Kai’s eyes widened. It was them! It was really them!
Hissing, the Guardian launched another attack, focusing on the six people right in front of him. With a casual coolness, the Cyber Squad drew their weapons and stood combat ready.
One of them, a little shorter and bulkier than the rest, turned toward Kai’s people and lifted his palm. A shimmering barrier appeared, separating the Cyber Squad and the Guardian on one side while leaving the TSOTA players on the other – in safety.
He turned to his own team next and a shimmer appeared around them, which could only be some sort of shield of buff. Another of the figures stepped out of the spider’s direct impact radius. In the next moment, he summoned something so completely out of place in this fantasy RPG environment that Kai blinked, staring at it.
Three huge holo-screens and a holo-keyboard appeared in front of the man, whose face was hidden under a black helmet. He sat on the ground in front of them and his fingers began flying over the keyboard at an utterly unnatural speed.
What was this guy doing?
The Guardian launched another attack. This time, the monster began its offensive by spitting its venom onto the six people below him. The green ichor cloud didn’t reach any of them. With a gesture of his hand, the same guy who had created the barrier summoned an energy shield above the squad. The venom dispersed and disappeared after hitting it.
Before the arachnid could start hitting them with its razor-sharp legs, one of them stepped forward. He was taller than the rest; huge muscles showed through the shiny fabric of his suit, making him appear like a comic superhero. Like the girl had before, he summoned a sword by performing the gesture of pulling it out of a sheath on his back. His was even bigger. In his other hand, a shield appeared.
No doubt this was the tank of the group. After performing a taunting attack, he had the full attention of the Guardian, who immediately began slashing at him. It almost appeared as if the boss had gained even more strength and speed through the reset.
As soon as the arachnid focused on the tank, Kai’s savior and two others of her team launched an attack on the spider. They drew their swords and began slashing at the monster with a speed and agility Kai had never seen before. Whatever buffs they were using, he wanted them, too!
But no matter what they tried, the spider didn’t take damage, still protected by its golden status of invincibility. The black-haired guy, clearly the leader of the group, turned around to the person with the black helmet, who was still hitting the virtual keyboard frantically.
Now that he felt safe, Kai was increasingly fascinated by what was happening with every second that passed. It almost appeared as if the guy on the keyboard was trying to hack himself into the game – from within the game. This was crazy!
Columns of green numbers ran down his screens: code. Possibly even source code.
The coder briefly lifted a hand toward his leader in an irritated gesture, then kept hammering the keyboard with his insanely fast fingers.
Watching them, Kai realized that this team of six was a slight variation of the classic RPG party: instead of two DPSs, it had three, as well as a tank and a healer. The only class no one would ever find in an RPG was the hacker. It was the only plausible role for this guy that Kai could think of.
The sounds of dozens of arachnid feet echoed through the cave as the Guardian summoned the first wave of spiderlings. Following an unspoken command from the squad leader, two of the damage dealers ran off to greet the critters, leaving only the girl attacking the boss.
Just when Kai began to wonder how the Cyber Squad was actually planning to defeat this menace, the hacker lifted his index finger and a green glow appeared above it. The leader and Kai’s heroine exchanged a look, then he nodded at her.
She fell into a sprint and charged toward the tank, dodging the Guardian’s furious attacks with the ease and grace of a dancer. The tank extended his shield toward her and she jumped on it. Using his strength and her momentum, he gave her a lift into the air. Like a projectile, she shot up, evaded the spider’s gigantic glands with a gracious summersault, and landed on its head.
Kai noticed that he was holding his breath.
What’s she doing?
Surprisingly, the Guardian didn’t react to her standing on its head at all and instead continued attacking the tank, who parried his slashes with ease. The AI wasn’t programmed or prepared for air assaults as no character class in the game was capable of such stunts.
The girl made a summoning gesture and a large dagger appeared in her hand that looked like it was fabricated of black glass. On the ground, the hacker waved his hand as if he was about to throw something at her. But instead of a ball, a projectile, or anything like that, a thin, greenish glowing spool of ribbon appeared in his palm. In the blink of an eye, it extended itself upward and connected with the girl’s dagger. The weapon took on the same shimmering texture as the ribbon. Tiny particles moved inside it.
Kai’s jaw dropped as he realized what it was. Code.
She didn’t hesitate for a second but rammed the dagger straight into the Guardian’s skull.
The monster let out one last bone-shaking shriek as its body trembled. Kai watched, fascinated, as the green code entered its skull and spread through its body like a deadly virus – which it technically was.
A second later, everything was over.
First, the golden name tag disappeared, turning back to the usual red dungeon boss tag. The giant arachnid froze as its massive body flickered and then exploded into millions of tiny pixels, which flew through the cave like particles of glowing green dust, then dissolved. Meanwhile, the spiderlings vanished as if they had never been there.
The girl dropped to the ground where the spider had been only a second ago, her long legs easily absorbing the impact. A smile appeared on her face as she faced the squad leader.
Kai’s party woke from their stupor and began applauding and cheering. He looked to his friends and saw an expression of awe and disbelief on Stan’s face.
“Wow!” his lips moved, but Kai couldn’t hear it.
Instead, blue letters appeared in his field of view.
Removing you from the dungeon in 10, 9, 8, 7…
No, wait!
Kai wanted to say thank you to the people who had just saved their asses. Maybe even talk to the girl. Actually, most of all, talk to the girl.
But there was nothing to be done. Once initiated, the removal process couldn’t be stopped.
The usual blur appeared around Kai, and he noticed that the rest of the party was about to be removed from the dungeon, too. Right before he was teleported away, Kai saw a glowing portal appear, and the Cyber Squad left the instance the same way they had entered it.
***
The birds sang and the eagle flew high in the perfectly blue sky, letting out its characteristic scream. A soft breeze circled the mountain top, carrying the scent of flowers and herbs.
Everything appeared unreal to Kai as he materialized back at his estate.
“What in the fucking bloodiest of hells was this?” Stan’s voice came from next to him, husky in excitement.
When leaving a dungeon or PvP instance, the game always transported the player back to the last in-world location they had been before entering the event. And since both Kai and his friend had last been hanging out on Kai’s estate, it was where they both rematerialized.
Kai faced him. “I have no idea.”
Suddenly, he realized how exhausted he was. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he felt as if he had spent days in that dungeon.
“It was the craziest shit I’ve seen!” Stan said. “Jesus, I thought you were done. I’m glad you’re ok.”
“Me too,” Kai said quietly.
All he was thinking about was that the Cyber Squad had possibly saved everyone’s life. And her.
Chapter Seven
Kai was on autopilot when he walked to the train station the next day. He could hardly process the events that had
happened only a few hours before.
After logging out of the game, he had found his real body completely exhausted. Dehydrated and his legs cramping, he felt as if he had just run a marathon – and that being a person who had never seen a gym from the inside in his entire life. When he lifted himself up off the bed, he realized that it was soaked with sweat.
But he only made the most shocking discovery once he managed to get up and walk. His leg hurt. Looking down, he saw that he had a huge bruise above his right knee. Exactly where the spiderling had bitten him!
How could that be possible?
Once he was naked under the shower, he saw that this injury wasn’t the only one. His body was covered with bruises, almost as if he had been in a real fight.
When Kai got onto the train that would take him downtown like every day, his head was spinning. Every step he made felt painful. There was only one plausible explanation for his condition.
For some reason, his body had perceived everything that had happened in VR as real. The existential stress he had experienced during the battle with the Guardian and its minions had almost pushed him over the edge. His body had produced adrenaline, sweat, and all sorts of other hormones and substances a human body did when in a life-threatening combat situation.
That alone would have been concerning enough, but how had he received the bruises?
He only hoped that the others were ok. After all, Red, Cloudgirl and Serene had suffered much more damage than him. Kai had been so fascinated watching the Cyber Squad in action that he hadn’t even realized that none of the three were moving anymore until they all got logged out of the dungeon. He hoped that it was just a malfunction in the game and that they were fine. After all, none of them had been killed. Kai could remember seeing their health bars in the group section on his HUD.
The unfortunate healer, however, was a completely different story. Kai felt ice-cold when he thought back to the blood-curdling scream the guy had let out when attempting the log-off process. Yes, the dude was a prick who no one in the guild liked – and apparently an idiot for trying to leave the game even though they’d all got the message not to attempt that under any circumstances – but still. No one deserved to suffer serious damage in the real world, or maybe even die as a result of what they did in VR.
Today, Kai hardly noticed anything going on around him on the train. Neither the gray tenements muffled in foggy clouds outside the window, nor the gray faces of the commuters surrounding him. He even didn’t notice the commercials trying to sell him whatever the system thought he needed to live a happy life, or at least a less miserable one.
As terrifying and confusing as the whole experience in the dungeon had been, what occupied Kai’s thoughts most were the guys who had saved his and everyone else’s ass.
The Cyber Squad.
He was fascinated. Yes, those guys had abilities and gadgets no ordinary player ever could dream of, but still, this team of six were easily the best players Kai had ever seen. In fact, he considered himself a pretty good player, otherwise he would never have tried to apply for an e-sports team. But compared to those guys, he was a mere amateur.
And the girl…
His pulse rose just thinking of her.
Yes, he was no idiot and knew very well that it had only been her avatar he had seen. She could be anyone in real life. Although, judging from her voice, she had to be gorgeous.
But the graceful avatar wasn’t the main thing he found so attractive and intriguing about her.
Her courage, her coolness, her exceptional way of fighting… not to mention that it had been her who had saved him from being turned into a kebab by a giant spider.
Considering the bruises he had found on his body after the session, he wasn’t keen on finding out how it would feel to be impaled when a game experienced such a severe glitch as the one last night.
The thought alone made him feel ice-cold, and he ran his hand over his chest and belly unthinkingly.
Kai closed his eyes for a second, remembering how she had slid toward him, swinging the oversized sword and then cutting off the arachnid’s leg before it could hurt him. It had been so impressive… and so smoking hot.
He was that sunken in his own world that he almost missed his station. Frantically, he pushed himself through the other commuters and left the train just before the door closed. Now he needed to hurry so he didn’t miss his connecting ride on the Skytrain.
Riding up the escalator, he mostly ignored the colorful 3D ads flashing on the wall next to him. Like the ones on the train, the displays adjusted to the person in front of them, a scanner reading data from each person’s neuro-plant. Kai was so used to the constant advertisement overkill that he mostly ignored them completely.
But then he froze as something unexpected caught his attention.
The ad was much shorter than the one he had seen on the train the other day, because the displays on the escalator walls allowed the passerby only a glimpse of an ad, lasting just a few seconds.
It showed the Cyber Squad logo and text in glowing blue letters.
Become a hero! Join Cyber Squad!
Send us your resume NOW.
It almost felt like a bolt hitting Kai’s spine. He felt a tingle all over his body as a decision formed in his head.
Once on the Skytrain, he pulled his mobile device from his bag. The system made it easy for him. Being connected to the internet, his device knew exactly which ads had been shown to Kai in the last hours. Whenever he switched it on, it would show him little reminders of the products the system had suggested for him. Web browser, social media, WatchTube – they all accessed data collected by his neuro-plant.
The second push-notice he got was the exact same Cyber Squad ad as the one he had just seen. The only difference was that this time, the Send us your resume NOW text was a clickable button.
It took him less than a minute to upload his resume. A few seconds later, he received a text message.
Thank you for your application! We will be in touch shortly! The Helltek Labs Inc. Team
Kai’s hand was shaking slightly when he stored his mobile device back in his bag.
Deep inside him, his gut was telling him that what he had just done would change his life forever. He felt a tingling all over his body, like an electric discharge.
Calm down, he told himself while the skyscrapers of downtown flew by him. All you did was send in your resume. They get thousands of applications every day. Most likely you’ll never hear back from them…
It was true. Finding a decent job nowadays was almost like finding a needle in a haystack. Which was why most people had stopped trying years ago. And Helltek Labs were the biggest game QA service in the world. Why should they pick him of all people? On the other hand, they had targeted him with their recruitment ads. There had to be a reason for that. Maybe he was a suitable candidate after all?
Kai exited the train and went to work.
On his arrival, he saw Hana lift an eyebrow and watch him with crossed arms as she noticed him limping. He wasn’t much slower than normal, and even though his leg hurt, he would do his job as fast as possible, but it was enough to bring a frown to his boss’ stern face.
“I fell down the stairs, I’m sorry,” he said dryly, which made her knit her perfect eyebrows.
Clocking in, Kai realized that he truly couldn’t stand this woman. Who did she think she was?
As always, the day dragged as if in slow motion. Kai caught his thoughts drifting off to the events in TSOTA. He wanted to go home, log into the game and find out what had happened and if his friends were ok. Besides, the bruise above his knee made walking and serving grumpy patrons in a restaurant a true pain in the ass.
Kai resisted the urge to pull out his mobile device and check if he had a message from Helltek every minute. It would probably take days, if not weeks, for them to get back to him. If they ever did. And Hana would fire him if she caught him using his phone during work. Kai was convinced that she was waitin
g for any excuse that would give her a reason to give him the boot.
Finally, after six hours, he got a fifteen-minute break. He grabbed some ramen from the kitchen and sat down in the tiny room that served as a break room for the employees.
Kai couldn’t resist any longer. He pulled out his device and took a peek.
There was a new text message. And, to his surprise, it was neither an ad nor a reminder to pay some bills.
It was from Helltek.
Wow, that was quick!
Full of anticipation but also anxious, he opened the message.
Kai dropped his chopsticks as he read it, and the noodles he was about to shove in fell back into the steaming bowl. All interest in the ramen forgotten, he jumped to his feet and headed for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, Kai?” Hana asked icily as she saw him heading for the exit.
Instead of replying, he flipped her off. She sucked in her breath so forcefully that he could clearly hear it while opening the door. It brought a grin to his face.
“You’re f–”
He turned around and smiled. “I quit.”
***
“Ok, ok, slowly, please,” Stan said. “You did what?”
“I flipped off my boss and quit.”
“Yeah, that’s badass. We’d all love to do that at some point. I’m proud of you, mate. But that’s not what I mean.” He paused for a second, then yelled. “You did bloody what?”
As so often when they had nothing better to do but chill, they were hanging out at Kai’s estate. Kai used the time in his virtual home to manage his inventory, repair his equipment and practice his skills on dummies or a parkour course he had set up in the courtyard.
“Wow,” Kai said, browsing through the new items in his inventory. “I received a full armor set that would have dropped in the Dark Lair. And the sword! In platin!”
Platin was the highest level of gear in the game. It only dropped at the final boss in the most difficult dungeons and arenas on veteran mode. A full set was extremely difficult to come by. Kai’s excitement grew when he focused on the set and the full description appeared.
Cyber Squad - Level 1: A Gamelit/LitRPG Lite Cyberpunk Adventure Page 7
