Multiplayer (20 page)

At the end of the hall was an open door with light spilling out of it. Izaak maneuvered the spybot carefully through the door, still picking up snippets of conversation but not anything he could understand.

Inside was a large, empty suite and on the walls were charts and diagrams with what looked like plans and lists of names, but it was too dark to read them. Pretty complex plan for newbs, he thought. He checked the first two side chambers and they were both empty and dark. Then he stopped. A small case had just panned across the field of view. Izaak maneuvered the spybot slowly back until it was filling the screen. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the portable slipgate. His heart started to pound. There was one more room in the suite and Izaak maneuvered the spybot until it saw light streaming through the door. As he drew closer to the final portal, the first clear statement Izaak heard was, “… in place for the final dress rehearsal.” He leaned in close to the TV and maneuvered the spybot closer to the open door.

“And when is that?” said someone else with a strong Middle Eastern accent.

Izaak panned the spybot’s camera-eyes. He held his breath until what he saw made him gasp. Mal-X, carrying Vera, was standing beside another figure clad head-to-toe in black. Right here, just a few feet away, was everything he was here for! They were talking to a third man in white with a long white beard. The same people, or rather characters, Izaak had seen in the mosque. He was just about to charge in and lay waste when Mal-X started talking again.

“A week from today, noon local
Omega
time. We should have at least two hundred extras. It will be the largest rehearsal we’ve conducted. The motorcade will start well outside town and follow the only suitable route up the peninsula. We should be able to refine our timing to ensure mission success.”

Hector listened, spellbound, scarcely daring to breath. Two hundred characters! They were doing a full scale dress rehearsal to prepare for a raid? These guys were serious!

“And you’ve checked security on all of them?” asked the one in white, with the heavy accent. “They are all loyal?”

Security? Hector wondered. Serious was an understatement!

“Absolutely,” said the man in black. “We were forced to terminate several who were questionable. They already knew too much. They will not be missed.”

Hard core, Hector thought. Kicking people out of their clan.

“And Operation Scimitar?”

“Visas are arranged,” said the man in black. “Transportation is secured.”

“And what of the Spartans?” asked the leader, and Izaak listened closer. “Have you taken care of that problem?” Hector smiled broadly. They were talking about his clan!

“We haven’t seen them again,” said Mal-X. “Over a week and the Reavers report no contacts other than scarobs and thorks.”

“But what of this Izaak Ersatz?” asked black-beard and Hector gasped aloud. Now they
were
talking about him! “He’s been in the compound. What if he has seen us practicing?”

“A child, al-Nib. No more. He fancies himself a gamer only. It will mean nothing to him.” So the guy in the white cloak was Ned al-Nib, Izaak noted. His voice was somehow sinister and Izaak shuddered each time he spoke.

“I’d like to know how they found us in the first place?” asked al-Nib. “You said no one would come here.”

“Just random exploring,” said Mal-X and he shifted his feet. Izaak knew Mal-X was lying to his leader. Mal-X was the reason he’d come here. “We have security well in hand.”

“My butt you do,” Izaak whispered, as if they could hear him.

“I’m not taking any chances,” said Ned al-Nib, obviously unconvinced. “Make sure this GoreFiendHell gets whatever he wants, but I don’t want any more of them getting through. And if they are still here, I want them found. Is that clear, Malik? Pay him whatever you must, but we cannot tolerate intruders. Operation Scimitar is too important.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mal-X. “But GoreFiendHell assures me if they were still here, he would have found them already.”

“GoreFiendHell is an arrogant infidel,” said al-Nib. “And when this is over, Malik, and you kill him to discover who he really is, he will get his rightful reward.”

GoreFiendHell?
Kill him? Who he really is?
This wasn’t making any sense!

“But not the reward he is expecting,” the other man laughed ominously. Izaak shivered and listened closer.

“It will be my pleasure,” said Mal-X. “Operation Scimitar is going to –” He paused suddenly then stared straight at the spybot. “What the…?”

“What is it?” he heard al-Nib, shout. “What is it!”

“Some kind of robot!” Mal-X exclaimed.

Mal-X sprang forward, filling the field of view. Izaak hissed a swear word, and started backing the spybot away when he saw the butt of Vera coming down. There was an instant of static and the link was gone.

“Time to go,” he said to himself, and ran back down the stairs. But he hadn’t gone halfway down when he encountered people rushing up. The fight was furious but short and three vanguards lay on the stairs dead. But now, everyone in the hotel knew exactly where he was. More characters poured into the stairwell from below, leaving Izaak only one direction to go. He emerged on the top floor, back in the hall, where he spiked the door shut. The other guard heard it and came running up.

“You!” he snarled when he saw Izaak. It was the guard who had wanted to meet him again.

“Here’s your chance,” said Izaak. He deployed his fan shield and lit up his arc-sword. Frenchy rushed him, firing with his carbine, but Izaak’s fan shield deflected the attack easily. Izaak brought the sword down and sheered the weapon in half, then brought it back up and cleaved the under-armored guard in two. “Guess that makes it three times.” Then he peeked down the other stairwell only to see more guards rushing up. Someone let loose a burst that sparkled off his shields, draining them a notch. Izaak jerked his head back and shot a spike into that door too. They were locked out for the moment, but he was locked in. Hector snatched up his cell phone to call Rada.

“Ersatz!” came a voice behind him, and he turned to see Mal-X approaching.

“Mal-X,” Izaak snarled, and Hector dropped the cell phone. Rage consumed him and he bolted forward, his arc sword shining like lightning.

They fought furiously. Izaak landed blow after blow and Mal-X gave ground. Hector gripped the controller tightly, driving the joysticks so hard his thumbs turned white “You stole Vera! You cheating loser!” He brought down the arc sword and clove Mal-X’s carbine in two. An instant later a pale gold glow filled the hall as Mal-X’s nexus blade appeared. A single swipe dropped the dissipater field of Izaak’s shield to nothing.

Izaak fell back before the superior weapon and Mal-X rushed after him. The nexus blade came down, and Izaak’s arc sword burst into a million sparks and nearly drained Izaak’s shields. A glance at his power indicators showed his fusion cells were nearly empty.

Izaak dropped a flash grenade and bolted the other direction. There was a flash and Izaak knew Mal-X would be blind for a few seconds. The hall ended at a window that was just a black rectangle. Down below, he saw the pool glimmering in the starlight. Then behind him, the sound of more shouts. He had no choice.

Just before he got to the window, he put a burst from his battle pistol into the glass and it disintegrated. He jumped from the ledge and sailed through the air, landing in the pool with a splash. He struggled to the edge and climbed out. But it was no use. Guards were coming at him from all directions, pouring from the hotel like ants. They shot and he fired back but it was only a matter of time before his shields were gone and then his health would disappear and Izaak Ersatz would be dead.

Suddenly, Rada appeared like a bolt of red lightning. Hector knew in
Omega Wars
a barbarian’s power grew as the number of enemies increased, and Rada was surrounded by a veritable sea of foes. Her body shone with the bloodlust.

But Izaak and Rada, even under the bloodlust, shouldn’t have been able to defeat so many. Yet, somehow, they fought their way out, leaving the pool choked with digital corpses.

“Good timing!” Izaak exclaimed.

“Hey, what are barbarians for?” Chaz replied with a laugh.

They fled the compound and tried to flee east to the ravine with the boat, but there were too many guards, and they were forced west, toward the nearest wall. Izaak remembered the western side of the castle – a wall and on the other side a seven hundred foot plunge. It wasn’t straight down, but fell in a series of steps. Perhaps they would be able to climb far enough to leap into the water. They got to the wall and Izaak turned and followed it.

“What are you looking for?” said Rada.

“The guard towers on this side come out on the cliff. If I remember right from my vacation, there should be one right along here somewhere.”

“If the game terrain is the same as real life.”

“This is the closest I’ve ever seen. So far everything I’ve seen is exactly like it is for real.”

And it was. He found the tower exactly where it should be – a large square blockhouse straddling the wall. There was an opening leading into a bare room at the base and another leading out the other side. Izaak ducked inside and Rada followed him as bullets whizzed and smacked into the walls around them. From the cries of their enemies in the darkness, it sounded like dozens were behind them.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Izaak gasped, and bolted out the other side.

“You go,” said Rada.

“What?” Izaak pulled up short.

“I’ll stay. There’s no way we can both climb our way out of this. You know it. So just go.”

An enemy burst into the chamber and Rada sliced him asunder with a single swing.

“I can’t leave you here, Chaz. We’re Spartans. Sworn to –”

“This is what Spartans do,” Rada fired back. “Hold narrow passes to buy time.”

“I won’t leave you here,” Izaak protested. “I took the oath. And it’s all my fault anyway.”

“Hector,” the character said, and it was suddenly Chaz, not ravishing-Rada. “It’s only a game, man. Go ahead. Besides, I’ve always wanted to do a heroic last stand.”

Rada placed herself beside the door and planted her feet. It would be tough for them to get a clear shot at her and they could only go through the door one or at most two at a time. Just like at Thermopylae when Xerxes was invading Greece. “They shall know my wrath,” she said, fully back in game mode. “And I shall have an ending worthy of a song.”

Hector could imagine Chaz’s smile. “See you around the neighborhood,” Izaak said, and scrambled down the hill. He felt terrible leaving her there like that. But like Chaz had said, it was only a game. Though from the things Mal-X and Ned al Nib had been saying, he wasn’t sure they understood that. It had all seemed very un-game-like.

The sound of battle receded and the slope grew steeper until it was nearly vertical. Izaak edged down, one handhold at a time. He had to move slowly, with precision, or fall to his death. Without Rada’s rearguard, he’d have never made it. If he could just get down to the lower ledge, he’d be able to jump into the water. Although a fall would still be around five hundred feet, he had read on a gaming forum that you could survive a long fall into water by activating a bubble shield in mid-air. Tonight he’d find out if it worked.

He was maybe thirty feet from the ledge when a powerful explosion boomed above him. A moment later, something whizzed past and blew up beneath him – a grenade – shaking his hand holds. Izaak clung to the cliff for a moment, stunned. A deep rage grew inside him as he realized Rada must be dead. He didn’t care if this was just a game. He swore then he’d have his revenge.

Then another grenade went off above his head. Then another. He slid a few more feet, and let go. He hit the ledge and slid straight down, then tumbled over the side into empty space. Grenades exploded above him as he plummeted toward the water. He had meant to stop at the ledge, find the bubble shield in his inventory, then jumped with it ready to activate. Now, he kept pushing the wrong buttons, opening and closing his inventory or selecting the wrong item. He mistakenly selected a smoke grenade and set it off. Then threw away a perfectly good fusion cell. The water was rushing up at him with breathtaking speed.

At the last second, he found the icon for the bubble shield and activated it, and was immediately encased in an iridescent sphere. An instant later, he hit the water and plunged into darkness.

As Izaak sank, he shed his Lorica and weapons and dropped everything except his fan shield. It was just enough and he rose back to the surface as the blue bar for his air supply expired. Sitting on his couch, Hector realized he’d been holding his breath and gasped for air along with Izaak.

Once on the surface, Izaak scanned around to get his bearings. Reavers were now patrolling the shoreline. They would kill him or, worse yet, take him to GoreFiendHell, who would put Izaak in a stasis field. It wouldn’t kill the character, but Izaak would be unable to move, effectively removing him from the game for as long as Gore wanted him out. And Hector had been playing Izaak long enough so that his interface was fully developed. Bringing a brand new character up to Izaak’s level of response and accuracy would take months. His only choice was to swim.

But this was a game – and one in which Izaak would never get tired while he swam. He could drown. He could fall to his death. Or burn. Or be killed in a hundred different ways. But he didn’t get cold or hungry, and he didn’t get tired unless he was sprinting. The swim was boring though, so he called Chaz and told him what had happened but they wound up talking about girls, specifically Tyra and Sabrah, until the batteries in Chaz’s phone died. Dead batteries: another similarity between
Omega Wars
and real life.

When he finally swam beneath the gates separating the Spartan’s cave from the sea, Hector did the equivalent of collapsing onto the dock; he set the controller down and stretched his cramped fingers. His hands were exhausted.

His ordeal was over, but Rada was gone. She could come back in a week, but Izaak felt strangely guilty. As she’d said, it was just a game. And she had encouraged him to go. But he still couldn’t help but feel he’d betrayed her.