Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Plus, it opened up the opportunity to have some slightly more important conversations.

  “Hey, what do you suppose happened to all those other dudes in our group?” Brendo asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over us, “I mean, surely not everyone was online or at the base when that Burrower thing chowed down on it.”

  “Anyone in the game would’ve been on base,” Miles replied before I got the chance, “that was the policy for the night cycle. And anyone not in the game wouldn’t have had any beds to spawn into. Hell, they probably don’t even know that the base is gone yet.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Pete laughed, “while y’all were checkin’ around for ammo and shit I snuck a quick look at the forums. It’s actually one of the most popular threads.”

  “What thread?” I asked confusedly, making sure to check on the clearly frustrated Js every few seconds.

  “It’s this sort of chronicling of our time in game.” Pete replied before making a sort of unsure sound through his teeth, “Well, mostly it’s your time.”

  “What’s it called?” Paul asked as he locked himself into an auto-follow with me.

  “‘The Rise and Fall of Zoey’s Fighters’,” Pete said with a little smile, “but the slightly more popular, and my preferred title, is ‘Fragged’. The whole thing’s told from Zoey’s perspective.”

  “Fan-fic on real people?” Miles scoffed, “My, what have we come to?”

  “I don’t know,” Paul said following a huff of amusement, “it’s actually kind of fun.”

  “I don’t like the idea of it.” I chimed in, making no effort to hide how uncomfortable I was, “Isn’t that some kind of… I don’t know, invasion of privacy or something?”

  “The better question would be how they know all this crap,” Paul replied as he went on reading, “seriously, this is weirdly specific and accurate.”

  “Well stop reading it then!” I snapped, “Should be keeping your eyes on the trees anyway.”

  “Why?” Paul scoffed, “Not like anything’s happening anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t say that…” Brendo trailed off as he came to a stop, “Guys, I think we’ve found something… big.”

  Chapter Three

  “Oh, it ain’t that big.” Pete said dismissively as we wandered through the long-abandoned carpark of the high school we’d stumbled across, the forest apparently having swallowed it over at least a decade, “Bit weird, sure, but not that big, probably only fit a few hundred kids in there.”

  He was right, the one structure of the school was only three storeys high, and was only about as wide as two office buildings side-by-side, but it was surprising to stumble across it.

  However, it seemed Brendo and I were the only two in our group to feel that way.

  “Still though, when was the last time you saw a non-player-built structure?” Brendo asked after I’d elbowed Paul in the ribs and forced him to turn his attention back to our surroundings.

  “We’ll see a lot more of these as we get closer to the city,” Miles replied coolly, “but you’re right, it’s been a while. Heh, guess you kinda forget just how much the devs actually put in here before letting us play aroun-”

  “Oh my God…” Pete interjected with child-like enthusiasm, “Is that..?”

  It took me a moment to see what he was talking about, and when I did I couldn’t help but let out a somewhat unimpressed groan.

  “No, Pete, no.” Brendo said, stopping Pete from making a move for the vine-covered school bus that was just barely visible next to the building, “You’re not getting a bus, that’s final.”

  “Who died and made you the boss?” Pete replied derisively before restarting his curious listing toward the bus.

  “Pete…” I light-heartedly warned, “We can look at the bus after we scope out the school, alright? Bigger fish.”

  “But… but…”

  “No buts, you don’t need a bus right now.” I said in a slightly sterner tone, “Besides, the keys are probably in the school’s office or something.”

  That turned out to be enough to get Pete back on track, and got him to take point and start moving for the school’s large double-doors with a new haste.

  “Reckon there’s anyone in there?” I asked as the Js took their steggies and the girls on an automated patrol around the school’s perimeter, making me slightly concerned about Chad’s safety before I realised that there probably wasn’t anywhere safer for him than on a steggie with the Js.

  You know, seeing as the real people in our little group had apparently risen to the point of violence against each other.

  “I think it’ll be clear,” Pete finally replied after we’d reached the doors, “there was a reason players moved to the forests.”

  “As much as I hate to admit this,” Miles said as we slipped into the darkened building, “but Pete has a point. The pre-builts only allow for a portion of the experience that Thren has to offer.”

  “Well,” Paul breathed out amusedly as we started moving down one of the halls that ran the length of the school, ignoring the staircase that was near the entrance, “I’d also add that enemies tend to spawn in places like this. I remember in the early days Chad and I took cover in some kind of garage, freakin’ raptor spawned in the corner as soon as the sun went down.”

  “Which means we should be keeping our eyes open.” I said somewhat sternly as we reached the end of the first hall, having checked each of the rooms as we passed them, “Any sign of life?”

  Brendo was the first to shake his head as we turned around and made for the other end of the school, “Nothin’ so far, but again, this is a pre-built. Wouldn’t be able to tell if the whole thing was about to come tumbling down on top of us.”

  Funnily enough, that didn’t help ease the steadily rising level of anxiety I was experiencing.

  Suddenly I wasn’t just looking for things moving around in my peripherals, I was also looking around for cracks in the building’s framework or signs of imminent flooding or fire.

  The problem with that? It meant neither I nor anyone else in our fire team noticed the fact that, right as we walked passed the doors, a small group of Rabids had spawned on the staircase.

  Chapter Four

  “Keep your eyes open,” Pete said coldly as he too apparently felt a chill run up his spine, “don’t need anything sneaking up behind us.”

  I just have to take a moment to say thank fuck that Pete used that specific wording as it’s what spurred me to sneak a glance behind us and, as a result, spot the five heavily-armed and armoured Rabids that had just blocked off the entrance to the hall we’d walked into.

  “Contact, six o’clock!” I roared as I spun the rest of my body around to face the Rabids and started firing.

  The rest of the guys didn’t need any further prompting, and joined me in firing at the slowly approaching Rabids, their armour apparently having given them a foolish sense of confidence and causing them to slam their hefty-looking axes and swords on their chests.

  What they didn’t know was that I’d shot a trike in the eye earlier that day, so I wasn’t finding it difficult at all to hit each and every one of the bold Rabids I aimed at in their only very terrifying faces.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 20/100

  Level Progression: 30/250

  “Come on then!” I goaded confidently as I put down another of the Rabids, “Attack, you pansies!”

  “Yeah!” Paul joined in as he struggled to come up with an insult, “Oh! You butt… breaths…”

  At first I failed to see what had caused him to lose all of his steam, but as I shot yet another Rabid and caused it whip backwards dramatically I got a clear view.

  The Rabids were spawning in the entrance hall as fast as we were killing them, and each of our collective reloads allowed them to get a little bit closer, which wouldn’t have been a problem if they weren’t seemingly endless.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 21/1
00

  Level Progression: 40/250

  “Alright, easy,” I said as assertively as I could after shooting another Rabid through his eye, “we’ll just move back, get out of the building through one of the classroom’s windo-”

  “Multiple contacts!” Miles yelped, “Twelve o’clock! Immediate vicinity!”

  “Fuck me!” I cried out as I turned around and discovered that ‘immediate vicinity’ meant ‘swinging distance’.

  “Second spawn in the classroom at the end of the hall,” Pete said coldly as we broke down the large crowd that had been allowed to build directly behind us, “we need to find a way out. Now.”

  “Oh really, Captain Obvious?” Miles snapped.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ start.” Brendo growled from where he sat crouched beside me, facing our six with Paul, “Zoey, we need you.”

  “Understatement.” Paul growled out between shots as I spun around and saw that the other Rabids had gotten way too close for comfort.

  The stress of it all made me hesitate for a moment, but I quickly recovered and managed to fire two shots into an incoming Rabid, one in the forehead and one through the bottom of his chin as his head launched backwards, causing the top of his skull to explode and coat the fresh group of Rabids that had just spawned in.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 22/100

  Level Progression: 50/250

  “This is getting a bit close.” Pete warned as I struggled to help Paul and Brendo keep their group at bay, “You guys near any doors?”

  “There’s one a couple of feet in front of us,” I replied coolly as I was forced to reload, “but we’d need you two to give up on your group before moving.”

  “That’s not happening,” Miles said before Pete could, “as it is we’re gonna need your help back here.”

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 23/100

  Level Progression: 60/250

  “Can it wait a second?” I asked as I shot another two of the Rabids, “These ones are spawning in faster than we can put ‘em down.”

  “Same problem here.” Pete grumbled, “Maybe Chad was right, Thren’s out to scrub us out.”

  “Fuck that.” Brendo chimed in, “If we die here it’s because you tossers didn’t do a good enough job.”

  “Is that right?” Miles snarled, “Pete, about-face. Let’s make a move for the door.”

  “Are you crazy?” Pete snapped, “We let up here for a second and I near-guarantee one of us is getting grabbed.”

  “Better than all five of us going down.” Brendo half-heartedly chuckled, “Funny, I never thought Pete’d be the little bitch in your pairing.”

  Nothing happened for a few moments after that, beyond us continuing to fire at the encroaching Rabids and racking up some serious experience, of course, but I think we all knew that Pete wasn’t going to take that jab.

  So it came as no surprise that, with next to no warning, Pete let out an almost unearthly roar and spun around, egging Miles into doing the same, and firing at the crowd in front of me.

  Suddenly we had some breathing room, and we weren’t about to waste a second appreciating it, no, instead we started moving hard and fast, Paul hugging the wall as we did so and opening the door as soon as we reached it.

  “Go, go, go!” I ordered between shots, doing my best to ignore the claws at my back as we slipped into the classroom.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 24/100

  Level Progression: 70/250

  Chapter Five

  “We all good?” I asked after Paul had slammed the door shut behind Pete, who’d apparently stayed outside the longest in order to prove to the rest of us that he wasn’t, in fact, a bitch.

  “Could be better.” Miles chuckled, “I think one of those fuckers managed to club me in the back, armour took the brunt of the blow though.”

  “Good, good.” I muttered as I only barely consciously reloaded my DMR, “Alright, what’s the plan? How are we getting out of here?”

  “Well,” Pete sighed before walking over to the wall that separated us from the safety of the outside world then grabbing the strong-looking bars that were layered over the windows in an almost prison-like way, “I thought we could vault through the windows…”

  “Yeah, looks like that ain’t exactly in the cards,” I said somewhat dejectedly, “but come on, we’re Zoey’s Fighters, we ain’t about to let a little thing like some bars stop us from getting out of here, are we?”

  I was met with a sea of unsure faces, and while it was somewhat frustrating that no one around me had an alternative exit strategy, I couldn’t rationally fault them for it.

  At the same time, I didn’t always have to be rational.

  “Seriously?” I groaned in disappointment, “Nothing? Not a single one of you has an idea?”

  “What do you expect?” Miles asked sorrowfully, “I mean, shit, Chad is the only one who can talk to the dinos and the Js now, and they’re the only ones who’d be able to break down that wall.”

  “Miles is right,” Pete added before making a face like he had a bad taste in his mouth, “right now we’re little better than rats in a cage.”

  “With other, angrier rats trying to get in…” Brendo murmured as if he didn’t actually want anyone to hear him, “This is a toughie…”

  As pessimistic as it sounds, I was actually kind of getting ready to accept that that’s where Zoey’s Fighters was going to end.

  Some random, glitchy spawn-filled school on the outskirts of our true destination.

  We were so fucking close, and I was starting to get ready to throw in the towel.

  With that being said though, it wasn’t really from a place of depression or anything, in fact, in a kind of weird way it was actually relieving.

  All of a sudden I was on the brink of a completely unavoidable death against a group of Rabids who would never be able to rub it in my face like some overconfident player would.

  Then it happened, as soon as I started to smile, the blade of a large axe smashed through the door.

  It was happening, it was finally happening.

  Freedom.

  And then a massive cow ran down the hall, collecting Rabids and bellowing loudly as it did so.

  Well, it sounded like a cow.

  “That…” Paul trailed off as he cautiously approached the damaged door, “that was weird, right?”

  I went to agree with him when, once again, the cow ran the length of the hall, dragging a collection of screaming bodies along behind it as it did so.

  “It’s a J,” Brendo chuckled after pushing the overly concerned Paul out of the way and going to the door himself, “looks like someone got a bit bored on patrol.”

  “Thank fuck for that.” I huffed out amusedly as I followed Brendo, who had just opened the door and stepped out into the blood-slicked hall.

  Not going to lie, I was slightly disappointed that I’d gotten all geared for death only to have it snatched away by a murderous J and his steggie, but at the same time I was glad that I was, at the very least, going to be able to spend some more time with the guys.

  “What’s he doing?” Miles asked after he’d joined us in leaving the classroom and taken to following after the J’s path of brutal destruction with his eyes.

  I went to answer with something to the effect of ‘Having fun.’ then stopped as I noticed that the large dino, which had done a good deal of structural damage to the school in its trampling, was standing in front of the staircase, staring at us while the J atop his back looked damn near ready to gun us down.

  “Oh… shit.” Pete cursed before clarifying for us, “It’s the fuckin’ mutiny thing. I reckon saving us used up the last of what little loyalty he had to us…”

  “Fuck sticks…” I muttered in response, “What should we do?”

  “Nothing we can do,” Miles replied, “we just have to wait and hope that we get option one instead of option two.”

  “And what is
that supposed to mean?” I growled after the steggie let out an angry huff and made me jump.

  “Option one, he bails, leaves us to our devices.” Miles said with a slight tremble in his voice, “While option two… Let’s just say that we might end up joining this gory slush pile pretty soon.”

  That, unsurprisingly, didn’t sound all that appetising, but right as I was about to give the order to take cover in the room again, the J and his steggie decided to go with Miles’ first option, turning tail and running out through the school’s front doors.

  “Oh, thank fuck…” I sighed with relief, “Come on, we better get out of here before the Rabids start spawning again.”

  “Heh, yeah,” Pete added with a little chuckled as we all walked for the exit, “better get Chad up, see if he can get the Js to…”

  I didn’t know why Pete had trailed off at first, but then when I saw the look of mild embarrassment mixed with incredible concern I realised what had happened.

  “Oh… oh no.” Brendo said as he too joined us in reaching our conclusion, “I don’t suppose there’s any way he can get himself out of there when he wakes up?”

  “Not if he doesn’t want to get absolutely destroyed by the Js,” Paul replied after Pete and I had led us outside and started looking around for a sign of where the Js went, “bare minimum, he’ll break his legs if he tries to climb off when they’re in motion.”

  “And if they see him as an enemy they’ll just shoot him.” I said before pulling up my map, “They’re still registered as members of our community, so I should be able to track them.”

  “Any chance you can communicate with them?” Pete asked, not bothering to hide his concern.

  “Chad had it all password protected when we started getting more people in,” I replied with a little grunt as I tried and failed to guess the four digit pin, “you know his birthday, Paul?”

  “I barely remember my birthday most of the time.” Paul said in an obvious effort to inject some humour into the very stressful situation we were in, then sighed in defeat when it didn’t work, “No, no I don’t.”