The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point (6 page)

Cyren closes her eyes and wordlessly sends a text-cast to all twenty-seven Level Zeros in our group.

As we near the high rise, I run toward the ramp that leads to the underground parking garage. As we pass the gate, I set Cyren down and we enter the darkened area slowly. I swipe my hand in the air and select a torch from my inventory. Flames burst from the end of the wooden stick. There are a few cars still parked in their spots, but the rest of the area looks empty.

I'm ready to declare the area safe when a mummy shambles out from behind a van, dirty white cloth draped around its entire body. Glowing red eyes turn toward us from between the wrappings on its head. It throws out one hand and the cloth wrapped around its arm uncoils, flying straight at us like a hissing snake. We both leap to the side and the cloth shoots past. Cyren lands in a perfect, defensive, crouched position. I roll to the side, throwing the torch to the ground and coming up with both pistols drawn.

It's nice to shoot something again. It's good to do something that I can wrap my brain around, to accomplish a clear goal that I understand. It makes sense. Point and shoot. Simple. Concise. Logical.

The cylinders of my pistols spin so fast that they sizzle, releasing automatic gunfire that streams from the barrels. The bullets tear apart the undead creature, the dried flesh ripped from its body as each round explodes. I think I'm winning, but as fast as I can decimate the enwrapped mummy, the white gauze continues to multiply, healing every hole I make.

“How strong is this thing?” I yell over my own gunfire.

The wrapping shoots out again. This time I'm not quick enough, too focused on my offense and not enough on my defense. The mummy yanks hard on the strand of cloth that snares my hand. I'm thrown from my feet. My face smashes into the concrete floor. It drags me closer so that it can land its final blow.

Cyren leaps at the creature, slamming the side of her foot into the mummy's head. It lets out a painful moan and stumbles backward. She strikes again with her palm. Her hand penetrates the dried, flaky skin of its chest and bursts out the back. She lets out an enraged scream and lifts the creature into the air, spinning it in mid air and slamming it down hard. Its arm breaks free from its body, but the cloth wrappings intertwine, pulling the limb and torso back together.

As the cloth retracts from me to heal the mummy, I scurry away from the monster, joining Cyren at a safer distance.

“We can't survive this,” Cyren yells back. “They designed this for ten, maybe twenty players.”

I'm ready to run away, to give up, to lose yet another battle, when I hear someone from behind us say, “Maybe
we
can help.”

I turn toward the voice and see the blond barbarian stomping down the ramp into the parking garage. He's flanked by numerous Level Zeros, each one carrying a different weapon. The melee forces charge toward the mummy, while the ranged attackers unleash a storm of arrows, bullets, and rockets. In less than thirty seconds, a pile of dried, flaky remains lie on the ground where the enemy used to be. When the dust settles, the barbarian approaches me and I clasp hands with him, thanking him for his good timing.

“I'm glad you're back.” He flashes me a cocky smirk and says, “I missed being Level 100.”

I laugh, letting myself appreciate the moment of triumph, but that moment is shattered almost as soon as it appears when we hear the bellowing moan of the worm from outside the parking garage. It sounds far off, but I know it's headed this way.

And it's hungry.

“I want snipers in the corners,” I say, pointing to the edges of the rooftop.

A robotic cyclops makes hand gestures to the three other remaining snipers in his team. They spread out and set their high-tech rifles on tripods, adjusting their scopes and scanning the disappearing horizon.

We can all see the worm now. Its mammoth form curls over the rooftops of the city, looking as if it's inhaling existence itself. It leaves behind an imposing trail of deletion, blackness that exists in the absence of the world. I wonder what will happen, even if we
can
stop it. Will we move on, accepting this new edge to our reality, a cliff into the abyss that will hover over the southern horizon?

I shake the pointless worrying from my head when Cyren emerges from the stairwell.

“The civilians are fortifying the parking garage,” she says before looking into the distance, toward the doom that draws closer, “though I'm not sure how much good a few parked cars blocking the entrance will do.”

“It's only there to stop any monsters that might wander nearby,” I say, trying to keep my mind in strategy-mode. “The last thing we need to worry about are multiple opponents. I want all our attention focused on...
that
.”

“I helped them gather more vehicles from the surrounding blocks,” she says. “Fast ones. Just in case...”

“Smart.”

I hate considering failure, but we need to have an escape plan, even if I have no idea where we could run.

“I don't understand where that thing came from. Who would want to attack this game with a virus?”

I stop to consider her question, then shake my head and say, “There will be time to worry about that later.” I hope. “We need to focus.”

The group of Level Zeros are all silently preparing themselves. A part of me wishes they hadn't spent so much time studying and developing their emotional depth. Maybe then they wouldn't know fear. What I see in their eyes, I have to assume is the dread of what awaits them.

For them, deletion is death.

As the worm reaches the edge of the city, we all watch in horror as it destroys the first of the buildings. The beast shaves off the top ten floors in one swoop, turning into the park and scooping out the ground as it swings around to obliterate the rest of the building. It coils and retracts, its flabby bulk sagging and bulging as it consumes the contents of our world. Its movements seem random, but I continue to watch, counting out the seconds before each twist, each turn, each dive, and each reemergence from below. Within a few minutes, a pattern appears.

“Listen up!” I yell, calling out to the entire group.

My words are so fast and excitable that I need to consciously slow myself down. My hands slash through the air, physically describing the pattern. The Level Zeros nod their heads. This is math. This is logic. There's no need to explain a second time.

“The snipers are going to have the greatest distance with their attacks, so they're going to fire first. We don't know if that will draw its attention, but even if its direction changes, it will most likely fall right back into the same pattern. Watch for the signals, the twitches. You'll be able to predict what it's going to do, and that will give us the advantage.”

I point at the two remaining Level Zeros left in the demolitions team. “You're up next. We want a huge volley as soon as that thing comes within range. Look for weak spots and concentrate your fire there. Normally I'd say to aim for the mouth, but that thing is a vacuum. It would delete your explosives like everything else. We need to destroy the body.”

I motion toward the leader of the ranged team, a woman in a bright red suit and fedora carrying an ancient Thompson submachine gun. “Then it's your turn. If that thing comes anywhere near us, I want a wave of bullets crashing against its body every second that it's within range.”

She and her team take position.

Turning around to talk to Cyren, I notice her stance is stiff, with her hands clasped behind her back. She's in full-on soldier mode, ready to take my commands with a salute of confidence. She stands in front of her melee team, all fifteen of them mimicking her exact posture. They're the biggest group, with the most survivors, all of them armed with swords, clubs, and spears. I understand her need to be professional in front of her troops, so I resist the urge to offer her comfort.

“You have the most important role.” I'm speaking to Cyren, but loud enough so the whole team can hear me. “It's also the most dangerous.”

I point at the worm spiraling into the sky, deleting a large gray cloud that hangs over what used to be the city park.

“It's going to require some precise timing, but when that things comes near us, I want you to jump on top of it.”

The eyes of the team grow large, but Cyren doesn't flinch. She accepts my words without hesitation. Her strength emanates outward and the rest of the team finds their bravery in her, settling back into a firm, defiant stance.

“Use everything you've got,” I say. “Carve into that thing. Open up wounds that our sniper and demolitions teams can exploit.”

“Yes, sir!” the entire team shouts with a salute.

When they spread out to take their positions, Cyren lingers. Her face softens. She reaches out and wraps her fingers around my arm, squeezing a bit.

“It's a good plan.”

I let out a breath. “It's
a
plan. We'll find out how good it is if we survive.”

“We couldn't do this without you.”

“I know. You need my Level to-”

“No,” she says with a sharp yet quiet voice. “We need
you
. You're an amazing player. You can look at this game like no one else does. Not even us.” She gives me a knowing smile. “And they programmed us to play.”

“Sometimes I think I was too.” I look out over the world, watching the worm delete everything I've held dear to me. “All that time, in all those games... I always felt what I was doing was important. More important than I could explain to anyone else. It was like every shot, every kill, every skill I learned... it was all building up to something.”

“Maybe it was.”

“Maybe,” I say.

She grabs my face, her leather gloves holding on to my cheeks, forcing me to look into her eyes.

“No matter what happens today, no matter how this turns out, whether we win or lose, you must know how cherished you are in this world. You've already sacrificed more for us than any other player ever has.”

I do my best impersonation of someone confidently accepting her words, but when I turn away from her and look out over the city, only to see the worm dive from the sky and devour half of a shopping mall, I can't help wondering how many more sacrifices I'll be making.

The robotic cyclops counts down for his sniper team, timing their first shots all at once. The rest of us stand with our weapons gripped tightly in our hands. I tap my foot as each second counts off. When the cyclops reaches zero, and the four sniper rifles fire in unison, it makes me jump. I'm not startled by the noise. It's the simple release of anticipation, the thrust into the present. I can't think about “what ifs” anymore. It's happening right now. I need to stay ahead of the game.

The bullets strike the thick skin of the worm, but they leave no trace of damage. The worm continues on its path, carving into an already bombed-out office building twenty blocks away. Its gargantuan body digs into the ground, leaving a pit of nothingness where the street used to be, before turning back up as its programming tells it to.

“Again!” I shout.

The sniper team fires. Still nothing.

It doesn't exactly inspire anyone. Is this thing following the same rules that we are? Can it take damage? Am I misreading it because of its graphical representation? I ignore my doubts. We have a plan. We have to stick to it.

“Keep firing!” I turn to the rest of the group and yell over the gunfire, “If it doesn't change its movements, at least we'll know when it's coming for us.”

It doesn't take long. The worm devours entire city blocks in just a few swoops. As it destroys a nearby complex of buildings, the demolitions team steps up. Rockets stream across the sky and explode in blooming clouds of fire as they strike the worm. We all wait with anticipation as the smoke clears. There is an unspoken reaction of disappointment that washes over us when we see the worm descend toward the street without a single mark.

The sniper team continues to fire. The demolitions team releases six more volleys of rockets before the head of the worm makes its preprogrammed turn toward our building. All six members of the ranged team raise their weapons as the melee team readies themselves to launch into the air.

Our group's barrage blocks my view. It's a constant rattle of gunfire all around me. The Level 100 attacks of bullets and rockets and explosions turn the sky into a blinding storm of warfare. When my eyes adjust to the chaos, I see the worm break through, pushing past the rolling fire and the swarm of explosive rounds. It falls toward the building slowly, and I'm able to gauge the true size and magnitude of the creature. Its shadow casts over us like an approaching storm. I can see behind the spinning rows of teeth, directly into the blackness, the void widening as it draws closer.

My hope is lost.

Luckily, my feet know what to do. I run to the side of the rooftop with the melee team as my gamer instincts calculate the worm's descent. I watch the worm crash into the rooftop, shaving off half of the building as it drops. The teeth continue to spin inside the mouth, helping the creature inhale the graphics like they are simply breaths of air.

As the worm falls, the underside of its belly rolls past. Among the flabby mounds of flesh, I notice a symbol marked on its skin. It falls past me so fast that I barely have time to see a single logo that looks like two question marks, back to back, before it drifts out of view.

The melee team rushes past me, toward the massive body. Reaching the edge of the rooftop, they leap into the air, latching on to folds of flesh as the beast rumbles past. They drop from view, carried on the worm's back like parasites. When the tail drops below the building, I follow the ranged team as they rush to the fractured edge.

It's a strange thing, staring down into nothing. There is no sense of depth. No height to judge how far up we are. In the dimensionless field of black, the tail of the worm grows smaller until it swoops back around for another pass.

The tiny bodies attached to the side use their weapons to pound and slash and stab at the flesh, trying to break through, but they aren't making any progress.