by Terina Adams
“Time is running out. Once we take control of the coms room, the computer will recognize the challenge and change tactics. Sometimes it will hijack the system and override our commands.” Jax had to be saying this for my benefit, although I’d rather he said nothing at all if the news was that bad.
“How is that fair?”
“It’s not meant to be fair. The simulation is meant to be real. How many kills do you have?”
“One.”
He frowned. “That’s not enough. Once we complete this objective, we have fifteen minutes, then we need to get out or hell will break loose. And you need—”
“Nine more kills. The number’s pretty clear. What’s your definition of hell breaking loose?”
“I’d rather not say.” Jax looked to the other two. “With the others in position, there’s no stopping now.”
“It will be tough securing the coms room, so there should be plenty of opportunity for her to gain more kills,” Holden said.
Jax eyed Holden as if to say it was all his fault I was so low on my tally. I glanced at Elva but she was looking down, removing herself from my predicament, or smirking, the latter more likely.
Because we didn’t have as far to ascend, the lift moved slowly, which allowed plenty of time for the view. I remained focused on Jax’s back because that was the best place to look for someone with height issues, but I couldn’t shut out the thick metal beams in my periphery, beyond them to the blur of a passing skytrain.
Soon, but not soon enough, the lift slowed. Jax turned to me. “No one’s allowed in the coms room, so we’re going to face an attack the moment the lift doors open. You ready?”
“Yes.” No. I closed my eyes, giving myself the time to escape for one micro moment. With the feeling of a gentle breeze across my face and the sound of the lift door sliding across, I opened my eyes as I pulled my tri-blade from its belt and balanced it in my hand. I couldn’t be any further from being ready. The fight with the warrior on the street still needed to make its way through my nerves and out the other side into a long-to-forget memory.
Before Holden and Elva entered, they released their canisters and the flairs erupted, turning the sky a kaleidoscope of colors. The three of them rushed into the coms room in battle mode. I lagged, overwhelmed by the chaos that erupted.
Twelve bots inside launched into action. While Holden wielded his weapon, Elva and Jax kept theirs sheathed and instead used their hands and teeth. All three whirled with lightning speed, decapitating, slicing, stabbing, or mutilating their opponents, but as the bots died, more appeared. There was nothing but the ugly sounds of grunts and cries, the wet squelch of torn flesh and cracked bone. This was the brutal and savage truth of Dominus.
With the initial attack, the bots on the platform below raced around like disturbed ants. The computer had registered the attack and was in the process of mounting its defense. And I needed my kills if I wanted to be free.
I moved into the coms room, doing my best to avoid watching Jax and Elva fight. I knew why Jax had paused to speak with me before we entered the game after our talk with Carter. He wanted me prepared to face what he would become. Was it shame that had driven him?
A bot disengaged from Holden’s ferocious slashing and raced toward me. My throwing arm went limp, and I dodged to the side and scuttled around the circular room, placing Elva and her bot between us. I’d been caught off guard by the warrior’s sudden attack and my first instinct was to run.
My brain scrambled as it flipped into panic and my heart jumped into my throat. There was too much going on for me to concentrate. Something whizzed past my head and embedded into the wall behind with a thunk. I ducked too late as a warrior dressed entirely in black with a hood covering his eyes leapfrogged over the control panels and flew toward me with giant strides. I fumbled for my tri-blade, but he kicked it out of my hand and it spun off across the floor. Next a boot caught me high in the chest. The wind was knocked from me as I hit the wall behind. My health status bar moved to light orange as I wheezed to breathe and my skills status bar inched farther down toward green. The black warrior pulled his axe from the wall and raised it above his head to strike when a fist punched through his chest from behind. The warrior sank to his knees, then vanished, leaving Jax in his place.
With a rough hold, he jerked me forward to my feet. Elva punched buttons on the controls on the coms panel.
“We’re leaving.” He breathed on my face, and I turned away from the metallic stench on his breath. Hand still vised on my arm, us going nowhere, I turned back to meet his stare. There was nothing on his avatar face to read, but the red stains on his teeth and down the front of his tunic had mercifully disappeared. He jerked his arm back and stepped away, shielding his eyes from mine. He could not have read the disgust on my face, not an avatar face, surely, but my actions spoke for him to hear. Or maybe he’d distanced himself from me because he was disappointed in my lack of kills or ashamed his were so many.
The lower we descended into the chaos below, the higher the pressure built within my mind. My power status bar inched up to halfway. On the right, the digital numbers flicked down. We had twenty minutes left in the game. I had twenty minutes to reach my kill quota.
The skytrains closed their doors but did not depart. All the skytrains approaching changed course. Bots were clashing with each other as if the computer was unable to recognize us from itself.
“Now we subdue this level. The guys on the ground will prevent anyone from leaving via the lift.”
I yanked Jax’s arm for his attention. “There’s too many. How can you hope to win?”
“All we need to do is prevent anyone from leaving for the next fifteen minutes and we can classify our mission a success.” He turned to Elva. “You and Holden secure the skytrains on the left side.” He then looked at me. “We’ll take the right. Remember no one is to board; otherwise we fail our task.”
“What about the lifts going down?”
“Elva disabled them from the coms room.”
“And the platforms below us, how are we going to deal with those?”
“With only ten of us in the game, they’re disabled. We only need to secure the top level and the ground. You must make your kills.”
There was no hiding when the lift door opened, but with every bot lost in a fighting frenzy, I felt able to duck amongst the crowd, chasing Jax to the platforms on the right. The other two fanned out, defending when attacked with swift, merciless strikes. I was left in the rear with too many kills still to make. If I remained hidden, as I was behind Jax, I would be stuck inside Dominus and the computer would win; I wouldn’t make it out sane.
Jax fought his way to the first platform and checked the doors of the skytrain to make sure they were secure. Bots wanted in but he disposed of them quickly enough. It was time I took the initiative. God, I didn’t want to. I didn’t, I didn’t but I had no choice. Face your fear or die.
Diverting from Jax, I headed for the next platform, keeping low so I could reach the platform without incident. I climbed the stairs as a bot to my left broke from fighting on the platform and hurled himself at me. I wasn’t prepared for the sudden attack, so ducked and used another bot, busy fighting his own opponent, as a shield, which the computer didn’t like as it wiped any color from my skills status bar. If only my power status bar would do the same. Instead it kept inching up, as the burn inside my head increased from the back pressure of my factional nature surging through. I couldn’t block that and become an effective warrior at the same time as both used all my concentration. There was still fifteen minutes left in the game. Beside the digital reader, the number nine stared at me. Nine kills. I wasn’t going to make it.
The warrior who’d launched himself at me abandoned his attack and sprinted across the platform, slashing at anyone who got in his way, and then dived through the skytrain doors that had just slid open.
Oh, god. The computer had overridden Elva’s programming, and thanks to my cowardice, I’d
just let a bot escape.
“Jax.” I struggled to be heard over the noise of the fighting, but I did manage to gain his attention. He was too far away to do anything. If the skytrain departed, we would fail. While no one had made the outcome of that clear to me, we were in Dominus, so it wouldn’t be good.
My feet were running before my mind told them to go. I cleared the stairs, jumped over a fallen warrior, ducked under the swing of a blade, my attention fixed on the doors. They were closing. I had to make it. I busted my lungs as I sprinted over hurdles of bots and dived through the doors. My momentum was such that I crashed into the wall on the other side of the narrow skytrain, then was crushed against the wall even further when something heavy hit me in the back. Before I could struggle free of the sandwich I was in, the skytrain pitched sideways and shot off away from the terminal.
Chapter 29
I rolled across the floor and collided with a seat as the skytrain tilted on an axis and did a swift U-turn. My health status bar mirrored the way I felt, creeping up into the orange. Too many places hurt as I tried to right myself. The floor of the skytrain was a grille-style metal, uncomfortable for rolling around on, but the seats looked plush enough. Only problem was, the plush seats were filled with bots, which meant I didn’t have long to wallow in self-pity; any moment they were likely to turn nasty.
Someone tugged my foot and I spun to see Jax. It was like seeing a ghost. How did he make it onto the skytrain so fast? Didn’t matter. I crawled toward him, threw myself at his chest, sending him backward with my momentum, suffocating him with my hug. “We failed.” Thanks to me. I buried my head in his chest.
He set me back. It was hard to stare into the eyes of an animated character, hard to see the true emotions within. “If the skytrain arrives somewhere, then we have, but while it’s in the air, we still have a chance.”
Either he didn’t know this was my fault or he was more interested in righting the situation than apportioning blame. The only way to stop the skytrain from arriving was to do something radical like blow it out of the sky.
“So we’re stuffed.”
Jax pushed me down, flattening me to the metal grille, then leaped over the top of me. I rolled to see him engage with a warrior, when two more bots launched from their seats, weapons at the ready.
I ducked low and kicked out, hitting the first warrior, a woman, in the stomach, causing my skills status bar to change direction and inch upward. The force of my kick buckled her forward, and I took the advantage to knee her in the face and heard a satisfying crack, perhaps her nose. She staggered but recovered quicker than I would’ve liked and barreled toward me with her blade extended. I dived left but she was fast and elbowed me in the temple. I stumbled sideways, seeing stars, and hit the side of the skytrain. The jolt ran through my shoulder to my spine. The handrail jabbed into my waist and I moaned with the double onslaught of pain. The spike to my temple turned my mind fuzzy.
I looked to my power status bar to see the color slide through into a deep orange. My health status bar increased too, moving up to halfway, triggered by the throbbing through the right side of my body. The female warrior, seeing her advantage, raised her blade.
My hand came up to shield my face, mind frozen in terror. The blade cut down through the air toward me. No control over my body, I could do nothing but watch. The noise of the wind sliced in half followed the blade down. The sharp edge of her weapon became my vision. A blur. Jax appeared from nowhere and finished her off with a slash to her neck, decapitating her. Blood spurted from her neck as she folded forward. I shielded my face again, thinking it would splash me, but she was gone before she hit the floor, as was her blood.
I collapsed against the wall as my factional nature fought to tear down my restraints, my power status bar now red. No, not now. I couldn’t let it free. The unruly power would annihilate the skytrain, us in it. We wouldn’t survive Dominus if that happened.
As if sensing my trouble, Jax fought close beside me, ripping warriors apart. It seemed bloodlust came with super strength, which allowed him to destroy with his hands alone. But I still had to fight if I wanted to escape Dominus.
I pushed off the wall, feeling woozy from my failed fight while struggling with my power. I pulled my tri-blade from my belt. There was no use hiding anymore and no way I was going to be stuck in this game for any longer than I had to, which meant I had to fight with courage and strength to make it out.
I glanced around only to find the skytrain empty except for us. Jax had killed all our opponents.
“I still need kills.”
“And you’ll get them.”
He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the front of the skytrain. “There are only five minutes remaining until it’s safe to exit. But only if you make your quota. The bot that boarded the train is behind this door. We get through and he’s yours.”
“Do you know how to fly one of these things?”
“Not a skytrain, but I’ll learn quick.”
“You want me to kill the only person on board who can land us?”
“We don’t need to worry about landing. You get your kills.”
“Jax, there’s one bot on board.”
“Not for long. The computer will supply more soon, once it registers we’re alone.”
I glanced around the empty skytrain, expecting them to appear. “How do we get through?”
“That’s the problem. The doors are high-tensile alloy, a mixture of alum and tyrite.”
“I’m guessing those are tough metals.”
“Unbreakable. The door opens with retinal recognition.”
“Great. So we’re not going through the door then.”
“That’s precisely how we’re getting in.”
I totally missed the crux of his plan.
“Or should I say that’s the way you’re getting in.”
“No. I can’t do it, Jax. The last time I used my factional nature, I blew up a church. I have no control over my ability. I’ll destroy us along with the skytrain.”
“You won’t. I have faith in you.”
“Don’t say that. I can’t do it.”
“You’re our only hope. If the bot manages to land the skytrain, none of us are getting out. We’ll be stuck inside Dominus, fighting until we’re too exhausted to fight anymore.”
“I can’t believe you guys even thought of those rules.”
Jax spun me around to face the door. With his hands on my elbows, he spoke into my ear. “You have to do this. You’re the only one who can. Think of everything Holden told you.”
I stared at the flat metal door while Jax’s breath played in my ear. Was this where my life would end? In a game I despised? But if I didn’t do this, more lives were at risk; we would all be locked within Dominus. I turned my head to Jax, whose face was inches from my own.
“I believe in you,” he said.
I looked back at the door. His trust was misguided. But I was not going to be stuck in Dominus.
This was going to be messy.
“Wait.” Jax squeezed my shoulders.
I flicked a look to the digital countdown. We’d passed the ten-minute mark.
“Why?”
“Just wait.”
I turned my head to look at him, but he was looking elsewhere. That’s when the skytrain filled with bots. Jax set me free. “Do it, Sable.”
My ability itched for release just below the surface. I concentrated on inching the barriers of my mind aside, but once the walls began to shift, the energy rushed forth, an unstoppable force. I tried to stem the flow but felt like a stick trying to withstand a tornado as my power bar rushed to red.
My ability exploded outward as the world around me blew apart. The noise of the explosion deafened. The force of the power slammed into my chest, punching the wind out of me and crushing my lungs as I was thrown backward. With nothing to hit, I tumbled through the air, blind.
I fell and fell and fell. It was only when my throat began to hurt that I realize
d I was screaming. My chest hurt from the compression of the explosion, and my ears rang. But at least I was still alive.
It took moments for me to realize I no longer fell. I felt for the arm around my waist and exhaled the fear, knowing Jax was still with me. I opened my eyes only to see a hazy film across my vision.
“Jax?”
“I’m here.” He ran his hand down the side of my face.
“I can’t see properly.”
“Your vision will return. You’ve just got to give it a little time.”
“What happened?”
“Apart from you destroying the skytrain?”
“I told you—”
I jerked when he placed a finger over my lips. “I wasn’t sure if you could control your power. It was worth a try. In fact, it was the only hope we had. All the same, I was ready to get us out the moment the explosion began. Your vision’s blurred because I wasn’t as quick as I thought I could be. The explosion set off a reciprocal event along your neural pathways. Any longer in Dominus and your brain would’ve fried; as it is, your vision is temporarily damaged.”
“I told you I couldn’t do it.”
“But you did. We’re out of Dominus because of you. You got your kills and we beat the computer.”
I slumped forward, exhausted, only to find Jax’s chest there to support me.
“Unleashing my ability sucks the energy out of me.”
“It won’t once you’re proficient.”
“Where are we?”
“The in-between.”
I let out a deep sigh and relaxed into his embrace. I was too exhausted to feel awkward with him holding me or care how he felt about me being so close. At first he kept his grip on my upper arms, the support I needed to hold me firm, then slowly he slid an arm around my waist.
I closed my useless eyes and inhaled his familiar aroma, the combined smell of our sweat. Normally it was something I’d feel embarrassed about, but we’d made it out. I’d totally screwed up blowing up the skytrain, but we were alive. We defeated Dominus.
