by Phoenix Ward
Unplugged
“How did you find me?” Tera asked as she followed Gauge down a long metal corridor. “Better yet, how did you even get in here?”
“That was the Clevinger’s doing,” Gauge replied, stopping at a fork in the hallway for a moment to think, then taking the left turn. “They pulled their last favor with the Pavilion elite to figure out where they were keeping you. They were also able to arrange a convenient power surge — as you saw with Councilman Harring. On top of that, they ensured us as little guard coverage as we can get away with. I don’t think they’ll be getting anymore favors in the future, though.”
“How do we get out of here?” she asked.
“Getting out will be the easy part, but we still have something to take care of first,” Gauge replied. He stopped her when he thought he heard footsteps, then continued to lead the way when he realized it was just a rattle in the pipes.
“We do?” Tera asked.
“They captured Ethan and King Hum as well,” Gauge replied. “They’ve got them in simpods as we speak.”
Tera’s optical receptors widened a little. “They’re here?” she asked.
“Somewhere,” Gauge replied. “I know it’s down this way a bit. From there, we’ll just have to figure it out. Come on.”
Tera followed close behind the other bodyshell, listening for any possible pursuit as she did.
“How are we going to get them outta here?” she asked as they took another corner.
“Loudly,” Gauge replied. “Here, take this. You might need it.”
He offered her a strange device that she recognized, but couldn’t put a name to. Then she remembered what it was from her training at the police academy: a pulse gun, designed solely to deactivate bodyshells. She’d never used one before; their use was strongly discouraged by the department. They’d only ever showed her class the weapons so they knew what to look out for, in case some drug-fueled slum dweller used them on the fresh-faced cadets.
As they approached yet another corner, Tera could hear a pair of metallic footfalls coming from around the turn. She tightened her grip on the weapon, her eyes focused on the edge of the corner. Gauge stopped her short, holding her back with his arm. He raised a metallic finger to his lipless mouth. With a precise motion, he pressed a button on the side of his head.
“There we go,” he said. “Just wanted to make sure it was working.”
Tera looked at him with nervous eyes, as if trying to tell him to be quiet.
“Sensor blocker,” the male I.I. replied, tapping his head. “For the next minute or so, no one will be able to see or hear us. Even better — they won’t see us coming on any security sensors.”
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Beth asked.
“It has a limited charge,” Gauge replied. “But I think now is the perfect time. Come on, let’s get past these goons.”
He led her around the bend, where two Council soldiers were casually patrolling. Beth hesitated for a moment, staring at their electronic eyes. None of them flinched or even cast a gaze in her direction. She knew Gauge’s cloak was effective, but part of her worried it was all an act on their part. Like the guards would turn to her suddenly and say, “Gotcha!”
She followed the rebel past the soldiers, taking great care to not touch them and shatter the illusion. They crouched low as they walked in order to keep their footsteps as quiet as possible.
Gauge led her along the hallway beyond the guards and out an open doorway. The passage was wide and tall, likely designed for vehicles to enter the facility from the Pavilion outside.
“It’s just next door,” Gauge said. “Stay low and keep quiet. The sensor block won’t work on everyone.”
It was only about twenty feet between the large door and the facility Gauge was referring to, yet it felt like a mile of an unsurveyed minefield to Tera. Every moment exposed out on the Pavilion, where any number of optical receptors or sensors might pick her up, felt like she was a vampire in broad daylight. Gauge was focused, though. He didn’t convey any hesitation whatsoever. With a firm grip on Tera’s mechanical wrist, he pulled her into the next building.
They found themselves in a small chamber that reminded Tera of an airlock. Another door waited to let them into the innards of the facility.
“You ready?” the rebel I.I. asked, checking the readout on his weapon.
She looked down at her own firearm, then nodded in reply.
Gauge took a step back, then charged into the next door shoulder-first, like he was going to knock it down. It was automatic, however, and opened for him before contact was made. He used the momentum to rush into the room.
Tera followed close behind but was still taken by surprise when a flash of blue light washed over her field of view. Gauge opened fire on the guards who waited for them inside, and the Council soldiers returned the barrage. She saw one duck behind a make-shift barricade and take aim at her comrade. With a sharp exhale, Tera lined her own blaster up and dropped the target.
“Behind you!” Gauge cried out.
Tera ducked, watching her companion’s expression as he aimed his pulse gun and took a few shots. She turned around to see another Council goon drop to the metal floor.
A dull red light washed over the area as a loud electronic pang emanated from speakers throughout the room. Someone triggered the alarm. The two bodyshells waved their firearms over the room, checking for any stragglers.
“See anyone else?” Gauge asked.
“Negative,” Tera replied, her police training kicking in. “All targets neutralized.”
The rebel I.I. smirked.
“Good,” he said. He looked up at one of the signs over the nearest doorway. “They’ve got to be close.”
He beckoned for Tera to follow him as he went through the entrance to the next chamber. She took one last look over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone, then made her way after him.
The next room was even darker than the entrance chamber they deactivated the bodyshells in. There was a dim green glow radiating from the wall opposite the doorway they walked through.
“Whoa,” Tera said, stopping as she took a look at the room.
It was no larger than a loading dock, but it still housed a considerable number of simpods. The coffin-sized containers lined the wall in short rows, extending up to the ceiling. Almost all of the pods were empty, the interior lights long extinguished. Two were still illuminated, however. They sat on the lowest level, near the center of the row. It was clear they had been placed here for ease of access.
“There they are,” Gauge said. He checked the corners of the room for any remaining guards, but they were alone.
Tera took a step forward and saw the humans within their simpods. She recognized them almost immediately. King Hum and Ethan had their eyes closed as they floated in the snot-green fluid. They were curled up like fetuses in the womb, connected to the contraption by dozens of black wires. If she had flesh-and-blood limbs, they would surely be going cold with horrible anger as she looked at the prisoners. She wanted to go back to the hologram of Councilman Harring and smash the room apart. To find where he was stored and burn the building down around him.
“How do we get them out?” she asked. Her tone was seething.
“We’re gonna need some tools,” Gauge said.
“So, what do we do?” Tera was starting to feel powerless.
“Well, the bad news is that the equipment we need is back at the Furnace and we’re going to have to take the whole simpods there,” Gauge replied.
After a moment of silence, Tera asked, “And the good news?”
Gauge pointed at the wall beside Ethan and King Hum, where a large cluster of deactivated simpods were connected. Tera squinted in the direction of Gauge’s finger, trying to see what he was talking about when she noticed a low hiss coming from behind the wall. Then, with a sudden roar, blue cones of flame melted their way through the thick structure, kicking up white sparks. Tera took a ste
p back as she watched the torches cut a long, jagged line through the wall, tracing out the shape of a large rectangle. Through the glowing hot wounds in the wall, Tera could see the light of day. Someone was cutting through the building from the outside.
“That’s the good news,” Gauge replied.
The flames retreated and vanished. A quiet moment passed before a loud rumble shook the building. With a terrible shriek of metal and concrete, the wall was torn from its frame and the world outside washed into the chamber. Tera needed a moment to adjust to the new light, shielding her eyes from the sun when she saw the figures pouring in through the new opening. As her optical receptors corrected themselves, she realized she recognized the newcomers. It was the men and women of the People’s Union — but they weren’t alone. The loyal soldiers of the Holy Kingdom of Opes were among them. Together, the rebels and Opesians gathered around the simpods and started to unhook them.
Just behind them, a small gunship hovered just above the streets of the Pavilion. Large bolts of green and blue light erupted from it as it opened fire on the Council soldiers, who had just started converging on the building.
Gaslit
Ethan and Taylor’s nineteenth birthday came again — for what felt like the second time to the honored birthday boy. They had perused the massive catalog of online game modes and maps, but nothing they came across gave Ethan that Last Stand vibe he was looking for. Taylor managed to find an impressive looking pirate adventure, however. As the guests of honor, Taylor and Ethan would play the role of pirate captains competing over a golden treasure chest.
Each of them got to design and outfit their own sea-faring vessels. Ethan made his a high-speed junk with fiery orange sails and cannons loaded with grappling hooks. They each made their ships in private, so he had no idea what Taylor was working with. She could be captaining a Man-o-war for all he knew.
Whatever tricks she might have up her sleeve, Ethan still felt confident he had the advantage. He had Sharpe as his right-hand man. He’d take that over any number of cannon decks. Together, Ethan and Sharpe covered the ship in a neon paint job depicting dragons and fire. It looked terrible, like a crayon factory had exploded nearby, but it was certainly distinct.
The goal of the game was to seize control of a golden treasure chest placed at the heart of a small island in the middle of the bay. They were able to choose between a rainy, stormy environment or a clear, sunny day, and they opted for the smooth sailing. They were given the option to change it on the fly if they decided it was too boring, but Ethan hoped they stayed in the warmth. He knew it was all simulated, but it still felt nice on his skin.
A bird flew by as Ethan gripped the ship’s steering wheel. Sharpe was just off to his left, watching the gentle waves with his hands folded behind his back.
Something caught Ethan’s eye as they sailed toward the treasure island, which sat on the horizon faded with distance. At first, he thought it was a bit of generic debris floating in the ocean. An odd barrel or net-covered box the map’s designer had put in for detail’s sake. When he centered his vision on the object, however, he thought he saw some motion not unlike an arm flailing. It was a person.
The junk was cutting through the waves too fast for Ethan to make the figure out, but he saw a distinct head of red hair. It was hard to tell through all the frothing sea foam, but he thought he also saw a beard to match.
Ethan blinked rapidly, shook his head, then looked back at the spot. He didn’t see the floating man. It was just a torn bit of sail, churning around in the waves. The motion must have fooled Ethan into thinking it was an arm or something.
Strange, he thought.
He thought about bringing it up to Sharpe, seeing if his friend could see what he saw, but the moment passed. The debris was long gone, so he’d have nothing to point out.
Before he even had the moment to bring it up, there was a cry from the crow’s nest.
“Enemy ship!” one of their crewmates called. He peered out at the horizon with a spyglass. “It’s Taylor! Looks like she’s got a galleon!”
Ethan and Sharpe both peered just starboard of the bow. They could see the other ship zipping toward them over the calm waters. It was almost as far as the island was, but the distance was shrinking by the moment. If Ethan didn’t know better, he’d say Taylor outfitted her vessel with a power motor.
“What’s she doing?” Sharpe asked, squinting at the horizon line. “She’s not trying to line up her cannons with us.”
“No,” Ethan said. “She’s trying to ram us.”
Sharpe’s eyes went wide. He went the banister of the steering deck and shouted out to the sailors, “Brace for impact! Load up the grappling hooks!” He turned to Ethan. “If she’s going to hit us head first, we’ll use it against her.”
Ethan nodded to his first mate.
Though it was a perfect, cloudless afternoon, it was like Taylor had snuck up on them. Her vessel was so fast that it basically used the curve of the small planet to ambush them. At least, it seemed that way to Ethan.
Perhaps the game loaded her in there, he thought. Or maybe she just moved within visible range — the limitations of a computer program.
Before long, Taylor’s ship was within a stone’s throw. The men and women on the top decks shouted at each other, brandishing their swords and pistols and rifles. They exchanged taunts for a few moments before the first burst of gunpowder was ignited. In an instant, every flintlock firearm went off. Little puffs of white smoke rose into the afternoon air as bits of wood splinters went flying and some of the sailors started to drop. People bent low as they tried to reload their troublesome weapons. Luckily for everyone involved, the program simplified the process for the sake of enjoyability.
“Fire!” Ethan could hear Taylor shout from her own ship.
“Light ‘em up!” Sharpe barked back.
The cannons started to explode. Which each shot, Ethan could feel the cannons below roll back. The ship even seemed to leap back a few inches with each concussion. Large holes started to appear in Ethan’s ship as Taylor’s cannonballs ate huge chunks out of it. He ducked low as one projectile whistled over his head. He watched another crewmate have worse luck with a cannonball. The lead sphere sent his body flying over the railing and into the sea.
Gauge was shouting something as he peeked over cover, firing at Taylor’s crew with his rifle. Ethan couldn’t quite make out his words as the combat drowned out all other sounds.
Finally, the loudest noise of all shattered the atmosphere as the two ships collided. The splintering of wood, the tearing of metal bolts — it was all too much. Ethan was almost stunned by the wall of sound like he had run into it physically. He shook his head and regained his senses. With the snap of his wrist, he pulled his own flintlock pistol from his long coat and shot a hole through one of the enemy sailors’ forehead.
As the man dropped, Ethan could have sworn he saw the same red hair and beard.
Gauge? he wondered. The face was so familiar, so alike the I.I. rebel, but also not quite. It was enough to make him wonder if he had seen his kill right, or if he was just imagining faces.
Ethan’s ship returned fire, the chains of the grappling hooks tinkling as they crashed through their prey. Some of the hooks fell loose through the same hole they punched in the galleon, but most of them found a place to sink their hooks in.
“There she is!” Sharpe shouted, raising his rifle and firing again.
Ethan followed his friend’s aim and saw Taylor blast away one of his men. She wore an extravagant swashbuckler’s hat, complete with an enormous pink plume that stuck out from the brim.
They locked eyes for a moment. Taylor smirked, then raised her pistol and took a shot at Ethan. He ducked just in time for the bullet to tear a little line along the brim of his own hat.
“Board them!” he could hear the other captain shout.
The roars rose up to nearly match the gunfire in volume. People started laying down gangplanks and attaching ropes
to the other ship, swinging aboard. Ethan finished reloading his pistol just in time to shoot one of the boarding pirates out of the air. The body whipped around like a pinwheel and tumbled into the water below.
“Reload!” Sharpe yelled to the people down on the cannon deck. Ethan started to do the same with his own firearm when he heard footsteps coming up toward the wheel. Sharpe readied his saber and waited at the top of the stairs for the intruders.
Ethan was about to draw his own blade when the sound suddenly ceased. Even the howl of the breeze was gone; he was left with just the creaking of the damaged ship floating in the water.
He touched his ears while wondering if he had been deafened all of a sudden. Maybe something broke within the game, he thought.
He looked up, expecting to see the battle raging on in silence, like someone hit mute on a video. Instead, he saw nothing but the ship and the sea it rocked along. He furrowed his brow as he looked around for the sailors who had just been fighting.
The treasure island was still visible in the distance, but it looked like the trees had been picked from it by the roots. Aside from that, there was nothing else in the water. Just Ethan’s junk and the foam each wave produced.
“Hello?” Ethan asked.
Maybe everyone got disconnected, he thought. Like a service interruption. Or maybe I’m the one having network issues.
As he spun around one more time to make sure that Sharpe and Taylor weren’t just hiding someplace to pull a prank on him, he saw a form. He wasn’t alone. Raising his gaze, he saw the redheaded man standing on the deck.
“Hello, Ethan,” Gauge said.
The voice became tiny in Ethan’s head as he tried to understand what was happening.
“Gauge?” he asked.
The redhead nodded.
“I don’t — you’re not real,” Ethan stammered.
Gauge sighed a little, as if Ethan had found him out and he could drop the charade.
“That’s what they want you to think,” the I.I. — or computer character — or whatever he was — said. “I’m going to put it plainly: you’ve been brainwashed.”
