CHAPTER 6 Pitohui’s Charge 9:08 PM. An hour and eight minutes had passed since the start of the game. “Heya! Thank you for coming together, chosen warriors!” Between Llenn’s scurrying around and Pitohui’s persuasion, they had gathered a whole bunch of players taking part in the playtest. They were standing behind a large ruined building about a mile and a quarter from the castle in a south-southwest direction. Even the GM6 Lynx couldn’t hit at this distance, and it was too far away to even see the enemy. There were twenty-seven people present, all told. “All right, can everyone hear me? If you can’t hear me, raise your hand!” Addressing the crowd like the king, or like a teacher leading a student assembly, was Pitohui. Four of the twenty-seven were LPFM. M, Fukaziroh, and Llenn had their backs to the crowd, watching out in case the enemy emerged from the castle on the offensive. Llenn and Pitohui had two lives left, while M and Fukaziroh had three each. The other players were gathered before Pitohui, bunched in their own squads. “……” David, who was glaring at Pitohui in silence, and the rest of his teammates on MMTM made up another six. Each of them had two lives left. T-S was another six people, looking larger than anyone else because of their bulky full body armor. They all had two lives. ZEMAL had five members bearing their machine guns and ammo-feeding backpacks stuffed with bullets. They, too, had two lives left. Lastly, the six Amazons that everyone knew as SHINC were standing in a circle with the PTRD-41 standing at the center like a lance. Tanya had one life left, the rest had two. “I don’t suppose we need to do introductions. We went through plenty in SJ3,” said Pitohui. No one protested, because it was true. Even David didn’t say anything, although he went through more than plenty and scowled. “…” “First of all, I’d like to take any questions or comments you have at this stage. Anyone?” Pitohui asked. There was no response. “All right, then. Let’s go over the situation.” She brought up a map and set it to a large size on the ground between herself and the groups. It was in full 3-D with the various terrain laid out, castle in the center and the respawning circle at the outside. Each team looking at the map saw only their own dot, but since they were all in the same place, the location was the same anyway—and located directly on the circle. “So the castle is surrounded by walls, with gates to the north, south, east, and west. The towers are at each of the midpoints,” Pitohui explained, pulling up screenshots taken from the drone earlier and opening windows to send them to each team. The screens appeared in the air in front of them. She’s so thorough. She knew it might come to this, Llenn admired, listening as she stayed on guard. The team leaders and their members eagerly examined the valuable aerial details. Aside from four members of MMTM, no one else had seen the interior courtyard or the castle building itself. And they’d died almost as soon as they set foot inside, so there’d been no time to memorize anything. “This is huge,” admitted David. “It’s fantastic intel,” agreed Boss. Both of them were clearly thinking of how to conquer that castle at full tilt. Some of the other members were murmuring among themselves. “If you put a machine gun atop that castle, it’d be damn easy to protect,” said Huey of ZEMAL, inviting vigorous agreement from his teammates. So one team was thinking in exactly the wrong direction. “Whoa, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Good job pulling that stunt earlier, Pito,” said Fukaziroh, overhearing them. “One hundred percent agreed,” added Llenn. If ZEMAL had somehow joined the NPCs side, they would have had that many more machine guns shooting in all directions to worry about. It’d be like attacking a porcupine. Once all the chattering died down, Pitohui said, “As you’ve seen, all the gates are open, and they are guarded by rubble. It seems like there were never closeable gates by design—if they did exist at this size, the whole place would be impregnable to begin with. So they took them out for game balance.” That rang true for Llenn. If they were having this much trouble already, having full-size castle gates blocking them from the start would make the whole exercise completely impossible. “You can get inside by climbing over the rubble, but they’ve got explosives placed just inside the gateways. We found that out when MMTM got blown to kingdom come earlier. Thanks for that! We won’t let those valuable lives go to waste!” MMTM scowled as a group, but none of them said anything. “However, they can’t have an unlimited series of explosives. If you rush in after the blast, you could probably get past. Also, they’re not booby traps, but manually detonated bombs. If we can throw off their timing, there’s a good chance we can pass them up.” Oh? How do you know they’re manual? Llenn wondered, but she didn’t want to ask and interrupt the speech. David, in fact, knew the answer. “That figures. We didn’t see any activation wires or anything else. And it was perfectly timed to catch all four of us together.” Ah, that makes sense, Llenn realized. “I would assume that it was Cain who activated the trap and shot the grenades. The north gate is his territory.” “Got it.” “It’s easier to approach the north side because the forest comes up close. That’s why they’re using mines and grenades to protect it. Elsewhere, there’s no cover for half a mile around the walls. Therefore—” SHINC’s Boss picked up from there. They’d been rebuffed from the east. “The machine gunner, antimateriel rifle user, and four assault gunners move flexibly around the walls to guard.” “That’s right.” “What a goddamn pain in the ass,” swore David. “It is a most bothersome challenge, indeed,” said the burly Boss in the daintiest manner. Pitohui added, “For a moment, I actually had a strange thought. That the people presenting the game just wanted us to try to take the castle.” What does that mean? wondered Llenn. The others seemed to have the same question. They waited for Pitohui to explain. “In other words, to make us rival teams kill one another and have the game end with the castle totally unharmed. It seems like the sort of messed-up thing that twisted author would come up with. That’s one possibility, of course—but that kind of pisses you off, doesn’t it?” “Yeah.” David nodded. “Of course,” said Boss, puffing out her chest. Even Ervin of T-S, who hadn’t said anything to that point, piped up. “I’d hate that! I wanna knock that castle down! And if that’s not possible, I’d at least like to get a toe inside!” he said through the helmet. “That’s right! Let’s do it!” cried Huey, raising a fist. Hang on, you were the ones just saying…, Llenn thought. Well, at least they’re in the mood to help. As Pitohui said before she went running around the map, ZEMAL’s prodigious firepower was a major benefit to have on their side. “In that case!” Smack! Pitohui clapped her gloved hands together crisply. “Hey there, head honcho! I’ve got a great deal on a strategy if you’re interested!” she cried out like a barker in a red-light district luring passing drunks into her establishment. It was 9:20, and everyone had heard Pitohui’s entire plan. “All right. I’m in.” David was the first to accept. “We’ll do it,” said Boss. “No objections!” chimed in T-S’s Ervin. Lastly, ZEMAL’s leader, Huey, cheered, “We saved some ammo just for this!” Llenn was impressed by Pitohui’s smarts and David’s quick thinking in agreeing to it, but she did want to know what exactly ZEMAL considered to be “saving ammo.” “Very well! Then we are all one—for the day, that is! Let’s show those NPC developers and that wretched author that Squad Jam players aren’t actually at one another’s throats all the time! We’ll do this, life and death!” Pitohui said, launching into a passionate speech. Llenn wondered how long it was going to be. “One last thing! A very important thing, in fact!” Apparently, not that long. “Don’t think of these enemies as NPCs and AIs! What I mean is: They’re as brilliant as human beings but just as flawed as human beings! They are not perfect, infallible automatons!” Finally, Llenn couldn’t resist the urge to turn around and look. What she saw was a group of soldiers, eyes blazing with battle.
Llenn’s wristwatch read 9:38. It was getting late, but the sky was as gray as ever. It was daytime here. She felt like she was going to get jet lag. “All set,” she murmured quietly. Pitohui’s voice sounded right in her ear. “We’re all good, too. Well, it’s two minutes ahead of time, but shall we get started? Is everyone else ready? It would seem so. In that case—let’s do this!” Llenn brushed her finger along the P90’s side to make sure its safety was off. Pitohui’s operation had begun. It began in the flatlands to the south of the castle. What was it, exactly? The closest comparison might be a “centipede race,” that event from school competitions where teams of players were tied together in a straight line, front to back. A number of centipedes were making their way toward the castle at a brisk walk over the packed soil. Unlike the school competitions, however, all of these centipedes had guns and were on a mission to kill their enemies. Also unlike the school competitions, the lead member of each centipede was a sci-fi soldier wearing full body armor. Each one bore a large shield in both hands. So there were six centipedes, spread out at intervals of about twenty yards, all power-walking their way directly toward the castle. As soon as they got within half a mile of their goal, a point on the castle began to flicker. The PKP machine gun was streaming bullets toward them, with perfect aim as usual. But all of the bullets bounced harmlessly off shields and armor. “Everyone all right?” asked Ervin to the “teammates” behind him. “We’re fine. Nice job,” said David. Then everyone heard SHINC’s eagle-eyed sniper Anna cry out, “Get down!” All of the centipedes hit the deck. It was almost as if they were competing in some kind of sport. The armored soldier in the lead of each centipede lifted his shield to cover his head and pulled it as tight to his body as he could. The second person behind him would then cling to him for dear life. There was a larger flash of gunfire from the castle, and the antimateriel GM6 Lynx’s .50-caliber round came screaming toward them. It struck the centipede led by Soldier 005 with perfect accuracy. Ga-gonk! The sound of the bullet hitting the shield was even louder than the gunshot, it seemed, and sparks flew from the surface of the shield. It was tilted at an angle, however, so the bullet did not go through, but instead got deflected up into the air. The force of the impact was severe on 005, but fortunately for him, Boss was right behind him to help absorb the blow. “Hrgh!” Pitohui’s strategy wouldn’t have worked without the cooperation of the entire allied team—but it would have meant absolutely nothing without the life-or-death determination of T-S. Ervin’s valiant effort in SJ3 said a lot about the defensive ability of those suits they wore. His had deflected bullet after 7.62 mm bullet from M’s gun.
Each of the six was holding a hardy plate from M’s shield, made out of spaceship hull. They were there to stand at the front and be targets as walking shields. The rest were sticking as close as possible behind them, forming long lines just like those schoolyard centipede races. It was very simple, but without any cover to hide behind, it was the most effective method of closing the gap to the wall. “Center tower! Fourth window from the right!” Anna and Tohma were in the back, about a hundred yards behind the centipedes. Tohma, of course, had her special antitank rifle poised and ready. When Anna—watching through binoculars—gave her orders, she said “Khorosho!” in acknowledgment, placed her scope over the spot where the GM6 Lynx’s muzzle flash happened, and fired when the bullet circle reached its smallest width. The shock wave of the blast traveled through the ground, kicking up dust. The massive bullet shot forward, and its sizable cartridge ejected downward. Even this gun, in the hands of the team’s best sniper, Tohma, couldn’t hit its target from a thousand yards away. The bullet hit the side of the spire and kicked off a tremendous hunk of stone. Tohma quickly reloaded, aimed for the same window, and fired again. The enemy sniper had lots of targets to aim at this time, so they didn’t want him to have a lock on them at all times. This time, the bullet vanished through the window. Tohma reloaded again, sure that after two shots the enemy would aim for her next—but the GM6 Lynx did not fire. There was no way to tell whether she had killed him or destroyed the gun. “Staggered advance! Odd numbers!” Pitohui was giving orders from the safe spot behind M’s large body in one of the centipedes. Her comm was connected to everyone else’s. The odd-numbered T-S members stood up, followed by the people behind them. These were the odd teams. They reformed as an airtight centipede and began to move forward, step by careful step. To provide backup to the others, the machine gunners behind the even-numbered leaders steadied their guns in a crouch and began suppressing fire toward the castle. There were five gunners with 7 mm guns capable of firing half a mile in the allied team, each one in a different centipede. They were ZEMAL’s Huey (001), Shinohara (004), and Tomtom (003), SHINC’s Rosa (005), and MMTM’s HK21-wielding Jake (002). M was in centipede 006, so he used the M14 EBR instead. The machine gunners were arranged to be third in each column. The second person had to be a physical backstop to T-S. And since the attacking shots were coming in from a slight overhead angle, the farther back in the column—tightly packed though they were—the higher chance of getting hit. So the gunners were third. For the purpose of stability, the machine guns were either placed on the shoulder of the second person or on a bipod. That left the muzzles right next to the head of the T-S member leading the centipede. If it wasn’t for the helmet, the exhaust fire and blast would be absolutely concussive. Firing a machine gun at this distance, between the recoil and the inherent lower precision, inevitably caused a spray effect. You couldn’t pinpoint-attack a target the way you could with a sniper rifle. Still, it was enough to just send a curtain of bullets toward the castle. The enemy would either be afraid to pop their heads out into the open because of a stray shot hitting them or be prevented from aiming properly. That was enough. Jake, Shinohara, and M opened fire, filling the area with furious sound, while the odd-numbered teams made it forward about fifty yards safely. There was no attack from the castle during that time. “Now switch!” Pitohui ordered. The advancing and covering teams switched places. The off-numbered teams huddled down, and their machine gunners started shooting. Tomtom and Huey made full use of their backpack-reloading system. “Ryaaa!” “Aiyaaaa!” They peppered the distant castle without hesitation. They could fire their guns without screaming, of course, but if they weren’t screaming, they wouldn’t be ZEMAL. “Yikes…” Ervin and the rest of T-S were both aghast and impressed. “I wish I had one of those,” Rosa muttered to herself. The alternation of advance and back up continued. The centipedes were slowly but surely getting closer to the castle. “Will this work the whole way…?” Boss murmured to herself. Pitohui heard her and replied, “Probably not. They’re not stupid.” “No, they’re not,” agreed David, who was supporting Jake’s HK21 on his shoulder. They might be catching the enemy off guard for now, but they weren’t stupid enough NPCs that they would let the advance continue indefinitely. They were probably moving as much manpower as possible in the direction of the enemy advance, preparing to counter. If they couldn’t snipe their foes from long distance, they would find another way to neutralize the humans. “The only question is when,” Pitohui commented. Llenn listened in absolute stillness. It was 9:43. Five minutes had passed since the centipedes started moving. They’d succeeded at closing to within two thousand feet of the castle without a counterattack. Anna and Tohma stayed farther back, still half a mile from the castle, changing positions constantly. “I’ve got movement!” Anna was the first one to notice through her binoculars. Smoke began to issue from the ground at the southern part of the castle wall. The smoke was coming from over ten points at the same time. They were in all different colors: red, yellow, green, and so on. The trails quietly mingled until they formed the same gray color as the sky, stagnating in the windless air and hiding the castle. “Large number of smoke grenades in front of the castle walls. Can’t see the gates anymore,” Anna reported. The centipedes reported back in the affirmative. They could see the castle blending in with the sky and vanishing, too. It was almost like magic. “I figured they’d try this,” said Pitohui, smiling. Several minutes earlier, she’d been in the midst of explaining the plan to the allied team. “The thing is, let’s say this centipede race strategy works, and we close the distance bit by bit. If you were guarding the castle, what would you do to eat up the clock and delay the enemy’s advance?” Pitohui asked. “A smoke screen,” said David immediately. “I’d toss out all the smoke grenades I have to rob them of visibility, if only for a minute or two.” Fukaziroh listened to the entire plan in silence, but eventually she couldn’t resist saying what was on her mind and whispered to Llenn, “It’s the Dororon Smoke Screen strategy!” “Huh?” “Oh…you don’t get it? I was making a pun on an old anime…” “Let’s just stay quiet, shall we?” Boss turned to David. “I don’t understand. We wouldn’t be able to see, but they couldn’t see us, either. And wouldn’t that make it easier for us to approach the castle?” T-S and ZEMAL had the same question and looked to David for the answer. “That’s right. But it instills a measure of doubt in the attacking side. Are they going to send a strike team out from the castle through this screen? If we get too close, are we opening ourselves up to attack from the side?” “Ah, I get it…,” Boss muttered, as did the others. By strike team, he meant a group of soldiers who broke off from their main encampment to achieve certain objectives. If one or two enemies left the castle without the team’s knowing, they could easily attack the defenseless sides of the centipedes, which were meant to focus all defense on the front. And even if they didn’t actually attack, the centipedes would be forced to watch their sides at all times, as David warned. They couldn’t simply throw a unidirectional hail of bullets toward the front. “We have the option of just making a power play and charging while we have the smoke screen up,” David continued, “but if there’s no strike team, they could be ready to meet us in combat right outside the walls and gates. We have two more rifles than they do, but that’ll make it a lot harder to take down the castle within the time limit.” “Exactly! You come up with the nastiest strategies very quickly! Splendid thinking!” “I’d prefer if you pick either complimenting me or insulting me and sticking to just the one. Anyway, what do we do if that happens?” David asked. Pitohui grinned and said, “I’ll explain that now. But I’m not considering the possibility that it doesn’t turn out this way, so cut me some slack.” “What do you mean?” 9:43. Now that Pitohui knew it had indeed turned out that way, she gave the order. “Time to go, Llenn.” 9:43. Llenn had been hiding in the forest on the north side of the castle, watching for movement at the gate. When Pitohui’s order came in, she stood up. She ripped off the mottled-green-camo poncho, returning to her most comfortable and fitting outfit: that all-pink combat suit. “Taaa!” She began to run. Llenn burst forward at top speed, P90 held in front of her. She raced through the tall trees and was quickly out of the forest. From there, it was a hundred-yard sprint to the castle wall. But Llenn wasn’t the only one who left the trees. A few yards to her sides, SHINC’s Tanya and MMTM’s Kenta rose and began to run as well. They were the quickest members of their teams—but of course, Llenn was the fleetest of foot, faster than everyone. She promptly reached automobile speed, rushing forward without another thought, straight toward the castle gate. “Taaa!” There were no zigzags, no serpentines, no feints. She would be very visible if she was running at a direct right angle, so she was approaching from a slightly oblique angle to ensure she wasn’t seen from the castle itself. She hurtled directly toward the spot where MMTM had been blown up earlier without losing the tiniest bit of speed. “Taaa!” She jumped. If this were the real world, Llenn had world-record one-hundred-meter-dash speed. She could win the gold medal for certain in the high jump. Her launch line was outside the castle wall—and her landing point was inside that wall. Llenn soared through the air over the pile of rubble stuffed into the northern gateway. The arch of the entrance hurtled past her head at incredible speed. If she’d misjudged the strength or angle of her jump even the slightest bit, she might have come in too low and hit the mountain of rubble or too high and struck the arch of the gateway, easily killing herself with the impact. You didn’t often hear of “collision suicide” as a means of death, but that would have taken another one of her lives. And the angle of entry was important, too—too direct, and she’d get shot from the castle, too far to the side, and she’d hit the side of the perimeter wall. I can do this! Llenn thought, once she was in the air and couldn’t adjust. The small pink projectile shot perfectly through the gateway untouched. When her feet landed on the courtyard cobblestones, she continued running. She was now the player who had penetrated the farthest into enemy territory, and she was building on that record. There was an explosion behind her, and the blast winds blew past her—but she was already out of lethal range. Most of the force traveled upward, and since she rushed past it to the side, no shrapnel hit her. She didn’t slow down. She was going at full speed. In fact, the force of the blast behind her actually sped her up a bit. The castle towered before her—and it grew larger the closer she got. Down the stone path was the darkened entry to the building. There they are! She saw a man poking the muzzle of a gun out of the doorway. His face was handsome, and it was mixed with shock and nerves. That was Cain; she knew it. Two muzzles pointed at her, in fact—one large, one small—from the launcher-attached F90. Too slow! Before he could get it fully in place, she slid feetfirst. Cain’s 5.56 mm bullet sailed over her head. As her heel and tush slid over the stone, she zoomed inside the castle straight past Cain. Instantly, she was surrounded by darkness. “Taaa!” she cried, pointing her P90 in the general direction of her target and pulling the trigger. The flash of gunfire burned her eyes in the dark interior, leaving her unable to see anything else. Between fifteen gunshots a second, the spray of bullets striking hard stone, and the lighthearted clinking of cartridges bouncing off surfaces, she was surrounded by a tremendous clamor like never before. The span of shooting from start to finish was just a touch over three seconds. Once she had fired—no, streamed—all fifty bullets, the world grew silent. Faceup on her back on the stone, her head craned all the way back to look out the doorway. The window of light in the shape of the arched doorway was hazy from the smoke of her shooting. A figure moving in the middle of that shape blocked half the light from coming through.
No good…? The figure wobbled, then toppled with a heavy crunch. All outdoor light entered her virtual retinas again. A red glowing marker that said DEAD floated over Cain’s body. Llenn exhaled a huge breath and murmured, “Sorry, Fuka. I killed your potential boyfriend.”
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