by KJ Harlow
Every time the chimera would get close, it would have to evade the spires that flew towards it. After he had created a dozen, he stopped running. One of his homing spires had struck the snake head and the Chimera was now dragging it through the sand. It prowled 15 yards away from Fetter, trying to find a way in.
Fetter lifted his short sword, pointing at his kill. “Maiden.”
The lion head looked left while the goat head looked right. It bleated in terror when it saw that the spires had surrounded it. Fetter slashed diagonally through the air and spires pierced the Chimera at the same time.
-120 Damage!
-119 Damage!
-125 Damage!
-140 Damage!
Critical Hit!
-400 Damage!
Fetter’s mouth twisted into a grotesque smile as the numbers appeared in his vision. It cried and tossed, the spires driving themselves deeper and deeper into the monster. Seconds later, it lay still.
Fetter sheathed his short sword. “Strong enough for–”
“Umm…” C and the Urath turned in unison to the foreign voice. A human dressed in squire’s armour stood 10 yards away. His short sword slipped out of his hand and he scrambled to pick it up. “I think I’m lost.”
He shrivelled up as the immensely strong characters Examined him:
NAME: Hector Cameron
AGE: 28 (Earth)
CLASS: Squire
LVL: 6
HP: 105/105
MP: 105/105
AFF: Wind
STR: 15
DEF: 15
AGL: 15
INT: 15
ABILITY: Examine
SKILL: NIL
WEAPON: Sword – Level E – Next Level in 85%
C drew her hood tighter over her face. She had been baiting the humans for several months now. She didn’t think that one would be able to hack into the desert realm this soon. I must fortify the encryption.
“Ah, a soldier! Finally!” Leonidas said, clapping. “A little on the weaker side I might add, but a start.”
Fetter was less than impressed. “C, what the h-hell are–”
Nyve plunged her dagger into the crook of Hector’s neck and right shoulder. As the contents of his bowels dripped into the sand, she dragged her blade across his body, wrenching it out at his left hip. She stepped back, ignoring the blood that had spattered onto her face. Hector’s mouth opened and closed silently before his knees buckled and he collapsed into a kneeling position in a puddle of his own blood, entrails and piss.
Critical Hit!
-3,930 Damage!
“Scarlet Mist,” C uttered. She had to be quick, the human was already respawning. A white ring glowed around Hector, pearls of light breaking off and dripping towards the sky. The drops accelerated until his form was almost gone. A trail of red mist made its way from his corpse, wound through the air and headed into the temple. It swirled in the air, searching for its final destination. Spiralling down towards the vessel, the particles floated at the surface before slowly sinking into the water.
She looked beyond the ward she had placed around the Temple of Silence. Examine.
NAME: ??????? (Rebirth 1/100,000,000)
AGE: ????
CLASS: ????
LVL: ???
HP: ?????/?????
MP: ?????/?????
AFF: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water
STR: ????
DEF: ????
AGL: ????
INT: ????
ABILITY: Examine, Hellbring
SKILL: Catastrophe – Level 926 – Next Level in 1%
WEAPON: NIL
C smiled broadly, revealing particularly sharp incisors. “Fret not, Fetter. You will get your soldiers.”
Part I
Enter ValorVale
1
Happy Birthday
“Moon Macrosystems, this is Cal.”
Cal was still for a moment, his eyes flicking down to the bottom right of the screen. 4:13? Wasn’t it 4:13 half an hour ago?
“Oh you can’t remember your password? Alright, let’s fix it together, OK?” He stroked a diagonal line through four vertical ones on a scrap piece of paper next to him. 25 people in one day. That’s gotta be a new record. Either the onboarding team weren’t doing their job or he was just having a shittier day than usual.
“So we’ll need your username and your email address. Can you find those for me?” Please tell me you have those… an apologetic laugh wriggled through the headset and into his ear. Nooooooooooo–
“Oh don’t worry, it happens to the best of us,” he laughed. No, it only happens to people who are still technologically illiterate in 2047.
George floated into Cal’s line of view. His prematurely balding head was impossibly shiny.
“Hey Cal,” George said, bobbing slightly up and down on his hover chair. “Heard it was your birthday today. Happy–”
Cal forced a strained smile and jabbed a finger at his headset.
“Oops, my bad.” George gave him a half-hearted apologetic grin. His eyes flickered down Cal’s body. Cal saw it out of the corner of his eye but didn’t acknowledge him. If the dickhead really wanted to wish me happy birthday, he’d stop giving me weird looks and do some work for a change.
“Oh you’ve got the email there? Great. Let’s put it in the right field now… no, I think you’ve put your email address into the username field…”
The door hissed shut and Cal punched the lock button. He wheeled himself over and looked in the large mirror. 5 o’clock shadow, black, tousled hair that needed a trim three weeks ago. Eye bags that looked like they could be dipped in boiling water and served to the Empress of China. He sighed and rubbed his flaky chin. He wheeled himself closer and opened his eyes as wide as he could.
There wasn’t much he liked about himself but he did like his eyes. Growing up, they started off light blue. As he got older, the colour changed.
Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.
He flipped his left wrist up and a holographic, green screen the size of A4 paper expanded out. A horizontal line scrunched up into a zig zag when the caller spoke.
“Hey loser.”
“Douchette.” Cal responded.
“Douchette?” Erika squawked.
“Yeah, that’s my new name for you.”
“See, this is why you don’t have any friends.”
He pursed his lips together as the zig zags on the green screen became a horizontal line again for a couple of seconds.
“Why is it so echoey?”
“I’m in the bathroom.” More silence. “Don’t worry, I’m not taking a piss or anything.” He rubbed his chin again. Gotta remember to get a razor on the way home.
“New company getting to you already?”
“You have no idea.” Cal proceeded to bitch to Erika about the inane customers and colleagues who walked around him like the floor was made of egg shells. “It’s cool that they gave me a corner cubicle. I’ve got my space. It sort of wrecks it that they’ve put George next to me. I swear to God Eyre, I don’t know what I hate more about him: the fact that he’s always looking at me like I’ve got leprosy, or the fact that he’s flying around the place on his stupid hover chair.”
“You forgot about his impossibly shiny head,” Erika added.
Cal chuckled. “Yeah. Put him outside on a sunny day and he’ll be able to burn his name into the moon.” Cal guffawed at his own joke while Erika failed at smothering her giggles.
“Does he know about…” Erika trailed off.
“Nah, I didn’t even tell HR when I joined. You should have seen their eyes light up when I rolled in for my interview. Three words: corporate social responsibility. They think it makes them look like a progressive company. I’m already on a vlog post on their website.” Cal waited while Erika pulled up the Moon Macrosystems webpage and navigated to the news page.
“Hahaha!” Cal raised an eyebrow as he watched the zigzags hit the top and bottom of his screen.
“What’
s so funny?”
“They seriously uploaded that? With the level of enthusiasm you gave in that vlog, it will make people think that they’re keeping you hostage.”
Cal scowled at the screen. “Whatever. No skin off my teeth.” He waited for Erika’s peals of laughter to subside.
“So what you’re just gonna–”
“So what are you up–”
They went quiet at the same time.
“You go,” Cal said.
“So you’re just gonna stay in the bathroom until you clock off?”
“I just need some air.”
“You’re breathing in toilet air.”
“Better than breathing in George’s hot air.” He smiled wryly as Erika snorted.
“Don't tell me you're admiring your purple eyes again.”
“What's it matter to you?” He opened his eyes as wide as he could again, making his eye bags even more pronounced.
Cal wheeled himself back, waiting for Erika to say something. “Most people think it’s black or dark brown, but you can only see that it’s purple up close.”
“They started turning purple after you started exhibiting… symptoms.” Really Erika? It still bugs you, even after this long?
“Way to go shoot a guy down, Eyre. Anyway, what were you going to say before?”
“I’ll tell you after you clock off.” There was a hint of excitement in her voice. “Just call me when you’re done, OK?”
“Alright, I’ll try to remember. Laters, Douchette.” He pressed the screen on his smart watch and the holographic screen folded back in itself and disappeared. 4:45. Knowing his luck, these next 15 minutes would last two hours.
“See ya, Cal!” George waved out the window of his Tesla hover car. Cal squinted and shielded his eyes from beam of light that bounced off his head. Great, now he thinks I waved at him. Cal put on his gloves, pulling his fingers through before pushing off.
Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.
Oh shit, that’s right. He flicked his wrist up and brought it to his mouth. “I can’t use my wheelchair with only one hand.”
“You’ve used that line before on me,” Erika scorned. “I know you can lock your wheels together and push with one hand.”
There was no fooling this girl. “OK, so what did you want to tell me?”
“Welllll…”
“Spit it out, Eyre.”
She was silent, but Cal was pretty sure that she was frowning at him. “I’ve gotten you a birthday gift.”
Cal pursed his lips and pushed himself forward with his right hand. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Well it’s too late, I already did.”
Cal sighed. “What is it?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” Erika said in a sing-song voice.
“Eyre…”
“Fine I’ll give you a clue.” Cal shook the numbness out of his left arm before bringing his wrist back to his mouth. “What have you wanted to do more than anything?”
Cal applied friction to the right wheel, braking at the pedestrian crossing. “What sort of clue is that?”
“It’s a great clue.”
He waited for half a minute. What did I want to do more than anything? He didn’t really think about it. He was just a regular, 29-year-old guy, trying to get by.
“Come on!”
“Hold on, I’m crossing the road.” Cal grunted as he pushed himself up a slight incline. A passer-by noticed him struggling and looked in two minds about helping him. He gave him a thumbs up as he got over the slope. Out of the central business district, he turned into an alleyway he knew would get him home sooner.
“You still there?” Cal asked.
“You don’t care, do you?”
“About what?”
“The gift I got you!”
“Yes, I do,” Cal lied.
“So answer the question–”
Sobbing punctuated the silence of the alleyway. “Eyre, I’m going to have to call you back.”
“Cal, what–” he tapped the screen and killed the call. Like a meerkat, Cal sat up in his wheelchair.
“Let go of me!”
He grabbed both wheels and launched himself further down the alleyway. He spun his hands in opposite directions and turned the corner. A schoolgirl, no older than 15 or 16 was cowering on the floor. Her skirt was hitched up but thankfully, her legs were closed. Bruises marred her freckled face. Her hairband soaked up grey water on the ground, her fringe plastered to her face from her tears.
“Hey!” Cal yelled. The man that had been standing over the schoolgirl turned around. His middle-aged potbelly stuck out underneath his dirty singlet. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
He wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. “None of your business, Professor X.”
The only thing Cal hated more than misused pop culture references were dodgy looking guys who molested underage girls.
Cal brought his smartwatch up to his mouth. “Dial 911.” The man loped up to Cal and threw a punch at his head. He dodged forward, grabbing his wrist in one hand and crunching his own fist into the offender’s elbow.
“Argh!” The molester stumbled and leaned on the wall, grabbing his dangling forearm. Cal winced and shook out the pins and needles that stung his hand. Come on, not now. He dragged his eyes away from the sick bastard. The schoolgirl hadn’t budged. She turned her tear-streaked face to Cal.
“Get out of here!” Cal lifted his left arm just in time to block a strike from the frenzied freak, now wielding a beer bottle.
Snap.
That didn’t sound good. Cal was pushed backwards by the blow, his wheelchair skidding on the damp concrete. Cal hunched over, nursing his forearm. Please let it just be a hairline fracture. He looked up just in time to see the balding sex offender triumphant leer before pain crunched into his skull.
Ugh, my head.
Cal gritted his teeth and lifted his hand to his head. Argh, my arm. He kept his eyes closed as the pain momentarily overwhelmed him.
“Let’s get him some Tylenol.”
“Yes Doctor.”
Doctor? No, that meant that he had been…
“Hello, Callahan.” Cal laughed then coughed. Of all the hospitals to be admitted to, it had to be this one. The air in the room shifted as someone crossed the room in two steps. A hand gently wedged behind his back. “Easy now.”
“Draw the curtains,” Cal ordered.
“You can’t keep your eyes closed forever.”
“It’s too bright in here.”
After a moment’s pause, the hand slid away from Cal’s back. The air shifted again. Hooks scraped along a rail. He sighed and slowly opened his eyes. Jesus, what was this cast made out of, concrete?
“It’s been a while, Callahan.” The throbbing returned as a rush of blood entered his brain.
“Doctor Tran.” Cal grunted.
“I told you already, just call me Aristotle.” He sat in silence, watching Aristotle Tran flip through the notes at the foot of his bed. 19 years and this man looked the same as the day he first diagnosed him: black hair shaved close to his head, pockmarked cheeks and an expression so severe it always looked like he was about to tell you that you had stage 4 testicular cancer. Even his damn glasses were the same: regulation, black, rectangular.
“The police have been outside since 7. I told them they can’t ask you anything while you’re still out,” Doctor Tran said, flicking a glance to his patient.
Cal turned his faded purple eyes to the window. Blue and white checked uniforms floated in and out of view in the hall. Great, just what I needed.
Cal shuffled, pushing himself up with his good hand. “What happened?”
“You took a bottle to the head. Concussion.”
“I meant after that.”
Aristotle flipped his notes back to the first page and slipped them back into the bracket. “The girl slammed a two by four into the back of the attacker’s head. Out like a light. Then she ran out of the alley and call
ed for help. They’re both here now.”
His stomach did an angry somersault. Scum like him didn’t deserve treatment. “How’s the girl?”
“She’s fine. Bit shaken up, but still very much intact.” Tran looked pointedly at Cal, his eyebrow pitching up. Cal pressed his lips together and gave a tight nod.
Dr Tran put his hands on the bedframe and leaned forward. “When were you going to come back?”
“Never, if I could have avoided it.”
“Your scans show that your thigh bones are losing–”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Cal said, holding his hand up. “When did I consent to you scanning me?”
“When have I ever done things by the book?” Dr Tran's glasses flashed as he turned his head slightly. “It was the only time I could have gotten you to lie still.”
Cal’s expression turned stormy. He looked away from his doctor. “If I didn’t know better, it’s almost like you planted that molester and the girl there.”
Aristotle straightened up, took his glasses off and rubbed the lenses on the hem of his coat. “You give me too much credit.” He cast a cursory glance at the police standing outside. Cal played dead when he saw the furtive hand signal. Lowering his voice, he said: “you’re going to be here for at least a week.”
Another rush of blood. The vice tightened up a notch. The nurse sped into the room and handed a packet of painkillers to Doctor Tran.
“Thank God,” Cal breathed. He popped two out and downed them with a gulp of water. “I need to get of here tomorrow. I have to work.” That was a lie. Cal didn’t have to work. He’d just rather put up with George’s fake enthusiasm and showing off than stay a week in this hospital.
“Callahan, you have got concussion and a broken arm, you’re in no state to work.”
“Aristotle,” Cal lowered his voice, leaning towards his doctor. “I’m begging you, you have to–”
“I know what day it is today.”
Cal stared at him. He swallowed the invisible, dry lump that had sat at the top of his throat but it didn’t go away. Aristotle took off his glasses again. This time, he folded them in and slipped them into his breast pocket. His face had changed. Thin wrinkles knotted on either side of his mouth and he could just make out the odd silver hair or two. The severe expression on his face softened, replaced by an expression that looked a lot like… no, not him too.
