Rick sprinted, grateful for the extra points he’d put into stamina, but he’d only gotten a hundred yards down the path before his stamina gauge appeared and blinked as he approached the end of its capacity.

He’d gotten distance between himself and the monster, but from the crashes in the distance, it hadn’t abandoned the pursuit.

He slowed to a stop. Not like this. C’mon. Hunched, his hands on his knees, he panted as he turned to face the oncoming creature.

Before it got to him, his stamina reached peak and the gauge disappeared. Here we go again. He continued along the path, slowing his pace this time to prevent running low on stamina again as quickly. Whenever it dropped close to zero, he stopped briefly to let it climb again.

It had clearly never been meant to limit a player’s running range—in fact, if he wasn’t still considered mid-fight by the game, there wouldn’t even have been a stamina gauge. That it was there meant the beast—and the game—still wanted him to fight.

He kept it up, jogging and stopping when needed, as the forest gradually petered out, turning to shrubby brush and rockier soil. He couldn’t keep it up forever, but his efforts were getting him away from the enclosing ring of lightning, judging by the steadily more distant thunderclaps.

He considered turning to wait for the monster, but in an instant, the decision to stop was made for him, as he rounded the corner of a cliff and startled two fighters seated around a campfire.

Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck! He picked up the pace again, but as he’d already been near a low-point of the stamina-stop-run cycle, he only made it another fifty feet before he was involuntarily reduced to a walk. He turned. The two fighters slowed and approached cautiously. He glanced around.

He’d dashed right into a pocket in the cliff that appeared to have no escape. Steep rock walls stretched up hundreds of feet.

Could the others see him? He imagined Hector furiously screaming through the viewscreen at him, and next to him were Alex and Manuel, and in his mind’s eye, Alex had her face buried in her hands. Then he remembered he’d never seen Alex, and that likely, she looked different than her avatar. The resolution of his shameful inner movie dissolved away as the first of the fighters reached him.

The man was tall and slender, long-limbed and graceful as he confidently approached. The man’s hair was dark, and his clean-shaven face was angular, with a small, straight nose and a sharp, prominent chin. It had the effect of making his face look like a narrow shovel with eyes. He wore a tracksuit that would have better suited to an urban environment.

His partner was much shorter, with dark hair and a black beard that covered most of his face. The shorter man moved more quickly than one might have guessed. His thighs were like tree-trunks, and his upper body resembled a fireplug. The duo looked like the opposite ends of a spectrum between striker and grappler.

Rick got into position—he wouldn’t go down without fighting. That’s when the mysterious rock beast lumbered onto the scene. It had finally caught up to Rick, but it surprised the new enemy bots Rick had stumbled into as well. Chaos broke out.

The two turned to face the oncoming monster, but the hawk-chicken-tortoise only had eyes for Rick. The short, beefy fighter tried to grapple the beast—the surest giveaway the fighter was a bot, since no sane human would try to grapple… whatever the beast was. The beast threw him off like he’d been a child.

The lanky bot approached more cautiously, but the beast’s long reach nullified the tall man’s advantage, and in no time, the creature had tossed the man into a rock that butted out from the steep rock wall.

Remember your moves.

The beast plowed into him, but it barely moved him to the side, due to his Badger skill. Rick slipped a quick punch under the beast’s armpit, jamming it as hard as he could into the underside of its axilla, trying to dislocate the arm or tear a tendon, but in response, the beast elbowed him in the chin, which again became a mere glancing blow as he darted back and away.

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The beast jumped and Rick froze. The last thing he’d expected was for the damned creature to leap. Its rocklike outer skin gave the appearance of something far too heavy to leap; it was as if an SUV suddenly jumped into the air.

Slackjawed, Rick faced his doom, but the larger man had recovered, and the burly bot rammed its elbow into the beast, diverting its path so that it came down along Rick’s left side, blasting Rick out of the way with its immense bulk. Rick jumped, but the creature lashed out with one of its inhumanly long arms and caught his ankle. He turned in mid-air as he fell, getting his other leg wrapped around the creature’s forearm. He tried to land so that he might break the limb where he had it between his legs.

The beast screamed, a bizarre, raptor-like hawk’s caw that sent ice down Rick’s back. This is fucking nuts! In panic, he tried to scramble away, but the lanky man had also recovered, and the bot’s fist hit him square in the head as he tried to flee, knocking Rick’s face into the stoney ground. Rick scrambled along the ground as the beast distracted the tall man’s attention. He swerved to avoid the red-colored pant legs of the stout fighter. As he got clear, he wanted to laugh and cry as the white pant legs of yet another fighter’s gi crossed his vision. This is too much!

Rick kept crawling till he was clear of the tangle of legs, then ducked as the roar from one of the bot fighters came steadily closer. The man sailed over Rick’s head, landing against one of the rocks. The bot lay, inert, as if knocked out.

When he stood, a strange sight greeted him. He recognized the man in the white gi—it was Ditto, the bot he’d briefly met the day Alex had lost him in the simulation, the day his wife went to the hospital.

Ditto had the fireplug-looking bot in a chokehold where he held the bot between himself and the beast. Was Ditto helping him or just part of the free-for-all?

He didn’t wait to find out as he ran toward the beast’s back, leaping at the last moment in an attempt to pull the creature down. Instead, Rick hung around its neck, as the creature clawed at him, trying to dislodge him. He tried to slip his arms around the beast’s neck, but its grip was as strong as the rest of the infernal beast, and it easily pulled Rick’s arms away whenever he got a lock.

Ahead of both Rick and the beast, Ditto’s choke hold caused the shorter, bearded man to lose consciousness. The bot slumped to the ground.

Still hanging on to the beast, Rick beat on the creature’s neck, pulling its attention away whenever it tried to focus on Ditto. If he’s not helping me…

Ditto approached as Rick tried to restrain one of the creature’s massive arms. Though the beast’s enormous strength defeated Rick’s arm locks, it kept the monster effectively distracted as Ditto, the weird kung fu bot in the spotless white gi, took a gassho position, sharply steepling his hands as if to bow.

“No! Fucking hit him!” Rick screamed.

Ditto frowned and closed his eyes.

“What are you—” He didn’t get the rest of the words out. Ditto performed a strike against the monster so powerful, Rick felt it ripple through the enormous beast’s body like some sort of corporeal earthquake. The creature ceased all noise or activity. It opened its beak momentarily before toppling forward like a tree that had been cut down at its base. Rick toppled with it, bouncing off the monster’s back when it hit the ground.

Rick panted. “That’s”—he gulped air frenetically—“a fuckin’”—he took in a deep breath of air—“What kind of… trick move… is that?”

Ditto said nothing at first. Rick hunched over, still breathless.

“You would have been defeated, Rick Prophet,” Ditto said.

Rick’s stunned laughter peppered the air. He coughed and tried to catch his breath.

“This is no joke.” Ditto shook his head. His eyes were somber.

“No”—Rick laughed anew at the seriousness of Ditto’s facial expression—“No shit?”

Ditto shook his head slowly. “We need you.”

Rick watched as the bodies of all three enemy fighters faded and turned into boxes of various colors. He gestured at the remains of the defeated enemies. “Looks like I need you.”

“We’ve watched you, Rick. We believe you have the… motivation to help us.”

Rick blinked. The motivation to… He drew a deep breath. “What happened to me the other day? Where was that?”

Ditto stared, but didn’t answer.

“You know my trainer thinks I’m cracked, right? No one else can see the mark you gave me.” A terrible thought struck him. The last time he spoke to Ditto… “My wife. Oh God, is something—”

Ditto shook his head. “That was an unfortunate… coincidence.” Ditto’s eyes went back into his head, then he looked at Rick again. “Your wife is fine.”

Rick narrowed his eyes. “This is getting… strange. I have to finish this fight, and I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to get help.”

Ditto nodded. “The footage has been intercepted and doctored. To onlookers, it appears you just defeated three powerful enemies.” Ditto smiled. “Your employer and trainer are… celebrating.” The bot frowned. “However, if you do something stupid like this again, we may not be able to intervene. If other players were around—”

“If I do something stupid again?” Rick sputtered. “I don’t think you’re betting on the right horse, whoever you are.” He shook his head. “How the hell are you intercepting this? It’s a direct feed, and the security—”

Ditto looked back. “The ring is advancing. Take your bonuses and go. You must defeat this opponent.” Ditto glared at him, hard. “Do not take this lightly. Our algorithm is rarely wrong, but you must cooperate.”

The bot was right. Again, the storm ring was too close for comfort. He pointed to the kung fu bot. “You need to tell me what the fuck is going on—”

But it was too late. The bot had vanished.