Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Miles was met with a sea of somewhat uncomfortable nods, the combination of it being a good idea and the realisation that a number of people we may have labelled as ‘bad’ may have just had the narrative twisted on them.

  “It’s decided then,” I said after a few seconds of silence, “what we need to do in order to really beat Freddie is convince his men to join us. The only question is how…”

  “I’m sure Chad might have a few ideas,” Paul suggested, “speaking of…”

  “He’s in that building where we were storing all the wood and stuff,” Pete announced coolly, “he went to check on our reserves when you guys left and ended up getting walled-in by the Freemen.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell us this sooner?” I asked, not bothering to hide my little laugh.

  Pete shrugged, “Figured he could use a bit of a time-out following his mishap, also thought it might give him a few seconds to clear his head.”

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked as we started over toward the resource building, “He’s seemed pretty good lately.”

  “He was muttering something about ‘pressure’ before,” Pete replied, “I’m guessin’ it just built up once the Freemen started bombarding him with notifications. He does get all the notifications, right?”

  I nodded as I finally properly realised that he’d gone ahead and taken on that whole responsibility, and that while I hadn’t been all that impressed when I found out about the lost Freemen, he’d just been trying to do right by me by diverting all the NPC-related notifications to him.

  For me, that was further proof that I wasn’t doing as good as everyone thought I was as a leader.

  Not only did I not know that the Freemen were communicating with us, I also didn’t pay attention to the fact that Chad, my shoulder to scream at and freak out with, had gone and damn near backed himself into a panic attack.

  Did I take that as a sign that I needed to scale back? Maybe focus on getting better as a leader before expanding my Freemen workforce?

  No, instead I wanted to bring in a bunch of real people with real emotions and real shit they had to do.

  In case you hadn’t noticed, I was starting to think that maybe suggesting absorbing a chunk of Freddie’s force was a bad idea.

  A really bad idea.

  Chapter Six

  “Chad? Buddy?” I called through the boarded doorway once we reached the building, ignoring the fact that the rest of the guys were behind me, chuckling about the mess that Chad had gotten himself into.

  “Yeah…” Chad finally replied abashedly, “How’re you doin’, Zo?”

  “I’m doin’ good,” I said with a smile, “how about you?”

  “Yeah, yeah I’m doing alright.”

  Things fell silent for a few seconds after that, with the exception of the guys who sounded about ready to start straight up laughing their arses off.

  “Hey, Chad? Why are you in there?”

  Chad didn’t respond for a moment, and when he finally did, he sounded significantly more embarrassed than the first time, “I keep tryin’ to get out,” he said with a slight catch in his throat, “but they just keep repairing it.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?” I asked concernedly.

  “The Freemen,” Chad replied, his voice indicating that he was genuinely on the verge of tears, “there are a bunch of Freemen in here… Zoey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Zoey… they took my gun, Zoey…” Chad whispered before practically pushing himself against the wood, “I think they’re gonna hurt me. They keep sending me… dark messages.”

  That was the last straw for the guys.

  I could almost hear their sides splitting as they took in a collective breath and just started laughing their holes out.

  “Chad…” I started then stopped so I could shoot the guys a sharp look, halting their laughing instantly as if by magic, “Chad, why don’t you just order them to do something else?”

  “I did!” Chad shrieked as quietly as he could, “That’s when they took my gun.”

  “Okay, alright,” I replied, stifling a laugh as I pictured one of the Freemen saying ‘I’m the captain now’, “we’re gonna come in and grab you.”

  “Hurry,” Chad whispered, “one of them just keeps sending me my IP address, and I’m startin’ to freak out a bit…”

  “Starting to?” Brendo laughed as he came over to the wooden barricade, “Alright, this’ll be simple enough, we’ve just gotta break it down fast enough to get Chad out. You wanna go grab one of those claymores, Pete?”

  “Claymore!?” Chad yelped, “You’re gonna get me fuckin’ killed!”

  “No, we’re not.” Brendo said, apparently taking over the conversation so I could have a few seconds to recompose myself, “We’re just gonna blow a little hole so you can climb on out.”

  “No, no, no!” Chad started growling as he slammed his fists into the wood, “I will not die again!”

  That’s when Brendo did something I didn’t expect him to, and backed away from the door, gesturing for Pete to stay where he was as he did so.

  I wasn’t sure what his endgame was until, with a burst of splinters and chunks of broken wood, Chad came smashing through the barricade, a burning fire in his eyes as he half-stumbled out of the building.

  “You… fuckers… were gonna try and blow me out?” Chad heaved with a newfound aggression and vigour.

  “Nope,” Brendo replied proudly, “but I got you out of there, didn’t I?”

  “Impressive.” I interjected with a grin before Chad could start losing his shit, “So, Chad, what’s goin’ on? You just weren’t gonna tell us you were struggling or..?”

  “Didn’t wanna put that crap on everyone else,” Chad sighed, “plus, there hasn’t really been a second for me to tell you guys what’s been goin’ one with the Freemen.. Between building our defences and the impending attack, I haven’t been exactly what you’d call ‘focused’.”

  “Well, now we’re here, and we need all hands on deck,” Paul said as he went into the building, “so let us help. What’s happening?”

  “Honestly? Nothing now.” Chad replied, confusing everyone, “Everything’s done. Defences are good, non-essential Freemen are downstairs hollowing out the earth and making room for the bunker for when we can build it.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Paul asked after coming out and chucking Chad his gun, having clearly gone and wrestled it from whichever of the Freemen had taken it, “If we’re good, why’re you on the verge of tears with a bunch of Freemen holding you at gunpoint?”

  Chad opened and closed his mouth a few times in response to that, before finally settling for a somewhat defeated “It’s just the stress of it all.”

  Now, he may have just been looking around at all of us, but I swear that he looked right at me when he said the word ‘stress’.

  I think that that was the exact moment I decided I was going to start cutting Chad a little slack, lay off on the emotional dumping for a while, and, without saying it to anyone, try my best to take some of the stress from him.

  I’m sure you could’ve guessed what happened immediately after that.

  That’s right, it’s Freddie time!

  How exciting.

  Chapter Seven

  “Good afternoon, Zoey’s Fighters!” Freddie’s voice boomed through a megaphone from some unknown vantage point, “I see that you’ve decided to go ahead and get your walls back up! Good job!”

  “You think there’s any chance he can hear us?” I whispered as Freddie went on with his monologue.

  “Nah,” Brendo replied coolly, “if he could it’d mean we could see him, and he’d have shot us by now.”

  “How very comforting,” Pete huffed amusedly, “what’s the plan, boss?”

  “You take your position up on the main roof,” I replied, wishing that I’d have had some time to talk through some kind of strategy with the guys, “the rest of us will split up between the buildings, facing both the gat
e and that hole the bronties made.”

  “Do you think they know about that?” Chad asked, his stronger, less stressed voice returning.

  “I’d rather assume they did for safety’s sake.” I said before gesturing for Brendo and Miles to go for one building, then leading Paul and Chad towards another.

  “-and that’s why I truly, truly hope that we can resolve this as quickly as possible.” Freddie finished as we ducked into a building and moved up the stairs.

  Zoey (Community): If the main gate falls, we retreat to the main structure.

  I waited for longer than was possibly necessary for a response that I was pretty sure wasn’t going to come before pointing at Paul and directing him over to the room that had the best vantage of the rear wall while Chad and I went towards one in the front corner.

  “I’m sorry about all this.” Chad whispered as we each took one of the windows that sat in the corner facing the hopefully sufficiently barricaded main gate, “If I hadn’t had that moment, we’d have been more prepared.”

  “Shit happens,” I replied as supportively as I could while cuddling up to my DMR, “for now I need you focused on this though. Things are gonna get pretty intense, and I can’t have you freakin’ out over random shit.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry about that too, I should’ve told you about the notifications and stuff, I just didn’t wanna put any more on your plate.”

  “And I’m grateful for that, but in the future I’d much rather you just put more stuff on my plate than fucking up.” I said with a little chuckle, “You’re a good guy, Chad, and I’m glad to have you as my second, but you can’t do that if you let yourself get this freaked out.”

  Stone_Eagle307 (Community): Brendo says he reckons the first wave’s about to hit.

  For a moment there I was confused about Miles speaking for Brendo, but then I remembered one of the key things I’d forgotten to do over the course of the day.

  “Shit…” I muttered, “I forgot to add Brendo to the clan.”

  Chad regarded me with confusion for a few seconds before finally shrugging, “I’m sure it can wait until after we’re all dead, yeah?”

  I went to respond with something witty, but was stopped as something started slamming into the main barricade.

  Something big.

  Chapter Eight

  “Oh fuck-titties…” I muttered as three horns pierced the wood, followed by another set on either side, “Do we fall back?”

  “We could,” Chad replied before growing a big smile and facing me, “or I could do something that’s potentially a bit risky.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it means losing the opportunity to turn this first wave on Freddie, but it also means that we’ll survive. And we’d have the opportunity to fall back to the main building before we all got slaughtered.”

  “Stop it with the riddles and shi-”

  I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence before the triceratops came smashing through the wall, their beautiful bodies covered in woodchip and war paint while their riders rose unscathed from behind their crests, the claymores exploding and doing little more than working as sort of fireworks to announce their arrival.

  Triceratops, huh? Big horns, thick body, and feet that’ll crush you like nothing. Try not get caught underfoot, eh?

  “Fuck it, do it.” I said, struggling to type a message and talk at the same time.

  Zoey (Community): Fall back. Dinos will mince us.

  I got to the bottom of the stairs just in time to see the Js come charging out of the main building, their guns firing and their steggies roaring.

  “Fuckin’ Hell, Chad,” I chuckled as he and Paul came down behind me, “good call.”

  “Oh, that’s not all.” Chad replied coolly before leading us out of the building and pointing over to the main structure.

  Not wanting to be rude, I forced myself to follow Chad’s finger instead of watching the undeniably awesome dinosaur fight behind me.

  I didn’t regret that decision.

  “Ho-ly shit!” Miles laughed as he and Brendo ran over to join us, sneaking glances over to the main gate and making sure we weren’t about to get slaughtered.

  ‘Holy shit’ was right, as with something as simple as the chime of the elevator’s bell, a group of well over a dozen Freemen came sprinting out of the building, bare-arsed and screaming.

  “What in the holy Hell are they doing?” I chuckled as I watched them as they ran toward the fight behind us where the players on the trikes were already clearly struggling.

  “Keep watching.” Chad replied, “Trust me, it’s gonna be better if you see it with your own two eyes.”

  He was right.

  The whole thing was a fucking hilarious, if not completely hysterical and gory mess as the Freemen tore the players down off their trikes while the Js kept their mounts distracted.

  “Fucking Hell!” Brendo exclaimed as one of the Freemen climbed up onto a trike and started belting out this barbaric sort of song, “How are they doing that? Why aren’t the trikes not just flinging them around?”

  “Benefits of having a specialist who’s basically a freakin’ dino whisperer.” Chad said with a smile.

  It took me a second to catch his meaning, and when I did I made a show of my realisation, “Ah, you used Felicity, didn’t you?”

  “Damn right I did.” Chad replied proudly as the other two trikes were mounted and captured, “Just had her follow around after the other Freemen, bestowing her wisdom upon them.”

  “Which is why they started sending you all those messages…”

  “Exactly, it was just a matter of time before they got smart enough to-”

  “Everybody down!” Pete roared from the roof, but he was a second too late, an explosion at the rear of the compound had already rocked me to my core.

  “What was that?” Paul asked as we all recovered and turned to look at the smoky crater where the damaged part of the wall once sat.

  “That,” Brendo replied matter-of-factly, “is why there weren’t more coming through the front gate.”

  “Get the Js to the rear, Chad, and stick with me.” I said as I started toward the smoke-shrouded hole, “You three stay here and help cover the main gate.”

  “You sure that’s the best idea?” Miles asked, “Won’t you need more?”

  “We’ve got Pete,” I replied, “stay here.”

  I found a spot a good twenty feet from the wall that wasn’t directly in line with the hole but still easy enough to shoot through, “You okay, Chad?”

  “I’m good,” he lied as he crouched down beside me and aimed at the hole, “Miles might have a point though, there’s no real cover back here, and even with the Js-”

  “Trust me, we’ll be able to hold it.” I said, my heart pounding out of my chest as the smoke began to dissipate, “Besides, this’ll give us some time to relax. I know you’ve been very stressed lately.”

  “Ha-ha,” Chad replied mockingly, taking my light-hearted jab in stride, “I just hope I don’t let you down.”

  “Ah, you’ll be fine.” I chuckled as the Js came thundering over and took aim at the hole, creating a sort of chokepoint with their steggies on either side of it, “The absolute worst thing that’ll happen is we’ll die, and even that’ll just end up being an interesting story down the road.”

  “Thanks for the rousing pep talk, Zo,” Chad huffed amusedly, “can we please focus on not dying though? I’ve grown rather tired of it.”

  “Fair enough, you have done it a lot.”

  Chad didn’t get to respond to my joke before the first of what appeared to be some of Freddie’s guys came through the back and were almost instantly smashed right back out by the Js’ steggies’ tails.

  “Heh, it’s like a dino batting cage.” Chad said with a cheeky little grin, “Reckon we’re smashing any potential allies?”

  “Not like we could talk to them anyway…” I replied as I watched another soldier get knocked back throu
gh the hole, “Unless…”

  And that’s when I got an idea.

  Zoey (Community): Miles. ASk Brendi if he can still message these guysss

  There was enough of a delay following my message that I figured my poor spelling must’ve somehow completely baffled Miles.

  Luckily, I was wrong.

  Stone_Eagle307 (Community): He says yes.

  The flatness of Miles’ response irritated me for a moment before I realised that I could hear a large gunfight over by the main gate.

  Shut up, like it hasn’t taken you a second to realise you could hear something before.

  Zoey (Community): Get him to message the community, see if you can get them to join us.

  Stone_Eagle307 (Community): syre.

  GeriatricSuperHero (Community): Wait. Should I still be shooting these guys?

  Zoey (Community): Go for the kneecaps.

  GeriatricSuperHero (Community): Ah, the Biblical method. Gotcha.

  I chuckled at that.

  “Do you think we’re ever gonna get the chance to shoot anybody?” Chad joked, “Seriously, I don’t think either of us has squeezed off a single round so far.”

  “I’d rather that than the other option.”

  “What? Having fun?”

  “No…” I replied before realising I didn’t have a follow-up, “Okay, so maybe instead of being in the thick of it, I’m doing little more than playing a God-sim, but still, beats losing this place.”

  And then the gunfire started to die down.

  Nothing major, at first, it took a while for the word to spread after all, and it was clear that nobody wanted to be the first to stop shooting for fear that they’d end up getting labelled a traitor and get shot by their own, but after a few seconds there was nothing.

  Stone_Eagle307 (Community): Freddie trying to boot Brendo from the group. Cant get votes.

  Zoey (Community): Tell him to let them know taht if they come in and dont shoot we will let them in

  Stone_Eagle307 (Community): hes already on it

  “Reckon they’ll come over?” Chad asked.