Winter Harvest

by Dawn Chapman

  That sucked. I pulled back and slapped the side of my head, trying to think. I gave the number another try, barely able to finish it.

  The ship powered to life, and Tyto beamed at me.

  “You better get back down here,” Dylan’s voice came to me.

  I looked to Tyto who said, “I don’t know what’s happened.” Getting so weak, I had lost the picture.

  “Help me,” I said to him, and we made our way back to the bay. I felt the engines starting up. Knew Dylan had to go.

  “He just wants to leave, I’m sure,” Tyto said.

  And he was almost right. As we rounded the corner, I could see the Traixic had hold of Saskia by the neck.

  “I can’t get her to let go,” Dylan said looking panicked.

  I frowned at Saskia’s face. “She’s not worried, because she’ll respawn.”

  “She said she won’t,” he panted at me. “She said that she didn’t have anything left to give, that her memories were promised to someone because of the deeds she’d done, the things she’d stolen and taken to try and get the Traixic in the first place.”

  Tyto knelt down before her. “Why? Would this have been more fun than staying with me, travelling the galaxy?”

  “You have no idea what’s been going on. You never saw Tolsa for what it was.”

  I put my hand on Tyto’s shoulder, giving him the support he needed to say the next few words.

  “I knew what you were Saskia, you stupid woman. I wanted you for what you were, and I wanted you to leave that life behind.” He then looked to Dylan. “There’s nothing you can do. The Traixic knows how bad she is, and she also knows that Saskia can’t be allowed to live.”

  Tyto’s eyes dimmed as he said the words.

  “End her.”

  Then he turned and walked away. Without looking back to me, he said, “We’re leaving in two minutes. You need to say your goodbyes and then get to the med bay.”

  I watched as Dylan gave me the worst look ever, but I nodded at Saskia. “End her.”

  She started to laugh. “I won’t ever die. You already know that. This program may not live on, but there’s my voice, my loyalty out there in others. They will hunt you down and make sure that you never get a life. That you’ll be dead before the end of the year.”

  Dylan shook his head. “No, you better be sure you pass it on to them before you die, bitch. I’m coming for them, I will find all of them, and I will make sure that no one who knew you will ever make anyone else suffer again. Understand?”

  When she carried on laughing, he didn’t even need to speak. The Traixic crunched down, separating her head from her body.

  Dylan was then at my side. “I need to get you to a med pod, or you’re not going to make the journey anywhere.”

  “I have less than a minute to get you off the ship. Go. I will get to the med bay. Don’t worry.”

  He looked to the door, where a red flashing light started to glow.

  Then he frowned. “I didn’t want it to end this way, but I’m glad I do have her. Kyle, you have no idea.”

  I grinned. “I do. Make sure you keep in touch. This is not the end, and we have a lot of work to do.”

  The outer doors started to close off. He and the Traixic had to make a run for it.

  I watched the door close behind them, wobbled on my feet. Hiro, I need the med bay. There’s no respawn vats, but there is a bed. Get me to it.

  I was almost out by the time I got into the med bay and to what I believed was my only hope. I lay back and pushed the buttons I could see while still conscious. Then I saw the lid come up over me and waited for it to do something.

  I started to feel better, and it was working. No more pain.

  Dreams flittered by while I was under. I dreamed of Saskia. Her soft skin on mine, the feel of her as she kissed my neck, my face, chest, running her hands down my chest.

  Then she turned into Lyndsey, and my heart sank. I really missed her, even if I’d never been with her.

  Frustration filled me. Anger. I wanted more from Saskia. Not this.

  Not my home.

  Then I realised it was my home. I was home.

  I stood in my kitchen with Paul and Craig.

  Craig was crying. My father was with them, his head on the kitchen table. There was a bottle of pills. My dad would never take his own life, but I walked over and saw that there was a letter from me. I didn’t get it.

  I read over his shoulder as he cried, and I heard Paul comforting Craig.

  The words were written from my heart. I didn’t need to read them; I’d written them even if I couldn’t remember them till now.

  “Dad. Arndale has full permission to take everything I am, for what you owed. You won’t need to struggle anymore. I signed their paperwork. I agreed to go. They have to wipe my memories, so I am writing this to let you know something else, even if I shouldn’t. I will be the only one to come back. I’m working with some underground people. Hiroto Toshiaki leads them. He’s explained all the risks. I trained with them in their labs for weeks, months even. I am the last hope for them. For us. You will find a file that details everything. It’s where I was spawned, where I defeated my first boss. You know the game. Don’t let this go. You can expose them. Wait for me for three years. I need that. But don’t give up. Don’t let them give up either. We’re going to nail these bastards to the wall.” I saw his face, and I knew it was true.

  I watched as Paul and Craig faded into nothing, the room around me with it.

  Then the side of the med pod started to come into view, and there was someone else there, eyes I recognised.

  Panic struck me. I sucked in a breath and noted the blade to the person’s throat. It was Tyto. Shit, shit.

  Fuck, how long had I been out? Where were we? Who? I tried to sit up. Couldn’t. More memories flooded through me, and I looked around the room. There was blood. A lot of it.

  One of the guys. Dylan? No, he’d got off the ship? There was so much blood. Someone had died? Arch, Slate?

  “Thought you could get away with it all, didn’t you?” A voice asked.

  I looked up into Nehi’s face. The coldness that was there. Next to her was the guy I’d seen her kissing in Hope City. He was dead too, yes.

  Tyto’s guys were dead as well, and I could see one had his throat cut out. The other was also in bits.

  “You thought you could get away with it and that we’d let you survive everything, that you could level up, do anything you wanted without us stepping in, without the system fighting back?”

  “No,” I said. “I knew that you were watching, I knew what you were trying to do, and I had to let you show your face properly.”

  I let calm thoughts fill me. I had nothing else to say to her. She was going to end Tyto’s life as well as kill me, and I didn’t want her to do either. I couldn’t let her.

  I had to let him live. I needed him. He had a job to do, and I needed him on my side and off Tolsa.

  “We can sort this out,” I said, pushing myself up. I didn’t know what I could do to help this. To make it better. “I can make sure the right things get back to Earth, that no one will suspect what’s really going on out here. Send in all the clips of the game from me. The good stuff.”

  “Really.” Nehi said.

  I managed to get up, get her to back up a little. I didn’t see a way out of this.

  I do, Xirob said. I see what we need to do.

  I looked around the room, and there was nothing, an empty chamber. No, it wasn’t. It was a vacuum room. It led to the outer shell of the ship where there was a safe place to decompress. Wait. No, it was like an airlock.

  No, I said to Xirob. I won’t do that.

  But he already had me locked out. He was doing the talking now.

  You’re clever enough, Kyle, but I’ve been here just as long, and I watched what you did with the code. I saw what you tried again and again to get into the ships and couldn’t. You gave me the tools to do this, and I choose to do what
I am doing.

  Even Hiroto was shouting at him now, but there was nothing else either of us could do. Step by step, I could see him getting Nehi over towards the side of the wall, to where I could also see the button that he would push.

  Tyto’s throat was sliced, bleeding, but he wasn’t out of it, he was much more alive, and he was staring at me.

  He knew what I was doing. Well, what part of me was doing. I couldn’t do anything. But when my arm and hand struck out to hit Tyto in the face, Nehi flinched. She let go of him, and as I wrangled control back from Xirob, I also knew I couldn’t hesitate. I slammed it, opening the doors. Grabbed her and hauled her inside.

  Then I saw Tyto do what he had to as well. He mouthed to me, I’m sorry!

  The door clicked locked, behind us. And I looked out at the side of the ship, the huge double doors ahead of us, leading out into space. It started to flash, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before we had nothing left.

  “You fool.” Nehi turned on me. “You have no clue to what you’re doing if you go out there. Your mission, this whole quest you’re on is done.”

  I saw the doors starting to move, and I felt less than great about what was going to go happen. I waited for things to turn worse. I expected her to want to try and hold on, find something so she wouldn’t be sucked out, but she didn’t. She crossed her arms and looked at me as I stood there waiting. It was the last moment I’d ever think of, see, dream of. I didn’t want to die, not to die at all.

  I wanted Hiroto to do something to save us, even Xirob, maybe Tyto would. But I could see Tyto’s face still on my side of the room. I smiled at him. The outer shield was still glowing. There was less oxygen in the bay, but we were also still standing. I saw Tyto mouth sorry once more, and he pushed the last button.

  The shielding changed, and I felt the pull. We were sucked out into space. Moments later and I watched as our ship drifted away. I didn’t know what to expect out in space. But I already knew I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t just human or denti; I was more than that. This was what I needed to get the upper hand on Nehi. Expecting that I would die like most other humans, she had actually given me the chance to slip under her, around her, take her weapon in an instant. Watching Tyto’s ship fire the engines once more and move out of the area around us, I knew he was going to leave us.

  I didn’t have anything inside me to give, and shouting in space probably wouldn’t work. But I plunged the dagger in and took her life, out here in the darkness, the twinkling of stars all around me. I watched as the shock registered on her face, that she wouldn’t have died, that this wouldn’t be the end.

  I laughed in her face. “I’ll wait for someone. Someone will find me. I won’t be dead, because it will take a long time to die out here with full health. I will tell you this, though. Arndale will fall. No matter how long it takes or how long I have to fight.”

  Then all that was around me was blackness. Blackness that engulfed me.

  Then comforted me. I waited, hoping.

  That hope started to die as I did.

  Xirob?

  Do not worry, Kyle. I will not die in vain. You will go on. We accomplished great things, and I am honoured to have served my people and my family with you at my side. Thank you.

  I felt tears, but I couldn’t cry. My skin started to burn.

  Everything hurt. Then it stopped. You have—

  Chapter Thirty

  So was this what it was like to be really dead?

  I mean, I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t see anything, and I wasn’t breathing.

  If this was all it was, why had I been worried? I just seemed to float around, and time wasn’t a thing I could determine either. Just that it was passing somewhere. Maybe slow, maybe quick. I worried for a brief time if I was missing all the things. Life. But then it passed too.

  What was I doing? Where was I?

  Then there was something else. Tingling, turned to burning.

  Pain hit me like I’d never felt before. I’d cut my own arm off, had my face removed.

  Fuck! I started to scream. This…was…fucking agony.

  I saw something then, a tiny white light, a pinprick before me.

  But I didn’t know anything about it, only that I started to move towards it.

  Whooshing and popping sounds, and then the pain eased off. White blinding light and voices.

  No, not just voices. Shouting. Screaming at me.

  “He’s coming around!”

  “Fuck, man, get back!”

  I felt hands grip tight hold of me, and then I saw everything. I was literally hanging off the side of a cliff and looking at the ground thousands of feet below me.

  “Holy fuck!” I screamed.

  There was no way I was going to die so soon, right? But looking over the edge of that cliff, I knew if I had fallen, there was no way of getting back up from there so quickly.

  I tried to move away, but I found myself looking at what was staring back up at me. Critters, thousands of them.

  “What. The. Fuck. Are. They?” I asked.

  As the people behind me scrambled with my sore, naked and aching body, I wanted to scream out and let everyone know the pain I was in.

  And this time I felt a hand over my mouth and a whisper in my ear. “Don’t.”

  Hiroto? I asked. Xirob?

  Nothing.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. There weren’t enough fucks in the world for this level of shit.

  Notifications at the side of my vision were going off like mad, and I was taking damage from something here. But why? The pings and red flashing lights were telling me whatever I was doing here, I was in danger, and I didn’t have long to survive.

  My health bar dropped steadily, everything swiftly declining.

  Shock started to set in then. I realised I was naked, and I wasn’t dead? Well, not dead yet.

  Red warnings. This one I couldn’t ignore.

  TEMPERATURE = Minus 18

  Shit. I tried to bring up my equipment list, anything to help.

  NIL – BOY, YOU’RE REALLY SCREWED HERE. YOU HAVE NOTHING. NADA. NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO NOW, RIGHT?

  BEST JUST LIE DOWN AND DIE AGAIN AND AGAIN, RIGHT? WANT TO JOIN THE MILLIONS OF LOST SOULS? CLICK RIGHT HERE! WE’LL TAKE ALL YOUR MEMORIES!

  Y/N

  The sharp sting of that bitter cold hit me, and I shivered. I did have something right, Rytin’s ring? I felt it around my neck. The chain, the coin, the ring. They were still there.

  I understood why I was dying. Too friggin cold!

  Again. Did everything in this place have to be so fucking hard?

  I glanced to my character sheet very quickly. I hadn’t lost any levels.

  I was still where I had been back on Tyto’s ship. I didn’t understand, though. I swiped all the other notifications away. I obviously didn’t have time to digest them now, while people were staring at me. I struggled to come around and understand what had happened so far.

  “He’s a fucking respawn! Out here! What the fuck is going on?”

  At least I was out of danger from falling off the cliff. I finally looked at all the people who had just saved my life. Four of them, pretty well built and covered in fur with really large hoods, goggles and backpacks. They were giving me the serious evils and arguing…over me?

  “Fresh meat, are they serious?”

  One of the guys threw his arms in the air. “We just lost the mission. I should just fucking kill him now!”

  Hiroto? I begged. Help me?

  There was nothing still. I knew if I’d respawned I would have lost Xirob, but why was Hiroto not responding? Had they figured out he was with me? If they had, I was more than screwed.

  “W-wh-what’s g-g-going on?” I stuttered through my chattering teeth.

  “Why the fuck are you out here?” The first man asked me.

  I looked into his eyes through stinging tears. He was the epitome of a soldier; I was sure. His clothes didn’t really tell me anything else, only that
it was freezing. I was freezing.

  “He doesn’t know,” a petite blonde said. I could just see her hair sticking out from under her hood. “Someone fucked up, that’s for sure. He shouldn’t be here.”

  “No kidding,” one of the other guys said. “He just put our whole mission in jeopardy.”

  I felt my whole body shudder, and the blonde reached over her shoulder and into a bag, pulling out some clothes, boots and a coat. The other woman in the party moved over to me with them, and then managed to help me get things on, whispering words of calm and it will be okay into my ear.

  CLOTHING STATS.

  SUBZERO HOODED SUIT = QUALITY – GOOD – DURABILITY 8/10

  BOOTS – QUALITY GOOD – DURABILITY 6/10

  YOU WILL SURVIVE IN THIS ICY HELL! SO LONG AS YOU’RE EATING AND DRINKING 3X THE CALORIFIC ALLOWANCE!

  DON’T BE FOOLED—THIS PLANET WILL KILL YOU IN MINUTES WITHOUT IT!

  “How can it be okay?” I said. “I’m screwed, and nothing’s the same. They’re all dead! I’m dead!”

  That’s when she slapped me.

  “No,” she said. “You’re far from dead. Dead you might wish you were going to be, but you won’t be. You’d better get your shit together and start to think like you need to. You’re a soldier. A soldier we need. Understand?”

  I swallowed and looked to each of them as they argued amongst themselves. “Where are we? What planet?”

  “We’re south of one of the Vrolsh’s abandoned bases. About six hours to be precise.”

  “You walked in this?”

  “No, we were dropped off.”

  I looked up and into the skies where I could actually make out the trails from ships.

  I didn’t know what had happened. I knew nothing about this world, and it didn’t look like… “Is this Gridon’s system?”

  “Oh, boy,” the blonde said, throwing her hands in the air. “You think you’ve been sent to Sakron, the home planet?”

  “This is KonoS. You’re light years from that shit hole.” The man with the brown eyes turned away. “We’re even more fucked than I thought.”