Roland shook his head. “Barely keeping up now.”
Skylar swiped over to a new page and hit upload. “I’ve been working on something new. I call it the Berserker plugin. It will unload every ounce of adrenaline, norepinephrine and glucose into your system and flood your body with it. The nano cells store ten times the amount normally stored in your body. It will give you about thirty seconds of super strength and speed, so you will need to get past all of this in that amount of time.”
Coach crossed his arms. “Roland. Move fast and move high.”
Skylar swiped over a few screens on her terminal to the configuration section of the Berserker plugin. It had several sliders on it that looked like a sound mixing console. “I don’t know what the side effects will be.”
Roland interrupted her. “Don’t care. Fix me later.” He gave the thought command to enable Berserker. “Don’t feel any different.”
Skylar put two fingers on the sliders labeled Adrenaline and Norepinephrine. “I have to control it from here. Ready?” Without waiting for an answer, she slid both of them to their max setting. Then she hit a red button and made a small thirty second timer begin counting down on Roland’s HUD.
Roland stumbled once. His eyelids fluttered briefly. The pupils of his eyes dilated fully and then constricted to near pin holes. His heart rate leaped from 150 beats a minute to 200 and then to 250 beats a minute. A cold shiver ran over his body. He took in a deep breath. He could almost feel the oxygen flowing straight to his brain.
Skylar also slid Glucose up to its max.
Roland could feel a slight sweetness at the back of his mouth. Then it felt like every muscle in his body contracted, and then they became unleashed. The Berserker countdown timer read 29. He surged forward, stomping on each stair as though it had personally, greatly offended him.
Roland held Charlotte away from his body and gave the thought command for a spear. The carbon alloy extended to a length of six feet. The top end went to a razor sharp point. He had an idea and gave another thought command. The butt end of his weapon curved back towards him until it looked like a shepherd’s crook.
The Slo Mo plugin made each second feel like an hour, especially since he had the energy to act on it. He let out a war cry and leapt up the stairs. Roland whipped the crook end of his staff forward and hooked it onto the shoulder of the man in front of him. He yanked the surprised man down to his knees. Roland jumped from his step and landed on the man’s shoulders. Then he pushed off hard to gain additional height. The force of his landing and subsequent launch shot the man backwards down the stairs, resulting in an instant failure for the man.
Roland landed on the shoulder of the opponent that the tumbling man had been fighting. Roland went airborne, swinging his shepherd’s crook downwards bashing the man in the back of the head. The force of the blow sent the second man headlong down the escalator. The downward stairs quickly carried both men away. The Berserker timer read 26.
Roland dropped back onto the stairs right in front of large a Nigerian hybrid man. The Nigerian, assisted by full robotic arms, held a razor sharp hatchet in each metallic hand and wasted no time in attacking his newcomer.
Roland gripped his staff with both hands, trying to deflect the hatchet blows.
Skylar watched as the wall on Roland’s right began to turn orange as the heat built up. “Fire on your right!”
Roland whipped his shepherd’s hook down to the man’s right ankle and pulled his foot out from under him. As he began to fall, Roland lashed out with a hard roundhouse and kicked him against the heated wall. Roland dashed forward.
Coach watched the filtered video stream. Huge, orange flames belched out of the wall, engulfing the fallen Nigerian from behind.
Roland could smell the distinct odor of meat burning, like a forgotten steak on a barbecue grill. He surged onwards. The Berserker timer read 12.
Coach continued watching. The Nigerian hit the ground and began to roll, halon gas shooting from his robotic arms to extinguish the burn. “He’s getting up! I can’t believe it! Nobody could have survived a fire like that!” Chunks of his charred flesh were left stuck to the escalator stairs. Blood streamed from the open wounds on his back. He ran screaming after Roland.
Two more men that were locked in a battle, on the twenty-five mile an hour escalator, stood between Roland and escaping the mob. Roland gave the thought command to change his spear into a shield. He made it into a V-shaped wedge. The shield covered his head and upper body.
Skylar saw the walls turning orange behind the two men in front of Roland. “Fire on both walls ahead!”
Roland could see the walls glowing orange on either side of him. He paused briefly and went into a crouch, Leapfrog contracting his adrenaline soaked leg muscles while he drew in a deep breath. Then, exhaling, he launched himself forward right through the middle of the two battling contestants. He felt like the rock in a medieval trebuchet, flying through the air towards the enemy’s castle. The impact of his weight, behind his shield, crashed into the two contestants, parting them. They slammed hard against the walls of the hallway. They crumpled onto the ground. The walls just above their heads exploded with fiery jets of hot burning gas. The clothing on their backs was singed black from the heat. They had escaped death by the tiniest of margins.
The Nigerian halted his vengeful advance just in front of the flames that burned before him. He wanted his revenge, but not at the price of risking the flames again. He sank to his knees, too exhausted from blood loss to continue any further. The stairs quickly carried him away to the medics that awaited him.
The Berserker timer read 2. Roland stowed Charlotte back in her case and continued his charge up the stairs. The Berserker timer ran to zero. He felt a shiver again. His heart rate returned to normal. He could see the exit ahead.
Skylar watched his vitals carefully after the Berserker ran out. “Roland. Your glucose levels are dangerously low. You need food, preferably sugars, ASAP.”
Roland nodded and gave it everything he had left as he made for the exit.
He switched off the 3D Sonar as he burst forth back into the sunlight. The light on his arm flashed green and then went out. He had completed the Elevating Escalators and earned fifty points. His HUD showed he was in position 45.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
DEEP
ROLAND GAVE THE thought command to disable all the plugins he had been using for the Elevating Escalators. He jogged to catch his breath. “How many points did I get docked back there?”
Coach looked over at the holographic terminal with Roland’s scores and standings listed. “The first failure on an obstacle docks you fifty points of the hundred possible points. So, you only received fifty points for that one. You are at a total of 250 points right now. You’re tied with the four other racers that also failed once on that obstacle, but your time was the slowest of all of them. There is also one other contestant that failed the escalators twice, so he is in last place at 225 points. Your current position is 45 in the overall.”
Roland frowned and headed towards the tables with water. He chugged a bottle of water and grabbed a coffee gel pack as well as a nutritional bar. This time they only had chocolate bars. He quickly ate a couple and then squeezed the coffee gel into his mouth.
Skylar cranked up Roland’s glucose creation output. After a few seconds, the nano cells in his body were able to replace some of his lost glucose and bring him out of the danger zone. “Your vitals are ok for now, but you still need about a hundred more of those bars.”
He grabbed one more sports drink to wash it all down. Then he half smiled. “You try eating more than two of those bars.” Roland picked up his pace as he headed towards the next obstacle. He could see water ahead.
Skylar got her obstacle alert and brought it up on her terminal. “The next obstacle is called Deep Dives. It’s a series of tubes suspended at different depths under the water. You have to free dive down from the surface and then swim through the tubes. The first
is twenty-five feet long and is at a depth of twenty-five feet. The second is fifty feet long and is at fifty feet. The deepest is at one hundred feet and is a hundred feet long. After the deepest one, there is one more at fifty feet and one more at twenty-five feet.”
Coach leaned over Skylar’s shoulder as she read. “What’s that part about the bonus?”
Skylar scrolled downwards on her holographic terminal. “It says that there are three special bonuses of one hundred points, fifty points and twenty-five points that will be awarded to the three fastest times.”
Coach looked back over at Roland’s video stream. “Are there any limits to the number of times you can come up for air?”
Skylar shook her head. “No. There’s no restrictions on coming up, but you have to make it through all five tubes. It says here that there is oxygen available in the middle of the hundred foot tube.”
Coach huffed. “That’s a trap, Roland. If you breathe that oxygen at a hundred feet, and then come up fast, you’ll get the bends. If you do breathe it, you will have to come up really really slow in order to let your body equalize the pressure. If you come up fast, you could rupture your lungs.”
Roland nodded as he jogged closer to the water. The light in his arm turned green indicating he was close to the obstacle. Even though he was fifty yards away, he could smell the strong odor of chlorine. He had to squint against the glare that the sun cast across the surface of the water. He could hear splashing as the other contestants entered the water or were surfacing. “I’ve got to get some bonus points to make up for what I lost on that escalator one.”
Coach shook his head. “I think the least amount of breaths you could do it in, would be two. You could come up for a breath after the first and second tubes and then hold it all the way through the rest of the tubes.”
Roland watched a contestant break the water’s surface to get a breath after completing the first tube. “Nope. Looks like everyone’s doing that. I’m going to have to do this whole obstacle in one breath.”
Skylar sat back in her chair. “What? Roland. Are you sure? Can you?”
Roland nodded. “I swam a lot in the Marines and did some scuba diving as a hobby.”
Coach gave a half smile. “It’s doable, but you’d have to conserve as much energy as possible to make a dive of that distance. Getting down deep with that much air in your lungs will be a challenge too. You’re right, though. You do need the points.”
Roland nodded again. “I’m going for it.” He gave the thought command for the O2 plugin and began to inhale deeply to saturate his cells with as much oxygen as possible. He felt his lungs fill up as the compression started to double the capacity. Then he gave the thought command to also enable the High Altitude option. He seemed to breathe in forever as he pushed even more air into his lungs.
Coach crossed his arms. “You seriously may not be able to actually get below the surface with all that oxygen.”
Roland approached the edge of the water. “No problem. Got an idea.” He stepped off to the side of the road and picked up a large rock. It must have weighed at least thirty pounds.
Coach nodded. “That’ll work nicely.”
Skylar quickly scanned through the rules again. “Well, the rules don’t say that he can’t do that.”
Coach watched Roland approach the water’s edge. “Sometimes, low tech is best.”
Roland looked through the crystal clear water at the edge of the pool. He could see the pipe suspended twenty-five feet below. He finished his long inhalation. He jumped into the water. It was colder than he was expecting. He held the rock out away from his body. Its dead weight pulled him downwards towards the tube.
Roland gave the thought command to enable Leapfrog and Fast Twitch. He felt the muscles in his legs being pulled taut. He extended his legs out behind him and began kicking hard at the hip.
Skylar put a depth gauge up on Roland’s HUD. “Depth is at ten feet.”
The rock Roland was holding was about three inches thick and flat. He found he could use it kind of like a rudder to steer his descent. He angled it towards the opening of the first tube. His depth gauge showed that he was at twenty feet. He kicked hard two more times and found himself at the opening of the first tube and went in.
Roland could feel the pressure in his ears that had built up from his descent. He had been working his jaw, trying to relieve it, but it hadn’t worked yet. He set the rock down on the bottom of the tube and then grabbed his nose and blew out without opening his mouth. He felt his ears equalize to the pressure, and the pain disappeared. He picked up the rock and began moving forward again. It was hard to move forward carrying the dead weight of the rock.
Coach watched Roland’s struggle to move forward with the rock. “Hold the rock up and out in front of you. Then kick hard.”
Roland held the rock up and began kicking. He moved forward until the rock went down again. After two more bouts of lifting and kicking, he cleared the first tube. Roland pointed the rock downwards towards the next tube. He began exhaling a small stream of bubbles as he went down to clear out some of the expended oxygen from his body and to keep water from going up his nose. Ahead, he could see a small blonde contestant leaving the fifty foot tube and ascending to the surface for air. He leaned his head right.
Coach zoomed in the video feed. “That’s the digital that you passed on the crawl and the ropes. You’re not that far behind her.”
Skylar swiped her terminal right to pull up a profile on the racer. “Her name’s Natasha.”
Roland kicked hard right before he went into the fifty foot tube. Then he held his body rigid to get as much distance from his glide as he could. The rock pulled him through the first ten feet of the tube. He equalized again to relieve the pressure in his ears. He could feel himself beginning to get antsy as his oxygen was being used up. His body wanted a breath. He refused it.
Coach watched as Roland’s heart rate climbed. “You need to relax. Try to focus more on your glides. Use as little energy as possible. Focus.”
Roland held the rock out and kicked. He could see the end of the tunnel in just twenty more feet. He started to feel a little jittery as oxygen starvation began. He forced himself to ignore the jitters and to focus only on his next movement. Lift the rock up. Kick. Glide. Repeat. He exhaled another small stream of bubbles. He shot out of the fifty foot tube. He looked up. His body wanted to get to the surface where all that beautiful oxygen was so readily available.
Roland could see Natasha heading back down from the surface. He had to get ahead of her. He pointed the rock towards the one hundred foot tube which sat on the bottom of the pool. He kicked hard.
Natasha recognized Roland below her. Anger surged through her. She was sick of this guy passing her.
The blue light lit up on the arm of every contestant. Weapons were authorized for the next two minutes.
Natasha pulled out a razor sharp knife from her belt and then kicked downwards as hard as she could.
Coach was also watching Pinnacle’s feed from the underwater cams which followed the racers. “Roland. Go. Natasha is moving fast towards you.”
Roland could feel the darkness growing from his tunnel vision. Coach’s voice seemed far away. He hugged the rock in close to his body with one arm while he equalized again with the other. His depth read seventy-five feet. With the pressure relieved, he held the rock out again and kicked hard. The power from the Leapfrog plugin pushed him through the water.
Natasha had a hard time descending because of her light weight. She exhaled some of her air and swam quickly downwards. She could feel the pressure building up in her ears, but she couldn’t seem to equalize them. She continued to push downwards.
Roland reached the edge of the one hundred foot tube and was starting to enter.
Coach watched both screens. “Drop the rock. Now.”
Roland released the rock. It made a loud clank as it hit the bottom of the pool. He felt much lighter and pushed forward as hard as he cou
ld. The enclosed walls of the tube made the tunnel vision worse. He felt like the whole world was closing in around him. Mild panic began in his oxygen deprived mind. This tube was different. It must have been an old silo or something. Iron rebar stuck out from the bottom, as though it were a horizontal ladder. He grabbed ahold of the handle and pulled himself forward. He tried to extract a long glide with each grab to expend less energy.
Coach knew how much Roland was suffering without oxygen at this point. “Relax. Just move to the next hand hold.”
Natasha’s eardrums ruptured to relieve the ever building pressure. Blood began to cloud the water on either side of her head. She reached the edge of the hundred foot tube and shot inward.
Roland gave the thought command to disable Leapfrog and enable Chimp instead. He could see Natasha behind him, clawing her way through the water, leaving a dark trail of blood from her ears. Roland found himself focusing on Coach’s mantra from earlier in his head. Fast is slow. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. He grabbed the next handle and gave a hard pull forward. He held his body rigid to minimize the slipstream and maximize his glide.
An overhead light shone on a bubbling regulator at the midpoint of the tube. It had so much rich oxygen, that it filled that area of the tube with shining bubbles before they escaped through a crack in the top.
Roland reached out for the regulator hose. He could feel the bubbles flowing over his face. They playfully tickled his skin before they made their upwards egress. He wanted a breath so badly. His tunnel vision clouded more than half of his sight. His body screamed out for oxygen. He instinctively moved the regulator towards his mouth.
Coach watched as Roland’s video stream completely filled with silvery bubbles. He slammed his fist down on the table and began yelling into his microphone. “No! Roland! No! Drop it! It’s a trap! Keep moving!”
Somehow, Coach’s voice reached through the bubbles into Roland’s head. Roland snapped out of his reverie. He dropped the regulator and shook his head. Then he grabbed the nearest handle and yanked himself forward. He had almost made a fatal mistake. He couldn’t let his father down like that. The Chimp plugin made short work of the handles as he glided out towards the exit of the tube.
Nano Contestant - Episode 3: Combat Obstacles: The Technothriller Futuristic Science Fiction Adventure of a Cyberpunk Marine (Nano Contestant Series) Page 7
