Kill Code

by Justin Sloan

  “Who knows how many more there are nearby,” I pointed out in a whisper.

  He considered that, then lowered the stick.

  “And if they are headed for the village?” Rivera hissed.

  I glanced back at Oliver, who indicated the path and said, “If they keep going that way… yeah. They would be.”

  They were close now, so we pulled back, shutting our mouths and waiting. While they scanned the area, they seemed to look right over our heads.

  “The general wants this interference taken care of,” one of them said. “I don’t want to hear another word from you about your stupid date.”

  While they had heavy accents, they were speaking in English. It wasn’t a huge surprise, considering the fact that it was the common tongue nowadays, much to the chagrin of many of the world’s countries. But it told me this enemy was made up of multiple sections of their militaries, ones that hadn’t been forced away from English yet, as rumors said was happening in the central locations of the Eastern Ascent Company’s rule.

  “They said the war would be over, that we’d have time to rest,” the other countered after a moment. He turned to face away from the hill, his hand fidgeting with his pants.

  “What’re you doing?” the first asked.

  “I know we don’t have to piss here, but I’m still curious if we can.”

  “Put that thing away and get a move on,” the third said, catching up to them. I hadn’t realized it before, but now could tell this one was female. She paused long enough to add, “Huh, you’d think in a simulation, they could at least upgrade that a bit.”

  The guy said something in a foreign language that sounded like cursing her out. Since he wasn’t addressing us, the translator tech didn’t kick in. She laughed and kept walking.

  “I’d be pissed too,” she said over her shoulder.

  For a moment the guy turned to his friend, and I could see confusion in his eyes. But then he was tucking himself back in and going after her, shouting about respect, how he was from the central military and she needed to know her place.

  “These are the people we’re fighting?” Rivera scoffed.

  While I agreed they seemed rather basic, what they’d said hit a chord. “Interference…”

  “Inter-what?” Oliver asked, and then pointed. “And I was right, they are headed for the village.”

  “Yes, we’ll stop them,” I said, but was lost in the thought. “They said something about taking care of interference. All of this… I mean, if that’s right, all of this really might be somebody helping me. Us.” I turned to Rivera, feeling my excitement bubbling up. “Could command have gotten through? Be sending some sort of assistance in the form of…” I glanced over to Oliver, who rocked back on his heels, giving us a nervous smile before turning to look up the path.

  “Of him?” She laughed. “Think about it—why? Why would they choose this option?”

  I nodded. “Something else then, and we’re going to find out.” An idea hit me, and I joined Oliver in looking in the direction the three had gone. “If we don’t kill them, their clothes stay here even if not on their bodies, right?”

  “Your plan to save us is to strip them?” Oliver said. “Really?”

  “My plan is to take their uniforms and see if we can infiltrate their ranks, learn what we can, then get out of there to put that to use.”

  “We don’t look anything like them,” Rivera said, although she glanced down in what I assumed was her realization that maybe she could pass.

  “Special ops gear,” I said. “You saw the shades, the helmets. We won’t get too close, but enough to overhear a couple conversations, maybe.”

  “You’re serious about this?” she asked.

  “And in the meantime, we save Oliver’s village.”

  “With heart!” the boy said with a grin. “Let’s go!”

  She breathed out, considered me, then nodded. “I’m in. Lead the way.”

  “All right,” I replied, excited to finally have a plan. Anything was better than simply reacting and trying to stay alive. “They weren’t exactly charging up the hill, so if we move briskly, we’ll overtake them. Oliver, hang back in case we need you.”

  The boy winked, which I supposed was confirmation, and then we started up.

  “Use our Ka-Bars if possible,” I said. “If my suspicions are right, there won’t be blood from them, but we can disable their arms.

  Rivera grinned. “Again, impressing me with the brains. Keep it up.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, so just kept on, only pausing when we reached a bend in the path and heard their voices again. I motioned for Oliver to slow down, and then the two of us slung our rifles over our backs and pulled out our Ka-Bars. On Rivera’s move, we went for it.

  Only the rear one turned at the sound of our approach. I clocked him good with my free hand and then took out his legs with two quick thrusts while Rivera moved on to the next one. The female—who was at the front—finally turned to see us, and Rivera caught her first with a thrust to the shoulder.

  This woman wasn’t going down so easy, though, and managed to use her working arm to bring her rifle up across Rivera’s jaw hard enough to knock her over the side of the path and send her rolling. That left me against a fighter without the use of his legs and another with only the use of one arm.

  A flash of the woman’s eyes to the ground next to me told me she’d noticed something, so I spun and ducked. Good timing, too, because a shot rang off. The guy on the ground still had his rifle, and with two working arms, that wasn’t good. We were all in close, so before he could get another shot off, I kicked the weapon aside and came in with my blade. The woman tackled me then, trying to use her one arm to slam her rifle into my face. I was able to move my torso and thrust her off of me, but then she was coming for another attack and I jammed my blade into her side. She moved, though, and my aim was off. Instead, I caught her in the stomach, gutting her. The strike would’ve likely led to her death, so she disappeared in a pixelated cloud.

  Dammit, we didn’t want to lose any of them. I still hadn’t seen Rivera return, so I rolled aside and caught the other man with a kick to the head. The one she’d first hit was unconscious and could’ve passed for dead if we didn’t know better.

  Rivera charged back up with a growl, Ka-Bar at the ready, and nearly swung for me. At the last second, her eyes lost their craze, and she noticed that only two were left.

  “Couldn’t have killed off one of the guys instead?” she asked, then stepped over and jammed her knife into the man’s arms, rendering him useless. I did the same for the unconscious one, as I wasn’t sure where she’d hit him in their scuffle.

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” I replied.

  She shook her head at me and started to undress them as Oliver came around the corner. He took one look at us, grimaced, and said, “I’m just going to go on ahead. Check on the others.”

  “Don’t go too far,” I said.

  He gave me a confused look. “I can take care of myself.”

  “We all can, but we can take care even better if we stick together.”

  As he went up the path ahead, Rivera and I quickly continued pulling off the tactical vests and black uniforms from the incapacitated enemy soldiers. While the outfits weren’t so different from our own, we had to make every detail count. Stripping down to get dressed, I was glad to see that the simulation had included boxer briefs—something I hadn’t paid much attention to until I had my pants off and Rivera glanced over.

  I cleared my throat and she quickly looked away.

  “Sorry,” she said, and my laugh startled her. “What?”

  “It’s just that I didn’t actually think you were guilty of anything until you said ‘sorry.’ You could’ve been looking over to see how I was doing, or checking on how to put on some gear, but now it’s like you were…” I stopped as I noticed her grin. “God, you aren’t even trying to hide it, are you?”

  Now it was her turn to
laugh. “The other side said they’d included it all, I was just… curious.”

  “You were curious. About what exactly? If the sim had gotten everything proportional? You do realize, you’d have nothing to compare it with. Or are you just curious about me in this exact instance?”

  Finally, her smile faded and she blushed. “I’m not used to being around guys undressing is all.”

  “You’re in the Marines! Are you kidding me?” Communal showers—mixed gender—weren’t an everyday thing, but weren’t unheard of when in training and out in the field. Everyone was equal and adults, the logic went. I wasn’t sure if she was pulling my chain or what.

  She shrugged, turned away, and started pulling on the guy’s clothes. Too big, but not overly noticeable. Apparently, the topic of her trying to sneak a peek was over. Just like that.

  Only when she turned around, top still undone to reveal her purple bra, did I turn away.

  “What?” she asked, starting to button the shirt. “Just making us even. I took a look, now it’s your turn.”

  “We’re not in high school,” I said, shaking my head. “And we have to get a move on.”

  “You played ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ in high school?” she asked, actually looking appalled.

  “Or younger, maybe.” I looked at her, trying to decide if she was serious. “Where exactly were you raised?”

  She scrunched her nose, then waved off the question as she said, “I was homeschooled.”

  “Ah. Didn’t know they still allowed that.”

  “They do. Sorry I wasn’t so exposed as you, there or in my military days.” She finished and took her old clothes and rifle, switching them out. With a glance my way, she put two shots into each of their heads.

  “Damn,” I said. “That was cold.”

  “Just a game, right?” she said with a wink.

  “Right. Of course.” Actually, I was feeling a bit more confident now. Maybe it was just that we had a plan, or maybe there was something about an attractive woman trying to check out my package that sent testosterone surging through me. Not that I would act on anything, or was anywhere near ready for that—but still, it felt good in that tough-man way.

  We didn’t see Oliver, so double-timed it around the next bend and over a creek. We found him already summoning a burning heart—basically a heart-shaped ball of fire. With a thrust of his stick forward, the fire engulfed three soldiers who were staring at him in confusion. That at least confirmed my theory about them having no idea what was going on here either.

  A circular door from the hillside opened to my left and two more soldiers piled out, guns at the ready. More shouting came from nearby, but I couldn’t tell where. What I was sure of was that there were more soldiers already here, and that the shit had just hit the fan.

  9

  The soldiers’ eyes went from the boy to us, waiting as if they expected action and wanted to see what would happen. I stared back, but then looked past them to see that the doors here were built into the hill. The whole village was inside the hill, as if someone liked the idea of The Hobbit but had gotten it mixed up.

  One of the doors was green with three symbols carved in it in the shape of a B, two Ds facing each other, and a diamond with a dot in the middle. This totally threw me for a loop, because in the Hobbit movie it had been a crooked F, but in the book it was the signs for Burglar, Danger, and Reward—or so the theories went. Much of the original intention, and even the books in actual paper, were long gone, so a lot of this was per what we could figure out and people throwing around arguments online. Not only was it a reference, but it made me wonder if there was something behind that door that was a big part of figuring out how to win this war, and who was helping us.

  Of course, what I should have been focusing on was the enemy soldier who was standing there, mouth wide as he stared at the pixels vanishing from where his three soldiers had been.

  “Don’t just stand there,” the man yelled, pointing at me. “Get the boy!”

  It took a moment to realize he was shouting the command at me, and to remember that I was dressed as one of them. When Oliver turned on the soldier, I moved first, stepping up and slitting the man’s throat. The knife went through air as he evaporated, and when I turned to Oliver to make sure he wasn’t harmed, I saw he was on his knees. Rivera took the moment to take out the other unsuspecting soldier.

  I ran over and knelt beside the boy to help him up, almost surprised to find that he felt real. Of course he did, though. I was a simulation too, and I felt real enough.

  “Get away from him!” an old man shouted, charging at us.

  The man came at me with a staff raised, light flowing around him. He wore white robes and had a long, white beard.

  “No!” Oliver shouted, lifting a hand to the old man. “They’re with us. It’s just… costumes. Outfits they took from the enemy.”

  The old man froze, then let the light fade. Now that he didn’t look like he was about to destroy us, he had a friendly, grandfatherly aura.

  “You’re the ones?” the old man said. “The ones fighting back, the ones sent to finally destroy the ring.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, to balance my urge to laugh with my total confusion. I could still hear the sounds of shouting nearby. “We’re not here to destroy a ring.”

  “Ah, but you are. The one ring.” He motioned to the door. “Come, I’ll show you.”

  I shared a confused look with Rivera, but Oliver was nodding with his childish smile, so we followed the old man through the door.

  “The soldiers,” I said. “Are they nearby?”

  “They are,” the old man said. As we went deeper into the house, I saw it led back into a series of tunnels before finally opening up onto a sort of balcony. From here the shouting was clear, and when I looked over, I saw why. Below were three short men with their hands tied behind them. They were surrounded by a group of five or so soldiers, one yelling at them, demanding to know where they came from and who was helping the Marine. It was a safe assumption they meant me.

  “You can slit my throat right here, I’m not talking,” one of the short men said.

  “What?” the one next to him chimed in, looking appalled. “Not me. Don’t do that, but also… I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just humble folk, really. We—”

  He stopped with a grunt as a boot hit him.

  “They have the secret to the ring,” the old man said, gesturing to our right where stairs led down along the side of the wall.

  With another gesture, he and Oliver backed up into the tunnels, apparently planning on hiding out while we went down to find out what this ring business was about. While none of this seemed to tie in with the war, I figured I knew what was happening. Whoever was helping me was able to get into the system and mess with it, change things around to a degree, but was being blocked at certain points by the tech people on the enemy side.

  Without coming out and telling me what these possible hackers were doing, they were setting up this whole scenario. But why? To test me? Or maybe it was because they’d done their homework and knew I was into all this, so this was their way of showing they were friends? I sure as hell hoped so, because I was about to jump into their little game head first.

  The stairs were steep, but we made it down without tripping.

  “What happened up there?” the soldier in command demanded, turning to give us a searching look. Before we had a chance to respond, though, one of the short men threw himself back, trying to struggle his way out of there. The closest soldier came in with a whack to the guy’s head, and he dropped. Not dead, I hoped, and a groan a second later confirmed it. The commanding soldier turned to the remaining two, furious. “This isn’t a game! Whoever you are, whatever the hell you’re doing here, quit it!”

  The older of the two short men glared at me. “As far as you know, we’re either sims of someone out there, or simply non-player characters. NPCs. You really think violence would af
fect us either way?”

  I wondered if I was the only one to notice his voice change slightly as he said that, or the way his eyes sort of lost focus. A moment later, and he was back to himself, head drooping as if they’d never spoken.

  The soldier glared at him, then turned and kicked the wall. “This is stupid! So damn pointless.” He spun on the man next to him. “Next time, we march on the Americas, all of us. What can the World Council do if we take them over before they can respond? Not a damn thing.”

  “Except we’d never make it outside our own border without being seen,” the second soldier replied.

  “There’s a way. There’s always a way.”

  “Maybe… the ring?” I said, taking a chance.

  Wrong move, apparently, because all of the soldiers turned to me with glares.

  “How the hell’s that relevant?” the commander asked.

  “We use it like we did here, only to bypass their systems,” I said, talking out of my ass the whole time. “You know, like… like we’re invisible.”

  For a second I thought the man would hit me, but then he smiled, nodding, and started running his hand along his chin. “Yes, yes. Damn. Where’d they pull you from? That could work, that could work.”

  “How, exactly?” the one next to him asked. I was glad he did, because otherwise I was going to have to.

  “Like he said,” the soldier replied. “The ring set up a sort of barrier here where they couldn’t see how we were reprogramming the simulation. It was like a Trojan horse, only instead of going one direction, it goes in all. So you see, if we could readjust the simulation itself to go into the World Council’s monitoring and attack systems, we have them. We can make them see whatever we want them to see. Assuming it works.”

  Holy balls, I thought, purposefully avoiding the glare I was sure Rivera was giving me right now. It seemed I’d inadvertently given this guy an idea for how to actually attack the Great Americas. If we didn’t win this war, we might be in more trouble than I thought.