Chapter 10: Hijacked

Despite all the freaky gasp-barking, sleep apnea, and constant bladder issues, I bloody missed Gazpacho after I moved away. He was a menace, sure, and my life wasn’t better for having his incontinent arse around. But still—I missed the little weirdo. Go figure.

I think there’s a lesson in that somewhere. Even when it isn't good for us, the heart wants what it wants, and there ain’t much we can do about it.

—

I’m pretty sure the kid had freaked the aliens the fuck out with her teleporting trick, hell, she sure had freaked me out. But by the time everyone started moving again and resumed half-heartedly murdering each other, they seriously wanted nothing to do with me.

I slunk into the jungle, leaving the melee behind and focussed on putting some distance between us. My predator perk screamed at me to return, to fight and kill, but with the immediate danger now over, I knew I needed to be clear headed or I’d just end up in the shit again.

It took a few minutes to psych myself up, but eventually I gritted my teeth and turned off the perk.

It hit me like a hammerblow. I staggered and had to lean against a tree, as wave after wave of suppressed horror and fear rushed through me. I saw the kids eyes again, exactly the same shape and shade as Elena’s. But even worse than the horror was the memories it brought. Of what I had done to Elena and her family.

This damn perk.

When I finally gathered myself I noticed that a new, flashing icon had appeared in my HUD. I selected it and two new boxes appeared.

The first was a Tribe menu.

I expected the showrunner would start yapping at me, but she didn’t. Maybe she had gotten the hint, that I didn’t give a damn about her or anything she wanted to tell me.

Tribe: Unnamed

Members 2/20

Allan Alberghini: Level 2 Human.

Ariel Du Bouchard: Level 2 Human.

So that was the kids name, Ariel. The girl with Elena’s eyes. Despite only knowing her for a few minutes, I’d done my damn best to save her. I wished I were a better man, and that I could say I would have done the same for any child. But I knew myself.

Once I’d seen those eyes, it had been guilt, not selflessness that had driven the decision.

A memory began to replay behind my eyes and I suppressed it before it could hurt me. For just a moment I wished I still had my old implant to help me forget.

I was in the kid’s debt and had no idea how to repay her. But I sure as hell knew I couldn’t handle another blue eyed death on my conscience. The memories rose again. Strong, dark and painful. My mental finger hovered over the flaming skull icon of my predator perk. Just one tap and it would all go away. But I knew it was a trap, an addiction, and I forced myself to look away. There was a second box to investigate.

I leaned against the soft surface of a tree as a map expanded to fill most of my vision. The interface was incredibly similar to the one I used back on Earth. The one I used almost every day to navigate around the city to find my jobs. I zoomed in and out, my path over the last two days was clearly shown as a high resolution path through the fog of unexplored valley. As I fiddled, I found that it even employed the same mental control system as my Earth map. On reflex, I rotated and tapped the top left. To my surprise, a glitch and gibberish filled search window flickered up. It fuzzed in and out, obscuring the text, but beneath the search bar, I could still just barely make out some of the history. At the top of the list was the Benson-Wang house address, I’d replaced their breakers a few days before. It wasn’t just similar, then. It was using the exact same mapping program as my implant.

My antivirus flickered up, strobing on and off several times before fading away. That was weird, I’d thought it had been deleted when the alien tech took over.

Looking at that stuttering search window, an idea occurred to me, and with it came an insidious flicker of hope.

I looked back to the Tribe menu and copied the kid’s name. Ariel Du Bouchard. But before I could paste it into the damaged search window, a figure dropped at me from the tree above. I swore and threw myself back as something whistled past my face. One scraped down the length of my armoured arm, while the other snagged my cheek with a white hot flash of pain that made me yelp. Adrenaline surged, the sudden fear so intense that I thought I might shit my pants. I flicked a look to predator, but activating it now would mean collapsing the search window, and I wasn’t sure that I could bring it up again.

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Closing the window would mean losing my chance to find Ariel.

I leaped back a few steps, cursing my stupidity. My weapons were all stored in the inventory, and with the map screen up I couldn’t get to them. I squinted through the overlays, but couldn’t see my assailant, it had just damn vanished. I could run, but with my vision obscured I didn’t think I’d make it far.

I’d a decision to make. A chance to save Ariel and fight whatever the hell this thing was with no weapons, no perk and a bunch of overlays cluttering my vision. Or give up on the girl. Shit, I’d barely known her, this should be easy. I held a mental finger, ready to close the map, but then I remembered her eyes, remembered what had happened to Elena’s youngest daughter because of me.

Fuck.

I clenched my fists to hide their shaking, did I really have it in me to fight this thing? I backed up to a tree, cutting off at least one avenue of attack and squinted into the tangled fungal undergrowth, filled with glowing tendrils and spore like blobs.

A flurry of movement came from my left, where a mass of glowing, sea-urchin-looking plant things clumped. Something zipped at my face. I ducked and they thwacked into the tree behind me, right where my head had been.

Then silence, and still.

My enemies up until this point had been more of the honest, murder you in broad daylight kind. I didn’t know how to deal with something I couldn’t see.

I touched one of the things stuck in the tree where my head had been. It was crude, but cunningly made. A double-ended throwing dagger about the size of my hand, carved from what I assumed was Gosporian chitin. I pulled a pair of them free, at least now I had weapons. I squinted through the overlays, but still saw nothing.

Whatever this thing was, it was smart, smart enough to kill me from a distance rather than risk a direct confrontation. But that probably meant it considered me a threat, and I might have a chance if I could spot it and get in close. I wondered if it too was terrified.

I threw one of the daggers in the direction it had come from, hoping for a lucky hit, or to frighten it and flush my attacker out. It didn’t work, of course, and I felt like a bit of an idiot. I pried another dagger free from the trunk.

My heart thudded in my ears, and it was so hot, so humid. Sweat dripped into my eyes and I wiped it away with my arm. The moment my vision was obscured, I heard a rustle. On instinct, I dove out of the way as more daggers zipped at me. I landed hard, rolled and scurried along on all fours as a line of daggers impaled the earth, missing me by inches. But as soon as I stopped and looked at where they came from, the attacks ceased, and all was still.

So stupid, to cover my eyes while under attack. I needed to stop making mistakes.

I backed up to another tree, circled around it until I was opposite to where the ranged attack had come from, and waited a moment. Then I leaped out and dashed, directly at where I had seen the movement.

I spotted the thing as it shifted from one tree to another, obviously looking to circle around me. I’d have never seen it, had it not moved. It was camouflaged, with dirt and plants affixed all over its body like it wore an alien ghillie suit. A pair of dextrous limbs rose and flicked, throwing daggers at me rapid fire, one sunk into my hip and another into my thigh, but I deflected the rest with my armoured arm. I limped onwards and the thing panicked, making terrified little whimpers and trying to climb a tree. I leaped with my good leg, superhuman in the low gravity and caught it a few feet off the ground, pinning it to the trunk with a dagger in both fist.

The thing squealed like a horse with a broken leg, shockingly loud in the quiet jungle and I stabbed it again and again until it went silent.

I looked at the blood that covered my hands, bright red just like my own, and I vomited.

The squeals had turned into barely understandable English at the end, and it had been begging for its life.

I wondered if the other aliens that I had killed had begged for their own lives too. Was that the purpose of the wild music that filled my brain whenever I activated my predator perk? To mask the sobs, the screams, the last wishes?

This fucking place.

I leaned against the tree and scrubbed the tears from my eyes. The burning coal in my gut flared into life again and I trembled, but not in fear, in fury.

This sick game and the evil bastards who forced us into it—they were the ones who should be begging for their lives. These alien were just like me, kidnapped and exploited, forced to do things we’d never choose to do. They weren’t the real enemy.

I took a deep breath, I couldn’t stay here. I was bleeding and the screams must have attracted attention.

The moment of truth. I pasted the kid’s name into the flickering search window, nothing happened, for a moment. Then the search closed and my map zoomed out to show the entire valley. My stomach knotted as a pin dropped, labelled A. Du Bouchard. It glowed in the cliffs by the sea.

And just like that, I knew what I had to do. I’d kill to get to her if I had to, but maybe I could save one life in the process.

Judging by the distance I had travelled in my short time here, it would take me three days or so to get to her. I wondered if she would survive that long on her own? Would I? And what about Gabe? I mean he couldn’t be with her or else she’d be dead already.

There was so much going on, so much uncertainty that my head felt like it might explode. I closed all the overlays and withdrew my axe, it was a comforting weight in my hands. But this time no rush of strength came with it.

I looked down at the throwing daggers still stuck in me. They’d need to come out. I took a deep breath and eyed my predator icon, it was a necessary evil but I couldn’t quite bring myself to activate it just yet.

It was strange, I could not longer taste the rancid stick of the air, and even the green of the sky seemed mundane. It was amazing how quickly I’d adapted. How quickly the unreal becomes ordinary.

I hoped I’d never feel that way about the lives I took.

I inspected the axe in my hands, why wasn’t this damn thing making me stronger?

Ebonrage: Rare

Conditional Effect: Increases the welder’s strength by 20% if they are in a berserk state.

There were a bunch of numbers too, damage stats and the like but I had no clue what they all meant.

I felt a chill, there was no bloody way that this was a coincidence.

As I walked through the fungal forest of my new world, I remembered the deep, throaty voice that the showrunner had spoken with as she asked me to turn on my hatchling predator perk. How excited she’d been to see me use it.

What were the chances that I would find a weapon that only made me stronger if the addictive, mind altering perk was turned on?

Looking up into the green sky, I wondered who was watching me right now. Whose finger was on the scale, and to what end?

I hit the icon.

The music roared to life, strength surged through me, and I ripped the daggers from my flesh. Fear and horror faded, unimportant. I could barely remember what I'd been so worried about.

I was a predator, and now I’d make them all fucking pay.