Soda Pop Soldier (5 page)

“Four and Five, stand by to move up,” I say over the chat.

“Covering,” screams someone from First. Then, “Suppressive fire on that two-story at our one o'clock.” Someone's got leadership skills. I make a mental note to watch the replay and find out who took charge of First.

“Move, Second, into the hangar!”

The gunfire from First is cacophonic, but we still lose a guy, Player9000177, as we cross the street firing and race for the low dark mouth of the hangar entrance. Once we're inside, I tell what's left of Second to watch the exits.

I bring up my CommandPad, watching as my avatar exchanges the smoking M4X for the battered CommandPad with the nicked and camouflaged edges. Game designers like to make things look frontline authentic. The satellite feed shows me where my squads are and any known WonderSoft positions that have recently fired weapons or been observed by any of my troops. WonderSoft appears strung out across the complex. We're concentrated in three areas—First on the street, Second with me in the hangar, and the rest back at the LZ. Good. Now it's time to find the “hill” and try to be king of it for at least three minutes.

Even though WonderSoft is firing on the hangar, I'm able to stand back and use my tactical monocular to scan parts of the complex. If I happen to land on the King of the Hill entrance, I should get an intel analysis timer. But it doesn't happen.

I need my first streak reward.

Baaanngg!
Suddenly my screen turns a blinding white as ambient sound dissolves in a high-pitched whine.

Someone's just flash-banged us.

My first thought is that WonderSoft is trying to take the hangar.

Seconds later my screen shows me shifting, distorted double images of my surroundings. Someone fires wildly as tracers blur across my vision. I hit Z and throw my avatar to the floor of the hangar, watching my screen throw wild ghost images everywhere.

“Boycott TarMart because of their racialist policies!” screams someone on my team. When my on-screen vision returns, I can see that the someone is SGTSmokeLoveWeed, and he's preparing to pop another flash-bang and blind us all. I set my three-pronged aiming reticle over his chest and ventilate him with a short burst from my M4X. His avatar's body sprays blood spatter across the wall of the hangar, ragdolling from each impact, jerking in time to some grotesquely hip dance. He's dead and out of the game before he even hits the wall.

Great!

Third Squad was useless to begin with, and now I get a bonus round of “let's take this very public opportunity to make a personal statement at the expense of my online job.”

Don't people ever get tired of protesting? Not everything's a March on Selma moment.

AwesomeSauce is hit, but she's not dead.

“What're we gonna do, Question?” she asks me over the chat.

Yeah,
I ask myself.
What are we gonna do?

One of Second Squad took a
Medic
perk and he's throwing out medical packs emblazoned with the red-and-white ColaCorp logo. In the dim little hangar, AwesomeSauce's health starts to return.

Surprise, surprise, terminating SGT-whatever has rewarded me with the kill I need to start my first streak reward. The refs were on that one. Good call.

Now I have access to extra equipment, supplies, air strikes, and a whole host of options depending on which streaks I've selected to unlock each time I reach a kill tier.

I activate my first streak. A moment later the gritty voice of the unseen game announcer calls out, “
Drone Recon,
inbound.”

I scan the overcast skies and see the shadowy outline of the spindly recon drone circling the complex. I check my CommandPad.

Recon Drone Intel package available.

I click on it.

Two reports.

I can see everyone on the battlefield. WonderSoft is concentrated around a small area west of our position on the street. The main building separates us. They're moving toward it. The rest of the Softies are on the buildings all around us. I distribute the report to my squads, and seconds later I hear our two snipers begin to fire from the distant construction crane. I watch as a Softie blinks out of play on my CommandPad.

The other report reveals the entire tactical map, where the King of the Hill zones are and also other possible intel locations. I spot a King of the Hill zone at an entrance to the main building just ahead of us, a loading dock. But there's another entrance on the other side of the facility right where that smaller group of Softies is heading. Back near the landing pad there's another small secondary intel site, simply titled Sulaco Uplink.

I don't have time for that. We've either got to crack that King of the Hill zone at the end of the street or somehow stop WonderSoft from starting the clock on theirs.

“Listen up, Fourth . . . I need you to double-time it to the location I'm marking on your HUDs now. That's the King of the Hill zone WonderSoft's gonna try and use. I need you to stage here.” I draw a red circle behind some smaller buildings near the WonderSoft door. “Fifth, I need you to move to this location and put some fire onto that target. Once you're in position, open up on 'em. Fourth, as soon as Fifth Squad works the target over, move in and finish off any survivors. You shouldn't have much resistance between here and there, but that doesn't mean there isn't a Softie out there running
Stealth
perks, so watch the shadows.”

“Question.” It's AwesomeSauce. “We can't take that zone at the loading dock with just what's left of First and Second.”

“Have to,” I reply.

I watch the map as both the fourth and fifth squads move out to intercept WonderSoft. In five minutes it should all go down.

“All right, First, we're gonna need you to keep all the Softies heads down for a minute. We're moving all the way up the street to the loading dock. Once we get there, we'll hack it and start the zone. Try and keep them off us.”

“Roger that, Question,” says a guy named BubbasChoice.

“Well, AwesomeSauce, we've gotta take the hill, that's the name of the game. You with me?”

“I'll go first.” Her tone is bored. Flat. Condemning.

“Anyone got a streak goin' yet?” I ask over BattleChat.

“I got
Death from Above,
” says one of the snipers. “Three kills already.”

And you haven't activated it yet,
I'm thinking. “Could you go ahead and use it?” I ask him.

“Sure 'nuff.”

A moment later I hear a low-flying aircraft high above the battlefield.

“Air strike, inbound,” warns the game announcer.

“We need to hit the entrance now,” I shout over BattleChat. “Go! Go! Go! Everyone take the hill. Snipers, do what you can to give us some cover.”

I rush out into the street, beating AwesomeSauce. Hoping at least one person will follow me, I head toward an abandoned cargo truck canted in the middle of the muddy street, firing short bursts at where I think WonderSoft might be. I reach the truck and pin my avatar against the side. Bullets are flying everywhere, smacking into the side of the truck on galvanized, crushed soda can notes. I can hear the loud, distant cracks of our snipers' rifles. I lean out from one side of the truck and watch as most of Second Squad rushes up the muddy street around me, heading for the loading dock. Three of them get hit instantly. I draw a bead on one of the WonderSoft shooters and double-tap him in the chest.

I need four more kills for my next streak.

What's left of Second is with me on the truck.

“Keep firing, First, until we reach the door,” I call out over the chat.

“Hey, Question, truck's on fire,” notes AwesomeSauce.

She's right. In seconds it'll explode.

“Get away!”

Everyone sprints toward the loading dock.

The truck explodes behind us.

Casualties.

Above us, a small close-air-support aircraft is making missile strikes on the Softies near us—
Death from Above
. One rocket goes straight down into a building ahead of us, and a second later the entire building explodes, sending a shock wave of debris and flame out at us. My avatar is knocked back and onto the muddy street. I take 50 percent health damage.

I'm up and moving just steps away from the shadows of the loading dock. I make it to the loading dock. A small sign near the security door welcomes everyone to Hadley's Hope.

First Squad is firing from behind a concrete wall down the street.

I hack the lock, watching as my avatar inserts his high-tech hacking tool into the computer lock and starts the operation. Fifteen seconds later, the game announces, “King of the Hill starts now.”

The clock starts, and we've got three minutes to go.

“
Enemy Drive-by
, inbound!” yells the in-game streaks' menacing announcer.

“Take cover!” I call out needlessly.

Down the street, a low-riding flat windowless APC with thick ceramic tires and a small swivel-mounted Hauser minigun turret races toward us.

I've never seen an APC like that on a streak.

I briefly wonder if it's some kind of new WonderSoft vehicle, just as I hear
Bluuuuuurrrr;
it's the gun erupting in a loud, high-pitched sound as it sends hundreds of miniballs ripping into what remains of Second Squad—except for me, AwesomeSauce, and another guy. And seconds later, that guy's heavy machine gun–wielding avatar disappears in a shimmering haze of lead as his body receives hundreds of hits almost instantly. AwesomeSauce switches out her HK Mini for the RPG on her back. She fires fast and skips the RPG off the muddy road with a small splash and right into the undercarriage of the APC. It explodes upward and lands on its side with a metal-rending crash as it begins to burn.

“That worked” she yells over BattleChat as if I need to be told.

The King of the Hill clock is already up thirty seconds. Two and half minutes to go.

For the next two minutes it's a shooting gallery and we're the ducks. WonderSoft's elite unit keeps us pinned down behind the narrow confines of the loading dock, making sure they keep up the fire while they reload. We take sporadic shots and I get two of them.

I need one more kill to activate my next streak.

I check the CommandPad and see that Fourth Squad is engaging the WonderSoft unit on the other side of the facility. WonderSoft has started the clock on their King of the Hill zone. For some reason, Fifth never ended up where I told them to and they're moving in way too soon and too close on WonderSoft.

“
Enemy Gunship,
inbound,” warns the game announcer.

If they drop it in on us, we're finished. I hear the approaching engines of the gunship. It's an HK. A hunter-killer. It streaks over the darkened sky and begins to hover above WonderSoft's zone. Its auto cannons roar to life and I watch on the CommandPad as both fourth and fifth squads are wiped out.

One minute.

I spot a distant Softie shifting position and drop my sights over him, squeezing off a quick burst. I hit him, and he keeps running. I track a second longer, lead him, then fire again. This time he goes down, and I've got my last kill.

And my next streak reward.

I call in an
Auto Gun Drop
and just after the game announcer says, “
Auto Gun
package, inbound,” a dropship streaks underneath the gray canopy of the storm and drops a parachute containing the
Auto Gun
package off its back cargo deck. It lands near the beacon I've tossed onto the floor of the loading dock. I only have to crawl out onto the platform a little way to unlock and activate the package. Once I do, I watch as the sides of the crate flop down and the gun unpacks itself. Within seconds, its targeting lasers activate, cutting through the gun smoke and gloom as it begins spitting out short staccato bursts of hot lead at any WonderSofties within range. I get six more kills in the space of a minute.

“Thirty seconds!” calls out AwesomeSauce over the chat.

I'm down to nine players from both surviving squads, including the two snipers at the far end of the complex.

WonderSoft cracks their zone and advances to the second map just after our timer hits zero.

We get the King of the Hill bonus as the loading dock's main door slides open, revealing a shadowy, wide, low-ceilinged hallway where overhead lights flicker on and off at random intervals.

“RangerSix, this is PerfectQuestion,” I say as I call in our status to Command.

“Six here; go ahead.”

“Command, we need reinforcements. I'm down to nine total, including myself.”

“I know, I've been watching the network feed, son. Heckuva a job. Bad break on Third Squad, though . . . but I was hoping you'd get the main door open, at low cost, and you did. I'm authorizing you one of our fan SF units. I think they'll do the job considering where you're at.”

Where I'm at?

“Where am I at, exactly?”

Long pause. Hairs rising on the back of my neck.

“You didn't read that sign at the front gate, the one that said property of Weyland-Yutani Corporation?”

“Saw it. Didn't mean anything.”

“And the big identifier on the face of the main building,” continues RangerSix. “LV-426. C'mon, Question, you've never seen the greatest sci-fi combat film ever made?
Aliens
.”

I pause. On-screen my avatar crouches on the platform as the eight other surviving players reload their weapons. My avatar is holding one hand to his headset, indicating I'm in communication with another element. Over ambient sound I hear the high-pitched whine of an Albatross's engines powering into its braking hover. I turn. The Albatross rotates above the street. In front of the loading dock. it hovers above the mud.

“Everybody wants to play Space Marine, Question, but this is where it all started . . . Colonial Marines,” says RangerSix over the chat with a wheezy laugh.