The flash of an explosion shone through Reggie’s closed eyelids as Vortex shook.
Tengu[2] was marked as the focus target. It was already within 500m, and Reggie had been too busy herding cats to fire.
ASHARI popped up. “Sgt. King, I just want to remind you—”
Reggie’s fist slammed down on the button to dismiss the AI. “Go away!”
[Tengu[2] - 66% To Hit]
Reggie opened fire.
Left Arm (Tengu[2]): 23/30
Torso (Tengu[2]): 18/90
Nice of Reggie to hit the undamaged arm when everyone else had been pounding away at the torso. At least one of his shots had found the mark. Lin must have spotted how close it was to going down because as soon as she took out the leg of Tengu[10], she squeezed off a shot that took out the rest of Tengu[2]’s torso armor and went right to the engine.
Tengu[2] exploded in a quick puff of smoke that dissipated almost immediately in the vacuum.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 2/10]
But the invading Tengus hadn’t been idle. Their constant stream of missiles had been supplemented by arm-mounted DF Ballistic Cannon-240s. Nothing fancy about them and horrible for ammo costs, they were essentially old-fashioned naval guns mounted on a futuristic chassis.
And the Bravo Platoon juggernauts weren’t taking it well.
Hime went down first. Her Wyvern wasn’t so poorly armored, but to get her shots in, she was playing loose with keeping behind the limited cover the medical factory provided.
“Quit it!” she shouted her last words before respawn. “Target someone—”
Nordbrook was simply there one second, gone the next, as four of the remaining Tengus focused a missile barrage on him that Chase’s counter-laser fire couldn’t thin out in time to save him.
Also, out in the open field, Tengu[5] managed to lever itself up and into position to launch a volley that took out Harper and Rich before they could reach the drop ships.
Tengu[8] exploded as the remaining Wounded Legion burned it down.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 3/10]
“We’re losing the kiddies,” Frank said. “No more time for patty-cake.” Gremlin lurched out of cover. It was nearly unscathed since targeting a heavily armored melee juggernaut while squishier, more deadly snipers were active hadn’t been a priority for the surprisingly effective Tengu AI. Frank was about to make them pay for that decision.
Gremlin charged out of cover. It was still over 400m of open ground, but Frank didn’t seem to care about such a paltry distance without cover.
“No one else try that!” Reggie ordered. But of his remaining command, only Ellie was an unknown quantity. Chase, Lin, and June knew better than to try their luck against a pack of five heavy juggernauts in melee combat.
Ellie’s snort of derision was comforting in that regard. “Not a chance.”
“Four’s mine,” Frank said, bearing down on Tengu[4] with fury, swords crossed in front of him like a battering ram.
“Everyone avoid targeting Tengu[4],” Reggie ordered.
Lin dropped Tengu[9].
“Go, Kneecapper!” Chase cheered her on.
“That better not become a nickname,” Lin warned.
Wary of even downed targets at this range, Reggie took aim at Tengu[9] as it flopped on the ground, trying to stand on one leg.
[Tengu[9] - 89% To Hit]
Reggie snarled at having an 11 percent chance to miss a downed target but squeezed off a pair of shots that both connected.
Chase joined in, and the two of them fried Tengu[9] before it could find a way to rejoin the fight.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 4/10]
Frank made short work of Tengu[4], bowling the heavy juggernaut to the ground with his Tiger’s 20-ton edge in mass. Overpowering it was quick work. The Tengu’s Taifu Nishi reactor was built by Juki-sen for efficiency, not brute force. It was no match for the Gremlin’s Grossemacht 1450 reactor for raw power. Gottpanzer liked their juggernauts overbuilt, which made them ideal brawlers.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 5/10]
Just as Reggie was scanning for his next target, June lit Tengu[1] for focus fire. Before anyone else could bring weapons to bear on it, Yulong’s Anti-Matter Projector scored a critical hit, taking the head clean off it.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 6/10]
The last two remaining juggernauts were quick work for Frank’s swords and the rest of the division’s energy weapons.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 8/10]
“I’ll head down and take out the last two,” Chase volunteered. “I know how to watch out for their firing arcs.”
“Affirmative, Diablo,” Reggie said, taking a slow breath to calm his heightened nerves. He surveyed the six remaining juggernauts. All of them had taken widespread damage to their entire vehicles. But if there was one flaw in massed missile volleys—aside from laser-marksmen like Chase shooting them down—it was the lack of focused fire on particular modules.
Out in the barren wasteland, Chase caught up with the first of the downed, thrashing Tengus crawling toward their drop ship.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 9/10]
A minute later, he dropped the last one.
[Primary Objective Complete: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 10/10]
[Mission Complete: 8,500 XP]
There was no cash payout for this one. Reggie hadn’t had time to set one up while under fire.
“Start dragging salvage to the drop ship,” Reggie ordered. “Let’s stop by and melt these party crashers down on the way home.”
“Are all our missions going to be like this?” Ellie asked cautiously.
Reggie found himself grinning despite the harrowing battle they’d just come through. “I hope so. That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”
Chapter Ten
Reggie materialized in a spacious penthouse apartment overlooking a city that supposedly resembled modern Seattle. But the view beyond the windows was just that: an image. There was no Seattle, the same as there was no Alcon Prime and no Schet IX. While this wasn’t Armored Souls, Reggie’s apartment was still a digitized construct on a Valhalla West server somewhere.
He tried not to dwell on that.
Once in a while, Reggie needed a break from unreality. While the apartment was fake, it behaved more or less like Earth. There were no missions here, no stats that he could call up. If he wanted to know if he was hungry, he listened to the biological signals from his stomach instead of checking a health sub-menu.
The fridge was stocked with beer and condiments. Reggie browsed the selection and found a Bud Adams—apparently Valhalla West didn’t have license to use real brands even in a private digital space. But when he cracked it open, the beer was cold and tasted better than the stuff in Armored Souls. In the game’s case, it was an attempt to make the brew taste futuristic and science fictiony. Reggie preferred his beer to taste like a bar down the street.
His cell phone lay on the end table beside the couch. Picking it up, Reggie scanned through the listing of takeout restaurants, determined to give all of them at least a try. There were other services programmed into the phone as well, but Reggie had sworn not to give in and dial any of the escort businesses. Too many damn programmers trying to mess with his sex life was pissing Reggie off.
“Hello, Madhouse Pizza. Can I take your order?” a perky voice asked when Reggie called his pick of the evening.
“One of everything on your menu. Large. Plus a bottle of every soda you stock.”
“Will that be all?” the perky voice followed up, completely nonplussed by Reggie’s bizarre order.
“Yeah. I think ‘everything’ about covers it,” he replied deadpan.
“That’ll be $559.65, and it’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Reggie ended the call.
He sighed.
Presumably, the wait was just to make the world feel a little more real. But there were so many loose edges of the illusion to pick at. Collapsing onto the couch, Reggie flipped on the television to watch whatever the hell sports were playing back in the real world. It was about the closest Reggie ever got to feeling alive.
There was a chime at the door just as he was choosing between college and pro football games—all on recording—he wanted to watch.
Reggie checked his phone. The call to Madhouse Pizza had only been four minutes ago, and when a pizza place in this digital no-man’s-land said fifteen minutes for delivery, you could count it on a stopwatch.
Muting the audio of an Ohio State / Michigan broadcast, Reggie approached the door cautiously. It wouldn’t surprise him to find that Chase or someone at Valhalla West had sent Reggie someone to keep him company.
When he opened the door, however, it was Dr. Zimmerman standing outside. He was dressed in civilian clothes, neither medical nor military, just a blazer and slacks, with a white button-down shirt and no tie.
“Hi, Reggie,” Zimmerman said amiably. “Mind if I come in?”
Reggie minded. He left Armored Souls for the peace and quiet, for the normalcy—however strained and painted on—and for the chance to unwind. But he stepped aside and allowed the doctor in. “Sure. Make yourself at home. I just ordered pizza.”
It flickered in the back of Reggie’s mind that Zimmerman might already have known that. Valhalla West CEO Ken Bradley himself had assured Reggie that the company wasn’t spying on him in his private time, but everything he felt, saw, tasted, and smelled was generated by their servers. Even if individual people might not have been paying attention or snooping, the company knew.
“I don’t plan to stay long,” Zimmerman said. “I know how much you value your privacy. But ASHARI was worried about you and asked me to stop in.”
“I’ve got football, beer, and pizza on the way,” Reggie said. “Right now, I haven’t got a worry in the world.”
“That’s good to hear,” Zimmerman said with that forced, phony smile of his. Did the guy even realize how transparent he was? He had the bedside manner of an AI. “How is your newest foray into command?”
Reggie shrugged. “Same road. Bigger bus. If it starts getting too noisy for me, I’ll delegate.”
Zimmerman nodded. “Good. Good. Have you been noticing any problems with concentration, mental fatigue, difficulties with memory?”
Circling the room and retrieving his beer, Reggie kept a wary eye on the doctor. “No. Should I be? What’s wrong with me back in meatspace?”
“We don’t generally approve of that term,” Zimmerman said. “And your condition in the physical world has never been good. We’ve been up front with you about that. While you’ve got free reign in Armored Souls, I still have a duty to keep an eye on your mental health.”
With his beer in one hand, Reggie tapped at his temple with the other. “I’m all here upstairs. ASHARI’s just programmed to worry like a nanny. Now, you want to grab a beer and watch a ballgame, or we done here?”
Zimmerman’s smile twitched. “Much as I’d like to, my duties have expanded. I have other patients to check in with. Glad you’re feeling better.”
Once Zimmerman was gone and the volume was back at full blast on the television, Reggie tried to lose himself in the action on the field. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Dr. Zimmerman knew more than he was letting on about Reggie back in the real world.
Chapter Eleven
It was a surreal sensation, waking up in Armored Souls after going to sleep in his faux-Seattle apartment. There was a setting Reggie could have changed to switch his auto-login to waking hours, but that just seemed weirder somehow. Let his body think that Seattle Lite was a dream, or let it decide that Armored Souls was the false reality. Either was preferable to admitting to himself that neither was real.
Stretching out kinks that his digitized back didn’t have, Reggie made his way out to the common areas of the base.
The rec room was quiet. It was just Frank bothering billiard balls at the pool table without even the television on for background sound.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” Frank greeted him with a grunt.
“Everyone else at their day jobs?” Reggie asked. He hadn’t even looked at the time. Seattle Lite’s starry night sky had been his last view before retiring to bed.
Frank shrugged. “Probably. Not sure what the new kids do with their days.”
“And you?” Reggie asked as he wandered over to inspect the game Frank had set up. The old-timer was playing by nine-ball rules solo. “You due for porridge and Jell-O soon, or you hanging around for a while?”
Frank glared at Reggie but said nothing and returned to lining up a shot on the six-ball.
“What?” Reggie asked. “You joke about the horrible food and the shape of the nurses every chance you get. Sore subject all of a sudden?”
“Haven’t woken up in three days,” Frank grumbled.
Reggie cringed. That didn’t sound good. “Have you tried?”
Frank slammed his cue down to the felt surface with a crack that made Reggie jump. “Of course, I’ve tried! ‘Error, body unavailable.’ What the bloody hell that means, I don’t know. The helper monkeys just give me the runaround when I ask.”
“Helper monkeys?” Reggie echoed in bewilderment. Were there pets at Frank’s hospice?
“The computer eggheads who run this whole place,” Frank clarified, snatching up his cue and waving it dangerously to indicate everything around them. “I’m trying to forget all the horrible things that might be happening to me back on Earth, so either grab a cue and play or shut the hell up about it.”
Reggie jerked his head in the direction of the room’s exit. “Want to head over and kill some time in Silent Shuriken? Change of scenery might—”
“Tried that,” Frank snapped. “Only so much running around in pajamas a man my age oughta be doing. Listening to flute music and skulking in bushes waiting to stab some fellow in a silk dress ain’t my cup o’ joe. So pick up a cue or leave me in peace.”
Reggie opted to shoot pool.
But between shots, he kept sneaking a peek at Wounded Legion status screens.
[Schet IX - Gold 0.5T/Day - Cassiterite 3,000T/Day]
[Alcon Prime - Azaspan 1,200 Doses/Day]
[Wounded Legion - Converted Income - 53,500Cr/Day]
Fifty-three thousand credits just for sitting on their asses. Sure, overhead expenses were bound to go up, but this was the beginning of the rise of Wounded Legion.
Frank won a game of nine-ball and began racking up for another go. Reggie stole a glance at the faction roster.
[King - Commander L15 - Vortex - Daisy2]
[June - Scout L17 - Artemis]
[Chase - Gunner L16 - Diablo - Firebat - Tinder]
[Dogface - Guard L15 - Gremlin - Studebaker]
[Dragonlady - Gunner L18 - Yulong - Kuailong]
[Nordbrook - Gunner L5 - Sharkeater]
[Harper - Scout L9 - Alvin]
[Hime - Pilot L8 - WindDancer]
[Ellomancer - Commando L11 - Gothic]
[RichyRich - Gunner L4]
Reggie blinked and looked at the list again. Why wasn’t Rich listed with a juggernaut? He’d made sure that all the new recruits had owned their own before signing on. Though the name escaped him—and Reggie promised himself to learn the names of the unit’s new juggernauts—he was sure that Rich had been piloting a Chi-Ha.
“You gonna break, or you just gonna stand there gaping?” Frank asked.
Reggie shook himself. “Sorry. Just checking over the unit roster. Rich, the one in the Chi-Ha who got deleted trying to steal a drop ship, doesn’t have a juggernaut.”
“Yeah,” Frank said, scratching his chin. “The sister said something about him gambling without insurance. She seemed to think it served him right.”
Of course. Just his luck. Reggie had been on the fence abo
ut “RichyRich” from the beginning, but his sister was higher level and conducted herself like a pro. He was the baggage. Now he’d be dragging along a guy who might have leveled twice in that battle if he’d lived, except now he was back to square one of level four and would be piloting a rental.
A rental…
“Shit,” Reggie swore.
“It’s a break. No fair cussing until you’re actually losing.”
“No. Not that,” Reggie said. “I just realized I’m the one who needs to supply rental juggernauts.”
Frank growled in the back of his throat. “Give him a three-wheeled jeep, and tell him to mind his insurance next time.”
“Is that some old-timey vehicle I’ve never heard of?” Reggie asked.
Frank picked up a beer from the bar and smiled as he took a swig. “Nope. Just a plain old jeep, missing a wheel. It’d serve the kid right.”
“I guess I could let him have Daisy2 for a couple runs,” Reggie mused.
“That ratty little toy?” Frank scoffed. “Good enough for him.”
Reggie sighed. “I’ll at least make him pay for insurance on it before I let him take it out of the hangar.”
“At least you’re not calling it a ‘she’ anymore.”
Reggie paused. No. He hadn’t. Daisy was his ex-wife’s name, and he’d often slipped into the habit of thinking of the juggernauts named after her as female.
Maybe he was leaving some baggage behind him after all.
Chapter Twelve
The fancy strategy rooms in Hollywood movies didn’t exist in the real-world military, at least not in modern times. Generals didn’t play with miniature figurines of enemy troops, sliding them around the map with a croupier stick to demonstrate maneuvers. Nor had things progressed to the point where there were huge tables that served as flat-touch screens, updating with real-time info from active engagements.
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