Within the instant this whole moment was occurring, the target I had missed was sprayed by another pack of rounds, one exploding indicating it had hit him.
Confused I turned to my right, figuring the man either purposely spared me, or had been likewise desperate for an easier target.
The game was over, but one thing was clear: it wasn’t that man who had shot the final target, as his rifle was still aimed at me. He was waiting for an escape drift from me when I had actually been out of the drift the whole time. I had escaped solely because he expected me to dodge. Lived because of an irony.
My drift unit died out softly as I ran out my excess momentum on the sand. I turned a bit further right and saw my friend, his rifle still in the direction of my missed target.
“Ha… Thanks, Behemon.”
“I thought you were the best. What happened, Terran? When I sensed you dodge, I turned around to help you battle.”
“Thanks, but I think someone else here has a good claim to be the best.”
As we neared the door out I tried to keep my eyes away from a spray of red across one wall, a live round that had found a mark.
“One more,” I said to him, “and you are out of here.”
“One more,” he grunted.
***
I was digging through the slop of my cell, wondering if there was solid ground here. With each ‘plop’ of sound from my hand pulling out of the sucking mud, the quest seemed hopeless.
My hand hurt and I wiped away the mud, seeing that deep cut the Aelisha receptionist gave me when I got smart with her. Amid all the things I had gone through, I forgot about something so small in the scheme of things.
“You know they won’t let you go.”
I stopped digging, confused at the voice that was not the Behemon. I think it came from the adjacent cell to mine. I was blocked by wall, but I bet the Behemon maybe could see whom it was. Was the voice talking to me?
The Behemon did not lift its head but said, “I am not expecting much.”
I was searching my mind trying to decide what language the creature was speaking, but could not determine. My nanites automatically translated it into my language, so it was only my memory trying to recall how the words ‘sounded’ before the subconscious translation protocols overwrote it.
“I’ll help you win this one,” the voice stated.
“To see if escape is possible,” the Behemon suggested.
“Naturally,” the voice coldly responded.
I waited a bit more, but nothing was said, and went back to digging until my hands were too cold to continue. I looked in vain for a dry spot to try to pass out, but the dampness of my room seemed overwhelming. In that moment I fell into a dark abyss, wanting escape at any cost. Wanting something, anything, just to be out of the dark, lonely cold. I was not sure I was ever going to get out of here. I think the worst part was how slow time went. It seemed like every battle was broken up by an eternity of coldness and sleeping in mud. I was rarely sure if I was actually ever sleeping or massively dazed.
***
You are risky.
I tried battling my eyes open in confusion, part panic and part fatigue swirling in a maelstrom across my mind. Had someone said something? I rolled over a bit, out of the warmer mud my body had heated as the coldness shot me right awake. What the hell was it that woke me up?
You have skills, but your recklessness will get you killed. – Unknown
It was the same voice from the ICS communication before.
I don’t think this situation is one where timid action is particularly appropriate, - I responded to the voice that had opened a private line with my ICS.
I am not here to battle wits with you, Solarian. Next game, pay attention to the walls. - Unknown
What do you want out of me? - Me
My goal will be accomplished through your natural path. - Unknown
With the cryptic line, the conversation was closed. I rolled back into the warmed mud area, thinking about the quick exchange. The fact they used ‘Solarian’ in such a way made me think they probably weren’t one. There was evidently something about the walls I should note. I knew they were one-way material…is that what they wanted me to figure out? What a stupid tip.
Perfect. I had a secret stranger trying to help me out with things I already knew. The pointlessness of the ‘help’ made me feel even more hopeless.
***
I was squeezing my eyes closed, screaming in my mind, trying my best to not let an actual scream out as the hot water blasted the slop off my body. “Gahh…” I fell to the ground and the auto sprinklers relentlessly targeted me before some guards hauled me up and threw me into the ready room.
I stayed lying down on the cold metal, glad to be dumping the excess burning heat off my body. As I lay there I became aware of a presence near me. I opened my eyes and saw a pair of Tentaculaties hovering over me. “Terran slime.” One of them lifted a few of its tentacles hanging off its brain carapace, insulting me.
“Blow me, bitch,” I replied as I waved my hand as if to dismiss the two of them and closed my eyes again. I hated Tentes; they should have stayed in the ocean they crawled out of.
“Disgusting land-dweller!” Suddenly I felt something rapidly snake around my throat. My eyes shot open as my hand went reflexively down to my leg, reaching for my virbo-knife. Unfortunately I only I found bare skin, remembering I didn’t have my weapon. “Ugh…gahhh!” I grunted as the Tentaculatie lifted me off the ground.
Combat instincts took over and I reached up, grabbing its appendage as I tried pulling myself towards its body. The burning of no oxygen was rapidly shutting my brain down, synthesized atmosphere or not. I pulled with a vicious desperation, overpowering its single tentacle and driving my fist into its bulbous eye.
The attack sent it into a frenzy, throwing me around erratically. I flexed my arms hard, gripping the tentacle with my arms trying to use my upper body to take the whiplash instead of my neck. My neck was about to be snapped when the Tentaculatie holding my life in its grip was smashed flat.
Its soft body exploded out of its containing carapace as two huge black pillars collapsed through it. I threw its remaining arm off me in time to see the black pillar swing sideways, slamming into the other Tentaculatie, ripping half of its head off before sending the rest of the body water-ballooning into the wall.
“Shit…thanks Behemon,” I muttered to the large beast standing before me.
“Repay the favor during the game.” I nodded assent to the huge monster as we both blacked out as the shock rods came swinging in. Where the hell where they when I was getting my ass kicked?
***
I realized in the pit of anticipation of the launch door that I had no idea whom the Behemon’s other ally was. This could get messy. The door exploded open and I shot out into the light.
My primary mission was to ensure the Behemon’s survival; the other was to check out the walls per my voice communicating with me. I realized that mission sounded a bit delusional; I hoped I wasn’t going crazy.
Being the third game for me, the competition would be stiff. In actuality, this was at least a level five game, as my friend could win his freedom here for his fifth victory. He had said before he didn’t know what level he was seeded at when he first started, and I was placed with him when he had already won a few.
I skated along the wall, playing a passive game, trying to find him and trying to see what was up with the walls. I gave a quick look around, and disengaged the drift and stepped into the sand. I ran my hand along the reflective wall quickly. I knew at this moment there was probably hundreds of beings pointing and laughing at me. Whatever. I’ll kick their ass later if they bring it up.
What did that being want? These walls are thick, built to handle dead people – actually more likely dead Behemons – hurdling at them without breaking.
Movement. I caught the slightest sensation of it in the reflection of the material.
I jumped, engaged t
he drift, and dodged to the side. The person didn’t shoot, so maybe they were waiting to get closer to me? I rapidly shot off three rounds at my pursuer and ended his chance at escape.
I went back to the wall and still could not find anything. With each moment I felt more and more vulnerable, as I might be sniped or my low kill count would catch up with me.
What the hell was I supposed to see!?
Higher. – Unknown’s ICS voice said coldly in my mind.
I backed up, jerked my head up rapidly, and took to the sky, rising rapidly off the land. I fired a larger blast at something that was hiding behind a pillar engaged with some other unseen foe.
I landed up on the high rim of the pillar where a small part of these upper pillars connected to the wall. I drifted over, sticking my face next to the wall. I could not see through at all. I bashed my rifle on the wall and it felt completely solid. Was I supposed to bring the pillar down into the wall maybe?
To interrupt the party, a rake of rocks exploded from the edge of the structure, the small chunks of rock scrapped into my unprotected skin. I dashed to the side, leaning over just enough to get a view of my ground attacker. Another Tentaculatie.
I shot back from the edge as it re-corrected on my new location. From where it was it could not see where I had gone, but it could still catch me in the light explosions with a lucky shot. I was readying to dash to the side when I realized another alien up on the rim took aim at the Tentaculatie; its single shot told me it hit.
I raised my rifle and thanked him with a double blast to the chest. It spun around slowly, getting ready to tip over the edge with its disabled drift unit. I shot it once more, hoping it would not be the live round, and knocked him solidly onto the upper rim, avoiding the far plunge to the ground.
Higher! – Unknown yelled.
Damn it… What a slave driver. I was already a slave to Feriko, and this stupid voice didn’t know I already understood that these walls were one-way.
I triggered flight mode again, taking to the sky even higher; the battleground opened up underneath me from the vast vantage point. As impressive and stomach-wrenching as the height was, the lack of concealment was the worst. My bracelet calmly counted down my drift units left. I stayed as close to the dome wall as I could, and suddenly I realized what I was supposed to see. In that moment, the voice talking to me didn’t seem so stupid after all.
All the drift I had wasted coming up here and the danger I put myself into all snapped into a razor-sharp focus of being completely worth it.
Near the very pinnacle of the dome the thick one-way walls change to a material that provided a very limited sight outside. The first thing it meant was that the material was thinner, and not the same thickness like the ground walls. What I saw next both stopped my heart cold, and enraged me at the same time: Feriko, the man I would kill. Next to him was that damn Aelisha from the start of this whole nightmare, looking coldly at the strange performance I was putting on. Feriko lifted a glass of wine to me, smirking as I started falling out of the sky with my limited drift left.
“Drift off,” I commanded. I kept my eyes focused on him as I fell out of the sky, burning his smirking face into my memory so I could endure the cold torture, knowing it was all for what I would do to him. I looked at him until he had become so small I could not longer make out his face, I turned around and plummeted through the sky. The bracelet control complied, but warned me that my race was not rated to handle ground collisions at expected velocities.
“I want you to turn it back on at 4 Jega from the ground, in a landing arc.”
I sat there, silently plunging through the air so far up, leaving my telltale drift off to make it extremely hard to actually pick me out of the sky and feeling a bit scared my bracelet wouldn’t calculate the landing right. The vast tan desert was swept before me, slowly growing in size as I came closer and closer. Losing my good angles of sight around the battlefield, I rapidly fell through the rim of upper pillars. Passing the pillars I had seen people fall off to their death and my drift still not activating yet made me terrified that I was so close to Feriko and now I was going to splatter across the ground.
Right before I thought I was dead from my little gambit, I felt the soft vibration of the drift, as I took a steep parabolic path from my straight down fall to straight forward path, allowing me to gun someone down who was totally not expecting the air raid. I think we were probably both surprised what happened.
There was one more person left who had to be eliminated, but I didn’t find anyone else before the game was over. When free drift was restored I eagerly flew around, trying to find the Behemon.
Soon enough I found a small group of beings around his large mass. Oh no… Was he… Dead?
I came sliding in, pushing my way through. Someone pushed back, and when we stared at each other I gripped my fist in a tight ball in a threatening manner and he backed off.
As the Behemon turned his head towards me, I realized he was completely fine. “I did it.”
“Yeah,” was all I could say. What would happen now? I think everyone here was probably wondering the same thing. He was almost a local legend as it was the closest anyone had come to the professed freedom offered by the win. I had not pushed my skills yet. I could win two games, and then I was out of here.
A warning came to us to leave the room and get back to our cells. I wondered if the Behemon would get an escort someplace else. I threw my rifle and drift unit in the sand for the corrupt staff to clean and trudged to a door, turning to see what would happen to him.
***
I was back in my cell, and apparently, the Behemon indeed was gone. Wow. I only had to win two more and I was out of this nightmare. I didn’t even need to do anything with my newfound knowledge of my enemy watching the games. Just two more. Two more. The number haunted me with how close it was. I had not even really been tested in the game yet, so there was a good chance I could actually do this.
I went to sleep, a smile on my face for the first time since I had first been clubbed, stunned, and beaten before ending up here.
Imagine my surprise when I awoke to see the Behemon back in his cell.
***
“Behemon?” I asked again. It was still alive, but obviously did not feel like responding. Maybe this was a new one? They all looked the same to me. “Are you the one we fought together with?”
“Shut the hell up,” the voice from my adjacent cell I could not see said. “Of course it’s the same, don’t you realize there is no getting out of here?” There was something in the nihilistic statement that didn’t agree with the implication of the words.
I decided to proceed carefully, dropping a hint to see if he caught it. “I think there is something special about the walls here.”
It must have hit a nerve; I could tell the being, who was huddling close to the corner like I was to keep our voices low, was thinking carefully about what to say.
“So they say,” the voice said innocently.
“So they say,” I agreed.
There was a pounding on a pipe somewhere above us as if we had been caught doing something bad. It caused us to suddenly become painfully silent to see if anything would come of it. It was a bad reminder that I was literally deep in enemy territory and could trust no one.
I had thought the conversation unfortunately over and was about to prepare to go to sleep when some time later the voice began “Is someone contacting you?” I was not sure if I would have said anything more, so my eyes widened in surprised at the voice’s obvious bravado despite what felt like a close call. It sure seemed to trust me, asking that so blatantly. I probably would not have been so forthright. The situation was just too likely for there to be a spy within the prisoner’s ranks.
“I hear voices at times,” I replied; it was a careful enough sentence I could later pass off as insanity. “They tell me to do things.”
“Drop it. I am taking a huge risk here, but I think it’s our only way out.” Our? “There i
s someone who somehow has ICS capability and has my number.” My body froze as my eyes showed shock once more, waiting to hear what else would be said. “Tell me, were you the one all the way at the top of the last game?”
My stomach dropped a bit. Had I been seen? “Yeah…”
I was going to add an excuse when the voice interrupted, “Then you had a similar message. I was tasked with experimenting with the rifles. What is the key to the walls?”
I did not respond for a moment, but then decided to tell, “The walls are thinner at the top, but that’s nothing new. I don’t think it’s the walls, so much as the head guy of this whole thing has his room at the very top and is watching us kill each other.” I left his name his name out, and I did not mention that Aelisha who I might kill out of spite too. I lifted my hand, the cut was still deeply visible; maybe there was a low dose of poison from her attack that caused it to heal so slow.
“Feriko.” My enemy’s name had been stated so simply by the voice, but it did nothing to calm my rage for what Feriko had done to me.
“So you know him.”
“Of course,” the voice replied simply. “He got me trapped here.”
A long wail from somewhere down our hall pierced the darkness and our hushed conversation.
How cute, my two favorite Solarians finally met each other. - Unknown
“You hearing this?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
Well, the risk to all of us has increased exponentially. The information on the wall is what you have described. I do not have access to a light rifle, but it appears to me the secret to them is the reason these rifles are capable of killing. Look at your rifles close next time. - Unknown
The conversation was over, but it left me with a lot to think about. The voice in the cell was a fellow Solarian, which made me feel a bit better. I always trusted my own race better than aliens; ironically though, Feriko was a Solarian too and I was trapped by him.
Slipdrift (VayneLine) Page 3
