《Vulcan Wolf: Progressive》


 Reality

    Titan had rounded the Horn with the Big Dumb Fleet about 45 minutes ago and basically the world was coming to an end. That was the gist of the message she read through the spider-web of cracks on the screen of her old phone. As she moved to quickly slide the thin wedge of the device back into her jeans she was startled by a sudden yet soothing series of chimes. She lost her grip on her phone and it bounced on edge with a sharp crack before settling face down on the finished concrete floor. Before picking it up, she sheepishly ran her hand through her long black hair and turned to the source of the chime. It was a small speaker mounted next to one of the surveillance cameras that were everywhere in the department store. These were more aimed at the employees than the guests.


    ¡°Noel Cross,¡± the speaker said, in a neutral male voice. Perhaps it was someone in a call center, somewhere, named Steve. She¡¯d never met the guy. ¡°You were flagged for personal phone use outside of break time.¡±


    ¡°Ah, sorry.¡± Noel said. One of the guests passing by the aisle stopped to gawk at the scene, which made her flush a deeper red. She leaned down finally to pick it up and clicked the power button on the side to check if it was still working after the fall. Dead.


    ¡°Place your personal phone in the lockbox at the front. You may retrieve it after you clock out.¡±


    Her anger surged forward and then receded, as a wave might threaten a sandcastle that is just barely out of its reach. Corporate had moved most of the management to a central location and then, she strongly suspected, replaced most of them with razor systems. After all the image processing razors could detect her using a phone or fraternizing with her coworkers in an instant. Steve was inferior and probably didn¡¯t exist. She was lucky to have a job, under the circumstances. In this world the sun would rise tomorrow and she¡¯d have to fight the dull and very much un-final battles of daily life.


    Her home city of Albemarle was already a bit of a wasteland by the turn of the millennium, according to her late parents. All of the commerce was moved out of the city center and onto one of those ugly mile-long strip malls that Americans love to build. As far as she knew, she and everyone in the city worked on this stretch and sold things to each other like an economic Ouroboros. It had been two hours since she had last seen a competently-dressed thin person. She dropped her brick of a phone into the lockbox and went back to work.


    On her way out she was stopped by the greeter, a veteran named Mike in his late 30s. He was short enough to have been made fun of by his fellow marines, but still her eyes were only about the level of his nose. He¡¯d lost most of his right leg in the second Pacific War. Since then he¡¯d received an active prosthetic from the VA, but it honestly kind of sucked. It was a little embarrassing for her when he unfurled the black t-shirt she had earlier spotted in a bargain bin and decided to purchase after clocking out.


    The front of the shirt had a picture of a black-haired robotic woman in a frilly black skirted costume, dynamically posed and holding a microphone. A line of canted and stylized text adjancent to her read ¡®AZURE¡¯. She actually already owned this shirt, as well as everything else Azure, but had worn a hole in this particular article in the succeeding years. Besides, given how closely Azure was associated with ACO it had to be a sign of luck that she spotted it today. Noel winced as a grimace briefly crossed the man¡¯s lined face. He looked at least ten years older than he really was, even before adding in ugly facial expressions.


    ¡°You know she fought in the war?¡± Mike said, ¡°Before becoming a pop star.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Noel said, feigning ignorance, ¡°I thought Ultimate systems weren¡¯t allowed to kill people.¡±


    ¡°Heard ACO was shutting down tomorrow.¡± he said, blatantly changing the subject, ¡°You play that right? I used to, too.¡±


    Noel held out her hand and he passed the shirt back to her. There were a lot of military types in that game, which was unsurprising given its history.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ¡°Absolute Conviction Online? Yep. End of an era.¡± she sighed, and flashed him a smile, ¡°It¡¯s kind of a niche sim game, though. Only weirdos like me like it.¡±


    ¡°Which frame did you play?¡± he said. As much of a hurry as she was in, he was a nice guy and would be part of her life for longer than ACO.


    ¡°I started out in the Spider, but I mostly do naval stuff since the expansion added that.¡±


    ¡°No shit? I thought only progs did that.¡± he said.


    That wasn¡¯t true, but it was true for her. You could play any role competently on a bog standard VR set or even just a monitor. You could do that. If you were a casual.


    His eyes flitted down to her neck and she helpfully lifted aside her hair and tilted her neck to show him the scars from her implant, and the flat subcutaneous pad that formed the interface. The progressive, it was called, so-named because it got progressively better with time. Even though he was an amputee, Mike didn¡¯t really need a full progressive and as such the VA hadn¡¯t paid for one. He just needed to move his leg back and forth. He didn¡¯t even need to move his toes and, in fact, the prosthetic didn¡¯t have them.


    He had a simpler system offering less-than-great fidelity, which was itself a more permanent version of the non-invasive rigs available to consumers, which sold for about two months of an average person¡¯s salary. For the price of a progressive a person could retire, if not lavishly so.


    You really needed a damn good reason to have one of these at all, much less as someone working a dead end job. Noel could tell from the confusion on his face he was curious as to what that was, in her case.


    ¡°I got into a car accident when I was 18.¡± she said, ¡°Total paralysis from the neck down.¡±


    Mike whistled.


    ¡°How did you pay for that?¡± he said, ¡°Gold-plated insurance?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± she said, ¡°My parents did.¡±


    Mike drew his thin lips into a line and nodded sadly. She had told him once, while they were both on break, about losing her parents seven years ago. From the looks of things he seemed to have understood how this price was paid.


    ¡°Ah, sorry.¡±


    Noel smiled to reassure him, even though she really didn¡¯t feel like it. As she was zipping up her gray fleece coat she briefly had to move the plastic zipper out of the way of her name tag, and the man raised his eyebrows suddenly in a flash of recognition. He politely held up a hand to stop her for a moment. Having followed his eyes and the course of the conversation, she suddenly sensed that she¡¯d said too much.


    ACO was a pretty small community compared to more popular MMOs. That was why it was shutting down, after all. For some reason an order of magnitude more people, derisively referred to as secondaries, preferred to appreciate it from a safe distance in the form of easily digestible clips and a decently popular online panel show. The usual explanation was that it was more fun to watch players melt down over their impenetrable non-game and to follow their frivolous soap-opera dramas than it was to play it oneself. The common wisdom was, in this case, correct. If Mike had any lingering affection for the game and followed any of this content, he only had to make a small leap¡ª


    ¡°Wait. Noel Cross? Are you NoCro?¡± he said.


    ¡°Who is that?¡± Noel said. A brief moment of silence followed, of the sort that often does when one person in a conversation has uttered an obvious lie. The woman sagged and relented. ¡°Alright, yes.¡±


    ¡°Never woulda figured. See you tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Nope, I got the day off.¡±


    Mike gave her a salute, which she returned to the best of her ability before she departed through the sliding glass doors into the cool winter evening. It was full dark at ten in the evening. The winter solstice was at 8:30 PM the following evening, with the servers scheduled to shut down at midnight Pacific time. That was roughly 28 hours away.


    It had cooled down significantly since the start of her shift under the mid-afternoon sun and she had the idea to throw on the Azure shirt she had just purchased to layer up. It felt like a naughty act since she had been instructed never to wear clothes of the rack. She took her broken phone out of her pocket and gave it a solid thwack against the back of her hand. To her surprise the percussion breathed a little spirit back into it and the machine came to life shortly. She breathed a sigh of relief. Between that and the fortuitous shirt, the lucky stars were aligning.


    She had 10 missed calls and half as many voicemails, to say nothing of the volume of text messages, all of which were from her ACO pals. What the hell happened? Before she could investigate further the phone blinked off, attempted to reboot itself, and then finally died. No amount of jiggling, thwacking, or pleading would awaken it again. She gripped it with white knuckles and cocked her hand back to throw it down onto the pavement, then her eye caught one of the exterior cameras intently watching her. She dropped the phone into a nearby trashcan and stalked away.

 The Alliance High Command In Their Tent

    Around the same time and within Absolute Conviction Online the members of the Alliance High Command (for this was how they styled themselves) were holed up in a bunker beneath NS Wolf. This was a military base located in the Galapagos nestled in a low-lying area between Wolf Volcano and the extinct Ecuador Volcano. The last official memorandum the High Command had sent out banned any mention of Hitler and, actually, the concept of a bunker itself. They were in a ¡®hardened facility¡¯. In this respect this group of MMO addicts had come to resemble their real-life counterparts. Besides weasel words, other time-honored command level virtues they had elected to roleplay to perfection included: denial, arrogance, and table-thumping histrionics.


    The somewhat grandiose and cavernous War Room they were hunkered down in had a number of screens arrayed around in a classical Hollywood sense, and the big tall one was focused out on the entire southeastern Pacific. Off the coast of Chile, and nearer to the southern tip than the northern, was an ominous array of slowly flashing red triangles. A handful of green triangles were slowly skating away northward.


    The one currently on stage in the area between the conference table and the big board was a blonde player named Edge, whose character model was proof that, conceptually speaking, cool and lame formed a kind of horseshoe. He was the virtual Bismarck who had managed to drag nearly every other outfit in the game into a unified command structure in order to better counter the dominant global heavyweight, Titan. As a diplomat he was without peer. As a warfighter he had many peers, and not a small number of superiors.


    ¡°What the fuck happened?¡± he demanded, and pounded the table histrionically. He pointed to an equally lame black haired man with pince-nez glasses who was seated at the conference table. ¡°This was your master-stroke? We spent five fucking months getting that fleet together doing jack-shit with it and your big idea was to attack before we were at full strength. That stuff was worth an actual fortune. I could have gold-plated every frame and tank and defensive battery on this island for what your artificial reef project cost.¡±


    The pince-nez ran a hand down the front of his blue-and-gold uniform, which of course wasn¡¯t necessary in a virtual world. He raised a white-gloved finger.


    ¡°No amount of gold-plating is going to save you if you don¡¯t have air superiority or at least parity over Isabela Island. We attacked without NoCro to gain the element of surprise.¡± the pince-nez guy said.


    Edge, the one at the front of the table, put both of his hands on the sides of his head and turned towards the big board. He groaned again on seeing it, and doubled over.


    ¡°Whose idea was it to put air power in this game.¡± he said quietly, ¡°That¡¯s not what it¡¯s supposed to be about¡­¡±


    One of the people in the room started chuckling, specifically the one from an outfit called ACOG. This anarchic crew had only joined the Alliance on the condition that they be allowed to dress like clowns as their uniform. The one they had sent to the war council was in classic-style harlequin. Individually speaking they were some of the best around, so the request was reluctantly granted. Upon seeing everyone looking at him expectantly, the harlequin leaned forward.


    ¡°Has, uh, anyone seen the movie Downfall?¡± he said, gesturing to Edge with both hands, ¡°Because¡­ come on.¡±


    ¡°We just talked about this, asshole.¡± someone said, followed by a gaggle of unhappy noises.


    ¡°Sorry.¡± the harlequin said, lying with his smile.


    ¡°Edge,¡± came a voice from the front of the table, ¡°NoCro is calling in. She¡¯s on grid.¡±


    A hesitant murmur resounded through the room. The harlequin laced his hands over his head and smiled like a jackass. Edge sighed.


    ¡°Put her on the thingy there.¡± he said, folding his arms and turning towards the big board. The map flickered and was replaced with a young woman with long, straight black hair. The avatar resembled her fairly closely, except for the scarlet eyes and twintails. When she saw that she had connected to this group her neutral expression burst into an unhinged display of excitement and pleasure. She brought her hands up and clasped them together against her pale cheek.


    ¡°Hey guys!¡± she said, ¡°Ultimate Idol, Northern Cross, reporting in! Golly it¡¯s been so booooring tooling around doing nothing for months because of some silly-billy thing No-chan is too much of a dummy-dummy to understand.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    NoCro tousled her hair back and forth to emphasize how much of a dummy she was.


    ¡°Fleet-in-being.¡± the pince-nez said, almost whispering. NoCro leaned so far into the virtual camera that only the whites of her crazy red eyes were in frame.


    ¡°Eh?¡± she said, all the bubbly energy instantly draining out of her voice. The glasses guy slunk further down and held up his hand to shield his face. The girl onscreen settled back into frame and painted another smile on her face.


    ¡°But that¡¯s no biggy!¡± she continued her tirade, ¡°My best friendsies in the Alliance know what they¡¯re doin¡¯, being the toppest of top men. There¡¯s gonna be a big ol¡¯ decisive fleet naval final battle between good n¡¯ evil! Throw it all in the defense of Isabela! Well that sounds COOL I said. We¡¯re gonna show those Titan dipshits the what-for, forever and ever, or go out in a blaze of glory tryin¡¯! Grrrr!¡±


    NoCro emphasized her statement by forming her hands into claws.


    ¡°NoCro,¡± Edge said, sounding contrite, ¡°We¡¯re s¡ª¡°


    ¡°Noooooo.¡± NoCro said, cutting him off, ¡°Why be sorry when you can be silent! When I heard you all went and did the big fun thing without me I was soooo sad, y¡¯know!? No-chan wanted to go to the big dance too, she wanted to dance with someone special. Pu~n pu~n.¡±


    In-spite of being couched in silly babytalk, her real disappointment seemed to have come through to the assembled.


    ¡°NoCro,¡± Edge said, ¡°They have five strike groups left Titanside. We talked about it and it would be best for you to take the Cygnus battle group north and prepare to contest the airspace over critical areas of Isabela ahead of the landing. That would be the smartest way to delay them and give our ground forces some cover.¡±


    NoCro took in a deep breath and went quiet. Everyone in the room waited through the long pause, some of them leaning forward at the conference table.


    ¡°Gentlemen, thank you.¡± she said, smiling serenely, ¡°You broke the spell. After I pulled the knife out of my back, I understood what it was that killed this game.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Edge said.


    ¡°We killed this game.¡± she said, ¡°Me, you, and everyone else in that room behind you¡­ except for maybe that clown over there. We killed it by taking it too seriously. First it died in us, then we killed it for everyone else. Now if you¡¯ll excuse me, there¡¯s something fun I¡¯ve always wanted to do.¡±


    The one at the table who had earlier noticed NoCro¡¯s call had a new message: ¡°Cygnus battle group has disconnected from our Network Warfare.¡±


    ¡°NoCro!¡± Edge said, ¡°You can leave but you can¡¯t just take the battle group. It¡¯s tax-funded Alliance property and cost a mint. We¡¯ll shuttle out a new core¡­ I mean, a new player.¡±


    NoCro winked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t like it? Send your fleet after me. Ciaaaoooo~¡±


    The girl vanished from the screen and after a moment was replaced again by the image of the Southeastern Pacific theater of operations.


    ¡°If we want to sink Cygnus we have to do it now.¡± the pince-nez piped up instantly, ¡°While we still have her last known location from NetWar. She¡¯s still near Point Luck, and that¡¯s well within range of bombers from NS Wolf. We have to do it right now.¡±


    The pince-nez gestured frantically to a grayed out triangle on the board that read CYGNUS(CVBG).


    ¡°What!?¡± someone at the table said, ¡°Why? She hasn¡¯t attacked us. Let¡¯s not go making new enemies.¡±


    Another player cleared his throat and leaned forward to throw in his two cents.


    ¡°We can¡¯t just have people walking off with pooled assets. That¡¯d be pandemonium. We can at least hold Wolf Volcano for 28 hours with our without her, but not if everyone does what he likes.¡± he said.


    After that the discussion became rapid and heated, with everyone elbowing in to be heard. Except, again, the harlequin.


    ¡°We¡¯re the ones she¡¯s mad at now, she¡¯ll attack.¡±


    ¡°What did she mean by ¡®fun¡¯¡­?¡±


    And so on, until it was simply people shouting over each other. Edge turned to the screen and appeared to contemplate the action and the arguments for and against that had been presented.


    ¡°Everyone, quiet. Something has occurred to me.¡± he yelled, tapping the stubble on his chin-butt, ¡°While she was on-screen, we weren¡¯t watching the board. She didn¡¯t disconnect from NetWar until the last second, so if she launched a strike it wouldn¡¯t trigger as a hostile contact and we wouldn¡¯t have seen it incoming.¡±


    Everyone fell quiet and fixed their eyes on the big board. Just when it seemed they were in the clear they heard a series of booms, at first distant and then sounding closer and closer.


    ¡°Fucking finally!¡± the harlequin exclaimed excitedly. He leapt up on the conference table and reached his arms towards the ceiling. ¡°Free me, No-chan!¡±


    At least one of them got their wish when a bomb penetrated through the ceiling of the hardened facility and exploded in the middle of the room, sending them all back to their various respawn points around the island.

 On Grid Today

    sort-of friendly given that six of them were developed and two of these attempted to take over the world in one way or another. The problem of friendly AI, it could be concluded, remained at best 66% solved to date, subject to downward revision. The four of them that remained didn¡¯t seem especially megalomaniacal, but were in fact just as flawed personality-wise as any given human running around. That was actually a principle of Ultimate.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


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    hated this bit. Including and especially Rich, one of the hosts. Her repeat invites to the program had a lot to do with the fact that people loved to hate. Recent shocking events had certainly done little to dispel the popular myth that she hated the show, its fans, the game, and everyone in it. When Rich, the host, attempted to explain the meaning of the word, she cut him off mid sentence. Might as well give the people what they want.


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 Enter Silver

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    ¡°¡­wrong.


    ¡°This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


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    ¡°money. Who would do that?¡±


    ¡ª


    The Witch.


    wasn¡¯t the real world. It was here, in Absolute Conviction. Events had taken place here which were not defined in the codebase. The developers he had interacted with in the past referred to these events, dryly, as undefined behavior. A better term would be miracle. The game was still connected to the divine source, a kind of back entrance to the realm of the gods that had been left open by omission.


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 NoCros Lovey-Dovey Divide and Conquer Gambit

    After NoCro managed to escape the clutches of Silver, she set the Cygnus on a heading towards grid square EI to the south and put it in autodefense mode. Leaving the game was a simple matter of opening one¡¯s eyes. Sometimes they felt a bit heavy, but that was not the case here. Events inside ACO had taken on a strange quality, and the thought briefly crossed her mind to simply quit the thing here and now. She was looking up at a popcorn ceiling now, back in reality, where she lived in a one-bedroom unit, on the second floor. It was the kind of apartment complex where the stairs were made out of metal, the kind of place where people would shout at each other in the parking lot. It was the same everywhere, though, as far as she knew.


    She was leaned back in a reclining office chair, and from a black harness around her neck a thick black cable ran down into her tower PC. After extricating herself from the collar she lurched her chair forward, feeling dizzy and nursing the beginnings of a headache. It probably wasn¡¯t the bad kind. There was a bottle of generic migraine relief in her junk drawer at the desk, and when she went to retrieve it she noticed a glittering pink flash buried underneath the other junk.


    After downing a couple of the pills and gulping down a glass of water, she replaced the bottle in the drawer and pulled out the pink object. Mostly it looked like a toy handgun made for some especially weird tomboy, a charge she could cop to, but it wasn¡¯t any toy of hers. Rather it was a real gun inscribed with the name ¡®Pavona¡¯ on the barrel, an item she received as part of her inheritance. It was illegal now to buy such things, doubly so to use them. Judging from the ¡®fireworks¡¯ and police sirens she heard on most nights, that wasn¡¯t really stopping anyone.


    Hesitantly she pressed the release and dumped the magazine into her other hand. It was still full up with the same ancient ammunition that her mother had loaded it with. Her fingertips had been on every bullet, surely. Noel racked the slide (appropriately, the only part of the gun that wasn¡¯t silly-looking) and ejected the bullet that was in the chamber. Not a very safe way to store it, admittedly. The bullet bounced off the well-worn surface of her wooden desk and rolled off somewhere into the total darkness behind her monitor. The blue glow lit the room behind her. She considered keeping this thing a bit closer than the junk drawer.


    ¡°You¡¯re just paranoid.¡± she whispered to herself, and slid the magazine back into it.


    She tucked it back into the junk drawer, burying it underneath the other items as she had done before. Supposedly a slew of exciting new mental disorders would presage her death, and if that was true all she could do was catch herself. The self-assembling dendrites of the faulty progressive would keep climbing up into her head, having long since missed the memo about stopping. This process would happen exponentially, or in other words: gradually, then suddenly.


    In spite of her best efforts she could not shake the feeling of dread. Perhaps her long-prophesied deterioration was starting. Then again, there might be good reason for it.


    ¡ª¡ª


    Some time after he had formally accepted NoCro¡¯s offer of a duel and set course for her last known location, Prism found that he had a little bit of a problem on his hands. It would be at least 8 hours until NoCro¡¯s Cygnus group would be in a position to make an attack. Prism was gearing up for a surface action with his cruisers and his battleship and was planning to simply swat whatever she threw at him down with his defenses as he had done many times before.


    The meta in the game didn¡¯t really favor attacking with submarines or aircraft, and it was mostly the same in the Light World as well. Detection and defensive systems had grown far too strong, especially when one could feed a razor AI sonar or radar data. Razors could unmask stealth aircraft that were otherwise supposedly invisible and zero in on any nukesub that got too close. His whole fleet was bristling with sensors and countermeasures which were all managed automatically to near-perfection by an array of razor systems. All of this data flowed upwards, necessarily narrowing in scope each time, and eventually presented itself to him via the Ultimate-Razor bridge. He controlled everything here with the same ease as a human would move a mouse pointer.


    NoCro had in the past attempted to make up for this vast gulf between them by resorting to various tricks. It wasn¡¯t the case that she had some kind of brown-shoed romantic devotion to carrier aviation or the submarine arm. She had simply been forced into this unorthodox line by necessity, in the same way a weaker party in a duel might feel the need to poison his blade. Predicting what exactly she was going to do this time was probably impossible. Of all the Ultimate systems, he was the only one that was more-or-less bred to fight.


    All sides involved had their submarines running all over the southeastern Pacific. The problem he had was: one of NoCro¡¯s Virginia-class boats seemed to have found him. Even over the roar of his ships surging forward at 26 knots, the razor would occasionally pick out tantalizing notes of a quiet little reactor in the noise. These detected threats bubbled up the chain of systems until it reached him, annoying like a fly. She was shadowing him. He¡¯d lobbed off a few ASROCs and sent out a few ASW helicopters from his screen, mostly to no avail. NoCro had a tendency towards formlessness, so these weapons suited her. Her fatal weakness as he saw it was that after all was said and done, you still had to walk up to the other guy and stab him. That was his forte.


    If he slowed up and directed attention towards this annoyance to swat it, she would just slink away forward along his projected path, enabling additional pursuit by the slower boat. It was better simply to outrun it. She would pick him up again later with another boat, vectored in from elsewhere, but if he maintained speed and heading she wouldn¡¯t be able to start stacking them up on him. He¡¯d received a few bloody noses from her that way, in the past. It was a little impressive, for a human. Never the less, she knew where he was, and he didn¡¯t know where she was. He sighed and leaned forward on the light-table. Round one went to NoCro! He did smile, a little, at that.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The light-table inside the CIC was really all he needed given that the rest of the NPCs in the room were decorative for him. Even if he asked them a question they would feed him the same data he already knew and if he told them to do something they would simply do the same thing the AI was going to anyway. There was a lot of that redundancy in the Light World too. Most¡ªsoon to be all¡ªof humanity was a little redundant. If he were a human he would have to use this old room in the same way a real admiral would. Decisions would take place over seconds. That was an eternity!


    The table¡¯s map was zoomed in now on the battlegroup and featured little fading red dots for the various places he had potentially detected NoCro¡¯s sub. He couldn¡¯t go to flank speed now over fuel concerns, but the sub was having to do a lot of maneuvering to prevent him from zeroing in on it. Wherever it was, exactly, it was fading away from him. No need to waste resources and time on a non-factor.


    He zoomed out the light-table¡¯s display with a pinch and scrolled it forward along his projected course northward. The was a large storm system moving in, and if he stuck to his course he would have to pass through it. The rain and the rough seas would make his battlegroup less effective on a number of axes. He was still well outside of NoCro¡¯s range even if she managed to sail directly towards him and refuel her air group.


    She had to be forming a wolf-pack. If he sailed around the storm the trailing attack sub would be able to catch up to him. If he slowed up to transit the storm more safely, the same thing would happen. If he reversed course and went after the shadow, he could easily get embroiled in a goose chase while his data on the Cygnus last known location decayed into uselessness. There was only one good option, and it had been conveniently provided by the enemy.


    Just hitting him with a wolf-pack without a second punch in the works seemed a bit half-assed for a NoCro scheme. There had to be a twist. That was what he liked about her.


    ¡°Of course.¡± he said, gripping his fist excitedly, ¡°I know what you¡¯re planning! This is the last battle. You¡¯re going to kamikaze a one way attack. You think the storm will protect you from point defense and limit my scouting.¡±


    She was right. It would decay the effectiveness of his PD, especially the directed energy weapons. But he didn¡¯t have to fight her with point defense, he had an entire carrier of his own. It was simple. All he had to do was pretend to fall for her trap, then destroy her kamikaze attack with his own fighters. He could launch them before entering the storm and recover on the other side if necessary. With one punch of her combo out of the way, he could focus on the wolf-pack with his surface fleet.


    While artificial, Prism had many emotions¡ªsome might say too many¡ªand he was capable of feeling surprise. He was surprised, then when he got a call from NoCro herself at that very moment.


    ¡°Speak of the devil and she shall appear¡­¡± he said. He accepted the call and patched it through to the light-table, intuitively. The woman on the other end looked ecstatic, to the point of mania.


    ¡°Pri-kuuun!¡± she said, ¡°I found yoooooouuuu. I know where you aaaare.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± he huffed, ¡°I know¡­ that you know.¡±


    ¡°I know that!¡± she said, and nodded vigorously, ¡°Listen, and this is probably futile, but I have a proposal.¡±


    ¡°What is that?¡± he said.


    ¡°¡­marry me.¡± she said, ¡°And we¡¯ll rule the waves, forever! Or, I dunno, maybe for about a day. Somewhere in between forever and a day.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but¡ª¡° he started to say. NoCro elected to cut in and finish his sentiment for him.


    ¡°¡¯but my heart belongs to another, my beloved Lady, Europa.¡¯¡± she said, making a mocking lilting tone with her voice, ¡°I don¡¯t know how well those baby blues of yours work, but that ship has sailed Pri-kun. The reason I got you away from those guys was to give you a chance to recover some dignity.¡±


    Prism could not understand what it was she was driving at.


    ¡°What are you proposing, more NoCro brand cartoon villainy?¡± he said. NoCro immediately brightened, mostly after he said her name.


    ¡°Yes! Instead of fighting we secretly join forces and blow the rest of them out of the water from out of nowhere! Silver is a douche and he treats you like shit. Euro just watches it happen. No one should put up with that, least of all you.¡±


    ¡°Least of all?¡±


    NoCro blushed.


    ¡°You¡¯re a good man, to a fault. Let¡¯s get married. I mean, in the game, an in-game marriage, I was just thinking t-there¡¯s only one day left and I¡¯ve never done that, it¡¯d be funny¡ª¡°


    It had seemed funny, this idea, until she actually said it. She buried her face in her hands briefly. Prism cleared his throat and straightened his back. NoCro narrowed her eyes, having seen this bearing before. The vet with the prosthetic had the same air, when he was feeling especially proud.


    ¡°I¡¯m a little disappointed you didn¡¯t want to fight me, after all.¡± he said.


    ¡°Ah¡­ um, are you rejecting me?¡±


    He nodded gently. There was much she didn¡¯t understand, and no reason even to so much as point to it.


    ¡°Then,¡± she said, patting her chest, ¡°There¡¯s no reason to be disappointed, because, y¡¯see, nobody rejects No-chan! Everyone loves No-chan. Prepare¡­ to die!¡±


    If Prism had been human he might have seen something in her behavior that led him to reevaluate his impression of her strategy. Instead of considering her as a whole person, he was only thinking of her tactics. There was something he missed, as a result.

 Enter Azure

    ¡°again.¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°¡ª


    ¡°


    ¡°claim.¡± the host said, carefully, ¡°I don¡¯t see what it has to do with ACO.¡±


    ¡°If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    yet.


    ¡°


    ¡°military system. This is public knowledge. The incident wasn¡¯t a viral clip, Rich, it was a military experiment. Relspace is the power to warp reality in specific ways¡ªin that case, it was the game world. In others, it has been ours. I have seen things you wouldn¡¯t believe. Here¡¯s the thing: there appears to be no significant difference between worlds from the perspective of this system.¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°Pulse Drive.¡± Chain spat out, as if that were so obvious.


    ¡°


    ¡°All Pulse Drives are fake! You seem a bit slow, are you drunk?¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°sister.¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°

 Operation Vulcan Wolf (1)

    NoCro checked her heart rate in game, where it was for some reason always available. It was currently sitting at 170, or 83% of her maximum. She was well aware of her panting in the Light World and labored now to keep her eyes closed and focused on the events at hand. Putting load on the progressive tended to increase heart rate, for reasons she knew not why. Possibly just because the blood supply to her brain needed it, in the same way legs or arms might need it while running.


    That didn¡¯t seem quite right.


    As she felt her chest rise and fall she brought up a hand in the Light World to slap the sweat off of her forehead, vowing then and there not to mind her real body from that moment forward.


    As with all ¡®great¡¯ military operations, the preparatory maneuvers for Operation Vulcan Wolf were significantly more stressful than the battle itself. Firstly, NoCro had allocated every available slot on her secondary carrier, the Izumo-class Deneb, and some of her primary Cygnus to Stingray refueling drones. Secondly, she had sent all of this bullshit upwards under the governance of a Swarm razor. Thirdly, the Swarm razor didn¡¯t manage refueling operations or their timing by default. She did that.


    The key to all this nonsense was, as she saw it, the thing absolutely no one in their right mind would suspect. That was the critical factor in all great military upsets, and one she planned to duplicate here. She would fight here, personally.


    In the pantheon of Frames within ACO there was a certain hierarchy, at the bottom of which was the Grey Ghost. This pathetic Frame was essentially all but phased out several years ago apart from the existing inventories of players. NoCro held onto a copy of one.


    It could fly. No other Frames could do that. That was essentially its only advantage. It had no real range, or armor, or really armament. Compared to actual flying craft it had nearly an order of magnitude less range. However, it could fly, it could wield a Pulse Drive, it could wield Sympathetic Armor, and it could be operated by a player. It could turn the tide of a battle, under the exact right circumstances, in the exact right place, with the exact right player.


    Those circumstances, that place, and that player, had all arrived¡ªin her mind. She simply had to shepherd it into the right location. The thing itself was stealthy but unwieldy, like a Frankenstein monster of an F-22, an F-35, and a Variable Fighter. It could barely, just, go supersonic with afterburners.


    NoCro hated it compared to the elegance of the Spider she was used to. That actually worked in her favor. She hated this thing and it was going to work. She needed a dozen refueling drones to get her to an attack position, and at this point had gone through eleven of them. Each of these rendezvous presented a mental load on her, which was only part of it. She lined up for the last before the run-in in the full darkness before midnight. She could see the storm on the horizon with thunderbolts crackling through the towering clouds.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    That was when Prism picked her up.


    ¡ª


    ¡°A Ghost.¡± Prism all but whispered. How had a Ghost come all this way, if it were from Cygnus? Who was piloting it?


    He had picked this up from one of the Hawkeyes he had launched before the storm and sent forward. His whole battlegroup had since then descended into the full gale and was being buffeted around to and fro. The concept that NoCro was bringing a Ghost hadn¡¯t entered into his thoughts.


    Ghosts had to be piloted by players. If NoCro had offered him a one on one duel, bringing in another person was forbidden. He didn¡¯t really feel like this woman would do that. He opened up a channel.


    ¡°No,¡± he said, ¡°Is that you?¡±


    ¡°¡­yes.¡± came the belated response.


    She was attacking him personally. As he watched the icon of the Ghost on his light-table resolve, he huffed out a breath through his nose and smiled.


    ¡°You were right. You aren¡¯t the same person you were.¡± he said. The NoCro of the past never would have done this.


    It would end the same way, though. He vectored his own drone fighters in for an attack. He took a sudden and deep breath when he saw what his radar resolved next. Her entire strike package, a mixture of F35s and nearly a hundred drones besides. They had to be at the end of their rope.


    ¡°Prism,¡± NoCro said, over the line, ¡°Prepare to die.¡±


    She cut him off. Prism took in a deep breath and smiled widely. Yes, this was it! This was exactly what he was born for, what he wanted, and here this woman was offering it to him. Well¡ª


    He received another call, this time from Silver.


    ¡°Prism,¡± Silver said, ¡°Good work. We¡¯ll be coming in from the north and cutting her off. Just bring your fighters up and sandwich her. Should be easy work.¡±


    ¡°Excuse me?¡± Prism said, ¡°This was supposed to be a single fight. You all are operating here?¡±


    ¡°Of course we are.¡± Silver said, ¡°This is war. Grow up.¡±


    ¡ª


    NoCro watched as her EC2 and her refueling drones to the north got splashed by another force. There went her way back. It was obvious that she¡¯d been sold out. Now she was stuck between Prism and the rest of Titan. Absolute destruction. Angrily, she opened up a channel to him.


    ¡°Prism,¡± she said, ¡°I wanted you to be different. Did you tell them?¡±


    Prism, of course, had told everything he was doing to Europa. He couldn¡¯t rightly tell NoCro that she was the one who relayed it.


    ¡°I¡­¡± Prism said, caught suddenly out.


    ¡°Disgusting.¡± NoCro said, ¡°I wanted to believe. I really did. You were the last honorable man. I wanted us to fight alone.¡±


    Prism, who wanted this now more than anything, could only twist up his face.


    ¡°Prism.¡± Silver said, over his line, ¡°If she reverses to attack us, attack her from behind. It¡¯ll be easy. You will, right?¡±

 Operation Vulcan Wolf (2)

    In the dark forest of her world, there were nevertheless a few things nearer to the campfire that NoCro could see clearly. One of these things was that she had to dump all her anti-shipping missiles immediately, invert her Ghost and point the nose in the other direction. She and her hundred-strong strike package performed this split-s maneuver at once, with each unit receiving the command from the Swarm razor. Despite losing her Hawkeye she still had eyes on Titan¡¯s northern group, since she had a string of drones going all the way back to Cygnus like a trail of breadcrumbs. They had from 150 and 175 bandits with them, all fully armed for anti-air. Prism to her south had another 75 or so with the same mission profile. Bad odds.


    However. Titan had split their total air forces to cover their amphibious landing and wasn¡¯t sending everything they had at her. It probably seemed like a good idea to them, at the time. Two of them were covering the landings and two of them were coming after her¡ªthat had to be the case. One of them had to be Silver himself, just based on the man¡¯s ego. Silver seemed to be at least mildly afraid of her, so that indicated he would have taken their second-best after Prism along for the ride. She knew who that was.


    So she knew all the parties involved. If she had to guess at their dispositions, Silver had probably positioned himself on the right flank, since that was the side facing the rest of his forces. That meant she should focus on the left flank, since it was the greater threat. Messing with their heads was a free action, so she directed a few of her unarmed drones to the north into a roll to increase their radar cross sections. They might pick it up and wonder what she had out there, at their backs. Couldn¡¯t hurt.


    The Ghost didn¡¯t have a canopy like a normal aircraft. The cockpit was in an armored citadel which was lined with a panorama of curved monitors. She flipped the monitors over to the visible spectrum. It was just after midnight local time inside the world of ACO and she was skimming over broken clouds. A half moon was painted on low in the sky. The asterism from which she drew her name, the Northern Cross, was not visible from this latitude at this time of year. She had to make do with its southern cousin.


    Based on past events, what they were going to do was hit her with half of their guided missiles and save the other half for after the merge. There were two of them each using their own Swarm razor, not one Swarm controlling the entire assembly. That was a flaw. Unlike her and Prism, they¡¯d never demonstrated an ability to be in the loop on the Swarm or for that matter any other system. The game¡¯s implementation of various elements was decently complex, but in many areas it was tangibly stupid, outdated, and lacking in critical safety features that were probably present in reality. The more time one spent with a particular razor, the more of its quirks became obvious.


    She divided up her forces into two distinct formations, east and west, and mirrored them as perfectly as possible. Her Ghost she kept right in the middle on this imaginary threat axis which bisected the enemy formation. Her heart rate had calmed down somewhat from earlier.


    Slowly she moved the two groups she had split her forces further away from her, almost imperceptibly, and then she watched the enemy¡¯s two formations. Each of them changed heading, ever so slightly, as it picked which one of her groups to attack first. Just before she came into range of their missiles, she sprang the trap on them and had both of her squadrons veer into each other. The whole assemblage of her drone fighters and F35Cs whipped by each other and in some cases just a few feet away from the Ghost. This was the coordinated work of a single swarm, under a single skilled authority.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    The enemy swarms gently vectored in for an attack on their original target. What she had done here was feed the pair of idiotic narrow-AIs controlling the enemy¡¯s entire force identical but mirrored data. Filtered through a dumb and deterministic system like a razor, this produced mirrored outputs.


    ¡®Mirrored outputs¡¯ in this case meant that the enemy¡¯s two air wings turned inward and started to gradually crash into each other along the center line defined by her Ghost. By the time the players involved managed to arrest this silly process of mutual destruction, each of them had lost about half of their force. NoCro¡¯s subsequent cackling was squelched when a bloom of missiles emerged from the enemy¡¯s stricken formation, which resulted in a bunch of rather scary alarms on her side. She straightened out her own squadrons, lit up her jammers, and started dumping chaff and mirrors and whatever else she had. From the approaching cloud it looked like they were sticking to their halfsies plan, in spite of losing half their attacking force. She decided to focus on evasion and deception, especially since the Ghost was insanely good at electronic countermeasures.


    It was impossible to juke or deceive all of them. The Ghost was basically a giant brick. That was fine. All she had to do was feed them bad data. She did just that for the first one to arrive. Her eyes were far too slow to perceive it, but she felt like this whole space was part of her now. The Meteor missile exploded well ahead of her, along with many others her jamming systems were messing with. Between stealth and ECM and a modicum of good old fashioned maneuvering, she very nearly stuffed their entire barrage into the ocean as if it were trash. She lost about ten craft, mostly drones with low fuel that she held out as bait. She fired off a nice little telegram to Silver:


    NC: this is the part where you throw the revolver at me.


    She was panting again and her heart rate was climbing over 170. What she was after was coming. All of the decisions had been made.


    ¡ª


    Prism received a call from Silver, not too long after he engaged NoCro.


    ¡°Prism,¡± Silver said, ¡°If you don¡¯t come through here, you can kiss Europa goodbye.¡±


    ¡°You deceived me!¡± Prism said, ¡°Now you want me to turn around and stab someone else in the back? Where does this end?¡±


    ¡°This is the brass ring. You need to grow up right now and think about what¡¯s important to you. That girl NoCro means nothing to you, and none of this means anything to her.¡±


    Silver was wrong on both counts, really. There was something more important, though, even than that.


    ¡°I gave her my word.¡± Prism said.


    ¡°The only way you get your happily ever after is through me. Don¡¯t forget that.¡± Silver said, ¡°Do it now.¡±


    Prism clenched his fists and set his teeth. Yes, anything for her. Even his own honor.


    ¡°¡­alright.¡± he said, and directed his drone fighters to accelerate.

 Operation Vulcan Wolf (3)

    ¡°


    ¡°fuck out of that, Sil.¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡ª


    ¡°Cygnus. What actually ended up happening was the self-preservation instinct kicked in and somehow wound up being transmitted to her Swarm razor. It crossed two F35s over in front of her and had them set up an ECM defense. Her Ghost was now hidden in their radio shadow. This had evidently been her decision.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡ª


    all of his planes. That was the price of his hundred percent weighting. It all came down to guns. If they could get in sight of her they would tear a brick like the Ghost to shreds. As his forces descended on NoCro¡¯s last known location, which was surely right behind her defending F35s, they found¡­


    ¡°cunt?¡± he wailed. Not even optical tracking was resolving her. She just wasn''t there, nor above or below or anywhere else.


    already decided. Far too late now to matter, one of the optical tracking systems on Krieg¡¯s left flank picked up the Ghost, flicking over from the smaller icon of an F35 to the much larger one of a Ghost. Curious as to how this deception was accomplished he picked one of the nearby cameras and saw her completing her roll around the left flank and leveling her guns on Krieg¡¯s drones.


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°twenty seconds. She has to have practically zero fuel.¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°human.¡±


    ¡°


    ¡°


    ¡°


    Wolf part of the operation, getting a bunch of basically silent Taigei AIP boats under Prism¡¯s nose. The other part, Vulcan, was named for the Avro Vulcan bomber and its history of stunt refuelings. Like many complex operations it had gone quite awry, but the fundamentals were all solid and allowed for a great deal of chaos.


    ¡ª


    ¡°


    Yes, come to think of it, she had felt a stab of pain around there, in the chest region. But she also had developed the mother of all headaches, and it had felt like nothing in comparison. She immediately reached up and ripped off her link that tethered her to the tower PC, which was its own special kind of pain, and stumbled sideways out of her swivel chair. The chair toppled over and clattered into the nearest wall, while she herself fell to the ground face first, only weakly managing to pull herself to her hands and knees.


    heart attack. How could she be having a heart attack? Those were supposed to be for old people! Even though she was feeling less lucid by the second, even though she lived alone, all she had to do was reach her phone.

 Noel At The Threshold

    Noel wheezed and slumped forward onto her face. It was the dead of night and there wasn¡¯t going to be anyone outside. Everyone was asleep. If she chose some random door to pound on there was absolutely no one who would open up, not in this neighborhood. A nominally normal person might here find some well of inner fire of self-preservation that was the birthright of all animals. That was not the case here, with her, now. The long chain of humiliation and tragedy that had brought her to this point wasn¡¯t exactly going to end if she got up and managed somehow to find help. In fact it was going to get a lot worse, and she was going to meet her end within a year as a drooling and crazy ward of the state, pointlessly using up resources in some hospital somewhere. If something could have been done differently, she knew not what, and anyway it was pointless now.


    It seemed like the end and it certainly would have been, except for a tiny thought that intruded upon her dulling consciousness and grew ever larger.


    No-chan isn¡¯t going to die like this!


    Noel herself had run out of the energy and oxygen to form complex thoughts. As if it were someone else doing, it, she felt herself place her palm against the carpet and draw herself up, then yank the junk drawer of her desk out. She twisted her hand such that the drawer upended after being pulled away and all of the contents went spilling off to the side. From this pile she picked out the glittering pistol. Her vision was growing dim and dark, but she could still feel the grip in her hands. It wasn¡¯t her body that was weak, here, it was her mind.


    The pistol grip felt cold in her hands. Her hands felt cold. She dragged herself to her feet and stumbled out of the door, and draped herself over the steel banister that faced the parking lot. Picking out the nearest car she could see there, she leveled the pistol on it and attempted to fire upon it to set off its alarm. She couldn¡¯t pull the trigger, not with the strength she had left. She remembered then that she had ejected the bullet that was in the chamber and would probably have to rack the slide again to chamber a round. That was when her strength finally failed her, and she collapsed onto her back and fell unconscious.


    ¡ª


    A few moments passed and she felt her awareness returning to her slowly, as one wakes up from a long sleep. It felt like she was laying in a flat sandy puddle, being surrounded on all sides by about an inch of water. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at the cloudless starry sky, then tilted her head off to the side to observe a nearly infinite mirror-shine of utterly still water that stretched all the way to the horizon. A line of mountains in a dim, dark blue haze rose up from the horizon, destined to forever remain at the same distance even if one walked towards them.


    A typical person, should they arrive at this strange place after those events, would surely think they were in an afterlife of some sort. Noel held off on concluding that, just yet, because she¡¯d been here before. It was the rarer winter version of the Sandbox, which was itself based on the Bonneville Salt Flats and served as the default environment of Absolute Conviction Online. When she turned her gaze back forwards, she saw that she wasn¡¯t alone here, either. Or perhaps that was a matter of perspective.


    At her feet was a girl much like herself. She wore a frilly black dress and her lips were painted a scarlet red, the same color as her ominous eyes, and she had long, shining black hair. Just over her head hung the famous constellation, Cygnus, appearing now to be crashing down into the earth. This was the time of year when it became the Northern Cross, since the imagery of the swan flying headfirst into the ground was not as nice. When this girl saw Noel was awake she gave her a vicious smile.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°¡­No-chan?¡± Noel croaked out, ¡°Where am I?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re dead, you dumb bitch!¡± No-chan said, almost gleefully, ¡°You went out like a sucker, too.¡±


    ¡°I tried.¡± Noel said quietly. No-chan shook her head sadly and formed an x-shape with her hands.


    ¡°No, that was me.¡± she said.


    Noel couldn¡¯t rightly dispute this. That being the case, she laid her head back and looked up at the stars. What else was there to say. This act put No-chan out of her line of sight, and she heard her alter-ego give a huff of indigence at that. Yes, that was her. Noel cracked a smile, even under the circumstances. No-chan responded to the slight by walking forward until she towered over Noel¡¯s hips, one heeled boot on each side of her. Her shadow put her hands on her hips and looked down disapprovingly.


    ¡°Pathetic.¡± No-chan said, ¡°I¡¯ve always hated you the most. The good news is, it''s No-chan''s turn!¡±


    ¡°Have at it.¡± Noel deadpanned.


    No-chan huffed out a laugh and lowered herself until she was sitting on Noel¡¯s torso. Her shadow slapped both of her pale hands down into the water on either side of Noel¡¯s head. Finding the situation with her doppleganger a bit intimate and awkward, Noel attempted to direct her gaze to the side. This was foiled when No-chan gripped her by the chin and turned her face back until they were again meeting eyes.


    ¡°Let me make myself clear.¡± No-chan said, ¡°You died. You wanted to die, and you did. I don¡¯t want to die.¡±


    ¡°This is a moot point.¡± Noel said, ¡°We¡¯re dead.¡±


    No-chan shook her head.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say that.¡± she said, ¡°I said you were. Your life, which you were prepared to throw away, should be given to someone who really appreciates it.¡±


    ¡°You?¡± Noel said. No-chan nodded vigorously.


    ¡°It¡¯s my time!¡± she said.


    Noel¡¯s first thought was that would be a grotesque and absurd turn of events, to give control of her life to what amounted to an evil cartoon character she roleplayed for fun. But on the other hand, why not? It¡¯s not like anyone could have done worse. This was just some delusion her dying mind was playing out, anyway, in its final moments. Albeit, a curiously lucid and detailed one. That fact gave her enough pause to seriously think about it before speaking.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Noel said, after some hesitation, ¡°You¡¯re right.¡±


    No-chan burst into one of those insanely worrisome smiles she was good at, and patted Noel on the cheek. The girl leaned forward until both of her forearms were flat on the ground beside Noel¡¯s head, sending out ripples into the infinite shimmering surface of the shallow pool. They were nose to nose now. Noel suddenly felt frozen in place, unable to look away. No-chan leaned forward and brought her crimson lips down onto hers, and when she closed her eyes she felt herself falling through the floor again.


    When her world stopped spinning she was dry again, cold again, and felt the same concrete she had collapsed onto earlier. What hadn¡¯t changed was that there was a woman lightly straddling her, and they were locked in a similar sort of embrace. Similar yet different. She opened her eyes when the woman drew away from her, and what she saw was even more strange a turn of events than if it were her alter ego No-chan.


    It was the woman on the shirt she was wearing. She had a jointed, robotic body, but her lips were soft enough and her breath was hot. The woman seemed pleased to see her awake, but also somewhat distracted.


    ¡°Azure?¡± Noel managed to choke out weakly. The woman, Linear Azure, only gave her the briefest of nods and a little reassuring smile before directing her attention elsewhere.


    ¡°Rej!¡± she said, craning her neck to the open door of Noel¡¯s apartment, ¡°She¡¯s awake. Get the tower, let¡¯s go!¡±


    Azure then swept Noel up into her arms and held her close as if she were a precious child.


    ¡°W-where are we going?¡± Noel said, still weak and stunned. The hospital? Azure began to walk the pair of them down the metal stairwell, and Noel saw a man emerge from her apartment carrying her tower PC.


    ¡°Shh. Don¡¯t worry.¡± Azure said, and flashed her a smile, ¡°Nice shirt, by the way.¡±

 Survive Evade Resist Escape

    Noel was packed into the back of a tan-colored Volkswagen SUV by the couple, and as she came to grips with her present circumstances she found her mind was flooded with questions. Her black-haired robotic idol, Linear Azure, slid into the seat adjacent. Then the car was in motion, with the sort of energy one might expect from a getaway or a kidnapping. She didn¡¯t particularly feel in danger from these two, but she would have, had she not known who they were.


    Before any of the deeper questions could be answered, though, she suddenly remembered the situation she was in upon her forcible ejection from the game. Flying in a jet on reserve fuel, nearly on empty.


    ¡°Wait.¡± she said, ¡°I need to log back in.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± the driver said, ¡°Are you nuts? The only thing you need to log in to is a hospital.¡±


    She knew him to be Reginald Markov, Linear¡¯s husband. Any superfan knew this guy, who helmed the prosthetics company that developed Linear¡¯s body. Noel also had a few other theories about who he really was from various internet sources, but those tended to be both mutually contradictory and equally plausible. Likely that was by design, since as everyone knew you couldn¡¯t disappear inconvenient facts on the internet. What you could do was fill the whole channel with credulous junk until no one was sure of anything. Markov would know that better than anyone. Either way, she didn¡¯t buy for a second that the official story was all there was to it. There was a very good reason to distrust the official story, after all, since it indicated he was new money with a custom built trophy wife. Noel had never believed that because they so obviously truly loved each other.


    ¡°T-that¡¯s not for you to decide.¡± Noel said, somewhat more weakly than she would have liked, ¡°U-unless I¡¯m being kidnapped here¡ª¡°


    Linear leaned over to her and furrowed her brow, and placed one of her jointed hands on Noel¡¯s small shoulder. In the darkness of the cabin interior Noel perceived Linear¡¯s eyes to have some faint phosphorescent threads of blue. She¡¯d never seen such a sophisticated machine, personally, nor many more of the other wonders that supposedly existed in the world. Albemerle wasn¡¯t a place one normally saw such things. They barely had self-driving cars. Not trying to be rude about it, she flitted her eyes down to Linear¡¯s hand to get a closer look. Though it was hard to tell in the blue-gray darkness, it was somewhere between a human hand and one of those posable hands for artistic anatomy study. Maybe a lot closer to human.


    The woman appeared about to say something, hesitated, and then went forward with it.


    ¡°You must be in imminent danger over there.¡± Linear guessed, correctly, ¡°How about a compromise? We¡¯ll bring you someplace safe and get you the medical attention you need, and I¡¯ll let you log back in right now.¡±


    Noel squinted her eyes. The reason they were here had something to do with the game, else-wise the woman never would have so easily agreed to her stupid wish. Between that and the general fact that it was their only point of connection, she was slowly assembling a tenuous panorama of the real situation. They wanted something from her, or she was in danger here, or possibly both.


    There was no time to dwell on it. For now she had to keep her cards close. That¡¯s what No-chan would have done, and she had just made a promise to that woman, or concept, or whatever it was.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s a deal.¡± Noel said, ¡°Do you have a laptop or something?¡±


    Noel was under the impression that temporary solutions would probably involve the desktop client. After she had agreed but before she managed to get out her subsequent question, Linear was already in the process of leaning over and pouncing on her like a lion. Noel backed up against the door and gasped, until she noticed that Linear was threading Noel¡¯s progressive harness around her neck like a collar. Moving quickly, the gynoid reached behind her own back with the male end of the progressive harness and clicked it into her body, somewhere out of sight around her lower back. Noel blushed and looked off to the side, out of the window. However one sliced it, being physically collared and connected to someone was weird, for however clinical a reason. Maybe it was like mouth to mouth. Then again, Linear had just done that to her as well.


    ¡°Would you like to buy me dinner first?¡± Linear said, cottoning on to Noel¡¯s embarrassment and seemingly reveling in it. Her husband cleared his throat. Noel silently looked back and gave her a nervous, toothy smile. ¡°No? Then, close your eyes.¡±


    So she did.


    ¡ª


    Before she saw anything on the other side, within the world of Absolute Conviction Online, she heard it. It was the master caution alarm, a rapidly repeating series of distinctive bleeps. The cockpit was flooded with red light and the view from her domed OLED monitors displayed a scene that one might see in mapping software. Which is to say, she was heading almost straight down, into the ground, nose first. There was land there, and an airstrip, at the top of the frame. Both of her turbines were out and she had no fuel.


    As for the cockpit lady, she was simply alternating between ''pull up'' and ''altitude''. Familiar refrain.


    Noel pieced together what had happened. After logging out her plane was put into emergency autopilot mode due to its fuel condition. It had attempted to vector to the nearest airstrip and land there, but had run out of fuel along the way. The resulting loss of power shut down the main CPU and the thing fell back on the dumb autopilot that was on the secondary CPU. Since this thing wasn¡¯t a space shuttle, it had no idea how to glide itself. The ram air turbine had already been deployed and the wings were at minimum sweep, so at least it had done that much.


    This wasn¡¯t really among the scenarios she had run through. The short version of landing a Ghost without engine power was that you didn¡¯t do it. It made vertical landings. She was trying to level the plane out and was already pulling back on the stick, but even if she managed to do that she could see that she was going way too fast to land at the airstrip. There just wasn¡¯t a lot of time left, with the way things were going. She could already read the little numbers on the runway.


    ¡°Deploy airbrake, put flaps to full.¡± she said, then suddenly remembered something with a gasp, ¡°Deploy landing gear¡ª!¡±


    No confirmations from her system. These requests might have been accomplished in time if she had not, in her panic, neglected to remember that the loss of main engine power took down the main CPU, which is the one that dealt with her lazy habit of using audio commands. The secondary CPU had no such ability, having approximately the processing power of a peanut.


    ¡°Oh shit¡­¡± she mumbled.


    The Ghost slammed belly-first into the runway as she was in the middle of implementing her three wishes manually. The aircraft slid along the tarmac with a screeching howl and wobbled, then spun itself around like a top until it eventually came to rest a few hundred feet from the end of the runway, which dropped off into the ocean shortly thereafter. Actually at the speed she was going, she definitely would have ended up in the drink if she had deployed the landing gear successfully.


    The Citadel seemed to be fine. A little indicator in the center of her screen claimed that the Pulse Drive was now online and main power had been restored. The Ghost wasn¡¯t a total wreck, based on how the damage was being self-reported, but it wasn¡¯t going to be going anywhere soon without some serious TLC. According to the GPS she was on the western side of San Cristobal, one of the islands in the Galapagos chain. She still had a mesh Network Warfare active to her airwing, too, which still seemed to be intact.


    All things considered, it could be worse. This thought had only just left her mind when she heard a plink against the hull. Small arms fire.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°Switch XCAM to¡­¡± she said, trailing off.


    The HUD had already switched the external camera vision mode to IR before she finished her statement. She blinked a few times in confusion, then tilted her head a few degrees towards the east. The scene displayed on the semicircular dome of monitors pivoted more radically and revealed a squad or so of NPC soldiers who had been stationed at the airport by one faction or another. They were all active on Netwar just like her, so whoever owned them now knew exactly where she was. She picked out one of them and set up an active camouflage defense, which was a little machine-learning algorithm that imagined what her Ghost looked like from their perspective and changed the shell to match it. Then she set up a broad-band jamming to cut off their Netwar, hopefully before a human noticed. Dealing with these softies was a simple matter of deploying the point-defense drone, Option. It would be simple, if the bay door actuator hadn¡¯t failed at some point during the hard landing.


    She suddenly heard a voice from nowhere, which made her nearly leap out of her seat.


    ¡°You weren¡¯t kidding about being in a pickle. Time for an EVA. There¡¯s a rifle under the seat.¡± it said, a woman¡¯s voice coming from seemingly nowhere.


    ¡°No-chan?¡± NoCro said.


    ¡°No, this is Linear. You¡¯re in me, remember? In my version of the Ultimate Sandbox. I can see you. Who is No-chan?¡±


    ¡°Me¡­¡± NoCro said softly, and fished under her seat. Linear made a confused hum but didn¡¯t pursue the point, thankfully.


    There was a bag there. Generally speaking, how good she was at this game was a function of how far she was from having to personally fire a rifle. Inside of the bag was something that looked like the back part of a rifle, and another part which looked like the front bit, which NoCro understood was called a barrel. There were also four conveniently loaded magazines and a few other soldiery sundries. She picked the two halves of the rifle up and held them curiously in front of her, spinning them around. The two bits clearly weren¡¯t broken haphazardly and were made to fit together like puzzle pieces, and were stored that way for space reasons. Hesitantly, she snapped them together as best she could.


    ¡°Hmm.¡± Linear said, ¡°A takedown M4 with a holographic sight chambered in .300 AAC Blackout with an integrated targeting razor. Interesting choice. But it doesn¡¯t look like you¡¯ve ever used it. Check the buttstock for a switch.¡±


    That she hadn¡¯t. Customizing the SERE kit (she learned this term a moment ago, since it was written on the bag) must have been the work of the previous owner of this particular Ghost. As Linear had predicted, there was a flush toggle on the stock of the rifle. NoCro clicked it in. A message flashed on her HUD interface claiming to be pairing the weapon, as if it were a set of bluetooth headphones. Now with this thing in her hands, she was struck with a vague sense that her near future was narrowing to a sort of dire strait.


    ¡°Miss Azure¡­¡± NoCro said, ¡°I¡¯d like to make a deal.¡±


    ¡°Oh ho. What would that be?¡±


    ¡°If I make it off this island, I want you to tell me what¡¯s going on.¡±


    There was a brief pause from the other end, most likely enough for her to confer with her husband at a glance. NoCro wasn¡¯t sure at this moment whether they needed her for something, or whether she was otherwise in danger and they were feeling especially selfless. How much they were willing to humor her would point to one or the other. This agenda was the one she imagined No-chan would advance.


    ¡°¡­alright.¡± Linear sighed, ¡°Try to get the drone free. You might be able to pry the cover with a knife. It¡¯s physics-based. By the way, I''m married. It''s not Miss Azure. I''m Missus Markov."


    Noel nodded contritely. The Ultimate systems were actually pretty conservative. They had sort of been designed to be.


    Usually with these sorts of items like extra mags or knives one could simply snap them to a place on the body to which they would magically adhere. When NoCro attempted to do just that with the knife that was in the kit, it simply fell down in accordance with the normal rules of gravity. When she leaned down to pick it up, a series of feelings which had heretofore been pushed to the back of her mind by stress suddenly slammed into her. Everything in ACO was different. It had been for a while in retrospect, even slightly before her heart attack. She had chalked this hyperreality it up to adrenaline and disorientation.


    The black nylon sheath of the knife under her fingers, the rip-stop cloth of the SERE bag, the cold metal of the rifle¡¯s receiver. These textures weren¡¯t part of ACO. She had only accepted them temporarily because they were part of the real world and her mind had been elsewhere. She brought up her hand and slapped it gently against her face. Yes, there was a little sting. Frantically she set about feeling every available surface, as though she was a blind woman quickly trying to ascertain her environment. Metal, plastic, glass, moisture.


    She would have, here, reflexively opened up her eyes and simply returned to reality. This was unfortunately one of those times where they felt heavy.


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic.¡± Linear leapt in to reassure her, ¡°You¡¯re still here with me. You¡¯re safe. I¡¯ll answer all your questions later.¡±


    ¡°Is this a death game or something?¡± NoCro said, feeling that one should be answered immediately.


    ¡°No! No, no, no.¡± Linear huffed.


    ¡°Okay then. But if I get shot, will it hurt?¡±


    ¡°N¡­ yes, probably.¡±


    Points for honesty. NoCro clumsily fitted the magazine into the rifle and looked at it quizzically.


    ¡°The charging handle.¡± Linear said, ¡°Do you really play this game?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s changed a lot!¡± NoCro blushed profusely and yanked back on the handle, chambering the first round. She flicked the selector to semiautomatic, which was the only way she would ever hit anything. The plinking against her Ghost had started back up again in the interim, with even the idiotic NPCs realizing what had happened upon moving forward. She called them idiots, and they were, but the bots were also pretty good at hitting targets. ¡°This is never going to work¡­¡±


    No-chan would never stand for that kind of loser talk, though the opposite, blind optimism, seemed to her to be foolish. Simply getting out of the Citadel while under fire was so stupid. Oh. Of course.


    ¡°Deploy smokescreen!¡± she said, ¡°Ah, No-chan, you¡¯re a genius¡­¡±


    It was a standard tactic for egress, however. Practically de rigeur.


    With a little chirp of recognition her Ghost flooded the area with opaque white clouds. The nose of the aircraft pitched down and a semicircular hatch above her popped open. The dull plinking sounds she was hearing from inside the Citadel were now a threatening sort of metallic ping, loud enough that the first one nearly caused her to lose her grip on the frame as she tried to extricate herself. There were other whipping sounds that must have represented rounds that were missing her and the airframe. She¡¯d heard all of this stuff before in other terrifying instances of infantry combat within this nightmarish game, and had previously imagined that they were accurate representations of how awful it was.


    That was regrettably untrue. It was so much worse than she could have imagined, both the sights and sounds and the knowledge that if one of these caught her she would be in such a world of hurt. It was so bad that she started laughing to herself.


    ¡°Shh¡­¡± she heard Linear¡¯s voice again, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re safe.¡±


    The woman was probably trying to calm her down, not wanting to see her go through another heart attack. It worked, anyway. She crawled rearward until she came across the armored cover behind her Citadel that concealed the Ghost¡¯s drone, Option. This device was located in a sort of manhole behind the citadel, in the same location that the lift fan would be on the much smaller F-35B, and it was covered with the same kind of panel. She fitted the knife into the edge farthest from the hinge and pulled back on it, hoping it would simply snap open upon being reminded to do so. That was too much to hope. As she was setting up for another round with the knife, she heard the proximity warning sound from the cockpit.


    That made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It also made her stand up, personally, and level the rifle vaguely eastward, into her smokescreen. That didn¡¯t seem quite right, so she swept the rifle southward. Into the formless darkness she aimed up, down, and sideways, making minute adjustments in a matter of moments, until it felt exactly right. Then she waited a split second, and another. Tension built quickly inside her, and her finger snapped down on the trigger when it suddenly broke like a wave. She heard and just barely saw a body fall at the edge of her vision, towards the rear of the Ghost. Her entire body relaxed and she let the gun fall to her side.


    She saw the knife sticking upwards out of the panel at her feet and stomped down on the hilt, which released the Option drone. The ring-shaped craft had a pair of counter-rotating blades in the middle and lifted out of its cradle. It tilted forwards at her side and sought after hostile contacts.


    ¡ª


    Linear¡¯s husband Rej watched his wife settle back into the middle seat and gaze off downward in silent contemplation. She was obviously back here in the Light World, considering what she had seen.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± he said, ¡°She okay?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s just¡­ well, we know she has a condition, but it¡¯s more than that. I suddenly felt like something might be controlling her. Something not human.¡±


    ¡°In that case.¡± Rej said, tightening his grip on the wheel and speaking through his teeth, ¡°Let¡¯s keep her close.¡±

 Survive Evade Resist Escape 2

    A quiet yet high pitched hum permeated the confines of NoCro¡¯s citadel, an unavoidable electronic background that accompanied the host of monitors and computers and other electronic equipment that lined the vaguely spherical cockpit. The Pulse Drive, which supposedly gave life to all these things, supposedly operated in complete silence. However if she focused she heard a low, soft heartbeat¡ªher own¡ªamidst the din. Spectral analysis of the cockpit noise in the past revealed no such thing, so it might be a product of her imagination.


    NoCro had a bit of time to reflect upon her new world while one of her Stingrays was vectoring in for a refuel. As she watched the craft taxi in front of her and attach its refueling probe to hers, as if she were aloft, she idly wondered if it were even possible to get the Ghost off of the ground again. There were no shortage of indications otherwise, as she drilled deeper into the damage reporting. At the very least the thing would have to be transformed and righted, which was no sure thing in and of itself. She squinted her eyes at the command line interface she was haltingly dealing with in half-remembered commands and leaned back with a great sigh. Perhaps no one had noticed her engagement of their NPCs at the San Cristobal airport. That would be nice.


    She had tried again and failed to open her eyes. Something was keeping them shut. It was a worrisome situation. She ran her middle finger testingly down the curved, organic line of the right engine throttle. It didn¡¯t seem quite so utilitarian as one would expect from LockMart. Looking closely, she felt and saw that it was a beautiful piece of steely industrial engineering and additive manufacturing.


    Gently, she raised her hand and ran it softly over the block of physical controls that were lined up along her right side. They weren¡¯t bolted in as a group in a panel as would be the case in many other aircraft. The whole control group was formed out of a curved surface that went up behind her and into the wall of the spherical Citadel. Feeling the cold aluminum, she traced her fingers along it until it met with the rightmost edge of the monitor array, which was situated just at the edge of her peripheral vision if she were to face forward. Realizing her hesitancy to continue, she picked up her middle finger and placed it squarely down in the corner the matte surface of the OLED screen. A fingerprint appeared there.


    Putting aside the disturbing implications of that, the Ghost was undeniably a beautiful machine, crafted carefully by skilled individuals and perhaps a few AI. One but had to close her eyes to imagine them arguing over this and that little detail that she here took for granted.


    ¡°Sorry, Ghost.¡± she whispered, giving the console at her side a little pat.


    ¡°Eh?¡± Linear butted in suddenly, interrupting her reverie. NoCro winced as she remembered she wasn¡¯t purely alone. ¡°Fond of her? That¡¯s the original Ghost you know.¡±


    ¡°Original¡­?¡± NoCro said, cautiously, though she had already made a few assumptions.


    ¡°Chain¡¯s Ghost. After I stopped playing the game I decided to place it in good hands.¡±


    NoCro closed her eyes and tapped her fingernail on the aluminum armrest a few times. Her idol had chosen to completely ignore her telegrams within the game, on the few occasions she had the courage to send them. That seemed to be natural enough behavior for a celebrity, and indeed it was exactly what she herself did during her semiregular bouts with infamy. Noel had evidently not gone completely unnoticed by the woman, however.


    ¡°So you were the one who sold it to me.¡± NoCro said. She had put forth a pretty lowball offer for one months prior, and hadn¡¯t expected anyone to take her up on it. She¡¯d done so through a straw account, which was normal behavior for players who wanted to pick up valuable equipment without everyone finding out, or who were engaging in otherwise ToS violating RMT trades. These people evidently had the means to see past that.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Linear said. NoCro huffed out a breath through her nostrils.


    There had been something unusual about this Ghost that she had noticed from the start, namely a collection of impenetrably written custom scripts left over in its local storage. Their function was a mystery, since from what she could tell they employed the in-game scripting language to immediately backdoor into something much more low-level and arcane. The finer points of this second mystery language were mostly unknown to her, and since it were clearly dangerous she had declined to share them with the player base. If she put that out there some hacker would be teleporting around the map by the end of next week; ruining the game for herself didn¡¯t seem like a great time. Similarly, using them might result in a ban. However.


    The equipment in the SERE kit was years-old but had a targeting razor on the rifle, which predated any Progressive who might have made use of it. In other words, this Ghost was the first one implemented in the game, and had been the one employed by Linear¡¯s so-called sister. That woman was the second Ultimate system and a world-class expert in computer science. The scripts observably placed the Ghost into some kind of debug mode.


    The fuel transfer was only about fifteen percent complete when she received a beeping notification. Someone was beaming a message to her via LOS communication. Which is to say, someone in the game, on grid, was communicating with her directly. That immediately sent her hackles up. She¡¯d been ignoring telegrams for a while, but this wasn¡¯t something to be ignored. The sender had chosen not to include his or her identity in the metadata, and she wasn¡¯t on their Netwar, so the signal showed up as UNKNOWN.


    ¡°Go ahead.¡± she said. Her system took the hint and patched the unknown signal through.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Crow,¡± the male voice on the other end said, in a friendly tone, ¡°You have a contact approaching.¡±


    NoCro winced. Whoever owned those NPCs had noticed her and was performing a standard aerial insertion. She had nothing on hand to fight over land, except for the Diamond Knife.


    ¡°Identify yourself.¡± she shot back, ¡°And give me an ETA.¡±


    ¡°Four minutes. This is Signa. I¡¯m crawling back from the shellacking we took down there.¡±


    NoCro smiled. Of course he made it out.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know how glad I am to hear your voice.¡± she said, ¡°What have you brought?¡±


    ¡°Simpler to link up. I¡¯m disconnected from Allied netwar, too.¡°


    That explained a lot about why he was still floating. A flashing message appeared center screen, for her: Signa wishes to join your squad. Such an action would give him access to her Netwar, and all of her positions. With only a slight hesitation, she accepted. All that remained of his group was one slightly damaged Fubuki-class Aegis destroyer, with perhaps half of its complement of missiles. Predictably, all surface warfare and antiair. Nothing she needed right here and now.


    ¡°I can launch now.¡± he said, ¡°Take the incoming out before it gets to you.¡±


    ¡°No.¡± NoCro said, ¡°If you do that they¡¯ll know you¡¯re here. We don¡¯t even know who it is, either.¡±


    Signa had managed to slink away from the rout with his semi-stealthy destroyer, but sending a missile up into the big blue would point back to him like a laser.


    ¡°I know. Not equipped for ground attack here, Crow. Even the deck gun is out.¡°


    NoCro here added up various little piles of information that she had. Signa to her south with a damaged destroyer. Her air wing to north with no fuel and an opposite mission. Her here on Cristobal with a fucked up Ghost with a knife to her name. Nothing, really. There was nothing here except her.


    ¡°Stand by.¡± she said, ¡°I¡¯ll fight.¡±


    ¡°You?¡± came the dubious reply.


    ¡°Wait,¡± she heard Linear say, ¡°You can use the custom scripts¡ª¡°


    ¡°No. I can¡¯t.¡± NoCro said, cutting her off sharply, ¡°Bring buckler and diamond online.¡±


    The system responded by bringing her Buckler automatic countermeasures razor online. It also brought into play the Diamond Razor, an absolute last resort intended for close quarters combat. Upon its activation she was filled with a desire to get off the ground here and destroy whoever it was that menacing her. It was rather frightening. In fact here everything that was going into her head was frightening. It wasn¡¯t like this, before. Not quite.


    She also needed some way to operate the damaged Ghost without breaking it completely. That kind of information came at a price. While she didn''t understand all of the scripts in the Ghost''s memory, she did understand enough to rewrite one of them.


    ¡°Run script one-zero-five.¡± she said desperately.


    The Ghost complied, transmitting all of the pain of its failed systems directly into her mind. Her heart immediately leapt into her chest, beating hard. A shooting pain ran up her left arm. All of Chain¡¯s scripts she had named zero, so all of hers were one. It felt as if the entire Ghost she was controlling were actually her, disabled on the tarmac, the host of a thousand needle-like points of painful recollection. Upon seeing the exact nature of her resolve, even Linear recoiled into silence.


    ¡°She¡¯s fucking nuts.¡± Linear said, now cradling the lifeless body of Noel. She turned to her husband. ¡°I think she might be willing to die for this.¡±


    Rej shot a glance over his shoulder at the lifeless woman.


    ¡ª


    Generally there weren¡¯t a lot of women who played ACO, making up about 2% of the player base. Among this number, however, a few fairly online personalities prevailed. Arguably even NoCro was one of them. Tatsuta was another, and this was a woman who was loved by many.


    ¡°Get up, No.¡± Tats whispered, as she eyed the gimbal that defined her descent.


    Based on the prone figure of Northern Cross''s Ghost, Tats was gearing up for a decisive death-from-above maneuver involving her own Frame, a flexible middleweight machine designed by Honda. The solid rocket boosters affixed to her promised to give the humanoid robot a soft landing, relatively speaking. If one activated them a little late, however, it wouldn¡¯t be so soft, and anything beneath would obviously be destroyed.


    A whole picture of the situation on the ground was helpfully provided by the SK which brought her here. On the ground far below, a gauntleted hand burst forth from the side of the disabled Ghost and planted itself on the tarmac adjacent. Another followed, and the dead machine slowly started to bring itself back to life. It pushed itself off the ground as Tats descended, motivating her to change the angle of her descent from a decisive DFA maneuver into something more like a standard opposed-insertion just on the other side of a nearby rise.


    The Ghost was still a proper Frame, and that meant it had the capability to assume a humanoid shape and fight. That was more or less required to wield a Pulse Drive in the first place. As it rose up the doors of the weapon bays snapped open and it loosed a handful of anti-air Meteor missiles. They flew upwards towards Tatsuta¡¯s descending Frame and its attending Stratoknight. Skydiving as she was in her huge Frame, it was a simple matter to evade them with a jaunty sideways flip. That wasn¡¯t true for her deliverer, the massive and winged Stratoknight, which blew up in a thousand pieces overhead as the missiles slammed into it.


    Tatsuta, the descending opponent, never the less broke into a smile and shook her low blonde twintails back and forth happily as she watched NoCro¡¯s Ghost come back to life. This tipoff she got might result in real content. Her falling Frame unshouldered the Sympathetic Lance it was carrying as she closed her eyes in delight, controlling all of it from her Progressive implant, which she normally used to manage her streams. This was Linear¡¯s so-called stage control, the ability of a person to subconsciously manipulate her environment. Her humanoid Frame was targeting a landing on the other side of a nearby hill from No-chan¡¯s Ghost.


    ¡°Everyone. This is it!¡± she said, opening her blue eyes suddenly. All of her feelings over the past couple years regarding variously confronting or working with No-chan were here compressed in this tiny Americanism.

 Versus Tatsuta

    After the initial flash of shooting pain ran up her left thigh and down her arm it dulled to a throbbing 2 or 3 on the scale one might occasionally be presented by a doctor. Such a system wasn¡¯t designed by a sadist¡ªat least, sadism wasn¡¯t the point¡ªbut rather to give the pilot a quick overview of which systems could be relied upon to their full degree and which might benefit from a little care in use. When fully transformed the machine had a decently human range of movement. Many of its systems relied upon the materials science revolution which had happened a few years ago after the deployment of the first general purpose AI.


    It would have been impossible a decade ago for a machine weighing about 300 tons to perform a vertical takeoff. Aside from actual materials science, Frames employed so-called Sympathetic materials. These were essentially magic and only took full effect in the presence of an active Pulse Drive. That thing was a slightly radioactive silvery ball about the size of an orange with a darker and duller band wrapped around its equator. Minus the decorative belt it reminded her a bit of the core of a nuclear weapon. It powered her Frame while it was earthbound and for a short time after. The jet engines powered it, otherwise, though she used them all the time in various tactical ways even while the PD was online. Basically, the Ghost was a hybrid. The concept was eventually abandoned by LockMart as overly complicated, and for good cause. Some engineers just had stars in their eyes after finding out what AI could do.


    She flitted her eyes to her fuel gauge and palmed the side-by-side throttles up to about 50% before placing the machine into a running position. Within the safety of the citadel she barely heard the ear-splitting whine of the turbines spinning up, making the event seem as distant as if were happening on the other side of the airport. That was about as high as she could set the thrust before she started to slide along the ground from her position. Just then she got a notification of LOS communication incoming from her new opponent. Immediately beneath the central notification the sender had identified herself this time: Tatsuta. NoCro rolled her eyes and gave a little moan. So much for her location being a relative secret, and it being revealed by this person was the worst of all worlds.


    ¡°Go ahead.¡± she said, rubbing and slapping her cheeks, then painting a smile on them. Showtime.


    A blonde Asian woman with soft blue eyes appeared in a window in the center of her vision. Her long hair was done in a couple of low twintails near her neck and tied off there with a couple of sunflower accessories. NoCro had an encyclopedic knowledge of the in-game cosmetics available in the store. The little sunflowers were cute, but they didn¡¯t really fit her image. Tatsuta didn¡¯t really fit her own image, though, a lot of the time.


    ¡°Hi, No-chon. You¡¯re live!¡± Tats said, as if to remind her to behave, ¡°Is my favorite seething little chuuni happy to see me?¡±


    NoCro cleared her throat and laid a hand over her chest in an arrogant and self-assured way. As for her being a seething little chuuni, that was mostly true, and among those, NoCro was certainly her favorite. While Tats was still a minute away from landing and could attack from her position with her long range weapons, she had not chosen to do so.


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m glad to see you.¡± NoCro said, ¡°I can beat you.¡±


    Tats laughed and rolled her powder blue eyes theatrically at that, given the differences in their strengths over land, both presently and in general. NoCro beating her here was an unthinkable event.


    ¡°It¡¯s been fun, No-chon.¡± Tats said, ¡°I wanted to see you in the main event, but when I heard you were here I had to come get you before someone else did. Now, gimme one good reason why I shouldn¡¯t melt you down from on high.¡±


    A normal player would not be asking this question, nor would he be hailing someone he fully planned to presently obliterate with an alpha strike. The only reason Tats was doing this is because she was running a livestream. NoCro closed her eyes smugly.


    ¡°As it happens, I have a sickness in my heart.¡± she sighed. Tats looked confused at how suddenly heavy things had gotten, since NoCro was normally one to play along.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± she said cautiously. NoCro took a deep breath.


    ¡°There¡¯s a boy I like.¡± she said. Tats¡¯ eyes went wide and she broke into a happy, involuntary squeal.


    ¡°Kyaaaa~! A confession! I know who you¡¯re talking about. Shouldn¡¯t you be saying this to him?¡±


    Unbeknown to Tats, NoCro had already (sort of¡­) done that and gotten rejected. No matter.


    ¡°He¡¯s always on my mind.¡± she continued, ¡°I want to strike back at those who have wronged him. I want him to think of me. I want to face him and lace our fingers together. Above all, I want him to see me for who I am. So Tats, I can¡¯t lose to you here. I don¡¯t have time for that.¡±


    Tats gave an nigh imperceptible twitch, which was unfortunately reflected in her avatar. Of all the possible reasons No-chan could have advanced, love was maybe the only one that could get the viewers on her side. It was also so completely credible given her appearance on On Grid Today that even Tats was on the verge of accepting it wholesale. Glancing over at her chat more or less confirmed that No-chan¡¯s touching wish had garnered her a lot of instant support. Assuming it wasn¡¯t a bit, Tatsuta was also not a little jealous.


    No-chan¡¯s psyop had thusfar already embroiled Tats in thought long enough to preclude attacking on the way down. The time had now come to light her solid-rocket boosters and commence her final descent to the ground. She flipped her Frame until it was feet-first and her boosters ignited, slamming her with g-forces. When she recovered from that she centered herself and drifted her hand over to her instrument panel. On it was a covered little flip switch which would jettison the vertical launch missiles attached to her back. Most players would call it a backpack.


    If she fought No-chan on even(ish) terms, she might still be able to hold onto the affection of her viewers and bring the issue to a satisfying conclusion. That naturally opened the possibility of No-chan winning the engagement in CQC, however slim. That was exactly what NoCro wanted. Killing her instantly would box Tats in as a certain kind of villain character that she didn¡¯t really want to be in public. Tats whistled aloud, impressed by this frankly devilish feat of narrative framing. She chewed on her lower lip as she tried to think of some way to salvage the situation and get out of here without becoming a meme. Someone bigtime had also just dropped a boatload of new viewers on her, so now wasn¡¯t the time to be establishing herself as a merciless bitch.


    You¡¯re supposed to do that, No-chan! You¡¯re supposed to be my foil! Ahhhhh! Tats whined inwardly.


    ¡°Y-you had me going there for a second.¡± she said, ¡°Don¡¯t believe her, guys, she always does things like this. Besides, anyway, if you have the power of love, you don¡¯t need a handicap, right? You should be able to overcome any obstacle. Let¡¯s put the strength of your feelings to the test.¡±


    A bit pathetic, but that was all she came up with. Tats had been talking up up her endurance run of the end of ACO for a while, so cutting things short here was not an option. While NoCro was no doubt processing some kind of decision tree regarding how she could beat Tats, Tats was meanwhile stewing over how to kill her without looking like a heel. Not too quickly¡­ sparing her was too dangerous, perhaps. Actually anything other than completely decisive was too dangerous. It took every ounce of her ability as a live performer not to let these emotions play across her virtual face, which picked up on every little thing the Progressive did.


    ¡°You¡¯re right; I have a lot to prove.¡± NoCro said, ¡°Throw everything you have at me if you like! It¡¯s not going to make a difference.¡±


    NoCro muted the transmission from her end and shut down her virtual camera, but didn¡¯t sever it entirely. Tats sucked in air through her teeth and scanned her eyes around the citadel to make sure absolutely everything was in order for whatever that woman was about to do.


    On NoCro¡¯s end of things, she was a lot more worried than the image she was giving. Having reassessed the situation from the perhaps more hopeful perspective of her alter ego No-chan, she had however discovered that she had more resources than she thought. She had overlooked them, earlier. Presently she was supporting four separate razor systems, which brought up her heart rate over 175. That was bad.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    A pair of plastic gates were at the top of each of her throttles, representing engine power beyond 100%. The diamond regime. No etymological relation to her Diamond knife, surprisingly. She placed her palm on the pair of conjoined throttles representing her left and right engines and shoved them forwards towards these plastic gates until they met with it, and then with a grunt of extra effort she pushed them both through it. The engine noise, which was dull before, accelerated now to a whining pitch which was obnoxious even in her own citadel. A notification appeared center-screen briefly before sliding off to the side and occupying permanent a place to her left:


    Diamond Regime Online


    2:00


    It started counting down seconds from there. Nearly horizontal with the ground, she began bolting across the terrain. She would be downright quadrupedal from this position if the fully swept back wings were not catching the air. The Ghost was pretty light and its artificial muscles were hardly weaker than other Frames, so it had some speed on its side. She charged up a nearby hill and leapt off the top of it, snapping the wings outward to maximum sweep in the process. They unfolded about twice as fast as normal, which was another effect of the maximum-power diamond regime. Not that Tats didn¡¯t know all of these capabilities of her Frame, anyway. Seeing that NoCro could handle it might have spooked her a little.


    Tats squinted as she watched the Ghost leap off the distant hill at a full sprint. Her own landing site had been predetermined by her Physics razor based on the remaining fuel of her SRBs. NoCro must have analyzed that with her own razor and planned to close the distance between them then, while Tats was still descending. That was a kind of battle that Tats hadn¡¯t fought before, having to face off against a Ghost so rarely as she did. They were supposed to be universally weak, was her impression. In any case it seemed like such a midair collision involving still-active SRBs would result in the destruction of them both. A suicide attack?


    ¡°Physics¡ª¡° she said, haltingly. She was about to say something like ¡®can NoCro tackle us while descending?¡¯ That was the wrong question, so she pivoted: ¡°Give me alternate landing sites valid for¡­ 5 seconds!¡±


    While the razor dutifully pulled up a map with a few places she could land, Tats¡¯ mind was a mess. Obviously, she should choose the farthest point away. Choosing an alternate landing site was something NoCro wanted her to do, though. Her moves were being determined by her opponent. It was becoming circular, like trying to guess at a game of rock-paper-scissors. Five seconds were up, anyway. The only play was¡ª


    ¡°Pick one randomly!¡± she whined, letting her emotions loose and stamping her foot on the diamond-plated floor of her machine in mental anguish. This No-chan seemed slightly different. She muttered to herself, almost forgetting she was live: ¡°Maybe it is love¡­¡±


    Her utterance was obscured in the live broadcast by a series of harsh clanging noises as her Frame pivoted radically into another position.


    ¡°Hoooohhhhhh.¡± Tats wailed as she was lurched around by the autopilot and the Physics razor into a new trajectory. This would put her on another part of the island, now with a hill between her and NoCro. She had alighted atop a creek bed, in a gap between the small trees. The SRBs were jettisoned early and sailed off into the heavens into arcs on either side of her Frame. Perfect¡ªthere was no way left for an intercept. She panted and smiled, almost as if she had dodged the proverbial bullet. NoCro didn¡¯t appear over the ridge as her previous path might have dictated, but drifted in low to the ground from ahead of her. It was an arresting sight, and made the Ghost out to live up to its namesake.


    The gigantic machine was standing on its engines in ground-effect, floating towards her slowly along the creek bed and sending up a wash of spray. Her system automatically picked it out and zoomed in, placing the sleek, angular Frame into a picture-in-picture window. In the visible spectrum it appeared as nothing more than a shadow among the dark hills. After a few false starts on the stealth coating, her system announced a lock on with a constant tone and a red box. As things had gotten rather serious, she switched to infrared and armed all of her missiles. Literally all of them, and at her behest all of the doors opened and the hinges snapped out. Right then, the ominous machine stopped drifting towards her. Nearly two kilometers distant, according to her HUD. Not really eager to close the distance, it seemed.


    ¡°Wait,¡± a voice broke forth in her citadel, No-chan¡¯s voice, ¡°I¡¯ve been wondering. Why are you attacking me at all? We¡¯re on the same side.¡±


    Tats snorted. Being able to destroy this woman with a button press put her at ease.


    ¡°No we aren¡¯t, remember, you betrayed us? Remember that? I wasn¡¯t that long ago, are you going senile you hag?¡±


    At this NoCro started to give a little chuckle, which slowly grew into a full grown evil laugh. Since this was good content, Tats didn¡¯t cut her off nearly before she should have.


    ¡°WHAT is so funny?¡± Tats demanded eventually.


    ¡°You picked a random site didn¡¯t you? That was good. I didn¡¯t see that coming.¡± NoCro said.


    ¡°Humu, well¡ª¡°


    ¡°Thanks for hearing me out. It really helped me! I just needed a little more time. Behind you, by the way.¡±


    The hackles on the back of Tats¡¯ neck went up, but before she could even react her system bombarded her with multiple too-late alarms. COLLISION WARNING was the gist of them. She only had time to rotate her camera view to behind her.


    It was NoCro¡¯s Stingray refueling drone. Her mind flashed back to seeing it on the tarmac as she approached from high altitude, then immediately discounting it as a noncombatant. That thing was full of jet fuel, however, and her VLS was in a fully opened and vulnerable state. Before she could move an inch it smashed into her VLS with a jet-fueled explosion. Her entire external camera network was enveloped in flame, rendering even the IR briefly useless. On instinct she flipped up the cover and toggled down the switch that jettisoned her backpack, only shortly thereafter to be rocked by an explosion from behind her, and then a further series of secondary explosions she could only hear. She took a deep breath and readied her Sympathetic lance.


    ¡°Alright No-chan, playtime is over.¡± she found herself saying, becoming exactly the evil character she was trying to avoid.


    She winced visibly and charged forward. There was still almost no chance of NoCro beating her in close range, and her Frame was still essentially undamaged. As she emerged from the concealing flame, as she predicted, NoCro¡¯s Ghost was still at medium range, charging forward in ground effect, then it pulled the throttle and alighted on the ground to prepare for a grapple.


    It was a bit closer than she wanted, but not close enough for a knife. She prepared the lance, and at that very moment noticed that the charging Ghost had its right arm cocked back. Still at a full run, the Ghost threw its own personal defense drone, the ring-shaped Option, right at her. It broke into pieces against her chest with enough force to knock her back a foot and obscure her vision, which was enough time for NoCro to close inside of the arc of her lance. As if in slow motion, she saw the translucent blue flash of the blade of the Diamond Knife swipe upwards through her right shoulder. She immediately lost all sensation from there.


    The Ghost kicked the discarded blade upwards and deftly caught it. Tats could only think of falling to her knees in disbelief, and in fact her Frame slammed its knees down onto the rocky creek bed with much the same pose.


    ¡°You have a Stratoknight vectoring in to pick you up, don¡¯t you?¡± NoCro said, after a fashion, as she was admiring the Sympathetic Lance in the glint of the moonlight. ¡°I¡¯ll be having that.¡±


    ¡°How am I supposed to get out?¡± Tats said, setting her up.


    ¡°One way or another.¡± NoCro said, playing along and driving the spear into the sandy creek bed only a few feet in front of Tatsuta¡¯s Frame. Tats gave a nod and transferred the rights to her incoming Stratoknight to NoCro. The victorious party took her hand off the spear, turned her back, and lumbered away, pausing only dramatically to say one more thing. ¡°I¡¯ll see you on Isabela. The main event.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna hold you to that, you little witch!¡±


    NoCro instantly received a telegram from Tats: ¡°What if I attacked you from behind as you dramatically walk away and lost again? It could be funny.¡± Evidently the girl had at least a little attraction to the heel role. NoCro was in no mood for any additional playlets from this professional attention seeker, and in her response she let Tats know that the role wouldn¡¯t suit her.


    Besides, the whole place was about to be overrun. As soon as she was around the bend from Tatsuta, anyway, she went back to limping. If that battle had gone on a second longer she probably would have gave out. That was what her system was telling her from its sadistic interface. She winced as she got another incoming LOS transmission. It was her friend Signa, to the south. He was helpfully lighting up his northern array occasionally to cover her.


    ¡°Crow.¡± Signa said, ¡°You need to get out of there. You have, say, a hundred Stratoknights incoming. They¡¯ve even started fighting each other on the approach vectors. You want no part of this.¡±


    NoCro groaned as she limped her Ghost to the airport. There weren¡¯t a hundred Stratoknights in the whole fucking world. That was game logic for you. These would be the people drawn in by Tats¡¯ broadcast. It was a hell of a lot more than usual, and faster too.

 Escape From Cristobal

    The Stratoknight was quite simply the largest aircraft in the world, with the most carrying capacity. It had been hastily developed during the last war as a method to deploy supplies and, eventually, entire frames. The process of hooking up a frame for transport had been compressed in the game to 30 seconds when done properly on the ground.


    From the information she was receiving from Signa¡¯s AEGIS destroyer, she didn¡¯t have that kind of time. Hundreds of unaligned players who might have been otherwise left out of the clusterfuck brewing on Isabela had decided to make their individual last stands on Cristobal and were now bearing down on the otherwise insignificant island. Getting off here without entanglement would require one last little leap of faith. Stood upon the peak of the hill as she was, her frame came briefly back into view to Tatsuta in the creek bed below. It didn¡¯t go unnoticed.


    From Tatsuta¡¯s perspective what happened next was that the Stratoknight she had earlier transferred to NoCro burst through the low clouds in a steep descent, then atop the hill the Ghost lit its engines at maximum and leapt off. Skimming low over the foliage, they met somewhere in the nearly ballistic descent and the Ghost braced itself for the nose-up by holding onto elements of the aircraft. Then both disappeared below her personal horizon. If either had made it, it happened out of sight from her perspective. Tats ran her machine down to the coast just in time to see the SK disappearing off northward in a sharp ascent with NoCro¡¯s Ghost securely fastened to it. She took in a breath and sagged, unaccountably relieved that the seemingly desperate maneuver had worked. Desperate perhaps, yet performed with little to no hesitation.


    ¡°Godspeed, you crazy bitch.¡± she said. The battle for Cristobal had only just begun. She found herself giving a salute with her remaining arm, vowing then and there to make it off the island.


    ¡ª


    Linear, who was now cradling Noel¡¯s more or less lifeless body, was suitably impressed. Her wide eyed expression she displayed to her husband via the rear view mirror.


    ¡°She¡­ did it.¡± she said, almost not believing it herself.


    Her husband in the front seat had not seen any of the events, but the way his wife had described and reacted to the it in question told him most of everything he needed to know. He tightened his grip on the wheel briefly.


    ¡°You said she¡¯s under the control of something else.¡± he said, ¡°Could it be¡­ her? You know who.¡±


    Linear raised her eyebrows in shock, evidently not having considered the question. Her expression softened as she did so.


    ¡°It could.¡± she admitted, ¡°I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m ready to conclude that.¡±


    Linear ran her hand along Noel¡¯s black hair. That would be a sad fate indeed, far worse than anything else her Progressive sickness had in store. Her eyes drifted to the tower PC they had taken from Noel¡¯s apartment.


    ¡°We could look for signs of it in her PC.¡± she offered. Rej made a growl.


    ¡°DC her now.¡± he said, decisively. Linear looked to the progressive harness affixed to Noel.


    ¡°It might kill her. She seems deep in it.¡± she said. Rej drummed his fingers along the wheel and set his brow in thought.


    By now they had arrived at the private medical facility which had been prepared for them by Chain and had Noel loaded up onto a proper stretcher. The girl¡ªthe woman, rather¡ªseemingly had no ability to open her eyes. She seemed to be taking that rather well from her side of things, but who knew what she was really thinking. Linear was still tethered to her and was a bit reluctant to sever that given how many unknowns were involved. Reflecting upon those, she decided to open up communications with her charge once more.


    ¡°Remember when I said you weren¡¯t going to die over there?¡± she said.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°Not so sure about that?¡± came the response. As Linear accompanied the stretcher as it was wheeled into the darkened clinic, she gave a stiff nod to no one in particular.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really understand. Mysterious things are admittedly happening.¡± she said, ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have said that earlier. If you can¡¯t open your eyes, we might have bigger problems.¡±


    There was a period of silence which left Linear somewhat uncomfortable, but eventually Noel broke in:


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡­ had my own doubts.¡± she eventually said.


    ¡°So you thought your life might be in danger, when you fought that girl?¡± Linear said, somewhat in disbelief.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know what I¡¯m seeing here. I¡¯d have to be a fool not to consider it.¡± Noel relayed, simply. Linear took in a breath. Her credibility had taken a big hit.


    That meant that when Noel fought Tatsuta, there was at least some small part of her that was prepared to die. That meant a lot. It actually meant everything.


    Linear cut off her communication to Noel for the time being and turned to Rej as she accompanied the stretcher upon which Noel¡¯s body was laid. There was a nurse there on night shift, but largely the clinic was darkened.


    ¡°She¡¯s at least capable of instantiating relspace.¡± Linear said, sharply.


    ¡°Did she?¡± came the response, from her husband.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but some of the things she did seemed unlikely, if not downright impossible.¡±


    ¡°Does she know?¡± her husband asked, in a hushed voice.


    ¡°No¡­¡±


    ¡°Fuck me.¡± Rej mumbled, ¡°Wanna know what I think? I think she¡¯s in D-World. Comatose. The whole fucking game world is, and this one for sure.¡±


    Linear, not believing this immediately, pried open one of Noel¡¯s eyes with her fingers even as the stretcher she was loaded on was being rolled forward by the nurse. No response from her pupils to the change in light. No questions coming in from the person on the other side either, which would be expected if one did this to even a Progressive in a standard VR situation.


    ¡°Ohhh¡­¡± Linear moaned, ¡°Maybe.¡±


    Rej held his temples. He had long, silky black hair falling down to his shoulderblades which even Linear had cause to envy. A harshly sculpted face gave a clue to his eastern European origins. He was dressed in a simple black t-shirt and jeans which were perfectly fitted to his slim figure. He stood about half a head taller than Linear.


    ¡°So uh,¡± Linear said, ¡°What happens if I disconnect her from me?¡±


    Without giving anyone involved even a moment to think about it, Rej reached behind Linear and yanked the cable out which supposedly linked Noel to the events in ACO. He seemed to have braced himself for it, as a time traveler would when plunging a knife into baby Hitler.


    ¡°What the heck!¡± Linear protested. She didn¡¯t go for the cable, though.


    ¡°Babe this is exactly what we were afraid of.¡± Rej said, ¡°Diva isn¡¯t going to disappear into the abyss because she lost a fight a few years ago. She had to have more than one contingency for her death. We fought her. You know. If she couldn¡¯t preserve her existence she¡¯d leave her legacy to a puppet successor. That¡¯s what I would do. This is exactly the timeline I¡¯d expect for that. It¡¯s soon enough to take revenge, late enough that we¡¯re all complacent.¡±


    Linear, still following along with the stretcher as it was wheeled into an equally darkened hospital room, had some reservations play across her face as she checked Noel¡¯s pulse. Still beating, it seemed. Rej¡¯s action hadn¡¯t instantly killed her¡ªnor would it have, if his theory was correct. Finally she voiced one of them.


    ¡°She seemed human enough.¡± she said, weakly.


    ¡°How would you know? You were vulnerable to Diva¡¯s drive, too.¡± Rej shot back instantly.


    Perhaps if Linear had not chosen her identity so completely she might have found some counter or line of argument, or pivoted to a new line. Since she had chosen to be a human woman, however, she stifled at Rej¡¯s very-good-point and then stalked out of the room in a huff. He gave a sigh and ran a hand through his long black hair, then leaned over the prone figure of Noel. He turned to the nurse on duty.


    ¡°She¡¯s not waking up. You all do what you need to.¡± he mumbled, to her.


    It would be better from his perspective if Noel were simply to die here alongside even the potential of the revival of their hated adversary. All he had to do was lean over and strangle her. It would all be papered over and he would suffer no repercussions. The thought crossed his mind and fled, repulsive as it was, leaving only a painful wince on his face as evidence as to having even thought it.


    The pointlessness of such an act only occurred to him moments later. If he was right, this girl was still inside the game. That necessitated an entirely different method of dealing with her, if she was indeed the enemy he took her for.

 NoCro and the Old Guard

    NoCro leaned back with a wisp of a smile as her new Stratoknight broke back through the low clouds north of San Cristobal. The cacophony of alarms filling her cockpit overlapped each other and a cursory glance at self-reported damage indicated that the machine was effectively dead. To punctuate the point one of the pieces of sympathetic armor shielding what would be her left shin caught the wind and snapped off. Reflexively she tilted her head and watched the curved panel tumble away into the dark clouds, as if Cristobal were demanding one last piece of her in return for her cheating death.


    The umbilical which now connected her to the Stratoknight was providing main power, keeping the lights on and providing power to the main CPU. Only a little over an hour had passed since her Ghost was in perfect condition and preparing to make a final run-in on Prism¡¯s strike group.


    ¡°All razors offline. Silence all alarms.¡± she said. Immediately the citadel fell silent, with the only noise being the barely audible hum of the Stratoknight¡¯s six massive turbofan engines which were positioned in groups of three outboard each of the mirrored twin fuselages.


    Again in response to some internal wish of hers rather than a command she had issued, her main monitor array flipped over to a plan view of the theater of operations: the southwestern Pacific off the coast of South America and around Isabela Island in the Galapagos. Most of the work of picking up the pieces of her airgroup and reassembling them had been accomplished back on Cristobal while she was waiting for her drone. As for the rest, she needed to get these guys rearmed and back in the air.


    Gradually she became aware that she had her hands balled into tight fists and her red-painted nails were digging painfully into each of her palms. She looked down and willed herself to relax her fingers. In the same way that a drowning man is able to burst through the surface and take in one last watery breath, at once relieved that he has breathed and dreading that it might be his last, so too did the realization come across her that she had gone completely insane at some point in the last hour.


    What had started as a simple but concerning condition of being unable to log out properly had by now graduated into a full on reality crisis. She bit her lip hard and drummed her fingers frantically on the aluminum side panel as she mentally walked back the last hour or so. There was a precise moment, actually, marking her departure from sensibility. That was meeting No-chan in the Sandbox and making that stupid bargain!


    As NoCro was trying to get a grip she was interrupted by Linear, who relayed the bad news that she didn¡¯t know what was going on either. After this conversation, NoCro was forced to reexamine what had happened¡ªwhether it had, strictly speaking, happened at all.


    ¡°Missus Markov,¡± she said, ¡°I made it off, so it¡¯s time to hold up your end. Hello? Pretty please?¡±


    No response. She repeated the question several more times over a period of a few tense minutes. The melodic chime of a mesh-network transmission pierced the silence and she nearly jumped out of her chair with fright. Signa appeared in a picture-in-picture window, a silver-haired gentleman with closely cropped military-style hair.


    ¡°Impressive little exfil, Crow. Not sure if you¡¯ve been following what happened with Tats¡¯ broadcast, but the entire community is buzzing.¡± he tossed off casually. It was such a normal little thing to happen. NoCro cycled through a few different responses before settling on one, framing her eyes with a peace sign and smiling brightly.


    ¡°Oh no! Oh no no no, here comes No-chaaa-¡° she said. The transmission cut off right there, terminated from Signa¡¯s end. She tapped her finger on the console rapidly, trying to reestablish communications. When she did she launched right back into it: ¡°-aaan. The Ultimate Idol of Justice has¡ª¡° The process repeated a couple more times until she beat him down and was able to complete the entire monologue: ¡°¡ªhas arrived to smite evildoers and defend the weak. A beacon of love and faith in the ruins of the dead world! Say it with me¡­ Absolute Conviction¡­ ONLINE!¡±


    Signa pressed his lips into a line and gave her performance a reluctant golf-clap.


    ¡°I¡¯m impressed you¡¯re keeping that up to the very end.¡± he said. NoCro tousled her hair and slitted her eyes, looking satisfied.


    ¡°I made someone a promise.¡± she said.


    ¡°Hah. Lose a bet?¡±


    ¡°Something like that¡­ say, Sig, what¡¯s the name of that demon who deceives you completely? Like you¡¯re unwittingly trapped in its private universe. Laplace?¡±


    ¡°No, Laplace is the mathematician. His was a different concept, too. You¡¯re thinking of Descartes and his evil genius. Couldn¡¯t you just search all this up on the internet? We have more pressing matters.¡±


    NoCro exhaled smugly through her nostrils.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we put all the human knowledge into a big book and never talk to each other again?¡±


    ¡°Point. However there¡¯s no sense in handing out answers to people who haven¡¯t seriously thought of the question.¡±


    NoCro made a swan-faced little pout but seemed to accept his reasoning. She was aware of the fact that it was once again No-chan who had thrown her this psychological lifeline. It had dragged Descartes out of her memory. Whatever it was, that thing was getting her out of one scrape after another.


    ¡°Listen,¡± NoCro said, suddenly serious, ¡°There¡¯s a chance I might lose the plot in a big way. If that happens I want you to log me out.¡±


    ¡°Forcibly? Can¡¯t do that while you have Cygnus group.¡±


    Signa didn¡¯t here understand that Northern Cross was asking him to kill her. Nor could he, ever. Nor could anyone here. That much she resolved, before responding.


    ¡°Maybe. I understand. There¡¯s something I have to do first, though.¡± NoCro said. The silver fox onscreen in the PIP cottoned on to her mood.


    ¡°Before you do that¡ªor anything.¡± he said, ¡°You saved me.¡±


    She paused, here.


    ¡°I had lost everything.¡± he said, ¡°So I say to you, don¡¯t die.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± she shot back naturally. ¡°I¡¯ll be there for you.¡±


    She quietly added this to the pile of completely insincere white lies she had uttered in her life. She would be dead within the day¡ªof that fact, she was more convinced than ever. She did bite her lip coquettishly at affixing him with such a loaded label.


    ¡°Don¡¯t start with me, Crow.¡± he said, warningly.


    ¡°Yes, Daddy.¡± she said, all sultry, ¡°I know your wife and son aren''t around. What a shame. I can fix all that y¡¯know. Not too late to make a new family.¡±


    ¡°Have you got a screw loose?¡± he said.


    ¡°Many. I can¡¯t the only one unleashing her desires at the end. Aren''t you?¡±


    ¡°What about Prism?¡±


    ¡°I love him. I still want you to fuck me. Also? He rejected me. Time to show him what that means.¡±


    Signa had a good laugh about that.


    ¡°You really are playing her to the hilt.¡± he said, ¡°I almost forgot it. We¡¯ll need to keep them off balance. Don¡¯t suppose you have a plan?¡±


    That she did, a plan which she had to assiduously remind herself of. She shook her head several times and slapped herself on the cheeks again and again. Maybe NoCro really was taking her over, and had a thing for older men. Or just sex in general. That wasn¡¯t her at all. None of that was! Even though in her heart of hearts, she always found Signa at least a little attractive.


    ¡°R-right,¡± she said, recentering herself more or less, ¡°S-so Operation Vulcan Wolf?¡±


    ¡°I heard about that. Master class in refueling.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just do it again.¡±


    ¡°Literally?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­¡±


    ¡ª


    The entire alliance command hierarchy was presently collapsing into the factions which gave it birth. That was what Odin was seeing from his perch at NS Wolf. The various little parts of Isabela which each one controlled would probably soon be fighting each other openly, and Titan would roll them shortly after. The endgame was already visible from his perspective, both on his light map and the map of internal relationships he was aware of in his mind. His lightmap displayed the major factions arrayed across Isabela and their various territorial boundaries, as well as skirmishes that his drones and the remaining NetWar connections were displaying to him. He opened up a channel to NoCro.


    ¡°Miss, it¡¯s all breaking up. The coalition.¡± he said.


    ¡°Good.¡± came the response. He winced.


    Trusting her was the wrong choice. It was unbelievable that he¡¯d allowed himself to be rolled by a 24 year old civilian. He¡¯d been previously described as the greatest warrior on the planet, a fact he¡¯d more or less proved during Operation Meteoric and then later again facing off against Prism directly. To say nothing of his escape from Afghanistan, which was its own sort of legend.


    Maybe, in light of all that, he hadn¡¯t taken her seriously enough. That was more than possible.


    ¡°Was that what you wanted?¡± he said.


    ¡°The coalition won¡¯t survive Titan as it is. It needs new leadership. Wartime leadership!¡±


    ¡°You?¡±


    ¡°Sure, why not.¡± NoCro said, ¡°You know our original agreement. You pretend to be bombed out of existence to the council, I give you a final battle worthy of participating in!¡±


    That is something she had promised him in return for pretending the airbase NS Wolf was out of commission. Now with the Alliance breaking completely apart, it seemed more likely to be a Titan divide and conquer scheme. Odin sighed and ran a hand through his buzz cut, thinking perhaps his judgment had failed him. A depressing thought.


    He found himself looped into a call with NoCro and Signa, who were engaged in reforming a final preliminary action against Titan forces prior to their landing. That was nothing they could stop even in the most optimistic terms.


    ¡°Odin!¡± she said immediately, ¡°Have you ever read Rules for Radicals?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± he said, figuring it was a setup. He was well known in the community to be at least a little right wing. It seemed a perfect setup for a defenestration.


    ¡°A good tactic is one your people enjoy.¡± NoCro said, ¡°So that¡¯s what we¡¯re going to do.¡±

 PanDevGru

    Pandora Development Group. PanDevGru. The front of the shield. Alternatively, the sacrificial lamb. These people formed the front of the defense of Isabela and were stationed in and arrayed around the old city Port Vilamil. While the rest of Isabela descended into chaos they remained fixed to their objective. The ones who had sent a clown to the high council. They were the strongest of any any on the island, mentally, loyally, and materially, and this was about to be proved.


    In the popular mind, however, it was quite different. Even Titan believed so, which was to soon become a great mistake of theirs. In the city of Vilamil we¡¯ll begin our narrative of the invasion.


    ¡ª


    The rain fell at their feet and rolled off of their frames. A gentle summer storm whose end was well visible in the darkness of the midnight western sky. Both of them stood their machines port-wards in echelon in a narrow street in Port Vilamil. If defense in depth were a strategy, they were to bear the brunt of it. To hear the most recent news, they would end their time in the game here.


    ¡°Say, Box, I¡¯ve had a lot of fun here, with you. I wanted you to know.¡± said Rondo, sniffling a little. For a little while his companion said nothing.


    ¡°¡­yeah, me too.¡± Box said, ¡°¡­where you going from here?¡±


    ¡°Dunno.¡± Rondo said, contemplatively, as the rain fell down over his multicolored Frame. White, blue, and red. Angular. Box¡¯s frame was four legged and blended into the background.


    More rain fell upon them as the tension of the invasion broke upon them. It fell upon the nearby buildings and poured off the corrugated metal rooftops, somewhere around the waist of the two machines. Rondo began to shift his heavyweight, blocky Highlander slightly forward on his tracks. Box followed forward in his four-legged Spider.


    ¡°Well.¡± Rondo said, ¡°Let¡¯s stay in touch.¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± Box quickly said, tilting the head of his spider mech towards the Highlander. Rondo, in return tilted his back. Box extended a leg, which Rondo replied to with a closed fist, and they connected like that.


    ¡°It¡¯s been a long way hasn¡¯t it?¡± Rondo said, ¡°I couldn¡¯t ask for a better ending.¡±


    There was a period of hesitation from Box.


    ¡°We have a ways to go.¡± he said.


    There was another sniff from Rondo as he set himself, ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±


    ¡°¡­you crying?¡± Box said.


    ¡°Nah, man. Just got a cold or something¡­ get ready. We¡¯re on point.¡±


    Box bowed his machine as Rondo rolled forward on his tracks down towards the docks.


    Soon they were both painted by naval radar from within the dense storm, which announced itself as a bright tone.


    ¡°Split.¡± Rondo called out. Both of them crossed into side-streets before the naval railgun rounds exploded their projected positions down the main road. They exchanged a glance, only partially concealed by their respective buildings. Box¡¯s spider in particular was unnaturally curled up by the maneuver. They still had a constant tone on them.


    ¡°Keep moving.¡± Rondo demanded. ¡°Find concealment.¡±A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    The tanks rolling along side them could easily do so. Rondo had to retreat to a nearby church, and Box on his side found a similarly tall midrise apartment building. Soon rounds began landing on his concealment and Box¡¯s as well. He winced. He was decisively outranged by an essentially invisible enemy. If he allowed the landing the units would link up with the battleships behind and give them targeting information. They¡¯d be dead men standing, anywhere on Isabela at any time.


    This was more or less what he was expecting, when he said his goodbyes. It was the end, and what an ignominious one. It was then he got a telegram from his old squadmate, Northern Cross.


    ¡®Distract them at all costs.¡¯ it said. He nodded stiffly and signaled as such to Box, then activated his rolling drive and moved out into the street.


    ¡°Box!¡± he yelled, ¡°The Crow has a plan. Let¡¯s go!¡±


    ¡°Her? Man.¡± he said, sounding somewhat less enthusiastic. He never the less followed with his Spider into the main road to the docks.


    ¡ª


    Silver wheeled on his light map as two hundred aerial bandits descended on his invasion force. As he and Krieg had directed their strike groups to pursue NoCro, he had expected her to pursue one of them. Sky at least. What had actually happened was that NoCro had rearmed her fighters and united them north over Isabela, proceeded southward, and attacked his invasion fleet. Meanwhile she, who should have been confronting Sky head on, was now skating north. An unpredictable series of events. An unpredictable person.


    Operation Vulcan Wolf 2 was by then well in effect, targeting his battleships. It was essentially the same as the first¡ªwhy not¡ªand now incorporated a second punch from the supposedly destroyed NS Wolf. A whole squadron of B-21 Raiders in an anti-shipping role supplied the difference. NoCro brought all this to bear on the now well reduced and weakened invasion force, ignoring Krieg and Silver and Sky and their separate strike groups entirely. An essentially perfect move. Meanwhile her subs were harassing both of his strike groups transiting the storm, which he fully anticipated she would attack. He had practically held them out.


    ¡°Did she plan this¡­¡± Silver wondered, tapping his chin. The structure of Vulcan Wolf implied, in retrospect, an intent to strike again. One does not allocate refueling drones for a mission not to be returned from. That was something he and Prism missed. She had planned it. Perhaps she intended to fight Sky, but she didn¡¯t plan to stop there.


    The woman had been targeting his on-shore bombardment capability from the start. Not his AEGIS destroyers. Not his carriers. Her object wasn¡¯t to defeat him. It was to make the defending game fun.


    That meant she had never betrayed them at all.


    Silver slammed his fist down on the light table. He bit the tip of his thumb.


    ¡°Nothing has changed.¡± he assured himself.


    ¡ª


    Rondo panted effusively as he brought his Frame to the edge of the breakwater. The constant tone that signaled the lock on from the naval railgun had silenced itself at some point during his descent. He still saw the shadows of the assault ships in the distance, and personally viewed the F35s lifting off from them. That was not great. But it wasn¡¯t instant death. Having executed NoCro¡¯s plan to the point of absurdity, he rolled himself a little bit back into a more defensible position.


    ¡°Box, new plan.¡± he said.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s die at Wolf. That¡¯ll be cooler.¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°And we¡¯re back.¡± Richard said, ¡°Sorry about all that mess earlier. On Grid Today, your go-to channel for the latest in the uh, most non-controversial news. Just in time for your favorite, No-chaan.¡±


    The way he pronounced favorite didn¡¯t make it seem sincere.


    ¡°Thank you, Dick. Sorry about earlier.¡± NoCro said, from her ready room.


    ¡°Sorry, what do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that was me. The chipmunk. I was just spouting off about various rumors. I think they¡¯re credible. It¡¯s fun isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Richard cleared his throat. Maybe it was her, maybe it wasn¡¯t.


    ¡°Well there you have it. Just more nonsense! Heard you got the best of Tastuta. She¡¯s still fighting it out on Cristobal, by the way.¡±


    ¡°Is she? Good for her and her simps I guess.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s next?¡±


    The truth was she liked this guy.


    ¡°Isabela.¡± she said, ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re here, Dick.¡±