I wasn’t even sure what to say to that. Looking over at Squirrel one more time and noticing that she’d already had time to find herself a girlfriend, I sighed, closed my eyes, and soared off into the sky. Drawing that moment out was the worst. At some point, I was sure, I would have found a reason not to leave.
The sea quickly approached. The shoreline was bathed in cold, dark-blue waves washing in with the relentlessness of my impending death. The water doesn't care who rules the planet. Aliens, humans, or cockroaches, it didn't matter. All it cared about was filling space, ignoring everything else. That was the real god — water. Silent, giving life, and indifferent.
Checking with Raptor, I flew up along the cost, peering off at the horizon in search of any kind of black dot. There was nothing to be seen. An hour later, I turned sharply. It wras time to head out to sea. The ship wras supposed to be thirty kilometers straight ahead.
It was only a stroke of foresight that saved me from catastrophe. I'd taken my named equipment off long before I’d even started up the coast, as they didn’t work without cell towers. And just as I’d suspected, they disintegrated into black dust as soon as I left signal range. At least, Raptor disintegrated, as I’d left it out for directions. I had one more named item coming from the store, so it wasn’t a terrible loss. Plus, there wasn’t time to get worked up about it, as I was too busy plummeting toward the water. Part of the absorber belonged to the game, so it stopped working. And that part was apparently flight. Granted, I maintained some semblance of the quality, slipping from side to side like a feather rather than just dropping like a rock, but it was still only the water that let me arrest my fall and hover a couple meters above its surface.
I couldn’t go anywhere. There was up and down, but they still kept me in the same place. The wind, too, wras blowing me out to sea. In fact, it got to the point that I tried dropping into the water to use my hermetic seal and heat exchange. They were great — I didn't even feel the cold. And finally, I was able to move again, as it surprisingly worked underwater. Not well, but it worked. The absorber qualities apparently didn’t have anything to push off of in the air.
Flying a couple meters up into the air just in case and zooming in as far as I could, I noticed the shoreline on the horizon. Great — I need to go in the opposite direction. Getting my bearings without Raptor was a challenge, though I decided to risk it and head due north. That was my plan, at least. Movement underwater was far slower than in the air, though much faster than if I’d had to swim myself. The waves washed over me, knocking me backwards and off course, but they couldn’t stop me. An hour later, I was wiiere the ship w^as supposed to be.
I took to the air, reaching my newr maximum altitude of twTo meters and trying to find anything at all on the horizon. But there was nothing. The cold ocean looked lifeless and empty. No seagulls, no whales, no ships. Just the strong wind grabbing and pulling me in a very7 different direction than the one I thought it should take me in. I was drifting off to the side rather than straight ahead. But the wind was coming in fi'om the shore! It occurred to me that I might have taken a wrong turn, though that concern was dwarfed by the realization that the coast might not have been behind me. That scared me far more than the fact that I couldn’t find the ship.
Almost as if it wTas reading my mind, the wind started gusting from side to side, tossing me along with it. I splashed into the water and felt an enormous wave wash over me. A storm was kicking up.
Great, that's just what I needed! Suddenly, I no longer needed to find the ship. All I cared about in that moment was getting back to land, and so I pushed off as fast as I could in what I thought was the right direction.
An hour later, a panic started settling in — land was nowhere to be seen. The storm was gaining force, and that made the going harder. Every time I tried to take off into the air so I could look around, I was carried to the side. It was getting dark. Rain began to fall, reducing visibility to a minimum. But surprisingly, it was that factor that brought reason rushing back into my head. Even if I get lost rww, it's okay. All I had to do was keep going forward no matter what. Sooner or later, I would reach land, be it our continent or a different one. I could make it a week without food if I kept moving, and in that amount of time I could make it all the way around the world. Okay, what do I know about storms?
Not much, unfortunately. The waves were coming in from the side. Figuring the wind would be blowing in from the cold sea toward the warmer continent, I decided to just follow suit. And that made the going much faster. I even figured out how to hop from wave to wave. There were no stars I could use to get my bearings — they were all concealed by the low cloud cover. At some point, I got tired of pushing my way through the wrater and took off into the air. The wind grabbed me and sent me firing along much faster. It was a straight run without sharp turns, and it kept going until I suddenly saw a light. And sure, it might have just been in my head, but I decided to go check it out. Risking everything, I set off against the waves. I was thrown to the side, knocked off course, and spun around,
but the water was no match for a determined player.
Half an hour later, I saw the ship. The light I’d seen had been coming from runners set alongside the sides. It was moving against the waves, rocking up and down. From what I could tell, it was actually just standing in one place, though chasing it down turned out to be a job in itself. It was just half an hour later that I was able to close in on the metal hulk. And without seeing a single good way of getting onto the deck, I decided to go the crazy route. My speed let me come even with the heaving bow, and the next time it dipped lower, I grabbed hold and flew up into the air. The wind seized control and tried to take me for a ride, though I didn't let that happen — my hands had a death grip on the hull. It dipped once again, and I weakened my grasp just enough to grab the top of the railing. Is that what they call it on ships? One more flight, and I was on the deck. There was no way I wTas going to get anywhere during the storm, and so I jabbed myself into the nose and waited. That was my only option.
The storm died away three hours later. I'd apparently even managed to snooze off in that time, though I wasn’t completely sure, as it turned out to my surprise that I suffered from seasickness. The constant rocking had my innards tied up in knots, and there wasn’t a thing the vaunted regeneration syringes could do about it. And that w^as even despite the fact that the absorber got advanced regeneration.
“Man on board!” A shout brought me to my senses. The sun was up, and that let me see who was talking — a young sailor around twenty years of age. He was staring at the bedraggled castaway, though he'd still had the presence of mind to report back to his superior. That was military training
for you.
I tried moving and found to my surprise that my body had gone stiff. Every motion elicited a sharp, shooting pain. Groaning, I extracted my arms from the railing and collapsed onto the deck. A pair of arms grabbed me and pulled me to my feet. As the pain intensified, I howled, bestowing every curse I could think of on all the world’s sailors. My ision blurred, and I closed my eyes to fight the sensation. It had been a long time since I'd suffered like that. Right, this is what regular' human pain feels like.
“Who are you?” An authoritative voice broke through the veil of
pain.
“A human. A player. Looking for the navy. Need help,” I forced out. Speaking was as difficult as moving, though I found the strength not only to answer, but even to open my eyes and look around. I was dragged deeper into the ship. A crowd formed around me. Of course, they were less than friendly — I found myself facing a large number of weapons drawn and pointed in my direction. They wrere the real kind, the kind that could even hurt players. And there was a military officer standing in front of me. From what I could tell, he was the captain of the ship, a man who looked no older than forty. His face was angular, his posture ramrod-straight, all classic military. That was about all there was to say about him, although he didn’t have a beard. A
captain without a beard?
“Are you an alien?” he asked.
“No, I’m one of ours, born in the capital. When the game started, I had to fight the changed — the monsters humans turned into. I came across General Maximov, who gave me the coordinates of three ships. Yours and two more in the southern sea. You’re the last of the unchanged.”
“General Maximov? What does he look like?” The XO appeared from behind the captain’s back. At least, I thought he was the executive officer, though I wasn’t positive about all the different stripes and ranks. The little things stood out — the way all the sailors avoided him, for instance. Without much difficulty, I described Maximov, a few of his aides, and even the nondescript finance guy. Surprisingly enough, it was the latter that made the difference.
“Okay, so Varkun survived,” the XO said slowly.
“His name is Colonel Lercant,” I replied. “Ivan Lercant. Definitely not Varkun.”
“Good, you were prepared. So, you came for help? Alone and in a storm? How’d you pull that off?”
“Just don't shoot me,” I said. Once I got a nod in reply, I flew up off the deck. It wasn’t high, just half a meter, but that was enough for the sailors to grab me and pull me back down.
“You said you’re human?” There was an undisguised threat in the captain’s voice.
“A player,” I replied. “The past few months on Earth have been a mess. Almost all of physics has changed — the aliens grabbed 99% of the planet, leaving just small pockets of resistance. But you can help stop them. Let’s decide — either you hear me out, or you let me go so I can head back and save whoever I can.”
“I have a third option. We’ll hear you out, and then we’ll make a decision. Let’s go. XO, make sure the subject is secure.”
The subject, I could only assume, was me. Two powerful fighters followed me around everywhere, even to the bathroom when I asked to use it. When I got to the captain, I found him waiting with five more officers. All of them looked about the same and were roughly the same age. I guess they look for uniformity more than talent around here.
Plopping down onto a chair, I sighed and started into my story. I had to tell them everything, not even starting with the game, but with what had led up to it — the phone app. Because I’d recently gone through the same thing with Squirrel, I was able to give them the tale quickly and without taking many pauses to think. The events of the previous two months were still fresh in my memory. But when they asked me to show them something from the game, I had to shrug. There were no cell towers nearby. Taking the ship closer to the city might have —
“Out of the question. We tried that, and our equipment all started to fail,” the captain said. “Keep going.”
Basically, I finished by telling them how7 I’d flown out to sea, how71 happened across the light, and how I’d clambered onto the bow of the ship. Because the newcomers didn't believe me, I had to show them how I could fly, hovering right above my chair. Two arms grabbed my shoulders and forced me back down. The guards were on the ball.
“So, sacrificial offering works, too?”
“Yep. If you want, I can kill you all right here. The radius is four meters, and it works through all kinds of barriers.”
The lower-ranking officers stepped back only to return to their places when the captain glared at them.
“Show us mimicry and invisibility,” one of the newly arrived officers said, though I refused.
“Am I on a navy ship or performing in a circus? So, what do you say? Can I count on you?”
“What you’re asking for is simple enough. The problem is how you’ll give us the green light. If I understood you correctly, you can’t get a call through to us.”
“No, I can’t,” I replied. “Honestly, I was hoping for a solution from your side. I don't have all that much experience, after all, and I wasn’t able to come up with anything.”
“XO?” The captain looked over at the guy the regular sailors were
afraid of.
“There really aren't many options. We need a button. I’ll handle the satellite bearings, and well keep someone on the job."
“Wait, what?” The words had all been familiar, but I didn't understand a thing. The captain decided to explain.
“A kamikaze button. You hit it, the satellite gets a signal, the point is fixed, and missiles are launched at the target. We'll coordinate that with the two ships to the south, as well. Resolute, Admiral, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” came a voice from the speakers, and I realized we weren't alone there on the bridge. “Just send us the button settings so we can sync with you.”
“XO.”
“On it.” The captain's aide began tapping away at a computer.
“How much time will I have to get away?” The name of the button raised all sorts of questions.
“The missiles travel at mach-2, and you’re trying to take out their main guy, the release owner, right? In that case, twenty to twenty-five minutes depending on where the ships are.”
“You know where it is?!” I even leaped to my feet in surprise.
“XO,” the captain barked, and an image popped up on a screen. It was a view from space. Earth began to approach at incredible speed, and I was able to pick out the capital of the country next to ours — I’d seen it several times. In my past life, the one prior to the game, I’d always wanted to visit, looking it up regularly in Google Maps and even setting up tours for myself. I’d just never had the money. Apparently, my dream was about to come true.
The only problem was that the city was in ruins. Nothing remained of the former architecture, and it was all demolished and charred. Most of the buildings were covered with an impenetrable red dome.
“We can’t get through that thing. A couple times, we tried, though it didn’t work. So, you’ll have to make sure you take the defenses out before you hit the button,” the captain said. “We don’t have many missiles left.”
I looked back at the dome. It wasn’t a game device. Instead, it was real, confusing, and out-of-this-world, especially if it was capable of standing up to the kind of weaponry we were discussing. What am I getting myself into? It hit me that waiting a week to die peacefully might not have been such a bad idea, especially given that I could spend it with Squirrel. Yeah, right. I can rest later. There was eternity ahead.
“Thirty minutes, okay. Wait a second! What if the target moves?”
“The missiles lock onto the button, so they can correct their course. Just make sure it’s on the animal’s body.”
“On the body... Are you kidding me? Okay, fine, I’ll figure something out. Hey, can I ask you a question? Why are you helping? I mean, sure, I was counting on you, but I figured I’d have to wheedle and beg until I talked you into it. But here, you’re just ready to jump right in.”
“XO?”
The executive officer hit a few buttons, and the image on the big screen changed. That time, I was facing a city wiped clean to its foundations. The picture zoomed in, and I noticed some movement amid the ubiquitous chaos. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I recognized myself.
“We know who you are. From the first day, we’ve been tracking movement on the continent, and you happened across our radar with enviable regularity. It wasn’t much of a surprise when you showed up on the ship — nuclear explosions aren’t the kind of thing we’re likely to miss, and we quickly brought some satellites over. That’s when we saw you again. Our analysts have been saying about the same thing as what you told us: Earth was split into two worlds, one of which is about to end. And I aim to do everything in my power to make sure the part we’re in sticks around. What do you need to get the job done?”
“A necklace.” Seeing the frowns on the faces of the sailors, I explained. “I can’t put real items in my pockets, so the only thing you can do is hold them or attach them to yourself. But the rope or whatever you use has to be real, too. I’d rather not cany the button around, so I’d like
something
I can use to hang it safely around my neck.”
“XO?” The captain apparently had just one answer to every question. I need a genie like that.
“Well find something,” came the reply, and a few minutes later I received a small leather pouch made with fairly sophisticated technology. “From my personal belongings. You slip it onto your belt, and it hangs on your hip. Keeps your hands free.”
Throwing a glance in my direction, the XO sighed and pulled his belt off. I quickly slipped the pouch on and nodded my thanks. It was indeed convenient.
“What about a weapon? I wouldn’t mind a machinegun with a dozen bullets. Armor-piercing. Maybe, I won’t even need the button.”
“That’s more of a problem,” the captain replied darkly. “All we have are personal weapons. We fired all the other ammo we had when we tried to get in close to the shore, and there’s been nowhere to stock up.”
“A pistol would fit in the pouch, actually.” The XO was as resourceful as ever, handing me his pistol. I was going to be surprised by the gesture when he explained.
“My family was in the city the general took over. I’ll do anything to get back at those bastards.”
It only then hit me that every sailor on the ship had lost friends and family. Every last one of them. Suddenly, it made sense why they were helping — they wanted revenge. I had nothing to say, though nothing needed to be said. Dropping the button in the pouch, it found its place alongside the pistol and three clips. Forty-eight bullets was plenty. Maybe, enough to save the world.
“Okay, the next question: where on shore do you need us to drop you?” the captain asked.
“That won’t be a problem. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll handle the rest. If there’s a city nearby, even better. There will definitely be cell towers there. And that means I’ll be back in the game.”
“Easy enough. We’ll be there in a couple hours.”
World of the changed 3 Noa in the flesh Page 24
