Sarah crawled forward a bit so that they could all see each other. “I’m starting to understand why this game is A.O. I don’t think Devils has much to do with the actual war of Greenland at all. Maybe the setting, but not much else.”
“What do you think it’s for, then?” Bryson asked. “I mean, why didn’t we receive a mission as part of the game? Something. Do people really just come here to beat the tar out of each other until they’re ready to come back for more?”
“Maybe that’s exactly it,” Michael answered. A thought had occurred to him about the tents, too. “And maybe they have rewards when you’re done. Things innocent kids like us shouldn’t be doing or watching.” He smiled. “To the victor go the spoils—it’s something my dad used to say.”
“Devils of Destruction,” Bryson said absently. “Well, that’s exactly what it looks like down there.”
6
Guns pointed forward, they started making their way down the long slope to the mayhem below. The red blood against the white snow only made the scene more horrific to Michael. The sounds of battle carried on the wind, and they were as horrible as the sight of it all. Grunts and screams and bloodthirsty growls. But for some reason, Michael didn’t hear much gunfire.
“Wait a second,” he said, a terrible thought occurring to him. “Do these things even work?” Pointing the muzzle skyward, he gripped his machine gun and pulled the trigger. There was a clicking sound, but that was all. Disgusted, he threw it to the ground.
Bryson tried his and chucked it away when it didn’t fire. “You’ve got to be kidding me! This is nothing but a disguised game for barbarians. Why don’t these people just go back to the Dark Ages?”
“Do I even waste the strength to pull my trigger?” Sarah asked. She did, and of course nothing happened. She blithely tossed it over her shoulder and continued walking toward the battle. “We might have some serious programming ahead of us.”
7
Michael didn’t dare admit it to his friends, but he was beyond terrified. They’d paid a lot of money for their Coffins, making the VirtNet drastically real—which was great for the pleasures in life. Not so great for getting stabbed, beaten, and strangled. Michael had done a lot of stuff inside the Sleep, but what lay below him looked worse than any of it. He was walking into sheer brutality. And bringing in other skills or weapons through the code didn’t look like the brightest prospect after the difficulty they’d had programming hats and gloves.
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.