by Wyatt Savage
“They’re still back where we left them,” the doctor said. “We’ve entered the training protocol.”
“Is any of this real?”
“It’s an extremely sophisticated simulation.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“No, but I have purchased the requisite skills. You have to remember that while you can trade experience points for various upgrades, there are some skills that can only be acquired through experience. Having died once, you have no points and cannot be gifted points, and we don’t have time for you to develop these skills naturally, which is why this abbreviated training is necessary.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Are you familiar with the concept of being killed?”
“Yes.”
“Do the opposite of that,” the doctor said.
“Why are we even doing this?”
“The human mind can either be a weapon or a liability. When bad things happen, your grey matter generates red-alert signals, prediction errors, things that cause you to search for causes, meaning, so that you can predict the next bad thing. But there’s something that throws this process off: the actions of other people. Predicting what another person will do is difficult, so you need to retrain your brain, Logan. You need to spot patterns, sequences.”
“What happens if I die during this training?”
“You will be respawned.”
“But it’s a simulation. I’m not going to feel any of it, right?”
CRACK!
A gunshot echoed in the distance. I heard a humming sound and felt the rush of air and then TWACK!
A bullet tore through my left shoulder, spinning me to the ground.
-5 Health Points!
The hole in my shoulder hurt like a sonofabitch and I moaned, covering the wound as spurts of red jetted between my fingers.
“Up,” Doctor Throgmorton said. “Get up!”
“But I don’t even have a weapon!”
“GET UP AND EVADE YOUR ATTACKERS!”
Shooting to my feet, I fought to staunch the flow of blood from my shoulder as the ground out in front of me filled with a parade of horribles. The things that were charging toward me looked like they’d been lifted out of a fairy tale book or a role-playing game.
There were things that resembled orcs and trolls, Viking berserkers, archers, monster-women, what looked like an attractive lady clad in a multi-colored robe with smoke billowing from her fingers, and even a few errant cowboys with six-shooters. I tried to dial up Sue for assistance, but was unable to.
“Who selected the attackers?” I asked.
“They’re plucked from your subconscious. At some point in your life you either played a game, watched something, or dreamed about one of those things.”
“Pardon my language, but this is fucked up,” I said.
“These are fucked-up times, Logan. Now get ready and I’ll assist.”
“How?”
“Via Mindspeak,” the doctor answered.
The doctor stepped into a warm cone of light, protective I imagined, as I squared off against the three or four dozen things that were coming to spill my blood.
Suddenly, the terrain changed.
I was on top of a slate-tiled roof in the middle of what looked like a medieval city and the orcs were coming at me from every direction. Each of them was over seven feet tall with yellowish-green skin and tusks the size of railroad spikes. They carried with them wooden hammers.
“Here they come,” Doctor Throgmorton said. “The object during this lesson is to not get hit. Remember, the smartest warrior wins, not the biggest or the strongest.”
Down five health points, I moved slowly, skidding across the top of the slate roof as the orcs jumped at me. I dove out of the way, avoiding their hammer strikes.
“This is the equivalent of a brutal chess match,” the doctor said.
“How ‘bout some real advice,” I barked.
“You’re slow so you need to deploy a feint.”
“What?”
“Act as if you’re going to strike back and then withdraw.”
I did, acting as if I was going to punch the next orc in the balls. The monster hesitated, but quickly recovered.
“You need to sell the feint,” the doctor said, some steel in his voice. “You have to get your opponent to respect your movements.”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Do better.”
I drew up on the next orc and partially heaved my body as if I was going to kick it. This time the monster reacted in full which allowed me to squirt past him.
“Lesson Number 1,” the doctor said.
Unfortunately, lesson number 2 was given at the end of the last orc’s hammer, which glanced off my right hand with sufficient force to pulp my fingers.
-1 Health Point!
I cried out in agony, but was able to run around the thing.
“Keep going,” Doctor Throgmorton urged.
I dove down from the slate roof onto an apron of stone and rolled to a stop. “How am I doing?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
Wounds and all, I put my head down and ran off the edge of the apron of stone, landing on another roof. Another building was nearby, separated by a five or six-foot gap.
The attractive woman was visible on top of the other roof. She was levitating, the air sparking and changing colors, her coal-colored hair flowing around her head like a halo.
“What is she?”
“A mage,” he answered.
She buzzed through the air, twirling a loop of light around her finger.
“I’m not afraid of her,” I said to the doctor.
“But you should respect her,” the doctor answered.
The mage broke the light into spear-like pieces that floated in the air.
Then she began firing the spears at me.
“Close your eyes,” Doctor Throgmorton said.
“Are you nuts?!”
“Just do it!”
I did and a feeling of dread gripped me. I was totally exposed, standing alone, waiting to be struck down and then I heard it.
A tremor.
A metallic sound.
“Where’s the sound coming from?” the doctor asked me.
“To the right.”
“Then move left in a semi-crouch. Now!”
I did and felt a disturbance in the air, a force slicing past the spot that I’d just left.
“Now open your eyes, Logan.”
I did and saw one of the spears coming directly toward me.
Dropping to the ground, I closed my eyes again and listened for the telltale metallic sound. Navigating blind, I began moving forward, slowly at first, darting to the left, leaping to the right. I was doing it. I was going up against an army of monsters and beating them. Lesson Number 3!
I allowed myself a ghost of a smile and my focus slipped.
I opened my eyes.
The final spear struck me in the neck.
“Lesson Number 4,” the doctor said. “Pride goeth before a burn.”
-10 Health Points!
The spear broke over my body and immediately I caught fire. A pillar of flames seared me before I had a chance to scream.
Here’s the thing about fire. It hurts like a sonofabitch. And the worst part isn’t when your skin peels off like wet newspaper, or the pink meat of your body sizzles like bacon in an iron skillet. Nope, the very worst thing is what I mentioned earlier about the gent I’d seen set himself on fire before the Melee started, the smell your hair makes when it catches fire and burns down into your skull. There are no polite words to describe the funk that results from a torched scalp. I watched my body literally melt before my eyes and then I passed out.
BOOM!
My eyes snapped open and I gasped.
I was back at the beginning of the training again, back atop the roof. Next to the doctor, waiting for the battle attackers to attack once again.
The orcs
came first. The hammers were swung again and this time I managed to evade all of them.
Next up was the mage.
She fired the spears of light at me and I weaved between all of them. There was a look of bafflement on her face as I surged forward before she was able to conjure up additional weapons. Attractive woman or not, I punched her in the face and dove off the edge of the roof, landing in a darkened alley with a cobblestone street.
Hugging the shadows, I ran with everything I had. Up ahead, blocking the way out of the alley were the archers, skilled men and women with bows who unleashed a storm of arrows that filled the air.
Realizing that I’d have to find a way to outpace the arrows, I double-timed it as Doctor Throgmorton hammered home the idea of creating dominant angles by bringing the top and bottom parts of my body into harmony. “Fluidity helps you to manipulate your opponent,” he said, which I didn’t totally understand.
I wasn’t fluid enough apparently, because three arrows struck me. The first two punctured my stomach and the last one struck my left eye.
-9 Health Points!
Blood and eye jelly leaped from the wound as I fell to the ground, lying on the cold cobblestone, suffering for several agonizing moments until the archers shot another arrow into my gut.
My life winked out like a blown candle.
Another respawning and I was on the move again.
My death and resurrection occurred another three times at the hands of the archers:
Arrows through my heart -10 Health Points!
Arrows through my throat -10 Health Points!
And, of course, arrows through my groin -10 Health Points!
On the fourth try, I finally found the perfect angle and juked past those arrows that thudded into the orcs who somehow had tracked me down and were hot on my heels.
Bypassing the archers, I drew up on a quintet of Viking berserkers near a village plaza complete with a beautiful fountain in the shape of a swan. The muscle-slabbed north-men were wrapped in animal skins and bellowed like animals being branded. They came at me with swords and axes and the doctor’s voice rattled in my ears, but this time I didn’t need him.
Respawned, I was at full strength and able to sense their movements before they occurred. I executed drift-slides under the thrusts of the first two Viking marauders before the third surprised me with a feint of his own.
I went one way, the berserker went another and his axe came down on my head, splitting my skull open. Actually, the axe only went halfway through. I fell, the Viking planted a foot on my chest, removed the axe, and then split my skull with a second strike. I could literally feel my brains oozing down my cheeks.
-10 Health Points!
Respawned, I made it past the berserkers, realizing that I was drawing close to the cowboys who stood beyond the village plaza. They sported hats and long dusters that flapped in the breeze.
Six-shooters out, they loosed a storm of bullets in my direction and I closed my eyes, listening to the hum of the rounds as they scythed past me.
I took off on a mad dash, adrenaline coursing through my body as I danced between the bullets, lowering my shoulder to barrel over the final startled cowboy before he could put a bullet between my eyes.
I threw up my hands like I’d just won a marathon.
Spinning on my heels, I expected to get some congratulations, but the doctor had other things in mind. The village vanished and we were back in the middle of a flat wasteland.
The doctor stood behind a mini-gun mounted on a tripod. Where it came from I didn’t know, but it was big and black with a frowny face painted on the end in yellow.
The doctor opened fire.
I reacted as bullets filled the air.
Using the skills I’d acquired, I moved forward on the balls of my feet, slipping and sliding between the bullets, which appeared bigger than baseballs, trailing tails of light.
The barrel on the mini-gun was glowing by the time I reached it. The doctor threw up his hands and I reflexively jump-kicked him away from the weapon. I hadn’t meant to do him any harm, but I was caught up in the moment. The simulation might’ve been fake, but Doctor Throgmorton took a very real spill, smacking to the ground.
The impact disrupted whatever jammer he was using because for the first time I could see him for who he was.
I could read his stats which blinked:
Species: Homo Sapiens (Throgmorton, Jonathan)
Chattel:
Health:9/10
Level 1:1
Class:Builder
Kills:818
Vitals:BP – 131/80; T – 98.09f; RR – 13bpm
XP:5789
Before I went to help him up, I gaped at the stats again. Jesus, the doctor had over five thousand experience points! There was something about that number that was significant, but I couldn’t place what it was. How had a guy who could barely walk amassed so many points and kills? Then something clicked, something Sue had told me about someone who’d acquired a ton of points right after the game began. What was it? Something about a hospital?
“H-how?” I stammered. “How did you get so many points?”
“Now is not the time to—”
“You said you were a doctor.”
His eyes went flat and he nodded.
“Where did you work?”
“Now is not the time to talk about that—”
“Where?” I pressed.
His face flushed and he took a liking to the ground and that was when I knew who Doctor Throgmorton was.
“Jesus, you’re him aren’t you? You’re one of the high scorers. You’re the Crimson Parson.”
He stared right through me.
“You were a doctor and you worked in a hospital didn’t you?” I added.
He remained silent.
“Answer the goddamn question, doctor.”
“Ask me one that’s worth answering and I will.”
“You killed all those people, didn’t you? An entire hospital of sick and wounded people right after the Melee started. You did that, didn’t you?”
Slowly, the doctor stood and dusted himself off.
“How can you kill a terminally ill person, Logan? They’re already dead.”
My guts seized because I was right. He’d killed the people in the hospital.
“You murdered them.”
“I ended their suffering.”
“You’re a killer.”
“I’m a saint. I took their pain away.”
I grabbed the doctor’s discarded minigun and turned it around on him. A crooked smile gripped his mouth.
“Go on and do it. The fighting might be a simulation, but that weapon is very real. You can kill me if you want to, but remember I saved your life. I’ve saved everyone’s lives more times than I can remember.”
“You think that makes up for what you did?”
“I think I did what had to be done to survive,” the doctor replied, his expression darkening. “Nobody who’s gotten this far has clean hands.”
I had half a mind to shoot the bastard down, but I didn’t have the guts or desire to do it. There was a part of me that thought he’d done what he had to do to survive and that maybe I would’ve done the same in his shoes. Maybe.
I lowered the gun and the doctor slashed his arms in the air and—
BOOM!
There was a burst of light and things changed once again. The doctor somehow was inside of a shiny set of blue body armor. In his hands were two titanic mauls.
“The training isn’t over yet,” he said.
Before I could ask how he acquired the armor, he tossed one of the mauls to me. It was melee time.
The doctor’s maul came down.
I crabbed back and brought my weapon up defensively, meeting the doctor’s maul. The blow stunned me, showering me with friction sparks. For a man who could barely walk before, the doctor was moving with the grace of a trained killer.
He screamed and swung the maul left and right as I ducke
d under the blows, shimmied sideways, and struck him hard in the chest.
The armor morphed into something larger, more powerful, what the doctor called a Neuro-Gauntlet. He was now shielded by a mechanical battle suit that allowed him to hover in the air on tiny jets.
Our mauls were gone, replaced by golden swords.
I had a sword in each hand and so did the doctor.
He attacked and I blocked his blows. We went at it for several seconds chopping and striking each other, neither one able to land a solid strike.
“You’re getting better,” the doctor said via Mindspeak.
He brought both swords down and I rocketed forward, driving mine toward the middle of his battle suit as everything changed a final time.
I was separated from the doctor by three hundred feet.
He now held pistols and I still had my golden swords.
He began firing at me, unleashing a wave of bullets that I chopped out of the air with my swords, cutting them down midflight to the left and right.
“How about some atmospherics!” the doctor shouted.
Glowing, holographic objects appeared: propane canisters, tanks of gasoline, little bundles of dynamite. The kind of objects you might see in a video game.
The doctor began firing at them and his bullets detonated the objects, creating fireballs and pyrotechnic detonations, blowing me sideways. I ran for my life, avoiding the blasts, as the doctor’s guns clicked over, empty. I planted my feet and hurled my swords at him. The swords struck his battle suit, which vanished in a flash of light.
The simulations were gone and we were back with the others who were still frozen in place.
The doctor stood before me, cheeks flushed; hair was in his face.
Several seconds of silence stretched between all of us and then Doctor Throgmorton smiled a genuine smile. “You did it,” he said softly. “You survived the protocol.”
“This doesn’t change what we talked about before.”
“I didn’t think it would,” he answered. “But you’re ready to face the Noctem now.” The timer sounded and the mouths and bodies of the others began moving once again.
“Whoa,” Dwayne said, eyes goggling, pointing at me. “It was like you were gone and then you just reappeared.”
“Like a ghost,” Espinosa said.
Doctor Throgmorton smiled. “The protocol is over.”
