Glitchworld

by Damien Hanson

  The ship drew near, and she sprinted up to find Sigourney lounging on the entry ramp.

  “Hey there, Mare. Fancy actually seeing you here.”

  Chapter 20 - The Rise of Gruesome Gary

  Meredith froze in her tracks. She’d been so concerned with herself that she’d forgotten to work up a plan for what she’d do about the literal killer. The spec ops assassin badass who’d driven up the ratings on Dungeonworld over the last year or two. What’d they call her? Cleaver? She’d never watched the stupid garbage programming, considering it beneath her. Given that Dungeonworld was situated directly under the admin and company levels, this was literally true as well.

  “Alessa.”

  The actual murderer sighed. “It’s Sigourney. Just call me Sigourney.”

  “I need to get to Derek. There’s been–” A terrible mistake, she was about to say, except Sigourney cut her off with a snarky laugh.

  “Yeah, now you care. After you smashed his nuts in a dozen times, jacked up the pain scale and then literally tried to kill him. Now you’re ready to swoop in and save the day… from your own actions. Right. Nice.”

  “Look, I ran an ANAL probe on you, I know all about you.” Sigourney cocked an eyebrow, and Meredith sighed. The freaking acronyms were getting in the way of everything. How harmless and hilarious they’d all seemed when she and the other lead coders made them up. “Access Network Administrative Lookup. A-N-A-L. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Sigourney said. “You set me free, and I’ll walk away. Case closed. I disappear never to be heard from again.”

  And then pop up again whenever she needed money, with the blackmail dirt on Meredith and this entire cocked up debacle? Okay, that was the old Meredith thinking. This new Meredith gritted her teeth and accepted the best worst case scenario.

  “I need to see the tablet. To know you’re not going to try anything.”

  “Derek needs to get out of here first. He’s an idiot but he doesn’t deserve this.”

  Sigourney stood. “Tablet.”

  “But–” It’s dangerous to even be here talking, she wanted to say.

  “Tablet!”

  Now the ultimate question: could Meredith access her tablet and run a program faster than Sigourney could bolt over here and pop her head off like a bottle cap? She tried not to shudder. She’d been away from the real people of the world for so long that this made her knees weak with the terror of it. Sigourney had done real, actual things, not just flounced around a harmless game world indulging every revenge scenario or sex fantasy that came to mind.

  Mare caved like Tokyo under attack by Godzilla. She flipped the tablet around and walked slowly towards the mass murdering, potential boyfriend-stealing survivor type with the command at the ready. Which famous or important person had she shot? Was she a sniper or did she go in and slit your throat with a knife? Probably both, she decided.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “Shut up,” Sigourney said. “I was ready to be your friend. You could’ve let me out of here at any time. Instead I had to parade around in this.” She gestured down to herself. “This nonsense. Ugh. Speaking of which, give me reskin access. Right now. Just like you are, so I can see what you’re doing.”

  Meredith looked awkwardly over the top of the tablet and dragged Sigourney’s (Alessa’s) access parameters up, then flipped them all from Restricted to Full Access.

  Several taps later, and she was in tactical gear that covered every inch of her body, with a sci-fi edge, of course, because the gameworld required it. It glitched out, because of course it did, and for several moments she was wearing nothing but a fig leaf with a branch holding a snake in front of her bosoms, replaced briefly by red-orange cat fur and whiskers with a swishing tail. For one instant she was in a huge inflatable dinosaur costume, before it returned to what she’d chosen. She’d looked to be on the verge of a murderous (assasinous?) conniption, but finally fetched up a deep sigh, then straightened and put her game face back on for the Prestige coder.

  “Good. That’s a good first step.”

  “Please, I feel terrible about this. I need to see how Derek’s doing.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Come on.”

  Sigourney headed up the ramp and into the ship, and Meredith followed. Moments later they’d passed the holding cell for Whoopdedoo, the quest prize and to the galley, which served for the moment as the medbay. This hot rod of a ship had transformed the dining table into a sickbed, and Derek lay pale and still. He was bathed in sweat, and the only indicator for life was the rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheet.

  Meredith swore.

  “Yeah,” Sigourney said, full of venom. “Yeah, you could’ve just invited him out for coffee and been like ‘hey I was thinking we could date’ but instead you pulled this nonsense. I don’t get why you ever wanted to be with him in the first place. He’s a loser.”

  “An adorable, hot loser. The puppy dog of losers.”

  “Fair point.”

  Meredith leaned close and grasped his hand, and she’d be damned if the game didn’t alert her (via an automated Resourcefulness roll of 10, 8, and 4) that the Amazon from Hell was about to make a move against her. Her reflexes were pretty good, and enhanced by her in-game stats, but not as good as Sigourney. The Bimbo seized the tablet, but Meredith refused to let go.

  A flurry of action occurred, none of it pretty, in which the tablet was the only object in the world that mattered. Sigourney swung her into a wall, but her resulting Skirmish roll was a critical success, two 10’s and a 3. She spun away from the wall and rolled down, planted a foot in Sigourney’s midsection, and flipped her right over on her back. She would’ve thought that the tablet was hers, but stubbornness apparently won out and she still had a hold of it.

  Sigourney whipped around and got to her feet in one fell swoop, and they struggled for control over it again.

  “You’re… messed up… you know that?” Sigourney hissed.

  “Says the… literal… killer!”

  They’d wandered too close to the cell containing Wheepledeeple. They banged about and cursed at one another, and Meredith was utterly flummoxed when, out of nowhere shot the kid’s alien proboscis. The tablet went flying and clattered to the floor at the base of the entry ramp.

  Both went to dive across the floor for it, but neither ended up in control of the all-important rectangle. Before she could slide all the way, a metallic hand appeared, clamped down on it, and the key to every action in this place was snatched away from her.

  Gary’s leering face leaned in, inches from hers. It glitched out once, and put camouflage face paint over the robot half as well as the flesh and blood half, only to replace it with expertly applied makeup for a dilettante ball. Then back to normal.

  “We meet again, Masked Marauder.”

  ***

  Controlled.

  It wasn’t often Sigourney saw the word on her heads up display in the game. The situation level usually went to Risky or Desperate. Only once in a while did it flash to Red Alert, and that was when a single hit could get you killed. Since coming here, with the exception of Meredith’s little coding tantrum that had nearly gotten her boyfriend murdered, Sigourney was happy to live in a world without Red Alerts.

  The place still sucked. When she thought of how she could be relaxing in some retirement villa in a third world country, hidden from the law, sipping margaritas along the white sand beach and maybe banging a waiter on the side, she knew she had to get out. And here was her chance!

  Meredith’s eyes went wide and her mouth slack in an unspoken O, and she scrambled back to Derek’s bedside.

  “Good job Gruesome Gary. I think it is time we get on out of here.” This was perfect. Being paired up with a robot made it that much sweeter. What did robots know of betrayal and hardship? They just did what they were told to do - Gruesome here agreed quickly to her idea of an alliance and now he’d get her out once and for all.

  Sigourn
ey walked over to the villain’s side, and she cast a hateful gaze over Meredith. She didn’t have to hide her feelings anymore. Then she felt a subtle change in the wind behind her. Her body screamed danger and she dropped to the floor.

  Gruesome Gary’s metallic fist soared over her.

  “You pathetic meatbag. I do not answer to you. I hold the tablet, now I am the creator.”

  The cyborg flew up to the ceiling.

  “And you, all of you, are in my way -”

  A laser bolt pounded off of the ceiling an inch from Gary’s head, Meredith holding in steady from a kneeling position behind one crate of medical supplies.

  “I left in his monologue weakness,” Meredith called out to Sigourney. “Anytime he gets the chance he will gloat and brag about himself and everything he is going to do.”

  Gruesome Gary roared and fired back, green-white plasma exploding the crate that shielded her. Meredith shrieked and then scrambled behind another one.

  Sigourney rolled to her weapon, a chaingun she’d found in the ship’s inventory, and she fired from her hip as she backed away to find her own cover. Round after round cascaded off of the armor body of the villain, leaving dents and pocks all over his chestplate. The air stank of burnt copper and cooked batteries.

  The villain flew away to where the rest of the medical supplies had been stacked, and took his own place of cover. Sigourney hid behind an empty bed, and cast a glance at Meredith to make sure she wasn’t creeping up on her. Meredith mistook the glance and gave her a thumbs up. Good.

  Everyone had stopped firing, no one could see the other. The silence felt awkward and wrong.

  “You still there?” Meredith called out after a few minutes. Sigourney startled. This damn game - I’m almost out. Keep cool, keep confident.

  “I am, Masked Marauder. I am simply waiting for the right moment to end your life. Your agent tried to trick me into a deal, but I was too smart to take it. I played along and now you are trapped, a walking corpse too dumb to know it is dead.”

  Sigourney tensed, bouncing a little on crouched feet, warming her calves for a sprint to different cover. Something with a better angle. Maybe, if she worked it right, she could get in a spot where he’d have to move. And Meredith could take him down with her pistol. Doesn’t seem likely. That damn boss is built like a tank.

  Meredith looked over at Sigourney, saw her intentions, and popped her hand over her crate, firing as fast as she could in Gary’s general direction.

  “Moving!” Sigourney yelled, bounding over the bed and sprinting hard for the mess of boxes that Gary had hidden himself in. She slid for the far corner, safe. Meredith stopped firing.

  “Why didn’t you do anything, Gary? My sidekick was right there, begging to get shot. What happened to the great and fearsome Gruesome Gary, King Villain over *whatever city name*?”

  Gary began to laugh. It was a different tone than any of them had ever heard before. It was demonic and electric, something that’d sound wicked in a heavy metal song. Sigourney signed, put her body to the floor, and slowly low-crawled to the location of his voice.

  “I’ve been busy playing with this toy that you gave me. Using my tremendous intellect I have been deciphering how to use it - and I just learned a new trick!”

  There was a shout from outside of the ship. Then a bunch of them. Boots clanged and clattered on metallic walkways as the new mob made their way through. Sigourney peeked through a gap in the wall of crate before her, and saw Gruesome Gary hunched over the tablet, plinking and plunking away at its surface, his face full of childish glee.

  “It looks like there is a governor on this device, though. I can’t seem to spawn more than I have, and I have a timer telling me to wait. Maybe I should capture you and torture you to find out how to make that go away?”

  Sigourney lined up her reticle and relaxed herself. Breathe. Relax. Aim. Squeeze. Ratatatatatatata - the chaingun tore into Gruesome Gary’s face, a 9, an 8, and a 1 spinning across her vision as blood spurted from the villain’s human side of the face.

  From the doorway to the room came a chorus of hisses and shrieks. Meredith screamed and began to shoot like a madwoman. What could a mad, villainous cyborg choose to spawn that could freak out a head programmer of this wretched place?

  Gary slumped on the ground, lifeless. Next to his open and outstretched hand lay the tablet. Sigourney beamed, ran around the wall of boxes to claim her loot. Paradise, here we come!

  4, 3, 5 - What the Hell? Too late Sigourney realized they were her Resourcefulness rolls to see the incoming danger and dodge. Gruesome Gary seized her by the neck and threw her across the ship to bang into a metal wall. Her vision blurred and she saw stars. There was something about harms and stress. Yes, yes, she thought, not making any actual move to select anything. She gazed over to Meredith in wonder - the woman was up at the edge of the stack, looking at her now, horror clouding her face. Over where she had been before there were now giant rats with swords. They were busy eating their fallen comrades. Meredith shrieked like crazy, and started to fire at the rat mob, her eyes wild and her shots all over the place. Wonder what that’s all about she thought, trying to clear her head and get back into the action.

  ***

  Rats! Rats - frickin rats. How the hell did he know?

  Meredith switched sides on the crate and began firing anywhere she saw movement. The moment that first ratman had poked his head around the corner, she knew that Gruesome Gary knew. But how? He couldn’t have gotten to her personnel file, with its psychological interview in this short amount of time. Could he? She risked a quick glance over her shoulder, but couldn’t see him. A cold and icy fear covered the pit of her stomach - who really knew what the nanite-created automatons were capable of on their own? Research into them as a military weapon was illegal, and so no one had really stopped to care.

  “Squaaaaa!” a ratman shrieked, leaping forward. She blew its head into fine mist. It’s longsword clattered to the ground.

  “Get out of here,” she screamed. “You don’t belong here.” The rolls kept coming in hot on her HUD and despite her lack of aim she kept killing them. Pow pow pow, corpse after corpse dropped to the metallic floor. She went for one more shot, a 4, and took off running to the stacks of crates that Sigourney had disappeared into. She stopped at the edge of the pile and heard a rending, cracking noise behind her. She turned and retched. The ratmen were eating their own dead! I’m going to find whatever sick bastard made those things, get him fired, blacklisted, then maybe rehired to work in plumbing here!

  Meredith heard the ratatat of a chaingun from inside the stacks and she started into them, her pistol raised up and to her side like they did in the movies. Then there was an explosion of wood as Sigourney came flying through the center of them, smashing and throwing wood all over the place before clunking up against the wall, dazed. One then another ratman turned her way with a tilted head.

  They’re going to eat her! Damnit - I need her! If Gary hadn’t figured out how to disable the Harm safeguards yet, he would. An unconscious Sigourney was just as useless as a chewed up Sigourney.

  Meredith began screaming to get their attention. Gods they were freaky, but she’d killed a dozen and there were only a dozen left. They weren’t really that tough - maybe she could kill them all and then shake some sense into Sigourney, go ahead and get Gruesome Gary, then get that tablet and get them all out of here. It was a good plan– better than anything else she could come up with. Really the only thing she’d come up with.

  So she just kept screaming, her eyes wide with terror as they turned and ran at her, firing and firing just hoping that luck would keep being a lady tonight. Numbers danced in her HUD but she didn’t pay attention. Bam bam bam - the pistol gave a light jump in her hands each time she squeezed the trigger. It’s handle was getting slippery with sweat, her arms shaky with exhaustion. And then the pistol clicked - its battery pack exhausted.

  “Gah!” she yelled, and she threw the weapon at the remaining r
ats, where it bounced off one snout. Panting, she faced down the horde, waiting to get ripped apart. “Please don’t glitch and kill me,” she whispered. Then, realizing it was silent, she peered through the clearing smoke. Where she had been firing blindly were now a pile of bloody corpses. Not a twitchy whisker in sight. In the corner Sigourney was getting back up, looking over the mess with wide-eyes.

  “Well done,” she said. “Well that was a mess. Great shooting. But there’s one problem.”

  “Oh yeah,” Meredith asked, “what’s that?”

  “Gruesome Gary flew off and out over your head while you were going crazy on those rat people and now we have no idea where he is.”

  Meredith swore like she’d never sworn before, like it was her job to invent new and fantastically hideous chains of words. Sigourney chuckled at first, then fell silent at the tirade of invective.

  “What’s the problem?”

  Meredith hurried into the ship and plugged in some coordinates, only to have it beep forlornly at the attempt. “We can’t get out. He’s locked us in. And without my tablet, I can’t get us out either, onto the admin levels.”

  “That’s… bad. Isn’t it?”

  Meredith whirled on her, eyes blazing, but found herself face to face with a calm, somewhat smug expression daring her to act. They were both beat up, and a Medicine roll wouldn’t go amiss, but she was sure that whatever Sigourney’s in-game stats, her actual physical capabilities would more than allow her to kick Mare’s ass up around her ears.

  “Yes, it’ll be bad. You want to be back in Dungeonworld? Because if we don’t find him and get that tablet back, it’s going to turn out worse than when I… when…”

  “When you nearly killed Derek.”

  Chapter 21 - Whelp Now We’re in Stalingrad I Guess

  Derek sat up, the machine belted over his wounded side whirring down, its noise smaller and smaller as its blinking lights faded to nothing. What the hell? he thought, staring down at it. “Job’s done!” a mechanical voice happily announced, followed by a ding. Sigourney and Meredith stood at the foot of his bed, looking him over.