Just after 2:10 PM, David stood right before the exit to the tunnel and remarked, “Ah, so if you’re within fifty meters, you can see the enemy location…”
That was because someone just so happened to be within that distance at the moment. The visible cursor came with a name he did not recognize.
He was at the rampart gate on the northwest side.
That was about four exits from Rosa’s trio, but neither was aware of the other’s location yet. If anything, they might have heard some distant gunfire.
Next to David was a beautiful woman with red hair, his rather unlikely partner: Vivi, goddess of machine guns.
She was in a crouch, bearing an RPD machine gun with its barrel cut short. “That just makes me even less interested in going in,” she admitted.
David and Vivi were well-known players in their own right, if not quite as famous as Llenn and her hundred-million-credit bounty.
If they walked out, and their names were revealed, people would be coming after them.
“Then let’s have all these troublesome folks go after the most infamous target of the day,” David smirked.
“Oh, you are a most wicked fellow… Isn’t that what they say in these scenes?” The woman grinned.
“First, however,” David went on, “where are your survivors?”
He knew that Shinohara and Tomtom had died in battle, but he hadn’t heard anything about the others.
The three other members of ZEMAL were…
Max: the muscular Black avatar with the Minimi Mk 46.
Peter: the shortest one (still tall), with trademark tape over the bridge of his nose. He used the Israeli Negev.
And Huey: the tough guy with the slicked-back brown hair, who easily whipped around a huge and heavy M240B.
All three were firepower-heavy maniacs, with backpack ammo feeders that allowed them to shoot eight hundred to a thousand bullets without stopping. You couldn’t ask for better allies—especially because they would do whatever Vivi told them to do.
“Max and Peter are hanging out in the eastern tunnel. Huey’s somewhere in town. He apologized and said he didn’t know where. I told him just to survive for now.”
“Got it. As for us,” David prefaced, “Lux is atop the northwest tower, as I mentioned. It’s the perfect position for sniping and monitoring. Summon is inside the western rampart, closer to us, I believe.”
Summon was the largest member of the team, who used a SCAR-L assault rifle. He had started on the highway on the western edge of the map and spent fifty lazy minutes hiding in the bed of a broken-down truck he’d found nearby.
He probably had no idea that his team leader was in a switchyard quite close by. He had nearly died in the collapse, but by running for all he was worth after getting the warning, he had just barely made it.
“Fortunately, Jake and Bold have already met up. They’re inside the castle wall to the east-northeast.”
Skinny Jake was MMTM’s only machine gunner. He liked to use an HK21.
Bold was a fashionable fellow who set his custom hairstyle in dreads. His weapon of choice was a Beretta ARX160.
Jake had started in the snowy field but quickly fled to the city, then traveled west after the titanic explosion. He had taken almost the exact same route as Rosa, but fortunately for both of them, neither spotted the other due to the thick, choking fog. If they’d encountered each other, it would have been a deadly battle. When two machine gunners ran across each other at close range, it was quite possible for both to end up dead.
Bold had started in the same city. He was lucky enough to spot his buddy Jake en route to the castle.
“Kenta’s in some castle gate on the south side. Seems like he almost died in a big blast.”
The quickest member of the team, Kenta had black hair and a G36K assault rifle. He started in the woods but was lucky enough to be right next to the castle when the fog finally cleared.
The special rules that split everyone up were particularly galling to the members of MMTM, who were highly disciplined and coordinated as a team. David was dying for a chance to shoot the event sponsor.
But it was also pretty sweet that all six of them were alive and nearly unharmed. Anyone would agree, they were in the best position to win it all at the moment. Of course, he couldn’t tell that to the heartbroken Vivi.
“It’s really sweet that you’re all alive,” she said to him first, instead. “So I hate to burden you, but could you ask Kenta to do some running?”
David had his STM-556 pointed to the outside, in case an enemy appeared in the tunnel mouth all of a sudden. “Oh…yes, I see!”
She had a plan. They didn’t know where Llenn’s team was—they could be dead, for all anyone knew—but if they were alive, the chances were highest that they were in the south.
After splitting up in the suburb, David’s side had gone north, while Llenn’s side had gone south and toward the middle. If they ended the hour there and rushed straight for the castle—assuming they weren’t inside already—they would be somewhere on the south side of the structure right now. Meaning Kenta was closest.
If he could at least spot Llenn’s location by cursor, they could proclaim, “The hundred-million bounty is over there! You can attack her and not lose sight of her! Do you really want to fight us right now?” and most enemies would apply pressure to Llenn instead.
“Let’s do that,” he said in his typically decisive manner. He was about to speak to Kenta when Vivi cut him off.
“And…if the enemy latches on to Llenn, we should all rush straight for the middle of the castle, as fast as we can.”
This idea was more confusing to David. “Wouldn’t we be safer here?”
Inside the tunnel, they could see the locational cursors of the enemies in the maze, and any who might be approaching, while the enemies couldn’t see them in return. It was a safe zone that almost felt like cheating.
Couldn’t they just wait here in safety while the situation with Llenn’s team played itself out?
“No, wait!” David exclaimed, realizing his mistake. “This part’s going to collapse, too. Is that what you’re saying?”
He was too busy watching for anyone who might come to attack, but he could sense that Vivi was nodding in confirmation.
“Yes.”
“What makes you think that?” David asked.
“Because that’s how I would design it,” she replied simply.
“Seems like a really mean-spirited rule that’s going to piss off the playerbase…”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Huh?”
“If you’re going to make up some mean rules, you can’t be half-hearted about it. You need to commit to it all the way. That way, it annoys the players that you’re being so mean, but by the end, it swings all the way back around into admiration, doesn’t it? And that makes it harder for people to bash you by that point.”
Although David couldn’t see it, Vivi was grinning.
David smirked. “Guess I’m up shit creek without a paddle. Incidentally, that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever used that saying.”
“It’s 2:13 PM right now. The collapse will probably happen at the half hour. Twenty would be too soon. I’m guessing there will be an announcement with more info at 2:20, and it’ll start at 2:30.”
“There’s the paddle.”
“Only one?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Are you…serious, Captain?” asked Kenta, standing about sixty feet from the exit to one of the rampart tunnels to the south-southwest, positioned at seven o’clock. He was flat on his stomach in almost total darkness.
“Dead,” replied David.
His order had been to run around and spread a message designed to draw enemy attention to Llenn.
In particular, to let the ones who were more than fifty yards away from Llenn know where she was and direct them toward her. It was a siren call to look for the hundred million credits, rather than fight each other.
But Kenta himself was instructed to get to the center by two thirty PM.
Given MMTM’s reputation—for better or worse—for fighting by the book, this was an almost unbelievably fresh and novel idea.
“Roger that!” Kenta happily replied. “It sounds fun!”
A little fun was the best motivation.
He held up his G36K, which had been customized to use M16 magazines so he could share with his teammates, got to his feet, and announced, “Time to get my running in!”
✦ ✦ ✦
