Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators)

by Campbell, Nenia

  “My bounty hunter, I presume?”

  She expects annoyance, which just goes to show how used she is to dealing with m00bs and their immaturity. The Marks are well aware of their disadvantage within the game and often feel the need to overcompensate for it with an inflated sense of ego.

  “You're good.” Rather than being annoyed, the girl is inordinately cheerful and, in fact, seems rather pleased. “But” — she twists out of Vol's grasp and fires off an arrow — “not good enough!”

  Vol manages to pull her body partially out of the way. The arrow pierces her shoulder instead of her chest. Tingles ripple down her arm, simulating, if not exactly copying, pain. Vol grits her teeth and tackles the girl before she can grab another arrow from the quiver strapped to her back.

  “You shot me.”

  “Well, the archives said 'dead or alive,'” the girl replies with a smirk. “If it makes you feel any better, I'd only get half the points.”

  “It doesn't.” Vol snaps the arrow she has managed to seize and reaches for another. “But this does.”

  The girl knees Vol in the stomach, yanking the leather quiver from her and spilling arrows over the forest floor. Both girls race to snap them up at the same time and they end up knocking their heads together. The girl half-laughs, half-curses. “Gods, you're persistent. I'm not trying to steal your dagger, so give me back my arrows.”

  “I've only got the one dagger.” Vol breaks a handful of arrows to illustrate her point.

  “Bitch.” The girl sighs, then laughs. “Look, fair's fair. I totally caught you. Don't make me shoot you with my…” She looks at the empty quiver. While she has been speaking, Vol has finished breaking the last of her arrows. “Shit. You broke them all?”

  “You haven't caught me until you've gotten those on me.” Vol points to the handcuffs dangling from the girl's tooled leather belt. “And frankly, I'd just like to see you try.”

  The girl grins, instantly cheerful again. “Kinky, are we?”

  Vol rolls her eyes. “Please.”

  “Ooh.” The girl's grin widens. “I love it when they beg. You — ” She breaks off, her smile fading, and turns away, towards the distant mountains blurred by the haze that marks an area in the gamescape that is out of bounds.

  Vol senses a trick and tightens her grip on the dagger. The girl's head is cocked, her body rigid and alert. Her wane of interest seems genuine. Slowly, Vol allows her attention to shift as well, still keeping one of her eyes trained firmly on the girl. A disturbance is coming from the other side of the river.

  “Hear that?” the girl says.

  Vol nods.

  The disturbance proves to be voices and it soon becomes clear that at least one of those voices is cursing.

  Without speaking further, the two girls fall into a silent truce as they carefully brush the leaves and dirt from their respective ensembles and head off into that direction to explore.

  A boy and girl are struggling in the clearing. The boy's garb allows Vol to identify him as a bandit, but his bounty hunter — the girl — is clearly at a severe disadvantage despite her superior weapons. The object of their altercation is the girl's blade. He has his fingers wrapped around the hilt of it, his other hand on her wrist. “Let go,” the girl says, sounding very frightened. “Leave me alone.”

  “It's just a game,” the boy sneers. “Are you going to let a little death sim scare you?”

  He knows it's not the death sim that's scaring her. Vol's hand goes to her own sword.

  “I already said I wouldn't bring you in!” the girl cries. “Give me — back — my — aah — ”

  She hits the ground, clutching her middle where he kicked her. Her fall looses the blade from the scabbard with a hiss of metal.

  “You think this is just about the game?” He shakes his head. “Maybe this will teach you to be a bit sweeter when men ask you out for a drink.” The girl screams and rolls aside, only narrowly escaping the blade's downward crash as it slices into the ground where she lay only seconds before.

  The girl pushes through the thick juniper, to the boy's annoyance. He is too big to follow her through the banks. Vol watches in disgust as he prods the bushes with the stolen blade. “Stop running,” he sighs, feigning boredom as he searches.

  No response.

  His brows draw together, and for a moment this little creep reminds Vol of the man she encountered in the elevator this morning. “If you come back here right now, maybe I won't rough you up too badly. Maybe I'll even still buy you that drink.” He waits a heartbeat, and adds, “I don't think you know who I am.”

  The boy's eyes widen as his search of the next clump of shrubs turns up something unexpected. Instead of the young girl he's taunting, he comes across two fully grown ones — both close to him in height, and brandishing weapons surpassing his own in quality. For a gratifying moment fear flashes across his face lightning quick, and his mouth drops open in an unattractive gape. “What the hell?”

  “Looking for someone?” says Vol's bounty hunter.

  “Not anymore.” The boy looks them over, his expression brightening in return as his eyes move upwards. “Gods. I was told that the only thing that shrivels Kargahassian men more than their sun is their women. Guess I just found the best-kept secret in Karagh.” He laughs at his own joke and leers at the two of them. “You girls interested in a threesome?”

  Vol loathes him instantly.

  “You wish, asshole.” The other girl no longer sounds even remotely friendly. Vol didn't see her pick up the stone but suddenly there is one poised on the bowstring. Before Vol can blink, she lets it fly — right into his head. The rock gouges a wound in his cheek, just below his eye. “Men like you make me sick.”

  The boy brings his hand up to his face with a look of dumb shock.

  “There's more where that came from.” Vol's bounty hunter already has another stone aimed and ready. “The next one hits something not quite as hard.” And she lowers the bow, gazing at him meaningfully.

  He stares at her, the dawning awareness of his defeat evident in his angry face and posture.

  “Drop your sword,” says Vol, raising her own weapon as she watches his knuckles tighten on the hilt. She hasn't forgiven him for the way he was ogling her chest. “If you go for her, I go for you.”

  “Same,” the other girl adds, without taking her eyes off him. “You're screwed, scum, and not in the way you'd like, either. Irony's a bitch, isn't it?”

  “You wouldn't say that if you knew who I am.”

  Vol's bounty hunter laughs. “Trust me, I've seen an asshole before. Drop the sword now.”

  The boy lets the sword fall to the ground, rustling the grass. He sneers at the two of them and adds, “I should have known. It figures the only chicks in this game would be a bunch of dykes.”

  In the time it takes Vol to blink the boy is on the ground with his privates cupped in his hands — a gesture that seems more instinctive than preservative, as the pain thresholds for this game are tuned well below what could conceivably be felt as painful. Slowly, Vol turns her head to look at the other girl. “Sore subject.” She gazes down at the boy with dislike. “He hit too close to home. I returned the favor. Remember that,” she said, directing her last words to him.

  “You're — ”

  “Tash.” The girl turns from the boy, congenial smile back in place. “Tash Clannad. Let's leave it at that.” She extends her right hand. “Truce?”

  Vol squeezes the proffered limb. “Volera Magray. How about an extended truce? Cuff him. Not me.”

  “Oh, all right.” Tash sighs. “I'd prefer the former but the latter” — she cuffs the boy's wrists in front of his body since he won't release his clutching fingers — “is probably more beneficial in the long run.”

  “Bitch.” The boy says it very quietly, and Tash ignores it.

  Vol stares at the trees. The patch of woods beside them is wavering as if it were a reflection distorted by the ripples in a pool of water. Suryan Lafever app
ears, like a fade-in, merging with the gamescape from the top-down, so for a moment her head hangs suspended in mid-air. Her hands, when they come into being, are on her hips. She is dressed as neither bandit nor bounty hunter, and yet somehow evokes an air of the same atmosphere in her forest green dress.

  Suryan's expression isn't fey, though. Vol has never seen her this displeased. “What — ” and Vol feels a twinge of dread that she can sound so calm with a face like that “ — is going on here? I'm not concerned so much with the sheer level of profanity as I am with the fact that I've received five abuse reports in as many minutes.”

  Her eyes fall on the boy. Her frown deepens.

  “This guy was giving a girl a hard time,” Vol hastens to explain. “A girl who didn't even look old enough to be playing.” Suryan looks at her sharply, bristling visibly from the implication that she hasn't been doing her job correctly.

  “I see. That does change the situation a bit. Where is the girl?”

  “She ran into the woods after he stole her weapon,” says Tash.

  “I'll disengage them both.” Suryan snaps her fingers and the boy disappears. “And do an age check on the girl. If she really is a minor, I'll have to file an incident report.” Even her avatar looks exhausted at the thought.

  “Where did he go?” Tash wants to know.

  “Oh, just a little place I know.” Suryan smiles secretively. “Little perk of being the presiding Mistress of Games. You two can go back to your … little scuffle.”

  “Actually …” Vol scratches her neck. “Is it all right if I clock out early?”

  Suryan looks at Tash, who flushes. “Don't look at me. I work here, and I'm hungry. I haven't eaten a thing all day.”

  Suryan's face softens. “I'll disengage you two, as well. Oh, and Vol?”

  Vol spins around to see that Tash has already disappeared.

  “Yes?” she says. Nervously.

  Suryan's smile widens. “Tell Tash I'm marking you both down as having completed the entire session. Our little secret.”

  With a sudden blur of color, Vol is sitting back in the gaming cubicle. She glances at her timepiece and is pleased to see that Suryan released her a whole twenty minutes early — and she's still getting paid for the full hour. That means five minutes longer to nap, eat, shower, and get ready for the ball, respectively.

  …The ball.

  Gods damn.

  She is accosted by Tash in the GP2 parlor. The black-haired girl's awkward, shuffling posture suggests this encounter wasn't by chance. Tash smiles, bashfully. “This probably sounds really weird, but would you mind some company in the cafe? I hate eating alone.”

  As if being alone is a choice, or even a preference. Vol marvels at her candor. “I was just going to grab something real quick and head back up to the dorms.”

  “I'll buy you coffee — the real kind.”

  That morning's events come back to Vol in a violent flood of anger and humiliation. “You don't have to do that.” It comes out sharper than she intended, and Tash winces. In a gentler voice, Vol adds, “You don't need to buy my company to make me sit with you.”

  The happy smile on the other girl's face only makes Vol feel worse. She hates feeling this way, given Tash's obvious defensiveness on the subject, but this feels like a date. Coffee — real coffee — is so expensive, too, and Vol hates the idea of feeling indebted to someone.

  “I want to,” Tash says earnestly. “What you did back there was awesome.”

  “You're the one who nailed him in the junk with a rock,” says Vol.

  Tash's expression is unapologetic and unrepentant. “I will never forget the expression on that asshole's face, when he realized he got served by two girls.” Tash folds her arms. “Coming? Please don't make me go in there alone.”

  “Oh, all right. I'll protect you from the big, bad cafeteria.” Vol sighs, her hopes of a relaxing solitude extinguished. “For what it's worth, that guy probably won't be forgetting you any time soon.”

  “I'm glad — on both counts,” Tash says. “That poor girl. I hope Suryan wasn't too hard on her.”

  “I wouldn't worry about that. She's a softie.” Vol relays Suryan's message. “At the very least, I'm sure we've caused him to at least reconsider his stance on the so-called fairer sex.”

  “No. I know his kind. He'll brush it off as a fluke and be back to normal by morning.” Tash's jaw tightens.

  Vol suspects she has broadened the scope of their discussion to include examples beyond the Mark they encountered in the woods. There is an uncomfortable silence as they head towards the elevator.

  “Activate voice command. Third floor. So are you new here?”

  “I moved into the Tower last night,” Tash says. “Late last night. You probably didn't hear me.”

  “What floor?”

  “Fifth. It's quite strange, being so high off the ground.”

  “Because the Arbatians mostly live in one-story dwellings, right?”

  Surprise flickers over Tash's sharp features. “Yes, that's right.” She smiles haltingly. “I'm still not quite used to it. At this point, the curtains mostly stay closed or I get vertigo. Keeps the heat out, too.”

  “The heat?”

  “Floors six through ten — and parts of five — don't currently have electricity. They better fix it, soon. I wasn't the only recent arrival and there are supposed to be more on the way.”

  “Interesting,” says Vol. “I hadn't heard that.”

  “What floor do you live on?”

  “Fourth. I have for a while.”

  “And there are only two gaming parlors so far, right? They must be planning on building new ones. I can't imagine why they would need so many new Players otherwise.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You could go mad trying to figure out why the Regent does what he does.” An odd twinge of unease uncoils from Vol's stomach even as she speaks the words. She can almost remember … something …

  Tash's smile freezes. She shakes her head as Vol moves to follow her. “No. Sit down, grab us a table. I'll get the grub.”

  She's ditching me.

  Vol plops into one of the metal chairs. Just in time, too, for her body feels about ready to give out. Even though Players are largely sedentary, the electric pulses from the game chair stimulate the user's muscles as if they are actually running, jumping, and fighting. It makes her feel a little guilty, as if she's cheating somehow; she has heard that, long ago, players were often flabby and out-of-shape. They played without biofeedback loops, on a flat 2D screen. Vol can't imagine interacting with a game with a flat screen. Even the holladramas are three-dimensional.

  What would that be like?

  Boring, she decides. Boring, but safe. It must be comforting to have the monsters separated from you by a solid screen of glass. Excitement and danger walk hand-in-hand.

  “Here's your coffee.” Tash sets down her food-laden tray with a loud clatter that jolts from Vol from her thoughts. She misreads Vol's surprise and says, “Yum, yum,” rubbing her belly for emphasis. “Sure you aren't hungry?”

  “I — I'm sure.” She stares at the steaming cup in front of her. She feels like she might cry.

  “It's just coffee,” Tash says. “It won't bite.”

  “I just can't even remember the last time I had one. A real one.” The smell rising up from the cup reminds Vol of hot, dark chocolate. Another sensation all but lost. “It was a long, long time ago.”

  “Sure beats the hell out of synthetic Bastani swill. Arbatian coffee cannot be beaten.”

  Vol closes her eyes and takes a long, deep sip. The heady, nutty flavor explodes in her mouth with a current of tingles she can feel all the way in the back of her throat. And something happens. Something strange. Because this sensation goes beyond taste; it bleeds into the other four senses as well, in a dizzying swirl of colors, textures, and scents.

  And Vol is choking on it.

  The temperature of the room plummets and the stupor falls like a wall. She doesn't ev
en have time to be relieved as the agony rushes in like a tide to fill the void this sudden fugue has left in its wake. Then the blackness, too, recedes, and her blind eyes clear abruptly to see Tash staring at her.

  Vol smiles weakly. “Did you say something?”

  “I asked if you were okay.” Tash's fork is loaded with food but she hasn't touched it. “You went pale. And your eyes were strange.”

  Vol feels a flicker of fear. “No, before that. You said something else.”

  “What? Oh. I asked where you were from — are you all right?”

  Vol sets the cup down, a touch unsteadily. “I'm fine. And I'm Bastani. Eastern Bastan.”

  Tash's eyes widen. “But wasn't that part” — she breaks off, looking around surreptitiously, and lowers her voice, — “destroyed?”

  “I don't want to talk about it.”

  “Of course. I'm sorry.” Tash lowers her eyes, abashed. When she next lifts her gaze, the change in her expression is startling. Embarrassment has yielded to a profoundly deep anger. “Believe me, I'm the expert when it comes to fucked-up home districts.”

  “And here we are in Karagh,” Vol quips. “The very flower of virtuousness.”

  “It all comes down to that, huh? See how low we've gone, when Karagh is the most decent place in the Regency. Yet another reason to drink. No wonder people flock here in droves.” Tash grabs Vol's drink and takes a long, draining sip. “Mm, that is good — though they've burned it a little. I think I might take a nap. I'm going to need my energy to go to that ridiculous ball.”

  “You're going to the ball?”

  “Aren't you? I was led to believe we had no choice in the matter.”

  Vol cracks a wry smile. “Ah. You've met Kira, then.”

  “If that self-congratulatory guinea pig in my doorway this morning was Kira, then yes. We're acquainted.” Tash yawns again. “Well, I'm out. See you at the ball. I'm sure you'll be the only one there worth talking to. Mind if I take this with me?” Tash raises Vol's now half-empty glass in a salute, turns, and heads for the elevators.