【The Gam3: Origin】,The Gam3: Origin,latest updated chapters, free reading

《The Gam3: Origin》Chapter 6 - Tutorial Testing

Author’s Note: The “Bolded“ speech is anything speaking in a purely synthetic voice.

Action finally starts in this chapter. Enjoy!

WARNING: Graphic Violent Content (Blood, Gore etc.)

??????, the Game

“-start the Tutorial—urgh… huh?” Bradley groaned, almost falling over from dizziness. The sudden change in location left him disorientated and confused. A sudden onset of nausea only worsened the experience and brought him to his knees. He gasped for breath for a moment.

Shaking himself off, he stood up. ‘What the heck hap- what is this place?’ Bradley thought to himself. Now finding himself no longer in the Pentagon’s Central Courtyard, he focused on his surroundings. Doing so only filled him with dread. ‘Oh no, this place seems awfully familiar…’

He now stood in the middle of a pure white room. Unlike the White Abyss where he registered for the Game, however, the Laws of Physics—and more importantly his senses—did work here. Bright, invisible balls of light in the ceiling bathed the space in light such that only the faintest hints of shadow remained; enough contrast that the objects in the room could be made out, but not much more. Despite the sheer brightness, Bradley’s eyes had no trouble. Being able to easily make out every aspect of the room, Bradley found it devoid of all decoration save for a lone robot standing at the center.

After everything else Bradley saw that day, he did not even blink at the robot, despite being so out-of-place in the room. Instead—looking more closely—Bradley wondered if it could even function. While made in the image of Man—or at least a bipedal shape which slightly resembled a masculine figure—it appeared incomplete. A thin metal exoskeleton outlined joints comprised of wires and rubber tubing. Despite these exposed parts though, there were no signs of wear or damage visible.

‘Maybe it is a streamlined model?’ Bradley thought curiously, ‘It only has enough parts to be functional but nothing more.’

“Bradley Cooper, please take a seat,“ the robot stated, causing Bradley to jump back in shock. Bradley assumed the machine might work but he did not expect it to speak so suddenly. The voice itself sounded like it came out of an old text-to-speech program; completely synthetic. The unnaturalness of the sound—a characteristic only heightened by the lips of the robot not moving to the voice—made the statement convey both bored and commanding tones simultaneously.

‘So is this the ‘Mental Examination’ Lieutenant Winslow talked about?’ he thought, ‘Well whatever it is, I don’t know why it would be asking me to take a seat if there isn’t even a chair to-’

Just as he began to think that, a white bucket chair seemed to form out of the ground in front of the robot like a tree sprouting from a seed at a million-time speed. The scene appeared almost comical at how it popped into existence. The organic appearance of the seat looked strange, but the smooth shape looked comfortable enough.

“Uh right, sure,” Bradley observed, reluctantly taking the seat.

‘The whole situation might be weird, but just go with the flow,’ he thought, taking in a calming breath. ‘Now that I think about it, I’m glad this Game is finally starting to act like a game. I’ve had enough ‘am-I-in-the-Matrix’ existentialism for one day.’

“Please fill out this form,“ the robot stated, pulling out a sheet of paper. Suddenly a desk appeared in front of Bradley in the same way as the chair on which the robot placed the paper.

Bradley looked at the form, finding it very similar to something one might sign to immigrate to another country. All the usual questions were there: Name, Age, Date of Birth, Gender etc. as well as a few other harmless things such as Hobbies and Occupation. Bradley judged that this as merely a formality and so quickly completed it. ‘What harm could it be anyway,’ he thought, ‘after all, it isn’t like that sort of thing is exactly classified.’

“Your cooperation is appreciated,” the robot stated, the form disappearing before him. “The test will now begin. To optimize performance, an alternative venue has been selected.“

The robot moved back as the white room around him changed. The white walls changed to grey drywall, the floor transformed into laminate hardwood. It now contained furniture: a simple bed with white sheets, a laminate wood desk with a silvery-metal computer next to it and even the chair Bradley sat in transformed into a black plastic computer chair.

‘This… seems familiar….’ Bradley thought. The moment he recognized the space, he suddenly stood up, causing the chair to roll across the room and hit the back wall. “What the hell?! Th-this is my apartment! How the hell do you know about that; answer me!”

“When the System created the Earth within the Game, it determined the residences of all 7,831,481,563 humans that existed on the Earth at the time. Your residence in {San Jose, California} existed amongst them.“

“Oh right, I forgot it did that,” Bradley muttered, reminded once again of the blatant privacy violations he now found himself living. “I suppose it would make sense that if it could scan buildings into the Game, it could also scan which people lived in which buildings.”

He walked over to the computer chair and brought it back to the desk and sat down. “Well let’s get this Tutorial started than,” he sighed.

‘I’m really starting to get tired of this Game’s shit…’

‘Urgh,’ Bradley groaned, ‘without a clock, I have no idea how long this has been; 10 hours, 20 hours, more? I don’t even know how I can keep up with all this work!’

Paper after paper, assignment after assignment came and went before him. The moment he completed one exercise, another took its place. The moment his hand grew tired of writing, the activity changed to typing solutions on the computer. The moment his fingers and eyes grew sore of the monitor and keyboard, the machine would give him a difficult math problem which distracted him long enough for his hands and eyes to recover.

Somehow the robot always knew exactly what to do to retain his attention and focus on the work as long as possible. Occasionally it would subtly nudge him, other times it used Game Windows. Near the end, it even used voice commands and music. Unlike how counterproductive these distractions were in the Real World for Bradley, they somehow made him focus more for this exam.

The topics of the examination itself were more diverse than anything he had ever seen: music, art, geography, history, science, applied science, math, psychology etc. Even vague internet memes and long-dead pop culture references he picked up during his high school days were quizzed on. Literally every topic that existed—both those that he knew and even some that he did not—were all present.

As the test developed more and more, he also began to notice that the topics slowly converged into the relevant fields he had studied during University. Once he had reached the limit in his understanding in a particular topic, those questions were phased-out entirely and replaced with things he had more knowledge of.

‘I truly don’t know what to think after seeing all this,’ he thought to himself. ‘I think it can read my mind. How else would it know when I’ve become distracted or which techniques work in keeping my attention? After all, the Game already has implants that convert thought into action like mine and even make you smarter like Maria’s. It only makes sense that it could read minds too. But if that’s the case, why test me at all? If these aliens already know this much about us, what purpose do I serve being here? They already know everything!’

Before he started to truly panic, he rationalized this new information. ‘Actually, this test proves that they don’t know everything. They wouldn’t need to test me otherwise. Then again, I suppose this just reinforces what the Doctor said; they want our culture and civilization to survive for whatever reason. Is all my paranoia even warranted? In the end, are they really interested in the goals and aspirations of humanity?’

Before his mind could venture further along that line of thought, the robot emitted the sound of a loud car horn.

*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP*

“Jesus!” he shouted, nearly falling out of his seat. He turned to glare at the robot, but the impassive face removed any doubt in Bradley’s mind that such a stare would have any effect. ‘Well, I guess I should just stop thinking about all this pointless stuff. After all, the others might be done and waiting for me already,’ he thought.

With a shrug and a sigh, he continued working.

“Thank sweet merciful Christ that’s over,” Bradley uttered as he collapsed onto the desk with a yawn.

“Please wait while your test is analyzed,” came the robot’s reply, as impassive as ever.

It took Bradley a few minutes before he finally could gather enough of his wits to get out of the chair and stretch. As he did so, he noticed that the desk and chair he worked at disappeared, leaving only a bed remaining in the room.

“Right… well I might as well go to sleep,” Bradley shrugged. Even were he not completely brain-dead from finishing the Exam From Hell™, with everything that happened to him—the three hour drive to the Facility, the orientation, the aliens, entering the Game, getting his brain fried by his implant, and then going through the worst test of his life—he no longer questioned it.

One way or another, Bradley greeted the bed as a welcome reprieve. As he fell onto the white sheets with open arms, he fell asleep before his head hit the velvety embrace of the pillow.

“The Mental Examination results have been gathered. Please proceed to the Physical Examination.”

The robot’s synthetic vocal ennui awoke Bradley some time later. Yawning, he stretched and sat up on the bed. It surprised him to find that he felt quite refreshed. Under normal circumstances, the first moment of waking up came with drowsiness as well as the “grimy” sensation of being in the same set of clothes for over a day. Here though, it felt like he just took a quick nap after just showering and eating: a full revival.

“The Mental Examination results have been gathered. Please proceed to the Physical Examination.” the robot repeated.

“I heard you the first time,” Bradley yawned, still drowsy despite feeling so refreshed. “Alright what do I need to-“

??????, the Game

“-do,” Bradley finished, finding himself now in the middle of a forest. This time, the teleport did cause him to fall to the ground from dizziness. “God damn it! Really?! Why do they keep teleporting me all over the damn place! You could at least warn me!” he yelled at the sky.

Allowing his eyes to focus on his far darker surroundings, he observed himself surrounded by a thick canopy of trees on all sides; the kind typical of swampier climates with more willow trees than anything deciduous. The damp underbrush and sheer quantity of bugs collaborated with the swamp assumption much to his dismay. He began to swat them away but soon realized the futility of the action. Instead he steeled himself and tried to ignore the incessant buzzing; in doing so, he realized that another Game Window had appeared:

The Survival Test

Try to survive waves of enemies that will attempt to hunt you down. The first wave will begin soon.

At the end of each wave, should you survive, you will be granted experience. Please direct any further questions to the Administrator.

Note: Any damage or changes done to the environment will not have any effect outside of the Tutorial. Items obtained by or taken from any Players during the Training will be returned upon completion of the exercise. For a list of exceptions, speak to the Administrator.

Bradley felt thankful that the Lieutenant at least prepared him for that information, and so dismissed it with a sigh.

Checking his surroundings again, he turned to see that Alex, Garry and Farida had already arrived and were all gathered around another robot. Unlike the one during the written assessment, the quality of this new machine could not be compared. More feminine in appearance with a narrower waist and smaller shoulders, Bradley could clearly note the lack of exposed wires or tubing. Instead, the thick metal plating of its exoskeleton and the flexible metal cabling that comprised the joints gave a clear feeling of power. A thick, glass visor covered its entire head, failing to obscure the synthetic face behind it. The overall appearance gave the robot a distinctly impersonal and alien feel. With its arms crossed in front of it, it looked more like it would tear one of the trees right out of the ground and crush him into red paste than talk to him.

Bradley unconsciously hid behind one such tree and asked it, “Are you an Administrator?”

“Your allies behind you have already been informed. Speak to them for any answers,” it replied robotically, not making a motion in its speech.

“Looks like ya finally showed up,” Garry stated upon seeing the Engineer staring from behind the tree.

“Huh, wha—oh, right,” Bradley replied. Shaking his head and composing himself and chastising himself for his fear, he added, “So this is where the Combat Training is supposed to be? Or I guess it’s called ‘the Survival Test’.”

“Yeah,” Farida muttered, “I’ve been waiting for it to start for the past few hours now.”

“Hours?” Bradley muttered absentmindedly, “Why hasn’t it started already? The ‘mental exam’ was one-on-one right?”

“Ah can answer that,” Garry cut in. “The Administrator behind ya told me that the ‘Earth Coalition’ set up the Trainin’ as a group. Of course, the ‘written’ portion of the exam ain’t done together ‘cause of the possibility of cheatin’ and all.”

Bradley looked back at the Administrator. Despite Garry’s assurances, the robot made no actions to confirm such things… or to even show it could function at all.

“So then do you know where we are?” Bradley inquired.

“Not a clue,” Alex replied, “the Administrator is pretty tight lipped about it and we can’t leave this area.”

“What do you mean by—ouch!” Bradley yelled.

As the others were talking, he had made his way towards one of the trees when he found himself in contact with what felt like a mild electric fence. He had not noticed the faint shimmer of a ‘shield’ surrounding the outcrop and when he touched it, a mild electric shock forced his hand away from it.

Alex smirked. “So until we actually know where we are and who we’re fighting, there isn’t a whole lot we can plan for,” Alex concluded, ignoring the Engineer’s glare.

“So, what have you guys been doing then?” Bradley asked as he nursed his numb fingers.

“Well, the first thing was ta go over what we do know,” Garry started. “Although we ain’t sure of where we are, we at least know it’s near civilization.” He pointed out to a small gap in the trees. “Using my ‘bionic vision’, Ah could see that there is a path over there, so once we reach that road it’s just a matter of time before we find some road marker and we can head on towards shelter.

“Also—while we still ain’t fully decided on the plan-of-attack—it’ll probably go something like this.” He emphasized his words by drawing a diagram in the dirt with a stick. “Since we don’t have many people with actual combat abilities, I figured we should split inta two teams: an offensive team and a defensive team.”

“Huh, Teams?” Bradley asked, “Wouldn’t it be better to stick together? I mean if we’re attacked when we’re split apart, we’ll only be making it easier for the enemy.”

“That’s what Ah thought too at first, but from what the Administrator told Farida when she arrived, there will be lots of time between each ‘wave’ of enemies,” Garry defended. “Alex and Ah both got cybernetic optics, and Patricia has those Psionic powers, so we’re all geared towards searchin’ and fightin’ stuff. You, Maria and Farida all have things that make buildin’ stuff a lot easier. So havin’ ya hunker down and fortify a solid base would be better than tryin’ ta search for things or fight alongside us.”

“Yeah, I may not look it, but I do a lot of track and running,” Alex added “it might not be much, but I’d probably be a lot more help as a scout or something than trying to do anything else. Psychology isn’t really all that ‘combat oriented’.”

“We’ll have both teams focus on findin’ things at first, and until we actually have a place to hunker down into, there ain’t any point in splittin’ up,” Garry concluded. “That being said, Ah figured it’d be good ta plan ahead so once we have enough supplies ta get started and a ‘home base’, the defensive team works on makin’ barricades and traps while the offensive team continues explorin’. Once the enemies start comin’, both teams will hold up in the base and fight them off.”

“Will there be enough time for all that?” Bradley asked.

“Ah asked the Administrator myself and it said that there’d be at least a few hours; enough to regroup and re-plan. Don’t get me wrong though. Like Ah said, this is just a startin’ point. Once we actually know where we are and who we’re up against, then we can focus on a real plan.”

“I still don’t know about all this…” Bradley replied.

“Is all you can do is complain?” Farida glowered, stepping into the conversation, “I’d like you to come up with something better then!”

“Hey now, I’m sure Bradley’s just trying to play the Devil’s Advocate,” Alex tried to placate.

“While Ah agree that keepin’ together is probably best,” Garry relented, “the Lieutenant said we weren’t even gonna last three rounds no matter what we do. Ah don’t know about y’all, but it sounds ta me that if we don’t take a few risks, we won’t even make it past the first.”

“I still say that doing something like that will probably require too much teamwork to really work out, but I guess I accept,” Bradley agreed.

“Well I’m so glad you approve,” Farida muttered.

“Well, might as well get settled in then,” Garry said he sat down next to a tree. “I have no idea how long everyone else is going to take. Oh, and if you get hungry, just as that robot thing for whatever you want. Ah don’t know rightly how, but it makes a steak just like the ones Ah had on the farm. No lie, it’ll get ya whatever you want ta eat!”

??????, the Game

One hour later

One delicious, home-cooked meal later and Bradley sat down on a tree of his own. He spent most of the time fiddling around with the cellphone and eventually got it to transmit text messages. ‘It’s not much better than a voiceless walkie-talkie,’ Bradley thought, ‘but since we weren’t even given one of those for this survival test, it’s better than nothing.’

As he tinkered with his ability, Maria arrived just like he had an hour before. Also just like him, Garry and the rest brought her up on the situation and the plan.

“So then in summary,” Garry concluded having gone over the plan with Maria, “the main goal of the offensive team will be to first-”

At that moment, Patricia—the final member of the team—found herself teleported to the rest of them. Everyone turned their attention to the new arrival with widening eyes. Just as suddenly as Patricia arrived, the Administrator as well as the shield surrounding them disappeared.

“Oh wow, neat!” Patricia exclaimed, taking in the environment before setting her eyes on the rest of them. “Oh hey guys, what did I miss while-”

“The barrier’s down!” Alex yelled, getting everyone’s attention.

Bradley also saw that another Game Window appeared in conjunction with these developments.

First Wave

Crazed North American Brown “Grizzly” Bear – Level 15

Enemies Remaining:20

Time until arrival:1:35:18

“That’s the start of the Tutorial, let’s go!” Bradley observed, slapping his hands together and getting up off the tree he leaned on.

“Grizzly Bears, are ya freakin’ kiddin’ me?!” Garry exclaimed in shock, getting to his feet and signalling the others to follow him. “And we have ta fight twenty of ’em?! We better hope ta Christ we get some serious firepower or we’re up shit’s creek… and Ah don’t even wanna know what ‘Crazed’ is supposed ta mean!”

“Wait! Guys!” Patricia yelled after the others “What’s going on?! Guys? Guys!”

??????, the Game

1:01:51 Until First Wave

“Alright, so then I’m part of the Offense Team?” Patricia concluded having summarized the information Garry just provided for her.

Garry decided to fill her on the move. They had been walking for over 30 minutes on the dirt road and they were still without any sign of civilization. The lack of progress began to weigh on all of their nerves.

“Yeah, and if we can’t find any guns, you’re gonna be carryin’ this team,” he grunted, balling his hands into fists. “Nothin’ sort of a point-blank 12-gauge or your lightning is gonna be able ta take one down.”

“Are they really that bad?” Bradley inquired. “I mean bears are ‘scary’ and all, but their just animals. As long as we can get some guns then-”

“-but nothin’,” Garry glared. “Look, I know that they might seem like any other animal, but they’re not. Deer, big cats, wolves or anythin’ else, ya can take care of ‘em with a couple of folks with pitchforks and a lot of courage, but until we had guns, we didn’t even have an answer for bears… not unless you were covered head-to-toe in armor. Even if you had those pistols—the Beretta M9—you would be at risk. You could unload an entire clip of that inta a Grizzly and it’d still be comin’ after ya. And just ta remind ya, we don’t exactly have any weapons at the moment.”

“Okay, okay, I think we all get it: bears are bad,” Alex cut in, trying to break the tension. “So what do we do?”

“It’s not a matter of what we do, but what we find,” Garry told with a sigh, trying to settle himself down by rubbing the bridge of his nose. “If we can’t find something then-”

“Then I’ll take care of them,” Patricia exclaimed confidently. “I mean, with my lightning it should be a cinch!”

“Are you sure? Like bet-your-life-on-it sure?” Garry asked sternly. “I mean it did look really impressive, but could you really take down 20 bears on your own? It didn’t look like you could keep it going for very long.”

“Oh right, there are 20 of them,” Patricia noted softly. “I think I could take down one or two, but not 20.”

Garry looked like he would continue on that topic when he suddenly stopped.

“Garry?” Patricia asked hopefully, “Is there something there? Do you see something?”

“…maybe…” Garry muttered. He squinted his eyes. “Wait… yes! I see the outlines of houses I think!”

“Yes!” Patricia exclaimed, “Civilization!”

“Finally,” Alex agreed, racing past them.

“Hey, wait up!” Bradley yelled after him, “We should stick together!”

0:58:37 Until First Wave

“This is not what I was thinking when I said ‘civilization’,” Patricia muttered.

“It’s better than nothing,” Garry noted. His tone, however, betrayed his disappointment.

The outlines they saw were mobile homes and in place of ‘civilization’ they found a trailer park. As expected for any place in the Game, no one lived there any longer, but despite that, the place still had the aura of being much ‘lived in’. Beer cans and lawn chairs were strewn about the place and most of the vehicles that did not second for homes sat neglected on cinderblocks.

“Well the good news is that if anyplace had a bunch of guns, it would be a trailer park,” Alex stated optimistically.

“While normally I’d say stereotyping is wrong… you’re also probably right,” Patricia shrugged.

“That being said, I don’t think we’ll be leaving in any of these vehicles so easily,” Bradley added, pointing to one of the trucks missing an engine.

“It wouldn’t do any good anyway,” Maria indicated. “It took 30 minutes to even find this place and would take at least another 30 minutes to find anything useful here before we move on. That does not leave much time for travelling elsewhere before the bears come.”

“Ah agree,” Garry nodded. “Alright; well nothin’s really changed. The offensive team will search for anythin’ useful and the defensive team will try bear-proofing one of these… err, homes.” Garry then put his face in his hands and groaned. “Dear Lord are we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

??????, Florida, the Game

0:12:44 Until First Wave

For much of the next hour, Garry, Alex and Patricia went about their search with gusto. They tore through dressers and emptied kitchen cupboards in a desperate search for anything that could keep them alive against over three times their number of rabid grizzly bears. Despite their thorough search, they did not succeed in finding as much as they would have liked.

The defensive team decided on using the largest mobile home for their ‘base’. Unlike the other smaller trailer dwellings that could only be labelled ‘tin-cans’, at over 40ft across, the huge RV really had no business being in a trailer park such as the one they found themselves in. Bradley concluded that the owners must have merely stopped here on the way to some other destination. The empty gas tank, however, pointed to a longer stay than that.

“So we have four .22 rim-fire semi-automatic rifles, two pump-action shotguns, two 9mm pistols, a .357 magnum revolver, and a Ruger 300 Winchester Magnum bolt-action rifle,” Garry stated, looking down at their meager haul.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Bradley pointed out as he hammered away at a wooden plank he had affixed to one of the windows. “It isn’t like we can fire more than one gun at once anyway. Why would you want any more?”

“It ain’t quantity, it’s quality,” Garry retorted. “Against 20 unarmed humans, this would be right overkill. Against bear though? The rim-fire rifles and the 9mm pistols would barely even scratch a bear yet alone put one down. So of course those are the only weapons we have with ammunition to spare. Of the weapons that will work, we only have 18 shots between the two shotguns, 15 shots for the revolver and two cartridges for the Ruger. I’d be worried hunting one bear with that, yet alone twenty!”

“I don’t get it. Why is this big deal?” Bradley asked. “It sounds like enough to me.”

“Why is this-” Garry started, before Farida cut him off.

“Who do you think you are?!” Farida argued. “Garry has been kind enough to get us up-to-date on… hunting animals, and you have been arguing every step of the way! Not just here, but you were against the two-team plan too! Maybe if you put away that damn map you keep looking at and helped more with the fortifying the plan would actually work!”

“Look, I’m hammering the damn planks okay! What more do you want from me!” Bradley retorted. “As for the map; well I already figured out we are somewhere in the middle of Florida right? Well if I can find out exactly where we are, then we’ll know exactly where to go next and the 2nd wave will be that much easier.”

“Well maybe you can do that after we survive this!” Farida retorted. “We are not exactly in the clear as it is!”

“Enough!” Alex yelled, physically getting in between the two and separating them. “I’ve tried being polite about it, but if you keep this up, you’ll put us all in danger.”

“To answer your question,” Garry concluded, “They move ya know. Not every shot will hit. Since we have so few rounds, we’ll need to fortify this place like the Alamo and only shoot when we can ‘see the whites of their eyes’.”

“Right,” Bradley muttered angrily, moving to another part of the trailer to board up.

No one made another sound after that, instead they all focused on their work.

Moving to the final window on the RV, Bradley got another 2x4 from the pile of materials in the center of the cabin and began the process of hammering it onto the window. Being in the same room as Farida seemed to bring out the worst in him; it started off polite and professional, but with each passing remark the two seemed to grow to despise each other more and more.

He almost could not blame her for it either. Farida really took charge after the two groups split and seemed to know exactly what to do in getting the trailer bear-proof and used her implants to pick-and-choose the best supplies. Maria, likewise, skimmed through a ‘Survival Guide for Dummies’ book and used her implant to instantly memorize the whole thing. She’d spent her time making sure the group had enough supplies to cook and eat on the move for the rest of the day and even set up a few bear traps they found. Bradley, on the other hand, could not use any of his implants to do anything. Without any electronics in this middle-of-nowhere place, hammering nails, move things around and other physical work were the only things he could do competently.

‘Worthless,’ Bradley thought, ‘I feel absolutely worthless. If I could change my implants right now, I almost feel I would.’

Just as he began to drift to these depressing thoughts, things got worse:

First Wave

Crazed North American Brown “Grizzly” Bear – Level 15

Enemies Remaining:20

Arriving:Now

“Damn, here already?” Garry muttered. “Well, this is it,” he exclaimed, slapping his face with both his hands to psych himself up. “Alright, I’ll head up top and see what I can do.” With those final words, he holstered one of the 9mm pistols and slung the Ruger over his back. With the weapons secure, he climbed up a ladder and onto the roof of the trailer.

The others wasted no time following suit. Patricia took a 9mm pistol for herself as anything else would require her to use two hands and make it impossible to ‘cast’ her Thunderball. Maria and Farida each took shotguns for themselves. Garry ironically told them that it would be the easiest for them to use despite the heavy recoil as he told them to one use it if a bear got inside. The close range would make it little more than point-and-shoot. The remaining .22 rim-fire rifles were split between Bradley and Alex with the magnum going to Bradley. While he could be considered less competent; he also had an implant which improved his strength and so figured he could handle the recoil better.

The first minute in trailer had the five of them sitting in a small circle; the nervous tension in the air preventing any of them from speaking. Instead they held their weapons in a death grip, making sure that none of them would do something stupid like accidently unlatch the safety on their gun and unintentionally kill one of them in their stress.

Then suddenly and without warning, Garry began to fire his gun causing everyone to jump at the abrupt noise.

*BANG* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-CLING* *CLACK* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-shlick* *BANG* *shing-shlick* *click*

Many of the ‘bangs’ came with corresponding animalistic howls as bears fell over dead from the relentless onslaught. With the final click, the trailer began to shake. The growling that began to become much louder along with a high-pitched shrieking of claw on metal.

Above them, the hatch swung open followed quickly by a freaked-out Garry jumping to the ground. One of the bears’ faces came into view out of the hatch just before it closed; its inhuman rage-filled scowl full of teeth raining saliva on them and imprinting itself in the minds of everyone as it tried to get inside. It took a moment before Garry fought the hatch closed.

“Holy shit,” Alex barely managed to get out amidst the gasps of horror the others let out.

“Yeah, those buggers sure are a right piece of work,” Garry agreed solemnly, throwing the hunting rifle to the ground and picking up one of the rim-fire ones. “Ah definitely got a fair number of ‘em. One of them ‘Game Windows’ popped up for every kill. There are only 14 left now and one of them is stuck in a bear-trap. This whole situation is still a helluva hill ta climb though.”

As if to punctuate that point, several of the windows shattered and claws began to make their way through the thin metal sheeting of the RV. Snouts and jaws got into the cracks in the boarded windows and began to bite away at the planks. Even worse still, more bears followed the one at the hatch, causing the entire ceiling to buckle and groan under the weight.

Bradley began to really regret his decision to sign that contract yesterday.

“This is not happening,” Maria said in disbelief, cradling the shotgun in her arms.

“It’s alright,” Alex said calmly, sitting next to her, “your bear-trap worked, right?” Garry nodded his head in confirmation. “Well, then everything is all going according to plan. With all these bears so close, even gun-ignorant civilians like us stand a chance,” he added with a smirk.

“Still, Ah don’t get these bears at all,” Garry observed absentmindedly, “they ain’t behavin’ like no bears Ah’ve ever seen. Ah even threw a few slabs of meat at ‘em up top and they didn’t even flinch. They’re just single-mindedly going right after us.”

“Well, they are crazed grizzlies after all,” Bradley pointed out.

This little calm-in-the-eye-of-the-storm did not last long, as one of the bears finally broke through one of the boarded windows and began to make its way inside.

“Maria’s out of it!” Garry said, realizing that one of the key shot-gunners could not participate at the moment. “Farida, shoot that bear!” He yelled pointing at the bear still forcing its huge bulk through the window.

Farida nodded and brought the gun to the beast’s head, just out of reach of its swiping claws. She pulled the trigger and in the next moment much of the inside of the RV turned into a gory mess. Blood, brain matter and bits of skull embedded themselves into the far wall. The sight disgusted Farida to the point of dry-heaving as Maria screamed and turned away, sobbing into Alex’s sleeve.

“Holy crap,” Bradley got out, his eyes wide with shock. Only Garry seemed to still have his ‘head in the game’.

“Damnit,” Garry grunted, grabbing the shotgun from Farida and reloading the gun himself, “this is just a Game! It looks real—and damn if it smells real—but it’s still a Game! We’re still in those pods on at the base!” Almost as if to agree with him, most of the guts and gore turned to sparkly dust. “See, the bodies just disappear.” He shoved the shotgun back into Farida’s hands before patting his on the shoulder. “Good job Farida. Really, that was great. You just need to keep it up a little more and we’ll be out of this mess, ya hear?”

Farida, snapped out of it enough to nod. Looking more determined than ever, she took the shotgun, made her way to one of the still-boarded windows and put the shotgun through one of the gaps in the planks. She fired the gun into the waiting jaws of the bear beyond, turning its head into shredded meat just like the previous one.

“No stupid fucking animal is going to get the best of me!” Farida yelled, reloading the gun and moving to another window. “Just a bunch of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus… just like us, yet we can actually settle our differences with words rather than a gun to the head!” She put her shotgun through the gap in another window and pulled the trigger. “Stupid wastes of space!”

First Wave

Crazed North American Brown “Grizzly” Bear – Level 15

Enemies Remaining:12

This sight seemed to finally snap the others out of their fearful stupor. Everyone followed suit and began to fire their guns out the windows as well. For the next minute, it seemed that they were turning the tide. Any bear that got anywhere near the windows were shot to pieces. ‘These damn bears don’t know when to quit!’ Bradley thought as he repeatedly fired his .22 rifle into the bear. It required at least 3-4 rounds, even at point-blank range in the head, to put one of them down with the weapon, but with the bears unable to get into the RV, they were shooting them like fish in a barrel. He even received a new ability:

By repeatedly firing a rifle at the enemy, you have gained a new ability: Rifle Shooting

Rifle Shooting

This ability maps the progress of firing a rifle. A higher rank indicates a greater lethality for a given shot given by the shooter’s: marksmanship, familiarity with the weapon used, and overall flexibility in working through a variety of combat situations.

*CRASH*

Just as the bear numbers were getting manageable; the roof finally gave way and collapsed onto them. The aluminum bent inwards and Bradley and Maria found themselves separated from the others, with two Grizzlies in the way.

“Shit!” Bradley yelled, firing the last of his cartridge at the bear before tossing the rifle and pulling out the revolver. The shots seemed to do little more than anger it. Luckily Maria’s shotgun took care of them before they could get their bearings and attack and they collapsed into a dead heap. Moments later, the bodies disappeared like the rest.

“Thanks Maria for the save,” he complimented.

“N-n-n-n-o p-problem,” Maria stuttered, shakily loading three more shotgun shells into the gun.

“HELP!” someone yelled from the other side of the RV. Following closely after the sound, the telltale crackling and exploding of Patricia’s ‘Thunderball’ resounded throughout the mobile home, causing parts of the Trailer to rip apart and the burnt corpse of a bear to be flung to their feet.

The two of them rushed past the body before it vanished and into the RV’s bedroom where Patricia and Farida were desperately—if not foolishly—hitting the back of another bear with kicks and the butt of her shotgun respectively. This bear could not be compared to the others. The thing took up most of the space in the bedroom and looked to weight well over 1,500 pounds.

“What are you doing?!” Bradley exclaimed. “If you keep that up, it’s going to attack you!”

“I don’t care!” Farida yelled, “We have to get rid of it! It’s killing Garry!”

““What?!”” both Bradley and Maria answered back.

“I used all my psionic powers already,” Patricia gasped, tears welling in her eyes, “and I’m out of bullets! You have to do something!”

“Step away,” Bradley answered, pointing the revolved at the bear. The two hesitated for a moment, but when they realized what he planned, they quickly did as he said. The moment the two were out of the line of fire, he realized again the sheer size of the beast and questioned whether the gun would do enough to kill it. Instead of firing blindly, he jumped to the side of it, put the gun next to its head, and unloaded six .357 rounds directly into its skull. It gave a small growl before it collapsed.

Only now did they see what Farida referred to. Just beyond the bear, Garry lay pinned beneath a bent section of the roof. Bradley concluded correctly that the bear fell through the roof right on top of him. Without the ability to defend himself, the bear had free reign on assaulting him. Deep claw marks covered the man’s body and the bears jaw still found itself sunk deep into the man’s neck. Garry’s face stayed etched in a permanent grimace, his eyes wide, cloudy and unseeing.

“He’s dead,” Maria confirmed, not bothering to check his pulse, even as a formality.

“Why… WHY!” Farida screamed as she crawled over the bear and ripped its jaws from Garry’s neck and crying at the slowly cooling corpse.

Almost as if to insult them, the Game took this time to notify them of their success:

First Wave Complete!

All enemies have been eliminated!

A 3x bonus will be applied to all surviving party members.

First Wave Intermission

Time has been allotted to prepare for the Second Wave.

Time Remaining:2:03:42

‘Are you serious…’ Bradley thought as he read the window. ‘Not only did he die completely arbitrarily after the roof caved in, but he’s going to be penalized for it! That’s such bullshit!’

At that moment, both the bear and Garry’s body disappeared in a brilliant scattering of particles, the effulgence in stark contrast to what it symbolized. The others stood there, gaping in silence as they tried to fully absorb what happened.

“So… what do we do now?” Maria asked solemnly, absentmindedly using a napkin from the kitchen to try and remove some of the dirt and blood which now stained her uniform. While most of the bear would indeed vanish; some of its remains often did not. Much of the gore that splattered around the room failed to disappear and strange ‘vials’ took the place of the corpses. Without any way to identify what the vials were, or how they could be useful, they ignored them.

“We keep moving,” Bradley said. “We get one of the vehicles working and we make our way to someplace with more equipment and we get ready for the next-”

“You son-of-a-bitch!” Farida accused, “Don’t you dare say that like nothing happened! This,” she said, gesturing to the empty space that Garry’s corpse had vanished from, “is all your fault!”

“What?” Bradley asked, taken aback.

“You had that revolver the entire time. You could have killed the bear the moment you saw us attacking it! If you did, Garry might still be alive right now!”

“Garry is alive,” Bradley defended, “just… not here. You can’t seriously think this isn’t a Game after he just exploded into fairy dust! Besides, I couldn’t shoot even if I knew what was going on. You two were in the way!”

“Oh now it’s my fault!” Farida snarled, getting up and punching Bradley in the stomach, winding him and causing him to stumble backward. “Does… does G-Garry l-look alive to you! He- his eyes stared at me… just… there was no life in them at all…”

“This is just a Game,” Bradley muttered, looking away and finding it hard to believe the words himself. The stench of death from all the bears seemed far too real for him, Game Windows and sparkly lightshows be damned.

Farida looked ready to punch him again for that when she stopped, turning another shade whiter. “I-I need some air…” she got out before racing out of the RV and into the distance.

“I’ll go after her,” Patricia said before racing after the fleeing woman.

“Crap, how did this happen?” Bradley asked only semi-rhetorically. Looking around, he realized another of their group remained unaccounted for. “Wait, where’s Alex?”

“Over here,” Maria replied, pointing to another corner of the room where the still body of Alex lay. A small gash on his head left a bloody trail on the right side of his face and the scattered fragments of the bedroom window frame lay scattered about him.

“Is he…?” Bradley attempted to ask.

“No, he’s fine,” Maria rejected with a shake of her head. “He’s just unconscious, I think.” She shook him a bit before the man stirred and awoke.

“W-what happen…?” Alex groaned, slurring his words a bit as he shook off the effects of a concussion.

Maria looked about to reply but just said, “Let’s get out of here. The stench here isn’t exactly conductive of conversation.”

“Right…”

Several miles North of Sanderson, Florida, the Game

1:28:15 Until First Wave Intermission End

In the next hour, Bradley and Maria got Alex up-to-speed on all the gory details.

“-and finally Maria found you lying unconscious on the floor and we woke you up,” Bradley summarized. “The thing I don’t get is how you ended up like that. Wasn’t your implants supposed to give you a ‘Sixth Sense’ or something?”

Alex rolled his eyes, wincing a little at some unseen pain. “Yeah, that’s the idea, but it’s not good enough yet, I think,” he replied with a hint of embarrassment. “I was actually right next to Garry when the roof collapsed. The ability told me something was happening and that I should move away but not what. If I knew what that really meant, I would have told him something before… Well, when I moved away I avoided the roof but ended up knocking myself out on the window… That wouldn’t have exactly been the most glorious way to go…”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Maria defended, shaking her head. “I know how these abilities are. We should just keep focused on what to do next instead.”

While they wandered the town trying to determine what to do next, they came across a number of maps. Looking through some of these, all three eventually determined their exact location: 10 miles north of the town of Sanderson, Florida nearly right on the Northern Florida Border. After that, Maria stayed put to examine them while Alex and Bradley went on a search for the keys to every vehicle they could find. They hoped at least one of the cars could get them somewhere, anywhere else. They eventually found an old Chevy Pickup that worked. It even had a half tank of gas.

“I guess this one is good enough,” Alex sighed, not confident in the glorified rust-bucket. “Why don’t you find the others and get them over here so we can all get going.”

“Why me?” Bradley asked with a grimace. “I told you already that Farida is furious with me for some reason. Having me go will just make it worse.”

“It’s because you need to talk that I’m asking you to go,” Alex retorted. “You two have a lot of ill will you need to resolve. I’m not going to be having two people crammed into a vehicle for however long without fixing those problems. Especially when everyone is going to be carrying guns.”

“Is that recommendation as a Psychologist?” Bradley scowled.

“That and as a friend too,” Alex replied with a glare. “I don’t know if you reciprocate, but I already think of you all as friends. Whatever we were before, if we’re going to be working together, the least we can do is to be friendly with each other.”

Bradley sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Right… I’m sorry. It’s just, well, there’s been a lot going on…”

“I get it,” Alex sympathized, “really I do. Don’t you think that Farida is also working through a number of issues too? That’s why you need to fix this before it gets worse. The stress we’re feeling right now isn’t going to let up if we have to go through two more rounds of this hell.”

“There’s no need,” a voice came from behind the two of them.

Bradley and Alex turned to find Patricia and Farida standing there.

“I’m sorry… you were right,” Bradley said, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. “This Game is just so realistic and I forgot that-”

“Are you really sure this is actually a Game?” Farida asked.

“Huh?” Bradley replied, scratching his head. “Well sure. I mean how else do we have those Game Windows and Status Windows pop up?”

“Maybe this is a group hallucination of some kind?” Farida defended. “This is the government we’re talking about! I remember all the messed up things the CIA used to do with LSD.”

“If that was true, we would not be lucid enough to be having this kind of conversation,” Alex butted in with his professional opinion.

“But- but, we’re going to die here!” Farida yelled, her arms outstretched and her face panicked and pleading. “How can you all be so calm?! Garry… in there… and it will happen to us!” She began to cry again. “How can you say this is all just a Game when it’s so real?! How… how do we know that Garry is coming back?!”

None of them could really give her an answer; the inconvenient question had sat in the back of all their minds since the beginning. ‘How can we trust that this Game actually works as intended? How do we know Lieutenant Winslow isn’t some mind controlled thrall? How do we know the aliens haven’t already won?’

“Because the aliens haven’t won,” Bradley replied confidently.

“What does that have to do with anything?!” Farida retorted.

“Think about it, the only way they could do something like that is if they had complete control of our bodies from the moment we entered the pod. This would mean that the aliens have already won. If that’s the case, why bother with all this ‘Tutorial’ crap in the first place? Why not just kill us the moment we got in the pod?”

“Maybe this is just their sick, twisted version of humor,” Farida argued.

“Again though, why?” Bradley questioned. “They have the capability of creating a completely artificial world, but they use all this advanced technology just to play elaborate games? Why go through all the trouble? These aliens may be a lot of things, but they don’t strike me as arbitrary or stupid.”

“Then WHY?! Why kill us all for sport like this?!”

“Lieutenant Winslow already said: because the Game needs to test our potential,” Bradley concluded. “That means that Garry is fine and is probably waiting for us to finish as we speak.”

Farida fell into a deep silence as she processed everything.

“He’s fine,” Alex emphasized. “Psychologically speaking, it’s better to hold out hope regardless. Whether you actually believe he’s okay or not, you only need to wait a few more hours for the Tutorial to end to know for sure. Focus on getting out of this in one piece.”

“So if everyone is done addressing their feelings, are we good to go?” Maria asked callously.

“Umm, sure… sorry…” Farida muttered with a blush. She still felt angry, but now partially at her own foolishness. “I-I’ll figure this out, I just need some time.”

“Well if we’re ready then we better get going,” Maria continued, opening one of the maps and pointing at a certain location. “If this map’s correct, I know just the place to go.”

----Status Window----

Spoiler :

Status Window

Name:Bradley CooperSpecies:Human (Earth)

Level:4Experience:0/1000

Class:UndeterminedAlignment:Neutral

Age:26Gender:Male

Renown:0Notoriety:0

----Regenerative Attributes----

Health:90/95Health Regen:21.55/hr

Psionic Energy:1/1Psionic Regen:0.82/hr

Shield Energy:N/AShield Regen:N/A

Stamina:25/85Stamina Regen:812.09/hr

----Attributes----

Strength:??+20Agility:??+20

Intelligence:??+20Willpower:??+20

Charisma:??+20Perception:??+20

Endurance:??+20Luck:??+20

----Resistances----

Physical:??Mental:??

Psionic:??

----Career----

Titles:None

Occupation:Earth Coalition – Civilian Employee – Recruit

Current Quest:Tutorial – Survival Test – First Wave Intermission

----Currency----

Currently Held:0 CreditsCurrently Owed:0 Credits

Marks:0P, 0D, 0GAbility Points:0

----Faction Standings----

Earth Coalition:Employee

Haxlards:Neutral*Administrators:Privileged*

----General Ability Window----

Spoiler :

General Ability Window