Scattered fights dotted the perimeter of the valley, but most of the battle was concentrated in the middle, around the trenches. The noise had steadily increased as they descended the hill, and it was so brutal that Michael was tempted to turn around and run back. Somehow hearing the sounds of pain made the sights worse. Choking gurgles and lunatic screams and hysterical cackles of glee. The laughter might’ve been the hardest part of it all.
And it wouldn’t be long before soldiers began to notice them.
“It’s not quite like we’ve strategized,” Sarah said. “Their game descriptions were obviously a bunch of lies. Do we split up or stay together?”
Bryson drew out his knife and gripped it in a gloved hand. Michael imagined that beneath the material his friend’s knuckles were turning white.
“We better stick together,” Bryson said. “It’ll take longer to figure out which trench has the Path Portal, but I’m guessing these players have been doing this a long time. We’re going to have to gang up to survive.”
“Sounds good,” Michael replied, hearing the fear in his voice. He pulled out his own knife and tried to remember if he’d actually ever been in a game where he had to fight another person with just a blade, to the death. Usually players had more sophisticated weaponry. “I think we need to pull in something more than this.”
“It’d just make us stand out more,” Sarah countered. “They might gang up on us.” She pointed to the closest trench to the left. “Let’s go in a circle. Make our way along the outside and spiral in so we don’t miss any of the trenches.”
Michael and Bryson agreed—they adjusted their course and headed to the first trench.
“Oh, crap,” Bryson said, glancing to the right.
Michael followed his line of vision and saw three soldiers sprinting full speed toward them. Two men, one woman. As he saw them, they started shouting and gesturing with their bloodied blades. The woman had a long metal pole in her hands, too. Michael’s stomach turned a little when he noticed a chunk of what looked like meat stuck to the end of it.
Bryson was right. These people were animals.
8
“Fight hard,” Sarah said calmly. “And remember—it’s okay to die.”
That part we really don’t need to remember, Michael thought.
He and his friends dropped their backpacks and got into a battle stance, knives held at the ready. When the oncoming soldiers were about twenty feet away, Michael wondered about the grenades on his belt. He guessed those didn’t work, either, but it was too late to check. The attackers were close enough to reveal the rage in their eyes, and all three of them were screaming what Michael assumed were obscenities in another language, spit flying from their mouths.
When they came to within a few feet, the soldiers split up as if they’d decided beforehand who would attack whom. The woman came after Michael, which was not good news. She looked meaner than the other two combined—her black hair wild and matted with sweat, streaks of blood across her face, several teeth missing. And that pole. That terrible pole and its trophy gummed to the end. Michael’s insides sank a little.
With a piercing scream that reminded him of the KillSims, she raised her shaft and swung it at his head as she charged. He ducked but kept his eyes on the long blade in her other hand, which she stabbed at his face with as the pole whipped past his shoulder. Deflecting it with a forearm, Michael dropped onto his back and rolled, trying to get away from her. From the corner of his eye, he saw her flip, then land squarely on her feet like an acrobat. He was in for the fight of a lifetime.
His attacker had a grin on her face, pausing as if she wanted to relish the fear that must’ve been obvious in Michael’s expression. But he had enough experience that he wasn’t completely cowed. If this lady was going to beat him, he’d make sure she limped off with a few aches and pains of her own.
He held his knife up. “We don’t have to do this,” he said. “All we want is to look around the place.” The words sounded ridiculous, even to him.
Her brow wrinkled in confusion, and then she spoke. Michael had no idea what she was saying—he couldn’t even tell the language—but she seemed angry.
He took a step back as if he was scared and about to run, then charged forward, hoping to catch her off guard. But instead of retreating, she smiled even more, seeming happy to let the attack come to her. Michael flashed his blade as if to stab her but then leaped off the ground, kicking both legs out straight toward the soldier’s chest. She tried to dodge but moved too late, and his feet slammed into her. Letting out a strangled cry, she stumbled backward and fell onto her side.
Michael crashed to the cold ground, too, but was back on his feet in an instant, running at the lady, who was only just putting her hands down to push herself up. He dropped his shoulder and tackled her, the two of them tumbling over each other several times before they came to a stop, Michael on top. She’d lost her knife but had somehow held on to the metal pole. She swung it at Michael and he dropped his blade, caught the shaft in both fists, then struggled to rip it out of her grip—but she was too strong. Seesawing left and right, neither of them would let go. Finally, he squeezed the pole and slammed it downward, smashing it into her mouth.
The awful sound of teeth breaking made Michael weak, and he almost lost his grip. The woman screamed and released the pole, both of her hands shooting to her face. She wailed as she tried to struggle out from under him, but he squeezed her torso with his thighs like a man on a horse, refusing to fall. The pole now fully his, Michael raised it and slammed it back down again. There was a terrible, hard thump and the woman went still and silent.
As soon as she stopped moving, Michael jumped up and grabbed his knife, pole and blade both held firmly, ready to fight if he needed to. But she remained frozen.
He stayed that way, breaths coming ragged, the cold air burning his lungs, until someone tackled him from behind, hitting him so hard his head whipped back and smacked into the attacker’s face. Together they landed on the ground, and Michael felt every last bit of air leave his lungs. The person spun him onto his back and then straddled him, pinning Michael’s arms with his legs. The man’s face hung over Michael’s, flushed and covered with cuts, mad blue eyes drilling holes into him. The stranger was twice the size of the lady who’d attacked him first and held a knife at Michael’s neck.
Michael didn’t care what Sarah had said; he wanted to use the code to pull in a weapon from another game. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the sea of programming, frantically thinking through his options. But it was too late.
The man on top of him spoke in the same strange language the woman had, then calmly slid his blade across Michael’s throat. Cold pain flared through his neck, followed by warmth as the blood started flowing out of his body.
A few seconds later, he died.
CHAPTER 11
IN THE TRENCHES
1
Michael hated the uncomfortable period of twenty to thirty seconds after he’d died within a self-contained game like Devils of Destruction. There was a disturbing dark vacuum of nothingness before you started your next life. It was done on purpose, to give people more of a real sense of death—to give them a moment to ponder what had happened and what it might be like if it had been for real. Time to think, What if I had really kicked the bucket? What if this was it?
This time, as Michael waited it out, he was just angry. They’d barely begun, and already he’d been killed. He didn’t even get a chance to look in one stinking trench! How in the world would they ever search them all? Mentally tapping his fingers, he lay there in silence. Finally, a light appeared before him and grew until it pulled him back into the full world of the VirtNet.
His eyes snapped open, and he was lying in front of the door that led into the snowy world where he’d just been murdered. The bar was back in place across the entrance. He breathed a sigh of relief, glad he hadn’t been sent all the way back to the lobby. He didn’t think he had it in him to get past
Stonewall and Ryker-the-angry-cowgirl-child again.
Groaning from the painful aftereffects of his two fights—if he could call the doomed second tussle an actual fight—Michael sat up. He was alone in the tunnel, so he knew that Bryson and Sarah were still alive or had died and already gone back out there.
He was still dressed head to toe in warm garb, and the stuffed backpack was beside him. After a quick check of the guns in the locker—none of them worked—and a somewhat foolish test of a grenade—it didn’t, either—he pulled the heavy bar off the door and slipped back out into the frigid, windy air. As he walked, he brainstormed how he could use code to help himself in this brutal war.
2
Michael saw two people off in the distance trudging up the long white slope. He was sure it was his friends—long brown hair streamed from beneath Sarah’s ski cap, and Bryson’s cocky gait was recognizable even from a distance. He knew he’d never catch up with them, so he decided to take a different route. Instead of marching straight down into battle like an idiot—they hadn’t really known what to expect the first time, he supposed—he planned to skirt to the right and hide along the rise of the hill until he could find a more subtle place to sneak into the fray. He’d gone a couple hundred feet when he saw that Bryson and Sarah had made the same decision, though they’d moved off toward the left.
Good, Michael thought. Maybe collectively they’d at least get a few trenches inspected before some crazed mountain man or lunatic woman slit their throats again.
The wind whipped at Michael’s clothes, and the ice and snow stung the exposed skin on his face. His lips were starting to feel like burnt paper, ready to crack if he dared moisten them again. He almost wanted some action just to get his blood pumping.
The sounds of battle—the screams and haunting cries they’d heard earlier—grew louder as Michael approached the top of the slope. He crouched down and started crawling, thankful for the thick gloves on his hands.
He made it to the lip of the rise and dropped to his stomach, then took a moment to take everything in. Far to his left, Bryson and Sarah were sprinting from hill to hill, pausing behind each before moving on to the next. It didn’t look like they’d been spotted yet, and they were getting close to the outer trenches, where fewer people were concentrated. Most of the fighting still took place in the long, bloody corridor going down the center of the trenches.
The sounds of metal clashing against metal, animalistic grunts, and primal screams were carried on the wind to Michael. He still couldn’t believe that anyone would voluntarily take part in such brutality. As he watched one of the closer fights, he saw a man stab another man, shouting at the top of his lungs the whole time. After everything Michael had seen in countless movies and experienced in games, he still had to look away. This place was hell.
Focus, he told himself. Avoid being seen, and concentrate on the trenches.
Staying just below the sight line of those battling in the valley, he crawled military-style across the frozen snow. Worried that his backpack would give him away, he finally took it off and chucked it, not sure why he had it in the first place. He’d be thrilled if he lived long enough to worry about needing food or extra clothing.
He made his way down to the right of the valley, so far unseen. Several rows of trenches lay between him and most of the fighting now, but it was still impossible to get a good look at how many people waited inside them. He stopped behind a small mound of packed snow and gathered his wits. The memory of that blade slicing his neck was still fresh, as if the pain still lingered there.
Closing his eyes, he focused on the surrounding code for a second. It seemed elusive and hard to read, as if the sea of numbers and letters churned in a fierce storm. It took him a few minutes, but he was finally able to latch on to a string of programming he’d used in a game called Dungeons of Delmar. It would give his knife a magical quality, bursts of unseen force from its tip that might go unnoticed.
It was better than nothing.
As he had to do sometimes in the Sleep, Michael gave himself a pep talk, a reminder that as bad it seemed, he wouldn’t actually die if he was killed. Pain, yes. Terror, yes. Traumatized forever, maybe. But at least he’d still be alive at the end of the day.
Eyes closed. Deep breaths. Eyes open again. Code-enhanced knife pulled from his belt, gripped firmly in his right hand.
He got up and ran for the closest trench.
3
His heart pounded and cold air burned his lungs raw, but Michael willed himself to set it all aside and run as fast as possible. A few soldiers noticed him, but they were on the far side of the trench Michael was headed for, and no one approached him—they just kept beating on each other.
The edge of the trench was suddenly at his feet. He pulled to a stop and looked down, quickly scanning the interior—about fifteen feet deep. It was empty except for a wooden bench and a slushy path going down the middle. The walls were covered by black tarps—held in place at the top by old tires and pots and pans. There were no soldiers inside.
Because Michael didn’t see a clear Portal, he almost turned and ran for the next trench, but he stopped himself. Who knew what the Portal looked like, anyway—or whether the weakness in the code would be easily spotted? It hit him then, the enormity of the task that lay ahead of them. It would take forever to search each trench from top to bottom. And they didn’t even know what they were searching for, exactly.
Sighing, Michael found a ladder and climbed down to begin.
4
The black tarps that covered the walls of the trench were easy to move. Michael pulled one back and ducked underneath it, then walked along the side of the trench from one end to the other, feeling up and down the expanse of ice. But that’s all it was—ice and hard-packed snow. Nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary. Every once in a while, he closed his eyes to look for anomalies in the code or anything that stood out. But it was all solid.
When he came out of the tarp on the far side, he checked to make sure the trench was still empty, then moved on to the other wall.
Nothing.
He walked once more down the center, kicking through the slush and checking the code for anything weird. Then he examined the bench. Another check of the programming.
Nothing.
As Michael climbed the ladder out of the ditch, he tried not to think of how much time he’d just wasted. There’d be no way of knowing which trench held the Portal until he and his friends searched them—one by one. He sighed again. He supposed no amount of effort was really a waste.
At least that’s what he told himself. He couldn’t shake the hopeless feeling that they’d never find what they were looking for. There were still at least a hundred more to go.
No one was running at him—at least not yet. And a glance around the battlefield showed no sign of his friends.
Michael headed for the next trench.
5
No one was inside that one, either.
Michael scaled down and began his search. He slipped under a wall tarp and made his way down one side, then up the other, checking the code now and then. But it all looked fine. There was nothing there.
He climbed out, discouraged but ready to check the next space. He’d let his guard down, so he was surprised when he saw a woman standing there, waiting for him. Dressed in the same winter camouflage Michael wore, she looked clean and fresh, like she’d just walked out of the tunnel. Her face would’ve been pretty if it wasn’t screwed up into a nasty snarl.
“Micky told me I’d have an easy kill over here,” she said. “Nothing like a stray kid who’s tippy-toed his way in without permission. You’ll be a good game-starter for me.” Her expression had warmed a bit as she spoke but twisted back into a snarl when she finished.
“Easy?” Michael repeated. “What makes you think I’m gonna be easy?” He casually took a step backward, lining up the heels of his boots with the top edge of the trench. He wanted to look like someone who was scared but trying
not to act like it.
“How many times have you been in here?” she asked, again relaxing that horrible face only to pull it back when she was done talking.
“This is my first time,” he said innocently. “But I did have a kill already. That’s not too bad, right?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to enjoy this way too much.”
Michael just grinned and said, “Go for it.”
He wanted her to make the first move, and it worked. She came at him, her angry face flushed a deep red.
She pulled back her fist, and right before she hit him Michael dropped to the ground, onto his side. He knew there’d be a risk of slipping over the edge and into the trench, but he was willing to take it to avoid another fight. He squeezed the handle of his knife and sent a bolt of invisible power at her torso, and she catapulted forward.
She flew over Michael and fell, screaming, to the trench floor. Before she had time to get to her feet, Michael was sprinting for the next trench. If he was lucky she’d broken a leg.
6
There was a man sleeping on the bench inside the next trench. Other than that, it was empty. Michael was ecstatic. He ran to the steps and climbed down. At first he considered doing a quick search without bothering the guy, but then thought better of it. The man might wake up while Michael was under the tarp, and Michael would be wide open for attack. He couldn’t take any chances.
Michael stood near the sleeping man, watching his chest rise and fall. Not wanting to get too close, he quietly pulled out his blade and aimed, then shot a clear laser of power across the man’s neck, trying not to gag as the soldier sprang awake and grabbed at his bleeding wound. He fell off the bench, and for the second time that day, Michael had to remind himself that he hadn’t actually killed a person. It looked so real.