The Game
"We are many. We are one. We have seen what has become of this world, and who is responsible. We demand punishment. We demand repayment. We do not forget."
Van shot the soliloquising man through the head, who dissolved in a cloud of light.
Sasha looked up at the man she'd formed a temporary alliance with. "What the hell was he on about?"
"I haven't a clue."
Miles away at the edge of the arena, the crowd were cheering. The great floating scoreboards declared that only six players were left standing. The others, well, who knew what happened when you Pixelled.
"You could have found out."
Van knelt down and picked up a small C-Beam pistol from the undergrowth. "Not when he was reaching for this. Come on. The others will be here any second now." He reached out with a hand desensitised to Pixelled horrors, and picked her up from the floor. An old scar, a great red slash across his knuckles, pinched him as he heaved his partner to her feet. Sasha looked at it, looked at Van, and back to the spot where her would-be Pixellator had been sat only moments before. She kept silent.
The two of them ran from the Forest Zone. They kept under the canopy and away from the clearings which promised weapons waiting to be taken. Those clearings were rife with booby traps. Sasha tied her bandana around her head and Van checked the pistol over. Loaded, as he'd thought. Van repressed a shudder. They had been seconds from death.
They checked for players hiding in the dark as they ducked under the archway into the Fortress Zone. The medieval town was a maze of grotty stone walls with cameras peeping through arrow slits high up in the ancient buttresses. The two of them slipped into the shadows. Sasha pointed to the top of the Wizard's Tower, and Van nodded. It was as good a place as any to hunker down and catch a breather for a few hours. Slowly they made their way through the backstreets towards the castle, weapons primed and constantly in motion.
They stopped against the wall of a tavern just before the tower. It was tall and cylindrical like a lighthouse, with bolts of demonic lightning spitting from the spire. The courtyard in front was vast and quiet, and the paving stones shimmered white under the lights. Van looked up the wall and spied a glint of metal.
"Is there a camera up there?" Van whispered.
"There shouldn't be," she said, looking back down the alley.
"Someone's up there."
"Then we shouldn't be. Let's move on."
Van wasn't convinced. Nobody was that careless, not this late in the game. "Cover me, Sasha."
"You'll be shot down before you get halfway across."
"That's why you're covering me."
Van holstered the pistol and braced himself. Up in the stands, at the edge of the arena larger than a city, the audience went quiet. The gladiator was ready to fight.
He sprang from the dark. His feet were light and nimble, his arms pumping. His legs were ready to dive away from an incoming blast at the first possible moment.
Halfway. He was still alive.
One foot in front of the other. Watching the metal. Waiting for raining firepower.
He slammed into the tower and burst inside, spilling onto the floor at the foot of a spiralling stairwell. He clambered back onto his feet. His pistol pried into every corner of darkness.
Van turned to the courtyard. "Clear. Come on."
He watched the corner of the tavern. A flash of red lit the shadow. Pixels filled the air like a flower releasing its spores.
The screen announced that there were five left playing.
A gun barrel stuck its head around the corner, and Van barely had time to slam the door shut before it bucked under the impact. Van threw an old crate in front of the door but he knew the gesture was futile. He took to the staircase and began to run for his life.
Halfway up he heard the door splinter down below. He looked down the stairwell and a beam rocketed past his face.
"We know you're up there, Van Kaymen! We told you we wouldn't forget!"
Between painful breaths for stale air, he considered player he'd executed in the Forest Zone. It couldn't have been, him, could it? There was only one group of people that would want revenge. But the players for The Game were randomised. Weren't they?
He broke into the room at the top of the tower. Sat by the arrow slit was a large gun propped up on its stand. As he had suspected, it had been a ploy to keep people away from a good vantage point by pretending to already have a sniper there, where those that had put it there could return at any time.
He looked out of the slit and saw three figures emerging from the streets like wraiths, heading for the tower. They were perfectly synchronised, trained assassins for the job. They'd teamed up on him, cornered like a rodent. There was no way he could hold off all four.
He ducked back before they could shoot. "I'm not going that easily," Van said to himself. He dragged the gun away from the window and slammed the door shut, driving the rusty bolt home. He put two broken crates in front of the auto and hunkered down behind. "Let them come. Let them try it."
He listened as the predators approached, their footfalls only a whisper. He looked down at his scar and it flared again, as if it sensed some unholy presence nearby.
A polite knock on the door. "Hello, Van. May we come in?"
Van's blood froze. He knew the voice. "How did you all get in?"
The voice behind the door laughed. "It's not so hard to trick these systems. Just takes a little practice, and you gave us all the practice we needed."
Van gripped the gun tighter. His teeth ground together.
"You sold us out, Kaymen. Sold us out for a life of luxury. You sold your honour."
"You would have done the same."
"Believe what you will. We will have our revenge now, one way or the other. We're coming in."
His palms were clammy but his nerves were steeled. "Try me."
Van gave no warning, unleashing his full fury at the door. Wood splintered and masonry disintegrated. Dust billowed into the air like ghostly parachutes, and the bricks rained down to the stone floor as dead troopers falling to war.
Then there was nothing. The gun stopped and Van took his fingers from the burning metal. He crouched down, peering through the dust. There was no way to survive that onslaught. Yet there were no pixels drifting through the wreckage. The telltale shimmers of light were nowhere to be seen.
Something crunched on the rubble.
A single beam of crimson shot through the dust and punched Van between the eyes. He screamed as it bore a hole through to the back of his skull. His body shimmered, broke up, and drifted into data.
The men marched into the room. On their knuckles were ancient scars of a lost past and a broken brotherhood.
The audience screamed for a full showdown, but they wouldn't submit to the crowd. They took splinters of wreckage and drew straws to survive. The job was done. The four remaining wraiths would keep their brotherhood to the end, and do things their way.
THE END