LevelUP: an 8-bit novel by Micah Joel. Author's definitive online edition.

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Chapter Forty

3-3: [Enter]

Isidore, clad in a straw hat and with a canvas duffel, jogs out of the hangar. On the trail running alongside the former airport, he stops a group of riders making their way northward. The lead rider leans forward to allow Isidore to say something into his ear. The rider immediately dismounts, and with a gesture, the two riders behind him do the same. Isidore salutes to them, as they continue on their way on foot.

Looking at Max and Molly he snaps, “What are you waiting for? I didn’t requisition three horses for nothing. Let’s go.”

“Where?” Molly says.

“Within broadcast range of LevelUP headquarters, of course,” Isidore says.

“Proximity,” Molly says, flashing a rare grin.

They ride.

LevelUP Corporation headquarters is situated at the edge of inhabited civilization in Menlo Park. Isidore leads them down a quiet trail along the Bay and well away from the main arterial running through the South Bay. As they draw near, he calls for a halt and produces an old-fashioned spyglass.

“What's that noise?” Molly asks.

Max strains to hear a distant thrum, like machinery and running engines.

“Something's not right,” Isidore says, but he prods them forward. A short distance ahead they run into a cinderblock wall, with perfectly placed bricks but no mortar, reaching higher than horses could jump over.

Max examines the ground at the base of the wall. Fresh grass has been laid over with blocks. “This wall can’t be more than a few hours old. Did Hemera know we were coming?”

“She has a machine that makes walls,” Molly says.

“She’s right,” Isidore says, pulling the spyglass away from his eye. He hands it to Max.

Max can just make out yellow vehicle with a large hopper full of bricks, something between a dump truck and grain harvester, a continuous line of fresh wall between here and there.

“Hemera’s building a wall. Abundance of caution,” Isidore says. “She knows she’s close to finding the trophy. We should be abundantly cautious ourselves. Say goodbye to the horses.”

“How does a wall-building machine work, anyway?” Max asks.

“Not as sophisticated as you’d think,” Isidore says. “There’s a camera on the device, to avoid obstacles. It gets occasionally restocked with bricks by day laborers.”

Isidore produces a new device, a with an antenna that looks like a bow tie. “Not enough signal this far out. Which, I suppose, is the point entire. We need to get closer.”

Isidore boosts Molly over the wall, while Max scrambles over by himself. The grass on the other side feels open and exposed.

“We should find cover,” Isidore says. They cross into a corporate park, with unevenly spaced clumps of trees.

“What are we looking for?’ Max asks.

“Signal,” Isidore says. “We need to get closer. Molly, Max here tells me you have incredible hearing. If you hear a drone or anything at all in the sky, you let me know, okay?”

“Letting you know,” Molly says.

“Yes,” Isidore says. “Exactly like that. Let me know.”

“I am letting you know!” Molly says.

“What? Where?”

Molly points through the trees. Max looks but he can’t see a thing.

Suddenly, the network monitor in Isidore’s hand screams out an urgent tone. Isidore fumbles to switch off the speaker.

“Are you trying to—” Max starts to say.

“Bollocks,” Isidore says. “We found a signal all right.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Molly says.

“No, not when it emanates from a heavily-armed drone,” Isidore says.

“A what?!” Max says. Then it opens fire.

Isidore grabs both Molly and Max by the scruffs and hurls them to the grass. There’s a sound, but nothing like gunfire. The ground around them explodes in little thwips of vaporized chlorophyll.

“Railguns,” Isidore says. “Why did it have to be railguns? They’ll cut through you like paper.”

“Remotely operated?” Max asks.

“Judging by their aim, I’d say not,” Isidore says. “Amy pilot worth their salt would’ve made such an easy shot.”

“Well, thank goodness for the little things, I guess,” Max says. “Are you sure they don’t have regular guns?”

“They’re not that little,” Molly notes. Indeed, the drones are each the size of a lawnmower. They don’t turn well and make a huge loop to come back for another strafing run.

“Fairly sure,” Isidore says. He doesn’t sound sure.

“What else can they do?” Max asks. “I mean, besides alerting the entire security department to come collect our remains?”

“I don’t know,” Isidore says, “I haven’t seen these ones before. Maybe we can run them out of ammunition.”

“How are they tracking us?” Max asks.

“Facial recognition,” Isidore says. “LevelUP has never stopped working on the technology, tweaking it to run on available processors. They’ve been collecting data at nearly every public location.”

“So they’re not just shooting at anything that moves?” Max asks.

“No, Hemera would really prefer it if some of those needles have our names on them,” Isidore says.

Molly looks confused but doesn’t say anything.

“Over here,” Max says. “Follow me.” The LevelUP campus isn’t far from the baywaters. At the shore, Max splashes the stagnant water onto the dirt and churns it with his fingers. Then he smears thick mud over his face. “You two. Dirty up.”

Molly hesitates.

“If you reduce the contrast on your face, the algorithms won’t be able to lock on. As long as the drones aren’t attacking unknown people, you’ll be safe.”

“Are you saying my skin isn’t dark enough?” Molly asks.

“No, your skin is gorgeous. Either disguise yourself or don’t. No time to argue.”

A vein on Isidore’s forehead pulses, then he looks away. He begins scooping up handfuls of mud.

No sooner than he does this, the drone makes another pass overhead. This time without firing.

“See?” Max says. “Safe and—”

The crack of a gun is ear-splitting. All Max can hear are his ears ringing.

“Get down,” Isidore mouths, hauling his two companions to the ground again.

Molly clamps hands over her ears and doesn’t let go.

Max finds his feet again. “You said they didn’t have guns,” he complains, dusting off his pants. There’s something sticky all over him. “Everyone alright?”

Molly takes her hands off her ears to cover her mouth.

Isidore swears. “You’re not,” he says. His voice is barely understandable beneath the ringing.

“What do you—” Max looks at his right hand and sees the blood spiraling down through the mud, pooling into steady drips at the bottom of his elbow. The sharp smell crowds out the rotten-egg stench of the bay. “Oh.”

“Doesn't it hurt?” Molly asks.

“No I don’t feel a thing,” Max says, but the act of thinking about it makes him a liar. He doubles over. It’s nothing at all like the pain from the virtual world. This wound feels like he could pour himself out through it.

“I don’t have much in the way of supplies but let me see what I can do to help,” Isidore says, and digs through his duffel. He has wet wipes. They do a terrible job of scraping the mud off his hands. Isidore tears a strip off his shirt and tightens it around Max’s hand until his fingers tingle. But it stops the bleeding, or at least slows it to a seep.

“All this noise and a trail of blood. Minor miracle we haven’t been apprehended yet,” Isidore says. “It looks like one of the drones has a human pilot. That’s going to require different avoidance techniques.”

As if on cue, a loud beep sounds. All three of them cringe, bracing for whatever the next tragedy might be. But the beep comes from Isidore’s network scanner.

“Are we proximate?” Molly asks.

“It keeps fringing in and out,” Isidore says. “A tidge closer.”

Max blinks and in so doing, looks at the map granted him by way of the magic scroll. “Yeah, we’re really close.”

The LevelUP buildings themselves come into view. They’re a dense cluster of disappointingly corporate two-story buildings^[25], all azure and glass, surrounded by a sea of largely-empty parking lots. Max imagines most of the employees arrive on the train, through the extension station built post-Damage with taxpayer money. The come to a small gazebo with a picnic table.

“Cameras,” Molly notes, pointing out the light pole nearby. She points out as half-a-dozen others, one-by-one.

“We’re about to get swarmed by security,” Max says. “Are we close enough?”

Isidore scans the area, slowly, with military precision. “We’ve already been spotted by the drones. I say we do our best from here, while we still can.” Without waiting for other opinions, Isidore unscrews the stubby antenna from the portable node, and attaches one much longer, consisting of collapsible segments. “Got an access point. It’s named atari,” Isidore says.

“You said something about Atari when we were in that dusty old apartment. What’s an Atari?” Max asks.

“Japanese word for hitting the lottery^[26],” Molly says.

“Seriously?” Max asks.

“I’m always serious,” Molly says. “It’s also the name of one of the first companies to popularize video games. Pong. Asteroids.”

“Pac-Man?” Max asks.

“Nope,” Molly says. “Different company. Their version of Pac Man was crap.”

“Why name their AP atari?” Max asks.

“It means we’re close,” Isidore says.

footnotes

[25] Alas, even Damage was not sufficient to rid the world of zoning laws.

[26] Molly’s only half-right here. More likely, it comes from the game of go, denoting a position where a chain of stones is about to be captured unless immediate action is taken.

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