by Rick Scott
“Who’s King Vic?” I ask.
“His predecessor. Rembrandt took care of him. He was a nasty bugger too, but at least he was smart. Axel is just a low-rank thug who bullied his way to the top after Vic was gone. He’s made the Bozos worse than ever.”
“You think he’s really going to race against us tomorrow?”
“It’s what he and his gang live for.” Lexi rolls her eyes. “But don’t worry, the Twins will be after them just as much as us, so maybe it’ll work to our advantage.”
I certainly hope so. Racing that track is going to be hard enough without that idiot interfering. “We’ll have to let the others know. Come up with a new contingency for them.”
“Too right,” she says and then glances about the clinic. “Hey, didn’t you say you needed to come here for something?”
I stare at her puzzled for a moment and then it clicks. “Lexi, I don’t know what we’d do without you, seriously.” I smile and then recline on the bed and key it into operation. I select what I want from the options menu and the information pops onto both my HUD and a hologram outside the booth.
[1] Backup Core ……….. £5,000,000
[2] Installation fee ..……... £10,000
I link the Backup Core Voucher to the device and the system acknowledges it.
Backup Core Voucher is accepted.
[You lose a Backup Core Voucher.]
[1] Backup Core ……….. £0
[2] Installation fee ..……... £10,000
Lexi laughs. “Now that’s one hell of a discount, mate!”
I grin with agreement and key for the installation to commence. I feel a tiny prick and tingle at the back of my head, but after about a minute the process completes at 100%.
[Backup Core installation complete.]
[Auto-Save function engaged.]
[Backup Core will perform a full system scan and backup every 24 hours.]
[Forced save is available at any time through your user interface.]
[Warning: Backup Core Restoration Function is single-use only.]
[Caution: Restoration may result in a Memory Overwrite.]
[Memory Overwrite: Full or partial loss of all previous memories may occur.]
My heart does a little flutter when I read the last line. This thing has a chance to wipe all my memories? I’m not so sure about using it now.
Lexi sees it too and gives a little frown. “Sounds dangerous. What do you need this for exactly?”
I haven’t really sat down to tell Lexi everything, so I take the opportunity to do so, starting as far back as my first encounter with the Ozoku down in the Brookrun Mines. She hangs on my every word, her chrome eyes widening, especially when I tell her what I plan to do with the device.
“So you’re going to go into another one of those…sphere things in the heart of the labyrinth, challenge the demon monster inside it and hopefully kill it again somehow, and then record how you did it, then use the Backup Core to remember again later when your memory gets wiped?”
I laugh at when she puts it like that. “Pretty much. Except now it might wipe all of my memories.”
“Hell of a risk, love.”
I shrug. “Guess it’s risky either way. I’m still not 100% sure what I’m going to find inside that sphere.”
Besides one of them waiting for me, of course.
She shakes her head at me with a smile. “You never cease to amaze me, Reece. I’ve never run into another player like you before. Everything you do seems really…real.”
I squint at that one. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you know,” she says. “Most of us came here for fun…or to escape. Not to try and save the entire bloody world. But that’s truly all you care about, isn’t it? Saving us all.”
I shrug and try to hide the blush on my cheeks. “Someone’s got to do it.”
She laughs at that.
“What about you, Lex? You ever care about going back home?”
“To Citadel?” She shakes her head. “I fall into the escapee column, mate.” She then casts her eyes down a bit. “Although my mum’s still back there. And still with him…I reckon.”
“Him?”
“My step-dad,” she says. “Trust me, there’s a reason I stand up to bullies like Axel so easily. And why I’m good at receiving broken noses too, I suppose.”
I wince at that but she only laughs.
“Lex, I’m so sorry.”
She barely looks fazed by it though and waves it away like it’s no big deal. “Hey, we’re all here for something. For me, it’s starting a new life. That’s why I stick with Angela. She’s all about making it better here…for all of us.”
I ponder on that a moment. At first, when I encountered Braxus, I thought it was incredibly selfish or myopic of him to cherish this world, when the real world was going through a crisis back home. But more and more I’m starting to see that, for a lot of people, this world is far better than what’s waiting for them back there. And that saving Citadel is just as much about saving them as it is about saving my mom and the millions still counting on me to bring back the nano to keep us all alive.
“I’ll make sure we all live long enough to see that dream come true,” I say. “I promise you that.”
Lexi smiles. “I’ll hold you to it.”
A silence takes hold as we pause in our conversation. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell Lexi and while I was going to wait till we were back at the HQ, now seems the perfect time.
“Hey, Lexi?”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to say thank you,” I say, looking her in the eye to make sure she knows how serious I am. “I mean for everything. From the moment we met you, you’ve been saving us. The help with this race, the Gun Queen, everything. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
She grins and blushes a little. “Oh, it’s not that big a deal, love.”
“No, it is,” I say. “And not just with all of that. Thanks for just…for just being a good friend. Especially to Gilly.”
She looks at me a bit strangely then, furrowing her pierced brows.
“I heard she got in your face, because she thought you were interested in me, but then everything panned out…” I wink at her. “…after you told her I wasn’t your type.”
Lexi laughs.
I then grin. “Guess I’m not a real man, eh?”
She laughs harder, covering her mouth and falling backwards. “Oh no, love! Don’t you mind what I told Axel.” She then pats my knee reassuringly. “You’re plenty enough a real man and as handsome as they come. But Gilly’s quite correct. You’re not on my menu.”
“I won’t take it personally then.” I laugh with her. “But seriously. Gilly’s never had a lot of friends and having you as a friend has really made her blossom in ways I’ve never seen before. So thank you so much for that. For everything. I mean it.”
“Aw,” she says, standing to give me a hug. “You’re welcome, Reece. You’re going to make me bloody cry next.”
I hop off the bed and hug her warmly and deeply.
“Oh and before I forget,” I say and search for something in my inventory. “I wanted to give you this. To say thanks…” I wink at her again. “…especially for that date night.”
She chuckles. “Okay, now you’re making me nervous.”
“I really didn’t know what to get you, so I just got a little something to remember us by when we have to go.”
You offer to trade with Lexi.
You offer:
Driver’s Edge Key Chain +50 Control +50 TP +25% to Punch It Effect
Her eyes light up. “Wow, when did you get this?”
“I snuck back to the jewelry store where I bought Gilly’s necklace set last night. Aiko kinda helped too. Like you said, the city never sleeps.”
She laughs. “Thank you. These are great stats! It must have cost you a fortune!”
“Hey, you’re worth it. But that’s not the best par
t. Materialize it.”
She does so and the key chain appears—a flat disk about the size of a business card. She flips it in her hand and her jaw drops when she sees a holographic image of her and Gilly on the front, smiling and laughing together in their twin-like outfits.
“H-how did you get this?”
“Got a memory fragment and had Rembrandt record you two while I was racing on the track.”
She laughs out loud. “Oh my goodness, this is the best! Thank you!” She bounces up and hugs me again. “I can’t wait to show Gilly!”
“Speaking of her,” I say. “We should probably get back. She still needs to fix my bike before the race tomorrow.”
“Blimey, I nearly forgot about that. I’ll see if she can adjust that suspension too. I don’t recommend trying to make that kind of jump again. Even a bike customized for off-roading would probably collapse under that kind of fall, but maybe smaller ones it could still handle with a wee upgrade.”
“That’d be good,” I say and subtly feel an anxiety building in my stomach. I’ve been focused on learning the track for the last 48 hours almost non-stop and while it’s all been academic so far, tomorrow it’s going to be the real deal.
Twins, traps, and all.
“You really think I’m ready?”
“More than ready.” Lexi smiles at me, dusting off my shoulders. “Tomorrow morning. You’re going to make history, Reece. You’ll be the first non-Runner to win the Thunder Ball Rally.”
Chapter 43: Into the Depths
Bruce was starting to regret choosing Novak as their guide.
Although he’d done well in keeping the natives at bay while they traversed the various gang territories within the HUB, it came at the price of enduring his company in general. The man blabbered non-stop about one inane thing or another, but no matter what the subject, it always ended the same way.
“So whatcha think about that, Bruce?”
Bruce glared at him for what had to be the hundredth time. “I really don’t think much of it at all, Novak.”
Novak just laughed at his rote response. It’d become a bit of a game to him, Bruce figured. A way to get on his nerves, and perhaps entertain himself, but Bruce wasn’t biting.
He glanced at Gina and she rolled her eyes.
My sentiments exactly, he thought.
It’d been a couple hours already and his back was killing him, as were his legs, but he was impressed with how well Gina was holding up. Considering her illness, she was moving along just fine. The woman had a sprightliness to her that he hadn’t recalled seeing before. Perhaps she’d been right about getting out of the hab doing her some good—more conditioned now after a week’s worth of tracing lines through the various access tunnels and service-ways running throughout the city.
And this trek was proving much the same.
Following Novak through the poverty-ridden underworld of the HUB shanty towns was an adventure in itself. Lucky, they’d manage to avoid what would clearly have been violent confrontations with the locals, if Novak hadn’t been with them. More than once they’d been surrounded by packs of ten or twelve men, armed with bladed weapons and pointy sticks.
But Novak did his job. The top gang leader quelled them with a few sharp words and like magic, they were allowed to go on about their way unhindered. The first encounter had been somewhat terrifying, but after that it became almost routine and Bruce felt assured that he’d made the right call in soliciting Novak’s help…stupid stories and badgering notwithstanding.
They then descended into the bowels of the complex, via a narrow service shaft that had to have gone down a good thousand feet. Navigating the tiny concrete steps had been both nerve-racking and nauseating, with a sheer drop into darkness on one side and a blank concrete wall on the other. Thankfully they’d reached the bottom now, but Bruce wasn’t looking forward to the climb back up.
Flores and her team were a constant source of support and motivation, though, egging them on to keep up and helping Gina every now and then. He envied their youth. They almost bounded down the steps, with Flores leading the charge in front and two of her team bringing up the rear.
The steps were a good half hour behind them now and they were closing in on their destination, an unknown area in the deep recesses of Citadel—a place where things without maps existed. They were currently travelling through one such anomaly, an empty room, which by Bruce’s estimation, had to be well over 500 feet wide, a hundred feet high and close to a mile long.
Bruce could only tell the distances from the faint glow of dull phosphorescent lighting running along the seams of the room, where the walls met the floor and ceiling. He’d wanted to pop one of the flares they’d brought to get a better view, but Flores had warned against it for fear of revealing their presence.
Still, the engineer in him marveled at it all, even in the dim light. An ancient Builder must have designed and constructed this space for some purpose: an expansion area perhaps, to build another HUB complex, but just like its creator, the room’s origins and true purpose were now lost to antiquity.
“I see a few tunnels through the wall up ahead,” Flores called back over her shoulder. “Which one do we take, Mrs. Roberts?”
Gina paused and withdrew her comm device. “Let me check.”
A small schematic appeared above the device and after a minute or so she nodded. “Looks like the third one leads to the area we want.” She then looked to Bruce. “So how do we do this?”
“We’ll do it as we planned,” Bruce said. “We stay in the back.”
“Way to be brave, Bruce.” Novak grinned at him.
He looked up at Novak. “You want to rush ahead and catch a bullet, that’s up to you.” He then gave a nod to Flores. “All yours, Flores. We’re in your hands.”
Flores grinned in a way that made him nervous.
“Stay sharp, alpha team!” she called to her companions. “We’re heading in.”
* * *
Bruce strained his eyes within the dimly lit tunnel. It was dark in general this far down in the construct, but here it seemed all the more so by the claustrophobic walls that were only three or four feet apart. They had to venture in two-by-two as a result. The only exception was Flores, who bravely took the lead and Novak, who was so wide that he needed the space all to himself. Bruce and Gina followed behind him and behind them, two of Flores’ team brought up the rear.
“I see some light,” Flores said. “There’s a room up ahead.”
“That’d be the converter room,” Gina said. “Whatever we’re looking for is in there.”
Flores pointed to her team with quick hand signals and they nodded to her in acknowledgement. She then turned to Bruce.
“Shelly and Arnold will stay with you guys,” she said. “I’ll scout ahead with Ralph and Felix.”
Novak withdrew his pistol. “I’m coming too.”
Flores opened her mouth as if to object, but then seemed to weigh the options in her mind before nodding. “Okay, but stay behind us. You’re pretty big so we can’t shoot around you. You’ll have to shoot over our heads.”
“That’s the idea, little sister.”
Novak grinned at her and Flores seemed to take it as a term of endearment, smiling back. “Okay, let’s go.”
Bruce’s heartrate sped as he watched them venture into this darkness. The outcome of the operation now rested on Flores and her team, but the weight of ultimate responsibility lay squarely on him. That caused anxiety to rise in his stomach like battery acid. Everything that had occurred within the last week: enlisting Gina, arming Flores and her team, and even sanctioning Novak, was his call and whatever happened next would be on his head.
Please let everything go okay.
He lost sight of the team completely as they disappeared into the tunnel. He almost expected to hear gunshots next, but there was nothing. Tense seconds passed, the unnerving silence filled only by the rapid thudding of his heart within his ears.
“Huh…?”
the girl, Shelly, said from behind him. And then suddenly she screamed. “Ahhh!! Get it off! Get it off me!”
Bruce spun about, along with Gina, his heart slamming against his chest.
He stared open-mouthed at the young woman screaming in pain, but his mind had trouble deciphering exactly what he was seeing. Shelly was squirming waist-deep in what he could only describe as a pool of green gelatin.
“Holy crap! Shelly!” The gunner, Arnold, let loose with his assault rifle, filling the tunnel with thunder as he fired into the mass of green goo.
Gina pressed herself to the side of the tunnel, blocking her ears with her palms.
“Stop shooting! You’ll hit her!” Bruce shouted and slapped Arnold’s rifle barrel towards the ground. The gunfire ceased and was replaced by Shelly’s screams as the goo climbed up her body, inch by inch.
“It burns! It burns!”
The bullets didn’t seem to have any effect on whatever it was, but perhaps something else could. Bruce whipped the flare gun from his side and fired it straight into the center mass of the goo. Bright orange light filled the tunnel as the flare went off, lodging itself inside the creature. The goo reacted in an instant, quickly receding from about Shelly’s legs as it began to flee the tunnel. A horrid gurgling and popping sound arose as its body itself began to burn, accompanied by a high-pitched wheeze that sounded almost like a scream.
Gina reached for the girl and pulled her away from the burning mass.
“Are you all right?” Gina asked her, quickly checking her legs. “Does it still hurt?”
“No,” Shelly said, shaking her head. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with shock. She then looked to Bruce. “Th-thank you.”
Flores, Novak, and her team came running back then, emerging from the darkness.
“What’s going on?” Flores shouted. “What’s happening?”
Her mouth then fell open as she took in the writhing mass of gelatin thrashing on the ground. As it was consumed by the flare, it finally grew still and then crumbled into gray dust.
