Chapter 3
The date for her Larry Coughlin promo approached with alarming speed, and before she knew it, Lynn was barricading herself in her room with a giant bottle of pop and a polite warning to her mom to not disturb her for any reason. Her mom was used to her doing various recordings and interviews arranged by Mrs. Pearson, so Matilda just wished her luck and put in earbuds to browse the news streams and political podcasts in the living room.
Once Lynn had logged onto WarMonger and gotten into her home screen, she saw the match invite from Sean Dudgeon, Assistant Head of Marketing at Tsunami Entertainment. With a deep breath—and after double checking to make sure her voice modulator was on—she accepted the lobby room invite.
As the match lobby materialized before her, a voice cut in talking in the general lobby chat room.
“—the coolest part is—oops! He’s here, gotta go!”
Lynn heard a nervous cough, a throat clearing, and then:
“Ah, hello, Mr. Coughlin, sir. Sorry about that, I was just, um, conferring with my marketing team on—”
“I don’t care if you were doin’ the dirty with a couple a’ hookers,” Lynn said darkly, her words coming out in perfect gravelly baritone. “Get this show on the road or I’m out. You ain’t paying me enough to put up with weaselin’ brass.”
The voice choked, gulped audibly, and forged onward.
“Of course, sir! I totally understand. You’ve got important work to do. I’m a bit of a fan. Very honored you could join us today, Mr. Coughlin.”
“Don’t be. This is a transaction—one I’m not getting paid nearly enough for, based on the last thirty seconds. Give me your name and the mission brief, then shut your yapper before I shut it for you.”
“Y-yes, sir. Sean Dudgeon, sir. We, uh, we’d like to start with a basic transport mission in our TD Hunter-themed scenario map. Point A to point B, timed. There’s a sliding bonus for number of TDMs and Possessed killed, and stacking penalties for every team member who doesn’t make it to the drop-off point.”
“Team size?” Lynn barked.
“Five-man team, sir,” Sean said. “Myself and three others from our marketing team, plus yourself.”
Lynn made a face. She’d been hoping to go at it solo, but she supposed it made sense. Lots of WarMonger players gamed on teams and based on what she’d seen so far of the TD Hunter crossover missions, most players who tackled solo play got drive-piled by TDMs and quickly overwhelmed. She wasn’t most players, though, and she’d been interested to see how long she’d survive by herself. It wasn’t as if she could hop in and out of combat mode to stay alive like she could when playing TD Hunter in the real.
“Transport?” Lynn continued.
“Uh, on foot, sir.”
“Weapons?”
“Well, we’ve created a Level 20 account for you to use—”
“Make it 35.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t waste my time with low-level trash, Dudgeon. You’re already paying me shit, don’t make me fall asleep while you’re at it.”
“Oookay, right,” Sean said, stretching out the words as he likely delegated tasks on his side with furious speed to get the scenario parameters updated.
“Give me the full weapon load out for that level, plus a Vulca Nitron Blade, a pair of Spitfires, a Jiral Gravity Hammer, and a Hexatec Sniper Rifle,” Lynn said, naming four rare weapons that weren’t as good as her Skadi set, but were better than standard and would give her a tool for whatever ranged or melee situation she found herself in. She could hardly ask for the unique Skadi’s Avatar set, no matter how cool Larry Coughlin would look as a space Viking. It would be like holding a sign over her head with the giant blinking words “LYNN RAVEN” on it.
“Oh, wow, you really know your TD Hunter weaponry, Mr. Coughlin,” Sean said, a starry-eyed note creeping into his voice.
Lynn frowned, not liking where this was going. Larry Coughlin usually inspired two reactions: fear or hate. She was fine with either. Sean, though, sounded like he had a fit of fanboy coming on. She was about as comfortable with that as she was with poking out her own eyeballs with a hot iron.
“Focus, fanboy,” she growled. “You’re making me regret this already. You get two hours from me and not a second more. I’ve got real clients waiting to pay for my expertise.”
There were other, much harsher things she could have said. But Sean seemed like a decent guy, and it didn’t feel right to be a jerk just because his obvious admiration made her skin crawl. She’d save the scathing stomp-downs for when they were in combat. If he mouthed off then, she’d have no qualms about cowing him into silence.
To her surprise—and chagrin—he was a legitimately good player. She supposed she should have known better than to doubt the sort of people Mr. Krator would hire to help run one of the biggest and most beloved gaming corporations in the world.
Sean and his team—a guy and two girls—took orders well and seemed to genuinely enjoy playing the scenario with her. Of course, they thought they were playing with the great and terrible Larry Coughlin . . . which was her . . . but not the her everyone thought she was . . .
The scenario was intense from the get-go, so Lynn let go of her self-conscious second-guessing and eagerly sank into Larry mode. She focused wholly on completing the mission, and let Sean worry about whether or not it looked good enough for his marketing campaign.
As they played, Sean and his team started out cheering and whooping at particularly impressive kills or moves on Lynn’s part, which Lynn quickly discovered was worse than any amount of hate-filled trash talk she received from opponents in WarMonger. Trash-talk was part of the game. Cheerleading, on the other hand, made her so violently self-conscious that it yanked her out of Larry mode, threatening their mission on multiple occasions. She finally snapped and went off on her peanut gallery in fine Larry fashion, shocking them into silence with dire threats delivered in the foulest language she could recall from her research. To their credit, they took the hint and for the rest of the scenario kept quiet except for mission-essential communication.
After they’d completed the match and were back in the lobby, though, Sean seemed to forget every single thing “Larry” had told him.
“Oh my God, that was amazing, Mr. Coughlin. You are just a delight to work with! We recorded some really great footage and I can’t believe we got through that mission alive. I was sure we were goners when that swarm of Spithragani came out of nowhere while we were bogged down with the Strikers, and—”
“Quiet,” Lynn said, low and dangerous.
The sound of Sean’s lips smacking together was clearly audible, and Lynn took a deep, calming breath. The gushing praise for Larry Coughlin made her gut squirm with discomfort, and she had no idea why. She’d never felt a bit of guilt playing Larry Coughlin all these years, beating other players at their own game and profiting handsomely from those willing to pay. But this felt different. It felt . . . dirty.
Why?
The fact that she couldn’t explain it even to herself made her grumpy and short while a subdued and nervous Sean had her play a few more abbreviated scenarios to capture specific scenes, then gave her some scripted lines to read for the promo. Of course, her foul mood probably made her Larry performance that much more authentic, but it also left her feeling guilty.
She didn’t want to be rude to Sean and his team. They seemed like pretty cool people, actually. But something about the whole situation had gotten under her skin, and she counted down the minutes until they were finished.
By the time Sean wrapped things up—five minutes shy of the allotted two hours—Lynn caught herself thinking longingly of homework, an alarming sign of how much she wanted the whole thing to be over.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure, Mr. Coughlin,” Sean said, a note of hesitation in his voice. “Truly, I’m so honored to work with you. I’ve always wanted to meet you and—er, well, you probably don’t want to hear about, um, all that.”
“First intelligent thought you’ve had all evening,” Lynn growled.
Sean chuckled nervously, and there was an awkward silence, which made Lynn’s insides squirm.
“If I hear any more fanboy sucking up, I’ll have to shoot somebody, but . . . you and your team done good. Thought you’d be a bunch of losers, but you kept your heads, followed orders and got the mission done. That’s the name of the game. That and getting paid. Getting the mission done and getting paid are the names of the game. So, make sure the check clears.”
“Absolutely, Mr. Coughlin! They’ll be so excited to hear it. We all really enjoy watching your match compilations. I swear, your takedowns are pure gold, and—”
“Fanbooooy!” Lynn said, her voice modulator making it a threatening rumble.
“Oops! Sorry, sir. Right. Well, we’ll get this promotion out ASAP. I’d be happy to send you a link where you can view the finished product before it goes live—”
“I’d rather scrub my balls with sandpaper.”
“Oh . . . right . . . okay. Got it. No links. Well we’d love to have you back sometime to—”
“You’ll see me again just as soon as you quintuple my fee and glue your mouth shut.”
“Uhhhh, well I’d have to clear it with Mr. Krator—”
“Get out of here, Fanboy, before I take back my compliments.”
“Yes, sir! Of course. Have a nice day, sir!”
“Coughlin, out,” Lynn barked, not wanting to cut Sean off abruptly, but also having zero “Foxtrots” left to give.
She peeled off her AR glasses and carefully set them aside, then slumped back into her body mold chair as she rubbed her face vigorously. She topped things off with a good, hearty groan, remembering all the homework she had to do, and feeling much less enthusiastic about it now that she’d escaped Sean’s fanboy clutches.
Well, at least she could fortify herself with some coffee and a piece of leftover steak before she tackled the homework. She hated coffee, but it had become a necessary evil over the past few months, since her nurse mother flatly forbade her from relying on energy drinks instead. “Better the devil you know,” Matilda said about coffee, being a grudging addict herself with a third shift schedule in a busy ER. Lynn’s mother read as much medical research as her life would allow, and often ranted to Lynn about the dangers of believing Big Food and Big Pharma when they said a product was “safe.” People had been surviving off coffee for thousands and thousands of years, though, so apparently Matilda figured that was long enough to be certain of the health risks.
Lynn got up and went to her bedroom door, opening it with her mind already turning over which assignments she absolutely had to complete before she went to bed.
She was about to step out of her room when her mom’s voice registered.
“Quit it!” Matilda hissed in a tone of badly suppressed amusement. “Lynn is in her bedroom and the absolute last thing I need is for her to come out and see me blushing.”
Lynn froze.
“Yes, I know you do, but you’ll just have to wait. Don’t make me sing the ‘Be Patient’ song at you like I used to at Lynn whenever she complained about waiting.”
Lynn clamped a hand over her mouth, managing to suppress her snort, but only just. It’d been years since she’d thought about that silly song. In fact, Lynn hadn’t heard her mom sing it since her dad had died. He’d been even more impatient than Lynn, eating hot cookies right off the baking sheet and getting his fingers and mouth singed for his troubles. They’d both been on the receiving end of Matilda’s song more times than Lynn could count.
The memory made Lynn’s chest tighten, and she had to force herself to take a deep breath to ease the discomfort. She stayed as quiet as a mouse, though, ears straining and ignoring the guilty pit in her stomach.
“I know, I know. I don’t like it either. I just don’t know how to tell her . . . yes, it’s been hard for her. For me, too, of course, but I . . . no, we haven’t talked about it. There was never any need, before now, at least.”
Lynn swallowed, desperate to step forward and backward at the same time and so locked in place instead.
“Yes, I will, I promise. Thanks, hun. M-hmm. Talk to you later. Bye.”
Hun?
Okay, so it was a standard form of address in the Midwest, one her mom used on strangers and family members alike. But still . . . it felt so weird.
The sound of Matilda standing up from the couch made Lynn jump, and she leapt backward into her room, yanking the door after her. She stopped just before it smacked into place and gingerly finished closing it with a quiet snick. Then she just stood there, heart pounding, emotions in an uproar.
Why was this even a big deal? If her mom had found someone she liked that was great, right? She wanted her mom to be happy, right?
Right?
Of course she did, but . . .
A vision of her dad’s cocky grin and twinkling blue eyes hit her so hard she gasped. She snatched desperately at the flash of color and joy, wanting to hold onto it forever. But it faded just as quickly as it had come, disappearing from behind her eyelids like sandy footprints washed away by a rushing wave.
Yet the echo of the memory still ricocheted around in her chest, making her eyes burn.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, then stopped in front of her door, making Lynn’s anxiety spike. She bit her lip, using the pain to get a grip on herself.
A ping notification sounded in Lynn’s ear, making her jump. It was her mom.
Is your promo over, honey? I’m heading out for work soon. I just wanted to make sure you were set for the evening.
Not trusting her voice, Lynn subvocalized a quick response and sent it.
Yup, just trying to focus on homework now. Thanks for checking in, I’m pretty busy. Have a great shift!
There was a long pause. Lynn didn’t dare move a muscle. Her heart pounded in her ears and her stupid eyes kept burning.
Okay, sweetie. Good luck with homework. I’m really, really proud of you, you know that, right?
A lump lodged in Lynn’s throat, making it impossible to swallow or subvocalize. She hurriedly projected a keyboard from her LINC and typed out a response.
I know, Mom. Thanks. Have a good night at work.
Okay. Love you, sweetie.
Lynn tried to swallow again, and forced her hand to move.
Love you, too, Mom.
Finally, the sound of footsteps moved away, and she heard her mom’s bedroom door open and close.
For a long, long moment, Lynn couldn’t move, heart pounding, muscles tingling, something huge and unwanted but familiar welling in her chest.
When she started trembling, she finally stumbled to her bed, crawled under the covers, and pressed her pillow tightly over her head. She didn’t know if she was trying to keep something outside herself from getting in, or trying to keep something inside from getting out.
Whichever one it was, it didn’t work, because when she finally heard their apartment door open and close as her mom headed off to work, she did something she hadn’t done in a long, long time.
She cried.
* * *
School the next day was . . . rough. She’d stayed up to ungodly hours slogging through homework despite puffy eyes and a raging headache. What sleep she’d gotten felt like less than nothing. She’d even skipped her pre-school workout to take an extra long, scalding hot shower in an attempt to feel human again before braving hundreds of curious, prying eyes at school.
Thankfully she was able to slide on a mask of neutrality and more-or-less coast through the day on autopilot, nodding and mm-hmming to her friend’s chatter and totally ignoring everyone else. Not even continued gossip about Elena or a hilarious new vid stitch of the pop-girl’s epic bullying fail managed to draw Lynn out. A weird grayness blanketed her senses, muffling the world outside.
She wasn’t able to claw her way out of it until school was over and they were headed out toward the airbus, the guys all looking at her expectantly to hear the hunting plan for the afternoon. As odd as it might seem, it was a relief having others depend on her. It was the catalyst she needed to shake herself awake, give herself a mental pep talk, and forget about everything but the mission.
She halted in the hallway before the school’s front doors and put her hands to her hips, considering. Since she’d had no workout that morning to get her going, she felt sluggish and heavy. But it hadn’t rained in a day or two, so it wouldn’t be muddy outside. She decided they could all do with a challenge.
“Come on, guys. Let’s go kill a mini-boss.”
Six months ago, heck even a month ago, before their victory of Gyges, Lynn’s comment would have been met with groans and skepticism. Now, though, the guys just nodded and started checking their gear.
Well, all except Ronnie, who stared at her with furrowed brow, as if he had something to say, but wasn’t going to say it without some prodding.
“Go ahead, Ronnie,” she said with a careful nod. “We’re a team. Everybody’s feedback is valuable.”
“A mini-boss is too big to tackle while we’re still figuring out these new tactics. I mean, just yesterday Mack messed up the timing for the bait sweep and we ended up getting mobbed and had to cut and run.”
Out of the corner of her eye Lynn saw Mack’s golden skin darken with a flush and he hunched his shoulders, looking away.
Lynn frowned.
“We’ll always be learning new tactics, Ronnie. You’re right that we’re not as cohesive with our attack strategy as I’d like us to be. But the only way to change that is to practice in the conditions we’ll be facing at the championship. No amount of dry-runs or training modules is going to prepare us like actual combat will. So, yeah, it’s a risk.
“But we’ve done similar battles before, and I am one-hundred-percent confident in the skills and abilities of everyone on this team.” She looked him right in the eye as she spoke, holding his gaze until he nodded grudgingly. Then she caught Mack’s eye and said, “Besides, Mack here was just giving us FUBAR practice, right? If we don’t face it a few times in the field, how are we going to hold it together if it happens in the championship?”
A little smile quirked Mack’s lips, and Ronnie snorted.
“If you want FUBAR conditions, just call in the Cedar Rapids Champions,” Ronnie said darkly. “They’ll give you all the practice you’ll ever need.”
There was a moment of silence. Dan and Mack exchanged an odd, almost sympathetic look, as if Ronnie’s “exile” to Elena’s team last fall had been anything other than the cold hard consequences of his own idiotic actions.
Lynn mentally rolled her eyes.
“You know,” Dan said. “I still don’t get why in the world they made it to Hunter Strike Team. I mean, Connor’s good, I’ll give him that. And the other ARS guys are decent I guess. But Elena is like . . . like a dumpster fire and a trainwreck had a baby, except pretty, you know?”
The entire team burst into laughter, drawing looks from the few fellow students trickling out the doors. Ronnie mimed a flailing, backwards stagger that had become a meme all on its own on the streams.
“It’s ninety-percent Connor,” Ronnie said with certainty, once everyone’s chuckles had died down. “That and the fact that they were the only ones around for us to team up with when we took out that boss in the qualifiers. We’re the ones that got them their Strike Team status. Without us, nobody would have made it.”
“Without Lynn, you mean,” Edgar said. His tone was mild, but when Lynn glanced sharply his way, he was eyeing Ronnie with a less than friendly expression. Lynn couldn’t be sure, since Edgar was largely a closed book to her, but she’d gotten the impression he hadn’t forgiven Ronnie. It warmed her from head to toe to think he was upset on her behalf, but she needed them to all work together as a seamless team. There was no room for resentment.
“Nothing we’ve accomplished in the past year could have been done alone,” she said firmly. “We all got us here, Edgar.”
He looked at her, registered her raised eyebrow, and shrugged, giving her an innocent look.
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Lynn snorted. “If we’re done with the theatrical reenactments, let’s get going.”
She led the way out to the airbus platform even as she fired up the TD Hunter app.
“Good afternoon, Miss Lynn,” Hugo greeted her cheerily.
“One of these days I’m gonna go into the settings and customize you to something way less perky,” she subvocalized.
“Of course, Miss Lynn, whatever suits your preferences. Though, I will point out that none of the customizable settings negate my built-in directive to be professional and courteous at all times.”
“Uh-huh. So what you’re saying is, there’s no Darth Vader setting?”
“Meaning, can I be broody and mysterious, and threaten you with my force powers to ensure compliance? My apologies, Miss Lynn, but that is not within my programming capabilities.”
“Well, that’s just lame. You should tell Mr. Krator that’s a missed marketing opportunity right there.”
“I will be sure to pass on the feedback, Miss Lynn.”
“Uh-huh, I bet you will.”
Their banter took them onto the airbus, where Lynn plopped down and got busy subvocalizing to her team their destination so they could figure out where they wanted to get off and switch transportation to throw off the vultures.
Lynn thought they’d done a good job at being sneaky, but when they arrived at their destination, she saw a few of those larger, noisier drones she’d been spotting lately loitering in the general vicinity of the power node they were heading towards. Maybe they weren’t paparazzi drones after all, maybe they were some kind of new maintenance thing the city was using. Lynn shook her head and firmly ignored them.
“It feels weird to be back here,” Mack subvocalized, casting a critical eye over the large grassy field and beyond it the fenced-in node and power substation. With their ever-increasing stream following and therefore ever more determined paparazzi drones, they always subvocalized while out and about. They never knew when some drone might be buzzing around. Even if the buggers didn’t have good enough audio equipment to record conversations, there were plenty of AI programs that could “translate” and caption speech based off lip-reading. It was fairly accurate, too.
“Yeah, this is where—” Dan began, then stopped abruptly with a gulp, as if something had gotten stuck in his throat. Lynn raised her eyebrow at him and he busied himself with taking a drink from his hydration pack.
“Why come back here?” Edgar asked quietly, also looking over the field, though his vacant gaze made her think he was examining memories, not the terrain. This field was where Mr. Jerkatude Ronnie had tried to throw her off the team, she’d quit instead, and Edgar had quit with her. They’d walked a long road since then, every one of them.
What was the saying? All’s well that ends well?
“Because,” Lynn said, “it’s the perfect place to test our bait tactics. Lots of open space, no gawkers—yet anyway—and we’re already familiar with the terrain.”
What she didn’t say was that there were also exponentially more TDMs there since the last time they’d cleared the area. She wanted a challenge, and a challenge she would have.
“Okay, but the node has a fenced-in substation around it,” Ronnie pointed out, shading his eyes to squint at the station in the distance. “We’re not going to be able to get to the mini-boss to kill it.”
“That’s what bait is for, isn’t it?” Lynn said with a feral grin.
“What if the boss doesn’t go for it?” Edgar asked.
Lynn shrugged. “Then we’ll have learned the limitations of bait and killed a whole friggen bunch of TDMs while we’re at it.”
“Are you sure this is a mini-boss, though?” Dan asked. He, too, was squinting suspiciously at the substation. “The last time we cleared around here, we couldn’t get all the way up to the fence to figure out what was inside the rings. We just racked up experience mowing down the easy stuff.”
“Uh, easy?” Mack asked, sounding exasperated.
Dan flapped a dismissive hand in Mack’s direction.
“Congratulations, Dan,” Lynn said cheerily. “You have just pointed out the real reason I picked this spot.”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Mack said, stroking his scraggly beard nervously. He was still trying to get it to fill in all the way. Apparently, Mrs. Rios had finally given up forbidding facial hair and had turned to shoving all kinds of hair growth ointments and beard hygiene products at her son—if she couldn’t stop it, at least she could control it some other way.
“Don’t worry, Mack,” Ronnie said, batons in hand, ready to go. “You focus on your timing. We’ll take care of the scary stuff.”
Lynn pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t force Ronnie to be kind, courteous, or even civil. All she could do was resist the urge to beat the fear of God into him, and set a good example herself.
“It’ll be fun, Mack,” she teased. “There’s some unknown in the center of that circle, that or a TDM we haven’t been high enough level to see, yet. I figure now that we’re Level 38 we have a shot at it.”
“Just what I always wanted.” Mack sighed, pulling out his own batons. “Bigger, scarier monsters even better at killing me.”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about with those sick new pistols you have,” Dan said, twirling his batons by the straps like he was some sort of martial artist with a pair of nun-chucks.
“Cut it out, doofus,” Ronnie said. “If you bean yourself in the head, I’m not carrying you to the hospital.”
“Nah,” Dan agreed, spinning his batons even more vigorously, “that’s Edgar’s job, right, my man?”
Edgar shoved Dan off the sidewalk into the grass, making his friend trip. Instead of falling on his face, though, Dan tucked and rolled, managing to come back up to one knee, though his batons got tangled in the process.
“Dude! Not cool!” Dan said. “You threw off my groove!”
“Can dancing cows even have a groove?” Ronnie snickered.
Dan hopped to his feet and caught back up with them as they headed closer to the node.
“Duh, of course they can. They call it their mooo-ves.”
Everyone groaned, then Lynn got their attention and started going over their battle plan. They were going to go all out, whole hog, pedal to the metal. She wanted to see how much damage they could really wreak with their more powerful weaponry and better crowd control tactics.
Once they got to the edge of the field, Lynn carefully judged the distance, picking a spot to carve out an initial staging point. She wanted to truly clear the area, if possible, not just punch through the TDMs defenses to kill whatever mini-boss was hiding inside. Mostly they’d done sweeps like this for TDMs like Hydras and Bunyips, large, powerful gather types that tended to attract a few smaller rings of aggressive types around them.
Based on their previous battles in the area, she knew whatever was in the center here wasn’t a full-on boss. The size of the rings and numbers of TDMs weren’t on the scale they’d seen at the qualifiers and north of her school where they’d cleared out Gyges. But they were getting up there. The mystery piqued Lynn’s curiosity.
“Okay, Skadi’s Wolves. You know the plan, you know the objective. Just keep in mind this isn’t a do-or-die scenario. We’re not livestreaming, there’s no one to perform for. Let’s take it slow and steady, stress test our new tactics, and keep an eye on our form. No need to get sloppy and let our ranking slide. If we need to blink out, we will. Any last questions?”
There were none.
Everyone lined up, shaking out limbs and doing a few last-minute stretches. Lynn took a deep breath, the scent of grass and spring blossoms on the breeze tickling her nose. It was partly overcast, so the sun played hide and seek behind the clouds. Edgar flashed her a grin a mile wide and winked, which made Lynn snort to herself. She knew for a fact he had entirely too much fun with his new Snazzgun, and enjoyed every opportunity to vaporize TDMs with it.
Dan was hopping from foot to foot, ducking and weaving like he was in a boxing ring and “da da da-ing” along to the old-time video game music he listened to while they were hunting. It was a very Dan thing to do, especially when he randomly yelled out “mortal combat!” like it was his theme song.
Mack looked focused and Lynn knew he was going over their formations in his head, doing everything he could to not let his team down. It was one reason he did so well in the support role. He had no ego to speak of, just a big heart and lots of determination.
Ronnie was similarly motionless, holding his batons at the ready so once they joined into his Sword of Mastery he could flow immediately into his first attack sequence. Where Mack’s expression was serious, though, Ronnie’s was impatient. He didn’t comment or look around. Just waited, breathing deeply and evenly.
Lynn smiled to herself and sank into her own ready stance. None of them were perfect, but they were shaping up. If this fight went smoothly and they were able to successfully implement their new tactics, it would go a long way toward easing her worry about the upcoming Boss Bash 2.0.
“Skadi’s Wolves, enter combat mode on my mark. Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!”
The vista that materialized around them spun as Lynn pivoted, swinging Wrath in a full circle to clear her immediate area. The initial tsunami of sparks from dozens of TDMs along their line exploding blinded her for a second. Then she could see again, and she glanced out over the sea—yes, the sea—of transdimensional monsters between Skadi’s Wolves and the power node.
Training kept her limbs moving, gliding seamlessly from strike to strike, even as her mind churned with disquiet.
This many TDMs seemed excessive. Even for a video game. Was it this bad because they’d cleared this area multiple times, and TDMs always came back thicker wherever they’d been attacked before?
She didn’t have the time or space to wonder but focused everything she had on the battle in front of her. It sang through her body like fire in her blood, and she felt alive with a joy she would never be able to describe.
As the minutes dragged on and they advanced steadily through the fringe mobs of Delta and Charlie class TDMs, the initial euphoria of battle faded, and Lynn settled into her comfort zone. Her eyes tracked but didn’t lock on any one thing; her body became loose and fluid, bending and moving where instinct and thousands of hours of training sent it; her brain registered and reacted to an unending stream of new data, organizing it all in a constantly shifting matrix of master objectives, ongoing strategy, and moment by moment tactics.
It all happened so seamlessly, so second nature to her, that Lynn doubted she could have explained how she did it or why she was so good at it. All she knew was that she loved it and wanted nothing more than to keep doing it.
“Wolves,” Lynn said, subvocalization steady despite the jumping, dodging, and rolling she was doing, “one-third objective reached, prepare to implement bait and destroy. Mack, you’re up.”
“Choo-hoo-hoo!” Edgar cheered enthusiastically.
“Copy that,” came Ronnie’s clipped acknowledgment.
“Time to rock and sock ’em!” Dan said.
“Ready when you are, Lynn,” Mack confirmed, sounding determined.
“Everybody drop their bait on my mark. Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!”
Lynn placed her prepared bait marker fifteen yards in front of their advancing line, directly in front of Edgar who was the center spearpoint of their modified V formation. She and Ronnie anchored the right and left flanks, while Dan and Mack stayed about three yards behind the assault line forming a rough pentagon. This formation gave Dan and Mack the freedom to use their ranged weapons to their fullest capacity without having to constantly switch back to melee. It also kept their kill “trail” narrow enough that Mack could gather most dropped resources and items without having to run back and forth across the field.
It wasn’t a feasible formation before they’d started using bait, however, because they’d needed to carve a much wider swath through the TDMs to keep the buggers from immediately sweeping around and surrounding them. Now, though, they had a means of crowd control.
Three of their bait markers went front and center to concentrate as many TDMs in their cone of destruction as possible. The other two markers went wide to the left and right, pulling TDMs away from their flanks and rear and giving Dan and Mack time to take them out as they passed without the distraction of fighting for their life in melee.
It only really worked because of the game mechanics of how and why TDMs moved. Every variety had a detection range, and if you were outside of it or invisible to it through heavy globe usage, the TDMs remained in place. So instead of the entire swarm circling the node and sweeping toward Skadi’s Wolves like a tidal wave, groups of TDMs broke formation one after another and rushed them as the Hunters moved within detection range. Any time a Hunter engaged in battle, it increased surrounding TDMs’ ability to detect them, especially for aggressive types. But when Skadi’s Wolves used all their stealth capabilities, three-fifths of the encircling enemies would never react to their presence.
At least, until they attacked the boss.
At that point, all bets were off. It was like the boss was the nucleus, the central nexus of an organism, and damage to the core initiated a system-wide defense response. Which was why they’d only succeeded by the skin of their teeth in their previous encounters.
With their new bait and destroy tactic, though, Lynn was hoping they could employ enough crowd control to advance in a sweeping, sideways route that would take out a good half of the circle before they ever targeted the central boss. If they could keep up their ichor and Oneg supplies and if their physical stamina held. Those weren’t impossible ifs, but Lynn had felt a lot more confident about them before she’d been reminded how freaking many TDMs there were around a boss, even a mini-boss.
If they managed it, they’d have to hit another pizza parlor afterward to carb up and replace an entire day’s worth of energy.
She had a fleeting thought that she should ask Mrs. Pearson if they’d gotten any sponsorship offers from energy gel companies, the sort of thing marathon runners used to keep up their glycogen stores. She’d never even heard the word glycogen before she’d started playing TD Hunter, but having a nurse for a mom was darn useful when you were competing in a highly physical sport.
The thought disappeared in a wink as Lynn registered the surrounding TDMs parting in waves as if she and Ronnie were Moses and the TDMs were the Red Sea. Now there was a clustered column of targets in front of them, with space opening up on the left and right, giving their team more room to maneuver.
Edgar whooped and switched from cannon to flamethrower mode. The corner of Lynn’s augmented vision lit up as a massive spurt of fire poured into the central column of TDMs, vaporizing the front few ranks instantly. Edgar could only keep the fire going for three to five seconds at a time—its energy use was off the charts. But it was long enough to clear the ten feet in front of him so he could advance and shoot again. Meanwhile, Lynn and Ronnie were taking advantage of the extra elbow room to fight like perfect whirlwinds of destruction and death. Each strike was precise and executed to maximum effect.
On the left side, Lynn took out the successively larger TDMs with a few strikes of Wrath apiece, using Abomination in her left hand to soften up targets and keep the waves from closing in again on the left. On the right side, Ronnie used his Nitro Storm ability to periodically blast a circle of pure destruction around him, keeping the TDMs on the right from building up again as well.
Meanwhile, Dan was sniping targets out of the air and using his armor-piercing bullets on any of the particularly large or tough TDMs that were caught in the aggro of their bait traps. Mack was kept busy stemming the trickle of TDMs that broke free of the bait traps on either side, as well as sweeping up supplies and keeping everybody topped off.
So many things were happening at once, the intensity level would have overwhelmed a normal person in seconds. But years of gaming in high-intensity situations had acclimated their brains to the controlled chaos. All sensory information was automatically filtered, categorized, and reacted to, with Hugo to help manage automated tasks and bring attention to any anomaly the humans’ brains had overlooked.
As the team leader, it was Lynn’s job to snatch brief moments between tackling TDMs to evaluate the overall situation, redirect anyone who was drifting off course, and recalibrate their overall objective to match the changing tides of battle. Before they started using bait and destroy, that had been increasingly difficult, to the point that she’d had to hold back at times, unable to fight at full capacity and lead at the same time. But this new tactic gave her blessed breathing room, and she felt their overall team efficiency had made a noticeable jump as a result. She’d have to wait and check their scores after this encounter, but she liked what she saw so far.
With their line moving slowly but steadily forward, Lynn kept a close eye on the overhead map and Edgar’s direction. He knew their objective was not to charge directly toward the eye of the storm, but to advance at an angle to the left, putting Ronnie’s Nitro Storm and Mack’s sick pistols closest to the highest-level TDMs, while giving Lynn and Dan a bit more breathing room to perform precision maneuvers. Edgar kept his focus on the twenty feet around him, with the node tower visible above and beyond the TDM lines as a guidepost. Meanwhile Lynn worried about their overhead map and the ebb and flow of red TDM dots.
For a while there, they were rocking and rolling so smoothly through the Charlie and Bravo class TDMs that Lynn followed Dan’s example and put on a playlist low in the background. Hugo had helped her find looped, extended versions of her favorite songs so there were no abrupt transitions between them, threatening her concentration. While she’d always have a soft spot for the rock and roll she grew up listening to with her dad, she found the words distracting at times. So for high stake battles like this she stuck with symphonic and synthwave rock.
After thirty minutes of steady progress, they were close enough to the inner rings to execute their pivot. They hadn’t managed the maneuver successfully in previous battles, but Lynn was confident they’d get it this time.
The idea was to swing to the right and advance at a steep rightward angle to tackle the inner ring Alpha Class TDMs where they’d already eliminated the lower class TDMs to the outside. If it worked, it promised extra firepower and concentration to focus on the most difficult targets, again increasing their efficiency and effectiveness.
To execute the maneuver, though, they had to time a bait drop perfectly, dumping all five bait markers in a single spot far out to their left flank just as they pivoted and headed right. If they did it correctly, the aggro pull of the bait would create a gap between them and the TDM hordes that would, after their pivot, be behind their left side. If they advanced quickly the other way, the bait’s pull would last long enough for them to get out of detection range of the TDMs at their back, keeping their rear clear of enemies.
What made the maneuver complicated, though, was that they also had to swap sides, with her and Ronnie, then Dan and Mack switching places. It kept their heaviest hitters on the inside edge. There was an inherent risk to such a maneuver, since all humans had a dominant side and it was incredibly difficult to train yourself to fight with equal precision on both sides. But Lynn had seen the lack of such ambidextrous flexibility bite people in the butt many times in WarMonger. Merc teams who were used to fighting in one specific formation were inevitably broken apart or were boxed in by some terrain feature. She had always sought to be as ambidextrous as possible, and made sure Skadi’s Wolves practiced fighting with their off side in the lead as well.
That commitment paid off at times like this when they needed to swap weapon placement, if only they could pull off the maneuver smoothly.
“Prepare to execute bait and switch, boys. Time to head the other way.”
“Finally,” Ronnie said. “All these Charlie and Bravo class bogies are boring me to death.”
The comment made Lynn want to bite back with something snarky, but she resisted the temptation. She was the leader, and unlike Larry Coughlin, she wasn’t a lone wolf. She had to lead by example.
“I’ll get it right this time, I promise,” Mack said.
“Don’t worry bro, I got you,” Edgar said, switching back to cannon mode on his Snazzgun in anticipation of their maneuver. “If you get mixed up, I’ll pick you up and throw you where you need to go!”
“Now that I’ve got to see,” Dan giggled.
“Let’s save the wrestling moves for training,” Lynn said, her lips quirking upward. “Everybody get ready to drop your bait markers and pivot.”
Lynn took out one last Rakshar that was lumbering toward her, then gave the command. With a momentary squint, she dropped her marker, danced sideways, and swapped places with Ronnie while she switched Wrath and Abomination to opposite hands. Edgar was the only one who had nothing to do but drop his bait and keep mowing down the TDMs coming at them from the front—something he did with dependable enthusiasm.
In the brief lull of weapon fire, Lynn’s eyes flicked upward, drawn by the buzz of drone propellers. Five gray drones, too big to be paparazzi vultures, hovered above the battle, halfway between Skadi’s Wolves and the node tower.
Having identified the noise and dismissed it as irrelevant to her current mission, Lynn refocused on forging onward.
The maneuver went even better than Lynn had hoped, and in no time, they were advancing the other way, re-energized by the light at the end of the mission tunnel. The last few inner rings were substantially smaller and had exponentially less TDMs in them, so the heavy lifting was already done. The remainder of the battle would be a test of endurance and precision.
Skadi’s Wolves piled into the ranks of Jotnar and Spithragani, carving a path of destruction that made Lynn proud. An unexpected bombardment by half a dozen kamikaze Kongamato slowed them at one point. They had to break formation to dodge the diving, pterodactyl-like monsters that came on too fast for Dan to snipe them all at once. It was a scramble to re-form, but by then they’d collected more bait markers and were able to use them to split a terrifying wave of Spithragani that tried to stampede over them, pouring down acid spray and poison webs. The near massacre of their team had forced Lynn to swap Wrath for Bastion to provide extra defensive stats and take some of the oncoming ranged attacks from the Spithragani. After the stampede split and they were able to pick off the giant crab-spiders, Lynn was about to switch her shield back to her blade when something orange-red and flamelike streaked out from the direction of the node tower and hit Bastion squarely.
She knew it had, because she didn’t just see it, she felt it.
After fighting TDMs for nine months, Lynn had long ago gotten used to the otherwise odd fact that she was fighting completely insubstantial beings, and so there was nothing but wind to provide resistance to her slashes and strikes, and no force behind the bashes and strikes of the enemy.
Except, of course, those few times ramming the Jotnar and Gyges with Bastion . . . and the occasional glitches that sent her baton vibrating . . . and those times her batons had overheated. Heck, there had even been that baton she’d fallen on and snapped way back in beta phase. She’d attributed the resulting sparks and electric fire to the broken internal guts of the baton itself. Except . . . batons were eighty percent omnipolymer, and as far as she knew it was incapable of spontaneously combusting . . .
TD Hunter was a cutting-edge game using cutting-edge technology. There were bound to be glitches and weird stuff that happened to the equipment. That was what Lynn had already told herself.
But when that hot, vibrating sensation traveled through Bastion’s omnipolymer, through her high-performance glove, and into her hand, a familiar unease settled over her.
Lynn looked up and saw the sparkling mist around the base of the node, extending far enough up it that it was visible over the fencing around the substation.
Well, they’d found the mini-boss, likely a gather type Alpha Class TDM. The tactical forums hypothesized several rarer, high class TDMs not yet discovered, since there were so few players at that level worldwide. Among the Hunter Strike Teams, Skadi’s Wolves were in the top fifteen. The only reason they—and likely others—weren’t higher was that they had lives and responsibilities they couldn’t set aside. Even for those who could afford to ignore school, work, or family, the physical stamina required to kill enough TDMs to achieve the higher Hunter levels meant only the most athletic and hardworking players could advance faster than a competitive team like Skadi’s Wolves.
“Heads up, guys, I just made contact with whatever’s inside that ring. It’s ranged, and we are now within its reach.”
“Nežinoma rankos spengimo idėja Nežinomos gydytojos motina!” Ronnie shouted.
Ronnie was cursing in Lithuanian again. Did it make sense? Not to Lynn, but then few of Ronnie’s actions ever did.
“I don’t see it,” Edgar yelled, glancing up at the node tower as he methodically torched a line of Jotnar. “Are you sure? Could it have been a Hydra hiding somewhere?”
“I don’t see how it could be,” Lynn responded, doing her best to clear her immediate surroundings while keeping Bastion up and expecting to catch another bolt of damage. “The TDM mass around it just isn’t big enough. Nothing like what we saw at the qualifiers or the Boss Bash. Besides, the ranged attack looked different from a Hydra’s plasma bolt. It looked more like fire or something.”
“Ooh! Maybe it’s a Chimera!” Dan said, sounding entirely too happy about the prospect.
“No,” Lynn said, “Chimera are eight feet tall, max. This was angled down from higher up than that.”
Her view flashed red again, and while Bastion shrugged off eighty percent of the damage, some of it still leaked through. Lynn knew that the closer she got, the harder it would hit, and the rate of fire might increase as well.
“It just hit me again, is anyone else taking fire?”
Everyone else answered in the negative, which was odd, because Edgar was definitely closer than she was.
“Hugo,” she subvocalized, switching to her private channel with her AI, “why am I the only one who can see this unknown? I’m the same level as everyone else.”
“Perhaps it has a singular focus, Miss Lynn. It is an unknown, after all, so there is very little I can say about it. Perhaps this is a sign it would be best to retreat and tackle it another day when you are a higher level?”
“Good thing you aren’t competing, Hugo. You’d never win so much as a participation ribbon.”
“Winning is not my directive. My priorities are the smooth functioning of TD Hunter and the safety of its players.”
“Which makes you entirely boring and un-fun,” Lynn pointed out, grinning despite her worry.
“As you please,” Hugo said. “The fact remains that you are facing an unknown and potentially dangerous situation. I advise you to retreat.”
Lynn didn’t bother replying because it would only be a waste of time.
“It looks like I’m the only one it’s targeting,” she told her team. “I’ll keep its focus while we advance. Let’s do this!”
Two minutes and a dozen shots from the unknown later, Lynn’s augmented view flickered. A minute later, it did it again, winking out entirely before coming back online.
“Hugo? What’s going on?” Lynn growled.
“Unknown, Miss Lynn. My mesh web connection is entirely normal. Might it be an equipment malfunction?”
Lynn shot furiously at the surrounding TDMs. She focused on headshots since most of the bigger monsters were slow enough and she was close enough for her accuracy to stay incredibly high.
“Anyone’s app glitching?” Lynn asked the team.
“Yup,” Dan said. “Thought it was just my glasses.”
“Mine too,” Ronnie said, sounding furious. “I thought they’d patched all the glitch crap that went on early in the game.”
Lynn didn’t respond right away, remembering the glitches she’d experienced in this same field—though further back—when she’d been merely Level 11. She’d been messing with unorthodox tactics at the time, and Hugo had made a valid point that trying to “game” the system could have unpredictable results.
They weren’t doing anything like that now, though. They were wiping the floor with the TDMs exactly as they would have done in a championship. Strictly by the rules.
“Wolves, let’s retreat ten yards and switch all weapons to ranged for a few minutes and see if things keep glitching.”
Despite some grumbling from Ronnie and Dan, they executed the maneuver and did indeed experience fewer glitches. Lynn had them all retreat another ten yards and found that not only did the glitches go away, but the sparkling mist disappeared and the unknown’s attacks vanished along with it. Nobody noticed but her, of course, since she was the only one who could see the unknown for whatever reason.
Well, that was illuminating.
Lynn had suspicions, and she didn’t like them at all. She let her team stay there for a bit longer, taking down TDMs at a much slower rate, but still with plenty of targets within their weapon range.
“Hugo,” Lynn subvocalized, keeping her voice neutral. “Are you causing glitches in the app to make us stop playing because we’re ignoring your safety recommendations?”
There was the tiniest of delays in Hugo’s response, small enough that Lynn wasn’t sure if she imagined it or not.
“No, Miss Lynn, I am not causing glitches in the app to make you stop playing because you are ignoring my very appropriate and reasonable safety recommendations.”
Lynn pursed her lips, aiming at and shooting a Jotnar lumbering toward her. It took a second shot to the head to make it explode, which gave her a little more time to think.
Hugo’s answer seemed pretty definitive, but she couldn’t shake the feeling there was something fishy going on. She didn’t have time to sit around and play word games with an AI—plus she doubted she’d win that battle anyway. She knew the game advertised that it would auto-lock if it detected a player in combat mode entering hazardous locations, such as roads, train tracks, and airfields, and that made perfect sense. She’d tested those boundaries herself early on, just to see how it worked, and it was slightly chilling that mesh web GPS triangulation was so accurate that the app knew where she was to within an inch at all times. The moment she stepped off a curb onto any road big enough to show up on EarthMaps, if she was in combat mode her display was blanked out by the message “Hazardous Location Detected: Please move to a safe location to continue playing.”
Whatever this glitching was, though, had nothing to do with the app’s built-in safety functions. She suspected if her team engaged in illegal behavior like trespassing on a power substation, Hugo would have something to say about it—like informing the authorities. Otherwise Tsunami might be blamed for their illegal behavior. But they’d hunted around dozens of other substations and similar manmade infrastructure, so what was different now?
“Skadi’s Wolves, prepare to advance again. Let’s do a bait and destroy formation just like before and see what happens. Hopefully the glitches were a one-off.”
Everyone was happy to hear that, and they got back to work, dropping another set of bait markers so they could create lanes to start obliterating the last two rings before the substation. Or at least this side of the rings. It was too late in the day to tackle the far side, as satisfying as it would be to make a clean sweep of it.
Once more, though, as soon as they were close enough that Lynn started taking that out-of-nowhere orange-red fire that nobody else could see, their apps started glitching again. Lynn ignored it and ordered everyone to keep pushing forward.
Which was when the apps crashed entirely.
“What the freaking—” Ronnie shouted, devolving into Lithuanian as he ripped his AR glasses off his head and glared at them, like he expected to cow them into contrition for interrupting his hunt.
“Okay, that was really weird,” Dan said, sheathing his batons and taking off his own glasses to examine them, likely wanting to ensure there was no obvious physical damage—which, of course, there wasn’t.
“Does everybody’s LINC still work?” Lynn called out, since they could no longer subvocalize to each other through the TD Hunter app.
After a moment of checking, everyone answered in the affirmative.
“Okay, let’s switch to a group voice chat and we’ll figure out our next move.”
Once the guys had put their AR glasses back on and everyone had switched to their always running team message chat, Lynn subvocalized, “Something like this has happened to me before at this location, back when I was Level 11. Can anyone restart their TD Hunter app?” She’d already tried hers, and it hadn’t responded.
“Nope,” Edgar subvocalized. “Dead as a doornail.”
“Nada,” Mack agreed.
Dan and Ronnie couldn’t restart their app either, so Lynn motioned for them all to follow her.
“Let’s walk back toward the sidewalk and try again. I bet it’ll work once we’re further away from the substation.”
They trudged across the field and tried the app again. Lo and behold, it worked.
“Surprise surprise,” Lynn muttered to herself.
“What was that, Miss Lynn?” Hugo asked as the TD Counterforce logo disappeared and the app’s home screen filled her AR display.
“Nothing, unless you can tell me why the app just crashed.”
“I apologize, Miss Lynn, I am doing a diagnostic as we speak and will open a technical support ticket with Tsunami. All data readings leading up to the error have already been sent to the appropriate technicians and we will do everything we can to ensure the error does not reoccur. For the time being, might I suggest you relocate if you wish to continue hunting?”
“You’re welcome to suggest it,” Lynn said, suspicions not allayed in the least.
“Okay, so are we going back, now?” Ronnie asked, raising both hands in exasperation.
Lynn looked at the rest of the team, who shrugged.
“Let’s try it one more time and see what happens.”
Hugo didn’t try to talk her out of it, which seemed suspicious in and of itself.
Lynn was wholly unsurprised when the same thing happened again.
“Man! This sucks!” Dan said, kicking a tuft of grass as his no-longer-an-Ambanese-Sniper-Rifle batons sagged sadly in his limp grip.
“Cheer up, Dan my man. Think of all the extra time we get for homework tonight,” Edgar said with a good-natured grin.
“Don’t remind me,” Dan groaned.
“Kas per velnias?!” Ronnie spat, ripping off his backpack to shove his batons violently into it. “This is freaking unacceptable! I’m calling tech support right now.”
“I mean, I wish we could have finished the mission,” Mack said, “but I am starving. Can we go get burgers before we split up?”
Lynn remained silent, staring pensively at the substation, wishing she knew enough technical details about how data transference in the mesh web worked. Then, at least, she might have an inkling about what could be interfering with the TD Hunter app at this specific node. As it stood, she was as clueless about it as Elena was about how to be a competent TD Hunter player.
In the end, they did stop for food, but it was for Happy Joe’s pizza, not burgers. GIC had reached out to the local chain after Operation Boss Bash and suggested they offer Skadi’s Wolves a sponsorship deal. The owner had been all about it, and Lynn had gotten to chat with him—he was a huge fan of TD Hunter, apparently. His son played it and raved about Skadi’s Wolves on a regular basis. The guys had been thrilled to have more excuses to eat delicious pizza. Now Happy Joe’s was getting so much business, much of it TD Hunter fans hoping to catch a glimpse of Skadi’s Wolves, that the owner was opening two additional locations in new parts of the city, “To make sure Skadi’s Wolves always has quality pizza close by,” he’d said in his press release about it.
They didn’t get much peace and quiet to eat their pizza. Four different groups of people asked for autographs while they were there, which the guys thought was the coolest thing in the world and which Lynn tolerated only because the fans were so polite and apologetic about it. Ronnie even insisted they stream the interactions, which was probably an excellent idea, but which made Lynn want to run screaming from the restaurant. Or maybe hide in the broom closet with her pizza. Since neither of those were options, she forced a smile and played along.
The pizza was really good, though, so Lynn supposed it was worth it. The store manager refused to let them pay for it, too, saying it was the boss’s orders when Lynn tried to bully her into taking their money. Apparently, Happy Joe’s would gladly feed them free pizza, three meals a day every day, with how much publicity it would get them. Not exactly the right diet for high-performing athletes, but Lynn appreciated the thought.
Despite her distaste for the attention, the pizza run ended their hunting day on a high note. Poster girl for Happy Joe’s Pizza Emporium had never been on her list of things she’d expected to do in life. But the everyday fans they’d met had reminded Lynn that regular people were a decent bunch, even if all the craziness of stream fame and the insanity of the masses in virtual made her want to puke on a regular basis.
By the time Lynn got back to her apartment, she was sure of two things: their bait and destroy tactics were a resounding success, and hunting followed by pizza was a great distraction from grief.
What she wasn’t sure of was what the heck was going on with TD Hunter—and whether or not she dared to dig deeper.