Chapter 23 - Recycled and Ready to Die

  My spirits were high as we marched through the cobblestone streets of the castle town. I couldn’t help but grin, remembering the look on Victor’s face—right before I slammed the door in it. Our boots echoed off the stone facades around us. I wiped greasy fingers on my jeans and considered checking my rewards tab for more fast food.

  Paddy fell in beside me, smirking as he thumped my shoulder. “Christ, lad—got a pair on you, eh?”

  Other contestants stepped aside, casting wary glances at the gold title hovering over my head and the stats beside it.

  “Seriously. Don’t think Victor’s been dismissed like that since the day he was born. Did you see the vein on his forehead? I thought the bastard was gonna pop.”

  He chuckled, but kept sneaking looks at me—testing, probing.

  I didn’t get why everyone was so impressed, or why everyone seemed ready to piss themselves around Victor. His money and power were back on Earth.

  Here, in this humid, meat-reeking hellhole, he was just another bastard trying not to die.

  A burst of light flared to my left, and I nearly stumbled. An enormous wireframe tower shimmered into view above the castle-town walls, slowly rotating. The sheer scale of it messed with my balance, a wave of vertigo hitting hard. A moment later, the wireframe solidified and a scaffold of stone and timber locked into place where light had been. Above it a countdown blinked into existence: 12 hours.

  “Blueprints,” Ariel said, answering my unspoken question. “Looks like Victor’s already spending our BP.”

  “Isn’t that kind of stupid?” I asked. “What if we find better blueprints?”

  “Oui. But what if those monsters—the Recycled—overrun us before we do?”

  I snorted. “What fifteen-year-old says ‘hypothetically’?”

  She gave me a flat look. I let it slide.

  “Anyway, it’s not gonna happen. The Recycled are cannon fodder. They’re here to toughen us up before the real bloodbath. Priorita wants us killing each other—and the other civs. That’s the show. She’s not going to let us croak before ratings peak.”

  Ariel shot me a sideways glance, one brow arched. “It’s kind of scary how in sync you are with her. Like… you always get something I don’t. You and Priorita—there’s a connection, isn’t there?”

  I shrugged, pushing down the memory of her breath in my mind. My gaze drifted back to the growing tower, stone blocks and timber beams snapping into place in mid-air.

  “I dunno, Kid,” I muttered. “It’s not like that. Just a feeling.”As we crossed the courtyard to the gate, I spotted Guan Longwei and his students. They stood in neat lines, practicing steps and strikes. We locked eyes as we passed and Longwei gave me a nod. I was surprised to see he was level 5 now, and as I ran my eyes over the assembled survivors I noticed a scattering of level 3s and 4s amongst them. It gave me a little twinge of discomfort. We were falling behind.

  My minimap opened in my HUD, flickering and glitching as usual. I quickly found the location of the Gravel Pit Cache. It was probably seven or eight miles away, about half the distance to the border of our zone. I wondered which of the Aliens would be waiting on the other side, but put the thought aside. That was a problem for future Allan.

  An undulating plane, dotted with gnarled fungal trees and these weird, spiked bushes spread before me. I could see some of the glowing sticky fruits that we had used to trap Gabe, they illuminated the undergrowth. The recycled milled about in the distance, their wandering movements mindless. In a moment of inspiration, I opened the Help section in my HUD. I found the entry on the Recycled quickly.

  Priorita’s voice spoke in my mind, reading out the text.

  The Recycled: Are the weak and unworthy. Remnants of civilisations who proved themselves unsuitable for inclusion into the greater universe. But at least they tried, right! So, unlike the population of their hopeless home-worlds, who have been harvested for food. These fallen warriors have been recycled.

  But Priorita, you beautiful gelatinous goddess, what does that mean? I hear you ask.

  It means, dear contestant, that they have been given a second chance at glory!

  Most were once strong enough to annihilate you. But now? At level 1, they retain only 1% of their former intelligence. They’re vegetables. Dangerous vegetables. BUT if they kill one of you, they gain EXP. As they level up, they will become closer to what they once were.

  If they hit level 100, they will be freed from the game and inducted into the UMF—The Universal Military Force for a mandatory 100 years of service. If they survive that, then they become full citizens.

  I looked out at the wandering shapes, you poor bastards. I remembered dying—or nearly dying—in the last moments of the previous floor. Those glimpses of half remembered memory that came after. A room, fire, a red planet from orbit. It made me uneasy. How close had I been to becoming one of these poor mindless wretches? I withdrew Ebonrage as we approached the first pack.

  This would be a mercy.

  Ariel called the shots, directing the team into position. And in a flash of motion, a whirring of weapons and spray of thick, black blood, the two recycled were in pieces. They had been graceful, long limbed quadrupeds. Like giraffes that were only eight feet tall, with delicate forelimbs that they kept hugged tight to their bodies. Y’Gaha. They had been level two, like us. I remembered the bestial, two headed Wuu-Tang we had fought the day before. It didn’t seem fair. These Y’Gaha had no teeth, no claws and they were lobotomised.

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  I spotted the next pack. Five of them. Perfect.

  "Alright, team. One each."

  Ariel started to object, but I think it was out of instinct. She was a kid, after all.

  The alien I charged seemed terrified and bewildered. I took one of its forelegs off in a single swipe and the thing collapsed, screaming and spurting tar-like blood. My second strike split its head like a melon. It was horrible. Sickening. I had to remind myself: this was a mercy.

  I turned to the others—

  And staggered.

  A tingling wave pulsed through me. My toes curled. Fireworks. Digital confetti.

  Congratulations! ??

  LEVEL UP ??

  You are now Level 3.

  Oh hell yeah. I felt GOOD. Muscles tensed. Senses sharpened. The flaming skull icon of my Predator perk flickered. How many could I take with it active? How fast could I level?

  Priorita babbled gleefully in the background. I dismissed window after window. Paddy and Tammy had their Y’Gaha down and were glowing too. More popups. Tables, numbers, even a damn graph filled my vision. I’d seen enough tables to run an Excel cult. Still didn’t mean shit to me.

  I slammed the minimise icon.

  Priorita’s tone grew waspish, as though she knew I wasn’t paying her attention. She yammered on about stat gain per level, free stats, skill levels and all sorts of nonsense. I grunted in reply and hefted my axe, moving closer to where Ariel faced her enemy.

  The kid darted in, jabbing her staff at the giraffe thing’s throat. It reared up and out of the way, flailing at her with its hoofs. Ariel cursed and jumped back, then swung the staff like a baseball bat as the thing landed back on all four. Its head snapped to the side and the alien dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

  Fireworks began.

  Only Tyler left. He grappled his opponent like a drunk uncle in a pool fight. Two feet shorter, but just as heavy. Tyler threw a stricken look at Tammy, raising a fist, opening and closing his war gauntlet. Tammy crossed her arms, watching on.

  Tyler’s face turned grim, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he yanked the alien’s head down to his level. Then, suddenly he flipped the creature and rolled with it along the ground. A loud crack let me know he’d broken the thing’s neck.

  The look on his face evaporated, replaced by a grin as he levelled up.

  I’d toilet trained Gazpacho when he was a puppy. The weird little dog hated getting his paws wet, and would hide his little shits all around the house, rather than go out onto the lawn. A few little pieces of cheese, his favourite treat, had convinced him that he actually loved going out there, even when it was raining.

  I couldn’t help but think that these level up rewards were our cheese. Teaching us to love what we should hate.

  We fought a few more packs of the hopeless creatures as we made steady progress across the plains. Ariel had us experiment with different combinations, fighting in pairs and in threes.

  Between battles, the team chattered incessantly about skills and stats. Comparing per-level gains and their application to real world ability. I pulled up my stat screen, but still couldn’t make heads nor tails of the numbers. Were they percentages? Additive? A ratio? That’s how the levels worked for the recycled right? It was bloody confusing. I made a mental note to ask Ariel about it later.

  Before long we had fought right to the rim of the gnarled fungal forest. I kept a close eye on my minimap, trying to figure out how deep the forest was, and how long it would take to get to the vault. The trees looked different to what I had seen on the planet above, but I couldn’t quite figure out the difference. They were thicker, but stunted. Like they were bloated.

  “What even is a ‘Gator-Wrangler’?” asked Paddy—drawing a laugh from Tyler and a snort from Tammy.

  “It’s a damn joke, that’s what it is,” said Tyler. “I had an inflatable gator tucked under my arm, ready to chuck in the pool when we got to the party. I got zapped away for this game with it and my slab of Pabst. Tammy reckons it was better than anything else on offer.” He made a funny gesture with his hand and a screen flashed onto my HUD. “Check it.”

  Banjo music started to play.

  ?? Class: Gator-Wrangler (Rare)

  “A master of fake bravado, thick skin, and inappropriate animal bonding. Possesses the unique ability to weaponise the absurd.”

  ?? Perks & Abilities

  Inflatable Instinct

  “Even in mortal peril, you know where the shallow end is.”

  ? Reduces fall damage by 50% when holding or wearing any buoyant item.

  ? Inflatable objects now count as armour (albeit terrible armour).

  ? Passive danger detection within muddy, aquatic, or jungle terrain.

  ? 20% chance to detect hidden enemies via “gut feeling.”

  Thick Hide

  “You ever try to bite a gator? Didn’t think so.”

  ? -5% damage from blunt and bite attacks.

  ? Reduces panic chance when ambushed or grappled.

  Improvised Floatation Engineering

  “You may not know what you’re doing, but it floats — and sometimes, it even flies.”

  ? Improvised Utility / Crafting unlocked. Requires at least 50% of the construct, by area, to be inflatable.

  ? Cooldown: 30 minutes (crafting process), scalable with level and perks.

  ?? Active Skills

  Death Roll (Cooldown: 60s)

  “When in doubt, spin wildly and maybe bite something.”

  ? You enter a spinning melee frenzy for 5 seconds, dealing 2x normal damage to grappled or downed enemies.

  ? May cause minor dizziness (on both parties).

  Reptilian Rapport

  “Scaly things just vibe with you.”

  ? Passive diplomacy bonus with all reptilian or amphibious alien species.

  ? 10% bonus to taming attempts for scaled creatures.

  Chomp & Cheer (Passive/Conditional)

  “Biting stuff makes you stronger. Or at least happier.”

  ? Gain a minor health regen buff after landing a successful melee bite or unarmed headbutt.

  ? 2x effect if target is a swamp-based species.

  Paddy whistled, his eyes flashing as he flicked through the information. “Not bad, lad. Not bad at all. Guess even a joke rare class is pretty amazing eh?” His eyes flashed some more and he sighed. “I haven’t got anything that amazing, no rare, at least. But there is one uncommon class in my list.” His eyes flickered to mine, holding my gaze. “Reckon Priorita wants me to choose it. Reckon she knows that it’s not what I want to be.”

  He made that swiping gesture, and text appeared in my HUD.

  Class: Shadow Marshal (Uncommon)

  “Truth dies in silence. And silence is your specialty.”

  A long-range precision shooter class with elements of infiltration, crowd manipulation, and political assassination — the spiritual descendant of the Boogymen.

  I stared at the last line. Boogymen.

  My pulse ticked up. That wasn't just a throwaway reference. That was Linh Phan's black-ops corps.

  I didn’t say anything. Didn’t look at him. But in the back of my mind, the threads connected.

  My gut had known the truth all along.

  “Why lie?” I asked.

  Soft. Not dangerous. But barbed.