Game Slaves (31 page)

Reno's foot clanked the pedal to the cab floor.

And then we hit. Doing a hundred, probably a bit more. Concrete debris exploded into the air, everything turned gray, but the outer wall crumbled. We raced through the gap, the drenching rain washing pale streaks of dust off the crumpled nose of the truck.

Grass zoomed underneath, squishing, the tires' weight making a sucking noise.

“If we hit that electrical field . . . !” Dakota was warning, her voice up an octave, the adrenaline really flowing. She fired off a hundred quick rounds, trying to slow our pursuer, but the shells bounced harmlessly off thick hood plate.

“I know, I know,” I answered. “Reno, stomp on the brakes, let the last police truck get in front of us.”

“What?”

“Do it, quick!”

He did. We were all thrown around, but it caught the enemy driver unaware. Suddenly, he was in our path . . .

“T-bone him and continue on!” I ordered.

Reno grinned. He understood my solution to the power-fence.

Our front bumper caught the BlackStar vehicle dead center. Reno punched the nitrous and it almost lifted their whole truck off the ground.

Strike that. Across our bow like that, it was no longer a truck. Now it and the men inside were just a big steel bulldozer. We'd become a nine-thousand-horsepower plow, aimed straight for high-voltage wire.

Impact. The crackle of grounded electricity sounded like dropping frozen fries in a tub of boiling fat. Their troopers up front, completely exposed, screamed as the surge danced through their bones, but still we pressed on. Reno had the gas to the floor, metal grinding, sparks everywhere. Up the steps we went, dogs and sentries diving, until we collided abruptly with the BlackStar entrance.

Then, after the chaos and gunfire, in an instant, it all stopped. It was dead quiet. Dust began to settle. A Doberman whimpered. My eyes cleared. Up ahead, I could see the shattered windows of BlackStar's second floor. Down below, I knew, the fried jeep had been shoved through the first-floor lobby like cheese through a grater.

“Hello, Dad, I'm
home!
” Dakota yelled to no one.

The place looked deserted. It probably was. From here, it was likely we'd be up against their automated defense system. Human guards would be few and far between.

Dakota still held her little detonator, and as long as she could push Mi toward her magic cure, I'd be along for the ride.

All five of us piled out and jumped the gap over to the second floor, heavily armed, very determined, and playing for keeps.

And, OK, I have to admit . . . after all that time out there, unsure of my purpose, I finally felt like I was back on top of my game again.

 

York and Mi unloaded the truck. We each had a pack with the gear we'd brought. Dakota quickly found a map, and when Max Kode had said “lowest level,” well, he meant it.

We were going all the way to the bottom.

What I'd have given for a functioning elevator right then, but all the shafts had been shut off when the front alarms sounded. York pried open a door to one, and I leaned over to look down. Security barriers had slid across it. We couldn't drop that way. Not without cutting torches and ten hours to slowly descend floor by floor.

“The stairs.” Mi pointed. Fire doors still open. We'd be on foot. Floor after floor, level after level, through everything they could dream up.

In the first sub-basement, we ran into mechanized kill-bots armed with laser-sighted machine pistols. Mi blinded them with a chaff grenade (shredded aluminum foil wrapped around a thermite charge) and the rest of us ran through the sector, kicking the bots harshly off their wheeled bottoms, leaving them helpless, unable to get back upright.

The next two floors were filled with unguarded office cubicles, each section marked off by game title. We knew most of the titles very well. So this was where they designed and programmed
HIGH PLAINS KILLER
and
SLAUGHTER RACE EXTREME!
and the rest.

Below that was a floor with pressure plates everywhere we could step. Along the walls, shutters hid heavy weaponry. From the propane smell, I guessed flamethrowers.

“Let's rope,” I decided. Reno was carrying a modified spear gun we'd taken from a scuba mannequin back in the XMart, you know, just in case. He zipped a line to the far wall. Mi crawled across first, since she was the lightest, then secured the cable when she made it past the sensors. It only took a minute for the rest of us to pulley over.

As we entered the next stairwell, out of curiosity, York tossed the expended weapon backward onto the floor. Shutters dropped. The room behind us was immediately toasted to a crisp.

We found a level that had infrared body sensors. It looked like the test floor for the console head straps everyone used. Mi had rolls of chemical ice packets. We gave them quick snaps of their internal bladders, shook them up, and wrapped them around our arms and legs. Walked right through.

The following sub-basement had a spider-web laser security system. It also had gas canisters placed in each corner. If we broke a single red laser beam, the entire floor would flood with toxic gas.

It's funny. In a game or movie, there's always a way through. Why is that? Players can contort and jump and wiggle their way to a solution. Not out here. Expert security leaves no safe path.

Did we use mirrors to reroute the web? That too would have taken hours. Fool the receptors by shining our own lasers into them? That might have worked for one receptor, but good security has hundreds of strands.

Everyone looked at me. I took great pleasure in pulling a big roll from my pack. I plugged in a pump. Air began to fill a giant plastic globe.

“What's
that?
” Mi begged to know.

“Reno isn't the only one who brought the right tool for the job.” I smiled at them.

“Frosty the Snowman” music filled the room. Thank you, Christmas department.

My solution: a giant snow globe. So common for the rich. Too expensive for the poor. But if it held air, well, that meant it was airtight.

We crowded into the orb, sealed it up, then rolled all the way to the next stairwell, tripping the alarms one after another. Outside our globe, the room was doused with heavy green gas.

Inside, we had fake flakes, a snowman mascot, and happy theme music.

When we got to the stairs, we climbed out of the orb and continued down. And then, just like that, the stairwell came to an end.

This was it. The very bottom level. As deep as they had dug. The end of the line, and if you looked at our situation, it was the beginning of the line too.

I put a rifle barrel up against the door. Slowly, pushing it open just an inch, I waited for bullets or flames or . . . something.

But the vault was so quiet. Sterile. And exactly as it had been when we were here before.

The tanks were just as blue. The umbilicals were just as active. Information surged into and out of the bodies. Deke, Rio, Syd, Dub—they were all in there somewhere, with no clue we were staring through glass at their liquid tomb.

I saw one girl twitch slightly, roll, turn, and mime the motions she was going through in some game world.

“It's hideous,” Dakota spat, still holding the detonator.

“But
we
were taken out by couple of
kids
,” Mi coughed at her. “Look what it's gotten us.”

She was right. Dakota's skin was past yellow, Reno might lose his leg, my eyeball was festering, and York was waiting on a massive coronary.

At least Jevo had had the right procedure, plus a dust cover to manage his skull port.

Mi asked, “Do you really want to do this to Dub or Lima? I like Rio a lot. You might scramble their brains if you just jump in there and start pulling plugs.”

Dakota began to weigh that information. What was she going to do now?

“Let's find the serum first,” she decided. Her hand came up, pointing to a set of double doors marked
LABS
. “It's right where Kode said they kept it. Behind those doors. Look for a big bubbling neon-green rig. LED lights, the whole shooting match. He said it's in some kind of tricked-out coolant case to keep it stable.”

I took up position on one side of the door, Dakota the other. York, Reno, and Mi hobbled into place as our backup.

Then I kicked the left one.

Dakota kicked the right.

And machine-gun bullets sprayed out as if we'd burst a high-pressure hose.

I got about five steps into the cavernous room and dove behind a heavy laboratory counter. Dakota had done the same, so at least we had two positions from which to return fire while Mi, Reno, and York found safe spots.

I provided cover, and Dakota moved up a row.

Her turn, allowing me to advance. York and Mi somehow got into the room.

We worked like that, not sure how many men were out there. Lots, it seemed, since every time we showed some body, we got pelted by enemy fire.

Row by row, we were making progress.

Behind the troopers, through bulletproof glass, stood a huge container. It had to be the ultrabiotic: a viscous, speckled slew with slow bubbles wrapped by hoses dripping liquid nitrogen to keep it from melting down.

But the troopers had better position. Dakota, to make sure we remembered, waved the detonator again and motioned for us to continue our advance.

I figured I could either take a bullet or get my noggin popped. No choice in the matter except to fight.

That's when Mi came up beside me and whispered, “Notice something?”

“What, Mi?”

“Well, I've been watching the enemy, up behind those front barricades. There's five of them.”

“Only five left?”

“Yeah, but one isn't shooting.”

“Why not? Five on five's a fair fight. Plus, they have better angles.”

“Shhh,” Mi ordered. York came up next to us now, and he went quiet too.

We listened.

We could hear the enemy whispering on the other side of the room.

It went like this:

A BlackStar guard, a woman's voice, hissed,
“But I don't wanna die!”

And one of her buddies ordered,
“It's your job to die! Now get out there, expose yourself, fire off a few random shots, and let the enemy—”

“OH!” York yelped over everyone. “You've
GOT
to be kidding!”

“Kidding about what?” I asked him.

York quickly began fumbling with his pack, trying to find something, all freaked out. He was still moaning, “No way. No way. No way.”

Suddenly, one of the dark-clad BlackStar guards stood up. Hands in the air. Weapon tossed to one side.

She started walking toward us, saying,
“I'm not going to hurt you!”
Her helmet came off. Blond locks tumbled out.
“Really! Trust me! I just want to talk. You look like a reasonable person . . .”

York was panicked. I'd never seen him so frantic. Scrambling through his arsenal to find the right items . . .

Ever weirder . . . Dakota stood up. In plain sight?

“I totally
hear
you,” she answered. Then lowered
her
weapon. What was she thinking? What a trick for the enemy to pull! And someone on my team fell for it!

The woman stepped forward.

Dakota mirrored the move. “All we want is the serum. You can walk away.”

York was blabbering, “NO WAY NO WAY NO WAY!” and wrapping a grenade in double-sided supertape.

The woman rambled on,
“So have you ever stopped to ask yourself why we have to fight and why we have to die and what's the point of—”

Dakota bellowed, “Exactly my original point!”

“You don't have to kill me! And we don't have to kill you either! There can be peace between our species!”

Then, York stood, yelling, “Not again! Not
again
. Die, crazy witch! Die!” He tossed his charge right at the BlackStar woman. It stuck square to her forehead and she turned, helpless, to look at the other four BlackStar troops.

My team? Well, a plasma grenade has a
really
short fuse. We all sprinted and dove back out of the room as fast as feet can move.

After that blast, there was nothing left of any of their guards. The whole area was clear.

“Anyone get the idea we're stuck in some kind of loop?” York said, but we were being too cautious to make small talk now.

Slowly, we advanced.

Was that it?
All
the traps? We were at the very bottom of the BlackStar hole now. What else could there be? They'd never flood the whole complex with water, as that would affect the tank clones.

That must be it, then. We'd made it.

In front of us, the ultrabiotic boiled in its chamber. The liquid was so dense the bubbles moved at lava-lamp speed, combining, recombining, splitting, like it was alive.

Maybe it
was
.

I wasn't so sure I wanted that stuff coursing through my veins. It sparked, it churned, it just didn't seem safe . . .

But Dakota, maybe because of the virus coursing through her own veins, was not apprehensive.

The troopers had given their lives to protect it. Therefore, this must be the goal.

She took urgent, hurried steps forward across the rest of the cement floor. Closer and closer.

She was almost to the container, reaching out, when we heard a loud
CLANK!
Her foot stopped dead.

It just
couldn't
be. Not after everything we'd beaten. From infrared to lasers to gas to fire to troops to . . . Plus, we were on the
bottom
level now. There was nothing beneath us.

However, that
CLANK
was something you just know when you hear it.

Dakota had stepped on a trapdoor. The oldest and lamest of all traps, right?

But she'd walked right onto it. It sprang. She turned as a swath of the concrete began to open below her feet.