CHAPTER 9
Llenn’s Fury
12:50.
The results of the fifth scan and the names of the surviving teams appeared on the huge monitor within the pub.
It scrolled across at a turtle’s pace from west to east for the audience to watch. Boss’s device started from the east, but perhaps for better drama, the audience was shown it from the west.
In the ruined city to the northwest, a fairly big battle had broken out and run its course. Two more teams had dropped out during the last ten minutes.
That left two survivors: the speedy TOMS and the well-armored T-S. They seemed to have been eliminating enemy squads separately, as they were well over a mile apart at this point.
“So the new teams are out… Well, that’s no big surprise.”
“You think those two will fight each other next? Or will they scamper off?”
There was no telling at this point.
Next, the scan revealed the bright, blazing dot of ZEMAL in the southwest area. It was strange that each of the dots was exactly the same as the others, and yet the letters ZEMAL next to it made it seem obnoxiously bright.
Their location was the same as ten minutes earlier. It seemed they were using the lip of the huge crater beside them as a defensive line.
“The machine gunners aren’t moving, either… They’re too chill.”
“Yeah, what happened to their crazed charges? Do they have upset stomachs?”
“Let’s just hope they haven’t mistaken this event for a monster-killing high score tournament.”
“Judging by the battle footage, it looks like that woman is taking the lead for them. She was doing a great job at it.”
“Then that means…”
“Yeah, they’re wary of that alliance at the lake. That’s the biggest force going at the moment. Challenge them, and you’re sure to lose. So they’re waiting for their chance.”
“Damn that hot chick… She’s ruining everything!”
“How dare you turn ZEMAL into a proper team!”
The pub was full of righteous and misplaced anger.
Then the scan displayed the allied team atop the frozen lake. There had been six of them earlier.
“Are you serious?”
“What?!”
“No way!”
The crowd was shaken by what they saw.
And who could blame them? On top of the six teams from earlier, there was another in the mix, and it was none other than SHINC.
“Whoa, the Amazons went over to join the alliance!”
“That’s crazy… It’s not some game error, is it?”
“Nope, it’s definitely true.”
“Why? How come? Why would they do that?”
“Don’t ask me!”
“Why not? She’s your Eva, right?”
“She’s not mine!”
On the screen, the scan continued eastward, providing no answers to their questions. There were two more teams left to display.
One was MMTM. They were at the northern edge of the airport, having barely moved. Either because they were conserving their strength or because they were sulking about not having anyone to fight.
The other was LPFM. They were nearly at the end of the bridge. The scan moved onward, but there were no other teams to the east of that point.
“Twelve teams left…”
“That’s about what I expected,” the audience concluded. Then the discussion returned to the topic of the Amazons’ mysterious choice.
Why would SHINC cease their solitary charge and decide to join the big team? Many opinions were offered and shared, but none of them knew the truth.
And while they didn’t understand, some were angry about it.
Some in the game, in fact. Standing atop the bridge.
“Whyyyy?!” shrieked Llenn.
The squad moved across the bridge.
They were in the leftmost lane, right next to the railing. In the lead was M, large backpack reversed over his chest, a shield in each hand. To his right was Pitohui, who held two pieces of shield together. On the left was Fukaziroh, who held only one.
And in the rear, almost completely surrounded, a little pink shrimp screamed, “Whyyyy?!”
Why would SHINC choose to join the alliance when they were looking forward so much to a rematch? It didn’t make sense. If anyone was least likely to team up, it seemed like Boss’s group…
Llenn squeezed the Satellite Scanner so hard between her little hands that it creaked. They were indestructible items, but she was ready to crack it in half.
Fukaziroh glanced over at her and said, “Gee, I wonder why they did it. Even a brilliant bombshell like little old me couldn’t tell ya.”
M, ever calm and collected, proceeded forward slowly, wary of snipers. “Nothing we can do about it. You’ve got to get over it and snap into shape. We’re almost to the other side of the bridge. Once we can use the houses for cover, we run. I need you to be point again. Got that, Llenn?”
“Awww…”
“Did you hear me?”
“Uh… Once we’re past the bridge, I’m point. Got it…”
Their twenty-minute sojourn across the bridge was finally coming to an end.
Instead of the team taking a quick crossing on the semitrailer, they’d had to deal with suicide bombers on motorcycles, a betrayal from Shirley and Clarence, a horde of monsters, then a slow, painful trek on foot with shields up, wary of snipers. It had been quite an ordeal.
The residential neighborhood was up ahead. If they went north, they could cross the highway and get to the airport.
“But why?!” Llenn shouted again. She wasn’t over it yet, not by a long shot.
Was there even a point to playing in SJ4 if she didn’t get the chance to have a proper duel with SHINC? No, there wasn’t.
“Why?!” she raged, as stormy as the Sea of Japan in winter.
“…”
M looked conflicted, but she couldn’t see his face.
And neither could she see Pitohui, who was grinning. “Aw, Llenn, if you don’t know now, you can ask them later, right? And the important thing is to survive until then! Am I wrong?”
“N-no, you’re not wrong, but—!”
“Fighting with troubles weighing on your mind is a no-no! If you lack concentration and die in battle, you’ll have to date Fire! You’ll have to marry him!”
“Eugh! No—But—Wait! What? You said we’d just play dumb, like our lives depended on it!”
“Hmm? Did I?”
“You did! You said so, Pito! He won’t have proof!”
“Then I guess I’ll have to be his witness.”
“No! Pito!”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! I’m just kidding. I think.”
“What do you mean, you think…?”
“Look, my point is, let’s go and kill the next enemy! You’ll be able to take all that anger you’re carrying and make it their problem.”
“N-next enemy…?”
“M’s going to explain for us,” Pitohui said, delegating her responsibility.
“Yes,” said M, accepting the mantle. “Our next opponent will be MMTM.”
At that very moment, atop an airport runway over three miles to the north, David said, “Our next opponent will be the team with the pink pip-squeak and Pitohui.”
“MMTM is far away, but they’re the closest opponent if you disregard the alliance. There’s nobody in between us. It’s the perfect situation to fight them in the next ten or twenty minutes,” M explained.
Meanwhile, David said to his team, “LPFM is the closest, aside from the alliance. Nobody else in between. It’s a chance to have a good solid battle with a worthy foe!”
“Forget about SHINC for the time being, Llenn. If we don’t survive a battle against MMTM, there won’t be any chance of facing them after. Besides…,” M said.
Elsewhere, David said, “Let’s kick some ass, boys! It’s time to go pay our respects to the pink shrimp and the lightsword chick!”
“Besides?” Llenn repeated, prompting M to continue.
“After we beat MMTM, we’ll battle SHINC. Doesn’t it remind you of SJ1, Llenn?”
“Ha-ha!” she laughed, causing Fukaziroh to turn.
The other girl saw a small pink creature baring its fangs, and a haiku came to her mind.
I wish I could show
this terrifying visage
to the dummy Fire.
“All right!” Llenn barked. “Let’s go slaughter MMTM!”
“A little warm-up exercise for the newer, sleeker, four-man LPFM? You got it! And I’ll be the one in the spotlight!” added Fukaziroh.
“Leave some of the prey to me! I’d prefer Daveed. He’s the one with the ugliest face!” teased Pitohui, wearing her usual devilish grin.
“It’s good to be motivated. But let me remind you, we’re not going to recklessly run at a worthy opponent without any kind of plan or preparation,” M cautioned, the voice of reason. It was as though he was saying, This team is in big trouble if I don’t keep it together.
“Yeah,” said Llenn, a little more composed but still feeling the magma surging through her body. “Plan time! Take it away, M!”
“All right. In that case…”
“First thing to do is search for a vehicle!” M said.
“First thing to do is search for a vehicle!” David said at the same time.
It was 12:55.
Once across the long, exposed bridge, Llenn and her three companions picked up speed—still wary of snipers—and hid inside a nearby house. From there, Llenn left and made use of her astonishing foot speed to rush toward the airport to the north.
Shirley watched her go through a glass lens. She pulled away from the scope and spat, “Ahhh, shit!”
Clarence, who was watching through binoculars, smiled and said, “Ahhh, very clever! They don’t leave any weaknesses open to exploit.”
They were situated inside a church in the middle of the residential neighborhood. With all of the flat, one-story houses around, this was the biggest and tallest structure they could find.
The main wing of the church was a two-story structure built of white rock. A brick bell tower about twelve feet to a side rose from the top. The bell itself was located at approximately a four-story height.
The walls of the tower were filthy with age and covered by plants of a sickly color. At the top, a bell that once would have rung for young couples celebrating their marriages hung silent, never to toll again.
In real life, you could never bring guns into a place like this. But here, a sniper and her spotter set up on opposite sides of the bell.
A bit over twenty minutes earlier…
As a precondition to joining their team, Shirley and Clarence were promised by Pitohui that they could do whatever they liked once SJ4 started—even aim at their backs if they got the chance. Now they were acting on that promise.
Initially, they worked with the team to eliminate the monsters and cross the bridge, but once they got their chance, they took it.
They shot down the scout monster that appeared first, summoning the entire horde, then rode off on a motorcycle with the explosives the enemy team had used for their suicide run.
After their speedy escape on the motorcycle, they quickly found the church and decided to take up a position there. They moved fast to avoid being spotted by any other teams that might be watching.
They stashed their handy set of wheels by the dumpster around the back of the church, where they hid it under some of their spare ponchos.
There’s one thing in common between idiots, smoke, and snipers: They all love high places. That was because of the excellent visibility and shooting range, and the extra defense afforded by their advantageous angle, of course.
They climbed up the ladder into the bell tower, where they had a 360-degree view of the area. Despite the extra clouds gathering above, the view was spectacular.
To the north, the airport sat atop a vast parcel of land, with the control tower rising above it like a gravestone.
To the south, the large and quiet river reflected the sky. They could see the bridge they crossed to get here.
And to the west, the enormous indoor shopping mall loomed over everything like a squat fortress. In the distance beyond it, the frozen lake was like a pale board resting over the land.
It was rare to see such varied terrain all at once in GGO, because the extra data tended to bog down the system. This sight was a benefit of being on the special Squad Jam map.
The 12:50 scan happened, but their team leader wasn’t with them, so they weren’t in danger of showing up on the map. The leadership priority when they registered as LPFM was Llenn, Pitohui, Fukaziroh, M, Shirley, then Clarence. Unless the other four died first, Shirley and Clarence would be able to move undetected as swing members.
According to their readout, the distance from the church to the edge of the bridge was 564 meters. Strong wind or not, a target the size of a human being was still within Shirley’s accuracy range.
Shirley had her gun’s zero-in point at four hundred meters.
The zero-in point was a distance-tuning specification, meaning that if she pointed the crosshairs of her scope over a target, it would strike accurately if that target was four hundred meters away. That was assuming level altitude and no wind effects, of course.
You did this by first setting it so that it would hit at a hundred meters, a very close distance. Then you used the vertical adjustment settings of the crosshairs to move it up to four hundred.
If you were aiming farther than that, you had to consider how much gravity would pull on the bullet, and then you would move your shot upward accordingly. If you were training your weapon inside that number, you had to push it lower.
But how much do you adjust it, exactly?
There were excellent apps out there that would do the calculation for you, but if you didn’t have the time, a marksman in real life would use their own gun and bullets at a firing range for practice.
How many centimeters below at a hundred meters?
How many centimeters below at two hundred meters?
How many centimeters above at five hundred meters?
How many centimeters above at eight hundred meters?
With painstaking care, you created your own chart with all the necessary adjustments and placed it on the side of the gunstock or inside the lid of the scope, where you could easily consult it. They called this tiny chart a “dope card.”
But since she had plenty of time now, Shirley used a calculation app instead. She input that her distance would be 564 meters, plus a slight downward angle, and found that she needed to aim about 120 centimeters higher, or about four feet.
Therefore, if Pitohui showed herself on the end of the bridge, Shirley could aim about three heads above her target, and it should hit her torso. If she landed a hit on the torso, her deadly explosive rounds, which cost fifty times that of a normal bullet, would do the rest.
So in order to snipe Pitohui, and do it in one shot, they waited for their so-called teammates to finish eliminating the monsters and resume crossing the bridge—but of course, they weren’t stupid enough to do that without a plan.
They defended themselves on three sides with M’s shields, proceeding with caution. There would be no insta-kill in this state.
From time to time, Llenn slowed and fell out of her rear position, exposing herself outside her defensive position behind Fukaziroh’s shield on the left wing.
Shirley had several chances to snipe Llenn if she wanted to, but she did not take them.
“Even though you hate her for killing you in SJ2?” Clarence asked.
“I don’t shoot people out of personal hatred,” said Shirley. She sounded so cool.
“Wait, is that a joke? You’re chasing Pitohui around out of hatred.”
“Pitohui isn’t a person to me.”
“Oh, you always have an answer for everything, Shirl. You’re so cute like that.”
“Should I shoot you first?”
“Don’t scare me, Shirl! Anyway, hatred aside, it’d be easier later if you cut down on their numbers now.”
“If you want to snipe her, go ahead.”
“Okay! Let me see that gun.”
“No. You’ll break it.”
Ultimately, the group finished crossing the bridge, and Pitohui snuck away into hiding.
Llenn rushed off for the airport and went completely out of sight.
Clarence slowly and deliberately turned herself around to look in the opposite direction, watching for enemies approaching from the west. Shirley and Clarence held a conversation, each looking a separate direction, in positions on either side of the bell.
“So what should we do now, Shirley? We know that Pito’s trio is in that house there. Should we ride the motorcycle over and invade the building? That would be cool—like a movie scene!” said Clarence, offering her version of a “plan.”
“You idiot. They’ll hear us coming and completely obliterate us.”
“But that’s a cool way to die! In fact, let’s use that suicide bomber backpack to do it!”
The backpack they stole from one of DOOM’s dead bodies held a terrifying amount of explosives, enough to destroy fifty yards in every direction. It was resting at the foot of the ladder leading up to the bell tower.
If they happened to get spotted by enemies and surrounded, and they knew there was no hope of victory, they could simply drop one plasma grenade over the side, set off the whole backpack, and blow up the church and themselves, with all the enemies included.
“It’s one thing if we’re dying, but I’m not taking part in any suicide attack while we’re in a good position. Now think seriously.”
“Okay. I’m good at that.”
“…”
“Go on!”
“There are only two of us. Our goal is to take out Pitohui, but—”
“Not to win?”
“…That’s after we beat Pitohui. Let’s go over this again. Even as just a pair, we have two distinct advantages. Until the other four die, we won’t show up on the Satellite Scan. I can snipe without a bullet line. And I have sure-kill explosive bullets. Correction: three advantages.”
“And we’re both beautiful. That’s four. We can take advantage of all those poor sex-obsessed men out there. Why did they make it so you can’t take off your underwear in GGO…? Those men would be helpless if we could flash our boobs!” Clarence ranted quite earnestly. Shirley ignored her.
“There’s also one disadvantage we can’t get rid of,” she continued. “What is it?”
“Um, that we’re too beautiful?”
“Take this seriously.”
“Well, there are only two of us, so if a larger group approaches and surrounds us, we’re kinda screwed.”
“Good, you do understand. It means that when we’re spotted, we’re dead. So that requires great care in what we do. Don’t forget that.”
“Forget what?”
“Will you remember if I shoot you in the head?”
“Care! Caution! Roger that!”
“…If the three of them leave that building, we’ll follow them at a distance.”
“On our bike?”
“No, too much noise. On foot.”
“Like a stalker,” joked Clarence, but Shirley was serious.
“Stalking is what a hunter does to its prey. So yes, a sniper is a stalker. And I’m a hunter in real life. I’ve tracked several targets through the forest via footprints. When I get the chance, I’m eliminating Pitohui.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha. Got it. It’s hunting season! And our prey is Pitohui. But…promise me one thing, Shirley. It’s really important, and it’ll have a huge influence on your public reputation.”
“What’s that?”
“If you bag yourself a Pitohui, just don’t try to gut and skin her, okay?”
12:58.
“On the highway! Sector Two-Five on the map! I found something to ride!” Llenn announced.
Inside the house on standby, Pitohui, M, and Fukaziroh heard her voice through their in-ear comms.
When she said Sector 2-5, that indicated a portion of the map. Because the battlefield was measured exactly ten kilometers to a side, each of the one hundred square kilometers had its own code. From the northeast corner, she was talking about a spot two squares to the west, then five squares south. That was a notation system used in the board game shogi.
M set the map up in a hologram display on the floor, then zoomed in on Sector 2-5. This was the spot where the highway running east and west sent an exit lane off into its own road toward the airport.
Llenn’s report continued warily. “What is that…? There’s a big container here, with six weird-looking vehicles inside.”
“Well, ‘weird’ doesn’t help us much, Llenn. Can you use some proper vocabulary words?” Fukaziroh prompted.
“Um, they’re motorcycles…? No. Unless…they are? Or maybe they’re snowmobiles? But they have tires…”
Her description was lacking in detail. That left the rest of the team in the dark, but she didn’t know that much about machinery, so it was the best she could do. The vehicles might be booby-trapped, so she couldn’t get too close for a better look, either. And a picture was worth a thousand words.
“All right, we’ll catch up to you. Stick to the container and stay on guard. Check the scan when it comes in. We need to be careful of Shirley sniping us.”
“Roger!”
The three of them held two pieces of shield each and sprinted out of the protection of the house. Like Llenn minutes earlier, they were headed north.
“Okay. We’re going.”
“Yessir. Begin stalking!”
Shirley and Clarence joined them in taking action.
Hunters—waiting for their chance to strike from behind.
At 1:00, the sixth Satellite Scan started, and with it, ammo was refilled for the second time.
A message stating as much appeared before each player’s eyes, but Cole from TOMS was on the run and didn’t need that unnecessary information blocking his view.
“Dammit!”
He was all alone, sprinting desperately with his Heckler & Koch MP7A1 in his hands. All of the teammate HP bars in the upper left were crossed out.
Cole was hurtling through the ruined city in the northwest of the map, with tall buildings standing or collapsed all around him. He stomped over a pile of rubble, leaving footprints on the roof of a burned car and kicking a fallen sign out of the way.
He wore a lightweight outfit of trekking shoes, leggings, shorts, and a simple utility vest with four magazine pouches on it. Like Llenn’s, his character was designed to move quickly and cause trouble for potential foes. Therefore, he could only carry light guns, and he had little damage resistance.
As Cole raced through the torn-down city, too desperate to stop and watch the results of the scan, a grenade launcher’s bullet line chased after him from behind. The looping line wavered in front of him, probably by coincidence, but he shouted, “Oh crap!” and came to a screeching halt before leaping through the door of the nearest building.
Kaboom! The grenade blast rumbled the entire area, belching up flames and smoke, then a little dust storm that occluded vision. It had been a close one; if he’d kept running, it would have blown him up for certain.
“Dammit! I’m not going to give up!” Cole ranted, determined to the last.
The “cheap” team on his heels was T-S. Their heavy armor stopped most attacks, allowing them to simply steamroller their opponents. It was a heretical concept to TOMS, whose entire philosophy was grace and skill: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” It was the furthest you could get from their strategy.
And his entire team had been wiped out by them, leaving him to run away. It really sucked.
But Cole wasn’t the kind of idiot who would throw himself into certain death against an unbeatable enemy anyway. He ran and ran for his life, looking for momentary safety.
When the smoke had cleared a little bit, Cole started running again. The grenade blast had just been shot at random and only landed close to him by luck, clearly. He was fast enough that he’d escaped their view, clearly. Clearly.
He hadn’t expected T-S to be armed with grenade launchers this time. Like others, they’d been playing lots of GGO and outfitting themselves with better and better equipment, apparently.
From the squat, abbreviated silhouette, he was certain it was a Heckler & Koch M320. That was a single-shot grenade launcher that could be attached to a rifle, or snapped to a stock and used independently. T-S was doing the latter.
Three of them had the launchers, and given the ammo refills, they were popping off the grenades with abandon. That was how most of Cole’s squadmates died.
“Dammit! I want revenge, but I can’t get it like this,” he told himself as he ran. Now that he was alone, the only goal he had at the moment was to continue running and hiding. Then, after all the other teams had killed each other, he’d make one last desperate attack at the very, very end. If it ended up as a mutual kill, so be it.
On his legs alone, he knew he could escape from the slow and plodding T-S, but vehicles complicated that picture. There were places in the ruined city where fallen buildings blocked the street, so it had better hiding options than most places, but how long could he rely on that…?
Suddenly, Cole’s vision opened up ahead. He’d reached the tracks. Two pairs of rails ran over the ground here.
“Uh-oh…”
He panicked briefly at being out in more open space but recovered and grinned. There was a diesel locomotive only a hundred yards away.
“That should still work! I can use it to escape into the forest at the south end of the map!” Cole decided, certain of his new plan.
The train would rush him down the rails. Why not enjoy the decadence of a one-man railway journey?
His destination was the forest. There was no place better for a single person to run and hide. If the canopy was heavy, it would even neutralize the threat of a grenade launcher raining down from above.
“I’ve still got luck on my side! Just you watch, guys! I’ll guide this squad to victory!”
Cole sprinted the hundred yards to the engine, vaulted himself up the ladder on the rear of the cab, and promptly set off the hand grenade planted there, dying instantly.
Boss watched the 1:00 scan from atop the frozen lake.
“All right, we can do this!” she said to the masked man who came to be their driver.
“No, it won’t work. I’d suggest not,” the man replied.
The scan revealed Llenn’s location to be atop the highway leading to the airport. From here, it was two and a half miles there in a direct line. Traveling along the road, it would be more like three and a half.
“Why not?” Boss asked. She had no idea why the man would be so hesitant to drive them now. The Humvee could get them there in five minutes. That could put them close enough that each side recognized the other’s location at the 1:10 scan, and they could have their long-awaited duel. And MMTM hadn’t moved from the north end of the airport, so the likelihood of an interruption was low.
“Hmm…”
The man’s face twisted enough that you could tell, even through the mask. He folded his arms, thought for a few dozen seconds, then glanced back at Fire, who was sitting nonchalantly in the middle of the circle.
“Well, I guess I could let you know. You are on our side now,” he said, unfolding his arms. “The place where LPFM is now was our starting location. There are vehicles there. When the teams are placed densely at the start, we didn’t want to stick out by moving too much, so we left them where they were. But if they’re at that spot, they’ve probably found them. We left a present or two, but they’re not stupid enough to fall for it, I’m sure.”
“My goodness,” said Boss. She got the picture now. Whatever the vehicles were, they’d provide major movement speed to LPFM, which could quite possibly leave SHINC chasing after their dust instead. This man surely wanted to avoid being caught in a strange spot during the next scan, too.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll wait for the next scan, then. Thanks for clueing me in.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.”
“Now, if you don’t mind, what is it that’s over there?”
“They’re weird.”
“These things are weird!” Fukaziroh shouted.
It was 1:04. Four members of LPFM stood before the vehicles that Llenn found. It took plodding M’s full running speed to get there this soon. In the meantime, Llenn had rushed around here and there, worried the monsters might appear if she waited in the same place for too long.
Two big metal boxes—shipping containers—sat in the middle of the highway. Right in the way of traffic. What a bother.
Containers had a series of unified international sizes, of course, and these were forty-footers. They stood about eight and a half feet tall.
Their doors were already open on either end, making the containers more like darkened tunnels. Both of them were packed with vehicles.
And they were very strange.
From a glance at their rear, they looked like motorcycles. There was a rear wheel, a seat to straddle, and handlebars that extended to the sides.
But seen from the other end of the container, where the fronts pointed, they had two wheels. The two wheels were spread to the sides, with a large body in between.
They were about eight feet long. The widest part of the machines was the front wheels, where it was five feet across. They weren’t very tall, just three feet or so. The whole effect was rather squat.
Llenn had seen snowmobiles at ski resorts before; this struck her as what would happen if you stuck tires on one. Those ones had two skis in the front and caterpillar treads in the back, instead.
The three women were taking shelter behind the shield and keeping an eye out, while M carefully entered a container and checked for booby traps.
“What would you call these? What’s their colloquial name?” Fukaziroh asked.
From the container, the team’s foremost expert on vehicles replied, “They’re trikes.”
“Ohhh, trikes. Yeah, I know those,” Fukaziroh said.
Llenn didn’t recognize the name, so she was momentarily impressed by Fukaziroh’s knowledge—but then it occurred to her that Fukaziroh didn’t know, and this was only a setup for some silly comment, and she withdrew her respect.
“For it’s one, two, three trikes, you’re out at the old ball game, right?”
Llenn wanted to praise herself for recognizing it before it arrived.
M kindly ignored Fukaziroh’s joke and continued, “Trike is short for tricycle. In other words, it’s a three-wheeled motorcycle. I guess you’d define it as a vehicle with three wheels, with a seat the driver straddles, and handlebars instead of a steering wheel. Most of them have two wheels in the back, but some have the two in the front instead. Those are called a reverse trike. Some three-wheelers can tilt side to side the way motorcycles do, but they’re just called three-wheel motorcycles, not trikes.”
It all came unbidden to M’s mind as if he was quoting straight from an encyclopedia.
“Ah, I get it,” said Llenn, who wasn’t sure that she did. But the real thing was right in front of her, so all she had to do was accept that “this is what a trike is.”
GGO based its rideable vehicles on real ones, which meant these trikes were out there in the real world, and you could buy and ride one. She had no idea how much it would cost, though.
“Hang on—I stopped riding with training wheels years ago!” Fukaziroh complained. “So can we ride ’em?”
“Yeah, they’re fine. Plenty of fuel. I disarmed all the nasty booby traps set up. So let’s make the most of these six.”
“There are that many?” Llenn asked, surprised. When she’d glanced into the containers, all she could tell was that there were a couple.
“Yep. Three in each one.”
M pushed one of the trikes out into the open, hiding it around the east side of the container in case any enemies were watching on the west side. In the sunlight, the arrangement of two wheels in the front and one in the back was much clearer.
It still seemed large next to M, who was of considerable size. That was probably because of the sheer volume of the two parallel wheels in front. The body was a black-and-silver two-tone mix. It had that scuffed-up, well-used look that GGO vehicles so often did, but these weren’t customized or decorated in a post-apocalyptic style like DOOM’s motorcycles.
“Sweet! Then everyone gets one. Nice and easy! Should we hold back the last two for Clareley? Actually, never mind, no need to be nice to our deserters! Blow them up!” Fukaziroh cackled.
Llenn fixed her friend with narrowed eyes. “Do you really think I can drive one of these, Fuka?”
“Oops, sorry. Llenn can run on her own two feet. You’re fast enough already, so you don’t mind, do you?”
“How mean!”
“We only need two of them, M,” said Pitohui from behind her shield. She was plopped down in a comfortable spot, protected from the threat of Shirley’s sniper rifle by three whole plates. “You and Fuka ride on one. I’ll drive the other, with Llenn in the back. We’ll ride them tandem.”
Llenn felt relieved at the suggestion.
“Awww, I wanted to drive! I have my license, believe it or not!” Fukaziroh pouted. But when she saw the size of the vehicle before her, she retracted her protest. “Wait a second, my hands and feet won’t reach!”
She’d been able to manage the gas pedal on the Humvee in SJ2—just barely—thanks to her large backpack, but it wasn’t going to work this time.
M pushed out the second trike. This one was a different set of colors, splashed orange and wine red throughout.
“I pick this one! It’s fancy,” Fukaziroh decided.
Llenn didn’t care about the color, so she didn’t argue. In fact, there was a more pressing concern on her mind. “I’m sure we can cross the airport with these, M, but what about MMTM? If they’re set up and waiting, they’ll shoot us. We can’t exactly drive holding the shields up, right? Though I’m sure that we could get away with the speed we’ll have…”
Before M could answer, Pitohui said, “What do you want to do, Llenn? Avoid fighting with MMTM and take these to flee somewhere else?”
“No, I’ll beat them! I want to beat them!”
“That’s good to hear because I’m sure that Daveed wants to do the same. And…”
“And?”
“I’m sure they’re looking for wheels, too—so they can fight us. To keep us from escaping. That’s just a guess, but I’m sure I’m right.”
“I see…”
Llenn thought back to the encounter with MMTM in SJ1, when they’d invaded with four hovercrafts.
Fukaziroh piped up, “I have a question for Miss Devious Pitohui.”
“Go ahead, Fuka.”
“You seem to know a lot about the mentality of MMTM’s team leader. How come?”
“Well, of course. We were on the same squadron right after GGO launched. We’ve been through more than a few battles together.”
“Ohhh,” Fukaziroh and Llenn said in unison.
“And you see… Well, I suppose the statute of limitations is up by now. I’m only telling you this because I want you to understand your enemy better. The truth is, back then Daveed was in love with me! He actually did this weird pseudoproposal thing. He said, ‘I don’t care if it’s just online, would you like to live with me?! I’ll even let you call me Daveed!’ You wouldn’t believe it from the way he looks, but he was so purehearted! I mean, I turned him down, obviously!”
“Ooh!” Fukaziroh exclaimed—this time on her own.
“…”
It was a surprise to hear that the two of them had a shared past, but it also caused Llenn to remember that she, too, had received a proposal of sorts.
In a sense, her life—and also her gaming life—was riding on this match. Fire’s two faces flashed across her eyelids when she closed them.
Llenn felt the resolve of a warrior hero welling up in her mind. Any man who refuses to let me game…must die.
She squeezed the P90 harder.
“That hurts, Llenn! You’re cracking me!” she imagined P-chan saying.
In the driver’s seat of an abandoned moving van they’d found on the highway running east to west, Shirley aimed her Blaser R93 Tactical 2. She had her bottom on the left-side driver’s seat, with her back against the inside of the door and her legs stretched out across the right-side passenger’s seat, the long rifle resting atop her knees. It wasn’t the best shooting position.
Still, this was the only way to snipe without being seen by the enemy and without poking the barrel out of the passenger window.
Through her scope, about sixteen hundred feet away, she watched as Llenn’s group stood by the trikes they’d pulled out of the containers. It was very easy to tell them apart individually.
“Ahhh, shit!”
In teams, the four of them quickly hopped atop two trikes and started to ride off.
M rode on one, with Fukaziroh straddling it in front of him. The other was under Pitohui’s command, with Llenn over the back seat.
They raced north from the highway and vanished from her scope.
If she’d only gotten into sniping position ten seconds earlier, she might have had a clear shot at Pitohui as she emerged from behind the shipping container.
“…”
Shirley shook her head. She promptly engaged the safety on the R93 Tactical 2, slowly sat up from her unorthodox position, and got out of the driver’s seat.
Next to the truck stood Clarence, watching out with her AR-57.
“Ahhh, no good, huh?” she said. The fact that Shirley hadn’t fired told her everything she needed to know.
They got down and hid behind the truck on the east side. If anyone had been around, they’d have already been shot by now, but the two looked out for enemies all the same.
“They went north on two weird buggy-things. We’re not gonna be able to catch them on foot,” Shirley announced with frustration.
“Should we go back to get the motorcycle? Do you think there are extras of what they were riding?” Clarence asked.
Shirley thought it over for three seconds before shaking her head. “In either case, it’ll make too much noise. There’s a reason people don’t use vehicles for stalking. And if they know we’re there, we’re screwed.”
“Hmm. So we need something with no engine noise but that can move as fast as a car… Does that exist?” Clarence wondered. Shirley couldn’t answer that question.
1:10.
“…”
Boss thought hard as she watched the Satellite Scan’s results.
Two dots were moving quickly on the little screen in her hand. They were atop the vast runways of the airport. Right where her own team had started.
The two names on the dots were MMTM and LPFM. When the scan passed them, they did not stop moving.
It was like they were bragging that they had vehicles, broadcasting that to their opponents. And they were racing right for each other.
Good luck, Llenn. Don’t die yet, Boss prayed to the unseen stars, blocked by a layer of gray clouds.
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