Life: Online: A gamelit novel

by Shiloh Hunt

  The player didn’t give her the courtesy of stumbling, or looking shocked. He just bestowed upon her a small smile and gestured with his shotgun. She faced forward unenthusiastically, coming to a halt a second later when the jungle opened into yawning nothingness.

  She was still standing, stock still and clinging to a nearby draping of some unidentified creeper, when Panda Guy crunched up beside her and grabbed hold of the back of her collar.

  “What the hell is that?” she whispered.

  She’d finally looked up from the precipitous drop she’d nearly walked into.

  “That, private, is the Arena.” Panda Guy fumbled with her wrists.

  Something clicked. She looked up in surprise. Her wrists rested inside two leather loops attached with a clip to a pulley. The pulley, in turn, connected her to an unending stainless steel cable. She caught Panda Guy’s eyes on the way down. His smile lifted infinitesimally.

  “It’s not as safe as it looks,” he said. “You will die if you let go. So don’t.”

  And then he pushed her.

  Kitty tried screaming, but the sound got stuck in the back of her throat. Her avatar surged forward, its feet kicking futilely in sucking, empty space as she clung to the hand grips.

  Far, far beneath her, a carpeting of sea glittered in navy and white; a masterful work of computer-generated water that would swallow her avatar and snuff out her last life if she let it. Night had finally claimed Bang-Bang Island: Moonlight had replaced the sun, etching the rift in blue-tinged shadows and glimmers of pale light. She flew toward a distant chunk of black rock where the twisted bodies of trees clung to its precipices. But there was a lot of sea and spiky rocks between her and the Arena… and her grip was already beginning to slide free.

  This was not how she died.

  Kitty wrenched free one of her hands — trying to ignore how idiotic she was being — and grabbed hold of the cable. Heat surged into her real hand back on Earth as she tightened her grip. She released her other hand, gritting her teeth as she forced her avatar to take hold of the cable with both hands.

  She slowed and twisted around, facing back the way she’d come. Panda Guy was hurtling toward her, eyes widening. He slipped free one of his hands and a rifle appeared in it. Kitty freed her right hand. She took Lucy’s rocket launcher from her inventory.

  Shock flashed over the player’s face. He reached up, stopping himself by grabbing the zip-line just as she had. Then he kicked up, crossing his ankles over the top of the cable and shimmying back up to the tangled embrace of the jungle.

  “Sissy!” she yelled. Pocketing the rocket launcher, she climbed up after him.

  This time, he was waiting for her.

  She dropped down, rolling to avoid a wild burst of rifle fire. Kitty scrambled up into a half-crouch, rocket launcher already in her hands. How did her avatar know all this stuff? The game had obviously had enough with newbs acting like newbs — it seemed there were tons of presets built right into the gameplay; mini cut scenes that made you look like you knew what you were doing straight from the get-go.

  Kitty took aim, but Panda Guy kicked the unwieldy weapon from her hands before she could pull the trigger. He pocketed his rifle, drawing his knife instead: seemed he preferred the personal touch when gutting his enemies.

  “I thought you were a newb,” he muttered.

  “Lot of people think that,” Kitty said. “A lot of dead people.”

  Panda Guy sneered at her. “Why the hell are you fighting to stay in the game, anyway? You intent on committing some weird kind of suicide or something?”

  “Or something,” Kitty replied airily. “Less talk, more stabbing, please. I have a feeling we don’t have a lot of time.”

  Panda Guy obliged her by darting forward, his black blade cutting through the air. It struck her arm before she could sidestep, removing a sizeable chunk of flesh from her, and with it, a third of her health.

  “You’re right about that, princess. You’re on a sinking ship, and I don’t feel the need to drown today.”

  With that, Panda Guy made a last stab in her direction. Kitty sprawled to the jungle floor to avoid the biting metal, and the man made a dash for the rope.

  “I’m not done with you yet!” Kitty yelled.

  She rolled over the jungle floor, hoisted her rocket launcher from its bed of moss, and took aim. She was thrown back into the jungle floor by the power of the rocket’s thrust. Panda Guy cursed. She scrambled to her elbows, watching with raised eyebrows as the player collapsed, his legs eviscerated.

  “Yeah! How you like them apples?” Kitty called out. “How’s that health bar looking, big guy?” She heaved up the rocket launcher again, taking careful aim through the thing’s enormous sight. “How about I send you off to player hell? Economy class. One way ticket.”

  “Kitty,” a voice behind her said quietly.

  She jerked, sending another rocket toward Panda Guy’s head. It missed him by less than an inch. Kitty leapt up, gaping at the two avatars standing behind her. Moonlight bathed their faces in a ghostly gleam, painting the blood streaking their faces a midnight black. They looked identical to her and Panda Guy.

  “Lucy?”

  “In the flesh,” Lucy said. He grimaced. “Sort of.”

  His eyes slid past her and narrowed. A blade appeared in his hand, leaving his fingers an instant later. There was a loud thunk. Kitty turned around to see Panda Guy propped up against a tree, the blade pinning him to its bulk by his shoulder.

  Lucy strode forward to crouch in front of the player. He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife and tugged it free. Panda Guy slid down on the bloodied stumps that were all that remained of his lower limbs. His lips were drawn back in a snarl — but it was one of defiance, not pain.

  “What you gone and done to piss her off then?” Lucy asked, bending forward.

  Panda Guy’s eyes shied away from Lucy’s. Kitty stepped closer, leaning to the side to try and catch sight of Lucy’s face. Something appeared to be transpiring between the two men, but Panda Guy’s face didn’t reveal anything helpful. If she could just—

  Lucy held out a hand toward her, halting her.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Serious Sam,” Lucy said.

  “I can explain—” began Panda Guy, AKA Serious Sam.

  Lucy cut him off with a laugh. “Yeah, I reckon you think you can, mate.”

  Panda Guy closed his eyes when Lucy bounced the black-bladed knife in his palm, eyes blinking skittishly when they opened a few seconds later. Lucy pocketed the knife, a health pack appearing in his hand. Kitty gaped as Panda Guy’s legs flashed back into existence, for a moment merging with Lucy’s feet before the game sorted out the two avatars.

  “Why’d you—” Kitty began, again silenced with a hand. She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Lucy’s avatar.

  Lucy rose to his feet, and Panda Guy followed meekly. The player’s shoulders drooped.

  “You left her there,” Lucy said. “You were the primary seeder, but you just left and she—”

  “The witch got me, Lucy,” Panda Guy said. “What was I supposed to do? They said we couldn’t break out of character, that we couldn’t sidestep quests if we got—”

  “You think I give a fuck about your pathetic excuses?” Lucy shouted. “You’re nothing but a trumped up script kiddie, Sam. Bullshitting your way in here and then running away like the fucking coward I always knew you were.”

  Kitty took a step back from Lucy’s vehemence. The man’s chest rose and fell, his hands curled into creaking fists. Behind her, the player Lucy had brought with him began to snivel. Kitty glanced around, touching her hand to the kid’s arm. It didn’t seem to help much, but the kid at least buried his face in his hands to muffle his sobs.

  “Lucy, I couldn’t—” Serious Sam said.

  “No,” Lucy cut in. “You don’t get to explain. You don’t get to make excuses. You don’t get to pretend for even a second that you bear some fucking resemblance to
a decent human being. Clean out your inventory. Now!”

  Serious Sam threw Kitty a pleading stare. She shrugged at him, her eyes straying unbidden to Lucy’s stiff avatar. The player began dropping items, collapsing in on himself with every additional object that thudded on the jungle floor. Moonlight gleamed off the assortment of weapons, med-packs and other soldierish paraphernalia.

  The objects disappeared. Lucy leaned forward, his hand pressing against the tree trunk behind Sam.

  “Guess what, Sam?”

  The player gave a half-shrug, half-shake of his head, eyes downcast.

  “You’re going to make this up to Cherry.” Lucy slapped his hand against the tree. “Can you guess how you’re going to make this up to her?”

  Sam gave a small shake of his head.

  “Rhetorical question, you moron.” Lucy slapped the palm of his hand against Sam’s forehead. “You couldn’t possibly fathom something so complicated with that tiny fucking brain of yours. But I’ll enlighten you, shall I?”

  Sam remained silent.

  “You’re going to deploy that rootkit yourself.”

  Back on Earth, Kitty’s heart banged against her ribcage. Pressure welled up inside her, urging her to step back. She was gripping the kid’s arm now, drawing him back with her. He was giving her confused glances, but she couldn’t look away from Lucy’s turned back. She lifted a finger to her lips, her grip tightening around the kid’s arm, and retreated as quietly as she could from Lucy’s furious avatar.

  “And I suppose I’ll need to tell you what happens when you deploy it, don’t I? Since you can’t figure it out yourself, yeah? I thought so.”

  Lucy leaned in again, his face less than an inch from Sam’s.

  “You deploy it, then you watch as the entire game unravels around you, tearing your avatar apart pixel by pixel, until there’s nothing left of you but a thought. Unable to return. Unable to breathe life into your brain-dead body back home. Just a thought—” Lucy lifted a hand, his fingers spreading slowly apart “—drifting into eternity.”

  That same hand snapped out, pointing directly at Kitty who’d almost managed to escape into the moon-shadows behind her.

  “And I’m not done with you yet either, Kitty.” Lucy turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Not by far.”

  47

  Where the four of them lurked on the threshold of the jungle, Bang-Bang’s HQ was nothing more than a silhouette. Its hulking mass reared into the night sky, blotting out most of the ghostly pie that was the moon.

  Kitty and Brad were to Lucy’s left, Serious Sam huddling against a tree trunk a little further away. None of them were armed, of course. He’d taken their weapons moments before explaining — in terms even chicken-shit Brad could understand — how they’d be breaking Serious Sam into his kamikaze launching stage and then high-tailing it to the Arena while the game fell in on itself in a violent implosion of corrupted code.

  They hadn’t liked it. But he hadn’t given them a choice.

  Kitty, especially, hadn’t seemed pleased by a scant explanation of how she’d thus far been the perfect cover, helping him avoid the mods’s notice to the point where he was on their doorstep and they were still none the wiser.

  “It’s too quiet,” Lucy said.

  “Better for you, isn’t it?” Kitty said, voice barely audible over the recycled sounds of nightlife echoing out from the jungle. “Now you can sneak right up to them and do your hacker shit all private-like and stuff.”

  He ignored the venom in her voice. “I’m not a hacker. Hackers find vulnerabilities with the intention of fixing them. I exploit vulnerabilities with the intention of fucking shit up. And this—” he gestured toward the silent HQ “—feels like a trap.”

  “Your super-duper hacker skills telling you that?”

  Irritation tightened Lucy’s mouth, but he still didn’t look at her. Close beside him, Brad was breathing heavily. He had a suspicion the kid behind the avatar was either asthmatic or overweight — being within earshot of him was enough to make you realise he had difficulty breathing. All right, there could have been other reasons but he didn’t give a shit right now, other than wishing the kid would keep quiet.

  “So what now, Mr Hacker-Cracker?” Kitty snapped. “We going in guns blazing, or all sneaky? You apparently prefer sneaking, right? Along with lying, cheating—”

  “We don’t go in at all. We don’t have to.” And then he looked at her. The fire in her eyes flickered out. She shrank away from him, licking her lips.

  “You said—” she began, voice timid now.

  “He’s going in there.” Lucy cocked his head toward Serious Sam. “And soon as he’s inside, I’m leaving.”

  There was a small sound from Sam, but Lucy forced his eyes away from Kitty and stared at HQ again, ignoring it. He rose from his crouch, taking a breath.

  It was finally time.

  He was exhausted: mentally, physically, every fucking type of way there was.

  Realising he was clutching at his pectoral muscle again, he hastily straightened his arm.

  What the hell kept doing that?

  Was he having a heart attack back on terra firma, the pain somehow intertwining with his gameplay?

  Or had that glitch in Polaris been responsible for messing up his kit like he thought?

  It didn’t matter.

  He turned his eyes on Sam, who immediately dropped his. Lucy’s heart thudded against his ribs, a tiny spike of pain straightening his back. He hoped there was pain. That, when the rootkit took hold, Sam’s body would experience some kind of agony that would stretch for hours, peeling away layers of his psyche until nothing remained but livid, screaming horror.

  Lucy blinked and opened his inventory. He scrolled through the masses of game objects stacked neatly inside: guns, ammunition, a parachute, night vision goggles, more. He reached the med-packs and scanned them, looking for one specific—

  He started.

  It had to be there.

  His eyes ran through the three rows of med-packs again. They were of varying strengths, but the one he was searching for wouldn’t have given as much of a sliver of health back if it had been used. It wouldn’t even have worked.

  It wasn’t there.

  The rootkit was gone.

  Lucy let out a short, forceful breath. He closed his inventory. Opened it. Checked again.

  The pain returned. He distractedly pressed his palm into his avatar’s chest, eyes fixed on his inventory as he scanned the med-packs. It was impossible: the payload couldn’t have been removed from his inventory. It wasn’t a game object, not in the literal sense of the term, which meant even shifting through rifts wouldn’t have misplaced it. Yes, here in Bang-Bang there weren’t such things as health-potions — which is what he’d disguised it as — so it would have transformed into a med-pack. But the only person who could remove it from his inventory was—

  “Where the hell is it?” Lucy's inventory snapped closed as he lurched toward Kitty.

  She yelped and scrambled back, but he’d closed his hand around her avatar’s throat before she could escape. He slammed her into the trunk of a tree and lifted her until her avatar’s feet kicked out beneath her. Lucy opened the game’s code console, forcefully scanning her inventory. It would have been easier to kill her and have her avatar chunder out its contents upon death of course, but then she would be dead and he’d be no closer to discovering where the rootkit was.

  “What?” she asked, panic in her voice. “What the hell—”

  “The health potion I gave you in Helical. Where is it?”

  Her eyebrows drew together, mouth parting. Then she blinked, her hands reaching up to grip his wrist.

  “Let go,” she said.

  It was disconcerting: Kitty’s ardent voice emanating from the scratched-up face of a war-weary soldier with the suggestion of a five-o-clock shadow on its jaw.

  “Tell me.” He squeezed her throat and her health bar slid down.

  “Kill me a
nd you’ll never find it.” Kitty’s eyes flickered between his, wide, forceful. “In fact, I think you’d better put me down. Just in case I spontaneously forget where it is.”

  He did so, his pain retreating with the confirmation. So she knew where it was, which meant it wasn’t lost. Or she could be bluffing. But she looked so smug, and if he knew her even a little—

  “So… how I see it,” Kitty began, tugging her uniform straight. “I’ve got something you want… and you have something I want.”

  “That’s how you see it, then?” Lucy asked.

  “That’s how I see it.” She gave a quick glance toward Brad, but the wheezing kid didn’t appear to be ready to take sides yet. “So how about we come to some sort of—” she wiggled her hands in the space between them “—mutual agreement?”

  “Spit it out, Kitty.”

  Kitty leaned back against the tree he’d been throttling her against and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I tell you where it is, you find William.”

  Lucy’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Him? What the fuck for?”

  The woman bristled, pushing away from the tree.

  “Doesn’t matter what for. Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.”

  His scoped rifle appeared in his hands, the sight aimed on Kitty’s forehead before he even realized the gun had left his inventory. For a moment, only a fierce internal struggle could prevent his avatar pulling the trigger. Kitty went rigid, her eyes widening as she froze up. He lowered the rifle, disappeared it into his inventory, and crossed his arms.

  “Fine.” He leaned his weight to the side, glancing at the hulk of HQ. “He’s in there. Now where’s the rootkit?”

  Kitty opened her mouth, its shape first angry, then aghast. She twisted to look at HQ.

  “In there? How do you—”

  “That’s where they take all the players that arrive in Bang-Bang after the first glitch. That beach you landed on? They’re swarming it, waiting. They’ll be checking your William’s license key to make sure he’s not a pirate. And when they confirm that he is one…”

  She turned back to him, mouth pressed into a firm line. “What?”