Drega and his asshole buddy droned on for a while longer. Each time they fired up the crowd it seemed to kill a little bit of the hope still clinging to those around me.
I had a feeling that was by design too.
According to them, the gist of this game involved surviving twelve increasingly difficult levels or stages. On paper anyway, the goal of each stage was simple – reach the next stage. Although, considering the way Drega and Plegraxious joked back and forth, I got the impression it wasn’t going to be nearly as cut and dried as they made it out to be, especially as the stages progressed.
There were two catches. First, we had a time limit. Stage One was a three day event, measured in Earth days thankfully. Anyone still left after that would be instantly expired – aka killed.
It remained to be seen whether that would result in a tier one or two penalty.
Either way, it seemed they really wanted to weed out the lollygaggers.
The second catch was even more nefarious. Only a specific percentage of chasers, as they insisted on calling us, would be permitted to ascend to each new level. Regardless of whether it was within the time limit or not, if you were among the last chasers out you’d be expired.
For Stage One, whatever it turned out to be – because of course they were being vague about it – that percentage was at least a high one. Ninety-nine percent of the chasers would be permitted to pass. However, it was a rolling percentage dependent on the current number of survivors.
Initially there were ten-thousand of us, so that meant all but one-hundred had a shot. But we’d already lost thirty-two during the qualifying round. That brought the number of those who’d be left behind down to ninety-nine, meaning one extra person could conceivably make it out who might otherwise not have.
There was a big gotcha there, though, and it was a brutal one. Drega didn’t specifically say so, but the implication was clear as the nose on my face thanks to my FAST unit having already mentioned player versus player. Those at the ass-end of escaping a stage could conceivably improve their odds by eliminating their fellow chasers.
I looked around, noting the heavy concentration of soldiers in my area alone. Of course it would make sense there’d be a lot of them. These aliens, or whatever they were, claimed to have pulled people away in the split second before a meaningless death. Well, over the course of history it was hard to beat war when it came to the sheer number of those.
Mind you, that didn’t exactly bode well for me. I’d been a part of the karate club during my first few years of college, but Bruce Lee I was not. In terms of fighting prowess, I was willing to bet the odds were very much not in my favor.
Thankfully, at least for this first stage, we were informed that PVP was suspended until at least half the initial chasers had ascended. That meant I just needed to be among the first five-thousand to blow this pop stand.
If I could pull that off, I could avoid any targets on my back.
Literally, as I noticed more than one of the soldiers were armed. My guess was that when people were dragged here, along came whatever they had on them at the time. In my case, that amounted to my wallet, car keys, and a half empty tube of lip balm in my back pocket.
How the fuck was that even remotely fair?
Sadly, I had a feeling fair was a dubious concept at best as Drega finally seemed ready to wrap things up.
“THERE’S A LOT MORE WE COULD COVER, FOLKS, BUT AS THEY SAY, EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER. BESIDES WHICH, WE WOULDN’T WANT TO RISK ANY OF OUR CHASERS DYING ... OF BOREDOM!”
Again with the raucous laughter. The audience had to be prompted for this shit. No way could anyone genuinely find this guy that hilarious.
“SO WHAT SAY WE GET THIS SHOW ON THE ASTRAL PLANE? IN A MOMENT, OUR CHASERS WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO TEMPORARY SAFE ZONES SCATTERED AT RANDOM THROUGHOUT STAGE ONE. FROM THERE, THEY’LL HAVE ONE EARTH HOUR TO PREPARE. I CAUTION YOU, CHASERS, USE THAT HOUR WISELY. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT GEAR AND STATS. NEVER FORGET THAT KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!”
Huh. That was the exact same thing my ghost light tormentor had said. I’d thought it was just being a prick, but maybe there was something more there.
“Indeed it is, Drega,” Plegraxious added. “But before we declare this Chase to be on, I should mention that the Committee has decided to offer our contestants one last perk!”
Oh?
“In light of everything our chasers are facing, the Committee has decided to extend a final opportunity to back out without penalty. If you wish to expire from the Chase, you may do so at this point with the guarantee that your timeline will be safe.”
That was what they considered to be a perk?!
“For all the rest of you jackals, please be warned that looting is temporarily suspended.”
Hold on ... looting?
That finally caused the crowd to fall silent – no doubt in anticipation of whether anyone would take these jackasses up on their generous offer.
I had assumed that would be a hard no across the board, but then I noticed a few of those nearest me turning to look at something. I followed their gaze to see what appeared to be an actual samurai – complete with armor and katana.
He was on his knees holding a dagger. “For my wife and child,” he said to no one in particular. “May they be safe until I can hold them in my arms again.” Then, without further warning, he plunged the blade into his midsection.
Holy shit!
He collapsed to the ground where, moments later, his body simply faded away like it was made of smoke.
“WHOA THERE, KATSUO!” Drega cried. “WE MEANT FOR YOU TO JUST RAISE YOUR HAND.” There came a beat of silence and then he continued, “WELL, THAT’LL CERTAINLY BE AN INTERESTING FIND FOR THE BANDITS WHO JUST FIRED A VOLLEY OF ARROWS AT HIM. BUT HEY, WHAT IS HISTORY WITHOUT A FEW UNSOLVED MYSTERIES? YO, PLEG, CHECK THIS GUY’S TIMELINE AND SEE IF ROBERT STACK EVER DID AN EPISODE ON HIM. AM I RIGHT, FOLKS?”
The audience went absolutely nuts. I guess chaos made for good sport.
From what I could tell, a few others likewise volunteered to be expired early – although none like that first guy.
After hearing what the samurai had said, I can’t lie and claim I didn’t give it at least a moment’s thought. His words about his wife and child had been like a blow to the gut.
Was my life truly worth the risk to literally everyone and everything I knew?
Probably not, but in the end it came down to the same thing as when I’d faced off against that dinosaur.
I wanted to live, damnit. I wanted to live and see my son again.
I just had to be very careful about it. And that meant one thing.
Even if I met my end in this place, I needed to ensure I at least died trying.
***
Once it was established that the deaths were finished for the time being, that was apparently the signal for things to get a move on.
Dozens of stone archways, similar to the one I’d first stepped through, appeared throughout the arena. We were all instructed to enter them with our FAST units. Our hour long grace period would officially commence once the last chaser was through.
The nearest one to me was barely twenty feet away, so I made a beeline toward it.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I stepped through to find that once again my location had completely changed. Now I was in what appeared to be a tavern of sorts, but not a modern one. This looked straight out of that ren faire I’d taken Jeremy to last year. Ironically enough, we’d ended up only staying an hour there as well after he’d had a meltdown when I refused to buy him a horned viking helmet.
It had ticked me off at the time, but right at that moment I’d have given my left nut to be there with him again.
“Look at you, Mr. Eager Beaver,” my FAST unit said, appearing there as well. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to be so enthusiastic.”
“I’m not, but you heard Drega. Our hour starts once the last person steps through. It’s not going to take them long to herd everyone where they need to go, but I figured even a few extra minutes is to my advantage.”
“Our advantage you mean.”
“How’s that? So you get more time to decide if my entire timeline is fucked?”
“No. I mean, yes, that’s a small part of it,” it replied, “But not right now, and hopefully not ever.”
“Uh huh. Sure. We both heard that asshole out there.”
The light flitted back and forth, seemingly agitated. “You may have heard, but did you actually listen?”
“What do you mean?”
“That part Plegraxious said about trusting in your FAST unit. That was the takeaway.”
“And why exactly would I do that?”
“Because my survival is on the line too,” it said. “I’m not just here to float over your shoulder casting judgement like some sort of sanctimonious prick. I mean I might just because it’s fun, but I’m also your first party member.”
“Party member?”
“Yep. From here on out, Tim old buddy, you and me are officially partners.”
***
“What do you mean by partners?”
“Is there something wrong with my speech cells?” it replied. “Did I stutter? Why else do you think I was assigned to study you like a bug under a microscope? I don’t need any of that crap to just follow your stupid monkey ass around. No, it was so I could best consider how I might act as a counterpoint to your myriad weaknesses.”
“ATTENTION, CHASERS! YOUR ONE HOUR GRACE PERIOD OFFICIALLY STARTS NOW. GET YOURSELF GEARED UP AND READY BECAUSE IN SIXTY MINUTES THOSE TEMPORARY SAFE ZONES ARE GOING TO BE SERVED WITH AN EVICTION NOTICE. IF YOU’RE NOT READY BY THEN, TOO BAD, SO SAD – EXCEPT I AIN’T YOUR DAD!”
“Okay, we need to table the rest of this discussion until we’re finished,” the FAST said. “All the chasers have been scattered randomly across the map. That means we have no idea where we’ll end up once this spot dissipates – and I do mean we. I’m as much in the dark as you. We might be okay or we could find ourselves standing right in the middle of a den of mobs. Trust me, you don’t want to risk being unprepared if that happens.”
“A den of...? Are you talking like a flash mob here?”
“Yes, if a flash mob ever gathered for the sole purpose of killing our asses. Now shut up and listen so I can show you how to use your SK.”
There was a slightly frantic quality to the ghost light’s voice. So, rather than argue, I simply nodded.
“Good,” it continued. “Your SK is currently in standby mode. We’re going to activate it now.”
The FAST directed me to lift my arm and then tap twice on the SK’s screen with my free hand. I did, at which point a loud voice blared, “Sidekick level 1 activated! Welcome to Sidekick OS version 60763.4, brought to you by Negastar Engineering, a subsidiary of Millenalux Corp. It takes a maiming but keeps on gaming!”
“Yeah, yeah, spare us the stupid slogans,” the FAST said before turning its attention back toward me. “Okay, so maybe the most important thing to know is you should never forget about your SK.”
I held up my arm along with the economy sized bangle that was seemingly grafted onto it. “That shouldn’t be an issue.”
“You’d think that but you’d be wrong,” it continued. “Most chasers forget about it in the early stages because they have it in HUD mode and it ends up being hidden by a jacket or shirt sleeve. You don’t want to do that.”
“Why?”
“I’m getting to that. Jeez, your species really does love to hear the sound of their own voices. My point is, it’s actually your first piece of armor here and in some cases it may be your best. It doesn’t do a whole lot at level 1 but it doesn’t need to because its damned near indestructible.”
I took a closer look at it. “So you’re saying I could, what? Use it as a shield?”
“Exactly!”
“Good to know. I’ll remember that.”
“Try to make it a point to.”
“You said level 1. What does it do at...?”
The FAST made a buzzing sound. “Let’s table that for now because it’s not going to be an issue for some time, if at all. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
“Good,” it replied. “Now look at the screen on it.”
I did. There was a lot to take in there. I spied columns for stats, inventory, bonuses, achievements, as well as several tabs for more, but the text was so cramped that it was barely legible on the comparatively small screen.
The whole setup kind of reminded me of a streamlined Pip-Boy from the Fallout games. I used to enjoy occasionally playing them after work – at least before Deb had harangued me about it because she felt video games were for kids.
I felt a brief stab of anger. Maybe I should’ve guessed that might’ve been a precursor of things to come. Still, I pushed that aside for now. There was literally no time to waste.
“Okay, so none of what you’re looking at makes sense, right?” the FAST asked. “That’s because the UI is crammed together like a clown car. That’s what happens when you contract your equipment out to 7th level civilizations – you get lowest bidder because those fuckers might be reasonably smart, but they still haven’t evolved past capitalism.”
“Is that supposed to make sense?”
“No, but that’s okay,” it said. “The screen is only for backup in case you need full use of your senses. It’ll all be a lot more clear when you activate your HUD.”
It directed me to place two pinched fingers on the screen and then pull them apart, like enlarging a photo on a smartphone. However, when I did so, rather than simply make the text bigger, it all exploded off the screen and filled my entire field of vision.
“Holy crap! Are you seeing this?”
“Sorta,” it said. “I have my own version of it, and since we’re party members I have access to some of your info, as you do to mine.”
“Really? Show me.”
“We’ll get to that. Let’s worry about your starting stats for now. The interface works three ways, via touch, voice command, and focus.”
“Focus?”
“Mental focus,” it clarified. “Controlling it with your mind. Not all chasers are created equal, so the other two exist as failsafes in case your frontal lobe isn’t up to the task. For now, if I were you, I’d try...”
I narrowed my eyes at the floating ball of light, but then decided to view its insults as a challenge instead. Stats, I thought, trying to push everything else out of my mind. Show me my...
“Dude, do you need to take a dump or something? Because if so, you’ll have to wait until after...”
I ignored it and continued to focus, unsure that anything was actually going to happen until it at last did.
A section of the heads-up display became highlighted as it moved front and center in my field of view, displaying a list of seven statistics. Again, I was reminded of some of the video games I used to enjoy.
Chaser: Timothy M – Earth 8069 – Level 1
STR: 50
INT: 50
WIS: 30
DEX: 40
CON: 40
CHA: 30
PSI: 0
Holy shit! Look at those. I read them aloud, unable to help the grin on my face.
“Well, look at you, Mr. AverageMcAveragepants,” the FAST said. “Nicely done on the HUD. I dare say, if you can master the focus aspect, that will almost certainly affect your survivability.”
“Average? Were you listening? I have a freaking 50 in strength.”
The little light made a sighing sound. “Yes you do, but that’s not quite as good as it sounds.”
“Explain.”
“I’m not supposed to mention it unless you ask, but what the fuck? Anyway, it’s all smoke and mirrors. You see, some quinks back the Committee made a slight change to things based on focus group feedback. Chasers in the early stages were garnering more sympathy than excitement from the audience. So their way of fixing that was to simply move the decimal point over one slot. And lo and behold it worked. Now, at least as far as the audience is concerned, everyone looks like a veritable superhero right out the gate.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“No. That’s show business.”
“Still a shitty thing to do.”
“It is, but I’d advise against too much bitching and moaning about it, at least out loud. The Committee prides itself on running a fair game, but evolution has a way of inflating one’s ego exponentially.”
“Tell me more about this Committee. Oh, and what the hell is a quink?”
“A quink is a standard unit of multiversal time. Translates to about fourteen of your years. As for the Committee, that’s a longer answer and one for later. For now, we need to worry about spending the 30 free stat points you get.”
“Wait, I get more?”
“Yep. Standard bonus for a starting chaser, prior to race reassignment anyway.”
Race reassign...? I took a deep breath. The FAST was right. We only had an hour and every question pushed us closer to that deadline. I needed to shut up and get past this ... um ... tutorial level I guess. “Okay fine. I don’t know what PSI is, but I have zero points in it, so maybe I should...”
“Let me stop you right there, sparky. PSI stands for psionics, and you should just leave that alone.”
“Psionics? As in mind powers?”
“Exactly.”
“And I wouldn’t want to spend points on that, why exactly?”
“Because it’s a waste on a species such as yours. Trust me, unless the Committee accidentally chose an exceptionally gifted specimen out of the myriad Earth gene pools, every chaser will be starting with zero points in that, maybe ten at most on the outside. Out of all the stats listed, that’s the hardest to master. Even if you did put some points there, it would likely do you no good until you reached an intelligence of two-hundred or higher – which I wouldn’t hold my breath on.”
“But...”
“I’m telling you, you might as well just burn them instead.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” I replied, “but why should trust it? Yes, I know you said you’re a member of my party, but that could just be a...”
“You really want to do this now?” it replied, sounding heavily annoyed. “Fine. The reason is, my life is on the line every bit as much as yours. Well, okay, maybe not quite like yours. FAST units get certain perks to keep the game moving, but I sure as hell can die too. I don’t know if you listened to that vomit of legal mumbo jumbo back there, but the phrase permanent offlining came up. That means dead, which is a status I would prefer to avoid if at all possible.”
“Okay, but...”
“I’m not finished yet. There’s more to it than that. You may not believe me, but I’m in this to not only survive like you but to make sure you win as well. And do you know why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Because if you, by the grace of whatever deity you believe in, somehow do manage to secure one of the prize tiers then I get one too – and it’s perhaps the best prize one could hope for in the entire multiverse.”
“And that would be?” I asked, expecting some sort of snarky answer.
“My freedom – from the game, the Committee, from all of it.”