Decimation Island

by Damien Boyes

You’re about to return to a world where you’ve just accomplished the impossible, where you’re famous and rich beyond anything you ever could have imagined. You’ll have everything you ever wanted—except the one thing you can never get back.

  Even after everything you’ve fought for, Rael will still be dead, and you’ll have to live with knowing you abandoned him when he needed you the most, when he was terrified and desperate for his mama and you left him with nothing to comfort him but the medbots’ prodding plastic fingers and the whirring of the machines keeping him alive.

  And even worse than that, once you pull the trigger, every day for the rest of your endless life, you’ll know the truth about why you left him to die alone. All along you’ve been telling yourself you came out here for him, that you were playing this game for him, but you were lying to yourself. You didn’t come out here to win, you never expected that. You came here to hide. Because you were selfish and weak and you couldn’t bear to watch your son die.

  You knew when you signed up for this he didn’t have long, the doctors told you a few weeks at most, and instead of staying with him and loving him with the time left, you abandoned him and sought refuge in a place where, even though everyone was trying to kill you, no one could hurt you.

  All this time you’ve been expecting Rael would die before you did, but that you would die, eventually, and when your game ended you’d wake up back in your body and you’d have skipped forward in time and the hard part would already be over. Rael would be gone, and you wouldn’t remember how you hid in a game to spare yourself from watching him die. It’d all be over in an instant. You could mourn him without suffering through his death, and still pretend like you were a good person.

  Except you didn’t die. You did the impossible and you’re about to win, and now you’ll have to live with yourself. Live with everything you did, with knowing you ran away while your boy passed. Live with the guilt and the shame and the remorse of what a weak, selfish mother you were.

  How are you supposed to do that?

  So now here you are. Only one kill left between you and victory. One kill left before you survive your tenth game and walk away with a whole lot of money and the bright and shiny memories of exactly how terrible of a person you are.

  He’s standing right in front of you.

  All you have to do is pull the trigger.

  GAGE, FINSBURY

  18:04:27 UTC+11 // 13-JUL-2059

  Shad laughs, but the off-kilter tone clenches my stomach.

  “You want me to kill these two?” he asks. “And then you’ll level me up?” I’m not sure if he’s incredulous or clarifying the terms on selling his soul.

  “Correct,” Wood answers.

  “You’re not seriously listening to this—” I ask, but Shad keeps right on talking.

  “And what does ‘level up’ mean, exactly?”

  Wood cocks an eyebrow. “Next gen, forever more. A complete cognitive upgrade. Combat enhancements, of course, but also on-demand emotional regulation, psychological conditioning to aid in interpersonal exchanges—analyzing microexpressions and assessing intention—increased working memory, thought processing, and decision-making. I can share the complete list, if you’re interested.”

  “And all I have to do is betray my team?”

  “Surely a trivial request,” Wood suggests, “to claim your place as first on the next rung in the ladder of human existence.”

  Anika groans from the floor, reliving something stressful, and by the time I glance from her and back to Shad, he’s got his weapon up and pointed at me.

  Son of a—

  “The fuck are you doing?” I say, holding as still as I can. I’m furious but I don’t want to give him an excuse. “You’re not seriously gonna trust this thing?”

  He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, but, I kinda am. It’s messed up, for sure, and I know killing you makes me a bad person and everything, but shit, when someone asks if you want to become a god, you say, ‘yes.’”

  His finger twitches on the trigger. I’m still wearing the helmet and armor, so it’ll take more than a few shots to put me down, but I’d rather not find out how many.

  “Shad—” I start, but before I can make the move to lunge for his weapon he’s squeezed the trigger.

  I flinch to the left, hoping to avoid at least some of the oncoming bullet storm, but the weapon only clicks, metal on metal, and nothing happens. We look at each other and he pulls the trigger again. Still nothing.

  He braces himself as I grit my teeth and swing the battle rifle around but it doesn’t shoot either.

  “No guns,” Wood says from above us, and glances up at the hanging AI core. “We’d prefer to limit the discharge of weapons in this room. No, Wallace, you must earn your prize.”

  Shad drops his weapon and looks up at Wood. “You want me to kill him with my bare hands?”

  “If you’d please,” Wood answers.

  “Okay then,” Shad says with a shrug. “I can do that.”

  He doesn’t hesitate, and his faceplate goes black as he takes two steps and leaps at me, fist raised. He’s a wall of armored muscle moving fast, but I’m fast too.

  I duck aside and he flies by, lands, pivots on his left foot, and throws his right around, boot heel driving at my head. It catches me in the helmet and rings my bell but I spin away, dodging the follow-up kick.

  “Think about this, Shad,” I huff as I dance around the circular room, trying to put the motionless combots between us. “You do not want to let this thing into your head.”

  He rushes toward me and the combots deftly part to let him through. I spin to the side out of reach and keep circling.

  “Give it up, mate,” Shad says. He’s stalking me, searching for an opening. “Get over here and let me kill you.”

  Anika shifts on the floor, convulses once, and lets out an eerie moan, like she’s having a nightmare. Shad’s between us and he glances over his shoulder at her. “Tell you what,” he says, backing up. “You don’t want to fight, I’ll do her first.”

  A roar of anger flares and finally the governor kicks in. I’ve been fighting for my life for hours but it takes threatening Anika to get me fully fired up. With the added power in this Cortex I must have had aggression to spare, but I’m up against it now. My thoughts go fuzzy as the governor tamps them down, keeping Deacon from waking. I don’t know if I can beat Shad like this.

  “Stay away from her,” I say, teeth clenched, but don’t move as I struggle to rein in my galloping heart.

  “There’s what we’re looking for,” he taunts back. “Come make me.”

  He’s standing over Anika now, and she’s helpless at his feet, and when I don’t immediately move he turns, rears back, and kicks her in the side, hard enough to throw her halfway across the room before she crashes back to the ground. Her armor would have protected her from some of that, but not enough.

  I lower my head, ball my fists, and charge.

  He gets his hands up, ready for me to hit him, but at the last second I drop and yank his legs out from under him as I slide past. He slams to the floor but catches himself before his face hits the ground. I leap to my feet and throw a running shoulder into one of the combots. It tries to step aside but I wrap my meaty hand around its head, twist, and pull it off its neck. Then I plant myself, spin, and hurl it like a fastball.

  Shad is back upright but doesn’t see the bot’s head until it’s too late. It hits him square in the faceplate, shattering it into spiderweb cracks, but I’m not done yet. The headless bot still hasn’t hit the ground and I launch into a sprint, grab the tumbling robot by the torso and toss it in the air like it’s nothing, then catch it by the legs and swing it like a club. It hits Shad in the chest and knocks him into the wall on the other side of the room.

  He had to have felt that.

  I rush back and get down beside Anika. She’s up on one elbow, holding her side with her other hand. Whatever was in that shyft must have worn off.

  “Fin?” sh
e whispers. “What happened?”

  “Shad’s trying to kill us.”

  She accepts this without question, looking past me, and when her eyes get wide I jump up and spin around. Shad is back on his feet but he’s discarded his helmet and his dark bearded face is tight with rage.

  “Nice move,” Shad says. “But now you’re fucked.”

  “Shad, stop it!” Anika yells, but he’s already on me.

  He strides in, jukes one way then the other, and cocks his right hand, and when I move to block it he jumps, knee raised, and catches me under the chin. My head snaps back and my vision goes white and I stumble back, swinging wildly, and Shad hits me twice more before I can skitter away. My thoughts are all cluttered and I shake my head, trying to clear them.

  “I’m loving this, you know?” Shad calls at me. “I was fucking made for this.”

  We could trade back and forth like this for hours, whittling each other down, and between Anika and I we’ll probably still be standing when it’s all one, but there won’t be much left. Even if we win it’ll be an easy job for the combots to mop up what’s left. This needs to end before we kill each other.

  “Why don’t you shoot him?” Anika shouts. She’s back on her feet, but unsteady, keeping her distance from Shad while favoring her left side. Probably cracked ribs. I glance down at the weapons we collected at the hotspot. She doesn’t know Wood deactivated them.

  “They don’t work,” I say. “Wood shut down everything we looted.”

  “You brought your pistol with you.”

  “My…” I start, but then I slap my hip and feel the weapon. I completely forgot—

  “Hey,” Shad whines when he sees me pull the gun, “no fair.”

  I unload it into him. He spins, covering his unprotected face, and the bullets slap into his armored back. They’re small caliber and the armor stands up to the first half dozen shots, but it can’t reform fast enough to stop them all. Bloody meat explodes from his back and he lurches forward, but doesn’t fall, and then I’m out of ammo.

  Shouldn’t matter now though. He’s hurt and it’s two vs. one, we’ll have him down soon enough. I’ve dodged the first blow, now I need to anticipate the second.

  Problem is, I have no idea what that might be.

  Anika gets to Shad first, before he’s even turned around, and she snaps a kick to the back of the head that lifts him off his feet and thrusts him headfirst into the curved wall. He crashes into it and falls to his knees, immediately tries to get himself up, and braces himself against the wall as he shuffles away.

  “Shit,” he says, blood dripping from his mouth, “that fuckin’ hurt.”

  “Good,” Anika says. “You fuckin’ deserve it.” She’s chasing him, looks like she wants to end him herself. She races ahead of him, cuts him off, and moves in with her fist up, ready to go to work on him, but he’s not as hurt as he let on.

  He moves like a thought, strides out and slams Anika with an elbow to the face that shatters her helmet, then another, and a follow-up knee to her injured side. She staggers and he spins away to the center of the room. My turn.

  I lunge at him and he darts away. Now he’s on the defensive. I snake out to catch him again and he angles just out of my reach, but he can’t keep this up long. Anika’s already recovered and she’s up beside me. He can’t dodge the both of us.

  Shad’s about to lose and he knows it.

  But he’s not about to give up. He looks at Wood, his long black hair matted down over his face. “You want to even these odds a bit—”

  Wood considers this for a moment, and for the briefest second I wonder if he’ll refuse, but then his eyes land on the assault rifle at Shad’s feet.

  “Promise you won’t miss,” Wood says.

  Shad’s eyes go massive. “Fuckin’-A,” he says, then immediately drops and scoops the weapon up, and this time when he pulls the trigger, it answers.

  There’s nowhere to hide. The only option is to get inside his range of fire, and I kick off toward him, but Anika has the same idea and gets ahead of me.

  She takes the brunt of the blast, and her body shields me enough so that as she’s falling, chest riddled with bullets, I get close enough to grab Shad’s gun and heave it up and away from us. Shad keeps shooting even as we fight over it, the muzzle erupting fire between us. Bullets carve chunks up the concrete wall, clang across the metal, and rake over Wood.

  Shad finally releases the trigger and flexes to wrench the gun away while at the same time bringing his knee up to groin me. I feel it coming and twist aside and he sneers at me, tries again, and swears when he misses once more. Not once does the self-important look leave his eyes.

  I’ve had enough of him. No more fucking around.

  I pull my head back and slam my helmeted forehead into his broad nose. It compresses into his face and his hand goes slack on the gun. I could take it from him now but I hit him again, harder, and I don’t know if it’s my helmet or his skull or both, but something cracks.

  That changes his expression. His eyes go unfocused and he reels backwards, but I’m not done yet. I grab the gun and yank it toward me and it pulls Shad with it, and as he falls forward I step in and headbutt him once more. This one caves in his face. I keep the gun as he drops, and he doesn’t get back up.

  I’m breathing heavy and my head is raging with fuzz, but it’s not over yet.

  “Ultimately a disappointment,” Wood says, looking down on us, his face completely expressionless. His legs are soaked with blood, and he’s draped himself over the railing to stay upright, but it doesn’t look like he’s in any pain. “But perhaps not a complete loss. Your flesh will provide multiple avenues of study, and your minds, when extracted and catalogued, will I’m sure prove of some marginal value.”

  For the second time since we showed up the combots snap their weapons up, but this time they open fire.

  AniK@

  999:55:43 // 11 Players Remain

  “What are you waiting for?” Shad calls from behind you, but you don’t answer. Your weapon’s raised, and you’ve got the guy in front of you—the last player between you and the win—fixed in your sights, but all you can see is the endless torment set to begin the second you pull the trigger.

  The guy’s on the ground, breathing hard, hand pressed into the shiny black fabric of his blood-soaked drop-suit, but he’s stopped resisting. He’s about to die and he knows it, doesn’t even seem all that upset about it. Maybe that’s because he knows what’s about to happen next. He’s seconds away from becoming the answer to a trivia question—the last player AniK@ defeated to win Decimation Island.

  You check the time on your wrist. Only minutes left. The bots are circling, waiting for their chance to pounce, but the game will be over long before then. All you need to do is shoot and it’s all over.

  So, why don’t you?

  “You want me to finish him?” Shad asks. You’re all torn up inside and he’s loving the shit out of this. Just to be an ass he racks the slide on his already loaded pistol and a shell lands at your feet.

  “No,” you say, shaking your head. None of this feels real. It’s like you’re moving in slow motion, like the air is too thick to breathe.

  Time’s up. Kill this guy and you go back to your life knowing exactly who you are. The second the game ends, no matter what else you do with your life, you’ll always be the girl who ran away, the coward who deserted the one person in the world who needed her the most.

  You can’t live like that. You should have stayed with him. Should have sucked it up and taken the pain and been there for your boy, but that’s a decision you can never, ever, have back.

  Unless—

  The gun trembles in your hand.

  Fuck the money. Fuck the win. None of it is worth it. End this now and when you wake up you won’t remember anything. You’ll be the person you were the second before you joined the game, with all memory of this place gone forever, like you never existed. And you’ll never have to know exact
ly what a monster you are.

  Maybe she’ll be able to live with herself, maybe she won’t, but you know you can’t.

  This is the only way.

  You raise the gun, press it under your chin, feel the cool metal circle press into your skin. There’s a last moment of hesitation, a spear of doubt that almost makes you reconsider, but before it has a chance to take hold you squeeze the trigger and everything goes black.

  GAGE, FINSBURY

  18:11:53 UTC+11 // 13-JUL-2059

  I don’t hesitate. There are five combots still standing and I drop three of them with headshots before Wood shuts the gun down. I hurl the useless weapon at the fourth while I engage the fifth hand-to-hand. My armor takes a beating from the bot’s weapons while I cross the room but my helmet stays in one piece and I don’t feel it anyway. I’m done playing around. I don’t even care that my thoughts are grinding raw against the governor, I just ignore the bullets and fight through the haze and pummel the combots until they stop moving.

  “Save some for me, will ya?” Anika says once I’ve pulled my fist out of the last bot’s torso. She’s on her back and blood’s seeping from three different places on her chest, but she’s smiling. Her skyn’s still got some life in it yet.

  “I expect there’ll be plenty more on the way,” I tell her, checking the floor for the last three explosive packs. “We need to blow this thing before they get here.”

  Wood coughs above us. “Surrender now and we’ll be merciful,” he says, and maybe it’s my imagination but I think I hear a tinge of worry in his voice.

  I ignore him and snatch up one of the explosive charges and set the detonation sequence.

  Anika’s on her feet. “We need to get you out of here while your head’s still in one piece,” she says.

  I set the detonation for five seconds, then glance at her. “Did you get what you came for?”

  Her eyes shudder, but all she says is “Yes.”