CHAPTER 4
A Battle for Two
The second Satellite Scan of SJ5 started from the south at 1:20.
Llenn returned her left Vorpal Bunny to its holster and stared at the screen of her scanner in a crouch.
She knew where she was. She’d traveled about two-thirds of a mile north from the start. She thought she’d run quite a ways, but it wasn’t that much. Hardly any ground at all, really. Her time had been taken up by other things.
But she did know a bit more about the map.
The road she’d been running on was displayed now. According to the image, it was indeed a freeway: six lanes in each direction, going directly north and south.
It was only a tiny little slice within the white, but it was better than not being able to see anything. Part of her even felt a new kind of excitement about it. I’ll run all over the map to paint in the white canvas! she thought positively. Assuming she didn’t die first.
“Huh?”
But upon closer inspection, there was more freeway displayed north of her dot on the map, where she hadn’t traveled yet.
It was Vivi who figured it out before Llenn did. With her scanner in her left hand, she said, “I can see your northward travels on my map, too. I came south from where I started. It looks like being within item-trading range will automatically combine your map data, whether friend or foe.”
“I see.”
So you didn’t need to be teammates for it to work. Maybe it would even work with a corpse? That was valuable information to learn. Should I shoot Vivi now? No, I can wait a bit longer.
She watched the scan move farther north, but not much changed.
No teams had vanished yet. That made sense. Even if a team leader had the luck of being shot in a spontaneous battle, the designation would simply travel to the next person in line. Since all six members would be scattered around the map, it would take some colossally bad collective luck for all of them to die this quickly.
Finally, the screen showed Llenn what she wanted to know most.
SHINC’s leader, Boss, had thankfully moved southwest. She was coming closer to Llenn.
“Good…”
So that made their next course of action…
“We travel northeast, watching out for enemies. Let’s step off the highway.”
She didn’t need to explain anything to Vivi. That made things easy.
“May I leave you in the lead, Llenn? I’ll follow about a hundred feet behind you, with my map up and zoomed in. If our direction starts drifting, I’ll let you know.”
Aha. So even in the mist and without a compass, they could travel northeast. The freeway already displayed on the map would be the needle indicating north and south. So as long as they charted a course forty-five degrees to the right, away from the line, they were going the correct way.
“But aren’t you afraid you’ll lose sight of me, Vivi?”
Even though visibility was slowly growing and they could hear each other talk, would a hundred feet make it too difficult?
“Not at all. We’ll use this.”
Vivi removed a round, flat item about three-quarters of an inch wide and half as thick from her inventory. It was colored black and had a little plastic dome cover on top, another half an inch tall.
Although she’d never seen this item before, Llenn knew what it was: an LED light. It would light up or blink, so you could use it to indicate your location, paths you’d taken, or rooms you’d already cleared out.
In most cases, you’d use it on the strobe setting, a blinking function for maximum visibility. You could also adjust the blink interval, the total illumination time before shutoff, the number of blinks, and the strength of the light. In short, it was a tiny lighthouse.
“So you want me to go in front, shining like a spotlight?”
A powerful light source like this would probably cut through most of the mist, the same way the muzzle flash did for the guy she killed earlier. But that would also draw the attention of the enemies who might be—no, definitely were—nearby. It would get you shot and done for.
“You’re half correct. This is set to infrared mode. It’s invisible to the naked eye,” Vivi said, bowing her head as though in thanks. That motion revealed another one of the same item, attached to the back of her beanie.
It was placed so casually that it just looked like a design accent on her cap. It didn’t look like it was producing any light at all.
“It shows up on the smartglasses that I and the rest of my team wear. It’s not anywhere near regular visibility, but you can see it at about a hundred yards in this mist. I set my beanie down earlier to test it.”
“Interesting…”
By rule, there were no sight-enhancing items or special skills that could allow you to see more terrain or characters in this event.
But light itself, whether visible or infrared, was apparently removed from this rule. It was part of the setup. Apparently, having visible light work but infrared invalid wouldn’t be fair to the people who chose to bring those items.
“As long as you have it on your head, I’ll be able to follow.”
Vivi tossed the item to Llenn, who caught it. She placed it on the back of the hood of her snow camo poncho, and it stayed stable, as if connected by magnets. How convenient.
“Well, I’ll borrow this, then…but I won’t be able to tell if any members of ZEMAL are around.”
What, don’t you have a backup pair of your fancy-schmancy glasses? she could imagine Fukaziroh saying. But Llenn was more genteel than that, and made the same point delicately and indirectly. Hopefully the message got across.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have backup smartglasses. So I’ll give orders from the rear, instead.”
So she did get the hint. Llenn couldn’t tell if that was because she really didn’t have an extra pair, or if Vivi was lying about it.
“So if you tell me not to shoot whoever’s coming, it’s ZEMAL. But anyone else, it’s up to my judgment what to do? Since it might be my own ally…”
“Exactly. It sounds like a plan to me,” Vivi said.
But it’s a lot more work for me! Llenn realized. This team-up isn’t exactly on even footing. She has me as the vanguard, right on her reins…
She couldn’t just turn around and go back on their agreement, though, and even in this situation, she had a better chance of survival than going alone.
“All right. Let’s go,” she said, without much choice in the matter. This was just wasting time.
Vivi’s scary. Watch out for her, Llenn thought but did not say aloud.
Instead, she recalled a conversation she had with Miyu about a month earlier.
Saturday, August 29th.
“Hey, Miyu…what’s that Vivi girl like?”
SJ4 was three days ago, and today had been the Dumped by Fire Nishiyamada—Consoling Karen Kohiruimaki Karaoke Festival (with Special Guest Elza Kanzaki) Event, which was now over.
Miyu had flown in from Hokkaido without hotel considerations just to spy on Karen’s first-ever date, so she wound up spending the night at Karen’s apartment.
She was sitting cross-legged on the living room rug, eating her third serving of ice cream, totally nude from the bath except for one of Karen’s T-shirts, when Karen asked her the question.
Vivi was an excellent player, a mastermind who had just led ZEMAL to a perfect victory in SJ4.
Based on their conversations in-game, she had been a salamander, the fire fairies from ALO, whose territory bordered that of Fukaziroh’s sylphs, and due to their constant run-ins, she had destroyed Fukaziroh on numerous occasions in a rather one-sided manner.
Miyu placed the three empty ice cream cups on the table, spreading them out evenly. Lastly, she gave the flat plastic spoon one final lick before tossing it into an empty cup.
Her gaze traveled off into the distance. “Her…? Oh, I know her,” she said, her words pure poetry.
“Yeah, I know that you know her.”
“It’s a long story. And a very old one…”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Did you know there are three kinds of aces?”
“What are you talking about?”
Miyu pointed at the empty ice cream cups one at a time. “Those who seek strength…those who live for pride…and those who can read the tide of battle. Those are the three types.”
“Uh-huh…”
“And she is…”
“Which one?”
“…all three.”
“Uh-huh…,” Karen repeated, listening intently to Miyu’s hard-boiled speech.
Incidentally, the whole speech about different kinds of aces was ripped directly from a rival character in a certain famous flight combat game, but Karen had no idea, so she didn’t react to it. How could she know?
Miyu ignored the fact that her reference was ignored. “To be honest, she’s a hell of a player. She’s incredible. If you had to break down what makes her so incredible…”
She was finally getting to the answer. It had taken a long time to get here.
“…it’s that she’s good at using people.”
“Ah, I see… That’s why she managed to manipulate—er, that sounds bad—lead the Machine-Gun Lovers and make the most of their strengths.”
“Exactly. She’s really tough solo, too, though. Not only are her stats excellent, she’s used to full-diving, so her movements are smooth. Real good flier, to boot. From what I’ve heard, she just travels from VR game to VR game. She’s spent a looong time on the other side. The name Vivi holds sway in many games. And the source of her name is a mystery. I’ve asked her many times, but she won’t tell me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now, Vivi as a salamander looked totally different. She was a big, buff warrior lady. But she was famous as a party strategist among the salamanders. They would say, ‘If she’s in command, you’ll never lose.’ She understood not just her allies’ weapons and fighting styles, but also their personalities, and she’d give them accurate orders to get just the right results out of them.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She knows a lot, too. One day, there was an aerial battle between a party of sylphs and a party of salamanders—as you know, you can fly in ALO. It’s harder to use combination tactics in the air than it is on the ground, so normally it just devolves into hectic one-on-one dogfights. But in this particular fight, the sylphs got wiped out. They all got turned into fires in the sky without knocking out a single foe.”
“Fires?”
“Yeah. If you die in ALO, you stay in place as a fire called a Remain Light for one minute, and you can see what’s happening. You know what happens after you die. In our neck of the woods, you’d call dying ‘turning into fire,’ you see. No idea if that’s common throughout ALO.”
“Ohhh.”
“Just keep that in mind for when you visit ALO.”
“I’ll remember it. Not that I’m ever going there.”
“Anyhoo, the sylph team got beat big-time, and when they discussed their defeat afterward, someone said, ‘The way they fought was similar to how the Germans fought aerial battles in WWII.’ What that means is, every plane has another one behind it, sticking close, to prevent anyone from getting on their rear. And there’s two groups of them—so four in total. That basically eliminates blind spots and makes it impossible to sneak up on them from behind. What was it called again…? It’s like Schbababa, or Schururu, or something like that. Sounds Germanish, right?”
Ignoring that last question, Karen murmured, “Interesting.”
“So according to that military weirdo, ALO flight makes people move more like propeller planes from WWII rather than modern jets. So we concluded that she must have played a bunch of those aerial combat games. Eventually, we came to a bold conclusion: Don’t fight any formation including Vivi in the air. Fight on the ground.”
“How is that bold?”
“It’s good strategy to avoid a losing battle. Basically, just watch out for her.”
“I see. So Vivi’s the real deal, and her leadership bringing the best out of that team was legit. I gotcha. I’ll watch out for her,” Karen agreed, and finished off her barley tea.
Miyu watched her intently. “By the way, Karen.”
“What?”
“I must go to the bathroom! Don’t look for me! I won’t be back for a while!”
“That’s what you get for eating so much ice cream!”
Twenty-one minutes after the start of SJ5, Llenn was walking through the mist.
The thick layer was supposed to be clear after an hour, but it didn’t feel like it had lightened very much. The pace of its clearing was much slower than she anticipated. At this rate, it didn’t feel like their visibility was going to be perfectly clear by two o’clock.
So either the process would speed up as time went on or the mist would stay thick until it abruptly vanished right at the hour. Knowing the lump of human garbage who designed the rules, it would more than likely be the latter.
Very soon after walking off the highway at an angle, Llenn hit the soggy earth of the median strip. The highway was eight lanes in each direction, so the median was probably pretty spacious, too. Once she crossed it, there would likely be another eight lanes of highway going the opposite direction.
In other words, the highway was likely over two hundred yards wide in total. It was like a great river. Since it was based on American freeways, it wasn’t elevated like Japanese expressways, but straight along the ground.
Battling the fear of unseen enemies, Llenn clutched her Vorpal Bunnies and walked. Though she couldn’t see her through the mist, Vivi was supposedly following about a hundred feet behind. Through the comm, Llenn told her erstwhile teammate, “The median’s over. I’m heading back over the lanes going the other way.”
“I’m following. Your angle is good. Start crossing the road just the way you’re going.”
So according to Vivi, who was watching the map being filled in, she was heading northeast the way they wanted.
“Got it.”
Llenn stayed low, mindful of her surroundings.
Her boots hit concrete again. The pace was that of a brisk walk. She was watching the space ahead and to the sides. If any dark shadows appeared, it was a player. She’d have to identify friend or foe and react accordingly.
It was a difficult situation, one that kept her nerves taut for a lengthy period of time. But she couldn’t whine about it.
Llenn crossed the third lane of eight—she was almost in the center.
And that was when it appeared.
From behind on her right—outside her field of view—she heard a low engine rumble. It rapidly got much louder.
“Huh?”
By the time Llenn had turned around to see, a dark, ferocious beast was coming out of the mist.
It was a black mass, six and a half feet wide and five and a half feet tall, roaring toward her location. A fraction of a second later, she realized it was an automobile.
“Eep!”
She didn’t know the exact model, but she could tell it was a low-riding station wagon.
It slid out of the mist and raced right for Llenn. She couldn’t see the driver because of the reflection on the windshield, but they probably weren’t explicitly trying to run her over.
Presumably, they found those wheels on the highway and were trying to make use of them to cross as much distance as possible. But they were driving through heavy mist, so if anyone suddenly popped in, well, taking them out, too, just made sense. And with Llenn still in her white poncho, the driver might not even have seen her.
Llenn could see everything as time slowed with intense concentration. The car was just a few yards away now.
She had a Vorpal Bunny in each hand, but even if she managed to hit the driver through the windshield, that wouldn’t stop the car. Nothing would, at this point.
There was no time to dodge to the right or left. The tires were wide, and as a station wagon, it was fairly tall. But this wasn’t like the Humvee in SJ2; she wouldn’t be able to hit the ground and let it pass over her. She had the big backpack on anyway.
Oh, I’m dead.
She mentally prepared herself to be sent sailing into the horizon like a home-run ball.
But as she did so, she thought, No, I won’t die! I refuse to die this early!
It was the last little bit of resistance she could muster. If she couldn’t go below or to the sides, it left only above.
“Taaa!”
She used all the leg strength she had to perform a powerful jump.
In her view, the car sank as it raced closer; in reality, she was jumping upward as the car passed below her.
Please don’t hit my feet! she prayed, folding them in as best she could.
And then the black beast roared past, just below her. She felt a new wind lifting her, sending the back of the poncho flipping upward.
As she reached the peak of her jump and began to descend, she twisted to her left and saw the dark shape vanish into the thick mist behind her. It was already out of sight when her feet hit the ground. The engine roar was growing quieter.
* * *
That was a close one, she thought, relieved. But it was too early for that.
Without any time to rest, she heard the fierce squeal of tires braking. It sounded like someone screaming.
Apparently, the antilock braking system was broken on the vehicle’s tires. It was totally run-down, so that wasn’t surprising.
Every player in GGO had the Ignore skill active against jokes about how a ruined post-apocalyptic world could possibly feature abandoned vehicles with working engines and adequate tire pressure.
“What’s happening?” asked Vivi calmly, right as Llenn landed.
“I almost got run over by a car! I jumped over it, but it’s stopping!” she shouted. She didn’t know why the car had stopped, though.
“They must have seen the pink of your legs, Miss Wanted Woman.”
Now it made sense. Too much sense.
“Ugh! Dammit!”
It was that reward. The driver must have realized it was Llenn by the flash of pink on her legs. No wonder they hit the brakes.
Meeting up with your teammates? That could wait. There was a major payout on the line. With that much cash, you could live in luxury for six months, the driver might have thought, not that Llenn could know that.
“They’ll turn around right away and try to run you over.”
“Ugh!”
“Do you have any grenades?”
“No!”
In SJ1, Llenn carried two plasma grenades. Since SJ2, she’d either taken some or not, after weighing the benefits against the danger of a chain reaction if one got hit by a bullet.
This time she’d left them behind to allow for the extra weight of the Vorpal Bunnies. If she had one, she might have been able to drop it right in front of her, but it was too late for that now.
“Shoot your pistols and retreat to the south as fast as you can.”
“And what will happen?”
“Just do it.”
She felt like Vivi was manipulating her again, but decided to go ahead and do it anyway. If Fukaziroh admitted Vivi was good at this, she had to have a plan. Probably. Most likely. And if she didn’t, there’d be hell to pay.
“Got it!”
Oh, whatever! Llenn thought. She confirmed the safeties were off on the Vorpal Bunnies and squeezed them harder.
In the Five Ordeals, she had accidentally activated the safety from squeezing too hard, which saved her life, but that was just pure dumb luck.
A beast roared from the north, where the car had gone. It was revving the engine. No stopping it from rushing back toward her again.
Llenn transitioned from back-stepping to a run. It was a full sprint going backward. This was slower than running forward, obviously, but Llenn was fast in every regard, so it was still a speedy pace. It looked almost comical, like video being rewound. But…
No matter how fast I am, I can’t outrun a car…
There was no way to beat the beast that came looming out of the mist.
Llenn didn’t know what Vivi’s plan was, but she started firing the Vorpal Bunnies anyway. She sprayed bullets, alternating right and left, as she backed away.
She wasn’t a great shot with a pistol, but with a target this big, she was presumably hitting her mark. There were visible sparks coming up, at least.
That wasn’t going to be enough to take down this beast, however. The driver could tell from the bullet lines that they were being shot at. They were probably leaning forward in the seat to make a smaller target.
It was hard to imagine that a couple of .45-caliber pistol rounds were going to stop the car’s engine. And even if she was lucky enough to hit one, a popped tire or two wouldn’t stop the current momentum.
The car’s face finally came clear through the mist, which billowed around it as it charged.
There was a spiderweb crack on the windshield, but the driver’s hands were clearly visible. Still no idea who it was.
She also realized there were assault rifle muzzles pointing out of both of the rear side windows. The guns started blazing.
They weren’t shooting in the direction the car was driving, but opened at an angle, fully automatic. This way, if Llenn tried to escape to the sides, she’d run across their lines of fire.
Uh-oh, I’m screwed. I’ll have to go up again…but I just barely made it last time. Can I do it right again while I’m running backward…?
She was feeling a bit of self-doubt when the car was shrouded in gunfire and sparks.
It was the right side of the car—left from Llenn’s perspective—that caught the bullets and produced the sparks. Glass shattered.
A shower of light came from off to the left, lighting up the side of the car with tracer rounds and bullet lines. The side doors on the right lit up with the display.
It lasted for one, two, then three seconds. At last, the car shook, and the gunfire from the rear seat stopped.
The car made an abrupt turn toward Llenn’s right as she retreated, its rear tires squealing. Eventually, it vanished into the mist again, totally out of sight.
Then a massive sound emerged that had nothing to do with gunshots.
It was a complex combination of destruction that sounded like boomkuttacrakkabwash!
Most likely, the car had flipped over. It was a traffic accident.
Llenn stopped running and heard Vivi ask, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Was that you, Vivi?”
“Yes. Thanks for playing the bait. I could see the bullet lines and the sparks, which made it easy to aim at the car.”
“I see…”
Vivi had run over through the mist and shot at the car, saving Llenn.
Her primary weapon was a light machine gun called the RPD.
“Light” referred only to the total weight, with the operative phrase being “for a machine gun.” When you included the ammo, it was a good twenty pounds, over twice the weight of your average assault rifle.
It fired Soviet 7.62 × 39 mm rounds, the same as the AK-47 series. They would pass right through a typical car door like it was paper.
Getting ten of those per second on your side would be devastating. The RPD’s drum magazine had a hundred rounds in it, connected by belt links. She’d fired for about three seconds, so the driver and the two passengers must have taken several shots each.
“I doubt they’re still alive, but can you check for me?”
Once again, it was a dangerous task, but Llenn owed the girl for saving her life.
“Got it.”
She crept through the mist in the direction of the crashing sound with her Vorpal Bunnies at the ready.
It took no time at all to find them. The car had flipped over onto its roof right where the highway met the shoulder. The tires were pointing toward the sky.
Llenn didn’t know the model. She just knew it was a car, the end.
If M were present, however, he would have been able to tell her that it was a Subaru Outback Wilderness, a large station wagon built for off-road conditions.
The Outback had lost all of its windows, its right side was pocked with bullet holes, and its top was all dented in; it was in a miserable state. In addition, one of the tires had blown clean off. The designer of the car would be crying if they could see it now.
Llenn was able to identify the state of the three riders immediately. She didn’t need to crouch and look inside—it was simply obvious. The DEAD tags were bright and visible outside the vehicle, even through the mist.
The players had been tossed out of the car during its tremendous rolling act and were now lying in the street. Real world or virtual, this is what happens if you don’t wear your seat belt.
“Confirming: All of them are dead,” Llenn said, eyeing their clothes, “and none of them are with us.”
That was a relief. Of course, it was obvious from the point of the second ramming charge that they were neither Llenn’s teammates nor SHINC nor ZEMAL, from the way Vivi shot at them. Still, it never hurt to check.
The three players, all men, were covered in red damage effects. One wore reddish-brown camo. He was a member of the team that came together under the dome in SJ2.
Another wore American military tiger-stripe camo and had assembled an outfit that looked like Vietnam War garb. He was in NSS.
The last of the three wore a sci-fi-like bodysuit with protectors on his joints. She’d never seen him in any videos.
This variation made it obvious that the three were not from the same team, but had joined together under the misty circumstances for survival, just like Llenn and Vivi had. That strategy knocked them right out of SJ5 together, too.
Llenn was about to stand up and leave when Vivi said into her ear, “Is anyone carrying a grenade on their person?”
She stared at the bodies. The man in the tiger-stripe camo had machine-gun pouches on either side, along with a couple of M26A1 grenades, which the United States used in Vietnam. His cosplay dedication was impressive; even his weapons matched the era.
“Yes.”
“Can you stick as many of them under the body as you can, then pull the pin on one?”
“…Ah, I see.”
Llenn quickly did as she said. She could tell what Vivi was planning.
After about ten minutes, these bodies would vanish from the game. At that point, the grenades Llenn touched would be treated as plunder, so they would remain on the map.
When that happened, the lever that had been held down by the weight of the dead body would come free without the safety pin in place, and it would explode in three or four seconds.
It was very unlikely this would just so happen to damage anyone, but a series of consecutive grenade explosions in the mist would certainly do a lot to alarm anyone nearby.
What a nasty idea to have, Llenn thought, both impressed and disgusted. She got right to work; grenade traps were a familiar tactic for her. She’d done them a lot in the past, particularly when startling her PK targets. I was kinda messed-up back then. I mean, really messed-up.
The task was finished nice and quick, and Llenn dashed away from the area. Someone had surely heard the fierce sounds of battle. They would either come rushing over to take advantage or run the other way because they didn’t want to die in the mist.
I hope it’s the latter, Llenn prayed, squeezing her Vorpal Bunnies.
After several seconds of walking, listening carefully for the sound of anyone attacking, she heard Vivi conclude, “Doesn’t seem like there’s another group of them.” And she enjoyed a brief moment of relief.
Then she cautiously crossed the highway and said to Vivi, “May I ask you a question?” It was really weighing on her mind.
“What is it?”
“Why were you so well prepared? Most people would never expect to use an infrared strobe light,” she asked boldly.
Because of the time of day that the event was held, night combat was next to impossible in Squad Jam, so why would you expect to need an infrared light? Maybe for a cave or some other sealed indoor space, but creating a truly dark area would basically make it impossible for any players who didn’t have nighttime gear. You would assume that any environment they’d put into the map would be dark, but not so dark that you couldn’t see.
Particularly because in Squad Jam, you had to leave behind anything you didn’t absolutely need. Every gram of unnecessary weight removed was a gram that could be taken up by something useful instead.
“Oh?” Vivi said, taken by surprise. Her surprise took Llenn by surprise.
“What do you mean, ‘Oh’?”
“You were the ones who taught us during the Five Ordeals. That sponsor loves to re-create in-game versions of the situations in his novels.”
Yes, that had happened.
“So…you read them? All of them?”
“Yes. And there was one short story where the protagonist ran away from home and was stuck in thick mist, and they started talking to their bicycle, and eventually the bicycle started talking back, but in the end, you find out it was all just the protagonist hallucinating. The story was called ‘Misty’s Journey.’”
I didn’t know about that, because I never read it… Also, that title’s not actually that dumb…for once, Llenn thought.
“So I brought the lights along, just in case there was a battle in thick mist.”
“Interesting… Very, very interesting…”
Though it was pointless to regret it now, if she’d actually read all those autographed books she won from winning SJ1, they might have come in very handy for her. Well, too late now.
At the same time, Llenn could only grapple privately with another question.
Who is this Vivi chick?
Once past the highway to the northeast, they found themselves in a residential area.
After they left the paved road, there was empty ground for about a hundred feet, which turned into flat residential lots. There were no fences between them.
Because of the mist, it was hard to tell how far the houses went, however.
They were arranged American style—mansions spread apart with spacious yards and garages along the street. To a Japanese audience, they might look like mansions, but to an American audience, maybe they were perfectly average homes.
Regardless, garages with several big cars in them, expansive yards, and private pools were not normal for Japan.
Since there was so much space, they didn’t need to build two stories. Nearly all of them were one-floor homes.
The ground between the homes and the street, which would have once contained lawns, were now dried dirt. There was no grass.
The exteriors of the buildings were in tatters. Roofs and walls made of wood were rotting away. Glass windows and doors were sometimes intact, sometimes broken. Some homes were half-collapsed, and some had completely given way.
Of course, in a setting like GGO, it would be unnatural for there to be any brand-spanking-new buildings. If so, they were a trap. You wouldn’t want to go near those.
Since there were now structures in sight, it was easier to gauge the visibility through the mist than before. At this point, details were crisp and clear up to about twenty yards. They quickly got fuzzy after that, but you could see if there was a dark shadow at around thirty or forty yards, which told you that a house was there.
Llenn proceeded down a nice flat road surface, which coincidentally happened to be heading northeast. She kept her head low.
This was because the roads were wide and the houses spread apart, so even if someone was lurking in wait inside one of the houses, she might be far enough away that they couldn’t see her yet.
With each step, she listened carefully, but there wasn’t a sound.
Walking down the silent street with houses floating eerily past her made them seem even more desolate than usual. It was like being in a horror movie.
This is scary. Oooh, it’s scary. Also, it’s scary.
If Vivi hadn’t been around to hear it, she might have whined once or twice, or ten times, just to work out her nerves a little bit.
Briefly, she wondered if she should switch from the Vorpal Bunnies back to the P90, but decided to stick with what she had for now. The P90 had better firepower, but the defensive shields in her backpack could block shots from behind her and possibly save her life.
After what felt like a very long time but was barely a minute in actuality, Llenn reached a T-intersection in the suburbs, fortunately without getting shot at.
The road split to both sides at ninety-degree angles. On the left corner was a single transport truck, rusted and dilapidated.
Before her was the dark shadow of an especially large house, which loomed menacingly overhead, blocking their path.
Llenn asked Vivi, “The road splits left and right up here. Which way should we go? Or should I just keep heading straight and walk around the big house in front of me?”
It would throw off their angle, but if she stayed on the road, the IR strobe light and smartglasses would make it easier for Vivi to track her location. It would also just be easier to walk down.
Straight ahead was a shortcut to SHINC, but going inside the house or around it would mean passing through impediments that might cause Vivi to lose sight of her.
Llenn waited for her answer.
Whatever Vivi the wise strategist says, I’ll follow faithfully. Yes, that would be best. Obviously the right answer.
She waited a few more seconds but heard nothing.
“Vivi?”
No response.
“Vivi?”
No response.
Shiver…
Shiver, shiver…
A virtual chill ran down Llenn’s spine.
Wait, did I…get left behind? she thought. But upon closer consideration, there was nothing Vivi stood to gain by doing that.
For one thing, she’d left the LED with Llenn. If she didn’t get that back, her ZEMAL teammates would likely wind up very confused down the line.
That left only one possibility.
She was in a situation that did not allow her to talk.
And the only situation that could cause that was an enemy in very close proximity.
Shiver, shiver.
Llenn moved away from the spot immediately. She once again traveled like a certain unspeakable insect and hid behind the rusted-out truck on the left side of the intersection.
Maybe Vivi couldn’t speak, but the sound from the comm was audible only inside the ear of the wearer. Even still, Llenn spoke into it as quietly as she could.
“I’m hidden.”
Then she heard a loud voice say, “Goddammit! I can’t do this anymore!”
Eep! She nearly shrieked.
The voice belonged to a man, and it was very close by. She heard him speaking aloud from just down the road she’d traveled.
There was someone out there, just through the mist, not very far away. That was why Vivi couldn’t speak. Most likely, whoever was grumbling out there had just passed Vivi’s hiding spot after traveling up behind her.
Llenn crouched even tighter behind the truck and glanced back the way she came. She spotted a figure coming through the mist.
It was just a bit over twenty yards away. As the man hurried closer, his silhouette gradually took on more detail, until it belonged to an actual person.
That’s…one of the T-S armor guys! Llenn thought, startled by the moment of recognition.
Just sixty feet away, a man covered in sci-fi body armor was loudly swearing, “What’s the point of these stupid rules?! Screw that author! This is dumb!” For some reason, he didn’t have a gun in his hands or anywhere else on his person.
He was on Team T-S, a group with a rather unique personal history.
In their first appearance in SJ2, they took advantage of some long-range shooting to pick off Llenn and Fukaziroh, exhausted after their long battle with the terrible Pitohui, and seize the victory.
In SJ3, all the members aside from Ervin, who was chosen to be on the betrayers’ team, got stuck on top of a building as the sea level rose. They thought the cruise ship was coming over to save them, but instead it smashed through the building and drowned them all. That was Pitohui’s work.
In SJ4, their defensive power kept them alive for a while, and they even worked together with LPFM for a bit. And in the playtest before that, too.
Because of their helmets, they were largely unreadable people, but from what Llenn remembered, they were veterans of Squad Jam who were pretty decent at fighting.
“Dumbass! Piece of crap! You freakin’ loser! Show yourself, sponsor! Do it, coward!” he shouted, announcing his presence to anyone around, without a weapon in his hands. It was as if he’d given up on playing the game at all. Something about it seemed off.
But now that he was unaware of them, and passing by Llenn just thirty feet away, this would be the best chance to get rid of him.
T-S’s defense was tremendous, thanks to their body armor, but as Pitohui once said, all armor has softer parts to allow for flexibility.
Those spots were under the arms, the underside of the knees and elbows, and around the neck and throat.
If she stuck her Vorpal Bunnies up against those spots and fired them at the same time, she could deal some serious damage. Just sneak up behind him after he passed, with one shot to the back of each knee. When he fell over, stick the guns against the back of his neck, with another shot each. Or more, if needed.
That would work. She could do it. She could kill him.
Llenn was good at assassination-style PKing. It was all she did when she first started playing GGO. Yeah, she was crazy.
If you can kill ’em, kill ’em when the killing’s good, and bathe in their blood, she haiku’d violently. There were no seasonal words in that haiku.
“One of the T-S guys is approaching, shouting real loud,” Llenn reported to Vivi in her tiniest voice, feeling the bloodlust surge.
“That’s a trap,” came her response at once.
“Don’t make any noise and don’t move. Let them all pass,” Vivi said.
All? Llenn wondered, picking up on that part. Her confusion lasted only a moment.
She made sure her pink legs were hidden below her poncho behind the truck and wriggled underneath it to hide.
Now she was perfectly hidden, she believed. If they spotted her here, she’d have no choice but to blast them.
She hid her presence by believing she was part of the truck. It was like that thing hunters do, “turning into” trees in order to trick the animals into walking past. Probably.
“Geez, man! Shit! What’s with these stupid suburbs? Is every single person who lives out here rich? I’m so jealous!” the T-S man bellowed from the heart, thirty feet away. She held her breath as he passed.
She could see the ID number 06 on his helmet as he stomped up to the T-intersection.
“Dammit! Now the road’s out? Which way do I go? Fine…guess I’ll go right! Are you happy?! I’m goin’ right because I’m right-handed! I love right!” he shouted, and Llenn realized what he was doing.
The T-S member walking at the head of the group had one or more friends he’d met in the mist, and they were following behind him. He was making lots of noise so that he would draw attention and possibly get shot at. If someone attacked him, his friends would jump on them at once.
It was quite a bold strategy, utilizing the full power of T-S’s body armor.
The reason he wasn’t carrying his gun was probably to play up his frustrated act, to make any attackers think he wouldn’t be able to hurt them back, and most importantly of all, so that he didn’t have to worry about it being destroyed by a sudden hail of bullets.
Since he’d run out of good reasons for shouting, he had moved on to simply complaining about the rules and whatever else crossed his mind at the moment, including mansions and rich people. These complaints also included information for the companions behind him, who were probably hooked up via comm.
Here they come…
As she stayed perfectly still, just one extra part of the truck, Llenn could see a second player approaching in the narrow crack between the ground and her poncho.
Coming up behind the T-S man was a tall person dressed in brown desert camo and a heavyset man wearing jeans and a leather jacket, like some kind of Western gunslinger.
The two of them were heading down the middle of the wide road, side by side at a distance of thirty feet from each other. Their movements were careful and quiet, listening for any sign of enemies.
Naturally, they each had their guns at the ready on their right sides, while their eyes swiveled left and right. They had their shooting fingers outstretched, not on the trigger. This was to keep themselves from creating bullet lines—and for general safety—but they would be ready to shoot the moment trouble arose.
On the right side of the road, farther away from Llenn, was the man in desert camo. He was carrying a heavily customized AKM assault rifle. It had a silencer attached, with its original stock and grip switched out, plus added sights and lights and such.
Ultimately, all of those additions and modifications probably increased its size by 50 percent and doubled its weight. It really told you what a total gun freak this guy was.
The Western gunslinger closer to Llenn was holding an angular, futuristic H&K UMP45 submachine gun, which was a total mismatch for his time-specific clothing. This one had a normal setup, but he, too, had attached a bulky silencer to the muzzle.
The silencers were clearly intended to help them eliminate any prey caught by T-S’s lure and allow them to continue hunting undetected.
If Llenn got into a firefight with them using nothing but her pistols, she would lose very fast. If she’d attacked the T-S guy without hearing Vivi out, she would have promptly been eliminated.
The danger was perilously deadly, thought Llenn redundantly, part of the truck now. She watched the men go in silence.
They didn’t have time to check every detail around them; they were only lurking behind to jump on anyone who fell for the T-S trap. They stayed on the move to ensure they didn’t lose sight of the first man.
I am a truck. I am part of the truck. No one will ever confuse me for anything other than the truck. There is no need to waste your bullets shooting at me, she chanted in her head.
“Get out of your mansion, you Richie Riches! I’ll destroy your dumb rules! Obey the rules of Squad Jam, sponsor!”
T-S’s weird sloganeering chants started to fade as he moved onward, and the pair of menacing men behind him also vanished through the thick mist, silent as ghosts.
“The other two are gone…,” Llenn murmured.
“That’s good,” said Vivi casually, which Llenn heard in person.
“Huh?”
She slowly got up and saw that Vivi was right there, in a half crouch, five yards away. She’d been following behind the two, just far enough that they couldn’t see her through the mist, and approached Llenn without drawing her notice, either.
She’d stashed the RPD in her inventory at some point, because it wasn’t visible now. Instead, she was holding an M17 pistol. There was a cylindrical silencer on the end of the barrel.
“Were you going to quietly take those two guys out…?” Llenn asked, surprised.
“Only if they realized you were Llenn.”
“I see…”
If they’d spotted Llenn, with her massive bounty, the two would have opened fire and never stopped. She would probably—no, certainly—have died. They’d hit her with so many bullets, she would die three times over.
And in that time, Vivi would have snuck up from behind them and quietly taken the two out. She would never have bothered to protect Llenn.
Llenn could feel nothing but amazement at Vivi’s ability to quietly yet skillfully prepare for the next step at all times.
Pitohui, too, was a player with excellent foresight, but she was also prone to wild mood swings and destructive impulses. She would sometimes engage in preposterous acts for the fun of it. That was part of her strength as a player.
Vivi, meanwhile, was calm and collected from start to finish, as intelligent and methodical as a chess player. She ensured that no matter what, neither she nor her teammates took any unnecessary damage. Just like during the Five Ordeals.
I see… No wonder Fuka was so impressed.
“I see… No wonder Fuka was so impressed,” she said, accidentally speaking her thoughts out loud.
Behind her smartglasses, Vivi blinked with surprise. “She said that? Really? I’m amazed.”
“You are?”
“I think Fuka is actually much stronger than me.”
“Can I tell her you said that?” Llenn asked. She didn’t get to hear the answer.
The sound of gunfire filled the world.
“!”
“Oh!”
Llenn and Vivi promptly did what any GGO player who hears gunshots does: They hit the ground.
You could survive most of the gunfights in the world as long as you got down on the ground. That’s what Llenn believed, anyway.
An abrupt and quite frenzied gun battle broke out at a fair distance, a mixed performance of different kinds of guns.
There were about five separate types of gunfire, differing in sound, intensity, and rhythm, coming from a distance of between fifty and a hundred yards. M’s lessons about telling the distance and direction of gunfire hadn’t failed Llenn yet. It was coming from the southeast, where the three men had just gone.
“Someone took the bait,” Vivi said happily.
She’d already returned the pistol and its silencer to the holster on her belt and placed the RPD light machine gun on the road. Impressive efficiency. She must have waved her hand to call up the menu while flat on her face and done all the necessary actions while Llenn wasn’t watching. Vivi was someone with a great mind for multitasking.
“Let’s put some distance between us and them.”
“Roger,” said Llenn, checking her watch. It was close to 1:27.
In a little over three minutes, the scan would begin, but this fight wasn’t going to last that long. At that point, Llenn’s location would be revealed to the winner, and they’d realize she was that close the whole time. Better to distance themselves now while they had the chance.
Once she was certain there was no one else around, Llenn got to her feet.
A hundred yards was certainly close enough to catch a stray bullet from a nearby firefight. So she made sure no bullet lines were swinging her way, then headed for the left fork of the intersection, to the northwest.
It was taking her away from SHINC’s direction, but that would just have to wait. Survival came first.
The raucous sounds of battle were still audible. They never stopped. The rattle of guns was like a drumroll, keeping a ceaseless beat.
Llenn suspected that someone—or someones—noticed T-S but did not realize he was a lure and opened fire. T-S took the shots without flinching, and his two backups retaliated.
But because of the mist, the battle wasn’t resolving itself. Perhaps they were all running around and shooting in the direction of the nearest bullet line, unaware of who was friend or foe.
She continued down the road, putting more distance between herself and the fight. No need to get involved, thank you very much. And she made it quick, knowing more enemies could be approaching, drawn by the sound.
“Are you keeping up, Vivi?” she asked her temporary partner, who was presumably following in the mist.
“Yep, no problem.”
“That’s goo—”
But she couldn’t finish that sentence because she was interrupted by something coming through the veil.
It took shape as soon as she saw it and was gone just as quickly, the same way as when she encountered the NSS member while sprinting down the highway.
But this time it went faster. She didn’t recognize what she had just seen until half a second after it was gone.
“Ah.”
Just after Llenn recognized it, it must have passed Vivi behind her.
“Ah.”
She made the exact same sound just a moment later.
“Aaah! Run as fast as you can! Follow my light!” Llenn cried, sticking the Vorpal Bunnies into their holsters and breaking into a run. Her pace was just slow enough that she thought Vivi would be able to keep up.
“Got it,” said Vivi’s voice in her ear.
She didn’t know if the other girl was actually keeping up, but they were running on a paved surface. The IR strobe light and smartglasses would surely be enough for her to see Llenn.
Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!
Her pulse was racing like a jackrabbit, or like the automatic gunfire she could still hear in the distance.
The thing she saw for just a moment…
For just a split second, but quite clearly enough to make out. There was no doubt…
It was…
A player on a bicycle.
There had been a mountain bike somewhere on the map, which a player found and was now riding at breakneck speed. It was basically as fast as Llenn at her absolute limit.
And Llenn recognized the general look of the player. It was someone she had seen before in person, not on a recording. Someone she had seen in the last Squad Jam.
Their team wore all kinds of bulky armor, but on the front only, plus a helmet, so they looked like giant tin robot toys. On the other side, they carried huge backpacks.
He was with them! DOOM, the suicide bomb squad!
She couldn’t help but feel her hair stand on end.
They had nearly wiped out Llenn’s team right at the start of SJ4, in their very first appearance in the event. DOOM wore armor only on their front side and would approach any enemy, even through gunfire if necessary. Once in range, they blew themselves up with the high-grade explosives in their backpacks. It was the ultimate offensive team.
They would never win on their own, but in terms of their ability to cause havoc, none were more dangerous. They were basically terrorists capable of completely destroying even a heavy favorite.
And from personal experience in SJ4, Llenn knew their explosive power was nothing to scoff at. From watching the video after the event, M surmised that anyone caught within a radius of fifty yards would be annihilated, even if you were behind cover. The ripples from the shockwave alone would turn your internal organs to mush.
And if you needed more than that, without seriously heavy protection like concrete walls, the force would send you flying far enough to potentially cause fatal damage all on its own.
On top of that, the blast winds carried even farther, so if anything was blown up between you and the blast, it would be turned into lethal shrapnel, just like in a hurricane or tornado.
If M hadn’t overturned the trailer in SJ4 and the sturdy vehicle (plus iron beams) hadn’t shielded them, LPFM would have been blown to kingdom come. Or at least, all the way off the bridge.
What Llenn was thinking about—was terrified of—was where the man on the bicycle was going to explode.
If he rode right into the middle of the firefight and detonated, that would be nice. But it might be too optimistic.
If he blew up by the closest enemy to Llenn and Vivi, it was a sure thing that they would be significantly hurt by it, too.
And while it might have been a figment of her imagination, the backpack he was carrying sure seemed larger than the last time.
But maybe it’s just a figment of my imagination. I sure hope it is. It sure better be!
As she ran, Llenn said, “That guy was on the self-destructing team last time! We gotta put some distance between us, or we’ll get yeeted right off the map!”
“Spoken like a true zoomer.”
“That’s not important right now!”
“Then let me say what is important. Slow down a little bit. I can’t catch up to you. I’ll lose sight of you.”
“Ugh…”
Llenn had shifted into a full sprint without realizing it. Chagrined, she slowed back down.
She couldn’t see anyone in the mist, but if she did run across them, she’d immediately shout, “Hey, you! It’s dangerous this way. Turn around!”
The sound of the firefight was getting quieter. No explosions yet.
There you go. Don’t explode. Don’t explode, don’t explode, don’t you dare explode.
He exploded.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login