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  It wasn’t like she could cure the combatants, right? The mission profile had nothing to do with playing medic. None ever did. We were probably going to kill them all when the next attack came anyway. Those gamers weren’t going to leave it on PAUSE forever. They wouldn’t let all these low-level online combatants stay captive. The game had to move along. Objectives had to be met.

  The dog growled again. Dakota growled back. She reached for the hand suddenly, trying to catch the dog off guard, but the beast coiled and snapped. It crawled deeper into the corner with its fangs between its tasty meal and Dakota’s approach.

  “Gimme some food,” she said. “I’ll distract it with some food.”

  “It already has something to eat,” Mi corrected her, shrugging. “Damn, girl, what is up with you?”

  Then Mi did what we’d all thought of doing first. Well, not Dakota.

  Mi walked over, chambered a shotgun shell, and blew the dog’s head off.

  Brains spattered the wall, but she didn’t even break stride, reaching down for the hand. Casually, she tossed the thing at Dakota.

  “There, OK? You better get it together, D. Keep this up and you’ll get sent down for sure.”

  Dakota, the sagging appendage in her hand, just stared back. Then she went over and placed it by the final hostage.

  And that’s when the gamers attacked.

  Rocket shells flew through the windows. Grenades bounced up through the trapdoor. Over our heads, an Apache space chopper rained hell in the form of 34mm mini-gun tracers.

  My team was quick, returning fire. Even Dakota.

  Reno, York, me, Jevo, the rest of the crew: we poured lead down on the exposed gamers. We had position, and they had a rescue mission to complete.

  All except Mi. Through the smoke I caught a glimpse of her walking along the soldiers, kicking their reclaimed hands one by one at the hole. She watched them drop and bounce off the rocks below.

  An hour later, traps exhausted, caught in multiple crossfires, we lost our rear wall. After that, they cleaned us up pretty quick.

  I took a bullet in one ear. On its way out, it cleaned wax from my other ear as well. But we all went down fighting, ’cuz that’s what we do.

  I woke up with a headache like you could not believe. At first I thought the Re-Sim blades had forgotten to close a door on my skull plate or something, but when I ran my fingers over my head, everything was intact.

  The pain, though, was intense. It was just over my right eye, to the side, in that soft gap where it feels like you can push in and touch the edge of your cornea. The temple is a tender spot. Trust me, you don’t ever want to get punched there.

  If only this felt like just a punch. But no, it was burning, more like a cyst or growth, pulsing and cheesing and building up explosive pus. It throbbed as if it might pop.

  Then, right in the corner of that eye. I saw it. But I knew I didn’t see it. Ever get an eyelash stuck and it looks like a shadow? This was no shadow, it was a sign. A road sign. Like a memory or glimpse, but even as clear as it got, I knew it wasn’t really there. When I turned my head, it turned too. It was just something stuck in my field of vision.

  In the rest of my line of sight was Dakota, bouncing off her table. Mi was getting up too, and it didn’t escape me that her hand went to the same side of her head. Clutching the spot. As if someone had driven a heated knitting needle as deep as they could push it in.

  Reno, York, Jevo, the others. Wincing. Like bright lights had pierced a dark sleep.

  I tried to focus.

  I tried to see what was on that sign, but it was fading. It was probably just a leftover image from the mission. Maybe the name of the oil derrick or the colony or . . .

  No. It wasn’t that.

  Not at all. This was something new. Something I’d never seen online before.

  What it read, I realized as the image and the pain quickly faded, was:

  ENTERING PHOENIX, ARIZONA

  TAKE ANOTHER STEP AND YOU WILL BE SHOT

  Level 5

  Dawn broke through some low-lying clouds, and that was exactly the last thing we wanted. Now, with the sun up, the pack that was hunting us could use their spotter scopes to keep track of our movements.

  THE HILLS HAVE TEETH IV. We, of course, were the hills. Or the teeth. Whatever. Me and Mi and York and Reno and Dakota and about a dozen more were dressed in rags and looked like inbred hillbillies. Jevo was the huge behemoth country hick who bit stuff. He did look the part. All bulk, no brain, jaws of rusty brass. There always be a-one them in those-there backwoods gigs, ain’t I right, y’all?

  According to the cutscenes, the story line, we’d kidnapped and—get this—eaten the gamers’ kids or something sicko like that. Can you believe this crap? Cannibalism as a story line for kids, adults, whoever? BlackStar was one twisted company. They stopped at nothing. If rock beats scissor and paper covers rock, you can bet that for a corporation profit crushes morality. Anything for a buck.

  For a billion bucks? Total perversion.

  Anyway, so my friends and I, according to the intro movie, were the so-called flesh-eating fiends with nasty teeth and bulging eyes and yellow claws for fingernails! Oh, brother, how stupid can it get? Anyway, we’d done some atrocious thing to the gamers’ children, so now they just had to hunt us down and get their sweet, sweet revenge.

  Dakota was right. While the gaming parts might have been fun . . . the running and jumping and shooting . . . why did BlackStar designers have to wrap it all up in grosser and grosser story lines? My team didn’t care one bit if we were wearing denim rags, like now, or driving futuristic mech-bots. We just wanted a challenge—an athletic combat puzzle. We wanted to win a few and lose a few. We wanted to try different strategies. We wanted a couple of laughs and surprises along the way.

  Revolting story elements had nothing to do with the quality of the actual gaming experience.

  Still, there we were, just coming out of the low foothills, getting chased by four gamers who were maybe an hour behind. During the night, while the—oh, brother, here it came again—vampire werewolves were out (yeah, they actually had those in this game)—we’d taken a chance and moved early. It’d paid off, and now we’d put a little gap between us and our pursuers.

  “We can’t cross the open plain.” Jevo was pointing ahead, his torn flannel shirt drooping off dirty muscles.

  “They’ll spot us,” Mi agreed, panning around, a hand up for shade, searching for a new route. Reno handed her some binocs. Those two always moved like a team. Made my job easy.

  “What’re they on now?” York asked, watching our six, making sure we didn’t get sniped from behind.

  “I heard motorcycles late last night,” Dakota offered. So far, she was actually being a big help. Maybe she did belong here with us after all.

  “Then they got attacked by the undead dogs. Big fight. But I think they also found another ammo dump and rearmed.”

  “We’ve got nowhere to set up an ambush.” York kicked the dirt.

  “There’s a ghost town over near that tree line.” Mi pointed. She was right. It was a ways off but was a much better option than crossing open ground.

  We humped along the ridge for a while. Once, we heard barking, but that was probably just random background noise. While we villains were often given vicious guard dogs or attack beasts to use, the gamers almost never had trained animals in their inventory. They did, however, get night-vision goggles, radar, and all kinds of maps, clues, and hints along the way. So if we’d found this town, chances were good they knew about it too.

  “It’s a trap,” Dakota warned as we neared the edge of the settlement. Cracked pavement stretched ahead. Abandoned gas stations, dark homes, wood rot, fallen signs, rusting cars: the detail was exquisite. I was pretty sure one of the circling buzzards actually rained poop on a broken windshield. Some designer had spent time on this town.

  “What’re you looking for?” I asked York. He had a spotter scope out.

  “Th
e diseased house dog licking a dead corpse. Apocalyptic scenarios always open with one. Then I kick it. And it scampers away, howling.”

  That made me chuckle. York.

  “I don’t think they could’ve circled ahead of us.” York countered Dakota’s theory that it was a trap. “Chief,” he said to me, “let’s set up our own front here. Best place for it.”

  “No other place for one,” Reno agreed, already hoisting his shotgun.

  “That’s exactly the point,” Dakota snarled at them. “They’ve been hunting forever. This is the only destination for us. They need to wipe us out to get revenge or satisfaction or whatever, and everything points to this place.”

  “But how could they have gotten here first?” Mi challenged her, also wanting to set up and fight it out with our alpha crew. “Transporter device? Unlikely.”

  “Helicopter,” Dakota suggested, looking around.

  “No way,” York argued. “There are no military vehicles in this game. It’s been very straightforward: supposedly, we ate something we weren’t supposed to eat. A simple revenge plot line followed . . . they came looking for us in our cave complex. Big battle. We lost most of our minions. Jevo snuck around and dined on their remaining infants.”

  “Which were way undercooked,” Jevo tossed in there.

  York continued, “We moved to the trailer park. More battle. Then we went through the abandoned research facility where evil scientists did secret experiments and the virus got out of hand.”

  Reno sneered. “There’s always an abandoned research facility where the secret experiments run amok and the virus gets out of hand . . .”

  “Anyway, from there it was a straight shot to the gorge. Then to the dam. Then through the high mountains. Some vamp wolves. Fight-fight-fight. Big cliff. Raging river. Now to the plains and the abandoned ghost town.”

  “Right, very predictable,” Mi said. “Theoretically, they might have found jetpacks or something back at the research labs, but it’s doubtful. We’re here first. So let’s set up a couple sniper positions on top of the creepy library and the haunted grain silo.”

  Reno helped out. “I’ll position the mortar over there behind the deserted police station, and, Dakota, how about if you place the machine gun in that convenient machine-gun nest? The one on top of the fully filled aboveground gasoline containers at the corner gas station?”

  “Gee, how surprising,” she replied. “What are the chances the gamers will shoot the clearly marked explosive tanks?”

  “Very funny, Dakota.”

  “Wasn’t making a joke, Reno.”

  “How’s your ammo?”

  “Unlimited,” she told him with another face, sticking out her tongue. That’s, like, the oldest one in the book. AI, NPCs, we always have unlimited ammo.

  “So that’s our plan, chief?” Reno asked me.

  I nodded, but didn’t tell him it just didn’t feel right. Yeah, games are predictable. Environments are predictable. And this title was creepy, to be sure, but still, something didn’t add up.

  After all we’d been through, had the designer really just led us—and the gamers—to this abandoned town to have it out in another run-of-the-mill gunfight?

  Maybe.

  Although . . . it sure didn’t feel much like a final boss battle. Nope, it still felt like we were working our way through the maze.

  We saw them coming from a good way off, but the strange part was how long it’d taken. I’d sat there most of the day with Mi in her sniper position and waited for the enemy to appear. Quiet. Thoughtful. Comfortable. We didn’t really talk much out here without a reason. That was kind of the way it had gotten between us. Can’t explain it, but when you live with someone you also go to war with, a lot of the operational details can go unspoken. Makes it nice. Efficient. Reduces the background noise.

  And, no doubt, it helps in battle to know what the others are thinking. We had that, all the team did, and Mi had it with Reno, too. Put those two in a bunker together and they’d be tough to dig out. Make him or her defend that same bunker with Dakota? Who knew what freak-show event would happen next?

  I knew how Mi fought just as well as I knew how long it took her to get ready in the morning. I understood her strategy about when to shoot and when to hide and when to move just as easily as I could predict what she’d eat each night for chow.

  We’d been together for lifetimes. That was the rhythm of our days. One death after another. I’d seen her get blown away so often it just didn’t hurt that much anymore. I knew she’d get put back together, more beautiful each time, a new nick or scar, perhaps—and there we’d be, laughing, joking, slugging each other back at base, waiting for our next assignment. For a new challenge. For more good times.

  So there we sat, on the grain silo, for way too long. I took a minute to look at the tattoo that ran around her palm. It was beautiful, changing color in the light, nothing like the plain tribal ink you usually saw. And mine, well, so similar in color, swirls, and code. We were made for each other.

  So I asked, I had to ask. “When we came out of Re-Sim last time, did you get something stuck in your eye? Some pain there?”

  She turned—it looked like the memory was there—then nodded.

  “Some kind of bird, I think. Big one.”

  “Hawk? Eagle? Raptor?”

  “Sorry, war bird, more like a bomber,” she clarified. “Not a bird bird. A plane. Raining acid from wing sprayers. Sort of a crop duster, only one the size of a superjet.”

  “Wow.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever fought one like it before.”

  “Acid, huh?”

  “Old people melting like butter underneath. Alligators turning into highway puddles. Strong stuff.”

  “Was it real?” I pushed her. “I mean, had you seen it in any game before? Like a ghost memory?”

  She shook her head.

  I told her about the sign. The Shoot on Sight sign with my name on it.

  She smiled. “Maybe like a premonition, or a preview? Of something we get to play soon? I kinda like it already. I hope our side gets a few of those aerial supersoakers.”

  I laughed a bit. That’s my girl. Big guns made her happy.

  “Might not be a game preview,” I muttered. “Something stuck in the system.”

  “It’s not my first one,” she suddenly admitted. “Been getting them ever since Dakota . . .”

  Then she stopped.

  “Since Dakota showed up?” I finished. I thought back. Was that when my first weird memory happened too? I thought it was.

  Not a memory, though. More like a glitch. Something we weren’t supposed to see.

  But really . . . what was to fear, a few ghost images? With all we went through? Hell, maybe they were just clues for an upcoming mission.

  Our town was still quiet. We owned it. I thought I should maybe make a run and repaint the sign on the edge to read NEW PHOENIX, but didn’t want to give away my position. Or Mi’s. We had a good spot.

  So where were the gamers? Strange they weren’t just rushing in. Most of you gamers play a pure hack ’n’ slash game. Your kind relies on brute force, overwhelming firepower, and plenty of health packs or shield regenerators to wade through my NPC team. Very few of you are truly strategic. Some of you are outright stupid, and it takes you dozens of tries to figure out how to defeat us. You just blunder around over and over again until you eventually stumble on the correct tactical solution.

  But again, this was a bit odd. This game was odd. Most of the time, for us, it’s deep space and alien monsters and super-high-powered weaponry. This place, though: regular shotguns and Uzis and pistols. Most of us even had bats or machetes as melee weapons. Very unimaginative at our level of play, and it was puzzling why my team would be assigned to second-rate programming like this. It just didn’t make sense.

  The first thing we heard was the crunch of big rubber on gravel. Nothing in nature makes that noise. And these tires were huge.

  On a distant
hill, a vehicle appeared, rolling easily over the boulders in the scree field surrounding the town. It was a monster jeep, and from the looks of it, the gamers had spent time piecing it together from the scrap remains found back at the research lab.

  Six huge tires. A massive roll cage on top. Each corner had a gunner with some kind of harpoon launcher. And behind the buggy—very strange—it was towing a trailer that looked like a circus cage, only the top was left wide open.

  What was going on here? Wasn’t this just another first-person shooter? Why all the machinery? Why give the gamers the option to stop and make new vehicles? Why not just give them bigger guns and some kind of prefab tank?

  “Should I pick one off?” Mi asked, hoisting her sniper rifle, laying the crosshairs over the closest gamer’s head.

  “You’ll give away our position.”

  “I think I can get two of them before they fire back,” she muttered. “Wanna bet?”

  I believed she could pull off the shots, even at this distance, even with the targets bouncing and moving. She was that good.

  I radioed York and Reno to ask if they had clear lines of fire yet. Nope. But Dakota, over on the gasoline tanks, promised she could also open up. That helped. See, if you ambush an enemy from a single firing position, it’s easy for them to spot you and get to cover. When you catch them in a crossfire unexpectedly, it’s completely different. They have very little opportunity to spot either position or find a place that’s safe from both vantage points.

  “OK,” I announced, “when the vehicle reaches the second stop sign, Dakota and Mi, take out the front corner gunners. You two coordinate your targets. The dual gunners behind them have limited visibility. Reno, can you get a grenade or Molotov on top of their RV while they’re still trying to pin down our positions?”

  “I can try.”

  “That’s the plan, then. I’m going on foot. Once they’re occupied with you, I’m going to flank left. Let’s end this weird session once and for all.”