Worldshift- Virtual Revolution

by Scott Straughan

  When the bugs had reached the cameras and Michael had hacked them, Kyle made his move. Still wearing his stealth cloak, he slipped into the room and crept up behind the droid guarding the stairs. A quick slash of his blade then beheaded the droid. The red light of the machine’s eyes went out as it collapsed into a heap on the floor.

  “So, let’s see what’s up above,” Michael remarked as the rest of the team strolled into the now-clear room and headed for the stairs.

  Ethan was one of the first to reach the top and peek out at the surface. He was curious because he’d never seen it before, but he was also cautious. There was a lot of noise coming from up above.

  The bright light of the sun took Ethan by surprise. Instead of leading into a building—as he’d assumed the stairs would—they came up beside a city street. Ethan had also expected the weather to be overcast or something, but everything was lit by a cheery warm light. Fluffy white clouds filled the sky overhead, but Ethan couldn’t see any sign of the sun. The light was filtering down through the clouds from every direction.

  Around Ethan, the city itself was a gleaming maze of steel, glass, and concrete. Everything was futuristic looking and completely clean. Rows of three- or four-story office-like buildings dominated the local area, although several tall skyscrapers could be seen off in the distance. Scattered humanoids could be seen walking down the sidewalks on the side of the street while smaller hover drones zoomed by overhead. There were also transport vehicles of some sort driving by.

  However, despite all the activity, the city didn’t give off a feeling of life. Everything was too organized and there was a definite lack of color. Unlike in the real, the nearby buildings lacked any sort of identification, so Ethan had no idea what their purpose was. There were no neon signs or vivid attention-grabbing advertisements on display. Did the robots have homes and buy goods? Ethan couldn’t tell. Certainly, some of the robots were entering buildings, but for all he knew they were just on patrol.

  “We’re going to have to wait for a lull and then make a break for cover,” Michael mused as he popped up next to Ethan. “That alley looks like its concealed from the street and leads in the right direction.”

  Ethan looked in the same direction as Michael. There was indeed a promising-looking alley crammed between two buildings there, so he nodded in agreement before descending to let the others have a look. Once everyone had been given a chance to see the area and hear the plan, they buckled down and waited for their chance. The staircase lay not too far from the road, and droids were regularly walking by it, so they would have to time their emergence just right. Even with stealth cloaks, they weren’t completely invisible.

  The waiting was tense and stressful, especially since the destroyed guard droid below them would alert any other droids that wandered into the stair chamber. However, after a few minutes had passed, Michael gave the word. “Now. Move!”

  The entire team burst out of the stairwell and ran for the alley. Ethan didn’t see any droids around, but it didn’t mean they weren’t being observed. As he ran, Ethan flinched when he unexpectedly heard a truck zoom down the road behind him. The entire team made it into the mouth of the alley without causing a commotion though. Once inside, Ethan spun around to study the road. All the droids were continuing on their way, seemingly unaware the players had just crossed their path.

  “Do you think they saw us and are just pretending they didn’t?” Kyle asked nervously.

  Michael shrugged. “At this point we can only proceed with the mission as planned.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t. You can relax,” Lily interjected in a reassuring voice.

  Ethan nodded. “I don’t see why they’d act any differently from the droids below ground.”

  “Let’s just stop wasting time and get going,” Jude told them impatiently.

  The cramped—but oddly clean—alley brought the players to a side street with a lot less traffic. As Ethan looked out, he noticed a large flying object by one of the skyscrapers in the distance. Frowning, he activated the scope built into his helmet so he could get a better look. Huh, it looked like a hover ship or something. Almost like a large military helicopter but without blades. Scanning the sky, Ethan noticed several more.

  “What are those?” he asked his teammates.

  Kyle followed his gaze. “Oh, those are the gunships I mentioned earlier.”

  “Gunships? Are they armed?”

  “Dunno. Probably? That’s just what I call them. They seem to patrol the sky around the taller buildings.”

  “They’re probably more for surveillance,” Michael said. “You could fit a lot of scanners and cameras on a platform that size, and their mobility would make them hard to predict and avoid. We’ll have to be careful of them as we approach our destination.”

  “Especially if they do have weapons! We might have to shoot some of them down,” Jude said. She sounded more than a little eager to fight.

  Since the street ahead of them was almost deserted, with only the occasional droid walking by, it was easy for the team to hurry out of the alley and cross the road. Once there, they headed through another alley. By avoiding the busier sections of the city, the players were able to make their way toward the tallest skyscraper at the center of the metropolis. They occasionally ran into cameras on posts or on the sides of buildings, but those were easy enough to detect and neutralize.

  Eventually, the players ran into a problem. As they approached their target, the crowds of robots grew thicker until there was no easy way to sneak past them. They also had to worry about the gunships, whose patrol routes now sent them right over the players’ heads so that Ethan heard the roar of their engines. Not trusting their stealth to work against whatever sensors the gunships carried, Michael had them all duck under cover whenever one flew overhead.

  “Could we sneak through the buildings?” Ethan asked as they tried to figure out their next move.

  “Unless the buildings are connected by underground tunnels, we’d still have to cross the busy streets,” Michael stated.

  There were several long seconds of silence as everyone considered this. None of them seemed able to come up with any solution to their problem. At least, not until Lily spoke up.

  “We need to steal a vehicle. There were some in a lot back the way we came. We can take one and drive it right up to the tower.”

  “Isn’t that risky?” Kyle asked. “This place is run by robots. What if they keep everything on schedule and pay attention to where all vehicles should be at all times?”

  Michael made a sour face. “I don’t think that’s the case. This entire floor is probably an imitation of a real city reality, so the drones will act broadly human. That’s why so many of them are just walking around. They’re imitating people, and people don’t track every vehicle.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure why Kyle’s comment bothered Michael, but it made sense. The entire team quickly backtracked down the street until they came to the parking lot Lily had seen. It was mostly empty, but there were a dozen cars and four trucks around. After a brief bit of scouting to make sure no droids were nearby, they chose one of the trucks and got to work hijacking it. It was a long, grey cargo vehicle with tinted windows at the front that would allow them to drive around unobserved.

  The carjacking turned out to be fairly easy. Michael was able to interface with the vehicle and hack its controls in less than a minute. He then simply disabled its security features and unlocked the doors, allowing everyone to jump in the back of the truck. The vehicle didn’t have a driver seat since it was self-driving, but that didn’t matter to Michael. It was easy for him to control everything using his hacking tools and interface.

  “Has everyone buckled themselves in?” he asked once they’d all climbed inside and settled down.

  “Ha ha. Very funny. Let’s get moving already,” Jude shot back. There were no seatbelts in the back of the truck. Only the two front seats had them.

  Michael just smirked from where he was sitting
in the front. “Very well. On we go.”

  The resulting quick jerk as the truck begin moving caused Jude to stumble, almost knocking her over. She threw Michael a dark look, but he’d already turned back around and was concentrating on driving, or at least pretending to.

  As the players’ truck pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, Ethan leaned over to watch the road. Michael and Lily were seated at the front in the chairs, so everyone else had to stand or sit on the floor.

  “Well, this is certainly easier then creeping about like criminals,” Kyle remarked happily. He’d chosen to sit with his back against the wall.

  “As long as we don’t get caught,” Ethan replied as the truck drove down the busy road that led to the central tower. None of the droids walking along the road even glanced in their direction.

  Lily put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We would already have noticed something if these vehicles were being monitored closely. Michael was right. This floor is set up to resemble a real city, which means its security is full of flaws.”

  “That’s disturbing in its own way,” Michael mumbled to himself.

  “Stop being so grumpy and keep your eyes on the road, old man,” Jude told him before chuckling.

  When the players got close to their destination, they saw that the skyscraper was surrounded by a large plaza full of carefully manicured gardens and statues. There were also patrols of heavily armed guards moving around and crowds of worker droids going about various tasks. Michael had to circle the street twice before they found a sheltered spot that was out of sight. Once they’d parked there, they all jumped out of the truck and proceeded on foot.

  After walking around a squat maintenance building, they then had to sneak through the plaza itself. Even with stealth cloaks, it was difficult. There were many guards, but thankfully there was also a lot of cover. The players were able to duck behind statues and raised gardens as they carefully dodged patrols and closed in on the tower itself.

  “It certainly is tall,” Ethan remarked once they reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the front door.

  The spire before them had a vaguely oval-shaped frame. At both of the thinner ends of the oval were massive pillars made from something that looked like white concrete. The rest of the building was made from an intricate lattice of glass and steel stretched between the two pillars. It looked to be hundreds of floors tall, and the top bristled with antennae and dishes of various sizes.

  Kyle sniggered. “Yeah, and the game designers aren’t being subtle about the whole tower theme they’re running with. Maybe they’re compensating for something?”

  “Towers within towers and games within games. Where it ends, nobody knows,” Michael stated darkly. Ethan glanced his way, but the older man’s face was carefully neutral. Did he know something?

  “So how are we going to get in? More sneaking?” Jude asked impatiently.

  At the top of the wide concrete stairs were three pairs of double doors made of glass. However, not only were there cameras on both sides of the entrance, there were also a dozen droids armed with rifles standing guard in front of them.

  “No, I was analyzing the building while we were driving around the plaza,” Michael replied. “There doesn’t seem to be any way in but through the front door.”

  “What? How do you expect us to get in there without drawing every enemy within miles down on us?” Kyle asked in surprise.

  Michael sighed. “Well, I’m open to ideas, but I don’t think we’ll be able to. I believe we’re going to have to blast our way in and hide within the tower itself until the heat dies down or we find the way to the next floor.”

  “Huh,” Jude remarked and grinned in anticipation.

  “We should use the scrambler bombs I made,” Lily suggested. “They’ll confuse all the enemies in the vicinity.”

  Michael nodded in agreement. “I was thinking the same thing. Why don’t you set them up and then we’ll discuss our attack formation?”

  It didn’t take long for Lily to pull a scrambler bomb from her inventory. The device was about the size of two fists and looked like a black cylinder with wires coming out of it. It also had a small screen with three buttons beneath it.

  “If I put it down here, it should affect all the droids at the door and all the electronics in about two hundred feet around us. That should stun most droids in the nearby plaza and prevent communication for at least thirty seconds,” Lily explained as she finished pushing some of the buttons on the bomb.

  With the bomb set up, Ethan’s team decided on an attack plan. They quickly decided that simple was best. Kyle, Lily, and Ethan would assault the doors while Michael and Lily took up the rear. Jude would watch for enemies approaching from behind, since she couldn’t aim forward without worrying about hitting her allies.

  “Go!” Michael announced when everyone was ready.

  Ethan sprang into action. Jumping out from behind the base of the statue, he sprinted for the door. He was still wearing his stealth cloak, but moving as fast as he was, it wouldn’t shield him from sight for long. His form blurred and shifted as he ran.

  Sure enough, when he was barely a third of the way up the stairs, one of the droids in the middle of the enemy formation reacted. It made a loud beeping sound and raised its weapon. That was when Lily activated the scrambler bomb. There was no boom, but static suddenly buzzed through Ethan’s helmet as the bomb’s pulse washed over him.

  The effect was instantly obvious. All the droids in sight staggered, and two of them collapsed completely and hit the ground with a clang noise.

  With the static still buzzing in his ears, Ethan charged forward to take advantage of the droids’ weakness. He was supposed to take out the droids on the left of their formation, so he focused on them. Only the one at the very end was functional enough to raise its weapon his way, so Ethan attacked it first. Slowing momentarily, he pulled a javelin from his quiver and launched it with an evoking-enhanced throw. The crystal spear zipped through the air and slammed into the droid’s chest before it could get a shot off. Its rifle fell from its hands as it spasmed and buzzed before going still. It didn’t fall though. Ethan’s spear had gone right through it and pinned it to the wall behind it.

  There was series of bangs as both Lily and Kyle opened fire with their pistols to cover their advance, but Ethan had to focus on his own targets. Another droid on the left had recovered and was aiming a pistol his way. This one was also holding a circular energy shield that protected most of its body. Grimacing, Ethan jumped to the side just in time to dodge an energy blast from the robot’s gun. As he landed, he twisted around and threw another javelin from his quiver. The crystal projectile sliced right through the droid’s weapon, which wasn’t protected by the shield. The gun exploded, and the robot was thrown backward and slammed into the wall.

  Ethan and his allies were now almost to the doors. The remaining droids were only about thirty feet away now, so Ethan put on a burst of speed and dashed into melee range. His powered armor allowed him to effortlessly close the distance, but the remaining two droids in front of him had recovered from the jamming effect of the scrambler bomb. Both of them tried to back away and aim their weapons at Ethan, but he was too close. Whipping out his energy sword, he lunged forward and slashed the closer droid’s arm. The energy weapon cut through the metal limb with ease, severing it completely.

  Ethan then had to spin around to the side to avoid a shot by the second enemy, but his move placed the damaged droid between him and the shooter, so it couldn’t get another shot off. The one-armed droid tried to aim its rifle using a single arm, but Ethan quickly cut its head off with a flick of his blade. As its body fell, he then dashed out from behind it and charged the last droid. He was immediately confronted by the sight of a gun barrel pointed straight at his head. Not good!

  Ethan reached for the Origin and sent a blast of aether straight at the enemy. Without warning, the invisible energy slammed into the droid, knocking i
t off balance just as it took its shot. The energy from its rifle flashed right over Ethan’s shoulder, missing by an inch or less. Unfazed, Ethan stepped forward and sliced the droid to pieces before it could recover its footing.

  However, the defeat of the four droids he’d been assigned didn’t mean the fight was over. Ethan spun around to see how his teammates were doing. He was just in time to see Kyle decapitate his last enemy. Past him, it looked like Lily had already defeated her four targets. They lay on the ground around her.

  Jude and Michael had reached the top of the stairs as well. Michael was already headed for the doors, but Jude took a moment to open fire at something in the distance with her machine gun before spinning around and joining her allies.

  “Let’s get inside before the enemies in the plaza rally and give chase,” Michael said as he leaned over to inspect the doors. Ethan glanced through the glass of the closed doors and into the building, but all he saw was an empty reception room, so he nodded in agreement.

  It only took Michael a few seconds to get the doors open and then the players cautiously entered the tower’s entrance room. It was a round hall with a second-floor balcony along the back and a fountain in the middle. There were also two droids in the room. One was up on the balcony and another was beside the fountain, but they were both brought down by gunfire from Ethan’s teammates before they could react.

  CHAPTER 30

  UPWARD

  “I’m locking the doors behind us,” Michael announced as he glanced around the room. At the same time, two of his hover drones appeared and flew into the air to look around.

  “There’s an elevator over there,” Kyle said as he pointed toward a steel double door at the very back of the room.

  “Too risky. I’ve already located an alternative way up,” Michael replied. The older man then pointed at the balcony. “Ethan, give us a line up there please.”