Chapter 42: Champagne Detonation

  The sublime, mind-erasing pleasure of a level-up coursed through me, short-circuiting my brain. All around, fireworks and digital confetti exploded, the sounds echoing off the polished obsidian walls.

  “VAULT CLEARED!” squealed Priorita.

  A parade of notifications scrolled down my HUD—so many pop-ups they almost, but didn’t quite, manage to obscure the dagger in my hand and the heart it pierced.

  I sank to my knees, riding the sensation out as I slowly regained control of my muscles. The slash down my chest knitted itself back together with a prickling sensation like spiders climbing up my flesh.

  A slight, but distinctly disappointed tut came from Priorita. Gave me the god-damn creeps.

  “Ah, fuck off, Priorita,” I muttered, and received a snort and faint giggle in return.

  As the effects of the level-up passed, I became aware of music. Along with the crackle of fireworks was what sounded like a full nine-person mariachi band was playing. The tune frenetic and celebratory.

  Priorita joyously sang along in a vaguely racist, faux Spanish accent. Inventing nonsense lyrics on the fly—though I caught the odd real word, like pi?ata and quincea?era mixed in. Behind it, the roar of billions of spectators rumbled like an aeroplane lifting off.

  She began calling out achievements, titles, and rewards, each accompanied by an explosion or trumpeting fanfare. I heaved myself to my feet, bracing a hand on the altar for support, and nearly slipped. Instead of hard stone, my hand pressed into the wet, warm, squishy cavity that had once held Tyler’s heart.

  “Merde, Allan.”

  I froze.

  Despite the music, Priorita’s yammering, and the roar of spectators, I heard the words clearly. That was part of the magic of this game. Ariel’s voice was faint and shocked, coming from behind me.

  I ripped my hand out of the corpse like a kid caught wrist-deep in a cookie jar, wiping my bloodstained fingers on my trousers as though I could clean the gore away.

  “Christ, lad. What have you done?” came Paddy’s Irish brogue.

  I felt a surge of relief at hearing their voices… and was hit by a wave of guilt at what I’d done to Tyler.

  My Predator perk wasn’t helping, so I deactivated it. Multiple level-ups and upgrading Resistance: Cognitive Dissonance 10 to Resistance: General Mental 1 meant it no longer numbed my emotions at all.

  The Predator’s guitar had been jamming along with the mariachi band, making it all the more wild. Without it, the decibels dropped slightly, but it still felt as though the roar of spectators and gameshow music should make the floor rumble beneath my feet.

  I opened my mouth to respond to Ariel and Paddy, to explain and justify what I had done. Instead, I was distracted as Tyler’s corpse slipped from the altar to land in a boneless heap at my feet.

  Priorita giggled and some boxes appeared in my HUD.

  Prizes.

  Ariel choked out a sob and dashed a few steps toward the corpse. Paddy stepped in and stopped her with an outstretched arm, raising his bow with the other.

  “I asked you a question, lad. Are you in there? Or are you another puppet of that thing?” said Paddy.

  You’re a killer, Allan.

  Zephyra had been right.

  What had I done?

  Something boiled up inside me.

  I’d done what was necessary.

  Sure, my hand had held the knife, and now Tyler’s blood dripped from my fingers. But I wasn’t the one who had killed the man—not really. It was this game. This damn game and those who ran it.

  That ember of rage—the coal of fury that smouldered at all times deep in my gut—flared to white-hot life.

  Why should I feel guilt?

  I regretted not finding a way to save everyone. But nah, this wasn’t on me. It was Priorita and the universe that allowed her to run her game.

  With all the horror I’d been inundated with—the rapid-fire procession of threats and challenges—I’d forgotten the promise I’d made to myself.

  To kill them all.

  To make sure they could never do this to anyone else.

  The fire in my gut flared brighter.

  “Lad?” asked Paddy, half-drawing the arrow. He sounded calm, but with my massively enhanced senses I could see the tremor in his hand as he pulled back the string.

  Ariel circled around to my left, eyes darting about nervously, getting into a better position to strike. I didn’t blame her. I mean, the first thing she’d seen after escaping possession was me, fist-deep in our dead ally’s chest and muttering to myself like a bloody psychopath.

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  The fact that I wasn’t answering their questions, or even really responding, wouldn’t be helping my case.

  I raised my hands, blood running in rivulets to drop from my elbows. I wished they were clean, but I guess this was my life now. “It’s alright, mate. It’s me. Just me.”

  Paddy relaxed slightly, but Ariel remained ready. I flicked a glance at her and saw her eyes flashing. A parade of expressions crossed her face. Whoever was watching would be filling her in.

  I hoped they were telling her the truth.

  Priorita continued yammering away in the background, her voice taking on that waspish quality it got when I ignored her.

  “Don’t know that makes it any better, lad. What happened to Tyler? And who’s this new person in our team? Who’s Zephyra?”

  “Ah, yeah, Zephyra. That’s a bit complicated,” I began. How the hell could I explain teaming up with an enemy civilisation? “I might let her explain that.”

  Damn. I sounded shifty as hell, even to my own ears.

  So much had happened.

  I glanced at Tyler; his body wasn’t softening and sinking away the way his sisters had. I wished it would, but guessed that like in the giant corpse room of the secret boss I’d fallen into, bodies wouldn’t decay here. It seemed to be a property of a boss room.

  “You guys got caught in a trap,” I said. “That Tek V’hor bloke was wearing you like puppets, sucking out your life to… actually, I don’t really know what he was planning. I think he was coming back to life or something?” It sounded like bullshit to my own ears. But it was the truth. Or the closest thing to truth I had.

  I continued, explaining it all as best I could.

  The dagger from the entry chamber, the altar, and the sacrifice, how they were all down to 1% and about to die when I’d figured it out.

  There were tears in Ariel’s wide, frightened eyes. She looked like a scared kid trapped in a nightmare—which is exactly what she was. It was easy to forget that sometimes.

  Paddy was another matter entirely. He regained his jovial facade, words full of false cheer. But I could read something in his eyes—something dark and mistrustful. I’d have to keep an eye on him.

  “Right, lad. And Zephyra? Did Victor send more people afte—AAHRG!”

  Paddy let out a squawk as, with an explosion of digital confetti and fireworks, the temple ceiling shattered, spraying us with sharp obsidian shards.

  I swore, slammed a mental finger onto Predator, and jumped back as a wash of blinding green light filled the room. I tracked a massive figure descending, watching it through my eyelids with infra-vision.

  The mariachi music redoubled in intensity, the Predator’s guitar joining in with what I was pretty sure was the solo from The Trooper by Iron Maiden. But even with the cacophony, I heard an audible squelch as she landed in the centre of the room.

  The green jelly cube.

  Priorita.

  We all stared at her.

  Silent.

  At nine feet tall, she towered over me. Massive. Intimidating. I’d never seen her in person.

  She jiggled and released a waft of sickly-sweet scented air, almost like marshmallow, that blew so hard it buffeted my hair. A tablet computer screen with an emoji face rose in her centre of mass.

  ??

  “HIII!”

  The emoji changed.

  ??

  We all stared, unmoving.

  ??

  She was waiting for something. Obviously. But I’d tuned her out and didn’t have a bloody clue what it was.

  Apparently my team hadn’t been listening to her yapping either.

  The scent blew away, replaced by the rank stink of burning rubber. On the screen, the smiling emoji changed.

  ??

  Ariel recovered first, her eyes flashing. I guessed that whoever was talking with her had provided a transcript of Priorita’s words.

  “Bonjour, Priorita. You are here to provide our rewards?” said Ariel. Her words were polite, but her tone was pure venom.

  The emoji changed in a flash, from fury to a smiling face wearing a beret. “OUI!”

  “What the hell…” I murmured, drawing an irritated look.

  Priorita started speed-sliming around, zipping in precise, grid-like loops around the perimeter of the room.

  I had a cleaning robot at home. I called it Spot, and the little machine worked hard to keep my floors spotless. Priorita’s actions reminded me of the little thing.

  With each pass, she absorbed the debris that littered the floor and dissolved it into her mass. In her wake, she left glowing weapons and suits of armour with floating descriptions above them.

  I dashed in, grabbed Tyler’s corpse by the ankle and yanked him out of the way just before Priorita would have zipped over him. The idea of Priorita subsuming and consuming my dead friend sickened me.

  Ariel cursed in French as she and Paddy were shepherded in close to where I stood over Tyler.

  The scrambler was out and in my fist. I didn’t remember drawing it.

  The alien zoomed about, giggling like a demented toddler as she cleaned all the way to the edges of the room. She stopped for a moment in one corner, rotated in place, and began approaching in an ever-tightening spiral.

  Ariel and Paddy were so close we brushed shoulders. They had to lean away from the escalating waves of heat that billowed from my weapon.

  “The bloody hell is that, lad?!”

  “Putain de merde! It burns!”

  I didn’t extinguish the blade.

  On my wrist, Victor’s watch buzzed. Sparks spraying like a roman candle from where the mechanism had been pierced.

  The installation counter frozen at the top of my interface flickered.

  89% ERROR

  90% ERROR

  89% ERROR

  A voice spoke in my mind.

  “友のために剣を取る、それが武士の誉れである”

  It sounded like Japanese. Seth had been able to speak the language, and with his memories I felt tantalisingly close to understanding it.

  Something about friends and swords?

  I didn’t have time to think as Priorita speed-slimed right at me.

  I raised the scrambler reflexively and the white-hot blade sank into her gelatinous green mass.

  It sizzled.

  She giggled.

  ??

  ??

  ??

  And slimed closer until my wrist was almost, but not quite, engulfed by her. I nearly withdrew the blade into my inventory, but resisted the urge at the last moment as a wave of fury flooded me.

  Nah.

  Fuck. Her.

  In that moment I felt something inside me tilt—something I knew I wouldn’t be able to tilt back.

  I’d made a promise to myself.

  Sure, she might kill me, but when would I ever have another chance like this?

  I cranked the heat up until The Scrambler shone like a star within the jelly innards of the alien freak. Then, I pumped more power in. More than I ever had. The weapon’s energy meter plummeted as tiny bubbles began to rise from the white hot blade.

  ??

  ??

  The ember in my gut burned so bad that I thought I might vomit.

  She thought this was funny?

  The screen inside Priorita’s mass shifted until it was right at the tip of my blade. The face upon the screen changing into a giant tongue, flapping as though it were licking the weapon.

  ??

  The scrambler had an ability I’d never had the chance to use: Champagne Detonation. A once-per-day trump card that required me to use a bottle of real, Earth champagne.

  I grinned at Priorita and opened my Homeworld Rewards tab, navigating to where Bollinger had sent me a bottle of their finest. The champagne appeared in my off-hand and I rammed it into the jelly cube, my arm penetrating the alien’s mass to the elbow. The chitin of my Gosporian armoured arm sizzled, the skin of my fingers began to dissolve, but pain was easy to ignore when I had Predator active.

  I met Priorita’s eyes, whisked the scrambler and flicked the top off of the bottle of champagne.

  A blast like a god-damn thermal lance erupted from the bottle.

  ??

  Right into Priorita’s smug, fucking emoji face.

  It obliterated the tablet computer screen, tearing through her mass and out the back of the alien jelly cube.

  The lance continued as burning white line of plasma that shot through the temple and vaporised a hole in the back wall.

  For a moment, nobody moved.

  The mad mariachi music cut out.

  The spectating billions went silent.

  Even the Predator’s guitar faltered for a moment before returning with a level of fury I’d never heard before.

  “Jeeee-susss-chriiist, lad,” came Paddy’s Irish brogue. “I think ya popped the bitch.”