Echo Online 2

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Not wanting to test him, I accepted that the belt was going to be a bit loose. I ran for the back, slipping on the wet ramp and nearly going ass-first into dark, knee-deep, icy water.

  “Jesus!” I yelped as I leapt out of the way of another APC just in time to avoid it ramming into the space where I’d been standing.

  Covered in water and certain the creatures could smell me, I popped off a couple of shots as I scrambled to get up the ramp where others were also firing off in every direction throughout the mist which, despite how it looked from afar, may as well have been land-bound storm clouds.

  Not wanting to shoot any of my fellow troops in the back, I let my gun hang across my chest with its sling and pulled off a grenade.

  Looking back on it, that was probably way more dangerous for my teammates, but I’m just going to go ahead and chalk me straight yeeting grenades left and right up to low-level eldritch madness.

  I didn’t hear any screams though, not any that fit in line with the explosions anyway, and used that to push me on until I, like a damn idiot, had thrown every last grenade, injuring a grand total of nothing and no one.

  As bad as it may sound, I sort of kicked myself for not even getting shrapnel into one of my boys, at least then I could’ve said I got something.

  Still not totally confident about firing blindly into the mist, I pulled Dave out who, glowing with his souls, let out a long yawn.

  “I’m sorry, is this boring you?” I asked through my teeth as I did my best to walk forward while also keeping my head on a swivel.

  “Nah, I was just sleeping.” Dave replied, clacking his nonexistent tongue against his nonexistent palette, “you winning?”

  “Who knows at this point?” I chuckled under my breath, jumping at shadows while struggling to maintain my pace, “Can you sense anything?”

  “Not a damn thing,” Dave sighed, “guess I’m just not used to these fishy fucks. Start running though.”

  “Why? Is there something behind me?” I asked, fighting the urge to spin around.

  “No,” Dave said disinterestedly, “I just think it’d be funny if you fell over and died.”

  “Okay, it’s going to sound like I’ve stopped talking to you, but that’s only because I have.” I replied as I started to break out into a jog, hoping to God I was going in the right direction.

  To my surprise, Dave went ahead and took me seriously, leaving me to focus on the almost unbearable amount of sounds around me.

  Footsteps, shrieking, cries for help, all of them drowned each other out to the point where I was genuinely worried I was losing my mind.

  It got to the point where all I could do was slice wildly at the air, hoping that nothing would get near and that if anything did I’d scare the extradimensional pants off it with my skills.

  Then something grabbed my wrist and started dragging me forward, a set of soft fingers that I almost immediately recognized without being able to see who they belonged to.

  “Thank you,” I sighed with relief once Sam had dragged me all the way out of the mist and onto a clear street, “I seriously thought I was screwed.”

  “You and everyone else we’ve pulled out.” Jane scoffed from where she stood in front of about a dozen Damned Legion troops, “Any particular reason you took so long?”

  “My grenades,” I replied, laughing slightly at what I’d ended up doing with them, “I didn’t want to leave them behind.”

  “Yeah, well, next time just run.” Sam said disappointedly, “Seriously, I thought you were dead.”

  “Don’t you know? Nothing can kill me.” I chuckled.

  “Famous last words much?” Jane replied, “Anyway, where to now?”

  “We don’t want to wait for the others?” I asked.

  “We’re pretty split up at the moment,” Sam explained, “Sergei and about thirty others are a few blocks over, and I have to imagine there are others who haven’t or can’t check in.”

  “So… we’re just going to assume this is it? That seems kind of shitty.” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Yeah, a little,” Jane agreed, “but at this point I feel like it’d be in all of our best interests to make sure at least some of us make it. So, again, where to now?”

  My brow furrowed at that, mostly because I thought she was pissed and I really didn’t think I had it in me to have another little argument, especially not in front of a bunch of people, but then she started spinning her fingers around each other.

  “Come on,” Jane groaned, “you have to get to work soon, and I have some code I need to push before midday.”

  And just like that, it made sense.

  “Gamer Grilz’s club,” I replied, confident that she was happy with me and was just starting to stress about our real-world time crunch, “we know we have allies there, and we can be fairly certain that it’s safe.”

  “Isn’t the best way to get there at this point to go through the sewers?” Sam asked concernedly, “You know, the place where all the Tyranid-types hang out?”

  “We have no reason to think they’re down there,” Jane said before I could, “and honestly, I think I’d rather take my chances with them than walk through a city of a million sniper nests.”

  The group behind Jane was visibly squirming at the idea of going into the sewers, but none of them were willing to speak up and Sam, the only one on their side, had clearly traded in concern for apathy.

  “Alright, I suppose you’ve got a point,” Sam sighed, “either of you remember the way?”

  “I do, yeah.” I replied with a nod, “Besides, if we get really lost, Jane can jump on the forums really quick and get directions.”

  “Why am I the communications officer all of a sudden?” Jane chuckled confusedly.

  “Because you are officially the most active of the three of us on the forums,” I said, smiling proudly, “saves us the time of me creating an account, finding out where to post, etcetera, etcetera.”

  Jane didn’t seem particularly ecstatic about the idea, but a creature in the mist roaring dangerously close to us was all that she needed to nod, “Okay, let’s boogie.”

  39

  Aside from the handful of times members of our little team fired at shadows, the trip to the blast cellar was pretty uneventful and simple, thanks to a series of magical flares that had been set up since we’d last gone through.

  “Whoa,” Jane murmured as the entrance came into view along with the dozen or so people who’d overflowed into the sewer, “how many of these do you think are ours?”

  “Who knows,” I replied, leaving our troops behind on our way into the club, “wouldn’t be surprised to find out some of them are just people we accidentally screwed over.”

  “Believe me, no one sees it that way.” Frank said after slipping between a few pairs of legs to meet us near the bar, “The areas near the bay were pretty much all halo territory anyway.”

  “Good to see you again, Frank,” I chuckled, following him as he pushed through the crowd, “any trouble with the Hallowed Kings as of late?”

  “Not really,” Frank replied after reaching a booth before us and evicting the people who’d been sitting there, “they know better than to bring a fight here, and Lord knows they couldn’t handle any more losses.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked as we all shuffled into the booth, “I know we did that whole mist thing, but that seems like the kind of thing they’d have an easy time recovering from.”

  “Oh no,” Frank laughed, “turns out that those slippery beasties lock onto Angels like pit bulls to toddlers.”

  “Jesus, Frank,” Frostiey laughed uncomfortably as she came over to join us, “why do you say these things?”

  “Tell me I’m wrong.” Frank scoffed confidently before turning back to us, “So, what’re your plans from here?”

  “Honestly? I’m jumping off in the next few minutes,” I said somewhat embarrassedly, “I don’t mean to drop in and ditch, but I’ve got work and stuff.”

/>   “Totally understandable,” Frostiey replied, “besides, you’ll probably want to have your teams find out what you’re dealing with before trying anything big. Speaking of, your Russian friends are over with a bunch of Mossmo’s boys.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jane asked, checking the walkie she had attached to her pants, “They announce it on the forums or something?”

  “Nah, Mossmo’s guys told him, and he told me.” Frostiey said before looking around, “He’s actually around here somewhere… Mossmo!”

  “What!?” a voice called back from the crowd.

  “Get over here!” Frank shouted, his voice carrying significantly further than Frostiey’s, “Buck and his generals are here!”

  No one spoke for a few seconds after that as we waited for a fiery-eyed and heavily armored Vampire-Demon to show up at the booth with a big ole smile and his hands on his hips.

  “Glad you made it across the bay,” Mossmo said, his eyes attempting and failing to burn into my soul, “I had a few boys who were convinced you would all get trapped over on Alcatraz and leave us to clean up the city.”

  “And miss out on all the fun?” I jokingly scoffed, “Keep dreaming. Good to meet you, by the way, heard you have a group within the ICU.”

  “Yeah, heh,” Mossmo chuckled, “I must’ve missed the part where we all agreed to be Dragonborn. Thankfully, me being in an established group meant I got to pull in a whole bunch of people like me. Anyway, I’ve got to keep knocking out plans over there, I’ll see you on the battlefield.”

  “I… Yeah, sure.” I murmured confusedly as Mossmo disappeared back into the crowd.

  “He can be like that sometimes,” Frank huffed amusedly, “back to the task at hand, is there anything you need us to do while you’re gone? We’ve already managed to pull in a bunch of weapons from caches we had set up around the city, but if can you think of anything else we might need?”

  I spent a few moments looking like I was thinking it over, but the truth was that I couldn’t focus on anything other than the bustling bar and the fact that I had to get to work.

  “Have you guys got any vehicles?” Sam asked, offering me a great way out.

  “We could probably jack some cars, but that’ll draw attention.” Frostiey replied, “Oh wait, you mean military-type ones. Yeah, no, Hallowed Kings lost most of theirs to you and yours, and it’s not like there are more coming across the bridge any time soon.”

  “Damn,” Sam quietly cursed before shrugging and smiling, “I guess we don’t need them. You guys know what happened to ours, right?”

  “They’re all pretty much torn to shreds, right?” Frank asked, “That or lost somewhere at the bottom of the bay?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” I sighed disappointedly, having only just realized that we’d lost our armored support, “Well, at least there’s no chance the halos will get ‘em, right?

  “Right,” Frank replied with a nod, “the mist seems to be holding strong where it is currently, with the exception of around midnight when it climbs a block or two into the city.”

  “That’s good news at least,” Jane chuckled, “who knows? We might even end up going and fishing them out when all this is done.”

  “You guys think it’ll be done soon too, then?” Frostiey asked, “You know, none of this taking and losing territory for the next six months or whatever?”

  “No way,” I replied, shaking my head, “once we’re ready for the assault, that’ll be it. Sure, there might be some stragglers, but other than that…”

  “I’m with Buck,” Frank agreed, “there’s a chance they might pull something out of their ass and win the fight, but what happens after that will be it. We’ll have winners and losers.”

  “Here’s to winning,” I said as I rose a fake glass, “and to kicking some winged ass.”

  “Shit yeah.” Frostiey laughed after her and the others joined me in raising and drinking nothing.

  “Well,” I sighed, sitting back in the booth and looking around at the packed blast cellar, “I guess I’ll see y’all later then. You know how to reach me, right?”

  “Through Jane, yeah,” Frank chuckled, “you’ve really got to get on those forums, man, people are starting to notice.”

  “That sounds like a them problem.” I replied with a smirk, “But yeah, I’ll get an account set up soon.”

  “You better.” Frostiey jokingly warned.

  I was genuinely surprised by how much better I felt after seeing all those people packed into the tiny space and beyond, not because I’m whatever the opposite of a claustrophobe is, but because none of them hated me.

  Sure, it seemed like a good deal of them didn’t even recognize me, but I saw that as a major plus as well.

  Hell, with the exception of Kelly, everyone must’ve known what the Destroyer of San Francisco, better known as ‘Carl’, looked like, and as far as I could tell he rarely left the safety of the areas he controlled.

  I don’t know, it just felt good to either be invisible or liked, not least because it meant I had a safe place to log off.

  Well, safe-ish.

  40

  Getting out of the game felt wrong, like leaving the cinema halfway through a movie, to the point where none of us really said anything until the pizza we’d ordered showed up.

  “It sucks that we have to work…” Jane muttered disappointedly, “I mean, we’re so damn close.”

  “I know, I know,” I agreed after burning the roof of my mouth with some cheese, “but hey, at least this gives us the opportunity to let everyone get some rest after crossing the bay.”

  “And we’ve got people gathering intel instead of charging in blindly, so we won’t risk losing our entire force.” Sam added.

  “Yeah,” I replied with a little huff, “sure, Zerging can work, but I feel like when they’re people you know instead of just a faceless horde… I don’t know, all I’m saying is that I never had a mutiny in Starcraft.”

  “Exactly,” Sam replied, “not only would we risk losing altogether if we’d have done that, we’d have had to deal with the fallout in the guild.”

  “Still though,” Jane chimed in again, “I just want to finish this and get back to… whatever it is that we wanted to do before all this stuff with the Hallowed Kings kicked off.”

  I can’t speak for the others, but that was the first time I’d started thinking about what we were going to do after the war.

  I’d been paranoid about having to lead the people before, sure, though I hadn’t really thought much about what I was going to do when the dust settled and we’d come out on top.

  Would Echo lose its flavor after we jumped the shark?

  Would I have any friends by the end of it?

  What was I going to do with the Hallowed Kings?

  “What time to do you have to get to work?” Sam asked, pulling me out of my mini-spiral.

  “I should probably start getting ready in the next ten minutes or so,” I replied tiredly, “I should be back a bit earlier than normal though. Pete doesn’t like keeping the people doing a straight shift back longer than he has to.”

  “Seems like a good boss.” Jane said with a smile.

  “He really is,” I chuckled, “bit of a pushover sometimes, but he can butt heads if he needs to.”

  “That’s good.” Sam replied before visibly coming up with an idea, “Hey, do you think there’d be any chance you could get off a little earlier than early tonight if we needed you? You know, take in your login thing and see what happens?”

  “I doubt it,” I said, “it’s a Saturday night, so it’s probably going to be busy right up until we close. The only reason I’ll be able to get out any earlier is because I’ll get a pass on cleaning and pack down.”

  “Damn.” Sam murmured flatly, before letting out a long sigh and shrugging, “Could you take it in anyway?”

  “Why though?” I chuckled, “I mean, I’m going to have to wait ‘til I get home to use it anyway. It’s not like I can just go out to my car
and jump in. The owners’ll have a go at me if they think I’m sleeping in my car.”

  “Why?” Jane asked.

  “Because it reflects poorly on the kitchen or some shit,” I replied unsurely, “truth is, I think they look for reasons to be pissed, and I’ve been lucky enough to never give them a reason to.”

  “Benefits of being lame, I suppose.” Sam lightheartedly jabbed, “Seriously though, take it for me? Even if it just means you know where it is for when you get home.”

  I smiled and shook my head at that, “Alright, fine, I’ll chuck it in my bag on the way out. Again though, I won’t be able to use it.”

  “It’s not like he’ll need to either,” Jane said, “everyone’s going to be waiting for him, not waiting on him. Might be good if we’re there to assure people that their fearless leader is coming, but other than that, they’ll just have to grit their teeth and deal with a bit of waiting.”

  God, it felt good to have Jane on my side, not so much so I could win against Sam, but more because it validated what I was saying for me.

  Sure, it opened an odd internal can of worms for me in regards to the fact that I apparently needed validation for once in my adult life, but mostly I was just happy to have the support.

  “Will this be enough food?” Sam asked concernedly.

  “Shit yeah,” I replied after practically vacuuming up a slice, “the amount of times I’ve ended up just heating up some ramen or something and been fine. This is as good as having a three course meal as far as my body’s concerned.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Sam said happily, “think you’ll want any after work?”

  “Probably not,” I barely got out past some garlic bread, “something about working with food all night kind of kills my appetite.”

  “Awesome.” Sam murmured with a bizarre level of excitement, earning her a confused look from both Jane and me, “What? I skipped breakfast.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if you should be that excited about pizza,” I said amusedly, “it’s just bread and sauce.”

  “It’s Italian magic, you filthy heathen, and you know it.” Sam half-jokingly snapped.