Decimation Island

by Damien Boyes

  After you fist-bumped yourselves into a squad, you pulled up your sleeve and watched the photoo on your inner wrist shimmer as your safe-time jumped up another ten minutes. Linker found a twenty-minute chit, and you got half. It’s not much, but you can work with it.

  “I’ve seen your feed,” Linker says as he brushes a large fan-shaped leaf aside. He’s wearing lucy’s helmet, scraped the pieces of her skull and Cortex out of it and strapped it on when you were divvying up her loot. “I’m glad you found me.”

  “You’re just lucky lucyFurr had the Trident,” you say. “Otherwise she’d be here instead of you.”

  She wouldn’t though, no way you would have teamed with lucy, but it sounds cool. The audience eats toxic shit like that up.

  You and Linker are creeping along a game path through the trees, stepping over vines and ducking around heavy green leaves. It’d be way easier to walk along the road, or better yet take one of the vehicles in the apartment garage—but players dropped all over. Someone could post up just out of sight off the road and wait until you drove into their crosshairs and that’d be game over right quick. So you’re in here with the birds and the bugs and the bots. And while the game could make your skyns chemically invisible to the mosquitos, that’d make hiding in the jungle just that much simpler, so of course the little buggers are biting like they haven’t eaten in weeks.

  At least the bots are docile. It’s still early and you’re in the green, so you don’t have to worry about them yet, but the zone’s always shrinking, and getting caught in the jungle when you’re out of time is also a good way to get killed. You can’t hide forever. You’ve got a partner, now you need a plan.

  “This is your first game, right?” he asks over his shoulder, then snaps still and swings his shotgun to the left, listening hard. You take a knee immediately. You’re wearing armor, but you’re not invincible. If someone starts shooting you want to make yourself as hard to hit as possible.

  After a few seconds of typical jungle soundtrack—birds squawking and insects trilling—Linker shakes his head and continues.

  “Yeah, you?”

  “Second.”

  “How far’d you get last time?”

  “Just under thirty,” he admits. Thirty hours out of a hundred. Not great.

  “Ambush?”

  He hesitates. “Got caught sleeping,” he finally says, and you can tell he’s still not over it. He nodded off and woke up dead, not the most glamorous way to go. Sleep is another thing the game forces on you—all players need to go into a rest cycle for an hour out of every ten, that’s ten whole hours a round spent helpless. Plenty of promising runs have been cut short because a player put off rest for too long and the game switched them off in the middle of a firefight. There’s no reason for it—these skyns could go a hundred hours easy without needing a break—but it keeps the game interesting, and more importantly it’s a great source of revenue. Millions of people are riding along in the heads of the Decimation Island players, and sponsors love a captive audience. Most players opt to rest a few minutes at a time, here and there. Long enough for the game to run an experiential ad, but not long enough for the audience to bother jumping heads.

  There are perqs to shorten or eliminate the need for sleep, and security bots that’ll stand guard and wake you up if enemies approach, but the best option to surviving a rest cycle is to have someone watch your skyn while you’re out. The game does everything it can to encourage teaming, right up until the end, when it forces you to fight each other to the death.

  But all that’s something you can deal with later. You need to get there first.

  “Let’s hug the zone edge for a while,” you suggest, but don’t expect Linker to object. It’s a standard, if conservative, play, especially for the early game. Keeping the bots at your back is solid insurance no one’s behind you. It’s also a good way to get pinched: someone holds you at bay while the zone washes over you and then you’re fighting the bots too, but you’ve got time before that becomes a problem.

  “Fine with me,” Linker says. “We need better loot though. We could take out some bots—”

  Sounds like a good way to get killed.

  “Not in here,” you say, keeping your snark to yourself. Don’t want to piss your partner off right away. “Prowlers are made for the jungle, we’re not. We shoot one and they’ll all come running.”

  “What then?”

  You’ve been thinking about this, got a plan in mind already. “Let’s loot up at Ranger Rick’s.”

  Linker stops and turns to face you. “You just said you wanted to play it safe and now you want to run Ranger Rick’s? That’s hardly keeping a low profile.”

  You know why he’s worried. Ranger Rick’s Last Stand would be a challenge for only two of you, and it’d take hours to complete, calling attention to yourselves the whole time as you shot your way through the storyline, but the loot at the end is well worth it. And you don’t need to run the entire story to get there.

  The hotspot contains a quest line featuring Space Ranger Rick, his plucky deputies, and their army of ragtag robot sidekicks trying to protect their jungle colony outpost against the waves of invading hostile bandits and their cybernetic wardogs. The Space Rangers and the bandits are all AI-controlled skyns, while the wardogs are roughed-up versions of the prowler bots that roam the red zone.

  Most of the hotspots are like that, AI controlled bioSkyn NPCs, or bullet-sponge bots. Gives the players something to shoot at other than each other. More action to keep the audience entertained.

  There are a bunch of different ways to play the Ranger Rick quest. If you go friendly, you’ll need to find a way through the line of bandits surrounding the outpost, earned the confidence of the deputies manning the walls, then go on a series of errands for Rick—clear out some bandit camps, grab supplies from a nearby crash site, stuff like that—then help defend the outpost as the bandits stage their final assault. It’s about a four-hour run, all in all, but not so hard a well-looted duo or even a competent solo couldn’t finish it. And after you’ve fought off the bandits, Ranger Rick will open his armory and let you pick something from inside. Usually a killer piece of loot—a personal defense bot or an advanced weapon or skyn upgrade.

  But there are other ways to get the loot, ones without all the busywork. Another popular tactic is to go in hot, shoot everything you see, bandits and deputies alike, until you get to the bunker, kill Ranger Rick, and loot his armory yourself. Fighting through the bandits then assaulting the outpost then beating Ranger Rick is no joke. The deputies are all skilled, and Rick’s super hard to kill. It’s usually a tactic for later in the game when teams are fully armored and carrying more powerful weapons. But unless you’re at least a trio of survivors from last round coming in already geared, trying that this early in the game is just dumb.

  Then there’s the third method.

  “Trust me,” you say as you resume walking. “We got this.”

  GAGE, FINSBURY

  22:59:32 // 3-JUL-2059

  Finally, nearly three hours after I met Connie at the telecafe, I get back to my room at In the Flesh. Shelt’s been letting me squat in his playground designed for virt-locked reszos, people who went digital and never came back. Here they can rent a body for a few hours and indulge in a dose of reality. Real skin and bone, real food, and real sex.

  Even the most dedicated virt-heads crave a bit of the physic now and then.

  Shelt’s got a bunch of themed rooms set up: an Old West brothel, a stateroom in a luxury space cruiser, a fantastical Middle Eastern sultan’s tent, a bunch more. He’s letting me stay in the Detective Room. It’s got a worn desk and a cracked leather sofa and a window overlooking a busy 1930’s L.A street scene, full of men in hats and bulbous vehicles. He thinks it’s a huge joke, slides into a clipped newsie accent whenever he walks through the door. I don’t mind though. Truth be told, I appreciate the irony of it.

  There’s a medpod hidden in the closet, but I just sink down
onto the creaky couch, zone into my head through my cuff, and cast back into in my headspace in the Arctic.

  I arrive on the stone pathway leading up to the log cabin. It’s night but the stars are blazing. The cabin windows glow an inviting yellow and smoke wisps out the chimney. Behind me a seal barks as waves crash into the shore.

  A tension I didn’t know I’d been carrying in my chest loosens. Finally, I can relax.

  This place is a lot different than the first house I had here. After my tangle with Winter I got rid of that Spartan concrete box and replaced it with this ramshackle two-room cabin. I built it myself: installed a crafting mod in my headspace, cranked up the speed of time, and went to work. The mod cheated a little and grew me a forest nearby—which, sure, isn’t exactly true to geography, but whatever. It’s my head, I can do what I want.

  I spent weeks living in a tent and cooking over a campfire while I worked from dawn till dusk. I felled trees with an axe, then hewed them into notched logs and used a pulley system to place them, one by one. I laid the roof with lumber I planed myself. Then I mortared it all and I put in windows and a rustic kitchen and a wood-burning oven. I even made the furniture. Connie picked out the drapes and bedding. It’s simple and rugged and smells like pine and smoke and dirt, and of all the places I’ve ever lived, this feels the most like home.

  Connie comes out of the bedroom as I close and latch the front door behind me. She’s only wearing a flannel shirt, with no makeup and her hair braided back in a ponytail, but she looks amazing. She pads over and gives me a hug, and I let myself sink into her arms.

  “Are you okay?” she asks a moment later, after she’s let me slip out of her grasp.

  I walk to the kitchen and draw an ice-cold glass of water from the pump. It stings all the way down my throat.

  “Better now,” I say.

  She just stands there, watching me, and without thinking I walk back over and kiss her. She melts into me, instantly responsive. Her arms wrap around my neck, and the feeling of her body against mine makes me dizzy. I know this isn’t real, that none of this is real, but it feels right and that’s all that matters.

  I only wish we weren’t stuck in here all the time. It would be so much easier transitioning into the world if only Connie was out there with me ...

  So, I guess I’ve made up my mind.

  I’ll get her a skyn. On a trial basis only. Maybe Shelt will lend me one from the club. It doesn’t have to look like Connie, I’m getting used to seeing past the surface to the person inside. Might even make it easier.

  I break off the kiss, pull my head away, and look her in the eyes, and she looks back at me with all the love and warmth I remember from our life together.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asks. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Only hours ago I was wrestling with the idea of taking her into the world, but it makes so much sense. I’ll ask Shelt about it tomorrow, after I get back from seeing Dub.

  “Maybe later,” I say, and she just nods. She’ll never press. One of the small differences between her and the real Connie.

  The side of her mouth curls up as she takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom. I know all this is unhealthy: our relationship, us having sex, all of it—especially bringing her out into the world—but I don’t care. If I’m wrong, then so be it.

  I want start rebuilding my life, but I can’t do it by myself.

  I need her with me.

  AniK@

  04:01:20 // 91 Players Remain

  PaulTheBaker defeats Ranger Rick.

  The kill feed dings with a good news/bad news situation. Ranger Rick just died, so you know you guessed right—someone’s already running the hotspot—but the person who killed him is PaulTheBaker. TheBaker’s a popular tuber with a big audience, and he’s always flirting with the top of the leaderboards.

  He’s good. This might be harder than you thought.

  Soon enough voices echo out from the open metal doors, sounds like three of them. They’re shushed, but still loud enough you can hear them all the way inside the bunker. They’ve beat Ranger Rick and now they’re jacked up on the kills and attention and flush with new loot. They’re trying to be quiet, but they’re excited, feeling invulnerable, and hopefully won’t expect anyone to be waiting for them.

  You’re tucked back inside the gloom of the General Store, the Trident steadied on the shop counter and pointed out over the public square to the bunker.

  You steady your grip on the weapon, double-check to be sure the safety’s off. Normally the area inside the outpost is a PVP-free zone where killing other players isn’t allowed, but now that the boss is dead all bets are off.

  “Get ready,” you tell your chat. “Game’s about to get spicy.”

  Steady aim and quick reflexes aren’t enough to win Decimation Island. You need every edge you can find to last a full ten rounds, and getting off to a strong start with good gear is one of the surest ways to set yourself up for the long game. Before you joined the lobby, you studied the leaderboards, learned as much as you could about the players you’d be facing in your first game—where they liked to drop and the weapons they preferred. It’s the one advantage you get to bring with you into a new game: you know who your competition will be. After that your contact with the outside world shuts down and every round is a surprise until you die or you survive game ten.

  There are plenty of familiar survivors in this round—OVRshAdo, Sp!ceWrack, GRadeeM, PaulTheBaker, Nitro-nguyen, KitKatMoxie—and all of them into multi-game runs. You know PaulTheBaker is currently on a two-game streak and carried over an upgraded Cortex and a beefy DR-17 battlerifle from his past games—plus whatever he just looted from Rick’s safe.

  Your hands are sweating, and there’s a fly buzzing around your head, but you can’t let your concentration slip. You only get one shot at this.

  You followed the trail of NPC corpses on the way into the outpost, and while you didn’t find anything better than the Trident, you gathered up a whole bunch of ammo for it. Linker picked up level-one body armor and a light SMG to supplement his shotgun. In a fair fight, you’d be easily outmatched, but you don’t plan on having a fair fight.

  Linker’s posted up close to the bunker entrance, hunkered down beside a stack of crates just outside the door, ready to rock. When PaulTheBaker and his squaddies emerge, you’ll grab their attention with a burst from the Trident, hopefully deleting one of them instantly, then open fire as Linker shoots them in the back.

  That’s the plan, anyway.

  “Wait for my shot,” you silently say to Linker though teamspeak, and he nods in return. You’re outnumbered three to two. The only way this works is if you catch them by surprise. Backup plan is you run, out the back door of the General Store and over the outpost wall into the jungle, hope Linker loses the coin flip and they chase him instead of you.

  PaulTheBaker emerges first. You recognize his pale skin and white-blond hair even under the level-three helmet and armor. The long barrel of a sniper rifle is poking up from behind him—that’ll be the Redeemer, Ranger Rick’s personal weapon, and one of the best sniper rifles on the island. It’s deadly, a mag rifle with massive range, a 16x zoom and aim-assist. It can pick off targets a mile away, but it’s useless up close. That’s why he’s got it on his back and a bullpup carbine—an LX-7 with variable sights—in his hand. Too bad for him he’s got it down at his side, not expecting he’s about to need it.

  He steps out of the bunker entrance into the bright early afternoon sun and raises his hand to shield his eyes. You’re well hidden. He won’t see you until it’s too late.

  A male and female you don’t know follow him out. They look like they’re having fun, joking around. They’re well-geared too, both armored up. The female is dark-skinned, with a decent assault rifle, and she looted herself a level-three vest and helm, while the male is Asian, has the DR-17 Paul dropped with, and is wearing a tactical combat helmet—level-four protection with a full-face visor,
a heads-up display, and sensors that’ll instantly ping an enemy’s position the second they start shooting.

  He’ll need to go first, that helmet will spot your position the second you start firing. You’re playing guerrilla—if they immediately know where you are, you’re done.

  You raise the Trident and take a breath, aim down the sights at the Asian’s unprotected neck. Usually a headshot is the way to go, but even with the Trident set to burst fire, his helmet would deflect too much damage, so you need to thread the needle between his chest plate and his helmet. You have one shot to take him out. Miss and this goes south real quick.

  Before you can fire PaulTheBaker stops short, holding up his hand for silence, and they all freeze and immediately scan around them, searching for threats. Something’s spooked him, maybe his audience reacting to your pending ambush, or just a game sense that something isn’t right, but whatever it is only serves to do you a favor.

  The worst thing you can do in this game is stand still long enough for someone to get a bead on you, and the Asian does just that. The Trident barks and the Asian goes down, clutching his throat as blood sprays through his fingers. If his friends survive they might be able to patch him up, but he won’t last long.

  The other two instantly whirl in your direction and open fire, their faces pulled to grimaces, but they don’t know exactly where the shot came from and you’re already out of sight, moving through the gloom of the General Store toward the back door. Their bullets smack into the wooden boards and shatter the front windows, but don’t come close to finding you.

  You’re already clear of the building when Linker opens up with the shotgun, six rapid-fire blasts, and by the time you’ve sprinted around the side of the building and have a sight line on the clearing, you see the female is hobbled, her legs useless and staining the dirt with black blood as she tries to pull herself into cover. Paul’s all by himself now, but Linker has exposed himself.