Labyrinth of reflections (13 page)

– Hey…

The guy walking by my side touches my shoulder:

– What's your name?

– Gunslinger.

– I'm Alex.

– Nice to meet you… – I turn away, but the guy doesn't leave me alone.

– Going to the first level?

– Yes.

– Let's go together? It's much simpler, honestly!

I examine him. He has obviously individually created appearance, his manners are somehow insolent but self confident.

– We'll pass 5-6 first levels together, – he goes on, – they are simple but it'll be easier to warm up. After that we'll separate if you want. Well?

– Okay.

We shake hands and walk side by side. The bloody fog envelops us, nothing can be seen around anymore. The voice comes from the sky:

– Your entrance mode?

– Pair entrance! – says Alex, – Alex and Gunslinger!

– Pair entrance, – I repeat, – Gunslinger and Alex!

The fog dissipates slightly. We're standing by the section car that rests on the rusted rails. Two overalls are scattered on it together with two mask helmets and two guns. All our 'fellow travelers' have vanished somewhere. We check the chargers and change.

– There'll be a trap by the station building, this is obvious… – mutters Alex, – We can't relax… Where are you from, Gunslinger?

– From Mommy and Daddy.

No more questions arise. We climb the section car and start pumping the lever. The old rattletrap accelerates quickly, we move through dissipating fog.

– Gunslinger, do you like [Stephen] King or what?

– Why?

– Well, your nick… or you just shoot well?

– You'll see.

We leave the fog. The rails are going along crumbling embankment, the station building is ahead burned like the Reichstag building after the storm. The likeness is improved by the red flag on the dome. Either it's an entourage detail (some Westerners are still setting their scores with the communism), or some Bolshevik have decided to commemorate the revolution anniversary. The latter is more likely, November 7th is in three days.

– Now look attentively and be prepared, – says Alex from behind my back, – The trap is there for sure. You know, everybody needs the spare charger…

– I know, – I say turning around. I shoot twice and the already aimed gun falls from the hand of my short-time ally. I bend down to him. Alex gulps the air with his mouth looking at me with senseless eyes. The program gives him 5 more seconds to understand his defeat. – And in fact, I like King too, – I inform him picking up his gun.

That's all. I had one gun with 8 cartridges, now I have two guns with 14 cartridges.

I throw the body down over the section car's skirting, under the embankment, onto the pile of similar looking bodies. It was me who was supposed to end up there according to Alex's plan.

– I was playing 'Deathmatch' when you even couldn't reach up to the keyboard, – I friendly say in parting. The body will decay quickly, in around 6 hours. That's how it is made here, otherwise all "Labyrinth"'s space would be filled up with bones.

The station building gets closer. I look at it trying to understand what have changed since my last time here. It seems to me that tower at the right wing was missing before.

The section car passes the frozen train, new and clean one, with people sitting by its windows. Their bodies are covered by some grayish film. This is the refugees' train that the aliens had burned when it attempted to leave the Twilight City. I look at the 'refugees' that sit decorously along the windows. Oh yeah. Lamers you are, dear "Labyrinth"'s creators. You have no idea what the REAL evacuation is and how do REAL refugees look like.

I jump over the skirting and roll down the embankment. Let the overconfident newbies ride to the very building. I'd better do it on my own feet… slowly.

This will be more reliable.

The first level is simple by definition. It must be like this in order for the newbies to draw themselves into the game and believe in their strengths… in order to come here more and more times. I approach the station building from its left wing and quickly check several familiar caches: in the sewer, in the power lowering booth and in the cabin of the overturned locomotive that lays across the tracks. There's nothing in the sewer, in the booth I find two chargers, and a sandwich wrapped in transparent wrapping is in the locomotive. No people or monsters show up yet and this is odd.

I approach one of the building's side entrances, stop by it for a second, then dash inside.

A-ha.

Two mutants run to me, two petty human-like demons. They are covered by some greenish mossy nasty stuff, rifles are in their knotty hypertrophied paws. The austere styled, 'professor' looking glasses remain on the face of one of them.

I shoot them point-blank, they even have no time to open fire. I change the charger and approach the bodies. Their rifles are destroyed by the bullets. Pity. One can't go very far with just a gun.

I walk through the building: the series of empty befouled halls, blood pools, walls covered by some desperate slogans and curses… Not a station building but the Brest fortress. {
The fortress on Soviet-Polish border that was one of the first to be attacked by the Nazis in the morning of June 22, 1941
} According to the game's legend it was here where the last battle between the city police and the aliens took place. I know that one can find a dying sergeant somewhere in the building's basement who will tell the terrible story of invasion and will give away his rifle before he dies. But I'm too lazy to search for this tear-squeezing, endlessly dying program. I check some more caches one by one, finding brass-knuckles which I immediately put on my left hand, a couple of hand grenades and finally a two barrel carbine.

A couple of times I can see the human figures in the distance but they don't start the hunt and I leave them alone too: no time for that. I go to the exit to the building square. There, on the table with a bloodied female corpse under it… it always lays there… the computer is quietly working. The game menu is on the screen. I save my game, refuse an offer to quit and move further, to the second level.

Holding the rifle in my hands I run out of the building, creep to the road bending down low and hiding behind the trees. Not for nothing: I'm being shot at from somewhere like the higher stories of the building. They miss.

Most likely it's a human, monsters are dumb but keen.

The square is full of slightly dusty but quite operable cars. Their owners had boarded that train… I'm hiding behind the boxy and crumpled Ford and wait.

I always wait here…

In around five minutes a human dashes out of the building and approaches the cars in quick runs.

I raise and aim my rifle at him. The guy stops, he wasn't ready for a trap now, at the very end of the level…

– Get in! – I motion at the Ford with my rifle's barrel. Looks like the player doesn't understand me. I can't see the face from behind his mask but even if I could, the drawn face will say nothing about his nationality but he doesn't look like Russian.

– Get into the car and drive!

He understands, the interpreter program have kicked in. He approaches slowly, opens the door and sits inside.

– Hey! – the voice is hardly heard. I turn around not losing the sight of my captive. The slightly familiar figure stands in the breach in the dome. Alex. Wow, he managed to catch up with me, he entered the game again and caught up. Looks like it was him shooting at my back… – I'll make you! Do you hear me?! No peace for you! I'll make you!

The certain international gesture from me causes him to open volley fire but he has only a few loads while the distance is big. Throwing the rifle aside he tries to aim at me with a gun and at that moment the purple shadow rises behind his back. Geez, the fiery chokers can be encountered on the first level already. The glowing paws grab Alex by the throat and he falls down on his knees, flutters and shoots over his shoulder. I'm too lazy to wait for the outcome.

I sit into the car. The prisoner who submissively waited until the end of the talk, starts the car. He drives slowly, turning around often as if expecting a shot at the back of his head.

The highway is quite busy. Huge trailers try to catch up and ram us a couple of times. I lower the window and shoot them with rifle aiming at tires and windshield. These are just trifles yet, the monsters, "Labyrinth"'s creations. It's not them whom we should be afraid of.

The man in the front shudders when I shoot at first, then gets used to it.

The real enemies wait for us at the road junction. Three cars are blocking the road, armed people are hiding behind them, one stands openly in a casual, self confident pose. He has rocket launcher in his hands.

Shit. I have heard that there is heavy weaponry in the station building somewhere but never bothered to check.

– What will we do? – asks my prisoner.

One should be an idiot to try to fight the gang like this alone, it's easier to submit yourself and sacrifice some of your weapons hoping to be let go after that.

– Slow down gradually. Stop after my third shot.

He nods silently.

The bandit with rocket launcher looks at us amused, waiting.

Abyss-abyss, I'm not yours… let me go, Abyss…

I looked at the picture accustoming myself. The bandit… cars… the back of my driver's head … the sight's cross in the middle of the screen.

The cheater I am.

I stretched my hand, touched the mouse, moved it along the pad. The cross slid along the screen.

Here we go.

I opened fire, shooting with the left mouse button and reloading the rifle with the right one. The bright yellow shells flew across the whole screen, the headphones rumbled. After I shot those three who were visible, I moved my shooting at the cars. It's not easier to hit the fuel tank in virtuality than in reality but when you shoot at the drawn silhouettes, this is the task for a kid.

deep Enter What the hell, didn't I tell you to stop?!

– Stop! – I shout to the driver.

He stops right before the burning cars and turns around. Even through the dark glasses of the mask terror and admiration can be seen.

– How did you do that?

– Get out.

He obviously waits for one more shot, but I plainly point at the bodies, both shot by me and killed in the cars' explosions. Go gather the weapons. He won't dare to try to shoot me now. The speed and accuracy demonstrated by me is practically impossible for an ordinary player, only for the diver… and an old doomer who is used to the mouse.

Doomers already were divided into 'keyboardists' and 'mousists'. The eternal argument who is cooler was never solved: virtuality had come.

Now I dot the "i's".

One of the bandits is still alive. His foul language is so colorful and intricate that his national origin is obvious. The player's face is covered with blood, one hand is partially ripped off, with the other one he tries to reach the first-aid set. Only 5% of strength had left in him but the set would save him.

I pad closer, he notices me, jerks and shouts:

– Who? Who are you, asshole?!

And another 'multistory' phrase follows.

– Gunslinger, – I reply aiming the rifle barrel at the swearer's forehead. I don't like when one curses like this. Either the girl or a kid could be in my body after all.

We have to spend at least five minutes to gather all the trophies. Now I'm equipped excellently: guns, the rifle with an optical sight, the carbine, the rocket launcher, first-aid sets, grenades, the armor vest. My prisoner is equipped no worse, he just doesn't have the rocket launcher.

It's impossible to drag away such a pile of iron in reality, but here we all are Rambos a little.

– Let's go, – I say to the prisoner, getting into the car. He understands without translation.. We drive along the highway, I can't resist and shoot one more trailer using the rocket launcher. Of course I leave the car firstly… Labyrinth"'s creators had a good sense of humor and I don't want to watch my insides on the car's ceiling at all.

The second level ends at the suburbs of the Twilight City. We leave the car together and save our result using the computer which is diligently working on the ruins of a small cottage. Only after this my fellow traveler calms down. I wave my hand to him and go towards the sever cover hatch. The most reliable way through the third level lies through shit. A few people use it, it's too disgusting despite the shower at the end of the level. But I don't care, I'll pass the sewer looking at the screen and moving the mouse.

– Hey! – shouts my fellow traveler behind me – Why did you need me? You are the coolest one I've ever met!

Maybe he expects the reply like 'it's easier together' or even an offer to go together further, but I didn't like that he almost crashed into burning cars, so I tell the truth:

– I don't know how to drive and it's too long to walk on foot.

He just stays by the computer, bewildered and overfilled with impressions. And quite well equipped for the beginning of the third level, by the way…

I pass 14 levels. In 7 hours. The legend was born today.

Corpses and ruins were left behind my back. Only on the 6th level I was delayed for a while: it's very-very new and unwonted. Then I was stuck on the 12th, I've encountered similar levels before but the arena is always the arena and crushing a hundred plus monsters is not like pushing three buttons.

Fortunately other players almost never interfere anymore. The rumors are creeping across "Labyrinth" crossing levels with the ease impossible even for divers. The deep is not an obstacle for rumors, nothing could ever stop them.

Rumors are diver's enemy but now they spread fear across and this works to my advantage.