Interesting times couldn’t even begin to describe the synapse’s response.
* * *
“I think it’s clear,” Tori whispered as she leaned back from peeking around the corner. Her body, pressed firmly against the metal walls of the corridor, was covered in sweat from nervousness and exhaustion. She glanced behind her and looked back to where they’d started. She’d managed.... fifty feet thus far. She shook her head. At least we aren’t wearing the stupid environmental suits anymore, she rationalized, thrilled to be out of the hot and humid suit of sweaty death. She wasn’t sure if she’d have been able to deal with that any longer. “I don’t see anything.”
“That could be good or bad,” Stacey whispered back. She peeked over her shoulder, her body brushing against Tori’s back as she looked around. “Should we go one at a time, or all together?”
“One at a time,” Tori, Michael, and Tyler all said at once. They shared a look between themselves before looking back at Stacey. Tori giggled and then nodded. “We go together, and we’re a bigger target.”
“Okay,” Stacey agreed, backing away from the corner. “So who’s going first?”
“Not it!” Michael and Tyler chorused together. Tori looked at Stacey, who sighed in exasperation.
“Fine,” she growled. She gave the two men a dirty look. “Pansies.”
“Cautious,” Michael countered somberly. Stacey grunted.
“Whatever,” she whispered. She rolled her eyes and moved past Tori, out into the open.
The hallway was empty, save for random hibiscus plants in strategically placed pots lining the passage. Overhead was the same transparent aluminum that was throughout the rest of the station, though the lights in this corridor were burned out. The emergency lights were on, however, and cast a greenish glow throughout. It will be enough, she thought as she watched Stacey move stealthily across the open corridor.
“Michael, be ready to move,” she sub-vocalized. Michael moved next to her and watched Stacey’s graceful steps for a moment. Tyler approached as well, and he leaned close to her.
“She’s hot,” Tyler pointed out, his voice low so it wouldn’t carry throughout the hall. “You think she’s single?”
“Married with five kids,” She replied back. “I think she’s gonna be a grandma soon. I’ll double-check for you later, granny lover.”
“Dude…” Tyler said, disappointed.
“Go,” Tori ordered Michael as Stacey reached the first hibiscus planter and crouched. Michael sprinted forward quickly, his large body moving past Stacey’s crouched form and he slid, belly first, behind the second planter twenty feet beyond. The landing looked painful but he ended up where he needed to be. She glanced over at Tyler.
“I’ll go next, then you follow,” she instructed. “You go to Stacey’s planter and provide cover for her. We’re leapfrogging.”
“Gotcha,” Tyler whispered. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and sprinted out into the open.
Tori crashed, not so gracefully, into her planter and felt her shoulder crack against the ceramic. She grimaced and looked back behind her, where she could see Tyler sliding gracefully behind the planter where Stacey was located. Stacey immediately popped to her feet and dashed toward her, now the furthest out from their starting point. Stacey slid into the planter as well, though Tori took the brunt of her momentum instead of the planter.
“Ow,” Tori hissed and smacked her friend’s arm. “Nice landing, Bigfoot.”
“Sorry,” she whispered. Tori shrugged and waved it off.
“No problem,” she replied. “Just don’t squish me next time with your ginormous butt.”
“Jealous much?” Stacey asked in an amused voice.
“Not really. I don’t want a butt with its own zip code,” Tori replied. Stacey snickered.
“Is it me, or does this seem repetitive?” Michael asked as he landed on his belly on the floor next to them. Tori glanced at him before looking back around the edge of the planter. Still nothing. Weird, she thought.
“I agree,” she said. “Also, I think three full-sized avatars shouldn’t be able to hide behind a two foot by two foot planter. I’ll take the glitch, though.”
“Hah,” Stacey whispered. “Typical Tori.”
“So now what?” Michael asked. She glanced back at Tyler, who was motioning madly at them.
“What’s he want now?” She peeked back around the planter and blinked. Sure enough, Tyler had a reason to be frantic. She swore silently.
There were thousands of them, she noticed immediately. The furballs had not only breached the western walls of the station, it was apparent they’d managed to infiltrate this section as well. She watched as they moved quickly across the cross-junction, moving away from them down another corridor. She quickly ducked back out of sight as a monstrous creature lumbered along in the midst of their numbers.
“Crap,” she swore softly under her breath. “Another synapse lord.”
“Another?” Stacey squeaked fearfully. Tori nodded and shushed her.
“Wait until they pass,” she said, her voice low. “Then we’ll figure something out. The other one was easy, remember? I think I shot it, what, twice? No problemo.”
The echoing sounds of the furballs moving en masse was loud, but not deafening, she noticed as the creatures continued to rumble by. She looked at her combat boots and grimaced. They were covered in furball blood and something else, probably Ganymede mud. It resembled feces, and it stank.
Wait a moment... eww, she recognized the mess now. She shook her head, thoroughly disgusted. She was going to have to trash those boots or do some sort of digital cleaning. She was glad the furballs were more than twenty feet away; if they’d been any closer, she was almost certain they’d have smelled her fear, and they’d have definitely smelled her feet. Well, she amended after a quick glance back at the furballs, they’d have smelled my boots.
They waited in silence for long minutes before the sounds of sharp claws on metal floor dissipated. She could see Tyler, who was crouched down with his plasma rifle out. She watched him take aim, and she shook her head at him. Tyler replied to her with a universally-known finger gesture but held his fire. She sighed. She was going to have to have a talk with him.
“They gone?”
Tori peered around the corner of the planter and saw the hallway was clear. She backed away and nodded to the other two. She glanced back over at Tyler and waved him forward.
“Good thing they’re gone,” Michael noted. They watched Tyler creep forward slowly, his house-sized body moving quieter than she could ever hope to. She nodded in agreement as Tyler slipped between two stretches of shadow. Michael continued, “Hard to hide a barn disguised as a man.”
Tyler stopped next to the planter and crouched, his body armor protruding oddly from his chest. She looked down the hall and sighed quietly. She could seriously use some body armor for herself. One more thing she’d forgotten while letting herself worry too much about being back in The Warp.
“Okay, so anybody got a map of this place?” Tori asked suddenly. The idea of a map of the station hit her like a ton of bricks. While she had the overall world map, detailed and coded maps ranged from infrequent to rare in The Warp. They were usually given as a prize to gamers who achieved certain goals during missions. She could’ve slapped herself for not considering this before.
She figured with the level of experienced gamers and Mods she had accompanying her, one of them might have acquired one of the special maps in their travels. Although she didn’t have one for the Ganymede realm, she did have maps for both Kadashter and Sparta, which she’d used to her advantage when in those low tech realms in the past. She also had Crisis, but she doubted she’d ever set foot there again.
Ganymede never made much sense to her in a gaming sense. Sure, she thought, killing aliens was fun and all. It also grew repetitive and time-consuming. The story arc for Ganymede was weak at best and one long grind. Plus, the reward wasn’t worth it. No, she was
more of a fan of the complicated story realms, like Crisis, Kadashter, and Sparta.
Now, though, she wished she had one. Asking one of the others was slightly embarrassing, on two levels. The first, and obvious, was she should have one, considering her reputation level. The second one was it was an acknowledgment that she didn’t know the world very well.
She wondered if that would affect the way the others responded to her leadership for a moment before discarding the thought. No matter what, she knew deep down, they’d still listen to her command decisions. Well, she figured as she waited for their replies, she assumed they would.
“No,” they all said after a moment. Tori grunted unhappily. At least she didn’t have to worry about loss of respect, a small part of her brain stated triumphantly.
“Okay then, Plan B,” she stated. She looked back around the edge of the planter and down the corridor. Still empty. She jerked as a hand gently touched her shoulder.
“Plan B is shot to hell, remember?” Michael asked. He quickly removed his hand as he recognized the look in her eye. He gave her the briefest of smiles. “That was the plasma explosion?”
“Oh yeah,” she murmured thoughtfully, face blank and devoid of all emotion as she caught Michael’s joke. She wondered if his brother would... of course he would, she thought. She tried not to smile as she decided to play along and hope Stacey wouldn’t murder her later. “Plan C?”
“The furballs screwed that one up as well,” Tyler pointed out, his eyes crinkling around the corners as he struggled not to laugh. “Weren’t expecting thousands of the things wandering around.”
“They weren’t exactly wandering,” Stacey interjected, irritation filling her tone. She obviously knew what they were trying to do, and Tori could tell it annoyed her. Tori, though, was still thinking about the plans and their lettering, seemingly oblivious to Stacey’s growing exasperation.
“So... Plan D?” she asked carefully, managing to keep her face straight. The other two men nodded, both of their faces carved in granite.
“I hate you guys,” Stacey said in irritation and moved around the edge of the planter. “I thought you’d be better than this, Tori. Next time I’m making my avatar a boy so y’all can finally grow up.”
Tori finally smiled as soon as Stacey had moved away from the planter and was out of earshot.
“That was hard,” she whispered to the other two men as she struggled to keep from giggling maniacally. Michael grinned.
“No kidding,” he said and moved out, following Stacey closely.
“She’s going to kill us all, you realize,” Tyler mourned as he followed the others, leaving Tori alone behind the planter. She shook her head and grinned.
“Yeah, but was it worth it? No? You know... we really do need a Plan D, though. Guys? Aw, c’mon...”
* * * * *
Chapter 9
Tori and her group could hear the sounds of the pitched battle long before they saw any sign of it. With Stacey out on point this time, Tori had spread the group out a bit to keep them from being bunched up if they ran into a group of furballs. In theory, that would prevent another ambush, but for the first leg of their journey, had they not known any better, they’d have thought the Ganymede station was deserted.
Tori halted as Stacey raised a hand and dropped to a knee a moment later. She brought the plasma rifle up to her shoulder and tensed. Stacey had served as an excellent point so far, keeping the group hidden from the seething masses of passing furballs long before they stumbled upon them. Tori reminded herself to make certain Stacey received some kind of bonus if—when, she corrected herself—they figured out what was wrong in the Nexus. Stacey was simply too good at her job not to be rewarded.
She could see now why Stacey had called a halt. In a large topiary, a massive battle raged within the metal and plastic halls. The furballs were coming at the gamers in the same old way, wave after wave of the critters surging forth to eat and slay the gamers. The gamers were destroying them in the same old way, with heavy plasma fire from their rifles and their own codes, which were launched into the midst of the furballs. The piled mass of the aliens’ corpses was growing, though the plasma rounds prevented them from actually blocking the lines of fire by simply blasting large openings in the piles. She nodded in approval as she saw the two separate teams, who had only hours before been at each other’s throats, were now laying down a crossing pattern of fire so they could provide cover for the other.
Teamwork, she thought as she felt Michael breeze past her to the next hidey hole. It gets things done.
“There’s a group of furballs doing something weird,” Stacey whispered suddenly to Tori, her soft and gentle voice carrying over the sounds of the pitched battle somehow. She sighed. She seriously wanted that code and made a mental note to buy a copy of it off the woman when they were done.
Stop it, she swore at herself. You aren’t going back into The Warp.
“Like what?” She wanted to ask, but didn’t have the voice-carrying code Stacey had invented. Instead she pointed at her ear and grabbed a small, old-fashioned Whisper from her pocket. She placed it over her ear, similar to a handless phone device, and repeated herself.
“They’re digging into the wall,” she replied a moment later, her own earpiece in so Tori could hear her. Tori looked at her curiously. “They seem to be digging into the steel walls.”
“That’s weird,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Why would they do that?”
“No clue,” Stacey said. “But if I can venture a guess, I’d say they were cheating.”
“Cheating?” She leaned out and tried to look past her to see what Stacey was talking about, but her vision was blocked by one of the oddly-shaped corners of the station. While she could see down the long hallway she was currently hiding in, the design of the hallways prevented her from peering around the corner to watch the battle. She used to think these alternative designs were cool and clever. Now though, she simply saw them as what they’d originally been designed to be—an annoyance and a hindrance.
“The game can’t cheat, can it?” Michael wondered out loud, not hearing the entire conversation they were having but successfully guessing most of it. She looked at the burly man and shrugged.
“Well, it’s happened before,” Tyler reminded them as he leaned over his brother’s shoulder. “The game shifts to suit the needs of the moment. I heard during Crisis lots of gamers reported weird stuff happened and changed the game while they were in the zone.”
“I know that’s true,” Tori confirmed. “We were in Demon’s Pass and in the middle of a blizzard when the Rogues changed coding in the Chaos code. Suddenly it felt like spring. It was weird.”
“You certain they’re cheating?” Tyler asked.
“I can’t be one hundred percent certain. But I’m fairly certain this is something new.”
“Well, there’s how many synapse packs here?” Michael asked. “Take the amount of the packs into the equation, throw in a synapse lord, and now we have something that hasn’t been seen before.”
“Program change?” Tyler suggested.
“You think maybe this is the issue within the Nexus?” Tori asked suddenly, her mind wandering. Maybe the worlds themselves, and each world’s Chaos code, are keeping it up?”
“I hate those damn things,” Tyler moaned. “They’re not worth the problems they cause.”
“‘Unpredictability is what makes the game great,’” Stacey quoted in a mock tone. “I seriously want to strangle someone.”
“You could always play another game,” Tyler suggested. Somewhere along the line he’d inserted his Whisper as well and was now on their channel.
“There’s no way I could give up this little addiction,” Stacey admitted.
“Hey, focus now,” Tori said tiredly. She rubbed her eyes and wondered briefly how long they’d been online. It felt like days. “Let’s do an equipment check before we try to wade through that mess. Stacey, fall back to the group.”
; She waited as Stacey slowly moved back toward them, past the small hidey-hole Michael and Tyler had taken refuge in. Though Tori was less than five feet from them, she was extremely nervous about the distance the group had spread. While it’d originally made sense, it limited the amount of firepower she could call upon if they were ambushed. She wondered if there wasn’t a better way.
She quickly opened a small file with a mental command and looked inside her inventory, which was kept in a node she’d discovered before Crisis had happened. As a temporary WarpSoft employee, she was generally forbidden to access nodes across realms, which were meant to be used by gamers to upload their various codes to the realm they were in. But sometimes, she knew, the rules could be tweaked by someone if it wasn’t used to hurt the system.
Plus, she was Tori Adams. WarpSoft would probably let her do whatever the heck she wanted without punishing her too much. Some reputations are worth it.
She’d set up the node for free access to gamers who could find it, a rarity in The Warp. She’d wanted to make gaming competitive, not make money off new gamers who were testing out their coding skills. It was her love of fair competition, she knew. She wanted gamers to get better, to push the Moderators, to challenge the worlds out in The Warp. There would always be Moderators who liked the quick and easy bounties. She wanted to make those Mods pay for preying on newbies. This would, eventually, come back to bite her, she knew. For now, though, she enjoyed seeing the average new gamer torch a Mod who had gotten too cocky.
She reloaded the plasma charge in the rifle the others had taken from Royce and double-checked her codes. She had a few she wasn’t ready to mention to the others, including her Armageddon code. That, she figured, was for the most extreme emergencies. And furballs were not an emergency, she thought as Stacey knelt down next to her. She propped her back against the wall next to Tori, her body covered in a nervous sweat, as Stacey quickly recharged her power levels with a quick boost from a gem.
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