Hypermutant

Chapter 5 | Mind Tides

We're surrounded. Their eyes have stopped glowing but the growling and ragged breaths are now audible somewhere in the darkness below us. "Morq," I warn as the ropes of ice holding us afloat between the trees start to crack.

"Ini shun," he says in a sing-song tone. Then, he looks over his shoulder and swears, setting his gun on recharge. "Why didn't you tell me?" He straps his weapon over his shoulder and drops to one knee.

"You can read my mind!" I shout as Morq quickly boosts me up higher into the air. The net of ice bouncing and cracking. In the split second I'm airborne, I switch my ice cannon off recharge and shoot downward.

Morq whoops as we freefall towards the rabid creebs in a deadly rain of ice and fire. I land hard on a creeb's back as he yells, "Adyona, puirras!"

Creebs shriek and scatter, Morq's explosive bullets searing through fur and skin. I wrap an arm around the creature beneath me, trying my best not to fly off its back. Still thrashing around, it opens its mouth in something between a growl and a hiss, its long pointed canines not ready to give up without a fight.

"So," Morq says as he tears through the first dozen creebs, "you gonna tame that thing or do I gotta do all the work?"

I smirk. "Ini shun."

He gives me a short sarcastic laugh, narrowly escaping another pounce before shooting the creeb in the head, "That's how it is, ey?"

I grip its nape, triggering an awful screech as I jam the end of my gun into its jugular. It jerks its torso with more force this time, finally flinging me off and to the side.

"Shield—on me." I press the button on my gun and ice falls, solidifying in a blink.

The creeb I tagged stops writhing and freezes in place. The others pause, hesitate, looking from our shielded figures to their fellow monster. The one in the middle grows and glows. Startled, the others start to back off, but they're too late. They turn in our direction and somehow it looks like they're all looking right at—

Nie, they're looking into me.

My heart skips a beat as their mouths curl to let out a wet hiss. A split-second later, red and black frozen chunks fly in all directions. More ear-piercing screeches. Red splatters all over the shield and the holograms turn red.

"I missed this game," Morq says with a hint of nostalgic bliss blooming in the telepathic bond. "It's creepier than I remember."

"Sai. There are so many glitches, though."

"That's what makes it fun."

He's not wrong. The game was never updated after release. It upset some people because the creatures are based on the ones on Xilgrena, only two planets' orbits over at this point in our revolution of the redstar. It was violent and too realistic, and many felt it was wrong. Others didn't like that the headset uses mekopiri hatchroots, which have properties similar to telepathy, allowing you control over the game with minimal physical input.

Sadly, their bad luck didn't end there, and the developers ended up closing shop and never making another game. The loyal fans that still play the game—Morq and I among the few—have played enough of its limited content and found odd bugs that make the experience more fun.

It's rumored the original creators have been adding little things in secret just to mess with us since they went zero-contact. Morq's favorite conspiracy is still that they're testing new features and are using it as a test for Colkus-o-Uemo, under a different company, StroshDonoba, which popped up some time after the scandal.