Respawn: Lives 1-5 (Respawn LitRPG series Book 1)

by Arthur Stone

  “Sitting on the grass.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “I was in that taxi, driving to the bridge.”

  “Bridge? The hell for?”

  “They told me it would be safe on the other side.”

  “Get this in your head, Noob: ain’t nowhere safe. Who’s ‘they’?”

  “People like you. Except they looked, well, more dangerous.” Rock was coming to his senses and realizing that this person had a subtle similarity to those soldier types that had directed him this way. None of the awkward jumps and shifts that most people had. “They said there was a stable that way with, uh, some kind of settled infecteds that were about to come charging this way.”

  “Settleds?” The man was taken aback. “A lot of them? Were they being serious?”

  “I don’t even know what the hell they were talking about.”

  “Lucky you. I’m a little jealous. Listen, come with me and I’ll take you where you need to be. Even give you some tips for getting the ladies. You’ll do alright with me. I’m not like them others, always find my own way without getting myself caught up in all them gangs and shit. But I’ve been living poor for the past bit. My luck really ran out, and I bumped into a tough elite. So, Noob, which way’s that bridge?”

  “Down this avenue. Which is where all the psychos hang out, apparently.”

  “Then let’s go. Before things get bad.”

  Rock surveyed the scene, perplexed. Dozens of smashed and crumpled cars, raging fires, pools of blood, victims moaning and screaming. “This isn’t ‘bad’?”

  “Huh?”

  Rock pointed to the smoking scrap heap. “This. All of this. You don’t think it’s bad already?”

  “That? Hah! You joking with me? This is barely more than a bar fight.” Horsefly grabbed Rock’s arm and brought him along with him. “But if we don’t get out of here, soon the drunken sailors will get involved, then the gangs, and then things will catch fire, and the guns will come out, and the cops will show up, and we’ll all be in deep shit.”

  Chapter 5

  Life Three: Stage One

  Rock hadn’t liked Horsefly when he met him, and he didn’t like traveling with him, either. First, the man basically dragged Rock along, enforcing a pace that the newbie’s knee found unacceptably precarious and painful. Worse, he didn’t care much for remaining unseen. He wouldn’t stick to the backyards or alleys but just marched down the public sidewalks. The chaos continued on the streets, especially at intersections, as cars sped away madly from the direction of that mysterious stable and those “settled infecteds.” Rock got the impression that some unseen force was pushing these drivers, shutting down their senses of self-preservation entirely and dulling their reflexes, making them unable to react to changes in the roadway. Either that, or they feared what was behind them much more than they feared horrific accidents. Horsefly paid no mind at all to the death all around. He even shook his fist at a tram that left the rails and swept through a packed junction.

  “The fuck you going! Stupid digis.”

  The concrete barriers failed to stop the tram, and it smashed the cars that had miraculously survived to this point, accompanied by the screams of dying people and trapped tram passengers staring madly out the windows. Still it pushed out, steel wheels screaming as loudly as the doomed choir inside. The spinning metal crushed a car out of which a young woman had only just pulled a stroller with her child inside. She was so occupied with her rescue operation that she noticed the danger too late, barely managing to push her child away.

  The carriage seemed unharmed but began to slowly accelerate downhill. Rock jerked towards it, but Horsefly moved faster than his namesake and nabbed his arm, growling indignantly.

  “The hell you off to?”

  “There’s a baby there, in the stroller!” Rock replied as he tried feebly to escape the man’s impossibly strong grip.

  “Listen up, hero,” said Horsefly heartlessly, “we ourselves be the only people here that we can save.”

  “Let go of me, you cold bastard. Who the hell lets a baby die?”

  “You ain’t listening. That ain’t a baby, and its mother ain’t a real woman, just a doll, made of meat.”

  “But...”

  “No buts. Relax and listen to everything I say. Don’t you let these moving mannequins distract you, alright? All these people you see around you are just meat. They ain’t people. Ain’t you noticed something off about them? Like they just come in a few kinds, like cookies made from a couple different shapes of cookie cutters? Look at that old guy over there. Now, look at that one. Both look the same, walk the same, and pretty much dress the same. And they talk the same, too, I’m telling you. And how about that succulent young woman over there? And that one over there? They’re just too perfect. Ain’t many ugly women around, since the Continent knows how to make them pretty. Fellows have some kind of crazy fetish. Maybe it’s all those rules they got. Need lawyers in their bedrooms just to stay within the law.”

  “...so these are robots?”

  “If you cut them, you’ll find the same stuff inside that we have. Entrails and all.”

  “But you said that...”

  “Listen. Don’t think about what I say, just accept it. Let’s say you go get that girl to do it with you. See how hot she is? You won’t even notice the difference between her and an immune girl. If anything, she’ll be better. They make them perfectly shaved and everything. Whoever loaded their brain programming knew how to make them good in bed. We call these things ‘digis,’ short for ‘digitals.’ So don’t even look at that stroller again. There are no real babies here, since no players are ever babies. These things are like cardboard cutouts. Like Xerox copies of cardboard cutouts. Pay them no mind, alright? The digis don’t help the zeroes out, and helping digis out is like trying to help ants cross a busy road. They’re just dumb clumps of biomass, food for the Continent. Once you’re used to them, you’ll recognize them without having to squint. They act stupid and have very limited conversation. Siri made for a better conversation partner. Only total newbies like you confuse them for players.”

  “Players? So this is all just a game.”

  “No, Noob, this ain’t a game. If you want, you can call it that. A lot of people do. Hey, listen, maybe I should name you Noob? About time you had a godfather. You like the name? I’m sure ain’t nobody else has taken it.”

  “Godfather?” Rock was still fighting the urge to look back at that stroller speeding down the hill, by some miracle dodging all of the smashed and stopped cars. Despite everything his new companion had said, he was struggling to put away the thought that a baby was in mortal danger a short distance away and that he, Rock, was pretending that nothing was happening.

  “You know what, don’t you worry about it. It’s too early to name you anyway. Got to get you out of here first. You have to get out of here first, and stack up some XP before you get your name. Rules be pretty strict on that. But think about ‘Noob.’ It ain’t bad. Ain’t everybody gets a good godparent, you know. Consider yourself lucky. What’s the limp for?”

  “Apparently I used to be this soccer player and I hurt my knee. It’s covered in surgical scars and acts up all the time. This happens every life, with one knee or both.”

  “It’ll stop happening, as long as you quit dying on your very first day. You don’t seem especially dumb. You’ll learn.”

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t seem temporary.”

  “You’re imagining it. Step down on it proper.”

  “I tried, but it won’t let me. Hurts like hell. Doesn’t want to bend. And when I bend it, it doesn’t want to unbend.”

  A few shots rang out in the distance, to the right. “Uh-oh. That’s bad, Noob, that’s bad,” said Horsefly, suddenly tense. Rock didn’t know whether the man was referring to the shots in the distance or to his bad knee. The shots grew, in frequency and in volume. Dozens of guns were contributing, and in earnest.

  Horsefly had no
plans to slow their pace. He turned his head towards the noise and explained. “That’s where the settleds were coming from, right?”

  “Somewhere around there.”

  “Those guys sure have plenty of ammo. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but there was this whole line of vehicles. Serious pseudo-military types.”

  “Really?”

  “I saw them all just moments before that truck honked out its party invites.”

  “Huh. Usually digis ain’t that quick. Some kind of military exercise must have just happened at the right time or something. The clusters come in with various scenarios running, so I guess the timing just worked out for them. Did you see any artillery?”

  “No. They had an APC though.”

  “With a big gun?”

  “Didn’t seem so.”

  “Well then, if these settleds are big enough, the fireworks won’t last long.”

  As if at his command, the shooting began to fade away as quickly as it had begun. “There you go,” said Horsefly, with a grin. “The distance between the guns and their targets just hit zero. Now the real fun begins. There’ll be a little bit more shooting still, but that’ll be it. The finale will be sad and silent. Sometimes the odd loner will have enough time to shoot all the ammo he’s got. By that I mean the ones smart enough to hide, not to run out in the front. Digis at level zero are dumber than animals. They don’t hide often, and when they do, they pick the shittiest spots. No resourcefulness, just one way of doing things, all the time. Digis. Listen, Noob, where’s this bridge at? We have to get to it, and fast.”

  “Do I look like a tour guide? I don’t know.”

  “So you’re heading to a bridge, but you don’t know where it is. You sure you’re not a digi?”

  “Look, I know the general direction, but the taxi guy didn’t tell me how far it was.”

  “You were riding in a taxi?”

  “I’m telling you, my knee hurts like hell.”

  “Risk taker. Take my advice from now on, Rock: Even if you have to drag yourself along with nothing but your cracked two front teeth, don’t ever get in a car. Didn’t you see how they were flying around?”

  “Of course.”

  “I guess there ain’t nobody dumb enough to miss that. Them is what we call ‘stage one’ infecteds. They haven’t turned completely yet. Their heads are starting to swim, so they mix everything up. Some will fill up the house with gas and light up a cigarette. Others will toss their wives and children off the eighth floor and then toss themselves off, laughing maniacally as they plummet through the air. Just stay away from places where a sick digi can drop your progress again.”

  “You said they haven’t ‘turned’? What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. Look at this city. It just dropped in, but there are already plenty of sickos inside. Give it twenty-four more hours and there won’t even be any reasonable digis left, just a handful of mindless humans and crowd of hungry zombies everywhere.”

  “Zombies? Are you kidding me?” Rock gave a dubious groan.

  Horsefly sighed. “You newbie zeroes are surprised by anything. Yes, zombies, that’s what’ll be crawling all over this city before long. That’s what I call them, anyway. They ain’t really zombies. Much worse. Most people call them infecteds. In stage two, everyone becomes slow, even stupider, and greedy for human flesh. Those that live to stage two. By the time stage three hits, though, they won’t be slow anymore. I bet you think the crazy drivers are the biggest danger here. You’re wrong. Hear that shooting?”

  “No, I’m deaf as a tree stump, remember?”

  “When a city resets, it’s like a box of delicious lollipops, and you’re one of the pops, ready to be eaten unless you get out in time. You know how many licks it takes to get to the center of one of those pops? Usually just one. Anyway, the infecteds here get so powerful that level fifteens ain’t even got time to scream ‘Mommy’ before they’re shredded to pieces. And you’re a total zero, Noob. All they got to do is breathe on you and your life will be gone. Losing a life is shit, too. No wonder that text warns you every time.”

  “Horsefly, I appreciate the explanations, but to keep this short: How do I get out of this place?” Rock had jumped to his most important question a little too quickly, perhaps, but the man understood it. He stopped short, roared in laughter like a toddler, squatted down, and slapped his thighs in mirth.

  “Hah, I just can’t! You’re killing me, Rock. I was just starting to think you weren’t like the rest of the zeroes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every newcomer’s favorite question. You’re all so funny. And all the same. It was my first thought when I woke up here too, of course, but I still crack up whenever I see one of your dumb pie holes asking me how to leave this shithole.”

  “So I’m guessing I’m not going to like the answer.”

  Horsefly started moving again, yanking Rock behind him. “Well, the way sure is fucking complicated, whatever it is. Ain’t no one been able to resolve that question yet.”

  “Meaning there’s no way out?”

  “I don’t know. Ain’t nobody that knows. And if they do, they ain’t saying. Don’t go asking me about any philosophical meaning to this, or how to beat the game, or anything like that. I’m just a survivor. I survive best I can, and I explain what I can. You get to a stable, then you can bump into clever types or read a thick brochure and maybe you’ll start to pick up on things like that. This world is a very confusing one, Rock. You won’t get it right away, and there are some things you’ll have to figure out on your own. As long as you ain’t got no experience, you’ll blink like a deer in the headlights at the most routine situations. Wait, listen. Hear that? Barely any more shooting going on. The local digis are almost out of steam.”

  The lack of gunfire sounds was hardly the thing that most upset Rock. He changed subjects. “So what do I need to go to the stable for? It’s the other way, and I thought it was full of these settleds, and that they were not exactly the friendliest. Types you want to stay away from.”

  “Oh, well here they’re pretty much all bad. Ain’t no exceptions. But stables come in different kinds. I was talking about a different one. You only heard about the local stable, probably a little one wedged in between other clusters, where the settled infecteds wait out the deathveil between each reset. So why didn’t those guys tell you anything more than that? You get cut off?”

  “What guys?”

  “You know, the soldiers you said looked like me. Tough guys who told you to head for the bridge before you got munched on.”

  “They were climbing up onto that unfinished high-rise across town. Said I wasn’t allowed up there. Their boss didn’t like strangers or something like that. And they were in a hurry, so I didn’t have time to learn much.”

  “Hunters, probably. Nobody else would go climbing high rises. They’re always busy running around, like crazies as far as I’m concerned. Hunting in these places is taking your life into your own hands, you know.”

  “Aren’t you doing that by being here, too?”

  “Huh?”

  “Didn’t you revive here, you know, after dying violently?”

  “Oh yeah, true. I guess you do pick up on things. Your Luck’s only at two?”

  “Is that really so low?”

  “Let’s just say you’re just getting started.”

  “I don’t like this whole ‘pumping’ thing.”

  “Ain’t nobody that likes it. Except maybe a pervert here and there. You figured out the interface yet?”

  “The what?”

  “Guess not. Ain’t no surprise there.” He shuffled around his pockets. “Oh man, I’m out. We have these brochures for newcomers. Very helpful. You give one to a zero, and you get some Humanity for it. They say the Continent likes it when you help out a novice. I usually carry three or four, but it looks like I’m out. Anyway, where is this magical bridge? We could’ve gone to the moon instead a
nd been there by now. Move faster, Noob!”

  “I’d be happy to, but my shit knee is saying no.”

  “Push it.”

  “It just keeps getting worse! I turned it a little on a staircase at the beginning of the day, and it’s been falling apart since then.”

  “Sheesh. They usually compensate defective zeroes like you with some advantage in return, but whatever your compensation is, it’ll be a surprise. You need a couple swallows of lifejuice. At least. I have a little flask but only for absolute emergencies, you know. Untouchable otherwise. Too bad I’ve only unlocked city respawn points, and the city is a bitch, so I’d better hang on to what I got. Wait. Actually... Look at that! There. Come on, look! See it?”

  “The houses and trees?”

  “Houses? No, look! See the beasts running between the trees?”

  “What, you mean the cats?”

  “Yes. The cats are everything, Noob. When the cats start running, it means the beasts are close. And you’d better run fast, cats, or there’ll be nothing left of you but your tails. Whoa, see that?”

  “Yeah. Another cat. I mean, it’s that time of year.”

  “No, it ain’t the cat, it’s... Ugh, I forgot zeroes can’t see them. One of the settled infecteds is about, ahead of the rest. You’ll cry out for mommy when you see it, Noob. Might as well take your pants off right now. Seriously. You’ll thank me. Follow me, and don’t lag behind, ‘cause it’s time for us to go on the hunt. We’ll still make the bridge, but we need spores more than anything right now. Come on, beastie, let me get a good look at you...”

  Horsefly shouted all of this on the run, leaving his limping companion behind and rushing across the avenue into a small, thickly overgrown grassy area. Rock thought about abandoning him then and there and going for it alone. His knee screamed at him not to go any faster­—it could barely hold the pace he had been running, choking back groans and tears. But how could Rock abandon his only good source of information? The man wasn’t giving out enough of it, but anything was better than nothing.

  His experience, and some of the hints he had picked up on, told him that going it alone would lead to repeated regrettable endings. Exquisitely painful endings.