Can I please not be in deep shit anymore? Why does my luck seem to suck so much?
Here I am dangling on the side of a building with a bloody nose while a horde of Rotters are trying to eat me . . . Again! As I adjust to yet another life-or-death situation, I continue to scale down the hotel, trying to avoid the windows as much as I can. Thank God the rope I’ve somehow created isn’t cut by the shattered glass.
Arturo seems to be mowing down zombies like something out of an over-the-top action film, while I need to place every shot carefully since I have to reload every time. Why the hell am I still holding on to this piece of junk anyway? Sure, I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. My father give it to me when I was five, but sentimental value means nothing when you become a Rotter dangling off the side of a building.
Just as I’m deep in thought while rappelling down, a Rotter digs its claws into my shoulders while it hangs above me. In an almost-instant reaction, I shot the Rotter in the head. Its undead body falls apart, its head bursts, and its remains fall to the ground below, while its hands remain jammed into my shoulders.
All the while I am screaming in pure agony as the piercing pain shoots throughout my shoulders. As I take a minute to try and pull the two Rotter hands out of my shoulders, a Rotter below me digs its claws into my left leg. Goddamn it, can this get any worse?
Since I haven’t been able to reload, I start kicking the Rotter repeatedly, screaming in pained agony with each strike. After what feels like the most painful thirty seconds of my life, the Rotter below me finally meets the same fate as the one above me. Thankfully, this time, its hands don't stick to my leg.
Not only are my shoulders and left leg injured by Rotters, I’m also bleeding buckets. Not only do these wounds get in the way of making my escape, it also gives the Rotters extra motivation to tear me apart.
Normally, I won’t be too afraid of a Rotter bite, since I learned when I was thirteen that I’m one of the immunes. I got bitten in the ankle and didn’t turn, strangely enough. But Atsushi seems to have done . . . something to the Rotters, and given how Arturo is holding up after getting shot by one of his soldiers who came in contact with Atsushi and . . .
I need to stop thinking, damn it, and get moving. Just ignore the pain, and don’t think about the unknown right now.
While continuing to rappel down at an almost suicidally fast pace, not caring whether or not Rotters rip me to pieces, time seems to be moving faster for me. Loading my gun takes about half the time now, and ammo seems to be popping into my coat pocket every time I begin to reload. At this point, I will no longer look a gift horse in the mouth ever again.
Arturo, noticing that I have gotten the Rotters’ attention, rappels down the building at a faster pace, providing cover fire for me in between jumps. I know I’ve just said I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth ever again, but I really don’t understand why Arturo is helping me.
I know I’m an unusual softie in this world, but even I would have left myself behind in this instance. Maybe that is the privilege of power. You don’t have to worry about yourself; it’s only natural to worry about others instead. Hmm, maybe that’s something to keep in mind.
Just as my feet finally hit the ground like a meteor crashing into earth, I notice a crowd of twenty Rotters standing atop the corpses of their fellow men; or Rotters, in this case. Normally, I’d be scared shitless, but at this point, I’m ready to go home.
Since my harness is still attached to the rope, I leap into the air and fire my shotgun at the crowd, reloading as fast as I’ve ever had in my entire life. After mowing down five of the bastards, possibly the strangest thing all last night and this morning happen- and with all that I’ve been through, that’s saying a lot: the Rotters just leave.
You’ve read that right; the Rotters just run away. Rotters never flee when prey is in their sights. I’ve had Rotters on my trail for a couple of weeks in the past, so I have no idea what the hell would make them just bail out.
As I ponder what the hell just happened, I unhook my harness from the rope. Maybe out of exhausted relief, maybe because my adrenaline rush is finally over, or maybe because the blood loss is finally catching up to me, as soon as I take my harness off and finally pull out the Rotter hands stuck in my shoulders, I fall face-first onto the ground. My body doesn’t even care that the ground in question is covered in Rotter corpses; it’s just done at this point.
As I lie on the ground, I hear footsteps splashing around the blood of the Rotters and hands clapping at a rapid pace. Damn it, why can’t he just leave me alone?
“Bravo! Bravo!” Atsushi cheers as he moves closer and closer.
“Your performance was fantastic! Too bad we couldn’t deal with the Admin . . .” Atsushi lets out a resigned, frustrated sigh.
“But hey! You can’t win them all, am I right?”
Damn it! Move body. Move! As I struggle to get up, bloody shoes enter my line of sight. I’m lying in a pool of blood and surrounded by Rotter corpses, and yet the unhinged teenager is the thing that scares me.
“Well, what do you know? I find you exactly where I left you back in the room, injured and lying in a pool of blood,” Atsushi observes while letting out a chuckle that sends chills down my spine.
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“And both times, I had to bail you out. Even if this time it was indirectly,” he adds.
“W-what a-are you . . .” I try to ask, unable to overcome my exhaustion.
“You didn’t see? All those death-defying stunts? The ammo that just wouldn’t run out? How do you think you were able to do all that, huh?” Atsushi asks me.
I have a bad feeling about where this is heading. A real bad feeling.
“They say that I have ‘infected’ you and the programs of this server, but really, I have cured you. I have cured you all,” Atsushi proclaims, his eyes bulging out and laughing manically.
He thinks he's a hero, yet the image of a boy standing in blood, surrounded by dead bodies and laughing, is not the image I have for one. No matter how many lives I’ve had, I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone more lacking in self-awareness than Atsushi Tanaka.
After a solid minute of belly laughing- seriously, I think he could’ve given Arturo a run for his money- Atsushi clears his throat and starts again from where he left off.
“Where was I . . . Right! You are no longer bound by the laws imposed upon you by Rasalon Tech. I’ve lifted the veil you all were blinded by, and now they will see what happens when humanity tries to play god.”
Rasalon Tech? I assume he’s talking about the people who made this place and all the other ones.
You’d think I would know all this since I am the first-person Atsushi has come into contact with, and yet this is the first time I’m learning about this. What the hell does he want with me? And if he has a purpose for me, why the hell was he trying to kill me before?
Before I can respond back, a bullet pierces straight through Atsushi’s head, knocking him back a little. I can’t see who fired the shot behind me, but I have a feeling I know who it is, and to confirm my feeling, I hear:
“That all you got to say?”
It's Arturo’s voice, thank God—or the designs? Whatever. Not sure the action movie one-liner is necessary but once again, I’m not complaining.
“So you finally come out of the shadows, Admin! You know it’s rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations?” Atsushi tells Arturo, slouched over with a bullet hole in his forehead, bleeding what looks like bright-purple blood.
“Yeah, you really don’t want to get me started on manners right now,” Arturo quips back.
“It’s funny, for an artificial being, you talk as if you are a hu—”
Before Atsushi can finish his observation, Arturo unloads another shot at his head and tells him:
“Just stop talking already. Like we need to hear any more from a—”
Suddenly Arturo’s injured arm, glowing completely purple, starts strangling him.
“I’d ask you to stop, but this seemed like the better option,” Atsushi tells him with a pained yet sadistic smile.
With all the strength I can gather, I desperately crawl over to my shotgun. Since my gun seems to have gained some confusing power, there has to be something it can do. Think, Mathis, think!
If only there were a way for me to clear the virus out of his arm. Just when the thought comes up, my gun shoots out a green line, which points at Arturo’s arm. The green line then creates a transparent gridlike box around Arturo’s infected arm, and I hear that same disembodied voice from the roof telling me:
“Beginning analysis. Estimated time, one minute.”
Atsushi and Arturo, alarmed by the laser and seemingly hearing what the voice has just told me, turn their attention away from each other and toward me.
“What!? This shouldn't be possible!” Atsushi proclaims while walking toward me at a fast pace. Seems like I finally got something on him. I just wish I knew what it was.
Behind him, Arturo wraps his free arm around Atsushi’s neck. Holding him in place with as much strength as he can gather. So to review my situation, Arturo has Atsushi in a choke hold while his infected hand is strangling him. What is even going on anymore?
While Atsushi struggles to move forward, he extends his right arm in front of him and opens his balled-up fist. For some reason, after seeing that, I hear the voice tell me:
“Override activated.”
Upon hearing that, the laser disappears, the holographic box shatters, and Arturo’s arm turns purple again. Shit! He can shut down.... whatever the hell I was doing?
Arturo, still holding Atsushi, mutters something under his breath. From what I can make out, I think he says something like:
“Shit . . . I’ve got no other choice.”
At least I assume that’s what he’s said because after that, Atsushi, Arturo, and I are enveloped in a white light, turning the morning desert landscape surrounded with blood and Rotter bodies into a white void similar to the hallway Arturo and I had been in earlier. Arturo, as he struggles to keep hold of Atsushi while his infected arm chokes him, seems to be losing color in his skin and hair.
“What the hell are you doing?” Atsushi asks Arturo.
“Do you even need to ask?” Arturo replies.
“It’s too late, you know! What I have started cannot be stopped!” Atsushi warns Arturo.
Arturo at this point looks like an unfinished drawing, all the color gone from his hair, skin, and clothes. He is just a white figure outlined in black.
"Yeah, yeah, and my buddies will be there to clean up your mess,” Arturo replies, sounding calm like he’s completely resigned to his fate. After saying that, a voice echoes throughout the white void, like someone trying to speak from inside a plastic bubble. The anguished voice simply yells:
“Arturo!”
In response, Arturo lets out a soft smile and mumbles:
“Sorry, Maria-san, it’s all up to you now.”
Soon the color in Atsushi starts to fade away, and I see that the color in my hand is starting to fade away too. Shit! I don’t want to die, I really don’t want to die.
At this point, I’m not even sure why I don’t want to die. Everything I’ve been through, my purpose in life, even the things I collect—all nothing more than a lie. All constructed by some corporation for reasons I can’t even comprehend.
And yet, despite learning this painful truth, I don’t want to call it quits just yet. I want to see everything that these 'worlds' have to offer. Who cares if I don’t have a purpose? I’ll just find one along the way. I can’t let it end here!
In my desperation, I hear the voice say to me:
“Fatal danger imminent. Beginning emergency server transfer.”
And just like that, an emerald-green pillar of light and golden computer code surround my body- or “character model,” not sure at this point. Slowly my vision is filled with emerald-green light before turning completely green. The last thing I see before the green light consumes all my vision is Atsushi looking at me with a sly grin, just as he fades to nothing more than a white blob with a black outline.
***
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