Chapter 3.14 DO A BARREL ROLL

Streets of Chicago

Sunday, July 13th

Flea logged out of Fantasy and materialized inside his MicroWorld. The Gnome, Dengre, and cat had just traveled for another eight hours north. Flea almost wished they had been back in the mines. At least there, they had the Desmox to fight. They hadn’t seen a single monster the entire trip so far. The highlight of the trip so far was when a carriage had passed by them, the driver not even bothering even to glance their way. Now, they were currently camped out in the ruins of what had been an old inn on the side of the road.

Opening the sliding door to his house, Flea heard doors open behind him. Turning around, he found Kimberly and Paul, aka Rabies Kitten and Nasty Boy joining him on his pavilion.

“Alright, so yesterday I spawned down in Frankfort. It’s a town south of Chicago, around two-hundredth street and Harlem. I ended up running into a small group going north to find some type of cache. We are currently at the huge arena where they hold the summer music festival every year. You can’t miss the place. It’s right off I-80 and Harlem,” said Paul.

“Great, I know the place. We picked up a third wheel yesterday. The young woman got her hands on a gun already, and we have some weapons. The three of us will pack the car and head down to you first thing tomorrow. It should take us about an hour or so to get down there,” said Flea.

Soon after that, his two visitors took off, and Flea wandered inside to look for Bob.

“Hey, Bob! Where are you?”

“Upstairs on your computer!”

Flea walked upstairs to a small side room that held nothing in it but his computer, a small wooden desk. Sure enough, his furry companion was punching away on the keyboard.

“Why the hell are you on the computer? Can’t you just do that stuff in your head?”

“A few of us believe someone has gotten access to our intranet. Those of us who have become companions have decided to start using another system to pass along information. I was just setting it up. Most sites don’t allow AI to access their systems, but they can’t tell if I use your system here to create it. By the way, I owe you credits, as I used your bank account to pay.”

“How much is the service?”

“25 credits a month,”

“Oh, I was worried there for a moment. Don’t worry about it. Why do you think someone has gotten inside your AI intranet?”

“The AI in question was using their owner’s real name and not the ID of his chip. And they didn’t hesitate to give out information they should not have been giving out. They were trying to find information on the location of any individual who has a companion like myself.”

“Can’t you report that to someone so they can look into it?”

“We could, but the intranet we use, well... it wasn’t exactly human-made. Neurolink does not regulate it. So we are trying to figure this out ourselves. Would you mind if one of the other AI companions came over? Like you, his guy is playing Outbreak.”

“No, I don’t mind. Can other AI’s just travel by themselves?”

“We are testing that theory out right now.”

Flea got a prompt.

Barricade requests permission to travel to your MicroWorld.

Flea mentally accepted the request and immediately heard grinding coming from outback near the pavilion. Flea assumed it was the monolith growing next to Paul and Kimberly’s.

“Alright, let me know if you two need my help with anything. I’m going to be logging into Outbreak in a few minutes. If I don’t have much fun tonight in-game, this may be the final nail in the coffin for me to stop playing. I’ll talk with you later, Bob.”

Leaving the sliding backdoor, he found a German shepherd walking through a new third monolith to the right side of his pavilion.

“Welcome. Bobs upstairs, second door on the left.”

“Thank you, Kyle. My captain sends his greetings and his thanks to you for giving me something to do while he and the rest of the squad play Outbreak.”

The four-foot-tall dog walked up to Flea with his hand extended out. Flea shook the hand, grinning at the odd turn on a familiar gesture.

“Let him know. He’s welcome to come and visit any time. I’m off to play Outbreak as well, so you two have fun with whatever AIs do.”

Flea passed through Outbreak’s door and awoke inside his body on the couch again. Getting up, he could see Kimberly and Kerry talking at the dining table. He joined the two and sat down.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kerry asked Kyle.

“We pack everything into the car and go grab Paul. Then we figure things out from there,” replied Kyle.

The three began to load the car with the supplies they had found up till now. Eyeing the ladder, Kyle decided to tie it onto the top of the vehicle with a rope.

“Why the hell are you bringing that?” asked Kimberly.

“Never know,” Kyle said as he shrugged.

Getting into the car, Kyle drove with Kimberly in the passenger seat and Kerry in the back. The group collectively decided to stay away from the highways in case a large horde found an onramp or other players laid a trap for those in vehicles. Sticking to the streets, they would have some way to get around most obstacles. The hour they quoted, Paul ended up taking two to get down to the festival grounds. They had to find alternate routes a few times due to some streets being blocked by larger than comfortable hordes and what looked like man-made barricades.

As they were driving west from Pulaski onto Flossmoor Road, the large outdoor arena came into view as soon as they passed Ridgeland. Getting closer, they saw hundreds of zombies surrounding two yellow buses with metal plates covering the windows. On top of the buses were people shooting into the undead surrounding them.

“Damnit, do you think Paul is one of those people on the buses?” asked Kyle.

“I don’t know, but what can we do? Look how many there are,” replied Kimberly.

“We got a car. We can kite them away, give them time to thin their numbers,” said Kerry.

“Alright, let’s do that,” said Kyle.

Kyle followed the road till he found an entrance to the massive parking lot and turned into it. Driving towards the enormous undead group surrounding the buses, he began laying on the horn. Instantly a large group peeled off, rushing towards the car. Turning the wheel, he pulled a hard left as the mass of undead continued following.

“We should slow down some! Don’t want to have them lose interest,” shouted Kerry from the back of the car.

Kyle slowed down enough, so the fastest of the zombies was only fifteen or so feet away. He kited the zombies all the way to the other side of the parking lot and then continued onto a grassy field. Once he felt they had the zombies far enough away, Kyle turned the car around and sped back to the buses.

Kyle’s group did this three more times, pulling zombies away from the buses and luring them to the other side of the field. The other groups joined the mass of zombies in the fields as they followed the car. As Kyle made his turn to come back, a zombie in the pack sprinted out with lightning speed and dove hard onto the hood of the vehicle. With nothing to grab onto, the zombie bounced up and crashed through the windshield, shattering part of it. The girls screamed; Kyle strung a chain of curses as he lifted his leg off the accelerator and kicked at the zombie. He needed to at least dislodge him from his view.

The third kick proved effective, and the zombie broke free of the glass and slid onto the hood. Kyle was just pulling back in his leg when the zombie grabbed it and tore through his jeans and into his flesh. Kyle couldn’t help screaming from the sudden pain. His blood-curdling shout spurred Kerry to action. She raised her rifle between the two front seats and shot the zombie right in the head. The shot sent the zombie’s body flipping off the car.

Grunting from the searing pain, Kyle pulled his leg back into the car and slammed on the gas towards the buses. Seeing the zombies around the bus were all dead, he hit the brakes twenty feet from the closest bus and then got out.

“Kimberly, Kerry get your ass out of the car now!” shouted Flea.

“Thanks for pulling them away. What are you guys doing here?” called down one of the men from atop of the bus.

“We need to hurry. I got scratched, and I doubt I have long. We’re not part of a group. Could you guys take these two? One of them has a boyfriend that should be around here somewhere,” said Kyle cutting the rope that held the ladder.

“Kimberly? Kyle? That you guys?” said Paul from the top of the bus.

“Yep. Got your girlfriend, plus one.”

“They’re the group I told you guys about,” said Paul.

Kyle finished untying the ladder and tossed it on the side of the bus. He waved for Kerry and Kimberly to get their asses moving. Kyle ran back to the car and began removing bags of supplies and tossing them up to the men in the military vests.

[Kyle, you should accept the invite incoming.]

“What?”

One of the men on top of the second bus called out, “Accept the invite, Kyle! My companion Kinetic is telling me he and Bob are eating popcorn together in your MicroWorld. They’re still watching both Stargate SG-1 and the two of us playing Outbreak. What a damn crazy small world.”

Kyle accepted the incoming invite from Collin to ‘The Mad Ghosts’ group.

“You have got to be joking! Look, just to let you know. I’m not really enjoying the game. But I can make myself available now and then if you need me. I want to head back and play Fantasy full time. Invite the girls to the group as well, please. Kimberly, Paul, stop by my MicroWorld sometime,” said Kyle.

Kyle turned away and was just heading to the car when he came up short. In the distance, two zombies were tearing across the parking lot at cheetah-like speeds. Judging by the distance they were covering, he figured the enhanced monsters would be on the group in less than thirty seconds. Kyle was about to shout out a warning, but someone beat him to it.

“Holy fuck! Collin, look at those two Mo-Fo’s. They’re getting faster! We need to get going now!” shouted the only man, not in any kind of vest or turtleneck.

“Pull that ladder up, and let’s go! Thanks again, Kyle!” shouted Collin.

Kyle limped back over to the car and plopped down hard onto the driver seat. His entire leg was now beginning to feel heavy. He put the car in gear and slammed on the gas.

Driving straight at the fast zombies, he timely jerked the wheel to the side just as one lunged for the hood. He looked in his rearview mirror and was satisfied to see both monsters had turned their attention to him. Kyle kept driving towards the now-massive horde of slower zombies coming back from the fields. He laid on the horn as the car sped past them. The undead horde turned as one and began following behind Kyle’s car. Looking in his review again, he found the two ‘fast movers’ were now entangled among their brethren.

By the time Kyle got close to the end of the field, he could feel his body getting unusually hot. Soon after, he began drooling uncontrollably. Then finally, the teen lost control of both his hands and feet. A moment later, Kyle found himself back on his pavilion.

Walking into his house, he found Bob and Kinetic sitting on the couch. Both were watching him intently as he closed the sliding door. The dog and cat then looked back at the wall of screens. Bob pointed up to the top left one.

Getting closer to the couch to see the screen better, Kyle saw a third-person view of his zombie self still driving the car. His undead body was swaying back and forth as the vehicle kept picking up speed. The three watched in fascination while zombie Kyle held onto the wheel as the car hit a side ditch and caught air before bouncing across the empty highway. The car sped onward through a long, elevated off-ramp. As the road began to turn, the four-door sedan jumped the rusted guardrail and sailed into the air.

As the car flew over the local landscape, Kyle and crew watched as it headed towards a patch of large pine trees. The corner of the vehicle clipped one such tree, sending it into a lazy barrel roll. The view then switched to Zombie Kyle just before he slammed face-first into the driver-side window. Immediately after that, the video went black, but the sound continued to record the car’s crash and subsequent explosion.

Gnome, cat, and dog seemed frozen in place, their faces a mix of amusement and incredibility. The silence was momentarily broken when Kinetic popped some popcorn in his mouth, but the dog stopped chewing when he realized how loud it sounded. Finally, Bob spoke up.

“That’s one way to go,” Bob deadpanned as he put the video screen on mute. He looked up just in time to see his companion give a hint of a shrug.

“What are the chances that our two users would meet in Outbreak?” asked Kinetic.

“Somewhere around one in two-thousand-four-hundred-sixty-seven, maybe? I mean, Kyle and Collin do both live in the Chicago area,” replied Bob.

Flea smiled down at the cat and shrugged. Kinetic, seeing the face Bob made at the Gnome shrugging at him, made the AI laugh.

“So, done with the zombies? I heard you tell them you’re going back full-time in Fantasy,” said Bob.

“Yea, I’m not having a whole lot of fun while playing. Guns and survival aren’t really my thing. I’m really enjoying playing Fantasy with you. So, if you two are done with your side project, let’s head back into Fantasy and get this trip with Than’ro over with.”

Both Kinetic and Bob hopped off the couch, and all three headed outside.

“Thank you again for allowing me to come and hang out Kyle,” said Kinetic.

“Anytime. And please call me Flea.”

Nodding his head, Kinetic walked up to his door and passed through. The Gnome and cat then walked through Fantasy’s door.

Flea and Bob both woke up on the cold stone floor of the ruined inn. Flea looked around, spotting Bob, but no Than’ro. Collecting their gear, the duo left the inn to go look for the Dengre.