by Noah Barnett
"Why are you here instead of the Armory?" He asked. Grace looked toward the entrance of the building. Hundreds of players and weapons were streaming inside.
"We weapons have simple pathways for joy, anger, sadness, but love… Love is just a word, one that has a hundred different definitions. I said to Monty that I would take a new Meister if anyone would have me. Now he's ordered me to do so." She stated in a voice filled with pain. Grace was unconsciously tearing the kerchief in her hands apart. The silk was like tissue paper against her strength.
"The thought of being held in another Meister's hands… It's repugnant." She said shivering at the idea. Charlie glanced at Fara, who looked down quickly and away. "Monty, he ordered me to find a Meister. I have to do what he asks, but I don't want to, so here I sit looking at them."
"Do you need anything? Food, or a place to stay?" Charlie asked. He had a home, and extra bedrooms to spare. Grace gave him a small half smile.
"You are too kind, and I can see why Montgomery has such great fondness for you. Thank you, but no. Monty pushed upon me his entire savings." She said lifting her small purse, revealing a dozen cash cards.
"Grace, I can see why he did this. Monty has gone to war, and unfortunately, the battle he faces is one with his own mortality."
"That's what makes this hurt even more," Grace agreed.
"Do you want some company?" He asked, but she shook her head and the peacock feather danced. Grace tried to raise the remnants of silk to her face and discovered the destroyed handkerchief. She sighed and let it fall to the ground.
"Thank you again, but no. I wish to be alone with my thoughts."
"I understand, and I pray for Monty's return. If you need anything at all Grace, please call." He said standing. Grace reached out taking his hand in hers. For a second he thought she was going to ask him to be her Meister. Her eyes began glowing as her decision tree went active.
"Take care, Charlie." She said after a few seconds.
"If you figure out what love is, I hope you'll let the rest of us in on the secret."
Grace squeezed his hand again, but her smile was forced and tinged with sadness. All Charlie could do was nod sympathetically and let her be. When Grace released him, he turned and walked away. He made it a few feet before a pair of arms wrapped around his waist. Charlie half turned to see Fara hugging him from behind. It was only for a moment though, as she shoved him forward and stepped out of arm’s reach. Elva took the vacated place and slid into his grasp without hesitation. Fara however, stuck her tongue out and took two steps away.
"Well… you can't get everything." He mused, and glanced back once more. Grace was looking up at the sky already lost in thought, and he hoped Monty returned soon.
With Elva under his arm, Charlie went through the entrance and discovered a heated argument in progress. A short teal haired school girl was glaring at a giant bald man. Jennifer looked on nervously from a few feet away. Other players streamed past on their way inside.
"What do you mean you don't use guns?" Remy asked in disbelief.
"No, I don’t," the man said in a rumbling voice.
"Why the fuck not?" Remy nearly shouted.
"It is only faith that I need. I have the spirit of conviction within me," was the reply and Remy scoffed.
"You have the spirit of a jackass. This is a game about guns. You know... Gun Meister. It's in the name for bloody sake." She spat.
"We each have our role to play, mine is to bring the Word of God to the unfaithful.” The tall figure replied. From a hidden back sheath, he withdrew his two-handed sword. It was brutal in its simplicity, with an iron crossguard, and a tattered cloth wrapped grip. It read along the blade, ‘Word of God,” in a large italic script.
"If you want to swing swords around go play with the elves and fairies. Here in Gun Meister, you can't deflect bullets. So sorry buckwheat, but a Jedi—you are not." Remy said venomously.
"What's going on?" Charlie asked approaching this new scene. Jen turned to him.
"When I logged in, I got your message on my terminal. I saw Tobias,” she gestured to the man with the long sword. “Was online so I invited him to play since we’re both Bronze. We found out the matches are canceled for the weekend because there's a worldwide event. Something to do with an alien invasion. Remy just showed up." Jen said, and Charlie smiled.
"The aliens are back? Shit, now I really wish Monty were here. He would have loved this." Charlie said grabbing Remy. The girl looked like she was going to take a swing at the strange giant. He dragged her just out of kicking range.
"If this is a special event we can group in the same squad." He said wrestling with the little woman.
"I won't hold you back?" Jennifer asked.
"No, it'll be more fun." He admitted.
"What about Tobias?" She asked, and Charlie shrugged. With Monty gone it wasn't like there was anyone else around.
"I don't see why not," he said, but Remy snarled.
"This moron doesn't even have a gun. How is he going to help?" She grumbled.
"Let him be. You aren't exactly a model player yourself." Charlie said struggling to hold the girl back.
"It bugs me," Remy said glaring at the crusader.
"It’s nice to see something does. Maybe we should keep Tobias around just for that." Charlie chuckled, and finally looked at the man. He was huge, probably over seven feet tall, which suggested he’d dumped points into his strength score in order to swing that blade around. He wasn’t quite bald, instead, dark brown peach fuzz covered his scalp. He was around thirty with a wide face, and deep set gray eyes under a pair of bushy eyebrows. A scar ran from his right lip down to his chin. Frankly, he looked like a hero from a fantasy game. Charlie thought he was a moron as well, but his ability to annoy Remy might be useful, and a possible check to her behavior. Besides he wasn't that different from Montgomery in his obstinacy for a weapon type.
"You want to join?" He asked the massive man.
"Yes, I will hunt the unclean with thee," Tobias said in a deep resonating voice.
"Very well."
Remy pouted but followed along as the group headed into the Competition Lobby. All the consoles were scrolling the same words in bold red letters.
<
The lobby was packed full of players. News of the invasion was continuously playing on the screens. The announcement looped and started over with a middle-aged woman sitting before the camera.
She reported, "Today at approximately 02:30 AM, long range telescopes spotted what appears to be a spaceship entering orbit around the moon." The screen changed to the familiar pot marked face of the lunar surface. Floating in from the right side was a tiny reddish object. It was only about six pixels long and one tall, but judging by the image scale, the craft was several thousand meters in size.
"At 08:22 am a launch was detected from the object, and a cluster of small vessels headed towards earth. We tracked the trajectory to be somewhere in Shanghai. In forty minute increments, another sixteen ships departed for Europe and America." The woman continued. The screen changed to a two-dimensional view of the earth and moon. Several orange lines were closing in on their home planet.
The woman appeared on the screen again, and her solemn face wrinkled in worry. For several seconds she looked into the camera then said, "One group will land somewhere on the West Coast at 12:20 pm. Anyone willing to take part is urged to enter lobby 1. Further information will be revealed there." The screen went blank, and the announcement looped back to the beginning.
Once again he wished Monty were here. The old man had left at the worst possible time.
Despite that, Charlie's excitement grew. He'd been secretly hoping for a crack at the aliens. The fact that humanity had fallen still burned in Charlie's stomach like an ulcer. The squad accessed a console and created a group together. Even Remy, eyes glaring at the crusader, put her hand on the screen. Then Charlie, Remy, Jen, and their newest member Tobias went i
nto an open elevator. It descended one floor and opened onto a massive lobby. He'd been here once before, but it was still a sight. Thousands of players were idly chatting, joking, or passing the time waiting for the event to start. Jennifer stared at the assembly as they got off the elevator.
It was still early, and they ended up wandering around for an hour before anything happened. At about noon a man stalked onto the raised platform in the center of the arena. He was old, shit the guy had enough wrinkles to be called grandpa. However, he walked with a straight proud back toward a waist high console. He was dressed in a crisp gray military uniform that matched his salt and pepper hair. Charlie realized this was only the second time he'd seen an old character in the game, aside from Monty. The lobby announcer had been middle-aged, and this person was pushing sixty-five. Conversation near the main stage died down as he activated the console with his palm.
Around the arena, screens flashed to life, and a hidden camera somewhere zoomed in on the old man. He tapped a button on the console, and silence descended like the will of god. It wasn't that people stopped talking, no… Zero sound came out of everyone's lips.
"I god-damn love doing that," the man said in a voice like cracked and aged leather.
The military officer looked right into the camera and said, "Please find an available display screen. I am an old man, and I don't have the patience nor inclination to repeat myself." He waited a minute for people to cluster together.
"My name is Colonel William Blake. Forty years ago I took part in the failed defense of the United States. I won't bother with excuses. America fell in days, and the rest of the world soon followed. After picking through the corpse that was humanity the aliens left. It appeared the Roth were not interested in the planet, but only our destruction." Colonel Blake touched the console again. The video that started was old like it had been taken from a camcorder, and it silently played in the background so the colonel could continue.
"We achieved only one small pyrrhic victory in that war. A dropship was successfully shot down. I was a mere Corporal then, and my battalion was assigned to assault the crash site." He said pausing to watch the video. A massive ship was half smashed into the ground, and dozens of men sprinted toward the derelict ship. Strange armored figures emerged from within and fired on the advancing soldiers with what could only be described as laser weapons.
"We captured the ship at great cost, and discovered the cloning bays the aliens had been using. While the rest of the world burned, we buried the ship right there. We covered it in dirt, concrete, and metal scrap to hide it from their sensors. Then we studied the vessel and made all this." The man said gesturing towards the arena.
He continued, "Forty years we waited for the Roth to return, and we knew they would from the satellites they left in orbit. I was certain I'd kick the bucket before I got to shoot at the bastards again. Thankfully, they showed up at the perfect time."
The video screens flashed back to the Colonel. "We can't afford to show our hand just yet, so today your objective is only survival. We need to know what the alien capabilities are." He announced while activating the console. A map of the greater Los Angeles area came up, with a twenty-kilometer wide circle covering the city center.
"The mission will last for eight hours in total. Every hour that you survive will be counted as a match win. However, you will only gain credits by killing an alien. A regular Roth soldier will count for one thousand credits. It doesn't matter how you get the job done. Killing a leader will be worth four thousand." He stated, and paused to scratch his wrinkled face.
"Have I forgotten anything?” Blake mused.
The colonel tapped the console several times zooming in. “It sucks getting old."
"Ah yes, supply. There are a number of secret caches around the city. You can find them by looking for the graffiti." He said after a few seconds. On the screen an image of a stenciled bullet came up. The old man straightened and put his hand on his lower back. He groaned in weary annoyance before turning to the assembled crowd.
"I want to repeat the objective. Survive, observe, and preferably kill the Roth when possible. Are there any questions?" He asked and pointed to someone before the dais. They started speaking but were still muted.
"Sorry 'bout that, keeping everyone on mute makes the conferences go so much faster." He chuckled. The man leaned over tapping a button on the console. Afterward, he gestured for the player to try again.
"Can we kill other squads?"
"No. Every human is on the same team today. Killing one will be counted against you. I'm glad you asked that." He pointed to another person.
"Can we pick up the alien weapons?"
"Frankly, I have no idea. We don't know enough about the Roth technology, so it's possible." He said pointing to one last player.
"What if we need to take a shit, or eat." The person shouted.
"Preferably not at the same time, that would be messy and awkward.” The old man replied to a chorus of laughter. His wrinkled face turned serious as he added, “Then do so. We're not going to make you soil yourself on a mission. Again I have to restate the alien technology is unknown. The Roth may have superior sensors. Rolling into a dumpster may not save you." Blake glanced at the clock as it began to flash.
"Time is up. Good luck out there, and for my sake, happy hunting."
[Match Start]
CHAPTER TWENTY
Roth Landing
Charlie found himself standing a few paces away from what remained of the Hollywood sign. Below were the neglected remnants of a dozen celebrity mansions. In the near distance, Los Angeles forcibly reminded Charlie of a forgotten campfire. Parts of the city had burned to the ground, while other sections had been taken over by scrub brush and palm trees. The air was crystal clear today, probably due to the lack of human intervention, so the coastline was just visible. The metal bones of skyscrapers were all that was left of the business district.
"I can see my house from here," Remy squealed excitedly from atop the Hollywood sign.
She held a hand over her brow and was peering down toward the suburbs. Remy kicked her feet and swayed dangerously on the rickety old letter. Jennifer and Tobias stood next to each other about ten meters away. Two other squads were visible on the next hilltop over. Several of them pointed skyward, and Charlie looked up.
At first, it appeared as a cluster of meteors, and Charlie shielded his eyes from the glaring sun. A dozen foreign objects streamed orange fire as they entered the atmosphere. They slowed in the thick air and the blazing trails faded. For a few seconds, he lost sight of them, and forced his eyes to track where they would have gone. A tiny black speck caught his attention as it stood out against the cloudless summer sky. More of the grouping became visible again as they neared the coast. There were four large vessels still smoking from their atmospheric entry. Surrounding each was a wing of much smaller craft, which looked like horse-flies buzzing around the behemoths. The cluster broke apart, and two dropships headed north toward Santa Monica and San Fernando. The third group was still supersonic as it blew over the southern coastline to Long Beach. The final group dropped lower toward Los Angeles as it continued to slow.
Half of the tiny black flies split from each wing, and Charlie finally realized they were fighter craft escorting the much more cumbersome dropships. The closest pair approached the city center. They had a matte black fuselage with long forward-swept wings and a single large engine. Smaller directional thrusters were visible along the wings. Both fighters aimed at the business district, and from their underbellies, a red laser shot out. The beam of light was accompanied by the sound of burning Styrofoam as it superheated the air. The weapons lanced across a standing skyscraper, and for a second nothing happened. Then the skeleton of broken steel slid sideways crashing to the street below. Dust billowed into the air as the fighters screamed passed.
"Oh my god," Jen gasped in shock. Remy whistled from her perch as the escorts fired again. The hawk-like craft turned and blaste
d a cluster of trees, then a random building.
Tobias crossed himself and quoted as if from scripture, "When they opened the Gates of Hell, heat rose from it like the fire from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss."
The closest dropship continued to slow. It looked like an armored scarab beetle, one that was over a hundred meters long and half as wide. The beast managed to stay aloft only because of six massive articulating thrusters. By comparison, the nearby Roth fighters were a scant ten meters in size. The two small escorts continued to flank the dropship as it swung wide around the perimeter of the city. From the belly, teardrop shaped pods disgorged like ticks from a dog. The vessel neared their position, and the squad took cover behind the Hollywood sign. In clusters of four, the drop pods spewed forth every few seconds, and several groups crashed to the lower foothills.
