Pop Kult Warlord

by Nick Cole

  Still, they’ve got the Big Gay Hulk. So that’s something.

  And he’s nigh invincible to bullets. And the tanks can’t seem to hit him or any of the Diversity Avengers. They all move too fast.

  I open the tactical chat to the group we’re over-watching. “Alpha Group… all units scatter and take cover in the nearby buildings.”

  The Colonial Marines’ dropship I’m in is orbiting the parkscape we’re currently fighting over. I have three other dropships on standby ready to make gun runs on the Hulk.

  “Dropships two-two and two-three, make your runs on the tagged tango. Enigmatrix, do we have arty yet?”

  The first gunship makes a pass and unloads both gun pods on the monstrous Hulk. A bullet storm of thirty-millimeter ball ammunition tears up the pristine green parkscape and strafes straight up the massive chest of the Big Gay Hulk.

  The second gunship doesn’t survive the pass. Hulk leaps up and smashes it with a giant pink fist. The ship explodes, and I lose thirty Calistani clansmen in half a second.

  Don’t do that again, I tell myself.

  “Group tanks pull back into the surrounding streets and fire at will. Do not advance until directed.”

  I hate controlling a battle. Simply sitting here and ordering people to fight. Then watching them fight. It isn’t my thing.

  Actually fighting—that’s what I do best.

  Troops open up on the Big Gay Hulk from the windows of the surrounding buildings. I make a note to have Rashid get me more heavy machine gun teams. They’re doing some damage and they’re distracting the raging thing. I have a healthy new respect for all the equipment RangerSix and ColaCorp thought to provide in all our online corporate battles. Here, I just asked for the big stuff and went for it. But there have been moments when I definitely could have used a specific tool or asset I would have had access to in WarWorld.

  The Hulk leaps high into the sky and comes down near another Wolverine. It effortlessly lifts the tank over its head and sends it off into another tank a few hundred meters away. Both explode, sending a blast wave of debris that collapses the digital façade of the nearest building.

  This is going from bad to worse. My advance is being stopped by some kind of pro wrestling cosplay fanatic, and if we don’t finish this fight fast and ruin this city—if the other clans decide to engage us right here and now—my plan is shot.

  “CPLFerro…” I call out over the chat. “You think you can get that thing’s attention and stay away from it but keep close like a fly?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “All right then. Put us down quickly in front of it. Then take off and keep it distracted. MarineSgtApone, tell the Marines to engage with grenades and flamethrowers. Close-quarters battle.”

  “Huuwaaah, sir. You heard him, Marines… encounter of the up close and personal kind.”

  I’m confident the two heavy machine guns Drake and Vasquez carry will do a lot of damage.

  Ferro takes us in hot and fast. We exit the cargo deck and begin firing into the big pink face of the screaming Hulk who has decided to charge the dropship that just set down.

  Honestly, the Big Gay Hulk is much bigger when you’re on the ground right in front of it.

  And scarier.

  The dropship flares its engines and climbs back up in a spray of dust as the Hulk swipes at it and barely misses. The door gunner draws a bloody red line of fire across its midsection but it doesn’t seem to do much. Already Marines are tossing grenades and cutting loose on full auto. The Big Gay Hulk leaps in among them and starts tossing and throttling the Colonial Marine cosplayers like they’re mere action figures. Flamethrowers shoot long lancing jets of burning fuel all over the screaming monster. It picks up a Marine and tossed him over a building beyond the immediate battle.

  “Concentrate all fire now!” I roar over chat at every element in the group. I’m holding the left mouse button down inside my gaming suite and unloading a full magazine from the M4X I’ve switched over to. All around me Marine pulse rifles crackle on full auto. Then the heavy machine guns of Drake and Vasquez cut loose on full rock-and-roll in the face of the screaming giant.

  Incredibly, the Big Gay Hulk begins to wither beneath the tremendous volume of fire. Massive heavy-caliber rounds served in high doses go in and come out in long bloody streams from the thing’s backside. We’re finally doing real damage and our DPS is on point.

  In other words… we’re winning.

  Every gamer will tell you that every game involving combat always boils down to DPS.

  Damage per second.

  And then a green guy with a giant green shield jumps in and deflects all our directed fire on the cowering Hulk.

  “Who the hell is that?” shouts Vasquez angrily. She doubles down on a new burst of fire from her heavy machine gun.

  “Captain Climate Change,” says PVTHudson with a laugh. “He used to be something else, but that guy was thought to be too patriarchal, or patriotic, or something. So in the last days of Marvel he identified as a plant.”

  “Use the flamethrowers!” I shout once I have that bit of intel.

  Jets of burning fuel spit out, burning Captain Fern.

  And while he turns into a campfire, we finish off the last of the Big Gay Hulk.

  I check the HUD kill counts and tags. Together, with all our assets, we’ve wiped out the Diversity Avengers. The city is ours for the next few minutes.

  “Game over, man,” says Hudson over the chat. “But y’know… in a good way, man.”

  In the silence that follows, the Calistanis shoot their weapons into the Martian sky and yodel, or ululate. Something tribal. Suddenly everything is more circus-of-guns and less objective-focused battle.

  If the Calistanis were hard on the rainbow city before, what they do next is ruthless. In every possible way they demo every production asset, skinned in all its ridiculous diversity-laden nostalgia from a long time ago, and then set about ruining the actual resources the area produced. Terrain is damaged. Survivable resources like air, water, and plants are all chemical-weaponed.

  I order the engineer units to move forward and set up demo charges on the end of the rainbow arch. Destroying their biggest building achievement will decimate their cultural index, which is the key factor in determining society ranking and victory point accumulation. When they retake the city—which I will let them do—they’ll have to spend time fixing all their stuff instead of giving Calistan a hard time.

  Six hours later, I kid you not, the leader of the Marvel Rainbow Avengers will be calling us “war criminals” in a live interview on TWITCHNN.

  But before that, the rest of the Diversity Avengers attack.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Their forces are rallying on the far side of the park under the direction of a player tagged as StrongIronWoman. She’s wearing some kind of robot suit with jet packs, and she’s supported by a force of bots patterned after elite rioters in black-and-red high-tech gear known as COEXIST Troopers. These are heavy versions of the S.H.E.S.H.I.E.L.D troopers.

  Someone over the chat runs down a quick commentary as we engage. The elite rioters are apparently based on the Captain Antifa comic books that drove the final nail in the Marvel coffin years before the Melt. What was left of America didn’t react well to seeing the President of the United States crucified by Captain Antifa beneath a burning Stars and Stripes as the “hero” proclaimed he was “Stopping the Hate!” on the cover. An issue which also featured the burning of a synagogue with occupants inside, a riot in which the police were curb-stomped en masse while Los Angeles burned, and the actual Constitution being somehow literally used to perform a much-needed last-minute abortion.

  The editorial staff felt this was the most important comic book issue ever penned.

  The rioters have set up heavy machine gun positions near the base of the arch we’re trying to demo. And other assets are starting to arrive. Mobs of cosplayers snarling like packs of ancient warriors baying for our blood. In other wor
ds… we’re being thrown out of the park. Which is rapidly becoming a free-fire zone from every direction.

  “MarineSgtApone,” I say over the chat as I low-crawl my avatar behind some postmodern statuary depicting some superhero, a man, giving birth to a glitter-covered dinosaur. It’s disturbing, but it’s cover in the sudden crossfire hurricane that’s all too terminal for anyone caught standing. “We need to move forward, knock out their pits, and finish the job. What’s it look like on the left flank?”

  “No good, sir!” replies Apone over the whistle of physics-rendered bullets streaking in volume just over my head. The chaos fills the gaming suite’s speakers. “We’re pinned over here… sir.”

  It sounds like it.

  Now the heavy machine guns have found their range and are chewing up the concrete of the weirdo statue coming apart all around me.

  “What about a dustoff?” shouts someone over the chat. I hear the sharp cacophonic ethereal bark of pulse rifles in the background.

  “Negative,” I broadcast reply, just so no one gets any ideas about pulling out, especially the pilot. “LZ’s too hot. We’re demoing the rainbow before we move on. Repeat… we are reducing the rainbow to rubble before exfil.”

  It’s PVTHudson who comes up with a plan. “I’m surfing through the city grid. Looks like there’s a subway entrance a few hundred feet to our rear. Across the park. This whole place is built in accordance with that whole political scam people used to call Agenda 21. Y’know, mass transit for the masses. Everyone living on top of each other. Move all the people into the cities so the rich can have all the good land along the coasts. Anyway, since this clan is an homage to how jacked up those times were, they’ve built an entire subway system down there to accommodate the masses. There’s an entrance that will come out right where we need to be in order to place our charges. They probably haven’t thought to use it. Then again… maybe they have. In which case, hey… bonus points.”

  “Mob surging on the right! They’re coming at us!” cries Vasquez over the chat. “Engaging with extreme prejudice!”

  “All elements, concentrate fire on the right!” I shout back.

  Then…

  “Good catch, Hudson. Apone, I’ll take a squad with me and we’ll go down tunnel and see if we can retake that engineer’s truck across the park and finish the job. Keep ’em occupied for us!”

  The engineer team was ready to blow the arch, but they were overrun. The truck and charges are still there.

  “Copy that, sir!”

  * * *

  What remains of First Squad are MarinePvtDrake, Frosty, PVTHudson, and MarineCorporalHicks. And me. The five of us dodge fire as we cross the lush parkscape-slash-warzone and make the cool darkness of the subway entrance.

  Enigmatrix gives me a sitrep over command chat.

  “We’re down to twenty minutes before the League shows up in force, PQ. You gotta blow that rainbow and get out of there. The League is sending in something they’ve built called the Yamato. Some kind of space battleship secret project. ETA twenty. They will retake the city with that kind of support.”

  “Can the Behemoth take it out?”

  Yeah, Rashid bought another Behemoth. I didn’t even ask for it. Didn’t ask how much it cost, either. But I’m glad it’s in-game. Hopefully we get more use out of this one. I’m optimistic, because Rashid, to my surprise, is not manning it this time. He actually hired a Russian semi-pro for that duty.

  I’m following the barrel of my MX4 down into the shadowy platforms of the subway. The walls are all tagged with meaningless social justice phrases. The place looks like a toilet. And yeah, there are homeless bots here, piles of feces, and if you look real close, needles and crack pipes.

  Fun, huh?

  “Negative, PQ. My team is doing nerd research and if the Yamato is what we think it is… then it’s a real game-changer. Bristling with guns including a big one, from what the old cartoons are showing us. It’s coming down now and deploying fighter cover ahead of its approach. We’re trying to hit it with an ion cannon Rashid just erected over Caliphate City, but we can’t get the firing solution and we’re about to lose our engagement window. So make the explosive magic happen, or pull back now if you still want your little Sherman’s March to the Sea, Martian-style.”

  She might be my online nemesis, but she’s a sister from another mother, that’s for sure. Sherman’s March. That’s exactly what I’m trying to pull. Except I’d forgotten exactly who did it. The Greek stuff was distracting me. But Sherman’s March was based on Xenophon’s Ten Thousand.

  “Roger. Okay. Order all units to scatter,” I instruct Enigmatrix. “Pull the armor back and set the new rally point. Then back the infantry off. Have them ruin everything on their way out. Scorched earth in effect.”

  “What about you?” she asks.

  “We’re gonna finish here and knock out the arch. Besides being a cultural monument that gives them all kinds of points, it’s also their defensive shield. They can power it up and knock out any air support. So we’ve gotta take it out.”

  “I understand. League ground forces staging three miles west of your position. Looks like they want a big fixed battle as soon as their toy arrives.”

  “Well they ain’t gonna get one today. We’re just here to break their stuff and run.”

  We cut the chat and I concentrate on the subway tunnels. We deploy into a tactical wedge with MarinePvtDrake taking point. He points the big smart gun into the darkness ahead and we advance cautiously.

  “Looks like they cut power down here,” says PVTHudson. “Real scary, huh?”

  “You think there’re any bugs down here?” asks Frost as we pass long dimly lit corridors and wide empty platforms.

  No one replies.

  My guess is they’re half hoping there are. That’s their thing. But we don’t need that right now. We need to hit the arch and boogie.

  “We’ve gotta get down on the tracks to go forward,” announces Hudson after a quick map check.

  “Switch on your lights,” orders the mostly low-chatter MarineCorporalHicks.

  Suddenly everybody’s got lights coming from their helmets and armor. A vast tunnel stretches away in front of us. Halfway down, PVTHudson announces, “We’ve got movement!”

  “Really?” says Frost in disbelief.

  “Tighten up. Drake get ready,” orders Hicks. “Where is it, and don’t tell me all over the place!”

  Hudson doesn’t say anything for a long second.

  “Really, Hudson?” asks Frost over the chat.

  It’s too bad they’re using their Colonial Marines cosplay gear. Most troops in WarWorld standard kit can switch to low-light imaging or IR.

  “Hudson… where are they?” asks Hicks, almost with disgust.

  “You’re not gonna like this… but yeah… they’re all around us. Good news is… there’re only three of them.”

  Something comes flying out of the darkness ahead of us. It somersaults, leaps and twirls. It’s a beautiful woman with red hair, and she lands a perfectly timed roundhouse on Drake.

  Drake takes the damage and then buttstrokes the ninja girl with his smartgun. She goes sprawling in front of him.

  “Hey man, that’s Black Widow from the comic books!” Hudson says.

  Drake unloads on the prone figure with a short burst from the massive smart gun.

  “Not anymore.”

  Hudson laughs, and I’m pretty sure he’s about to say “Marines” when he gets hit by a giant hammer that carries him off into the darkness.

  “Ow!” he cries over chat. “I just got hit for… half my health.”

  I turn and unload on a caramel-skinned girl wearing a scant amount of Viking armor. Above her avatar floats the gamertag La Thor. I put most of the MX4’s magazine into her breast plate. Full auto does little damage.

  Frost, on the other hand, steps in and lights her up with the flamethrower.

  “What the hell!” says the player running Hicks. “I just got hit with
an arrow. And I’m asleep. Who the hell uses a bow and arrow?”

  “Uh… that guy with the bow,” says Hudson over chat. “Comin’ in from behind, sir.”

  “Yeah, and this flamethrower ain’t doin’ beans on the Viking chick,” says Frost.

  I slap in another magazine and see my move. I turn and engage the archer, an overweight lesbian with purple hair and fleshy arms. She’s drawing back for another shot. And obviously she’s using some kind of tranq arrow.

  La Thor’s hammer comes flying back through the darkness and just barely misses my head. I hear the character make some sort of grunt and I realize she’s going to smash me over the head from behind.

  The fat lesbian fires.

  I go prone while swapping mags.

  The arrow passes in the darkness overhead and nails La Thor. Over local ambient I hear the player running La Thor ask, “Really, FatArrow?” and then a loud thump.

  I pull the trigger on a fresh mag and use all the bullets in my magazine to ventilate the puffy archer. She goes down more easily than the rest of this fruitcake clan.

  Over messages in type I see FatArrow proclaim, “I died of Patriarchy… LULZ!”

  Hicks’s sleep status effect won’t time out for another two full minutes. We don’t have the time, so we just carry him. At the end of the tunnel we find a space-age-looking subway car alongside a platform. Curling stairs go upward.

  “We go up there and we’ll find the truck. What do we do after that, sir?” asks Hudson. “We’ll be up in the middle of goony bird central. No support.”

  With the rest of my army pulling out, there’s no way we can get out of here. I’m just about to say, “Die in place,” when Hicks comes over chat to report that we can probably uses the subway to boogie.

  “Hudson and I will get it operational. Probably have to hack it with a minigame… but we’ll get it running. You guys go up there and finish the job.”