Cold War Rune: A Virtual Reality novel (Rune Universe Book 2)

by Hugo Huesca

  My armored boots landed in muddy ground. The air was vaporous and hot, and the glare of the sun on my helmet made me squint.

  Van had said there was a pack of raptors besieging the facility, in addition to the t-rex (which was much, much bigger than its extinct, real life counterpart) and the flock of pterodactyls. I was supposed to start a party with the three groups long enough to give Van’s group time to escape the facility.

  After that, I could extract them in Teddy and have this Quest finished.

  Three of the pterodactyls caught sight of me standing in the open and flew towards me in a menacing arc. Apparently they liked the shine of my suit.

  I ran towards the nearest tree, searching for cover. I didn’t want to find out if the flying monsters had a razorwire beak, either.

  Still, it wasn’t enough. I was supposed to get the attention of the entire enemy mob.

  I turned back and as I ran I shot a volley of blaster fire towards the three pterodactyls. The shots went wide and passed through the space around them, but one laser streak managed to hit one of the flock that surrounded the complex. The prehistoric nightmare went rigid in mid-air and its neck shook in surprise and confusion as a couple thousand volts traveled down its brain-stem. Then it fell.

  I hoped the mud was soft enough to let it survive its fall, otherwise Van would complain about risking her Quest.

  I now had the attention of all the pterodactyls. The flock screeched in my direction and changed course towards the trees. I remembered how one of them had caught a player by the shoulders and flown off with them.

  Better to run fast.

  The first three didn’t see the commotion behind them, but they did hear it. They changed their flight into a dive and I had to roll on the ground to avoid their sharp talons.

  A beak scratched my back as I rolled and I heard an angry bawk! It was too close to my ears for comfort. My shields went down a percent or two and I was back on my feet again. I reached the trees.

  I had lost sight of the pterodactyls, but in the dense jungle, I had the advantage. They couldn’t drop out of the sky in all directions at once and overwhelm me, since they had to deal with the trees and the branches in their path.

  My triumph was short-lived, though—I ran into another thing that could use the jungle to its advantage. It was big, it was green, it was covered in feathers that looked like leaves, it had huge claws, and it had a huge jaw dripping huge goblets of saliva. And it was looking at me with its cruel, angry eyes.

  “What the f—”

  I ran to the left, away from the t-rex in front of me.

  “By the way, bro,” Van’s voice came through my comms. “The t-rex has points in Sneak, too.”

  “That’s just ridiculous!”

  Who made these things?

  The guerrilla t-rex sniffed in triumph and shot after me with a speed terrifying for something so massive. The fact that it hardly made a sound as it ran didn’t go unnoticed. Seriously, there was an NPC scientist somewhere in the Terran Federation that just got off on this, wasn’t there?

  “Remember, you can’t kill it, either!” said Van.

  With barely a thought, I turned on my camera and shared the feed with Van. I was running towards all the nearest trees so I could force the t-rex to slow down, but the monster was agile. I turned back and fired at it with my blaster until the weapon overheated.

  The monster was so big that I couldn’t miss it. Five or six blaster shots hit it in its head and body.

  Fall down, fall down…

  The monster roared at me, loud enough to make me feel the tremor in the air. Then it lunged, maw open to devour me whole.

  Run away, run away!

  I turned my jetpack on and propelled myself upwards, high enough to avoid the bite. I then shut it off and I landed on the t-rex’s snout.

  For a moment, both monster and I just stood there, staring at each other. Its huge eyes were fixated on mine.

  “I’m going to go now,” I told it. The monster reacted by shaking with fury and bucking like a scaly bull to launch me off. Instead, I jumped again, using its momentum in my favor. I turned the jetpack on once more and avoided the swipe of the beast’s claws. The stream of super-heated air burned the t-rex’s snout and made it instantly recoil in agony. It fell to the ground and thrashed furiously. The smell of smoked chicken filled the air.

  I had a few seconds of flight left. More than that and the jetpack would need to recharge, which was a dangerous proposition in the middle of combat with a prehistoric monster.

  I landed away from the dinosaur and near the edge of the forest, hard enough to make me lose my footing and slide through the mud.

  “Nice move,” Van told me. “But you lost an opportunity there, you could’ve mounted the t-rex.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “It was about to eat me.”

  “It would’ve spit you out, Cole. It’s used to eating dinosaur meat, which is delicious.”

  I didn’t ask how she knew this. Instead, I reached open ground and got my bearings. The flock of pterodactyls was still looking for me near the place where they’d last seen me. The t-rex was just now standing up. It had a long, red-and-black streak of burned meat on its snout.

  That only left me with…

  I realized by then that I was very much alone on open ground. The trees behind me were silent. The bushes swayed with the breeze. The carpet of dead leaves didn’t croak with the passing of little, clawy feet.

  “Francis?” I called in my ship’s channels. “Run a scan of the area behind me, please. Heat signatures.”

  “Great call!” Francis said instantly. “For a moment, I wondered if you were about to become prehistory, Master Cole. There are nine heat signatures behind you. They’ve been following you since you landed, if I recall correctly.”

  “You could’ve told me that beforehand,” I said.

  “The distraction might have lowered your chances with the tyrannosaurus. Remember, Master Rylena said that dealing with one problem at the time is key to maintaining maximum efficiency.”

  “You are supposed to just listen to what I say,” I whispered, even though my voice wouldn’t escape my helmet if I didn’t want it to. I began walking very slowly, very nonchalantly, towards the facility.

  “That, too, may lower your chances with future problems, I’m afraid.”

  One problem at a time, Cole. Deal with the invisible dinosaurs first. Since their best shot at hitting me unseen was inside the forest, I’d probably caught them by surprise with my jetpack. They were assessing my threat-levels again. With any luck they would decide to let me get away…

  “Let me know when they begin moving,” I told Francis. I wasn’t optimistic.

  Open ground was another good spot for them to chase a prey of their same size. Since they outnumbered me, they could simply surround me in a single second and attack me using pack tactics. If they were fast enough, I was probably screwed unless I used my plasma grenades, which would probably kill me too at this distance.

  Instead, I carefully kept moving forward while my blaster pistol recharged. I needed to be right in the middle of open ground for this to work.

  Walk a bit… Walk another bit… Something big and fast smacked against my armored back out of nowhere, hard enough to send me tumbling to the ground. At the same time, Francis was saying: “Damn, they’re fast! They’re moving—never mind, you already know that.”

  I was surrounded by a pack of raptors and they weren’t toying around. I had seven rows of teeth trying their best to puncture the armor of my suit. For now, the plasma shield was handling the impact, but each bite took a small chunk out of it—and they were biting a lot.

  Moving my arms and legs was a complicated matter with a bunch of enhanced turbo-chickens nibbling at them. I managed to punch a scaly snout with the butt of my blaster and the dinosaur reeled in surprise. It was all I needed.

  I pointed my blaster at the pterodactyl flock. They had stopped searching for me
in the trees and were now enjoying the show from a safe distance.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  My volley managed to stun two pterodactyls and send them rolling through the branches. They landed on a pile of dead, rotten leaves.

  The rest of the flock decided I was their rightful prey and launched themselves towards me, screaming in a rage of vengeful retribution.

  The raptors stopped biting the metal of my suit (seriously, how did they manage not to break their teeth?) and looked at the incoming swarm of flying predators. They made a decision.

  “That’s right!” I screamed as they made an amazingly fast retreat towards the trees. “Get the hell out of here—!”

  A pterodactyl’s claws caught me by the shoulders—which took another small chunk out of my shields and left me below fifty percent—and before I could scream in surprise, I was already up in the air.

  The flock flew in a tornado of beaks and claws around me and my shield began draining rapidly. This time, though, my hands and legs were free, so I punched, shot, and kicked furiously at every body that got near me. I landed the butt of my blaster against the back of the neck of a pterodactyl and it fell to the ground, convulsing as it went.

  “I’m beginning the extraction,” Van said as I fought bravely for my life.

  “I’m extracting the scientists,” confirmed Francis. “You only need to survive for a minute or so! Punch them harder, Master Cole!”

  Punching them harder was a good idea.

  I put it in motion.

  The flock became even more angry.

  “Well, if you don’t like it you should stop trying to eat me!” I screamed out loud.

  These dinosaurs were like the little children in the laser-tag tournaments that enjoyed shooting at you, but started crying as soon as you fragged their entire birthday party.

  And just like with little children, an adult was never far behind.

  The t-rex emerged from the jungle, uprooting a thin tree as it did so. The earth shook as it roared in fury and charged in our direction. I was high enough in the air to be able to stare at the monster at eye level.

  It seemed pissed off.

  “Bro, you’re an amazing distraction!” said Van over the comms.

  I screamed incoherently at her. A pterodactyl stabbed at my helmet with its beak right where my eyes would be. Instead, it scratched the visor as my shields fizzled out and died. I was exposed.

  Technically, there was a layer of metal behind the visor, so it wasn’t actually about to puncture my eyes. Technically, a bunch of oversized lizards shouldn’t have been able to drain my shields so fast.

  It was time to get the hell out of here. The t-rex was too close now, but it was distracted by a dozen annoyed pterodactyls. The t-rex closed its maw around one of them and swallowed it whole.

  I raised my blaster straight up until it was pressed against the soft belly of the creature gripping me with its claws. I squeezed the trigger.

  There was a scream, and a bright light.

  I fell twenty feet to the ground.

  I had no time to try for a controlled fall. Instead, I turned on my jetpack at full power at the last second. It burned the last dredges of fuel in an instant.

  I hit the ground hard enough for my screen to gain a red tint. Air escaped my lungs and my suit complained of structural damage in its knee-joints.

  Are my legs broken? I’m boned if my legs are broken…

  I stood up.

  Fantastic, legs are functional. Let’s use them.

  I ran for my life towards open field, chased by the T-Rex (still swarmed by the pterodactyls) and half the flock. I looked back briefly and realized the raptor pack had decided to join the chase, too. They were probably just enjoying the carnage at this point.

  “Hot extraction!” I clamored over my comm line. “Right now! Hot extraction!”

  The flying dinosaurs gained on me. A pair of claws took hold of my shoulders, but this time I was ready. I shot it in exactly the same way I had its brother and it fell to the ground, stunned.

  Then, the raptors caught me. They were faster than any other monster on the blasted island. A pair of teeth caught my ankle. I hit the ground. I shot at the raptor.

  Missed!

  “C’mon!” I was now surrounded by them. Shields were down. Armor was like paper to them. Time to roll out the grenades…

  My hand closed around the military bag I kept at chest level and grasped a baseball-sized ball.

  It would probably take me out along with every single dinosaur around me. On the other hand, fuck them.

  There was a ripple through the air. Before I could activate the grenade, the Teddy dropped its IF.

  The ship was hovering above the ground two feet away from where I was laying and its doors were down. Van and her squad were right there, pointing stun-lances at the raptors.

  Electricity arced through the air and the hair of my arms raised in response. I heard a crackle and again smelled something like chicken wings. The raptors at my right and left screamed in pain and retreated.

  “Fast!” Said my sister. “The t-rex doesn’t give a shit about our weapons.”

  I didn’t wait for her to repeat herself. My ankle was out of commission, so I crawled my way to safety in the most manly way possible. Van’s squad kept firing from their position all the while. When I neared the ship, one of them jumped out and helped me inside.

  Just in time, too. The t-rex had been kept at bay by the pterodactyls, but as it saw me about to get away, it launched itself upwards with a mighty jump just as the Teddy gained altitude.

  A pair of claws scratched the shields of the ship and shook us around like ragdolls. I heard someone scream and a body fell out of the ship, right in front of me. Reacting by instinct, I jumped out and caught a gloved hand. My other hand grabbed the edge of the ship. I magnetized both hands for added grip. I looked down. The person I had caught was Van. I smiled triumphantly. “You stream the part where I saved your life?”

  “Right after the part where a bunch of lizards almost made you cry,” came her response.

  The rest of the people inside my ship helped us back in. The Teddy, by now, was high enough to be safe from the pterodactyls.

  “Let’s never get back there again,” I said.

  “We’re for sure coming back,” said one of Van’s squad-members. “Our viewership spiked hard when we rescued you.”

  The way I saw it, I was the one who had rescued them. The only reason I had needed a bit of help—alright, a lot—was because they wouldn’t let me plasma my way into becoming king of the Jurassic period.

  “Well, next time I’ll be staying in the ship,” I said.

  “That’s what I did,” said Francis over the cargo bay intercoms. The five NPC scientists looked around, searching for the source of the voice. They looked like they’d been through hell. Their lab coats were brown with mud and crusted blood, their knees and arms were scraped, and their glasses were broken. I hoped for the sake of Van’s Quest that the Terran Federation didn’t have a “no damaged goods” clause on the contract.

  Van’s squad consisted of three other streamers, all girls. Guessing their age was pointless in a game where everyone looked like a grizzled war veteran that ate grenades for breakfast. One had dyed her hair like a rainbow, another had installed a mechanical arm on her back, and the third one was caressing a baby raptor.

  “Uh… That’s a baby raptor.” It was one of those things you just have to say out loud to fully process.

  “Yup,” said the girl with a giant smile. “Pretty, isn’t she? I’m going to make her into a killing machine.”

  The raptor looked like it had been heavily sedated. Its eyes were barely open and its reptile tongue was hanging out of its mouth.

  One of the scientists stepped forward slightly. “We tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen to us—”

  The girl with the rainbow hair shushed the scientist like one might quiet a misbehaving puppy.

 
; I suddenly had the strangest suspicion about Van’s true motive for doing this Quest. “Van?”

  She shrugged. “Another streamer squad has a submarine and they’ve been making bank. They were even on the news… in what should have been our prime time. Well, we’re going to take this fight to the next level. They’ll regret the day they angered us.”

  “We won’t fail you, Spark Bandit!” called the one with the mechanical arm.

  They all nodded with determination filling their gazes.

  So, they’d ventured into a protected island to save a bunch of scientists and had gone out of their way to steal a baby dinosaur. I wondered if the raptors were even involved in the original Quest. Their gear was still mid-level, so they should have had their hands full with only the T-Rex.

  Had I just helped the bad guys win?

  “Are we the bad guys?” I asked quietly. Van’s squad ignored the question while they pet the raptor and the scientists looked away.

  My sister walked over to me and slapped my back. “It’s a cut-throat world out there, Cole. A girl has to do what a girl has to do. Sometimes, that involves stealing a baby raptor from her mother, teaching her the art of war, and giving her a machine gun.”

  Congratulations? You have helped your family complete their personal Quest. You monster. Your skills have gone up Shooting (57 level), Jetpack Control (12th level), Beast Taming (1st level), Melee (72th level).

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The FBI

  Van Dorsett was determined to achieve fame and fortune through gaming. It was a noble pursuit, but sometimes I feared the terrible lengths she may go to acquire it. The poor raptor was still so drugged she could barely move her hind-legs.

  “Okay,” I said. I sighed heavily. “I’m going to wash my hands of this. Are you still streaming? Because I need to talk with you.”

  My helmet’s visor covered my face and to anyone watching her video-feed, I was just another end-game player making a guest appearance on Spark Bandit’s show. Secrecy was a must after the Event, and a heavy reason why my own squad—my friends—couldn’t hang out in Rune lately.