by Isaac Stone
“We need to get out of here and find our way to the town,” Kurt informed the others. “No sense in hanging around this place, it’s clear and we’ve scored our points. Now let’s get moving.” He turned and walked back to the staircase, ignoring the damage the combined firepower of the weapons and its effect on the bunker.
When they returned to the hot sunlight, Kurt heard the sound of rotors outside and stopped for a few minutes. He brought up his rifle, ready for anything. He’d seen the hell creatures drive a truck at breakneck speed down the highway. Anything was possible. After a brief hesitation, he looked up from the door to the bunker and watched a drone with four rotors rise up from the vacant area in front of the bunker, hover for a few seconds and spins off, headed in the direction away from the town.
“What was that?” Jesse asked him as she emerged behind Kurt from the bunker. She still had her helmet on, but he could see the outline of her face under it.
“Drone pick-up,” Kurt responded as the rest of the Skull Legion emerged from the concrete structure. “I’m guessing they take the repairable bots away for service. Same thing probably happened to the mechanical bots our guys used when we were hit by that firefight. No reason to waste a good bot.” The others nodded in agreement.
Kurt pulled out his radio and tried to raise Command. He attempted to sign-in with them several times before he gave up. For some reason, the radio wasn’t functioning. He looked it over several times, sighed, and placed it back in its compartment on his belt. Kurt doubted the lack of radio contact had anything to do with the game, but it was a possibility.
Chapter 9
Kurt put the radio down and looked at this crew. They were a good bunch in spite of everything. Those trust fund kids had come through when needed if a bit over zealous. None of them really needed the money from the win and should be willing to split it with the others if they made it to the end of the tournament. They might be a little quick on the trigger, but they weren’t the only ones who had that problem.
They needed to know something wasn’t right with this whole scenario. It wasn’t just the lack of communication with Command while in-game, he had a bad suspicion the damn Ares AI was interfering in the entire course of the game. The way blood faded in and out in the massacre downstairs bothered him.
And there was the whole drone thing, which had managed to remove the bots out front before they had the opportunity to return to the surface. It was a quick operation, too quick for a mere repair and collection job. No, someone or something wanted the remains of the bots out of there pronto. Perhaps they didn’t want any of the game players poking around in the remains. A computer enhanced reality program could alter only so much if they were, in fact, operating mechanical bots in the middle of a real desert.
The final thing that bothered him was the blood on the ground around the hellspawn that the two women took out when they went around the corner. It faded quickly, which let him know Ares wanted to hide something. If all they had shot-up were mechanized robots, where did all that red fluid originate? It didn’t appear to be lubricant. In addition, why did Ares want to get rid of it and the remains so fast?
He resolved to keep his concerns to himself.
“So where to now, boss?” Camper asked him. “We finally going to that town?”
“I’ll let you call it,” Kurt told him. He proceeded to tell everyone his concerns about the way the game scenario was run.
“I’m staying with it,” Camper responded. “Too many reasons why these things could happen. It’s a new tournament, one never tried on this scale before. Bound to be some bugs to work out, all minor stuff anyway. I’ll stick it out.”
“I’m with him,” Detra added. “It will turn out to be some programing error, it always is. You watch.”
The women wanted to tough it out as well. Although Kurt didn’t think they would quit. He wanted to make sure the men would commit to the mission. In addition, it appeared they would, which gave him a bit of ease, although there were still his suspicions.
“Let me know if you see anything funny out here,” Kurt informed them. “I don’t mean a dust swirl or anything we’re supposed to notice, like those dammed Nazi hell creatures. But if one of them starts yelling in Russian or dancing in circles, I want to know. This thing is far from over and we need to be observant.”
They continued to walk for a while. The town was next on the list of places that they had to reach in order to win the prize, so there was no reason to head anywhere but to it. Once again, Kurt stayed out front with the women following behind him and the men holding up the rear. He felt a bit better about the trust fund guys now that they’d opted to stay in the game, but they had a long way to go.
By now, the helmets faded from their heads. Once they’d left the safety of the last save point, each of them appeared with helmets, but those were gone after they left the bunker. The Ares system didn’t see the need to keep up the illusion of helmeted game players when they were in no danger. Kurt wondered when the system would activate them again. It didn’t matter as he was lost in the game and didn’t identify much with the real part of him that initiated the movements on his robotic double as he walked down the dusty road.
This made the obvious signals of interest he’d received from Jesse over the next two hours very confusing. Since Kurt didn’t know if the side glances and the eye contact from her meant real interest, he’d have to ask her. This was not a time to make a bad mistake on someone’s level of interest. Compound it with the mission and the need to keep unit cohesion while they made their way to the town. At this very moment, Kurt wished she wasn’t sending him those signals, if that is in fact what she did.
Jesse had long black hair that was wrapped into one braid. This much he knew was the real woman as he’d spent time with her prior to the game. She wore some kind of perfume, which he could smell in the hot air. The last was a part of the game he didn’t know was possible since it only kicked in the second day. Somehow, Rashid’s people found a way to pipe in the scents of the desert air into the air around his skinsuit and helmet inside the VR chamber.
As he found the time to glance back at her, Kurt admired the slender arch of her back, her thin but ample waist and sizable backside. After a bit, he found a reason to fall back so that she and Lavon could walk up front and allow him a rear view. It wasn’t the healthiest thing to do, but he needed a little stress relief before they hit the meat grinder he knew the abandoned town would represent. If starring at an attractive woman from the back was the only way he could get peace without causing a problem in the unit, then he’d gladly employ that technique.
In some ways, she reminded him of a girl he once knew. Her name was Leah and she rode the biggest, baddest Harley hog motorcycle until the gas became very expensive. She was a mechanic at a motorcycle shop and he’d run into her when he was eighteen. She was a few years older and helped him learn the basics of riding a mean bike. Later, she took him out the banks of the river and taught him some basic techniques of a different sort. His knees still trembled at the memory.
He never did find out where she lived. At the time, he was working at some burger joint and wanted to delay adulthood as much as he could. She would meet him after work and take him for a ride every week. Kurt managed to keep Leah a secret from most people, although his coworkers did find out. He’d sit at an outdoor and wait for her every Thursday.
“Waiting for your older woman again, I see,” his manager said to him one day when he was getting off work. The manager was an older black man the burger joint’s owners brought in to straighten their franchise up when they had to fire the previous manager.
Kurt tried to hide his head as the embarrassment showed. However, the manager simply smiled and sat down next to him.
“Word of advice, kid,” he told Kurt. “Don’t expect this one to last. They never do. When it ends, don’t try to seek her out. You’re the special of the month for her, but she’ll want to go back to someone with a career and future
in a few months. You might have those in a few years, but she’ll need someone who can provide those things right away. She’s pushing thirty and I can see the signs of someone who wants to settle down.”
Kurt kept those words in mind when Leah dumped him off at the burger place on evening after a very long and heated afternoon near the river.
“I’ve got plans to make and people to see,” she told him after one kiss as he stepped off her bike. “I won’t be around again. Don’t fret; you need someone your own age. I do too.”
It was the last time he ever saw her again. Kurt never found out what happened to her and stayed away from the motorcycle repair shop where she worked. His manager’s advice was good and it got him through a hard time. None of his coworkers mentioned her after she quit coming around. Later, he was accepted into a drone repair program and it consumed his free time.
But Leah was still his ideal woman, the one whom all others were held. Right now, Jesse was the closest thing he’d found to Leah and it bothered him. He’d worked with her on a few online game campaigns in the same game network. He’d met her in person a few times before today, but he didn’t know much about her. That would have to change.
Kurt knew that he couldn’t go on the same way he had over the past few years. The life of a major player in the online game world had its rewards, but came with dangers too. There were many stories of people who starved to death in front of their screens and men who could no longer tell the real world from that of the game. It was always a possibility if you spent too much time in the game world. Yet, the ones who made it to the top of the hill did very well.
He wanted out.
At that moment Kurt decided this would be his final game. He’d made far enough into the game world to be considered one of the elite. Although he was on a break when it happened, Kurt was now part of the Top Hundred game players. The endorsements and money he’d receive from this final game should make him enough cash to live on for the rest of his life. No more anxiety over his rank or concern someone else was slipping up behind him. He wanted a real life with a woman and a kid. On his current path, there was no way this would ever happen.
He’s seen the old gamer dudes who hung out at the public video screens and the sleazier game stores. Guys who would sit around a bar and whine about what they’d done years ago. Men whom no one cared about anymore. It was impossible to have a conversation with them because all they wanted to do was return to the days when their star was on the rise. Usually, the only people who remembered those days were other old gamer dudes in the same state. It was a sad thing to see and a life he didn’t want. Unless he did something to halt his decline, Kurt knew he was doomed.
The only way he saw out of his current path was to win the tournament. Winning the tournament would put him right at the top. This was a game at a level never attempted before and the first winner would have an exalted position no one else could match. Many had climbed Mount Everest, but the only one anyone remembered was the man who got there first. Kurt was determined at that moment to be the man who was first.
He glanced behind him and took an inventory of his crew. It was as good a crew as he was liable to get and he intended to use it to the max. There might be better ones out there, but the Skull Legion was the one that would win the tournament. It was all a matter of will, as far as he was concerned. Kurt once heard that moving heaven and earth was simply a matter of concentration.
He stopped to check his assault rifle. It would need to be cleaned soon enough. This one was real and needed maintenance. He wondered if this occurred to any of the other contestants.
A few hours later and it was time for a break. Kurt stopped their advance and they located a spot off the main road where everyone could rest. Although the mechbots didn’t need the same kind of relaxation normal humans did, Kurt realized that the concept of was something everyone needed.
“We’ll stop for a few over there,” he pointed out to the rest of the group. “No sense in pushing things too hard. We’re close enough to the town to think about our next plan of action.”
“The only plant of action I want,” Detra told him, “is how to spend that money when I get it.”
“I wouldn’t count it too early,” Camper replied as he followed everyone into the small road that led off to one side. “Besides, what do you need all that money for? Don’t you have enough already?”
“I’ve got some plans,” Detra responded. “I can’t access all of what sits in my fund, but anything I earn on my own I can do with as I want. With the haul from this one, there will be all kinds of fun I can have.”
Kurt slid up to Jesse and spoke lightly to her. “I need to have a word with you,” he said. “There is something I need to talk to you about.” He made certain the rest of the crew were about to drop their packs to the ground.
“I don’t know where we can get privacy,” she said to him. “It’s still desert around here.”
Kurt turned and noted a wall that was incomplete, but still handy. Funny, he hadn’t noticed it before.
“That will do,” he told her.
He turned to the rest of the crew. “We need to talk about something,” he told them as he stood in place with Jesse. Both of them walked to the other side of the crumbled wall.
“So what do you want to talk about?” she asked him.
“What do you make of this whole tournament?” he asked her. At that moment, Kurt wished he were a smoker as they always had a reason to leave whatever group they were with at the time.
“I dunno,” she told him. “Rashid has spent a lot of money on it. I guess he wants to build something as big as the Super Bowl used to be. Why do you ask?” She kicked the ground with one boot.
“There is something strange going on,” Kurt explained. “Why did that drone show up to pick up all those dead ghoul things out there? Why did the blood splatter change patterns when we were down in the bunker? I know that Ares network changes the outward appearances to make it compliant with the game, but this is absurd.”
“There could be a lot of reasons it’s the way it is,” she told him. “It’s the first time he’s run this tournament. Maybe all the bugs haven’t been resolved.”
“I don’t think so. There is something going on with the game that Rashid doesn’t want anyone to know about. He controls everything. We’re in some remote desert, God only knows where, and we’re controlling robotic mech’ s that are made to appear to be human or those Nazi Zombie things. He can monitor everything that happens. He can adjust the landscape and game players to be whatever he wants.”
Kurt looked at the wall they stood behind at the moment. “I don’t even think this wall was here when we stopped. Did you notice it?”
Jesse looked to it and stared. “No, I don’t think I did, but maybe I never thought to look over here.”
She looked back to Kurt. “Is that the only reason you asked me back here?” she said to him. Jesse took a few steps toward him.
“No it’s not,” Kurt replied. “Ever thought about getting out of this racket? Settling down before its all over?” He waited for her reaction.
Now she was inches from his face. The illusion held and he starred at the face of a healthy woman a few years older than he. Kurt knew the others would want to know what was going on behind the wall.
“I don’t think we have to worry about condoms,” he told her. “Considering both of us are in skinsuits in a dark room with helmets on our heads.”
“Takes care of the whole sexually transmitted disease issue,” she agreed. “But do you really want to try now with lord knows how many people watching? I’m not much of an exhibitionist. You?”
“Never had the inclination either. I once saw a video with people in latex, thought it looked strange. You have any tattoos I can’t see?”
“No,” she told him. “Would you want me to get one? What about you? Are you one of those men who had a demon’s face tatted above your manhood?”
“You have some imagina
tion,” he laughed.
“Had an ex-boyfriend with one of those,” she explained. “It was fun for a while, but I got tired of starring at it. Any piercings I need to know about?”
“No. Those things are painful to look at. What about you?”
“Rings in both nipples. I have bars in them right now to keep the hole open. You want to see? Don’t know how it will work with the computer enhancement around me, but we can always find out.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Kurt told her. “Only place you got them?”
“Only place. I don’t even have the ears done. By the way, is this a marriage proposal?”
“Did you need it in writing?”
“No, a yes or no will do just fine.”
“Consider it a yes.”
She leaned back on a wall. “Always wondered when some guy would pop the question. Never thought it would happen on a battlefield. The answer is yes, by the way.”
“Alright,” Kurt told her. “We’ll make the wedding plans when this is over. Let’s get back there, don’t want them to think we’ve been having sex.”
“Yes,” she snickered, “that would raise some questions.”
Chapter 10
Kurt and Jesse were around the other side of the wall and on their way back to the others when his radio began to beep.
Kurt stopped, pulled it out of his belt and talked briefly, to whoever was on the other end. He caught up with Jesse, who continued walking, after he’d put it away.
