Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Then, after a frantic ten seconds of searching, I found the tracker, pulled it off, and tossed it into the forest.

  Normally after something like that I’d be left an anxious wreck for hours to follow, but for some reason I found myself laughing at my stupid mistake.

  “That would’ve been bad.” I said to myself as I climbed back into the truck, “Very bad.”

  Yeah… I probably should’ve told Pete to get his tracker off too, spent the two seconds it would’ve taken to send him a message, but it turns out that a happy brain is a stupid brain, and a stupid brain ruins all the happy brain’s fun.

  Damn happy brain.

  FRAGGED 5

  Chapter One

  I pulled up to Home Base in my brand new truck with a satisfied smile, looking over the dash at the complete lack of steggies littering my property.

  “Zo?” Paul called from inside the cabin, “Zo, is that you?”

  “Yeah, yeah it’s me.” I replied as I climbed out of the truck, “How’s things been holding up here?”

  “Never better,” Paul said as he came out of the cabin, his legs and everything else having fully healed after all the bad luck he’d had, “I saw that Chad died last night, any idea what happened to him?”

  “He’s not come back?” I asked as I screamed internally.

  Paul shook his head, “Nope, hasn’t so much as sent me a message.”

  I’d really wished Chad had come back at some point in the night. It would’ve meant A, he’d forgiven me, and B, that I wouldn’t have had to retell the stunning tale of how I shot him.

  “Zo?”

  “I shot him.” I said flatly, deciding that lying would just make matters worse if Chad ever did come back after my betrayal.

  “Why?” Paul asked as I brushed past him and walked into the cabin, “Did he finally try and take leadership away from you?”

  “What? No! It was an accident, that’s all. We got surrounded by Muties and he got caught in the crossfire.”

  “Caught in the crossfire, eh?” Paul teased, “I don’t know… Sounds pretty suspicious to me.”

  I wanted to snap at him, but as I mentioned before, I was in a pretty good mood, so I settled for a light-hearted “Shut up.” and a smile, “Where’s Miles?”

  “Mi-oh! Oh yeah, he’s over in the nursery. Sorry, I just have him labelled in my mind as ‘douchebag’ on account o’ the fact he’s a douchebag.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” I said with a little laugh, “Alright, well I’m gonna go check in with him. You keep doin’… whatever it was that you were doin’.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  I’ve got to admit, I was really quite enjoying this new, happier side of me, and the urge to say or do something angry was lessening at a rate of knots.

  I walked over to the nursery with a spring in my step and a song in my heart as I heard Miles laughing inside.

  “What’s going on in… here?”

  Felisha, my poor, unoccupied builder, had reached full maturity and was sitting on her bed looking straight ahead at the wall while Miles sat on the bed next to her laughing.

  He wasn’t laughing at her though, no, he was laughing in amazement at Francesca, who was sitting at a drafting table where the nursery attached to the cabin drawing furiously.

  Francesca has completed Engineer Grade One.

  Quick learner this one, and an even faster artist. Everything she designs makes everything you’ve ever drawn look like stick men, but, to be fair, that’s what your art looks like next to a two-year-old’s wall poop streak finger painting. Your Engineer can now design more advanced gear and materials using stone.

  Felisha has completed Builder Grade One.

  As your Engineer creates better blueprints, your Builder builds better constructions. Don’t worry, no one’s going to steal your Legos, they’re past that now.

  Francesca has completed Engineer Grade Two.

  Does it make you feel inadequate that your Engineer’s so much smarter and more creative than you? No? Think about it for a while, I’m sure it’ll get to you eventually. Your Engineer has discovered the concept of metalworking.

  Felisha has completed Builder Grade Two.

  Reinforced walls and scaffolding? What will those crazy kids think of next? Warning: You are not registered to work blowtorches just because your Builder is, so keep your mitts off the pretty burn-burn.

  “H-how?” I stammered, “When did all this happen?”

  Miles shrugged without taking his eyes off of Francesca, “Dunno, I just figured it’d be interesting to see what she’d do if I gave her a workplace.”

  “So, what? You built her a drafting table?”

  “Nah, I just gave her some paper and charcoal and she did the rest.”

  “And how long’s this been going on for?”

  Again, Miles shrugged, “Ten, fifteen minutes? I figured she’d go sit outside or something, but apparently she’s got a-hankerin' for learnin’. Built herself that table, had some food, then built that chest over there.”

  I went to ask ‘What chest?’ but stopped as Francesca finished another blueprint and walked over to a footlocker that was against the leftmost wall.

  “So she’s just been drawing up designs all day?”

  “And night. Seriously, it’s absolutely remarkable. Anyway, did you need something?”

  “Um…” I trailed off as I watched Francesca return to her table, “Oh, yeah, no. Just wanted to check in. Last night went well I take it?”

  “More or less, the Js did a good job of keeping the Muties away, and Paul and I managed to not kill each other. Speaking of, have you heard from Chad?”

  My eyes widened and a gasp almost escaped me, “How did you know?”

  Miles, who was wearing some metal armour he’d clearly made from the truck, stayed silent for a few seconds before turning to face me with a confused expression, “Because everyone gets a notification when someone dies? It’s kind of a key aspect of the game?”

  I let out a silent sigh of relief as I realised that he didn’t have any idea about my horrible, despicable betrayal, “Ah, yeah, sometimes I forget stuff like that.”

  Miles continued to stare at me confusedly, his eyebrow raised as if it helped him better see into my mind, “Well?”

  “Well wh-oh! Oh, yeah, no. No, I haven’t heard from him. You?”

  “No, not since last… Did you get that notification?”

  I tilted my head curiously, “What notification..?” I asked as the little server message finally popped up in my vision, sending a genuine quiver of excitement through my body as my eyes locked on the message.

  SERVER (World): A Gold crate has been deployed.

  Chapter Two

  “Miles, you’re with me.” I said as I equipped the DMR and ran out of the nursery, “Paul! You’re on guard duty ‘til we get back, alright!?”

  “Sounds good to me!” Paul called back as Miles struggled to keep up with me.

  “What are we doing?” Miles asked.

  “We’re getting that damn crate is what we’re doing.” I replied excitedly, pushing the balance of thrilled and stoic leadership to its limit.

  “With what army? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly combat ready.”

  “You’ve got that armour, haven’t you?” I said as we got into the trees and started following the gorgeous gold smoke trail.

  “Yeah, but I’ve also only got a club.”

  I refused to slow down, getting the crate was too important, “Look, I get that you’re concerned, but it’s not that far away, and if we can get there in the next few minutes we might beat out everyone else.”

  “And what if we get there and there’s a horde of loot-hungry players?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, now come on! I don’t want to miss out on whatever goodness is in there.”

  “What’s this really about?”

  I hesitated, then shrugged, “Don’t know what you’re talking
about, I just wanna get a halfway decent reward for once. Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “Uh, because you’ve been ignoring every crate drop for days, and now suddenly you’re all for it?”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Because Paul told me when I asked about the provision situation.” he said as if it was some big achievement that he managed to have a conversation with Paul that didn’t end with him getting shot in the face, “I get that this is a kinda special circumstance, but after how you were when we started to talk about Chad and now this? I don’t know, but it seems like your deflecting from whatever’s really bothering you.”

  “Alright, fine,” I said without stopping, “you want the truth? I’ll give you the truth. Last night I fucked up and shot Chad. We were surrounded by Muties, I lost him in the crowd, and then I shot him when he came smashing into the house I’d taken cover in.”

  Miles met me with a silence that, if I’m being completely honest, made me feel more than a little freaked out before he finally said, “Fair enough. I can see why you didn’t want to say anything.”

  “Really? That’s it?”

  “Yeah, it really is. Look, I totally get it, you messed up and you didn’t wanna talk about it, that’s what human’s do,” Miles said with a warmness that I didn’t think he could manage, “but as a leader you need to be a bit more capable of being honest with your troops, otherwise you’ll just end up with a mutiny on your hands.”

  It made sense, closing myself off from everyone resulting in no one trusting me, but Paul, Chad, and I had been friends for ages.

  I was already pretty sure that telling Paul that I’d been the one to put Chad down had caused him to have an internal freak out that he’d masked, and that he was internally accusing me of doing it deliberately based on some secret conversation he and Chad had had.

  It probably was the primary reason I was so eager to run away from it all to go hunting for the crate, but what was I supposed to do? Stay behind and face my feelings?

  Yeah, I’ll go with fake happiness and repressed paranoia thanks.

  Chapter Three

  The rest of our hard march through the forest was pretty quiet, not because we didn’t want to talk to each other, just because it was literally about two minutes before we reached the source of the pretty gold smoke.

  “I’m not seein’ anyone else, you?” Miles asked from where he sat crouched beside me in the thick bush we’d found.

  “Nah, looks like we’re the first. Where’s the crate though?”

  No, I was steadily going blind, we’d arrived exactly where the smoke had been, but for some reason there was no shiny crate to meet us.

  “Could it be a trick? Like, could there not be a crate at all and we’ve just been drawn into a slaughter party?”

  “…I wanna say no, but I can’t with this game. What do you think?”

  “Honestly? I don’t think it’s a trick. Seems like the kinda thing that they’d get flooded with bug reports for, and I doubt they want their support staff dealing with that all day.”

  “Then why’d you suggest it?”

  “Well I don’t know, I figured it’d be a good idea to offer something.”

  “Ugh, fine, it’s not your fault you had a bad idea, don’t get your knickers in a knot.”

  We shut up for a few seconds as we looked around for the crate, expecting to find a broken flare or a glitched out lightbox.

  It was neither.

  “Oh…” Miles trailed off, looking straight up, “Don’t suppose you’ve got a way to get that down safely?”

  I followed his gaze and saw our prize lodged up in the canopy, its parachute wrapped and tangled around the branches it sat on, “Fuck.”

  “Yeah…” Miles said as he straightened up and turned around, “Welp, guess we better get back to Home Base.”

  “Really? You think we should leave? Just like that? I thought you Metois boys were s’posed to be problem solving death squads.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t a very good soldier, was I?”

  I was disappointed that he didn’t have a plan, mostly because I didn’t have one either, but I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that get me down.

  “Right, you go run back home then, I’m gonna see if I can get this thing down.”

  “How? Knocking the tree down? You do realise that that could potentially damage whatever’s in there, right?”

  “Or the crate could protect it.” I said as I found the tree that it was stuck in and started punching.

  “Or it could fall and explode.”

  “Or it could have enough gear in it to help us survive if the Metois do find us.”

  I had him there, I knew it, he knew it.

  Fact was that it was only a matter of time until the Metois came bashing down our door, and without more guns and ammo we’d be sitting ducks in cement with magnets attached to our bodies.

  Didn’t mean that Miles wasn’t gonna moan about it though, “Alright, fine. At least let me give you a hand. The last thing we need is for you to take half a bloody hour to knock down a tree.”

  Tree: 149/150

  +1 Small Stick (Blunt):

  Durability: 10/10

  Damage: 1

  Description: Great for picking your nose and not much else.

  I spent the next good long while waiting for other players to come barrelling out of the brush, firing their guns off like madmen and stealing our loot, but the players never came.

  The sound of cracking wood filled the air, followed by the steady groan of a tree falling as the sound effect failed to match up with the object.

  Tree: -/150

  Deforestation, that’s what you’re doing now? What kind of sick, twisted monster kills a perfectly innocent tree? You sicken me.

  “Here it comes.” Miles said in defeat, confusing me until I saw what had upset him.

  “Ha,” I said with a smile as I saw that the crate’s parachute had miraculously opened and was descending at a safe speed, “did not expect that.”

  “Yeah, well you better hope it gets down here soon. People’ll be swarming us any minute.”

  “I’ve been wonderin’ about that. Why do you think everyone’s avoiding this crate?”

  Miles shrugged and broke the flare on the crate as it finally hit the ground, “I’ll jump on the forums while you go ahead and rummage through here, yeah?”

  “Mmhm…” I mumbled as I cracked the beautiful box of amazing open and beheld the magnificence of what was inside.

  +1 Auto-Targeting Rifle:

  Durability: 900/900

  Damage: 375

  Ammo Type: 5.56

  Description: Oh look, now your gun aims for you with its three modes of fire, that’s just great. An idiot could use it, so you might have some trouble. You and robo-rifle gonna go off and have totally fair fights with fresh players now? Haven’t you seen the Terminator movies?

  “Dude, look at this thing.” I said with a giddy little laugh, not bothering to even try to hide how awesome it felt to hold the testament to gun manufacturing.

  “Zo… I’ve got some bad news.”

  I tilted my head and furrowed my brow, “What? What did you find?”

  “It’s the Metois.” Miles said flatly, “They’re comin’ for us.”

  Chapter Four

  “We’ve been sitting in a fucking kill box!?” I shouted as I ran through the forest, “How did we not know about that!?”

  “Because it covers everything from that farm to about five kilometres beyond Home Base.” Miles said with a calm that irritated the shit out of me.

  “So what you’re telling me is that it’s just a matter of time before they find us, yeah?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  I knew that the Metois would come, because why wouldn’t they? But the fact that they were actively searching for us in such a relatively small area made it all seem so real.

  I was sure that we were fucked, and I was a
lso sure that everyone would agree with me when I told them, and then they would turn on me for ruining their lives, and then…

  Yeah, I decided the best thing to do was to take my mind off of it and instead just focus on getting back home.

  “Zoey!” a familiar voice roared just a few dozen feet in front of me, “Zoey! Where the fuck are you!?”

  “That’d be Chad then.” Miles said, killing the last bit of happiness that I’d cultivated over my night of Mutie slaying.

  A small part of me thought about just hanging around in the woods until the Metois found me, but saner heads prevailed.

  “Here.” I said quietly as I emerged from the forest and saw Chad spinning around, nude as the day he was born.

  “You…” he growled as he turned to face me, a fire in his eyes that burned into my soul and filled me with guilt, “You absolute bitch!”

  “Look, I’m sorry, but to be fair you did come crashing into the room without saying anything.”

  “Because I was getting chased by fucking Muties!”

  “So was I!”

  “Zoey, Chad,” Miles practically barked, “bigger fish.”

  It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about, and then it hit me, “You’re right, you’re right. Here,” I said, dropping the robo-rifle, “you can have that.”

  -1 Auto-Targeting Rifle

  “What?” Chad scoffed as he bent over to pick up the gun, “You think you can pay me off with a… Oh… Oh wow.”

  “Yeah.” I said with a sad sigh, “We cool?”

  Chad nodded elatedly, “Yeah, yeah we cool. Where’d you eve-”

  “Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s head into the cabin, there’s something we’ve all gotta talk about.”

  Chad appeared to be confused, but he seemed happy enough with his new toy not to care and cheerily followed me into the cabin.

  “You get to the crate in time?” Paul asked from where he sat next to the fireplace as I crossed the threshold.

  “Yeah, but that’s part of the problem,” I said, “turns out that the Metois are coming for us.”