“Oh yeah, Llenn.”
“What is it, Pito?”
“Did you read that newsletter about a new tournament called Squad Jam? It got sent out this morning.”
“……Jam…made of…squids?”
“Ewww! You just made me imagine that!”
“But wouldn’t that just be squid shiokara? I mean, that’s basically salted, blended squid guts, so…”
“Hmm… I suppose you’re right about that.”
“I actually like that stuff! Especially when you put it over fresh steamed rice!”
“I only eat it as a snack with drinks. But if anything, I prefer shuto, the pickled bonito version of this.”
“Ooh, I love shuto! Did you know that means sake thief? I’d rather just steal the shuto instead!”
“Hang on… Do I recall correctly that you’re still a minor IRL?”
“I don’t actually drink alcohol with them, of course. I just like snacks that go with drinks. Whenever my dad or my brothers have drinks at home, they bring that stuff out.”
“Oh, I see… So you have multiple brothers. There you go letting personal details slip out again, Llenn.”
“Oops…”
“Look, I won’t do anything with that knowledge, but you should watch what you say here—especially girls like us. You’d be surprised how many people collect little bits of information or trick you into revealing something, then search that stuff online to find your identity.”
“I’ll do my best to be careful… I deeply appreciate the warning.”
“There you go getting all formal on me again! None of that! We’re all equals in this world! We talk as equals!”
“Got it, Pito!”
“Much better. Now, we were supposed to be discussing a tournament. What is wrong with us? Two girls hanging out in a virtual reality online game and chatting about fermented squid guts?!”
“Yeah, good question.”
“While we stand with guns at the ready in a desert, no less.”
“It’s very odd.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Two women stood in a desert of rocks and sand.
In this world, the clouds choked the sky, turning the sunless atmosphere a yellow gradient. They didn’t move, as there was no wind, but occasional flashes of distant lightning led to eerie rumbles in the background.
The earth consisted of brown sand and rocks of various sizes—some as large as boulders—that were steadily crumbling into the former. A cluster of high-rise buildings were barely visible in the distance, jutting askew from the ground in their ruined state.
Amid an environment that could only be described as desolate, the women sat at the foot of a car-sized rock, their legs extended.
“So…what’s this squad thing?”
“I’m glad you asked!”
“Well, you brought it up first, Pito.”
“Did I? Gosh, I think I’ve already forgotten about that.”
“Ah, I see. So you’re an old woman IRL.”
“Oh no! I’ve been exposed!”
They chatted and laughed as though they were killing time on a weekend at a restaurant—except that here, nobody was around to request they keep their voices down.
One of the two said, “Anyway, I’m not deliberately trying to cover it up—I mean, obviously I’m not going to divulge my exact age—but I’m really not that old, in truth. I’m just not one of those underage honeys like you, Llenn!”
“Um, Pito…nobody actually says the word ‘honey’ anymore. At least, nobody in college does.”
“Boom! So you’re in college! I had my suspicions, and now they’re confirmed! Another detail uncovered!”
“Oh nooooo!”
Llenn wasn’t really a woman as much as she was a girl; practically a child, in fact.
A child wearing all pink. Not the cute, peachy kind of pink, but a deeper one with hints of brown, to cut down on the brightness.
She was well under five feet tall and fragile in stature. Her round face was monopolized by two very large eyes, which only pushed her apparent age further downward.
Her hair was dark brown and cut in a tomboyish bob, atop which she wore a knit cap. Her whole outfit was pink. Both her top and bottom were fairly common combat wear—trousers like cargo pants and a long-sleeve combat shirt. Elongated pouches rested over both thighs, and short laced boots protected her feet.
“I’m serious, you’ve got to be more careful about this stuff, or I’ll have you all figured out!”
“It’s your fault for being so clever with your words, Pito! You con artist!”
“Aw, shucks.”
“Huh? That wasn’t a compliment.”
“It wasn’t? But you’re going to praise me, right?”
“That wasn’t my intention, no.”
“Aw. But I’m the type who does better once I’ve been flattered.”
“You do know that’s the kind of thing other people are supposed to say about you, right?”
The other woman in the pair, Pito, was dressed all in black.
She looked much older, in her late twenties. She had tan skin and sharp features—pretty, to be certain, but the brick-red geometric tattoos on either cheek stretching toward her neck gave her a dangerous vibe.
She was tall, easily over five foot eight, with long hair tied into a simple high ponytail.
Her outfit was a navy-blue so dark, it looked almost black. As the skintight profile made extremely clear, her figure contained none of the stereotypical feminine beauty. It was like a muscle model, the kind of sharply silhouetted body one might assume belonged to an android rather than a human.
On her feet were black boots, on her waist was a military belt, and running from her sides to her back were vertical magazine pouches.
There was one thing both had in common: guns.
The girl in pink was equipped with a P90 from the Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal, a gun about twenty inches long. It was an odd weapon that didn’t look like a typical firearm, more like a rectangular box with a grip cut out of the middle to grab.
The bullets were visible from the clear plastic clip, which slotted onto the top of the gun’s frame. It held a full fifty rounds, making it one of the largest magazines not made for machine guns.
Like her clothes, the P90 was colored smoky pink, which, combined with the strange shape of the gun, made it look like a toy. She was like a kid on Christmas carrying a present in bright wrapping paper.
The taller woman in black had propped her assault rifle against the rock next to her. It was a Russian AK-47, one of the most recognizable guns in the world, equipped with a curving magazine holding thirty rounds of 7.62 × 39 mm ammo.
“Listen, Llenn. Complimenting others is the very bedrock of flirting techniques.”
“I-I’m not trying to become a master flirt!”
“What? Don’t you want a girlfriend?”
“Nope. I’m already a girl.”
“You really shouldn’t get all hung up on the little stuff, like whether someone’s a man or a woman.”
“I would think that’s the most important part.”
Just before the woman in black and girl in pink could really dig into their latest point of discussion, a muffled explosion burst into the world.
The instant the ground rumbled, they leaped to their feet and yelled “Got ’em!” in unison. The woman opened fire with her AK-47, and the girl did the same with her P90, while they cried “Get ’em!” again in unison, leaping out from either side of the rock they’d been hiding behind.
About fifty yards away, a plume of dust was quietly falling back to the dunes after the underground explosive had blown it sky-high. Without any wind to stir it, the cloud cleared very gradually.
In the middle of the dust was the victim of their trap, an enormous worm monster over a foot thick and nearly five yards long. It was writhing and buffeting the earth as red light spilled out of it from all over.
“I’ll back you up! Empty that magazine!” commanded the woman, who was a fifth of the way to the beast already, her AK-47 propped against her right shoulder.
“Roger!” replied the pink girl, who sped even faster.
The AK-47 howled, gunfire rattling the air. A hail of 7.62 × 39 mm rounds sank into the agonized earthworm in semiautomatic rhythm.
The dull-green cartridges that ejected from the right side of her rifle bounced off the sand, then flashed and vanished from the world forever.
To the side of that gunfire and nearly as fast as the bullets whizzing by, the girl hurtled in a forward lean, P90 on her shoulder. She unleashed the weapon on full auto. Its drumroll percussion joined the AK-47’s rhythm.
“Yaaah!”
5.7 × 28 mm bullets shot from the P90 and tore holes in the giant earthworm. Little gold cartridges poured out of the bottom of the gun in a torrent. The agonized worm opened its mouth, splitting its head into two, and issued a creepy roar.
“Here comes the tail attack!” the woman in black yelled, halting her AK fire.
“Roger!” said the pink girl, who continued her charge. She took her left hand off the P90 and thrust it into the pouch on her left thigh, pulling out a new clip. The earthworm undulated, whipping its tail toward the approaching girl.
“Haah!” she cried as she leaped, spraying sand behind her. The jump launched her easily over six feet into the air.
The giant earthworm’s tail swung through nothing, and above it, the girl switched out the old magazine, boldly discarding the eight shots left in it, and slammed the new one into the slot with robotic efficiency.
“Yah!” She landed light on her feet and made a broom-sweeping motion over the worm just below her reach, unloading the magazine mercilessly into her target.
Three seconds later, the red light stopped pouring from the holes all over the worm monster’s body, and it burst into tiny glowing shards that vanished without a trace.