by Jack Crosby
There wasn’t really a lot known about the Tanaka Corp CEO. After her husband died a few years earlier, she buried herself into the company that they lifted off the ground. At least that was the public story. I slid out from under the table and saw that the angelic final boss was floating around the room, waiting for me. “Defeat is inevitable, as I said before.”
On top of being bitchy, she was supremely confident in her own skills. That was probably a trait that was passed down from creator to program. “Maybe I’m just too damn stupid to give up. Guts will prevail the day.”
She gave me a snide grin and went on the attack once more. It wasn’t part of my plan, not that I had one, but I shot out the glass window behind me. A gust of wind whooshed through the office and blew her off course, keeping me alive and giving us some separation. “Oracle’s Outlaw!”
With all my target based equipment and now my best offensive boost applied, following her movements wasn’t an issue. I fired off some more shots, barely making a dent in her abnormally large health bar. Sweet fuck sticks, what would it take to do some real damage?
I had to break off from my attack and retreat as she aggressively came forward, jabbing that damn sword of hers forward. The only advantage I seemed to have being her wings made it cumbersome for her to change directions quickly. Still, the place wasn’t all that large and the chances of getting trapped in a corner were decently high. I had to keep moving, never staying in one place too long. A few more shots were fired.
This was going to be an endurance fight, I just knew it. Draxler’s race tested my patience and reactionary reasoning skills to navigate the maze that was the Electric Mile. This was just a brute force monster; this fight was all about how hard and long you could go (and not in the good way, am I right?!). After a few more rounds of sticking and moving, her health bar was maybe down to ninety percent. And I was spent.
She landed on the part of the table that hadn’t been broken. “How long do you think you can keep this up?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Be reasonable; you are almost to your breaking point and you haven’t even done enough damage to constitute me being concerned. I’m giving you one last chance to reconsider our deal.”
There was nothing to consider. She wanted to use me as a puppet and thought by dropping my dad’s name, I’d cave. My dad, that no good, two timing crook! When I got out of this mess, I was going to find out just what he had to do with the original Neon Death Race. But one problem at a time, Vector.
There’d be no deal. Call me a jackass or a moron, but I wasn’t going to sellout to this thing. “Piss off, bitch. My answer’s still the same.”
She shook her head in disappointment. “You were warned.” A red glow came over her body and the angelic appearance faded, turning a bit more demonic. Even her voice changed, getting very husky. “The fun can really start now.”
Oh fuck me.
Chapter 33 – Vector’s Last Stand
Demon Yazmin Flockhart was even worse than angel Yazmin Flockhart. On top of the flaming sword of doom, she now was able to breathe hell-fire at me. What next? On second thought, no one answer that. I needed a solution to this problem and fast!
She tried once again to roast me like a stuffed gamer on a spit. The biggest problem was the flames didn’t die down once they were on something. Soon half the room was inaccessible to me. I was running out of hiding spots. Even with Heart of the Oracle activated, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to protect myself.
Wait a minute; wouldn’t a building like this have some sort of fire prevention system in place? Taking a quick look up, I did see sprinkler heads on the ceiling. I wondered why her fire wasn’t making them go off. As I fled to save my bacon again, I needed to figure out this puzzle.
And the answer was right in front of me. Her hell-fire wasn’t producing any smoke. I didn’t understand the video game physics behind that, but with no smoke hitting the ceiling to let the fire system know something bad was happening, there would be no water to quell the flames. That is, unless I got her to aim higher.
There was a spot on the table that was still intact. This was going to be a bit of a risk, but I didn’t have much choice. I jumped over to it and she followed me, still in the air. Here was the risk. I proceeded to jump over her and she rotated her head, ready to spew fire. A jet of fire rushed from her mouth, straight up towards the ceiling and the sprinklers. My plan was almost a complete success.
I fell to the ground in so much pain. Some of the fire hit my leg, burning it pretty fucking bad. It burned away my jeans and I could see the red, blistering skin exposed. The pain was so bad that it nearly sent me into shock. Then water, cool wonderful water fell from the sky. It did nothing for my pain though, but it was doing a number on all the fires in the room and Yazmin.
She too was on the ground, the water having the same effect on her that her flames had on me. I couldn’t help but smile as I saw her health bar rapidly draining. Just when I though all was lost, I was (semi) back in the game. I just needed to do something about this leg.
Then the water kicked off, with probably fifteen to twenty perfect of Yazmin’s health bar still intact. Shit. But she was back in her normal form, no wings or flaming swords. Looking over at me with hatred, “You’re worse off than I am.”
Ain’t that the God’s honest truth. Still, I was laughing about it. “How does it feel knowing you’re not as invincible as you thought you were?”
“How does it feel knowing I am going to kill you?” She pulled out a gun from a concealed holster on her back. “You can’t even defend yourself.”
“Can’t I?” I still had my gun in my hand. “Bullet Burst, Mass Explosion!” And for good measure, “Bullet Burst, Mass Explosion!” A double dose of my hardest hitting skills as I gritted my teeth, trying not to vomit from the pain.
Above the cluster fuck going off all around her, I watched with eagerness as her health bar was draining away. Each detonation took off more and more. After the sixth one, I was almost on baited breath waiting to see it drop to zero. And then it didn’t.
There was five fucking percent left. What in the world was left to do?
As the smoke cleared, Yazmin looked like hell. Her clothes were torn and blood was flowing from cuts just about everywhere. But she was still laughing. “It seems your best shot came up that much short.”
I tried to fire off another shot, but she was faster than me and shot my gun from my hand. It flew back and way out of reach. I was dead to rights as I laid there on the ground. She slowly took her time, her gun focused on me, as she sauntered over to my prone position. “Any last words?”
“Piss off.”
What she didn’t see was that my left hand was holding the dagger the Oracle gave me. Thinking that I was just a sniper, she never saw or expected the knife to fly out of my hand and bury itself in her chest. With that quick movement, her health bar dropped to zero and Yazmin Flockhart fell over, dead.
As her body hit the ground, a blue stone fell from her jacket and rolled to me. It was a deep, midnight blue with silver specks that looked like stars against the night’s sky. As the level up noise was ringing from my oculus, it paused and another, deep hum came from it. When I slid it open, I had a message:
‘The five Easter Eggs have been collected. The Mark of Zeus will grant you access.’
Oh my God, I’d completed the game and unlocked the Lost Level!
****
I came to, unsure of what happened. I remembered holding the Mark of Zeus and getting the message that I unlocked the Lost Level. As I went down to look at my leg and see if I could walk, my leg was fine. In fact, I was sitting in my recliner at my dad’s old garage. How the hell did I get here?
In my hand was my game controller and on the television was the starting screen for The Electric Mile. The first rays of sunshine were coming through the grimy window above me. Wait a minute, had it all been a dream? It couldn’t have been, I’d been struck by lightning for
fuck’s sake!
Getting up, I saw the wrappers from the burritos I’d gotten the night before at my feet. I walked over them and out of the garage, just in time to see the sunrise. I was so confused by everything.
I did nothing the entire day except look at the television, hoping something would make sense. I was tempted to hit the start button and continue my campaign mode, just to see what would happen. Every time I went to, something held me back. I didn’t know what, or why really. I knew I just couldn’t. I ended up falling asleep in my chair again, but there was no awesome dream this time. I woke up the following morning and nothing had changed.
Eventually I chalked it all up to a bad burrito and unresolved issues with my dad. Two weeks later, I went out to the state penitentiary where the old man was being held. It had been almost two years since I last saw him, so his face was a bit shocked seeing me behind the glass holding the phone.
He carefully picked it up, looking more thin and frail than I remembered. “Ash, what’re you doing here?”
I didn’t have much to say, so I cut straight to it. “This is going to be a very weird question, but do you know Yazmin Flockhart with Tanaka Corp.?”
“No.” He said it way too quick and hastened for that to be the truth.
I wasn’t about to give up. “I know you gave me the nickname Vector. Does it have anything to do with the original game they made, Neon Death Race? I know the main character’s name is Vector, too.”
His normally tan skin was turning a whitish, grey color. He moved closer to the glass, really looking at me for the first time since sitting down. “The only way you’d know that is if you found the backdoor in.”
“Dad, what’re you talking about?”
The guard yelled out one more minute. “I don’t have time to explain. Just nod, did you beat the Electric Mile and gain all five Easter Eggs?” I gave a quick tilt of my head. “The Lost Level will answer everything. That’s all I can give you. They’ll know I told you and I’m dead for it.”
The guard cut off our conversation and pulled him back into the prison. As his face disappeared from view, he gave me a smile and mouthed the words ‘I love you.’
Later that night, as I was watching the local news, the anchors reported that there was a fire at the prison killing four inmates, including my dad. I only remember dropping the slice of pizza I swiped from the Italian joint down the street. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Way too many things weren’t adding up. I needed to get back into the game.
Grief finally took over as I was pacing around the garage trying to figure out how to reenter the digital world I knew I had been in. I fell to my knees, crying. I really hadn’t thought about my dad in years, but someone took him away from me for just trying to help. I was going to find out who and kill them.
The power flickered in the garage casting me into darkness. Great, on top of everything else, the city finally cut the power here. Or did it? There was a ghostly glow coming from the television. It was the game, on my screen. My GameStation X was off, so how was this possible.
I picked up the controller. This wasn’t the normal game screen. Instead:
Vector: B.O.R. Unlocked
Press Start to Enter – Lost Level
To be continued…
Credits
Story by Jack Crosby
Cover art by Bolt Studios
Production by Pseudosynth Press
Support from Readers
Jack Crosby’s Twisted Webpage
Preview
It is with a lot of pleasure that I am able to include the first three chapters from the book, “The Negative Man: City of Chaos” by Jeremy Croston. If you haven’t read it yet, please take a few minutes and try it. I very much enjoy his stylings and think you will too.
-Jack
Chapter 1 –
Wednesday Night; Computer Lab
My name’s Jericho Staley. I moved to Pacific Station a few years back to get my Master’s degree. It was culture shock to me, because back east, we didn’t have many super powered people. Those that were out and about weren’t tolerated. Not like out here.
Two weeks after my arrival, a nasty piece of work the press called The Negative Man showed up and wreaked havoc. The PSPD were helpless to do anything. He blew up sensitive targets at will, destabilizing the city and the infrastructure. The city’s leadership was reduced to making public statements that inspired no hope in the people. Go figure, politicians making things worse.
Our villain got his name from a very odd situation; every time someone took a picture of “The Negative Man” to identify him, the photo showed up as a negative. Scientists from all over studied the effects of his attacks and came to the conclusion he could manipulate polarity. In layman’s terms, this bad, bad man could charge or discharge the electricity in the air through atoms. I’m a computer nerd and the explanation still baffles me. Just trust me that when he attacked something, it wasn’t good.
The original protectors of Pacific Station, five supers who kept the streets clean and for the most part safe, were wiped out immediately. Without hesitation, The Negative Man killed them all. Sometimes he did it very publicly and sometimes with no fanfare. It took him less than a week to rid the city of his biggest obstacles.
Legions of other heroes came to Pacific Station and tried to stop him; each one ending up dead, insane, or broken beyond repair. In little less than a month, most of the super population of the west coast was decimated. Along with their failures, the overall feel of Pacific Station tanked. We’d reached the critical point.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your view of vigilantes, someone showed up to take him on. “The Dark Lion,” another nickname the press forced down our throats, came to the defense of the city. Behind the hooded cowl he wore was a pair of yellow eyes that would make a grown man wet themselves. With agility, speed, and power like no mere mortal should possess, he battled The Negative Man for the fate of the city. Unlike previous heroes, The Dark Lion fought just as angry and dirty as The Negative Man.
The two’s final clash happened at Waves Park, in the heart of downtown. At the end of the twelve round slugfest, neither had the upper hand, but The Negative Man fled for unknown reasons. The Dark Lion went to chase him down, but his injuries kept him from getting very far. Two years later and no one has heard or seen The Negative Man. It’s like he was never here.
Without the threat of a villain, you’d think things would go back to normal. They didn’t. Others took up The Negative Man’s absence. The worst was a group recently formed; four villains to be exact. Naming themselves “The Aces” (each one has a call sign, Spades, Clubs, Hearts, and Diamonds); they formed a gang and went to work. Murder, kidnapping, drugs – you name it, they do it.
None of this should even concern me, but I had the bad luck of discovering my boss was The Dark Lion. Suffice to say when I found this out, I was sucked into this world whether I liked it or not. John Wonderton, CEO at Wonder-Tech, gave me two choices - join his crusade as his behind the scenes eyes or lose my job and disappear from the world. I chose the former.
Currently, we were in pursuit of two vans containing gang members who stole servers from Wonder-Tech. Diamonds, one of The Aces was running the job. Those servers were the heartbeat of our R&D Division and contained information of different weapons we were developing for the government. If The Aces got their hands on the specs, we’d be in trouble.
“DL, the two vans are stopped at the light at Eighty-Six and MLK. According to the x-ray scans, the one on the right has the stolen servers. The one on the left I guess is being driven by Diamonds.”
Static hit my ear. When would he figure out how to use the new earpiece? “Got it Jericho. Is Massacre en route?”
Massacre was another super vigilante, who in my opinion was useless. His head was bulletproof, and along with super strength, you might as well have called him The Torpedo. “Yeah, he checked in two minutes ago. He’s headed north on MLK. He’ll be ther
e a few minutes after you.”
I turned away from the computer and looked towards the big screen television. From the comfort of my hidden lab and on a seventy-two inch LED TV, I’d be able to see everything. DL was hopping rooftops to get to the two vans and the traffic below was none the wiser to his location. Two more jumps and the vans came into view.
I’d hacked into the city traffic control and the lights wouldn’t be turning green anytime soon. “You got all the time in the world DL. Those guys are stuck.”
“Good to hear Jericho. I’m going in.”
His comm cut off and from the video feed, I could see him jump off the roof and land hard on the left hand van. DL had no interest in recovering the lost servers. He was after Diamonds.
Punching the roof until a hole formed, he reached down and pulled out two different thugs, tossing them away like yesterday’s trash. Bullets were flying from inside the van, going through the roof, but DL’s agility was unparalleled. On his third attempt, he pulled out his target and leapt from the roof on to the street.
Wearing a red diamond mask, the villain was pushed hard into the street. I thought I heard something shatter, but I might’ve been wrong. DL ripped off the mask, revealing a young man with dirty blonde hair. Diamonds showed no respect and hocked a big old, disgusting loogie into DL’s face.
Wiping the spit away, “You’ve lost scum bag. After I put you in the ground, the rest of your little frat party will be joining you.”
Diamonds surprised DL with a kick to the gut. The force was pretty great too. Rolling to his feet, “The Dark Lion, as dumb as advertised.”
DL wasn’t in the mood to banter. He leapt at Diamonds and unleashed his patented spin kick, right to the jaw. The young blonde gangster twisted awkwardly before dropping to a knee. Color me surprised that the kick didn’t knock him unconscious. He pulled himself back into a standing position and just smiled. “Hmm, I thought that would’ve hurt more.”
