Multiplayer (17 page)

Izaak pointed through the tunnel opening at the peninsula rising in the distance across the water. “There’s a portable slipgate up there, in a castle guarded by this wacky clan.”

“Portable?” said Alkindi with obvious interest. “You mean like an InstaGate. One time use?”

“No, I mean, like, portable. Like put it in your inventory and carry it around.”

Izaak had never met this Alkindi before, but he could almost see his cybernetic face frowning and grinning at the same time. “Well, how does it do the entropy dump? Slipgates have to have entropy radiators. You can’t have that in a little box.”

“I don’t know,” replied Izaak, suddenly realizing he’d never actually seen the box moved. But he was way too deep now to bring that up. “But it works. I’ve seen it.”

“Can you take it through a portal it opened?” Alkindi’s voice was now quivering with excitement.

“I wondered that too,” said Veyron. “It’d mean you could go anywhere, at any time.”

“We don’t know, but it is portable,” Izaak added. “It’s like a small box that opens a slipgate portal you can step through. That’s why we’re here. That’s why you’re here.” And, he thought, to get Vera back. “So I think the best way to get up there would be to approach the peninsula on the water and –”

“Izaak,” came T-Reg’s voice, over Hector’s headset. “Izzy, you there?” Alkindi had configured all their com devices so they could communicate more effectively in-game. Only Veyron didn’t have a direct line, since she couldn’t use tech.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Mercs,” she said. “In the town.”

Hector and the others scrambled up the stairs. “Where did they come from?” said Izaak, staring at the monitors in their new control room. There was a row of monitors, and the grainy image displayed by one of them looked down on two mercs making their way from the restored area into the twisting labyrinth of the ruined city.

“Kind of bothers me they show up the same time as we do,” said Darxhan.

“We’d better check it out,” said T-Reg.

“Is it safe at night?” asked c’Irith apprehensively. “I’ve seen a lot of scarobs around.”

“They’re solar powered,” said Alkindi. “They gather in buildings at night to conserve their energy. Thorks tend to hang out on the fringe, so we ought to be okay.”

Izaak kept staring at the monitor with the mercs. It was an overhead view that showed two mercs moving into the city. “Where’s that camera?” he finally asked. “It looks like it’s in the air?”

“It’s on a UAV,” answered Alkindi. “Unpiloted Aerial Veh- “

“I know what a UAV is!” Izaak exclaimed, cutting him off excitedly. He’d never heard of a UAV in
Omega Wars
. “Where’d you get it?”

“I built it.”

“Told you he was good,” said Deion, nodding across the bonus room at Hector’s stunned expression. “But I need you to focus, Hector. Bad guys in town. This isn’t a good sign.”

Izaak shook off the surprise and turned slowly, considering his options. Not only did they need to way in, they’d need a way out. “T-Reg, you, c’Irith, me, Veyron, BayernFC, and L3r0y. We’ll go and take a look at these mercs. Alkindi, you, Rada, and Darxhan put something together to come save us. I think we might need it. Everybody cool with that?”

Before they left, Alkindi showed Izaak how to display the UAV’s signal on his HUD then he led the party into the darkness making for the last known position of the mercs.

They worked their way through the ruins as quietly as possible, c’Irith scouting ahead and the mercs trailing to avoid detection. The dark shells of buildings and cars lined the streets. Izaak’s night vision turned the dark shells into submerged derelicts and he made course corrections with information from Alkindi’s UAV. That guy was amazing!

“So, what am I doing here, Izaak?” asked Veyron, creeping through the night at his side.

“What do you mean?” said Izaak.

“I have no skills. I’m not particularly stealthy. My weaponry stinks. Why do you guys put up with me?”

Because you’re incredibly cute
, Hector thought. He glanced at her sitting next to him on the couch. Despite the beenie-like neural headset and wires, his heart fluttered. She glanced back, smiled, and said, “What?”

Hector went all squirmy inside and he felt himself blush. “Because you’re smart,” he said quickly. “Without you, all we do is kill people and break things.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, and turned back to the TV. “This whole time I’ve been concentrating, trying to access something, but all that ever happens is these stupid scarobs follow me around.”

Izaak looked and sure enough, there was a row of the propeller-levitated bots perched along the top edge of a building like vultures. “I don’t think they’re here for you,” he said. “They like the mercs.”

“Got to bring in the UAV,” Alkindi’s voice suddenly crackled over his headset.

“Now?” Izaak replied. “What’s the problem.”

“Fusion cell’s almost dead. It’s about to fall out of the sky. Do you have a fix on the mercs?”

Izaak studied the view displayed on his HUD. They were still a few streets over and he could see the mercs moving directly down a dark pathway between shattered buildings. “Got ‘em,” he said. “Go ahead.” The image transmitted from the UAV faded and disappeared. “We’re blind,” Izaak said.

“No we’re not,” c’Irith said over their headsets. “Next street over, north of the intersection. If you’re quiet, you can probably get into this building here on the southwest corner. I’m on the second floor.”

“Roger that,” Izaak responded. “Wrecking crew,” he said to BayernFC and L3r0y, “loiter here on standby. You guys are about as stealthy as a dump truck.”

“Got your back,” said Bayern, and he and his brother moved to the deeper shadows along the edge of the road.

“Loiter?” said Sabrah.

Hector glanced over at her bemused expression. “Yeah. Loiter. Military term.” She just chuckled and shook her head.

Izaak led Veyron and T-Reg down a narrow alley until they came to a small building with yawning black windows.

It was dark inside but they found the stairs and climbed to the second floor. c’Irith was in one of the few rooms that still had intact windows. Izaak smiled. She was good. The motion sensors of the mercs would be far less sensitive with glass separating them. Izaak crept to the window and peered out. The mercs were almost even with the window. He raised his sniper rifle and stared through the scope. What he saw nearly made his heart skip. On the shoulder pauldron of one of the mercs was a very familiar flaming skull. “Oh my God…” he whispered. Everyone in the room looked over at him.

“What is it?” said T-Reg.

“Reavers,” Izaak whispered, and everyone in the bonus room stared at his screen.

“What?!” hissed Deion. “Are you sure?”

“Affirmative.”

“What are they doing here?”

“We’re screwed,” said Hector, as the dots connected in his head. “I’ve been causing these guys some problems. Mal-X knew I was a Reaver.”

“No way!” exclaimed Deion, rising from the couch. “You think he went to Gore looking for us?”

Hector nodded slowly, wondering how they were going to get out of this one. “Except Gore was looking for us, too.”

“Guys,” said Alkindi. “UAV’s back in the air. I think you might want to take a look.”

Izaak toggled his view and the UAV view came up in his HUD. Dozens of ‘hot spots’ were moving into the shattered city from a single location where they kept appearing in the restored part of town. The first wave was just a few streets away. “No!” Izaak exclaimed, knowing their quest had just tripled in difficulty. “We got to get out of here!”

They bolted out of the building and ran smack into the two Reavers they’d been working so hard to avoid, but the Reavers were more surprised. Izaak instinctively stuck one with a grenade which exploded and blew him across the street and into a wall. The other Reaver opened up with his chain gun, sending brilliant arcs through the dark streets. T-Reg caught a full volley across the chest and was thrown backwards.

“I’m down to nothing!” she shrieked.

“Bayern, L3r0y, get your butts over here, now!” said Izaak, then turned to Veyron. “That is why you’re here!
Incoming!
”

Everyone dove away as a rocket shrieked in and exploded next to them, tearing a gaping hole in the side of the building but sparing them the full force of the blast. Veyron leapt to T-Reg’s side and in a few seconds, the vanguard sprang back to her feet with full health.

“Guys!” said Alkindi. “Those other Reavers are inbound on your location. You got to pull out,
now
. We’re coming to get you!”

Izaak opened his fan shield all the way and sprang in close with his arc sword, trying to avoid the heavy weapons of the mercs. The nearest merc swung with the end of his chain gun, a melee blow that would normally have brought Izaak’s shields down to half or less. But he hit the fan shield instead and Izaak’s shields stayed nearly full. Izaak counterattacked and cleaved a deep gash in the armor of the chain-gunner. Then T-Reg unleashed a volley into him, just as c’Irith stuck him with a grenade from behind. The merc stumbled forward and Izaak swung again. With his dissipater field down, the plasma arcs cut through the plate and bit into virtual flesh. The merc went down to his knees. T-Reg and Izaak finished him off with their arc-swords.

Another rocket flashed in and hit the body of the merc they’d just dispatched. The first merc wasn’t dead! Izaak should have been killed but his fan shield saved him again. They were all stunned and there was no time for Veyron to heal them. The merc came striding in, a submachine gun in one hand and a small plasmace in the other. Scarobs appeared like vultures, waiting for the battle to end and pick up the scraps.

Hector had resigned himself to the replication tank when BayernFC and L3r0y bounded around the corner. Tracers streamed out across the darkness and knocked the merc back. The Reaver lowered his shoulder and charged BayernFC. They smashed into one another and pulverized half a building. The Reaver pulled out his rocket launcher, but BayernFC thudded one shell after another into the merc with his auto-cannon. Then L3r0y joined him. The rounds went off as they struck, blowing off pieces of Mk.III armor and equipment until the last one buried in virtual flesh and blew the merc apart at the waist with a digitized spray of red goo. An instant later his fusion cells overloaded with a rising shriek and scattered the remains all over the street.

“Coming your way,” said Darxhan. “Meet at the green dot.”

Alkindi used the UAV to mark a spot on the image it was transmitting and Izaak led them straight to it. From the UAV, they could see more Reavers converging on the site of the battle and still more emerging from the spawn point.

They’d only gone two blocks when a six-wheeled vehicle roared up and cut off their route. Izaak raised his gun to fire before realizing it was being driven by Alkindi.

“What a piece of junk!” Izaak exclaimed, as it lurched to a stop.

“It may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid,” Alkindi joked. “She’ll make point-five past light speed.”

“Very funny,” laughed Izaak. It had no sides or roof and the engine sat out in the open. Alkindi stood behind the engine controlling it with levers. Behind him, seated on the long, wide, flatbed were Darxhan and Rada.

“Just get on so we can get out of here,” exclaimed Darxhan.

Izaak had them head north out of the city. When he was convinced there were no UAVs tracking them, they turned west and doubled back toward their lair. They watched as the countryside slid by, alert to scarobs and the occasional thork that blundered into their path.

As they reentered the city, T-Reg sat up straight and stared ahead. “What’s that?” she said.

There ahead was a human figure standing by the side of the road. It wasn’t a thork and it wasn’t a merc.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Alkindi.

“Ram him!” said Izaak.

They came closer and Alkindi increased their speed to maximum – which wasn’t very fast. The figure didn’t move. It just stood there watching them.

“It’s Thrylos!” said Veyron, as Alkindi swerved to hit him “No!” she cried.

Izaak yelled, “He said we’d meet again!” Izaak and the mercs opened up with their heavy weapons and someone threw a grenade which detonated an instant before they roared through the smoke and flame.

“What’d you do that for?” cried Veyron. “We don’t even know who he is!”

“Because we don’t know who he is!” Izaak cried back.

Veyron looked back, but all that was left as they roared away was a cloud of smoke.

Ch. 14

On the walk home from Hector’s house, Sabrah teased Chaz about sitting so close to Tyra. Even in the dark, she could see his cheeks turn red. But Sabrah knew her friend well. If the blushing wasn’t a complete admission, his insistence on talking about game details was. And that was fine. Sabrah had had a good time at Hector’s, and was glad Chaz did, too.

Sabrah watched him march off through the misty night after they’d reached her house, then she crept inside, pausing as she entered. Chaz wasn’t the only one with a secret. She did like Hector. She’d liked him from the first time she’d met him in Algebra. And things between them had changed since the soccer game. But the last thing she wanted was a boyfriend. No reason to mess up her life even more.