Chapter 35: Under Black Light

Dozer stepped into the aquamarine glow and left the oppressive darkness behind. The room spanned a space bigger than the gymnasium the recruits used when the acid rain poured. Thousands of mushrooms, some up to his waist, covered the soil. Every cap emitted a dim blue or green illumination, or a combination of the two. Model walked ahead along a forged trail in the fungi, broken caps and toppled stems. The moist soil sloped down and formed a swamp in the center. A copse of trees with thick trunks stood in the water. Roots, grown from their bases, propped up the massive weight. The room had a second entrance near the far corner.

In the branches, Filipek and his fireteam hung. The bots had placed their rifles in the crooks where the branches sprouted from the trunks. They hung from their armpits with their arms over the rifles behind them, wedged into the branches. Their feet dangled. Nothing supported their weight underneath. The pain must have been excruciating.

Dozer made his way along the short wall of the rectangular room and dropped to his knee. They made his sniper rifle to dominate wide spaces like this. He had line of sight to almost every inside it. Yet, the bots hadn’t shown themselves. The eyes of the zeros followed Model. Their silent pleading showed through the scope.

“Get back here! You’re going to get us all failed.” Buttstroke stood at the door for a heartbeat and entered. Errorist followed with his rifle raised.

Model padded up to the edge of the water. “I guess I’m going in.”

Buttstroke trudged along the trail. “If there are bots in that water, you’re going down.”

“If there were,” Model stepped in, “I’d already have gotten paralyzed.” He shuddered. The filthy water must have flooded his boot. He lifted his rifle over his head and waded in.

In the far end of the swamp, the water shifted. Dozer couldn’t tell whether bots shifted inside or gas escaped. He kept his rifle trained on the water but didn’t dare shoot blind. The magazine only held three bullets, and he couldn’t waste any.

“Are those bullet holes in the trees?” Errorist poked his head out from behind Buttstroke’s bulk. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Would you please get back here?” Buttstroke had switched from indignant to pleading. He broke out into a light jog.

Model glided through the pool. The detritus of algae and rotting leaves swirled around him. His drenched fatigues clung to his skin from his armpits down.

Errorist pointed above Model’s head. “They’re in the trees!”

A Pithite suspended itself from one arm on a trunk and used a zero for cover. He trained his rifle on Model in the pool, exposed.

The coppery taste of adrenaline squirted into Dozer’s mouth. His heart squeezed far too much blood through, and the pain dug into his chest. Dozer let a round fly. The damage number didn’t leap off the bot in the WarFace. The shot missed.

He ground his teeth. “Dammit.” Dozer uttered the word out loud. The magazine only had two more bullets left.

With a quick breath in, Model plunged under the water. The leaves swirled around where he descended.

Buttstroke halted at the edge of the pool, hoisted his minigun, and let loose. The barrels lit up his front, and the flashes refracted off the ripples in the water onto the ceiling. Bark flaked and flew away from the tree. The bot pulled itself closer to the cover of the trunk. A cacophony of gunfire dispelled the silence. Though the game wouldn’t let any of Buttstroke’s shots hit other recruits, the zero’s eyes still pulled back wide.

“Did I get it?” Buttstroke let off the trigger and rested his minigun on his hip.

Whatever disturbed the water before rushed toward Model. The surface tension broke. Model planted his boot on the closest tree’s root. He leaped up, clung to the bark, and pulled his legs up as high as he could. “There’s something in here!” He screamed out loud.

Water rained from his fatigues, from his rifle slung over his shoulder. Model pressed the side of his face to the trunk, and his helmet, its edge against the bark, lifted off his scalp. That thing in the water circled around.

“Is it a bot?” Buttstroke peered into the turbid pool. Errorist jogged up behind him.

Model let go, landed on a thick root, launched himself upward, and grabbed the branch above him. The water exploded underneath. He wrenched his feet up and locked them together over the branch. Its jaws snapped just short of Model’s leg, the clash of teeth sounded through to every corner of the space. It fell back into the water.

“That ain’t no bot.” Errorist’s jaw hung open.

While Buttstroke unloaded into the water, another bot, also behind, lowered its rifle at Model. Dozer didn’t hear the sine wave over the din of Buttstroke’s burst of fire. He lined up the shot and squeezed the trigger. The reticule jittered to the right. The parts of the Pithite’s shoulder exploded, and the arm holding the rifle tumbled in the water with a splash. Its head flew back as if it registered the agony before it pressed itself to the trunk once more.

Model’s legs dropped first. His torso thudded into the tree, and his fingers went slack. He slid down the length of the trunk until a knot of roots caught his leg. Gravity pulled Model’s top half until his knee twisted and he hung almost upside down with his arms submerged.

Buttstroke swept a burst from left to right. The buzzsaw rhythm of the gunshots faltered when he swept the barrels of his minigun over the zeros. Bits of wood flew off in every direction. The branches shuddered with every hit.

The bots retreated behind the cover of the zeros. Dozer had one more bullet in his magazine. He had to make sure it ended up in the eye of one of those Pithites, so he waited for a head to poke out of cover.

Remember your training. Hold your breath.

The water splashed again, and the gunfire halted.

Buttstroke stumbled backward. He held nothing in his hands. The ammo chain belt streamed from his backpack into the water. “That thing got my fucking gun!”

“Get your pack off!” Errorist lifted the ammo pack off of Buttstroke’s shoulders and dropped it to the ground.

That thing in the water pulled the pack under, and the ammo left a trail in the mud.

The tension on Model’s knee lessened, and the weight of his rifle pulled him further down the root. Water drained into his helmet. If he slid anymore, he’d drown, unable to even stand in the shallow water.

Buttstroke stood at the water’s edge, frozen. He darted his eyes to Model, where the bots hid, and the water. The thing stirred up mud and struggled with his minigun and pack under the water. His lips and chin trembled like he spoke silent words.

The first bot trained its rifle on Buttstroke. Dozer lined up the reticule on its head, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger. Its face exploded. A 24 flew off its silhouette in the WarFace while it fell to the water, limp.

Three more kills for the pass.

A sine wave, the signal that its weapon fired, bounced off the walls until it met Dozer’s ears. He unfastened the empty magazine, slipped out into the ammo pouch, and found another full magazine with his trembling fingers.

“Errorist?” Buttstroke picked himself off the ground. He must have dived to avoid the shot. “Oh, fuck!”

Only Errorist’s arm poked out from between the mushroom caps. Buttstroke, still on his knees, took Errorist’s rifle and slid the shoulder strap down his arm. Dozer closed one eye. Grey filled both Errorist’s and Model’s portraits in the upper-right. An info-box extended from Errorist portrait. The guy took a hit to the head. Neither he nor Model would get the pass.

Another bot emerged from the fungi on the far side of the room. The room itself seemed to spin around Dozer.

“Bot on your six!” Dozer still hadn’t reloaded. “On the other side of the trees!” He slammed the magazine into the rifle crooked. It refused to go in.

Buttstroke spun around and searched the mushrooms, but it looked like he didn’t see it. The crouched Pithite slipped sideways through the fungi, still with its rifle in Buttstroke’s direction. If it got a clean shot, Buttstroke would go down, too.

Dozer lined the magazine up with the rifle. It slid in and clicked. He put the reticule on the bot’s head and squeezed. The rifle barked, and the bot’s head twisted. A small dent in the cranial armor appeared in the back. A minuscule 2 leaped off of the bot.

Before he pulled the trigger again, Dozer paused and held his breath. He shot. The bot’s head exploded in a shower of sparks.

Two more for the pass.

“Get the bot in the water.” Buttstroke pointed to where the one-armed bot hid in the roots. “I’m going to get Model.”

Model’s face had slid under the water. He only had the breath in his lungs left.

“That thing in there will chomp more than just your gun,” Dozer casted back.

The one-armed bot had its eye on Dozer and drew back.

You want to make a run for it, don’t you, fucker?

With one eye, Dozer selected Headshot. The last bullet he had in the magazine would take the head off the Pithite as long as it hit.

Buttstroke readied himself to dive in before he stopped. Ripples expanded from the edge of water closest to Dozer.

“It’s coming for you!” Buttstroke’s voice quaked over the comm.

The mushrooms quivered. The thing stayed low under the caps while it streaked toward Dozer. He switched from watching the one-armed bot through the scope with his right eye to the hidden thing with his left.

Model’s weight carried him under the water. The liquid engulfed the sole of his boot.

Water splashed. The one-arm bot bolted for the exit. Its legs shredded any mushrooms in its way.

Dozer had a few precious seconds before that thing attacked. He drew a line from the bot to the exit, put the reticule in the space between, and held his breath. The bot’s head appeared in the scope—Dozer’s finger squeezed as if it acted on its own—and the headless body fell to its knees.

His left hand found the pistol’s grip. An open maw, lined with ragged, pointed teeth, lunged for Dozer. He drew the pistol out of its holster and fired. Dozer sent the bullet into the darkness of its throat. The top of the pistol pulled back and ejected the shell.

With a bass thud, the thing fell to the dirt. The maw slammed shut, and the soil arrested all momentum. Its last breath escaped from behind the zigzag teeth. The muscles underneath its scaly skin didn’t move. Its slitted eye peered through Dozer, lifeless.

An alligator. Fuck me.

The first and only time Dozer had seen the massive reptiles on Hadfield, the zoo’s thick plexiglass separated them from him. He never wanted to see another one without a barrier in between again.

Several of the alligator’s teeth looked broken. The reptile must have broken them on Buttstroke’s minigun and thought Dozer would make an easier meal.

With Errorist’s rifle in hand, Buttstroke dived into the water. Silence descended on the space. Dozer took the chance to reload. He dropped the empty magazine into his pouch and grabbed a full one.

One more bot and we get a pass. But why did the bots all hide on one—

A sine wave came from Dozer’s side. He crumpled to the ground, paralyzed.