However, I had to be constantly on the alert. The fireballs and the mutants dealt lots of damage to me. It was very exhausting. It seemed to me as though I had been fighting the Alien for a few hours.
Then I found out that the sacks could be destroyed. Each took about two or three mags to explode. It resulted in fewer mutants the Alien disgorged, which was a good thing. With each obliterated sack, the Alien’s bulk shrank somewhat.
Eventually, all the sacks were disposed of. The Alien got reduced more than by half and was now the size of a one-story home. It also grew two long blade-like nasty-looking appendages from its shoulders. Then the creature rose to its feet and let out with a roar.
Then the monster burst into a race toward me and very fast at that. Now that the Alien was shrunken, it could move very fast. I fired a few shots at the creature and then the monster was on top of me, swinging its blades. I ducked one blow, but the second one caught me on my right side, reducing my HP nearly by fifty percent.
Dangit!
I used Teleportation, then yanked a stimulator from my pocket, and administered a shot to myself, recovering my Health. Judging from the volume and clarity of the pounding of feet on the ground, the Alien had already covered the distance, which I had put between the creature and me by using Teleportation. I employed the Acceleration and took off.
I decided just to run around the cave and wait for the Alien to get off my tail so I could try and counterattack it. Yet the Alien seemingly wasn’t going to let up on me even for a second. It was weird. Since the Alien had been turned into a Raid Boss, it was supposed to act according to a certain behavior pattern. It should pause every now and then so that the player––me––could counterattack it. It would be extremely difficult for me to attack the Alien while running away from it if the Alien didn’t slow down. I wondered what was going on.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a message pop up in the log.
> Remaining time: 4 minutes 59 seconds
What the heck was that supposed to mean? Then Jessica texted me. “Max, we got a problem.”
No shit, I thought.
“The Alien’s trying to hack my application program as it fights you,” Jessica continued. “You got about five minutes to defeat the Alien.”
“What’s going to happen when time’s up?”
“The Alien will no longer be a Raid Boss. It’ll teleport back to the space station and–– Well, then the Alien’ll find me and–– Guess, you know the rest.”
Talking to Jessica distracted me for a moment. The Alien slashed one of its blade-appendages across my back. I managed to duck under the other blade. Then I employed Teleportation and used Biokinesis on myself, replenishing my Health. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the Alien caught up to me again. I burst into a race, trying to get away from the creature.
“It’s been chasing me on end since I destroyed all its sacks,” I texted Jessica. “It doesn’t let up on me even for a moment.”
“With the sacks destroyed, the Alien turns into a Berserk,” Jessica explained. “But it’s supposed to stop for a few moments every now and then.”
“Well, it doesn’t.”
“Guess it’s a result of its hacking. You have to come up with something.”
I glanced at the log as I ran.
> Remaining time: 2 minutes 37 seconds
I had less than three minutes to deal with the Alien. Dangit. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked at the Alien chasing me. The monster had about twenty percent of HP left. It wasn’t much. On the other hand, could I stiff the Alien before the time was up? It was anybody’s guess.
I started to use various psi-powers on the Alien in order to slow it down and then to fire at the creature. It worked.
I also employed a psi-power I had unlocked when I reached level 100. The psi-power was called Levitation. When using the skill, I got lifted several feet in the air beyond the range of the Alien’s blades. While hovering in the air, I fired away at the creature, which was flailing its appendage in futile attempt to hit me.
When the Raid Boss had less than ten percent of HP left, the unexpected happened. My psi-powers no longer affected the Alien. Luckily, Levitation and Acceleration still worked.
As I emptied another magazine into the creature, I checked the log.
> Remaining time: 85 seconds
The Alien had about five percent of HP left. I ejected the spent magazine, reached for the fresh one, and found out that I had only one extra mag left. I slammed it into the butt grip and looked around as I ran. Yet the ammo chests were nowhere to be found.
Moreover, when I tried to use Acceleration, nothing happened. I told Jessica about all this.
“Gotta be the Alien,” she instantly texted back to me. “It’s hacking the game code, foiling your attempts to use your skills and interfering with my trying to help you. I can do nothing to help you out now. Sorry about that. You’re on your own now.”
I glanced at the log.
> Remaining time: 55 seconds
I had less than a minute to finish the Alien off. There was no point in running away now. Either I stiff the sonofabitch or I would die trying.
I came to a stop, spun around, and opened up at the Alien racing toward me. The slugs were penetrating its body with slurping sounds. As the creature bore down on me, it opened its mouth as if it were going to spit out the fireballs. I prepared to leap to the side, but no fireball ejected from the maw. I continued to fire, sending the bullets into the creature’s mouth, dealing critical damage to it. The Alien had one percent of its Health left now. I glanced at the log once more.
> Remaining time: 35 seconds
The Alien was all but dead. I squeezed the trigger again, expecting the bullet to deal critical damage and finish the Alien off. However, instead of firing, the pistol clicked empty. I had run out of ammo. And the Alien was too close now, towering above me. The creature swung one blade. I managed to dodge to the side, avoiding the blade as I dropped the pistol and slid the sword from its scabbard.
The Alien continued swinging at me. I blocked some of the blows with my sword. Then the unforeseen happened. The sticky long tongue leaped out of the Alien’s mouth and got wrapped around my waist. Before I could do anything, the tongue retracted and I found myself inside the huge and reeking mouth cavity. The jaws closed behind me, plunging everything into darkness.
I cast a glance at the log.
> Remaining time: 19 seconds
Panicking, I started swinging my sword, hitting everything within striking range. Then I felt the tongue release me. Suddenly, something kicked my feet out from under me and I felt myself fall down some sort of a tunnel. I somersaulted to the ground. I landed on both my feet, dropping at the knees so that to absorb the shock.
My health began reducing and very fast at that. I activated Shield and continued to swing my sword, striking the inside of the Alien. Since I didn’t see its Health bar, I wondered if I dealt any damage to the creature.
> Remaining time: 9 seconds
I kept on slashing, piercing, and chopping everything within the reach of my sword. It was all I could do. Either the time would be up before I slew the Alien or my Health would drain and I would get killed.
> Remaining time: 2 seconds
It’s all over, I thought. Time to die. I braced myself for meeting my death. Yet I was resolved to fight to the end, constantly swinging my sword, slashing left and right.
> Remaining time: 1 second
The deafening explosion came as the tip of my sword pierced the inside of the monster another time. The explosion sent me spinning like a rag doll through the air before I slammed into something unyielding. Glancing at the HUD, I found out that I had less than 5 percent of my Health left.
Then I realized that I no longer was inside the Alien. Instead, I was in the cave again. Rising to my knees, I looked around the room. The Alien was nowhere in sight, but there were plenty of sickening wet gory
pieces of its body scattered all over the place. The Alien’s blood caked the interior walls of the cave.
In the log popped up a notification about a new message.
“You did it,” Jessica texted me elated. “You did it! The Alien is dead! You nailed it!”
Seemed like I had actually pulled it off.
Chapter six
I stood in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the UFO Jessica had sent to pick me up to touch down. I just stood near the entrance to the cave, listening to the wind howling in the desert.
I no longer could see my HUD for some reason. It worried me. But not too much. I suspected Jessica had something to do with that. Had to be a good sign. With the Alien gone, Jessica should have full control over the space station and the game.
Finally, the UFO landed. After the door opened, I got in. The door instantly slid closed behind me and the spacecraft took off. As it was tearing through the atmosphere, I wondered what would happen next.
Jessica had said that when the Alien got killed, she could extract all the people from the Virtual Reality Capsule and give them new bodies by means of the Resurrection Pods to start a new life on the Earth. But what about me? I didn’t need a new body since I already owned one. I didn’t need to be extracted from the VRC since I already was in the real world. However, it didn’t feel like my real life. If anything, my memories of my past life––I mean Max Morgan’s life––felt more real.
The UFO reached the space station. As soon as I disembarked it, I saw a woman rushing toward me. It was Jessica. She gave me a big hug, throwing her arms around me and holding me close, her cheek pressing against mine. But then she jumped back, crinkling her nose in disgust.
“What’s the smell?” She asked.
“The Alien gobbled me down,” I explained.
“What?” Jessica exclaimed shocked.
“That’s true. It swallowed me and I was in its stomach, about to be digested,” I elaborated.
“Eww,” she uttered.
“Sorry about the smell.”
“It’s quite all right,” she said. Yet she looked as though she wanted to pinch her nose against the stink.
It was then that she realized I was drenched in the Alien’s blood. And she had gotten her clean clothes stained with it when he embraced me.
“Gross!”
“Sorry,” I apologized again. “I kinda didn’t have time to take a bath, y’know. Not that I know of any working bathrooms in the post-apocalyptic world.”
“It’s okay,” she replied wiping her palms on her white blouse, staining it even further.
“I don’t see my HUD anymore, by the way,” I told her. “You turned it off?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Like I already told you, with the Alien dead, I have full control over the space station. And the game is controlled from here. So I disabled the game. Nobody can play it and no mutant wanders around the Earth anymore. It’s time to start a new life.”
“So what’s the next step?” I wanted to know.
“Follow me.”
She led me to the room in which I had been the last time I had visited the space station. The Virtual Reality Capsule sat on the platform protruding from an opening in one well.
“With the game turned off, all the people are in the VRC now,” she said. “The next step is to tell people the truth about the war, the game, and everything else. Then we’re going to give people new bodies. As you already noticed, I already created a body for myself.”
“So there’re only two of us here at the moment.”
“Yeah. Everyone else is still inside the VRC. Rest assured, it won’t take me long to revive people in the Resurrection Pods on the Earth to start a new life.”
“About a new life you keep talking about,” I started.
“Yeah?”
“I ain’t sure how to put it––”
Jessica patiently waited for me to find the right words.
“While on the way to the space station, I was thinking about it all and––”
“And?”
“Well, it doesn’t feel like real life,” I gestured toward the window through which the Earth could be seen. “It doesn’t feel like the real world.”
“But it is the real world.”
“I know. I just mean–– Well, like I said, I’m not sure how to put it. I can’t help but consider the memories of Max Morgan’s life to be mine. I still feel like I was transferred from 2018 into the future.”
“But you’ve never lived in 2018. It’s just––”
“I know, I know. I just possess Max Morgan’s memories of his life. But still––”
I looked at the Virtual World Capsule.
“I was just wondering if you could do something for me,” I said.
“You saved us all. I’ll do anything I can for you.”
When I told her what I wanted her to do, Jessica remained silent for a couple of moments, contemplating what I had just said. Then she nodded and stated, “Yeah, I think I can do it. I’ll have to repair the VRC and I also will have some tweaking the VRC code to do. It’ll take some time but yeah I can do it. After I extract all the people from VRC, I get around to doing what you ask me to. But are you sure you really want it? I mean you’ll be there all alone and it won’t be real life.”
“It doesn’t matter. For me it all will be real, right?”
“Right, but––”
“But what?”
Jessica said nothing. Now it was she who was at a loss of words.
“You killed the Alien and gave the humanity a chance of starting a new life,” she finally said. “You could be a hero in this world. But in the VRC you will be just–– Well, just a plain guy.”
“That’s what I want.”
She looked me in the eye for a few long minutes. Then she finally said, “Okay, if that what you really want, I’ll do it for you.”
“Thanks.”
“As the VRC remains here, I’ll be keeping an eye on it. If the VRC start malfunctioning again, I’ll extract you from there and repair the device.”
I looked at Jessica and said, “No. I don’t want you to. I don’t want to be suddenly extracted from my “real” life again.”
“What do you want me to do with the VRC then?”
“Since we’re in the space station, just toss it out an airlock. The Earth’s pull won’t let the VRC drift away and it will always be revolving around the Earth.”
Jessica glanced at the Virtual Reality Capsule and said, “Sure, it’s very sturdy and heavy-duty, but it might still get damaged if something hit it very hard out there. If hit by something, it might stop working. Since I won’t be able to retrieve and repair it, you might just cease to exist. You might die.”
“So be it.”
Jessica still seemed to be eager to reason with me.
“Moreover,” she continued, “like I said, I’ll tweak the VRC setup so that to create the world you want. But your memories of the game can’t be completely erased. I only can block them, but there’s always going to be a small chance you’ll recollect everything at some point.”
I thought about what Jessica had just told me but it didn’t change my mind.
“So be it,” I repeated.
She stared at me for a few more seconds and then said, “It sounds a bit silly to me, but it’s your choice. I’ll do it if you really want it.”
I just nodded.
“Guess I better get to work right away,” Jessica said and left the room.
I walked up to the Virtual Reality Capsule and put my hands on its surface.
As Jessica had said, it was time for humanity to start a new life. As to me, it was time to return to my past life. It was time to continue to live a normal life.
I smiled.
Epilogue
It started to rain when I left the clinic. The wind was blowing and seemingly picking up. Turning up the collar of my coat, I walked down the street
as raindrops pattered steadily against the sidewalk.
The rain grew heavier. Pools started to form on the street. At this hour, traffic was surprisingly light. Sparse vehicles dashed in both directions every now and then, splashing the water. Deep in thought, I continued to walk barely paying attention to what was happening around me.
I had been suffering from headaches for the past few days. I had just had my head X-rayed for any brain injuries. However, there was none. Not that it bothered me. Something else was on my mind. When the X-generator started working, something had happened. I seemed to have lost consciousness or fallen asleep for a couple of seconds.
I had dreamed that I was trapped in a very realistic, vivid video game. As it turned out later on, it wasn’t really a video game. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was the real world, but all the players wrongly considered it just a game. I also recalled a woman telling me about the war between humans and aliens. Then I remembered fighting the Alien. The Alien held all the humans, who survived the devastating war, hostage in a virtual reality world.
As I kept walking down the street, I tried to recall any more details about the dream. Yet I couldn’t do it for some reason. With each passing second, the dream seemed to vanish from my memory. Moments later, I couldn’t even tell what the dream was about.
I stood at the traffic light. It’d been just a dream, for sure. I had weird dreams sometimes. It was one of them. It was nothing but a dream.
I waited until the WALK signal came on and started crossing the street. By the time I was on the other side, I had already forgotten all about the strange dream.
Glitch Boxset Page 55
