Califax

by Terina Adams

  I easily moved alongside him, casting surreptitious glances his way. With the fight over, slain disappeared, clean-up complete, I looked for real wounds, blood seeping through from anything reopened. But of course there would be nothing to see, not in Dominus. Everything real was magically wiped clean. His bare torso wasn’t even glistening with sweat, just filled with ridges that announced his muscular frame. It was as false as the depiction of him striding tall. He had popped another couple of tablets he stowed in his pocket before we entered his apartment. And I was supposed to feel confident the tiny tablets would be enough to hold his insides in place, keeping infection at bay. Sure, his facial wounds healed faster than possible, but we were in Dominus; one false move, one lapse of concentration, and anyone of us would be dead.

  Aris HQ loomed into view a few blocks away, but before we made it there, a warrior dropped down from the roof of a building and landed on Patrick. Elva sprang, as did Nuke, and that was the end of the opponent, but his efforts drew more. Pedestrians turned into warriors, pulling weapons absent moments ago into their hands. The odds were never in our favor, but this time, it looked grueling. There had to be at least thirty at a rough count. Behind them, more transformed. Perhaps our location, close to Aris HQ, home base, had drawn the computer into attack overload.

  Pain slammed into the side of my head, sending my health status bar to red, the indicator I did not want to see topping out to that color. The next thing I knew, my face kissed the paving. Despite the shock and pain, I retained enough sense to know lying still would get me killed. I rolled as a blade embedded in the paving with a chink where my head had been. On my back, I stared into the face of a bearded warrior the size of a house. We were moving at triple the speed, but my mind slowed the moment enough for me to stare into his eyes, eyes that should contain no depth, because they were nothing more than a programmed design, but they looked as dark and dangerous as Harris’s eyes the moment before I killed him. As his blade rose up again, I rolled to my front, gathered my feet, and sprung out of the way. The slice of his second attack skimmed the small slip of material on my ass.

  My blade left my hands as I spun, but before it met its mark, a bolt, looking like lightening, shot from the warrior’s free hand and disintegrated my blade. The smell of ozone washed back over my face, singeing my cheeks. I glanced to the faction indicators. Perun was in charge of lightening. Asshole. I’d just have to reply with some juice of my own.

  The warrior swung high with his blade. What I caught was the flick of his other hand. The bladed hand was a distraction to what he really intended to do. The bolt jagged across the gap between us. My own ability met it halfway. When the two powers met, it triggered an energetic explosion, with rays of lightening radiating upward to the sky. The force of my destructive nature sent a shockwave blasting outward, the sound a deafening roar. I shielded my ears with my hands and crouched to the ground.

  Something the size of a truck—that’s what it felt like—knocked me sideways, and I rolled, banging knees and hips and elbows until I finally came to a stop. Joints protesting, I looked back to see Jax finishing some guy off. Sloppy, that’s what I’d been, leaving him to down the warrior who’d no doubt been close to downing me. My skills status bar agreed, sagging back from red.

  Jax fought with vigor, but how much longer could he go on?

  Time to even the battlefield. Destruction wanted to play.

  My focus was the warrior closest to me. A funneled stream kept the area of effect contained to just him. With his messy demise, I moved on, dodging blows myself, embedding my tri-blade in one fighter at the same time I kept up my steady annihilation. It took concentration to keep destruction within a certain radius, and it was just as hard to keep myself from being staked, sliced, or fried.

  Destruction moved as quick as the Aris team until we freed our path. At the left side of my vision, the digital numbers on my kill quota counted, flipping through ten and kept going, topping out at twenty-four. Jesus, killing had become too easy.

  “We have seconds before we’re attacked again,” was all Jax bothered to say. He was panting, something I rarely heard him do while in Dominus.

  “It’s just a few blocks; let’s go.” Elva led, sprinting off down the road in the direction of HQ. Perhaps she noticed Jax was struggling and wanted to take the pressure off him by taking command of our party. Even in the lead, she kept a close eye on Jax, occasionally casting glances his way.

  Watching her, a yawning gap cleaved my heart. Dad’s words would remain as a shadow of doubt. Dominus forced us to work together for our survival, but what would happen when the game no longer existed, when we returned to Jax’s world? I couldn’t be with any of them. Aris and Persal couldn’t exist together, even if their hearts wanted it so.

  Elva’s focus was Jax, her lifelong friend, and Carter, as was Jax’s. They stood to suffer more from Carter’s actions than the rest of us. I could understand their narrow focus. Nuke and Patrick would follow them. While Carter was my focus too, my family came first. Mum and Ajay were my concern above all else. Perhaps the four of them would understand. But they would follow their path, and I would have to follow mine.

  Maybe Dad was right. Maybe I needed to think of my own survival and that of my family. The thought weighed my legs, made my body feel like a sack of rocks too heavy to drag around. I didn’t want to do this on my own. My throat thinned to a tube, thinking about it. How could I succeed? Where would I even start?

  Just finish the game. No point diverting my concentration unless I wanted to find myself speared on the end of some warrior’s sword. Dominus was deadly enough without feeding myself more fears and doubts.

  Closing off my wandering mind, I picked up my pace, keeping stride with the others as we fast approached Aris HQ.

  Chapter 5

  Elva wound us to a halt across the road from Aris HQ. The building rose like a beacon of doom. We had to enter, for it was our exit out. Jax would never leave without his answers. The only way to get those was to fight through to the Dome.

  Pedestrians remained pedestrians for now, filling the street like a toxic spill, each a potential lethal threat, which would trigger a cascade effect. We had seconds, only that, to stand around stressing on how bad it was for a Persal to enter Aris territory. The computer would launch a major offense, as if what we survived so far was outside that category.

  “How bad will it be?” Did I really want the answer?

  “Stick to your training and keep together. That’s about all I can say,” Jax replied.

  Nuke turned to me. “Confined spaces and explosives don’t work well.”

  I gave him a wane smile. Jax intervened before I could tell Nuke my control on my factional nature was better than that. “Check your weapon.”

  “The Perun blew it to pieces.”

  “And you bested him a beauty, which means you earned your weapon back,” Patrick said.

  Both blades hung from their holsters at my hips.

  “Big brownie points for the winners. Give us more fireworks, and you’ll earn yourself extra. Although don’t get too fancy. I’d rather the roof didn’t cave in on us.”

  “Don’t linger once we’re inside. Staying topside will likely get you annihilated,” Jax instructed.

  “As will hanging around here any longer,” Elva said.

  Snapped to game reality by Elva’s call, Jax turned and jogged across the street without another word. Sandwiched in the middle of Nuke and Patrick, my pulse jacked with each stride I made.

  Pedestrians forked around us. My party’s eyes followed each one. No one’s attention stayed on our path, because the threat loomed at either side. Despite the easy gait, everyone’s bodies moved with rigidity, tensed and coiled, ready for a fight. This close to Aris HQ, a Persal amongst the bunch, and we wore a bullseye on each of our chests.

  Jax punched through the door to HQ and sprinted down the hall. I slowed to allow the others through first, hoping to delay lethal attacks until everyone wa
s well on their way to the tunnel. Once I crossed the threshold, I was knocked sideways and into the wall by an invisible force. Like being caught in a slow-motion movie, I watched Patrick, who entered just in front of me, turn in a slow arc toward me, yelling something nonsensical. I could’ve filled a sentence in the time it took him to say one word.

  My body moved no quicker than Patrick could speak, but my mind raced ahead on fast-forward. My entering Aris HQ had triggered a reaction none of us anticipated. Fighting in slow motion would be all right if everyone else moved at the same speed. If not, we were screwed.

  Watching Jax push past Nuke, who stood in front of Patrick, turned into a slow agony. He too yelled at me, but I understood his garble as much as I had Patrick’s. His avatar, which was normally blank, lit up with anger-fueled panic. If Jax was panicking, everyone else should be panicking. Not that it would make our situation any better.

  I pushed off the wall, feeling like I moved through thick molasses. The fact that my mind remained unaffected made the struggle of forcing myself into action torture. This was Dominus. Nothing I experienced was real. The computer was warping my perception. If my mind worked at normal speed, then the rest of me would do the same. I just had to fight through the delusion to the truth.

  I closed my eyes. This is not real. This is a delusion. A few more of those mantras, and I opened my eyes. Jax still pushed past Nuke. Patrick’s face remained frozen in shock. Dammit, my mind wasn’t strong enough. I doubled my efforts to move from the wall, fighting against the invisible energy that held me in place.

  My attention was drawn from Jax’s stricken face to movement behind me. A huge warrior, head encased in a black-and-red mask, leaving the gray-blue of his eyes to burn through the line of my party directly to me, chopped his way through Elva on a headlong charge down the hall. His blade, the curved bow of a cutlass, sliced with clean efficiency, turning meat and bone to paper then sparking off the walls once through because of the strength at which he swung his weapon.

  My horror poured out in one long scream that took eternity to leave my mouth. The party moved in slow motion, but the warrior had the advantage, moving at top speed. Swinging his sword left to right, he ploughed through the rest of my friends in a rampage directed toward me, his eyes the merciless rage of a ferocious churning sea.

  Unable to move any faster, I watched in terror as everyone I depended on and cared for were sliced down with brutal skill. Each slice of the warrior’s blade tore at me as if I were the one being stripped layer by layer, limb from limb. I sucked in the horror so totally that I became the agony, but not in my body, in my heart.

  My health status bar zoomed up to flashing. My skills status bar drained to nothing. Arms felt stapled to my side, legs glued to the ground, I was bound, caged. The suffocating feeling so real my heart just about busted out of my ribcage in my effort to break free.

  I tried to scream, but the word came out in one long, drawn-out syllable.

  I ducked my head, mustering my strength, and forced against my binds, tensing so hard my veins would burst at any moment. It’s not happening. It’s not real. It’s not real. The mantra poured out through a pain bursting through my chest, welling up my throat, and spewing out of my mouth.

  When I looked, it was carnage. It was agony. It was too unbearably real to comprehend and stay sane. It was the end.

  The silver of the blade became my view. A trickle of blood dripped like tear drops through the vacancy, the stillness so immense I swear I heard them hit the tiled floor at my feet with a plop. The blade arced high, spraying the blood drops into a fine curtain across my face.

  The snap in my mind like a thump to my head was forceful and absolute. Destruction came through, sharpened with malice, tipped with fury, wielded with calm precision, searing a hole through my brain, which felt so good. The release was a great outpouring of energy.

  The sword splintered through the middle. The metal drooped down either side like melting plastic. Destruction continued to splinter up his arm and into his body, splitting him in half. But it did not finish there. With the warrior gone, it ran along the tiled floor, creating one long crack that spread with rapidity. More masked warriors appeared, cramming the hall. Destruction overran them, slicing them down the middle with as much proficiency as the warrior had displaced my friends. None could pass without meeting a similar fate.

  When the last defender of Aris HQ lay in a bloody pile on the floor, I collapsed to the tiles, bled dry of emotion. Though not for long. Someone yanked me to my feet. While they did that, my mind scrambled to relay an important fact; I slid down the wall at normal sped.

  Jax shoved his face into mine, all beaten up, bruised, yet alive, so very alive. I’d be jubilant if the shock of what I’d seen hadn’t sucked my emotions dry. A rough shake of my shoulders as an extra wakeup, he yelled, “What’s going on?”

  My mouth moved, but my words had taken flight.

  Jax pushed me down the hall. I staggered, nearly tripping over the dead. Dead, yes, there had been a fight, but half of them were mutilated, something only Aris could do. The rest were carved cleanly in two. That had been my doing.

  As Jax dragged me past, the dead warriors disappeared, clearing our path. Fifty-two, the number of my kill quota, hovered as a faint acknowledgement, siphoned to the back of my mind, because my concentration remained disoriented. I staggered, relied on Jax to keep my legs going. My mind floated, body weakened by the ebb of my adrenaline, but Jax’s grip on my arm became my anchor. Someone needed to slap me back into the now.

  The painting of the tunnel maze flashed into my consciousness as we passed it by. Jax didn’t let go of my arm as he steered me down the next hall. A sudden halt, then Jax said, “This is it.”

  His one good eye swirling more blood-red than white, it bored into me, saying something he didn’t want to repeat out loud. Then he let me go, half shoving me back as he burst through into the room. Elva barged past me and leapt at a warrior waiting inside while Jax busied himself with the other. With both of them engaged, Patrick rushed for a certain place on the floor and crouched, resting his hand on the tile. The floor vortexed inward, tiles falling away, sucked below as a gaping hole revealed a steep stairwell into darkness.

  With Patrick’s foot on the top step, a glow illuminated our descent. Nuke gave me a gentle push from behind, telling me not to linger. I followed Patrick down, with Nuke close behind. The cold wall chilled my palms as I traced my hand along the rock for balance. There was no wall, no stairwell, no slow-motion fight, and yet I was descending, fingers freezing, relaying a fight that left my body trembling.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Jax coming up behind, Elva bringing up the rear. The knot in my stomach uncoiled a couple of rounds seeing Jax’s face, but my limbs still tremored. With everything moving so fast, my body had yet to shake off the fear. My mind still swam in a haze, trying to grasp the reality that everyone was still alive. I glanced to my status bars, finding solace in seeing my power status bar in red. But I didn’t need the visual to know my factional nature stayed close within reach. I could feel it wandering below my skin.

  Once we reached the bottom of the steps, the tunnel lit up, showing the way. No fighting room in here with the low ceiling almost touching the top of Jax’s head and the width less than an arm’s span. The cold crept under the small scraps of fabric that hid my private parts. I breathed it deep into my lungs along with the dank, musty smell.

  About to comment on how thoroughly my senses were hijacked, I was stopped when Patrick turned to Jax. “Perhaps you should lead the way.”

  While not as big as Jax, Patrick wasn’t small, which meant shifting positions within the tunnel took some awkward maneuvering. Jax squeezed my arm as he pushed past me. A minor touch, but after seeing his body sliced in half, I shuddered an exhalation and wiped some strands from my brow with a faint tremor in my hand, streams of adrenaline still working their magic.

  Jax studied his forearm, running a hand along the tattoo.
“We have about a hundred paces, and then the tunnel branches. While we go, I’ll try to work out the right path, but I’ll need to follow the other paths to rule out the dead ends.” He craned his neck to look to Elva at the back. “There’s no guarantee we won’t have visitors from the rear, so keep alert.” He looked at me. “I think you’ve bought us some time. The stunt you pulled back there has earned you more brownie points. Check your belt.” His gaze did just that.

  I looked down to find a small axe resting alongside my tri-blade. “Why this?”

  “You’ve earned some extra weapons thanks to your skill with your factional nature in scoring kills. You’ll also find your skill level with the weapons has improved.”

  “More brownie points,” Patrick said.

  “We’re also likely to get a head start,” Jax added. “Which we shouldn’t waste.”

  “I saw you all being killed, in slow motion.” The words left a foul taste in my mouth. Just uttering them sent me back a few short minutes to being pressed up against the wall, unable to move, unable to fight. Once again, my body responded, heartbeats fracturing like the strength of the rhythm would falter any minute. The tremor through my body was so violent I was sure everyone could see.

  Patrick, directly in front of me, frowned. “Not us, baby, but the warriors didn’t stand a chance.”

  “I don’t understand what happened,” I said.

  “That was Aris’s defense and something I have to admit I didn’t expect, not like that. You have to remember not everything you see will be shared by the other players,” Jax explained.

  “You’re lucky none of you witnessed what I saw.”

  The conversation descended us all into silence as if we were paying respects for the fallen. Nuke placed a hand on my shoulder. “I guess that means your initiation is over. At some point, everyone faces a gruesome lesson alone. Dominus can affect the mind of each individual differently while still displaying the overall game stage to every player.”