Pain.
Sudden, blinding pain bit Gideon’s mind like the teeth of a vicious predator. He tried to open his eyes but couldn’t force them open.
WARNING. WARNING. MEDICAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS ARE OFFLINE. SECURITY MEASURES HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED.
A computerized voice spoke so loudly that it set Gideon’s teeth on edge. He felt himself stumble forward, hand touching something hard and hot. He pulled back, his hand singed by the heat of a jagged chunk of metal.
Steam hissed and the sound of fire nearby roared in his ears along with a confusing array of noises. He forced his eyes open and was immediately confronted by a mix of blinding light and deep shadows. He squatted down on the floor, his legs too shaky to walk, arms aching as though he’d just swam three miles upstream.
Red lights flashed above, filling the space with intense brilliance.
WARNING. WARNING. MEDICAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS ARE OFFLINE. SECURITY MEASURES HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED.
Gideon cupped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the shrill voice. He smelled hot oil and tasted blood in the back of his throat along with bile and something else he couldn’t place.
He lifted one hand, seeing unfamiliar fingers slick with black oil that was still warm. The hand was much larger than he was used to seeing and, as he flexed the fingers experimentally, he felt their enhanced strength. These weren’t the hands of a twenty-five-year-old burger boy with a pot belly and pasty skin that bordered on sickly. They belonged to a hero, a hunter.
He wasn’t quite naked, but Gideon realized that he was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else. It was a little strange looking down and seeing rippling abs and bulging pecks instead of the usual punch that met his eyes when he slid out of bed each morning. Strange, but good. He’d need to find some clothes of course, but first he needed to figure out what the hell had happened.
Gideon looked around, seeing the torn remnants of what he presumed was the ship he had been traveling inside. Metal walls were sheered apart, and steam hissed from a dozen places. Fires roared in the distance, and Gideon could hear voices screaming along with other, inhuman cries that roared in animal fury.
There were savage looking claw marks running down the sides of several of the walls that still remained standing. As he turned to the side, Gideon saw a body lying face down, blood slick on the floor beneath it, arms and legs splayed at awkward angles. There were other bodies too, strewn about here and there like discarded dolls.
Half embedded into the wall beside the slain figure was the bisected body of what he assumed was a medical bot. Metallic arms twitched as sparks flew from the robot’s torn body. Hot oil spurted out of its lower half, fizzing as is hit a nearby metal panel.
Gideon considered the fallen AI bot. Perhaps this was the unit that was originally supposed to have welcomed him to Artemis, checking his new body to ensure that the transition had gone as planned?
No such luck.
“I’ve gotta move!” he said, his voice sounding strange in his own ears. It was too deep, too resonant, as though he were standing in an acoustic chamber that bolstered the tone and timbre of his voice.
As he tried to stand, Gideon realized that his echo was taller than his old body by more than a few inches. He felt as though his arms and legs were on stilts as he stumbled about, reaching out to a nearby section of wall to steady himself as he hopped awkwardly to the left.
Everything hurt and he was painfully aware of every part of his new body. The skin felt like it was on fire, yet at the same time it itched terribly. His muscles ached and every breath hurt, rasping through a dry throat with the taste of bile and copper lingering on the back of his tongue.
NEW MISSION: Losing Air
Your craft has crash landed and life support is rapidly failing. You need to reach the adjoining chamber before the breathable atmosphere in this room is depleted.
REWARD: 1 Enhancement Point
The words appeared in a panel at the bottom of Gideon’s HUD. At the same time Bullseye’s English butler voice read out the details, but in a voice that was horribly shrill and stabbed Gideon’s brain like an ice pick through the skull.
“Shit!” he blurted. “What the hell is wrong with your voice?”
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It appears I have not properly bonded with you, sir. The transition is only partially complete so—
“Stop talking!” Gideon blurted. “God, it’s like every word is kicking me in the face!”
I apologize, sir. I only wished to—
“SHUT UP!” Gideon shouted, stumbling forwards as his vision began to clear and some of the fogginess he was feeling began to subside. “I can read the quest and fill in the blanks myself. Just keep quiet until I figure out a way out of this place!”
He half expected the AI to reply, but mercifully it didn’t. Curiously, Gideon couldn’t see the AI’s avatar. His HUD was also showing multiple errors in the form of flashing red triangles with exclamation marks in their center.
“Okay, I need to get off this boat and somewhere safe. Then we can figure out what to do next.”
He stumbled forward, alarmed to see that there were portions of the ship which seemed to be exposed to the elements, or rather, the lack of elements. Through a tear in the ceiling, he could see dark space outside. Suddenly one of the warning icons on his HUD made sense.
He moved through the space, stepping carefully around fallen girders and twisted chunks of metal as he mentally clicked the warning icon.
This room is rapidly losing air, and you will be unable to breath within approximately sixty seconds. While a fully activated echo is able to survive for a limited time in the vacuum of space, you will lose consciousness in approximately fifteen seconds and die in two minutes unless you are rescued.
He clicked a second warning icon.
WARNING: Echo backup facilities are not currently operational. If you die in the current body you will not be able to be resurrected.
“Shit!” Gideon blurted, continuing to move through the wreckage. “I’m supposed to be going through orientation on Artimus and instead I have to deal with this shit!”
55 Seconds Remaining
He reached a door at the far end of the ruined chamber and tried to open it, finding that it was wedged tightly shut and refused to budge. Gideon looked around for something to use to lever the door open. He found a metal rod jutting from the ground a short distance away and tried to pull it free.
45 Seconds Remaining
Even with his enhanced strength with the echo body, Gideon couldn’t pull the rod free. He looked around, searching for something more suitable but finding nothing.
35 Seconds Remaining
“Fuck!” he shouted, returning to the metal rod and kicking it with his foot to try and knock it free.
Despite what he assumed was quite a lot of force, the metal bar refused to budge. Breathable air was rapidly escaping the chamber, and his life was now being measured in ten-second increments unhelpfully displayed in large glowing numbers on his HUD.
25 Seconds Remaining
“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
He turned back to the door, wondering whether there was some other way to open it. The power didn’t seem to be functioning and there was no switch or electrical panel on the wall to either side of the doorway.
“Excuse me, sir? May I make a suggestion?”
The AI’s words battered Gideon’s head like a prize-fighting boxer. He squinted against the pain.
“Fine. What is it?!”
“Perhaps the bar could be pried free if you used ether to boost your strength temporarily?”
Teeth gritted, head thudding. Gideon braced himself for the pain that would follow.
“Great! How the hell do I do that. And answer quick!”
15 Seconds Remaining
A light flashed in Gideon’s HUD, drawing his attention to a metal compartment on a nearby wall with a symbol he didn’t recognize etched in gold on the surface of the small door. Without hesitation, he ran to the compartment, opening the panel and finding a small canister inside with a smoky purple substance swirling around in its interior.
“What the hell do I do with it!”
Smash the canister, sir, and I will attempt to temporarily infuse you with strength!
Gideon ripped the canister out of the metal arms holding it in place then threw it down against the floor. The canister promptly bounced off the metal plating and hit him square in the forehead, sending a blinding spear of pain through his head before falling to the floor a second time and finally shattering.
5 Seconds Remaining
He stumbled forward as the strange purple mist rose from the canister and was absorbed into his body. It felt profoundly odd, giving him a sudden rush of power which was quickly overcome by an intense nausea that made him feel like he was on the verge of throwing up.
Warning! Breathable atmosphere depleted! You must exit the chamber within the next fifteen seconds!
Nauseous, his head throbbing, Gideon staggered back to the metal bar and clamped onto it with his oversized hands. He pulled back on the bar and felt his muscles tense with a sudden rush of strength.
10 Seconds Until Unconsciousness
The bar slipped free, and he turned and ran for the door. Gideon slammed the metal rod into the edge of the door and pushed with all his body weight against it.
5 Seconds Until Unconsciousness
A hiss of air escaped as the door inched open, groaning as it protested against the metal bar. Gideon grunted, pushing his new body to its limit as he felt the door open wider. At the same time his vision was starting to blur but he could feel the cool pressure of newly released atmosphere pouring from the room.
5 Seconds Until Unconsciousness
The warning on his HUD maintained the five-second warning as the leaking atmosphere momentarily equalized what was being lost elsewhere in the damaged chamber. Gideon used the time to wedge the door open enough that he could rearrange his position and get a leg through the opening.
He pushed his back against the side of the doorframe, muscles straining as he held the bar wedged against the door itself.
5 Seconds Until Unconsciousness
Now sweating profusely, his strength failing and vision blurred, he opted for speed and luck, diving into the room and letting the door slam shut behind him. There was a resounding clatter as the metal bar was sent careening through the room, narrowly missing Gideon’s head as he rolled across the floor. The door slammed shut and a hissing sound indicated that its pressure seal had activated.
Breathing heavily and dazed, Gideon pushed himself up into a sitting position, staring back at the doorway and taking in the room he had managed to slip his way into.
MISSION COMPLETE: Losing Air
You have successfully reached the adjoining chamber.
REWARD: 1 Enhancement Point
A single golden number one appeared at the center of his HUD before disappearing. Still desperately out of breath, he nodded to himself.
“Nice.”
