Nova Project #1 (15 page)

“There are pictures on the walls,” says Grace. He should give her more—grudging—credit for being observant, and he isn't surprised that she's the one who notices. His mother is the same, biomech eyes ready to capture the smallest detail.

The pictures are of horses, animals that Miguel has only ever seen in pictures. There are still some in the real world, in zoos or kept by rich private owners like every other animal.

And he's sure they don't look exactly like this. They can't. He moves along the wall, from frame to frame, each image a running beast, every one a different color, all perfectly formed machines.

“The hell are we?” Nick asks.

“The future?” Miguel answers, amused despite the situation. He's wet, cold, tired, hungry, but he gets to say he's been in the weirdest Chimera level he's ever seen, so that's something. “Let's check out the rest of the village. There's no save point here.”

“I think we should stay in here,” says Leah, covering her ears and grimacing. He hears the thunder now, too, growing, roaring. It's just a storm, and the rain here can't hurt them, burn their skin. Lightning might be a problem for those robot dudes at the tables and maybe for Josh.

He opens the door. The square spreads out before him, cobbles wet and slick, glistening in the lights from windows. The rain has stopped, but the thunder hasn't. It's still getting louder, closer.

And it doesn't sound like thunder anymore. He steps into the square, the other four in the tavern doorway obeying his raised hand. His team, his choices.

Sometimes you just know when you've made a mistake.

Sparks shouldn't fly from the wet stone, but they do as hooves strike, and he looks up, frozen. They are terrible, and beautiful, and there is no time for anything but diving out of the way. He slides between legs of sinuous, rippling metal, gasping for breath. One lands a bruising kick to his back, and he thinks he screams. It could be one of them, shrieking. He rolls for what must be an eternity, comes to a stop as the thunder disappears into the distance, leaving him curled on the ground. The stone is cool, wet from the storm. He blinks hated words into focus.

LEVEL FAILED
.

“S
o we're not supposed to kill them,” says Nick as they walk along the road a third time, in sunlight now.

The two-day-old bruise on Miguel's back twinges, but it's healing. He hadn't gone to the medical wing about it, though it's the same attractive shade of green as ChimeraCube Chartreuse. He is nothing if not stylish. “And we still need to collect something. I haven't seen anything,” he says.

They'd come back after sleep and food, armed with pulse guns. Everything but the weather had been the same: the road, the tavern, the thunder, the end result. It had felt . . . wrong? To kill something like that, the destruction of something so beautiful. But it hadn't worked anyway, they'd just kept running, so his conscience is clear.

“We skip the tavern this time,” says Miguel. “It's useless. There must be something else in the village that tells us what we need to do.”

Grace and Josh walk ahead, Leah just behind them. Nick falls back, slowing his steps in time with Miguel's. “You okay?” Nick asks, not as quietly as he thinks he does. Leah's head cocks slightly.

“I'm fine. You don't need to ask.”

“But I'm going to. Fancy that. Hey, Mig . . . they're biomech.”

Miguel gives Nick a sideways glance. “They're
horses.
I'll wait.”

“Okay, but it'd be pretty cool.”

“Sure.” Miguel laughs, and Leah fully turns, walking backward as if that will bring her into the joke. Miguel shakes his head, rolls his eyes for her benefit. She heard every word, but she'd have to be even smarter than she is to guess what they're talking about.

The village is as quiet as it's been the previous two times. He's sure the same robots are inside the tavern, the houses, but sees nothing through the curtained windows. Narrow roads snake off the square, and he picks one at random. Both times so far the horses haven't turned up until nightfall, and it's still the middle of the day; they got an early start. He walks quickly. He's not failing this level again.

A save point would be useful. It wouldn't be whatever they have to do with the horses or the object they're supposed to collect, but it'd be something. Then they could just start here in the village instead of walking . . . again.

At the end of the road the village turns into more fields. Next. They return to the square, start down another. It's Grace who spots it, and if she keeps being helpful, he's going to have to start liking her a little. Mistrust still scratches at the back of his neck, but she has warmed up, contributed more in the past couple of days.

Maybe it's all part of some cunning plan. He'll take it as long as it works in his favor.

“What is this place?” Josh asks.

“I think it's where they live,” says Grace. “Or used to.” She points at the broken chains hanging from the walls. “Before they escaped.”

“And I think we're supposed to catch them,” adds Leah. She moves deeper into the stone building, runs a hand over empty wooden troughs.

“What? I've never had to catch anything in Chimera before,” says Grace. “It's just bosses, puzzles. I know we've figured out we can't kill them, or not with pulse guns, but—”

Miguel glances between them. He wouldn't have thought of catching the horses either. But they gave him a team to lead, they gave him a human one so they'd have brains.

“Okay,” he says. “We try it. If catching them doesn't make something happen, at least we'll have them while we figure out what else to do.”

“Easy,” says Nick, and Miguel grins at him.

“Easy.”

All the other times the horses had come through the square. They have several hours until nightfall, enough for him to come up with some kind of plan, a plan that needs to involve those broken chains on the wall, if not start with them. He remembers the horses bearing down on him, their eyes, their hooves, the pain.

Strong. Terrible. Beautiful.

Angry.

Nick's hand on his shoulder brings him back to
now.
He nods at the question. Yeah, he's fine. Just thinking.

Unfortunately what he's thinking isn't what he wants to do. And it might not be the only way, but it's the fastest way out of a level they've been stuck on for too long.

He touches his wrist. Yellow. Fine. No bets on what it might be like later, okay for now.

They make themselves as comfortable as possible, and he resists the urge to check his feeds. He should apologize to their viewers for being so boring; they should be running around, shooting things. But then, they're not the only team on this level, he knows that much, and either everyone else has been through this delay or he doesn't want to know if they haven't.

He's being unfair. Lots of Chimera—lots of all video games, as far as he's been able to learn—have periods of downtime. It's just that usually nobody's watching this intently.

Leah sits, close enough for him to feel the heat off her bare arms. “Still thinking?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Still thinking of a way that isn't the one he's already thought of. “Have any random facts about horses?”

She laughs. “Fresh out. I can look some up?”

He shakes his head, smiling. She shifts, closer still, stretching out her legs. Something clinks, knocked by the toe of her boot. An empty vial, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

“What's this?” She turns it over with her fingers, holds it up so Nick, Josh, and Grace can see.

“No idea,” says Miguel. “Keep it. Okay, let's go. The sun is setting.”

Nobody disturbs them as they arrive in the square, the villagers remaining hidden, silent. Miguel takes a deep breath. “Okay. Leah, I need you to walk out onto the road. Take Nick. Tell me when you hear them, when they're getting near.”

“Okay.”

“Josh, you get to use that arm, and those chains. I'm gonna slow them if I can, but you've got to lasso them quick.”

“Sweet.” Josh nods.

“How do you plan to slow them?” Grace asks. “They nearly trampled you to death once.”

He wishes he didn't have to use it for this. Maybe this is what it's for, but he wishes he could keep it.

“Cache,” he says. “Summon orb.”

The ball of living light appears in his hand. The others come closer, gazing at it with envy and awe.

“You sure, Mig?”

“I want to get out of here.”

The past few nights the horses have come through the square, gone down the narrow road on the left of the square, past the stone building, disappeared. Narrow is key. If he stands, invincible, at its mouth, he can hit them one at a time. Hopefully. Break their pace enough that Josh, behind him, can trap each one.

He tells Leah and Nick to go, Grace to stand by the building's open door, slam it shut when the last one is inside.

The wait for Leah to get into position is too long, for her warning to come even longer. Josh is at his back, and Miguel prays he has it. They have only one chance at this.

Soon he hears the hooves himself. Loud. Angry. He grips the orb, its glow illuminating his skin. Pinpoints of a red appear on the road on the other side of the square, larger with every second.

Wait.

Wait.

Be sure they're coming this way. He's not wasting this. If for some reason they turn down one of the other roads that run like cracks off the square, they'll have to try again tomorrow.

No. Come this way.

Now he sees their sinuous metal, black and red, white and gold in a line across the open space.

Now.

“Activate,” he whispers.

The warmth is instant, so is the strength, the sensation of power. He has just enough time to glance at his hand, see the glow from under his skin as the orb disappears, used up, empty, gone.

They can't hurt you. Remember that.

He throws himself at the first, the golden one, as it enters the narrow road, sparks flying on the cobbles. His fingers close around the formed metal of its mane. He drags it to a crawl and shouts for Josh. The others, behind it, scream in fear and confusion, but he's too fast for them, too invincible. He runs between their heaving flanks and kicking hooves, knocking them off-balance long enough for one chain, two, three, four to loop around their necks. Heaving, straining, but strong enough to pull them the rest of the way, Josh drags the horses down to the open door, shielded from their rage and fear by Miguel's impervious body.

Grace slams the door shut. Together Miguel and Josh fix the chains to their bolts on the walls.

A sound of rushing. Not water, something slick, oily. The troughs fill and the horses still, in an instant as calm as they
were angry a moment ago. The building turns blue, lit by a save point that appears on the wall.

Footsteps outside, running.

“You did it!” Leah says, breathless, Nick just behind her. Miguel grins and is so happy he could kiss her.

“You okay?” asks Nick.

“Yes. Where's that vial?”

“Oh. Here.” Leah pulls it from her pocket. She steps carefully to the trough in front of the black horse, the one Miguel's pretty sure kicked him, fills it, sends it to the cache. Three objects down. Seven more. The horses are docile now, calm, but he isn't sure they are as beautiful. Nick punches the save point. Time to get out of here.

“That was,” Miguel says, collapsing on the floor of the gaming room and tearing his visor off, “the weirdest Chimera level I've ever played, and I've battled that dragon thing on Fifteen.”

“There's a dragon on Fifteen?” Grace scowls. “Damn it.”

“Big one. I'm going to bed. Meet here in the morning.”

“Nice one,” Josh says, raising his claw.

“Yeah. Not high-fiving that. Night.”

Leah follows him to his suite. “Good job,” she says, stepping inside uninvited, but he won't tell her to leave. “I should ask you if you're okay.”

“You don't have to if you don't care.”

“I care, I just don't want to annoy you by asking a question you've already answered a bunch of times today.” She pauses. “Why does Nick keep asking you that?”

His heart beats. “Nick's a worrier.”

“Yeah, sure.” She is inches away. He can smell sweat—not unpleasant—and something nice that he's sure isn't perfume. Lingering soap maybe. She's not the perfume type.

“Is it just me?” she asks quietly.

He shakes his head.

He hasn't kissed anyone since Anna. He hadn't kissed anyone before Anna either. Stop thinking about Anna, she isn't part of this. It's different. Better or worse requires more research. Her hair is thicker than it looks, her body stronger.

He feels invincible again.

There's diving gear in the cache the next morning. Leah moves up beside him as he inspects it, touches the back of his hand with a finger. She doesn't seem shy or nervous or regretful. He could kiss her a second time, right here in front of the rest of the team, but he doesn't. Some secrets are good ones.

He's going to have to tell her soon, isn't he? Before he kisses her again. He got away with the horses because of the orb, that won't happen a second time. The spot in his private cache where it sat is empty, and he's unlikely to find another. In fifteen levels of normal Chimera, he'd only ever found one.

“Can you swim?” he asks her.

“Like a fish. Although, did you know fish don't actually exist?”

He stares at her. “What?” There aren't very many in the oceans these days, but he's pretty sure they are a thing. That would be a very complex mass hallucination.

“There's nothing that can categorically be called a fish, never has been. It's a name for a group of very disparate things that all happen to swim. It's like thinking frogs and kangaroos and rabbits are the same because they all hop.”

“I . . . did not know that.”

She grins. “Stick with me, kiddo.”

The others come to inspect the gear. “No heights, Gracie,” says Nick. “Just depths.”

“Call me Gracie again and you won't make it back to the surface.”

“Got it.”

“We'll leave it here,” says Miguel. “I don't think we're going to pop up in the middle of the ocean.”

They don't. The overworld lands them on a beach. The Storyteller helpfully informs them of this.

It's a pretty beach, made of the same pure detail that Miguel thinks he's gotten used to in this new Chimera until the sand blinds him. Each grain of white glints in the whole. Behind them, tall mountains rise from green to frosted snowcaps.
Large boulders are scattered around, carelessly tossed by a giant hand. An arm of rock juts out into the water.

“Boat.” Grace points to the end of the jetty.

None of them know how to pilot one, but they get it started after a few attempts and circle around, jagged teeth of stone scraping against the bottom. It's so real, every aspect. The sky is endless, almost cloudless. It's hard for Miguel to remember that there's actually a ceiling above his head, pinpoints of light on the walls, a huge visor covering half his face. Perspective is everything. That feels like the dream, and this the real world.

Grace screams. Miguel drops his hands from wheel. “What?”

He follows her finger.

“What are those?”

He's never seen one. No one alive has seen one. But he goes to school and reads online. “I think it's a dolphin. It's a kind of fish, which I've recently learned don't exist.”

“Wrong and right,” says Leah. “It's not a fish, if there was such a thing. It's a water mammal.”

“They're pretty,” says Grace, calming down. “Will they hurt us?”

“Not likely,” says Leah. “In fact they're very intelligent. There were experiments on them for a long time. It was thought they could think like humans. There are a lot of old stories about their guiding fishermen away from storms or out
of trouble.” She looks out at the expanding circle of dolphins, all watching the boat with squeaky, chittering interest. “Maybe we're supposed to follow them. Go closer and see what happens.”