by Arthur Stone
“What for?”
“To whip you out of idling, of course. Just look up a little. It’s like the spiders spun their webs just for me. You’re doing fine, but they’re getting all in my face.”
“So let’s go to the place I suggested,” Rocky ventured, not optimistic about his chances. “There’s water there. You can wash the webs out.”
“We can wash the webs out of your empty skull while we’re at it. No, we’re going through the woods. For crying out loud, why do you always insist on arguing? Just do what I say, and we’ll be fine. I hope.”
* * *
Rocky hated the camp location that Kitty picked. There was no water. He didn’t mind being unable to wash, but he was thirsty. Also, they were visible from all sides. There were no bushes to speak of, and those present were too stunted to be of use. But as if that wasn’t enough, the girl chose the most visible point. The summit of a small hill of sand. It was a striking feature of the landscape, and anything on top of it was even more striking.
But it wasn’t as bad as he thought at first. Once he was on top of the hill, he found a sizable pit in the middle, making the mound look like some huge child’s foaming school science project. Five people could comfortably fit here without being seen from below, as long as they didn’t stand up.
He wearily set Kitty down onto the sand strewn with pine needles. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About this pit. You can’t see it from down below. I wasn’t lifting you that high up.”
“I didn’t know about it, just suspected. There was a war in this area. You saw the old trenches back there. So I figured somebody probably dug in here at some point. It works, right?”
“It’s so strange, how you come to these conclusions.”
“What do you mean? I’m smarter than you?”
“No, I mean, this is like a game, right? A game with no exit button. Those trenches were probably just drawn in there by some dumb three-dimensional artist, a level designer, and he didn’t have enough resources left to finish this hill, so he did a crap job.”
“Enough resources? You’re the one with the weird conclusions. Or have you forgotten that this isn’t a game? I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a game. Each ordinary cluster that comes in is an exact copy of a place somewhere on Earth. No one ‘draws’ anything. Every last bush here is real, pulled from the planet.”
“How do you know that?”
“I haven’t personally seen anything I remember from Earth here. But many immunes have recognized places familiar to them. It’s not a rare occurrence. We can’t know for sure, of course, but no one has devised any other explanation. I’ve even heard of people meeting digis that are copies of people they knew. Those stories are less reputable, but I keep hearing them, in different regions and from different kinds of people.”
“How are you holding up?”
“Fine.”
“I mean your leg specifically.”
“It’s better. The bullet fell out, and the wound is starting to close up.”
“The bullet just... fell out on its own?”
“Yeah. As usual. You don’t have to pull them out here.”
“Alright, so it fell out. But what about the bone? That splint is shit. You need a genuine surgeon, or your leg will heal crooked.”
“No, the System takes care of that.”
“Wow.”
“I don’t know how it does it. Or anything else. It guides us to some extent, after all. And manages our injuries, in the same kind of way. Wounds bind themselves, bones grow back together into the right shape and angle, and so on. Soon there won’t even be a tiny trace of the injury. My leg will be as normal as it ever was. A month later, I won’t even remember which leg got shot.”
“So there’s at least one great thing about your world.”
“Yeah, it really helps. A cripple in this place has no chance. But quit calling it ‘my world.’ It’s yours as much as mine.”
“Alright, well, you rest here while I go down and take a look around.”
“Why?” Kitty protested.
“I’ll get some decent sticks and make a frame. We can put the plastic wrap over it.”
“Look at the sky. It’s not going to rain.”
“I mean, I’ll just put the frame up in case. If the weather turns, the wrap will only take a couple of minutes to add.”
“Just be quick about it. And don’t go far. Take the rifle with you.”
“Too much weight. The pistol will do.”
“A pistol’s nothing like a rifle.”
“I wasn’t saying it was. If anything shows up, I’ll come back for it. The visibility is great, so nothing will sneak up on me.”
“Remember, don’t shoot the weak ones. Use the ax. We can’t make noise unless we have to.”
“I remember, I remember, don’t worry.”
“I’m sure you do. Usually I have to remind you of everything. Down to which part of you is your face and which is your ass.”
* * *
There were plenty of sticks in the forest, of course, but they were almost all short, which Rocky hated. Rather than a short excursion, he had to circle the entire base of the hill, rejecting rotting wood and slowly building his pile.
The wind made things worse. He had been thankful that it was drying the ground, but now it was just irritating. The tops of the pines swung back and forth, smashing into one another. The rain of water was replaced with a rain of resigned branches. All of the noise this created made his sense of hearing an unreliable warning system, doubling his reliance on his sense of sight. He had to spend more time looking around for creeping ghouls than looking for sticks.
At least this forest was sparse. That was good, in this instance—if any infecteds tried to sneak up, he would see them from far away.
He kicked a huge yellow toadstool from a decent pine branch, then picked it up and immediately discarded it. It was so rotten he wondered that it hadn’t crumbled immediately in his grip. Why hadn’t he just seen that?
Something moved in the corner of his vision. He turned, expecting to see another bush wavering in the wind. Nope.
It was a ghoul that had managed to get dangerously close. It wasn’t as big as that one in the village, but it was still formidable. Only its humanoid form remained, plus scraps of a seat belt still buckled around its waist, but otherwise tattered and stretched into near oblivion. Rope-like tendons covered its body, its muscles expanding asymmetrically, its head drawn into its huge shoulders and covered nearly completely with bony plates. Narrow, predatory eyes stared out from between them, evaluating Rocky’s nutritional value.
Kitty wasn’t there to give any advice, but Rocky seriously doubted his pistol would be of any help. And he had stupidly left his rifle atop the hill, despite her objections. So he ran.
He really was a moron.
Glancing at the hill, he realized he’d never make it to the top. The beast would overtake him in a few leaps. Rocky had seen them bound enough by now. Even if the monster was lame and slowed by its bulk going up the hill, it would just add a few steps to its journey.
But it wasn’t a biter. It was obviously weaker. A pistol would usually be worthless, but he was the man who never missed.
What had Kitty said about vulnerable spots? The eyes, maybe? The fight with the biter had proved that his hand knew where to shoot on its own. That time had been right through the beast’s gaping mouth, without any direction regarding weak spots being sent by his brain. But since he had time to think, he might as well.
He relaxed his arms, noisily dropping the pile of sticks. That signaled the ghoul to bound from its place, reaching full speed in a few moments, awkwardly rocking as it ran but nimbly skirting around the pine trees between it and its lunch. Rocky grabbed the pistol, threw it up, and shot without even thinking of aiming. A shot rang out. The monster jerked, then stepped left, but immediately resumed its former course as if nothing had happened.
&nbs
p; Rocky didn’t understand. Beginning to panic, he fired three more shots. The effect of the last bullet was shattering. The infected’s body splayed out limply, and pure momentum carried it forward, crashing into the sandy soil, until it stopped, nothing moving but its legs, with the same slight trembling the biter had displayed.
Rocky could hardly believe he had killed it. He kept his aim at the creature, for some reason expecting that it was craftily playing dead and would jump up at any moment, charging him and ignoring his remaining shots.
A rifle shot rang out from above him, immediately followed by a grumbling noise that made him spin around. Ten steps behind him, another ghoul collapsed to the ground. It wasn’t like the first—it still had a good portion of its clothing on, and it might even be mistaken for a man during the twilight hours—but its nails had already turned to claws that he was happy to have avoided a meeting with.
Note: Personal victory: dangerous infected destroyed. Level 22. Chance of valuable loot: 100%. Party victory: infected destroyed. Level 11. Chance of valuable loot: 89%. +88 Endurance progress points. +41 Speed progress points. +124 Accuracy progress points. +4 Reaction progress points. +11 Humanity points.
Level up! Congratulations, you are now level 3.
Rocky turned towards the rifle shot next. Kitty was positioned atop the hill, lying down, holding the rifle ready and looking frantically around to make sure no new targets were in proximity. He made to run up towards her, but she stopped him rudely. “Dolt. Where do you think you’re going? Get the stuff from that sporesac first. Then get up here. And keep an eye on your surroundings. That one almost got to you!”
He was ashamed to admit it, but she was right. While he had been busy staring at the big ghoul, the little one had almost gotten too close. His shots had deafened him a bit, eliminating his ability to hear quiet noises, but his own absent-mindedness was more to blame. In this eventful world, the only survivors were those who learned to be as observant and circumspect as an owl.
And if Kitty hadn’t reminded him, he would have forsaken both carcasses, giving up the treasures in their sacs. The fact that two ghouls had been wandering the forest for no apparent reason and had attacked from different directions was unsettling, to say the least. Even with his meager amount of experience, he concluded that if these two were hanging out here, there might be others, including the kind that could only be taken down by a rifle. And maybe the kind immune to even that.
He cursed himself for not thinking to bring a couple of plastic bags from the house as he grabbed lumps of webbing, in which he could feel various hard objects. Taking even more care to look around, he ascended the hill. Kitty was no longer in sight.
As he reached the top, he saw her at the other end, gazing intently into the forest, rifle at the ready. Rocky examined the place and saw nothing upsetting. “I gutted both of the ghouls. Kitty... there’s something fishy here.”
She replied, paying him only a fraction of her attention. “Uh-huh. What do you mean?”
“The monsters. They attacked at the same time, from different directions, out in the middle of the forest. You said they usually avoided the woods, and that when they did go in, they stayed close to the edge. I don’t see any edge around here.”
“The fuck are you on about?” she snapped. He was taken aback by how irritated she was.
He sighed. “What the hell did I say this time?”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t talking to you, Rocky.”
“Then who? The bloody pine trees? There’s no one else here, Kit.”
“Something is genuinely wrong here, Rocky. Very wrong. It shouldn’t be like this.”
“Like I said. We have to get out of here before more of those things show up.”
“It doesn’t matter where we are. It’s something else.” The girl stepped back into her own thoughts for a moment. “First, there was that biter in the village. How did he find us? Why was he acting so oddly? It was like he was being cautious, even though he had no idea what we were capable of. And why did all those ghouls come at us the day before? We were in the forest then, too. And they really do hate woods. And finally, where did these two come from? Do you understand where I’m going with this?”
“How could I?”
“You’re not dumb, Rocky. Just new. OK, and sometimes dumb. But that’s par for the course with newbies. That’ll pass as your memory starts to come back. Or not. I guess even some of the old-timers here are pretty stupid.”
“Are you telling me I’m a zombie magnet?”
“Did I just call you dumb and not dumb?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Sorry. You’re getting me too excited.”
“Finally! At last you’re admitting it.”
“Not that excited. And not that way.”
“Aaaand the normal Kitty is back, just like that.”
“Quit clowning around. We have to figure this out.”
“OK. Shutting up now.”
“Somehow the infecteds notice us from far away, Rocky, and it’s not thanks to their senses of sight and smell. Not because of our tracks, either. And certainly not because they hear us. Those two came at us from entirely different directions. That happens when you’re in the city and there are hordes of them wandering everywhere, sure. But not deep in the woods. One now and then, yeah. A pair of wandering loners at once? No way. Something is wrong with us. You don’t have any bound items, do you?”
“We newbies can’t bind items.”
“Have you seen any immunes other than me since our last revival?”
“When would I have? I’ve been with you the whole time.”
“You or I must have some item that is luring the ghouls towards us. I don’t have any other explanation for this.”
“But what? You got a piece of rotten meat on you?”
Kitty put the rifle down and drew her sword before Rocky knew what was happening. She turned it slowly, commenting distantly, “This sword didn’t come in with a cluster. It wasn’t even made by humans. There are creatures in the dark clusters we call atomites, or sometimes ‘dark ones.’ They can make things like this, but the best items are found in ancient ruins situated in the bizarre stable clusters nearby. Those ruins are too unusual to be human. Here, inspect this sword.”
“Already on it.”
“And what do you see?”
“It’s a sword from the Black Lands. Tempered. No visible properties. This weapon has hidden properties. Bound to its owner. Owner: Kitty.”
“Your Perception is low, so you can’t see all of its properties. This isn’t just a sword, Rocky—it’s a magic sword. It accumulates a special kind of energy. That energy discharges on impact. It’s powerful enough to go straight through the armor on a tank or on the biggest elite you can find. And then keep going. It can penetrate anything. That’s its hidden property. It takes a few hours to build up a charge, and each charge is only good for one hit, but it’s still a valuable weapon.”
“No kidding.”
“This place has magic in it, or something like it, as you’ve noticed. Immunes have supernatural abilities, and unusual items are scattered hidden throughout the world. Various items. See that rifle? It’s just an ordinary gun, but there is special magic out there that can be used to improve it. Well, not quite magic. They’re these things that look like trophies from infected sporesacs, but you can only get them in black and gray clusters. They’re not easy to get, and they’re even harder to buy.”
“Still lost. I don’t know a thing about these black clusters, and now there are gray clusters, too, along with atomites and magic weapons.”
“You don’t need to know all that yet. Knowledge is a critical resource here, but relevant knowledge is what matters. You remember my crystal, right?”
“The one that shows if there are other immunes in town? Yeah.”
“That’s also magic, from the black lands. Those places have all kinds of stuff. Some are hidden in caves or forests. Others can only be retrieved from the atom
ites themselves. Not from the intelligent atomites. From the monster-like ones. How can I explain... You know what? It doesn’t matter. So there is one-use magic in this world, too. You could take a crystal with certain properties, for instance, and meld it with this rifle. Only a person with a special talent can do this, but the gift is pretty common. After the meld, the rifle might, for example, shoot more accurately.”
“So then I could hit even if I was blind or cross-eyed?”
“Quit being stupid. Every weapon has a dispersion value. The bullet hits, not where you aimed it, but within a certain radius of your target. Even if you mounted this rifle to the ground, you still couldn’t hit the exact same spot time after time. The shots would hit within the dispersion radius. There are ways to reduce this radius. Beyond that, everything depends on your Accuracy. Which I’m sure you realize after your stupid pistol game.”
“Stupid?”
“You don’t remember all those misses? This is a simple pistol, Rocky. It’s terrible at any distance over fifty yards. Even your magic accuracy won’t fix that—the dispersion radius is just too wide. You won’t be able to hit the eyes or between armor plates. Unless it’s just a lucky shot. You only killed that ghoul because he came close. If you had realized that, you wouldn’t have spent so much ammo and made so much noise.”
“These things track us down whether we make noise or not, like you said.”
“Right. There’s some kind of magic working against us here, Rocky.”
“Could we talk about this later? We have to get out of here before we get rushed by something else.”
The girl ignored her nervous companion and just kept on talking.
“This magic doesn’t reach too far. If it did, we’d be running into infecteds every minute or two. We have to figure out what’s wrong. Then we can go. Otherwise we just risk attracting the attention of more beasts. There’s got to be some kind of field around us signaling nearby infecteds to come join the feast. We don’t need to go dragging this circle all over the place until we find out what’s going on.”
Kitty twirled her sword, then placed it back in its sheath.
