Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators) (17 page)

Celtos, a colony of Arath, is in the midst of a revolutionary war. The Celta have grown tired of living beneath the Arathians' oppressive reign and have vowed to kill any invaders as a sign of their nation's independence. The Arathians have chosen to respond in kind, killing all revolutionaries who break through their fortress walls.

Mission objectives: This game is
timed
.
The side with the most kills at the end of the round will be considered the victor. The fate of two kingdoms lies in your hands.

The Marks probably eat this crap up the same way they would if it were Selmairean delicacies served to them on a silver plate. The gamescape is nowhere near as opulent or grandiose as the summary; Vol appears in a dungeon-like chamber constructed from large, squat blocks of dark stone that glitter oddly in the flickering torches set in sconces at even intervals throughout the room.

Several other Players are already present. Jade is here, though without Kira. Vol also recognizes the March twins, Kayla and Caleb, easily identified because of their freckled skin and blonde hair. There are some other Tower residents whom she remembers seeing in the cafeteria or around the bazaar but whose names escape her at the moment. All the rest are Marks.

She sidles over to Jade. He doesn't back away and Vol takes this as a positive sign. “Are Weavers even allowed to participate in the games?”

“
They are if they don't make them,” Jade responds, looking around.

“
Oh. I thought — ”

“
Our little rogue's work.”

Vol's mouth drops open. “This is all bootlegged? Wow.”

“
Mm-hmm.” Jade nods. “I'm impressed — don't tell Kira. I'm only here because I promised her I'd check out the competition.” He glances at the Marks and lowers his voice. “She's not happy. Whoever our new Weaver is, his or her games are beating Kira's and mine by a two to one margin and climbing. The Marks are eating it up.”

“
Those are impressive stats,” says Vol.

It's a terrific understatement; they both know that such hype is extremely rare in a district as jaded and world-weary as Karagh. Vol can't remember the last hit sensation, though she suspects it was something sex-related.

“
I keep telling Kira to up the ante a little. Branch out. But, well, you know how she is.”

Vol doesn't, actually.

As if realizing this himself, Jade falls silent.

“
What do we do?” one of the Marks whines. “When do we fight?”

“
This game requires a certain number of people to start. When both teams have satisfied the minimum capacity for party numbers, the portcullis opens and the fight begins.”

“
What's a portcullis?”

“
The gate,” Kayla says pettishly. Her twin brother elbows her in the ribs, and she elbows him back, harder. Kayla is decked out in metal armor, and from the wince on Caleb's face, the gauntlets perform their task well.

“
it should begin soon,” Jade says, glaring at the twins.

And Vol hears a male voice saying, “Players ready. Countdown in five … four … three … two …” the words burn in her ears in an intimate whisper she knows too well. “One.”

The metal gate slides open with a rusty creak to reveal the shadowy corridor that lies beyond. “Right,” Kayla says. “Warriors in front, mages in back. Archers, I suggest climbing up to the turrets. You'll need to defend the castle in case any invaders come by to pick off hiders.”

Jade hefts his bow over his shoulder and heads for the staircase by the far wall. One of the female Marks follows him. Kayla and the other warriors rush out the gate and the echoes of their gregarious chatter seem to pulse and waver. That leaves her, Caleb, Bastien, the whiny male Mark, two other male Marks, and a girl who hasn't spoken since the round began. Vol glances at her, curious, and the girl looks away.

Well, then.

Loose stones and grit crunch beneath their boots as they make their way through the narrow corridor. They are the second wave, the secondary line of defense. It's necessary to put some space between themselves and the warriors.

“
I'm taking stalk,” Bastien says. “How many of you are warriors?” He raises his hand and so do two of the Marks. “Mages?” Caleb and Vol raise their hands. So does a male Mark. “Of course.” The girl Mark clears her throat. “Druid?”

The girl nods.

Vol studies the girl's sheath dress and is grateful that she stuck with her choice as magi. The girl looks defenseless. And yet, there is something strange about her. Formidable, almost. She looks familiar.

I wonder if I've played against her before in another game
.

Hopefully she isn't a jerk, though her behavior isn't promising.

It's eerily silent. After Caleb's inventory, nobody speaks. Vol takes an inventory of her own. It occurs to her that she has absolutely no idea how her magic is even supposed to work. Her robes have no pockets to conceal runes or wands and she doesn't have a staff.

Vol turns towards Caleb, intending to ask if he has any idea, but the words stick in her throat. His face is drawn and he doesn't look like he would be receptive to questioning. This is the first time she's ever seen him alone, without his sister. Kayla usually does the talking for both of them, from what she's seen. In fact, this is the most Vol has ever heard him speak all at once. Funny, how she's never noticed until now.

A blast of cold air rushes through the hall, extinguishing a few of the torches and causing the rest to dance and throw wild shadows over ceiling and floor. Bastien grunts in surprise as his sword falls from his hand and his gauntleted fingers cramp spasmodically. The clatter of his sword hitting stone makes Vol jump and reach instinctively for a weapon she doesn't have.

Gods damn
.

“
I can't move my arm,” the whiny Mark whines, holding the useless appendage at the elbow.

“
Looks like all the warriors are incapacitated,” Bastien scoffs. “Great. Now we're completely helpless.”

“
Helpless?” says Vol. “What about the mages? You still have us.”

“
Like I said, sweet cheeks,” Bastien sneers. “We're defenseless. Mages have no defense.” Caleb growls, prompting Bastien to say, “Go ahead. Take one for the team — the other team. Did you read the files? The team with the most kills wins. You'll be doing them a favor.”

“
I'm sure the spell is temporary,” the girl drawls. “It would be stupid if it lasted the whole game.”

“
Can you fix it?” Vol asks. “I thought the druid classes have healing abilities.”

Without examining any of the warriors, the girl shakes her head. “I don't see any physical damage. Sorry.”

She doesn't sound sorry. But she is a Mark, so complaining about it does nothing; the Marks supply the tokens and tokens buy correctness.

Caleb fires off some green flashes of magic that make the textured walls look hewn from moss. A cry sounds in the distance and Caleb says, “Hit the floor!” as another debilitating wave of dark magic washes over them. Vol can feel the chill of it.

“
How are you doing that?” she asks him, shivering.

“
Doing what?”

“
The magic.”

“
You access the character status and equip the spell. There's a charging period. There's always a charging period.” He looks down at his gloved hands. “I'm pretty much down for the count right now.”

“
Stop talking,” Bastien says, cradling his arm. “I need to think.”

“
There's no time for that,” Caleb says.

Vol accesses the archives, ignoring the two men. Her eyes keep flicking nervously to the darkened hallway, searching for the functional warriors of the other team and their magi entourage.
Fire spell
. That seems promising. She equips it, smiling fiercely as her gloved hands begin to radiate a sinister orange light. She drops into a fighting stance, ready to take down as many of them as she can —

And right as the two teams are about to collide the female Mark looks at her and her eyes seem to be shooting silver sparks, they are shining so brightly. Vol's cry of surprise is swallowed up in the violent boom of rock on rock as a stone wall slams down between her and the startled warriors.

Vol slams the wall with her fist. It's solid. She presses her ear against the wall. She can hear the others, their voices distant and muffled by the stone. Soon even that fades and Vol is left in the thick, swirling silence of a tomb. Even the glow from her gloves has died. She raises her eyes to the ceiling.

It is as if the wall has always been there.

This is insane. Walls don't just drop out of nowhere.

And yet here it is. Here she is.

Vol hesitates, then heads back down the hallway to the dungeon where she and Caleb and the others came from. There has to be another way out of the fortress and even if there isn't, she can join the archers on the turrets and do some sniping. Yes. This is a good plan. Vol rounds the corner and heads —

Right into another wall.

“
What — ”

She turns around — and sees yet another wall blocking the entryway she just passed through. Her heart begins to pound. She is standing in a square-shaped space small enough that she can reach out and touch all four of the walls from where she stands.

She's in a casket.

Well. Almost a casket. The ceiling, at least, is still open, and appears to go up quite a ways. Can she climb? No. The stones are too smooth and she doesn't see any hand-holds. She wouldn't have much of a grip. But maybe she can shimmy her way up. If she stretches out her legs and pushes against opposite walls with feet and shoulders she might be able to walk her way up the ceiling.

The bluish light is naught but a tiny pinprick. If it turns out there's nothing up there, it's going to be a long way back down. She could easily fall to her death.

It's not real.

(Real enough, wouldn't you say?)

Vol's feet slide against the floor as her stance is destabilized. When she hears the slow grind of stone, she realize what's happening. The walls are moving again and with her between them.

No!
Vol presses herself against the wall.
Not like this
. She tries not to think about how realistic the pain simulators are going to be. Tries not to imagine the air beings squeezed from her lungs like cheap Bastani synthetic from a tube. Tries not to picture what kind of Afterlife the sadistic Weaver for this game has got in mind.

Falling to death is beginning to look like a tantalizing option.

And then —

She gets her wish.

The floor drops out beneath her like a gunshot and Vol is tumbling through the darkness, too shocked even to scream as her world goes entirely black.

If silence were capable of having volume, this one would be aloud silence; it is a silence poised on the brink of explosion, on a scale that can make or break entire worlds. The silence that preceded the creation of the universe was such a silence, and so, too, is this one.

The sound of Vol's frantic breathing fills the air and the tension crackling around her like a cocoon of static subsides. The downy blonde hairs on her arms are standing at attention. She doesn't feel cold. She doesn't feel anything at all. Everything is dark, but not black — black implies an absence of light, and this is a place where light does not exist.

Am I dead?

She can hear nothing but her own quick pants.

Her brain is alarmed by the lack of stimulation and her own sense of rising panic. Neurons give in to the hysteria to which she, herself, refuses to acquiesce, and begin firing off random swatches of colored luminescence in her peripheral vision. A sense of vertigo overwhelms her — nausea, dizziness, ringing ears — and she gulps back a couple of dry heaves that leave the stark taste of bile coating the back of her throat in a greasy film.

“
Very realistic,” she hisses, hating this Weaver with a sudden vengeance that surprises her. What kind of sadistic creep designs a game so frighteningly real? Isn't the point of a game to escape?

A light flickers on, and the moment Vol's eyes shift towards it, her world is instantly drowned in color. Vol's pupils contract and she winces at the tingly sting of tears that turn her vision into a varicolored kaleidoscope.

Very, very realistic
.

When she can see again, she realizes  she is kneeling on some kind of platform. The material is the color of shadows, and glossy. Unidentifiable, though the surface is cold and slippery to the touch, like black ice. The platform is suspended in midair. A separate entity, distinct from the two warring castles and, she suspects, any part of the gamescape, although she is still wearing her magi robes. The blue skirt is dusty and has ripped at the hem. It is the only sign of her close escape from the walls.