A small engine ignited at the base of the ultrafusion device and it launched like a model spacecraft rather than a standard military rocket, disengaging from the tripod and sweeping eloquently into the air. It curved around towards its target and was almost immediately lost in the darkness. Buzz stared after it, eyes wide, breathing hard.
The impact started with a little circle of golden light at the gate, centered on the mesomorph.
‘Direct hit!’ Mallory yelled. ‘Direct hit! KABOOM BABY!’
The mesomorph howled in rage, the sound painfully loud even at their distance. The creature was still clearly visible in the blooming explosion. It raged against the chains as if it could pull down the whole gate, caught in the burning fire of the ultrafusion explosion. Buzz could not take his eyes from the scene. The fire and intensity grew until the creature was no longer visible.
‘Looks like we got it,’ Meathead said.
They stood and watched side by side, and Neb was forcibly reminded of approaching the Earth Gate, not even three days before. It felt like a lifetime of bad living had passed since then. He sighed, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease just a little. It seemed like the Game really had been leaving clues that ultrafusion was one of the ways to get to the next circle.
Everything was going great until it wasn’t.
There was a stir of shadow at the heart of the flame, where it was almost still too bright to look at. With a sound that made Neb cover his ears when it reached them two kilometers away, the Mesomorph stood to its full height and screamed, its chained arms held behind it tautly. And then before their eyes, it grew. It swelled upwards and outwards as if somehow the world was zooming in on it. Its enraged howls become like thunder rolling over the landscape. The wall and the gate remained the same but the chains of the beast grew with it. It howled and bellowed and pulled against them, and then slashed the ground with its fierce whip.
A message appeared on all of their overlays at the same time:
The Level 50 gate mesomorph has now transformed into a Level 75 ultramorph. Fighting fire with fire has not worked out well on this occasion.
They looked at each other wide-eyed.
‘Oh fuck,’ Meathead said.
And then, as if somehow it had been magnified by the enlarged ultramorph, the explosion swept outwards. The whole world shook. The gate, the monster and the village were gone, replaced by a wall of fire reaching from earth to sky, racing towards them.
‘TRANSPORT! TRANSPORT! MOVE MOVE MOVE!’ Buzz roared. They jumped inside and Meathead floored it. The six wheels churned and then caught and the humans were flung backwards in the seats, Mallory barely saving himself from falling out entirely. Neb looked back and saw the wall of fire extending up hundreds of meters, like a vast dust storm made of flame. ‘Oh shit,’ he said softly. Anna glanced over at him with worry in her eyes, the rarest of things to see there. He was certain now that the weapon had been put in the Game as a taunting thing. You were smart enough to find it, the Game was saying, and you were dumb enough to use it.
The transport slalomed down the hill and then hit the main road heading north. No-one spoke. Looking ahead into evening light it was almost possible to believe that everything was still normal in the world, or at least as normal as things ever were in the Circle. But yet it was just a little too bright, the light unnervingly augmented. And behind them, all was chaos. The wall of fire was now white at its base, scouring the landscape back to nothingness as it raced forward. And it was gaining on them. Fuck, Neb thought. We have destroyed the whole Circle.
‘MEATHEAD!’ Anna shouted over the howling engine. ‘WE CAN’T OUTRUN IT!’
Meathead nodded but did not speak. He was utterly focused. Everyone checked their maps, scrolling around frantically, looking for anywhere they could hide from the worst of the fire. Please let there be a cave, Neb thought, but there were none to be found anywhere nearby.
Meathead turned off the road and plowed up a short incline, the six wheels catching the sand like the river wheels of centuries before, and then he pointed the machine straight across the desert. ‘What are you doing?’ Buzz shouted, but Meathead didn’t answer. He was fully in his own world now. Was it panic or something intentional, Neb wondered? It didn’t really matter anyway. Neb looked back at the huge wave racing down on them, a vast tsunami of earth and fire. We are so fucking stupid. But also, he thought: Fuck the Game. There had never been a clear indication either way of what to do. If not the ultrafusion weapon, how were they supposed to defeat the gate guardian?
Then for the first time in a long time he thought of the library, tucked away in the far corner of the map. But convincing Buzz and others to go there was just never amongst the set of possible options. They were soldiers in a game that seemed to be about war. They were warriors, and they followed a warrior’s path.
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Thinking of the library somehow reminded him of Growl, and he sighed. ‘Sorry, buddy,’ he murmured. Though at least Growl was deep underground, so he might actually survive this ultrafusion apocalypse. Or at least, he might live until the Game clock ran out. Only the Main knew what would happen then. Those fucking assholes.
Neb looked back again and the fire took up his whole field of vision now, stretching right across the horizon and as far upwards as he could see, like a catastrophic natural phenomenon. It was incredible to see such a thing, but he felt no true sense of wonder. They were fucking stupid to have unleased it. He closed his eyes, feeling the tiredness that was there but feeling no peace at the end that was coming.
Then he forced himself to watch. With his 20 HP, he would be the first to die. But once the fire reached them, it would be a question of microseconds. Very little mattered in the end.
The wave came closer and closer, impossible to escape, and then it broke across them. It was like a huge hand had smacked the transport from behind, sending it skidding and turning across a landscape. The sand burned and bubbled beneath them, every hint of growth and life bursting instantaneously to flame. The transport bounced in front of the fire like a leaf on a breeze, and Neb clung on desperately. He had no last thoughts. There was nothing in his mind except terror. The flames were all around them.
Then they were falling. Properly falling, not just bouncing uncontrollably. Neb was facing the sky, then the ground. The transport twisted and bucked wildly. Anna was flung from it, disappearing into the air. He cried out, but the world was made of a roaring sound and his cry was lost in it. The last thing he saw on her perfect face was shock, her beautiful eyes wide. The transport turned again and he was looking upwards, and the instant was just long enough for him to understand what had happened: Meathead had driven them straight into a deep, narrow ravine.
Neb saw the edge of the ravine rising upwards behind them, dark against the bright fire, and then the top of the wall exploded outwards as the groundforce of the ultrafusion fire reached it. The transport’s momentum carried it straight across the ravine, slamming it into the sheer wall opposite. Its hood buckled. Neb and Mallory were flung forward on top of Meathead and Buzz. Meathead still sat clutching the wheel as they fell, doing his duty to the bitter end. Then they were upside down again, looking towards the bottom of the ravine. A small stream traced its way along the sand and stone. They turned one final time and all the sky was fire, a beautiful golden-orange color that somehow seemed like it was meant to be there, as if this was a strange planet with a burning sky.
Then the transport bounced down the side of the ravine, a series of jarring, shuddering impacts. Neb held on for the first three but then he too was thrown from the machine. He was dimly aware of pain in his left arm and leg, then he was plunged into deep, dark, cold water.
Let me just stay here, he thought.
He opened his eyes and found he could see clearly. He had fallen into the stream in the ravine, which was far wider and deeper than it had appeared from the air. Its walls were smooth from the eons of passing water. Different colored stratifications were visible in the stone, an etching of the passage of time. Or simulated time, maybe. Far above him was the surface, and beyond that was the distorted gold of the ultrafusion fire. His lungs ached and begged for breath, but when he looked at the surface it seemed very far away. So easy to let it end now. All he had to do was nothing.
But he kicked his legs. There was a surge of pain and he gritted his teeth. He found that only his right arm was working, but it was enough -- the surface came closer and he broke through it back into the howling din of the world above, heaving for breath. He was able to haul himself up onto the stone edge of the river and lie exhausted on his back, struggling to catch his breath, holding his injured left arm in his right, while above him the sky burned.
He felt something on his hand and saw that it was blood, and only then did he see the piece of metal sticking from his chest. He looked at it in fascination. It was so neatly embedded it seemed it had been put there with intention and intelligence. But his vision was dimming and it was getting hard to breathe. He had one orb left, and he applied it and tried to savor the feeling of being returned to full health one last time. The piece of metal was pushed out and landed with a thump on the ground beside him. He popped it into his inventory thinking, souvenir, and the thought made him smile.
He got to his feet and looked around. A sense of shock was protecting him from the worst of the terror of everything that was happening. He searched for the transport and found it in a little depression at the base of the cliff. It had landed right side up. Sitting in it, unconscious but alive, were Meathead, Mallory and Buzz. Meathead still had one hand resting against the steering wheel. The machine itself was utterly destroyed, but Neb could see the glitter of a protective field that surrounded the seats. An emergency system, maybe. He walked over to the transport with an air of deep unreality, like a dream in which he was already aware that it was a dream, and checked the inventories of the three men. None of them had any healing orbs.
He rested a moment, taking a deep breath in and out, and went looking for Anna. He could not be sure how much earlier she had fallen out than he had, so perhaps she was not even in the ravine. Perhaps she had been obliterated above in the scourging fire. He glanced up and saw dark sky now instead of flame, dotted with the beginnings of the stars. He did not want to think too much about how far the wall of fire may have traveled. He wandered here and there looking for Anna hopelessly. There was no sign of her. He checked the Game clock: 1hr 10min. But that didn’t really matter now. His heart was primed and ready to explode, but his mind was holding it in check. Too much. Not yet. Maybe never.
He got down on his hands and knees and drank from the river, the water pure and cold. We have done a terrible thing here, he thought. How many players and simulated lifeforms had they just killed with the ultrafusion explosion? The Game would know exactly, it would have an exact metric for their stupidity.
He looked up from the water, letting it run down his face, and saw Anna lying amongst some low undergrowth on the other side of the stream. Unconscious. Not dead.
He dived into the water and swam across to her. How often he had seen that now, he thought -- members of the team almost dead, but not quite? What did it say for their fate, their agency in the Game? He searched Anna’s inventory saying to himself please please please.
He found one orb there and applied it at once. The blue light suffused her, and the countdown started. When she opened her eyes and saw him, she smiled. He smiled back, then had to look away.
He stood, and held out his hand to her.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have one final play left.’