Nick Cole - Soda Pop Soldier

Two new squads of Colonial Marines come up the loading dock ramp.

“What’s the mission, sir?” asks a player tagged MarineSgtApone.

“We’ve cleared the first map. King of the Hill,” I tell him. “Now we enter the second map. No idea what match it might be, but we’re all about to find out. This is a superlab op, so the endgame is to retrieve the tech and get out. You guys down?”

“Straight up, Question,” says MarineSgtApone, a black burly commando-type avatar chewing a short stubby cigar.

“Listen up, Marines,” he says over BattleChat. “We got to go in and clear us some Softies out. So you know the drill; watch the corners and clear the shadows. We’ve done this on our own mods. WarWorld’s level design might be a little different, maybe even a lot different probably, and the AI on the aliens is most likely gonna be insane, can’t tell. But in the end they’re just big bad bugs, and we’re probably the best suited for this one ’cause we be the bug stompers. Who’d a thought?”

Everyone cheers. This must be like the Super Bowl for them.

“All right, let’s squad up and move in,” I announce over the chat. At the lead of First Squad, I head into the alien-infested remains of a place called Hadley’s Hope. LV-426.

Chapter 5

So, Apone,” I whisper over the chat as we proceed slowly down the dimly lit passageway leading into the belly of the main building, “what exactly are these aliens?”

There’s a pause. Wait for it, I tell myself.

“Never seen the movie, sir?”

“Aliens?”

“Yeah. Never seen it?”

“No. So go ahead and tell me what we’re walking into.”

Pause.

“Well, sir … I don’t know. Uh … Never know with the WarWorld programmers. Somethin’ trickylike no doubt. But uh … basically an alien is like a tiger that’s been crossed with a spider and a T. rex.”

“Huh …” I think about that. “Not a gorilla, shark, scorpion?”

Pause.

“Yeah,” says Apone. “Those too.”

“They don’t have weapons? Guns or explosives or laser beams or anything like that?”

“Uh … no. They are the weapon, sir.”

“I don’t understand …”

“You should just watch the movie, sir.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

We arrive at a massive security door. The numbers 01 are stamped in a large space-age font across the door’s surface.

“We open that door, sir,” whispers Apone over the chat, “be ready ’cause I got a feelin’ it’s on real properlike.”

“I read you five by five on that, Sergeant,” says one of the other marines.

Everyone takes up a position across the wide hallway. The overhead lights flicker intermittently and without pattern as gun-toting avatars cling to the sides of the hall, kneel, or lie on their bellies. Two heavy gunners take up the center position; one is a big male avatar, the other a short, curvy, tough-looking Hispanic chick. Apone advances to the door controls.

“Ready, sir?” he asks over the chat.

“Do it.”

The doors part and slide open.

There is a moment.

A whole entire moment of stunned surprise.

The door opens onto a wide multilevel room. It looks like some sort of administrative complex: clean, sterile; soft blues and plastic whites. Partitioned spaces surround the perimeter of the room. Part office, part medical lab.

But that’s not the surprise.

We’re the surprise. And so are they.

WonderSoft.

Us.

Fully armed for bear, loaded with heavy weapons and explosives and separated by thirty meters of flimsy space-age office cubicles.

WonderSoft’s elite SF unit has just entered the far side of the sprawling office space. They’re still in a patrol column on the walkway that surrounds the room and leads to the lower level of administrative desks.

“Let’s rock!” screams one of the heavy gunners, and it is indeed on. There’s no time for the CommandPad. It’s old-school run and gun. In seconds, both sides are pouring into the room, firing at everyone. Heavy gunners are cutting the place to shreds, their weapon fire echoing brutally through my fragile speakers. I lob flash-bangs and slide behind a row of cubicles for cover. Paperwork and computers are exploding all around me. Several marines are already down. I hear the distinct brraaap of AwesomeSauce’s sub Mini doling out a short, unhealthy supply of bullets. I pop cover and engage a death-masked Softie with a burst that punches into his neck and head. His avatar goes down spraying fire, dropping a grenade. A half second later, the cubicle he disappears into splinters from an explosion.

Within seconds, both sides are behind cover and firing at each other from opposite sides of the room. I’m crawling toward one of the walls, hoping to start a flanking action, when I pass a row of active computer monitors showing various security cam feeds of different locations around the complex.

That’s when I see the alien.

Aliens.

Yes. It is all those things.

Gorilla.

Shark.

Scorpion.

Tiger.

Spider.

And T. rex.

On the monitors I see views of the outside of the facility. Others of some unknown part of the lab. I also see some sort of dimly lit maintenance area, and another monitor shows the hall we just came down. Or one very much like it.

Aliens are racing down it. Aliens are filling every shot. Aliens are coming for us.

All around my position, WonderSoft SF, Colonial Marines, and what remains of my squads are shooting at anything that moves, like there’s a moonlight madness special on ammo. A Colonial Marine lunges past me, auto rifle firing short bursts at some unseen foe. He goes down, slumped over another cubicle.

Team Fortress Death Match appears across my screen.

The second map has started.

In a Team Fortress Death match, both sides attempt to construct a defended position while trying to destroy the other team’s defended position. This should be very interesting, what with all the gorilla, spider, tiger, shark, scorpion, aliens running amok. Oh yeah … T. rex, can’t forget the T. rex part.

I check my CommandPad for tactical updates.

“Hey, Apone, listen up. Those things are right outside, and my guess is, they’re coming in after us. It’s a TFD match. We’ve got to find a position and fortify before those things get in here.”

“Yeah, I saw that, sir,” he says between bursts of auto-rifle fire. “Real cute of WarWorld.”

The Hispanic female gunner chick is advancing through the field of desk debris, raking WonderSoft’s positions with short bursts of her very large, heavy-caliber machine gun.

“We gotta get outta here now!” shouts someone over the chat.

On my CommandPad tactical display, I find two air shaft vents leading away from the room. One is on WonderSoft’s side; the other, on ours. That’ll lead somewhere. We can’t defend this room unless WonderSoft’s willing to stop shooting at us—which I don’t think is an option right now.

A quick look at the roster on my CommandPad tells me I’m down to just nine players again.

“Apone,” I call out over BattleChat. “Rally everyone … here.” I mark the access hatch nearest our position. “I’m popping smoke … should give us some cover.”

“Roger that,” says someone whose chat gets overrun by a staccato burst of sharp-edged weapon fire. I’m not sure if it’s Apone. Maybe he’s dead.

I hear a loud hammering sound beyond the gunfire erupting against the doors and walls. Thunderous. Sharp. Growing and turning into a thousand grasshoppers smacking into a windshield at high speed. A quick check of the security door we came through and I see why. It’s denting inward. Those things are flinging themselves into it.