Headshot: Two in the Head (Book 2 of a Zombie litRPG Trilogy) Page 6

  It was way too early for that sort of gear to be out in the general populace. Someone out there had a gun that was three times as good as it should have been, at this point in the game, and a scope that would probably have taken three or four days of scavenging to find or engineering to construct. There was no way that they could have gotten it from their Vault either as none of the survivors had access to it on Sunday.

  That alone was almost enough to convince her to ditch the library and get the hell out of there. It was only what, twenty-five minutes into the game? Her backpack, the one that every character started with, was still unbearably empty. The sniper was an issue, and his gear was a worry, but she knew that crouching here in the darkness bitching about it was only going to give him enough time to circle around and find a place from which he could blow her head off her shoulders

  Sasha clearly wasn’t listening to me, because I was practically screaming into her mind that whatever was in this stupid library wasn’t worth getting shot over. I was already beginning to know more and more about her, and the one thing that came through time and again was this massive streak of stubbornness that seemed to run through every damn thing she did.

  When I’d taken her out last week, she had already stayed at the diner too long. She could have fled before she got surrounded, but she didn’t. Even when I’d attacked her, she’d spent her last moments saying something into that damn brick instead of just kicking free of my grip and vanishing into the night.

  Sasha Redhook didn’t appreciate being told what to do, and I the end I think it was that alone that made the decision for her. She wasn’t going to run. The library was right here. She'd already risked her life for it, and if ever there was a time when her skills needed a boost, and she required a bit of extra in-game knowledge, it was now.

  Getting in wasn’t going to be quiet and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be easy, but it was going to happen.

  Chapter 8

  Sasha peered past the heavy security gate and into the presumably empty library one more time. The gate was operated by a keypad on the outside of the wall right beside her. Well, at least it would have been if there’d been any power.

  Still, it was more there to make sure that someone didn’t try and jimmy open the doors. They hadn’t surrounded the whole building in bars, and there were plenty of big windows set into the front of the library. When the sun was up, they probably let in big splashes of light for readers to enjoy.

  Why, I wouldn’t mind a chance to sit in one of those oversized chairs myself, curled up and comfortable amidst a sun-drenched nook, wiling away the hours with a good book unfurling its wings of splendor inside my head.

  The windows also meant that if someone was ready and willing to really make some noise, all they had to do to get inside was pick up a big ass rock and chuck it through the glass.

  I turned around to see Sasha in the midst of searching the landscaping for just such a projectile. It wasn’t going to take her very long to find one since the University had selected the “hedge maze for midgets” and “plenty of places for a lizard to sun itself” landscaping option.

  She was spoiled for choice if I'm honest. And sure enough, the one that she reached for was twice as big around as her head. Jagged glass be damned, Sasha was hell-bent on grabbing some of those damn books before the opportunity was lost.

  I was at that awkward age where I never knew if I should call someone of the opposite sex a woman or a girl. Whatever she was, Sasha bent down with surprisingly good weightlifting form and got both of her arms around the rock.

  I didn’t feel weird for admiring the shape of her. This was Absolute Reality. My brain didn’t give a damn whether the images it was focused on were getting pumped straight into my gray matter or filtered through my eyes. It liked what it liked, and right now watching her get ready to struggle with this mini-Boulder was starting to make me tingle in all the right spots.

  Sadly for her, there was no way she was going to be able to lift it. Not in a million years.

  But I’d forgotten about her strength attribute. Those extra points really paid off, and when she hoisted it above her head and smashed it through the window, I stopped worrying about whether my erection would materialize in Headshot and concentrated instead on keeping up with her as she scurried through the massive hole she’d just created in the glass.

  I guess strength was useful for a lot more than simply enhancing your carrying capacity. Over on the free side, us Zombies had never had a chance to select any of our attributes. It was one more thing on the list of thousands to be jealous of, but it was hard to think about any of that when I looked up and saw the shape of her ass that she crunched across the broken shards on her hands and knees.

  I felt like a lecher, and fortunately for both of us a couple of seconds after she was into the library she pushed herself up to her feet. I didn’t like feeling like I was watching someone who didn’t want my attention. If that was the sort of thing I was into, I had Lori for that sort of shit.

  Sasha was pretty pleased with herself. She’d made a lot more noise than she’d wanted to, but at least she was in. I could tell that she thought it was nice to be better able to take charge of her life in here than she was in the real world. I realized that I was eavesdropping on her thoughts in the same way that I’ve been toggling her ass, but that didn’t stop me from knowing that, even though she was the gun at the game, she dreaded playing it as well.

  Too often Sasha had convinced herself that Headshot made her play as someone far worse then she had ever imagined she could be, a killer with darker intentions and colder blood than she was comfortable with.

  All I could do was shrug. That was probably nonsense. Sasha was too sensitive. Headshot didn't make you into something new; it just gave everyone a chance to be the thing they were afraid to see when they looked into the mirror.

  Now they were in here; time really was of the essence. Sure, some of the players in the area would have heard that sniping rifle and gotten dollar signs in their eyes. But the others?

  Well, the others would be smart enough to work out that somebody who has a sniping rifle already made them a big threat. Whatever they’d been planning on doing, that sort of firepower will be changing plans all over the zone. People who would’ve been headed out into the more dangerous territories were probably right now turning around.

  And the library, nestled in the relative safety of this quiet street and an unpopulated corner of the campus, would be popping up onto a lot of people’s radar. There was loot here, and it was ripe for the taking.

  If anyone were watching us, they wouldn’t see a pair of players going in. They would just see Sasha and one thought would be running through their mind - It would be a far simpler task and a greater return on investment to ignore the maniac gunman in the parking structure and instead chase some skinny girl in overalls into the darkened library. Once they caught her, they would be free to whack her on the head with a bit of pipe, take her stuff, and ransack the books at the same time.

  To a lot of gamers, that was a win-win proposition.

  "No going back now. Just do this as fast as you possibly can," she told herself. And for once, it looked like she even attempted to take her own advice.

  The foyer of the library was expansive, and the floor was some type of slick slate that the librarians probably hated every time some student in impractical heels clip-clopped across it. Sasha didn’t need to take this sort of time that I did to study the layout. She’d been here before. While I was still marveling at how good the launch version of Headshot was, she was dashing deeper into the library itself.

  I was caught off guard and dragged along on that leash that connected us invisibly. Since I didn’t have to worry about finding my footing, I had time to shake my head in wonderment at the little details that the programmers had managed to include in the game. I knew that Sasha hated them, but they sure did know what they were doing.

  It seemed like she was going out of her w
ay not to think about how much effort had gone into making Headshot happen. I don’t care how many times she’d played this game; the fact that it was even adding a different crunch to the sound of her left foot hitting the ground because she’d managed to get some glass wedged in her boot tread was insane. I didn’t know enough about computers or programming or Absolute Reality or, well, anything to have a real appreciation of what it took to make that happen.

  But the very fact that no other game did it meant that it couldn’t be easy.

  I wanted to ask her why she even bothered to play if she hated the game so much. There were a lot of things I wanted to know, but that wasn’t enough to get me any closer to her thoughts. That stubbornness that I had known ran through her so deeply was keeping me out. That had to be it. Whatever this was, a glitch in the system or some preprogrammed loophole that I’d stumbled upon by climbing into the Guild Vault and avoiding the reset despite my Zombie status, it appeared to be a one-way street.

  I could get a glimpse of what she was thinking, but so far, at least, she wasn’t aware that she was no longer alone.

  There was a stack of books on the front desk near the computer they used to check them out to you. It looked like the librarians had abandoned this place in a hurry, though true to everyone in their profession I’d ever met they had done it in as neat and orderly fashion as I could imagine.

  Sasha started to turn away, but something caught her eye, and she froze. I looked back at the desk, trying to work out what had caught her attention. There was a little bit of disarray, and at first, I didn’t know what she was looking at.

  The mouse pad was slightly askew. The keyboard dangled off the other side, hanging motionless from the cord. At first, I thought there was just one stack of books but now I saw that there were many, and some of them had spilled over to create a tumble of hardbacks on the floor where the librarian would stand.

  Every book was blue. Every damn one of them, and when I took a step forward to get a closer look I saw that they were all the same book, over and over and over. Blue cover, white font.

  Breaking the Game

  the true story of an industry gone wrong

  by Blake Redhook

  I was surprised by how hard it was to fight my instincts as I reached forward and tried to grab one of the books off the desk. My hand went right through it, but even so, it felt like just before it did, there was a slight tingle of something, some electrical interference that buzzed along my funny bone and sent a swift chill up my spine and burrowed into the base of my skull.

  I was near enough now to see that some of the books were lying face down. Sasha’s father was pictured on the back cover. He looked world-weary, wise and noble. He didn’t look very much older than in the picture I’d seen of him and Sasha back at the Museum of Computer Science just before I’d broken into the Guild Vault.

  But his eyes were haunted, now. Whatever had happened between the time that last photo had been taken and this one had changed them. He was a man who knew that the things he was doing and saying didn’t matter, and yet I could see by the set of his jaw that he didn’t have the strength or desire not to say them.

  “No,” I heard his daughter whisper from behind me in a voice so full of pain it was like a punch.

  I spun to face her. For her part, Sasha appeared to be rooted to the spot. I could see by the rise and fall of her chest that she was breathing hard, and when she spun around to look away from the check-in desk trying not to stare into her father’s eyes, she gave a little yelp. I walked past her to see what she was looking at now, only to discover the same thing she had…

  Row after row, shelf after shelf. The only book on the lower level was hardbacked and blue. I could read the words and the binding of the closer ones, and I was sure that the others matched. There were thousands of copies of his book in the library, and there was no way in hell that Deep Dive Studios had intended for that to happen.

  They had been meticulous in their details. Every aspect of Headshot was exact and precise, and the very fact that I was seeing this now right along with Sasha but that something was very, very wrong.

  Upload in Progress

  The words flashed past in front of my eyes as if they were stamped across my retina with such speed that I could barely make them out before they were gone. Once they faded the rest of the world did too, and I reached out with hands that couldn’t have helped me anyway and staggered on wobbly feet that suddenly didn’t exist.

  Exhibit A

  The next thing I see is from a fixed angle, looking down from behind a desk over the shoulder of a man as his daughter sits in his lap and they pour over drawings and schematics spread out in front of them. I recognize them both from the pictures I had seen before.

  There’s obviously a microphone somewhere in the room because I can hear them talking, but the quality of both the audio and visual is degraded. I’m looking back through time, and it shows.

  “You keep asking what I’ve been working on Sasha, and now I am finally ready to show you.”

  She’s excited. Even though I can’t see her face, I can tell. I can’t help but smile to myself at how exuberant she is. The phrase “kid in a candy store” flits across my mind as she hugs him hard before doing her best to sit quietly and not interrupt him.

  Blake chuckles. “You probably don’t remember this. He couldn’t have been any more than three years old at the time. Your mother was watching TV, and I was on the laptop beside her, coding just like always. You were in your room, playing with some toys. I went in to check on you, and-”

  “and my eyes were closed,” Sasha interrupted. “I do remember.”

  Her father nodded encouragingly.

  I felt a sharp little pang of regret when I tried to remember the last time my father had done that to me, but I pushed the emotion away and continued to watch the security footage that was being dumped into my brain.

  “You’ve got a mind like a steel trap. I’ve always said it. Can you recall why you told me your eyes were closed?”

  I can hear the smile in Sasha’s voice. Even at eight or nine, she has enough wherewithal to understand that what she’s about to say will sound a little ridiculous to the ears of an adult. “I’d already seen everything.”

  “That’s right,” Blake agreed. “You knew that there was no one else in your room. Your mom and I were downstairs, and you said that that meant that you could be sure that everything would be exactly where it had been when you closed your eyes. You were playing a game, or so you claimed. You would stand, spin slowly in a circle as he tried to memorize the location of all of your toys, your bed, the clothes that you refuse to pick up off the floor. And when you had it all locked up inside your brain, you would sit on the ground and close your eyes and imagine walking through your room without knocking anything over.”

  Sasha shrugged, at last embarrassed. “I was just a dumb kid.”

  “Not really. You showed me something. It was the key to all of this. I spent the last six years trying to write something that would allow the programs to do what you had been practicing in your room that day. And now I have. Once the information is uploaded, the program doesn’t have to touch it. It still knows it’s there, that’s the trick. But it won’t burn any processing power until someone attempts to interact with it. It remembers that the placement of everything, just like you were trying to do.”

  Exhibit B

  It’s impossible to know how much time had passed between the first slice of security footage and this one. The angle is the same. Sasha appears to be a couple of years older, her father as well.

  This time she’s the one with the drawings on the desk. I can see over both of their shoulders that the painting she’s done for him is quite good, remarkably good once I factor in her age. In bold brushstrokes of black and copper, she’s painted an old-fashioned Diver, one of the ones that had to wear the clunky suits with the massive helmets and the tiny, circular windows.

  “He seemed stuck, dad. I
thought this might help.”

  Blake’s voice is tired now. I can hear the toll the long nights have taken on him in the roughness of his rasped response. “You are quite the artist.”

  But Sasha isn’t looking for compliments, and she waves that nonsense away with an annoyed flick of her hand. “Pay attention, will you?” She’s as gentle as she can be while still being as sharp as she has to if she’s going to cut through his usual dad responses and get to the heart of the matter. “This is how I think you and Desmond need to start thinking of your players.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded fiercely and hurried on with her explanation, obviously worried that she had a limited amount of time before her father’s attention drifted back to everything else that pressed upon him. “I’ve heard you guys talk, and I think you’re going about it the wrong way. You keep saying that players are too fast, that’s hard to write the programs in such a way as to keep up with them. But you’re wrong. Compared to how fast the AI can think, the players might as well be swimming through molasses.”

  Blake took his tortoiseshell glasses from his face and rubbed at his eyes. “I know you’re trying to help. I do. And I’m going to feel like a jerk for having to remind you that Artificial Intelligence is not yet capable of ‘thought,’ but I know what you mean, and so I’ll let it slide. You can’t imagine how happy it makes me that you care about the stuff, but you’re eleven…”

  It was obviously a sore point with Sasha because she went off as if he’d lit her fuse. “Would you shut up for a second? Listen, you guys can’t get it to work, correct?”

  Blake sighed. “Yes.”

  “And I’m telling you why.” She stabbed her finger at the image of the Diver. The paint was still so wet that the tip of her finger came away black. “Now pay attention. I’ve heard you guys talk over and over about field of view. You’re rendering what the players can see, and it’s slowing down the program too much.”