Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators) (15 page)

Vol stares at the carpet, trying to tune out the argument. Kira's whining annoys her. The whole thing is stupid, anyway. Why shouldn't anyone who feels like it be able to create a game? Everyone needs to escape sometimes, and retreating into somebody else's fantasy isn't nearly as satisfying as slipping into your own.

Why deny them that?

Drove snorts. “If the Dying Moon was the work of an amateur, then maybe they should. Did you play
that game?”

Kira's eyes narrow. “They're not safe,” she grits out. “They haven't been tested and approved for the public.”

“
That wasn't the consensus opinion from what I heard. It was very, very popular.”

Why are you baiting her, Drove? Can't you see she's about to explode?

“
Why do you think the Tower is looking the other way? Profit. Our many supervisors are perfectly willing to ignore infractions if they think there's an extra token or two in it for them. You can cut all the bureaucratic red tape you want, but it isn't going to do you any good if your games don't continue to top the charts.”

Kira opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. A few people chuckle. Vol almost feels sorry for her. An angry blush rises up her throat; she turns on her heel and runs from the room. Now that she's gone, the laughter flows more freely. Jade starts to go after her, but Drove pulls him back by the arm. “Let her go. She should be alone.”

“
Get the fuck off me.” Jade shoves Drove away from him, sending him stumbling backwards into a chair. Both Drove and the chair topple over. Jade is breathing hard, looking as angry as Vol ever remembers seeing him. “If you care,” he says, “Why did you provoke her in the first place? You don't know anything about her. Don't pretend for a second that you understand what kind of pressure it is, trying to entertain everyone, to please everyone. Because you don't. You just play.” He spits the word.

A few Marks stare down at their shoes with renewed interest. The ones who laughed earlier are now staring the hardest.

Drove doesn't answer.

Jade snorts, mutters, “That's what I thought.” He turns and goes after Kira unimpeded this time. The door closes behind him with a slam.

A long silence presides for several seconds, making the pressure in the room rise. And when it explodes, as high pressure things inevitably do when they reach critical mass, whispers choke the small space. The Players, Tower residents, and Marks alike came to participate in a VR game and found themselves with the unexpected treat of a real-life holladrama. Unscripted.

Program: Space_Crusaders_3.exe

Class:

Aliens have invaded the planet. Through the destruction of various national landmarks on a global scale, the aliens have declared their intentions hostile. After a failed intervention by the government, civilians are forced to seize control of various spacecrafts and fight against the invasion themselves.

Mission objectives: Prevent the invasion — and stay alive.

The simulacrum of space explodes outward, encapsulating Vol in the game. She finds herself behind the wheel of a futuristic conveyance that, with its dome-shaped interior and cold, hard accents, gives her the unpleasant sensation of being in the belly of a mechanical behemoth.

Besides the control yoke, the control panel has two buttons that, according to the archives, are supposed to fire bombs and artillery, respectively. Personally, she doesn't see the distinction between the two, but she supposes it's the size of the bang that defines them. Flying this thing is going to be more complicated than the simple shuttle craft in the Dying Moon scenario. This thought cheers her a little. Maybe a shoot-em-up is just what the doctor ordered to take her mind off things.

The spacecraft shoots forward, slamming her against the seat. Vol discovers that tumbling through space with nothing but a few inches of high-pressure glass to keep her from being sucked into the void is not all that comforting.
Pay attention
, she scolds herself.

A speaker on the control panel crackles to life. “Anyone see anything yet?” It sounds like Drove.

“
No,” says Vol, and several others echo her negative response.

Space Crusaders
differs from most of the other games Vol plays in the sense that it's a team effort with groups of players working together to perform a set of common goals. She supposes that Bounty Strike could be considered collaborative, in the loosest sense, as could The Dying Moon, but neither of them were intended to be.

I wouldn't mind playing more of these types of games
.

Her ship pitches abruptly. Only the straps of her seat belt keep her from being thrown to the floor. A red light begins to flash, accompanied by a high-pitched warning siren. Vol manages to grab the yoke just as the ship begins to rock, and she curses.

Where
is
the systems read-out? There is no room on the panel for anything else. Vol looks up and sees a flashing blue light that has activated almost as soon as she thinks up her question. Her palm slams against it with unnecessary violence.

“
Left wing is damaged,” a sexless voice intones from the speaker. “left hull is damaged. Engine temperature is fifty-percent below automatic cooling threshold.”

A large, teal spacecraft looms outside her window, as sleek and streamlined as a shark gliding through the Ingo Sea. The metal glitters in the absence of any light, throwing off prismatic rainbows of luminescence that suggest the metal, like the spacecraft, is alien made. Because Vol has no doubt that this ship is a member of the enemy.

“
Incoming bogey from the rear,” the audio crackles. Where, exactly, are those other spacecrafts positioned? As far as she can tell, the enemy is dead ahead.
With extra emphasis on the
dead.

“
Engine temperature is forty-percent below automatic cooling threshold.”

“
All right,” she snaps at the computer. “I get it. I'm slowing down! Gods!”

“
Activating Generic Ocular Display Sequence. G.O.D.S.”

The front of her shuttle goes transparent and Vol experiences a nauseating wave of vertigo.

“
No, that's not what I meant! It's an expression! What the hell?”

“
Error. Request must be made in the form of a command.”

“
Oh, fuck you.”

“
Error. Command not recognized.”

“
I'm not surprised,” Vol mutters. She activates the thrusters, careful not to drain the craft's full reserve of power. The game has a rebound window, she sees, and if the window is maxed out, the craft stops moving for several seconds, giving the spacecraft time to recharge. Several seconds is not that long, but it's enough for the enemy to get in a couple good shots if they're quick. It's a safety precaution for the speedsters who slow down the system and take advantage of the other Players' inexperience.

Like me
.

Vol slams on the brakes as the reserves bar shifts from yellow to orange to neon red.

The alien ship fires green beams that light up the cockpit of the spacecraft with a radioactive glow. Vol turns hard-left, activating the thrusters just briefly enough to roll the ship without turning the reserve bar red. Space whirls around her in a carousel of starburst, and it takes Vol a moment to reorient herself. She's facing a different direction. Keeping one eye on the energy reserves, she steers the ship in a zigzag formation, trying to avoid the beams and to orient herself towards the aliens at the same time.

“
All right then,” Vol says, reaching for the 'bombs' button. “Close encounter of the worst kind it is.”

The heat-seeking missiles careen into the alien ship's side with explosions that disappear as quickly as they occur with no oxygen to fuel the flames. The iridescent surface remains unaffected, impermeable to damage. Vol stares incredulously. What
is
this? The ship must have some weak point.

Right?

The alien ship fires several more shots. These aren't ordinary missiles. Unlike the weapons of her own craft, they appear to have been refined from pure energy. Vol turns the yoke, hard, throwing her craft into a barrel roll — and then keeps spinning in lazy circles. The reserves are empty.

“
Right hull hit,” the computer informs her. The emotionless voice is starting to sound a little snide.

“
Thank you, Co-Pilot Obvious,” she snaps at it. “Do you actually have anything useful to say?”

“
Error. Request must be made in the form of a command.”

“
Go fuck yourself!” she shouts to the computer. “There. That's my command. Fuck. Yourself.”

“
Error. Command not recognized.”

Vol feels another impact — “weapons defense shields at twenty-five-percent below critical overload” — and for a few heart-stopping seconds, she is completely upside-down. Since space is unidirectional, though, her mind and body eventually adjust to the change, albeit a much speedier adjustment than the real world.

Vol clenches her teeth.
Not good
. “Where is everyone?” she says, directing her questions to the speaker. “I can't see anyone else.”

“
Firing at the aliens,” says a voice that sounds like Bastien. “Where are you, sweet cheeks?”

It is Bastien. He called her that on the Dying Moon, too. Belatedly, she remembers Drove's warning and sighs with impatience.

“
Lost in space,” somebody jokes, earning laughter at her expense. That sounds like Cori. The two of them were in this game? Together? On today of all days? One of the gods up there hates her.

“
I'm hit and need backup,” she says shortly. “I'm going to deploy one of the flares.”

“
You're hit? Well, stop the presses.”

“
I'm getting out of here,” she says defensively. “There's something wrong with my craft. The missiles are having no effect.”

“
Sure, sure, there's something wrong with your craft,” Cori snickers, full of schadenfreude.

Vol grows. “Look — ”

“
Okay,” Drove cuts in, “I'm watching the map. Go ahead and deploy the flare.”

“
Thank you.” Vol hits the flare button, located on the ceiling by the blue button that activated the computer's obnoxious running commentary. She's going to lose points for this, she knows. It's like abusing the 'hint' button in kiddie puzzle games. You aren't supposed to get assistance. And Players are supposed to be above assistance. She's paid to be an expert.

So much for unique problem-solving
.

“
I'm ready for you to deploy the flare,” Drove says.

“
I did.”

“
Oh.” He sounds uncertain now. “That's funny. I didn't see anything.”

“
Did anybody see anything?”

“
Nope.”

“
Just the bogey.”

Vol starts to feel a twinge of — not fear, exactly, not yet, but something close. “Is this a bug?”

At the word “bug,” there's a crackle and a beep. “Vol, this is Suryan. Are you reporting a bug?”

“
I — I think so.” She stares at the alien vessel that no one else can see. “I don't really know what it is.”

“
Catan is accessing the data files. If something is messing up your ship, he'll find it.”

Or make it worse
.

“
Try firing another flare,” Drove suggests.

“
I don't have any more flares. Each ship is only equipped with one flare.”

No response.

“
Drove?”

Silence.

“
Anyone?”

She's never realized how — dead — space is before.

“
Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

Static crackles. She hears something, caught in the white noise like a burr, but it doesn't sound human.
The aliens?
Vol thinks, wildly. She stares at the dash.
I wonder …
“Computer,” — she bites her lip, — “translate incoming transmission?”

She realizes her mistake a second too late.

(Error. Request must be made in the form of a command.)

She opens her mouth to correct herself and is cut off by a tinny voice saying,
“Greetings, Volera Magray.”

He programmed it with my name. It's another one of Catan's tricks.

Except…

Except this isn't his style. He prefers getting close and personal.

“
We come bearing a message.”

Did the aliens in this game have quantum powers? She has the bad habit of skimming the archives. Maybe the aliens dragged her into a space ship. Vol presses the button on the speaker, hesitating. Fear makes her bold. “What message is that?”