of her brain before.
Creon grabbed Abby by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Abby, what have you done?”
Abby calmly removed Creon’s hands from her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Gotta take care of the mission, right?”
Creon peered at Abby anxiously before turning back to his computer. “Hope you’re smart enough not to do something stupid,” he warned.
Abby pulled down her VR headset. The orc she was controlling was still alive. Martin must have taken over to keep it from dying. Abby took a step forward, and she felt the sand on her feet. Not the way she’d felt it before. Not a simulation. She swore to God she could feel each grain of sand.
The immersion was amazing. It was like being in a completely new body. But there wasn’t time to appreciate whatever the hell the nanobots were doing. There was a fi
ght to win.
Terra wrestled with the lion’s head, wrapping her hand around it, trying to choke the life from it. The chimera was strong, though, stronger than the balrog had been. It bucked its hind legs and sent Terra flying.
She hit the ground hard, scrambling to get up as fast as she could. Baby-soft hands grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled her up. It was Eric. “I got your back,” he said as he smiled.
Terra was about to thank Eric when a warg came at them. She went to the right, and Eric went to the left—the same direction the orc atop the warg was leaning.
The orc snatched Eric up with its spear, sending the boy flying and leapt atop him as soon as his body hit the ground, tearing into his neck. Crimson blood splashed across the golden sand. “No!” Terra screamed.
But there was no time for mourning. Another warg came at Terra as the one that had finished Eric doubled back, heading for her.
She ran, weaving between the dozens of bodies clashing with each other, dodging the blades that danced, swinging to the side, slashing an orc across the chest, uncertain of whether or not they were on her side, falling, getting up, throwing herself forward.
The warg riders burst through the crowd, their riders’ axes felling anything in their path.
Terra glanced over her shoulder, grabbed a spear off the orc in front of her, and sent it sailing through the air.
The spear hit one of the riders in the chest, knocking him off of the warg. The warg continued on toward Terra.
Not knowing what else to do, Terra leaned over like a linebacker, and when the warg lunged, she met it head-on, grabbing it by the throat and tossing it to the ground.
As the warg tried to shake off the attack, Terra climbed onto its back and grabbed it by its fur, forcing the warg forward.
The crowd roared with excitement. The battle continued to rage around her. Up ahead, the chimera was squaring off with a group of mantiboids, Nib-nib at the front. Not another one, Terra thought. Not another fucking one.
Terra took off toward the chimera. She reached behind her and grabbed one of the spears hanging from the leather sleeve across the warg’s back. It was a good weight. Felt right in her hand. She sent the spear flying at the chimera.
The spear hit the beast in the chest, and it reeled back on its hind legs. Terra kept running toward it, cutting through any orcs in her way. She leapt off, ax raised, and landed on the chimera’s back.
Before Terra could attack, the chimera sprang away from the mantiboids. The sudden movement made Terra lose her balance. She fell off, and the chimera shook its mane fiercely before pouncing on Terra.
Terra hardly had enough time to pull her ax up. She caught the chimera’s fangs with the head. The chimera gnashed its teeth, barely held back by Terra, intent on crushing her skull. As she tried to push the monster’s head back, the lion’s jaw separated and the fanged goat’s head forced itself through.
The goat snapped at Terra, who could only move her head, jerking it to the left or the right to avoid having her throat torn open.
Across the arena, Abby, using the orc, sliced through the bowels of a number of orcs as she turned to locate Terra. When she saw the girl’s predicament, she sprinted toward the chimera. She tackled the beast, knocking it off Terra.
The chimera rolled around in the sand before returning to its feet. It flew toward Abby, landing on top of her. The beast sank its teeth into the orc’s throat.
There was a brief flash, and Abby was disconnected from the orc. She pulled up the VR headset and collapsed in her seat. Martin’s voice came through Abby’s comm. No, it wasn’t her comm. She could hear Martin in her head. “Hey, we’re not done yet!” he shouted.
Abby sank her head into her hands. The disconnect had been sudden and jarring. For a second, she had thought she had been killed. “Controlling orcs isn’t going to be enough. Bigger. That’s what we need. Those microchips only on the orcs?”
“It’s a safe bet the chimera has a microchip. From what I’ve gathered, it’s how the Dark One controls most of his forces.”
Abby slid her VR helmet down, instinctively taking control of the tracker, landing it near the dead orc’s body and loading it back up with the nanobots. Then she guided the tracker to Terra, who was trying to catch her breath. “Terra, this is Abby,” she broadcast through the speaker. “I have a plan.”
Terra looked at the tracker for a moment. “And what would that be?”
“Gonna try to take care of the chimera. If it works, put it out of its misery, all right?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Abby guided the tracker over to the chimera. The creature didn’t seem to notice her. She easily navigated the tracker to the back of the lion’s mane and touched down, then she looked through her headset for a chip.
There it was. The tracker scuttled over to the microchip. Abby was vaguely aware that she wasn’t using the controls for the tracker anymore. She’d worry about it later.
The tracker dumped its nanobots onto the microchip, and the microscopic robots got to work uploading the virus.
Abby’s body jerked forward as her consciousness merged with that of the chimera. She felt herself pushing something out of the way, uncertain what it was but very aware it did not want her inside. It didn’t matter. Abby was taking control. She had to.
Martin’s voice was in Abby’s head again. “We’re not going to be able to take full control, but take as much as you can. Immobilize the ugly son of a bitch.”
“Hopefully, Terra will see her opening.”
Abby fought for control of the chimera. If it had been as simple as seizing the creature’s body, this would have been a lot easier. But she was fighting for something much more complicated than that.
Terra watched the chimera spasming. It wasn’t too noticeable, but she could tell that something was up. This must be the distraction Abby was talking about. It was time to put an end to this.
The arena was covered with the dead bodies of orcs, goblins, and humans. Most of the mantiboids had managed to stay alive, but too many had fallen. And as long as that chimera was still alive, more were going to die.
Terra leaned over the corpse of one orc. The orc had two katars, one in each hand. Terra appropriated them, then sprinted toward the chimera.
Small spasms rocked the chimera’s body as its head jerked back and forth, trying to take a step forward but moving as if it were possessed by some kind of spirit. It could barely turn its head when Terra came ramming into its side.
The chimera was knocked over, its legs flailing as Terra climbed atop it. She dodged the giant claws and squeezed down on her katars’ rods. Then she drove both into the chimera’s chest.
Terra squeezed the rods again and the blades split into three, tearing through the chimera’s body. She withdrew the blades and slammed them back in. She hacked and hacked at the creature as it roared in pain.
The crowd had gone silent. There was no other sound but the cries of the chimera, of tearing flesh, of Terra’s screams.
Finally, there was only silence. Terra stood, drenched in blood. She studied the battlefield.
The remaining orcs from the opposing team had retreated, laying their weapons on the ground and backing away toward their golden gates. At first, Terra wanted to give chase and cut them down where they stood.
Instead, she went over to Eric’s dead body and picked it up. She approached her own gates while the rest of her team gathered their dead, the crowds chanting, “Not-a-Male! Not-a-Male!”
Abby pulled off her VR headset and sat down. She could still feel the blades of the katars tearing open her stomach and the blood flowing out of her. She pressed her fingers to her belly to make sure. “Martin,” Abby started, “what are those nanobots doing to me?”
Martin didn’t instantly answer. “You know, of all the things you’ve asked me so far, that’s the only thing I don’t have an answer to. Back there, that was more like me thinking out loud. This is all new territory.”
&
nbsp; “You’re in my head, aren’t you?”
“Or you’re in mine.”
Abby chuckled as she stared down at her hands. The skin around her cuticles looked a little silver, almost the color of an exposed wire. “Don’t think out loud anymore, Martin,” she suggested.
Creon watched Abby from his desk. He didn’t say anything, but Abby could feel his eyes on her. There was no judgment, only a sort of intense curiosity. “What’re you thinking, Creon?” she asked.
The goblin got up and walked past the nanobot chamber. “The chamber’s empty. I didn’t send all of our nanobots through the collider. A third of them were still here.”
Abby’s heart jumped. She had injected a third of the nanobots. There hadn’t seemed to be so many of them. Were they just going to stay in her blood forever.?
Pa’s voice rang in Abby’s head. “Sometimes you just need to slow the hell down instead of rushing headfirst into trouble.” That was what he’d said when she’d started messing around with building drones. She’d almost electrocuted herself.
At least he’d be happy that I’m raising the bar, Abby thought.
Creon came over to Abby and extended his hand. Abby reluctantly gave him hers and he turned it over, looking at it with an eye for detail usually only seen in doctors. “Just as I thought. What made you think that was a good idea?”
“Martin suggested it. Said it would help with the connection to the other bots.”
“A reasonable theory. And you didn’t think to question him?”
“Why? He’s not trying to hurt me or anything.”
Creon’s eyes narrowed as he sat back down. “Are you sure about that?”
Abby’s body tensed. She hadn’t even thought of that, and now Martin was in her head. She still wasn’t sure in what capacity, though. Could he read her mind? Was she merely a giant computer to him?
Creon relaxed and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry, he’s probably okay. Years of being on edge…it’s hard to trust anyone. We’ll keep this between you and me. No need for Myrddin to know. And as for the nanobots, we’re going to have to start running tests on you. Make sure that you’re not having an adverse reaction to them, and tracking any other information you think is relevant.”
