Through the Storm

Book : TransDimensional Hunter

by John Ringo, Lydia Sherrer

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

"Augmented Reality" game Transdimensional Hunter seems too real for comfort as the world of the game merges with reality. Now, teenage game prodigy Lynn Raven will have to conquer the game or be destroyed by it.

Reality Bites—and it has Big Teeth

Becoming a global celebrity overnight would make most people happy.

Not Lynn Raven.

As a teenage gaming prodigy, she’s enjoyed years of anonymity behind the virtual mask of Larry Coughlin, war-hardened vet and virtual gaming mercenary. But now Lynn has stepped out of the shadows to compete in the cutting-edge augmented reality game TransDimensional Hunter that has taken the world by storm.

And she’s winning.

But with success has come swarms of paparazzi drones, jealous teammates, and a backstabbing rival team that will use any trick in the book to ruin her.

Then there’s the game itself. At times, the “augmented” reality seems too real for Lynn’s comfort, and strange accidents keep happening. Something is going on; she just has to figure out what.

Lynn would much rather fight monsters than do paparazzi interviews, but somehow she’ll have to master both—and pass her senior year to boot. She managed to step into the real, but will the storm of reality now defeat her for good?

Release date: November 7, 2023

Publisher: Baen

Print pages: 400

Sample

 

Chapter 1

Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL)

Homestake Mine, Lead, South Dakota

2009

 

Vancil Thomas was not one to complain. Really, he wasn’t.

Sure, being a janitor wasn’t the most exciting profession out there. But being a janitor in a highly acclaimed, cutting-edge research laboratory wasn’t too bad. The pay was pretty good—thanks Uncle Sam—and the scientists who worked there were surprisingly polite, for scientists, anyway.

Not that he had a thing against scientists. Technically he was one himself. PhD in computational geoscience. But he could never get the funding he needed for his grants, so, here he was. And he knew exactly how smug scientists could get when they didget grants for their research.

Especially theoretical research.

But the scientists at DUSEL trying to detect dark matter were pretty decent. Even said hello to him in the hall. Didn’t treat him like an ignorant interloper who was one mop away from breaking their extremely sensitive equipment and ruining their research.

Not that he used a mop very often. Most of the cleaning gadgets needed to maintain the lab’s high-tech equipment and sterile environments were pretty sophisticated. You almost needed a degree just to use them.

It wasn’t computational geoscience, but it was important work, and he could live with that.

What he couldn’t live with, though, was a subpar electrical system.

“Blast it,” Vancil muttered as the bathroom lights where he was cleaning started flickering wildly again for the third time that night. He set down his mop—okay, he was using one that night—and stomped over to flip the light switch off and on a few times. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t.

He’d reported the malfunction to the lab maintenance manager several times already. The manager had tersely informed him each time that they’d checked the electrical system and everything worked properly when they ran their diagnostics.

Vancil blamed the giant, experimental machine housed next door—the one they’d developed for the Large Underground Xenon experiment attempting to detect and interact with dark matter particles. Ever since they’d turned it on with the lab’s recent inauguration, the electrical systems had been glitchy on this side of the mine. For some reason it never happened during the day when the scientists, lab assistants, and government officials were about and could witness it. Only at night when the place was deserted but for the security team and him.

It was so much fun being dismissed for “imagining” things. As if he didn’t have two eyes and a brain between them. He had a freaking PhD for God’s sake. He didn’t need to be an electrical engineer to know something was up.

Probably government contractors cutting corners on the wiring installation. It would be just like them.

Messing with the light switch did not produce the desired result, so Vancil heaved a sigh and pulled his radio off his belt.

“Hey, John,” he said into his crackling handset. “The lights in the bathroom off the LUX-350 chamber are going crazy. Are any other lights in this area doing weird stuff? Flickering? Going off on their own?”

Vancil’s question was met with silence, and he scowled at his radio.

“You better not be napping again, you old geezer. The last time—”

The radio crackled to life.

“Who you calling old, Vancil? Can’t a man have a few minutes to enjoy his potato chips in peace?”

John Huff on the security team night shift was good people. Their friendly banter during the long, slow nights kept Vancil sane.

“Enjoy your chips after you answer my question. Do you see this?”

“Yeah, yeah, I see it. I was just about to ask what’s going on. The lights down your way are going all strobe-light crazy.”

“I knew it. Promise you’ll back me up this time when I talk to that maintenance harpy with a stick up her a—”

The light in the bathroom abruptly went out, plunging Vancil into complete darkness.

“Aw, come on,” Vancil yelled at the room, then started muttering curses as he fumbled for the flashlight on his belt.

“What happened?” squawked John’s voice.

“I swear, if she doesn’t get an independent team in to recertify the electrical system this time, I’m going to—”

A sudden, violent seizure jerked through Vancil’s body. The flashlight and radio he’d been holding slipped from his spasming finger and clattered to the floor. His eyes rolled up and he collapsed, head striking the smooth cement hard enough to cause a nasty split in the scalp. Blood began to ooze onto the floor, pooling around his head. He lay there, still as death, cheek squished against the floor and limbs tangled in lifeless disarray.

“Vancil?” the radio squawked again from where it lay nearby. “Vancil, are you okay? Your entire sector has gone dark. I’m sending a team over to check it out. Vancil? Dadgummit, Vancil, say something. Vancil!”

Chapter 2

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

2040

 

Five months ago when Lynn had finally decided to be brave and “step into the real,” to play the augmented-reality game TransDimensional Hunter, she had not signed up to fight snakes.

Spiders she could do. Yeah, they were creepy, but the Charlie Class-2 Spithra she’d been fighting since the summer were big enough that you saw them coming a mile off. Besides, keeping track of their eight spike-tipped legs and poison-spit attack was a fun challenge, one she thrived on.

Creepers were a whole other ball game.

The first time one of the nasty buggers had popped its head out of the tall grass where she and her team had been hunting, she’d almost had a heart attack. Its weird, translucent skin reflected the colors around it so it was almost invisible, and its low, sibilant hiss was easy to miss among the cacophony of TransDimensional Monsters around her. And the slimy bastard was fast.

Really fast.

Before she’d known what’d hit her, it had already struck her thigh twice, its football-sized head darting in almost too fast to see. While the strikes hadn’t significantly lowered her health, it had poison fangs which caused damage over time just like the Spithra’s poison-spit attack.

Had she mentioned yet that it was impossibly, creepily fast?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the snakelike TDMs came in broods, much like the Rocs gathered in flocks. You’d have five to ten of the fuglies coming at you all at once. If they surrounded you, it was over. You just had to cut and run to avoid a blitz of lightning-fast strikes, machine-gun style. If they didn’t get you with their fangs, they got you with their stinger-tipped tails. The only way to avoid damage was to spot them coming and pick them off before they got to you—a challenging feat in and of itself.

Lynn hated them with every fiber of her being.

It was bad enough fighting them on an open field of mown grass. Fighting them in the dim woodland with plenty of underbrush was insane.

But that’s exactly what she was doing.

“There are no words to describe,” Lynn said, grunting with effort as she whipped Skadi’s Wrath around to strike a creeper’s head, “how much I hate these freaking snakes!!”

“If you spent more time concentrating and less time complaining, I am certain you would have an easier time of it,” offered Hugo, the game’s AI and sometimes-helpful-but-always-sarcastic guide. His “helpful” commentary in her earbud did not improve her mood in the slightest.

“If you spent—more time—warning me—and less time—yapping—it’d definitely be easier,” Lynn panted as she spun around in a circle to make sure she’d gotten all the buggers. Her overhead showed more red dots coming her way, probably a group of Namahags or possibly Managals—the upgrade of the Penagal. She wouldn’t know until they got closer because of the woodland vegetation that was only just starting to turn brown and drop now that it was the beginning of October.

At least the weather was cooling off and the crisp fall air filling her lungs was helpfully invigorating. The smell of leaf loam kicked up by her shuffling feet combined with the occasional sound of birdsong through the trees made for an almost peaceful atmosphere.

Almost.

“Remind me why we’re fighting in these gawdawful woods?” Lynn grumbled as she backed up, leading the approaching dots back toward her teammates in a less thick section of trees behind her.

“I believe your exact words were ‘If one more bleeping paparazzi drone gets in my way while I’m hunting, I will stab somebody.’”

“Bleeping?”

“My content filter prevents me from repeating your words verbatim, Miss Lynn, but I am sure you can fill in the blank.”

Lynn grumbled under her breath, knowing exactly why their team was in these woods, and hating it.

When they’d qualified as a TD Hunter Strike Team a month ago and entered the running for the first international championship, none of them had anticipated the fame and scrutiny that would descend upon them overnight.

Mr. Krator had said he was going to make TD Hunter a global sensation. And now Skadi’s Wolves were at the top of the leaderboard for a game that was being obsessively followed by billions worldwide.

Billions.

Most cities had laws against paparazzi drones. The problem was, unlike official media drones that were required to have distinctive markings and broadcast their official credentials, the drones paparazzi used were often indistinguishable from the many working drones that flew all over the city on routine business. The intrusive buggers were incredibly hard to pin down, not to mention track back to their operator and hold them responsible for infringing on city ordinances. They were often tiny and could hide almost anywhere, waiting for their target to appear. AI programmers could make big bucks under the table designing flight algorithms that enabled the little bloodsucking—figuratively, anyway—leeches to move almost as independently as if their remote pilots were right there in tiny little cockpits.

They were a nuisance to absolutely everyone, except of course the rabid celebrity-gossip market that made billions and billions in stream revenue every year. If you were willing to break a few rules and risk hefty fines should your drone be traced back to you, then any Joe Schmoe could become filthy rich with the right footage.

The problem had spawned a whole market in anti-drone technology—some of which was highly illegal itself. If Lynn hadn’t needed to focus whole-heartedly on her hunting instead of taking potshots at annoying drones buzzing above her, she might have invested in one of those focus-beam EMP guns. But the permit process for one took six months, minimum. She’d do better with a BB gun or even a slingshot if her aim was good enough.

“A dozen bogies inbound,” Lynn said into her team channel. “This should be the last lot, then we can move in on the target.”

“What took you so long?” Ronnie demanded over the same channel.

Lynn clenched her jaw against several choice remarks, in the end deciding to ignore the question for the stupid, unnecessary waste of breath that it was.

“Heya, Lynn, you find many broods?”

“Three,” she told Edgar. His calm, unhurried question soothed her frazzled nerves. “The first two I was able to take out the buggers one by one, but the last one got the jump on me and surrounded me before I could get them all. Stupid Creepers.”

Having chosen to fight in a strip of woodland that day, they were taking turns scouting the clusters of TDMs they found along the line of power nodes they were following. The idea was to draw the aggressive types out to where the brush was thin and the whole team could attack them together. The only problem was the Creeper broods. They were hard to detect until you were on them, much like ghosts, Ghasts, and Phasmas. The six- to seven-foot-long monsters liked to curl up in tight coils and ambush you, like giant cobra-shaped landmines hopped up on speed.

“Okay, guys, I want a semicircle formation, shooters on the wings, heavy in the middle, ready to charge. Let’s take this group out nice and clean.”

Lynn gave one last glance at her overhead before turning her back completely on the pursuing TDMs and sprinting to her place in the attack formation, between Edgar in the middle and Mack on the left wing. They lined up tighter than usual, so they could maintain visual contact and support each other through the light underbrush.

Fighting in woodland sucked.

Ronnie had argued vociferously against it, claiming that it wrecked their accuracy and therefore their team and individual ranking. He wasn’t entirely wrong, and Dan agreed with him. But Edgar and Mack had backed her up when Lynn argued that in the city, paparazzi drones and the seemingly ever-present gaggle of lens junkies—fans obsessed with witnessing AR battles live through the TD Hunter Lens app—was just as damaging to their performance. Plus, the medium and upper Bravo Class TDMs tended to avoid buildings and people and stuck to lonelier areas around the outskirts of Cedar Rapids where Lynn and her teammates lived. And the bigger and badder the monster, the higher the reward in experience and loot.

Lynn was more than half convinced that Ronnie liked the paparazzi and groupies. He was always extra annoying when they were around, yelling at the team to “tighten up” and “act professional” because they had an “image” to protect.

Image being synonymous with Ronnie’s ego.

Dan hated the limited visibility of the woodlands more than the annoyance of an audience or buzzing drones, but then he was their sniper and the most handicapped by the close quarters.

Mack didn’t seem to mind one way or the other, and while Edgar didn’t say much about the spectators, he was always quieter and more tense when they were around.

Lynn loathed them, especially the drones, more than anything she’d ever hated in life. That included the bullies who’d picked on her mercilessly in middle school about her curvy shape and early-blooming body.

Bullies she could run away from. Bullies were only at school. Bullies she’d learned to tune out.

These stupid drones followed her everywhere, and the constant knowledge that the entire world was watching her every move was so oppressive it gave her anxiety attacks.

She didn’t dare watch streams anymore, lest she come across some fan reel of herself and inadvertently see the comment section. Sure, there were plenty of positive comments. And then there were the creeps, the trolls, and the CRC groupies who made it their mission to tear her down. Lynn knew Elena put them up to it, or at least didn’t say a word against it, since it worked in the favor of the Cedar Rapids Champions, the only other team in their regional area to have qualified last month for the national championship.

Between the constant barrage of fan mail, hate mail, paparazzi, and sponsorship offers, virtual life had become almost as unpleasant as life in the real. Her only escape was WarMonger, where nobody knew she was Lynn Raven, overnight gaming celebrity. On WarMonger she was Larry Coughlin, a grizzled old mercenary who would sooner shoot you as look at you—at least if there was any money to be made out of it.

Or if you annoyed him. Of if he decided you needed to be shot.

The problem was, with school in full swing she barely had time to sleep each night, much less game for pleasure. Every other waking moment was spent hunting TDMs with her teammates or training in the safety of her apartment.

Her life sucked right now, and it was all because of the stupid paparazzi drones. Without them, things might have been bearable. With them, her stress levels were through the roof, and she’d been short with everyone lately, even her mom. She knew she needed to figure out how to adjust, how to cope with this new reality, but any moment she wasn’t hunting she felt like she could barely breathe.

How was she supposed to cope with that?

“Give them a few more feet . . . that’s it . . . engage!” Ronnie’s shout spurred her to action while her brain was still trying to shake free of the ever-present worry. Her left hand rose and her finger began rhythmically squeezing as she poured fire from Abomination, the counterpoint to Skadi’s Wrath, into the line of Namahags rushing them through the trees. The TDMs moved in a straight line, ignoring the underbrush as if it wasn’t even there. They never reacted to organic barriers, only man-made ones. Lynn guessed it was because the game AI had blueprints and aerial footage of man-made structures while it had limited ability to map out every patch of woods, especially considering how much more difficult it was for drones to fly under foliage than out in the open.

Whatever the reason, the TDMs were not hindered by the trees, bushes, and clusters of thorns between them and their prey, while Lynn’s team had to be hyper aware of their surroundings, lest they stumble over saplings or get their foot caught in a root and injure themselves.

It was fortunate that part of the prize package for qualifying as a Hunter Strike Team had included competition-quality uniforms in the generic TD Counterforce colors. Those things were mercifully impervious to thorns and had saved all of them from many cuts and even minor bruises with their built-in impact-distributive panels.

The Namahag in front of Lynn exploded in a shower of sparks and she shifted her fire to the next one in line, then raised Skadi’s Wrath and started forward, slightly behind Edgar’s roaring charge. The shuffling sound of leaves and brush under their feet combined with the clicks, screams, and growls of the oncoming TDMs, finally enabling Lynn’s brain to focus. She sank into that glorious state of relaxed hyperawareness that gave her such an edge as a gamer—and a Hunter. Trajectories and attacks whizzed through her brain as she plotted out each monster’s move, knowing exactly what it would do before it got to her. The TDMs all had predictable attacks, at least whenever the game’s AI wasn’t trying to throw her for a loop, which it did on a disturbingly frequent basis. Her conversations with the game’s Tactics Department made her think it acted that way because of how much she pushed its boundaries. The game’s AI had been designed to give its players a challenge, and a challenge was exactly what Lynn wanted.

Duck, slash, roll, spin. She was behind the first two Namahags in a flash and gave them both strikes on their vulnerable backs before lunging to the side and rolling again to dodge their inevitable spin and swipe with their foot-long claws. She danced, spun, and struck like a ballerina—a ballerina with a dragon-head-shaped gun belching fire and a wickedly lethal sword carving her enemies into mincemeat.

Not that the TDMs did anything so satisfying as bleed. They just flashed purple with each successful strike and then burst into a shower of sparks once their hit points ran out.

Sometimes Lynn wished they would bleed.

The Namahags weren’t quite dead when Lynn was forced to spin and duck under a Spithra’s spit attack. The oncoming Spithras took a mere shot apiece from Abomination to end their sorry existence, but by the time she turned back to her other prey, Edgar had already blasted the remaining Namahags to sparks. Quiet descended on their little clearing.

“All right, come on you lot, let’s go get this mini boss and get out of here,” Ronnie called. “It’s getting dark already.”

“Good job, everyone. Nicely done,” Lynn added on the team channel, mentally smacking Ronnie over the head for forgetting to say it. She’d told him enough times over their private link that she thought he’d remember by now. But the leadership tactic of using encouragement and praise to raise morale and solidify camaraderie seemed to go over his head. Or, more likely, he was just too obsessive of a gamer. He got totally focused on the goal and forgot about the “extra” stuff. That was fine for a group of kids gaming for fun in their spare time. But for a team of professional gamers aiming to win the biggest gaming competition in the history of the world, it was a critical mistake.

One they couldn’t afford to make.

With an effort, Lynn shoved such thoughts aside and focused on staying in line as they strode through the trees toward their target. By the time they were thirty yards out, they started picking off the straggler Delta Class TDMs that hadn’t been lured away by their scouting tactic. These were so weak compared to the Hunters that Lynn and her fellows could kill any of them with a single shot or a lazy swipe of a Plasma Blade. Edgar barely bothered to aim with this two-handed disruptor cannon, he just blasted in the general direction of the groups rushing them.

Twenty yards out, they spotted the last circle of Namahags that had stayed behind, too stubborn to be drawn away from the “mini boss” TDM that all the other monsters had been grouped around. Lynn had no idea if they were bodyguards or minions used as cannon fodder by the mini boss. What she did know is that the particular monstrosity in the center of the circle wasn’t going anywhere, even when all its guards had been reduced to sparks. Maybe it was guarding something. Maybe it was just programmed to stay put.

Their team poured fire into the last Namahags, dodging the tall demon-like creatures’ attacks while carefully staying out of reach of the mini boss.

Finally, they turned their attention to the Bravo Class-3 Bunyip crouched like a malevolent hen over the spot it had staked out in the woods close to one of the ubiquitous power-node towers. It was the size of a fifteen-passenger van and looked like a cross between an alligator and a crab, with four long pincer-tipped arms that could snap out in a flash if you got too close. Those pincers packed a punch. Lynn’s team had learned the hard way that one solid snap could reduce their health level to bleeding-out. The only way to defeat them was to take out all their guards, then rain down damage on them before more TDMs showed up.

The first time they’d fought one, Lynn had circled around to attack its rear while it was distracted by her teammates. That’s when she’d found out its arms were double-jointed and its huge tail packed a solid punch. After that she’d backed up and opted for the weaker, albeit safer, ranged attack with Abomination.

When the Bunyip finally exploded in an impressive fireworks display, they were able to relax and start collecting loot. Well, mostly relax. TDMs could show up on their radar any time, attracted to the spot by the fighting, as if the deaths of their fellows were some sort of beacon. There were noticeably more TDMs spawning these days than there’d been over the summer—probably because there were so many more people playing the game.

Best to collect the loot and exit combat mode as quickly as possible.

“Aw, sah-weeet!” Edgar shouted. “Ammo augment!”

Lynn trotted over from where she’d been sweeping for ichor, globes, and plates and looked on as Edgar shared his inventory view with her.

“They’re incendiary rounds,” he said in a reverent voice.

“I bet you’re gonna love using those,” she laughed, then checked the power-usage levels. “You’ll have to use them sparingly, though. They’ll dry you up in seconds at your current level.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll save ’em for the big baddies,” he said with a grin. “Like the Manticars.”

That made Lynn grin with vindictive anticipation. They all hated Manticars. The giant lionlike creatures had three scorpion tails that could strike you anywhere unless you were directly behind them. Thankfully, the creatures were one of the rarer guard types and usually only found around bosses. They were a pain in the butt to kill, but the higher Skadi’s Wolves got in experience, the less of a threat Manticars were.

“Nah,” Mack said as he sidled up to take a peek at the augment, “save them for the Managals. I hate those things.” He read the stats and gave his chin an absent-minded stroke, plucking at the tiny patch of hair there he’d managed to grow out since the last time his mom had made him shave his fledgling goatee. “Those bullets have pretty good range. I’d definitely save them for Managals. I need all the help I can get killing those stupid things. They split and multiply like giant rabid walking sticks.”

“Just wait till we make it to Chimeras,” Dan called out, struggling through a tangle of thorns to get the last few pieces of loot. “They breathe fire, like a dragon! Isn’t that awesome!”

“Leave it to Dan to think ‘more lethal’ is awesome,” Edgar grumbled, and Lynn grinned.

“You know you can’t wait,” she joked, nudging him in the ribs.

He gave her a sidelong grin in return and Lynn was suddenly—and a bit uncomfortably—aware of how close they were. She took a step to the side and swept her eyes across the woods, looking for any loot they’d missed.

“I mean, the faster we go up against the big boys, the faster we level, right?” she said to cover the awkward silence. Was her face hot? Well, duh it was, she’d just finished an hour-long workout. Hunting was physically exhausting, and they’d all been through hell and back that summer acclimating to it as quickly as possible to pass the qualifiers.

“Or the faster we die,” Mack pointed out, his tone decidedly less enthusiastic than Dan’s had been.

“Okay, okay, enough chatting,” Ronnie snapped. “We’re here to hunt, not socialize.” He pushed past one last bush to stand in front of them, hands on hips.

“Let’s see what we got. Team, report!”

“I got a special ammo augment—incendiary bullets,” Edgar said. “Looks like it does more damage than the poison DOT ammo augment.”

“Good, give the poison ones to Mack,” Ronnie said. “Anything else?”

“I found another disruptor cannon,” Dan piped up.

“Transfer that to Mack in case he needs it in a tight spot,” Ronnie ordered.

Lynn scanned through the items she’d picked up, then sniggered. “Anybody want the ‘Loincloth of Lordly Might’? It gives you an insane attack bonus.” She projected her display and held the item up.

Most of the guys made horrified faces, though Edgar laughed. He took a peek at the stats himself and whistled.

“Ronnie, man, you gotta wear this. Our fearless leader needs all the best augments, right? These damage stats are sick.”

“I’m not wearing that,” Ronnie said, giving the skimpy groin covering the stink eye.

“Why not?” asked Lynn. She worked to keep her face straight but failed. “You could totally rock the Roman gladiator look. Mack, Dan? Back me up here.”

“It does have really good stats,” Dan said absently, as if he were considering wearing it himself.

“I’m not prancing around half naked,” Ronnie growled.

“Aw, come on, man. You can modify your avatar to give it a skin suit, you wouldn’t be naked, just, you know—” At that point Edgar devolved into sniggers, and Ronnie crossed his arms.

“Put it with the equipment to auction off,” he told Lynn, still glowering.

Edgar waved a hand at her, trying to get his breath back. “Nah—nah, give it to me. It’ll go great over my plate armor.”

Ronnie rolled his eyes as Lynn transferred the item.

“Right, did we get everything?” he asked, not bothering to look around to check himself.

“Pretty sure,” Dan said.

“Best we can tell in thick woods like this,” Edgar added, still grinning as he unwrapped a new piece of gum and popped it into his mouth. It had taken Hugo a bit of finagling to filter the subvocalization software on Edgar’s mic so that the rest of the team wasn’t driven insane by the sound of his chewing.

Ronnie’s eyes narrowed and Lynn knew he was about to start yelling about how “pretty sure” and “best we can tell” wasn’t good enough. Miraculously, though, he kept his mouth shut. Which was fortunate. Lynn was already exhausted and cranky. All she wanted to do was get home, take a shower, and get her homework done so she could collapse into blissful sleep. She would have loved to skip the homework part, but her mother had made it clear in no uncertain terms that if Lynn neglected school in favor of TD Hunter, she would be off the team.

“Fine. We’re done for the day, I guess. Let’s get out of here.”

One by one they dropped out of combat mode. Their weapons, impressive and deadly-looking through the augmented reality glasses they all wore, morphed and reformed into simple batons. These omnipolymer controllers for the game were electric blue, no doubt to make it obvious they were just toys even when they took the shape of whatever in-game weapon they represented.

It was a ten-minute trek back to the closest airbus platform, and Lynn dreaded it, knowing what would happen soon after they left the cover of the woods northeast of Cedar Rapids. She hung back as Ronnie took the lead, Dan trotting beside him as they discussed their latest augments. Then she heaved a sigh and got her tired legs moving. Edgar hung back with her, a silent shadow as usual, while Mack walked slightly ahead of them, chatting contentedly as if he’d never heard of crazy things like “stress” and “anxiety.”

“I’ve got a vidcall with Riko later this evening. I can’t wait to tell her about your incendiary bullets, Edgar!”

“Yeah, sure you do,” Edgar said as he and Lynn shared a look.

“What?” Mack half turned to glance back at them, nearly running into a thorn bush in the process. “You guys still don’t believe me? Come on! Stop being so cynical. Riko is awesome, I’m sure you’d like her.”

“Mack, the likelihood of you having a girlfriend from Japan is about as high as Ronnie winning a Nobel Peace Prize,” Edgar said, his voice slow and bland but his eyes twinkling.

“I’m telling you, she’s real!” Mack insisted.

“She’s a bot, Mack,” Lynn said. “Just accept that and move on.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Just wait, one of these days she’s going to come to you crying about how her ojiisan is sick and she needs money to pay for his medical bills. Whatever you do, don’t give her anything.”

Mack reached up to tug anxiously on his baby goatee.

“It’s not like that, I swear. She’s actually super rich, she doesn’t need any money from me.”

“Uh-huh,” Lynn said, barely suppressing a snort.

“You’ll see, one of these days. She says her dad will probably let her fly over for the national competition. Then you can meet her yourself.”

“Whatever you say, Mack,” Edgar replied. He was much better at keeping a straight face, and his lips didn’t even twitch upward as he spoke.

“You talking about your stupid fake girlfriend again?” Ronnie yelled from up ahead.

“She’s not fake!” Mack insisted, then broke into a trot to catch up and start arguing with Ronnie and Dan about the tells of scam bots.

“Sometimes I almost feel sorry for him,” Lynn said, though she was unable to keep the grin off her face now that Mack had left.

“Don’t be.” Edgar shrugged. “He’ll figure it out eventually.”

Silence descended, and Lynn’s mind wandered over the idea of a boyfriend halfway across the world. How depressing. What would be the point if you could never see each other face to face or spend real time together? ...