by Arthur Stone
Arthur Stone
Respawn: The Last Crossing
Text Copyright © 2020 Arthur Stone
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Contents:
Arthur Stone
Respawn: The Last Crossing
Chapter 1
Life Nine. “Don’t worry. They won’t go off.”
Chapter 2
Life Nine. Power Shift
Chapter 3
Life Nine. Surprise Memories
Chapter 4
Life Nine. Search for the Dead
Chapter 5
Life Nine. Change of Scene
Chapter 6
Life Nine. Reunion
Chapter 7
Life Nine. Under Wise Direction
Chapter 8
Life Nine. Rainbow Road
Chapter 9
Life Nine. For the Team
Chapter 10
Life Nine. Getting Ready
Chapter 11
Life Nine. The Beginning
Chapter 12
Life Nine. Breaking Brakes
Chapter 13
Life Nine. Cannon Fodder
Chapter 14
Life Nine. More Mechanical Mess
Chapter 15
Life Nine. The History of Ancient Rome
Chapter 16
Life Nine. The Armored Beetle
Chapter 17
Life Nine. Abandoned Station
Chapter 18
Life Nine. A Quick Escape
Chapter 19
Life Nine. Land of the Ghouls
Chapter 20
Life Nine. The Mountain Pass
Chapter 21
Life Nine. A Fortress of One
Chapter 22
Life Nine. The Giant’s Step
Chapter 23
Life Nine. A Familiar Insect
Chapter 24
Life Nine. Underground
Chapter 25
Life Nine. Slanted Skyline
Chapter 26
Life Nine. The Unfinished Skyscraper
Chapter 27
Life Nine. Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Chapter 28
Life Nine. Wrath of the Ghouls
Chapter 29
Life Nine. Good Luck
Chapter 30
Life Nine. Personnel Management
Chapter 31
Life Nine. The Near East
Chapter 32
Life Nine. Antiquities
Chapter 33
Life Nine. The Unholy Trinity
Chapter 34
Life Nine. March’s March
Chapter 35
Life Nine. Trust Issues.
Epilogue
Life Ten.
Many thanks to my readers!
Chapter 1
Life Nine. “Don’t worry. They won’t go off.”
“I’ve seen everything. Seen things I’ll never tell another man. Because that man would never believe me, no matter who he was. Even if he was crazier than you. I’ve even seen things I don’t believe myself. Today, I saw a whole tribe of grays attempt to kill an Elite Nold. A massive flock of vicious grasshopper aliens locked in combat with the latest Iron Man. They killed everyone else in their way. I didn’t just see this spectacle from behind some bushes, or through some murky spyglass. No, I had the best seat in the house. Better than front row. My own private VIP box, you might say. I do wish there had been some popcorn, and maybe a beer to wash it down. But I’m not complaining. Rare sights are what I live for. I’m addicted to them. Just when I thought it was over, you said—how did you put it?—‘Don’t worry, they won’t go off.’ That’s what you said, isn’t it? Now, the grand finale to the whole show is here: an atomic blast. Thanks for the encore, Cheater. Whenever I’m around you, I always see the most interesting things.”
“You’re wrong on this one. That’s no atomic blast.”
“Right. My mistake. It’s not atomic. Perhaps it’s just some gas passed by the Elite Nold as he lay there dying. We lit the atomic bombs on fire, but they weren’t the real danger, no—it was the methane from the metal man’s posterior we had to worry about.”
“You’re making a bigger deal out of this than you need to.”
“A bigger deal? Well, what else am I supposed to do?”
“Doesn’t look like you’re really that busy right now.”
“Cheater, buddy, that shock wave just tossed us through the air when we were a whole half mile away. And tossed the car we were in with us. It was a wild ride, to be sure. I guess that’s what it’s like to be dandelion puff. Look: I’ve seen all kinds of explosions and shock waves and knockbacks. But never on that scale. It was an atomic blast.”
“Stop exaggerating. We didn’t get ‘tossed’ anywhere. You just lost control of the vehicle around a sharp curve. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Perhaps you’re right, in part. How well could you expect me to drive when there are atomic bombs going off just behind me?”
“I didn’t know you were an explosive expert, Clown. I thought you were, you know, a car mechanic. Well? So see here: that fortress had tons of all kinds of explosives beneath it. Anything and everything that could explode was hidden below. Thousands of shells. Tons of crates of dynamite. Bombs of every make and mark. Enough to start—or probably end—a world war. Did they bring in trainloads of it? Who knows? It was an unimaginably massive pile. When I lit up the place with my mind and took a look, I nearly went blind. They might as well have been living on gunpowder for the soil. That’s what exploded. No atomic blasts. Just a very, very big conventional detonation.”
“Uh-huh. Whatever you say. There was nothing ‘conventional’ about that. So why is this the first time you’re mentioning all of these conventional explosives?”
“We were busy. It slipped my mind.”
“But those atomic bombs that didn’t explode failed to slip your mind.”
“It’s hard for anything atomic to slip your mind. The rest wasn’t really anything special, so I neglected to—”
“‘Neglected’!? ‘Not anything special’!? They nearly knocked us clear off the road! The reason you and I are hanging over the edge of a cliff right now is those ‘not special’ explosives. Also, my Radiation meter has gone up. A lot. I bet yours has, too. I’m no specialist in nuclear physics, as you are so quick to point out, but would a ‘conventional’ explosion shower us with alpha and beta particles and gamma rays? Hell no. It was atomic, I am telling you.”
Cheater shook his head. “We’ll be fine. The explosion tore the shells apart, and some of the material inside was scattered. I’m no physicist, either, but there was of course some radioactive fuel inside. Now, it’s blown to dust. Or even to atoms. And that dust is drifting down on top of us.”
“Ah, very good. So we avoid an atomic explosion, but still reap the benefits of breathing plutonium right into our lungs. And that’s ‘fine’? I hate arguing with you, Cheater. I wouldn’t be surprised to see you take a chamber pot and try to convince me it’s full of apple jam. You never budge. Never shift. Not even a nudge.”
“Quit talking about ‘budging’ and ‘shifting’ and ‘nudging,’ or you’ll send us over the edge.”
It was a scary thought. The armored truck they had taken out of the Devils’ fortress had taken a sharp turn right when the blast wave hit. Even though they were half a mile gone, it still gave them a good
shake. In fact, it pushed them off the road like they were riding in little more than a cardboard box. The vehicle turned over several times and came to a stop just at the edge of a thirty-foot dropoff. There was water below—but rapidly receding. The dam had taken significant damage in the explosion and was no longer holding water well. The recession was fast, and likely very loud. Yet their ears were stunned by the blast, and so them shouting at one another was the only break in the silence of the world.
Not that they needed to hear the stream. A bigger concern was the position of their truck. The metal-clad cab teetered over the edge. If they fell below, they would likely not die on impact, but they would be swept away in the rapid rush through the breaches in the dam.
The fall would also possibly cripple them, at current water levels. Meaning that they would in fact die.
Sending them to respawn, after dragging them into a whirlpool and slamming them into some massive boulder or throwing them over the dam.
Neither Cheater nor Clown was seriously injured, but they were in no hurry to abandon their vehicle. They did not want to upset the apple cart.
One cab door was blocked in by the carcasses of fallen trees. They had been growing along the edge of the cliff, but the blast and the rolling truck had joined forces to knock them over. The other door was clear, and had even opened slightly, its latch ruined in the rolling. But it led straight out over the water swirling and spinning a dozen yards down. Someone with enough physical strength could climb out, up, and over.
However, Cheater and Clown were not exactly in their best form. The tortures and traumas and persecutions and poisonings of the past few hours had taken their toll.
Worse still, two people shifting their weight would affect the truck’s center of gravity. The vehicle was precariously balanced. Metal groaned and creaked as it rocked, along with the sounds of crunching dirt and branches. The fear had prevented them from doing so much as gesturing when they spoke, and they looked with their eyes instead of their heads whenever possible. Overturned as the truck was, they had both been lying on the cab ceiling as they had debated the blast’s degree of atomicity.
“Well, radiation or no, unless we get out of here now, we’re toast,” Clown voiced the apparent truth. “Radiation is rising only slowly now. As an expert car mechanic, I can assure you that this truck will dump us into the murky depths before we start feeling any ill effects from the blast.”
Cheater pointed down. “There’s a hatch over there.”
“You’re joking,” Clown blinked. “It opens straight into the ground. And we’d have to saw our way out. That swinging door is our only option. I’m no acrobat, Cheater. And I feel terrible. I might not make it. I wish I had saved some of the spec. With a shot of that in my veins, I would have been out of this thing before it even turned over the first time.”
“Without the spec, we never would have made it out of the fortress,” Cheater forced out.
“True,” Clown nodded, regretting the movement immediately. “Still, it’s a shame there wasn’t any more. Anyway, yes, as a car mechanic, I should be trusted about these things. If we don’t beat it now, it will beat us. And I mean right now. We’re about to go over. This vehicle is heavy, Cheater—it won’t hold for long.”
“What’s your plan?” Cheater asked.
“Plan? To beat it!”
“I mean how.”
“However we can. Have you broken anything?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like it. But I’m not sure. After coming down from that spec, you know, I’m not even sure I’m alive. My head is all muddled...”
“Side effects. Hey, where are you going?”
Cheater blinked at him. “You just said it yourself that we need to get out of here. So I’m getting out of here.”
“You go that way, and your escape will be straight into the water. Here, grab that seatbelt. It’s not the best safety rope, but it’s better than nothing. Once you’re up, pull me after you.”
“Got it.”
“The hell’s that?” Clown snapped. “You bringing your backpack?”
“The mods are inside. No way I’m losing them.”
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess. But how about you try getting out without the backpack first? You can use this belt to lift it out once you’re up and out. Then, you can lift me out.”
“Alright,” Cheater sighed.
Neither of them had remarkable Agility at the best of times. So, it took them a long time to bumble their way out, complaining about themselves and each other as they went. Despite Clown’s fears, the truck was in no hurry to cast itself over the edge. Yet it did rattle menacingly now and then, sometimes kicking another clod of earth crumbling into the water below.
At last, the trio was atop the truck—Cheater, Clown, and the priceless pack. It was then that the vehicle finally decided it had had enough. It groaned once again and shuddered, then began to tilt, losing itself in a great landslide.
Without a word, both of them leaped up and ran down the length of the truck at full speed. The bottom of the vehicle was not the smoothest of running tracks, but still they ran. At the end, Cheater made a long jump that might have broken the regional record. Sadly, he did not stick the landing, and collapsed into an awkward roll. On second thought, though, if he were in a movie, he would have bet that the director would be keeping this take.
Once he arrived, he turned around and pressed back to the door. Thankfully it had swung fully open now.
“The hell are you going!?” Clown howled.
“The second pack!” Cheater answered without slowing down.
He felt the ground morph into a waveform beneath his feet. The truck was about to fall in earnest. When he realized he was out of time, Cheater grabbed whatever was within reach and then tried to redirect his momentum, pulling a full about-face, hoping to execute this maneuver as cleanly as the last.
It didn’t work out. At the last instant, he stumbled and fell, as if someone had sent their boot right into his backside. His whole body pressed against the edge of the cliff, now. The car was already far below. Why wasn’t he?
Clown had leaped forward and seized him by the collar at the final moment. He heaved and pulled him up. “Shit! Don’t do that again! I’m terrible at catching things, you know. I’m just a mechanic!”
“The pack!” Cheater protested, nearly in tears.
“To hell with the pack! This is a stable. Once things settle down, we can come back with some scuba gear and clean up. The loot won’t be going anywhere. What the hell was it, anyway?”
Cheater turned his head. “Huh?”
“Look, that truck was full of the best weapons, the best ammo, monster loot, and mods. But you just risked a whole life just to retrieve this Nold shoulder turret. The hell do you need that for?”
“You were the one who said to grab it!”
“I thought maybe we could mount it somewhere and use it. But maybe not. It was just a thought. I have never seen a turret like it before—and I doubt anyone else has, either. But it’s from an Elite Nold!”
“You can figure it out. You’re a mechanic, after all.”
A bright flash lit the sky behind them, and the earth trembled at nearly the same instant. Only then did the sound of a mighty blast shatter their eardrums.
Both turned to see a huge crimson cloud billowing over the Devils’ fortress.
Clown bobbled his head from side to side, mocking. “‘They won’t go off, no need to worry, they’ll just burn out, like balloons popping.’ I told you that drenching atomic bombs in gas and setting them on fire was a shitty idea.”
“We have to get out of here,” Cheater said.
“What? Really? I was just starting to enjoy the radiation.”
“That’s not what’s going to kill us,” Cheater mumbled. “We just upset a whole lot of very bad people.”
“The Devils?”
“No. The Devils are the last of our problems now.”
Cha
pter 2
Life Nine. Power Shift
Progress was hard. When it came down to it, players’ bodies were not all that different from ordinary human bodies, especially when it came to the aftereffects of powerful drugs. The stimulant was like jet fuel injected right into the bloodstream, but you paid for it with a colossal down, albeit a delayed one. If life circumstances were less than ideal during this aftermath, the compound effect could be devastating.
Clown and Cheater were shivering anxiously. The brand-new clothing they had found in the fortress was already torn and stained with blood. Golden regeneration cores could deal with minor injuries quickly, but apparel remained unhealed. This meant, of course, that the whole cluster could smell them. They might as well be simultaneously cutting themselves and scuba diving in a reef teeming with man-eating sharks.
In addition, the explosions and plumes of smoke would attract creatures from many miles around. Few infecteds lived in these areas, but they would all now be charging headlong towards the site. And woe be to any players in their path. Only the strongest and best equipped could handle such an encounter.
