CHAPTER FIVE:
CLIFF
PINNACLE’S HOVER CAM zoomed in on Roland as he went airborne. The cam operator, seated comfortably at Pinnacle’s headquarters, knew this was a money shot. Either this contestant was about to climb up this sheer rock cliff and show off his tech, or he was going to fall to his death. It was his job to make sure that he captured it for the world to see.
Roland was airborne. He was aiming for a small ledge that was highlighted in neon green with his Rock Viz plugin. He had propelled himself up into the air almost six feet. He reached out for it, but it wasn’t until he was closer that the sonar part of the plugin allowed him to look partway through the rock. He could see multiple small cracks at the base of the rock. He reached out his hands to grab anything else he could, but the whole area was smooth and had no holds. He started to go down.
The cam operator had called his buddy over to get another angle. A second hover cam came whirring over by Roland.
Roland saw a dark crevice, and he jammed his hand into it and braced himself with his feet.
Coach covered his mic with his hand and gestured to the second hover cam that had arrived. “Sky, this isn’t good. We don’t need these stupid cams flying around. What can you do about them?”
Skylar nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Roland looked around for another hold. He winced as he tried repositioning his fingers. The crack was a tight squeeze and not a good hold. He saw the second hover cam fly by. He nodded his head towards it.
Coach crossed his arms. “I see it, Roland. We are working on getting rid of them. For now, just focus on the climb.”
Roland took in a deep breath and leaned out from the cliff as far as his arm would let him. He could see a ledge about six feet up, highlighted in green. All of the ones he had seen in green so far had been good holds. It was slightly to the left and stuck out about half a foot. To go up that far from his ill-positioned angle would require him to push off with both hands. He crouched down and put both hands into the crack. He pushed down on the crack with everything he had and hurled himself upward towards the green ledge. Roland stretched his arm out as far as it would go.
Coach’s brow furrowed as he watched Roland travel upwards. “Skylar, be ready to lock down his left hand as soon as it makes contact.”
Skylar nodded. “Ready.” She had a hologram pulled up that showed a three dimensional wireframe of Roland’s hand. She had a button pulled up next to it that would add extra power.
The cam operator flew his hover cam in closer to Roland. If he could catch a spectacular death, he knew it would be good for his career. He could finally move out of the newbie pool.
His buddy leaned over and put twenty dollars on the desk between them. “Twenty bucks says he makes the summit.”
The cam operator smiled. “You’re on.” He added a twenty dollar bill from his shirt pocket, which had been waiting for just such an occasion. “My twenty says he falls.”
Roland’s little finger on his left hand brushed up against the green ledge, but he couldn’t get a hold on it. Then he felt the last digit on his middle finger catch the ledge.
Coach pointed at Roland’s feed. “Now, Skylar! Now!”
Skylar hit the holographic button. “Locked it down. Full power!”
Roland clenched his thumb around the ledge in a viselike grip.
Skylar watched the three dimensional wireframe model of Roland’s hand in front of her. The nano cells swarmed towards the end of Roland’s fingers.
Roland grabbed onto the ledge with his other hand and hoisted himself up to where he could stand.
The cam operator frowned.
His buddy smiled. “I’m gonna take your money.”
Roland looked up. He could actually see the summit. He was only about six holds away. They were all relatively easy ones. “Almost there.”
Coach nodded. “I count six more. Make them count.”
Roland shot himself up to the next one and used his momentum to barrel on through the next three holds. He took one deep breath and swung himself up and then up again, launching himself onto the summit’s plateau.
Coach smiled. “Nice work, Roland. You moved up about a hundred and fifty places. You are now at position 503 in the overall race.
Roland saw a basketball sized rock next to him. He picked it up and turned around to the cliff’s edge.
Skylar watched Roland’s feed. “What’s he doing?”
Roland looked down and saw the hover cam coming up. It was just about to clear the summit. Roland grunted a little and then heaved the rock down over the side. The heavy chunk of slate plummeted and crashed right on top of the hover cam. Pieces flew off the hover cam as it and the rock hurled downward.
The cam operator heard a crunch sound and then watched in horror as his screen alternated between static, slate and sky as it plummeted downwards. “What happened? Where’s my cam?”
His buddy reached over and took both twenties off the desk. “Looks like you lost that bet.”
The cam operator’s supervisor just happened to be making his rounds at that moment. “Did you just let your cam get hit by rock debris? How many times have I told you guys to not get too close to the rock faces?” The supervisor frowned and scribbled a note on his clipboard next to the cam operator’s name. “Losing company property is not the way you want to get noticed around here. Go talk to IT and get another cam online now.”
Skylar watched as pieces flew off of the hover cam. “Well, that’s more than I was going to do.”
Roland nodded and then looked around. The other cam also seemed to have disappeared. He gave the thought command to disable the Rock Viz and Grip plugins. Both words vanished from his HUD. He started running across the plateau.
Skylar watched his O2 levels as he ran. The thinner air was definitely making it harder for Roland to breathe even with the O2 plugin enabled. She went to typing on her holographic keyboard to change up the settings and configuration. Then she hit upload. “Roland, I made an add-on for the O2 plugin called High Altitude. This will double the air compression you are already getting.”
Roland nodded and then gave the thought command High Altitude. He saw it come up on his HUD. Then he took a breath. Just like the first time he had used the O2 plugin, he kept on breathing even past the point he could breathe with the regular plugin. He could feel his thoughts becoming clearer. He also enabled the Fast Twitch plugin. His could feel more bounce in his step as his muscles were pulled taut, and he started picking up speed.
Coach watched Roland’s progress. “You’ve got about seven miles here of flat land across the plateau. Avoid other contestants as much as possible, and you’ll make good time.”
CHAPTER SIX:
SUMMIT
ROLAND NODDED. THE air was crisp and cold at that altitude. It took Roland a good half mile to get into a running rhythm with the new High Altitude plugin. It seemed like he was inhaling forever, then his exhaling would be almost as long. By the time he had done a full mile on top of the plateau, Roland had it all worked out, and his speed gauge showed 21 mph. Then he started to see other contestants ahead. He pushed a little harder to catch up.
The first few runners he passed easily. They were moving slowly from lack of oxygen. Roland saw a contestant in a yellow uniform in front of him that was weaving across the path. He continued to gain on him. Then the man slowed down to a jog. Roland caught up with him but gave him a wide berth since he had been acting so erratically.
The yellow uniformed runner looked over at Roland and began vomiting. He heaved a few times and then threw up all along the side of the path. Roland sped up to avoid getting hit.
Coach gave a half smile. “Altitude sickness. That’s a bummer. He’s going to smell like that the rest of the race.”
Roland nodded and looked back over his shoulder at the runner who had now stopped running and was doubled over, leaning against a rock and emptying his stomach completely.
Roland’s HU
D showed he was nearing mile four on the plateau. Then he heard a clanking sound coming from up ahead. Two hybrid contestants were fighting while they were running. Roland was slowly gaining on them.
Skylar was monitoring Roland’s vitals and signal outputs carefully. She saw something unusual with the signals. There was a lot of interference coming in. “Roland, watch yourself ahead. I’m getting signal interference from one of those two. I will switch our private channel over to another one.”
Roland nodded.
Coach looked away from Roland’s video feed over to Skylar’s holograph that she had pulled up. Her terminal showed a number of different wavelength graphs and spectrum analyses.
Skylar’s fingers went into a fury of typing. “Got him. It’s the Psychedelic Group. Do you see a runner with a bunch of bright colors?”
Roland nodded towards the hybrid runner on the left. He was average height and both his arms and legs were droid tech. Each limb was a different bright neon color and was covered in tribal tattoos. As Roland got closer, he could see that the tattoos were moving, slowly morphing into new designs and patterns.
Coach looked intently at the tattoos. “Well, that’s different.”
Skylar nodded. “It’s called live ink. It works like a screensaver for your robotic appendages. That’s not his only trick though. His tech guys are hitting that other guy’s firewall hard.”
Coach looked again at Skylar’s holograph. “The racer with the blue and white striped uniform? They are hacking him? What about Roland’s firewall?”
Skylar went back to typing. “He just got through blue and white’s firewall. Roland is solid though. I just added another layer of encryption to be sure.”
The other contestant’s left arm went slack.
Skylar paused and watched Roland’s feed. “He just shut down that guy’s arm!”
Then the psychedelic racer let lose a high pitched whoop and gave a swift hand chop to the other racer’s left elbow. There was a loud clank of metal on metal. Then the blue and white striped racer’s elbow snapped in the opposite direction that it was supposed to bend. The arm dangled uselessly as they continued to run. The psychedelic contestant began veering more towards the racer with the broken arm, pushing him towards the edge.
The blue and white striped racer was bigger and reached over with his good arm and slammed the psychedelic racer downwards, hoping to face plant him on the road.
The psychedelic racer caught himself as he was falling and went into a summersault. He grabbed the other racer’s leg before he could get out of reach and tripped him. The racer in the blue and white uniform stumbled a few steps, trying to regain his balance but couldn’t recover. He pitched forward. He hit the ground hard and tumbled to the edge of the plateau.
Roland watched in near slow motion as the racer in blue and white went off the edge. He flailed and was able to grab on to the edge with his one good hand. The psychedelic racer was instantly at the edge looking down at the struggling man. He let out another shrill war whoop and then stomped hard on the blue and white racer’s hand. The blue and white racer’s robotic fingers broke away from the rest of his hand.
Roland cringed as he heard the man screaming as he plummeted 14,000 feet to his death.
Coach watched Roland’s feed. “Roland, full speed! You don’t want to get pulled into this.”
Roland nodded. He lengthened his stride and went up on the balls of his feet into a sprint. He watched his HUD speed climb.
The psychedelic racer looked up from the cliff’s edge as Roland ran by. He turned back onto the road and began jogging again.
Skylar watched her graphs for another few seconds. “He pinged us as we went by, but it bounced off. Our firewall is still solid.”
Coach pulled up a profile on the psychedelic racer. “Looks like the Psychedelic Group is a hacker group based out of New Mexico. Shows they have one coach and twenty-three people listed as tech support.”
Skylar looked up. “I know about those guys. They have hacked a bunch of government facilities to expose information to the public. Their tech support list is pretty much a who’s who of hackers. Their signals are very distinct. I put an alert into our system that will tell us whenever they are near.”
Roland kept his pace up so he could put some distance between him and the psychedelic racer. His HUD showed 26 mph. His distance showed that he was just passing the six mile mark of the plateau. A heavy fog had begun to set in. He could see two more contestants running ahead. One he recognized right away, even with the fog. The closest racer had shiny blue metal and a mohawk that could only belong to one person - Duke. The other, a slim built woman, was wearing a dark red, full body jumpsuit. Long, dark hair flowed behind the racer.
Coach zoomed his video in on the other racer. He stroked his chin for a second. “I think I know who that is. That’s a Pinnacle racer.”
Roland sped up a little to close the gap. When he was only about fifty feet from them, he leaned his head to the side indicating he wanted more information.
Skylar pulled up the contestant database and was already going through Pinnacle’s contestants. They had entered four racers this time. She pointed to the holograph she had pulled up.
Coach nodded. “Spectra. Her name is Spectra. She won the Tech Games last year. Dangerous doesn’t even begin to describe her. Don’t get too close, Roland.”
Roland nodded, but sped up anyway. Now he wanted to see this Spectra woman.
Coach looked at her stats. “Before she joined up with Pinnacle, she was a black belt in just about everything and won an olympic gold medal in the women’s one hundred meter race.”
Roland was about ten feet behind Duke and about twenty feet behind Spectra. He watched his distance on his HUD. The seven mile marker and the edge of the plateau were coming up soon.
Coach watched Roland’s video feed. “Careful, you are coming up on the edge.”
Roland kept up his pace with them. Then the sun burst through the fog and lit up the road. Roland could see the road stopped in just another thirty feet. He slowed down. Duke slowed down. Spectra sped up.
Four hover cams came out of the fog, following Spectra as she sprinted full tilt towards the edge of the plateau. Roland was down to a jog, and Duke had stopped.
Spectra ran right to the very edge of the cliff and jumped.
Skylar was glued to the feed. “What’s she doing? Is she suicidal?”
Coach stared.
Spectra put both of her arms out into an elegant swan dive.
Duke and Roland went closer to the edge to watch, mesmerized. Spectra’s dive picked up speed. She brought her arms and legs in close to her body. Then she spread them out again. This time bright yellow metal glinted between her arms and between her legs. She began to glide away from the rock face - faster than anyone could have climbed.
Coach ran his hand through his hair. “She’s got glider wings installed in her droid arms and legs. She’s like a robotic flying squirrel.”
CHAPTER SEVEN:
TOXIN
DUKE TURNED HIS head back from the ledge and saw Roland. “Well, look who it is - Leprechaun. You haven’t died yet? Don’t worry, you will.”
Roland stopped a few feet short of Duke. “Sorry to have disappointed you. Better get used to it.”
Duke hideous smile turned into a sneer. “Life is full of disappointment…”
Roland took a step forward and interrupted. “… like how you’ll feel when you lose?”
Duke laughed loudly. Then he clenched his left fist and flung it towards Roland as he opened his fingers. A wet cloud flew from his hand towards Roland.
Coach grabbed his mic and yelled. “Roland! Cover your face!”
Roland turned his back and covered his face.
Duke jumped off the cliff, whooping and laughing as he went down.
Skylar scanned all the signal inputs as she ran a spectrum analysis. “What was that stuff?”
Coach just kept watching Roland’s video feed.
“Roland, do not breathe in. Take a few steps back and then drop down into the dirt and roll.”
Roland held his breath and backed up. His neck, back and arms began to sting. He laid down in the dirt and began to roll back and forth.
Coach watched the video feed as it rolled with him, showing the sky, then the ground and then the sky again. “Ok, you can breathe now. Rub the dirt into your skin. It will help to pull the toxins out.” He turned towards Skylar. “Skylar, run your Purge app. He needs to be sweating hard now to get it off.”
Roland took in a deep breath of air. He began rubbing the dusty silt into his skin. “Ahh! It burns!” As he rubbed the dirt in, he saw that he was also smearing blood around. “What was that? It feels like I’m on fire.”
Coach sighed. “It’s a very powerful necrotoxin that eats flesh and spreads using your bloodstream. It’s called necrum. It uses bacteria to spread. Normally it is used in nano medicines to target and destroy skin cancers or leprosy. Duke had it modified, because he prefers droid tech to skin. He hates regular humans.”
Despite the frigid air, Roland began sweating profusely from the Purge app that Skylar was running. The bloody dirt on his skin turned to mud. The stinging and burning let up. He wiped off a small area on his arm. Huge red welts had sprung up where he had been hit.
Coach nodded. “Welts are a good sign. Much better than seeing muscle or bone, which is what would have happened if you hadn’t reacted so quickly.”
Skylar’s fingers were a blur as she typed on the holographic keyboard. “Ok, I’ve identified all the necrum cells. I’m sending Roland’s nano cells to destroy them. They will be excreted as sweat.”
Nano Contestant - Episode 2: Ultimate Endurance (An Urban Futuristic Fantasy Sci-Fi Action Adventure Genetic Cyberpunk Techno Thriller) (Nano Contestant ... Fantasy Action Adventure TechnoThrillers)) Page 3
