Archimedes

“Do you really think it’ll be able to handle the entire upgrade wave without us?” Chedderfield asked Archimedes as the two sat on the second floor, looking out at the aquarium’s parking lot. While he was prepared to break the glass and rush out there at a moment’s notice, he was pleasantly surprised at exactly how efficient the aquarium’s wall was. The long clam tendrils tossed zombies frozen by the ballista into the air before pulling them apart with ease.

“Upgrading the giant ballista’s freeze effect from a one-foot radius to a five-foot radius will apparently only take a few minutes. Even if they could break through the wall, the upgrade will be done before they get past that giant snare.” Archimedes shrugged. “Though I hate watching all of those skill cards go to the crocodile and otters.”

“Weren’t you the one who suggested that, if their base got the kills, they should get the biggest cut?” Chedderfield asked.

“It doesn’t mean I can’t still be salty about it,” Archimedes laughed. “Anyway, what were you saying about the start of the first upgrade wave? That you got hit by a monsoon?”

“No, a raccoon,” Chedderfield corrected as he rubbed the hole burned into the samurai armor that covered his waist and upper body. “If it hadn’t been for my armor, it might have been a serious hit.”

“And it went into the World of Soda?” Archimedes asked.

“Sure did,” Danielle answered, joining the conversation as she walked up with Lucy and Nguyen, the three ladies having likely given up on their shift. “Seeing a couple racoons firing a laser gun the size of Emma isn’t something you forget.”

“I’m not that small,” Emma defended herself as the group, still talking, began to walk toward the World of Soda museum.

“No, but the gun was that big,” Danielle clarified.

“You know, if there are racoons, shouldn’t we be bringing Chip to translate?” Chedderfield asked.

“I would, but he and the lizardmen want to stay for the rest of the base upgrades. If we get to the talking phase, we can always bring him with us later. But since they fired at us before they even waved hello, I got a feeling that might not happen until they’re mostly all dead,” Archimedes replied, lifting a hand up to block the sun shining into his eyes as he peered across the distance between the aquarium and the World of Soda building.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” he added after a moment of looking for one of the racoons. The giant coral wall blocked what the sun didn’t, and nothing was visible on the second and third floors of World of Soda despite Archimedes still being on the second floor of the aquarium.

Lucy pointed to the factory. “Well, we could just—”

Archimedes grabbed her and used Leap Rush to hop across the parking lot and over the tall wall, leaving Chedderfield and the others behind. Archimedes heard Chedderfield curse, and after a few minutes, he came dragging something that sounded like metal to the wall to get the boost he needed to jump up and onto the lip of the wall. He held his hand out for Danielle and pulled her up and over, the tentacles from the wall cooperatively holding him in place as he helped her down after he jumped off the tall barrier.

Archimedes saw the gentle way Chedderfield helped Danielle down, his hands cupping her waist as he lowered her, and before he could even make a comment, he heard Lucy whispering in his ear in the most dramatic theater geek way, “Under love's heavy burden do I sink, or whatever those old books you like would say.”

“If women may fall when there’s no strength in men, I don’t think you’ll ever fall, Danielle, as long as Chedderfield is around,” Archimedes said, making his own 1700s-style line to mimic Lucy’s, ignoring the jabbing nature of her quip as he enjoyed seeing his old friend happy despite the hellscape all around them.

Danielle blushed as her feet landed gently on the ground. She snaked her arm around her man, held onto Chedderfield’s bicep, and replied, “You’re darn right.”

“Awww. You two are sweet,” Lucy said. Then she turned to Archimedes and hit him in the arm. “Why don’t you help me down a wall like that?”

“I just carried you over that wall,” Archimedes argued.

“Yeah, but maybe you could do it more gentle-like and less like Tarzan?”

“Random white guy lost in foreign wilderness and magically gets saved by all the wildlife coming together to help him? I think I was Tarzan for a month,” Archimedes thought aloud as he rolled his eyes and turned east.

The World of Soda museum was only down the block but a nearly empty parking garage and green lawn that was quickly turning brown sat between them and their destination. Archimedes had seen the place from the outside—after all, it was hard to miss the bright red and green colors and forty-foot-high canopy cantilevers over the entrance if you ever drove past—but he had never been inside himself. It was one of those places that you only went to if you were a tourist or were showing someone around town.

“You sure those racoons went this way?” Archimedes asked.

“Yeah, like I said before, it was pretty memorable,” Danielle replied.

“Let's go kill some raccoons then,” Lucy said. “Maybe they’ll drop a trash-eating card or something for you, Arc. It’ll pair well with you eating dead monsters.”

Chedderfield chuckled and quipped, “Well, I didn’t want to say anything about him dumpster diving, but we all heard you two last night after all.”

“Ouch, You gouda brie kidding me. I thought cheese was supposed to melt, not burn, Mr. Fondue-due,” Lucy said with a chuckle as she started to walk across the green space, her funny bone short sword appearing in her right hand.

“Mr. Fondue-due? Really?” Emma shook her head. “I thought you were supposed to be a stand up-comic . . .”

“And I thought you were too young to grow a mustache, you little heckler,” Lucy shot back.

“What— I do not have a mustache!”

“Are you sure about that?” Nguyen asked, “I can activate my skill again to double check . . . but I thought that, last time I looked, you not only had one, but it was glorious enough for the system to count it as lip armor.”

“Ugh!! You two are the worst.” Emma looked like she wanted to say something as she touched her upper lip to check for hair, but she gave up quickly when she saw the pair of them laughing. She joined in with them while Archimedes just sat there quietly observing the interaction.

Archimedes loved seeing Lucy happy like this, a quick joke on her tongue, a weapon in her hand and ready to start some trouble. He could only imagine what she’d been like after he disappeared and she thought he died, but that was over now, and she was as happy as he’d ever seen her.

Archimedes’ spear appeared in his hand as he equipped the sirrušu weapon, and he realized that he hadn’t seen his old macuahuitl weapon in a while. From Lucy’s account, he knew that she had gotten it from someone after he traded it away through the trade hub in a bid to let his friends know he was still alive. It had led her to look for him, but after they reconnected, he’d never seen her use it.

“Hey, Luce. Whatever happened to my macuahuitl?”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I still have it. But I like the evolved funny bone short sword you gave me when this apocalypse first started. With all those cards from the monsters we’ve been getting, I managed to upgrade it to gold today, and now it’s like a vampire blade or something with a chance to drain life from an enemy every time I stab them. Even though you’re not a heavy gamer, you should still know that lifesteal is always the best endgame meta.”

Archimedes looked at the short sword again. It had an almost snake-like curve to the blade and was emitting a faint red glow. “The what? What’s a meta—?”

“Most efficient tactic available,” Nguyen explained as she scoffed. “How do you not even know that term, nub?”

Archimedes opened his mouth halfway to ask exactly what “nub” meant jokingly, only to have Lucy shaking her head and sighing. “There’s no explaining these terms to the unenlightened. Just know that percent-based lifesteal items and gear are definitely the best in every game I’ve played. It’s definitely the way to go.”

“That’s wonderful then,” Archimedes replied with a shrug, not wanting to go any further into the gaming lingo that he apparently knew nothing about even after having sunk plenty of hours behind a screen. “I’m just glad you’ll be able to heal yourself up more when in a fight. But if you’re not doing anything with the macuahuitl, what about giving it to Chedderfield?”

“What? Me? Why?” Chedderfield asked.

“Just cause, bro. I mean, you have that little laser pistol that doesn’t do much damage and that whip that you use to trip and pull in your opponent, but you don’t have anything with a solid mid-range to follow that up with. If you use the macuahuitl as a finisher, I think it’ll be devastating.”

Chedderfield considered it for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I’d thought about maybe getting an ax or something. But if you don’t mind giving me that badass thing, I’ll take it instead.”

“Yeah, I’ve kinda gotten trained and set with the spear, and Lucy just said she’s sticking with her sword . . . so you should take it. It’ll suit you better anyway—if you don’t mind, Lucy?” Archimedes said.

Lucy didn’t even bat an eyelid as she produced a silver card from her inventory and held it out for Chedderfield. When Chedderfield went to grab it though, she pulled it back an inch with a devilish grin drawn across her face. “I don’t mind giving it up at all, but it is a silver card . . .”

“What do you want for it?” Archimedes asked.

“His pistol. Either the one he has now or a nice upgraded one from Danielle tonight,” Lucy answered.

“Deal,” Chedderfield said as he grabbed the card and tossed her the laser weapon.

Danielle just shook her head. “Another one? Are you collecting them now? What was all that about meta this and life steal that, but the moment another pistol shows up, you start drooling?”

“Hey, you said they’re not easy to make. You said the parts are rare. I gotta take what I can get and be happy with it,” Lucy said as she equipped both of her pistols, twirling them like a sexy cowgirl before acting like she was putting them in imaginary holsters only to take them out and twirl them again.

“I thought you said playing around with pistols like that was bad?” Emma asked.

“I said it was bad for untrained little girls like you, not sophisticated bad asses like me. It’s not like I’m gonna—” Suddenly, one of the laser pistols she was twirling went off, and a thin laser beam shot out, nearly hitting Archimedes.

“Lucy, you need to be careful, you’re in danger of turning into Emma,” Archimedes warned.

“That’s cold, but now I’m wondering which kind of pain in the ass you’re worried about her turning into,” Danielle snickered.

While Lucy grinned and smiled apologetically, and Emma laughed her ass off, Chedderfield equipped the four-foot-long paddle-like bone macuahuitl with tapered bone blades along its edges. He swung the macuahuitl in a figure-eight pattern, his strength letting him wield the weapon with ease.

Archimedes shook his head at his girlfriend's near miss, dismissing it, and said to his friend, “Looking good, Chedderbro.” He thought that the weapon really did just fit his friend somehow. Then Archimedes turned and joined cowgirl Lucy, who was already walking toward the soda museum, her pistols drawn, not paying attention to her surroundings well. Her carefree attitude felt like a red flag to Archimedes. That type of insouciance entering a potentially dangerous area had preceded more than one death back on the other world.

He was just appreciating the fact that it felt like the whole group was ready to take on the world when he suddenly heard a loud click. Everyone froze at the sound, and a moment later, Nguyen, who was in the center of the group and was being the most cautious of them, gave a single yelp before she was tossed fifty feet forward into the air toward the roof of the World of Soda building by a bursting jump pad that had perfectly blended in with the gravel path.

“Damnit!” Archimedes cursed as Lucy futilely tried to grab Nguyen as she was tossed. Archimedes activated Leap Rush, but even as his legs filled with power, he could already hear another mechanism on the roof activating. He released the built up energy in his legs and calves and flew through the air with enough speed to not only catch up with Nguyen but grab her before he finished his ascent. As he began to descend, he saw a large opening big enough to fit three hulk zombies right where the two of them were going to land on the roof of the building. Archimedes and Nguyen dropped through the opening, and the light disappeared as the hole in the roof they’d come through closed, leaving them in the dark. Where Archimedes expected a floor, there was nothing and he continued to fall until his feet touched something curved and slick—so slick that, as his weight came down, he slipped, fell on his back, and slid down what felt like a giant chute, Nguyen still in his arms. He picked up speed, and as he and Nguyen slid, rows of green, yellow, and red buttons appeared on what he could finally see was a transparent tube.

“What the hell is this?!” Nguyen screeched as her normally cool and collected facade broke. Even though Archimedes couldn’t see her, he could tell just from the sound of her voice that she was on the verge of tears. She screamed, “Watch out!” and Archimedes looked down the tube, and thanks to the light from the buttons, he could see the wall of spikes they were speeding toward. He moved before he could think, curled up around Nguyen, and thrust his knees towards his head, rotating his position so that it was his back that faced the spikes. A moment later he felt a terrible stabbing pain as he slammed into the spikes and they penetrated through his fireman’s jacket, the cheap aquarium t-shirt he wore beneath, and his skin and flesh.

Still in the tubes, but no longer sliding, Archimedes still held Nguyen in his arms, and he heard her say something, but the pain was making it hard to actually focus on what she was saying. “I’m sorry. Did you say, ‘Thank you for saving my life, O Great Adonis’?”

There was silence for a moment, then Nguyen chuckled and said, “Thanks for taking one in the back for me, Arc. But what I said was ‘It’s gotta be a system-related trap.’”

“That makes sense. Even with my mundane damage resistance, this thing is a pain in my butt,” Archimedes admitted through gritted teeth as he tried to figure out how he was going to get himself off of the spikes digging into his back without causing them to go any further. After a moment of thinking about it, his mind working as fast as it could through the throbbing pain from the wounds, another distracting thought occurred to him: “or what if it’s not system related, but designed to get around system resistances? This trap functions by using gravity . . . and I don’t know how fall damage counts. Is it mundane, or is it—”

“Arc, will you just stop for a moment?! You’re bleeding out. Are you going to even live at this rate?” He felt her hands touching his body and heard her continue, “There is . . . This is too much blood. How deep are those wounds? Arc, we have to get you out of this!”

“Right, right, just gotta grin and bear it,” Archimedes quipped, gritting his teeth before pulling his whole body forward. He couldn’t tell at all how far the spikes had dug into his back, but as he pulled forward, using his strength to rip them out of his back, he nearly passed out from the sheer agony of it and collapsed on his stomach, feeling the warm plastic tube below him.

“What are you doing?!” Nguyen shouted. Her voice came in even sharper through the haze of blood loss, but this time it was less panicked and shrieky and more like the normal chastising and lecturing Nguyen that he was used to. “Are you trying to die? You don’t pull sharp objects out of you like that. Taking an arrow out of a body can often cause as much damage as the arrow entering your body. You’ve basically just left a series of— Wait. Here.” She handed him a silver card.

He picked it up and immediately swapped out Leap Rush for the healing skill, activating the silver version of I’m Not Dead Yet before he even had a chance to read through the effects, and a yellow and blue glow enveloped his body.

“And here. Eat this,” Nguyen added, grabbing his chin and pushing a giant fistful of zombie meat into his mouth. “Stop trying to chew so much. I’ve read Undead Delight’s description, and it mentioned nothing about the food being absorbed faster if well chewed. Just swallow it if you can.”

Archimedes mumbled, “Thath wath thee thaid,” as he did his best to gulp down the wad of meat with as little chewing as possible. As he continued to swallow pieces of the zombie flesh, he read the silver upgrade choice on the I’m Not Dead Yet card Nguyen had given him:

Getting out of a Jam! – Increases movement speed by 25% for three seconds upon use. Effect negated if the user causes damage to anyone or anything while in use.

“There, at least you’re not dying now,” Nguyen said as she rubbed his back and handed him some more zombie flesh. “I am not fast enough to outrun your girlfriend if you die,” she added nervously with a laugh.

Archimedes nodded. “She sure is a special one. I don’t think many people can say with certainty that their significant other would drag them back to Earth from across the galaxy.”

The glow around his body faded as the heal and speed effects from I’m Not Dead Yet faded, and he felt the flesh on his back itch as his wound regenerated from Undead Delight. He was still hurt, but the pain was bearable enough that he could sit up and look around. The two of them were in a gigantic clear tube, and through it, he could see a variable maze of other tubes that spanned the entire roof of the museum. Below them was the museum itself and a wide staircase near the ticket counter entrance that led to the second floor and sections of the museum labeled “History of Soda,” “Theater of Pop,” and “Taste of the World,” and farther on, there were other areas like “Mascot of Soda Show” and “The Factory of Tomorrow.”

A shout drew his attention from the museum exhibits, and he saw Chedderfield, Lucy, Emma, and Danielle waving at them from below.