Chapter 615: Different points of view

Monica stood with the other women at the back of the shelter, staring at the glowing, green eyes of the Wolf of the West. It wasn’t the first time. The last time she’d been fixated on those eyes was from under that man (and on top of, and wrapped around...) about a month ago, her legs spread as wide as she could possibly get them.

The memory tortured her most nights. And still wasn’t helpful.

She hadn’t known who he was back in the Neutral Zone. Though she hadn’t cared, either. Yes, there’d been some kind of system drugs in her body. Yes, she’d probably not been in control when she attacked him on the dance floor.

But she’d absolutely decided on the sex in a side room. And in the hotel room. Maybe the drugs had made her not care about the other women involved. But the fact was, she’d loved every second of it.

“God help us,” said Louane, Monica’s best friend, standing right beside her. “I thought he’d kill us all.”

Monica said nothing, but she knew it wasn’t true. Though she didn’t really know how. The only thing she knew about that man (besides what everyone knew) was that he’d banged her brains into another timezone.

She hadn’t told her friend about that night. Hadn’t told anyone. Once she’d learned who he was she’d been terrified that the emperor and his people would consider her a traitor. She had no way to escape, no way to protect herself.

But now the emperor was dead and Mason was king. She’d spend a night lying awake full of indecision, and considered going to the palace and finding him. Except it was martial law and she wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. Then the system text had said ‘invasion’, and here they were.

“He’s helping us,” said some man Monica didn’t know. “And he’s just a player like all the rest. It’s the undead we’ve to fear. Now find some wood and do what he says.”

A few people did. Most just stood around looking confused and terrified. Monica could relate. ’The Wolf’ had already run off, smashing apart a collection of awful monsters straight from the movies. It was hard to believe that was possible. That he was even human.

And she’d had sex with that person. It was like having the craziest, hottest, drug-induced one night stand of your life with some guy named Clark Kent. Then he just takes off his glasses and flies off without a word, and later you see Superman on TV with the same chiseled abs you’d been licking. And you can’t say or do anything.

“Maybe they’ll kill him,” said some guy. “Do you think it’ll be over? The game I mean? Won’t all the contenders be dead?”

It took everything Monica had not to snort with contempt. Even now there was a large group of people in the city who still held out that the ‘game’ would end. That they’d all just go back to their lives after some kind of ‘simulation’.

After every important event, every announcement, every gust of hot fucking wind, such people asked if maybe now the nightmare would all be over. ‘Maybe now we’ll wake up safe in our beds!’

Monica knew life didn’t work that way. When life started shitting on you, it didn’t stop until you figured out what was doing the shitting. Maybe you fought, maybe you got out of the way. But there was no doing either with some alien that could turn the galaxy into a private playground. There was only adapting to the new world.

The men shouted as some new horror growled and raked at the wall. Louane screamed and Monica gripped her arm, trying to be strong for both of them. They’d survived this long, she believed they’d survive this too.

“There’s more coming,” said one of the men, panic rising in his voice. He and the others jabbed at them with chairs and broken chunks of wood from the building. But it was clear they couldn’t really hurt them.

Monica fought her own panic, telling herself it would be alright. But she knew it was the same horseshit as those people who wanted the end of the game. Hope didn’t save you. It didn’t save anyone.

“They’re breaking through!” someone shouted.

A man fell back dripping blood and holding his arm. Monica let go of her friend and ran closer to the breach, heart pounding as Louane shouted in confused terror. But she ignored her and got closer, trying to see. She ducked and searched the street, then took as big a breath as she could, despite feeling like she couldn’t keep any air without panting in terror.

“Help us! Mason!” she shouted through the broken wall, as loud as she possibly could.

**

Carl squeezed his daughter’s hands and tried to get her to sit. That she was here with him, alive—it was like a miracle. He couldn’t stop touching her hands and looking at her. But he had to go.

“Stay with Haley and do what she says,” he said. “You’ll be alright. I’ll be back soon.”

“Please don’t leave me here,” she said, eyes filled with animal panic. “Take me with you.”

The idea of causing his girl even more fear was like jabbing a knife into his own heart. For a moment he just froze and blanked, no idea how to do what he had to do without leaving her. It was like a logic puzzle he couldn’t solve.

“Carl.” Phuong burst through the side door, Chinua and half a dozen other players at his side. “We have to move. I’m thinking dungeon teams, Chinua’s people on their own. I don’t trust these easterners enough to split up. We roam, we do what we can. Carl? Carl! Chancellor!”

The title finally got his attention. Carl swallowed and turned, meeting Phuong’s eyes. Seeing the old soldier reminded him of where he was, of who he was, and all the things he’d done. He wasn’t the same man who’d abandoned his daughter. The one who’d left behind children who needed him because he couldn’t face his own failures.

“I’m here,” he said, gritting his teeth and looking at Mason’s message again. “We have to split up more than that. Go in pairs. And we have to use the easterners, this city is huge.”

“We’re in martial law,” Phuong said. “With respect, I think that puts me in charge.”

“If you want to tell Mason you let civilians die because you were afraid, be my guest,” he said, maybe a bit louder than he intended. “He’s made official peace with the east. They’re his soldiers now. What do you think he’d want us to do?”

Phuong blinked like he’d been slapped, but eventually nodded.

“You’re right. Apologies. We’ll go now.”

With that he turned and moved like a twenty year old on speed, summoning a swarm of players as he ran. Carl took a breath. Reminding people what Mason would think was turning out to be a wonderful tool.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’re safe here. I have to go fight, too.”

Elly looked calmer, at least. Like she was coming down from whatever animal panic had taken over.

“Dad, did that man call you…Chancellor? Doesn’t that mean you’re…” she shook her head. “Your that man’s…the Wolf, I mean. Your his…are you like second in charge…of…the world?”

Now it was Carl’s turn to feel like he’d been slapped. Yes, he was Mason’s chancellor. And nothing in his whole life had brought him the same…honor. The same self-respect.

The most powerful man in the world needed him, relied on him. He trusted him to know what to do, to take care of things when he couldn’t or didn’t want to. To be a second opinion on things that meant life or death.

Second in command of the world.

Is that what he was?

“Guess so,” he said, giving his daughter a wink. “Now stay here with Haley, like I said. And don’t worry, we’ve killed a lot scarier things than skeletons. You just stay right here and I’ll be back. OK?”

She nodded, fixing a brave smile on her face that made her face flash with visions of a little girl he’d once taught to ride a bike. But the memory wasn’t useful and he banished it away.

No, he wasn’t the same man. But maybe he could keep the good and shed the bad, and be something else entirely. Someone she’d respect and believe in, like Sylvie and the other people who trusted him with their lives.

He gave her one last smile, no longer recognizing the look in her eyes, then warped through the nearest wall.

**

“Help! Mason!”

A familiar, feminine voice broke through Mason’s twentieth round of violence. He turned to see yet another pack of skeletal guards doing their best to break into an already damaged building. He had no idea where he remembered the voice, or why someone in the city should be shouting his first name. And he could have sworn he’d just fucking cleared that building.

He punched off the head of the last skeleton in his latest pack, then swiped an arrow away as it whistled straight at his face. He pointed at the archer with an ‘I’ll be right back for you’, then bolted towards the voice.

Was it someone he knew from the old world? An old female friend or girlfriend? There’d been few enough of those. It was probably some conquest of Blake’s that remembered his glowering brother.

But it didn’t really matter, it was a person in obvious trouble.

He turned on Aspect of the Cheetah, summoning his bow en route and loosing a series of once impossible shots. His fiery, reverberating, physics-mocking arrows slammed into undead like ballista bolts, blowing street stragglers apart. He wasn’t aiming at the pack. He didn’t need to ‘whittle’ them down.

Instead he angled and came at the building from the side, running along the wall to swipe the attackers away like a snow plow. Bones and armor broke and fell apart as he burst through the ranks, slicing with precision blows to clear out the broken gap.

As if they were waiting, several gargoyles dove from above, straight for the breaking wall.

Mason heard their wings and spun, a spike of adrenaline moving him so fast the world felt like it slowed. He summoned his bow and drew in the same motion, loosing a shotgun blast from Crippling Strike straight into the dropping flyers.

Fiery explosions burst and took out half. The rest dove on, and Mason leapt as he let out his Marilith blades, slicing apart two as his new arms sunk daggers into two more.

Two more zipped past him and crashed into the building. One shattered on the stone, the other broke through to a chorus of screams. Mason landed and scrambled after it, catching a wing just as it lunged at the civilians trying to hold it off with chairs.

He yanked it back, and crushed its skull with a hand.

“Time for a new building,” he said, sweeping the civilians with his Ranger’s Mark.

There were a few injuries, but only one serious bleed that it looked like the civilians had made a half decent tourniquet for. He only stopped when he realized one of the terrified people was actually meeting his eyes.

She was young and dark and beautiful, her body impossible to hide even with a loose fitting eastern robe. And he suddenly had a very clear memory of her naked. Waiting for him with her legs spread, with Haley’s face buried between…

She smiled like the recognition pleased her. And despite being in an undead invasion—his nostrils filled with the smell of others’ terror—he couldn’t help but smile back.

“You OK?”

She nodded, and was now drawing a great deal of confused stares from the others.

“Follow me,” he said, forcing his eyes away. “I’ll get you all somewhere safer.”